Oregon Water Online
© Oregon Water CoalitionArchive for January, 2008
Reclamation releases final Oxbow Site Management Plan
The Bureau of Reclamation has completed the Oxbow Site Management Plan that will work as a guiding document for incremental progress toward benefiting fisheries and other natural resources on a 222-acre parcel located on the east bank of Umatilla River in Hermiston, Ore.
Reclamation purchased the Oxbow property in 2000 as part of a comprehensive anadromous fishery restoration program in the Umatilla River basin. The program implemented a series of water exchanges in which Columbia River water is pumped and delivered for use in the Umatilla basin by irrigation districts in exchange for allowing Umatilla River water to benefit aquatic habitat. The purchase also allowed Reclamation to acquire water rights and property on the site to improve fish habitat.
The Site Management Plan summarizes Reclamation’s vision and goals for the Oxbow site. The goals include protecting and improving habitat, cold water resources, native riparian vegetation, and public access for compatible recreation activities such as walking and wildlife viewing.
As funding permits, data collection efforts will guide and clarify suggested future projects. An adaptive management approach will ensure data and information will be incorporated into future efforts.
Read the plan at: oxbowsiteplan.pdf.
Paper copies of the plan are available upon request by contacting Tanya Sommer, Natural Resource Specialist, Bureau of Reclamation, 1201 NE Lloyd Blvd., Suite 750, Portland OR 97232. For questions about use of the site please contact the Michael Bommer, Umatilla Field Office Manager at (541) 564-8616.
BPA reaches 1,000 megawatt wind milestone
The Bonneville Power Administration says that, for the first time, the amount of wind power being delivered to customers via its transmission lines has exceeded 1,000 megawatts. That amount of electricity is enough to meet average electricity demand for approximately 680,000 Northwest residences.
“This is an important accomplishment for the region,” said Brian Silverstein, BPA vice president, Planning and Asset Management. “Within just a few years, we’ve seen more wind projects come on line, and BPA has been working quickly to connect the new projects into the regional power grid. States are calling for adding more clean, renewable sources of energy to the region’s power supply and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. This is clear evidence that power providers are responding and taking action to address the region’s changing needs.”
BPA markets more than a third of the electricity consumed in the Pacific Northwest. The power is produced at 31 federal dams and one nuclear plant in the Northwest and is sold to more than 140 Northwest utilities. BPA operates a high-voltage transmission grid comprising more than 15,000 miles of lines and associated substations in Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana.
BPA first began connecting wind generation projects to its system in the late 1990s. From that time until fall 2005, the peak amount of wind in the BPA system remained at about 250 MW. The peak amount of wind increased to about 475 MW by December 2005, and, by 2006, it had grown to more than 775 MW. In the last several years, that figure has steadily increased as more wind projects have come on line in the Northwest. This past November, actual wind generation on the BPA system surpassed the 1,000 MW level for the first time
Three states that include many of the utilities served by BPA—Washington, Oregon and Montana—have enacted legislation requiring utilities to phase in additional renewable energy sources over time.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s Fifth Northwest Power Plan anticipates wind power will play a major role in meeting the region’s future demand for electricity. The plan foresees the development of up to 5,000 MW of new wind power over its 20-year planning period. To date, BPA has connected 13 wind projects into the region’s transmission grid.
Kennewick studies storing water underground
The city of Kennewick has entered into an agreement to receive up to $1 million from the Washington Department of Ecology to study how to store millions of gallons of Columbia River water in basalt formations under Southridge in Benton County.
The project is being funded by the state’s Columbia River water management program that was authorized in 2006 and makes $200 million available to explore new water resources from the Columbia River through storage, conservation and voluntary regional agreements.
The city of Kennewick plans to take water from the Columbia River in the winter and store it underground in natural aquifers, thereby reducing withdrawals from the river in the summer. The pilot will help the state and municipalities learn more about aquifer storage and recovery (ASR) projects and establish protocols for implementing projects in the future.
Columbia River unit supervisor Dan Haller noted that the state’s Columbia River water management program offers the perfect opportunity to explore projects like Kennewick’s.
“Underground storage is appealing because there’s no dam construction and the stored water will remain cool and clean and can be released at the times of year we need it most,” Haller said.
The city will have another source of water from which to draw during times of peak capacity, and water can be available in stream during the critical months of July and August.
“Both the city and Ecology recognize benefits of further evaluating ASR as a viable strategy for making additional water available through storage, particularly during critical flow periods of the Columbia River,” said Bob Hammond, Kennewick city manager.
