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3/20/25 Disastrous storm pushed Oregon dam to its limits

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3/20/25 Disastrous storm pushed Oregon dam to its limits

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PORTLAND, Ore. ( KOIN) - The Galesville Reservoir near Azalea, Ore. was operating near capacity this week, after 4 to 5 inches of rain fell on southwest Oregon between March 14 and 16.

The heavy rain flooded towns, washed out roads and turned hillsides into streams of mud. Douglas County spokesperson Tamara Howell told KOIN 6 News that the storm pushed the Galesville dam to its limits on March 17 and 18, filling the 42,225-acre-foot reservoir to the brim.

"Until [Tuesday], we were all holding our breath with the possible spillover at Galesville Dam," Howell said Wednesday.

The dam prevented multiple communities from more-disastrous flooding, according to Douglas County.

"While most people think of the Galesville Dam as a conduit for irrigation in southern Douglas County, this time it acted as a major flood-control device, saving the communities of Glendale, Riddle, Myrtle Creek and Winston from even greater flooding and additional carnage," Howell said.

According to U.S. Geological Survey data, the reservoir's outlet, Cow Creek, saw its highest streamflow since 2006 on Monday. Oregon State Climatologist Larry O'Neill said that the creek was experiencing a streamflow of 1,340 cubic feet per second while the dam was near capacity.

"My understanding is that the dam itself was not in immediate danger of an uncontrolled overflow, but it was operating near capacity," O'Neill said.

The creek reached the third-highest water levels since the dam was built in 1986. The largest streamflow ever recorded on Cow Creek happened on Jan. 15, 1974 (10,600 cubic feet per second). The catastrophic flood of 1964 brought the creek to 8,430 cubic feet per second.

The end-of-winter flooding prompted Gov. Tina Kotek to declare a state of emergency for the region. Local and state officials are still assessing the damages caused by the storm. However, Coos County Commissioner Drew Farmer told KOIN that officials are worried that the retreating waters may bring more damage.

"With some roads still being flooded we have concerns that, once the water recedes, we will see a suction effect that will pull additional material out from under our roads resulting in additional road failures," Farmer said. "I made it around most of our cities and some outlying communities [March 17] and the problem is substantial."

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Disastrous storm pushed Oregon dam to its limits

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The Galesville Reservoir near Azalea, Ore. was operating near capacity this week, after 4 to 5 inches of rain fell on southwest Oregon between March 14 and 16.

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3/6/24 Legislature approves extensive housing package that was Gov. Tina Kotek’s top priority

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3/6/24 Legislature approves extensive housing package that was Gov. Tina Kotek’s top priority

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09/8/24 Water a critical commodity and it's being frittered away

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09/8/24 Water a critical commodity and it's being frittered away

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The New York Times published a report on America's groundwater status last month, based on exhaustive analysis of monitoring data from 84,544 wells from every corner of the country. Alarmingly, it depicts a crisis dwarfing most if not all others.

The situation is so dire we may actually be on a path toward running out of water to drink. And sadly, the Times reports that's a threat we share with virtually every other place on the planet, to one degree or another.

Simply put, we are running out of water to grow our food and quench our thirst. Times journalist David Leonhardt put it this way;

"For most of human history, groundwater has existed in a convenient equilibrium. The pockets of water under the surface need years or decades to replenish as rainwater and other moisture seep into the earth. Fortunately, though, people have used groundwater slowly, allowing replenishment to happen. Now that equilibrium is at risk."

Actually, "at risk" is putting it very charitably.

Over the course of the last 40 years, aquifers across the country have been suffering drawdowns, to the point 40% of the wells tapping into them hit all-time lows during the past decade. What's more, Times investigation shows countries around the globe are facing like threat.

Growing population and industrialization are major contributors, as are technological advances allowing individual wells to pump more than 100,000 gallons a day. Meanwhile, global warming is disrupting rainfall patterns, melting ice caps, accelerating evaporation, reducing snowpack, bleeding off glacial ice and fostering widespread drought.

It's gotten so bad:

Groundwater depletion has become visible from space. Ice melt has shifted the distribution of the earth's mass so much its axis has taken a sharp tilt toward the east.

Over-pumping of aquifers is causing roads to buckle, foundations to crack and fissures to develop in several parts of the U.S. It is also causing saltwater intrusion in coastal regions and arsenic contamination in California's fertile San Joaquin Valley.

Corn yields have fallen by more than half in several parched Kansas counties, reaching record lows. Reverting to dryland farming has become the leading option in some parts of the Midwestern farm state, demonstrating the magnitude of the crisis.

The principal aquifer is being pumped at more than double the replenishment rate in Arkansas, which grows half the nation's rice. More than three-quarters of the aquifers are being consistently overdrawn in California, which accounts for the largest share of the nation's produce.

In fact, industrialized agriculture, which has become the backbone of American food production, both for export and domestic consumption, is under threat virtually everywhere. We are the world's largest exporter of corn, soybeans, sorghum and cotton, but that may not remain the case for much longer.

It's not only our food supply at issue either, as aquifers account for about 90% of our domestic water supply. Warigia Bowman, a water expert from the University of Tulsa, warned, "There will be parts of the U.S. that run out of drinking water."

How could we let this happen? Under-regulation seems to be the leading culprit.

The federal government has largely left it to the states. So have the nation's cities and counties, to the point locally where Yamhill County lacks the authority to factor groundwater status into development and land use decisions.

But most states, including Oregon, have lacked the will to rein in the well-heeled, well-connected titans of corporate agriculture and large-scale development. Plainly put, they've been caught fiddling as Rome burns.

Oregon represents a good case study:

The state Water Resources Department has conducted assessments identifying areas of "concern" and "significant concern." But records show 83% of development applications being approved in areas of concern and 79% in areas of significant concern, the higher-risk category encompassing most of rural Yamhill County.

Wineries are water-intensive, and Yamhill County is home to around a hundred of them. Water usage just doesn't seem to factor in.

More than 20 years ago, the News-Register reached the conclusion, based on a five-part special report on water: "Public agencies are not planning for the future in a cooperative, coordinated manner." And it seems nothing has changed during the intervening decades.

Earlier this year, the Secretary of State's Office issued a report citing "rapidly declining groundwater from agricultural, industrial and municipal overuse in several areas of the state" and repeated failure of the Legislature to address the issue. Over the years, it noted, "Water management groups in Oregon have been convened and disbanded by the Legislature with ultimately little to show for their efforts."

That's also true locally with the Yamhill County Water Task Force. It has been convened three times in the last 20 years without managing to generate meaningful action.

Figures show proven American oil reserves are only sufficient to sustain pumping at the current rate for another 11 years, counting reserves locked in shale. But water is even more critical to our well-being, and there is no feasible fallback technology for producing the food and water to sustain human life.

Here's hoping our state, nation and world arise from their slumber in time. The clock is ticking at an ever-increasing rate as our rampant fuel-burning serves to warm the habitat we share.

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Water a critical commodity and it’s being frittered away

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The New York Times published a report on America’s groundwater status last month, based on exhaustive analysis of monitoring data from 84,544 wells from every corner…

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2/13/23 Water crisis calls for local coordination, starting now

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2/13/23 Water crisis calls for local coordination, starting now

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Water crisis calls for local coordination, starting now

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Secretary of State Shemia Fagan last week sounded an alarm over water issues in Oregon, releasing an audit that summarizes how Oregon has failed to adequately address…

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12/29/23 Oregon Residents Have Been Boiling Drinking Water for a Year

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12/29/23 Oregon Residents Have Been Boiling Drinking Water for a Year

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A small town in Oregon has been under a boil-water notice for a year after bacteria was found in the water supply.

Jewell, which is about an hour northwest of Portland, has a population of 1,403-all of whom haven't been able to safely use the water from their taps since last December when the water tested positive for E. coli.

More than a year later and the water hasn't been treated and no follow-up samples to re-test the water have been provided, according to the Clatsop County Health Department. Newsweek reached out to Clatsop County Environmental Health via email for comment.

"I pretty much don't use this water at all, and if I have to use it, it's bleach city," one Jewell resident who wished to remain anonymous told local Fox affiliate KPTV. "I've broken out on my hands, on my face, when I didn't realize what was going on. I could actually taste it in my mouth."

Locals have tried to take matters into their own hands to get clean water.

The property that the pump house and well are on has new owners, Jennifer and Sam Lynch, but Tony Cavin still has control over the well.

"We've called the county, we've called the state, we've called the water master, we've talked to a lawyer, we've just tried to push this in any direction we can to get the state to enforce the regulations that need to be done so that there's clean water," Jennifer Lynch told KPTV on Wednesday.

"What we're hoping is that the state will enforce the fines that he should've had already because there's tons that have accrued but no one's enforcing them. How can there be no repercussions for a community with 47 houses that you're providing E. coli-infested water?"

OHA representatives told KPTV that they cannot enact civil penalties on Cavin because they haven't been able to confirm that he is the true owner of the water system.

"OHA is reviewing its legal authority to determine if action will be taken against Mr. Cavin for negligence while the control of the water system facilities is still under dispute," they told KPTV via email on Wednesday.

The environmental health supervisor, Lucas Marshall, said that the locals are being "held hostage" by Cavin.

"I believe it's fairly unusual because our state partners have also had some difficulties with this situation, it's not something where we have precedents or a map to follow regarding situations like this," Marshall told KPTV. "The community is being held hostage by an operator that will not make the corrective actions to improve the water quality, and make sure that the water is safe, but is also not stepping aside and allowing for another operator to come in and get the system back online."

While multiple residents told the station that Cavin posted a test showing the water to be free of E. coli in the community Facebook group recently, the boil-water notice is still in effect and their water is still yellow.

Representatives from the Oregon Health Authority (OHA)said that Cavin posted the boil-water notice on social media when it went into effect and said that the notice had also been distributed to customers. However, residents told KPTV that they did not know about the notice until a few months after it went into effect.

It went into effect on December 15, 2022, the OHA told KPTV. But, according to water advisory details on the OHA website, the notice has been in place since October 19, 2022. Newsweek reached out to the OHA via email for clarification.

Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.

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Residents in Oregon community under boil-water notice for a year

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Residents in Jewell, Oregon, have had to boil their water for a year after E. coli was found in the water supply.

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12/22/23 Corps refilling Willamette River reservoirs after drawdowns meant to help migrating fish

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12/22/23 Corps refilling Willamette River reservoirs after drawdowns meant to help migrating fish

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The Army Corps of Engineers is refilling two Willamette River basin reservoirs that the agency had temporarily drained to historic lows to help fish, but the drawdowns washed mud downstream, threatening drinking water sources.

The deluge of sediment spurred a wave of accusations from Willamette Valley residents and some Republican officials that the corps polluted rivers and possibly killed fish by draining Green Peter and Lookout Point reservoirs so low - achieving the opposite of its intention to help young salmon move down river through the dams. However, the corps and conservationists expect the rivers to run clear again as the agency ends the drawdowns this month, as planned, and begins refilling the reservoirs to protect communities from winter floods.

Corps officials say it's too soon to say whether opening the dams and letting the reservoir water drain through achieved the mission of helping young Chinook salmon and steelhead journey to the Pacific Ocean. A federal judge in 2021 ordered the corps to experiment with drawdowns as part of recovery plans for endangered salmon. There is evidence that similar operations at Oregon dams boosted salmon populations.

At Fall Creek Lake in Lane County, the corps has periodically emptied the reservoir since the 1960s to help fish move downriver, stepping that up to seasonally since 2011. In 2020, 800 natural-born spring Chinook returned to the dam, compared to about 240 in 2007, according to the agency's data.

"Where it's been tried, it's been shown to be extremely effective," said Kathleen George, an environmental policy expert and member of the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde tribal council.

Other drawdowns produced promising results. Jeff Henon, a spokesperson for the corps' Portland division, said more juvenile salmon survived their journey through Cougar Dam during a drawdown in 2012 and 2013. That's because the low water level allowed fish to swim through outlets deep within the dam instead of a more dangerous route through hydropower turbines. Federal scientists have been recommending the drawdowns for 15 years.

"These measures have been shown to be effective," said Margaret Townsend, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity.

Many residents say publicly they support maintaining hydropower at Willamette River dams

'Very successful'

The corps' network of dams in the Willamette River basin protects communities from floods. Most of the dams also produce hydropower, though not much. According to the Bonneville Power Administration, eight dams in the Willamette system produced of the total power produced by the federal government's Columbia River hydro system in 2019. The drawdowns at Green Peter and Lookout Point mean that the dams won't produce any power for months.

The dams are barriers for migratory salmon that would otherwise swim high in the Cascades to spawn and for their offspring attempting to migrate to the ocean. The corps and wildlife managers have intervened, trapping adult salmon at the bases of dams and trucking them upriver to spawn. But in some cases, after they're moved upriver of dams they become food for bull trout.

When reservoir levels are normal, young fish navigate vast lakes that are filled with predators and then spill through the dam when the water level is high enough, or try to go through passages with turbines.

Research from years of drawdowns at Fall Creek Lake suggests that more fish survive the journey when the reservoir is drained because they can pass through safer outlets in the dam that are otherwise too deep to access. A National Marine Fisheries Service study in 2014 found that 98% of juvenile salmon passed through the dam alive during a deep drawdown, compared to less than 80% when the water level was higher.

The study also found that the drawdown flushed non-native, predatory fish including largemouth bass downriver, which made Fall Creek Lake safer for young Chinook salmon the following year.

"From a biological perspective, this fish passage operation has been very successful," the corps wrote in 2012.

Like the deluge of mud that flowed from Lookout Point and Green Peter reservoirs, the deep drawdown of Fall Creek Lake sent large amounts of mud down the Willamette River in 2010. The river quickly cleared up, and corps officials say the mud probably didn't harm young salmon while helping restore the river's ecology by washing sediment and organisms like plankton downriver.

Court case on fate of Snake River dams, imperiled salmon postponed at least 45 more days

Operation mired in mud

Willamette Valley residents have expressed doubt that the operations are benefitting fish because of the thick slurry of mud and old sediment that washed down the Santiam and Willamette rivers when the corps opened dam gates. The deluge sent water managers in Sweet Home, Lebanon and other communities scrambling to filter the sediment from their drinking water.

The Capital Chronicle obtained complaints submitted to the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality that called for investigations of possible water quality violations. Residents asked state officials to intervene.

"Thousands of fish have died. The river has never seen this much turbidity," one complaint says.

Thousands of kokanee salmon, a type of sockeye salmon that don't migrate to the ocean, died at Green Peter Dam in October because of the drawdown. However, lower numbers of the fish typically die each year when reservoir levels drop.

Green Peter Dam is in Republican Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer's 5th Congressional District. The Salem Statesman-Journal reported that Chavez-DeRemer U.S. District Judge Marco A. Hernandez for a "better alternative at Green Peter dam to improve fish passage."

"While I am supportive of efforts to improve salmon and steelhead recovery, this court injunction is causing more harm than good," she wrote.

Beth Quillian, a spokesperson for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, said in early December the agency hadn't received any reports of fish kills since the kokanee die-off. She said the agency supports the drawdowns and that Chinook and steelhead need to pass through the dams.

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Corps refilling Willamette River reservoirs after drawdowns meant to help migrating fish - Oregon Capital Chronicle

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The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is refilling two reservoirs on the Willamette River after drawdowns to help migratory fish.

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12/21/23 California approves Delta tunnel project, pitting water agencies against environmentalists

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12/21/23 California approves Delta tunnel project, pitting water agencies against environmentalists

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California's leading water agency approved a controversial water infrastructure project to build a tunnel underneath the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta Thursday, marking a significant step in a decades-long effort to advance it.

Governor Gavin Newsom has long advocated for the tunnel, called Delta Conveyance, as a key way to protect water supply from climate change. The Department of Water Resources' decision is expected to usher in extensive legal challenges.

Despite consistent opposition to the tunnel from the state's leading environmentalists, state officials celebrated the approval of the multi-billion dollar project as a step toward modern and affordable water management.

"Today marks another significant milestone in our efforts to modernize state water infrastructure and adapt to the challenges of changing precipitation patterns," said Karla Nemeth, the department's director. "The State Water Project is one of the most affordable sources of water in California, and we need to help local water agencies in protecting both reliability and affordability for their ratepayers."

For decades, water has been pumped directly out of the Delta estuary and shipped south to 30 million Californians and 6 million acres of farmland through the State Water Project. But state agencies predict that climate change and environmental regulations will lead to a decreasing supply.

State officials say the tunnel is intended to slow that decline by capturing water upstream on the Sacramento River, bypassing the Delta. They estimate it would yield about 500,000 acre-feet per year - a significant amount but a fraction of annual water needs.

DWR released its final environmental impact report for the project earlier this month. It found the tunnel's construction and operations would significantly affect the Delta's endangered and threatened fish species, tracts of important regional farmland and tribal cultural resources that include human remains.

The final approval was met with support from the municipal and agricultural water agencies that receive water through the State Water Project, calling it a "critical step" to securing California's water future.

"With this certification, the state is recognizing that the time to modernize the SWP's infrastructure is now - improving the way we capture and move water during high-flow weather events to store for later use when it's dry," said Jennifer Pierre, General Manager of the State Water Contractors, in a statement.

The last time California finalized an environmental impact report for a similar Delta project was in 2016. That plan, which constituted a pair of tunnels, stumbled amid high costs and Newsom eventually withdrew support.

Even as a slimmed down version, the price tag for this tunnel will be high. In 2020, the estimated cost of one of the alternate paths was just under $16 billion.

Negotiations will need to take place between major urban water agencies across the state, including Los Angeles and the Bay Area, to determine who pays how much. Significant bonds will be issued to fund design and the construction process.

The Delta, the central hub of California's water system, is home to hundreds of thousands of people and 415,000 acres of farmland. Its fragile ecosystem has been deteriorating for years as more water is exported or used upstream.

Delta residents, farmers, Native American tribes and environmental groups vigorously oppose the tunnel projects. Opponents say drawing freshwater from the historic region coupled with years of construction will endanger native fish, imperil farms and destroy vulnerable communities.

"We and our broad coalition of partners will engage in all necessary processes, and when necessary, litigation, to stop the Delta Conveyance Project once and for all," said Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla, executive director for Restore the Delta in a statement Thursday.

With this approval, DWR will now pursue several state and federal permits, including through the Endangered Species Act and a water right required by the State Water Resources Control Board.

Jay Lund, director of the center for watershed sciences at UC Davis, said to expect around 2 additional years of obstacles before the project breaks ground. That means Gov. Newsom may not be around to see it through.

"There's a very long process still so it might well take longer than this governor is sitting," Lund said. "This is already at least a two governor project, and the previous governor worked on it since his first term in the 1970s and 80s. I think you basically have to set it up for the next."

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California approves Delta tunnel project, pitting water agencies against environmentalists

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Thursday's approval will usher in a long era of legal challenges to a project Newsom has framed as a key climate change response

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12/18/23 Oregon County approves one-mile setback for large CAFO's

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12/18/23 Oregon County approves one-mile setback for large CAFO's

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ALBANY, Ore. - Officials in one Oregon county have approved new rules restricting where large-scale confined animal feeding operations, or CAFOs, can be built under a state law passed earlier this year.

The Linn County Board of Commissioners voted Dec. 12 to require that such CAFOs include a minimum one-mile setback from residential property lines.

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Oregon county approves one-mile setback for large CAFOs

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Officials in one Oregon county have approved new rules restricting where large livestock farms, known as Confined Animal Feeding Operations, or CAFOs, can be built under a new state law

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12/20/23 Ranch wins legal battle over Oregon water storage rights transfers

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12/20/23 Ranch wins legal battle over Oregon water storage rights transfers

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The Oregon Court of Appeals has determined state regulators are authorized to transfer water storage rights under certain circumstances, effectively overturning a government policy established five years ago.

The appellate court has affirmed that the Oregon Water Resources Department must process an application to move a reservoir's point of diversion near Mitchell, Ore.

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Ranch wins legal battle over Oregon water storage rights transfers

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The Oregon Court of Appeals has determined state regulators are authorized to transfer water storage rights under certain circumstances, effectively overturning a government policy established five years ago.

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12/21/23 In a Major Shift, Northwest Tribes — not U.S. Officials — Will Control Salmon Recovery Funds

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12/21/23 In a Major Shift, Northwest Tribes — not U.S. Officials — Will Control Salmon Recovery Funds

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Credit: Kristyna Wentz-Graff/Oregon Public Broadcasting

The Biden administration punted on key demands from Indigenous leaders to tear down hydroelectric dams hindering salmon. But tribes won control over $1 billion for other salmon efforts.

When the Biden administration said it had reached a "historic" legal deal with Northwest Indigenous tribes last week to save endangered salmon, no one could agree on what it meant for the tribes' costliest and most controversial demand: the removal of four hydroelectric dams that hinder fish from their migration out to sea and home to reproduce.

Some said the deal, in promoting renewable energy that can replace hydropower, virtually ensures the dams on Washington's Snake River will come down. Others said the White House did little for dam removal because it punted the question to Congress.

Largely overlooked in the debate was one seemingly technical provision that is far less open to interpretation and of great importance to the tribes. Not only does the deal offer $1 billion in new funding for Columbia River salmon restoration, but for the first time it also grants states and tribes control - not the Bonneville Power Administration, which sells hydropower from Northwest dams - over how that money gets spent.

The shift, while not flashy, addresses one of the biggest sources of frustration for tribes that ProPublica and Oregon Public Broadcasting highlighted in the investigation "Broken Promises."

"We don't need an energy agency to be telling us how this fund should be utilized," said Yakama Nation council member Jeremy Takala.

The Bonneville Power Administration, which has historically decided how salmon recovery money gets spent, is under a sometimes conflicting mandate: to sell hydropower from federal dams and operate as a for-profit business, but also to save salmon harmed by that hydropower production.

The Oregon Public Broadcasting and ProPublica investigation found that Bonneville time and again prioritized its business interests over efforts to restore salmon populations. It actively pushed back on tribal initiatives and flatlined budgets in ways advocates said starved recovery efforts, even as the agency raked in record revenues.

Under the new agreement, Bonneville will invest $300 million over 10 years into salmon programs, including habitat restoration and much-needed upgrades to fish hatcheries, overseen by tribes and the states of Oregon and Washington. Companies and families that buy power from Bonneville will pay some of the cost in the form of an estimated rate increase averaging 0.7 %, and the agency will recoup the rest by selling more power to California.

That comes on top of a previously announced $200 million that Bonneville agreed to pay for a separate tribal plan to reintroduce salmon in areas blocked by dams. Additional money will come from the federal budget, rather than Bonneville ratepayers. In all, the Biden administration says it expects the government to spend $1 billion on state and tribal salmon recovery in the next decade.

Apart from that $1 billion, the administration also said it would look at doubling total fish and wildlife spending to meet all the needs identified by states and tribes, with the money to come from U.S. taxpayers, via Congress, and not customers of Bonneville's power.

Plenty of money has already been spent on efforts to remove threats to salmon other than dams - digging new stream channels and placing downed logs in them for example - with little to show for it.

But programs run by the Northwest's tribes have produced some of the few success stories. State fish and wildlife employees have often worked collaboratively with tribes on those projects.

With the new agreement, Bonneville will pay an annual lump sum that states and tribes will decide independently how they'll spend.

Corinne Sams, a member of the governing board of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation and chair of the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, said the tribes have already identified $1 billion in backlogged projects in the Columbia basin.

"For far too long, preventing salmon extinction has been viewed as a cost. Salmon restoration needs to be considered an investment in our shared future," Sams said.

Sams said she saw an acknowledgment of tribal sovereignty and expertise that she never had before during the negotiations, including visits by several White House staff members to traditional fishing grounds and restoration sites.

"They actually got to see and feel our connection to our first foods and our resources, and how we care for them in our daily lives," Sams said. "They were able to witness that, and that's never happened."

Other provisions in the agreement, such as exploring new sources of energy other than dams in the region, also give priority to projects started by tribes.

Shannon Wheeler, chair of the Nez Perce tribe, said he was disappointed the agreement didn't assure that the Snake River dams will be breached to help salmon. But he said that in giving tribes control over funding, the agreement is an acknowledgment the U.S. has failed to honor tribal sovereignty in salmon recovery. Government treaties in the 1850s promised that the tribes' access to salmon, and their way of life, would be preserved.

"It's an understanding that the tribal position and expertise in this area needs to be considered," Wheeler said. "I think that's an important step in the right direction."

Bonneville officials did not address the move to give tribes and states increased control over salmon spending when asked.

A spokesperson instead provided a statement from the agency's chief executive officer, John Hairston, praising the agreement as a whole: "BPA sought to provide our ratepayers operational certainty and reliability while avoiding costly, unpredictable litigation in support of our mission to provide a reliable, affordable power supply to the Pacific Northwest."

The Public Power Council, a coalition of utilities that buys electricity from Bonneville, has been adamantly opposed to the agreement. The council said it's not concerned about the increased funding for salmon recovery or giving control of the spending to tribes. But it is concerned about other provisions.

"We cannot emphasize enough that this is but one change," the council said in a statement about the increased salmon funding, "and there is still substantial uncertainty in many key areas."

Opponents of the legal agreement, including the Public Power Council, are particularly concerned that it leaves supporters of dam removal the option to file new lawsuits if they feel it's necessary.

In the past, when Bonneville had struck funding agreements with tribes, those deals were contingent on promises that tribes wouldn't sue over the dam system. Some tribes signed those agreements to pursue habitat restoration while others did not and stayed in court. But under this agreement, the additional funding has no contingencies. It only says the current lawsuit alleging violations of the Endangered Species Act is on hold for five years.

Advocates for keeping the Snake River dams also are unhappy with the Biden administration's promise to explore future alternatives to hydropower in the Northwest. The industry has said replacing the dams with other sources could drive up electric rates by 40%.

Tribal leaders say the Northwest's unusually cheap electricity only exists thanks to hydropower, which is generated at the expense of salmon.

For Takala, the agreement with the Biden administration represents an opportunity for tribes to show the federal government the way toward healing the damage 20th-century dam construction inflicted.

"Displaced tribal members, impacted salmon runs - the list goes on of impacts that we're still seeing to this day in some of the broken promises that haven't been lived up to," Takala said. "Yet, this gives us an opportunity to show the region, probably show the country, this could be done in a responsible manner."

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In a Major Shift, Northwest Tribes - not U.S. Officials - Will Control Salmon Recovery Funds

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The Biden administration punted on key demands from Indigenous leaders to tear down hydroelectric dams hindering salmon. But tribes won control over $1 billion for other salmon efforts.

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12/12/23 Military testing reveals hundreds of drinking water wells contaminated with PFAS in WA

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12/12/23 Military testing reveals hundreds of drinking water wells contaminated with PFAS in WA

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Hundreds of drinking water wells near military bases or other facilities in Washington have been contaminated by per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, according to a Seattle Times analysis of the past two years of test results published by the military.

So far, the military has confirmed the release of these "forever chemicals," named for their pervasiveness in the environment, at 10 military installments in the state, many of them near the Salish Sea.

PFAS were detected by Department of Defense testing in 866 private drinking water wells, nearly half of all wells tested by the military in the past two years in the state.

Concentrations of the chemicals in 551 of the contaminated wells were above the levels the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has proposed to protect human health. But nearly 430 of those fall below levels that prompt the military to take action, such as providing clean drinking water. Well owners are notified of testing before it takes place.

The data analyzed by The Times doesn't include the results of tests taken before 2021.

The military is in the process of evaluating the risk to human health and the environment in the areas around the facilities as part of a cleanup process.

It is also preparing to implement the EPA's final drinking water standard in the next few months, Pentagon spokesperson Jeff Jurgensen said in an email to The Seattle Times. "The Department is expanding ongoing investigations to determine where PFAS has migrated off-base above the proposed levels and working to determine whether public or private wells may have been impacted."

For decades, U.S. military bases were obligated to train with firefighting foams containing these chemicals. PFAS-laced foams are especially good at putting out high intensity fires, stoked by jet or ship fuels.

In the human body, the chemicals may disrupt the immune system; interfere with hormones; increase the risk of prostate, kidney and testicular cancers, and high blood pressure in pregnant women; and harm the reproductive system, according to studies cited by the EPA.

The military in March began looking into the potential release of PFAS at more than 700 military installations and National Guard facilities nationwide. The Department of Defense released a report in September that suggests about 89% of the military sites where the use or presence of the substances had been detected so far are located near aquifers that serve as a source of drinking water.

According to an Environmental Working Group analysis, about 2,805 drinking water wells near 63 military bases in 29 states, are contaminated above the EPA's proposed health standards but below the military's benchmark to provide access to clean water. Roughly 1 in 7 of those wells are in Washington state.

This year, it became mandatory for all public water systems in Washington to test for PFAS. The Department of Health offers technical guidance for those who find PFAS in their public systems.

But those relying on private wells have no testing obligations. As state and federal agencies roll out new health safety regulations around PFAS, communities near airports or military bases have emerged as those with some of the highest risks for toxic water.

More than 150 households near the Army's Yakima Training Center are grappling with PFAS contamination above the EPA's proposed advisory levels.

On Whidbey Island, more than two dozen homes near the Naval Air Station have come back with levels of the chemicals above the EPA's current advisory levels. Chemicals have been found in a dditional wells on the island.

A mobile home park down the road from Naval Base Kitsap recently found the chemicals in its drinking water source. In Kitsap County alone, the Navy is looking into potential contamination at the shipyard in Bremerton, the Undersea Warfare Center in Keyport, the fuel depot in Manchester and Naval Magazine Indian Island.

Well after well continue to test with levels above the health advisories near Fairchild Air Force Base in Airway Heights, Spokane County. A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report showed concentrations of some PFAS in the blood of Airway Heights residents up to 56 times higher than the national average.

Through the 2022 fiscal year, the military has spent more than $2 billion just to begin investigating their role in polluting communities with the chemicals, and it plans to spend almost $7 billion more.

"We know that long-term exposure to PFAS is harmful and dangerous - these are toxic chemicals that should not be in the water we drink, period, and it's incredibly troubling to see continued reports of PFOA and PFOS in hundreds of wells near military bases in Washington state," U.S. Sen. Patty Murray said in a statement to The Times. "We need a whole-of-government approach to tackling PFAS contamination, and as Chair of the Appropriations Committee, I am working hard to make sure we jump at every possible opportunity to address PFAS including at our military bases."

Murray wrote the fiscal year 2024 Defense appropriations bill, which includes an investment of $515.4million for PFAS and toxic firefighting foam cleanup and remediation, in addition to $50 million for environmental remediation activities through the Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies appropriations bill.

Basically every military installation that used these firefighting foams is grappling with the contamination. The real question is how big the plumes of contamination are, said Jared Hayes, senior policy analyst for the Environmental Working Group. PFAS are persistent and spread quickly - the longer officials wait, the more likely they are to enter other drinking water supplies, Hayes said.

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Military testing reveals hundreds of drinking water wells contaminated with PFAS in WA

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A Seattle Times analysis of test results shows hundreds of private drinking water wells near military bases have been contaminated with the "forever chemicals."

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12/21/23 ‘Something we can all celebrate’: $6.6 million in federal funds going to two Deschutes River restoration projects

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12/21/23 ‘Something we can all celebrate’: $6.6 million in federal funds going to two Deschutes River restoration projects

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WASHINGTON (KTVZ) - The U.S. Department of the Interior announced Tuesday more than $51 million in funding from President Biden's Investing in America agenda for 18 projects in eight states that will restore and protect aquatic ecosystems, including two Central Oregon projects totaling over $6.6 million.

Crucial funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law for the Bureau of Reclamation's WaterSMART program will support the study, design and construction of collaboratively developed ecosystem restoration projects that provide widespread regional benefits and improve the health of fisheries, wildlife and aquatic habitat through restoration and improved fish passage.

The largest local grant, of $5.96 million, is to the North Unit Irrigation District to replace and upgrade fish screens at the Bend Headworks at its main canal intake on the Deschutes River (details below).

The agency also awarded about $650,000 to the Deschutes River Conservancy and area irrigation districts to complete their study and design of habitat restoration projects to benefit the Oregon spotted frog and native Redband trout on the Deschutes River.

"Through President Biden's Investing in America agenda, we are advancing nature-based solutions that benefit local water supplies, and the wildlife and habitats that support them," said Secretary Deb Haaland. "The Interior Department continues to advance water solutions that are environmentally and economically sound for the American West."

"The benefits of these projects are far-reaching in terms of climate resilience and ecosystem restoration benefits," said Reclamation Commissioner Camille Calimlim Touton. "The work to restore and protect the habitat for fish and wildlife also helps to improve water quality and mitigate impacts of drought and potential flood events."

Commissioner Touton made the announcement during a visit to the Las Vegas Wash project outside Henderson, Nevada. As part of Tuesday's announcement, the Southern Nevada Water Authority will receive $20 million to create a wetland and other habitat within the Lake Mead National Recreation Area. The project will improve water quality and help protect the spawning area for the endangered razorback sucker in Las Vegas Bay. The Wash is a crucial link in the Las Vegas Valley watershed, channeling more than 200 million gallons of urban runoff, highly treated effluent and shallow groundwater to Lake Mead.

President Biden's Investing in America agenda represents the largest investment in climate resilience in the nation's history and is providing much-needed resources to enhance Western communities' resilience to drought and climate change. Through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, Reclamation is investing a total of $8.3 billion over five years for water infrastructure projects, including rural water, water storage, conservation and conveyance, nature-based solutions, dam safety, water purification and reuse, and desalination. Over the first two years of its implementation, Reclamation has selected 421 projects to receive over $2.9 billion.

