New Problem on the Madison River

This is an excerpt from Craig Matthews' Blue Ribbon Flies Newsletter I just received:

The Madison River's wild trout need your help, again. Last month you responded with hundreds of messages to the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Park's proposed fishing regulation changes that would leave the Madison open all year, even during rainbow trout spawning times.
This time we need your messages to go to Northwestern Energy, the folks that operate Hebgen Dam.

You recall, the last several years they have worked on the dam, and their recent announcement the reparations have been completed. Going forward the river's wild trout will no longer have to stress during hot summer months, instead the cooling flows from below the lake's surface would come through the recently completed dam work. What wonderful news this is.

But wait, we have just found that Northwestern Energy has more work to do. Read on:
Northwestern Energy now says in summer of 2017 warm water will again come over the top of the dam for four months due to spillway work. The company "sort of tucked that line in an update issued last month hoping no one would notice" according to an employee of the company. One of our friends called BS on this and has had conversations with a biologist who was told to "keep quiet" by his superiors, because "there is no real reason they have to do the work in summer.......Northwestern Energy just wants to take the easy way out...."

The biologist went on to say, "the deal is the engineers say they told us about this (they did not), they say the summer is the only time to do it when they worked well into the fall and winter the last several years....I am told NOT to suggest that it could be done some other time.....biology does not matter in this case, ....Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks is NOT happy with this and has filed a letter of complaint with Northwestern Energy".

The biologist went on, "write Northwestern Energy's VP John Hines.....be constructive, suggest working on the dam during cold water periods not in the heat of summer when wild trout are susceptible to stresses of warm water....copy FERC (Federal Energy Regulatory Commission), your congressman, Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks as well as the US Forest Service...."
The biologist concluded...."Don't worry about me...I am already under the bus on this, but so is NWE Environmental Department...."

Seems we all have to speak up a little louder, clearer and more frequently to protect those precious things we all love and enjoy. Please go to Northwestern Energy's Blog site and write a constructive letter of complaint to VP John Hines, you will see his contact there. Copy FERC on your complaint (FERC On-line Comment) as well as sending it to Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks Region 3 Headquarters Attention Travis Horton, Fishery Biologist at fwprg3@mt.gov .The river's wild trout thank you, and so do all of us at BRF.