The first phase of the study will analyze whether the current site is viable for an underground reservoir, and how much water might be stored at the site and how the water stored might benefit stream flows and be allocated for out of stream uses. The first phase is estimated to cost about $200,000.
Actual withdrawal and injection of water into the aquifer through test wells is planned in the second phase of the project, based on results of the initial study.
Sand Hollow-Umatilla Basin Aquifer Recovery Project
Oregon Lawmakers in recent years have dealt with proposals to allow increased use of Columbia River water for irrigation of Umatilla Basin farms during the summer growing season, and to expand irrigable lands.
In the 2007 legislative session the governor and the legislature balked, on a plan known as the Oasis Project. Some of what Oasis was calling for is being revisited in the new 2008 session. With new names and numbers.
This go-round began with LC 50 which has already evolved into SB1069. Some new names you will read about include Sand Hollow—Umatilla Basin Regional Aquifer Recovery.
The Need
In the Critical Groundwater Areas of the Umatilla Basin, less than half of the 57,000 acres with water rights received any water in 2007. Despite these restrictions, ground water levels continue to decline in the Umatilla Basin. There is no alternative to ground water immediately available, as surface water is completely allocated during summer months.
There is an immediate need to address these continuing water shortages and to provide new sources of water to users who have been curtailed. No other area of the state has experienced such extensive ground water shortage and curtailment.
The Solution
Utilize existing infrastructure to divert surface water during winter, using it for groundwater recharge and direct injection into the natural aquifers in the Umatilla Basin.
This solution withdraws surface water from the Columbia and Umatilla Rivers during times that avoid impacts to listed fish species and then delivers that water for storage in naturally existing aquifers.
The Sand Hollow-Umatilla Basin Regional Aquifer Recovery Assessment is the project’s first step and would investigate the engineering and hydro geologic feasibility of such an approach.
1. Economic Benefits. Sand Hollow could:
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Provide more than $30 million of additional annual gross farm gate value to irrigators.
- Provide more than $120 million of additional benfit the Umatilla Basin from value-added agriculture.
Improve the viability of more than 150 water rights held by 100 farms by providing water to those whose supplies have been completely cut off or diminished because of curtailment. - Provide water to water users in the lower Umatilla River whose supplies have been diminished because of conservation activities.
- Reduce the cost of pumping surface water from the Columbia River by $32 per acre foot, for each acre foot of additional water that West Extension Irrigation District can divert from the Umatilla River.
- Slow or halt ground water declines, reducing the cost of pumping ground water wells.
2. Hydrological Benefits. Sand Hollow could:
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Provide more than 80,000 acre feet of water to recharge shallow alluvial and deep basalt aquifers.
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Address ground water declines in existing domestic, industrial, and municipal wells.
3. Biological Benefits. Sand Hollow could:
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Increase flows to the Umatilla River, which will help returning fish (including listed species).
Recent storms bump water forecast to 95% of average
A series of December storms pumped up Columbia-Snake river basin snowpacks, though not enough to enable the federal Northwest River Forecast Center (NWRFC) to predict a full water supply for fish, farmers and other water users this spring and summer.
The FWRFC’s initial monthly “final” water supply forecast says that the mostly likely runoff volume past The Dalles Dam from January through July will be 102 million acre feet, 95 percent of the 1971-2000 average. The forecast was finished Tuesday. Most of the basin’s runoff courses past The Dalles Dam, located on the lower Columbia.
Early season snow accumulation was low most parts of the region. Systems such as the Kootenai, Clark Fork and Flathead particularly got off to a slow start, as did tributaries to the Snake in southern Idaho and southeast Oregon.
But a positive trend has emerged basinwide. The Flathead basin on Dec. 15, as an example, had 65 percent of its normal snowpack (snow-water equivalent) for that date. By Jan. 8, that number had risen to 83 percent of normal. The Kootenai River in Montana saw a rise from 70 to 101 percent. Snowpacks are measured electronically via the National Resource Conservation Service’s automated SNOTEL system.
In Idaho, the Weiser, Payette, Boise river snowpack was 65 percent of average Dec. 15; on Jan. 8 it had risen to 110 percent of average. The Big and Little Wood basins had a snowpack at 106 percent of average as of Jan. 8 but other upper Snake systems were below average, from 87 to 99 percent.
Overall, half of the Columbia basin groupings of watersheds measured by SNOTEL had above average snowpack as of Jan. 8.
The NWRFC forecast includes data through the end of December so it doesn’t include storms early this month, some with a southerly bent that boosted snowpacks by up to 10 percent.
