NEWSHOMEOPINIONLOCAL INTERESTRECENT ISSUESLETTERSCLASSIFIEDSLINKS |
Methow Valley
News July 22, 1999 Endangered Species Coverage Water and fish: the Week in Review Officials say challenges to ESA have poor odds by Lee Hicks A number of government and political officials have told Valley irrigators and others that changing the 1973 Endangered Species Act is a lost cause. Two weeks ago, top aides to Sen. Patty Murray said the senator would not reject considering changes, but the act is popular nationally and unlikely to face revisions any time soon. "I have to be totally honest with you, the Endangered Species Act is not going to change," Murray’s state director John Engber told irrigators at a July 10 meeting at Sun Mountain Lodge. The Murray staffers said the senator is not opposed to looking at possible ways to make the act more workable. But the law is very popular in other areas of the country that may not be dealing with the recovery issues. At last week’s top-level county, state and federal meeting at the smokejumper base, state agriculture director Jim Jessernig said, "everywhere in the western U.S. where agriculture (farm bureaus etc.) has gone to court, agriculture has lost (against ESA)." Jessernig’s comment may have been aimed at a growing upper Columbia Basin movement to challenge the ESA. Portland attorney James Buchal, author of "The Salmon Hoax," was set to speak Tuesday evening in the Pateros Memorial Park at a potluck benefit for "Methow Valley irrigators in their fight to retain their water rights," according to a Washington Farm Bureau announcement. Buchal has represented the Columbia River Alliance, which supported a suit challenging dam drawdowns of the John Day Reservoir that would have drastically reduced irrigation water for Washington and Oregon growers. While not directly challenging the ESA, attorneys for Wolf Creek, Skyline and Early Winters ditches are separately mounting administrative appeals of the Forest Service’s decision not to issue special use permits for those federal irrigation diversions. Those appeals could later be elevated to federal court action arguing the action effectively amounted to an unconstitutional regulatory "taking" of water rights. As NMFS state director Bob Turner explained, "ESA is sort of black and white. It’s not looking at conditions for individuals, it’s looking at conditions for fish..." Where’s the "common sense?" A brief give and take between the Colville Tribes’ representative to the county planning unit and a federal fisheries official may say volumes about the tangled process of administering the Endangered Species Act. Hilary Lyman, the tribe’s representative, said at last week’s smokejumper base meeting that she was frustrated with "process, process, process" in the current talks between the county, state and federal officials. Lyman suggested, "Why not just go out and hire an agricultural engineer" to develop efficiency conservation recommendations for the irrigation ditches. "You don’t need money for more processes," she emphasized, if actual solutions are available. Bob Turner, state director for NMFS, responded: "The problem is nobody has that authority to cause that common sense solution to occur." Turner’s response dramatized a frequent criticism that more and more funds are being allocated for fish programs, but that no single agency has authority to make critical decisions. Don’t hold us hostage Irrigators diverting on Forest Service land told state and federal officials they don’t want to be held "hostage," as one put it, to a memorandum of agreement among agencies that required them to give up water rights without having assurances in the future. At issue is the suggestion that so-called Section 7 diverters on Forest Service land give up 25 percent of their water rights, some dating to the early 1900s, to a "water bank"--which has yet to be approved as part of the proposed new basin water rule. In fact the rule could be withdrawn and re-drafted. Jim King, former county planning director and now a planning consultant for Wolf Creek Reclamation District and Sun Mountain Lodge, said the MOA, "holds us hostage to a process that (if it) does not work (is) automatically putting us into a default position for something we have no control over." For the federal diverters, King said the special use permit seemed an "adequate" control to accomplish NMFS’ and the Forest Service’s regulatory roles. Opinion | Sports |
Local Interest |