Flathead Electric and community stakeholders are making sure Montana's voice is heard as the Northwest Power and Conservation Council drafts its latest Fish and Wildlife Plan.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council (NWPCC) is in the final stages of updating its Fish and Wildlife Plan, which guides how the region protects fish and wildlife affected by the Columbia River hydropower system.
Flathead Electric Cooperative (FEC), along with Northwest River Partners and the Montana Electric Cooperatives Association (MECA), has worked hard to ensure Montana ratepayers are strongly represented in this important process.
Every 10 years, the eight-member NWPCC develops this plan, which provides recommendations to the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) on how the Federal Columbia River Power System (FCRPS) is operated.
“Our goal is to help the council understand that the work they do has on-the-ground impacts on public power and the communities they serve,” said FEC Government Relations and Key Member Specialist Ron Catlett. “We are ensuring that the NWPCC hears loud and clear that Montana co-op members rely on and support clean, affordable, and reliable hydropower from the FCRPS.”
Catlett has testified twice to the council on the Fish and Wildlife Plan. First in Portland, as part of a Northwest River Partners consultation, and second during the council’s most recent meeting in Whitefish.
The council also held a listening session in Kalispell in February where community stakeholders such as the Flathead Food Bank, F.H. Stoltze Land and Lumber Co, Weyerhaeuser, Flathead County, and the Kalispell Chamber of Commerce joined cooperative trustees and members of the FEC management team in testifying on the importance of the federal hydropower system to the residents and economy of Northwest Montana.
“I’m here today because rising utility costs would be deeply detrimental for the families we serve,” said Chris Sidmore, Executive Director of the Flathead Food Bank. “This is one of those issues where the downstream impact is immediate, predictable, and deeply felt.”
FEC believes the NWPCC must continue to take a balanced, science-based approach to fish and wildlife management as it oversees the FCRPS. Current efforts to restore and protect fish populations are successful, with salmon returns in 2025 being three times what they were in 1938, the year the FCRPS first generated power. This successful fish restoration has occurred while the FCRPS provides affordable, reliable power to Flathead Electric Cooperative’s nearly 60,000 member-owners (and hundreds of thousands of other public power consumers across the Pacific Northwest).
Flathead Electric and its partner organizations have continued to emphasize the following:
- Use modern science to guide recovery goals: The NWPCC should rely on the best available science to reevaluate fish recovery objectives, many of which are based on estimates nearly 40 years old. Updated, realistic targets are essential to maintaining the program’s credibility and meeting the Council’s legal obligations.
- Reduce spill in hydro system operations: The Northwest faces immense challenges in maintaining an affordable, reliable, clean electric grid. Increased spills (water passing over the dam, but not through the turbines, for fish management) reduce the output of the hydro system at a time when millions of people need electricity more than ever. Spills are not proven to benefit salmon or other fish species more than other alternatives, including juvenile barging. The NWPCC should instead explore opportunities to maintain or increase the generation of reliable, affordable, carbon-free hydropower while continuing to make impactful progress to mitigate the impacts of our multi-purpose foundational hydropower system.
- Lower Snake River dams: The Council should again reject recommendations to entertain dam breaching or the study of dam breaching. Dismantling the hydro system is not consistent with the purposes of the Northwest Power Act.
The NWPCC is expected to approve a final plan by mid-May. Two council members from each of the four states represented (WA, OR, ID, and MT) must vote for the plan before it is officially approved.
Created by Congress in 1980, the NWPCC has a dual mandate: ensure a reliable, affordable power supply while addressing impacts to fish and wildlife from the Columbia River hydropower system. The Fish and Wildlife Plan is the primary tool for achieving that balance.
