Residents Say Dam Drawdowns Are Drying Up Recreation Judge Asked To Block Corps From Further Large Spills

Drawdowns at Dworshak Reservoir to help migrating salmon are hurting other wildlife and practically destroying recreation on the northern Idaho waterway, witnesses told a federal judge Thursday.

“It isn’t being managed for fishing, it’s being managed for a toilet bowl flushing,” Dennis Harper, a chiropractor in Orofino, told U.S. District Judge Edward Lodge.

Residents in Orofino are seeking an immediate injunction from Lodge to block the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers from spilling large amounts of water from the reservoir. The water is required to meet the lower Snake River flow objectives for juvenile fall salmon.

But the Orofino Chamber of Commerce claims in the last three years, local businesses have lost $15.1 million that would have been spent by tourists.

Chamber Director James Grunke said the town of 2,800 people loses $75,000 per day for every foot the reservoir drops.

The drawdowns started Monday and have dropped the reservoir 5 feet. Attorneys involved in the case said they hoped for a quick decision from Lodge, although the judge said at the outset of Thursday’s hearing that he had received a number of late documents he had to study first.

Warren Derbidge, assistant U.S. attorney, said residents have not suffered irreparable injury as a result of the drawdowns.

Further, residents have no specific right to any specific water levels, he said.

Derbidge said the Corps’ decisions about water levels are operational decisions within the agency’s authority, so long as the levels do not exceed minimums or maximums. As such, he said, the changes do not require an environmental impact study.

But attorney Paul Seby of the Colorado-based Mountain States Legal Foundation said drawdowns to help salmon were not in keeping with “the original intended purpose for building the reservoir.”

Bruce Lovin, executive director of the Columbia River Alliance in Portland, showed Judge Lodge a videotape made during last year’s drawdowns. Court testimony was presented that some officials estimated 135,000 kokanee were killed by last year’s drawdown.

Lindsay Nothern of the Idaho Farm Bureau said he found exposed mud flats and dead animals when he toured the reservoir last August.

“I definitely would not want to swim in the water,” he said. “It smelled horrible.”