Henry's Fork Watershed Council
![[Photo]: Henry's Fork](/common/images/henrys.gif)
Located in eastern Idaho and western Wyoming, the Henry's
Fork watershed covers 1.7 million acres and includes part
of Yellowstone National Park and the western slope of the
Teton Mountains. It is laced with more than 3,000 miles of
rivers, streams, and irrigation canals. High mountain streams
and abundant springs provide nutrient-rich waters of constant
flow and temperature. These conditions sustain populations
of fish and wildlife, including several threatened and endangered
species.
Three Idaho counties (Fremont, Teton, and Madison) and Wyoming's
Teton County lie within the Henry's Fork basin. The combined
population of these counties is 40,000. The basin was originally
settled by Mormon and Lutheran homesteaders who built irrigation
canals and storage reservoirs to augment the water supply.
Existing canals divert water from Henry's Fork, the Fall
River, the Teton River, and smaller tributaries, and irrigation
water is stored in dams built on Henry's Lake, Henry's Fork,
and the Fall River.
Agriculture is important in the Henry's Fork Basin; the
primary crops are potatoes and grains. More than 235,000
acres of farmland are irrigated using surface or ground water
sources in the basin. Recreation and tourism are also important
sectors of the economy that depend heavily on the basin's
water resources. Other sources of employment and income include
government and the timber products industry. In recent decades,
these different sectors were increasingly separated by conflict
over water management issues. On one side were hydropower
and irrigation interests and on the other, fisheries interests
and recreation-based businesses that depended on in-stream
flow for their continued existence.
In 1993, the Idaho Legislature passed the Henry's Fork Basin
Plan as a framework for dealing with these controversial
issues. As a result of the plan, new dams, diversions, and
hydroprojects> were prohibited on 195 miles of the Henry's
Fork and its tributaries. Recommendations in the plan dealt
with water quality, fish and wildlife protection, and irrigation
water conservation.
At least 25 federal, state, and local agencies have management
or regulatory jurisdiction in the Henry's Fork Basin, a situation
that contributes to fragmented planning and decision making.
Lack of agency coordination was hindering progress in addressing
soil erosion, water delivery, and water quality problems,
thereby worsening rather than solving problems arising from
the sector divisions in the basin. To turn this situation
around, citizens and agency representatives began, in 1993,
to craft a new, nonadversarial approach to reconciling watershed
issues in the Henry's Fork Basin.
Over the winter of 1993-94, the Henry's Fork Watershed Council
was organized and chartered by the 1994 Idaho legislature.
The charter identifies four major duties for the Council:
- Cooperate in resource studies and planning that transcend
jurisdictional boundaries, still respecting the mission,
roles, and water and other rights of each entity.
- Review and critique proposed watershed projects and Basin
Plan recommendations, suggesting priorities for their implementation
by appropriate agencies.
- Identify and coordinate funding sources for research,
planning, and implementation, and long-term monitoring
programs, with financing derived from both public and private
sectors.
- Serve as an educational resource to the state legislature
and the general public, communicating the council's progress
through regular reports, media forums, and other presentations.
The council's mission statement was fashioned by consensus
and reads as follows:
The Henry's Fork Watershed Council is a grassroots,
community forum which uses a nonadversarial,
consensus-based approach to problem solving and conflict
resolution among citizens, scientists, and agencies with
varied perspectives. The Council is taking the initiative
to better appreciate the complex watershed relationships
in the Henry's Fork Basin, to restore and enhance watershed
resources where needed, and to maintain a sustainable watershed
resource base for future generations. In addressing social,
economic, and environmental concerns in the basin, Council
members will respectfully cooperate and coordinate with one
another and abide by federal, state, and local laws and regulations.
The Council is comprised of citizens, scientists, and agency representatives who
reside, recreate, make a living, and/or have legal responsibilities
in the basin, thus ensuring a collaborative approach to resource
decision making. The number of participants in the council
is not limited. Participating members are organized into
three component groups:
- Citizens' Group: Members of the public with commodity,
conservation, and/or community development interests have
an integral role in council affairs by being on equal footing
with other participants. The citizens' group reviews agency
proposals and plans for their relevance to local needs
and whether all interests are treated equitably.
- Technical Team: The team is composed of scientists and
technicians from government, academia, and the private
sector. The team's role is to serve as resource specialists
for the council, coordinating and monitoring research projects,
launching needed studies and reviewing any ongoing work
in the basin. Duplication of research is minimized through
technical team guidance; the results of research is to
be integrated into council discussions.
- Agency Roundtable: The roundtable has representatives
of all local, state, and federal entities with rights or
responsibilities in the basin, including the Shoshone-Bannock
Tribes. The agencies are working to align their policies
and management to watershed resource concerns and needs.
Discussions seek to ensure close coordination and problem
solving among agencies, as well as to clarify legal mandates
of each entity.
Two representative citizen organizations from the basin
have been selected to co-facilitate the council meetings:
the Fremont-Madison Irrigation District and the Henry's Fork
Foundation. This Facilitation Team is chartered to attend
to administrative and logistical needs of the council, coordinate
its public information activities, and submit an annual report
of its progress to the legislature. A Henry's Fork Watershed
Fund has been established by the State of Idaho to help fund
projects in the basin and to defray administrative expenses
of the council.
Visit the University
of Michigan's website for more information about this
project. |
PARTNERING WITH THE FOREST SERVICE
