Sunset during Come to Roost Event

Message From the Board

March 2025 Zoe Jorgensen, Chair Friends of Camas NWR

Subject: Response to SENATE JOINT MEMORIAL NO. 104

The Friends of Camas NWR Inc. is a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting the goals of Camas National Wildlife Refuge (Camas NWR) to preserve, protect, and restore biological diversity and historical resources of the refuge landscape, while providing opportunities for outdoor recreation, education, interpretation, and scientific research.

Friends of Camas NWR Inc. strongly opposes Senate Joint Memorial (SJM) 104. We feel this proposal is lacking in factual basis and proposes a costly and complicated solution that will impact Idaho taxpayers. We urge all members of the Idaho House to vote no on SJM 104. 

We believe that the language in SJM 104 oversimplifies the hydrological context and water right issues of the Camas NWR and the surrounding area. SJM 104 suggests the management practices of the Camas NWR are to blame for impacts to water rights of downstream water users. The truth is that the conditions that have contributed to changing hydrology in the Camas NWR are not unique to the local area—both Camas NWR and Mud Lake are located within the boundary of the Eastern Snake Plain Aquifer (ESPA), where cumulative water storage has been in decline since the early 1950s. The water levels in the ESPA and local perched aquifer have had impacts to both groundwater and surface water in the region. SJM 104 also suggests injury to water right holders. This is a serious claim. To the best of our knowledge, the Idaho Department of Water Resources would not consider willows and other natural sediment buildup in a natural stream channel to be injury to a water right, nor has there been a formal complaint of a water right injury. Every water user, including Camas NWR, has been feeling the impacts of changing water conditions in Eastern Idaho. Water management and the protection of water rights is an existential issue for Idaho water users that we do not take lightly – the Friends of Camas NWR believes that improved coordination and collaboration is the best solution to this ongoing issue.

As we understand it, SJM 104 will have no meaningful impact on the permitting process it purports to remedy.  Any activities that would involve dredge and fill material in Camas Creek are regulated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers under section 404 of the Clean Water Act and/or Section 10 of the Rivers and Harbors Act. If the Camas NWR land was administered by the state of Idaho, the regulatory authority would be unchanged. We believe there are available options to improve permitting efficiency that are much more reasonable than transferring thousands of acres of federally managed land to the state of Idaho.

Camas NWR has effectively managed the land to protect Idaho’s wildlife and cultural heritage. Transferring ownership of these important public lands is not the answer. At a time when about a third of all bird species need conservation help, critical migratory bird habitat like Camas NWR should be better funded and supported, not seized for state control. If stake holders feel there is an issue, the easiest and most sensible path forward would be to contact and work with U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service staff at the refuge to resolve said issue. The Friends of Camas NWR would be happy to participate in this conversation, and we encourage stake holders to visit Camas NWR to walk the creek with us and point out their concerns.