Otter wants to trim water resources staff
Idaho Gov. Butch Otter, who paid a $50,000 federal fine in 2001 for destroying wetlands without a permit while creating ponds on his ranch near the Boise River, is proposing cutbacks in the state Department of Water Resources next year that will eliminate four of the five full-time staffers in the state’s stream channel protection program. Ironically, that’ll mean Idahoans with stream channel issues would interact more with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers – the agency of which Otter ran afoul.
The governor actually ordered the cutbacks because he believed the agency no longer needed all its employees who are assigned to work on the Snake River Basin Adjudication, said Otter’s budget director, Wayne Hammon, as the adjudication winds down. “The governor thought there ought to be some savings,” Hammon said. But Water Resources Director David Tuthill said the next budget year actually will be a “very busy year in the SRBA,” as the agency tackles more than 3,500 water rights claims with objections still outstanding. The final decree for the Snake River adjudication is expected to be signed in 2012. “We’ll continue to have a significant effort in SRBA until then,” he said.
Tuthill said he supports the governor’s recommendation. “The governor’s budget is our budget,” he said. So he had to find other places to make the cuts. “With the reduction in staff that is coming for next fiscal year, we won’t be able to continue to do what we do now,” he said. Tuthill decided to trim staff from three programs, dropping staffing for the North Idaho water rights adjudication from 11 to 8, trimming two positions from water management on top of one that was cut this year, and cutting four of the five full-time staffers from the stream channel protection program.
“This does not indicate that the program is not valuable,” Tuthill said. In fact, he said, the program has greatly improved the health of Idaho’s streams since it was established in 1971. But it’s one of the few at the department that has some overlap with federal programs – in this case, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Section 404 permitting program. Some lawmakers are concerned about the proposed cuts; you can read my full story here.
