Water rights questioned

 Heidi Desch
River View The Kootenai River, U.S. Highway 2 and the railroad tracks weave their way through the mountains west of Libby. The view is from the old Highway 2 trail.
Posted: Tuesday, March 6, 2012 1:20 pm | Updated: 1:44 pm, Wed Mar 7, 2012.

Water rights questioned Sandra Faye Douthit - ReporterThe Western News

The state of Montana proposed a resolution for off-reservation water rights claims for the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes in Polson on Wednesday, Feb. 29 and Commissioner Tony Berget was there.

The original resolution was proposed July 20, 2011, yet was revised for the presentation to the tribal council by the state before the meeting.

The proposal establishes the rights of level and goals that would provide:

     • Fishery resources in the drainages — providing them with tangible biological benefits;

     • Flow-ramping rates and seasonal minimum discharges from Libby Dam designed to protect the
         bull trout;
     • Protection to the existing water-rights holders,
     • Remaining water from the drainages to be used for future development of new consumptive
         uses.

The resolution would recognize the instream flow rights in the Kootenai and Swan rivers drainages.

However, the current EH is based on data that was gathered from 1929 to 1971 by natural flow conditions, and prior to the installment of the Libby Dam, which was built in 1972.

The effects from the operations of the Libby Dam have caused altered natural flow conditions to the Kootenai River.

The flow from the dam changes the levels of the junior surface and ground irrigators.

Depending how many gallons-per-minute (GPM), junior water rights holders could bring action predicated on an assertion of water waste — to “call” a claim.

The state believes it is reasonable to suspend the ability to call on junior users so long as the Libby Dam remains in place and the Army Corps of Engineers adheres to the requirements of the Federal Columbia River Power System Biological Opinion and the Montana Operations.
The instream flow from the Kootenai River also includes basin and sub-basin restrictions on new uses of water until a comprehensive water rights settlement among the tribes, state and the U.S. is ratified by the Montana legislature. These restrictions are determined by monthly volume maximums for the post-Compact water permits issued by the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation (DNRC). The permits provide protection covers for the sub-basin for the core bull trout streams.

The volumes of the Kootenai Basin sub-basins, Grave Creek and O’Brien Creek, existing rights are fully exhausted. Subsequently, the DNRC will not issue permits for the two sub-basins and proposes the closure of future permits as part of the Compact. Read more:  http://www.thewesternnews.com/news/article_c6da2ff2-67c9-11e1-b702-0019bb2963f4.html?mode=image&photo=0

Toxic-time-bomb spawned two-headed Brown trout in Yellowstone National Park Ecosystem

Posted by danbacher on @ 8:15 pm

It’s official! This is not a fish story. A two-headed wild Brown trout was spawned in the Salt River sub-unit of the upper Snake River drainage watershed, which is within the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem

two_headed_fish.png

Special Public Service Report: Planetary Solutionaries, http://www.planetarysolutionaries.org/ Sacramento, CA, USA  
Immediate Release: For more information: pp [at] planetarysolutionareis.org
Selenium laden toxic-time bomb triggered by 50-years of Phosphate mining in Northwest U.S.
Experts claim that two-headed trout and dead livestock portend hundreds of years of surface and groundwater contamination.

The toxic mines are within the 350,000 square kilometers of the Western Phosphate Field; located in five-northern tier states, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Utah and Wyoming. The epicenter of the time-bomb is in the Caribou-Targhee National Forest in Southeastern Idaho and bordering western Wyoming.

Fishing and wildlife enthusiasts expressed concern this is reminiscent of Kesterson National Wildlife Refuge ecological selenium-laden time bomb that went off in California's San Joaquin Valley ... read more

6 days ago - MiamiHerald.com: Nation

Objectors of Native American settlement revealed

Carol Good Bear started getting the calls about a week ago, after the attorneys who had negotiated a $3.4 billion settlement over misspent Native American land royalties published the phone numbers and addresses of the...

