Mar 27, 2004 - 23:15:17 CST
Put your finger on the town of Three Forks, Mont., just west of Bozeman, on your map, and your digit will be covering up the headwaters of the Missouri River.Trace the river's meandering route, and 2,341 miles later, and you'll note the river empties into the Mississippi River in the vicinity of St. Louis.
From beginning to end, the "Big Muddy," as it's nicknamed, flows through, or touches, seven states. Its flow is regulated by six dams. Its uses are grouped into six categories: flood control, water supply and water quality control, irrigation, navigation, power and -- finally -- recreation, fish and wildlife.
Put any conceivable spin on those multiple missions, and you still have the formula for more regional turf skirmishes and courtroom maneuvers than you've got fingers on both hands.
Consider:
* The agency that manages the Missouri River is the U.S Army Corps of Engineers. It says its management is guided by two federal acts -- the Flood Control Act of 1944 and the Endangered Species Act.
* Among the hundreds of species that are dependent on the river are three that are protected under the Endangered Species Act.
* A persistent drought is entering its fifth year, and as a result, the reservoirs behind the upper three dams sank to record lows over the winter, making the outlook for ramp access bleak for recreational boaters.
* The corps just this month released its long-awaited master manual and its operating plan for 2004. Its plans pleased no one up or down its 2,341 miles.
Upstream interests, which want more water kept in the Dakotas and Montana for fishing and recreation, called the new plans more of the same old plan. Downstream parties, which want more water released for navigation and other purposes, also criticized the plan.
* A U.S. Interior Department letter, written about the same time as the plans were released, has stated that the corps' new plan does not comply with the Endangered Species Act. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which is part of Interior and the agency responsible for the three listed species, must sign off on the endangered species aspects of the corps' plan.
* Two North Dakota communities -- Fort Yates and Parshall, respectively -- either lost water or were on the verge of losing water because of the low water levels. A third community, Garrison, also lost water. The cause was identified as a crack in the water intake line.
* Six pending lawsuits, from last year and 2002, remain before a federal judge in St. Paul, Minn., and a hearing is planned in May to sort out many of the issues.
In the meantime, the various interests in the multiple suits continue to file motions with the federal judge. The latest is expected from South Dakota, which will ask that the corps be required to give the same commitment to protecting fish spawning in upstream reservoirs that it does to the downstream barge industry.
* The downstream barge navigation season as well as the upstream spawn of rainbow smelt -- the forage fish of choice for game fish -- are fast approaching. And meeting the full needs of either could spell disaster for the other.
John Paul Woodley, who oversees the corps as the assistant secretary of the Army for civil works, summed up the corps' predicament during a March 19 teleconference that followed the release of the new master manual and operating plan.
He sarcastically said that he was shocked to find that anyone was upset with the plans.
He went on to explain that there are three things that the corps can't do:
1, Make it rain, nor once it starts, stop it.
2, Ignore its congressionally authorized purpose or fail to comply with applicable federal law.
3, Make everybody happy.
"I'm beginning to think we can't make anybody happy," he added.
The corps' river management decisions certainly haven't made upper basin states happy. North Dakota officials have been among the biggest critics of the corps' actions, filing lawsuits three times in the past two years.
Two suits -- one in 2003 alleging the corps is violating the state's Clean Water Act by drawing down Lake Sakakawea, and the other over protecting its smelt spawn in 2002 -- are among the six being reviewed by U.S. District Judge Paul Magnuson in St. Paul. North Dakota's third suit sought to protect its 2003 smelt spawn and ran its course.
Other lawsuits pending in St. Paul were brought by conservation groups on behalf of the threatened and endangered species; South Dakota on behalf of its smelt spawn; Nebraska, which was joined by Missouri opposing the South Dakota lawsuit; and downstream interests that, among other things, assert that upstream states' walleye stocking programs adversely affect the endangered pallid sturgeon.
The new master manual, which took 14 years to rewrite, and the operating plan incorporated some drought conservation measures.
But neither plan goes far enough, North Dakota. Gov. John Hoeven reiterated last week.
