Working together to enhance the many resources Boundary County has to offer while encouraging and fostering community involvement and collaboration—that is what the Kootenai Valley Resource Initiative (KVRI) does for our community. KVRI gives community members the opportunity to collaborate for a common goal, to engage with State and Federal agencies, to provide a forum for the community to work together in natural resource management and planning, to exchange ideas and information and, to provide a “sounding board” for involvement in the community.
This initiative has been continually working in Boundary County since 2001, shortly after the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) began looking at writing water quality plans for our county. Believe it or not, water temperature is considered a pollutant if it is too hot to meet water quality standards. During this writing process, it was discovered that many of Boundary County’s streams were exceeding temperature standards and it was proposed that the Kootenai Tribe of Idaho, the City of Bonners Ferry, and Boundary County work together to develop plans to improve water quality. By developing partnerships with multiple agencies, the KVRI became what it is today.
Every day, KVRI Board and Committee members work on projects that provide social, ecological and economic benefits to Boundary County. The Board consists of 11 appointed members, including three Co-Chairs: Bonners Ferry Mayor David Anderson, Boundary County Commissioner Dan Dinning, and Kootenai Tribe of Idaho Tribal Chair Gary Aitken Jr. KVRI’s efforts, however, do not begin and end with the Board. KVRI simultaneously operates within six different committees, each consisting of between fifteen and thirty members, most of whom are people who live and work right here in Boundary County.
The KVRI committees are what provide the largest opportunity for community involvement, as they are open to anyone with an interest in joining the effort. “We strongly encourage involvement,” said KVRI Coordinator Patty Perry. “We have a broad outreach to anyone who wants to be involved.” While each of these committees may be working on very different projects, they share the same goal—enhance Boundary County’s natural resources.
One such committee, the Forestry Committee, is currently working to complete about 10 ongoing projects. The goal of this committee is to “make Boundary County National Forest lands economically, ecologically and socially sustainable,” according to a KVRI information packet. Because Boundary County has so many endangered animals living in habitats within our county borders, these restoration projects have not been without controversy or communication with federal agencies like U.S. Fish and Wildlife, the EPA, and the Army Corps of Engineers. “KVRI decided it was better to engage the agencies,” said Ms. Perry.
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This proactive communication has allowed KVRI to work with the Forest Service toward restoration of some of our forest land. This restoration includes increasing fire resistant tree species and improving our wildlife habitats. In collaboration with KVRI, the U.S. Forest Service was awarded a grant for 12 million dollars to be used over the course of ten years. Part of this money goes to restoring the forest by removing lodgepole pine trees and restocking the forested areas with more resilient species. With these efforts, our forests will not only be more fire resistant, but will also be more resistant to diseases. This new-found resistance will also enhance habitats for fish and wildlife, provide more opportunities to make use of the land for economic benefit, and allow for higher-quality outdoor recreation activities.
Another committee, the Wildlife Auto-Collision Committee (the WAC Committee), is hard at work making our roadways safer. Each year, many terrible injuries result due to wildlife along the roadways. Currently, the WAC Committee is working closely with the Idaho Transportation Department and the Nature Conservancy to develop a wildlife detection system utilizing Doppler radar technology. The primary focuses for this group are the McArthur Lake and Camp Nine areas, as they can easily be considered collision “hot-spots.”
While KVRI’s project funding comes mainly from grants, the initiative itself is funded by the Kootenai Tribe of Idaho, Boundary County, and the City of Bonners Ferry. For all of the work it does, the group operates within a very limited budget. However, these budget limitations do not seem to hinder any efforts!
What is spent on these projects, however, is miniscule compared to the benefits that have and will be brought to Boundary County due to KVRI. The economic benefit of each restoration project, “rolls through the community several times,” said Ms. Perry. When KVRI provides restoration opportunities, it simultaneously provides jobs for loggers, contractors, and mills.
While economic improvement is important, projects will not happen purely for that reason. “We call it the three-legged stool test,” said Ms. Perry. This test ensures that the restoration project will provide economic, social and ecological benefits to this community. “We won’t do something to make a lot of money that isn’t socially acceptable,” she said. This test ensures that each project benefits the community in more ways than one and allows KVRI to continue their efforts.
