[7] Idaho Senator May Try End Run Around BiOp Judge

Idaho Sen. Larry Craig's Boise office told NW Fishletter that their boss is studying ways to protect the Snake River Adjudication Agreement. By adding a legislative rider to an appropriations bill may be one way to do it.

At this stage, said staffer Sid Smith, Sen. Craig hasn't decided whether it is necessary, but he hasn't ruled it out.

The Idaho politician is worried that BiOp judge James Redden will ask for more water from Upper Snake storage projects to help ESA-listed fish stocks downstream. The projects are operated by the Bureau of Reclamation for irrigated agriculture and are now obligated to release 487 kaf for salmon and steelhead in the lower Snake, according to final terms of the Snake River Agreement signed by the state, feds, water users and the Nez Perce Tribe.

A rider, if successful, would create legislation that called for upholding the current management plan for the Upper Snake.

The federal agency in charge of writing a new BiOp on Upper Snake operations has said it will only look at effects on fish of the 487 kaf, nothing more. That's 60 kaf more than older BiOps have called for.

But Redden has strongly hinted from remarks he has made during litigation over the Upper Snake BiOp that he thinks more water may be needed. He threw out the previous BiOp because feds used the same "flawed" jeopardy analysis to determine whether operations were harmful to fish as in the FCRPS BiOp, which he also tossed. The FCRPS BiOp, which looks at operations in the lower Snake and mainstem Columbia, is in the midst of a complicated remand process.

The possibility of a rider mobilized environmental groups, who issued an action alert to members, hoping to flood Northwest politicians with letters against the move. In their form letter to officials, the groups said a "rider would likely seek to shift the full burden of salmon recovery downstream into Washington and Oregon by exempting Idaho from its responsibilities to be part of a larger regional salmon solution in the Columbia and Snake Rivers."

That's totally false, said Norm Semanko, director of the Idaho Water Users Association. He said the Snake River Agreement calls for the 487 kaf, and the parties to the agreement stand by it.

However, Semanko said, when Judge Redden signaled that more water may be needed for fish, legislation may be required as one alternative to ensure the agreement remains in place. He said similar legislation was passed in New Mexico over water issues related to the silvery minnow in the Rio Grande River to protect water users from an overzealous court ruling. -B. R.

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