"It's too little, too late," he said. "The corps needs to go farther to conserve water in the upper basin. We're going to push that strong. They are not doing enough to keep water in Sakakawea and Oahe, and we are going to push that every way we can."
Hoeven didn't rule out future litigation as one way to push.
The new drought conservation measures would curtail releases from upstream dams more often when water drops in the three big reservoirs. The result would shorten the navigation season on the lower Missouri in Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas and Missouri. The season could be trimmed by 33 days this year, although that decision won't be made until a July 1 storage check.
"If it's less than we anticipate, I would expect that the navigation season would be further shortened than 33 days," Paul Johnston, a corps spokesman in Omaha, Neb., said last week. "We can't make that decision until then (July 1)."
Upstream interests claim the corps' vision for managing the river is tilted toward a shrinking downstream industry at the expense of thriving upstream recreational interests. Folks upstream point to studies that show the recreation industry has a $90 million annual impact on those states, compared to a barge industry that has a $7 million impact downstream. Citing lower flows, some shippers have said they do not plan to run barges in the stretch of the river from Omaha to Sioux City, Iowa, during the spring months. Upstream critics claim that is further proof that the barge industry is in decline.
The corps' 2004 operating plan does address the spring smelt spawn, and Hoeven said in a post-release telephone conversation with Brig. Gen. William Grisoli, the corps' Northwest Division commander, Grisoli reassured him that Sakakawea would see steady or rising water levels during the spawn.
Rainbow smelt, the main forage fish for walleyes, and northern pike, lay eggs in shallow areas. If water is drawn down, the eggs can be stranded and dry out.
The same low water levels also hit Fort Yates, which temporarily lost water from Lake Oahe when the intake silted over in November. The city of Parshall's intake in Lake Sakakawea required an emergency extension out to deeper water to prevent it from freezing over now that it's in far shallower water than normal.
The corps doesn't foresee any other North Dakota cities losing drinking water because of low lake or river levels. "There are no others that I am aware of," Johnston.
Conservation groups are angered that the corps' new plans put off creating a more seasonal ebb and flow to sustain the endangered and threatened fish and birds. The corps' plan said it will comply with the Endangered Species Act by building 1,200 acres of shallow-water habitat for the pallid sturgeon by July 1.
The groups won a court order last year requiring the corps to reduce water releases last summer, but that lawsuit is among those transferred to St. Paul.
The corps' plan to build new sturgeon habitat is seen as the only way it can comply with the Endangered Species Act and still allow barge shipments on the river. The consensus is that what's good for pallids trickles down and benefits the listed shorebirds, the endangered interior least tern and the threatened piping plover.
The corps' plan didn't please the USFWS, either. It "does not achieve the desired goal of avoiding jeopardy to listed species," Willie R. Taylor, Interior's director of environmental policy and compliance, wrote in the letter, which was released last week. Taylor's letter went on to say that the corps will need to "incorporate significant changes" into its plan. Corps officials said they already have hired contractors for the work to create slow-moving, shallow-water channels along about 620 miles of river .
The issue of a spring rise pushed by conservation groups is designed to mimic the river before it was dammed. The latest USFWS biological opinion said the corps needs to create a spring rise but said it's not mandatory until 2006 at the earliest.
Missourians and other downstream residents have fought the idea because they fear it would lead to flooding. Upstream states favor the plan because it would keep more water in upstream reservoirs.
Further stirring the pot was a 2000 biological opinion by a USFWS team of scientists that called for an "ebb and flow" for the river. As those scientists were close to issuing their final biological opinion late last year, some members were ordered replaced.
The new group's final opinion gave the corps until 2006 to implement an ebb and flow. That prompted cries of foul and politics in the entire process of managing the river.
As one participant in the March 19 press conference pointed out: There are more downstream residents who depend on getting their drinking water from the Missouri River than there are people living in the Dakotas and Montana.
The point being that maybe a bigger population base should count for something in how the river is managed.
(Reach reporter Richard Hinton at 250-8256 or outdoors@bismarcktribune.net. The Associated Press contributed to this story.)
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