Resounding Thumbs Down

Ranchers, farmers, irrigators and Native Americans have given a resounding thumbs down to a planned increase, then reduction, in water flow next year from Fort Peck Dam.

The augmented flows are meant to stimulate the natural spawning cycle of the Pallid Sturgeon, one of three endangered species found in the Missouri River between Fort Peck Dam and Lake Sacajawea. The other two are the Least Tern and the Piping Plover.

Area farmers are worried about how the augmented flows may result in expensive repairs or retrofits to irrigation systems, which some say would put them out of business.

“The Army Corps of Engineers (ACE) doesn’t have any mitigation funds allocated to the people we determined are going to be made un-whole … when the high rise happens up to 28,000 or 35,000 cubic feet per second (CFS),” Richard “Dick” Iversen, a farmer below Fort Peck Damn in Richland County, said during the public comment portion of a virtual public meeting May 6.

The meeting — hosted by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Omaha District — was the second of two held last week to gather public input on the recently released draft Fort Peck Dam test flow environmental impact statement (EIS).

CFS is a unit of measurement referring to the volume and speed of water flow. Essentially, if a river has a high CFS, the water flows faster resulting in larger rapids. This can cause erosion on riverbanks and sedimentation to be flushed downstream. Conversely, a low CFS results in slower river flows and accumulation of sedimentation.

The varying flows would have an impact on irrigation pumps, which would likely be knocked out of commission, Iversen said.

“There are some that can’t irrigate. When it goes back down, they are not going to be able to put their pumps back in because of sedimentation. They are going to lose their crop.”

Iversen challenged ACE to set aside monies to pay farmers impacted by the augmented flows for losses incurred as a result.

“Otherwise, it is going to break them.”

Iversen — who represents Richland County on the DryRedWater Regional Water Authority Board, is chairman of the Richland County Weed District, and has served the Natural Resources Conservation Service for more than three decades — said the average farmer or rancher sourcing irrigation water from the Missouri River below the dam is forecasted to lose an average of $355,445 as a result of the augmented test flows.

“Nobody can withstand that sort of a loss,” he said.

Iversen also commented on a draft study of how the augmented flows will impact pump sites being too much for an average person to process easily.

“We are wondering if the Corps can condense this down into something the average person can read,” he said. “Most of these farmers have college degrees, including myself, and it impossible to find the formulas in there … the Corps used.”

Iversen, who earned a bachelors degree in Range Science from Montana State University in Bozeman in 1974, calls on ACE not to proceed with the planned augmented flows.

Dana Berwick, a farmer and rancher in Richland and Roosevelt Counties along both banks of the Missouri River, said during the May 6 virtual meeting the pump study missed a huge economic impact on his operations.

“I have read the summary three times,” he said. “I certainly have not waded through all of it. There is a lot of data in there [which] I think is really close and accurate from the pump site surveys. Some I think isn’t, especially when you delve into the economics of it. I think I am about $600,000 plus I stand to lose because I have several side channel type pump sites.”

Mitigation options, such as crop rotation, would not be an effective tool to combat the loss, Berwick said.

“I make a living off of row crops,” he said. “That is how I feed my cows. It’s a corn silage. I feed my kids with sugar beets. I can rotate around some if I know, but if it is going to be any three out of 10 years, I can’t rotate around that without a schedule. It puts me out of business. I feel that is unfair.”

Berwick also stated concerns about how wildlife would be negatively impacted, adding he witnessed mass deaths during the flood of 2011.

“That is going to happen again and nowhere in any of the summary did I see any consideration for the other wildlife besides the Pallid Sturgeon,” he said. “I don’t necessarily feel [the EIS] was incomplete, but I feel it was pretty targeted and most of the consideration was given to us irrigators because we were the squeaky wheel, and not to the other wildlife, which nobody has a voice for.”

Berwick too called on ACE to cancel the planned augmented water flows.

Steve Dalbey, Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks (FWP), Region 6 fisheries manager, has looked into the impacts on other fish species. He previously said walleye would see a positive result while salmon a negative.

The jury on impacts to mammalian and avian species is still out.

IMPACTS ON HYDRO-ELECTRIC GENERATION

Doug Hardy, Central Montana Electric Power Cooperative general manager, said during the virtual meeting the augmented flows would result in financial hardship at the Fort Peck Dam — costs that would in turn be passed along to customers.

“The descriptor is small when you talk about impact [on] hydropower,” he said. “The word small is relative. The reality is in some years we could have $7 million [in losses] in one year by certain definitions. But, that is just impact for the hydro-generation. That does not count if there is damage to the spillway.”

The rate payers and those who buy power are on the hook for any repair costs, he added.

FORT PECK TRIBES OPPOSED

Dyan Youpee, Fort Peck Tribes Cultural Resources Department (CRD) manager, during the meeting also opposed the augmented flows. CRD’s mission is to maintain cultural integrity by preserving and protecting the cultural resources of the Fort Peck Assiniboine & Sioux Tribes.

“I wanted to express [concerns] for the cultural resources along the Missouri River on the southern part of the reservation borders, not to mention our ancestral homelands on the Badlands,” Youpee said. “The continuous impacts of the different flows, the highs and lows, [are] knocking down the banks and [forcing] us to remove our cultural sites and traditional places back inland. You are creating a paradigm shift in traditional cultural practices which was far before the dam was ever created.”

Youpee said it is dangerous to “play God” by toying with natural elements such as water.

“We don’t mess with them — how to control the fire or how to control the air or the water,” she said. “That is a tough thing to watch when we have people who are fluid with interacting with these elements and there is no say. There is no control over these things other than an agency doing it.”

Going forward, the Tribes request continuous consultation on the matter from ACE, “which is something that has been neglected,” Youpee said. “As far as our existence, it would be nice to have a relationship with an agency where we are not having to fight for the existence of our historic footprint. Those things should be acknowledged and readily available.”

Connie Iversen, a Native American farmer from Richland County and wife of Richard Iversen, also is against the test flows.

“With the test flows, I can’t irrigate during the high flows or the low flows, and I may not be able to fix my pumps. This takes away my ability to make a living and therefore pay my bills. Secondly, bank erosion has taken away my land from all the test flows. This also limits my ability to make a living. I vote for no action.”

The entire Draft EIS can be read online at https://usace.contentdm.oclc.org/utils/getfile/collection/p16021coll7/id/17644

Chris McDaniel can be reached at 406-228-9301 or via email at [email protected].