03/11/05 Drought planning; Crude increase?

Plans for a potential drought emergency in the region are starting to ramp up. Take for example in Washington, where Governor Christine Gregoire was in Yakima yesterday to issue an emergency drought declaration. The Idaho Department of Water Resources discussed the severity of lack of snow pack and moisture during a meeting yesterday, and how farmers in the eastern part of the state and the Treasure Valley could plan accordingly. And in Oregon, public information meetings are scheduled throughout this month in areas like the Central Cascades and the Klamath Basin to announce plans for water use and delivery in the coming months. On average across the region, and the nation, by this spring, motorists will be paying about $2.15 for a single gallon of regular unleaded gasoline. Part of that speculation by federal energy officials is what has transpired just this week & a dramatic seven cent jump in the price of gas. According to the Energy Information Administration, the average price for that gallon of unleaded for much of the nation will hover around $2.10 this summer. The main reason for the price increase is not due to supply, there is more than enough. It is because speculators and petroleum traders are bidding up the price of crude oil to near-record levels. The rising prices are renewing calls by President Bush and some members of Congress to pass a comprehensive energy bill that (A) reduces our nation's reliance on foreign fuels and (B) increases the use of renewable fuels. Who would have thought both environmentalists and irrigators would both challenge the federal government's biological opinion for salmon recovery efforts along the Columbia and lower Snake Rivers? Noted attorney James Buchal, representing several Eastern Washington irrigators, says their challenge is in guidelines established by N.O.A.A. Fisheries and other managing agencies that cause dams to operate for the impact of in-river fish harvest. Buchal says allowing harvests has nothing to do with operation of the dams, and making dams responsible for mitigation for non-dam related fish mortality could create a situation of jeopardy. Buchal and others however do agree with the central tenant of the bio-op that dams should only be operated in a way that accounts for the impacts their actual operations have on salmon populations. Or summed up another way, the dams should stay in place. Environmentalists continue to contend that the only answer in salmon recovery is removal of the lower Snake River dams, a point reiterated by former U.S. Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt in a recent visit to Lewiston Idaho.