Announcements

We need help with barricades at Cherry Festival - Friday and Sunday, please let Brooke now if you can volunteer. Only needed for about 30 minutes. Congrats to Jim Oate’s 3rd Sapphire Paul Harris fellowship award! He matched Jamie Russell’s $2,000 to give a total of $4,000 to the library. Thanks Jim for all that you do for us!

We will have a booth at Cherry Festival on Saturday. We need volunteers from 10-12, 12-2 and 2-4. Need at least two people, please reach out to Dennis or Larry Peltz. We need this opportunity to help sell raffle tickets for our signature event.

Next week’s Social will be held at 303 11th Ave W, Fun & Fancy Free Daycare from 5p - 7p. 

Park on 11th in front of the building. Will have drinks and light apps. Meet half an hour early to talk about the BrewFest!

Megan has the new Rotary member cards. Find your name and you can figure out your programs. Plenty of guests here today with lovely weather on the deck!

Program 

NOTE: It was difficult to hear so if you want to verify these numbers, please contact Energy Keepers. Anything in quotes is Brian speaking.

“What’s the water supply forecast for all of July? 31% below normal and estimated we will be down 50% for August. For June, July, and August, we are at a record low for water supply into the lake. We will be 30” below and have been at minimum flow since the first part of June. About a week before full pool, we are at minimum drafts, and we had full pool for about a day and immediately started going down. We filled early, and knew it back in March, started filling in March. Started filling in March and worked with the Army Corps of Engineers and told them we didn’t have much snowpack, if we don’t get rain and snow comes early, we are going to have to catch it all. We went from winter and on May 1st it turned straight into summer. First two weeks of May with high 70-80 degree temps. The snowpack evacuated the fastest ever recorded and set a record for how fast the snow pack came out in May. We had forecasts of rain, that never came, so we filled the lake. Last year the lake overfilled by 7”, and we had more supply than we could evacuate, and to compare it to this year, each was an anomaly. We’re seeing records each year, hot is getting hotter, and wet is getting wetter.”

“Minimal flows are required for the lower river, set by Dept of Interior, and can’t go below that. We also have ramping rates, minimum and maximum of how much water you can move in a day and in-between days. Depending on the flows, we can ramp up or down, or how fast you change the flow through the dam. There are requirements in how fast they can move water. It would be a violation to move water up and down in a day.”

There are multiple agencies involved when making decisions on the dam, and it depends on when and what objective to say who's involved. The important decisions are based on: fish flooding and power. “Which takes precedence? If it’s hod and dry? Fish - Army Corps of Engineers has flood control, typically in the spring. Can’t fill too fast because it will flood homes and rivers ups north. They own dams, like Libby, and other dams. The Bureau of Reclamation operates Hungry Horse, which has multiple objects, power, recreation, fishery, etc. They operate under federal laws, and EPA makes decisions about power.”

“Most power we create stays in Montana 80%, about 20% goes to the wholesale power market. They have one long-term west coast contract, and sometimes we sell all over the west.”

“Water from Hungry Horse, those operators couldn’t send water because it was based on NOAA Fisheries, or their biological opinion, under federal court jurisdiction. Hungry Horse is in the same position we are, really tight and have minimal flows and maximum draft requirement. If Hungry Horse were to send water, we would violate some parameters and not have enough to meet minimum flows and overdraft the reservoir, which could have them not get to full pool next year.”

"Any water that moves to us from Hungry Horse, we are required to move it through. We can’t hold the water, if it’s even available. Dependent on fisheries." 

Why is Noxon Reservoir at full pool? “Our drought is more local. Mid to eastern Montana is super wet and had more snowpack and a wet spring and we are dry. Noxon’s FERC agreement has them going up and down several feet a day.”

Previously FERC had a drought mitigation plan for licenses, “We do not currently have a drought plan on the dam.” 

If we had a drought management plan we would need relief on Army Corps requirements, and they can’t sign off because it requires us to do years worth of studies. This year we implemented and changed the rule and got some relief.”

Lake Pendorielle is designated recreational, what is flathead designated? We don’t have one?

What can we expect next year? New docks? “My advice is there anything preventing us from floating docks. What is it going to take from us to learn how to adapt to this.” Wayne Schile mentioned floating docks wouldn’t handle Flathead storms. We may have to look into new floating dock systems. 

“We couldn’t have held any water back because of minimum flows requirements for the fish down river.  70% of our electricity comes from hydro, and there is a tremendous demand for power in the summer. If we would have held on to more water, it may it would have flooded the river up north.”

“Reducing contracts won’t help our insufficiency water supply problem.”

Paul Redmond - retired CEO of Avista Corp, in their agreement with FER - for recreation they have to keep it at full pool. “We currently have a 50-year license. It was negotiated in 1985, so 2035. We have a different situation then other reservoirs, we have the amount of water that contributes to moving fish to the ocean, I don’t think they have that amount of water to help influence. We are 30” down full pull, and other reservoirs across the west are down 30’ below full pool. We are able to enjoy the lake not at full pool. It is required we have to be at full pool on June 15th, and there is not an “until.” 

“I see this coming, it may or may not happen again. What’s it gonna take? Economic and physical implications. Maybe we require docks to be longer out, the tribe is open to discussing that. They have a climate change resiliency plan. Elders are saying many things are going to have to change.”