Accomplishments – Hayden Lake Watershed Association

2025

Completed the Information Kiosk at Honeysuckle Beach, with the partnership of the City of Hayden.
Collaborated with the WID to develop and print a map/informational brochure for distribution at public and retail sites.
Supported formation of a coalition of northern Idaho small waterways, which will focus on studying wake boat shoreline impacts, invasive mussel prevention and blue green algae blooms.
Launch of the "Healthy Hayden Creek" Initiative and Large-Scale Debris Removal. This period focuses on tributary health through riparian planting, erosion mitigation, and active volunteer engagement.

Infrastructure focus. HLWA partners on English Point Trail restoration and installs public safety kiosks to improve recreational stewardship.
Sponsored a Code Enforcement Workshop with special emphasis on limiting shoreline degradation and for enforcement of prohibited building practices which contribute sediment into the lake. Led to community support for county’s succeesful initiative to impose fines on habitual offenders.
Continued educational activities relating to wildfire prevention, including fire hydrant servicing and successfully lobbying AVISTA to bury overhead power lines in vulnerable areas.

Supported efforts by the Hayden Lake Watershed Improvement District, (WID), to add 14 additional buoys, bringing the total to 31.
Facilitated opposition to the re-location of the city of Hayden’s boat launch to Honeysuckle Bay. (Unanimously denied by the city council.)
Collaborated with the Forest Service and the WID to erect a permanent berm at the FSR 437 unlicensed shooting site to limit dangerous sediment from reaching Hayden Creek. (Completed in 2023.)

Launch of Biannual Reporting and the Boat Wake Incident Registry. HLWA begins publishing structured newsletters documenting volunteer campaigns, wake-regulation education, sediment monitoring in Hayden Creek, and formalizing a system to log lake safety concerns.
Led the successful Honeysuckle Bay No Wake zone initiative; resulted in 3 more permanent buoys.
Spearheaded an expanded no wake zone initiative which resulted in the approval of a 300 foot “excessive wake zone” by Kootenai County. (For boats towing or plowing in the water.
Created moveable dock signage, “Keep Your Wake in the Middle of the Lake.
Continued 5 year public education campaign at public launches and mailings to residents.
Commented extensively on the US Forest Service plans for logging and clear cutting in the watershed, (The Honey Badger Project.)
Testified against multiple high density development projects that had direct and irreversible impacts to the lake.

2017–2019: The "No-Wake" Advocacy period. HLWA successfully petitions for the placement of legal 200-foot marker buoys to protect shorelines, which the Department of Lands approves in 2019.
2018–2019: The North Arm Water Quality Initiative. A comprehensive study is launched to specifically track severe eutrophication in the shallow northern impoundment, culminating in the publication of the definitive North Arm Water Quality Report.

2014–2016: Harmful Algal Bloom (HAB) Management Response. Following a series of severe algae blooms and health warnings in the North Arm, the association ramps up active bloom monitoring, water quality sampling, and public safety communications.
2015: Formation of the Hayden Lake Watershed Improvement District (HLWID). While the HLWA remains a nonprofit advocate, the WID is established as a taxing district to fund large-scale government projects.

Prior to 1984: Several groups organized, maintain the dike, secure better sanitation facilities, resist the Cooper Bay Condominiums and for other smaller projects.
1984: Forest Service proposes timber harvests on Deerfoot Ridge and in Hayden Creek Watershed. Save Hayden Lake (SHL) Organizes to oppose the harvests.
1985-1986: SHL raises funds and commissions in depth water quality and phosphorous loading study by Eastern Washington University limnologists.