The projects selected under this round of the Aquatic Ecosystem Restoration Program include these 10 in the Pacific Northwest:

Oregon
Deschutes River Conservancy, Restoring Upper Deschutes River Aquatic Habitat for Oregon Spotted Frog and Other Native Species (Task A: Study and Design) Reclamation Funding: $651,542
The Deschutes River Conservancy (DRC), in partnership with the Deschutes Basin Board of Control (DBBC), will complete the study and design of habitat restoration projects that will benefit the Oregon spotted frog, listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act and the native Redband trout designated by the state as a sensitive species, on the Deschutes River in central Oregon. Habitat for these species has been degraded in this section of the Upper Deschutes River between the Wickiup Reservoir and the City of Bend, which includes Reclamation's Deschutes Project, through the storage and release of water for irrigation. The DRC and DBBC will conduct site studies and analysis to prioritize projects to restore the stream channel through regrading the riverbanks and reconnecting the active channel to its floodplains to allow flows to inundate wetlands and riparian areas adjacent to the river channels, providing habitat for the Oregon Spotted Frog and improving in-stream habitat.
North Unit Irrigation District, Fish Screen Replacement at Bend Headworks (Task B: Construction) Reclamation Funding: $5,965,809
North Unit Irrigation District will replace the existing, rotary drum fish screens with upgraded, flat plate screens and a traveling screen cleaning system at the Bend Headworks, located at the district's main canal intake on the mainstem of the Deschutes River, in Bend, Oregon. The Deschutes River is home to brown and rainbow trout, the rare brook trout, whitefish, and transient fingerling coho and kokanee from Wickiup Reservoir, a Bureau of Reclamation Project. The design of the new screens will slow the approach velocity, shrink the mesh size of the screen, and provide a safe path for fish to the fish ladder.
Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, Restoring Ecosystem Function and Fish Habitat in the Hood River Watershed (Task A: Study and Design) Reclamation Funding: $500,000
The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife and Hood River Watershed Group will complete the study and design of five stream restoration projects across the East Fork Hood River, Neal Creek, and Baldwin Creek sub-watersheds in north-central Oregon. Funding will be used to develop 100 percent designs to remove two fish passage barriers and restore at least 3.5 miles of fish habitat, which will improve wetland function, increase stream complexity, restore riparian habitat, and connect the floodplain to the main channel. The projects will advance the recovery of Endangered Species Act listed Lower-Columbia River Salmon and steelhead.
Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, Reconnecting Fish Passage to Recover Oregon Coast Coho in the Nehalem and Tillamook Watersheds (Task B: Construction) Reclamation Funding: $3,000,000
The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife and local partners will complete a suite of high-priority fish passage and habitat restoration actions in the Lower Nehalem Watershed, in coastal, Northwest Oregon. The project will include the removal of 4 dams and culverts and will replace 5 tide gates, which are fish passage barriers that also restrict floodplain connectivity with two muted tidal regulator gates, which will result in 22 miles of coho spawning and rearing habitat reconnected and 381 acres of floodplain wetlands reconnected.
Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, Restoring Habitat Connectivity for Lower Columbia River Salmonids in the North Fork Klaskanine River Watershed (Task B: Construction) Reclamation Funding: $3,175,089
The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife will restore fish passage in the North Fork Klaskanine River by providing fish passage at the Ogee Dam. The project builds upon progress made in previous phases of a watershed-scale effort, that included the removal of one dam and installation of a fish passage structure at a second dam upstream of the proposed project location at Ogee Dam. Once installed, the fish passage feature at Ogee Dam will provide access to 12 full miles of critical spawning and rearing habitat in the upper reaches of the North Fork Klaskanine River for the benefit of ESA-listed coho salmon. The project will also benefit several non-listed, but culturally significant species, including coastal cutthroat trout, Pacific lamprey, and Western brook lamprey.

Washington
Chelan County, Peshastin Creek Historic Channel and Floodplain Reconnection and Design Project (Task A: Study and Design) Reclamation Funding: $768,587
Chelan County will complete the study and design of a comprehensive restoration project to relocate and reconnect the Peshastin Creek channel with its historic floodplain and build two highway bridges across the rerouted creek in Chelan County, Washington. Aquatic habitat within Peshastin Creek was severely degraded by the construction of State Route 97 in the 1950's, which reduced and straightened the stream channel and disconnected it from the historic channel footprint and floodplain. The County will complete a hydrology and hydraulic assessment of existing and proposed conditions, perform an alternatives analysis seeking input from fish biologists, local landowners, and other stakeholders, and conduct a bridge study and risk analyses, to produce a 60% design package.
Confederated Tribes of the Yakama Nation, Pom Pom Road at Toppenish Creek Habitat Restoration and Fish Passage Project (Task B: Construction) Reclamation Funding: $3,020,000
The Yakama Nation will restore aquatic habitat and fish passage on Toppenish Creek, a tributary to the Yakima River in Yakima County, Washington. Irrigation diversions, roads, bridges, and agriculture have disconnected the creek's main channel from its historic floodplain. As a result, federally-listed salmonid species have been cut-off from healthy floodplain spawning habitat, and groundwater recharge from the floodplain has been eliminated. When completed, the restoration project will provide 2.4 miles of complex high-quality rearing and spawning habitat for the federally threatened Columbia River steelhead and culturally important Pacific lamprey by routing stream flows back into of the historic channel. Installation of a new bridge and three box culverts will increase flow conveyance width by 270%, the creek will be reconnected to 100 acres of floodplain forests, restoring natural stream processes, and increasing flood water storage.
Confederated Tribes of the Yakama Nation, Nason Creek Floodplain (DOT-N1) RM 3.2 to Reclamation Funding: $500,000 4.6 Floodplain Project (Task A: Study and Design) Confederated Tribes of the Yakama Nation, Wapato Diversion: Improvements for Anadromous Fish Passage (Task A: Study and Design) Reclamation Funding: $2,000,000
The Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation (Yakama Nation), in partnership with the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) and the U.S. Forest Service (USFS), and in coordination with the Wenatchee Subbasin Watershed Action Team (WAT), will complete final construction designs for a large-scale salmon habitat restoration project along Nason Creek near the City of Leavenworth in Chelan County, Washington, within the Northern Treaty Territory of the Yakama Nation. The project will develop final construction designs to remove, and subsequently re-route, a problematic 0.65-mile-long segment of State Route 207 away from the Nason Creek floodway to restore stream habitat for Endangered Species Act (ESA) listed spring Chinook salmon, steelhead, and bull trout.
Confederated Tribes of the Yakama Nation, Prosser Diversion: Improvements for Anadromous Fish Passage (Task A: Study and Design) Reclamation Funding: $2,000,000
The Yakama Nation, working in partnership with the Bureau of Indian Affairs, will develop alternatives for the passage of anadromous fish species at the Wapato Diversion on the lower Yakima River in Central Washington State. Following an alternatives analysis, the selected project concept will be advanced to a 60% level of design. The purpose of the design alternatives is to restore fish passage for fish within the Yakima Major Population Group of federally-threatened, Middle Columbia River (MCR) Steelhead, spring and summer run Chinook, Coho, and Sockeye salmon, and juvenile and adult Pacific Lamprey.

The Yakama Nation will study, select, and design alternatives to improve fish passage and avoid entrainment at the Prosser Diversion on the lower Yakima River of Central Washington State. The Prosser Diversion supplies irrigation water through the Chandler Canal serving the

Kennewick Division of Reclamation's Yakima Project. The dam can divert more than 50% of Yakima River flow at times, creating very dangerous fish passage conditions. A large proportion of the Yakima basin's smolts get entrained in the canal and suffer high mortality. Removal or modification of the dam and headworks will create safer passage conditions for all anadromous species. These improvements will benefit all four populations comprising the Yakima Major Population Group of federally-threatened Middle Columbia River Steelhead juveniles and adults; juveniles and adults from the entire Yakima populations of spring and summer run Chinook, naturally-spawning fall Chinook, Coho, and Sockeye salmon; and juvenile and adult Pacific Lamprey.

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Interior Dept. awards $6.6 million to two Deschutes River projects among 18 river, watershed grants - KTVZ

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WASHINGTON (KTVZ) - The U.S. Department of the Interior announced Tuesday more than $51 million in funding from President Biden's Investing in America agenda for 18 projects in eight states that will restore and protect aquatic ecosystems, including two Central Oregon projects totaling over $6.6 million.

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12/19/23 Tillamook County successfully builds bridge in 10 days

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12/19/23 Tillamook County successfully builds bridge in 10 days

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Tillamook County successfully builds bridge in 10 days

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Tillamook County successfully built a bridge in 10 days, reopening a crucial county road on Dec. 15 after a powerful atmospheric river washed away a driveway-sized chunk of Miami Foley Road on Dec.…

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12/18/23 ‘Things have to change’: State limits water for Klamath Basin farmers to protect salmon

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12/18/23 ‘Things have to change’: State limits water for Klamath Basin farmers to protect salmon

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Arron Troy Hockaday leaned over the highway railing to peer into the water below, where the Scott River empties into the Klamath near the Oregon border.

Beneath the bridge, dozens of threatened coho salmon rested on their journey back from the Pacific. It was the end of October, and they were waiting for rain to drive them to calmer creeks and streams where they could spawn, then die.

"There should be thousands of salmon in here right now," said Hockaday, a Karuk Tribal Council member and a fifth generation traditional fisherman.

"I tell my kids every time I stop by here and look at these fish to take a picture. They ask me why, and I say, 'This might be the last time you see them.'"

About 40 miles upriver, through the mountains of Klamath National Forest, lies the flat of the Scott Valley. Jim Morris' pickup truck bumped past cattle grazing on bright green alfalfa stubble to a dry field covered in tumbleweeds.

"I'm a little embarrassed by this one," he said, nodding at the weeds.

He had cut back on irrigating the field last year under state emergency drought measures that restricted water for farms, aimed at keeping water in the river to protect salmon. He thought it would grow back, but it didn't.

"I'm still working on cleaning up the messes that I made through that process. If we have to cut back on water, we will. But this is the price we pay," he said.

Morris is still totaling up the costs of the state's emergency regulations, but estimates that he fallowed 15% to 20% of his land when hay prices were good - cutting into his sales.

"Ag is not like having an 8-to-5 job," he added, "You need to make money when you can, because the next year, you won't."

Hockaday's and Morris' deep-rooted ties to the water are at the core of a battle that has roiled California's far north over the Scott River and its neighbor, the Shasta, for years. These Klamath River tributaries provide vital habitat for struggling salmon and steelhead, and critical irrigation supplies for Siskiyou County farmers.

Now the State Water Resources Control Board is poised to decide on Tuesday whether to extend emergency drought measures, which could restrict ground and surface water for farms for another year if flows in the rivers dip below minimum thresholds. State officials say those measures are likelyto kick in next year.

The water board also is investigating the possibility of permanent requirements to keep more water in the rivers, after the Karuk Tribe and the fishing industry petitioned the state for stronger protections. That decision, however, could take years.

At the heart of the debate is a fundamental question underlying all of California's water wars, old and new, north and south:Who must sacrifice when water demand outpaces supply, and nature shows the strain?

Tribes in the lower Klamath Basin, wildlife agencies and the fishing industry are all fighting for flows to support the rivers, their fish and the cultures and businesses that depend on them. At the same time, farmers and ranchers in the Scott and Shasta Valleys are vying for the water that supplies the cattle and crops that drive the Siskiyou County economy.

"Things are going to have to change," said Erik Ekdahl, deputy director of the water board's division of water rights. "(There's) recognition that the status quo isn't going to work. But what is the new approach? We need everyone's voice at the table to figure that out."

California's last salmon strongholds

The fight is coming to a boil as another battle cools: Four hydroelectric dams on the Klamath River are being torn down across the California-Oregon state line, upstream of where the Scott and the Shasta rivers flow into its mainstem. Dam removal is expected to unlock hundreds of miles of habitat in the basin and bring back flows that can better wash away fish parasites and other disease.

Yet it's not a cure-all for the Klamath and its tributaries.

"Dam removal should help the Scott and Shasta, but the Scott and Shasta are key pieces to make dam removal a success," Jeff Abrams, a biologist with the Klamath branch of NOAA Fisheries, said at a meeting with state regulators.

The Scott River is one of the last remaining strongholds for coho salmon in California; the Shasta has produced more than a fifth of the basin's wild-spawning fall-run chinook salmon over the last five years.

But state and federal wildlife agencies warn that low flows in the Scott and the Shasta cut off critical habitat and drive up water temperatures, imperiling the Klamath Basin's fish.

"That's where these animals' life cycles start and end," Abrams told CalMatters. "If we don't have suitable conditions in these rivers, then these fish really have no chance."

Spring-run chinook, once numbering more than 100,000 in the Klamath Basin, are already gone from both the Scott and the Shasta Rivers. Coho, listed as threatened at both the state and federal levels, are considered at moderate risk of extinction in the Scott, and high risk in the Shasta.

Fall-run Chinook populations - vital to commercial and tribal fishing - are collapsing across California, with numbers 43% below average between 2015 and 2020 in the Klamath Basin and 65% below average in the Scott, where they have been declining even faster.

This year, all salmon fishing was canceled in California and in much of Oregon. The Yurok Tribe has canceled its commercial fishery every year but one since 2015, and this year closed down subsistence fishing, as well - a major blow to food security for the tribe.

Still, by the end of October, adult chinook salmon had fought their way up the Scott River - nosing their way through a fish counting station and into the valley to spawn.

"This is good to see," said Morgan Knechtle, Klamath and Trinity Rivers program supervisor with the state Department of Fish and Wildlife, as he counted off eight females in a stretch of the river where they hovered over their nests on the river floor.

Knechtle and his team are still tallying up the number of chinook and coho that returned to the rivers this year. To date, preliminary coho returns are trending above average on the Scott, but below average on the Shasta. Chinook, however, are looking below average on both.

The threats to salmon are many - ocean conditions, climate change, predators, drought, dams and more.

But state and federal officials have been warning for years that crops and livestock further sap the rivers' flows. As agriculture exploded in the Scott Valley and producers shifted to groundwater,late summer and fall flows in the river plummeted.

"During the summer, large portions of the mainstem Scott River become completely dry, leaving only a series of stagnant isolated pools inhospitable to salmonids," the California Department of Fish and Wildlife reported in 2017.

Nearby, on the Shasta, drops in flows during irrigation season can drive up water temperatures and shrink habitat, worsening conditions for fish.

Hockaday, the Karuk councilmember, said he understands that people depend on agriculture for their livelihoods and for the food that's on his table, too. But there's got to be a balance.

"We can't take care of our fish because the farmers have taken all of our water. So the creator is telling us this is what you got to do. You know? One day, these ain't going to be here," Hockaday said.

From his vantage point on the highway at the mouth of the Scott River, Hockaday watched a coho salmon lazily scrape itself on rocks rising from the water, trying to dislodge a parasitic lamprey trailing from its side.

"I'll fight until I can't breathe anymore for these fish," he said. "And I hope my grandson and my sons and even my granddaughter will keep up the fight until they're protected."

A temporary stopgap

Two years ago, with drought tightening its grip on the region, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife and the Karuk Tribe both urged the water board to take emergency action to help salmon and trout "survive this dire situation."

The measures went into place near the end of the 2021 irrigation season. The board extended them as drought continued in 2022 - curtailing diversions from the rivers when they dipped below minimum thresholds, and calling for groundwater pumpers to voluntarily reduce their use by 30% on the Scott and 15% on the Shasta, or face the possibility of being cut off completely.

Then, this year, the Karuk Tribe, commercial fishing organizations and the Environmental Law Foundation petitioned for stronger, permanentflow requirements on the Scott River.

"I'll fight until I can't breathe anymore for these fish. And I hope my grandson and my sons and even my granddaughter will keep up the fight until they're protected."
Arron Troy Hockaday, Karuk Tribal Council member

Though a wet winter has lifted the state out of drought, most of Siskiyou County - including the Scott and Shasta valleys- remains abnormally dry. As soon as the emergency regulations expired by the beginning of August, flows on the Shasta River plummeted, with about half of the water diverted.

In August, the state board discussed the petition for permanent regulations late into the night. Though the board tasked staff with investigating the possibility of long-term restrictions on both rivers, the process would likely take years and require clearing the landmark California Environmental Quality Act's requirements.

In the meantime, water board chair Joaquin Esquivel said "a fish emergency" remained on the rivers. "Time isn't our friend," he said. "There is an urgency."

As a stopgap, the board is expected to vote Tuesday on new emergency regulations similar to the drought measures that expired over the summer. Among the changes is a requirement for certain producers to meter their groundwater pumping, following concerns that efforts in the Scott Valley may not have reduced groundwater extraction by as much as expected. The board has also added more options to allow for ramping down groundwater pumping on a schedule.

They're temporary measures that can only last one year unless the board renews them - and tribes and conservationists are watching the clock: If Gov. Gavin Newsom lifts the drought emergency for Siskiyou County, the board's power to set such emergency restrictions evaporates.

"Is it climate change? Is it habitat change? Is it agricultural use? It's probably some of all of those things," said Knechtle, with the state Department of Fish and Wildlife. "But we're also interested in trying to turn the dial on something that actually can have an effect, in a short amount of (time)."

Even one year could have lasting consequences on ranchers and growers, said Ryan Walker, president of the Siskiyou County Farm Bureau. "Curtailments are almost a certainty," he said. "One year with no water could push a substantial number of farmers out of business."

Walker said many worry that the emergency measures will be renewed - a gateway for long-term restrictions.

Ranchers revolt: 'You shut us down, take our water.'

At the end of October, dozens of farmers and ranchers gathered in Montague, surrounded by the pasture and golden rangeland of the Shasta Valley. They were there, packed onto folding chairs and standing in the back of the old railroad town's community hall, to talk about the fate of the rivers.

One by one, in two meetings over nearly six hours, residents told state officials what they thought of the regulations.

Some stressed the financial toll. Pamela Tozier Hayden, a Scott Valley rancher, tallied a 35% cut in hay production and the loss of fall forage for livestock, a $22,000 conversion to a more efficient irrigation system, cows sold off and pasture overtaken by weeds.

"I would like to see us work together for reasonable solutions and local people not be pitted against one another by outside powers," she said.

Selling off cows "to become hamburger" is not "something we can come back from very easily," Walker said. "We can't fallow cows. We can't let our cows go dry and hope they'll come back next year."

In Siskiyou County, where environmental regulations have long affected local industries from gold mining to timber, many chafed against the state's authority. One association of ranchers, facing dry stock ponds and rising costs of hay, outright bucked it during the drought - diverting water from the Shasta River in spite of the state's orders.

"We can't fallow cows. We can't let our cows go dry and hope they'll come back next year."
Ryan Walker, Siskiyou County Farm Bureau

Many saw the newest round of emergency regulations as another example of state officials meddling unnecessarily, when California is no longer in drought. They say there are other serious threats to salmon, beyond the rural valleys of Siskiyou County.

"Our governor doesn't have the knowledge to know when we're in a water emergency. Neither does the state water board," one attendee, Jess Harris, said. "Are we going to be under emergency regulations forever to fit these biased desires, whether it be tribes or environmental groups?"

Speaker after speaker questioned the state's modeling, asked whether the flow requirements were even feasible, and called for more limited restrictions and opportunities to recharge the groundwater so tightly connected to the rivers' flows.

Farmers and ranchers wanted to know why they were being singled out when mining, flood control projects, and forest management past and present also played a part.

The most heated vitriol, though, was directed at community members of Hmong descent who grow cannabis in Siskiyou County, where it is illegal.

It was dark outside before the meeting began wrapping up. As agency staff discussed their next steps, one man in the audience yelled out, "I can't believe you think you have this power over us. Who gives you this power over all of us?"

Erin Ragazzi, assistant deputy director for water rights, tried to respond: "I don't feel that I have power over you. The question was -"

"Yes you do," the man said. "You shut us down, take our water, take our property." He stood up and walked out.

The next day, Jim Morris stood by the Scott River where it runs through land that's been passed down through five generations of his wife's family. He hopes his daughter will be the sixth, but he thinks that regulating flows in the rivers will make it that much harder for her to succeed.

He worries that everyone is fighting over "scraps" of water, and that the state rules will drive wedges between communities that could take generations to fix.

"We all have a stake in this, and we need to work together," he said, the river gurgling beside him. "If we're going to work against each other, we're probably going to cause problems. We're definitely going to blow up our communities, and we're going to harm the resources. We're going to harm the fish."

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'Things have to change': Big decision looms as Klamath Basin ranchers, tribes battle over water and salmon

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Salmon populations have crashed, so state officials are about to restrict irrigation again. And the controversial rules may even become permanent.

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12/15/23 Oregon outdoors news: Owyhee River protection, Northwest Forest Plan

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12/15/23 Oregon outdoors news: Owyhee River protection, Northwest Forest Plan

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Oregon outdoors news: Owyhee River protection, Northwest Forest Plan

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News about Owyhee River protection, updates to the Northwest Forest Plan and repairs to a frequently traveled road to Terwilliger Hot Springs.

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12/14/23 This winter’s El Niño could be one of the strongest in 70 years. But what does it mean for Oregon?

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12/14/23 This winter’s El Niño could be one of the strongest in 70 years. But what does it mean for Oregon?

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This winter’s El Niño could be one of the strongest in 70 years. But what does it mean for Oregon?

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The 2023-2024 El Niño is growing more likely to be one for the record books. But what will it look like for Oregon?

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12/14/23 Before and after: A look at Oregon’s dramatic drought recovery in 2023

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12/14/23 Before and after: A look at Oregon’s dramatic drought recovery in 2023

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PORTLAND, Ore. ( KOIN) - 2023 was an excellent year for drought recovery, experts say.

Heavy spring snowfall, late-summer rains and December's powerful Pineapple Express combined to give Oregon its mildest drought conditions in four years, state climatologist Larry O'Neill told KOIN 6 News.

"With only about 19% of the state in drought, it's the least amount of area since December 2019," O'Neill said. "The year or so has been great for drought recovery."

Oregon drought conditions on Dec. 12, 2022 (left) and Dec. 14 of 2023 (right). (U.S. Drought Monitor)

Data provided by the U.S. Drought Monitor shows the drastic difference a year can make. In December of 2022, nearly all of Oregon was in some form of drought. Central, southern and eastern Oregon were hit hardest in recent years, with Crook County suffering the most severe levels of drought.

As of December 14, 2023, most of Eastern Oregon is drought-free and the central and southern regions of the state have seen drastic improvements. Presently, there are no areas of the state experiencing exceptional or extreme stages of drought.

Portions of Jefferson, Wasco, Sherman and Gilliam Counties maintain some level of severe drought. Areas of the southern Willamette Valley and northern and central Oregon are also in a state of moderate drought and conditions in central and southern Oregon may be getting worse.

"There are still areas of concern in Deschutes, Klamath, and Lake counties in central and southern Oregon that are showing signs of drought onset and intensifying drought," O'Neill said.

Oregon drought before December's powerful atmospheric river (left) and after (right). (U.S. Drought Monitor)

Following early December's powerful atmospheric river, the Oregon coast, meanwhile, is almost entirely drought-free, except for the northernmost tip of the state, which is still listed as abnormally dry for the year. Slide the maps provided in this story to see the state's recent and long-term drought recovery.

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Before and after: A look at Oregon's dramatic drought recovery in 2023

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2023 was an excellent year for drought recovery, experts say.

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12/14/23 Tribes celebrate historic deal with White House that could save Pacific Northwest salmon

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12/14/23 Tribes celebrate historic deal with White House that could save Pacific Northwest salmon

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BOISE, Idaho - The White House has reached what it says is an historic agreement over the restoration of salmon in the Pacific Northwest, a deal that could end for now a decades long legal battle with tribes.

Facing lawsuits, the Biden administration has agreed to put some $300 million toward salmon restoration projects in the Northwest, including upgrades to existing hatcheries that have helped keep the fish populations viable in some parts of the Columbia River basin.

The deal also includes a pledge to develop more tribally-run hydropower projects and study alternatives for farmers and recreators should Congress move to breach four large dams on the Snake River, a Columbia tributary, that tribes say have long been the biggest impediment for the fish.

"Many of the Snake River runs are on the brink of extinction. Extinction cannot be an option," says Corrine Sams, chair of the wildlife committee of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation.

The agreement stops short of calling for the actual breaching of those four dams along the Lower Snake in Washington state. Biden administration officials insisted to reporters in a call Thursday that the President has no plans to act on the dams by executive order, rather they said it's a decision that lies solely with Congress.

A conservation bill introduced by Idaho Republican Congressman Mike Simpson to authorize the breaching of the dams has been stalled for more than a year, amid stiff opposition from Northwest wheat farmers and utility groups.

When the details of Thursday's salmon deal were leaked last month, those groups claimed it was done in secret and breaching the dams could devastate the region's clean power and wheat farming economies that rely on a river barge system built around the dams.

"These commitments would eliminate shipping and river transportation in Idaho and eastern Washington and remove over 48,000 acres from food production," said Neil Maunu, executive director of the Pacific Northwest Waterways Association.

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Tribes are celebrating a White House deal that could save Northwest salmon

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The White House has reached what it says is an historic agreement over the restoration of salmon in the Pacific Northwest, a deal that could end for now a decades long legal battle with tribes.

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12/14/23 Before and after: A look at Oregon’s dramatic drought recovery in 2023

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12/14/23 Before and after: A look at Oregon’s dramatic drought recovery in 2023

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It was a small moment, with little fanfare, in one of the most remote patches of northern California. Just the rat-a-tat of three Caterpillar excavators gnawing through concrete signaled the beginning of the largest dam removal project in the history of the country, and perhaps the world.

There was no ribbon cutting or ceremonial dynamite detonation. But the demolition on that June day arrived only after decades of argument and activism.

The Klamath River dams, built between the early 1900s and 1960s, fundamentally reshaped one of the West's most important watersheds. They electrified this hard-to-reach part of the country for the first time, powering the nation's vision of a Manifest Destiny.

The hydropower dams, which altogether stand at 411 feet, also devastated the salmon population and the Indigenous tribes who had subsisted on the fish for millennia. For many Native people here, the structures always have been monuments to American imperialism.

When all four dams have been reduced to rubble, scientists and tribes will begin a desperate restoration attempt to secure the future of a river whose struggles have grown more severe with climate change.

A map shows the geography of the Klamath River basin and the location of the dams to be removed.

"It's like you're removing a clot - we've got four clots in our artery," said Charley Reed,who grew up along the river and descends from the Hupa, Yurok and Karuk tribes, three of the Native groups who consider the Klamath their sacred and spiritual lifeblood. "And now we're getting surgery done."

For environmental advocates, this is a milestone. But in a region famous for its fiercely contested water politics, the project is controversial. Ranchers and recreationalists see removal as a government overreach and a threat to their livelihood.

The lower Klamath operation is part of a growing movement to pursue more dam removals across the country, a piece of the broader reckoning over the harmful impact of large infrastructure projects meant to bend nature to human will.

Machines dismantle the Copco 2 dam on the Klamath River on June 20. (Katie Falkenberg/Klamath River Renewal Corporation)

More than 2,000 dams have been removed since 1912, according to data gathered by the nonprofit group American Rivers, a fraction of the country's existing dams. Nearly half of those demolitions, however, have happened in the last decade. And after a new injection of federal funding, the pace is expected to accelerate in coming years.

Historically, dam removals have been concentrated in the Rust Belt, but California has led the nation lately, fueled by changing social and political climates.

"I've been working on removing dams for about 25 years, and there's been a progression over that time: When we first started it was ' Should we be removing dams?' Then, in the mid-2000s, it became ' How do we remove dams?'" said Brian Graber, the senior director of river restoration at American Rivers. "And now, it's 'How do we remove dams at scale?'"

More than a century ago, before the White homesteaders and the American federal government arrived on the scene, this great waterway wound unencumbered from the foot of the Cascade Range in southern Oregon through northern California, emptying into the Pacific Ocean after more than 250 miles.

Dubbed "a river upside down" because of its unique geography, the Klamath flows through a breathtaking array of habitat, from arid high desert, to rugged mountains, coastal rainforest and across an area once known as "the Everglades of the West" for its vast stretch of wetlands that have now been mostly drained for agricultural use.

The Klamath's fall and spring salmon runs used to be some of the largest in the nation. Chinook, coho, steelhead, sturgeon and lamprey swam so thick that the ancestors of the Indigenous people who still live in its watershed could fill their nets again and again - and fill their plates with an average of 450 pounds of fish per person per year.

"To the Natives, the church is our river, and the cross on top is our spring salmon, and that is the pedestal of our religion," said Kenneth Brink, the vice chair of the Karuk tribe, who worked in fisheries biology for more than 20 years. "The salmon is not just something we eat, not just something from the river; it's a way of life."

Karuk community leader Charley Reed works with his father, Karuk elder Ron Reed, to build traditional Karuk dipnet fishing poles in preparation for salmon fishing season on the Klamath River.

Ron Reed carries his dipnet fishing gear through the forest out to Ishi Pishi Falls, a traditional Karuk fishing area along the Klamath River.

Ron Reed uses a fishing frame and net in search of salmon.

Ron Reed attaches a net to his Karuk traditional dipnet fishing frame.

The Gold Rush brought miners to the region and unleashed a massive, state-sponsored massacre of Native people across California. In the 1850s, two-thirds of Karuk tribe members were killed and many villages in the region were violently relocated. Over the next 50 years, more waves of White settlers arrived to homestead plots of land granted to them by the federal government.

Following this expansion, the California Oregon Power Company, known as "Copco," began an ambitious hydroelectric project in the early 20th century. The new plants would light up the area's constellation of fast-growing mill towns and power the emergent agriculture and timber industries.

The last of the lower Klamath's four dams - J.C. Boyle in Oregon and Copco 1, Copco 2 and Iron Gate in California - was completed in 1964, each new construction blocking more salmon spawning habitat and disrupting the natural flow of nutrients up and down the river. In the decades that followed, salmon runs experienced a steep decline and the diets of Indigenous people living along the Klamath changed radically.

According to an academic study, many Karuk people had stopped eating spring Chinook by the 1970s. Populations of lamprey and sturgeon, other important nutritional staples, also plummeted - and diabetes among tribe members spiked. The dramatic shift prompted the study's authors to argue that "the dams on the Klamath are currently responsible for the most significant human rights violation resulting from any dam construction in the United States."

In 2001, during a deep drought, federal officials cut off water bound for farmland in the upper Klamath basin after scientists found that diverting it for irrigation would harm protected fish and violate the Endangered Species Act.

Farmers and their families protested en masse, forming a 10,000 person bucket brigade, clashing with authorities and forcing the dam gates open. One year later, the U.S. government faced the same decision: Send the water to the fields, or save the imperiled salmon and suckerfish?

The conundrum caught the attention of then-Vice President Dick Cheney, who sensed a looming political threat. He personally intervened, persuadingfederal agencies to reverse their position and open the spigot for farmers and ranchers, according to Washington Post reporting on the unprecedented move.

What followed was one of the largest fish kills in the history of the West, with tens of thousands of salmon dying in the Klamath and rotting on its banks. The constricted flows had left the river level low, which made salmon migration and spawning difficult and increased the water temperature, creating a hotbed of disease.

The episode galvanized local tribes and environmentalists, who coalesced into the Un-Dam the Klamath movement, which would lead the way in dam removal advocacy over the next two decades.

Charley Reed's father, Ron Reed, a traditional Karuk dipnet fisherman, threw himself into anti-dam activism, bringing his son to rallies across the West. Charley Reed, now 29 years old and a father himself, remembers the fish kill with a visceral intensity: The smell of decay hung in the air for days on end.

"The picture of a pile of fish," he said, "is still glued in my brain, burned into my brain."

After all the years of organizing and opposition, the decision to remove the dams, in the end, came down to money.

To renew its license to manage the dams and meet modern-day environmental standards, PacifiCorp, the Berkshire Hathaway-owned Copco successor, needed to make costly upgrades, such as adding fish ladders to each structure.

But the four dams on the lower Klamath do not supply water for agriculture or municipalities, they are not used for flood control and in time they became obsolete as generators of electricity after the region found cheaper, more efficient sources. Eventually, PacifiCorp concluded the aging infrastructure wasn't worth the trouble and began supporting dam removal.

"It was very much an economic and business decision, but one that was driven by advocacy," said Mark Bransom, CEO of the Klamath River Renewal Corporation, the nonprofit created to oversee dam removal.

Late last year, a federal agency gave the project its final blessing, and work is now underway. Destruction of Copco 2, the first and smallest of the condemned dams, began in June and concludedthis fall.The other three dams will come down in 2024, after Bransom's organization conducts a careful drawdown of the reservoirs, including Copco Lake, with its 1,000 surface acres of water that dozens of families have settled around.

In all, the project will run $450 million, a cost covered by past rate hikes on PacifiCorp customers and money from a state water bond. By October of next year, Bransom said, all four dams will be out of the river and some 400 miles of salmon and steelhead habitat will be reopened for the first time in generations.

"It's one of the most important rivers for salmon on the whole West Coast," said Regina Chichizola, executive director of Save California Salmon, an advocacy group. "California salmon are facing extinction in a very serious and near-term way. So to be able to restore the Klamath is critical to making sure there are salmon left in the state at all."

But not everyone is celebrating.

For as long as there have been supporters of dam removal, there has been a fervent local effort to keep the structures in place. In 2010, nearly 80 percent of voters in Siskiyou County, home to all three of California's Klamath dams, said they opposed dam removal. Two years later, a local tea party group in Oregon's neighboring Klamath County helped stall the removal process.

All four dams sit in a part of the Pacific Northwest that sometimes calls itself the State of Jefferson, a collection of counties in California and Oregon whose residents have long felt ignored by their state governments. For many ranchers and farmers here, dam removal is another example of environmentalists and bureaucrats in faraway capitals interfering with rural life.

Chris Root, Tanya Chapple and Jeffrey Chapple celebrate a birthday on the banks of the Salmon River and the Klamath River.

A water skier enjoys a relatively empty Copco Lake.

Richard Marshall, the president of Siskiyou County Water Users Association, a group founded to oppose dam removal, said he has deep misgivings about the involvement of environmental groups who are advocating for the project alongside Indigenous tribes.

Marshall, who lives on a ranch in Fort Jones, Calif., said he fears dam removal is part of a larger effort to eradicate ranching and agriculture in northern California, citing a conspiracy theory tied to a nonbinding United Nations resolution known as Agenda 21.

"A lot of us believe that's really the game plan," Marshall said.

Like others who oppose removal, Marshall also cites concerns over the fate of property values once reservoirs are drained and homes lose their lakefront status. Around Copco Lake, residents will lose their docks and, eventually, the community's namesake body of water. For some, houses here were an investment or a retirement nest egg, and removal feels like a dangerous financial gamble. And no one can be quite sure what the new waterway will be until the river returns.

A mitigation fund set up to compensate those impacted by removal has done little to quell the resistance.

A house along Copco Lake, which will be drained when the lower Klamath dams are removed. Homeowners are worried that they will lose value on their properties once they're no longer lakefront.

Marshall's group has also argued that salmon historically never migrated above the dam sites and will be no better off when they're removed.

"We're moving headlong into this process, removing dams that will never be able to be replaced," Marshall said. "If the results are not what everybody intended, then what's the point?"

