Oregon Water Online
© Oregon Water CoalitionArchive for March, 2008
Where does my gasoline come from?
Products made from a 42 gallon barrel of crude oil include 20 gallons of gasoline, 10 gallons of diesel and heating oil, 4 gallons of jet fuel, 2 gallons of heavy fuel oil, 2 gallons of liquid petroleum gas, and 7 gallons of other products.
The United States consumes over 20 million barrels (840 million gallons) of petroleum products each day, almost half of it in the form of gasoline used in over 200 million motor vehicles with combined travel over 7 billion miles per day, almost half of it in the form of gasoline used in over 200 million motor vehicles with combined travel over 7 billion miles per day.
Products made from a 42 gallon barrel of crude oil include 20 gallons of gasoline, 10 gallons of diesel and heating oil, 4 gallons of jet fuel, 2 gallons of heavy fuel oil, 2 gallons of liquid petroleum gas, and 7 gallons of other products.
The most basic refining process is aimed at separating the crude oil into its various components. Crude oil is heated and put into a still—a distillation column—and different hydrocarbon components boil off and can be recovered as they condense at different temperatures.
Additional processing follows crude distillation, changing the molecular structure of the input with chemical reactions, some through variations in heat and pressure, some in the presence of a catalyst, a substance that increases the rate of a chemical reaction without being consumed in the reaction.
Feds approve removal of up to 85 sea lions in Columbia River
With federal approvals in hand, the states of Oregon, Washington and Idaho are scurrying to complete details of a plan to pluck California sea lions from their Columbia River salmon gravy train as early as next month, and slate them for either execution or captive residence in faraway zoos and aquariums.
“Our top priority is to place as many animals as we can in appropriate facilities,” said Guy Norman, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife regional director for southwest Washington. “Lethal removal is the option of last resort, but the federal government has determined the problem to be significant enough to authorize the states to use it to protect these threatened salmon and steelhead populations.”
NOAA-Fisheries, which must approve such transfers, is in contact with a number of facilities interested in accepting California sea lions that will be trapped by the states. Sea World officials have said they’d take as many as a dozen healthy animals in an attempt to refresh its California sea lion population’s gene pool. At least four other zoos and aquariums have also expressed interest, according to Robin Brown, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife’s lead marine mammal biologist.
NOAA announced this week it is granting authorization requested by the states to permanently remove up to 85 California sea lions each year that are eating salmon and steelhead listed under the Endangered Species Act, as well as other fishes. The authorization is allowed under Section 120 of the Marine Mammal Protection Act.
A growing number of sea lions are congregating each year in spring below Bonneville Dam, feasting on salmon and steelhead that are moving up the Columbia River to spawn.
The NOAA action stipulates that the states can only remove California sea lions if they have been individually identified through markings; have been documented feeding on salmon or steelhead and have resisted deterrence efforts. It allows removal of as many as 85 animals annually, but NOAA estimates that only about 30 animals will be removed each year, given the conditions in its authorization.
For the past three years, WDFW, ODFW and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers have used flares, rubber bullets and other non-lethal measures in an effort to deter California sea lions, and they will continue to do so as a requirement of the lethal removal authorization. But despite the efforts, Corps research has documented an increasing rate of predation by sea lions immediately below Bonneville, located 145 miles upstream from the river mouth.
Under the authorization, the states may shoot or capture and remove individually identified sea lions preying on salmon below the dam. The appendix to NOAA’s authorization letter includes a list of 61 specific sea lions, identified through ongoing research, that meet criteria for “immediate removal.” Those animals:
- Have been observed eating salmonids in the “observation area” below Bonneville Dam between Jan. 1 and May 31 of any year.
- Have been observed in the observation area below Bonneville Dam on a total of any five days (consecutive days, days within a single season, or days over multiple years) between Jan. 1 and May 31 of any year.
- Have been sighted in the observation area below Bonneville Dam after they have been subjected to active non-lethal deterrence.
