[10] Corps To Be Sued Over Libby Dam Operations

The Center for Biological Diversity and the WildWest Institute announced Dec. 13 they will sue the US Army Corps of Engineers for not following the agency's interim water storage plan known as VARQ at Montana's Libby Dam last spring. The Corps has admitted that if it had followed VARQ procedures, large amounts of water would not have been spilled after a late-season rain event caught reservoir control operators off guard. The Center says the large amount of spill harmed bull trout and other resident fish by giving them gas bubble disease.

"Harm of Bull Trout resulting from failure to follow a biological opinion amounts to criminal activity on the part of the Corps and the top-level bureaucrats that elected to ignore measures to protect the sturgeon and other fish," said Noah Greenwald, a conversation biologist with the Center.

The CBD and WWI are already headed for court to challenge the biological opinion written by the US Fish and Wildlife Department, with support from the state of Montana, though the state is opposed to spill, while the environmental groups are not totally opposed to spill.

Greenwald said the operation of Libby Dam is causing the Kootenai River White Sturgeon's decline to extinction because river flows have been drastically reduced since the dam was completed in 1974. Earlier biological opinions required consideration of the addition of more turbines at Libby so boosted flows wouldn't have created gas problems for fish, but the latest BiOp calls for using the spillway to pass increased flows.

The Kootenai Tribe has sided with the USFWS in the BiOp litigation. -B. R.

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