A federal lawsuit filed by an Oregon state senator and a water users association board member made similar claims but was dismissed in August. And many scientists emphatically disagree with the assertions about salmon range, citing historical evidence of the fish in the upper Klamath watershed.

"Many agencies, many people have reviewed the literature. That discussion has been had," said Tommy Williams, a research fish biologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration who has been working on the Klamath for nearly two decades.

Now, instead of returning from the Pacific Ocean, traveling up the Klamath and into one of its cold, spring-fed tributaries to spawn, salmon swim through slack river water turned toxic with algae that thrives in the dam's hot, still reservoirs. Removing the dams will improve water quality and restore the environment's variability and diversity, which are crucial for fish survival, Williams said.

Dam destruction is a massive undertaking. Workers and machines will extract 100,000 cubic yards of concrete and 2,000 tons of steel, sending it to recycling centers and landfills.

But in some ways, removal is the easy part, the predictable part.

The real challenge is what comes next. That's where Dave Coffman, along with a small army of tribe members and scientists, comes in. Coffman is the regional director of Resource Environmental Solutions, the company tasked with carrying out the largest river restoration of its kind.

"Once the fish are able to get past the dam, my job starts, and I want to give them a place they want to come back to," Coffman said. "I want them to come screaming up the river and say, 'All right! Thanks, guys!'"

If the dams wounded the river and their removal is a surgery, think of restoration as the stitches pulling the natural world back together.

A representative reenactment of the destruction of the lower Klamath's four dams, J.C. Boyle, Copco 1, Copco 2 and Iron Gate, is performed during the Yurok tribe's 59th annual salmon festival in Klamath, Calif., on Aug. 19.

For the past five years, Coffman's crew and members of the Yurok tribe have been collecting native plant seeds from across the Klamath River watershed to place in the areas where the dams and their reservoirs now stand. The team has amassed 17 billion seeds and thousands of tree saplings.

Meanwhile, scientists will be closely monitoring the unleashed river, which could take a year or longer to settle on its exact path.

Because of the project's unprecedented scale, there is naturally some science-based guesswork involved in predicting how the river will respond, experts say, but the recent run of dam removals offers some key lessons.

In 2011, workers began tearing down two dams on Washington state's Elwha River, the largest dam removal until now. The Elwha dams choked off salmon migration, too, and their removal was also the subject of a decades-long political battle.

Amy East, a research geologist at the U.S. Geological Survey, is one of several scientists who has spent years studying the Elwha and the Klamath. Her biggest takeaway: After a dam is dismantled, the river responds quickly.

The Klamath River flows unhindered through the location where Copco 2 dam once stood. (Shane Anderson/Swiftwater Films)

"The rivers where large dams have been removed have shown resilience," East said. "Within one to two years, you start to see recovery toward a better condition than when it was dammed. I hope that bears out on the Klamath."

Already, the river is reclaiming its historic channel through a canyon that dried out when Copco 2 was built. But unlike the Elwha, the Klamath will still have two dams in its upper section, where the struggle for water rights remains contentious. Removing the lower Klamath dams won't solve the upper basin's issues or reverse the warming atmosphere, East said.

"In the Pacific Northwest, taking out dams is not a panacea," East said. "There is a lot of habitat change going on because of climate change, and that stress is still going to be there even when the dams are gone."

Perhaps no one is more acquainted with those challenges than the Indigenous people who rely on the river.

On a typically drizzly summer day in Requa, a tiny northern California town, Barry McCovey stood on a sandbar near the mouth of the Klamath, where the river's freshwater finally swirled into the salty Pacific Ocean.

It's a sacred place for the Yurok tribe, where McCovey is a fisheries biologist, and it's one of his favorite spots in the world. Brown pelicans and osprey circle overhead. Humpback whales glide offshore. Seals lounge on the sand and stands of redwoods tower behind them.

From this vantage, it's obvious to McCovey that the health of the river, those who subsist on it and the surrounding land is all intertwined. The Yurok tribe has seen how banning controlled burns in nearby forests has led to an increase in sediment in the river and its streams, along with laying the foundation for larger, catastrophic wildfires.

This year is expected to be one of the smallest runs of fall Chinook since the Yurok tribe began keeping track, McCovey said. The situation is so dire that the state canceled the 2023 salmon season.

And in August, the Yurok tribe celebrated its 59th annual salmon festival - without any salmon. It was the latest sign of how degraded the river has become.

But the removals on the Klamath are energizing, he said. Hopeful.

"We know it's going to take a long time - it's going to take generations," McCovey said. "That's who we are as tribal people. We're all born with this burden on our shoulders to restore balance to the ecosystem."

At the salmon festival, one sign of progress was found in an unlikely place, the empty fish cooking pit. There was no open fire, no Chinook roasting on wooden skewers. Instead, there sat the remnants of an even bigger catch: bits of concrete from the demolished wall of Copco 2.

A tourist takes photos of the sea lions and pelicans that congregate at the mouth of the Klamath River where it meets the Pacific Ocean in Klamath.

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Klamath River dam removal hopes to undo decades of ecological destruction

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The largest-ever dam removal is underway, a milestone in the nation's reckoning over its past attempts to bend nature to human will.

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12/13/23 Readers respond: Snake dam removal a poor choice

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12/13/23 Readers respond: Snake dam removal a poor choice

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I am sympathetic to the argument by U.S. Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-Wash.) against removing the Snake River dams, (" Leaked document says US is willing to build energy projects in case Snake River dams are breached," Dec. 1). Those dams store water that can be released to provide much needed non-polluting energy and other benefits. The reservoirs behind dams are valued because they allow dam operators to produce energy at the time of maximum need, unlike solar and wind power.

I question the logic of spending billions of dollars to remove the Snake River dams without an extensive study of the benefits and cost. It is unlikely the vast salmon runs of pioneer days will ever be seen again because of environmental damage in drainage basins from logging, paving and pollution. Additionally. the ocean has been polluted from plastics, chemicals, waste material and the looming threat of global warming from climate change. Fish would receive more benefit if the billions for proposed dam removal were instead spent fighting global warming.

The dam removal projects on the Elwha and Klamath Rivers are very different and may prove worthwhile.
Roger S. Knutson, Lake Oswego To read more letters to the editor, go to oregonlive.com/opinion.

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Readers respond: Snake dam removal a poor choice

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Letters to the Editor can be submitted to letters@oregonian.com with full name and place of residence.

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12/12/23 Geothermal startup Quaise is raising $25M as it gears up for drilling

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12/12/23 Geothermal startup Quaise is raising $25M as it gears up for drilling

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Geothermal startup Quaise is raising $25M as it gears up for drilling | TechCrunch

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The new priced round comes as the company gears up for drilling test boreholes next year using its gyrotron-powered rig.

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12/12/23 Take out dams and keep the Snake River salmon's last, best place

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12/12/23 Take out dams and keep the Snake River salmon's last, best place

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In the face of relentlessly dire headlines for Pacific salmon and steelhead - 28 populations listed as threatened or endangered, emergency fisheries closures in California, Oregon and Washington, tribal assessments that some wild Chinook runs are approaching "quasi-extinction" levels - the Snake River's thousands of miles of pristine wilderness habitat make it the last, best place for America to save wild Pacific salmon and steelhead.

But until the White House and Congress tackle the heart of the problem - four dams on the Snake in Eastern Washington that are, quite literally, blocking the way to recovery - these once-epic populations will continue to slide toward extinction.

A famous theologian once said, "Not to decide is to decide." That seems to be the approach of these policymakers as they ignore the free-falling decline on the Snake.

Three years ago, U.S. Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, said what conservationists have long known. We can remove the dams, reopen hundreds of miles of rivers to salmon and steelhead, and replace the dams' socio-economic benefits: irrigation, power, barging for agricultural products. Gov. Jay Inslee and U.S. Sen. Patty Murray affirmed this conclusion.

But building on decades of senseless inaction, their fellow elected leaders and policymakers are fumbling away the most promising opportunity to recover imperiled salmon and steelhead, and in the process failing to make good on America's treaty obligations to tribal nations.

The Snake is a five-star hotel for salmon and steelhead. Forty percent of its lands and waters are wilderness quality, and it possesses 50% of the remaining habitat for these fish in the West.

The four dams on the lower Snake are relics of the 1950s, concrete anchors locking us into anachronistic thinking and destined to be tombstones for wild salmon and steelhead runs if we do not change course.

My life in conservation began many years ago when I witnessed the wonder-inspiring journey that salmon make, returning sometimes thousands of miles from the ocean to their natal streams to spawn and die, their decaying bodies providing the nutrients that power the cycle of life.

In a free-flowing system, their progeny, known as smolts, would be flushed downstream by high spring flows in a few days.

Instead, they face a two-week journey through 140 miles of warm reservoirs created by the Snake dams.

These small fish - carrying genetic code thousands of generations old - die in turbines. They are attacked by predators in the stagnant water above the dams. They perish in the tanks of barges that attempt to move them past the dams. More than 50% never make it past the dams. Fewer than 1% return to spawn, which is not a sustainable number.

We have spent $25 billion in a failed effort to recover these fish. For 50 years, we have barged salmon past the dams, created fish ladders, spilled more water over the dams, built hatcheries and deployed dozens of other mitigation strategies.

But we now know that the only way to recover wild Snake River salmon and steelhead is to remove the dams. So say scientists at the National Marine Fisheries Service, calling dam-breaching "the centerpiece action."

We could keep waiting. We could conduct more studies. We could stand by as elected leaders issue platitudes praising salmon but refuse to aid in their recovery and refuse to make good on treaties with tribes that relied on these fish for thousands of years.

Or we can decide to demand dam removal and salmon recovery. We can decide to stand with the tribes. We can decide to act.

Something will have been lost from our humanity if we allow these fish to slip into extinction. Will we walk away as a nation knowing we could have intervened? What a loss. What a stain on our nation; to humanity, really.

We can replace every social and economic benefit provided by the Snake River dams.

But the salmon and steelhead? They need a free-flowing river. We just need to decide - decide that we want to give them one.

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Take out dams and keep the Snake River salmon's last, best place | Op-Ed

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The Snake is a five-star hotel for salmon and steelhead. The dams on the lower Snake, on the other hand, are destined to be tombstones for wild fish runs.

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12/11/23 King tides return after disastrous week of flooding on the Oregon Coast

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12/11/23 King tides return after disastrous week of flooding on the Oregon Coast

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King tides return after disastrous week of flooding on the Oregon Coast

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A week after Tillamook County saw its highest flood levels since 2017, the king tides are forecast to return to the Pacific Northwest on Dec. 13, bringing an increased risk of coastal flooding for …

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12/12/23 Reservoir drawdown complicates water supply in Sweet Home

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12/12/23 Reservoir drawdown complicates water supply in Sweet Home

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Reservoir drawdown complicates water supply in Sweet Home

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People living in one Linn County city say efforts to save a threatened species are impacting their water supply.

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12/12/23 Oregon renews search for a water leader after ‘disappointing’ first round

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12/12/23 Oregon renews search for a water leader after ‘disappointing’ first round

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Oregon renews search for a water leader after ‘disappointing’ first round

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Whoever Kotek appoints to the job will be in the middle of intense water conflicts worsened by drought, climate change and development.

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7/26/23 Explore Oregon Podcast: A 'fish taxi' and a billion-dollar plan to save endangered salmon

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7/26/23 Explore Oregon Podcast: A 'fish taxi' and a billion-dollar plan to save endangered salmon

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In this episode of the Explore Oregon Podcast, host Zach Urness looks at a billion-dollar plan that involves using a "fish taxi" and "fish Disney World" to save endangered spring chinook in the Upper Willamette Basin.

The plan centers on moving salmon around dams with massive trucks, and allowing the fish to spawn in the upper river that in the past was blocked by dams. The hope is to rebuild wild salmon numbers that have fallen to around 4,000 to 7,000 fish per year, down from 300,000 historically.

The podcast is based on Urness' in-depth reporting on a massive, multi-billion dollar plan proposed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
In depth More: To help salmon, extreme low-water set for 4 Willamette reservoirs, imperiling recreation Salmon catch the 'fish taxi' as Corps plans billions to save iconic fish, keep dams Zach Urness has been an outdoors reporter in Oregon for 15 years and is host of the Explore Oregon Podcast. Urness is the author of "Best Hikes with Kids: Oregon" and "Hiking Southern Oregon." He can be reached at zurness@StatesmanJournal.com or 503-399-6801. Find him on Twitter at @ZachsORoutdoors.
Never miss an episode: Listen to each episode at statesmanjournal.com/outdoors/explore and find us on , Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, SoundCloud or Amazon Music and subscribe on your platform of choice to get future episodes.

Find every episode: Find all 107 episodes of the Explore Oregon Podcast online

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Explore Oregon Podcast: A 'fish taxi' and a billion-dollar plan to save endangered salmon

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In this episode, host Zach Urness looks at a billion-dollar plan to save endangered spring chinook in the upper Willamette Basin.

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12/2/22 Big dam deal: Major changes to 13 Willamette Valley dams, reservoirs proposed

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12/2/22 Big dam deal: Major changes to 13 Willamette Valley dams, reservoirs proposed

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Keywords: Willamette, reservoir, drawdown, Army Corps of Engineers

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keywords: Willamette, reservoir, drawdown, salmon

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To help salmon, extreme low-water set for 4 Willamette reservoirs, imperiling recreation

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The move will mean historically low water levels and limited recreation at reservoirs outside Eugene and Albany.

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11/3/23 Eastern Oregon group looks toward Columbia River to solve groundwater problems

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11/3/23 Eastern Oregon group looks toward Columbia River to solve groundwater problems

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Mark Maynard, left, of the Columbia Improvement District talks about the irrigation system with Craig Reeder, right, and other members of a tour at a pump station near Boardman, Ore. on Oct. 31, 2023.
Antonio Sierra / OPB

The people behind one of the newest irrigation systems in Umatilla and Morrow counties see the promise of their project in an onion shed south of Hermiston.

Local officials broke ground Thursday on the Ordnance Project, an effort meant to transport thousands of acre feet of water from the robust Columbia River to farms throughout western Umatilla County. The day before, the Northeast Oregon Water Association, also called NOWA, took a group of government officials, irrigation experts and business leaders on a tour of one of the projects they already finished.

The tour guides showcased the shed because the extra water had helped local farmers switch their land from growing canola and wheat to more water-intensive crops like onions. Those onions are being packed for shipping to large restaurant chains like Subway and Chipotle.

NOWA said its aim isn't just to expand the area's multimillion-dollar agricultural industry, but also to solve one of the western United States' biggest challenges: a quickly dwindling groundwater supply.

Checking versus savings

Modern irrigation turned Eastern Oregon's high desert climate into an agricultural powerhouse.

While much of the region is still dominated by commodity crops like wheat and alfalfa, the farmland bordering the Columbia River can sustain root vegetables like potatoes and onions.

Local farmer and NOWA board member Craig Reeder said those crops are often sent to processors at the Port of Morrow, where they can be turned into products like French fries and shipped off to markets around the world. Irrigated agriculture helped turn the port into a place that supports 6,700 jobs with a gross domestic product of just under $1 billion.

For decades, the local agricultural industry supported itself with groundwater drawn from wells. But it's a practice increasingly seen as unsustainable across the West as climate change delivers less rainfall and an overly permissive water rights system has depleted some aquifers for generations in Eastern and Central Oregon.

NOWA's solution is to tap into the Columbia River. NOWA director J.R. Cook compared farm irrigation to bank accounts. The Columbia should act as the region's checking account, with farmers grabbing river water on its journey toward the Pacific Ocean. The savings account is the groundwater, water that should be saved and grown.

NOWA has already been successful in getting farmers off of groundwater. For $94 million, the group and its partners completed east and west pump stations that move water out of the Columbia and into water lines that distribute it throughout Umatilla and Morrow counties in 2020. Most of those projects were funded privately, with less than 10% coming from government coffers.

The latest stage is the $42 million Ordnance Project, which will not only pump Columbia water to western Umatilla County farms but also send water to the city of Umatilla and the site of the old Umatilla Chemical Depot, which is being converted into an industrial park.

Cook said the next step will be to restore groundwater by taking excess river water during the high-flow months in the winter and depositing it back into the ground.

"If you don't use it this year, it's out in the ocean and you don't know what next year is gonna be," he said. "But if you can use those good years, and you can use a little bit of Columbia River water to save groundwater that's 30,000 years old ... then that's a pretty good net gain on what we're doing now."

Drawing river water brings its own environmental concerns, both over water supply and wildlife habitat. Those concerns are coming to the forefront in waterways like the Colorado River and, closer to home, the Klamath River.

But NOWA officials argue that the Columbia is more robust and less over-extended than other irrigated rivers, making it more likely to withstand the pressures of Eastern Oregon's agricultural demand.

"There's the theme about irrigation: Death by a thousand cuts and that's why we have to limit water policy," Reeder said. "That's just such a fallacy in our area because you could irrigate every possible, feasible, pumpable acre on the Columbia River and not come anywhere near to the withdrawals out of the Colorado (River)."

'We have a chance to fix this'

Large-scale agriculture is a thirsty industry and its water use hasn't escaped the attention of environmental groups like WaterWatch.

While NOWA and its partners don't have the most comfortable relationship with environmental concerns, Cook said both sides are willing to talk through their issues. He added that he knew his group needed to make a case of how this water would benefit farms, and how it would contribute to the region's sustainability.

"If you over-appropriate the groundwater system, you're kind of stuck. We're seeing that in the Klamath, we're seeing that in Malheur," he said. "(That's) the reason why we have a chance to fix this. We've still got some water in the river to be able to help us fix it without impacting fish."

Fish are a concern for environmentalists and the Columbia Plateau tribes like the nearby Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, who hold treaty rights to fish the Columbia River.

To protect fish, the irrigation projects' backers have installed screens on their intake equipment. Reeder said these screens have a high rate of success keeping fish out of the equipment and within the current of the river.

Cook said Columbia River irrigation can't yet offer the region permanent resilience. Leaders will have to monitor population growth and water intake to make sure the river isn't overdrawn. But he thinks these projects have put the region on the path to sustainability.

"The best thing we can do is finish this plan and get us to a sustainable future," he said. "What the next round of legislators or the next generation decides to do with that is probably going to be out of my control. All we can do is send them in what we think is the right way to go and hope that they take advantage of the tools to get there."

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columbia river | eastern oregon | irrigation | farming | water | fish & wildlife

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Eastern Oregon group looks toward Columbia River to solve groundwater problems

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Supporters say Columbia can irrigate farms without harming water supply or wildlife

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12/7/23 Latest ‘Voices of the River’ highlights dams: Confluence Project aims to revive tribal history along river

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12/7/23 Latest ‘Voices of the River’ highlights dams: Confluence Project aims to revive tribal history along river

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Latest ‘Voices of the River’ highlights dams: Confluence Project aims to revive tribal history along river

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The fate of big hydroelectric dams on Pacific Northwest rivers is a longstanding, hot-button issue that gets hotter every day.

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11/30/23 A California dry farmer's juicy apples show how agriculture can be done with less water

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11/30/23 A California dry farmer's juicy apples show how agriculture can be done with less water

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Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain

Leaves rustled as Mike Cirone reached into a tree and gently picked an apple. The orchard was filled with a profusion of ripe fruit in shades from golden-green to pinkish red.

But unlike other crops that guzzle water from canals and wells, this bounty of apples grew on its own without irrigation.

Cirone specializes in dry farming-applying little or no water, and relying on rainfall and the moisture stored in the ground.

This is how farming has long been done in See Canyon near San Luis Obispo, where the orchards spread out beside a creek at the foot of a steep ridge shaded by oak trees.

Cirone has been farming here for 40 years, perfecting his growing techniques and cultivating dozens of varieties of apples.

"It's the way it was always done here, and it worked," Cirone said. "Why water if you don't have to? But what you realize is that also, you have something that has a lot more flavor."

The lack of watering concentrates the tartness and sweetness. And the apples come off the trees crisp and juicy.

"They're dry farmed. There is a distinct flavor," he said.

Cirone has built a thriving business farming apples on 35 acres, as well as pears, apricots, plums and peaches.

Cirone, who is 64, picks fruit together with his 34-year-old son Patrick and one employee. They pack the apples in boxes, load them into a van and drive them to farmers markets around San Luis Obispo, as well as the weekly farmers market in Santa Monica, where their stand is popular and busy.

The Cirones are part of a special breed of California growers who are successfully cultivating crops using minimal amounts of water. They are showing how, in the right places, agriculture can be done differently, with a lighter touch on the environment than the many large-scale industrial farms that draw heavily on the state's limited water supplies.

In places along the Central Coast, these dry farming specialists harness the water their lands naturally have to produce crops including watermelons, cantaloupes, wine grapes, olives and tomatoes.

"It's amazing what plants can do," Cirone said, standing among his trees. "It's surprising what they can get by with."

Cirone said this kind of farming can't be done everywhere. It takes special conditions, including the right microclimate. The location of See Canyon, wedged in mountainous terrain four miles from the coast, creates ideal conditions for growing apples and other fruit.

"It's a naturally wet place," he said. "When it rains, it's so cool out here. The clouds come in and it's misty, and it all soaks in."

The forested ridges catch rain, and water percolates into the canyon's alluvial soil, where the trees' roots tap into shallow groundwater. The flowing creek beside the farm has never run dry in the decades that Cirone has been farming.

The canyon gets colder than surrounding areas in the winter, providing vital chilling for trees to blossom. As the apples are ripening, the morning fog often gives way to warm sun.

"It's kind of a magical little spot. I love it," Cirone said.

"There is an old adage: good farmers farm good soil," he said. "I farm good soil, and it makes a world of difference."

Apples have been grown in See Canyon for more than a century. Cirone owns an orchard that was founded in 1916. Some of the remaining century-old trees are gnarled, with branches so thick they need to be propped up with boards to prevent collapse.

Cirone carries on these traditions while planting new trees, pruning, and practicing dry farming methods. Techniques for conserving water include rolling a cultivator tool over the ground to create a "dust mulch" layer that holds moisture in the soil. He also selects rootstocks that are drought-tolerant.

Dryland farming has a long history in the arid West, including among Indigenous peoples such as the Hopi, who today carry on their ancient traditions of growing corn, beans and squash relying on the rains. Settlers in California also dry farmed, but in the 20th century, growers began relying heavily on irrigation, which boosted crop yields.

"We used to do more of it in California," Cirone said. "I think sometimes you've just got to look back and go, "Maybe things were better back then.'"

Cirone has wells on parts of his farm, and his focus on dry farming doesn't stop him from watering a little when needed. To help newly planted trees get established, he waters them sparingly, lately once every 10 days, with drip irrigation lines.

He and his crew also sometimes hand-water trees with buckets.

During the severe drought from 2020 to 2022, Cirone said he was forced to water to try to save adult trees that were struggling. With the ground parched, the trees produced a smaller crop.

The heat scorched parts of the orchard, leaving withered leaves that Cirone said looked like "someone took a torch to them." But those damaged trees recovered with this year's heavy rains and are now flourishing again.

The canyon got 61 inches of rain this year, one of the wettest Cirone has seen.

Cirone said he's concerned about how human-caused climate change is unleashing more extreme weather swings, and what that might mean for the future. For now, though, he sees all the rain as a blessing, along with cold conditions that filled the orchard with a massive bloom of white and pink blossoms.

This fall, Cirone and his son have been busy picking and selling the largest apple crop they've ever produced.

"The way the fruit ripened, I was thankful. But it was just too much," Cirone said. "We've had to really move quick this year. And that's been the stressful part."

Cirone grows about 60 varieties of apples. At the peak of harvest in October, he can have up to 25 different kinds laid out in crates at his stand.

Their names evoke colors, flavors and textures: Suncrisp, Honeycrisp, Cameo, Jonagold, Sierra Beauty, Winesap, Arkansas Black, Splendor.

If you ask Cirone which is his favorite, he will tell you the Gold Rush, a golden-green apple with a freckled skin, crisp crunch and rich, tart flavor.

Cirone grew up in San Luis Obispo and graduated from Cal Poly with a degree in pomology, or fruit science. A lover of the outdoors and mountain climbing, he knew he never wanted to work in an office. He started a fruit-tree pruning business, and then began farming.

At the farmers market in San Luis Obispo, he knows many customers by name and chats while weighing fruit. Some arrive asking which varieties he suggests for everyday eating, salads or pie-making.

Others come searching for a specific type of apple. Gary Hamel, a retired chef, bought a 22-pound box of Winter Pearmains, an heirloom variety that grows on gnarled century-old trees.

"You have to get them when they're available," Hamel said. "I've missed them a couple of years."

The green apples are crisp and sweet, with a peel that carries a delicate, lingering flavor.

For some customers, there is no going back to supermarket apples after having freshly picked dry-farmed apples.

Also popular are dry-farmed watermelons that grower John Lahargou has been selling from the back of a pickup, offering samples on toothpicks.

"We don't water them," Lahargou told a customer. "That's what makes them super sweet."

Lahargou has dry farmed for decades in Paso Robles and remembers the technique was once widespread. The area produced dry-farmed grain, hay and almonds. But much of the farmland was overtaken by vineyards irrigated with groundwater, which has caused aquifer levels to decline.

Lahargou continues dry farming because he doesn't have a well. And he said it's given him something special: juicy melons that burst open with a touch of the knife.

"We had quite a lot of rain," he said. "That's why they're so good."

The season's last watermelons were sold in November. But the Cirones have continued harvesting apples.

Patrick Cirone began helping his father at farmers markets as a boy, handing out plastic bags. He has been working full-time in the business for eight years, and says he continues learning nuances, including when different varieties should be picked.

"Every year's different, too. That's the thing," he said. "So it's trying to get a grasp on that."

The Cirones have a weekly routine. Each Wednesday, they wake up at 1 a.m. to drive to Santa Monica, where by sunrise they are raising their tent and unloading fruit for the crowds that will soon line up.

When they aren't at a market, they are often picking on the farm.

On a recent morning, Mike Cirone stood on a ladder, filling a bag with Fuji apples. He chatted in Spanish with his longtime employee Meliton Robles, discussing where to pick next.

The sweet scent of fallen apples filled the air.

Usually, Cirone sells apples until December. This year, the crop is so abundant he expects to continue selling into January.

"We needed a good year," Cirone said. "We've come off a couple of light apple years. The drought really had a big effect on these trees."

Years ago, Cirone didn't worry much about weather extremes. Now, he said, he often thinks about climate change, and how he might prepare for the next severe drought or heat wave.

When planting new trees, he has started choosing late-ripening varieties that could fare better as the seasons shift with rising temperatures.

"Everything is being affected," he said. "And that drumbeat seems to be getting louder."

Cirone hopes that his farm's location in the canyon will make it resilient, and that his methods will help sustain the farm.

But he's concerned that other farming regions of California, particularly the Central Valley, are headed for dire consequences as they grapple with chronic groundwater depletion combined with hotter, drier conditions.

Cirone said he sees large-scale export-driven agriculture as part of the problem.

"Should we be growing bazillion acres of almonds to be exported around the world? That doesn't make sense to me. That's a misuse of water," Cirone said. "It's not sustainable. It's going to be a new desert out there. I don't understand why we're chasing money at that level."

He said he believes promoting more local agriculture would help, along with adopting farming methods that work with nature, including the sustainable techniques of agroecology and permaculture. Cirone said dry farming should be viable in various parts of California, including areas where it hasn't been tried before.

"We need to start to look at things differently," he said. "We have to be part of the solution."

Cirone said he sees himself as part of a movement to return to a more natural form of farming that involves planting in the right locations and matching crops to local conditions.

"You're not forcing things, essentially," he said. "I think it's a pretty benign form of farming."

While he continued picking, the rising sun lit up the orchard and the oak trees on the canyon's steep ridges.

"Oh, here's some nice Fujis," he said, approaching a tree loaded with apples. "I love the way these look."

He said he would be back soon with more boxes. There were still many apples left to pick before the end of the harvest.

2023 Los Angeles Times. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

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A California dry farmer's juicy apples show how agriculture can be done with less water

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Leaves rustled as Mike Cirone reached into a tree and gently picked an apple. The orchard was filled with a profusion of ripe fruit in shades from golden-green to pinkish red.

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12/7/23 Tillamook rushes to build bridge in 10 days as weather could divide the Oregon Coast

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12/7/23 Tillamook rushes to build bridge in 10 days as weather could divide the Oregon Coast

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PORTLAND, Ore. ( KOIN) - Tillamook County is rushing to build a completely new bridge in 10 to 15 days after a washout on Miami Foley Road made Highway 101 the only direct route between Garibaldi and Mohler.

The county is racing against time as the existing stretch of Highway 101 between Tillamook and Cannon Beach is regularly shut down each winter by landslides and coastal flooding, Tillamook County Public Works Director Chris Laity told KOIN 6 News. Presently, a closure along the vulnerable stretch of Highway 101 could add two hours to the commute between Garibaldi and Manzanita as drivers would have to take a detour to the Highway 6 and Highway 26 interchange.

"[The bridge] is important to everybody because if Miami Foley Road and Highway 101 were to shut down, there is no route north-to-south on the Oregon coast," Laity said. "You wouldn't be able to get from Astoria to Tillamook without going to Portland."

The Tillamook County Board of Commissioners signed a disaster declaration Wednesday morning to speed up the contracting process for the bridge, which Laity said will be built out of steel piles and concrete. The county also asked Gov. Kotek to declare a State of Emergency in response to disastrous flooding that caused the damage.

The flooding, which caused at least $2.5 million in damage to county roads, officials say, was brought about by a powerful atmospheric river that passed over the region between Dec. 3 and Dec. 6.

The county plans to have the bridge built and the road reopened by Dec 21.

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Tillamook rushes to build bridge in 10 days as weather could divide the OR coast

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Tillamook County is rushing to build a completely new bridge in 10 to 15 days after a washout on Miami Foley Road made Highway 101 the only direct route between Garibaldi and Mohler.

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12/7/23 How much rain has Willamette Valley and Oregon Coast seen in December?

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12/7/23 How much rain has Willamette Valley and Oregon Coast seen in December?

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It's been a rain-drenched start to December in western Oregon, and it's not finished yet.

A parade of atmospheric rivers - systems that pull in heavy amounts of moisture from the Pacific - have been hitting the Pacific Northwest like a firehose.

A total of three of the systems have hit Oregon since Dec. 1, bringing around 5 inches of rainfall in the Willamette Valley and over 6 inches on the Oregon Coast. And it isn't finished yet, as yet another system of heavy rain is forecast for this weekend, with flooding once against possible primarily on the coast.

"As of right now, our models are showing a weak to moderate atmospheric river starting Saturday," National Weather Service meteorologist Noah Alviz said. "Because this upcoming one is coming more from west than southwest, it could really enhance rainfall in higher terrain in the Coast Range."

Alviz said current estimates show the system bringing 1-2 inches of rain at the coast, 2-4 inches in the Coast Range's higher elevations and .75-1.25 inches in the Willamette Valley.

Depending on how powerfully the systems arrive, coastal rivers have a 15-30% chance of reaching minor flood stage once again.

"The coast is definitely our biggest concern right now since they just had a strong system go through, already have rivers at or near flood stage and have very saturated soil," Alviz said.

Concerns aren't nearly as high about additional flooding in the Willamette Valley. The level of the Willamette River in Salem, for example, has been downgraded to about 18 feet while smaller streams should continue to mostly drop.

Storm damage felt across Northwest

The most recent storm battered the Oregon Coast, bringing about $2.5 million in infrastructure damage to Tillamook County as some roadways were damaged while others were shut down for extended periods.

Deaths and multiple rescues were also reported on the Washington and Oregon coasts.

How much rain has Oregon gotten so far?

December is traditionally Oregon's wettest month, but even by those standards, the start to the month has been wet.

Salem received 4.98 inches of rain while Eugene had 4.51 inches from Dec. 1 to Thursday. Portland got 5.24 inches, and set a record for rainfall on Wednesday with 1.68 inches. Willamette Valley cities typically average between 6 to 8 inches for the entire month.

On the coast, Astoria has seen 6.5 inches of rain while Tillamook got 6.33 inches. Coastal cities usually average 10-13 inches of rain for the entire month.

What about mountain snow?

A key factor about atmospheric rivers is they are typically warm, and that has meant mostly rain even at mountain pass levels in the Cascade Range.

While the forecast over the next two days is for 10-20 inches of snow in the Cascades, that is forecast to turn to rain by the weekend and melt some or much of the snow that falls.

El Niño to blame?

While it's too early to say for certain what type of winter Oregon will continue to have, the two scenarios for this winter are playing out pretty much as expected. El Niño winters favor warmer than normal conditions across the board. The strength of this year's El Niño could bring either wetter or drier than normal conditions, depending on how warm the Pacific Ocean gets.
Zach Urness has been an outdoors reporter in Oregon for 15 years and is host of the Explore Oregon Podcast. Urness is the author of "Best Hikes with Kids: Oregon" and "Hiking Southern Oregon." He can be reached at zurness@StatesmanJournal.com or (503) 399-6801. Find him on Twitter at @ZachsORoutdoors.

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How much rain has Willamette Valley and Oregon Coast seen in December?

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A fourth atmospheric river is forecast to hit Oregon this weekend, bringing heavy rain and possible coastal flooding.

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12/6/23 Four Roseburg companies fined by DEQ

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12/6/23 Four Roseburg companies fined by DEQ

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Oregon Department of Environmental Quality issued 17 penalties for environmental violations in the month of October, with four of those penalties to parties in Douglas County.

Gloria Coleman is a reporter for The News-Review. She can be reached at gcoleman@nrtoday.com or 541-672-3321 ext. 7208.

Local journalism needs your support. Please become a subscriber at nrtoday.com/subscribe.

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Oregon Department of Environmental Quality issued 17 penalties for environmental violations in the month of October, with four of those penalties to parties in Douglas County.

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12/5/23 High waters sweep waste from nearby homeless camp into the McKenzie River

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12/5/23 High waters sweep waste from nearby homeless camp into the McKenzie River

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High waters sweep waste from nearby homeless camp into the McKenzie River

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A homeless camp near the McKenzie River is being allowed to remain on the property despite trash and waste being swept into the river, according to residents.

