2012 OWC Membership Meeting & Water Conference
Plan to attend the 2012 Oregon Water Coalition Membership Meeting and Water Conference on Tuesday, January 24, 2012 from 8:30 am to 4:00 pm at the Hermiston Conference Center. Please RSVP the Hermiston Chamber of Commerce.
Registration for the one day event is $35.
Presidents Message8:30 to 9:00 am
Luke Maynard, Oregon Water Coalition
Columbia Basin Aquifer Recharge Project9:00 to 10:00 am
JR Cook & Martha Pagel
Break10:00 to 10:10 am
2011-2012 Legislation10:10 to 11:00 am
Attorney David Filippi, Stoel & Rives, LLC
Water Rights and Related Bills
Federal Legislative or Rule-Making Efforts
Recent Opinions or Ongoing Water Litigation
Columbia River Treaty11:00 to 11:50 am
Dick Adams, Executive Director, PNUCC
Break11:50 to 12:00 pm
OWC Annual Award Luncheon12:00 to 1:00 pm
Harmon Springer, Oregon Water Coalition
House District 57 (Columbia Basin District)
Representative Greg Smith
Issues and Updates
Oregon Water Rights Boot Camp1:00 to 4:00 pm
Attorney Laura A. Schroeder
Seminar on Water Law in Oregon
Contact the Hermiston Chamber of Commerce to register and RSVP. All proceeds will benefit the Oregon Water Coalition (OWC). Our special thanks to Laura Schroeder.
Hermiston Conference Center
415 S. Highway 395
Hermiston, Oregon
RSVP:
Hermiston Chamber of Commerce
541-567-6151 (voice)
541-564-9109 (fax)
info@hermistonchamber.com
Upper Deschutes anglers unhappy over water releases
Fishermen accustomed to targeting steelhead in the lower Deschutes River are again steamed about water releases 100 miles upstream which they say are warming the water and making it less inviting, and less hospitable, for fish.
“The water down there isn’t any warmer than it usually is,” Portland General Electric senior biologist Don Ratliff says of the water flowing from central Oregon’s Deschutes River into the Columbia River.
Anglers disagree.
“We’re definitely having temperature issues,” said fishing outfitter Grant Putnam, one of those who feels that changed water releases in 2010 and again this year from Pelton Round Butte complex of dams, which is co-owned by PGE and the Warm Springs Tribes, are warming the river in early summer.
The mouth of the Deschutes has long been known as a place where fish headed up the Columbia can rest and escape what is normally a warmer Columbia River.
Those fish either move on toward their natal streams after the Columbia cools, or in some cases stray up the Deschutes to spawn along with wild and hatchery produced local fish. In the interim they are the targets of sport fishers.
As part of the federal licensing agreement for the dams, a 273-foot-tall juvenile fish collection/water mixing tower was installed and began operating in 2010. One of its primary functions is to allow Round Butte operators to mix warmer water from near the surface of Lake Billy Chinook with colder water from the bottom of the reservoir. Round Butte is the farthest upstream of the three dams in the complex and holds back water from the upriver Deschutes and the Crooked and Metolius rivers.
Water quality permits issued by the tribes and Oregon’s Department of Environmental Quality as part of the relicensing process prescribe a mixing of the water sent through the dams’ turbines that, for the most part, is warmer in early summer and cooler in late summer.
In the more than 40 years since the dams were built all of the output had come from the lowest part of the reservoir where the coldest water rests. Late in the summer, heat buildup in stored water was reflected in released water that was warmer than it would have been if the Deschutes sources were allowed to mix naturally.
The mixing tower is intended to mimic Deschutes water temperatures that existed before the dams, when the cool waters of the Metolius and the warmer upper Deschutes and Crooked mixed naturally just above where Round Butte Dam now stands.
Those involved in the planning envisioned creating an environment that more closely mirrors conditions in which steelhead and chinook and sockeye salmon populations evolved.
Ratliff and the Warm Springs Water and Soil Department Manager Deepak Sehgal said that the early summer water releases, just two or three degrees warmer than before the mixing tower began operating, only alter river temperature for the first several miles downstream. After that, the sun, movement and warm air in central Oregon’s high desert, canyon country serve to bring the water temperature back to “normal” by the time it reaches the river mouth.
The operational changes “haven’t had any kind of significant effects” on water temperature 100 miles downstream at the mouth, Sehgal said.
And the cooler water in river reaches just below the dam should have positive effects. The warmer early summer flows allows aquatic life, including fish, to blossom and grow on a more normal schedule. The late summer cooling helps bring river pH and dissolved oxygen to healthier levels and helps bring down water temperatures.
