ANNUAL REPORT 2018 BOARD OF DIRECTORS Steve Mitchell, Chair, Hailey Lori Gibson Banducci, Vice Chair, Boise Bill Weppner, Secretary, Boise Judy Baker, Treasurer, Boise Tanya Anderson, Victor Jerry Brady, Idaho Falls Carolyn Coiner, Twin Falls Paul Cunningham, Boise Jim DeWitt, Boise David Eichberg, Boise Scott Friedman, Sun Valley Steve Lockwood, Sandpoint Jim Norton, Boise John O’Connor, Bonners Ferry Rebecca Patton, Hailey Buddy Paul, Coeur d’Alene Julie Richardson, Hailey Jerry Scheid, Idaho Falls Kim Trotter, Driggs Margrit von Braun, Moscow STAFF Natalie Chavez Communications Associate Jenny Estes Development Director ICL Artist in Residence Jessica L. Bryant. Justin Hayes Program Director Shelby Herber Community Engagement Assistant Austin Hopkins ART & NATURE Senior Conservation Associate Josh Johnson Conservation Associate ICL’s 2018 Artist in Residence Jessica L. Bryant created Rick Johnson our cover image this year as part of ICL’s celebration of Executive Director Marie Callaway Kellner the 50th anniversary of the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act. Water Associate Betsy Mizell Our artist in residence program is sponsored by ARTA Central Idaho Director River Trips and supported by an anonymous donor. The Matt Nykiel North Idaho Associate residency explores the nexus between art and nature. Mallory Parsons Accounting Assistant Jonathan Oppenheimer Jessica’s amazing and detailed landscapes have an almost- Government Relations Director To celebrate the photographic quality, and if you are lucky enough to Ben Otto Energy Associate 50th anniversary view them in person the luminosity of these watercolor John Robison of the Wild and paintings is likewise striking. Jessica committed to Public Lands Director Haley Robinson Scenic Rivers Act, supporting ICL’s work by creating a series of paintings of Development & Marketing Associate Idaho’s wild and scenic rivers. She traveled the state to Julia Rundberg our report cover Director of Finance & research and document the views she would translate Administration features South Fork Brad Smith into paint, and exhibited the results in Sandpoint in North Idaho Director Salmon River, a 14" Lana Weber December. We thank Jessica for sharing her stunning Community Engagement x 18" watercolor work with us and invite you to support her work through Coordinator Mary Beth Whitaker painting by ICL her website: jessicabryant.com. Editor & Designer artist in residence Erin Zaleski Now we are excited to welcome our 2019 artist in Office Manager Jessica L. Bryant. Boise residence, contemporary landscape painter Carl Rowe. 208.345.6933 [email protected] See his work at carlroweart.com. www.idahoconservation.org Ketchum Mary Beth Whitaker 208.726.7485 Editor & Designer Sandpoint 2 [email protected] 208.265.9565 Printed on recycled paper Bighorn Crags / Brad Smith THE YEAR IN REVIEW FROM MANY COMES ONE The Idaho Conservation League’s lands work through the unifying lens of Annual Report describes our success in the climate. collaborative conservation. An extended hand, established relationships and earned Climate change won’t be “solved” by Glenn Oakley trust still serve ICL well. When firmer environmentalists. Grave harm to the advocacy is required, we lean into it, planet is already underway and impacts based on a foundation of science and every person everywhere, with the credibility. Long-term priorities keep us most vulnerable feeling the impacts focused; breaking opportunities keep us disproportionately. Think fires and smoke, RICK JOHNSON nimble. storms and flooding, forced moves and dislocation. Environmental justice issues Rick Johnson A globally changing climate is testing are growing rapidly, even in Idaho, and has been ICL’s conservation. Climate change will impact the face of climate change is found at the executive director the next generation as much as the intersection of environment, public health Internet impacted ours. ICL addresses and extinction. for over two the causes of climate change on an Idaho decades. On scale through our energy and air work. In There are many issues in the crossroads page 16 he shares our water and lands programs, we focus ahead, but they all converge in one place: important news efforts where climate impacts will be the climate. about his work greatest. Looking toward 2020’s elections Rick Johnson with ICL. and the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, we Executive Director are reframing our energy, air, water and [email protected] 3 Bighorn Crags / Brad Smith ACHIEVEMENTS MEETING THE CHALLENGES, RAISING THE BAR IN 2018 You hold in your hands the highlights of legislation and pay tribute to Idaho’s own another important year for the Idaho U.S. Sen. Frank Church who led the effort. Thanks to your Conservation League. You