Fate of Dworshak, marina mulled

This story was published in the Feb. 17, 1993, edition of the Lewiston Tribune.

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Orofino Chamber of Commerce members will meet today at noon to try to come to grips with the future of Dworshak Reservoir and Big Eddy Marina.

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers officials, including Lt. Col. Robert Volz, are scheduled to attend the meeting at the Ponderosa Restaurant.

At issue will be both summer drawdowns of Dworshak Reservoir and whether Big Eddy Marina will be rebuilt.

Corps officials met Tuesday with Nez Perce Tribe officials and Gary Medley, Big Eddy Marina operator, during separate meetings.

The marina’s mooring slips were destroyed in a windstorm last June that snapped anchor cables and folded boats and docks against the reservoir’s shoreline.

Since then, negotiations between Medley and corps and tribal officials have yielded no word about the marina’s future.

Big Eddy is the only marina along the 54-mile reservoir and the only place where boaters can buy gas and supplies.

“The primary topic will be the Big Eddy Marina, its future, what our objectives are and what we want to obtain there,” said Leland Turner, the corps’ Walla Walla District administrative assistant.

Turner said the corps wants the tribe, which holds the lease on the marina, and Medley, who leases it from the tribe, to rebuild the docks.

Col. Volz will attend the chamber meeting to outline the agency’s position. “His objective tomorrow is to present some of the options we’re considering,” he added.

Douglas R. Nash of the Nez Perce Tribal Executive Committee Office of Legal Counsel, said talks between the tribe and corps have not deadlocked.

Progress, however, has been minor. It is still too early to say whether Big Eddy Marina will operate this summer or at least operate with docks and mooring slips, Nash said.

“In looking at the whole situation, that is one of the big unknowns,” Nash added.

One of the biggest unknowns is how much water will be drawn from Dworshak Reservoir during the prime summer recreation season, Nash said.

Gary Medley, who leases the marina and built Medley’s on the Lake, a restaurant, there, said the summer drawdown figures prominently in the discussion.

Current plans say as much as 1.3 million acre feet of water will be drawn from Dworshak Reservoir to help migrating salmon from May 1 to Sept. 1.

“The corps cannot guarantee any lake levels now and in the future,” he said. Without hope for stable lake levels that would encourage visits by boaters and campers, Medley said he cannot justify further investments in the marina.

When he first began building the restaurant and investing in the marina, he did so believing the reservoir would be full during the prime boating season.

“All that has changed now because of the endangered species and where the National Marine Fisheries Service has control now, so they tell me.”

“I guess I don’t blame the corps. I don’t know how responsible they are,” Medley added.

Since an Aug. 5 meeting, however, little progress has been made in talks about the marina’s future.

Medley said he and tribal officials had an earlier agreement with corps officials that they would hire engineers to design and install new anchors for the docks.

That was shelved months ago by corps officials, he said. “We were going through that process and on Dec. 8 that stopped,” Medley said.