Benewah Creek Model Watershed

"The Coeur d'Alene Tribe has long been working to develop a Fisheries Program with the expertise and foresight to adequately address the critical needs of native fishes on a watershed scale. BEF's vision for funding long-term monitoring and evaluation is commendable and is a perfect match for the strategies and vision of the Coeur d'Alene Tribe. We are looking forward to developing an enduring partnership with the Foundation."

Benewah Creek is a 37,000-acre watershed located at the southern end of Coeur d’Alene Lake near the town of St. Maries, Idaho.  Benewah Creek is one of several important tributaries that provide critical spawning and rearing habitat necessary for the conservation and sustainability of migratory cutthroat trout in the Coeur d’Alene Lake basin. 

Historical accounts suggest that stream flows and habitat in Benewah Creek were at one time sufficient to support healthy cutthroat trout populations across the entire Benewah watershed.  However, over the past 50 years the distribution of migratory cutthroat trout within Benewah Creek has been drastically reduced, and today the fish are considered to be at moderate risk of extinction. 

Analyses of watershed conditions in Benewah Creek indicate that historical land use actions such as splash damming, logging, wetland reclamation, and forest road building have produced a legacy of impacts.  As a result, high stream temperatures, increased sediment loading, low summer stream flows, and reduced spawning and rearing habitat are limiting the capacity for Benewah Creek to support robust, self-sustaining populations of cutthroat trout.

• In 2001, BEF provided a $55,000 grant to the Coeur d’Alene Tribe to support baseline evaluations of physical and biological watershed conditions on tribal lands.  This project identified biological strongholds and prioritized restoration actions necessary to reverse trends in habitat degradation and fisheries decline.  As physical and biological information was collected and analyzed over the course of this project, it became apparent that Benewah Creek was central to the lifecycles of Lake Coeur d’Alene cutthroat trout. The watershed was subsequently designated as a restoration and conservation priority. 

• In response to the findings of completed watershed assessments, the Coeur d’Alene Tribe designed and established a monitoring-intensive and long-term restoration program for the Benewah Creek watershed.

• In the program’s early years, the Tribe made substantial restoration progress in Benewah Creek.  However, over time the Coeur d’Alene Tribe realized that gaps in the project’s monitoring capacity were inhibiting efforts to verify and evaluate the efficacy of restoration actions and investments.  The Tribe determined that this shortcoming, would likely preclude it from ensuring that restoration investments were producing the intended ecological outcomes.  Moreover, the Tribe realized that its ability to improve restoration actions based on measured results would require additional long-term monitoring and evaluation capacity.

• In 2004, the Tribe and BEF began discussing the prospects for a joint Model Watershed restoration and monitoring partnership in Benewah Creek.  The Tribe suggested that it could both strengthen the scientific foundation for, and increase the efficacy of, its work if it had access to independent scientific consultation services and long-term funding for both hydrologic and basin-wide stream temperature monitoring.

• In 2005, BEF collaborated with the Tribe to map out a long-term approach that would support and enhance a comprehensive, monitoring-intensive restoration program over a 10-year period.  BEF and the Coeur d’Alene Tribe then signed a Memorandum of Understanding that confirmed both parties’ commitment to partner and support the Benewah Creek restoration and monitoring program over a 10-year period.  BEF committed to provide funding for monitoring, the services of an independent scientific review team, and fundraising support over the full span of the project.  In August 2005, BEF committed an initial $100,000 to the Benewah Creek Model Watershed. 

• The Benewah Creek Model Watershed partnership is designed to facilitate and enhance the capacity for the Coeur d’Alene Tribe to implement a long-term and monitoring intensive restoration program.  The project’s dedication to science, monitoring, and long-term implementation and planning ensures that the Tribe will evaluate results, quantify ecological improvement, and demonstrate accountability to stakeholders for investments of time and money.  In addition, the project’s long-term focus on science and monitoring ensures that the Tribe will be able to improve and adjust its restoration strategies based on measured and scientific results.

• BEF and the Coeur d’Alene Tribe are confident that the Model Watershed approach being applied in Benewah Creek will produce substantial improvements to watershed conditions, while ensuring that restoration strategies incorporate cost-effective methods to improve habitat and recover native cutthroat trout.  Over time, we expect monitoring results to clearly demonstrate improvements in habitat, stream flow, water quality, and native fish distribution and abundance.  With the long-term infrastructure in place to ensure that future restoration strategies and actions will be based on quantitative science and monitoring results, we propose to rigorously gauge and demonstrate the results of this program.