B E YO N D D R O U G H T
Water as Life and Death
PHOTOS COURTESY IDAHO RIVERS UNITED
BY SABINA DANA PLASSE
Dwindling water in the West has been an escalating reality for decades. Looking forward, we humans are also fated to endure more ravages of drought and steaming temperatures already affirmed by science and avid fishermen. Still, our sufferings are mere inconveniences compared to the precarious environment that steelhead and salmon face in Idaho and where western rivers flow to and from the also-warming Pacific. “There can be droughts with somewhat tolerable conditions for fish,” says Idaho Rivers United (IRU) Executive Director Nic Nelson. “But this year, the salmon’s 20
return had to fight scorching temperatures on an already exacerbated resource that created a perfect storm. It was a drought year to an extent, but we need to quit looking at the situation as a drought and realize that this is the new normal. This is what water in the West looks like today. The more we can start planning for this being normal, we will be less reactive and put into place long-term planning to manage fishery resources, water scarcity, agricultural needs, and everything else dependent on water.” Nelson is not alone in his definitive predictions. Conservation groups and nonprofits have been handling the effects of water scarcity and climate change for years. All
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agree that it’s time for us, as global citizens, to accept this new reality as fact in order to support long-term improvements and better management. But this is only the first step. The crisis needs to be considered with the same political and personal intention as all the other issues that affect our day-today existence. “It is an issue that permeates through all the initiatives that we are working on,” says Nelson. “The silver lining of a disaster is that issues are brought to the forefront for the public to acknowledge. In Idaho, we are usually fighting the opposite fight and trying to recover a resource. We are looking at steelhead returns that are the worst on
