WRIA 62 WMP 032305 - Washington State Department of Ecology

March, 2005 -1- 023-1289-003.3040
1.0 INTRODUCTION
This chapter of the Pend Oreille River Watershed Management Plan (Plan) presents an overview of
the watershed, acknowledges the people involved, presents the objective of this plan, describes the
Plan structure and provides a road map that users of this plan can follow to find supporting
information. The Pend Oreille River Watershed is denoted as Watershed Resource Inventory Area
(WRIA) 62. WRIAs are described in Chapter 173-100 Washington Administrative Code (WAC).
WRIA 62, its sub-basins, and the cities, towns, counties, and tribal lands within the watershed are
shown in Figure 1-1.
1.1 WRIA 62 Overview
The Pend Oreille Watershed (WRIA 62) encompasses about 1,300 square miles of the Pend Oreille
River watershed within northeastern Washington State (Figure 1-1). About 1,000 square miles of
WRIA 62 drains to the lower Pend Oreille River. The lower Pend Oreille River flows northwards
72.3 miles from the Washington – Idaho border at Newport, Washington to the Washington – British
Columbia border. In Canada, the Pend Oreille River flows an additional 13 miles until its confluence
with the Columbia River. In addition, WRIA 62 includes about 300 square miles of land that drains
eastward towards Idaho’s Priest River. WRIA 62 represents only about five percent of the total Pend
Oreille River drainage basin. The Pend Oreille River, one of the major sub-basins of the Columbia
River, drains the Clark Fork – Pend Oreille watershed, which spans about 26,000 square miles and
includes the fourth and fifth largest lakes in the United States: Flathead Lake in Montana and Lake
Pend Oreille in Idaho, respectively. After flowing through WRIA 62, the Pend Oreille River flows
into Canada where it joins the Columbia River at river mile 745.5.
For watershed planning purposes, the Planning Unit organized WRIA 62 into thirty-nine (39)
hydrologic sub-basins with tributaries that drain into the Pend Oreille River mainstem in Washington
or the Priest River Basin in Idaho as well as two areas alongside the Pend Oreille River mainstem in
Washington (from Newport to Box Canyon Dam and from Box Canyon Dam to the Canadian border)
which drain directly into the Pend Oreille River (Figure 1-1).
To a large extent, the western boundary of WRIA 62 coincides with the Stevens County - Pend
Oreille County boundary so that only the western upland (and sparsely populated) portions of the
Calispell, Tacoma, Cedar, Flume, Pewee and Russian sub-basins are within Stevens County (Figure
1-1). The majority of the land area, and essentially all the population of WRIA 62, is encompassed
within Pend Oreille County. For this reason, Stevens County declined to be involved in the WRIA 62
planning process. The incorporated cities and towns include (from north to south) : the Towns of
Metaline Falls, Metaline, Ione and Cusick and the City of Newport (Figure 1-1).
1.2 Acknowledgements
The Pend Oreille River Watershed Management Plan (Plan) represents the participation of numerous
stakeholders from the Pend Oreille Watershed over six years. Many of these stakeholders spent
countless hours providing information, developing plan issues and actions, and attending meetings to
represent their constituencies. These individuals are listed below. The currently active
representatives are denoted by an asterisk.
Representative – Agency / Group
*Ken Austin – City of Newport (Initiating Government)
*Lori Blau – Industry
WRIA 62 WMP 032305