Libby Dam managers had to spill extra water from Lake Koocanusa this week as operators tried to control rising reservoir levels after heavy rains.
"While the short-term decision this last weekend to spill at Libby was probably necessary for flood control, it begs the question of how the feds operate the dam year-round," Schweitzer said.
The date was required by downstream states that want increased flows during times when salmon need more water in Washington and Oregon and federal regulators set it at June 30.
Measure said that requirement is now causing farms to flood and fish to die along the Kootenai River, in both Montana and Idaho.
"We've got to give up this fixed refille date," Measure said Wednesday during a council meeting in Boise, Idaho.
If the reservoir refill date was not set in stone, Measure said, operators could have dumped more water back in May, when record high temperatures were melting mountain snow and pouring water in behind Libby Dam. Managers knew how much snowpack was still in the mountains and knew how much runoff they could expect, and could have held the reservoir level lower longer, keeping enough room for the spring flush, he said.
But with the fixed refill date, managers kept the reservoir high, aiming to hit full pool by June 30. Recent rains meant the reservoir didn't have enough room to absorb all the water, Measure said.
Flows coming into Lake Koocanusa totaled some 70,000 cubic feet per second. Flows going out, with the hydroelectric turbines running at full capacity, were just 24,000 cfs and the reservoir was 18 inches from being full.
Operators made what Schweitzer called a "necessary" decision to begin spilling an additional 14,000 cfs, pushing the outflow to 38,000 cfs.
It slowed the rising reservoir, but put so much water in the river that low-lying areas began to flood. Biologists also know that much spill causes sharp increases in dissolved gases, killing native fish through "gas bubble trauma," a condition similar to the bends in human scuba divers.
"We have nothing against salmon," Measure said, "but we don't want to get flooded or see our own fish killed. It's just an irresponsible operation of the system, and it's unfair to those of us in Montana."
Measure is lobbying the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as well as downstream salmon states, to drop the fixed refill date requirement, allowing Montana to manage its waters based on snowpack, runoff and weather trends. The reservoirs would still fill, he said, just not necessarily by the date set by federal regulators.
"If the federal government operated the dams with a primary objective of not harming the residents who live near them," Schweitzer said, "a secondary objective of providing for the resident fish and lastly to assist the recovery of salmon hundreds of miles away in the Columbia River, we wouldn't run into these situations.
"Instead," the governor said, "we now have valuable fish in Montana that will be permanently harmed from gas-bubble trauma and damage to valuable property along the Kootenai River, based on speculation that these additional flows may help the recovery of downstream fish."
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