Otter wants cuts in water resources staff
BOISE – Idaho Gov. Butch Otter, who was fined $50,000 by federal regulators for destroying wetlands on his ranch near the Boise River in 2001, wants to cut the state agency responsible for enforcing similar environmental protections.
Ironically, the proposed move to eliminate four of the five full-time staffers in the state’s stream channel protection program would give the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers – the agency with which Otter ran afoul – a greater role in overseeing wetlands issues in Idaho.
The governor ordered the cutbacks because he believed the state agency no longer needs all its employees who are assigned to work on the Snake River Basin Adjudication as the adjudication winds down, said Otter’s budget director, Wayne Hammon. “The governor thought there ought to be some savings,” Hammon said.
But Water Resources Director David Tuthill said the next budget year will be busy in the adjudication 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,” Tuthill said.
He 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: three from the North Idaho water rights adjudication, two from water management on top of one that was cut this year, and 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 Corps of Engineers’ Section 404 permitting program.
Currently there’s a joint permitting program for stream channel alterations. The state handles issues involving work below the ordinary high-water mark, such as rip-rapping the bank of a stream. The corps deals with discharging materials into waterways, such as dredging or changes to wetlands.
“They’re concerned about this reduction in staffing,” Tuthill said. “It increases the burden on the federal government, and it slows down issuance of those stream channel permits.” However, he said his department is facing a huge increase in water transactions and major workload increases in many areas.
“This is a program that could be reduced for a time, and the state could still perform its statutory obligations,” Tuthill said. “My personal hope is that sometime in the future we’ll be able to assign additional staff to this program. It is a valuable program.”
The state still would be able to issue stream channel permits, Tuthill said, but it no longer would be able to perform field inspections, leaving that duty to the feds.
Several members of the Legislature’s Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee are concerned about that prospect.
“Any time the feds get involved it gets more complicated and more expensive,” said state Sen. Jim Hammond, R-Post Falls.
Sen. Shawn Keough, R-Sandpoint, said, “I’ve been a proponent of beefing up the stream channel protection program, because it’s been an important program. I think we need to continue to make sure that it’s working.”
Tuthill said the governor’s well-documented history with stream channel issues played no role in his decision. Otter paid the fine while he was serving in Congress for his third violation of the federal Clean Water Act.
“I must say that the governor didn’t recommend this at all,” Tuthill said. “The truth is that really had nothing to do with our thinking on this issue. It’s really a recognition that we can’t do everything this coming year.”
State Sen. Elliot Werk, D-Boise, said, “I’m getting the sense that the water resource guys are being choked by a lack of overall funding. … Either you provide them with sufficient funds to do the work that’s laid out before them, or you take work off their shoulders – you can’t have it both ways.”