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12/5/23 Burns Paiute Tribe calls on feds to require Idaho Power to return salmon, steelhead to Snake River, tributaries above three dams in Hells Canyon

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12/5/23 Burns Paiute Tribe calls on feds to require Idaho Power to return salmon, steelhead to Snake River, tributaries above three dams in Hells Canyon

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Burns Paiute Tribe calls on feds to require Idaho Power to return salmon, steelhead to Snake River, tributaries above three dams in Hells Canyon

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The Burns Paiute Tribe is calling on the federal government to require Idaho Power Company to take steps to return salmon and steelhead to the Snake River and

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12/6/23 Wednesday morning slide closes road near OHSU

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12/6/23 Wednesday morning slide closes road near OHSU

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PORTLAND, Ore ( KOIN) - Persistent rain is causing more problems around the Portland metro area Wednesday morning as a landslide has forced the closure of a road near OHSU.

According to PBOT, the slide along SW US Veterans Hospital Road will likely take several hours to clear. Officials say it is more than 30 cubic yards of debris that is on the road.

US Veterans Hospital Road is closed between SW Gibbs and SW Gaines. There are details in place.
Stay with KOIN 6 News as this story develops.

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Portland transportation officials say SW Veterans Hospital Road will likely be closed for hours while crews clear a landslide

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12/6/23 Sewage overflows into Willamette River as atmospheric river hammers Pacific Northwest

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12/6/23 Sewage overflows into Willamette River as atmospheric river hammers Pacific Northwest

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PORTLAND, Ore. ( KOIN) - After an atmospheric river brought heavy rain to the Pacific Northwest, a stream of stormwater and sewage overflowed into the Willamette River after Portland's Big Pipe system reached capacity, the Portland Bureau of Environmental Services announced Wednesday.

Officials said the Big Pipe system reached capacity around 7 a.m., leading to stormwater and sewage overflowing from multiple outfalls. The overflow is impacting the downstream stretch of Sellwood Park and is ongoing, according to a press release sent shortly after 8 a.m. Wednesday.

The public is advised to avoid contact with the river for 48 hours after an overflow because of increased bacteria. The city explained the Willamette River's water quality is safe for recreations during all other times.

Overflows contain about 80% stormwater and about 20% sewage, officials said, noting overflows are rare but can occur during heavy rain or snowfall.

Portlanders can track the overflow through the online Big Pipe Tracker.

After the Big Pipe project was completed in 2011, the system has reduced overflows by 94% in the Willamette River and 99% in the Columbia Slough, the city says. Before the Big Pipe was in place, officials say incidents occurred in the Willamette River 50 times a year on average.

Now, overflows occur four times per winter season and once every three summers on average, according to BES - noting Wednesday's overflow is the fourth overflow of 2023.

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Sewage overflows into Willamette River as atmospheric river hammers Pacific Northwest

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After an atmospheric river brought heavy rain to the Pacific Northwest, a stream of stormwater and sewage overflowed into the Willamette River after Portland's Big Pipe system reached capacity, the Portland Bureau of Environmental Services announced Wednesday.

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12/5/23 Ag groups: Snake River Dam deal 'leaves farmers behind'

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12/5/23 Ag groups: Snake River Dam deal 'leaves farmers behind'

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The secret package of commitments the U.S. government made to the plaintiffs suing over management of the lower Snake River dams would put dam breaching advocates in "a new position of power" regarding the future of the Columbia-Snake river system, Pacific Northwest agriculture stakeholders say.

The government and plaintiffs are expected to present their proposed package in court Dec. 15. Several members of Congress leaked the package, which was negotiated in secret and excluded agricultural and transportation interests.

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Ag groups: Snake River dam deal 'leaves farmers behind'

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Agricultural industry leaders released a joint statement voicing "grave concerns" over the U.S. government's proposed package with plaintiffs over Snake River dam operations. U.S. government agreements in the draft document would put dam breaching advocates in "a new position of power," while the document only mentions "irrigation" once and never uses the word "navigation," the ag groups say.

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12/5/23 Guest Column: An environmentalist and a taxpayer must question piping costs

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12/5/23 Guest Column: An environmentalist and a taxpayer must question piping costs

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Last month the Oregon Water Resources Commission approved grants collectively worth $12,232,393 to Ochoco, Arnold, North Unit, and Tumalo irrigation districts for canal piping and related projects. With a total cost of $83,355,578, these efforts will place just under 30 cfs (cubic feet per second) of water back instream. The environmentalist in me understands the benefits of these projects. Our local rivers and streams are in terrible shape, impacting fish, wildlife, recreationists and our local economy. The taxpayer in me is not enthusiastic about paying an average of more than $2,700,000 per cfs.

A single cubic foot is 7.48 gallons; imagine two 5-gallon buckets, one full and one half full. A single cfs is that amount flowing by every second. This would be a stream so small that you could easily step over it. It is also about the amount that Tumalo Irrigation District will return at times to Tumalo Creek and at other times to Crescent Creek.

Yancy Lind blogs about water and fish at www.coinformedangler.org.

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Guest Column: An environmentalist and a taxpayer must question piping costs

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Last month the Oregon Water Resources Commission approved grants collectively worth $12,232,393 to Ochoco, Arnold, North Unit, and Tumalo irrigation districts for canal piping and related projects. With a total

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12/5/23 Oregon flood updates: Highway 101 reopens in Seaside, Lincoln City; closed in Tillamook

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12/5/23 Oregon flood updates: Highway 101 reopens in Seaside, Lincoln City; closed in Tillamook

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This story was updated at 8:07 a.m. on Wednesday, Dec. 6
Heavy rains from a second atmospheric river of moisture is bringing flooding to some parts of Oregon. Here's the latest on road closures, landslides and other issues.

The impact is most acute on the Oregon Coast.

"Anywhere you drive on the Oregon Coast, slow down for stormy conditions and standing water on the pavement," the Oregon Department of Transportation said.

Visit TripCheck.com for the latest information.

Highway 101 and 6 still closed in Tillamook closed due to high water

U.S. Highway 101 has closed in Tillamook due to flooding during high tide and heavy rain, ODOT said.

"Expect a detour and delays," the state agency said.

Also in Tillamook, Oregon Highway 6 near the junction with Highway 101 remains closed due to high water.

"A detour is available there as well," ODOT said.

Highway 101 reopens to one lane north of Lincoln City

U.S. Highway 101 north of Lincoln City reopened to one lane on the Oregon Coast. The slowdown is due to high water.

U.S. Highway 101 reopens in Seaside

Water levels receded enough Wednesday morning to allow traffic through U.S. 101 between Seaside and the junction with U.S. 26.

"With heavy rain continuing throughout this week, we will continue to monitor the water level there and in other sections of highway in low elevations," ODOT said.

Highway 101 has multiple slowdowns due to high water

U.S. Highway 101 has reopened in many of the places it was closed Tuesday, but the Coastal highway has many slowdowns due to high and standing water on the roadway.

Landslide blocks Forest Road 19 near Cougar Dam, access to hot springs slowed

Forest Service Road 19 (Aufderheide Drive) at mile post 55.5 near Cougar Dam was closed Dec. 3 due to a landslide. Forest engineers worked to reopen the road, and traffic is currently reduced to one lane, the U.S. Forest Service said in a news release.

"Road repair work is expected to be ongoing and intermittent with the possibility of more rock fall," the federal agency said.

Terwilliger Hot Springs remains open but could be difficult to access, officials said. It's unclear how long the road will be impacted.

Willamette River projected to reach 19 feet in Salem

The Willamette River in Salem is projected to stay high but below "action stage" in Salem for the next four to five days. The river is forecasted to reach 19 feet, according to NOAA projections, which can impact roads in the Minto-Brown Island Area and keep ferry service closed.

Highway 101 slowed near Coos Bay

Water is on the road and traffic is slowed south of Coos Bay on U.S. Highway 101, according to TripCheck.
This story will be updated as information becomes available. Zach Urness has been an outdoors reporter in Oregon for 15 years and is host of the Explore Oregon Podcast. To support his work, subscribe to the Statesman Journal. He can be reached at zurness@StatesmanJournal.com or (503) 399-6801. Find him on Twitter at @ZachsORoutdoors.

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Oregon flood updates: Highway 101 reopens in Seaside, Lincoln City; closed in Tillamook

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Heavy rains are bringing flooding and landslides to some parts of Oregon, mainly on the Coast but also in the Cascades.

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12/4/23 Strong atmospheric rivers are expected to wallop the Northwest with heavy rain and snow

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12/4/23 Strong atmospheric rivers are expected to wallop the Northwest with heavy rain and snow

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Strong atmospheric rivers are expected to wallop the Northwest with heavy rain and snow | CNN

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Multiple atmospheric rivers are expected across the northwestern US the next few days, bringing heavy rain, feet of snow and strong winds.

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12/2/23 Oregon Gov. Kotek, state leaders approve more ODOT funding as winter weather arrives

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12/2/23 Oregon Gov. Kotek, state leaders approve more ODOT funding as winter weather arrives

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Oregon governor asks Legislature for more ODOT funding as winter weather arrives

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ODOT has said a decrease in gas tax revenue will result in decreased winter road maintenance.

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12/3/23 RV owners along Johnson Creek feel the impact of heavy rain

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12/3/23 RV owners along Johnson Creek feel the impact of heavy rain

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According to the National Weather Service, Johnson Creek was forecast to rise from five feet Saturday to about 12 feet Sunday afternoon.

Most people haven't been affected by the rain, but for one woman who lives in an RV, the rain has gone through her roof. She now has a tarp tied down so that she doesn't have these leaks, but says the water makes an impact.

"The weather affects a lot of things, it affects towing, parking, working in the rain. It affects your generator, how you can run it, where you can run it, and how it needs to be stored. It affects your leaks if you have any kind of leaks you have to be proactive," said Alexandria Lance.

Given the area and its location, water can become an issue, according to Lance.

"This is, I believe part of a watershed, so there's a runoff for the whole of the mountain here that comes down through a waterfall right over there. A lot of it goes over there but a lot of it doesn't."

The Portland Bureau of Transportation urges caution for all drivers on the road. If there is high water on the road, officials say please don't drive through it.

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RV owners along Johnson Creek feel the impact of heavy rain

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Around Johnson Creek Avenue in South East Portland, one couple living in their RV had rain pour through their roof.“The weather affects a lot of things, it affe

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1/21/23 Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley tour reveals Morrow County residents’ frustration with groundwater inaction

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1/21/23 Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley tour reveals Morrow County residents’ frustration with groundwater inaction

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As U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley peered underneath a sink belonging to Mike Pearson, the Morrow County local told him that the reverse osmosis filter provided by the county still wasn't getting enough nitrates out of his drinking water to make it safe.

"I had one in, we tested it," Pearson said. "And if I remember right, the best we could get is 12. And then when I put this new one in, it's 26.1."

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency maintains that any nitrate concentration above 10 parts per billion is unsafe to drink.

For decades, fertilizer runoff and wastewater from farms and industrial operations have seeped into the groundwater of the Lower Umatilla Basin, an area that covers northern Morrow County and western Umatilla County. For many residents who draw their water from private wells rather than city water systems, this has meant dangerously high concentrations of nitrates, a chemical that can cause respiratory infections, thyroid dysfunctions and bladder cancer.

Merkley was in Morrow County ahead of his annual town hall in Irrigon on Jan. 15, but also to tout $1.7 million in federal funding to study groundwater solutions, like connecting residents to a city water system or the creation of a rural water district.

The people Merkley encountered on the tour were happy he was there but implored him to help them further.

Less than a mile away was the home of Ana Maria Rodriguez, who showed the senator where the nitrates had corroded her bathroom faucet. The filters worked for Rodriguez, but it still came at a cost: The filters could not produce enough water to cover all of her family's needs, meaning she still needed to venture into town to buy water.

The visit with Rodriguez was significant not only because she is a Morrow County resident affected by nitrate pollution, but also because she is a community organizer with the nonprofit Oregon Rural Action.

She helped gather about 20 people in her garage to talk about their concerns. They held up pieces of paper with their nitrate levels measured in parts per million: 40.9, 43, 54. Oregon Rural Action staffer Zaira Sanchez provided translation for the senator as the many Latino audience members asked questions.

They told Merkley that they had heard promises from authorities in the past, but wanted assurances they would continue to get access to clean water and updates on the status of the crisis. Confusion and frustration with local government, state agencies and elected officials charged with solving the problem became a running theme throughout the day.

Holding her 3-year-old daughter, Ruth Lopez said she didn't want to expose her child to nitrates.

"I hope that this doesn't affect this younger generation as well," she said. "So I asked with all my heart that you continue to support us with this issue."

The residents also shared a Jan. 10 letter sent to Gov. Tina Kotek, signed by more than 100 people. The letter said that many of the 4,500 private wells serving 14,000 people in the Lower Umatilla Basin hadn't been tested, but 70% of the ones that had been tested showed unsafe nitrate levels.

"State agencies have failed to protect our groundwater and are unresponsive in meeting our basic need for safe drinking water," they wrote. "We need your immediate attention to address this rural environmental injustice."

Responding to nitrate contamination has long been the domain of state and local government rather than the federal government. The state's responsibility is divided between the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, the Oregon Department of Agriculture and the Oregon Health Authority.

The Morrow County government was also involved last year when it declared an emergency last summer and began distributing water and filters. But the emergency expired at the end of the year and the county is passing off water delivery to a fourth state agency - the Oregon Department of Human Services. The department is set to end water distribution at the end of June at the latest.

Meanwhile, OHA has yet to start testing wells in the Lower Umatilla Basin.

The thicket of state and local agencies in charge of responding to the crisis has left people in the dark about who they should turn to with their issues. When Merkley asked the group if they knew that the state was taking over water delivery, they said they didn't.

The federal government has indicated that it may not stay on the sideline forever. In July, the EPA wrote a letter to state agencies encouraging them to take more enforcement action against polluters and other measures to help Lower Umatilla Basin residents, or the state could risk federal intervention.

The two legislators who represent the Lower Umatilla Basin - state Sen. Bill Hansell and state Rep. Greg Smith - were not on the tour and have not proposed legislation to address the issue either.

But in an interview, Hansell said addressing it is a priority for him. He said he previously reached out to Morrow County commissioners and a representative from the governor's regional solution team to offer his assistance if needed.

"I just haven't heard anything," he said.

Hansell said he was waiting to receive Kotek's budget proposal to see if money would be allocated for water deliveries. He also said he deferred to Smith on the issue since the Heppner representative lives in Morrow County.

Smith did not respond to a request for comment.

Some residents didn't just want to see their drinking water cleaned and restored, but also accountability from the individuals and companies that contributed to the pollution in the first place.

At the Merkley town hall in Irrigon, Kathleen Mendoza said her well tests above 50 parts per million and critiqued a "piddly-ass fine" the Oregon DEQ issued to the Port of Morrow for over-applying nitrogen-rich wastewater on agricultural fields in the Lower Umatilla Basin.

After the town hall ended, Mendoza said in an interview that she's developed a rheumatic disease and needs to take thyroid medication since moving to Morrow County in 2000. She wanted to see more action.

"I really feel like the federal government needs to step in and tell the state of Oregon to get on a stick and do something about this," she said.

Back in Rodriguez's garage, Merkley described himself more as a facilitator than a regulator. Merkley's office could work to connect residents with the proper state authority, he said, but it was the state rather than the federal government that would help them solve the problem.

"In my role, I'll have to advocate since I'm representing us in the national government," he said. "I'm not the governor, but I can certainly raise it with the state department of health and with the governor to say, 'How's this transition happening and let's make sure there's not a gap here.'"

It was an explanation that was received politely but not without some pushback. Back at Rodriguez's garage, resident Paulo Lopez urged Merkley to help him and his neighbors retain water deliveries to their home.

When Merkley pointed to state authorities, Lopez gave his response in Spanish before pausing while he waited for Sanchez to translate.

"We know you have power as well."

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Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley tour reveals Morrow County residents' frustration with groundwater inaction

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As U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley peered underneath a sink belonging to Mike Pearson, the Morrow County local told him that the reverse osmosis filter provided by the county still wasn't getting enough nitrates out of his drinking water to make it safe. "I had one in, we tested it," Pearson said.

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11/30/23 ‘No more dog and pony’: Portland area lawmakers hear from nitrate-affected Oregonians

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11/30/23 ‘No more dog and pony’: Portland area lawmakers hear from nitrate-affected Oregonians

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It's been more than a year since Morrow County declared an emergency over nitrate contamination in the Lower Umatilla Basin. But residents are still learning that their water is unsafe to drink.

Gloria Muñoz, 19, said she had just heard about the Boardman area's nitrate pollution earlier that day. Her Monday night audience included three Oregon state legislators and about 30 residents whose patience in the government's ability to clean their drinking water was quickly waning.

Gloria Muñoz, right, shares her concerns about nitrate pollution at a community meeting at the Blue Mountain Community College campus in Boardman, Ore. on Nov. 27, 2023.
Antonio Sierra / OPB

Muñoz told the crowd in Spanish that she had just moved to Boardman a month ago but had only found out about nitrate pollution the day of the meeting. She worried that the message wasn't getting through to youth.

"I'm someone who thinks a lot about my future," Muñoz said through Zaira Sanchez, the Oregon Rural Action director of community organizing, who had to pause to wipe the tears from her eyes during her translation. "I feel bad for the folks who planned their future here. The opportunities that they planned for themselves have died on this land that they can no longer drink water from."

Oregon Rural Action has spent the better part of a year inviting government officials from the Willamette Valley to Boardman. When prominent figures like U.S. Sen Jeff Merkley and Gov. Tina Kotek traveled to Morrow County last year, Oregon Rural Action was there to lead tours of the area and host community meetings.

The arrival of three representatives from the state Legislature's BIPOC Caucus was just the latest iteration on that trend. The visit from three Portland area lawmakers brought the potential that they could influence policy that would lead to solutions for a decades-old problem.

BIPOC Caucus seeks environmental justice

State Rep. Annessa Hartman, D-Gladstone, is the vice chair of the House's agriculture and water committee, but she said her interest in coming to Boardman was also personal.

The Haudenosaunee legislator said she grew up on an Indian reservation where as a girl, she collected water for her family from a tank outside her home.

"I know what it's like to not have access to clean drinking water and for it to be a resource that's not infinite," she said.

State Rep. Khanh Pham, second from left, speaks at a community meeting on nitrate pollution as state Rep. Annessa Hartman, center, listens at the Blue Mountain Community College campus in Boardman, Ore. on Nov. 27, 2023.
Antonio Sierra / OPB

State Rep. Khanh Pham, D-Portland, said the BIPOC Caucus decided to send representatives to Eastern Oregon because environmental justice is a part of its mission. At more than 40%, Morrow County has the highest share of Latino residents in the state.

"We know that across the country, but definitely in this state, communities of color often bear a disproportionate burden of the impacts of pollution, particularly the health impacts," she said. "When Oregon Rural Action and the community members here reached out to us to learn more, we really jumped at the opportunity to deepen our understanding."

Nitrate pollution caused by fertilizer and wastewater used in farms and industrial operations has plagued communities in Morrow County for more than three decades. Residents outside incorporated cities draw their drinking water from private wells that often test far past the federal limit for nitrate levels. Overexposure to nitrates has been linked to illnesses like cancer and thyroid disease.

The legislators stopped short of recommending any specific policies or making specific promises. They said they were there to learn and to take their experience back to Salem for further discussion.

The districts belonging to all the members of the BIPOC Caucus are well over 100 miles away from Boardman and Eastern Oregon. And while the caucus is entirely comprised of Democrats, Republicans dominate most of the districts east of the Cascades.

Still, Ricki Ruiz, D-Gresham, said he thinks he can work with the Eastern Oregon delegation should the need arise.

The BIPOC Caucus can engage with the local delegation here, whether it's local legislators, county commissioners, or council people, he said. "Whether we agree or disagree, I think it's gonna be a conversation we're going to have in the future."

Local legislators respond

State Rep. Greg Smith, R-Heppner, said he would have been in Boardman shaking his colleagues' hands if he didn't have a scheduling conflict.

Smith has long had close relationships with local businesses and industry, but he agreed with his Democratic counterparts.

"No one can or should defend unsafe drinking water," he said.

He was less charitable to Oregon Rural Action. He estimated that "99.9%" of Morrow and Umatilla County had never heard of the La Grande nonprofit before it began its anti-nitrate pollution advocacy. And their work was hindering the effort to find solutions rather than helping it, he said.

Oregon Rural Action organizer Nella Parks talks about a well contaminated with nitrates with members of the Legislature's BIPOC Caucus near Boardman, Ore., on Nov. 27, 2023.
Antonio Sierra / OPB

"The folks who are responsible for putting nitrates in the ground, really want to have a conversation with the folks who have been impacted," he said. "But they feel as if there's this entity in between them that is making that challenging because of rhetoric."

While the community audience expressed frustration with the state's response to the crisis, Smith and state Sen. Bill Hansell, R-Athena, defended the state's efforts to test wells and provide drinking water.

Smith did admit a long-term solution is still needed. Although the Port of Morrow has drawn scrutiny over its wastewater practices, the port only comprises a small percentage of total nitrate pollution. If Oregon wanted cleaner groundwater for the region, Smith said, it would need to address the irrigated farms, dairies and feedlots that pollute the most.

Whatever resolution is reached will involve more nitrate monitoring requirements, Smith said. Beyond that, how much more stringent a new nitrate policy would be is dependent on how much farmers cooperate.

"The question is, are those in agriculture going to be part of that solution and help bring technology and innovation to the table to make that occur?" he said. "Or is it going to happen to them."

'No more dog and pony'

When he appeared before Kotek in Boardman in August, Paulo Lopez Jr. was too overcome by emotion to get his message out as the governor promised "a new day" in the state's response to the crisis.

Three months later, the 13-year-old tried again in front of Hartman, Pham and Ruiz.

"The governor did not just promise me, she promised all of us," he said, his voice wavering. "She has barely done anything. I would just like you to remind the governor about her promise. It's just not about our future, it's about the future of the next generation and the generations coming on."

Paulo's frustrations were one of many shared at the meeting.

While Kotek and the Legislature have delivered funding for bottled water deliveries and well testing, there are gaps in service. Sometimes the deliveries don't provide enough water for their families or the results of the well tests took too long to process, the residents said. While the state promised further testing and studies into the link between nitrates and illness, audience members didn't consider them useful initiatives if nitrate levels were continuing to rise and residents were still getting sick.

The most frequent complaint was that the state still hadn't done enough to prevent additional nitrate pollution.

"No more dog and pony," resident Jim Klipfel said. "Just the show."

Ruiz offered an apology to the lawmakers that he later translated to Spanish himself.

"We are going to hopefully make this not the first or last visit," he said. "Hopefully, we get to come back, get to talk to more community members, get to listen to more testimonies, and go back to the Legislature and really figure out how we can best come up with a solution that makes sense for all of you."

Lawmakers could get another crack at that solution during the next legislative session, which starts Feb. 5.

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pollution | eastern oregon | environment | rural

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'No more dog and pony': Portland area lawmakers hear from nitrate-affected Oregonians

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BIPOC caucus members say they'll work with local legislators to find solution to Morrow and Umatilla counties' nitrate pollution problem.

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12/1/23 Salem reports sewage spill into Clark Creek

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12/1/23 Salem reports sewage spill into Clark Creek

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A tree root blocking a sewer line in southeast Salem caused about 265 gallons of raw sewage to spill into Clark Creek Thursday afternoon, the city said in a news release.

The overflow was reported at 2925 Cottage Street S.E. around 3 p.m. Thursday. Public works crews were dispatched and cleared the intrusion within the hour, the release said.

"The City of Salem is asking residents to avoid the marked sections of Clark Creek and obey all signs to avoid contact with the waterway in the area. Staff will continue to take water samples and any bacteria at the site should be flushed out of the water body in the next few days," the release said.

The spill is the third this year requiring public notification because of sewage flow into waterways. In August, about 12,000 gallons of raw sewage spilled into Labish Ditch following a buildup of obstructions and grease.

In October, raw sewage spilled into Claggett Creek. That spill was also caused by a buildup of obstructions, including rags and grease.

People can report overflowing manholes or spills to the Public Works Department Dispatch Center at 503-588-6333.
Contact reporter Rachel Alexander: [email protected] or 503-575-1241.
SUPPORT OUR WORK - We depend on subscribers for resources to report on Salem with care and depth, fairness and accuracy. Subscribe today to get our daily newsletters and more. Click I want to subscribe!

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Salem reports sewage spill into Clark Creek - Salem Reporter

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About 265 gallons of raw sewage spilled into the creek in southeast Salem Thursday afternoon.

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12/1/23 Flood watch issued for NW Oregon, Willamette River in Salem forecast to hit 'action stage'

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12/1/23 Flood watch issued for NW Oregon, Willamette River in Salem forecast to hit 'action stage'

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An extremely wet system of weather that's brought heavy snow to Oregon's Cascade Range could bring flooding to the Willamette Valley and Coastal areas late this weekend and into next week.

A flood watch has been issued by the National Weather Service through Tuesday afternoon for almost the entire northwest swath of the state.

"A series of atmospheric rivers will bring periods of widespread heavy rain through early next week," NWS wrote. "Cascade snow accumulations through Saturday morning will experience heavy rain Saturday night into Sunday morning which will contribute to excessive run off."

Rain totals are forecast to range from 6-8 inches in the mountains to 3-4 inches in the Willamette Valley.

Rivers most likely to see some level of flooding include: The Wilson near Tillamook, Nehalem River near Foss, Marys River near Philomath, and South Yamhill at McMinnville.

More major streams, such as the mainstem Willamette, is expected to rise sharply to just under "action stage" at roughly 20 feet. That would have impacts such as shutting down ferries and possibly bringing flooding on access roads to the islands on the Willamette River near Salem.

The city of Salem has activated sandbag locations in central and West Salem locations.

"Those who use Minto-Brown Island Park and Wallace Marine Park should be cautious of minor flooding. Salem streams and creeks are also forecast to rise through Wednesday," the City of Salem said in a news release.

The Santiam River at Jefferson is also expected to reach "action stage." The real-time river levels and projection of all Oregon rivers can be seen here: https://water.weather.gov/ahps2/index.php?wfo=pqr.

Many reservoirs in the Willamette Valley are at extremely low levels and should help buffer the worst impacts of flooding.

Flooding is likely to have the greatest impact on the Oregon Coast and Coast Range.

On the Cascade Mountain passes, a winter storm warning remains in effect through Saturday for extremely difficult driving conditions and up to 30 inches of snow.
Zach Urness has been an outdoors reporter in Oregon for 15 years and is host of the Explore Oregon Podcast. To support his work, subscribe to the Statesman Journal. Urness is the author of "Best Hikes with Kids: Oregon" and "Hiking Southern Oregon." He can be reached at zurness@StatesmanJournal.com or (503) 399-6801. Find him on Twitter at @ZachsORoutdoors.

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Flood watch issued for NW Oregon, Willamette River in Salem forecast to hit 'action stage'

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An extremely wet system of weather is forecast to bring flooding to the Willamette Valley and Coastal areas late this weekend and into next week.

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12/30/23 Feds consider removing Snake River dams in leaked agreement with plaintiffs in lawsuit

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12/30/23 Feds consider removing Snake River dams in leaked agreement with plaintiffs in lawsuit

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The Biden administration and federal agencies are prepared to remove four lower Snake River dams to save imperiled salmon species, according to a leaked proposal among parties in a federal lawsuit and the administration's environmental council.

Republican representatives in the Northwest, as well as some electric utilities, are not pleased about the proposed agreement.

The willingness to consider removing the dams and to invest at least $1 billion during the next decade in habitat restoration and alternative energy development on tribal lands in the Columbia Basin was revealed in a leaked 34-page proposed agreement of commitments by the federal government to save endangered Columbia Basin fish. It was first reported by the online news site Clearing Up on Tuesday and then released Wednesday by Republican lawmakers.

The Snake River is the main tributary of the Columbia River, flowing from Idaho and eastern Washington into Oregon. The four dams provide irrigation and emissions-free hydropower for nearby communities, but they have also contributed to the near extinction of 13 salmon and steelhead species that return to the Columbia Basin from the Pacific Ocean to spawn, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Oregon congressman Cliff Bentz, a Republican who opposes removing the dams, joined four other state Republican congressional representatives from Idaho and Washington to President Joe Biden on Wednesday, asking for clarity on some of the proposed actions - which include the possibility of removing the Snake River dams - and where replacement power would come from.

"It is imperative that our constituents, whose livelihoods depend on the Columbia River system, have a comprehensive understanding of this document's contents," they wrote, "so they can anticipate and prepare for the wide-ranging impacts that will inevitably be felt across the region should the commitments detailed in this document be realized."

Years-long negotiations

The proposal is the result of more than two years of negotiations among the federal Council on Environmental Quality, the Biden administration's environmental advisors, and parties represented by the nonprofit Earthjustice, which sued the federal government in 2021 over its dam operations on the Snake River and their threat to those 13 salmon and steelhead runs. The downstream effects of the dams also hurt southern resident orcas off the coasts of British Columbia, Washington and Oregon that rely on salmon for food and are listed as endangered. Earthjustice is representing 10 conservation and fishing groups, with support from the state of Oregon and the Nez Perce Tribe. The federal agencies named in the lawsuit include the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Bureau of Reclamation, Bonneville Power Administration, Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service.

Lawyers at Earthjustice and Shannon Wheeler, chair of the Nez Perce, have said publicly that the four dams on the lower Snake River should be removed. The loss of river water that's used to irrigate crops and the growth of farmland in the area have reduced salmon runs along with overfishing, rising water temperatures and the adverse impact from hatcheries and hatchery fish.

All parties agreed to put the lawsuit on pause in 2021, and to negotiate a plan to save the fish. After several extensions , the parties recently reached the proposed agreement, which was to be filed in federal court on Dec. 15. It is still unclear who initially leaked the agreement, according to Elizabeth Manning, a spokesperson for Earthjustice.

She said the group and its lawyers will continue following federal mediation rules that require confidentiality while talks are ongoing.

"We cannot provide any detail beyond what is in the filings with the court," Manning said in an emailed statement. She said Earthjustice lawyers still plan to submit the proposal in court Dec. 15 and, if all parties don't agree to move forward, Earthjustice and the litigants it represents will restart their 2021 lawsuit.

The commitments

Among the commitments proposed by federal officials in the draft are more than $1 billion in investments to develop alternative sources of renewable energy in the Columbia Basin, particularly for tribal communities, as well as investments in fish passage improvements, habitat restoration and hatcheries. When it comes to removing the four dams, the proposal's authors wrote: "The science is clear, and now so too must be our path forward."

The authors, citing a 2022 National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration , wrote that without dam removal and habitat restoration on the Snake River, the likelihood of extinction for 13 salmon and steelhead runs is "moderate to high."

"We agree that business as usual - and the consequential disappearance of salmon and other native fish populations in the Columbia River Basin - is unacceptable. And while there is still time to save these fish, there is no time to waste," they said.

Republican opponents

Bentz, as well as Reps. Russ Fulcher, R-Idaho; Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash.; and Dan Newhouse, R-Wash.; submitted three pages of questions to Biden following their review of the proposal. They expressed concern about where alternative energy would come from for Columbia Basin communities and whether the new energy sources would reduce the independence of the Bonneville Power Administration. They said the proposal lacked the clarity they needed to make a decision, and reminded Biden that Congress would be the ultimate vote on removing dams.

"Due to the document's use of vague and imprecise language, it appears susceptible to misinterpretation," they said.

Kurt Miller, executive director of Northwest RiverPartners, an industry group representing community-owned electric utilities in Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Utah, Nevada and Wyoming, called the proposal "one sided." Northwest RiverPartners is a Vancouver-based third party involved in the case on the part of the federal agencies. The negotiations have been criticized for not including electric utilities customers who would potentially pay higher prices for alternative forms of energy if the dams and the hydropower they supply are ended.

"Anti-hydropower groups determining the future of hydropower is not a good idea and that's what this agreement is at its core," Miller said.

Manning of Earthjustice said it's possible to provide power to the region and keep fish species from disappearing.

"Our goal has long been to reach a comprehensive solution that would prevent salmon extinction, restore the Columbia River Basin ecosystem and replace the services now provided by the dams so the Pacific Northwest can chart a more sustainable and resilient future," she wrote.
Washington State Standard reporter Jerry Cornfield contributed to this report.

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Feds consider removing Snake River dams in leaked agreement with plaintiffs in lawsuit - Oregon Capital Chronicle

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Federal scientists say there is a high likelihood of extinction for 13 Columbia Basin salmon and steelhead runs without immediate attention.

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11/30/23 City opens sandbag stations as heavy rains expected starting Thursday

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11/30/23 City opens sandbag stations as heavy rains expected starting Thursday

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The city of Salem has opened places to pick up sandbags and is asking residents to help keep storm drains clear and report any flooding ahead of several days of forecasted heavy rain.

Over the next three days, the National Weather Service in Portland forecasts up to 3 inches of rain starting Thursday afternoon. Combined with melting snow from the Cascades, the service warns of potential flooding.

"We have at least two, if not three, atmospheric rivers that are set to impact our region back to back to back," said Tyler Kranz, the lead meteorologist at the service's Portland office. Atmospheric rivers are weather formations that transport water vapor and bring rains. "So we're going to get dumped on with a lot of rain this weekend."

To the east, the Cascade Range will see heavy snows through Saturday morning, bringing snowmelt to the Salem area that afternoon.

"All that water has to go somewhere. It's going to flow into all of our rivers, creeks and streams and it's going to cause those river levels to rise pretty quickly," Kranz said. He said there's a 20-40% chance that most rivers in the area could reach a minor flooding stage.

In Salem, the Willamette River is at a low water level and is not predicted to flood, but there could be some water rise that impacts Minto Brown Island Park or Wallace Marine Park, said city spokesman Trevor Smith.

Streams may see more of an impact from water level rise, and residents can look up water levels and information on the city's high water watch webpage.

Recent cold weather led to trees shedding their leaves, which now block storm drains and creeks, said Smith. Public works crews are working to pick up leaves 24 hours a day.

"We're looking for the public's help in making sure those storm drains are clear," Smith said. "So if people can walk their street, take a shovel, clear out their storm drains so that water can drain properly."

Residents can also pick up sandbags in two locations in central and west Salem as of Thursday morning, with more locations to be opened if needed, Smith said. One location is the city's shops complex at Southeast 22nd Street and Southeast Oxford Street, and the west Salem location is at the park and ride at 1439 Brush College Rd. N.W., off of Wallace Road.

A map of open sandbag locations can be found here.

There will also be a higher risk of hydroplaning with standing water. Joe Hutchinson, the city's emergency manager, said drivers should use caution, and not use cruise control which can malfunction with standing water.

