Flathead Lake’s late summer levels aren't just a local issue

Each summer, as Flathead Lake reaches its scenic peak, calls grow louder to hold the lake level high through August and into September. For lakeshore residents, recreation businesses and visitors, that’s an understandable request.

But what’s often missing from the conversation is what that late-summer water is also needed for – and what we lose when we keep it bottled up. The system works like a staircase – if we restrict the top step, everything below is affected.

The Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, through Energy Keepers, manage this resource to balance recreation, tribal trust obligations, energy production, and ecological health … and the increasingly unprecedented volatile weather conditions. These are not easy decisions and they are never made lightly. But they are made with a full view of the watershed, not just the shoreline.

Some assume we can have it both ways: full lakes and full rivers. But in a dry year, with inflows down and temperatures up, that’s simply not the case. Every drop held in Flathead Lake in late August is one that doesn’t generate power when it is needed most, doesn’t cool rivers, and doesn’t support native fisheries fighting to survive.

Flathead Lake isn’t just a beautiful body of water. It’s the upper reservoir for the Séliš Ksanka Qĺispe’ Dam, a critical hydroelectric facility owned and operated by the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes. The dam is part of the Columbia River Basin hydropower network, which generates and distributes renewable electricity across Montana, the Pacific Northwest, and beyond.

By late summer, that system is stretched thin. Snowmelt is long gone, reservoirs are running low, and demand remains high – especially during regional heat waves. That’s when flexibility matters most.

Water released from Flathead Lake helps generate clean baseload energy not just for local use, but for the entire Western grid. More importantly, it provides fast, responsive support to a power system increasingly dependent on variable wind and solar. A system that is increasingly stressed to provide more power in the heat of summer for cooling rather than in the winter for heating.

When energy demand spikes in the late afternoon — when people get home, and solar fades — it’s flexible hydropower like this that keeps the lights on.

But holding water back in the lake in late summer ties our hands. First off, there’s a cost for keeping the lake high, which gets passed on to Montana ratepayers resulting in higher utility bills that get passed on to everyone, including our aging relatives and those on fixed incomes who live far from the lake.

Secondly, it reduces the ability of the Séliš Ksanka Qĺispe’ Dam to respond in real-time. It also reduces downstream flows that other hydropower plants, fish habitats and irrigation systems rely on. Everyone is impacted by decisions made and our focus remains on finding the appropriate balance.

Flathead Lake is a shared resource of CSKT and the rest of Montana. But the water it stores and releases serves a much larger purpose. If we want to keep that water working for all of us – for power, fish, farms, and future generations – we have to be willing to share it when it’s needed most.