ping: Kevin Vang

"Kevin Vang"

I liked that Billings Gazette columnists idea of tossing some Army
Corps of Engineers generals' asses in jail for contempt of court
and see if that manages to change their policy ;-)

Kevin
There was some discussion on the "ask the Corp" BB about the corps dising of
the judge. The COE answer man said they are mandated to satisfy multiple
use parameters on the river (I think there are 8 specific uses spelled out
in their marching orders?). Had they reduced flows per the judges orders -
some other group/judge would have stopped them from doing so because it
would have violated some other damn policy. It does seem as though they
determine their own prioritization of the uses. ****ing politics.

I tried to read some of the MO press stuff, but it had already been
archived. The chat room said that right now Fort Peck is at its lowest
level ever- and outflow is exceeding inflow by 6000 cfs (3000 in - 9000
out). The other tidbit that sounded interesting was that our very own
senator - Conrad Burns (R-MT) is retiring to MO and he is supporting the MO
position.

Sure wish someone, without an agenda, could study the problem as a whole and
play a significant part in determining a course of action.

I haven't read up on it for a while- but they are having a similar problem
on the Kootenai- except reversed. the white sturgeon need super high flows
to scour the river to successfully spawn, something like 35,000 cfs IIRC.
But those kind of flows haven't occurred since the creation of the Libby
Dam. The COE says too much danger of downstream flooding. As a result
there has not been a successful spawn of the white sturgeon, in the
Kootenai, since the 70's.

jh