North Idaho water rights are on their way to being resolved, and University of Idaho graduate student Dylan Hedden-Nicely formulated a plan to help move things along that won him a $5,000 scholarship.
Last year, Avista and the UI Water Resources Program connected to create the Avista-Waters of the West scholarship.
“It was established to support graduate student research in the watersheds that comprise Avista’s service territory, which includes 30,000 square miles in eastern Washington, northern Idaho and parts of southern and eastern Oregon,” said Alecia Hoene, communications coordinator for the water resource program.
Hoene said the scholarship requires the students’ project to benefit some, or all, of Avista market watersheds. Students must also be in good standing and have a 3.5 or higher GPA.
Hoene said the decision takes about a month, and students do not have to do anything in the process.
“Waters of the West is a relatively new program that has already gained some success, prominence and credibility,” said Paul Kimmel, Palouse area regional business manager for Avista. “I have first-hand experience and respect for the program, its faculty and the research it’s conducting so I am confident that this is a great program to invest Avista dollars in.”
Kimmel said Avista sees long-term value in the program.
“WoW is using the capacity of the regional flagship research institution to do work that is truly relevant — to help manage and solve issues around water and understand it more,” he said.
Hoene said students are nominated by professors, and then letters of recommendation are reviewed by the program’s faculty committee who selects the winner.
“I found out (about the scholarship) through the email grapevine which solicited nominations and my adviser, Fritz Fiedler, nominated me,” Hedden-Nicely said.
Hedden-Nicely said he was nominated because of his research that developed a water-balance model for Lake Coeur d’Alene.
“Simply put, this research has proceeded in two steps,” Hedden-Nicely said. “First I conducted a water balance, which is done by estimating the various flows in and out of the lake using publically available data. Once these flows are estimated and balanced, the analyzed data are put into a model that estimates how lake level changes on a monthly basis in an average year.”
Hedden-Nicely said it is his hope that when the model has been created, it can be used to estimate how the lake level might be affected by different management scenarios developed through dialogue with stakeholders in the region.
“The goal is to attempt to provide a communication tool that could potentially be used by the stakeholders in the basin to start from a place of common understanding in their attempt to negotiate the various water rights interests that exist,” Hedden-Nicely said.