Time to Take Action
Our Klamath Basin Water Crisis
Upholding rural Americans' rights to grow food,
own property, and caretake our wildlife and natural resources.
 

http://www.ravallinews.com/articles/2004/05/16/news/news01.txt

Bogged down with wetland issues:
Bitterroot ranch family copes with bureaucracy in pursuit of water conservation

By GREG LEMON Staff Reporter

 

Rancher Tony Hudson and Pete Schendel of the Army Corps of Engineers look closer at a wetlands area on the Meyer Ranch near Stevensville. Hudson and Meyer, who ranch together, toured the ranch with Schendel, Kristine Knutson of the EPA and Craig Engelhard of the NRCS to determine if there were wetlands violations and if it will be possible for them to go through with a large irrigation project.
Photo by JEREMY LURGIO - Ravalli Republic

When Jay Meyer started removing some old cottonwood trees on his farm last winter, he thought he was doing the right thing. Some of the trees were going to be in the way of a new pivot sprinkler irrigation system for which his ranch had recently been approved through the Natural Resources Conservation Service's Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP).

But because the trees were on wetlands, he was in violation of the Clean Water Act.

On May 5, representatives from the Army Corps of Engineers, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Natural Resources Conservation Service came to the Meyer ranch to assess the violations.

"We're trying to stay ahead of the curve here," said Pete Schendel, who is with the corps of engineers out of Helena.

 

By assessing the violations, a recovery plan could be developed and the irrigation project could continue, said Craig Engelhard, assistant state conservationist with the NRCS in Missoula.

But the little field trip to assess the violations drew a crowd to the ranch Meyer and his wife, Colleen, own on Burnt Fork Creek just east of Stevensville.

State senators Fred Thomas from Stevensville and Rick Laible from Victor and Ravalli County Commissioner Greg Chilcott showed up in support of agriculture producers in the valley. Representatives from the local Farm Services Association and Bitterroot Conservation District, and local framers and ranchers made up the rest of the nearly 25 person group present for the tour around the ranch.

The EQIP, which was the program through which Meyer applied for a grant to help fund his irrigation project, was established in the 2002 Farm Bill as a voluntary conservation program for farmers and ranchers. The program provides up to 75 percent cost-sharing on approved projects.

But there were some aspects of the program that Meyer didn't understand and some rules that he didn't follow. The paperwork can be complicated and confusing, said Englehard.

The trouble centers on the wetlands. When Meyer applied for the EQIP program in October of 2002, he said didn't know that he had any wetlands.

"If you have any inclinations at all that you have a wetland area, request a determination," said Englehard.

There is a pond, there are irrigation ditches, and there is the creek, but none of that seemed to indicate a wetland, said Meyer.

"In our mind we were not wetlands," he said. "That was not a concern."

But they knew they were going to work near the creek, so they asked the Bitterroot Conservation District to send someone out to see if they needed a 310 permit, which is the state permit required to work within the high water marks of state rivers and streams.

When it was determined they wouldn't need the 310 permit, Meyer assumed they wouldn't need a 404 permit, which is the federal permit required to work on wetlands.

"We didn't need a 310 permit, how in the world would we need a 404 permit," asked Meyer.

But Meyer didn't cut the trees down, he uprooted them with heavy equipment, and in the end that raised some flags with the federal government.

"Under the Clean Water Act, many times you'll need a 404 when you don't need a 310," said Schendel.

For land to be determined a wetland it needs to have three qualities: the right vegetation, the right soils and the right hydrology, said Kristine Knutson, environmental scientist with the EPA.

During the walk around the Meyer ranch, someone asked her if irrigation had created the wetland, would the government still regulate it.

"It still falls under the jurisdiction of the Clean Water Act," said Knutson.


And the federal government has decided that "there will be no net loss of wetlands," she said.

The violations on the Meyer ranch focused on the way the trees were removed.

Through a four-hour walk around the wetlands, it was determined that the violations occurred when the trees were up-rooted.

Under the Clean Water Act and under the Food Security Act it is illegal to add fill material to a wetlands without a 404 permit. When the trees were pulled out of the ground, soil and rocks got into the Meyer's wetlands, creating the violation, said Schendel.

The history of the project

In October of 2002, Meyer was ready for a change. His kids were heading off for college and moving irrigation pipes seemed like a lot of work without their help. Then he saw the new EQIP program and decided to see how the program could help him out.

"I signed up with NRCS for a farm plan to see what we could do with the government's assistance to improve our irrigation," said Meyer.

Their current irrigation system of sprinklers and flooding wasn't efficient and he knew it. Tony Hudson, a construction worker and rancher who works with Meyer, came up with the center pivot idea.

Under flood irrigation, Meyer would water his land once every three weeks, depending on availability of water, said Hudson.

The pivot system would be much more efficient.

