Groups Hire Legal Guns To Stop Dworshak Drawdown James Watt’s Foundation Hired To Fight Releases From Reservoir To Help Salmon
The Orofino Chamber of Commerce and its allies have hired a group founded by former Interior Secretary James Watt to fight a drawdown of Dworshak Reservoir by as much as 80 feet.
“This is along the type of work that they specialize in, the David-versus-Goliath government cases,” chamber executive director James Grunke said about the Mountain States Legal Foundation of Denver.
But a National Marine Fisheries Service spokesman said the agency currently anticipates the reservoir near Orofino will only be drafted to about 30 feet below the full pool this summer.
“It’s likely that even if there is a drawdown it will be relatively minor,” said Brian Gorman.
“It’s a far cry from the 80 feet it could have been if the river conditions went to hell. The runoff from snow melt and rains have kept river flows high thus far,” he said.
Gorman said the chamber’s threat of a court fight has no impact on the service’s plan to help flush young salmon downstream.
“Thirty feet for what?” asked Grunke. “What is the purpose? We still would be opposed to that.”
The U.S. Army Corps Of Engineers could begin increasing flows from Dworshak July 16, said Russell George, the Reservoir Control Centers chief in Portland.
The fisheries service biological opinion calls for drawing down Dworshak as much as 80 feet this summer, but the current estimate is that it only will be lowered in the range of 65 feet by the end of August, with flows at 15,000 cubic feet per second, he said.
The Dworshak flow was increased to as high as 25,000 cfs a year ago, when the reservoir was drawn down to about 110 feet below full, George said. But he said the flow cannot exceed 15,000 cfs without the state granting a variance to go over the gas supersaturation limit of 110 percent.
Too much nitrogen gas in the water can injure the fish likes divers’ bends.
Gorman said it is unlikely his agency will need to ask Idaho for a gas waiver this summer.