“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,” said Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer.
Used to be, water levels at Koocanusa Reservoir were strictly controlled, a program that was good for planners but bad for fish because it resulted in wildly fluctuating downstream river flows.
And so Montana fisheries experts crafted the “variable quantity” system, or “VarQ,” which takes into account snowpack, runoff and long-term weather trends, among other things, to control reservoir levels.
“The goal,” said Bruce Measure, “was to try to hit flows that were good for all the fish.”
Measure is one of three Schweitzer appointees to the Northwest Power and Conservation Council, a multi-state agency charged with balancing the need for affordable hydropower against the needs of fish and wildlife.
The VarQ system, Measure said, has worked well, but is hindered by a rule that downstream states insisted upon. Those states, working to protect endangered salmon, have advocated for augmented flows during times when the salmon need more water in Oregon and Washington.
To make sure that extra water's available, they have insisted on what Measure called a “fixed refill date,” a day by which the reservoir must be at full pool. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which sets some of the rules regarding flow, has adopted that refill date - June 30 unless the agency requests additional water for downstream sturgeon.
But that date, Measure said, 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 refill date,” he said Wednesday during a council meeting in Idaho.
If the reservoir refill date were 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. They knew how much snowpack was still in the hills, he said, knew about how much runoff they could expect, and so could have held the reservoir level lower longer, keeping open room enough for the spring flush.
But that fixed refill date loomed large, he said, and so they kept the reservoir high, aiming to hit full pool on the designated day. Then came recent rains, atop of what's left of winter's snow, and the reservoir didn't have room enough to absorb all the water.
Flows coming into Koocanusa, Measure said, totaled some 70,000 cubic feet per second. Flows going out, with the hydroelectric turbines running full tilt, were just 24,000 cfs, and Koocanusa Reservoir was a scant 18 inches from full.
That's when 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, as expected, but put so much water in the downstream river that low-lying areas began to flood. Also, biologists know that pushing that much spill downstream causes sharp increases in dissolved gases, killing native fish by way of “bubble trauma.”
“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.”
Montana water is often claimed by downstream salmon interests, he said, to the detriment of endangered and sensitive species here, such as the bull trout and westslope cutthroat trout.
“I agree those salmon need some special care,” Measure said, “but it's pretty damaging to the fish population here, as well as pretty scary for the human population.”
Measure is lobbying the federal government - specifically the 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 still would fill, he said, just not necessarily on the arbitrary date chosen by federal regulators.
“We've had an opportunity to resolve some of these things,” Measure said, “but people have been awfully hard-headed about these downstream issues.”
On Wednesday, he said, Idaho's governor echoed Montana's concerns at a council meeting in Boise.
“We're keeping our fingers crossed,” Measure said, that the matter can be negotiated quickly, that the downstream flooding will be minimal, that the fish kill won't be too large.
“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 continued, “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.”
Reporter Michael Jamison can be reached at 1-800-366-7186 or at mjamison@missoulian.com
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