SANDPOINT, Idaho— A developer is attempting to build luxury housing and a commercial marina where Idaho’s Trestle Creek meets Lake Pend Oreille. The latest plan would still harm a key spawning and migration site for bull trout, which are listed as "threatened" under the Endangered Species Act.

“This should be the third and last strike for this project, which is just as horrible as the first time it was proposed,” said Sarah Brown, an attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity’s northern Rockies program. “The latest iteration would still carve up the North Branch of the creek, potentially increase polluted runoff into Lake Pend Oreille, and put a bullseye on imperiled bull trout in a keystone spawning ground. The Army Corps stopped construction of this ill-conceived project once and it should stop it again.”

In 2022 the Center and the Idaho Conservation League sued the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Fish and Wildlife Service, saying the agencies violated the Endangered Species Act by approving the Idaho Club’s proposed lakeside project without considering how it would harm critical bull trout habitat. In response to the lawsuit, the Army Corps pulled the project’s permit.

The Fish and Wildlife Service’s original biological opinion determined that the development would harm and possibly kill bull trout. The agency recently reversed course, however, and now claims that the housing, marina and creek reroute are unlikely to harm bull trout.

The Idaho Club’s latest proposal calls for building 96 fixed-pier docks, a commercial marina, a breakwater, boat pump-out station, private homes, roads and a large parking lot. The developer proposes rerouting Trestle Creek’s north branch, excavating portions of an island and a peninsula, and dumping fill into Lake Pend Oreille. All of this would occur near the mouth of Trestle Creek.

Trestle Creek is the most important bull trout spawning stream in the Pend Oreille Basin. Annual redd counts (the in-stream nests where fish lay their eggs) show that as many as half of the bull trout redds in the entire basin occur in Trestle Creek. Bull trout migrate between the lake and Trestle Creek multiple times during their lifetime to spawn, and juvenile bull trout are raised in the stream before migrating into the lake. The Service has determined that protecting this area is critical to the survival and recovery of bull trout.

“Bull trout are already listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, and there’s no question that a busy marina—combined with potential for polluted runoff from the proposed housing development—will add to the pressures they face,” said Jennifer Ekstrom, North Idaho Director for the Idaho Conservation League. “Trestle Creek provides the best spawning habitat in the entire Pend Oreille basin, yet the number of spawning nests has been declining sharply even before these new impacts, with 2024 having the lowest number of nests on record. We should be doing everything possible to support their recovery, not contributing to their decline.”

Bull trout have been protected since 1999, when they were listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. In 2010 the Fish and Wildlife Service designated critical habitat for the trout, including Trestle Creek. Trestle Creek also provides important habitat for other animals including bald eagles, migratory birds, beavers and kokanee salmon.