PRIEST RIVER — The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers took aim Wednesday at claims that it could have done more to mitigate flooding on Lake Pend Oreille earlier this year.

As floodwaters reached their sixth-highest level on record, a theory persisted that the corps could have blunted or sidestepped flood impacts by coordinating with dams in Montana.

Bonner County resident Eric Eldenburg referenced a report that one Montana reservoir was being drawn down in late winter, which sent additional water through Idaho.

“If they could have dropped their level sooner and then maybe retained some of that water it would have reduced runoff into Pend Oreille Lake and we could have potentially avoided the flood,” Eldenburg said.

But Logan Osgood-Zimmerman, the Upper Columbia’s senior water manager for the corps’ Seattle District, disputed the assertion that better coordination with dams in Montana could have prevented flooding in Idaho.

“There’s just not that much storage in the system. They actually have less storage than we do so it wouldn’t have been enough to prevent the flood,” Osgood-Zimmerman said.

“In hindsight, did you think there was anything in your control that could have prevented the flooding?” asked Molly McCahon, coordinator for the Idaho Lakes Commission.

“No,” Osgood-Zimmerman replied.

McCahon asked if putting the Albeni Falls Dam on the Pend Oreille River on freeflow earlier would have prevented flooding.

Osgood-Zimmerman again said, “no.”

“Even if we had started lower, it would have still gotten up to that level because the inflows were high,” she said.

Corps meteorologist Mike Warner said this year’s ample snowpack came off the mountains at a brisk pace.

“It was much faster than we could have acted upon,” Warner said. “We didn’t really have an idea say in April that that was going to happen in May.”

Keith Kinnaird can be reached by email at kkinnaird@bonnercountydailybee.com and follow him on Twitter @KeithDailyBee.