Upper Big Wood protection quashed
Legislative committee votes against bill
"I am bewildered by the knee-jerk reaction to
automatically deny a public hearing on this important matter."
Sen. Clint Stennett, D-Ketchum
By GREG STAHL
Express Staff Writer
Blaine County Sen. Clint Stennett’s effort to
give the upper Big Wood and North Fork of the Big Wood rivers special
water quality protection was thwarted practically before it began.
In a Senate Resources and Environment Committee meeting
last Wednesday, committee members voted 6 to 5 not to allow the Blaine
County Democrat to print an Outstanding Resource Waters bill for the two
rivers, which join at Sawtooth National Recreation Area headquarters, just
north of Ketchum.
It is traditional courtesy for fellow legislators and
committee colleagues to allow personal bills to be printed and to decide
an issue’s merits during a public hearing, Stennett said. Denying
printing denies the public the opportunity to comment on the proposal.
"I am bewildered by the knee-jerk reaction to
automatically deny a public hearing on this important matter,"
Stennett said. "I had hoped to bring people in from the Wood River
Valley to testify before the committee. I think our community would
support it."
Stennett acknowledged there are no immediate threats to
water quality in the upper Big Wood River. However, he said, "the Big
Wood River provides all drinking water to the Wood River Valley as it
replenishes the aquifer. Keeping this important resource in pristine
condition is something we all want."
Outstanding Resource Waters designation is permitted by
the federal Clean Water Act and provides maximum protection to water
quality. Designation would reduce activities in a river basin to those
that would not harm it.
Activities such as new or expanded mining would most
likely be prohibited, Stennett said.
In early January, he said optimistically about his Big
Wood proposal that "if there’s no local opposition, it’ll
pass." Non-local, legislative opposition, apparently, is what he didn’t
count on.
"I didn’t take it personally, but there’s just an
absolute opposition to Outstanding Resource Waters designations," he
said.
The committee’s vote also surprised the state’s
leading environmental activist group, the Idaho Conservation League (ICL).
"We’re fairly astounded that the committee went in
that direction," said ICL conservation associate Dallas Gudgell, who
attended the hearing. "It was definitely a bloody nose [for Stennett].
"It just doesn’t make sense. This is what Idaho
should want: a state program to monitor state waters and to relieve
federal pressure" to preserve water quality.
Gudgell said committee chair Sen. Laird Noh, R-Kimberly,
argued in favor of printing the bill, but committee members Sen. Stan
Hawkins, R-Ucon, and freshman Sen. Skip Brandt, R-Stites, successfully
spearheaded the drive to not allow printing at all.
Neither Hawkins nor Brandt returned phone calls from the Mountain
Express.
Last week was the first time Stennett proposed the
Outstanding Resource Waters designation for the Big Wood, but he attempted
three times in prior legislative sessions to pass a bill protecting the
Middle Fork of the Salmon River under the same designation. It’s become
something of a crusade for him.
"Almost every year I’ve been working on the Middle
Fork proposal," he said.
Several years ago, the bill for the Middle Fork passed the
Senate, but died during a committee hearing in the House.
The Outstanding Resource Waters provision of the Clean
Water Act has been on the books since 1989, but not one river in Idaho,
Washington, Oregon or Alaska has been designated with the Outstanding
Resource Waters label, Gudgell said.
Idaho has had a state law permitting designation of
Outstanding Resource Waters since the same year.
Florida has the highest number of Outstanding Resource
Waters in the country, and most other states that have used the law are on
the eastern side of the Mississippi River.
Despite the committee defeat last week, Stennett said he
won’t give up.
"I’m going to keep working the edges here," he
said. "Let’s get it in place and show that it doesn’t hurt
anybody. I want an Outstanding Resource Water designated so we can prove
that it doesn’t have an adverse effect on people."
In addition to Stennett’s Big Wood proposal, state
lawmakers will have another opportunity to vote for clean water when the
Idaho Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) presents its request that
the Selway and Middle Fork of the Salmon rivers be named Outstanding
Resource Waters later in the legislative session.
The Middle Fork request is unrelated to Stennett’s prior
proposals, but he said he supports the DEQ’s effort.
"When Idaho DEQ asks lawmakers for approval to use an
11-year-old program to protect Idaho’s best rivers, I hope they do the
right thing and make at least one vote for clean water," Gudgell
said.
Clean water protection for the Selway and Middle Fork has
the support of the Nez Perce, Bitterroot and Panhandle national forests,
former Gov. John Evans and the Nez Perce Tribe.
"There has never been a better time to vote to
protect part of what makes Idaho, Idaho: clean, clear rivers,"
Gudgell said.
