EDITORIAL: Long-term solution needed for Willwood

Posted 12/13/16

We’re glad so many people have taken an interest and offered solutions to the river’s plight; we’re also glad that everyone involved — from the state of Wyoming to the Willwood Irrigation District that operates the dam and released the silt …

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EDITORIAL: Long-term solution needed for Willwood

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An October release of tons of fish-killing silt from behind the Willwood Dam and into the Shoshone River prompted a fairly predictable response: shock and a public outcry, followed by public meetings clarifying the issue and, now, a promise of a government study to further examine the situation.

We’re glad so many people have taken an interest and offered solutions to the river’s plight; we’re also glad that everyone involved — from the state of Wyoming to the Willwood Irrigation District that operates the dam and released the silt — seems to be making efforts toward solving the problem.

But we do not want to see what’s often the next phase of the news cycle: The problem quietly fading out of the public consciousness without actually being addressed.

A smaller amount of silt spilled into the Shoshone from behind the dam and killed fish in 2007, too; obviously the response of state regulators and the irrigation district at that time was not sufficient.

Things have to be different this time around.

Turning a local resource (and a part of the Missouri River’s headwaters) into a stinky, gray, fish-killing milkshake every few years — or even every couple decades — is unacceptable. Wyoming’s clean air and water are among the state’s greatest assets, and our rivers should be a point of pride, not an embarrassment.

Clearly, it’s time for a new plan for managing the Willwood Dam — one that’s practical and based on the best available scientific data.

Sediment from a host of sources — including the federally managed McCullough Peaks and other irrigation districts —- arrives at the dam each year. If Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality rules continue to prohibit the Willwood Irrigation District from passing along each year’s silt, it’s only a matter of time before the sediment stacks right back up again.

In the wake of October’s spill, irrigation district officials have done some calculations and estimated that — if they were allowed to let more silt pass through the dam — they could keep up with each year’s silt and slowly cut into the hundreds of thousands of cubic yards still sitting behind the dam.

If the turbidity can be increased without damaging the river and its inhabitants (obviously, it would have to involve a whole lot less silt than the recent release), we’re all for that plan.

We hope the Wyoming Game and Fish Department can soon determine what levels of silt the Shoshone River’s fish will tolerate, though it’s baffling that the department doesn’t have that data already.

There’s plenty of blame to go around, but in the same way there had been no real leadership on the silt problem, there’s also no true villain.

There seems little need for the DEQ to hammer the irrigation district’s couple hundred members with a massive fine. For one thing, the department appears to share some responsibility for the current situation. For another, we would hope Willwood officials have heard loud and clear the public’s outcry over the sullying of the river.

Perhaps a penalty, held in suspension as long as there are no further spills, would be appropriate.

We’re encouraged by the apparently productive meeting that state, federal and Willwood officials had in Casper and hope one planned for early 2017 goes just as well. They shouldn’t settle for anything less than a permanent solution to the problem.

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