Keeping watch on the water

Kalispell biologist Brian Marotz is an expert in complicated river issues -

subjects he has spent 20 years dealing with.

Holding up five fingers, Brian Marotz describes the major drainages that feed into the Columbia River and how runoff and water conditions vary from one drainage to the next.

The best way to manage the water, he explains, is to integrate water from the five "forks" in a fashion that accounts for varying runoff schedules and water supplies. The five fingers are a simplified view of "Integrated Rule Curves" that have been highly influential in the management of dams across the Northwest, a concept that came from the mind of Marotz.

Very few people understand the immensely complicated hydroelectric system and all the attendant political issues that come with dam impacts on fish and wildlife.

In Montana, nobody understands it better than Marotz.

Through five governors, Marotz has been the state's point man in the ongoing tug-of-war over water in the greater Columbia River basin. And that understanding has evolved with his duties in managing fisheries projects in Northwest Montana for the Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks.

Marotz, 47, came to Montana 20 years ago, when Ted Schwinden was governor, to model minimum flows on Kootenai River tributaries. It was an upstream move for Marotz, who had earned a master's degree studying the estuaries of Louisiana. He and his wife, Julie, had two children, Terra, now 19, and Nathan, 15.

"I'm anadromous," Marotz says with a chuckle. "I migrated into the headwaters of the Columbia Basin and spawned. My kids are native Montanans."

Marotz notes that he did much of his work as a research assistant at a laboratory near Biloxi, Miss., which took a direct hit from Hurricane Katrina, and he also worked at a laboratory in Ocean Springs, La., which was in the direct path of Hurricane Rita.

"I haven't checked into what happened to them, but both of those labs I worked in down there were in places that got whacked," he said.

Marotz said it wasn't long after he arrived in Montana that he was tapped to do research on the best ways to operate Libby and Hungry Horse dams. To do so, he studied flood-control policies and learned about the economics of power production and power marketing.

Then he set out to determine the maximum biological production that could be reached in the Kootenai and Flathead rivers with the realities of power production in mind. The work mostly involved modeling different types of flows to determine which were beneficial and which were harmful to fisheries.

"I actually came here to get away from that kind of stuff," he said. "I was sick of it. I wanted to be in the field more. But I couldn't escape my past."

In his early years with the department, Marotz said there was an emphasis on research. After a while, that changed.

"There were complaints from the public that we were doing too much research," he said. "And I heard that loud and clear. So I made it my goal to do things that make a difference for fisheries that people can see."

Marotz has stuck with that goal ever since. As fisheries projects manager for Northwest Montana, Marotz has been the driver behind most projects funded by the Bonneville Power Administration to mitigate for fish and wildlife impacts caused by construction of Hungry Horse and Libby dams.

Marotz has applied for the funding and managed the manpower to carry out a long list of projects.

He was instrumental in bringing technology to Hungry Horse Dam that allowed dam operators to control the temperature of water released from the dam.

He has backed multiple habitat restoration projects on streams throughout Northwest Montana.

He was involved with the installation of bottomless culverts around Hungry Horse Reservoir, which reopened stretches of streams for spawning that had been blocked for decades.

He has been the ramrod behind the development of a native fish hatchery near Coram.

He has been at the helm of continued research into the issue of hybridization of cutthroat trout and rainbow trout throughout the Flathead basin.

That work has led to perhaps the most controversial project of his career, a proposal to clear out fish in a series of alpine lakes in the Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex. The plan is aimed at eliminating the potential for hybrid fish to "dribble" into the South Fork Flathead River, a stronghold for pure cutthroat trout.

All along, Marotz has wrestled with the issues and the vast bureaucracies involved with the federal hydropower system.

"There are so many overlapping and redundant processes, and it appears no one is in charge," Marotz said. "It really is a headless octopus. You have tentacles that don't know what the others are doing."

Command and control of water in the Columbia basin is widely dispersed through a series of agencies - NOAA Fisheries, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Bureau of Reclamation. Add to that mix the states of Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana, along with 13 sovereign Indian tribes.

Sprinkled throughout the decision-making layers are advisory boards and task forces. The icing on the cake is a blend of conservation groups and other organizations that have pursued litigation, putting federal judges in the position of deciding how to manage the dams.

The collective result, for Marotz and other fisheries project managers, has been a relentless river of red tape and bureaucratic requirements. That has produced what Marotz calls "shelf art" - voluminous documents that represent huge amounts of work.

Marotz loathes shelf art, even though he's written many of the documents lining the shelves in his office.

"I'd have to say that process has been increasing exponentially, despite our efforts to reduce process and do more things on the ground," Marotz said.

And getting work done on the ground -practical benefits for fisheries that, in turn, benefit Montana anglers -is the priority for Marotz.

Reporter Jim Mann may be reached at 758-4407 or by e-mail at jmann@dailyinterlake.com