NOAA’s authorization letter says qualifying sea lions that are captured in a trap must be held in a temporary holding facility for at least 48 hours prior to being euthanized pending a determination of the availability of pre-approved permanent holding facilities such as zoos or aquarium to accept the animal.
Early thaw causing shortages
Compared to historical averages, earlier thawing of the snow pack in Wyoming is resulting in less irrigation water.
According to state climatologist Steve Gray, snow pack is melting four to eight weeks earlier than the historical average.
“A lot of the impact of early melting depends where you are in the watershed,” Gray said. “If you are below a storage reservoir it is better than if you are above an unregulated stream. Also, thawing is of interest in streams above the reservoirs where they have very low flows by August and September. The early thawing may change the oxygen content and temperature of the water. These conditions don’t affect irrigators much but have a great impact on fishing and other parts of the ecosystem. At places there is barely enough water to keep the fish alive. The fish are put through a lot of stress.”
Crude oil and total petroleum imports top 15 countries
January 2008 Import Highlights:
Monthly data on the origins of crude oil imports in January 2008 has been released and it shows that two countries exported more than 1.50 million barrels per day to the United States. Including those countries, a total of five countries exported over 1.20 million barrels per day of crude oil to the United States (see table below). The top five exporting countries accounted for 69 percent of United States crude oil imports in January while the top ten sources accounted for approximately 89 percent of all U.S. crude oil imports.
The top sources of US crude oil imports for January were Canada (1.944 million barrels per day), Saudi Arabia (1.479 million barrels per day), Mexico (1.198 million barrels per day), Nigeria (1.163 million barrels per day), and Venezuela (1.135 million barrels per day). The rest of the top ten sources, in order, were Angola (0.566 million barrels per day), Iraq (0.543 million barrels per day), Algeria (0.366 million barrels per day), Ecuador (0.247 million barrels per day), and Kuwait (0.239 million barrels per day).
Total crude oil imports averaged 10 million barrels per day in January, which is a increase of 0.177 million barrels per day from December 2007.
Canada remained the largest exporter of total petroleum in January, exporting 2.586 million barrels per day to the United States, which is an increase from last month (2.360 thousand barrels per day). The second largest exporter of total petroleum was Saudi Arabia with 1.503 million barrels per day.
Crude Oil Imports (Top 15 Countries) (Thousand Barrels per Day) Country Jan-08 Dec-07 YTD 2008 Jan-07 YTD 2007.
New spillway weirs to be tested at John Day Dam
The ongoing effort to explore the benefits of surface passage for juvenile fish at federal dams takes two steps forward this spring with the operation of new “spillway weirs” at both John Day Dam on the lower Columbia River and the lower Snake River’s Lower Monumental Dam.
A 120-foot high, 80-foot wide, 2 million-pound removal spillway weir was towed upriver this winter and put in place at Lower Monumental. With the juvenile salmon outmigration, as well as the spill season, soon to begin, the new device will be tested using balloon tagged fish, according to Marvin Shutters of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Walla Walla District. The tests are intended to gauge direct mortality for fish passing through the RSW.
Spill for fish passage is scheduled to begin April 3 at the dam. Spillway weirs are fitted into a dam’s existing spillway bay to allow juvenile salmon and steelhead to pass the dam near the water surface. Fish passage and initial biological testing will be conducted throughout the spring and summer.
A prototype spillway weir was installed at Lower Granite Dam on the lower Snake River in 2001. A second weir was installed during February 2005 at Ice Harbor Dam on the lower Snake River. Testing at Lower Granite and Ice Harbor noted averages of 96-98 percent survival for fish passing via the fish slides.
The policy emphasis for operation of federal Columbia River Power System projects includes increasing survival rates of Columbia basin salmon and steelhead listed under the Endangered Species by, in part, enhancing fish passage efficiency—passage through non-turbine routes—for juvenile salmon. Providing a surface flow route of passage in-concert with adequate attraction flows, is one accepted means of increasing FPE and has proven to attract more fish per unit of water than costly traditional spill.
