Letters To The Editor

Attend Public Meeting In Billings

Notice of an upcoming meeting to all interested in not removing the Lower Yellowstone Irrigation Project Diversion Dam at Intake.

There is another group that wants to remove the Intake structure. We are inviting the public to attend an informational meeting at the Elks Club in Sidney on June 21st at 5:30 p.m. We are also asking people to attend a public meeting in Billings at the Lincoln Center at 6 p.m. on the 30th of June in order to protest this groups’ intentions to have the dam removed. We need a lot of people to attend the Billings meeting on the 30th. Buses will be provided for transportation to and from Billings.

We need all irrigators, business people, dry land farmers, ranchers and concerned citizens to take part and voice their opinions. This is very important because if these national groups are successful it will affect everybody along the Yellowstone River not just irrigators. The Endangered Species Act passed by congress in 1973 was never intended to put people out of business, it was meant to have everyone work together to try and save a species, (the pallid sturgeon)!

Don Steinbeisser

Commissioner LYID #1

Don’t Kill Diversion Dam

"Kill the Dam not the fish!"

This is what an environmental group is spreading worldwide on the Internet to have the Diversion dam on the Yellowstone River at Intake removed to save the pallid sturgeon. They are saying the 58,000 acres of irrigated land in eastern Montana and western North Dakota can supply water by pumps powered by wind turbines. Studies show that this would be cost prohibitive. Spring flooding caused by ice jams, movement of the river channels on the Yellowstone River would make pump sites very costly to maintain. The farms in the valley would no longer be able to afford irrigation of sugar beets, corn, alfalfa, beans and other crops.

The Intake Diversion Dam has been supplying water to the valley for 107 years. The endangered species act to save the Pallid Sturgeon and the condition of the dam is why the Lower Yellowstone Irrigation Project has approved the preferred plan of the Bureau of Reclamation and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to replace the dam and install a fish bypass channel.

As a board member of the Lower Yellowstone Irrigation Project I am asking for your help by attending the public comment meetings put on by the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers and the Bureau of Reclamation June 28, Richland County Fair Event Center, Sidney, MT, 5:30-9 p.m., June 29, Dawson County High School Auditorium Glendive, MT, 5:30-9 p.m., June 30 in Billings, MT.

The removal of the Intake Dam will have a huge impact on the entire Lower Yellowstone Valley and most businesses. Please attend the comment meetings and mail comments before July 18, 2016 to U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Omaha district. Attn: DENWO-PM-AA, 1616 Capitol Ave., Omaha, NE, 68102

Or Email: [email protected]

Dale Danielson

Fairview

 

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