Fishing guide Brad Staples insists that the new system is out of whack. Northwest rivers normally flow cold early on as the snowpack melts down, and gradually warm as the summer season progresses, not the other way around. “That’s what I don’t understand,” Staples said of the warmer (than prior to tower operations), then colder releases.
Staples said he and other fishers are working to get a meeting with state and tribal officials to discuss what can be done about the situation.
The 401 water quality permits call for the maintenance of outflows within one degree of the “natural thermal potential.” That potential is a complicated calculation that assesses the volume and temperature of the waters of the Crooked, Deschutes and Metolius rivers feeding into the lake, and then factoring in distance, depth, surface area and ambient air temperatures to calculate what the temperature of the water below the dams would have been without the reservoirs and dams in place.
Putnum, who takes measurements early morning, noon and late afternoon each day he is fishing, said temperatures at the mouth have been “2-3 degrees warmer on average from they should be” in early summer. And those flows are also about that much warmer than the Columbia, which is atypical. High flows coming down from record snowpacks in the upper Columbia and Snake have persisted. They along with cooler than normal air temperatures across the Columbia basin have served to keep Columbia River water cooler than normal this year.
Staples and Putnam say that conditions have indeed changed since the tower began operating 100 miles upstream. Those changes, in turn, “have affected our catch rates,” Putnam said. “The steelhead have not been biting as well as we would like.”
The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife’s regional fishery manager, Rod French, likes the fish recovery goals lined out in the licensing agreement, which include measures to reintroduce steelhead and salmon above the dams and provide passage at the dams, as well as implement habitat improvements downstream. But he doesn’t leave the tower blameless.
“It’s definitely had an effect” on water temperatures downstream, French said. “It’s warmer in the summer than it has been historically (since the dams were built).” The steelhead fishing season in the Deschutes started slow, probably because a high, cool Columbia seemed to delay the upstream migration.
“Fishing was not as good in July” as it is normally and water condition would well be a factor, he said. There has been no evidence of fish mortalities of other ill effects from the warmer water, French said. “But the temperatures have cooled a bit and the fishing has gotten better.”
The computer-programed water mixing at Round Butte has performed well this year, PGE’s Ratliff said.
In order to follow changing natural thermal potential projection, dam operators began mixing in more cold water July 1, going to a 15 percent cool/85 percent warm mixture, then shifted to 20-80 percent July 14 and 25-75 July 19.
“We were still chasing it,” Ratliff said of trying to keep pace with a changing thermal potential value. The mixture was changed to 30 percent cool / 70 percent warm August 1. Another 5 percent cool would likely be added.
French said it is still too early to tell the level of steelhead straying into the Deschutes this year. Since 1977-78 the estimated number of strays has ranged from less than 1,000 to more than 23,000. A certain number of the strays counted at Sherars Falls each year backtrack and resume their journey up the Columbia.
To see a fact sheet about Round Butte operations go to deschutespassage.com.
Biologists optimistic about Snake River Sockeye return
The numbers of Snake River sockeye making it home to central Idaho has begun to swell. This is the fifth highest return in the history of the Snake River Sockeye Salmon Captive Broodstock Program with many more to come.
“It’s just getting started,” said Dan Baker, manager of the Idaho Department of Fish and Game’s Eagle Hatchery. As a part of the program, sockeye spawners returning some 900 miles up the Columbia, Snake and Salmon rivers are trapped at the Stanley Basin’s Sawtooth Hatchery or in nearby Redfish Lake Creek.
The fish are transferred to Eagle Hatchery and held until the spawning season, which starts next month. Then most of the returned fish will be released into Redfish Lake to spawn and the balance will be used to fuel the captive broodstock program, which began in 1991 after the sockeye population and dropped nearly to extinction.
A relatively big return is expected this year and biologists feel a high number of fish will make the final, 400-mile leg of the journey. Sockeye began arriving this year on Aug. 1 when a single fish was trapped at Sawtooth. The daily trapping totals have slowly risen, with 17 registered August 11.
The total so far includes 23 “natural” returns that are either the product of Redfish Lake anadromous spawners, the outplant of fertilized eggs in Pettit and Alturas lakes or from “residual” sockeye that spent their entire life cycle in the lakes.
Since 1999, when the first products of the captive brood program made it back to the Sawtooth Valley from the Pacific Ocean, the highest return was 1,355 last year.
Estuary’s Salmon-eating Tern colony produces no chicks
Unless yet another freak of nature occurs, it appears that the world’s largest, and perhaps most studied, Caspian tern nesting colony will produce zero chicks this year at the lower Columbia River estuary’s East Sand Island.
