Have you ever been visiting other parts of the country, stood on the bank of a murky lake or stream and thought how lucky we are in Seeley Lake to have clear, clean water that surrounds us at every turn in this beautiful watershed? If so, have you ever wondered what our community is doing to sustain and protect our water quality into the future? If you haven’t, you should.
2017 was a wake-up call in many ways not the least of which is the obvious need to continue to reduce wildfire risks both in and around our community. But, in addition to the challenges faced during the Rice Ridge fire, earlier in the summer we were surprised by the immediate and potentially devastating threat of invasive zebra mussels being transported to our lakes from Montana reservoirs. Then, later in the summer some of our lake residents experienced blue-green algae blooms requiring them to boil water from the lake before using it for drinking.
What Clearwater Resource Council learned during the initial invasive mussel chaos and the inconvenience of the algae bloom, is that our community needs a coordinated, proactive mechanism for protecting our water quality values. Tourism and recreation are important economies for our small community, driven by the quality environment that includes our many lakes and streams. We can’t leave their future to chance.
To that end, CRC is initiating a new program to improve communication and cooperation among watershed partners and stakeholders and to facilitate better communication to residents and the community as a whole regarding water quality issues. We are calling this partnership the Clearwater Lakes Alliance.
A primary objective of this initiative is to ensure issues affecting the water quality of our lakes and streams are being addressed in a timely and coordinated manner. Much of the success of the local fuels mitigation taskforce has been due to the consistent leadership of CRC in identifying mitigation goals for the valley, acquiring funding for fuel mitigation work and administering the program to assist private landowners in achieving those goals. We are proposing a similar coordinated process and structure to protect our lakes and streams.
This spring CRC will initiate the Clearwater Lakes Alliance. With our partners, we will begin work to develop a shared vision of our future water quality priorities and a protection strategy to achieve both short- and long-term goals across diverse landowners and agencies. CRC will seek to leverage funds both inside and outside the community to help implement this strategy.
The Alliance will engage permanent and seasonal residents as well as lake homeowner groups to help inform and support the development of goals, priorities and implementation of action items. In addition, creating public awareness of water quality issues and the role of residents and the community in addressing those issues will also be a high priority, recognizing the choices we make every day as individuals and as a community can have an impact on the future health and sustainability of our waters.
CRC has been on the forefront of water quality and invasive species monitoring of our lakes and streams for the past 10 years. With new threats and challenges, we need all hands on deck to maintain and expand a strong and effective water protection strategy. The initiation of the Clearwater Lakes Alliance is the first step in developing, funding and implementing such a strategy.
With the support of our partners in the Clearwater Lakes Alliance, CRC will be more effective in continuing and expanding our water monitoring programs, creating multiple outreach and communication platforms about the status and issues affecting our lakes and streams, seeking grants, donations and volunteers to support our efforts and coordinating a full-throttle community response to any future immediate threats.
Much of the past credit for the protection and sustained health of this watershed goes to its residents and businesses that have a long history of commitment to partnerships, communication and the innovation necessary to sustain and protect our lakes and streams. Clearwater Lakes Alliance is a more structured version of that cooperation, needed to address new and complex challenges.
Please join us in supporting this important initiative in our community. If you would like more information on the goals of Clearwater Lakes Alliance or would like to be a partner, please contact me at carolyn@crcmt.org or 677-0257. If you would like to provide a donation to support this effort, please go to crcmt.org and indicate Clearwater Lakes Alliance in the comment box.
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