The Mid-Willamette Valley Community Action Agency will inform unsheltered people living near the Willamette River and Mill Creek if there area any drastic changes to the forecasted water levels requiring evacuation, chief program officer Ashley Hamilton said in an email.

If the waterways reach levels that could cause significant disruption to the health and safety of unsheltered people, the agency may open emergency shelters. As of Thursday afternoon's water level forecast, they do not plan to open any.

"However as we monitor the forecast, if conditions change emergency shelter information will be provide on the MWVCAA and ARHES project Facebook pages, as well as MWVCAA website," Hamilton said.

Contact the Public Works Dispatch Center 24 hours a day at 503-588-6311 to report high water, blocked drains or other weather-related concerns.

Update: This story was updated to include comments from the MWVCAA and a more accurate address for the sandbags at the shops complex.
Contact reporter Abbey McDonald: [email protected] or 503-704-0355.
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City opens sandbag stations as heavy rains expected starting Thursday - Salem Reporter

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Up to three inches of rain is forecasted to fall over the next three days, prompting Salem to open up locations to pick up sandbags and ask residents to help clear storm drains. The National Weather Service warns of increased risk of flooding in creeks.

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11/28/23 Oregon Rural Action calls for investigation of truck fire

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11/28/23 Oregon Rural Action calls for investigation of truck fire

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BOARDMAN, Ore. - Oregon Rural Action (ORA) is calling for the investigation of the burning of an ORA staff person's pickup truck from Monday, Nov. 27 in rural Morrow County.

In a press release, ORA says the truck was found to be on fire in front of a property, noting that state legislators visited the property an hour earlier.

"The fact that this truck appears to have been intentionally set on fire at the very time we were hosting a delegation of Oregon legislators makes this incident extremely concerning," said ORA Executive Director Kristin Ostrom.

ORA says the Boardman Fire Department responded to the fire with Fire Marshall Marty Broadbent saying that the fire was "suspicious."

Ostrom is also calling for the protection of ORA staff and community members from state, county and municipal authorities.

"We're deeply concerned this violent action may be a message to rural community members and Oregon Rural Action that we should stop our efforts to secure safe drinking water," said Ostrom. "Safe drinking water is a fundamental right for all, including rural residents."

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Oregon Rural Action calls for investigation of truck fire

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BOARDMAN, Ore. - Oregon Rural Action (ORA) is calling for the investigation of the burning of an ORA staff person's pickup truck from Monday, Nov. 27 in rural Morrow County.

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11/28/23 City of Bend expects nearly $1 million from lawsuit settlement after finding ‘forever chemicals’ in city well

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11/28/23 City of Bend expects nearly $1 million from lawsuit settlement after finding ‘forever chemicals’ in city well

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City of Bend expects nearly $1 million from lawsuit settlement after finding ‘forever chemicals’ in city well - KTVZ

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Bend city councilors voted to have the city join a federal class-action lawsuit against 3M and DuPont de Nemours after a small amount of PFAS, also known as “forever chemicals,” was found in a city well during testing earlier this year.

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11/27/23 On the headwaters of the Klamath River, water shortages test tribes, farmers and wildlife

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11/27/23 On the headwaters of the Klamath River, water shortages test tribes, farmers and wildlife

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CHILOQUIN, Ore. - Don Gentry stood under a pine tree on a late summer day overlooking the confluence of the Williamson River and Spring Creek.

"We're at the headwaters of the Klamath River, the spring creek that flows out of the ground up there," said Gentry, pointing at the burbling waters that feed Upper Klamath Lake and eventually, the Klamath River.

Gentry is the former chairman of the Klamath Tribes, who have been working to reclaim their reservation lands and waters in the Upper Klamath River Basin. They're also trying to preserve the two fish species at the heart of their cultures.

The Klamath Tribes, the only tribe on the river holding a ratified treaty with the U.S., has a long relationship with Upper Klamath Lake and the Upper Klamath Basin. They own the most senior water rights in southern Oregon, and they're not afraid to use those rights to address their issues with fish in their traditional lands. That has put them at odds with farmers who also rely on the river to grow potatoes, onions and other crops after the U.S. government invited them to homestead in the now-drained Lower Klamath and Tule lakes.

The three cultures of the Klamath Tribes - the Klamath, Modoc and Yahooskin Paiute - have inhabited southern Oregon, the Tule, Upper Klamath and Clear lakes and the lands around what is now Lava Rocks National Monument for millennia. Gentry said anthropologists confirm they have lived and worked in the basin for at least 15,000 years.

In 1864, the Klamath ceded 23 million acres to the U.S., receiving a 1.8-million acre reservation in southern Oregon. They retained the right to hunt, fish and gather plants.

The tribe enjoyed prosperity, thanks to its logging and cattle operations. Tribal members also continued to hunt and fish for salmon, steelhead and the fish they are culturally affiliated with: the c'waam, or Lost River sucker and the koptu, or shortnose sucker. Those fish once inhabited both Upper and Lower Klamath lakes and the Lost River watershed.

The c'waam is at the center of Klamath culture, according to Klamath Tribes Chairman Clayton Dumont.

"Gmok'am'c, the Creator, chopped up a serpent who tormented the people," Dumont said. "He changed the pieces into the c'waam and told the people to care for the fish and the fish would take care of them." The tribe has worked to care for those fish ever since.

With their prosperity, the tribe confronted ancient ethics regarding how they used the land's bounty.

"We're not preservationists; we use things," Gentry said. But the land's blessings come with responsibilities. "As humans, we have a real responsibility to only take what we need," he said. For example, "We would gather duck and goose eggs but we wouldn't take them all." Those ethics and morals have survived colonization.

But the massive system of lakes, marshes, rivers and streams once known as the "Everglades of the West" that had sustained fish, birds, other wildlife and Native peoples would be altered to suit settler priorities.

Massive 'Klamath Project' leaves little for birds or fish

Beginning in 1905, the federal government embarked on the Klamath Project, which replumbed much of the Upper Basin. The results have reverberated across the entire basin.

The Bureau of Reclamation began draining Lower Klamath and Tule lakes to deliver farmlands to homesteaders. A railroad embankment separated the Klamath from the Lower Klamath Lake. Diversion dams dried up Tule Lake, freeing the nutrient-rich soil. The bureau built the "A" canal to deliver irrigation water to what eventually grew to about 240,000 acres of alfalfa, grass seed, potatoes and other crops. Dams, canals, diversions, pumping plants and other infrastructure followed.

Tule Lake is now completely dry and Lower Klamath Lake is nearly so, disconnected from the ancient Klamath River Basin watershed.

While one branch of government busily drained lakes and wetlands that wildlife and Native peoples depended on, and which had stored water for millennia, another branch worked to preserve the little that was left.

President Theodore Roosevelt created the Lower Klamath National Wildlife Refuge in 1908, the nation's first waterfowl refuge. In 1928, President Calvin Coolidge established Tule Lake National Wildlife Refuge. The refuges are part of a complex in the region managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which also administers the Endangered Species Act.

Upriver from the Upper Klamath Lake, the Sprague River, one of the lake's major sources, was channelized by the Army Corps of Engineers to dry out wetlands and create cattle pastures. Cattle were allowed to roam in the waterway, fouling the waters.

There were other consequences: The soil in the Upper Basin contains significant levels of phosphorus, which was once filtered by wetlands upriver from the lake. The combination of contaminants from cattle droppings and the basin's naturally occurring phosphorus that turbocharges algae growth, combined with agricultural runoff into the 25-mile-long lake, creates often deadly conditions for fish and hazardous conditions for humans and other species.

After troubled times, Klamath Tribes move to reclaim heritage, lands and fish

The coming of intensive agriculture and water diversions took a toll on the lake's aquatic life. C'waam and koptu declined greatly and were listed as endangered in 1988. Salmon, steelhead or lamphrey could no longer access about 400 miles of their cold-water spawning sites after a series of dams were built on the middle Klamath River, structures that contribute to the low fish numbers.

The c'waam and koptu are indicators of ecosystem health throughout the basin, said Mark Hereford with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. "The decline of the fish is an indicator of the decline of the lake system."

In 1954, Congress terminated the Klamath Tribes' sovereign nation status, a ruinous blow to a once-prosperous people. It left the tribe without a land base, since the reservation had been put into private land status and allotted to individual tribal members.

Termination also devastated the tribe's community structures. "Termination brought about some social problems," Gentry said. Men's roles as providers and protectors was threatened, and even the use of traditional plants was shunned as "witchcraft" due to the prohibitions against Native religious practices.
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In 1974, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled the Klamath Tribes had retained their treaty rights even though Congress had terminated their sovereignty, and the tribe regained its sovereign status in 1986. By that time, their reservation was fragmented into allotments that some tribal members managed to retain. The Klamath Tribes now have just 309 acres of noncontiguous trust land and about 2,800 acres of private land.

The tribes' senior water rights were quantified in 2012, and reaffirmed several times, most recently in June 2023.

Dumont said the 5,600-member tribe is committed to restoring its 1864 land boundaries along with its cultural heritage. But the tribe is in it for the long haul, he said, even though they face serious challenges.

"There's not enough money on the planet to compensate for what's happened here."

They must also confront challenges in maintaining water quality to preserve the c'waam and koptu. The tribe has created its own nursery for the fish, Ambodat, or "about or near the water."

And the tribe is restoring the lands it has purchased. One project is the Hog Creek Ranch, located on a tributary of the Williamson River. The tribe is using American Rescue Act funds to restore the 1,256-acre marshy wetland that had been drained to use as a cattle ranch. They hope the restoration will also recreate critical habitat for the Oregon spotted frog and other semi-aquatic species.

The tribe is also dealing with a decline in forest health. As in other parts of the West, fire suppression and drought, fueled by climate change, have resulted in gigantic wildfires that damage plant, animal and aquatic life. The Bootleg Fire in 2021 burned 413,000 acres, including lands surrounding Upper Klamath Lake's tributaries, and damaged elk wintering areas.

Farmers say they're in 'survival mode'

The Klamath Tribes' use of its senior water rights to force the Bureau of Reclamation to keep water in the lake and preserve their fish hasn't sat well with other water users, such as farmers downstream in the Tulelake, Klamath and other irrigation districts and irrigators in the Upper Basin. They saw their supplies curtailed in 2001 and have dealt with uncertain supplies ever since.

"We've been in survival mode for 20 years," said Scott Seus, a farmer from Tulelake. "Other parties sit in the driver's seat."

Seus and other farmers in the area said they felt they lost their negotiating leverage after the Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement failed to obtain congressional support. The farmers had supported dam removal as part of the agreement.

Seus pointed out several abandoned potato processing facilities and fallow fields. Even if a farmer wanted to sell out, the lack of reliable water supplies means that the land is worth far less than if the water were available. Also, he said, allowing fields to remain fallow too long allows weeds and invasive plants, degrading their value even more.

In 2018, the Klamath Project Drought Response Agency was formed to maximize water for irrigation water users in the Klamath Project. The agency provides conservation programs and financial assistance to farmers who agree to idle fields. The money comes from an intergovernmental agreement with the Bureau of Reclamation. It's helped the situation, but what the farmers The Republic spoke with said what they really needed was sufficient water to grow crops and support their families.

Birds land at the bottom of the water chain

Ryan Sabalow's voice broke when he talked about the times he and his dad enjoyed duck hunting in the Lower Klamath National Wildlife Refuge. Sabalow, communications coordinator for Ducks Unlimited, spoke of a time when they could go from duck blind to duck blind in the lush wetlands of the 50,000-acre refuge, part of a six-parcel complex on the Pacific Flyway. But this year's season was halted due to a shortage of birds making their way to the once-abundant fields of grasses, marshlands and other avian habitat.

In its heyday, the refuge and its companions gave about 5.8 million birds respite from their long migrations as well as breeding and molting sites. More recently, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which manages the refuges, reported about 1.8 million birds visit the lands during the course of a year.

Ducks, shorebirds, bald eagles, herons, egrets and dozens of other bird species depend on these and other refuges along the flyway.

"There's not enough water to go around," Interior Secretary Deb Haaland admitted in April about the Klamath River Basin. Nowhere is this shortfall more apparent than in the wildlife refuges.

The refuges are all that are left of two huge natural lakes that were drained early last century. In 1908, President Theodore Roosevelt set aside the 50,913-acre Lower Klamath National Wildlife Refuge as the nation's first federal waterfowl refuge. Founded in 1928 by President Calvin Coolidge, Tule Lake National Wildlife Refuge is 39,116 acres.

The refuges are fed by agricultural runoff delivered by a 6,600-foot long tunnel under Sheepy Ridge, which juts above the lakebeds, and by a canal from the Klamath River. But when the Klamath Tribes make a water call to preserve c'waam and koptu in the Upper Klamath Lake or drought lays the Klamath low, little or no water flows to refresh the reeds, grasses and the water the birds need. That's because the government never secured reliable water rights for the refuges.

At the top of Sheepy Ridge, Seus and other local farmers offered a birds-eye view of how the desert has encroached on the once-lush marshlands.

The wetlands also once harbored c'waam and koptu as well as other fish. No longer.

The situation became so dire that in 2021, the California Waterfowl Association started the process of purchasing water rights to convey to the Lower Klamath refuge. The 3,750-acre-feet of water floods 1,200 acres.

Although this falls far short of the 100,000 acre-foot requirement the refuge needs to maintain bird habitat, Mark Hennelly, vice president of advocacy for the group, said they see it as a long-term solution to provide water to at least part of the refuges.

"The Klamath Project was meant to provide water for farming," he said. "They didn't consider the refuges' needs because at the time there was water for everybody." The organization hopes to secure funding and eventually obtain up to 30,000 acre-feet of water rights, which would supply 10,000 acres within the refuge.

Ducks Unlimited also stepped in to help. The organization installed a pumping station at the Lower Klamath refuge to deliver irrigation return water made available by the California waterfowl group, a local drainage district and the Fish and Wildlife Service. Four more pumps are planned, two each in the Lower Klamath and Tule Lake refuges.

But these weren't enough to wet more than a small portion of the refuges. Both refuges canceled the duck hunting season last year and Lower Klamath's 2024 hunting season has been canceled.

'Walking wetlands' may be part of the solution to restoring wildlife refuges

Marc Staunton pointed out a field within the Lower Klamath refuge. But instead of nettles, thistles and other noxious plants, this field held marshy grasses and water.

"Back in 2005, we started working on a project to develop natural lands and have farming go on at the same time," he said.

The project Staunton referred to was the " Walking Wetlands " program, developed by Fish and Wildlife in the 1990s. Farmers agree to put water on a plot of leased land within the refuge for a one- to four-year cycle. They plant crops as usual, but without using pesticides. This saves the growers up $200 an acre in pesticides while increasing crop yields up to 25%. It also enables the farmer to certify the crop as organic, which increases their revenues, and farmers get a break on their leases.

Staunton started the project on 500 acres of his farmland.

"It's been super successful," he said. Not only does he make more money with the organic crops, the wetlands attract birds. They even noticed some koptu living in the wetland area. "The suckers survived in the old farms until they totally drained the lake," Staunton said.

The only thing Walking Wetlands needs is more water to make it work, he said. If not he said, "you're forsaking the birds."

Reclamation attempts to bring people together for solutions

Matt Strickler, deputy secretary for fish and wildlife at the Interior Department, is also serving as lead person for Klamath Basin water issues. Interior deals with most of the stakeholders and the issues, including six tribes, the refuge complex, the National Park Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and Reclamation as water manager for the Klamath Project.

"Would we have done it this way before?" Strickler asked, referring to the current state of conflicting claims and projects which he acknowledged has created a socially and ecologically degraded system.

His answer: "No."

But the Biden administration aims to do a better job in managing the basin. Stricker told The Republic that Interior started a new effort in 2022 to bring together people who live and work in the Klamath Basin and help them access resources to address the basin's challenges. The COVID-19 pandemic prevented in-person meetings before then, he said.

The administration now has the money to foster agreements but lack any for now. Still, he said, "People forgot that they don't hate each other."

Tribal, local, state and federal partners have asked to meet with the Bureau of Reclamation to provide their opinions on water management and environmental decisions.

The meetings, including one held in nearby Ashland in September, are an opportunity for stakeholders to claim a consistent seat at the table, improve transparency and work with each other and the bureau, he said.

Strickler acknowledged that the refuges have junior water rights under water laws. That, he said, makes it critical to work with all the stakeholders on restoration work that has broad support.

He's optimistic because the parties seem to agree on the need for environmental restoration. "It promises to have multiple benefits for nature and communities," he said.

Modocs come home, at last

Restoring the Klamath comes at an important moment for one tribal community. The Modoc Nation, banished to "Indian Country," now known as Oklahoma in 1873, is reclaiming part of their homeland.

The tribe was formed from descendants of the followers of Captain Jack, a Modoc member of the Klamath Tribes. Jack rebelled against corrupt Indian agents and clashes with the Klamath people and took his band back to Tule Lake and what's now Lava Beds National Monument, which sparked the Modoc War. After Jack and three of his lieutenants were hanged at the war's end, his followers were sent away.

But the nearly 500-member tribe never forgot its origins and has been buying up land within its ancestral boundaries. The most recent purchase was a worn-out sheep ranch near Sheepy Ridge. The nation plans to restore the ranch and two other pieces of land to the condition they were in when Modoc people first set foot in the remote region of northern California and southern Oregon millennia ago.

Ken Sandusky, the nation's resource and development director, said the purchases are part of a larger investment to reconnect the Modoc people to their homelands. They will restore sage grouse habitat, bring bison to the ranch and hold more cultural events, such as a recent ancestral run.
Debra Krol reports on Indigenous communities at the confluence of climate, culture and commerce in Arizona and the Intermountain West. Reach Krol at debra.krol@azcentral.com. Follow her on X, formerly Twitter Coverage of Indigenous issues at the intersection of climate, culture and commerce is supported by the Catena Foundation. .
"Our biggest priority is restoration, sustainable economy and jobs," said Sandusky, a longtime Klamath Falls resident who's a member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma. "This land hasn't had Indian representation in a long time."

My articles are free to read, but your subscriptions support more such great reporting. Please consider subscribing today.

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On the headwaters of the Klamath River, water shortages test tribes, farmers and wildlife

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A government plan to open land on the upper Klamath River to farmers left Native inhabitants with few resources and damaged wildlife habitat.

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11/25/23 Klamath Tribes all hands on deck to save endangered C’waam and Koptu suckerfish

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11/25/23 Klamath Tribes all hands on deck to save endangered C’waam and Koptu suckerfish

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It takes a village to raise suckerfish, and the Klamath Tribes are growing hundreds of the bottom-dwelling species in constructed ponds near Chiloquin of Southern Oregon. On a bright October morning, a crew has gathered to return a small number of them to the Sprague River, a tributary of Upper Klamath Lake.

Two technicians take turns transferring netfuls of fish from kiddie pool-sized holding tanks to a waiting truck. Klamath Tribes Fisheries Technician Charlie Wright sits perched next to the tank, verifying that each fish has been fitted with a passive integrated transponder, or PIT tag, which allows biologists to track where they go and how well they survive.

"We're scanning them as we're loading them to make sure everybody has a tag because we can't release anybody without a tag," says Wright.

Two species of fish are going into the tank: Koptu and C'waam, aka shortnose and Lost River suckers. The fish range in age and size, but all have reached a critical threshold, measuring at least 200 millimeters - about eight inches - from head to tail.

"We're hoping for a pretty good survival rate," says Wright. "We actually have quite a few sexually mature fish in here, which is really exciting to release because next spring they'll be able to make babies if they're comfortable enough."

C'waam and Koptu are essential "first foods" intertwined with the Klamath Tribes' culture and identity. Both species live only in the Upper Klamath Basin, primarily in Upper Klamath Lake. Chronically poor water quality has made the lake lethal for young fish. As a consequence, most suckers that are alive today are geriatric, and both species are endangered. Fewer than 5,000 individual Koptu remain.

Related: C'waam and Koptu: The fish at the center of the Klamath Basin's water crisis

For this reason, both the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Klamath Tribes have been capturing wild larvae and rearing suckers in specially constructed ponds. The ponds at the Tribes' Ambodat facility - the name means "of the water" in the Klamath language - are designed as healthier microcosms of Upper Klamath Lake, with the right balance of bugs, water chemistry, and nutrients, but where fish can grow safe from predation and poor water quality - the bigger, the better. Larger fish can more easily evade predation, and they are less vulnerable to the oxygen-starved conditions that develop in Upper Klamath Lake every summer.

"We're hoping to get them past that bottleneck, and hopefully get recruitment back into the population," says Brad Parrish, water rights specialist for the Klamath Tribes.

On this day, they plan to release 117 suckers into the Sprague River near the high school in Chiloquin. It's a modest number, but if even some of them survive long enough to reproduce, the effort will have been worth it to the Tribes.

A stop-gap solution

Suckers are long-lived fish: an adult C'waam can exceed 10 pounds and live for half a century. They look almost comical, with their fleshy, protruding lips, but their specialized mouths serve a purpose, as mature fish spend most of their time near the bottom of the lake, feeding on invertebrates. They move to cold springs on the lake's fringes or nudge up into the tributaries to spawn. Once the larvae develop, they start moving out into the lake themselves. That's where the challenges begin for young suckers.

Large, warm, and shallow, Upper Klamath Lake has always been high in nutrients, thanks to the naturally occurring phosphorus in the region's volcanic soils. But, a cascade of changes over the last 100 years, most related to the conversion of land for farming and ranching, has tipped the balance. Nearly all of the wetlands around the lake edge were drained, which not only stripped away the lake's natural filters but also the places where young suckers can seek refuge from birds and other predators. Diking and straightening have turned upstream tributaries into chutes that deliver nutrient-laden sediment into the lake. Algae devour those nutrients; the blooms consume oxygen, leaving little for other aquatic creatures. While all fish suffer, young fish are the most vulnerable.

Related: Klamath Tribes sue federal government over endangered fish

Drought and water allocations for farming have added to the problem, especially when lake levels dip so low that adult suckers can't access their spawning grounds.

By the mid-1980s, sucker numbers had declined so much that the Tribes' game commission declared a moratorium on harvesting; both species were listed as endangered under the federal Endangered Species Act in 1988. The last major spawning event occurred in the early 1990s, which means that most of the suckers alive today are nearing the end of their lives.

Now, saving the suckers is an all-hands-on-deck effort, with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Geological Survey, U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and private landowners playing a role.

Related: Endangered fish and waterfowl find refuge at the Klamath Basin's Lakeside Farms

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service launched its sucker rearing program in 2013; since 2018, the agency has released just over 70,000 suckers into Upper Klamath Lake. Right now, the agency is constructing a new, larger rearing facility with the aim of releasing up to 60,000 fish each year.

"We share staff between our hatchery and the Tribal hatchery, and they've come back our way and helped us out with knowledge, staff and materials," says Josh Gondek, fish biologist for U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Sucker Assisted Rearing Program. "A lot happens to get these fish raised to two to three years old."

The Klamath Tribes released around 400 suckers in 2021 and approximately 700 in 2022. Now, they plan to ramp up their rearing program more than tenfold. To support their goal of releasing 10,000 fish every year, they've hired aquaculturist Carlie Sharpes and are building additional ponds at the Ambodat facility. Eventually, they plan to raise spring Chinook here, too, as part of the plan to reintroduce the salmon to the upper basin once four dams on the Klamath River are fully removed next year.

Ultimately, the best way to help C'waam and Koptu is large-scale restoration of wetlands, rivers and forests, a task the Tribes, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and their partners are prioritizing, with the help of a basin-wide integrated plan released earlier this year. Until then, the rearing program is a stop-gap measure to keep the suckers from going extinct.

"Hopefully one day this won't be necessary, because we'll have the habitat in a restored state where the fish won't need to be artificially reared," says Sharpes. "At a certain point, we can't just create new technologies to slap a Band-Aid on the problem."

Related: Hatcheries may be the last best hope for endangered sucker fish in the Klamath Basin

Looking at the whole system

Hog Creek Ranch is 20 miles northeast of Chiloquin and the Ambodat facility, down a stretch of lonely red-dirt forest road lined with ponderosa pines. Hog Creek, a tributary of the Williamson River, runs through the ranch, although there's no sign of it in late October. Parrish remembers wandering onto this land decades ago as a teenager, while hunting.

"There was water flowing through here and there was fish in here," he says. "This was a wetland at one point. Now you can still see some of the wetland vegetation in certain locations, but a lot of its grass."

A previous landowner diverted the creek into a straight ditch and likely drained the wetland so they could graze cows in the meadow. Logging hammered the forest, and a railway, built to carry timber out of the valley, cut a natural spring off from the meadow.

Right now, melting snow shoots down the straightened section of Hog Creek, carrying sediment with it. The degradation that's happened in this meadow is a case study for the entire basin.

"This has turned into a really flashy system, where everything's gone as soon as we get snow out," says Parrish. Instead of storing water like a sponge, the upper basin acts like a sieve, with water flowing swiftly through upper tributaries and into the lake and down the Klamath River. By summer, even in decent water years, there's not enough water for all of the tribes, farmers, fish, and birds that depend on it.

Wet meadows high in the watershed such as the one on Hog Creek could and should serve as natural storage reservoirs that slowly release water through the summer. Restoring this function, Parrish believes, is key to addressing two of the upper basin's biggest challenges: water scarcity and water quality. The Klamath Tribes recently purchased the 1,200-acre ranch with the express aim of restoring both its meadows and forests.

This fall, Parrish's crew began removing the conifers from the meadow edges, which they will chip or burn in place. Next, they filled in the straightened, artificial ditch. Now they're coaxing the creek back into its historic, meandering channel and installing structures made from rock and wood posts to slow the creek down. Arrow-shaped "cross-vanes" force water to either side, where it must travel slightly upslope. "J-hooks" essentially do the same thing but are built at stream bends.

Related: 5 things to know about the Klamath water crisis

Both types of structures are designed to catch sediment, says Parrish. "I want to capture whatever sediment is coming into the system, because that is an issue when we're talking about water quality within the lake."

The meandering creek channel will spill over onto the surrounding floodplain and encourage willows to establish. Before long, the meadow will maintain itself. Soon, a crew will start working to restore the forest above the meadow, too.

"What I hope to show is that by addressing not only these "sponges," - these wetland areas - but the upland forest, you could then have a constant input (of water) into the system," says Parrish, who is involved in the planning process for annual water allocation for the basin. "It's all important, and we have to look at it from that perspective, or we're just going to continue to fight and we're not going to get anywhere."

Praying for survival

Later that October morning, the Ambodat crew travels with their precious cargo of suckers to a spot where the Sprague River flows behind the high school in Chiloquin. The crew of a dozen people transfers the fish by net, a few at a time, until all 117 are in the river. Each one has been fitted with a PIT tag and will become part of the larger database of basin-wide sucker monitoring. The release is one of several planned this fall.

Historically, C'waam and Koptu were the first fish back in spring - a welcome sight for Klamath people after a long winter subsisting on stored dried foods. Following close behind the suckers were healthy runs of salmon and steelhead - an abundance younger generations can hardly imagine.

Natalie Ball, a member of the Klamath Tribes who serves on the tribal council, has walked down to the river with her 11-year-old son to watch the release. Ball joined the tribal council in part because she saw the precipitous decline of these fish, and a third species of sucker, and wanted to be part of a collaborative body that made decisions on their behalf.

"I pray for our C'waam and our Koptu and our Yen, and I want my son to remember who we're praying for," says Ball. "It's a moment to honor and respect our fish relatives, and to pray for them for their survival."

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klamath basin | fish & wildlife | oregon

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Klamath Tribes' all-hands-on-deck effort to save endangered C'waam and Koptu suckerfish

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The species are intertwined in the Klamath Tribes' culture, but poor water quality has made the Upper Klamath Lake lethal for their juveniles.

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11/24/18 Reports: Muddy water from reservoir drawdowns strains Willamette Valley cities’ water treatment

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11/24/18 Reports: Muddy water from reservoir drawdowns strains Willamette Valley cities’ water treatment

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Water downstream of Green Peter dam on the South Santiam River, seen here on Nov. 3, turned muddy after a deep drawdown of the dam's reservoir.
Courtesy of Chase Berrier. / Courtesy of Chase Berrier

Several cities in Oregon's Willamette Valley have seen excessively muddy water flowing into their drinking water systems as a result of upstream reservoirs being drained, the Salem Statesman Journal has reported.

The Statesman Journal first broke the news last week that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' deep reservoir drawdowns, done because of a court order to aid migrating salmon populations, were taxing community water plants and causing private wells to dry up. This week, the newspaper reported that while the water remains safe to drink, the city of Sweet Home had staff working 24 hours per day to filter it and some residents had switched to bottled water because of their tap water's color and smell.

The strain on drinking water plants is an unintended consequence of measures that environmental advocates, tribes, many scientists and a federal judge consider the best opportunity to save endangered salmon in the Willamette River valley.

Baby salmon who need to migrate to the ocean often get trapped in reservoirs behind the dams, which on some Willamette tributaries block between 70% and 100% of the fish's historic spawning habitat. Drawing reservoirs down to nearer their original riverbeds is meant to flush the young salmon through gates in the dam wall that are usually too deep underwater for the fish to find. A judge ordered the drawdowns in 2021 after a lawsuit from several environmental groups alleging the Corps' dam operations were jeopardizing salmon populations.

In October, OPB and ProPublica reported on the Corps of Engineers plan to build massive floating fish collectors to trap and truck salmon past dams, to avoid the need for drawdowns on certain reservoirs. OPB and ProPublica reported that scientists have cast doubt on the effectiveness of the $1.9 billion Corps plan, and that many of the interests the Corps said it needed to protect by maintaining reservoirs - namely electric utilities, farmers and recreational boaters - would be only marginally impacted by drawdowns each fall.

However, the heavy amounts of sediment in the water, known as turbidity, now have many community members vocally upset over the Corps' implementation of drawdowns. The muddy water has also dampened fishing opportunities in some communities. The mayor of Sweet Home is now seeking a pause on the drawdowns, and Oregon's congressional delegation is also paying close attention to the situation, according to the Statesman Journal.

The extent of the turbid waters caught many off guard.

The Corps of Engineers told the Statesman Journal earlier this week that the agency did anticipate muddy water and warned municipalities. But as the paper also reported, the Corps previously said drinking water would not be affected by the court-ordered drawdowns.

In multiple interviews with OPB and ProPublica about the potential impacts of drawdowns, Corps officials did not mention the potential for excessive mud to affect drinking water.

Large pulses of mud are a known consequence of reservoir flushing, however. A study at one of the Corps previous experiments with annual drawdowns at the smaller Fall Creek reservoir, also in the Willamette Valley, found the drawdown initially sent significant amounts of sediment downstream. After two consecutive years of drawdowns, the study found the amount of sediment that made it downstream dropped substantially.

The concerns over rivers looking like chocolate milk prompted the environmental groups, which sued to secure the drawdowns, to issue a press release stating support for the affected towns. They said that "the consequences of the Corps' long-standing failure to protect wild fish should not fall on the shoulders of the community of Sweet Home."

The Native Fish Society, Wild Earth Guardians and Northwest Environmental Defense Center collectively called for immediate relief for the impacted communities, and said they would work with government officials to craft a solution.

That relief could include money for homeowners who have been forced to drill deeper wells after theirs went dry, which can cost tens of thousands of dollars, or for local governments who are worried their overworked treatment systems could cost millions of dollars to replace.

A spokesperson for the Corps of Engineers, however, told the Statesman Journal that it could not pay for such things unless authorized by Congress.

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water | treatment | u.s. army corps of engineers | willamette valley

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Reports: Muddy water from reservoir drawdowns strains Willamette Valley cities' water treatment

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Several cities in Oregon's Willamette Valley have seen excessively muddy water flowing into their drinking water systems as a result of upstream reservoirs being drained, the Salem Statesman-Journal has reported.

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11/22/23 It's not just Umatilla — thousands of Oregonians who rely on well water should be alert for contaminants

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11/22/23 It's not just Umatilla — thousands of Oregonians who rely on well water should be alert for contaminants

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Following The Story's coverage of a tainted aquifer beneath the Umatilla Basin, a former DEQ official says anyone who relies on well water has reason to be worried.

PORTLAND, Ore. - The Story spent five nights last week reporting on the groundwater crisis in eastern Oregon's Lower Umatilla Basin, where decades of commercial food production have contaminated the aquifer that sits below the region, infusing it with dangerous levels of nitrates that threaten the health of thousands of residents who rely on private wells for drinking water.

The problem isn't unique to Morrow and Umatilla counties - there are similarly polluted groundwater regions in the southern Willamette Valley and northeast Malheur County - but those specific high-pollution zones don't paint the full picture either.

After last week's stories aired, a retired Department of Environmental Quality official reached out about groundwater contamination as a broader issue, arguing that there are a lot more people throughout Oregon and beyond who don't know they might be at risk.
Catch up on last week's four stories and watch the combined special below:
'People are simply not aware'

Commercial and private wells all tap into groundwater beneath the soil, but in many parts of Oregon, that groundwater has become polluted with nitrates, a byproduct of industrial farming and food production. The tricky part is that nitrates don't affect the appearance, taste or smell of water, even when they're present in concentrations that are dangerous to human health.

Greg Pettit spent nearly four decades with the Oregon DEQ, including working as the manager of the agency's water quality monitoring section and later the administrator of the laboratory environmental assessment division. He reached out to KGW and said he thinks there are thousands of additional Oregonians who are drinking contaminated water and don't know it.

"I think that the awareness of the problem is very limited," he said. "And that's part of the problem. People (are) simply not aware that this is a problem."

The lack of awareness has persisted for decades. Pettit has been tracking groundwater contamination since the mid-1980s, when he applied for a federal Environmental Protection Agency grant that funded an initial statewide survey of 380 wells.

The study found extensive contamination, he said, with the worst of it in the Umatilla Basin, the Malheur Basin and the lower Willamette Valley. Nitrates were the most common contaminant, but in some cases, there were also unsafe levels of herbicides and pesticides including ethylene dibromide, which had already been banned as a carcinogen.

Those results led to the adoption of the Oregon Groundwater Quality Protection Act in 1989, which requires the state to protect its groundwater. When areas of high contamination are found, the act also requires the state to put rules in place to clean things up, designating the sites as Groundwater Management Areas.

Weak enforcement

As The Story's reporting last week showed, the pollution in Morrow and Umatilla counties has only gotten worse, even though the Lower Umatilla Basin Groundwater Management Area was put in place decades ago. Pettit said it comes down to politics - most pollution comes from the farming industry, which is very good at pushing back on regulators.