Two “top” spillway weirs are now on their way to John Day. The weirs, new vertical spillway gates and installation cranes will barge up the Columbia River starting late Saturday. The Corps will install the weirs and gates on March 24 in spillway bays 15 and 16.
Balloon tag testing will be carried out there April 1-4, according to Mike Langeslay, Anadromous Fish Evaluation Program project coordinator for the Corps’ Portland District.
Advanced American Construction Inc. of Portland, Ore., built the weirs and gates at a cost of $1.4 million apiece. In all, the Corps expects to spend about $8.5 million during fiscal year 2008 to build, install the devices, monitor and evaluate their performance, and study other configuration options.
“To help determine the best locations for placing the weirs on the dam’s spillway and the optimal flow patterns to attract fish to the weirs’ entrances, we used research data from two prototype weirs installed at McNary Dam in 2007,” said Bob Wertheimer, Portland District fisheries biologist. “While we made adjustments to weir design for John Day Dam, the application of lessons learned and the information and advances of our salmon recovery efforts up and down the river are saving time and money.”
Results from last year’s McNary research showed significant steelhead losses last year through one of the TSW spillbays, about 7 percent mortality. The higher-than-expected losses were attributed to “edge effects” - a slack water below the dam that developed between the powerhouse and the TSW. It created a place for predatory pikeminnow to gather and wait for young steelhead to emerge from the turbulent spill water.
The John Day TSWs will be placed in two spillways farther from the powerhouse than was originally planned in hope of avoiding the occurrence that happened at McNary. The McNary TSWs will also be tested in different spillbays this year.
The weirs are about 25 feet high and 54 feet wide and weigh about 50 tons. The structure can fit into any one of John Day’s spillway bays to create surface spill. The crest of each weir is shaped to create an overflow trajectory that contacts the spillway at a relatively shallow angle.
Juvenile salmon and steelhead using this surface overflow route can pass the dam near the water’s surface under lower accelerations and lower pressures than passing through normal spill. This is anticipated to provide a more efficient and less stressful route while reducing migration delays at the dam.
Forecast shows 2008 basin runoff normal or higher
There were a few drier-than-average areas in February, but precipitation fell where it counts most to assure, or nearly so, that the Columbia/Snake river basin will be provided a normal water supply during the coming spring and summer.
The Northwest River Forecast Center’s March 7 monthly “final” water supply forecast says that the mostly likely result will be runoff at 101 percent of normal (99.1 million acre feet) during the April-September period as measured at The Dalles Dam on the lower Columbia. The NWRFC’s July forecast last year showed runoff at 86 percent of normal, 85.2 maf.
The new forecast is up from the Feb. 7 final, which pegged the anticipated water volume at 97.3 maf, which would be 99 percent of the 30-year average. All of the runoff from the Snake River and upper Columbia channel past The Dalles.
The Columbia basin water supply has only been above average once, in 2006, over the past eight years.
“Being in the business of dividing up scarcity is not a happy time,” Idaho Gov. Butch Otter said of a state that has been wracked with drought over the past 10 years. Otter on Tuesday addressed the Northwest Power and Conservation Council during its meeting in Boise.
“We have other things that we have to think about with our water besides producing power—protecting the fish runs, also protecting the other species which obviously enjoy the use water. This is a good year for us,” Otter said. “It looks like right now, statewide we’re at about 127 percent of normal, which means we should be able to fill all of our reservoirs. We were hoping for 106 percent to fill all of our reservoirs, which has been decimated and drained, they pulled the plug, the bath tub’s empty.”
Those Idaho reservoirs feed municipalities and thousands of acres of cropland. The federal reservoirs are also tapped, if enough water is available in summer, to augment flows for salmon and steelhead far downriver in the lower Snake and Columbia rivers. That water is purchased from willing water rights holders.