Two-headed fish from selenium poisoning? They're here!!

Submitted by Lloyd Carter on Sat, 02/04/2012 - 16:30.

The news has broken that selenium from phosphate mining in Idaho has triggered grotesque mutations in fish in Idaho creeks, notably two-headed fish.  This story was first broken by Patrick Porgans, a California State Water Resources Control Board watchdog and top notch investigator.  He had been sitting on the story for months in order to protect his sources.  Porgan's detailed report can be found at his website: http://www.planetarysolutionaires.org./

A Reuters News Service article on the two-headed fish, reprinted at the Scientific American magazine website, can also  be found at https://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=idaho-mine-understates-impact-on-fi

There is growing evidence that the Idaho fish deformities have been covered up for some time by the phosphate fertilizer industry, evoking memories of the coverup at the Kesterson National Wildlife Refuge in 1983 when Interior Department officials kept quiet news that selenium-caused deformities in bird embryos had been discovered in Westlands Water District farm drainage water.  Impacts on fisheries have also been documented in creeks near coal mining operations in recent years. Meanwhile, 30 years after the Kesterson selenium discoveries, the federal government still has not established selenium safety standards for aquatic and riparian habitats.  And, of course, it was 1949 when famed U.S. Geological Survey superscientist David Love warned in a memo that irrigation of high selenium soils in the American West could trigger a massive environmental crisis.  Love's warning was ignored.
We shall keep an eye on this unfolding disaster.

Idaho mine understates impact on fish deformities: U.S.

By Laura Zuckerman

SALMON, Idaho | Fri Feb 3, 2012 9:13pm GMT

SALMON, Idaho (Reuters) - Selenium contamination from a phosphate mine in southeastern Idaho is linked to fish deformities such as two-headed trout, and the problem would worsen if discharge limits were eased, a new government report found.

The findings come as Smoky Canyon Mine, run by the J.R. Simplot Company near the Wyoming border, is asking the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality to relax restrictions on the amount of selenium that the mine may drain into tributaries of the Snake River, a world-class trout stream.http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/02/03/us-mining-idaho-idUKTRE8121TU20120203

Toxic-time-bomb spawned two-headed Brown trout in Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem

By Patrick Porgans
Planetary Solutionsist

Selenium laden toxic-time bomb triggered by 50-years of Phosphate mining in Northwest U.S. Experts claim two-headed trout and dead livestock portend hundreds of years of surface and groundwater contamination.

The toxic mines are within the 350,000 square kilometers of the Western Phosphate Field; located in five-northern tier states, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Utah and Wyoming. The epicenter of the time-bomb is in the Caribou-Targhee National Forest in Southeastern Idaho and bordering western Wyoming.

It’s official! This is not a fish story. The two-headed wild Brown trout depicted in the photographs, spawned in the Salt River sub-unit of the upper Snake River drainage watershed, which is within the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.
Read more:

http://www.californiaprogressreport.com/site/archive/201202

1% Not Paying Fair Share of Taxes

Paying Their Fair Share of Taxes

By Refugio Mata
Good Jobs LA

“Why is FedEx not paying its fair share?” That’s what more than 400 activists asked on January 25 as part of a larger national movement to hold big corporations accountable to get our economy back on track. People from struggling communities, labor groups, immigrant rights groups, Occupy LA, and others led by Good Jobs LA marched down Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood in a show of unity among the 99% movement. On its way to FedEx, protesters took the opportunity to stop by the branches of big corporations that are also either notorioushttp://www.californiaprogressreport.com/site/archive/201202 tax dodgers or are infamous for their bad business practices in our communities. Starting with CNN, whose parent company Time Warner got a tax subsidy of $431 million in 2010, activists marched down Sunset Boulevard carrying signs and banners that read “We Pay Our Taxes, Why is the 1% Not Paying Theirs?” and “Tax Corporations, Build LA”.

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