Whos representing loggers in water rights deal?
Jim Fisher March 19, 2005 Lewiston Morning Tribune Operators of area sawmills aren’t the only ones wondering why the Idaho County commissioners would pass a resolution opposing the negotiated settlement of the Nez Perce Tribe’s water rights. At least these Idaho County commissioners. Back when Pat Holmberg and Alice Mattson were running the commissioners’ office, one would have expected them to buy into the black-helicopter assertions coming out against the settlement and being circulated in the Idaho Senate by Skip Brandt, R-Kooskia. But Democrats Randy Doman and Jim Rehder were elected to return the office to moderation. Even if opposing the settlement stemmed more from the closed-door process that produced it than from its provisions, the mill managers’ opposition demonstrates it did not serve the county’s best interest. “It allows us to operate,” Herb Hazen of Three Rivers Timber at Kamiah says of the agreement that has now passed the Idaho Legislature and will go to the Nez Perce