Snowfall in the Columbia basin’s upper reaches in British Columbia and northwestern Montana, “areas that generate a lot of the flow” was near or above average during February, according to Stephen King of the NWRFC. The mountain snowpack in those regions normally produce about 60 percent of the basin’s runoff.
The Canadian snowpack increased from 103 percent of average snow-water equivalent on Feb. 1 to 110 percent on March 1, according to Jim Ruff, NPCC manager, mainstem passage and river operations. The Columbia basin snowpack in drainages above Grand Coulee Dam is now 107 percent of average, compared to 105 percent last year and 103 percent on Feb 1. The Snake Basin snowpack above Ice Harbor Dam is at 110 percent of average, compared to 82 percent last year and 112 percent last month.
“Most areas in the basin have snowpack in the 105 to 115 percent range, which is good news,” Ruff told the Council Wednesday.
The highest March 1 snow-water equivalent values are in Cascade Mountain snowpacks, ranging from 150 percent of average in northwest Washington to 180 percent in Oregon. The lowest are just east of Cascades in Similkameen drainage in British Columbia (84percent), the Kettle basin (86 percent), the Hoback drainage the Snake’s headwaters in Wyoming, the upper Clark Fork (90 percent), and the Okanogan basin in eastern Washington (93 percent), Ruff said.
And “runoff in general was low” in February aside from the lowest elevations, King said. Lower yet was the runoff, and air temperature, in January. The colder than normal start of the New Year followed a heavy snow accumulation in December.
“What has fallen in the mountains hasn’t hit the streams yet,” King said. It will be called on to answer the many spring-summer demands - power generation, irrigation, municipal water supplies, flow augmentation for salmon, steelhead and other species.
With much of the winter past, the odds of the actual outcome straying too far from the forecast are reduced. A very dry finale could drop the runoff to 82.3 MAF, which would be the ninth lowest total in a 48-year record. An extremely wet end to winter and spring could boost the total as high as 117.5 maf, which would be the 13th highest, according to NWRFS records.
The forecast judged as the most probable outcome would rank as the 28th wettest. It is based on an assumption of average precipitation.
NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center forecasts a 40 percent chance of above average precipitation in the Northwest in March, and equal chances of above average, average and below average for the March-May period.
The NWRFC March final predicts runoff past central Washington’s Grand Coulee Dam will total 65 maf, 102 percent of normal, during April-September. All the water from the upper Columbia flows past Grand Coulee.
The runoff forecast for the lower Snake River’s Lower Granite Dam is 25.6 maf, 106 percent of average for the period.
A Snake feeder that is important to salmon recovery efforts will be fed by a deep snowpack. The runoff forecast for the North Fork of the Clearwater, which feeds into Dworshak Reservoir, is 3.14 maf, 112 percent of average, for the April-September timeframe. The reservoir’s cool waters are called on in mid-summer to bring down temperatures below in the Snake River for migrating juvenile salmon and into the early fall for returning adult fish.
The March forecast by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which operates Dworshak Dam, predicts the North Fork’s runoff at 105 percent of normal for the April-August timeframe, which would be much improved over last year’s 67 percent.
Through March 13 snowpacks in Idaho’s Clearwater and Salmon river drainages were at 111 percent of average in terms of snow-water equivalent, according to the Natural Resources Conservation Service SNOTEL update report. The automated system monitors snowpacks across the basin.
In northwest Montana, the Kootenai River inflow to Libby Dam’s reservoir is expected to be 6.24 maf, 100 percent of average, and the South Fork of the Flathead River’s inflow to Hungry Horse reservoir is forecast at 96 percent of normal, 2.04 maf, for April-September, according to the NWRFC March final. The Corps’ forecast for Libby is 102 percent of average for April-August.
NOAA scientists studying 2005 anomaly in California current
NOAA scientists are reviewing unusual environmental conditions in the Pacific Ocean as the likely culprit for the dramatically low returns of chinook and coho salmon to rivers and streams along the West Coast of the United States in 2007.
