Governor: Conserve, protect and defend

Schweitzer touts bull trout, sturgeon and energy ideas Thursday before power/conservation group

Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer on Thursday pitched new and alternative energy production and urged the Northwest Power and Conservation Council to recognize concerns about endangered species in the upper Columbia River Basin.

Addressing the council at the Grouse Mountain Lodge in Whitefish with his border collie, Jag, roaming the room, Schweitzer suggested that Montana's endangered white sturgeon and threatened bull trout populations don't get the attention they deserve.

Schweitzer said he recently researched endangered species on the Internet, reading page after page.

"I didn't find anything about the Kootenai white sturgeon or the bull trout," he said.

"We would just like to have a modicum of respect for the upriver endangered species," he said. "In many cases, [measures to protect] downriver species is completely the opposite of what's needed to protect upriver species."

For more than a decade, Montana officials have resisted persistent pressures to deliver more water from two federal hyrdroelectric projects - Libby Dam and Hungry Horse Dam - for the benefit of threatened salmon stocks in the lower Columbia Basin.

Schweitzer reiterated the state's long-standing position that federal agencies must have multi-species approaches to managing the basin's hydro system.

The Montana reservoirs account for 50 percent of the basin's water storage, Schweitzer said, yet the state gets just a fraction of the fish and wildlife conservation funding that is distributed in the basin.

Schweitzer congratulated the council on its 25th "wedding anniversary," remarking that Northwest Power Planning Act has produced a productive partnership among Montana, Idaho, Washington and Oregon.

But he warned that Bush administration officials recently have questioned one of the bedrock promises that came with the development of hydroelectric power throughout the basin - an assurance of long-term stable power for the four states.

Schweitzer said administration officials are questioning "preferential pricing" for electricity in the four Northwest states. What's promising, he said, is the recent appointment of former Idaho Gov. Dirk Kempthorne as secretary of Interior.

"Thank God we have one of our representatives in the belly of the beast," he said.

Schweitzer said the governors of the four Northwest states will meet this year, as they did last year, to discuss basin issues. But for the first time, he said, all 14 American Indian tribes in the basin will be represented at that meeting, and he hopes that Kempthorne also will attend.

Schweitzer touted the recent development of wind energy in Judith Gap and raised one of his administration's major policy initiatives - the development of "clean coal" energy in eastern Montana.

Although critics have said that there nothing clean about coal mining, Schweitzer maintains that new technology and production methods make it possible to avoid the "smokestack" pollution that's been associated with coal energy for the last century.

But Schweitzer said Montana is at "an impasse" in development of coal energy production, because it does not have contracts to sell energy to the West Coast and those contracts are unlikely without improved transmission capacity. He urged council members to support transmission improvements in the region to improve Montana's opportunities for energy development.

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