WSP05631

• File Number: 8407.500
• Description: Platte River Basin - River Basin General Publications - Missouri River
• State: CO
• Basin: South Platte
• Water Division: 1
• Date: 1/14/1988
• Author: MBSA
• Title: A Review of the Missouri River Main Stem System Operation
• Water Supply Pro - Doc Type: Report/Study

In case you have any doubt, this is extraordinarily
true in the Missouri Basin. I read the articles about
the releases last fall and last spring and early summer
where there was a conflict between birds and the farm-
ers and navigation interests and a little uncertainty
thrown in as to what the weather was going to do.
Someone was making policy decisions as to where the
water was going to go. Those people were the guys in
the Water Control Branch and they probably did a
good job. But because they are not accountable ill the
sense of politicians, because they don't fit into the
system of government we have, all of those decisions
they made appeared. to anybody who was adversely
effected, entirely arbitrary, entirely capricious, and the
Corps of Engineers looked like a bunch of despots
running the river.

Quite the position of being the operator of a river
basin. At best you are a benevolent despot and at
worst, everyone wants to come and lynch you. But the
guys who operate the system are, in fact, professionally
responsible for operating it safely and effectively and
that's a very difficult job. It requires a lot of training.
It is complicated and it can't be done on an ad hoc
basis. I've seen cases in which people try to interfere
directly in the operation of river basin systems during
times of stress and usually it's an unmitigated disaster.
I've seen Congressmen try to do it and it reminds me
of nothing better than that little sign I saw on the
electric hand dryer in the men's washroom. It says
"Press here for a message from your Congressman."
Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't, but real
time is the wrong t.ime to get Congressmen involved.

So the operator is actually caught ... so the opera-
tor's got a problem. He's caught between the rock of
professional responsibility and the hard place of public
scorn. Or to plagiarize Madison Avenue, "What's a
poor operator to do?" Or to plagiarize Yul Brenner as
the King of Siam, "Is a puzzlement."

Well, I have here in my pocket a bottle of King
Soloman's snake oil solution and hair restorer. The
answer to everyone's problems with regard to oper-
ating reservoirs. If you believe that, I have a bridge to
sell you. But there is a solution. That is in the broad
sense, to try to get the operators as much out of mak-
ing policy as you possibly can. That is to have the
policy decisions made as well and in as definitive a
manner as can possibly be done before the operator
gets called On the carpet for making policy decisions
without guidance.

What should be the role of the operator? First, to
operate the projects-to fulfill the policy decisions

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that have been made. Second, to help people who are
benefited by the projects discover better ways to use
the projects to make the river run better. It is not the
role of the operator to tell people what they should
do. That's a political decision. It is to help people dis-
cover what they can do, which is a technical and in-
formational role which is well served by the kind of
people you want operating your projects.

There are two approaches. One, operators can go to
policymakers and politicians and try to get them to
decide what's going to happen directly in the real
world. That is about as doomed to failure as anything
I can think of. It's impossible to get a policymaker
interested in operating reservoirs when there isn't an
immediate problem. And unfortunately, the policies
have to be set before there is a problem if they are
going to be effective. Policymakers and Congressmen
respond to constituents. They don't respond to tech-
nicians. I've learned that the hard way many, many
times. If you want to get policy set, you have to get
the constituents out there corresponding with their
Congressmen to get policy set.

The second way is to go to the effected constituents,
and to the extent possible help those guys reach con-
sensus. If they can't, give them the tools to explain to
the policymakers what it is they want, and how it
affects everyone else so that the policy makers can
make policy with the direct constituents. Again, that
has to be done before, rather than after, the fact.

This isn't really new. In fact, operators have a long
history of trying to get out of policy. They don't like
to set policy. If I can be just a little sarcastic, rule
curves are set or operating policies are set for reser-
voirs when they are built. The results of those policies
are often not clear to the people who are going to be
effected and won't be clear until the system is in stress.
Usually that doesn't happen until the guy responsible
for doing the policy in the first place is long gone. But
the new guy follows the old guidelines. Why? Because
if it fails, "I was just following orders." Have you heard
that before? The incentive on the side of operators is
not to change policy because to change policies or to
change operating rules im'olves a great deal of risk. If
it fails on your watch, it's your fault. And it can fail.
Operating reservoirs is, well, let me say that I once
wrote a paper on operating reservoirs, which I called
"Hydrology and Horse Racing." You take your bets,
you place your best bets, and even placing your best
bets you can lose big.

But I digress. How do you get the customers in-
vo]ved? Sex? Well, no, but sex sells because everybody