Researchers from NOAA’s Northwest and Southwest Fisheries Science Centers are comparing data on the low food production of the California Current in 2005 that occurred when this year’s and 2007’s returning salmon would have been entering the ocean from their natal streams to feed and grow.
The cold waters of the California Current flow southward from the northern Pacific along the West Coast and are associated with upwelling, an ocean condition caused by winds that bring nutrients to the ocean’s surface and is the main source of nourishment for the ocean’s food web.
In 2005 a southward shift in the jet stream, delayed favorable winds and upwelling for the California Current, which normally begins in spring. The winds instead arrived in mid-July, causing high surface water temperatures and very low nutrient production within the nearshore marine ecosystem.
“We are not dismissing other potential causes for this year’s low salmon returns,” said Usha Varanasi, NOAA Fisheries Service Science Center director for the Northwest Region. “But the widespread pattern of low returns along the West Coast for two species of salmon indicates an environmental anomaly occurred in the California Current in 2005.”
Data released Thursday by the Pacific Fisheries Management Council indicate the 2007 returns of fall chinook salmon to the Sacramento River in California’s Central Valley were approximately 33 percent of what fishery biologists expected. Projections for 2008 are substantially lower than last year’s estimate.
Coho salmon returning to spawning streams in California and Oregon are also considerably lower than predicted. A preliminary analysis found an average 27 percent of the parental stock returning in 12 streams monitored in California. Even though coho returns appear to improve along the coast from south to north, Oregon Coast coho salmon had less than 30 percent of their parental stock return.
Coho salmon are listed as either endangered or threatened under the Endangered Species Act in the Central/Northern California and Southern Oregon watersheds.
Drought, growth have Western states studying dam construction
The Western states’ era of massive dam construction - which tamed rivers, swallowed towns, and created irrigated agriculture, cheap hydropower and environmental problems - effectively ended in 1966 with the completion of Glen Canyon Dam.
But the region’s booming population and growing fears about climate change have governments once again studying construction of dams to capture more winter rain and spring snowmelt for use in dry summer months.
“The West and the Northwest are increasing in population growth like never before,” said John Redding, regional spokesman for the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation in Boise. “How do you quench the thirst of the hungry masses?”
The population of the Western states grew nearly 20 percent in the 1990s, to more than 64 million, and continues to swell even as climate change poses new threats to the water supply.
Ironically, consideration of new dams comes even as older ones are being torn down across the country because of environmental concerns - worries that will likely pose big obstacles to new construction. In Oregon, a deal has been struck to remove four dams on the Klamath River to restore struggling salmon runs.
There are lots of other ideas for increasing water supplies in the West. They include conservation, storing water in natural groundwater aquifers, pipelines to carry water from the mountains, desalination plants to make drinking water from the ocean, small dams to serve local areas.
Most of those ideas are much more popular than big new dams.
Washington’s Democratic Gov. Christine Gregoire put together a coalition of business, government and environmental groups to create the Columbia River Management Plan, which calls for spending $200 million to study various proposals for finding more water for arid eastern Washington.
Jay Manning, director of the Washington state Department of Ecology, believes that huge new dams on the main stems of rivers are unlikely. But it is quite possible that tributaries will be dammed.
“It is inevitable we will take steps to increase water supply,” Manning said. “Storage is part of that solution.”
With demand for water already high, pressure is being increased by fears that climate change will produce rain instead of snow in winter, reducing the slow-melting snowpack that provides water in dry summer months.
Gregoire’s plan drew the support of many environmentalists by including many ideas they prefer, including conservation measures and metering more uses of water.
But the state also is studying dams, drawing opposition from some environmentalists, particularly a group called the Center for Environmental Law and Policy.
“Our water future doesn’t lie with new dams,” said Dr. John Osborn, a Spokane physician and chairman of the Sierra Club chapter in Spokane. “It’s water conservation.”
