State joins sturgeon lawsuit

The state of Montana on June 30 joined a lawsuit to protect Montana's resident fish including the endangered white sturgeon in the Kootenai River below Libby Dam.

The lawsuit, the Center for Biological Diversity versus U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, is an ongoing case in federal district court in Missoula. The plaintiffs claim the federal government is not doing all it can to protect endangered white sturgeon in the river below the dam, including in the way it operates Libby Dam.

The lawsuit is critical to Montana because of the potential for the case to impact operations at Libby Dam, said Kerry Berg, policy anlayst for Montana's two members to the Northwest Power and Conservation Council. Libby Dam is managed for numerous issues, including flood control, hydropower, recreation, and operations for endangered downstream fish. The lawsuit focuses on how the dam is operated for endangered white sturgeon, but could have ramifications far beyond operations for the sturgeon, including the uses mentioned above.

"Montana chose to litigate only after exhaustive consultation with the USFWS and other federal agencies to promote a recovery strategy based on regional consensus rather than the hastily prepared Biological Opinion which the USFWS prepared in March containing spill and other proposals opposed by most other fish and wildlife managers on the Kootenai," said Montana NWPC member Bruce Measure. "The resulting operation and spill caused (this year) significant downstream property damage as well as skin ruptures and other symptoms of gas bubble trauma in virtually all of the cutthroat and bull trout downstream of the Libby Dam as the State had earlier predicted."

These operations have frustrated Montana residents and agencies for years, Measure said. The frustration reached its peak recently when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers spilled 31,000 cubic-feet per second over Libby Dam spillways causing record flows — 55,000 cfs — and flooding in the Kootenai River last month replicating a similar spill and consequences in June 2002.

"Montana will do all it can to protect our fish and our people above and below Libby Dam," said Rhonda Whiting, the state's other member of the NWPCC. "This lawsuit will be another venue for us to further promote stable summer operations, and reasonable operations year round for that matter, at Libby that we have been fighting to get implemented since Governor Schweitzer came into office."