Local leaders heard on Columbia River Treaty

On July 25, the Lincoln County Commission traveled to Spokane with Rep. Mike Cuffe to advocate for the County in the ongoing negotiation of the Columbia River Treaty.

The group was attending the 28th annual Pacific Northwest Economic Region (PNWER) Summit.

The big takeaway for Cuffe — who has spent almost a decade advocating for changes to the treaty — was that Lincoln County’s concerns are finally being listened to and given serious consideration, he said.

Cuffe is vice president of PNWER, and had invited lead U.S. State Department negotiator Jill Smail to attend the summit with her team. Just the fact that Smail and her team attended was a big deal.

In addition to holding a session where Smail and lead Canadian negotiator Sylvain Fabi, executive director of U.S. Transboundary Affairs for Global Affairs Canada, spoke with a working group, Cuffe was able to arrange a private meeting where Lincoln County concerns could be heard.

Cuffe and Sen. Keith Regier were joined by all three Lincoln County commissioners at the breakfast meeting.

During the Wednesday meeting of the Lincoln County Commission, Commissioner Mark Peck congratulated Cuffe on seeing fruits from his labors. The first time Peck heard Cuffe’s pitch on the treaty, he was impressed with his commitment, but not optimistic about his chances.

He said he remembered that when they were sitting and talking to the lead negotiators, with Cuffe on a first-name basis with Smail.

Commissioner Mike Cole said that he got the impression the message they came to share wasn’t just received by the negotiators, but by other summit attendees as well. There was a lot of information that effectively reached people to which they seemed to have no previous exposure.

Local impact

The Columbia River Treaty covers a power generation scheme that involved the construction of the Libby Dam and the resulting loss of around 10 percent of taxable private land in the county, Cuffe said. But Lincoln County does not currently receive any direct benefit from the dam being here.

Adding to the loss, the land that is now under Lake Kookanusa was some of the most fertile in the county, he said. Cuffe has spoken with foresters who told him a tree in that area would grow to maturity in about 60 percent of the time it did elsewhere.

And the private land was not all that was lost. There was additional federal and state land that was lost which contributed to timber production, he said.

But some loss can’t have a price put on it. Cuffe also talks about the people he met in 1969 who were losing generational homes and had no idea where they would move to.

What some relocated residents received in payment for their homes and land was not enough to even purchase something equivalent nearby in Eureka.

There are also environmental concerns to consider, Cuffe said. Both those created by the dam and its effect on the existing ecosystems, and the potential for future problems related to the effect on the dam of how contamination either flows or is contained.

Local concerns

Cuffe’s proposal to the negotiators focuses on two things: benefit for Lincoln County and Montana in recognition of the lost potential from the dam — British Columbia currently receives half of the revenue from electric generation due to the dams there — and removal from the treaty of an article that would allow Canada to divert about a quarter of the flow of the Kootenai River.

Since Libby Dam accounts for 20 percent of the power generation through the water it controls and releases at a predictable rate, Cuffe said he has sought for Montana to receive 20 percent of what Canada does.

In 2015, Cuffe carried a bill in the Montana Legislature anticipating a day when Montana would receive a share of the profits that the Libby Dam helps to create.

Under the law, 80 percent of any share coming to Montana from the electric profits would go to Lincoln County for schools, roads and general operations. The state would deposit the other 20 percent into the general fund.

Cuffe said the permitted county uses are meant to mirror the historical uses for timber sale revenues.

The law also calls for a trust fund to be set up from the money, which would accumulate interest to be spent on things such as infrastructure and environmental cleanup.

As far as water diversion, the original treaty allows Canada to divert about 26 percent of the current volume of the Kootenai River that passes into Montana.

The environmental — and economic — results from such a diversion could be catastrophic, exacerbated by the current issues with selenium contamination in the river from Canadian coal mines, Cuffe said.

That is the reason he has also been given for why the article is a non-issue: Canada would never take such a drastic and environmentally calamitous action.

Yet, Cuffe said, if there is no reason Canada would ever use it, then there is no reason for it to be in the treaty.

Past and future

Cuffe first dealt with the dam’s impact on Lincoln County when he was a University of Montana journalism student, and created a radio report in 1969 that included interviews with some of the residents displaced when the entire town of Rexford was removed from the area that is now Lake Kookanusa.

That radio production was set to pictures for a video that was played for attendees of the 28th PNWER summit, both at the Lincoln County table during the summit and during Columbia River Treaty bus tours, Cuffe said.

Having that narrative outlining the sacrifices made by Lincoln County residents from the start seemed to be particularly effective in getting the message across, Cuffe said. Even many of the attendees of the PNWER summit who otherwise benefit from the Columbia River Treaty dams in the U.S. and Canada were unaware that Lincoln County had no direct benefit from the arrangement.

Nor did many of them understand how much Lincoln County had lost because of the dam.

“It’s been a good treaty. It’s served its purpose,” Cuffe said. “The basis has been sound. We just want to be included.”

For the first time in his long fight to see that happen, Cuffe said he feels some optimism, and is ready to step back and allow the negotiators to do their jobs.

The negotiators will have their next round of negotiations in August, and there is a plan for a town hall-style meeting open to the public in Oregon in September.

An additional promising detail, Cuffe said that Smail “said they’d like to have a future meeting in Montana.”

Cuffe said he encouraged them to look to host such a town hall meeting in Lincoln County.