User:Selenalam5/Lake Coeur d'Alene

Background
The Lake of Coeur d’Alene is a beautiful lake in Idaho that was created from floods over smaller lakes and became a much bigger and great landmark in Idaho and the Pacific Northwest. Lake Coeur d’Alene has now developed into a great resource for people of the community being used for recreational activities like fishing, boating and swimming. The Coeur d’Alene lake is very large with a surface area of almost 50 square miles. Since this lake is so big and used for so many different things, being able to manage the water’s quality is important in ensuring safe recreational use and just a healthy environment in general for the people and ecological systems within this lake and area. Specifically, fish are a major part of this lake and have made this such a prominent landmark since the first tribe of Lake Coeur d'Alene was here.

History and The Lakes People
The main tribe that has inhabited this area and lake are known as the Schitsu’umsh meaning “The Discovered People” also known as the (Coeur d’Alene) Tribe, who actually originally inhabited the land in Idaho as well as all the way to Western Montana and Eastern Washington. Native Americans and their tribal communities are all very well known for their cultivation of nature and the resources around them to be able to sustain themselves, in this tribe specifically, their use of fish from the lake such as large trout, salmon, and whitefish which made this area very distinct. They have been the first and main inhabitants and protectors of Lake Coeur d’Alene and today their reservation now includes a very large portion of the Lake for their own municipal use. Their profound respect for the environment and natural law has made them “protectors” of the lake who also have helped manage the water quality and resources for many many years. For example, the Schitsu’umsh tube has filed countless lawsuits that are geared towards protecting the quality of the water. In 1991 against companies for mining damages and again in 2008/2009 and 2011 which helped to provide a great amount of funds to help with the cleanup of hazardous waste in the Coeur d’Alene Lake.

Water Quality and Management
Environmental quality of the Lake and too many others is very crucial to maintaining a multitude of the lake's uses. The water quality of the Coeur d’Alene Lake has improved significantly from the mid 1900’s, mining was extremely prominent during this time causing a great amount of metal sediment within the lake. The Schitsu’umsh first took an approach to combat the impacts of mining activities in 1991 filing a lawsuit against the companies causing this pollution. In 2008, they filed another lawsuit to help protect the quality of the lake and were joined by the DEQ (Department of Environmental Quality) to develop the 2009 Lake Management Plan which was a great success in helping maintain Lake Coeur d’Alene. This management plan for the lake “limited basin-wide nutrient inputs that impaired water quality conditions, which in turn influence the solubility of mining-related metal contaminants contained in the lake’s sediment” (Coeur D’Alene Lake Management). This plan has since been developed and added on to to continuously keep improving the water quality of Lake Coeur d’Alene in new ways.

Fish and Other Ecosystems
One of the many reasons this lake is so prominent is due to the resources that inhabit it, such as fish. Fish are a big part of native culture and was one of the main reasons for many tribes to begin to first settle specifically within the pacific northwest regions. Another thing that makes this Lake so habitable for not only the people, but for the fish and other ecosystems are the unique and interesting tributaries, bays, wetlands, etc with unique vegetation for these species to feed and grow on. Before European influence a multitude of unique and very large fish inhabited these waters like bull trout, westslope cutthroat, and whitefish were all native to this area. With a major increase in human population in the west combined with the effects of mining developments in the second industrial revolution, many of these fish populations began to decline from the lake and the quality began to deplete as well. Many fish were brought over actually due to western migration because of how much the fish began to deplete from the original quality of the water and this introduced a variety of many different species in the Lake. Introduced species of fish and declining native species of the lake include : Chinook salmon, Northern Pike, Largemouth and Smallmouth and more. This is a very large reason as to why managing the lake’s water quality is very important in keeping the people, the environment, and much more healthy.