Barry Rosenberg: Educating community about the environment

Some construction developers have never seen him. Some loggers only sense he is watching. As executive director of Kootenai Environmental Alliance in Coeur d’Alene, Barry Rosenberg may be there, keeping an eye on things. At 6’4”, he can be seen as “Bigfoot” of the forests. But unlike the mythical Bigfoot, there have been many opportunities to catch Rosenberg in the flesh. He has led battles in and out of the courts, challenging the politics and ethics that have or potentially could devastate the environment, especially land, water or air, all areas that KEA focuses on. “It’s really not just one person,” Rosenberg is quick to admit, although his name has become synonymous with the job he’s had since 2001. Rosenberg said KEA filed 26 protests regarding individual water rights applications in Kootenai County, with 18 being settled as of mid-August and three settled prior to an official protest. To take charge of the group’s water issues platform, Rosenberg delved into outdated water laws. One law allocates 13,000 gallons of water per day to each county resident living on at least a half-acre. No permit needed. The law came at a time when people’s livelihoods depended on raising healthy animals and crops. Figuring in a few animals and land irrigation and water usage inside a home, Rosenberg said 3,000 gallons of water per day seems a high but conservative drop from 13,000. “Most people use 4 or 5 gallons of water a day,” said the former Philadelphia teacher. “Even that, you’d be hard-pressed to use 13,000 gallons of water a day.” Another Idaho law needing some rework, he said, allows for an “instantaneous diversion.” The wording gives municipal subdivision developers room to overestimate on the amount of water they will need per day in a year’s span. “We’re proposing they have an annual buy-in cap,” he said. KEA is proposing such a cap, which Rosenberg said would decrease the instantaneous calculation from a high 7,000 gallons of water per day each year to between 700 and 1,000 gallons. Most often, subdivision developers internalize how litigation could delay construction, and instead heed Rosenberg’s environmental advice. KEA also recommends that developers voluntarily report their annual water usage to the Idaho Department of Water Resources and incorporate water conservation measures. Many have agreed to odd/even residential address watering days, rain sensors on automatic irrigation systems, and suspending mid-day watering during warmer months due to evaporation. “It’s to their advantage to use water conservation measures,” he said. “It saves them money, wear and tear on their infrastructure, and saves their customers money on the amount of water they have to use.” Rosenberg’s conservation efforts have paid off throughout the Inland Northwest. The first bi-state, regional water management dialogue with area elected officials and conservation proponents about three years ago led Post Falls and then Spokane to adopt water conservation ordinances. Coeur d’Alene took a different approach. KEA teamed up with the city water department to reward city residents, who utilize more eco-friendly utility instruments. Residents can receive a one-time $75 conservation rebate credit by implementing a particular switch, sensor or timer to their irrigating system. How have the forest waterways fared in the midst of wilderness depletion and destruction of undergrowth? Buffer zones are not a panacea. They’re good, but they don’t help with water yield increases. In other words, when you clear cut a forest, you get more water running off the forest all at once. A buffer zone doesn’t help that, and that’s what the Forest Service won’t acknowledge. When you get all this runoff you get all this in-stream sediment. Some view all environmentalists as radical. Would you describe yourself this way or another way? I’m a conservationist because I believe in conserving the environment. I think the Forest Service is radical because they’re destroying the environment. It’s radical to destroy fisheries. Most of the native fishery populations - strong viable populations, like cut-throat trout — exist in areas not logged and roaded. In areas logged and roaded they’re really hurting. You can’t find strong, viable populations of cutthroat trout. I think that’s bad. Polluting water through logging, that’s radical. It’s radical to destroy things. I’m a conservationist, and Kootenai Environmental Alliance wants to conserve things. Are your work views similar to your home views? We’ve lived off the grid near Priest Lake since 1975. We’ve built a garden, a fruit cellar. For six months of access, it’s either walk in or ski. We have limited solar power. We’ve never had a refrigerator. We get our water from gravity flow from the creek. Our solar system supplies us with small, efficient lighting. It runs our radio, computer, and recently a monitor and DVD player. We have an On-Demand hot water heater powered through propane. We have a wood cook stove and a wood heater stove. It’s a comfortable life.