Council balks on price for water rights study
The Whitefish City Council delayed a vote on spending up to $20,000 for a consultant to study status of the city’s water rights claims.
The issue arose after the council last November approved spending $19,210 to evaluate its 30-year-old hydroelectric plant at the city reservoir, but the issue could be much larger.
Public works director John Wilson said the city needs to clarify and update the city’s water rights records so it has a defensible claim prior to the state undergoing basin-wide water rights adjudication. He recommended hiring Water Rights Solutions, of Helena, but councilors had questions about cost and need.
George Culpepper, of the Northwest Montana Association of Realtors, told the council his organization has spent $100,000 studying claims by downstream water users that threaten to preempt water rights claims in the Flathead Valley. The city was welcome to use information NMAR has gathered on the issue, he said.
Councilor Turner Askew, a former NMAR board member, said he was concerned about the city spending $20,000 and then not finding any new relevant information.
Wilson acknowledged downstream claims by Avista Utilities’ two hydroelectric dams on the Clark Fork River and by the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes of the Flathead Reservation.
“I don’t recommend sitting back and waiting for those claims to get resolved,” Wilson said.
City manager Chuck Stearns noted that a town in Colorado where he worked spent $20,000 to $30,000 per year researching water rights it held dating back to 1866.
“We need to stay ahead of the curve,” he said.
Councilor John Muhlfeld said he agreed with the need but thought the fee was excessive. He noted that he also opposes spending money on the hydroelectric plant because of other needs.
Askew asked why a water right was necessary for the hydroelectric plant when the water for the turbine is already going into the city reservoir for drinking purposes and was not being consumed. Wilson said the city needs to follow the law and obtain a right for every use.
The council asked Wilson to bring the request back in two weeks.
In other city council news:
• The council approved a list of “shovel-ready” infrastructure projects to submit to the Montana League of Cities and Towns for funding by President Obama’s proposed stimulus package.
League director Alec Hansen met Jan. 16 with Sen. Jon Tester about the list, Stearns said. Tester said the list should be fair, have accountability and be a good way to distribute money to state and local governments.
• Stearns said he traveled to Helena to meet with Rep. Bill Beck, R-Whitefish, about a bill to protect the city’s resort tax.
The League of Cities and Towns supports a bill in the Legislature that would allow more Montana cities and towns to have their own resort tax, Stearns said, but the new bill could create problems for Whitefish.
Under existing law, resort towns allowed to collect resort taxes are limited to a population of 5,500 people, but Whitefish now has more than 8,000 people.
Beck said the best strategy for Whitefish was to get a bill passed that raises the population threshold to 10,000 before the League’s bill is submitted.
“This is not a slam dunk,” Stearns said, noting that some legislators don’t want towns that large to be able to enact resort taxes.
• The council approved a retroactive pay hike for city court clerk Pam Cotton by a 5-1 vote. Councilor Nick Palmer, who supported the motion, said the raise would cost the city about $280.
Councilor Nancy Woodruff said she opposed the measure in order to be consistent with her view of “equal pay for equal work.”
Palmer, however, noted that clerks in city court often work with potentially dangerous people — “the same people police deal with.”