Gregoire plans to pay tribes for water
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

OLYMPIA -- The state should pay a pair of Native American tribes about $5.9 million a year to cooperate with plans for giving more Columbia River water to farmers and cities below Grand Coulee Dam, Gov. Chris Gregoire said Monday.

With the cash, Gregoire hopes to buy a partial solution to the tug of war over scarce water supplies that has roiled the Columbia Basin for decades.

The deals announced Monday secure cooperation from the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation, and set up a tentative agreement with the Spokane Tribe of Indians. The Legislature has the final say in both cases.

The agreements would allow the state to draw extra water from Lake Roosevelt to satisfy farmers and local governments downstream, and help protect fish habitat. At most, the state would pull about 43 billion gallons of water from the reservoir in drought years -- enough to lower the level of the lake behind Grand Coulee Dam by about 1.5 feet. Gregoire's administration expects to begin drawing extra water from the reservoir in the spring.

The Colville Tribes would get an initial payment of $3.8 million, and $3.6 million annually in the second year and beyond. The Spokane Tribe would get $2.25 million yearly. The payments would continue indefinitely.

So the Indians will still not pay taxes and will get our hard earned money (Taxes) for free just for being an Indian!
Got to love this Liberal, sell out State!

Another "farmer vs. fish" type of thing..........kinda like the ferry system in this State........05% of the people ride the ferries regulaly but 100% are going to see increases in taxes because of lack of keeping what we had in "runable shape".

Fixed income people gota love everytime "a new plan" comes along!!!!! grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

It is not just the Farmer who will benifit from this water deal , a big percentage of this water is used to keep lawns green, flush toilets etc..............

Here's a thought...locate farms where there is water.

It is not the water that pisses people off. It is paying for something that is no more theirs than it is ours. I grew up in Colville and have many close friends in the Colville tribe. They are a proud great people and I have nothing but respect for them but they get a % of profits off the dam every year now. When we were in high school they would get checks for thousands. My friends use to laugh about just how stupid we are.
Now we are going to pay for H2o as well. Why dont we just pay Canada for it too. It runs through their land before ours. Where is this going to stop? Sooner or later, the liberals in Seattle need to stop making these fine decisions for the rest of the state when they know nothing about it. Water is water and if we need more from behind the Dam then we should use it and no specific group should have anymore right to it than any other.

It took the queen a couple of years but she has perhaps realized that she had better start writing checks while she still has the checkbook.

I'm talking about places like the once very fertile kent valley which was all farm land.

I have no clue what kind of deal was worked out with the tribes when the dams went up. Maybe the $$ are compensation for lost fish or lost land? But $5.9 mil is probably less than we'd spend defending, and losing, a lawsuit.

All my contracts state that I am not allowed to use sludge from waste treatment plants ! If the public knew what foreign countries spray on their
crops you would only eat food grown in the USA

So, I've been eating poop?

No, YOU'VE been eating shi%. The only thing left for you to do now is DIE.

In terms you might understand:

Uhh Sorry bub, but none of your "hard earned" tax dollars go to Injuns just because they are Injuns. If an Injun gets any money from the gubmit it's through the same channels that everyone else is capable of getting money under: SSA, Welfare, FHA, HUD, etc.
And if you've ever had to be on SSA or Welfare, you wouldn't bitch like a little girl about people living like kings on the gubmit teat because you'd know what it's like. And last time I checked, there were an assload more White people collecting gov't benefits and dodging taxes than the entire population of natives put together, both employed and unemployed, so put that in your peacepipe & smoke it.


But if there's something I'm missing where I can get free Firewater, Blankets and Yellowhair wimmin from The Great White Father let me know cause I've never seen any.

The Colville Tribes would get an initial payment of $3.8 million, and $3.6 million annually in the second year and beyond. The Spokane Tribe would get $2.25 million yearly. The payments would continue indefinitely.



that's INSANE!

Bad day?

I'm sorry, my bad, it's simple math:

12000 tribal members in Spokane and Colville tribes.
$6,000,000.oo only
$500 per member/per year
not much more than a bag of beads.


$6,000,000 for
43,000,000,000 gals water
Only $7166 per gallon
priceless

My guess is that since the tribe owns to the middle of the river, they were given compensation when their land was flooded. In that way, they own half the lake and I would guess half the water. But, do they own half the dam? Since is was stated that they get proceedes from the operation of the dam, then any water removed from the dam would result in less electricity and perhaps less recreational income. That would make sense since all other releases would have to do with normal dam operation, but this would be a specific removal of potential income. The amount seems fairly high, since if this is just lost income I really wonder what they make otherwise. Still, before anyone gets too mad, they probably should look at the original agreements.

Marsha, the problem is this would probably leave less water in the river, which would mean less to spill, a detriment to the salmon. They say it is to help fish habitat, but that would make no sense to pay the tribe for water to do this, since any drawdowns would be essential to normal operations.

The next problem will be when all the tribes downriver decide that it reduces fish runs and decide to sue. Then perhaps other farmers who claim it makes them harder to get water rights down river. If this is to help specific users, it should be them who pay for it. It may be that the state is taking the lead in this and then will require the cities and farmers to pay back their share.

Whats the problem? It's the all American "free market system", privatize the profits, socialize the costs.

Annie,
I have no idea where the claim it will benefit fish comes from. All I have is the info from the article and it only meantions the removal of water for cities, and farmers and additional fish habitat. The only way that I could see removing water from the dam would benefit fish would be to increase spill. But since the benefit for the fish would be a normal requirement or dam operation I fail to see the need to pay the tribe for this. In fact, y opinion is that unless they were specifically removed from any liability, their receiving funds from dam operations could leave them open for suits from down river users, not open them up to more money due to down river users demands. Perhaps they are going to spill water from here to fill the lower reseviors so they can run them higher during peak periods and still have water left over for higher required spills during downriver migration (is that what you meant?) Lots of wild guesses that could probably be solved if we just had all the info. In the end, I am just taking wild guess and probably should just stick to what I know.

I'll bet you that the entire water withdrawals that are proposed to be purchased will be in the form of spilling more water over GC and CJ dams...said water ending up in the reservoirs where most of the irrigation withdrawals take place, benefitting fish along the way.

Fish on...

Todd

Your math is off a bit

$6 mil / 43 bil is 1.395 a gallon....or 1.395348837209302325581...I'll stop there.

Maybe it's compensation for lost income in the lucrative tribal bottled water industry?