The East Sand nesting site, enabled by human manipulations intended to reduce the birds’ consumption of migrating juvenile salmon, has been besieged this spring and early summer by other avian predators, most commonly eagles and gulls.
Early in August the tern colony on East Sand had a high count of 253 birds, down dramatically from a count of 8,931. The birds more than likely have left to forage elsewhere until they head south for the winter. There were no fledglings to make the trip. Only a handful of terns remained.
“All tern nest with eggs failed due to gull predation during several disturbances by peregrine falcons and bald eagles; Caspian terns were unsuccessful in rearing any young at East Sand Island this year,” a weekly research update said.
The research is a collaborative project between Oregon State University, Real Time Research Inc., and the USGS-Oregon Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit. Started in the late 1990s, the work aims to assess the impact of avian predation on recovery of ESA-listed salmonids.
“This is the first season since we started monitoring the colony that is has not produced eggs,” researcher Allen Evans said. Given the fact that it is late in the season, and most of the terns have left, there is little chance of tern production.
“It might be too early to conclude that, but I think it’s highly unlikely,” said researcher Don Lyons. It takes about 28 days for a Caspian tern to lay and incubate an egg, then another 28 to 36 days before a young bird can fly.
“We’re definitely to the point that most birds would be leaving the colony, even in a normal year,” Lyons said.
But it’s been anything but a normal year for the terns, who numbered more than 10,000 pairs in 2008 and has averaged about 9,000 pairs since 2000 at East Sand. The entire Columbia River estuary Caspian tern colony settled on East Sand in 2000 after being lured there by researchers.
The previous nesting grounds had been upstream at Rice Island. The terns’ favored bare sand nesting area at Rice was covered with vegetation to dissuade breeding, and six acres at East Sand was prepared to the birds’ liking.
The theory, and it has proved out, was that if the terns were moved closer to the ocean they would eat more marine fishes and fewer protected salmon and steelhead. All of the salmon and steelhead from the Columbia-Snake river basin, including 13 listed stocks, swim down through the estuary on their way to the Pacific.
Soon after the terns began laying eggs, a two-pronged attack began in mid-May with eagles swooping down to snatch adult terns, which would “flush” the entire colony. When the terns took flight and abandoned their nests, even if briefly, gulls that share the island pounced on the tern eggs.
“Repeated evening/night-time disturbances by bald eagles to the East Sand Island Caspian tern colony occurred, contributing to complete colony failure (i.e., no remaining tern eggs or chicks) on 1 June; thousands of terns are still roosting on East Sand Island and some terns have attempted to re-nest but most tern eggs are depredated by gulls within 30 minutes of laying,” a May 30-June 5 update said.
“…these disturbances and nest predation events coupled with heavy rainfall on 23 May resulting in significant flooding on the colony has caused unprecedented nest failure at the tern colony; the number of active tern nests with eggs has declined from ca. 5,000 to less than 500 over the past two weeks,” according to a research update for the week ending May 29.
Many of those terns kept trying, but the predation continued.
Lyons said that the terns in past years would not all be flushed or spooked off the colony when an eagle flew over during the daytime. But this year’s dusk to early nighttime raids made them extremely flighty. “They cope much better with daytime predators that they can see,” Lyons said.
This year’s tern reproductive failure follows a year when researchers estimated that only 425 fledglings were produced at the East Sand Island tern colony, which held 8,283 nesting pairs at the peak of nesting activity in 2010. The average number of young raised per breeding pair in 2010 was 0.05, which was the lowest productivity recorded in 10 years of study.
“Nesting success at the East Sand Island Caspian tern colony peaked in 2001 and has trended downward since then,” according to the “Research, Monitoring, and Evaluation of Avian Predation on Salmonid Smolts in the Lower and Mid-Columbia River Draft 2010 Annual Report.”“Two factors likely have contributed to declining productivity of the East Sand Island tern colony: ocean conditions and nest predation.”
Two consecutive years of reproductive failure should not hurt the overall population of Caspian terns, Lyons said, because they are very long-lived. The terns have been known to live well over 20 years and start to reproduce at age 4 or 5, so most of the birds will have many more chances.
The researchers are not sure what factors have led to what seems to be an increase in eagle predation, whether it’s related to the food supply or simply changed eagle behavior. With a huge snowpack feeding the Columbia and Snake this year the flows pushing into the Pacific were higher than normal. That likely caused a reduction in the number of marine forage fish that were close at hand as prey for the terns.
“Maybe there wasn’t a lot of food for eagles either,” Lyons said, so they turned to the terns.
The updates are posted at birdresearchnw.org.