see our work on behalf of Idaho’s wilderness and wild Salmon and steelhead, an imperiled Idaho support, we are rivers, energy and transportation policy resource, is a growing ICL initiative. making a big and clean air and water. We’re also We are working with the conservation impact across building programs for individual voices community to build urgency as the extinction threat grows. A new ICL Idaho. to become a compelling chorus for conservation. Thanks to your support, we fellowship with a professional river guide are making a big impact across Idaho, and is building business voices for salmon with your continued help, we will address conservation. the challenges of today and prepare for For the first time in Idaho, there is the opportunities of tomorrow. a proposal to pipe water from one overworked watershed into another, a IDAHO’S RIVERS AND LAKES process known as an interbasin transfer. 2018 marked the 50th anniversary A real problem exists in Elmore County, of the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, created by poor aquifer management over and ICL helped the Idaho Legislature many decades. However, the proposal is commemorate this historic piece of perversely framed to continue more poor 4 Sapsucker, Toolbox Creek, Boulder-WhiteSouth Fork Clouds Snake / Don River and / John Sheri Robison Weber Mudflat Oolite / John Robison management decisions into the future. polluted rivers. The Idaho Department of Interbasin transfers are common in Environmental Quality even issued health other arid states as well, but through a advisories for the western section of the complicated regulatory process, ICL is river above Hells Canyon, warning of toxic standing up for sound water management. algae growth that can harm both humans and animals. Mining remains one of the greatest threats to Idaho’s rivers, and ICL is the lead Between these two extremes are a myriad voice for scrutinizing new development of problems. Idaho is the third-largest proposals, including CuMo, Midas Gold, dairy state in America, and Idaho’s rivers and Kilgore. ICL also tracks existing feel the impact of over 400,000 dairy mines, including collaborative work cows and feedlots around Twin Falls. ICL ICL is standing up resulting in a program where phosphate is hoping to expand the use of methane for sound water mining companies voluntarily invest in the digesters to create energy from livestock Blackfoot River watershed for the benefit waste. This will help protect Idaho’s management. of all. Across Idaho, abandoned mines surface water and ensure that clean create grave problems for Idaho’s water, energy is part of Idaho’s future. and we are working to ensure that legacy pollution is addressed responsibly. Water quality is also tied to our homes and businesses. ICL tracks community In 2018, a set of suction dredge mining wastewater plants, often woefully operators stated clear intention to violate outmatched by rapid growth and laws, and ICL amped up oversight by hiring insufficient budgeting, and we issued our a professional investigator to document second annual report on the status of violations and enforce the law. Idaho’s municipal wastewater treatment. ICL also remains focused on water quality. Thanks to ICL’s ongoing engagement, As the Snake River crosses Idaho, the water quality in areas like Lake Pend water quality shifts from world-class Oreille will improve significantly. fly fishing to one of the West’s most 5 Trail maintenance volunteers on Castle Divide / Don Weber PROTECTING WILD IDAHO with many more trained volunteers assisting the U.S. Forest Service in caring While not perfect, years of collaborative for these special places. work with diverse interests won hard- earned support for Idaho’s sage-grouse ICL is a leader in collaborative protection plan. But the federal bar just conservation, and nothing demonstrates got dramatically lowered for protection this more clearly than the ten formal across the West, and we are troubled by partnerships in which we actively that result. ICL worked with the state of participate. We join with diverse Idaho to help negotiate maintaining some stakeholders to create commonsense ICL is a leader of the most important safeguards for solutions to difficult public lands issues, in collaborative sage-grouse, but we are now counting on including long-range land management initiatives amid a changing climate. conservation. the state to deliver on those agreed-upon protections and create a clear standard Despite great progress in collaborative for the federal government to apply. This conservation, Idaho can still empower will take vigilance. voices fearful of change, and, as we Last December’s designation of the see nationally, it remains easier to tear nation’s first international dark sky something down than