"In three days he could cover that same ground with an inch of rain," said Hudson.

The other advantage was in water conservation.

Pivot irrigators use about a third of the water used by flood irrigators, said Meyer. Their ranch has junior water rights on the Burnt Fork Creek, which means in the summers he often can't get water from the creek because farmers with more senior water rights have the priority, he said.

Meyer was working to lease water from his neighbor, who had senior water rights and is also looking at a pivot irrigation system.

The plan was to use his neighbor's water to run both pivot systems and Meyer would turn the water he normally irrigated with back into the creek.

"With the pivot, you can match the water needs to the plants and the soil," said Meyer. "Where other methods you are basically just guessing."

Once they applied for the EQIP program, their application was ranked, processed and approved, he said. The approval came through in the fall of 2003 and a contract was signed, said Meyer.

Meyer thought the contract gave him the go ahead to start implementing his project, which meant clearing the trees. But really the contract was just the beginning of the process, said Engelhard.

"Before you start anything you need to have the designs completed and that wasn't done," he said.

The design portion of the project comes after the contract is signed and the NRCS sits down with the land owner and comes up with different design alternatives for their irrigation system, said Englehard.

Meyer had been working with a private irrigation design company out of Bozeman, which is OK to do, said Englehard. But the plans a private consultant comes up with still need to be approved by the NRCS engineers, said Englehard.

With contract in hand, Meyer started working to inform his neighbors about his project. Because of water rights, it was important to have good communications with his neighbors, said Meyer. For the most part people were excited.

"It allowed them to think 'Wow, there's possibilities for me,'" he said.

So this past January Meyer started clearing the trees - a part of the project that came out of his own pocket, said Meyer.

"We understood from the very beginning that there was no cost sharing money for tree removal," he said.

When officials from the NRCS in Missoula visited Meyer's neighbor, and potential partner in the irrigation project, to inventory the irrigation potential on his land, they told him he couldn't remove his cottonwood trees. When the NRCS found out that Jay had removed trees off his land, they came by to investigate, said Meyer.

What followed was two more visits and the NRCS out of Missoula telling Meyer to stop any further work on his project until the Army Corps of Engineers could come investigate the potential wetlands violation.

The men out of Missoula were surprised that Meyer was doing any work at all on his project and more surprised that he had removed the trees from the wetland area, said Englehard.

"I think they were blindsided," he said.

But their reaction didn't sit well with the Meyers.

"First of all, we felt like criminals," said Meyer. "Second of all, we felt like the proposed pivot was history, absolutely history."

The field trip

Through the four-hour tour of Meyer's property, it became clear that the land Meyer had hoped would not be determined wetlands, was just that.

It is a determination that the average person sometimes has hard time understanding, said Schendel.

Most people associate wetlands with cattails, and that's not always the case, he said.

"If you have standing water on your property that would be a wetland, more than likely," said Schendel. "The best clue is that it's a marshy boggy area with water often present. There are other wetland vegetation plants that are not cattails."

At the ranch, Schendel pointed out grasses and sedges common to the wetter soils of the wetlands. The soil often feels more spongy and is uneven, or hummocky, he said.

Though the violations were real, they weren't very dire, said Knutson.

"My reaction was that it could have been a lot worse," she said. "I've certainly seen more shocking impacts in the past."

In the middle of the afternoon, the group wound up in a circle in front of the Meyer home. Most of the people who had started out on the tour were gone. But there was still a resolution to reach.

Schendel wanted to come up with some type of recovery plan.

Meyer and Englehard decided they would work together on the plan, which would involve planting trees in the wetland area and pulling some soil away from the standing water.

The specifics of the restoration plan would be ironed out between Englehard and the Meyers later, but for Schendel to agree to it, the NRCS had to agree to it first.

"I'd say try and come to a compromise that would please NRCS, you and us," he said.

Englehard thought the NRCS could come up with the money for replanting the trees. Meyer was worried about whether he would need a 404 permit, but Schendel said there was no need to have the document to do recovery work.

In the end, Knutson hopes the message is that wetlands and agriculture can mix.

"I hope that the take-home message is that you can do irrigation projects without filling wetlands."

But for the Meyers, the message isn't as positive. He didn't want wetlands identified on his land. He didn't want to have to file for a permit to do work on his own property.

"It's going to be delineated wetland and I bought into that by signing up for the program," said Meyer.

Reporter Greg Lemon can be reached at 363-3300 or at glemon@ravallirepublic.com

 

 


+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, any copyrighted
material  herein is distributed without profit or payment to those who have
expressed  a  prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit
research and  educational purposes only. For more information go to:
 http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml


 


 

 

Home

Contact

 

Page Updated: Thursday May 07, 2009 09:15 AM  Pacific


Copyright © klamathbasincrisis.org, 2004, All Rights Reserved