Chairman Hastings’ statement on Judge Redden ruling
House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Doc Hastings released the following statement regarding Judge James A. Redden’s ruling on the federal biological opinion and fish recovery plan for the Federal Columbia River Power System:
“As Chairman of the House Committee with jurisdiction over the Northwest’s hydropower system and fisheries, I intend to carefully review and address this matter. More thorough comment and action will be forthcoming in the days ahead.
“A preliminary review of this ruling, however, reveals extremely alarming and unacceptable statements and actions by the Portland federal judge. Judge Redden has explicitly ordered federal agencies to consider dam removal. Not only is dam removal an extreme action that would be devastating to the Pacific Northwest’s economy and is not proven to recover fish, Judge Redden has zero authority to order the removal of dams and the agencies have no authority to breach dams. Only Congress can authorize removal of the Northwest’s federal dams and I can definitively state that this will not happen on my watch.
“With this ruling, Judge Redden has gone farther than ever before in substituting his decades as a lawyer for the combined wisdom of hundreds of biologists and scientists at the federal, state and tribal agencies that joined together to develop this broad, collaborative fish recovery plan.
“Despite broad, collaborative agreement on a recovery plan and years of record, or near record, fish returns, the Pacific Northwest is entrapped in a never-ending circle of litigation and judicial whim. At some point, reason and common sense need to prevail over an activist judge who is intent on keeping dam removal on the table and keeping this issue tied up in his courtroom for years.”
Keeping Quaggas at bay, more ‘fouled’ boats identified
The take home message is that communication and coordination has improved…, but still needs to get better if the Pacific Northwest region is going to ward off what are continuing threats from invasive species such as quagga and zebra mussels. The mussels are a feared invader that is literally knocking at the Northwest’s door. No infestations have been found yet, but a total of 23 “fouled” boats – watercraft encrusted with invasive mussels — have been identified so far this year at Idaho border check stations. The infected boats were either cleaned or held until officials are sure the mussels are dead.
“30 days is a safe window. I don’t think anything can live for more than 30 days,” according to Amy Ferriter, the Idaho Department of Agriculture’s Invasive Species Program coordinator. She was one about 70 participants from five western states and five Canadian provinces participating in an invasive species conference held last week in Portland.
The conference was part of the Pacific Northwest Economic Region’s 21st annual summit, focusing on a variety of topics of common interest to the states and provinces. Overall attendance was estimated at nearly 700.
PNWER is a public-private partnership chartered by the states of Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Washington, the western provinces of Alberta, British Columbia and Saskatchewan and the Yukon and Northwest territories. The organization is “dedicated to encouraging global economic competitiveness and preserving our world-class natural environment.”
Invasive species – plants and animals alike — are among the primary factors that have led to the decline of native fish and wildlife populations in the United States. The conference was intended to launch the development of regional strategies to address the threat of invasive species to natural resources, the economy and quality of life.
Once established the invasive quagga and zebra mussels can clog water intake and delivery pipes and dam intake gates. They adhere to boats, pilings, and most hard and some soft substrates.
The mussels negatively impact water delivery systems, fire protection, and irrigation systems and require costly removal maintenance.
No infestations have been found in the Pacific Northwest but quagga and/or zebra mussels are nearby. They were found in January 2007 in Lake Mead in the Southwest and since then quagga or zebra mussels have been found in Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, Texas and Utah.
Quagga and zebra mussels are native to the Black and Caspian sea drainages. They were first introduced to the Great Lakes region of the United States in the late 1980s via ballast water discharge from ocean-going vessels. The mussels have been blamed for severe environmental damage and caused hundreds of millions of dollars in infrastructure damage.
The mollusks have spread throughout the central and northeastern United States, via a number of pathways. Adult mussels easily cling to hard surfaces such as boats and can be spread when boats are trailered from one water body the next.
Most recently, state and federal officials announced this week that that they had confirmed the presence of juvenile quagga mussels in Lahontan Reservoir in northern Nevada and quagga’s may also be in nearby Rye Patch Reservoir.
“It’s getting a little closer to us,” said Paul Heimowitz, aquatic invasive species coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Pacific Region.
Conference participants stressed the need for vigilance. Idaho is in the third year of manning border check station specifically aimed at heading off invasions of mussels and other species. The Oregon Legislature passed a bill this year requiring that boats entering the state stop for inspections. Washington and Montana are likewise checking boats.
Oregon state Rep. Bob Jenson, who spoke at the conference, said that in the past only about 25 percent of the boats passing by turned off the road for what were voluntary checks. “We changed the law so it’s a mandatory stop,” Jenson said.