"The political pressure of the (agriculture) lobby in this state and the lack of very specific regulatory drivers to do something - between those two things, nobody's been willing to stick their neck out there and take that issue on directly," he said.

The issue is one of environmental justice, he added, because most of the people being exposed to the worst of the groundwater contamination are people who lack political power and have only a limited voice in their community, often in communities dominated by the agricultural industry.

"It's not a comfortable position to get out and start complaining about agriculture," Pettit said. "You can see the position that puts them in, so there's very little for the people that are being affected. There's a lot of things that make it very hard for them to get the problem changed."

There are also no specific laws focused on testing wells after they're already put in place, so many Oregonians may not realize they're drinking contaminated water. The DEQ and Oregon Health Authority both recommend testing, but Pettit said people only tend to do it in places here the contamination is already well-known, such as the Lower Umatilla Basin. But while there are an estimated 12,000 people at risk in that area, there are about 700,000 people who depend on well water statewide.

"You get in other areas of the state and people think if this water tastes, looks and smells great, it's good water," he said. "So I'm sure that there are - definitely, there are thousands - probably tens of thousands of people in this state drinking from wells that have contaminants in them."

Pettit said various regional groundwater studies during his time at DEQ showed contamination in some wells outside of the designated management areas, in places such as Prineville, Lapine, Medford, the northern Willamette Valley and parts of the coast.

"Not as many wells, and maybe not as high concentrations, but they have contaminants above drinking water standards," he said.

Time to crack down

The groundwater issue hasn't been a primary concern or priority for DEQ, Pettit said, even though he and other top officials have tried to keep it at the forefront. Instead, water pollution lost its urgency in a blizzard of other priorities and federal programs that the agency carries out or monitors - in part because those other programs have very specific requirements.

"If those requirements are not met, there's the ability for people to come in and sue the EPA or DEQ to actually implement those programs the way they're supposed to be implemented," he said. "There's no equivalent overriding federal driver for groundwater."

The federal Safe Drinking Water Act only covers public water supplies, Pettit said, so private well owners are mainly on their own. And the federal Clean Water Act largely ignores groundwater, he added, unless the contamination is coming from a specific place like a landfill.

Now is the time for the state to return its focus to groundwater, he said, and to all the people drinking from potentially contaminated wells statewide. And the best way to tackle the issue is to finally implement mandatory rules that restrict farms and other industries from polluting the aquifers below the ground.

"There's tons of data that shows that specific regulatory programs, when implemented, made drastic improvements in our environmental quality," he said - but the key factor in the success of those programs is that they were mandatory, he added.

"If you look at what has worked historically for the last 50 years, when there have been major new requirements through one of these federal acts implemented," he said, "we can measure fairly drastic improvements in air and water quality - I'm talking about one-tenth the contamination that was there before."

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It's not just Umatilla - thousands of Oregonians who rely on well water should be alert for contaminants

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Following The Story's coverage of a tainted aquifer beneath the Umatilla Basin, a former DEQ official says anyone who relies on well water has reason to be worried.

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11/22/23 Conservation groups respond to consequences of reservoir drawdowns

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11/22/23 Conservation groups respond to consequences of reservoir drawdowns

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Keywords: Willamette, reservoir, drawdown, ESA, salmon, Army Corps of Engineers

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Conservation groups respond to consequences of reservoir drawdowns

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Conservation groups behind the court order to draw down reservoirs like Green Peter Reservoir expressed empathy for those impacted by the operation and a commitment to find a solution.

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11/23/23 State awards $12.2 million for four Deschutes Basin water conservation, flow restoration projects

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11/23/23 State awards $12.2 million for four Deschutes Basin water conservation, flow restoration projects

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BEND, Ore. (KTVZ) -- The Deschutes River Conservancy announced Wednesday the allocation of $12.2 million in grant funding from the Oregon Water Resources Department for four pivotal water conservation projects around Central Oregon's Deschutes Basin.

The grants, secured through the OWRD 2023 Water Project Grants and Loans funding cycle, "underscore the Deschutes Basin's collaborative commitment to restored rivers and increased water resilience for future generations," the nonprofit said in a news release, which continues in full:
Projects Funded:

McKay Creek Water Rights Switch Project - $4,063,000 in funding to be used in partnership by the Deschutes River Conservancy and Ochoco Irrigation District.

This project restores 11.2 cfs of streamflow to McKay Creek, supporting the reintroduction of steelhead into the Crooked River Sub-Basin. The project will construct a pipeline and pump station to deliver stored water from Prineville Reservoir through Ochoco Irrigation District, in exchange for transferring instream privately held water rights in McKay Creek. Farmers currently using the creek for irrigation will have access to more reliable water from Ochoco Irrigation District, and the stream will see more consistent flows in the spring and summer months, restoring McKay to a more natural state.

Arnold Irrigation District's Deschutes Basin Flow Restoration Project - Phase 2 - $2,903,667 granted to Arnold Irrigation District

This project will pipe four miles of open canal, restoring 12.6 cubic feet per second of critical streamflow to the Upper Deschutes River, while increasing the reliability of water supply for North Unit Irrigation District. The project is phase 1 of a four-phase system improvement plan that will restore and protect 32.5 cubic feet per second in the Upper Deschutes River. Restored streamflow will support habitat for native redband trout, and the Oregon spotted frog, listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.

North Unit Irrigation District's Modernization and Winter Flow Augmentation Project - Segment 1-2 -$5,075,000 granted to North Unit Irrigation District

This project will pipe over 6 miles of open porous irrigation canal, conserving and legally protecting 5.3 cubic feet of water instream in the Upper Deschutes River. The project will increase water efficiency and reliability within the district, improve water quality, and support habitat for native redband trout and the Oregon spotted frog.

Deschutes Basin Flow Restoration - Group 6b -$2,190,726, granted to Tumalo Irrigation District

This project will pipe two miles of Tumalo Irrigation District's open canals, restoring 0.85 cubic feet per second of streamflow to Tumalo Creek and Crescent Creek, improving habitat and water quality for redband trout and Oregon spotted frog.

These grants enable significant advancements in river restoration and water infrastructure efficiency across the Deschutes River Basin. The four projects represent a basin-wide comprehensive approach to water resource management, balancing economic, environmental, and social benefits.

The Deschutes River Conservancy extends its appreciation to the Oregon Water Resources Department and eagerly anticipates the successful implementation of these projects for healthier rivers and more sustainable water management into the future.

About the Deschutes River Conservancy: The Deschutes River Conservancy (DRC) was formed in 1996 with a mission to restore streamflow and improve water quality in the Deschutes River Basin. The DRC has a multi-stakeholder board and, through collaborative efforts, has restored up to 350 CFS (equivalent to over 14 Olympic-sized swimming pools per hour) of flow in the basin with non-litigious, voluntary, and market-based programs. For more information about the DRC, visit www.deschutesriver.org.

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State awards $12.2 million for four Deschutes Basin water conservation, flow restoration projects - KTVZ

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The Deschutes River Conservancy announced Wednesday the allocation of $12.2 million in grant funding from the Oregon Water Resources Department for four pivotal water conservation projects around Central Oregon's Deschutes Basin.

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11/20/23 Central Oregon wins most water project grants, raising inequity concerns

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11/20/23 Central Oregon wins most water project grants, raising inequity concerns

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Applicants in Central Oregon have won most of the state's water supply grants this year, building on a trend that's raising concerns among some state water regulators.

Of the six water grants approved by the Oregon Water Resources Commission this year, four went to projects in Deschutes and Crook counties, representing 87% of the total $14 million awarded.

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Central Oregon wins most water project grants, raising inequity concerns

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Of the six water grants approved by the Oregon Water Resources Commission this year, four went to projects in Deschutes and Crook counties, representing 87% of the total $14 million

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Why rural Nevada electric co-ops are watching proposals to remove Snake River dams

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Why rural Nevada electric co-ops are watching proposals to remove Snake River dams

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Hundreds of miles away from rural Northern Nevada, water gushes through dams in the lower Snake River. These dams, barriers in the Columbia River Basin, have long been controversial for harming wild salmon populations and violating Native American treaty obligations.

In recent months, tribes and conservation groups have renewed calls to remove the dams, but the proposals face a complicated political calculus, skepticism across the political spectrum and opposition from distant energy utilities including those in northeastern Nevada.

The four Washington dams produce cheap electricity, often when the grid needs it most. That electricity is sent far and wide from across the Pacific Northwest, including to the Nevada town of Wells.

"When you look at the Lower Snake dams, a number of issues come to us," said Clay Fitch, who serves as CEO of the Wells Rural Electric Company. "The big deal is reliability."

Wells, a town of roughly 1,200 people, is about 50 miles east of Elko. Unlike major population centers in Nevada, Wells does not get its power from NV Energy, the state's largest utility. The Wells Rural Electric Company instead is responsible for ensuring the lights turn on, serving about 6,000 customers - homes, businesses and mines - over 11,000 square miles. Its service territory extends as far west as Carlin and east to Wendover.

"Our customers are far and few between," Fitch said, adding they rely almost solely on hydropower.

The Wells co-op and three other rural utilities in Nevada get a portion of their electricity from the Bonneville Power Administration, an arm of the federal government. It delivers hydropower in the Columbia River Basin, which touches small northern sections of the state. And Bonneville's portfolio includes electricity generated from four hydroelectric dams in the lower Snake River.

It's also why Elko County is raising concerns about their proposed removal. Last month, the Elko County Commission unanimously approved a letter opposing the removal of the dams, calling it "irresponsible and short-sighted."

In late September, President Joe Biden called "for a sustained national effort to restore healthy and abundant native fish populations" in the Columbia River Basin. Beginning in the 1930s, the federal government started building dams that boosted the region's power supplies but blocked salmon, steelhead and other fish species from reaching their freshwater spawning grounds.

The dam construction came after decades of commercial activity that took a major toll on fish populations. Today, 13 salmon and steelhead species in the Columbia River watershed are considered to be threatened or endangered, while other species have already disappeared.

"Our fish are on a trajectory of going extinct," said Mitch Cutter, salmon and steelhead associate for the Idaho Conservation League. "And so we know that we need to save those fish and do as much as we can right now to change that trajectory and bring them back to a stable population."

Breaching the dams, Cutter said, could "even the odds for our fish here in Idaho," where much of the Snake River runs before its confluence with the Columbia River. Tribal governments, including those in the Columbia River area with treaty rights to fish in the river, have also pushed federal water managers to take down the dams to improve salmon habitat.

At the Society of Environmental Journalists' conference earlier this year, Shannon Wheeler, vice chairman of the Nez Perce Tribal Executive Committee, stressed that treaty rights ensured tribal members could "fish at all usual and accustomed areas," as they had for thousands of years.

"We didn't sign up to not have fish," Wheeler said. "We signed up to have fish in perpetuity. Not fish on life support."

Proposals to breach the four lower Snake River dams have gained traction in recent years. In 2021, Rep. Mike Simpson (R-ID) introduced a $33 billion package to tear down the dams, while paying to replace the electricity and offset the impact on local communities. But debate around removing the dams is politically complex, scrambling typical partisan divisions.

Last year, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee and Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA), both Democrats, released a report recognizing the impact of the dams, but said breaching the dams was not a "responsible or feasible" option until the lost electricity was replaced and the economic benefits of the dam were mitigated. While hydropower dams can block fish from reaching their spawning habitat, they often provide a cleaner source of power that does not rely on burning fossil fuels.

The Biden administration stopped short of calling for the dams to be breached, but many believe the federal government could be moving in that direction - or at least considering it. And some local and regional groups, including Nevada power providers, are pushing back.

Many rural co-ops that service Nevada get electricity from hydropower. As small nonprofits that bring remote energy, they often do not have much leeway to replace one power when a source of supply goes away. In the southern part of the state, rural co-ops rely on power delivered from transmission lines running from Colorado River dams, including the Hoover Dam. Those utilities have faced risks, in recent years, from drought and a curtailment of hydropower from the dams.

In Northern Nevada, four rural electric co-ops - Wells Rural Electric, Surprise Valley Electrification Corp, Raft River Rural Electric and Harney Electric Cooperative - rely on electricity produced by the Columbia River Basin dams, which include the lower Snake River projects. Together, they have raised concerns about breaching the lower Snake River dams.

Carolyn Turner, the executive director of the Nevada Rural Electric Association, said that "there would be pain felt by the end-use consumer here in our state" if the dams were removed. She said that her organization has yet to see a viable and cost-effective proposal for replacement power, at least one that ensures a stable grid and does not create new fossil fuel emissions.

Power customers, Turner said, pay for "state-of-the-art mitigation" to protect salmon and other fish species. And the dams are not the only threat to salmon runs. Fish species in the Columbia River watershed face numerous additional threats, including rising ocean temperatures.

Without a viable option for replacing power generated from the dams, Fitch, who runs the Wells co-op, said that his customers could expect retail rate increases of as much as 30 percent.

"We're retiring coal and gas as quickly as we can retire them across the nation and region to meet the climate goal," Fitch added during a phone interview earlier this month. "To take off a very viable carbon-free energy source at the same time just doesn't make any sense."

But politicians across the aisle have acknowledged that the status quo is not working. Despite billions invested in salmon recovery, fish populations in the lower Snake River remain in a delicate balance, facing significant threats to their survival. With Biden's call for an approach to ensure "healthy and abundant" fish populations, some federal action could come in the future.

Elko County Commissioner Rex Steninger, a Republican, said that he backed the county's letter opposing dam breaching to ensure members of the state congressional delegation knew where the community stood, as breaching the dams would likely require congressional action. The letter noted that "local industry, from ranching and small businesses to gaming and mining operations that employ our residents, benefits from the affordable electricity provided by those dams."

After the vote, Steninger added, "I guess that's another example of a country originally founded by geniuses and currently run by idiots - if they are going to take these dams down."

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Why rural Nevada electric co-ops are watching proposals to remove Snake River dams

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Hundreds of miles away from rural Northern Nevada, water gushes through dams in the lower Snake River. These dams, barriers in the Columbia River Basin, have long been controversial for

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11/20/23 EPA discovers 'forever chemicals' in Pacific Northwest water systems

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11/20/23 EPA discovers 'forever chemicals' in Pacific Northwest water systems

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New EPA data shows many of the water systems we use for drinking water are contaminated with "forever chemicals." It's harmful to health and mitigation is costly.

SEATTLE - In a massive country-wide study, the EPA now has an idea of which harmful contaminants called "forever chemicals" or PFAS are found in public water systems.

"This is just the first wave of reporting across the country and it's only about 15% of sites being tested," said Phil Thompson, a civil and environmental engineering professor at Seattle University.

He said these contaminants are organic chemicals from fire retardants or non-stick coatings on pots and pans.

"It turns out if you are exposed to them, they can be very toxic," Thompson said.

According to the EPA, exposure can increase certain cancer risks among other ailments.

"The health impacts for PFAS can be for very, very small concentrations. If you can measure PFAS, that's going to be problematic health-wise," Thompson said.

The EPA highlighted water systems with contaminants detected above the agency's minimum reporting level. We created a map showing varying degrees of contaminants with the darker shades indicating the highest levels. If you zoom in, you can see levels detected at JBLM and Sammamish Plateau Water. The highest levels by far were in Artondale, near Gig Harbor.

"Unfortunately it's something we found in our water in 2016 and we've been trying to understand what we need to do to address it," said General Manager, Jay Krauss.

According to Krauss, the levels tested for Sammamish Plateau Water are below Washington state guidelines. The EPA has proposed regulations, but nothing official and treatment options are costly.

"The challenge is making sure a $40 million investment accomplishes what we need to meet these regulations," said Krauss.

It's a financial burden Thompson said, that will impact everyone.

"It's going to be a very costly development for the whole country in terms of the entire treatment that's going to be required or switching people to different water sources will be very expensive," he said.

At Sammamish Plateau Water, the source of contamination is from firefighting foam seeping into well water. "As a water utility, we didn't cause it but unfortunately our customers will be burdened with the financial responsibility of providing clean water."

Krauss said in 2022, Sammamish Plateau Water received a Federal Appropriation of nearly $1.6 million and has yet to be able to access that money to go toward their treatment plant.

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EPA discovers 'forever chemicals' in Pacific Northwest water systems

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New EPA data shows many of the water systems we use for drinking water are contaminated with "forever chemicals." It's harmful to health and mitigation is costly.

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11/20/23 Indoor showers, more space for families coming to Salem micro shelter site

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11/20/23 Indoor showers, more space for families coming to Salem micro shelter site

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On a cold November morning, families signed up to take a shower in an outdoor tent in a northeast Salem parking lot.

The converted Army-issue tent houses private, heated shower pods, but it's far from ideal for the roughly 100 people staying at the micro shelter site run by Church at the Park. Built to last six months, the tent has been in use for two years.

"We're thankful this held up for this long," said DJ Vincent, founding pastor of Church at the Park.

In December, Vincent plans to open an expansion of the site that will include indoor showers and bathrooms, as well as space for 32 more people to sleep.

It's a badly-needed expansion of the shelter site, which operates on space leased from Catholic Community Services and had a waitlist of 132 families as of Nov. 1.

The nonprofit got a $663,000 grant from the Mid-Willamette Valley Homeless Alliance 's share of state sheltering money to refurbish the building, making more space to shelter homeless families in Salem.

The land used to be a pallet refurbishing business "which had nothing to do with our mission and ministry except they paid rent," said Josh Graves, CEO of Catholic Community Services. The nonprofit leased the space to Church at the Park two years ago, which set up micro shelters in the parking lot.

The old warehouse couldn't be used for shelter because its power and fire suppression systems weren't up to code, Graves said.

Vincent said they want to open the new beds in time for the worst of winter weather.

"With the weather coming, we always see need increase," Vincent said.

More space will allow Church at the Park to host bigger families without splitting them up into multiple pods. Some families now have four people sleeping in a single 72-square-foot pod shelter.

"It is not the ideal," Vincent said.

The expansion comes amid a historic high in shelter beds available in Salem. But the future of the micro shelter site remains uncertain.

The micro shelters were originally set up and run using city money, part of Salem's share of federal Covid relief. That money is set to expire in June 2024, meaning the shelters will close unless Church at the Park finds state or other money to run them.

Vincent said the organizations running emergency shelters are waiting on news of additional state money which has been set aside to fund sheltering, but has yet to be allocated to specific projects.

Graves said Catholic Community Services is happy to support micro shelters, and that more organizations in Salem need to step up and volunteer locations for shelters to operate.

"We need to support Church at the Park's expansion if we want to see people not sleeping under the Rite-Aid awning, if we want to see people not sleeping along I-5, as a community we need to come together," he said.
Contact reporter Rachel Alexander: [email protected] or 503-575-1241.
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Indoor showers, more space for families coming to Salem micro shelter site - Salem Reporter

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A warehouse renovation will add space for 32 parents and children to sleep at Church at the Park's family micro shelter site in northeast Salem.

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11/20/23 Projects to restore Columbia River Basin health in Oregon get $31 million

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11/20/23 Projects to restore Columbia River Basin health in Oregon get $31 million

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An undated file photo of the Bonneville Dam on the Columbia River. The federal government is awarding $31 million for various projects to improve the health of the Columbia Basin.
Amelia Templeton

Oregon tribes, state agencies, farmers and ranchers are getting more than $31 million from the federal government to reduce toxic pollution in the Columbia River and its tributaries.

It's the last of $79 million that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has dedicated to improving the health of the Columbia River Basin since 2021, under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.

Oregon's U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley, a Democrat, announced the projects that would receive funding Thursday, on the two-year anniversary of the law's passage.

"Our rivers and waterways are the lifeblood of our communities. If they are dirty and polluted, our homes, schools, and businesses are dirty and polluted," Merkley said in a news release.

The Columbia River Basin covers nearly 260,000 square miles, spanning 16 federally recognized tribal nations and seven states from Oregon and Washington to Wyoming. Over decades, it's become contaminated by toxic waste from agriculture, forestry, recreation and hydroelectric power generation, harming the health of wildlife and leaving some fish species threatened, endangered or unsafe for consumption.

Among the recipients of the $31 million are the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde and the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation. Each tribe will receive about $2 million to reduce pollution in Columbia River tributaries that each tribe depends on for fish. The Grand Ronde will launch a new effort to reduce pollution in the Willamette River Basin, and the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla will target pollution in the Umatilla, Walla Walla, Snake and John Day tributaries to the Columbia River.

The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality will get $6 million to reduce the amount of agricultural pesticides, mercury and PFAS, often called "forever chemicals," in the Columbia River Basin. Thousands of human-made PFAS, or perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, have been put into consumer and industrial products such as nonstick pans and flame retardants, and the EPA is just beginning to regulate them. They do not break down or go away naturally but instead have leached into rivers and streams, contaminating water and are now in the blood of nearly everyone in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The Portland-based nonprofit Salmon-Safe will get $6 million to continue growing its network of farmers, ranchers, developers and tribes along the river, who take on voluntary measures to protect water quality and quantity. In exchange, the producers earn the Salmon-Safe label, appealing to some consumers. Several Portland- and Corvallis-based nonprofits collaborating with EPA will get between $4 million and $5.5 million to work on projects that can reduce stormwater runoff into the Columbia River.

Lastly, about $5.6 million will go to the Portland-based nonprofit Freshwater Trust to help farmers upgrade irrigation systems on fields to reduce fertilizer and manure runoff that is creating methylmercury pollution in the Snake River, poisoning fish that become unsafe for human consumption. The methylmercury is created when farm fertilizers get into water and, combined with warm temperatures, create algal blooms and conditions that lead to depleted oxygen levels in the water. Without the oxygen, bacteria grow and create methylmercury through digestive processes, which ends up in Snake River reservoirs each summer and fall.

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Projects to restore Columbia River Basin health in Oregon get $31 million

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Seven projects will get millions in federal aid through Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley's Columbia River Restoration Program.

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11/20/23 Sweet Home holds water quality information session as water issues and wildlife concerns continue

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11/20/23 Sweet Home holds water quality information session as water issues and wildlife concerns continue

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SWEET HOME, Ore. - Hundreds of people in Sweet Home gathered at City Hall or joined virtually on Monday to hear the first of many water quality information sessions. City Officials and representatives from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers sat down in front of residents on November 20 to address the Green Peter Reservoir drawdown's effects on the city.

Residents in Sweet Home like Emily Bogan said they first started seeing the impact of the court-mandated drawdown as early as the beginning of June. Among those impacts are thousands of dead Kokanee salmon, their source of water up to 10 times more turbid than what's typical, water at home that was once award-winning quality now discolored, and highly chlorinated as disinfectant.

"It just smells like chlorine really bad, and it's really gross tasting," Bogan said. "It burns my skin, like my nose burns. I've only been showering like once a week because of how bad it is."

In the hour-long meeting representatives with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers reminded residents that the drawdown is court-mandated and they ultimately have no say in next steps. They told residents they have done drawdowns like this in the past that have been successful. However, they still do not have complete confirmation that the drawdown has been successful in helping with improving fish passage into Foster Lake, but they say most big operations require improvement throughout the process, and that is what will likely happen with this situation, as the drawdown is expected to happen again at least next year.

City officials also responded to frequently asked questions, among those included how is the water supply impacted and what are the financial implications, can the city act against the environmental group involved in the lawsuit, and how safe is the water.

City officials responded that the City has incurred additional expenses in terms of chemicals, testing, overtime, and community water supplies, the water is being treated and is currently within safe levels, and legal options are being investigated. The City is now discussing with multiple law firms about litigation and are exploring multiple legal options and discussing with other cities and the County after residents have had to take the brunt of the consequences.

Resident Baylee Glynn said even her pets have experienced side effects from drinking the water and even had to bring her cat to receive veterinary care after falling extremely ill.

"When I went in [the vet] this morning I discussed possible issues that could be with my cat... but the only change in my cat's environment and diet was the water quality and after discussing it more, the vet concluded it was most definitely the water quality," Glynn said. "Who knows what could be contaminating our water that could affect humans and babies and children and older adults, people with weak immune systems, people with skin issues... All sorts of people can, will, and most likely suffer from the consequences."

Other consequences of the drawdown have been the thousands of fish that have died off. Residents like Charlie Heisinger attended the meeting and said he is concerned Sweet Home's fishing culture will never be the same.

"It was a beautiful fishery and now it's wasteland. It's horrible and it will need years to recover, if it ever does," Heisinger said. "It's horrible that one person, a judge, can say this is what we're going to do."

Clayton Padgett is a fisherman who attended the meeting as well.

"I got a bunch of whys and I've got a bunch of questions," Padgett said. "I'd like to talk to the judge - why this happened. It's a disgrace. It's a disgrace to Oregon, it's a disgrace to the community. All of this is going to die."

Padgett also explained how the thousands of dead fish are affecting the surrounding wildlife, including osprey and eagles who depend on the fish out of Foster Lake for survival.

As the meeting was the first of many and the meeting was only an hour long, many people like Dawn Scott were disappointed with the missed opportunity to answer questions in real time.

"No questions were allowed to be asked," Scott said. "They wrapped up the meeting without allowing anyone in the room to ask any questions. All I can say is that's not going to sit well with all the people in attendance with valid questions."

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said they apologized for the lack of communication and are continuously working to address concerns going forward, and the reservoir will begin to refill on December 16.

The informational meeting was recorded and will available to view on the City of Sweet Home's government website later once uploaded.

Jennifer Singh joined the KEZI 9 News team in July 2023 as a news reporter. If you have any story ideas for Jennifer, you can email her at jsingh@kezi.com.

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Sweet Home holds water quality information session as water issues and wildlife concerns continue

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Officials with the City of Sweet Home and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers held a water quality information session to answer questions and explain why the historic drawdown continues.

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11/21/23 'Forever chemicals' in Bend's water supply prompt city to join class action suit against 3M, DuPont

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11/21/23 'Forever chemicals' in Bend's water supply prompt city to join class action suit against 3M, DuPont

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The city of Bend joined national class-action lawsuits against manufacturers 3M Co. and DuPont de Nemours after a small amount of forever chemicals was found in a well that supplies drinking water to Bend residents.

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'Forever chemicals' in Bend's water supply prompt city to join class action suit against 3M, DuPont

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The city of Bend joined national class-action lawsuits against manufacturers 3M Co. and DuPont de Nemours after a small amount of forever chemicals was found in a well that supplies

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11/19/23 Summit County town removes development moratorium as new well brings in more water

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11/19/23 Summit County town removes development moratorium as new well brings in more water

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Estimated read time: 1-2 minutes

OAKLEY, Summit County - Oakley, in Summit County, will allow new developments after a 2½-yearlong moratorium.

The moratorium was put into place because the city didn't have enough water to support any new growth. Oakley Mayor Zane Woolstenhulme told KSL NewsRadio last year that Oakley had been using 9 million more gallons of water each month than it was receiving.

New developments were put on pause in May 2021 until the city had a new well that produces water.

That well has been installed. City administrator Amy Rydalch said it's good news for current and prospective residents.

"There are soon-to-be and want-to-be residents that are anxious to get started. This should allow them to do that," said Rydalch.

Because of the new well's high production, current residents won't have as tight of water restrictions. For the past few years, the city only allowed residents to water their lawns twice a week.

The new well produces more than double the amount of water than their current water sources produce. This includes the original well and some springs.

Installing the new well was a big job.

"It was tough. They had to go through some pretty significant bedrock quartz. So they had to go quite deep. The new well is just over 2,000 feet deep," said Rydalch.

Funding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture is allowing Oakley to move forward with this project.

While building will now be allowed, Rydalch doesn't think there will be a building frenzy. There isn't a lot of buildable land available in the area.

Rydalch said, however, the city does have people waiting in the wings.

Leaders hope to have the infrastructure finished within the next year.

Most recent Utah stories

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Summit County town removes development moratorium as new well brings in more water

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Oakley, a city in Summit County, will allow new developments after a two-and-a-half-year-long moratorium.

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11/19/23 Climate events drastically affect Oregon's crop yields, reshaping state's agricultural landscape

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11/19/23 Climate events drastically affect Oregon's crop yields, reshaping state's agricultural landscape

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Climate events drastically affect Oregon’s crop yields, reshaping state’s agricultural landscape

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Over the past several years, there has been a direct link between climate events and what is being harvested in Oregon, officials say. Oregon’s crops have been

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'So muddy it looks like pudding'. Sweet Home grapples with drinking water amid drawdown

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'So muddy it looks like pudding'. Sweet Home grapples with drinking water amid drawdown

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Story updated at 3:46 p.m. on Sunday, Nov. 16
It's a point of pride in Sweet Home that the city has Oregon's most delicious drinking water. They've even got the award to prove it.

The town of 10,000, nestled in the Cascade Foothills, is surrounded by deep forest and clear streams that roll into the town's drinking water source at Foster Lake.

Last April, the city's water won a blind taste test and was awarded "best tasting overall water" by the Oregon Association of Water Utilities. It was even sent to Washington, D.C., to represent the state.

"Normally, our water is just about pristine," Sweet Home public works director Greg Springman said.

That's made the past month feel all the more disorienting, as the city's streams and reservoirs turned the color of chocolate milk. Not just after one major rainstorm, but for weeks at a time.

"Sometimes it gets so muddy it looks like pudding," Sweet Home mayor Susan Coleman said.

The city's public works crew has worked 24-hour days to filter and treat the water to keep it safe for drinking, taxing their facilities to the limit. They worry they will eventually need $5 million to replace water filters. And even after all that work, some residents said the odd color and smell mean they're choosing bottled water for now.

The muddy water has made fishing, one of the town's most popular pastimes and tourist draws, next to impossible. Those who've paddled Foster Reservoir in kayaks have been greeted by masses of dead fish, including the die-off of tens of thousands of kokanee earlier this fall.

"People are pretty upset by it," Coleman said. "If this continues into the future, I think it will be devastating for the community."

A surprising culprit: A plan to save wild salmon

The cause of Sweet Home's fouled water is coming from a court-ordered plan meant to save endangered salmon.

In response to a lawsuit from three environmental groups, U.S. District Judge Marco Hernandez in 2021 ordered U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to undertake a series of actions meant to prevent the extinction of Upper Willamette River wild spring Chinook.

The most impactful of those actions was drawdowns. In this case, requiring the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to take Green Peter Reservoir, located about 10 miles northeast of town, to historically low levels. The reservoir was lowered all summer and this fall plummeted to levels not seen since the dam was constructed in 1966.

As the reservoir transformed back into a river, the water began flushing out mass amounts of built-up sediment into the South Santiam, Foster Lake and the main Willamette River. The amount of sediment in the water has reached 10 to 20 times its normal levels at times.

Drawdowns at Green Peter, along Lookout Point Reservoir to the south, are expected to keep the water muddy in the South Santiam, Middle Fork Willamette and mainstem Willamette rivers until at least Dec. 16, when the Army Corps will start to raise the level of the reservoirs. The Lookout Point drawdown has brought its own set of problems, including dried up wells that have required residents to pay nearly $30,000 to restore drinking water.

Mark Sherwood, executive director of the Native Fish Society, one of the groups that filed the lawsuit that led to the court order to draw down the reservoirs, said the turbid water should be temporary.

"In other cases where these drawdowns were used - and where they've been successful - we saw a spike in turbidity the first year and then it tapered off is subsequent years," Sherwood said, citing previous experiences at Cougar and Fall Creek reservoirs.

Greg Taylor, supervisory fish biologist for the Corps in the Willamette Valley, said the muddy water may ease in the future, but it could still be an issue. It's unclear what will happen, said Taylor.

Corps officials originally told the Statesman Journal and city officials that the drawdown wouldn't impact drinking water. That has not ended up being the case.

"I don't think there was real understanding about the magnitude and duration of the turbidity (muddy water)," said Taylor.

But the Corps also pointed out they had no say in the matter. The court order was clear: drop the reservoir.

Why lake levels were dropped at Green Peter and Lookout Point reservoirs

The reason for such an extreme move, in a nutshell, is to help baby salmon migrate through dams.

The Army Corps is using trucks to move adult salmon above the dams, into high-quality spawning habitat of streams such as Quartzville Creek, the South Fork McKenzie and the upper Middle Fork Willamette.

After the adults spawn, juvenile fish swim downstream. Historically, when they hit the reservoir, they have struggled to continue through the dams because of the reservoir depth.

"Fish are surface oriented, meaning they live in the top 20 to 50 feet of the water column and they just don't find those gates unless they're closer to them," Taylor said.

Short of expensive fish collection devices, the best option is for fish to migrate out through the gates or outlets low in the dams, environmentalists and Corps officials said.

That means dropping the water down. Way, way down.

The goal: restoring salmon runs in the Upper Willamette

Given time, the drawdowns should work to help restore wild salmon, said Sherwood.

When salmon reach quality spawning grounds above the dams, and juveniles can migrate back to the ocean, populations can rebound, he said.

Sherwood cited success in the Clackamas River, where improved fish passage systems in North Fork Reservoir - a fish ladder and slide -helped improve wild spring chinook runs to 3,125 fish per year over the past five years. The Clackamas system does not use drawdowns, however.

One place that has used drawdowns is Fall Creek Reservoir. It has seen an average of 350 wild salmon return, and numbers as high as 834 in 2020.

"If we get fish passage right, we really can restore wild spring chinook in the Willamette - this iconic Oregon fish. That would be a boon for every community in the Willamette Valley," Sherwood said. "Drawdowns are the only way that's been shown to have good fish passage success at the large dams in the Willamette. The goal is building a tourism and fishing economy around abundant wild salmon and steelhead. We really can do it.

"But right now they're in a lot of trouble. Time is running out for them and if we're not careful, they could just blink out. We can't let that happen."

Wild spring Chinook, first listed under the Endangered Species Act in 1999, have seen numbers continued to decline. Their populations dropped to between 4,000 to 7,000 fish over the past five years in the Upper Willamette Basin, down from 18,000 in 2004.

That's brought an urgency to establish populations above the dams and led to the lawsuit and court-ordered drawdowns. But there also is no guarantee the drawdowns will work, as salmon runs are impacted by a host of issues ranging from ocean conditions to pollution to sea lions predation.

A pause on the drawdowns? Oregon politicians weigh in

Coleman, the Sweet Home mayor, is advocating for a "pause" on the drawdowns next year.

