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Ag Stakeholders say They're Shut Out of Federal Snake River Dam Mediation by Matthew Weaver East Oregonian, August 17, 2021

"It's this lack of communication within the mediation that is maddening."
-- Leslie Druffel, co-chair of the Pacific Northwest Waterways Association's Inland Ports and Navigations Group

Northwest stakeholders say they've been shut out of the federal mediation sessions over the Snake River dams.

"We are not being informed about anything that's happening in the mediation," said Kurt Miller, executive director of Northwest RiverPartners, an association that advocates for hydropower. "In the process, there hasn't been any mediation that's involved us."

"The secrecy has been extremely frustrating," said Leslie Druffel, co-chair of the Pacific Northwest Waterways Association's Inland Ports and Navigations Group. "...The lack of communication from the (federal government) to intervenor defendants doesn't give us much confidence in this process."

A coalition of environmental and fishing groups, led by the Earthjustice law firm, in 2020 sued over the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Bureau of Reclamation and Bonneville Power Administration dam operations plan.

The White House Council on Environmental Quality and Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service are continuing mediation during a stay of the litigation. The stay will end Aug. 31.

Northwest RiverPartners and IPNG are parties in the mediation as intervenor defendants.

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said Aug. 1 that farmers are "well-represented" in the mediation process.

"If ag is getting equal consideration in the mediation process, it is difficult to see," Druffel said.

'Smoke-filled room' dynamic

"We have it on very good authority that Biden administration officials have been out here in recent weeks negotiating with the plaintiffs," Miller said. "And yet, we haven't had a real update on any of that, really for months."

An Aug. 16 meeting was scheduled to provide an update, then rescheduled to Aug. 18, Miller said.

"It's been such a smoke-filled room sort of dynamic," he said.

"Of course, those of us in mediation are required to keep conversations confidential from those outside the process," Druffel said. "It's this lack of communication within the mediation that is maddening."

Intervenor defendants were not included in negotiating or setting the rules of the mediation from the beginning, Miller said.

"The rules of the mediation have very much meant we've been treated like second-class citizens all the way through, up to current time," he said. "It's hard to have any faith that anything good will come out of this mediation if they're unwilling to treat ag, utilities and irrigators as real partners."

Related Pages:
Working Together, Bold Action Can Secure a Thriving Future for the Columbia Basin by Kate Brown, East Oregonian, 8/14/21