Spokane River Alert

For the first time I’m aware of, parts of the Spokane River have completely disappeared. Today I took a bike ride along the river to check out this phenomena.

At Corbin Park about three miles upstream of the Idaho Washington state-line and below the Post Falls Dam, the river is still flowing, albeit at a much reduced rate. The Post Falls Dam recently restricted the flow through their gates to the minimum allowed by law to keep water levels stable in Lake Coeur d’Alene through the boating season. During high water in the late spring, I have kayaked this section of the river to Harvard Road in Washington. .

The Spokane River is a substantial waterway running about 100 miles from it’s source at Lake Coeur d’Alene to it’s junction with the Columbia River and Lake Roosevelt. Lake Coeur d’Alene is fed by two large rivers, the St. Joe and the Coeur d’Alene Rivers in addition to numerous small streams. Downstream from downtown Spokane the Spokane River is also fed by Hangman Creek and the Little Spokane River. The river drains much of the Idaho panhandle as well as Spokane County.

By the time I reached the Harvard Road bridge in Washington at mile marker 4 on the Centennial Trail, the water level had dropped considerably. This actually isn’t that unusual for late August. I’ve seen the river this low at this spot at least a couple of times over the past two decades.

By the time I made it about two more miles down the trail near the Barker Road bridge, the river bed was completely dry. This I have never seen before. An organization called the Spokane River Keeper has posted about this issue on social media.

For between two and a half to three miles the river bed was totally dry. In June and July this section of the river is very popular for kayaking, tubing, fishing and swimming. Now the only activity is rock hounding. I wanted to make a post about floating the river from Liberty Lake to Sullivan Park but never got around to it this summer. I’m guessing it’s a little late now.

By the time the river passed under the Sullivan Road bridge a tiny trickle of water started to refill the channel. The support post are newer so it’s hard to see but the normal high water mark in spring is about twenty feet up.

From this point downstream the river looks like a spring run as that’s because that is what it for all practical purposes is. What little water there is comes from the aquifer below. There is none coming from the lake or anywhere upstream.

The Spokane River is an important recreational asset and having even a short section of it totally disappear is a cause for concern.

It was a dry year but not a record setting one and the Post Falls dam is releasing water at the minimum rate allowed but that isn’t unusual for the time of year either. The best guess is that the river dried up here because the aquifer below it dropped significantly over the last year due an increase in local water use.

This is what I’m used to seeing on my rides along this section of the Spokane River. It would be nice if we could find out what caused the problem and do something about it. In the meantime I’m going to hope we get a super snowy winter and at least some summer rains for next year.