In addition to having a major impact on the town's drinking water, economy and quality of life, she noted the impact on wildlife. In addition to documented die-offs of resident fish and fresh water claims, she said the habitat of protected species such as Pacific lamprey and Cope's giant salamander is at risk due the high level of mud and sediment.

"If a logging company came in and had this much impact on water quality and wildlife, it would get shut down in no time," Coleman said. "Why is this a different situation? It just seems backward."

A pause in the drawdowns would require a court order, legal experts said. To that end, Oregon Republican Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer sent a letter to Judge Hernandez requesting "the federal court revisit the court injunction, and develop a better alternative at Green Peter dam to improve fish passage."

She added that "this injunction is causing more harm than good."

Oregon's senators Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley also made statements supporting finding a solution, though it's not clear what that would be.

"The drawdown of the reservoirs is creating a massive problem," Merkley said. "This challenge needs an all-hands-on-deck approach. That's why we are working with the governor's team, USDA, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to find a solution."

Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek's office added: "The Governor's priority is to ensure that all Oregonians have access to clean, safe drinking water. Members of the Governor's team are staying closely in touch with the congressional delegation, Army Corps of Engineers, and local leaders in the region to understand the impacts of the drawdowns and what options exist to support the impacted communities."

Lebanon mayor Ken Jackola said he also supports a pause in the drawdowns.

But at the very least, Jackola said, the cities should get funding for their drinking water systems.

"If they're going to force us to go through this, the federal and state governments need to ante up for these extra costs," Jackola said.

Sherwood, with the Native Fish Society, said he understands the frustration of the people of Sweet Home and Lebanon, and also is lobbying state and federal officials for funding to help treat water in the short term.

"We strongly support relief for them," Sherwood said.

Correction: A previous version of this story said North Fork Dam and Reservoir on the Clackamas River used drawdowns for fish passage. It doesn't. The dam has a fish ladder and slide for upstream and downstream passage. The Statesman Journal regrets the error.
Zach Urness has been an outdoors reporter in Oregon for 15 years and is host of the Explore Oregon Podcast. To support his work, subscribe to the Statesman Journal. He can be reached at zurness@StatesmanJournal.com or (503) 399-6801. Find him on Twitter at @ZachsORoutdoors.

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'So muddy it looks like pudding.' Sweet Home grapples with drinking water amid drawdown

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Oregon's Congressional delegation and governor pledge help to cities impacted by deluge of 'mud pudding' water

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11/16/23 Many residents say publicly they support maintaining hydropower at Willamette River dams

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11/16/23 Many residents say publicly they support maintaining hydropower at Willamette River dams

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The trade-offs between hydropower dams and endangered salmon in the Willamette Valley have been on full display in public feedback in a series of meetings hosted by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

The public meetings took place as an operational change at two dams meant to help fish is deluging rivers with mud.

Willamette Valley residents and conservationists weighed in on the future of eight hydropower dams operated by the corps and the future of endangered salmon in three public comment sessions on Monday and Tuesday. The meetings coincide with preparation of a corps' report to Congress on whether hydropower production should be removed at some or all eight of the power-producing dams in its Willamette Valley project.

Dams in the Willamette Basin can produce a combined 500 megawatts of clean energy, enough to power 300,000 homes, but they also impede the migration of salmon, which once returned to the basin by the hundreds of thousands and have been prized by native tribes from time immemorial.

Tribal governments and environmental organizations including American Rivers and Cascadia Wildlands support removing the hydro capacity of the dams, a change they say would help juvenile salmon migrate to the ocean where they become adults and then migrate back upstream to spawn. Under a court order, the corps is currently draining two reservoirs to historic lows to help move fish through dams.

Sarah Dyrdahl, Northwest region director for the nonprofit American Rivers, told the Capital Chronicle that the hydropower produced by the Willamette dams isn't economical. She called the current moment "a unique opportunity to evaluate how these drawdowns move juvenile salmon and other species downstream at these facilities."

Most of the dozens of people who commented during the meetings were area residents who want the dams to continue producing clean energy.

"If we're going to push everything to go electric, why in the world would we even have a conversation about taking out hydroelectric power? It's very efficient, it's very clean, the river always flows," said Troy Gulstrom, a pastor in Mehama, a small community near the Santiam River in Marion County.

Migrations impeded

The corps operates a total of 13 dams on the Willamette and its tributaries including the Santiam River. These dams include Green Peter Dam, Lookout Point Dam and Detroit Dam. The corps began building the dams in the mid-20th century to protect Oregon's most-populous region from devastating floods. In addition to the hydropower production of eight dams, Detroit Lake and other reservoirs created by the dams are recreation hubs for boating and fishing.

However, the dams have blocked the migrations of spring Chinook salmon and winter-run steelhead since their construction in the 1950s and 1960s, robbing the fish of spawning grounds.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration listed both populations as threatened under the Endangered Species Act in 1999.

Congress required the corps to study the cost and effects of removing hydropower at the dams last year. It's the second time Congress directed the agency to study the issue. The agency missed its first deadline and has instead pursued a $1.9 billion, elaborate plan to move fish around dams in trucks, OPB and ProPublica reported.

So-called trap-and-haul operations have a long history but a mixed track record in the Willamette Basin, academic research

The corps' report is due in May and will include the public comments made this week. When it receives the report, Congress may mandate more study or require agency action.

Margaret Townsend, a senior attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity, told the corps on Monday in a public session that altering hydropower dams to promote salmon would bring economic and cultural benefits to area tribes, sport fishermen and orcas, which thrive on salmon. The southern population is also listed as endangered on the federal list.

"Salmon fishing is terribly important to these basins," Townsend said.

Critics want drawdowns to stop

Several dozen Willamette Valley residents gathered Tuesday night at the Salem Public Library for an in-person comment session. All who spoke were opposed to removing the dams' hydropower capabilities. Angelita Sanchez, a member of the Sweet Home City Council and director of the rural activist group Timber Unity, said doing so would raise electricity prices and fail her lower-income community.

Like other speakers, Sanchez cast doubt on efforts to reintroduce salmon. She cited an Oregon State University report this year concluding that billions of dollars spent to recover native salmon populations in the Columbia River Basin have largely failed .

"The dams and hatcheries are not the sole problem these salmon are facing," she said.

Sanchez demanded the Corps pause ongoing drawdowns of the Green Peter and Lookout Point reservoirs to historic lows, which have flooded the Santiam and Willamette rivers with mud and threatened the drinking water of Sweet Home and other municipalities. The drawdowns are supposed to help juvenile fish pass through the dams.

A federal judge in 2021 ordered the corps to improve the migration of Chinook salmon and steelhead through the dams by lowering the reservoirs. The agency began the drawdowns this year, which exposed vast plains of more than 50 years of accumulated sediment on the reservoir floors that are washing downriver, Jeff Henon, a spokesperson for the corps, said in an interview.

The Salem Statesman Journal first the downturn in water quality. Greg Springman, public works director for the city of Sweet Home, told the Capital Chronicle his tiny team of staff at the municipality's water treatment plant are working nonstop to filter the sediment from the drinking water supply. The water is safe to drink, Springman said, but some residents have complained about a slight discoloration and said the water smells "like a swimming pool" because staff are applying more chlorine than usual.

Henon said the rivers will become less muddy when the corps begins refilling the reservoirs on Dec. 16. He said it's unclear whether the drawdown is helping juvenile fish move downriver, as expected.

"We're so early in the implementation of these changes," Henon said. "It's too early to look at the data and see if these changes have been a benefit to these species."

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Many residents say publicly they support maintaining hydropower at Willamette River dams - Oregon Capital Chronicle

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Though advocates and tribes concerned about salmon oppose hydropower on the Willamette River, many residents said support that electricity.

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11/16/23 With ‘beneficial’ rain, normal snowfall, Oregon could recover from prolonged drought

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11/16/23 With ‘beneficial’ rain, normal snowfall, Oregon could recover from prolonged drought

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PORTLAND, Ore. ( KOIN) - Sporadic November rain has brought mild drought relief to Northwest Oregon as the state has remained in some form of drought since the fall of 2019.

If Oregon manages to receive above-average rainfall and a normal amount of snow during the 2023-2024 wet season, state climatologist Larry O'Neill told KOIN 6 News that Oregon could fully recover from the ongoing drought.

"We would need above-normal precipitation and at least a normal snowpack," O'Neil said. "We are in drought now in northwest Oregon because we received about 80% of [our] average precipitation last winter and spring even though the snowpack was well above average."

Oregon drought recovery seen between Nov. 7 (left) and Nov. 14, 2023 (right). (U.S. Drought Monitor)

However, with the West Coast in the throes of an El Niño season, that added precipitation may be unlikely. KOIN 6 meteorologist Josh Cozart reports that The Pacific Northwest usually falls short of average rainfall levels during an El Niño as warmer ocean currents push the jet stream toward the Southwest. However, the last El Niño resulted in above-average snowfall in Portland in 2018 and 2019, making the upcoming season difficult to predict.

"The late summer and early fall rain we've received is [very] beneficial," O'Neil said. "Especially in the mountains, since it recharges the soils, which dries out during summer before the ground freezes."

For now, experts are still predicting a mild winter.

Yes, El Niño is still expected to make the winter overall drier," Cozart said. "However, November is sitting above average for rainfall so far with a surplus of 1.89 inches from Nov. 1 to the 15th. This is a great example of an outlying event in the overall trend of a 'drier' winter. It is possible that Portland could see below-average precipitation from every winter month moving forward. That would make November's surplus not as exciting."

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With ample rain, normal snowfall, Oregon could recover from prolonged drought

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Sporadic November rain has brought mild drought relief to Northwest Oregon as the state has remained in some form of drought since the fall of 2019.

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11/17/23 Court of Appeals denies proposed Drift Creek Dam but water district intends to appeal

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11/17/23 Court of Appeals denies proposed Drift Creek Dam but water district intends to appeal

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Court of Appeals denies proposed Drift Creek Dam but water district intends to appeal

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The East Valley Water District, made up of a group of farmers around Mt. Angel, has been seeking to build a dam south of Silverton for a decade.

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11/15/23 Oregon announces free fishing days after Thanksgiving

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11/15/23 Oregon announces free fishing days after Thanksgiving

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PORTLAND, Ore. ( KOIN) - The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife announced free fishing days across the state after Thanksgiving.

Between Nov. 24 and Nov. 25, anglers can go fishing, clamming, and crabbing for free without licenses or tags - including a Combined Angling Tag, Columbia River Basin Endorsement, and Two-Rod Validation. ODFW says Oregon residents and non-residents can fish for free.

However, officials say other fishing regulations such as closures, bag limits, and size restrictions are still in place. ODFW notes anglers should keep an eye out for rules on salmon and steelhead fishing by checking ODFW's Recreation Report, which provides the best bets for fishing for the upcoming week.

According to ODFW, fishing could be good for Chinook or coho salmon depending on water levels and conditions, and trout will be stocked the week before Thanksgiving at several lakes in the Willamette Valley.

For beginners, ODFW has an " Easy Angling Oregon" guide to fishing in Oregon, noting there are plenty of fishing spots near Portland, Bend, Medford, Roseburg, and Lane County. ODFW also has resources for crabbing and clamming.

Crabbing is open in bays, beaches, estuaries, tide pools, piers, and jetties along the Oregon coast, however crabbing is closed in the ocean due to an annual closure from Oct. 16-Nov.30. Officials note some spots on the coast may be closed for razor clamming but may open for Thanksgiving weekend.

The post-Thanksgiving free fishing days began in 2016 after the state legislature approved ODFW to offer more free fishing days than the longstanding free days in the first weekend of June.

The agency tells KOIN 6 News the freebies after Thanksgiving were inspired by the #optoutside movement by REI which encourages people to get outdoors on Black Friday.

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Oregon announces free fishing days after Thanksgiving

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The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife announced free fishing, crabbing, and clamming days after Thanksgiving 2023.

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11/15/23 Interior Department directs $4.4 million to Lower Crooked River, Ochoco Preserve restoration projects

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11/15/23 Interior Department directs $4.4 million to Lower Crooked River, Ochoco Preserve restoration projects

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WASHINGTON (KTVZ) - The U.S. Department of the Interior announced Wednesday $51 million from President Biden's Investing in America agenda for 30 new Environmental Water Resource Projects in 11 states through the Bureau of Reclamation, including $4.4 million for a pair of Crook County restoration projects.

The collaborative projects focus on water conservation, water management and restoration efforts that will result in significant benefits to ecosystem or watershed health.

"Adequate, resilient and safe water supplies are fundamental to the health, economy and security of every community in our nation," said Interior Secretary Deb Haaland. "The Interior Department is focused on ensuring that funding through President Biden's Investing in America agenda is going to collaborative projects throughout the West that will benefit the American people."

As part of the Biden-Harris administration's commemoration of the two-year anniversary of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Water and Science Michael Brain announced the selections during a visit to Grand Junction, Colorado, where eight of the selected projects are located.

Both of Oregon's announced projects are on the High Desert, in Crook County:
Crooked River Watershed Council, Lower Crooked River Riparian, Floodplain, and Habitat Restoration Project Reclamation Funding: $1,400,000
The Crooked River Watershed Council, working in partnership with the Ochoco Irrigation District, will restore habitat and enhance ecological features on two project sites just downstream from Prineville, Oregon. Hydrology in the Crooked River watershed is impacted by upstream Dams, including Reclamation's Bowman Dam, leading to loss of floodplain continuity, degraded channel structures, and water quality impairments, impacting native Spring Chinook Salmon and Columbia River Steelhead populations that inhabit the watershed. To address these impairments, the Council will strategically place approximately 130 large wood structures to promote habitat complexity, stabilize eroding streambanks on 3,285 linear feet of stream channel, restore approximately 19 acres of floodplain and upland habitat, improve 0.22 acres of alcove habitat, and create 0.42 acres of wetland.
Deschutes Land Trust, Ochoco Preserve Restoration - Phases 2 and 3 Reclamation Funding: $3,000,000
The Deschutes Land Trust, with support from the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, will restore aquatic, floodplain, and upland habitat across 124 acres on the Ochoco Preserve, located in Crook County, Oregon, adjacent to the city of Prineville. The Crooked River and Ochoco Creek support reintroduced spring Chinook salmon and summer steelhead, as well as a host of other native aquatic species. The waterways frequently experience low flows, elevated summer stream temperatures, and poor water quality. These issues are compounded by a lack of suitable habitats for both fish and terrestrial wildlife, and the impacts to river ecology of Reclamation's Crooked River Project, including Bowman and Ochoco Dams. The Deschutes Land Trust will lead efforts to create over 2 miles of new main baseflow stream channels, 1.5 miles of side channels, over 11 acres of wetland, and restore 37 acres of floodplain and 75 acres of upland habitat, significantly increasing available habitat for native species.

"These locally led initiatives utilize the investments from President Biden's Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to demonstrate quantifiable and sustained water savings, all while providing a direct benefit to the surrounding ecosystems," said Brain. "These types of projects and robust cooperation with stakeholders are helping to improve watershed health and increase water reliability and access for families, farmers, and Tribes."

President Biden's Investing in America agenda represents the largest investment in climate resilience in the nation's history and is providing much-needed resources to enhance Western communities' resilience to drought and climate change. Through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law,

Reclamation is investing a total of $8.3 billion over five years for water infrastructure projects, including rural water, water storage, conservation and conveyance, nature-based solutions, dam safety, water purification and reuse, and desalination. Over the first two years of its implementation, Reclamation selected 372 projects to receive almost $2.8 billion.

The WaterSMART program also advances the Justice40 Initiative, part of the Biden-Harris administration's historic commitment to environmental justice, which aims to ensure 40 percent of the overall benefits of certain climate, clean energy and other federal investments flow to disadvantaged communities that have been marginalized by underinvestment and overburdened by pollution.

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Interior Department directs $4.4 million to Lower Crooked River, Ochoco Preserve restoration projects - KTVZ

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WASHINGTON (KTVZ) - The U.S. Department of the Interior announced Wednesday $51 million from President Biden's Investing in America agenda for 30 new Environmental Water Resource Projects in 11 states through the Bureau of Reclamation, including $4.4 million for a pair of Crook County restoration projects.

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11/16/23 What the new federal climate report says about the Northwest

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11/16/23 What the new federal climate report says about the Northwest

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What the new federal climate report says about the Northwest

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The report emphasizes various impacts of climate change on the Northwest, predicting warmer winter temperatures, reduced mountain snowpack, more frequent and severe droughts, increased extreme rainfall, and larger, higher-elevation wildfires.

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11/15/23 How Klamath River dam removals affect salmon populations

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11/15/23 How Klamath River dam removals affect salmon populations

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The largest dam removal project in the country is currently underway near the southern Oregon border in a historic attempt to revive dwindling salmon populations by lowering disease and improving the water quality of the Klamath River.

Why it matters: Because salmon is not only an essential resource and commodity in the Pacific Northwest but a lifeline to native tribes, dozens of efforts are underway across the region to restore habitats to ensure the species' longevity.

Driving the news: In a study published last month, Oregon State University researchers said dam removal along the Klamath River will aid salmon populations.

Because dams alter a river's temperature and flow, parasites are much more likely to thrive during times of environmental stress when temperatures rise and water levels drop.

One parasite, Ceratonova shasta (which causes "gut rot" in salmon), has had a foothold near the Iron Gate Dam which juvenile salmon need to migrate through on their way out to the ocean.

"In some years, that parasite has been so plentiful in the river that over half that cohort of juvenile salmon has been lost," Sascha Hallett, a professor of microbiology and co-author of the study, told Axios.

Context: The Klamath River - which runs from the Klamath Basin in southern Oregon through northern California before draining into the Pacific Ocean - was once known as one of the largest salmon-producing rivers on the West Coast.

What they're saying: Within 72 hours of the first dam being removed, "the visual contrast between the color of the water, before and after, went from being kind of brown, gray, green to being much more blue," Julie Alexander, a professor and microbiologist at OSU, tells Axios.

Increased oxygen in the water and a return to the river's natural flow will dilute parasitic hot spots, decreasing a fish's disease risk, she said.

Yes, but, not everyone supports removing the dams. Some residents in the high desert of south-central Oregon have said the dam's reservoirs provide recreation, boost property values and decrease the chances of flooding.

What's next: Deconstruction of the three other dams will begin January by first draining the reservoirs then using heavy machinery and small explosives.

The bottom line: It may take years before salmon populations are able to grow in the Klamath.

In the meantime OSU researchers, like Hallett and Alexander, will be monitoring data from the river in an attempt to determine if the largest river restoration project in the country actually "worked."

"We just don't exactly know what success looks like," Alexander said.

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Dam removal along Klamath River will aid salmon, researchers say

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It still may take years before salmon populations are able to grow.

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11/14/23 Eastern Oregon’s water crisis stems from industrial pollution, but it’s hard to pin down one culprit

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11/14/23 Eastern Oregon’s water crisis stems from industrial pollution, but it’s hard to pin down one culprit

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Eastern Oregon's water crisis stems from industrial pollution, but it's hard to pin down one culprit

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Industrial farm fertilizer is the biggest contributor, but a lack of regulation makes it hard to know how much is being used.

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11/15/23 Portland Water Bureau reverts city's water supply back to Bull Run source

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11/15/23 Portland Water Bureau reverts city's water supply back to Bull Run source

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11/15/23 EPA official says cleanup of J.H. Baxter site in Eugene will be a multimillion-dollar task

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11/15/23 EPA official says cleanup of J.H. Baxter site in Eugene will be a multimillion-dollar task

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EPA official says cleanup of J.H. Baxter site in Eugene will be a multimillion-dollar task

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Since the site closed last year, the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency have been tag-teaming on gauging the level of pollutants and hazards at the shuttered wood-treatment facility.

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11/15/25 Oregon regulators have had decades to tackle the Umatilla Basin's water pollution, but it's only gotten worse

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11/15/25 Oregon regulators have had decades to tackle the Umatilla Basin's water pollution, but it's only gotten worse

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Industrial farming is contaminating an aquifer that eastern Oregon residents rely on. For over 30 years, state agencies have done little more than wring their hands.

HERMISTON, Ore. - As many as 12,000 people in eastern Oregon are in danger of drinking polluted water, drawn up from beneath the Lower Umatilla Basin through private wells. The groundwater used to be safe for humans, but heavy commercial farming and food production have caused nitrates to leach into the aquifer below the basin, building up to dangerous levels over time.

Nitrates in high concentrations may cause miscarriages, thyroid disorders and cancer. They can't be detected by sight or taste in water, and they can't be boiled out. Many residents in northern Morrow and Umatilla Counties have been shocked to learn in recent years that their well water is no longer safe, and some now blame the water for their health problems.

KGW's The Story traveled to eastern Oregon this summer to learn about the problem. It seems like a situation where residents should be able to rely on Oregon's government to protect their water. But for more than 30 years, the state's regulatory agencies have done little more than wring their hands - and the problem has only gotten worse in the meantime.

'A voluntary approach'

Oregon officials have known for at least 33 years that pollutants have been building up in the aquifer. Back in 1989, the state passed the Oregon Groundwater Quality Protection Act, aimed at preserving and maintaining groundwater resources for future generations. The very next year, samples in northern Morrow and Umatilla counties showed nitrate levels above 10 parts per million, the maximum safe amount set by the EPA.

The result triggered the creation of the Lower Umatilla Basin Groundwater Management Area on 562 square miles above the aquifer, and a local committee was set up to "work with and advise state agencies who are required to develop an action plan that will reduce groundwater contamination" in the region.

The committee went through several years of studies and reports, including a study that determined the pollution came mainly from irrigated farming, pastures, confined animal feed lots and commercial food processors. But the committee's membership list - mostly industry and government officials - led to skepticism right from the start.

"It was made up of a hundred percent of folks that were invested in the riches it was bringing, right?" said Jim Doherty, a rancher who recently chaired the Morrow County Commission. "It was the fox guarding the henhouse, if I might."

"It frankly was dominated by food processors and irrigators," added Mitch Wolgamott, a now-retired DEQ official who served on the committee in 2000. "I learned quite early they weren't interested in having a lot of publicity, so people didn't know what was going on... they didn't really have much of an incentive to fix it because nobody was complaining."

In 1997, the committee finally reached a decision to move forward - but without an enforcement mechanism. The committee "agreed to promote a voluntary approach for addressing the groundwater contamination area." There would be no mandatory changes to any practices for any of the major industries that produced nitrate byproducts.

Unsurprisingly, the industry proceeded to keep doing what it had been doing. Outreach programs were created to warn residents with wells, and there were suggestions for industries on best practices - but no one suggested cutting back on nitrate emissions.

DEQ lacks enforcement power

A chronically weak and underfunded DEQ has been able to do little more than watch and make suggestions. Wolgamott said he alerted lawmakers about the problem multiple times over the years and suggested mandatory restrictions might be needed, but nothing was done.

The agency did put out nine annual reports documenting the worsening pollution and outlining public education ideas and industry best practices, but even as that was going on, the Port of Morrow was revealing just how weak the DEQ enforcement mechanisms really were.

The port is bound by wastewater permits designed to protect the aquifer, but DEQ records show the port violated its permits more than 2,000 times from 2007 to 2022 by repeatedly dumping nitrate-contaminated water from food processors in empty fields during the winter. The agency fined the port $129,000 in 2015, but settled most of the other violations.

Finally in October 2023, the DEQ announced the port would pay nearly $2.4 million in fines. But even then, the agency did not require the port to slow or stop its wintertime wastewater discharges until late 2026.

Port leaders declined to talk about their wastewater management practices, but the port is just one of the players in the Umatilla region. DEQ director Richard Whitman discussed the full scope of the region's problem during a May 2022 DEQ commission meeting, and said that DEQ does not have the laws it needs to protect Oregon's groundwater.

"(The port is) by no means the only source of groundwater contamination in that area," he said. "We know that we also have groundwater contamination that's resulted from some of the confined animal feeding operations... we also and perhaps more broadly have issues with regard to fertilizer application by agricultural operators."

Residents left frustrated

Some Umatilla basin residents who spoke to KGW said they were surprised by recent unsafe well tests, but others said they just felt angry and disillusioned about the apparent unwillingness of local officials and inability of state regulators to do anything about it.

"Our county commissioners could stop it, but they don't. They could say no. The port commissioners could say, 'No, let's clean it up.' They don't," said Mike Pearson, who lives in the Umatilla Basin.

"I'm embarrassed for the leaders in our community," added Raymond Akers, who recently switched to bottled water after his well water tested at nearly three times the safe limit for nitrates. "Those who have covered it up and kicked it under the rug for so many years."

While chairing the Morrow County Commission in 2022, Doherty declared a countywide state of emergency after a round of testing found dangerous nitrate levels in water from wells that were previously deemed safe.

"Somebody had to stand up," he said. "You know, I said as a politician, you're always faced with a challenge, right? Is this the hill you're willing to die on? When I looked at this, I said, 'You know, this literally is the hill I'm willing to die on as a politician.'"

The first groundwater committee eventually gave way to a second, which was later shut down, and now, a third committee is studying the problem. In August 2023, that third committee gathered for a work session in Boardman - but the meeting ended up highlighting how little progress has been made so far.

"We have our groundwater database that doesn't talk to DEQ's groundwater database, that doesn't talk to what (the Oregon Health Authority) is doing, or what the counties are doing," summarized one exasperated attendee.
This is part 3 of The Story's reporting. Part 1 aired Monday and focused on the residents impacted by well water contamination. Part 2 aired Tuesday and focused on the sources of the Umatilla aquifer pollution. Part 4 airs Thursday and examines efforts currently underway to solve the nitrate pollution problem.

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Oregon regulators have had decades to tackle the Umatilla Basin's water pollution, but it's only gotten worse

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Industrial farming is contaminating an aquifer that eastern Oregon residents rely on. For over 30 years, state agencies have done little more than wring their hands.

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11/15/23 4 years after Prineville Reservoir Resort closed, Oregon Parks Dept. is seeking public input about its future

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11/15/23 4 years after Prineville Reservoir Resort closed, Oregon Parks Dept. is seeking public input about its future

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PRINEVILLE, Ore. (KTVZ) -- After the Prineville Reservoir Resort closed down back in 2019, the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department took over management of the property from the party that ran it before.

The former resort sits on the northern shore of Prineville Reservoir, on US Bureau of Reclamation land. It had more than 80 campground sites, RV and tent sites, a six-room motel, a full restaurant, boat launch, fueling facility and moorage.

Now, OPRD, along with Portland State University, is seeking the help of the public, asking Crook County residents what they'd like to see the resort space become in the future.

"We are looking to basically rebuild that area here to what the people want and what the area can provide," Todd Honeywell, Operations Manager for the Mountain Region of OPRD, told us Wednesday.

Since its closure, Oregon Parks has managed the property. Now, the state agency and Portland State University, are surveying the public in a 10-15 minute questionnaire to help reimagine the resort.

"We're asking people, 'What would you do out here if the water level is low, which we've seen for several years?'" Honeywell explained.

The reservoir was created on the Crooked River in 1961, for agricultural use. The maximum depth is 130 feet, and it can store just over 150,000 acre-feet of water.

It's also a popular spot for fishing and recreation.

"So I think the original idea was just, 'Okay, let's get it back up and going, fix everything' -- and then Covid happened" Honeywell said.

"So we lost a bunch of money during that, with no user fees coming in and employees and everything," he added. "Plus, a drought happened in quite a few of those years."

To bring the resort up to code would not be cheap: Honeywell estimates the cost would be about $50 million.

A public meeting about the resort's future was held Tuesday.

"That was one of the nice things that came out of the meeting yesterday was, people said, 'Well, why not fix it up a little bit at a time, fix up the day use area, and see if people come in and use that area, then start building it from there?'" Honeywell said.

While the recreation area at the reservoir is open year-round, OPRD wants public input before announcing the resorts' next steps.

"I'd like to see people out walking around here now (in autumn)," Honeywell said. "Before you got here, I was out walking around and saw a bald eagle going down and diving for fish. And so it's a great place to come out and wander around the whole park."

If you'd like to voice your opinion with what happens next to the Prineville Reservoir Resort, you can fill out the community survey, which is available online until Thanksgiving.

The survey takes 10-15 minutes and can be found at www.prinevillerecsurvey.com/?src=r33h7.

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4 years after Prineville Reservoir Resort closed, Oregon Parks Dept. is seeking public input about its future - KTVZ

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After the Prineville Reservoir Resort closed down back in 2019, the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department took over management of the property from the party that ran it before.

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11/14/23 Lebanon tap water showing high levels of chlorine after reservoir drawdowns

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11/14/23 Lebanon tap water showing high levels of chlorine after reservoir drawdowns

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LEBANON, Ore. - Side effects of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers court-mandated drawdown of Green Peter Reservoir have become apparent in Sweet Home, Lebanon, and Albany. According to the City of Lebanon Public Works, the amount of sediment building up in their water supply has been devastating.

The drawdown is flushing huge amounts of built-up sediment downstream into the South Santiam where Lebanon's drinking water systems have been hit extremely hard according to City of Lebanon Public Works Director Jason Williams.

"We are seeing raw water turbidity numbers entering our treatment plant that we have never seen before," Williams said. "Unlike a storm event, these high turbidity numbers do not drop off as the storm subsides. The high turbidity has remained constant."

To disinfect the water and ensure it remains within state parameters, public works employees have had to add additional chemicals, especially chlorine, which has continued to tax their filters.

"The damage to the filters is not entirely known at this point. We only know that all the factors that reduce filter life are present in our operation now because of the sediment," Williams said. "We have had to operate our filters at considerable higher pressures than we ever have to date, increased the frequency of our backwash and chemical cleaning by four times and we have even had to change programming to allow us to do many of these things. Our treatment plant staff is working around the clock to meet the demands we are placing on our treatment plant."

While crews are constantly working to ensure the water remains safe to drink, residents in Lebanon like Vernon Griffith are not happy with the side effects of increasing chemicals, and worry about the effects the chemicals could have on their child's health and skin.

"It almost smells like somebody went up to the hot water tanks and just dumped gallons of bleach in there because it came out yellow," Griffith said. "I was giving the baby a bath and it was so strong we were rubbing our eyes. We were rubbing our eyes we had to get out of the bathroom. It smelled through the house like a public pool. It's really about the baby; is she going to be safe ingesting all that chlorine, all that whatever else they're putting into the water?"

He and other residents like John Bussel are now relying on bottled water; and are not even giving their pets tap water.

"People's pets are not drinking the water; they're pretty much getting dehydrated because they won't touch the water," Bussel said. "How's that safe for anyone, let alone our little ones? I have a three-year-old and I get her bottled water. It's not safe."

According to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the extent of the turbidity in the water was unknown, and Jeffrey Henon, Public Affairs Specialist with the Army Corps of Engineers, said before the drawdown commenced and they met with the court, they included information that there was a potential for turbidity with all of the drawdowns happening at their dams in the Willamette Valley. Now they are working with Sweet Home, Lebanon, and Albany to figure out the next step.

"We as an organization are trying to look at whatever possibilities within our authority that we may be able to make some sort of incremental benefit and change to help them," Henon said. "We are also looking at if there are any small improvements we can make to how we operate the dam that could give us incremental improvements with the turbidity of the water."

Until then, according to Henon, as part of the injunction measure they are supposed to keep the dams and reservoirs drawn down, including Green Peter Reservoir, until December 15. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will also be complying next year with the same operation and draw down as well, unless they receive different guidance from the court.

In Lebanon, city officials said their drinking water is tested frequently and residents can stay updated on the city website.

Jennifer Singh joined the KEZI 9 News team in July 2023 as a news reporter. If you have any story ideas for Jennifer, you can email her at jsingh@kezi.com.

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Lebanon tap water showing high levels of chlorine after reservoir drawdowns

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Residents in Lebanon are concerned with the quality of their water supply after record turbidity levels have forced public works to increase chlorine levels.

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11/14/23 EPA moves on petition from West Coast tribes to investigate tire toxin linked to fish deaths

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11/14/23 EPA moves on petition from West Coast tribes to investigate tire toxin linked to fish deaths

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For several decades, many coho salmon returning to waterways around Seattle to spawn have died mysteriously following heavy rains. In some urban streams, nearly all of the coho returning from the ocean died.

It wasn't until 2021 that scientists figured out what was behind what they called "urban runoff mortality syndrome," and it was not until this month that federal regulators at the Environmental Protection Agency moved to do something about it.

The EPA on Nov. 2 said it would consider an August from the California-based Yurok Tribe and the Washington-based Port Gamble S'Klallam and Puyallup tribes, calling for a ban of the chemical 6PPD-q. It's used in car tires to keep them from cracking and degrading, but as tires wear down, they shed particles containing the chemical into stormwater and streams. Even small amounts of 6PPD-q in a stream can cause salmon to become disoriented and die within hours, scientists have found.

The chemical has not been as big of an issue elsewhere, but officials worry it could become a problem. Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum and the attorneys general of Connecticut, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington also submitted to the EPA in October supporting the petition. They said the tire-related pollution risks billions of dollars of state and federal money and decades of work spent on fish habitat and passage in the Northwest.

"The restored aquatic habitat is only as good as the water flowing through it," they wrote.

EPA officials will spend the next year gathering information that could shape new regulations or a ban on the chemical, according to a news release. Agency officials acknowledged data showing 6PPD-q is toxic to fish, but they said there still uncertainty about how much harm the chemical is causing - to fish and potentially people, the new release said.

In Oregon, there have not been large fish die-offs attributable to the chemical, according to Shaun Clements, deputy director of the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. The state's Department of Environmental Quality will begin testing for 6PPD-q in waterways following EPA guidance, Clements said.

Any watershed receiving significant runoff from roads and highways is at risk from 6PPD-q pollution, the state attorneys general said.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Northwest Fisheries Science Center has determined that within a few decades, coho salmon in urban watersheds could become extinct. Coho have been the species the most sensitive to the chemical, but steelhead and trout are also susceptible, according to scientists.

On Nov. 8, two San Francisco-based nonprofit fishing groups, along with the environmental legal advocacy group Earthjustice, major U.S. tire manufacturers. They claim the continued use of the chemical is killing already imperiled salmon and steelhead in violation of the federal Endangered Species Act.

Chinook and steelhead runs in the Puget Sound are currently listed as threatened, as are coho runs in the lower Columbia River, Oregon Coast, southern Oregon and northern California.

Washington State University scientists successfully isolated and identified 6PPD-q in 2021 from more than 2,000 other chemicals found in Puget Sound waters during three years of testing. It is the second-most toxic chemical to aquatic species ever evaluated by EPA, according to the petition from the tribes.

