The end for the dam on the Bear?

By Peter Anderson

Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.

-Winston, Churchill, 10 November 1942

Idaho’s streams and rivers have broad shoulders. They not only work for us to irrigate crops and lawns, create electricity and quench our thirst, but they also nurture our families who camp along their shores, support the parents passing down the fishing tradition to their children and uplift our souls with their breathtaking beauty. People mark the passage of their lives by their interactions with rivers. Decisions affecting our rivers should be made thoughtfully, keeping in mind both work and family and the long-term unease caused by ongoing threats to those rivers. But, sadly enough, final decisions protecting our rivers are often not final.

Take, for instance, a proposed dam on the Bear River in southeast Idaho above the town of Preston in a deep canyon called the Oneida Narrows. There, a local irrigation company has been pursuing a hydroelectric dam project for a decade that would include a 100-foot-tall dam and a new, five-mile-long reservoir that would drown the last free-flowing, road-accessible stretch of the Bear River in the state of Idaho. The irrigators say they need the dam to solve cash flow and water supply shortages.

The Narrows is a popular destination for anglers and hunters. Home to a healthy mule deer herds and a tremendous population of wild turkeys, the road along the Bear through the canyon provides access to these game animals. The river itself is a huge recreational tailwater fishery that includes rainbow and brown trout, as well as smallmouth bass and walleye that have washed through the existing dam at Oneida Reservoir.

This recreational resource, used by thousands and worth millions annually to the local economy, would be covered in water by the hydro dam. The project would line the pockets of a select few, while the thousands who use the canyon for fishing, hunting, camping, hiking, boating and sight-seeing would be left with a flat-water “amenity” that grows carp and suckers. Its contribution to the power grid would be minimal.

Trout Unlimited has nationally prioritized the Bear River for flow and habitat restoration.  TU and its partners have invested millions of dollars to conserve, protect and restore habitat on the Bear River and its tributaries for the imperiled Bonneville cutthroat trout populations that are native to this watershed. TU’s work has been in partnership with members of TU’s national staff, members of the Idaho and Utah Councils, state and federal fish and wildlife agencies, state water departments, irrigation companies and districts, and willing landowners. TU members are among those many people who visit, fish and recreate in the stretch of the Bear River that would be inundated by the proposed dam.

The most affected Franklin County residents clearly expressed their opposition to the dam from the very beginning. In a 2006 non-binding referendum voters decisively rejected the Oneida Narrows proposal. The vote demonstrated that the people who currently use the river most wanted to maintain it as is, for the benefit of future generations. The dam’s sponsors ignored the local voters’ wishes and continued to pursue the dam.

TU has also been a long-term, active participant opposing the proposed dam, both in the administrative processes before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), and also in various related State-based processes, including the application for water rights and water quality certification. Through these processes, TU has consistently provided exhaustive comments, testimony and information in opposition to the dam related to the existing ecological conditions and the proposed dam’s impacts.

In 2007, the dam’s sponsor filed an application with the Idaho Department of Water Resources (IDWR) seeking to appropriate water from the Bear River for the dam. TU intervened in opposition to this application. Following a formal hearing in 2014, IDWR denied the water right application. At that point, we thought the project was finished. After this denial we extended our hand to the irrigators, offering to help them find alternatives to the dam that would solve their funding and water supply issues while protecting the River. Sadly, they chose to proceed with their application before FERC, perhaps thinking that the state of Idaho would change its mind if the federal government gave its own approval to the project.

TU took a deep breath and entered the fray again. We intervened in opposition to the final license application before FERC and submitted comments in opposition to that application. We were joined in this effort by federal and state agencies, tribes, other non-profits and a host of concerned citizens. Internally we wondered whether, after fighting the dam for over eight years, the proceedings would ever end.

Once again, it appears that our work, and the work of our many partners, has paid off. On September 30, FERC staff in their draft environmental impact statement recommended that the FERC deny a hydropower permit for the dam. They concluded:

Based on a review of the anticipated environmental and economic effects of the proposed project and its alternatives, as well as the agency and public comments filed on this project, staff recommends no action (license denial) as the preferred alternative. The overall, unavoidable adverse environmental effects of both action alternatives would outweigh the power and water storage benefits of the project.

This could finally be the end for the dam.

The sponsors will have to expend tremendous time, money and energy to get FERC to reverse its decision in the final environmental impact statement. Failing that, they would then have to do the same in front of the Commission. But they may feel they have spent too much money now to give up going forward. In newspaper reports they indicate that they are consulting with their attorneys about their options. We can only hope that they choose to give up on this effort.

But even if they give up on the dam, that will not be the end of TU’s involvement. We are committed to the Bear River. Our persistent dam opposition is matched by persistence in working with irrigators to find workable long term solutions on the River. When tempers and hard feelings have cooled and other advocates have gone home, we will continue our usual quiet and dogged efforts to build relationships with water users resulting in both a plan for the permanent protection of the River’s fishery and satisfying irrigation water needs. Only then will TU be satisfied that we’re moving toward the beginning of the end.

Peter Anderson is a Trout Unlimited water attorney based in Boise.