The forecast also assumes normal precipitation for the rest of the winter. Some forecasters, like the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission’s Kyle Dittmer, plug in climate forecasts and phenomena such as La Nina/El Nino, when making water supply predictions.
“We’re definitely in a good La Nina pattern,” Dittmer said of the early-winter weather with its general lower snow levels and steady stream of wet storms driving in off the Pacific. La Nina/El Nino conditions in equatorial Pacific can affect weather around the world. The La Nina status has now upgraded to weak to moderate according to Dittmer, meaning that the Northwest has a higher likelihood of having a wetter, cooler winter.
“During these La Nina years the normal weather is enhanced,” Dittmer said. His most recent forecast is for 110 percent of normal precipitation across the region for the balance of the winter, and runoff past The Dalles of 119 MAF, 111 percent of normal.
The NWRFC’s Jan. 8, 2007, final water supply forecast predicted January-July runoff past The Dalles would be 105 MAF or 98 percent of average. But precipitation for the rest of the season was below average overall. The actual runoff was 95.5 MAF, only 89 percent of normal.
Corps moves ahead to relocate Terns to south-central Oregon
Plans to redistribute a portion of the world’s largest breeding colony of Caspian terns to Crump Lake in the Warner Valley of south central Oregon are moving forward, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced last week.
The Corps issued a draft Environmental Assessment that addresses the environmental impacts associated with the Crump Lake phase of the plan. It provides information to supplement and update previous National Environmental Policy Act documents.
The avian predation program aims to reduce the number of young salmon consumed by avian predators in the Columbia River estuary and thus improve the survival of fish listed as threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act. There are 13 listed salmon and steelhead stocks that pass through the estuary on their way to the Pacific Ocean.
The Corps and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service previously determined that redistributing terns from the estuary’s East Sand Island to alternative nesting locations in the western region is the most biologically sound method to alleviate their predation impacts on salmon migrating to the Pacific Ocean.
The East Sand colony has averaged more than 9,000 pairs in recent years, making it the largest in the world. Researchers estimate that the East Sand colony consumed 5.3 million young salmonids in 2006 and an average of 4.2 million from 2001-2005.
A November 2006 Corps record of decision aims to create or enhance a total of about 7 acres of habitat at Summer, Crump, and Fern Ridge lakes in Oregon; and San Francisco Bay (Brooks Island, Hayward Regional Shoreline, and Don Edwards NWR).
Under the plan, the 6-acre tern nesting site on East Sand Island will gradually be reduced as tern nesting habitat is created or enhanced at the other locations. The plan is to reduce the suitable nesting habitat at East Sand Island to 1.5 to 2 acres.
The redistribution is expected to benefit the terns by reducing the potential risk of exposing a large segment of the regional tern population to catastrophic events such as predators, storms and disease. The East Sand colony comprises about 70 percent of the terns’ western region population.
“Crump Lake will provide nesting habitat along the terns’ natural migratory paths and provide for a more natural, dispersed population than the concentrated population on East Sand Island,” said Geoff Dorsey, Portland District wildlife biologist.
The establishment of a tern colony at Crump Lake is not expected to impact fish populations, according to the draft document. The lake supports a large population of native tui chubs and introduced black and white crappies, along with other sunfish species, brown bullheads and the federally-listed native Warner sucker. Red-band trout, a native species, are also present at Crump Lake and tributary streams.
Yuma wetland could be used to secure border
Someday, Colorado River wetlands could be used to secure the border with Mexico.
A group of southwestern Arizona leaders wants permission from U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff to create a marshland along the lower Colorado River south of Yuma by clearing out thick brush, adding steep levees and flooding dry riverbanks. The plan has support from the Mayor of Yuma, Yuma County sheriff and Cocopah tribal chairwoman.
They wrote Chertoff about the plan in late September just as conventional riverside fence construction was starting. Chertoff was asked to halt the fence and use the money to flood a 435-acre area known as Hunter’s Hole.
Locals say it’s become an overgrown haven for smugglers and drug dealers and a favorite dumping place for bodies.
Border Patrol officials in Yuma backed the plan in an August letter because the river is the busiest crossing in the Yuma Sector. They described how smugglers hide in the weeds and cross the water on sandbag bridges. If the feds approve it, the plan is to flood Hunter’s Hole by building levees and using groundwater pumps.
Smugglers would have to cross a steep 15-foot levee, a 400-foot-wide marsh that is 10 feet deep in places and another levee studded with metal posts designed to halt trucks.
The plan wouldn’t be cheap. Environmental consultants say it would cost up to $7 million and secure 2 miles of border.