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EPA moves on petition from West Coast tribes to investigate tire toxin linked to fish deaths - Oregon Capital Chronicle

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Yurok, Port Gamble S'Klallam and Puyallup tribes, and attorneys general in Oregon and Washington, want the chemical banned to save salmon.

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11/9/23 Editorial: Oregon must fund water case adjudication

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11/9/23 Editorial: Oregon must fund water case adjudication

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Editorial: Oregon must fund water case adjudication

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Legislators need to cough up the money to make this system work for Oregonians, or create a system that does.

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11/13/23 Oregon water officials say permitting must change to keep tens of thousands of wells from going dry

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11/13/23 Oregon water officials say permitting must change to keep tens of thousands of wells from going dry

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Oregon water officials say permitting must change to keep tens of thousands of wells from going dry – Oregon Capital Chronicle

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Costs of digging deeper wells could climb into the hundreds of millions if the state does not revamp groundwater permitting, officials said.

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11/12/23 Why rural Nevada electric co-ops are watching proposals to remove Snake River dams

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11/12/23 Why rural Nevada electric co-ops are watching proposals to remove Snake River dams

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Hundreds of miles away from rural Northern Nevada, water gushes through dams in the lower Snake River. These dams, barriers in the Columbia River Basin, have long been controversial for harming wild salmon populations and violating Native American treaty obligations.

In recent months, tribes and conservation groups have renewed calls to remove the dams, but the proposals face a complicated political calculus, skepticism across the political spectrum and opposition from distant energy utilities including those in northeastern Nevada.

The four Washington dams produce cheap electricity, often when the grid needs it most. That electricity is sent far and wide from across the Pacific Northwest, including to the Nevada town of Wells.

"When you look at the Lower Snake dams, a number of issues come to us," said Clay Fitch, who serves as executive director of the Wells Rural Electric Co-Op. "The big deal is reliability."

Wells, a town of roughly 1,200 people, is about 50 miles east of Elko. Unlike major population centers in Nevada, Wells does not get its power from NV Energy, the state's largest utility. The Wells Rural Electric Co-Op instead is responsible for ensuring the lights turn on, serving about 6,000 customers - homes, businesses and mines - over 11,000 square miles. Its service territory extends as far west as Carlin and east to Wendover.

"Our customers are far and few between," Fitch said, adding they rely almost solely on hydropower.

The Wells co-op and three other rural utilities in Nevada get a portion of their electricity from the Bonneville Power Administration, an arm of the federal government. It delivers hydropower in the Columbia River Basin, which touches small northern sections of the state. And Bonneville's portfolio includes electricity generated from four hydroelectric dams in the lower Snake River.

It's also why Elko County is raising concerns about their proposed removal. Last month, the Elko County Commission unanimously approved a letter opposing the removal of the dams, calling it "irresponsible and short-sighted."

In late September, President Joe Biden called "for a sustained national effort to restore healthy and abundant native fish populations" in the Columbia River Basin. Beginning in the 1930s, the federal government started building dams that boosted the region's power supplies but blocked salmon, steelhead and other fish species from reaching their freshwater spawning grounds.

The dam construction came after decades of commercial activity that took a major toll on fish populations. Today, 13 salmon and steelhead species in the Columbia River watershed are considered to be threatened or endangered, while other species have already disappeared.

"Our fish are on a trajectory of going extinct," said Mitch Cutter, salmon and steelhead associate for the Idaho Conservation League. "And so we know that we need to save those fish and do as much as we can right now to change that trajectory and bring them back to a stable population."

Breaching the dams, Cutter said, could "even the odds for our fish here in Idaho," where much of the Snake River runs before its confluence with the Columbia River. Tribal governments, including those in the Columbia River area with treaty rights to fish in the river, have also pushed federal water managers to take down the dams to improve salmon habitat.

At the Society of Environmental Journalists' conference earlier this year, Shannon Wheeler, vice chairman of the Nez Perce Tribal Executive Committee, stressed that treaty rights ensured tribal members could "fish at all usual and accustomed areas," as they had for thousands of years.

"We didn't sign up to not have fish," Wheeler said. "We signed up to have fish in perpetuity. Not fish on life support."

Proposals to breach the four lower Snake River dams have gained traction in recent years. In 2021, Rep. Mike Simpson (R-ID) introduced a $33 billion package to tear down the dams, while paying to replace the electricity and offset the impact on local communities. But debate around removing the dams is politically complex, scrambling typical partisan divisions.

Last year, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee and Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA), both Democrats, released a report recognizing the impact of the dams, but said breaching the dams was not a "responsible or feasible" option until the lost electricity was replaced and the economic benefits of the dam were mitigated. While hydropower dams can block fish from reaching their spawning habitat, they often provide a cleaner source of power that does not rely on burning fossil fuels.

The Biden administration stopped short of calling for the dams to be breached, but many believe the federal government could be moving in that direction - or at least considering it. And some local and regional groups, including Nevada power providers, are pushing back.

Many rural co-ops that service Nevada get electricity from hydropower. As small nonprofits that bring remote energy, they often do not have much leeway to replace one power when a source of supply goes away. In the southern part of the state, rural co-ops rely on power delivered from transmission lines running from Colorado River dams, including the Hoover Dam. Those utilities have faced risks, in recent years, from drought and a curtailment of hydropower from the dams.

In Northern Nevada, four rural electric co-ops - Wells Rural Electric, Surprise Valley Electrification Corp, Raft River Rural Electric and Harney Electric Cooperative - rely on electricity produced by the Columbia River Basin dams, which include the lower Snake River projects. Together, they have raised concerns about breaching the lower Snake River dams.

Carolyn Turner, the executive director of the Nevada Rural Electric Association, said that "there would be pain felt by the end-use consumer here in our state" if the dams were removed. She said that her organization has yet to see a viable and cost-effective proposal for replacement power, at least one that ensures a stable grid and does not create new fossil fuel emissions.

Power customers, Turner said, pay for "state-of-the-art mitigation" to protect salmon and other fish species. And the dams are not the only threat to salmon runs. Fish species in the Columbia River watershed face numerous additional threats, including rising ocean temperatures.

Without a viable option for replacing power generated from the dams, Fitch, who runs the Wells co-op, said that his customers could expect retail rate increases of as much as 30 percent.

"We're retiring coal and gas as quickly as we can retire them across the nation and region to meet the climate goal," Fitch added during a phone interview earlier this month. "To take off a very viable carbon-free energy source at the same time just doesn't make any sense."

But politicians across the aisle have acknowledged that the status quo is not working. Despite billions invested in salmon recovery, fish populations in the lower Snake River remain in a delicate balance, facing significant threats to their survival. With Biden's call for an approach to ensure "healthy and abundant" fish populations, some federal action could come in the future.

Elko County Commissioner Rex Steninger, a Republican, said that he backed the county's letter opposing dam breaching to ensure members of the state congressional delegation knew where the community stood, as breaching the dams would likely require congressional action. The letter noted that "local industry, from ranching and small businesses to gaming and mining operations that employ our residents, benefits from the affordable electricity provided by those dams."

After the vote, Steninger added, "I guess that's another example of a country originally founded by geniuses and currently run by idiots - if they are going to take these dams down."

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Why rural Nevada electric co-ops are watching proposals to remove Snake River dams - The Nevada Independent

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Rural utilities that rely on hydropower generated by the dams question the availability and costs for alternative sources for electricity.

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11/1/23 Oregon Court of Appeals upholds rejection of reservoir

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11/1/23 Oregon Court of Appeals upholds rejection of reservoir

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Oregon Court of Appeals upholds rejection of reservoir

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The Oregon Court of Appeals has affirmed a decision by state water regulators to deny a water storage permit to an irrigation district hoping to construct a dam near Silverton,

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11/1/23 Dam removals, restoration project on Klamath River expected to help salmon, researchers conclude

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11/1/23 Dam removals, restoration project on Klamath River expected to help salmon, researchers conclude

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CORVALLIS, Ore. - The world's largest dam removal and restoration project currently underway on the Klamath River in Oregon and California will aid salmon populations that have been devastated by disease and other factors. However, it will not fully alleviate challenges faced by the species, a team of researchers conclude in a just-published paper.

"The dam removals will likely go a long way towards restoring balance in the river," said Sascha Hallett, a fish parasitologist at Oregon State University who has studied the river for two decades. "Certainly under certain circumstances there are going to be disease outbreaks, like with people and pathogens. But we envision that they are not going to be as large and not going to be as frequent as we have observed in the past."

Michael Belchik, a fisheries biologist with the Yurok Tribe in California and co-author of the paper, said he thinks there will be noticeable gains for fish shortly after the dams are removed.

"I think you are going to see fish accessing new habitat right away, and that is going to be a cause for celebration," said Belchik, who has worked for the Tribe since 1995.

In the paper, published in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, Hallett and a team of researchers from Oregon State, Tribes in Oregon and California, and state and federal agencies outlined their predictions for salmon disease risk in the Klamath River following the removal of four hydroelectric dams. They also provide post-dam removal research and monitoring recommendations and insights to aid habitat restoration efforts.

One of the four dams was removed earlier this year, and the other three are slated to be taken down in early 2024. Removal of the dams will result in restoration of habitat originally altered more than 100 years ago with construction of the first dam.

The Klamath River runs more than 250 miles from Oregon's high desert interior through the Cascade Mountains before entering the Pacific Ocean in northern California. It has broad ecological, cultural, recreational and economic relevance. The river was once the third largest salmon-producing river on the West Coast. Those salmon served as the foundation of life and culture for Tribes living along the river.

Construction of the dams in the early-to-mid-20th century blocked access for salmon and other fish species to hundreds of miles of habitat and created barriers that led to increases in pathogens deadly to the fish.

This dynamic received widespread attention in 2002 when there was a die-off of tens of thousands of chinook salmon in the Klamath River. Shortly after this event, Jerri Bartholomew, an Oregon State microbiologist who works with Hallett, started studying the Klamath River salmon.

Salmon health is impacted by many factors, including stream-flow levels, water temperature and pathogens. Barthlomew and her colleagues focus on the pathogens.

They have spent the past 20 years unraveling how a parasite known as Ceratonova shasta works in conjunction with an aquatic worm host, Manayunkia occidentalis, which is smaller than an eyelash, to create conditions in the Klamath River that are deadly to salmon.

In the paper, researchers say that increased habitat availability and longer fish migration routes created by dam removals will increase duration of pathogen exposure. However, restoration of the river's natural flow will decrease fish disease risk by essentially flushing out the pathogens and unclogging a pathogen hot spot that has formed below the Iron Gate Dam, about five miles south of the California-Oregon border just east of Interstate 5. The dam is slated for removal in early 2024.

"There's no question in my mind just the removal of these four dams will go a long way to knocking back that current infection zone by shifting things in terms of time and space where the hosts and parasites overlap," said Julie Alexander, an aquatic ecologist who works with Hallett and Barthlomew.

She also cautioned that restoration efforts that will occur after dam removal need to be conducted thoughtfully.

"You don't want to go and restore a section of river to encourage salmon to spawn somewhere we know there are worms because then you are going to create a hot spot," Alexander said.

In addition to co-authors from the Yurok Tribe, authors of the paper include scientists at the Hoopa, Klamath and Karuk Tribes, Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The ongoing research by Oregon State and its partners has been supported by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. That includes a $4.5 million award earlier this year.

"Without this funding and without these groups contributing different pieces of the datasets, we would not have been poised at this time to capture that and be able to make predictions," Hallett said. "Those two things are really important going forward to be able to inform short-term and long-term management actions as well as being able to inform 'Was this major environmental change event successful?'"

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Dam removals, restoration project on Klamath River expected to help salmon, researchers conclude

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CORVALLIS, Ore. - The world's largest dam removal and restoration project currently underway on the Klamath River in Oregon and California will aid salmon populations that have been devastated by disease and other factors. However, it will not fully alleviate challenges faced by the species, a team of researchers conclude in a just-published paper.

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11/5/23 New Analysis: Oregon Cascades, Western states losing glaciers

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11/5/23 New Analysis: Oregon Cascades, Western states losing glaciers

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Glacial melt from climate change is no longer just a problem at the poles.

Across the contiguous Western U.S., glaciers are slowly disappearing, according to a new analysis by researchers at Portland State University and the U.S. Geological Survey. The study was published in the journal Earth System Science Data on Sept. 15.

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Alex Baumhardt Oregon Capital Chronicle  News Guard Guest Article

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New Analysis: Oregon Cascades, Western states losing glaciers

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Glacial melt from climate change is no longer just a problem at the poles.

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10/30/23 Oregon water protest backlog grows despite $3 million reduction project

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10/30/23 Oregon water protest backlog grows despite $3 million reduction project

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Oregon water protest backlog grows despite $3 million reduction project

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Oregon’s backlog of water transaction protests has continued growing despite a $3 million investment meant to reduce it, though the problem would’ve been worse without that spending.

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11/7/23 Gov. Kotek declares drought emergency in Morrow County; 13th county this year

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11/7/23 Gov. Kotek declares drought emergency in Morrow County; 13th county this year

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SALEM, Ore. (KTVZ) - Governor Tina Kotek has declared a drought in Morrow County through Executive Order 23-25 and directed state agencies to coordinate and prioritize assistance to the region.

Over 90% of Morrow County is currently in a D1 drought (moderate drought), while the rest of the county is either in D0 (abnormally dry) or D2 (severe drought) conditions.

Oregon State University Extension Service in Morrow County provided a letter of support for the drought declaration request, highlighting impacts to this year's wheat crop. Wheat production in Morrow County was heavily impacted by both an unusually dry fall and low rainfall in the spring. Additionally, the average quality of crop-year precipitation in Morrow County ranges from 8 to 12 inches depending on location. The overall average for this previous crop-year was only 6.6 inches.

Drought is likely to have a significant economic impact on the farm, ranch, recreation, tourism and natural resources sectors, as well as an impact on drinking water, fish and wildlife, and important minimum flows for public instream uses and other natural resources dependent on adequate precipitation, stored water, and streamflow in these areas.

Extreme conditions are expected to affect local growers and livestock, shorten the growing season, and decrease water supplies.

The drought declaration by Governor Kotek unlocks a number of drought-related emergency tools for water users, including assistance to local water users. Drought declarations also allow the Water Resources Department to expedite review processes and reduce fee schedules.

The Oregon Drought Readiness Council, a standing body composed of natural resource, public health, and emergency response agencies, received requests from the Board of Commissioners in Morrow County requesting the Governor's drought declarations.

The council received input from Oregon's Water Supply Availability Committee on regional water supply conditions and Council members have conferred on this matter. The Council recommended that the Governor declare drought in Morrow County for the 2023 calendar year, pursuant to Oregon Revised Statutes (ORS) 536.740.

As state and local officials coordinate with federal partners, conditions will be closely monitored by the state's natural resource and public safety agencies, including the Oregon Water Resources Department and the Oregon Department of Emergency Management.

Governor Kotek has now made drought declarations in 13 counties this calendar year.

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Gov. Kotek declares drought emergency in Morrow County; 13th county this year - KTVZ

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SALEM, Ore. (KTVZ) - Governor Tina Kotek has declared a drought in Morrow County through Executive Order 23-25 and directed state agencies to coordinate and prioritize assistance to the region.

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11/6/23 Wickiup Reservoir could reach its highest level in years, but won't fill to the brim

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11/6/23 Wickiup Reservoir could reach its highest level in years, but won't fill to the brim

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Central Oregon remains in a state of drought but reservoir levels have managed to gain ground compared to levels a year ago thanks to a wet spring and conservative water allocations, giving some irrigators a sense of hope that the worst of the low-water years are behind them.

Wickiup Reservoir is currently around 18,000 acre-feet higher than it was this time a year ago. As of Friday, the reservoir was 22% full with five more months to collect water from the area's springs. Prineville Reservoir, now 59% full and on track to fill up by early May, is also performing well.

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Wickiup Reservoir could reach its highest level in years, but won't fill to the brim

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Central Oregon remains in a state of drought but reservoir levels have managed to gain ground compared to levels a year ago thanks to a wet spring and conservative water

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11/5/23 U.S. regulators will review car-tire chemical that kills salmon, upon request from West Coast tribes

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11/5/23 U.S. regulators will review car-tire chemical that kills salmon, upon request from West Coast tribes

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U.S. regulators say they will review the use of a chemical found in almost every tire after a petition from West Coast Native American tribes that want it banned because it kills salmon as they return from the ocean to their natal streams to spawn.

The Yurok tribe in California and the Port Gamble S'Klallam and Puyallup tribes in Washington asked the Environmental Protection Agency to prohibit the rubber preservative 6PPD earlier this year, saying it kills fish - especially coho salmon - when rains wash it from roadways into rivers. Washington, Oregon, Vermont, Rhode Island and Connecticut also wrote the EPA, citing the chemical's "unreasonable threat" to their waters and fisheries.

The agency's decision to grant the petition last week is the start of a long regulatory process that could see the chemical banned. Tire manufacturers are already looking for an alternative that still meets federal safety requirements.

"We could not sit idle while 6PPD kills the fish that sustain us," Joseph L. James, chairperson of the Yurok Tribe, told The Associated Press. "This lethal toxin has no business in any salmon-bearing watershed."

6PPD has been used as a rubber preservative in tires for 60 years. It is also found in footwear, synthetic turf and playground equipment.

As tires wear, tiny particles of rubber are left behind on roads and parking lots. The chemical breaks down into a byproduct, 6PPD-quinone, that is deadly to salmon, steelhead trout and other aquatic wildlife. Coho appear to be especially sensitive; it can kill them within hours, the tribes argued.

The salmon are important to the diet and culture of Pacific Northwest and California tribes, which have fought for decades to protect the dwindling fish from climate change, pollution, development and dams that block their way to spawning grounds.

The chemical's effect on coho was noted in 2020 by scientists in Washington state, who were studying why coho populations that had been restored in the Puget Sound years earlier were struggling.

"This is a significant first step in regulating what has been a devastating chemical in the environment for decades," said Elizabeth Forsyth, an attorney for Earthjustice, an environmental law firm that represents the tribes.

She called it "one of the biggest environmental issues that the world hasn't known about."

The U.S. Tire Manufacturers Association said in a statement that an analysis is underway to identify alternatives to 6PPD that can meet federal safety standards, though none has yet been found.

"Any premature prohibition on the use of 6PPD in tires would be detrimental to public safety and the national economy," the statement said.

The Puyallup Tribal Council called the EPA's decision "a victory for salmon and all species and people."

The agency plans by next fall to begin gathering more information that could inform proposed regulations. It also plans to require manufacturers and importers of 6PPD to report unpublished health and safety studies by the end of next year. There is no timeframe for a final decision.

"These salmon and other fish have suffered dramatic decreases in population over the years. Addressing 6PPD-quinone in the environment, and the use of its parent, 6PPD, is one way we can work to reverse this trend," Michal Freedhoff, an assistant administrator in the EPA's chemical safety and pollution prevention office, said in a statement.

The chemical's effect on human health is unknown, the EPA noted.

Suanne Brander, an associate professor and ecotoxicologist at Oregon State University, called the decision a great move, but cautioned that the lethal impacts on salmon are likely from more than just 6PPD. She said she is also concerned about whatever chemical tire manufacturers eventually use to replace it.

"As someone who's been studying chemicals and micro-plastics for a while now, my concern is we're really focused on this one chemical but in the end, it's the mixture," she said. "It's many different chemicals that fish are being exposed to simultaneously that are concerning."

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Thiessen reported from Anchorage, Alaska.

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U.S. regulators will review car-tire chemical that kills salmon, upon request from West Coast tribes

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Federal regulators will review the use of a chemical found in tires after a petition from Native American tribes in California and Washington state.

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11/4/23 Port of Morrow will pay $2 million to clean up dirty drinking water in state settlement

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11/4/23 Port of Morrow will pay $2 million to clean up dirty drinking water in state settlement

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The Port of Morrow will send nearly $2 million to the Oregon Health Authority to support clean drinking water efforts in northeast Oregon, and pay nearly half a million dollars to the state treasury following record penalties for years of groundwater pollution.

The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality announced the settlement with the state's second largest port Tuesday, after nearly two years of negotiations. Under Oregon law, up to 80% of fines from the environmental quality department can be directed to projects that benefit communities and the environment.

Joe Taylor, president of the port's commission, said in a news release that port leaders are committed to improving groundwater pollution in Morrow and Umatilla counties, which has grown worse during the last 30 years from farm fertilizers, manure from confined animal operations and wastewater discharge from the port and large food processing plants.

"With DEQ's agreement, the community will be the beneficiary from a large portion of our fine," he said.

The port was first fined $1.3 million in January 2022 for allowing excessive amounts of nitrogen to be spread across farms in winter in Morrow and Umatilla counties. Seeping into groundwater, it turned into nitrates. Consuming water high in nitrates over long periods causes adverse health effects, including an increased risk of several cancers, according to the National Cancer Institute. At least 3,300 wells that draw on groundwater in the two counties are used by residents, according to the state health authority. Of the 1,000 wells tested by the agency during the past several months, one-quarter had nitrate levels above safe drinking limits set by the federal Environmental Protection Agency. Many residents who rely on wells for drinking water are Latino, and many are low income.

An investigation by the Capital Chronicle found that the Port of Morrow had violated its state wastewater permit and allowed excessive amounts of nitrogen to be spread across farms for much of the last 15 years, with little action from environmental regulators. The port is one of several sources of nitrate pollution in the area, and one of few regulated by state and federal law under the Clean Water Act.
Increased fine
The fine against the port was raised to $2.1 million in June 2022, following the discovery that port specialists had continued violating the wastewater permit in months following the January enforcement. Then, in March of 2023, area residents discovered the port had allowed its wastewater to leak for months without alerting the environmental quality department, raising the fine by an additional $60,000.

In all, the port has been fined nearly $2.5 million by state environmental regulators.

"While the port's contribution to the overall problem is relatively small, it's important for the port to be an active partner in a regional solution," said Lisa Mittelsdorf, the port's executive director.

Leah Feldon, director of the state environmental agency, said in a news release that she is satisfied with the settlement, which "provides funding for safe drinking water to those who need it, and it holds the Port of Morrow accountable for permit violations."

The Port of Morrow has also agreed to new state regulations limiting nitrogen pollution, and committed to investing $150 million in building digesters over the next few years to treat its wastewater before it gets applied to farmland.

-- Alex Baumhardt | abaumhardt@oregoncapitalchronicle.com
Oregon Capital Chronicle is an affiliate of States Newsroom, a national 501(c)(3) nonprofit supported by grants and a coalition of donors and readers.

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Port of Morrow will pay $2 million to clean up dirty drinking water in state settlement

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Groundwater pollution has been caused by fertilizers, animal manure and wastewater discharge from the port and large food processing plants.

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11/4/23 Army Corps holds listening sessions on eliminating hydropower in the Willamette Basin

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11/4/23 Army Corps holds listening sessions on eliminating hydropower in the Willamette Basin

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The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is holding three meetings in November on the future of hydropower produced by 13 dams and reservoirs in the Willamette Basin.

The Water Resources Development Act of 2022 directed the Corps to complete a report to Congress considering removing hydropower production as a purpose of the dams.

The move is being considered in part because it could allow greater flexibility in allowing passage for endangered salmon and steelhead through the dams, and into and down from its habitat of upper tributaries in the Willamette River.

The Willamette Project dams serve multiple purposes in addition to hydropower production, such as flood risk management, irrigation and recreation.

"We look forward to collecting the public's input as we prepare this report," Hugh Kim, the project manager for the disposition report, said in a news release. "This is an opportunity for the public to contribute to decisions to be made at the congressional level."
More: Salmon catch the 'fish taxi' as Corps plans billions to save iconic fish, keep dams
The listening sessions will begin with a brief introduction by Corps officials. The remainder of the session will be dedicated to collecting input.

Verbal statements received during the listening sessions will be recorded and transcribed for inclusion in the report to Congress. The agency will also will accept brief written statements during the listening sessions.

If you are unable to attend a listening session, submit a request to the project email address: WVHPWRDA22@usace.army.mil for further information on how to submit your written statement.

Meetings

Nov. 13: Virtual listening sessions will be held from 2 to 4 p.m. and 5:30 to 7:30 p.m.Link to meeting: https://usace1.webex.com/meet/WVHydropower

Nov. 14: An in-person listening session will be held from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. in the Salem Public Library, plaza level, Room Anderson A, 585 Liberty St. SE.

Whether and how discontinuing hydropower production at one or more of the eight dams would affect how those dams, other dams in the system, and the system as a whole would be operated for their other authorized purposes.

How the costs of discontinuing hydropower would be apportioned.

What impacts there would be on dam safety and compliance with the Endangered Species Act.

Zach Urness has been an outdoors reporter in Oregon for 15 years and is host of the Explore Oregon Podcast. Urness is the author of "Best Hikes with Kids: Oregon" and "Hiking Southern Oregon." He can be reached at zurness@StatesmanJournal.com or 503-399-6801. Find him on Twitter at @ZachsORoutdoors.
Issues that will be considered:

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Army Corps holds listening sessions on eliminating hydropower in the Willamette Basin

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The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is holding meetings in November on the future of hydropower produced by dams and reservoirs in the Willamette Basin.

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11/2/23 Port of Morrow reaches agreement with Oregon over wastewater violations

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11/2/23 Port of Morrow reaches agreement with Oregon over wastewater violations

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After nearly two years of negotiations, the Port of Morrow has agreed to pay a fine of more than $2.4 million for repeated wastewater violations that contaminated the groundwater in Eastern Oregon.

The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality's settlement with the Port of Morrow announced Tuesday will increase domestic well testing, provide more water treatment services and deliver clean drinking water to impacted residents in the region. The settlement also creates a compliance plan that includes reducing the amount of wastewater the Port can apply in nearby farmland during winter months and adding wastewater treatment capacity.

Port Executive Director Lisa Mittelsdorf said the settlement is fair and appropriate.

"We did take responsibility and we're working on making improvements to our system so that we can reduce the nitrates in the water that's leaving our facilities and going out on to agricultural land," she said.

FILE: The Port of Morrow's East Beach Facility in Boardman, Ore., pictured in April 2022.
Monica Samayoa / OPB

DEQ fined the Port in January 2022 for over-applying more than 200 tons of nitrogen-rich wastewater on agricultural fields in the Lower Umatilla Basin. It was the largest fine in DEQ's history.

"I just want to make sure that as we take all of these millions of dollars, that we're actually getting it to where we can solve problems," Mittelsdorf said.

Government response

State agencies, including DEQ, have identified nitrate pollution as a problem for more than three decades in the Lower Umatilla Basin. Groundwater is the primary drinking water source for Morrow and Umatilla County residents. Many in the area who drink out of private wells have tested higher than the federal government's limit of 10 milligrams of nitrates per liter, which can cause serious health effects.

Earlier this year, Gov. Tina Kotek pledged to address the nitrate issue. She allocated funds to the Oregon Health Authority for well testing and providing safe drinking water, as well as outreach and education.

"We have to reduce the practices that have caused groundwater in the Lower Umatilla Basin to have elevated levels of nitrate," Kotek said. "While there is a lot of work ahead, the settlement agreement announced this week with the Port of Morrow is an important next step to developing intermediate and long-term solutions to the groundwater nitrate pollution."

FILE: Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek tours Boardman with local organization Oregon Rural Action on May 3, 2023. The group stopped near the Port of Morrow, where a recent leak allowed thousands of gallons of wastewater to contaminate the site.
Monica Samayoa / OPB

Most of the funds of the settlement are going toward more domestic well testing and providing safe drinking water through DEQ's Supplemental Environmental Projects. According to DEQ, the policy allows for up to 80% of fines to go to projects that benefit community health and environment.

Through this program, the port has agreed to pay the Oregon Health Authority nearly $2 million over the next two years.

In July, OHA began increasing well testing in the region and have so far tested more than 1,400 wells.

Aside from the DEQ's Supplemental Environmental Project policy in place, the agency's Harry Esteve said the compliance plan will create a schedule for the Port to increase its storage capacity and expand wastewater treatment facilities.

Last November, DEQ issued a permit modification to the port that includes specific wastewater application timelines during the winter months, adding more storage, additional monitoring and reporting to the agency.

He said the agency will continue to monitor those reports and carry out on-site inspections when needed.

"If they follow the compliance plan that is outlined in the settlement, then it's our belief and understanding that they will then be meeting the confines of their permit and won't be adding pollution to the groundwater," Esteve said.

Long overdue

Advocates and community organizations like Oregon Rural Action said the settlement is a long overdue enforcement.

Director of community organizing Zaira Sanchez said she is hopeful the settlement will stop repeated wastewater violations and hold the port accountable. The money going to support more testing is important for impacted community members, she said.

"We appreciate that the DEQ recognizes that the increased volumes of untreated Port wastewater dumped near domestic wells poses a high risk to community health," Sanchez told OPB.

But, she said, state agencies need to put in more effort. Sanchez still meets people in the region who are not aware of the nitrate pollution, and many who have not had their wells tested.

"There's still a lack of clarity as to what to do, who to reach out to despite all of the resources that have been spent so far to inform the community, to identify the wells," she said.

There is also a need for long term solutions that should involve input from impacted residents, Sanchez said.

The port is required to make its first settlement payment to OHA by the end of the year. After that, the port will provide the rest of the funds by installments until the final payment in June 2026.

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science & environment | eastern oregon | water | pollution

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Port of Morrow reaches agreement with Oregon over wastewater violations

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The Port of Morrow has agreed to pay more than $2.4 million over repeated wastewater violations in Eastern Oregon.

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11/1/23 Animal welfare, small-town water infrastructure on Gomberg’s mind

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11/1/23 Animal welfare, small-town water infrastructure on Gomberg’s mind

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The Oregon Legislature plans to convene early next year and Rep. David Gomberg, who represents Philomath as part of his district, said he's allowed to introduce two bills during the 35-day short session.

Speaking in front of a crowd of about 50 people at the Oct. 19 Philomath Area Chamber Commerce luncheon, Gomberg (D-Otis) responded to a question about what he expects to be focusing on during the session, which is scheduled to run from Feb. 5 to March 10.

"It's kind of a fine-tuning session where we might tweak the budget a little bit and instead of being able to introduce as many bills as I want, I'm limited to only two bills," Gomberg said. "In the short session, there's not as much money and there's certainly not as much time."

Gomberg's bills will be connected to a rural water package and an animal welfare issue.

Joining with the Oregon Water Caucus, Gomberg said much of the committee's work has focused on drought and agriculture issues in Eastern Oregon. Although he says those are important, the state lawmaker said "I'm also all about infrastructure and small communities that need help that can't afford the necessary repairs."

This month, a team of legislators will reportedly visit Gomberg's House District 10 "to take a look at a group of different water projects that we have either funded or need funding so they can get a better sense of how things work ... or need to work better."

Local efforts to replace an aging water treatment plant received a major boost in 2021 when Rep. Dan Rayfield (D-Corvallis) had Philomath in his district with news that the city would receive $12 million in funding through an appropriations bill. This year, Gomberg helped bring $1.3 million to Monroe for needed water infrastructure upgrades.

On the other issue, animal welfare, Gomberg shared views on some of the things that he says have been going on at the Oregon National Primate Research Center, which is operated by Oregon Health and Science University.

"Reasonable people can disagree on whether or not medical research on animals is ethical or scientifically valid or appropriate but I think we have to say here in Oregon, we're not doing a very good job of it," Gomberg said. "Because there have been more mistakes made at the Oregon institution than any other institution like it in the country."

The legislator provided specific examples.

"A year and a half ago, a technician got a bunch of cages to wheel them into a cleaning system and didn't notice there were still monkeys in two of the cages," Gomberg said, "and wheeled them into this like giant 'dishwasher' and scalded them to death."

He had an example of a more recent incident.

"They were trying to remove a baby from a cage and its mother got agitated, big surprise," he said. "They slammed the door shut and the baby got caught in the door. Mistakes after mistakes after mistakes."

In this year's legislative session, Gomberg introduced five animal welfare bills that in addition to exposing abuses at the Primate Research Center took on sales of puppy mill puppies in pet shops, the testing of cosmetics on animals and challenged the Oregon Racing Commission to review online betting, animal welfare and greyhound racing. Bills also designated shelter-rescued animals as the state pet and secured $1 million to shelters to help with the costs of accommodating pets.

The animal welfare bill that he plans to introduce next year involves - and he says "take a deep breath" - animal crush videos.

"These are people that make videos and sell videos of animals being tortured," Gomberg said. "Horrible, horrible stuff. It's against the federal law but it's not against Oregon law and I want to make sure it is."

Also during the Oct. 19 talk, Gomberg spent several minutes going over highlights from this year's legislative session with housing and homelessness, education, rural infrastructure and higher-than-forecasted revenue and the kicker refund among his talking points.

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Animal welfare, small-town water infrastructure on Gomberg's mind - Philomath News

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The Oregon Legislature plans to convene early next year and the Rep. David Gomberg, who represents Philomath as part of his district, said he's allowed to introduce two bills during the 35-day short session.

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11/1/23 Port of Morrow will pay $2 million to clean up dirty drinking water in state settlement

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11/1/23 Port of Morrow will pay $2 million to clean up dirty drinking water in state settlement

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Port of Morrow will pay $2 million to clean up dirty drinking water in state settlement – Oregon Capital Chronicle

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The money is part of the fines the Department of Environmental Quality levied against the port for polluting the water.

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11/3/23  Massive water sustainability project nearing completion in NE Oregon

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11/3/23  Massive water sustainability project nearing completion in NE Oregon

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HERMISTON, Ore. - What started as an ambitious concept to improve water sustainability in the Umatilla Basin of northeast Oregon is coming to fruition.

Construction has begun on a third and final pipeline that will deliver water from the Columbia River to boost economic development in the region, while simultaneously relieving groundwater aquifers that have been over-pumped for decades.

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Massive water sustainability project nearing completion in NE Oregon

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Construction has begun on a third and final pipeline that will deliver water from the Columbia River to boost economic development in the region, while simultaneously relieving groundwater aquifers that

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8/29/23 Dallas asks people to take water conservation measures

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8/29/23 Dallas asks people to take water conservation measures

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Dallas asks people to take water conservation measures

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The city is cutting irrigation at parks in half and forcing restaurants to offer water to customers only when they ask.

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11/2/23 Hikers frustrated over Butte Creek Falls' closure after timber company misses deadline

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11/2/23 Hikers frustrated over Butte Creek Falls' closure after timber company misses deadline

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