Council invites public comments on fish and wildlife plans for Bitterroot and Blackfoot rivers

December 15, 2009

Recently the Council received plans for the Bitterroot and Blackfoot river basins of Montana to protect fish and wildlife and direct funding to projects to improve their survival.

The proposed plans are available for public comment through February 11, 2010. Contact information for the proponents of the Bitterroot and Blackfoot plans is posted with the proposed plans.

If adopted by the Council, the plans would have the potential to direct funding provided by the federal Bonneville Power Administration, the region’s largest electricity supplier, to pay for projects such as acquiring and improving habitat for fish and wildlife, boosting fish production, and paying for research in the two river systems, whose waters eventually flow into the Columbia River. Under federal law, the Council develops a program to protect, mitigate, and enhance fish and wildlife that have been affected by the construction and operation of hydropower dams in the Columbia River Basin, and Bonneville funds the program with a portion of its revenue from electricity sales.

Montana’s representatives on the Council, Bruce Measure and Rhonda Whiting, are happy with the development of the plans:

“We are pleased that the plans were developed in an open and public process with a lot of input from a variety of sources in the Bitterroot and the Blackfoot. We look forward to further completing the Council’s fish and wildlife program by adding these two subbasin plans.”

The two proposed plans were reviewed by the Council’s Independent Scientific Review Panel (ISRP), a group of 11 scientists that reviews all projects, and all proposed subbasin plans, before they become part of the Council’s fish and wildlife program. The ISRP review is posted on the Council’s website with the proposed plans. In general, the ISRP complimented both draft plans but also pointed out areas where the plans need more work.

Subbasin plans initially were proposed to the Council in 2004. The Council reviewed and adopted the plans that year and in 2005. At the time, the Council left placeholders for the development of subbasin plans in those areas that were not completed. During the Council’s 2007-2009 project selection process, the Council approved funds for the Montana Water Trust and Trout Unlimited to complete plans in the Bitterroot and Blackfoot respectively.

The Council is an agency of the states of Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Washington and is directed by the Northwest Power Act of 1980 to prepare a program to protect, mitigate and enhance fish and wildlife of the Columbia River Basin affected by hydropower dams while also assuring the region an adequate, efficient, economical and reliable power supply.

Contact:

• , Information Officer, 503-222-5161