Instream Flows, Water Withdrawals, and Salmon Survival . “Chapter 5: Water Laws and Institutions. Managing the Columbia River” Ed. National Research Council of the National Academies. Washington, D.C.: The National Academies Press, 2004. 107 – 145. (reviewed by Jennifer Lenhardt)
“Chapter 5: Water Laws and Institutions. Managing the Columbia River” Instream Flows, Water Withdrawals, and Salmon Survival
Summary of" Managing the Columbia River":
Chapter 5 of this book is dedicated to understanding the laws, regulations, and agencies relevant to the Columbia River Basin. It includes an overview of the individual laws pertaining to the states, the tribal nations, and the international laws necessary in evaluating water diversions in the basin. It highlights the complexity of any past or future decision by naming and describing the large number of parties involved including the states of Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Montana, countries including the United States and Canada, the respective federal and state agencies developed and involved in decision making, as well as the tribes of the basin that are party to any discussion of water rights and diversions.
This chapter does an exceptional job of tying all the various parties into a discussion of the middle reach of the Columbia River Basin (which is the main focus of the book). At the end of each newly introduced discussion of law or agency there is a section devoted to the significance of laws/agency development on the middle reach of the river. This ending discussion usually includes a small bit about the implications for future diversions of water in the larger Columbia River Basin.
The chapter also includes a table of the tribes in the Columbia River Basin, their populations and reservation size, and the state in which they live. This is relevant to understanding the types of protection developed by each state in reference to their respective Indian populations. There is extensive discussion of the historical development of the tribal reservation as well as the implication that the reserved land included the water used to sustain life on that land.
Negotiations between states and the federal government, tribes and the governments, and the U.S. and Canadian governments are also introduced in this chapter. The emphasis in summary of these negotiations is that no state, tribe, or country can damage the water quality and potential use for other users. The vagueness and ambiguity of regulations such as this prove ever challenging to groups attempting protection of water rights and uses for all parties involved.
It is worthwhile to note that little or no attention is paid to the water rights of the fish or the other wildlife supported by the river and subsequently threatened by diversions. There is a section about the Endangered Species Act and other wildlife protection laws but they are only introduced and described, not included in the discussion of the implications for water diversions in the Columbia River Basin. It is also worthwhile to note that the primary concern of the federal government in maintaining water flow levels and rates is to maintain interstate commercial navigation of the river.
Critique of "Managing the Columbia River":
This book was the culmination of cumulative efforts of the National Research Council and specifically funded by the Washington Department of Ecology. Without reading the entire book, and only focusing on Chapter 5: Water Laws and Institutions, it is difficult to say conclusively that the book is an unbiased analysis of Columbia River management. These summary discussions at the end of each section articulate the potential implications for the middle reach (which lies geographically entirely in the state of Washington) but seem to lean slightly towards limiting diversions outside the state of Washington to protect stream flows within the state. However, the protection of stream flow is not clearly defined as an agenda item for conservationists, or those hoping to capitalize on diversions in the state of Washington. Perhaps the leaning can simply be attributed to the book's primary focus of the middle reach, which inherently guides discussion to the implications for the state of Washington.
The most intriguing section of this chapter focused on the water rights of Indian nations in the basin. The various water rights of different tribal reservations have been clarified and redefined in a series of court cases and legislation both at the state and federal levels. This is a complicating factor to the already intricate balance between riparian and appropriation rights. Indian and non-Indian users are differentiated between as well as fishing on reservation and off site. The justices deciding cases of water rights to Indians consistently protect the fishing traditions of the respective tribes and continue to protect waters for Indian use on and off reservations.
Chapter 5 comprehensively and concisely presents the laws and institutions governing the water use in the Columbia River Basin. It provides history and new developments with respect to laws and agencies while tying those discussions into a general statement of implication for the middle reach of the basin. As noted in the summary, however, the discussion of these laws is primarily rooted in understanding water rights and potential for diversion, not on wildlife preservation although that is clearly the stated mission of some agencies involved.
Citation: “Chapter 5: Water Laws and Institutions.” Managing the Columbia River” Instream Flows, Water Withdrawals, and Salmon Survival. Ed. National Research Council of the National Academies. Washington, D.C.: The National Academies Press, 2004. 107 – 145.
Robert D. Clark Honors College, University of Oregon
HC 441: Science Colloquium, Columbia River Ecology
Fall term, 2005
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