Part 4: How to Get the Lower Snake River Dams Breached

[JoseCuervo]

In today's round, it looks like Senator Crapo has heard the Elkgunner, and has began to try and get the parties to the table. Yeppers, less than 24 hours after the Gunner explains what Crapo will have to do, the Jr. Senator from Idaho starts the ball rolling.

Interestingly enough, the Pro-Hunting, Pro-Salmon, Pro-Fishing group looks honorable and willing to talk, while the Anti-Fishing, Anti-Hunting, Welfare Ranching side looks like they are not really interested in substanitve discussions at the Table.

And the other thing, where is our Senior Senator, Larry Craig (R-Id)???? Definitely not someone who cares about Idaho's fishing and hunting groups.

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Dam lawsuit put on hold for negotiations
Irrigators, salmon backers to come to table
Rocky Barker
The Idaho Statesman

U.S. Sen. Mike Crapo on Thursday headed off a water fight between environmentalists and irrigation interests that threatened to escalate out of control.
The Idaho Republican will convene a series of negotiations designed to stop a lawsuit that he said could be devastating for the state´s economy.

At Crapo´s request, four environmental groups Thursday withdrew, for at least 30 days, a legal notice to sue federal dam operators in Idaho. The potential suit had prompted water users to urge their followers to back away from unrelated talks that could lead to new wilderness in Idaho.

Now those groups of canal companies, farmers and ag businesses will join environmentalists in the talks, averting what they said could lead to the draining of Idaho´s reservoirs and permanent damage to the state´s $3.5 billion agriculture economy.

Environmentalists said they brought the suit to improve migration conditions for salmon, a cultural icon of the Pacific Northwest, to help communities like Salmon, which no longer get the financial benefits that come from salmon fishing.

“I appreciate that these groups so quickly responded to my request to sit down and talk through these issues critical to Idaho,” Crapo said. “Now, we must roll up our sleeves and decide on dates and venues to hold these meetings.”

After nearly a week of trading press releases and rhetoric, both sides declared victory.

“It is our collective hope that we can resolve the issues in this case through negotiation rather than litigation,” said Bill Sedivy, executive director of Idaho Rivers United, one of the environmental groups involved.

Idaho Rivers, along with the Idaho Conservation League, American Rivers and the National Wildlife Federation, filed a 60-day notice in August claiming the Bureau of Reclamation is violating the federal Endangered Species Act.

The main issue of the potential lawsuit was whether the Bureau of Reclamation and Idaho are flushing enough water down the Snake River to aid salmon migration. For more than a decade, Idaho has committed to sending 427,000 acre-feet of water — equal to about two days´ flows over Shoshone Falls at high water — downstream from southern Idaho reservoirs.

But in the past two drought years, no reservoir water has been flushed downriver. In addition to a comprehensive study of water and salmon, Sedivy said salmon advocates want to make it easier for farmers to sell or lease their water to help salmon.

If environmentalists really are committed to obtaining water only from willing sellers, there is a basis for talks, said Scott Campbell, a Boise attorney who represents several canal companies, irrigation districts and businesses that depend on a reliable water supply.

“If people are reasonable, I think we can work something out,” Campbell said. “I´m encouraged.”

Norm Semanko, Idaho Water Coalition president, said the talks must address broad salmon-recovery issues such as habitat improvement and the possibility of building additional storage reservoirs. Dam breaching is not on the table, he said. “The environmental lawsuit participants are already on record as accepting the conditions of willing seller-willing buyer as a given, and we will hold them to it,” Semanko said.

Crapo has long warned federal officials that unless they carry through with all of the commitments made in 2001 to aid salmon short of breaching dams, the issue could well end up back on the table in the Northwest. He just convinced the Senate to steer $5 million to Idaho for salmon-recovery efforts.

“Consistent with the history of these issues, everyone needs to anticipate just how difficult it will continue to be to make progress,” Crapo said. “It is, however, very encouraging that everyone is willing to talk rather than litigate.”
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[Ithaca 37]

I'm hoping the Anti-Fishing, Anti-Hunting, Welfare Ranching side decides to show everybody who's boss and refuses to negotiate!

