10/06/05 Water users watching two lawsuits

Judge James Redden is expected to issue an order in Portland on Friday that will outline a new plan for salmon recovery on the lower Columbia and Snake rivers. Redden struck down the Bush administration plan earlier this year after environmentalists objected to it. SEMANKO "It will be a one year remand period, in essence rewriting the plan and he will prescribe some pretty strict conditions on how he wants that done, the consultation that's to go on with the states and the tribes in rewriting that plan." That's Norm Semanko of the Idaho Water Users Association. There's a second case, another legal action that hits even closer to home. Environmental groups including Idaho Rivers United are going after all the water in Idaho with a proposed lawsuit. SEMANKO "This time not only are they targeting the reservoirs which have seven million acre feet of active storage capacity and provide water to all of our farmland but they're also targeting the natural river diversions and saying that those need to be analyzed. So they're ratcheting it up even more than they did before." Semanko says he's perplexed as to why they'd file such a lawsuit knowing the devastating impact that it would have on Idaho agriculture and the overall economy of the state. Voice of Idaho Agriculture Bill Scott