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SaveD Cougar Bay!
After listening to community concerns, Kootenai County Parks and Waterways has agreed not to install mooring buoys in Cougar Bay and instead will begin looking for a more appropriate mooring location that can better serve the needs of the motorized boater.
Parks and Waterways will still install the less controversial buoys to delineate the no-wake zone. Director, Nick Snyder explained that, “The buoys are needed to caution motorized boaters, and to better define the line so that it can be legally enforced.”
We are reasonably hopeful that the historic pilings will remain in Cougar Bay as long as they are not hazards. However, the maze-like boom sticks that used to connect the pilings have been removed. Under rules from Idaho Department of Lands the departure of Foss Maritime initiated a “change of use” for the booms, thus they are no longer legally allowed to remain.
At this point, we are working to finalize the preservation of the pilings, and helping to raise funds for Kootenai County Parks and Waterways install No-Wake Zone buoys to delineate the mouth of Cougar Bay. We are also hoping to raise money to fund 
any necessary removal of hazard pilings and future piling protection efforts.
We look forward to future collaboration with Kootenai County and Idaho Department of Lands in preserving Cougar Bay for wildlife habitat and quiet recreation. Thanks to all of you that attended hearings, meetings, wrote letters and emails—together we do make a difference!
Save Cougar Bay News:
December 15, 2011 12:12 pm : blog, Save Cougar Bay
BLM is sponsoring a public meeting tonight on a proposed trail for Cougar Bay. The trail will be located in a portion of the public preserve known as the John C. Pointner Memorial Wildlife Sanctuary. The Nature Conservancy and BLM are co-managing Cougar Bay lands for hiking, recreation and wildlife habitat. There are a number of improvements in the works, but for this meeting, the BLM
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June 27, 2011 12:55 pm : blog, Save Cougar Bay
This morning, Kootenai County Department of Parks and Waterways Director Nick Snyder forwarded a couple of photos of the 13 brand new “No Wake Zone” buoys just installed across the mouth of Cougar Bay last week. Snyder added: “In the next two weeks, we will have LED navigational lights affixed to the buoys. The buoys will help recreational boaters and marine law enforcement identify the
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We got an email a couple of weeks ago from a resident in Post Falls concerned about a pair of suddenly homeless and increasingly desperate osprey. As the all-purpose conservation organization in North Idaho, and friend to animals big and small, could we help? We set out on twitter (and the telephone), and according to an Avista representative, it seems this particular migrating osprey pair
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April 8, 2011 12:24 pm : blog, Save Cougar Bay
From KEA’s conservation advocate Adrienne Cronebaugh: Last summer, Idaho Department of Lands granted Kootenai County an encroachment permit to install mooring buoys inside Cougar Bay and no-wake zone buoys at the mouth of the bay. The installation of those mooring buoys had been of great concern to the residents of Cougar Bay as well as the many individuals in the community that visit the bay
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January 5, 2011 5:57 pm : blog, Save Cougar Bay
We’ve invited Nick Snyder, Director of Kootenai County Parks & Waterways to join us at our regular meeting at the Iron Horse Restaurant (Noon on Thursday, January 6th) to talk about the Spokane River / Cougar Bay piling removal project. Cougar Bay and Spokane River watchers will have noticed that the pilings along the Spokane River and outside the mouth of Cougar Bay have vanished.
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