Documentary addresses Hayden Lake water quality

COEUR d'ALENE - Water quality on Hayden Lake is getting to be a little bit gross.

Like pea-green colored gross.

In fact, it's full of polluted runoff, nutrients from good and bad development alike, and dog feces - ugh - that might be concentrated enough to shut down the lake, if anyone was keeping track.

Interested? You should be.

Well, according to first-time documentarian Karen Hayes.

"There's bound to be one thing about (Hayden Lake's) declining health that affects you," promised Hayes in the narration of her new documentary: "One Watershed At a Time: The Hayden Lake Project."

Including interviews with state, county and federal officials, scientists, local educators and property owners, the 48-minute video covers the gamut of the lake's increasing pollution, its importance to the region and pointers on how to restore the watershed.

Hayes, a retired biologist and veterinarian, as well as a 20-year resident of Hayden Lake, said she wants to use the pollution issue as an example of what is happening to lakes all over the country.

"I thought it would be important to take the emotions and politics out of it, and just get the facts," she said, adding that the project was inspired by fervent science questions she heard at public hearings. "People are dealing with their lives and families, they don't have time for a science lesson. So I thought I'd give them something semi-educational, chock full of information in a digestible amount of time."

It wasn't as easy as she thought.

When she consulted a professional film crew about the project a few years ago, they estimated the 6-minute trailer alone would cost $12,000, and only if everything was scripted.

"I didn't want it to be scripted. I wanted to know what the experts thought," she said.

So instead, tapping herself as writer, producer and director, the 56-year-old bought a camera and shot it herself, setting up the equipment in front of her several subjects and "just let them talk."

She later provided the narration herself.

"I think it's a mental sickness," she said with a laugh of her tenacity. "I've been known to be like a pit bull once I get started on something. And it was such a blast. I learned so much and as a scientist they were speaking my language."

Even with the string of scientists and water management officials featured in the piece, however, it's easy for the layman to understand.

The film, which had a showing at a Kootenai Environmental Alliance meeting on Wednesday, points out the significance of Hayden Lake, both as a recreation hot spot and the largest contributor to the Rathdrum-Prairie aquifer of all local lakes.

Featuring long shots of algae blooms and murky waves, the video delved into the many sources tainting the water quality: Nutrients from development along the lake bowl, septic systems, animal waste, campfire ashes.

All of that remains in the lake for decades because there is no river outlet to flush out contaminants.

"I never thought I'd see this lake deteriorate this much," said J. Allen Isaacson, hydrologist and fisherman biologist, in the film. "It was such a clean, cold lake to begin with."

The concern was echoed by David Wallace, longtime resident along the Hayden Lake shore, who spoke about his years of using water from the lake.

"We used to change the (water) filter ever year, now we change it every other month," Wallace said, the film showing him removing a grimy brown filter.

How does he know when to change it?

"When it smells," he said of the water out of his tap and shower.

The documentary pushed for residents and recreators to minimize lake pollution by using phosphorous-free detergent, planting vegetation to slow runoff and bagging animal waste.

The film also urged locals to be "watershed watchdogs," and gave officials' names and numbers to report any activity harming the environment.

Hayes said the film is only the first step of the Hayden Lake Project. The next will be seeking donations to buy land around the watershed for conservation easements.

"All of them will be publicly accessible and used as public classrooms," she said.

People can send donations to the Kootenai Environmental Alliance, which is promoting the project, with checks specified to go toward the Hayden Lake Project.

KEA will also have DVDs to sell for $15.

"This film is important because it brings people's attention to the impaired body of water that Hayden Lake is," said Cathleen O'Connor, KEA outreach director. "It educates people to the reality of this precious resource being reduced to a phosphorous mess."

Folks can send checks to P.O. Box 1598 in Coeur d'Alene, 83816. Or they can call KEA at 667-9093 for more information.

Rebecca Stevens, Coeur d'Alene Tribe restoration coordinator for Lake Coeur d'Alene, praised the video as a great education tool.

"We'll probably use this as a demo as we move forward with public education for the lake management plan," Stevens said. "I think one of the keys to success in these type of documentaries is bringing in all those partners she did. It's a really good way to hit the public, to grab all the key stakeholders, and all of us learned a message from each one of them."

Hayes said she hopes the video motivates people to fight to preserve the environment, whether by contacting officials or supporting activist groups.

"We avoid conflict like it's the plague. We just want to get along with everybody, and we can't do that," she said. "It's what democracy is all about. It's worth it. This project might take five or 10 years of my life span, but it's worth it."