Bert Caldwell: Water’s at stake in ebb and flow of politics

Worrying about water when the morning air is so saturated you cannot see a block ahead may seem strange, but why wait for spring runoff?

And there will be a runoff, for which no small thanks is owed. Scan some of the dire headlines from around the West, and the average-or-so snowpack cloaking Inland Northwest mountain ranges seems especially opportune.

Ski areas in the Sierra Nevada are closing. Snow in some Montana watersheds is less than half normal.

This area may not be awash in water, as it was last year, but we are not a-wishin’ water either.

But water adequacy should not be confused with water peace. Today, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is in Spokane to take comments on Avista Corp. efforts to renew licenses on its Spokane River dams. FERC will try to balance multiple contending interests: those of the utility and its customers, recreational users of the river, Lake Coeur d’Alene users and property owners, and the Coeur d’Alene Tribe.

You might as well add most Spokane and Kootenai County residents, many of whom depend on the Spokane Valley/Rathdrum Prairie Aquifer for water. We are just beginning to understand the interplay between river and aquifer.

Given some of the inequities built into the original licenses, the commission has its work cut out. The commission is not the only adjudicator on the spot.

In Boise, the Idaho Supreme Court is pondering one of the most fundamental issues in Western water law: Whether long-time holders of Snake River surface water rights must yield some of the elixir to more recent users, most of whom are tapping associated aquifers. On the surface, the issues in play sound like those surrounding the interplay between the Rathdrum Aquifer and the Spokane River. The court’s ruling could have a profound effect on not just water law, but on the future development of Idaho.

Meanwhile, new Gov. Butch Otter is following through on a campaign pledge to find the water that will enable the state to grow. He has suggested new dams, raising existing dams, or recharging aquifers, but nothing will happen immediately.

As a congressman, he helped arrange funding for a study of water demand and supply in the Boise and Payette river basins, home to 40 percent of the state’s population. The first phase was completed last July, but work on the second and third phases will require much more money and much more time.

Otter would also like to convene a water summit, but spokesman Jon Hanian says the governor cannot set goals for a meeting until the state court makes its ruling. Despite the complexity of the issues, Otter would like to get some answers — and some action — during his term in office.

Again, lots of work cut out.

For an idea of just how wrong water management can go, consider the newly joined legal war between Wyoming and Montana. The Big Horn, Tongue and Powder originate in Wyoming, but Montana has historically been the main beneficiary of the water.

Allocation of waters in the Yellowstone River basin is supposed to be guided by a 1950 compact among the two states and North Dakota. A half-century later, there is oh-so-much more demand for the water, yet drought has withered that border region for six years. Times are hard.

Montanans see green irrigated fields upstream. In Wyoming, they see a parched Big Horn reservoir while fisherman fly-cast in the waters below Yellowtail Dam.Last week, Montana filed a lawsuit against Wyoming in U.S. Supreme Court, which the compact established as the referee in basin water disputes. No one will be entirely happy with whatever decision the court makes. As long as snow and rain bypass the high plains, someone’s bucket will be empty.

People multiply, water doesn’t. Droughts come and go — hopefully — but the unavoidable fact is water goes only so far. As we try to relocate and augment what we have with – for example, new reservoirs in the Columbia Basin – no fog can hide the fact we will eventually have to conserve water if we want our communities to grow.