When I was a kid, (teenager,) we didn't listen to a lot of the hair band stuff. We were kind of sixties rock freaks. I loved the Beatles and the Stones, The Who and of course, The Mamas & the Papas. This is what we woke up to this morning in Helena, MT, which is beautiful with the sun glistening off the snow but you know what? I've seen it before. I'm definitely dreamin of some warmer days.
In the past, the fallback statement was, "Well, we need the moisture..."
This year, we're actually sitting pretty good so no, we don't need the moisture. Don't get me wrong. The moisture is good but SNOTEL is looking pretty good.
So people look at these reports and they start getting excited for the season out here, thinking we are going to have plenty of water to keep streams flowing and fish happy throughout the summer. On the Missouri, we look forward to getting a good flush to scour the river bed, which may help with weeds but definitely makes the fishery healthier by way of uncovering gravel for spawning beds for browns in the fall and helping out the bug life by removing silt that suppresses bug hatches all summer. All of this can and probably should be true and by looking at just the SNOTEL, there is reason to get excited. Right? Unfortunately, it's not just about SNOTEL for the Missouri or any other tail waters. It's also about reservoirs and how the water is managed.
For that, let's look at Canyon Ferry.
Now I realize we have a lot of snow in the mountains and we could get some significant moisture this spring but something just doesn't look right here. In the last couple months, the Bureau of Reclamation has been dumping water out of Canyon Ferry. This is evident by the blue in the above chart and then look at the level of the Missouri below the reservoirs right now.
I hate being one of those guys that questions everything the Bureau does but what the hell? We have a great opportunity this year, to do the work that Mother Nature would normally do every few years by having a scouring run-off but it feels like the Bureau is working hard to prevent that from happening.
I remember going to "The State of the Missouri" presentation last year where they told us that ideally, we would see flows on the Missouri reach 14K to 15K cfs every few years to keep the river "healthy." We haven't seen that for a long time. We thought we were going to get that last year but the Bureau managed the reservoirs for these major rain events in the spring that never came. So what eventually happened, is we didn't have enough water in the reservoirs to allow for that push to scour the river bed and it was basically just a wasted opportunity. We had the snow pack but because of the miscalculation for spring weather, we blew it. The Bureau shot their wad in April and didn't get the spring rains to recover. In order to keep the reservoirs full, the lower Missouri suffered and we were seeing lower than average water flows.
Again, I see the SNOTEL report. I see that we're at or above 150% of normal snow pack for this time of the year but that can change pretty quick. Plus, this is average snow pack for this time of year over the past couple decades where we experienced significant drought years that skews the averages. I just don't think it's a good idea to waste these high-water opportunities.
Am I smarter than those folks calling the shots at the Bureau? Certainly not but I have seen them make these decisions year after year and I think it does foster some questioning. I've said this before and I'll say it again, I wouldn't want that job of trying to predict all these things but that's what they're getting paid to do. It would be nice if they were right some of the time. I guess all we can do is wait and see and hope they are right this time and we get a good run-off.
Keep 'em where they live...
P.S. Did you notice the disclaimer on the SNOTEL map? Due to staffing constraints, SNOTEL will not be available next year. Your tax cuts at work.
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