Dams

The US Forest Service and BLM each authorize dozens of irrigation diversions on public lands in the Upper Salmon basin of Idaho, which is critical habitat for threatened salmon, steelhead and bull trout.  These public lands diversions often are crude devices, lacking fish screens; and they harm the fish by dewatering streams, obstructing fish migration, and "entraining" fish into irrigation ditches. 

Files: 

WWP v. Matejko, 9th decision

We represent a coalition of national and state groups -- including Wild Earth Guardians, National Audubon Society, Sierra Club, and New Mexico Audubon -- in this long-standing litigation over the impacts of the federal Middle Rio Grande water project on the endangered Rio Grande silvery minnow.

Representing Idaho Conservation League, we successfully used the public trust doctrine to block the proposed Auger Falls dams on the mid-Snake River near the city of Twin Falls.  After federal agencies had issued permits for the dam, the Idaho State Land Board voted -- after a public hearing which voiced strong opposition to another dam on the mid-Snake -- to deny a submerged lands easement.  That ruling was upheld in state district court.