Officials skeptical $57M fish project will work

A group of Montana and federal wildlife officials have lined up in opposition to a USD 57 million concrete dam and fish bypass that the US government says would help an ancient and endangered fish species in the Yellowstone River.
The US Army Corps of Engineers and Interior Department are proposing the irrigation dam and bypass on the lower Yellowstone near the Montana-North Dakota border.
That's where aging pallid sturgeon have been trapped for decades downstream of their spawning grounds.
But wildlife officials belonging to a pallid sturgeon recovery group dismissed the proposed project's alleged benefits for the fish as "unfounded" and "purely theoretical."

The group, known as the Upper Basin Pallid Sturgeon Workgroup, includes representatives of state and federal wildlife agencies, the US Army Corps of Engineers and Interior's Bureau of Reclamation.
The group's concerns were detailed in a July 28 letter obtained by The Associated Press. It puts the Interior and Army Corps in the awkward position of promoting a project opposed by a group that includes members of their own staff and those from other agencies.

Army Corps project manager Tiffany Vanosdall said the agency continues to believe the dam and fish bypass would help sturgeon. An environmental study of the project is due to be completed late this year, Vanosdall said.

"We are working on other analyses of why we believe the bypass channel would work," she said.
Pallid sturgeon with their shark-like shape and long snout have changed little over the past 200 million years, earning the species recognition among scientists as a "living fossil."
The bypass would be located northeast of Glendive, Montana. It's meant to give sturgeon access to upriver spawning grounds while maintaining an irrigation system that serves more than 50,000 acres of farmland in Montana and North Dakota.
The workgroup said it would be better to remove an existing rock weir on the river that traps the decades-old fish downstream.