Osborn contends dam boosters are pushing for new dams to benefit business, underplaying the costs and environmental destruction and ignoring the benefits of improving conservation.
In other states:
Four major water storage projects are being studied in California, including a proposal for a new dam on the San Joaquin River, said Sue McClurg, of the Water Education Foundation in Sacramento. Republicans in the California Assembly say they will block any plan to improve water supplies that doesn’t include new dams.
The Southern Nevada Water Authority, which serves Las Vegas, is considering a reservoir to capture more Colorado River water before it flows into Mexico. In Colorado, there is a proposal to create two new reservoirs on the Yampa River.
Some in Idaho still hope to rebuild the Teton Dam, which collapsed in 1976, killing 11 people. A major barrier to new dams is cost, which runs into the billions, Manning said. It’s uncertain how much the federal government would be willing to pay.
A recent study of the Black Rock dam proposal in the Yakima River basin concludes the 600-foot-high dam would cost $6.7 billion to build and operate, and would return just 16 cents for every dollar spent.
The explosive growth of the West is in part a product of a binge in dam construction that provided plentiful water and cheap electricity. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation built more than 472 dams, including Shasta in California, Bonneville on the Oregon-Washington state line, Fort Peck Dam in Montana and Grand Coulee Dam in Washington.
But the era of giant dams essentially ended with the Glen Canyon Dam, just upstream from the Grand Canyon on the Arizona-Utah state line, which galvanized the environmental movement because its Lake Powell inundated a huge swath of scenic land, archaeological sites and places important to native Americans.
Lake Powell and its downstream cousin, Lake Mead - two of the nation’s largest manmade reservoirs - provide water for millions of people in Nevada, Arizona and California.
However, both lakes are only half full after years of drought, and researchers at San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography figure climate change and growing demand could drain them within just 13 years.
Western WA cities expect enough water for 40-50 years
Water supplies in Western Washington will shrink by as much as 25 percent over the next decade, but with new sources and conservation there should be enough for the next 40 or 50 years, according to new studies.
Water managers in Seattle, Tacoma and Everett all expect they can adjust their water systems to make sure there’s enough water for everyone, as long as fast-growing cities like Bellevue start to seek their own source of drinking water.
“We could use water even more efficiently, and I would love to see that before we turn to new sources,” said Richard Palmer, a University of Washington engineering professor who helped build some of the computer models used for the water research. “But, at some point, if population doubles in this region, there’s not sufficient stored water right now to meet double the demand,” he told The Seattle Times.
Smaller utilities or areas outside King, Snohomish and Pierce counties weren’t covered by the studies and the full impact of global warming in the region hasn’t been gauged. Plus the research didn’t examine how water supply from wells could be affected.
The studies found that by 2075 the three utilities of Seattle, Tacoma and Everett together could lose as much as 16 percent of its water supply or 77 million gallons a day compared with today’s supplies.
Seattle is expected to lose as much as 25 percent because it relies almost entirely on water from rivers, rather than groundwater. Those rivers won’t be able to fill reservoirs quickly while enough water volume is left flowing for fish, Palmer said.
Seattle is already working to change how it operates its reservoirs to get more water out of them, said Paul Fleming, manager of climate-change initiatives for Seattle Public Utilities. That includes putting more water into two Cedar River reservoirs and taking more water from behind the dam on the south fork of the Tolt River.
“We’ve got these buckets, and we’re trying to use more of the buckets,” Fleming said of the reservoirs.
Seattle officials predicted that should be enough to meet demand in 2050, even under the worst-case scenario they considered. Farther into the future, in 2075, the city predicts it will have to resort to other measures such as more-aggressive water conservation or finding more water supplies.
Even for 2050, however, Seattle is banking on extra water that would be freed up by Eastside cities creating their own water utility and weaning themselves from Seattle-supplied water.