They better wake up before they lose everything!

 

[JoseCuervo]

Yeah, in the PR battle, so far the Anti-Hunting, Anti-Fishing, Welfare Ranching crowd looks irresponsible. Perception is reality in many cases, and this looks like a serious mistake by the Anti-Hunting, Anti-Fishing, Welfare Ranching Irrigators.

 

[Ithaca 37]

Here's today's editorial and Congressman Otter's inflammatory opinion. No doubt about which side he's on, huh!?

Just what you'd expect from someone who destroys wetlands!

Our View: Us-vs.-them rhetoric inflames the conflict over wilderness

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Environmental groups and irrigators are providing what Idaho does not need -- a battle over water that neither side can win.
In this tug-of-war, environmentalists have the courts on their side, and irrigators have politics on their side. Caught in the middle are the Owyhees, and Central Idaho´s Boulder-White Clouds mountains.

To his credit, Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, is trying to be a peacemaker. He´s offering to mediate. Environmental groups and irrigators have agreed to talk, and we applaud them for that.

The irrigators are right. Idaho has experienced two drought years, and providing more water for migrating salmon is a tall order. They´re trying to protect Idaho´s $3.5 billion agriculture economy.

Environmentalists also are right. They´re trying to protect salmon -- one of Idaho´s most precious commodities -- and they´re looking out for the financial benefits that come from salmon fishing.

Here´s what needs to happen:

• Irrigators must provide water in 2004 -- as they did through most of the 1990s.

• The Bureau of Reclamation must compensate users for water to aid salmon. In a dry year, it could mean compensating farmers for not planting some crops and using water.

• Irrigators must not kill the Owyhees and Boulder-White Clouds talks. Following through on this threat could lead to more conflicts over water and land use.

• Environmentalists should back off on their threats of filing a lawsuit.

• Federal agencies must stick with their commitment to protect salmon. Environmentalists complain, with good reason, that the plan has not been followed. That´s why they want action in 2004.

Federal agencies in 2001 issued a biological opinion aimed at protecting salmon in the federal Snake River dams in Idaho, a plan that was supposed to be in effect for only a year, but was extended to 2005. Meanwhile, one of the key elements of the plan -- flushing 427,000 acre-feet of water downriver to increase flows during migration -- has not occurred.

This is serious business. Environmentalists and irrigators need to get to work.

Crapo is doing what a U.S. senator should do: He´s trying to find a sensible resolution to this dispute.

It´s too bad that Rep. C.L. "Butch" Otter, R-Idaho, isn´t doing the same. Otter has inflamed an already bad situation with his environmental-bashing rhetoric.

In a guest opinion submitted to Idaho newspapers last week, Otter called the Endangered Species Act "as flawed a piece of public policy as ever there was."

He accused extremists of using the law "to implement their vision of a people-free, job-free wilderness in the West.

"Their first step is making southern Idaho fields water-free. For them, it´s a dream; for the rest of us, it would be a nightmare."

Otter says in his guest opinion, which appears on this page, that the fall run of chinook salmon in the Columbia and Snake rivers is forecast to be the fifth largest since 1948.

He leaves the impression that salmon are doing better than some people.

But all but a small percentage of chinook are in the Columbia, where conditions generally are favorable. Idaho´s salmon runs are on the endangered species list. He didn´t mention that only two sockeye salmon returned to Redfish Lake this year.

Otter´s words are an insult to the environmental groups participating in constructive talks about the Owyhees and Boulder-White Clouds.

Creating an "us versus them" mentality, as Otter is doing, won´t solve this emotional dispute. Crapo, with his sense of calm and statesman-like approach, provides the best hope for resolution.

Edition Date: 09-15-2003

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Butch Otter: Idaho's water-free fields are dream for some, nightmare for us

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The fall run of chinook salmon in the Columbia and Snake rivers, protected under the Endangered Species Act, is forecast to be the fifth-largest since 1948. Meanwhile, Idaho lost 12,000 jobs from May through August and 4,200 last month alone.

