Owyhees bill hits a new snag

Owyhees bill hits a new snag. By Rocky Barker. Idaho Statesman.

Efforts to move the headwaters of the Snake River into the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System could derail Idaho Senator Mike Crapo’s Owyhees bill.

Once again the person troubling Crapo is Idaho’s other “more famous” senator, Larry Craig.

Craig who voted against protecting the Wyoming Range from gas drilling is also opposing the efforts of Wyoming’s senators to protect the Snake River (and many of its headwaters streams in Wyoming). Craig’s objection is about the stretch of the main Snake downstream from Jackson Lake (actually a reservoir).

Downstream irrigators in Idaho hold almost all the water rights to the Snake River. Craig thinks the protection bill as passed by the key Senate Committee, supported by Wyoming’s senators, will somehow hurt the interests of Idaho irrigators. The problem for Crapo arises if the Owyhee bill and the Snake River bill are put into a public lands legislative package. Democrats may drop the Owyhee bill from the package if the Republicans keep wrangling among themselves.

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More on this: Idaho irrigators fight Wyo effort. Casper Star Tribune.

Added May 11. Additional information on one of the reasons why the Owyhees matter to more than the livestock industry. Idaho, Oregon desert canyonlands offer early-season camping with amazing views. By Pete Zimowsky. Idaho Statesman.

Utah’s governor squashes massive Bear Lake hydro scheme

Great news for those who love Bear Lake on the Utah/Idaho border!!

Citing environmental worries, Gov. rejects Bear Lake hydroelectric plan. By Patty Henetz. The Salt Lake Tribune

Indian tribes make a billion dollar deal on salmon. Idaho’s tribes did not participate

• 4 tribes agree to settlement on restoring salmon runs. By Hal Bernton. Seattle Times.
• Environmentalists: Agreements won’t save salmon. Deals reached with Idaho and Northwest tribes provide funding for habitat work. By Greg Stahl. Idaho Mountain Express.
• Related, the presidential candidates on dams and salmon. Candidates not ready to take sides on salmon, dams. By Rocky Barker. Idaho Statesman.

Clarks Fork, Blackfoot rivers made free-flowing again.

I haven’t posted on this before, although debating and planning for this has gone on for years. Yesterday, however, it came to fruition. The old Milltown Dam near Missoula was breached and two very important rivers were made free-flowing again.

There was some positive rhetoric from the politicians. “Sen. Max Baucus, Sen. Jon Tester and other officials told the crowd that the Milltown project represented Montana’s shift from an extraction to a restoration economy, creating jobs that protect the environment and use the state’s natural resources in sustainable ways rather than plundering them.” . . . Missoulian.

Into the breach - Clark Fork, Blackfoot rivers punch through Milltown Dam. By John Cramer. The Missoulian

Some folks may have seen the popular movie, A River Runs through It. It centered on the “Big Blackfoot” river, but was mostly shot on the Gallatin River as a standin because of the damage done to the Big Blackfoot over the years.

Proposed dam on Cache la Poudre River is controversial in Fort Collins, Colorado

Divide develops over dam. A proposed $431 million dam and reservoir project north of Fort Collins riles those who see it as a disastrous strangling of the picturesque Cache la Poudre River. By Michael Booth. The Denver Post.

The dam is said to be justified by projected growth of new homes. Instead it is a massive subsidy for the continuation of a bad idea and an economy destroying practice.

The governments in this country are having a hard time adjusting to the fact that the home building boom is over. Now they should take a “time out” and consider all they have done to facilitate the creation of an unsustainable hosing market directed at the upper class and the upper middle class* — how many resources were unnecessarily sacrificed. They also need to consider their ethics, or more likely lack thereof, and get out of bed with the developers.

The dollar’s international value is now a joke and the inventory of unsold homes is at least a year from being filled. Nevertheless, we keep hearing proposals for more big developments, ones the average American never could afford to buy into. Many in the West are located in or near scenic mountainous areas where they take a toll on wildlife and require a huge new infrastructure (such as this dam).

If the American economy is to ever prosper again, there needs to be much less investment in housing for the relatively well off and much more in science, technology, environmental protection and remediation, efficient health care, education and reeducation, new energy sources and especially efficient use of energy, etc.

This dam is an illustration of the wrong mentality, and it shows the striking decline in this country is not the work of the Republican Administration in Washington alone.

Related story. Fen-ced in: Protected peat bog blocks growth plan for Grand Valley, Colorado. Grand Junction Sentinel.

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*Ironically, despite the huge number of new homes, few are within the reach of the lower middle class and those with fewer means.

Artificial flood released on Colorado River. Effort promoted as renewing Grand Canyon ecosystem.

A 60-hour flood of water is being released from Glen Canyon Dam on the Colorado River in what is supposed to be renewal of the Grand Canyon’s dwindling sandbars, beaches, vegetation, and habitat for rare and endangered fish.

This is the third time such a flood has been created since the giant dam and reservoir was built in the 1960s. The project turned the warm, silt-laden Colorado into a cold and clear river that eroded away the beaches and backwaters during the artificial daily rhythm of generating hydropower.

It was felt that major releases of water every so often would mimic the floods that now longer occured and restore the river, but many who were once-hopeful say the floods have failed because they are too rare and not big enough. Others say no manipulation can restore the river from a dam that should have never been built.

Nevertheless, Secretary of Interior Dirk Kemphthorne is making a big show of the big release of water.

Questions on Grand Canyon ‘Blow Out’, By Mike Nizza. New York Times.

Bordering on Catastrophe (more on plans to industrialize the area near Glacier NP)

British Petroleum has withdrawn their plans for massive industrialization of the area across the border, but adjacent to Glacier National Park, but B.P. other companies and the British Columbia government have lots of other awful plans for this general area.

Bordering on Catastrophe. Montana’s opposition helped kill a Canadian mining plan last week. But has the real war just begun? By Gordon Sullivan. Missoula Independent.

Link to the North Fork Landowners Association. Much more information on the fight over the Canadian Flathead River area.

Ethanol Boom Saps Water in the West

Corn ethanol production not only fails to produce much net energy, it is depleting water supplies.

Ethanol Boom Saps Water in the West. By Jim Moscou. Newsweek Web Exclusive