Since March, about 9,300 people have given up even trying to find a job in Idaho.

Sounds like the fish are doing better than the people, doesn´t it?

But some don´t see it that way.

Environmentalists aren´t satisfied with the progress being made to restore the Northwest´s salmon and steelhead runs. So they´re threatening to sue the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation to force the release of all the water stored in reservoirs -- water used by hundreds of thousands of people for irrigation, recreation, residential consumption, industry and everything else in the Snake River system above Hells Canyon.

In what would be a futile and scientifically unjustifiable attempt to improve conditions for migrating fish, extremists are willing to dry up 2 million acres of irrigated land in Idaho, put untold thousands out of work and crush the state´s economy just as it begins to emerge from recession.

Our friends at the Idaho Conservation League, Idaho Rivers United, American Rivers and the National Wildlife Federation have granted the federal government a 30-day reprieve, thanks to Sen. Mike Crapo. But they are still vowing to reinstate their 60-day notice of intent to sue unless negotiations brokered by the senator are successful.

I applaud Crapo´s work toward finding a solution, and I wish all the parties involved good luck. However, the threat remains like a sword of Damocles hanging over our heads. The economic growth fostered by Idaho´s water, and the prosperity that cities such as Boise continue to enjoy, cannot be sustained under such conditions of uncertainty.

The stated goal of the environmentalists is augmenting downstream flows, helping to flush smolts toward the sea with a rush of water all the way from the Upper Snake River Valley. What they´re really doing is holding Idaho and its water hostage. Despite claims to the contrary, the ransom is nothing less than breaching the four lower Snake River dams.

The idea is absurd. It would be laughable if it weren´t so serious, and dangerous.

There is nothing more precious or important to Idaho and its citizens than water. The Snake River system is the lifeblood of southern Idaho. The high desert would never have bloomed as it has without the 10 Bureau of Reclamation projects that are being targeted. They have enabled development of one of the richest, most productive agricultural areas in the world, and every one of us is a beneficiary.

The argument for sending all that water downstream for flow augmentation is disingenuous at best. The target summertime flow at eastern Washington´s Lower Granite Dam, for instance, is 50,000 to 55,000 cubic feet per second. The average flow there now during that 75-day period is about 31,000 cfs. An Idaho Department of Water Resources study found that more than 20 million acre-feet of water would have to be sent downstream to reach the target flow. There isn´t that much water in the entire reservoir system.

So what the environmental groups have done is set impossible conditions in a cynical attempt to force the issue rather than joining the region´s governors and many others in addressing habitat, hydropower, harvest and hatcheries, all the while keeping the lives and livelihoods of people in mind. Tactics that ignore that "human" factor should be unworthy of response. But with the Endangered Species Act and some of the opinions we´ve seen come out of federal courts, anything is possible.

It was just a little more than two years ago that something similar -- yet several orders of magnitude less extensive in scope -- befell irrigators in Oregon´s Upper Klamath River Basin. With drought already sapping supplies, a federal judge stopped water deliveries to farms in the Klamath Irrigation District so there would be enough flowing into Upper Klamath Lake for two endangered species of sucker fish.

Hundreds of farmers, dozens of families in related, agriculture-dependent businesses and some 225,000 acres of irrigated land were affected. The controversy made national headlines, but the impact was minuscule compared with what would happen across southern Idaho if the environmental groups carry out their misguided extortion scheme here.

Idahoans must make it clear that while we value salmon and steelhead runs and will continue working hard to protect them, we will not sacrifice what we and generations past have built at the altar of advocacy science and biological tyranny. The Endangered Species Act, as flawed a piece of public policy as ever there was, is being used as a tool by extremists to implement their vision of a people-free, job-free wilderness in the West. Their first step is making southern Idaho fields water-free. For them it´s a dream; for the rest of us, it would be a nightmare.


Rep. C. L. "Butch" Otter, R-Idaho, represents Idaho´s 1st Congressional District.
Edition Date: 09-15-2003