“I think it (the required inspections) will bring in some data that will raise some eyebrows,” said Heimowitz.
The Idaho data is already raising eyebrows with the number of identified infected boats rising from three in the first year of the program to eight last year and now 22 so far in 2011. The most recent was a boat that was headed from Lake Mead up to British Columbia. The boat was checked at the border station at Jackpot, Idaho.
“I do think it’s a function of opening early,” Ferriter said. The check stations, 15 in all, began opening in March as opposed to April or May. A total of 25,000 boats had been inspected for aquatic invasive species and noxious weeds so far this year, Ferriter said. The earlier opening date this season has provided the opportunity to inspect more boats that are coming to or through Idaho from infested waters at Lake Mead, Lake Havasu, Lake Pleasant and the Great Lakes.
Of the fouled boats found so far 14 have come from the Midwest and nine from Arizona or Nevada.
Idaho watercraft inspectors are looking for high-risk boats that have been in quagga mussel- and zebra mussel-impacted states. Commercial haulers bringing boats into, and/or across, Idaho are especially scrutinized. Boats purchased out-of-state and being transported to Idaho or elsewhere are also considered high risk.
Of the fouled boats check this year nine were bound for Washington, seven for British Columbia, one of Oregon, one to Montana and five to Idaho. Coordination and communication has improved but needs to get better.
“We have to unite as a region. Montana can’t do it along; Idaho can’t do it alone,” Ferriter said.
Zebra mussels and quagga mussels range in size from microscopic to the size of a fingernail, depending on the life stage. Water in boat engines, bilges, live wells and buckets can carry microscopic mussel larvae (veligers) to other water bodies.
Multiple state and federal agencies are urging boaters and watercraft users to clean, drain and dry boats and equipment before interstate transport. They should:
- Inspect all exposed surfaces – small mussels feel like sandpaper to the touch
- Wash the hull thoroughly, preferably with hot water
- Remove all plant and animal material
- Drain all water and dry all areas
- Drain and dry the lower outboard unit
- Clean and dry all live wells
- Empty and dry any buckets
- Dispose of all bait in the trash
- Wait five days and keep watercraft dry between launches into different fresh waters
Tribes support new Sea Lion removal effort
Four Columbia River treaty fishing tribes have strongly encouraged the states of Oregon and Washington to push forward immediately to refile an application with NOAA Fisheries for a Marine Mammal Protection Act Section 120 permit that allows them to remove California sea lions that feed on salmon returning to the Columbia River to spawn.
The tribes are also calling on Congress to expedite legislation that will fix deficiencies in the Marine Mammal Protection Act.
The tribes expressed disappointment with the federal government’s decision this week to revoke the “letter of authority” issued by NOAA Fisheries giving states the right to permanently remove sea lions preying on salmon below Bonneville Dam. “The science behind the issue is very clear. Sea lions have a significant negative impact on salmon populations. This issue has been vetted.
“Twice an independent task force has recommended that NOAA authorize lethal removal of sea lions,” Lumley said. Tasks forces were assembled in 2007 and last year as part of the Section 120 process to consider whether lethal removal was warranted and make recommendations to NOAA Fisheries.
“Scientists estimate sea lions annually kill 20 percent of the spring chinook run in the lower Columbia River,” according to a recent CRITFC press release. The wild spring chinook run’s upper Columbia and Snake River components are listed on the Endangered Species Act.
Tribal scientists participated in a federally-required process, which was initiated as a result of a 2006 state application, that produced a recommendation that NOAA Fisheries issue permits allowing lethal removal of nuisance California sea lions near Bonneville Dam.
The tribes say that after five years of process and litigation, sea lion predation impacts are unchecked.
A bill in the U.S. House of Representatives, the Endangered Salmon Predation Prevention Act, would correct and clarify the Marine Mammal Protection Act’s Section 120 process as it relates to the Columbia River pinniped-salmon interaction problem.
The legislation accelerates the process for granting lethal take authority; limits the cumulative level of lethal take to 1 percent of annual biological potential removal level (about 85 animals); further limits the lethal take to 10 animals per permit holder; and spurs the Secretary of Commerce to report on any additional legislation needed to amend the Marine Mammal Protection Act within two years.
“The predation of sea lions on ESA listed salmon in the Columbia River Basin remains substantial,” said Lumley. “The Marine Mammal Protection Act is broken. Now is the time to address these problems.”
Predation by California sea lions on threatened and endangered salmon populations has been a concern of the tribes since 2002 when 31 of the big marine mammals settled in for the spring at Bonneville Dam.
They have been involved in a variety of activities over the years – such as non-lethal hazing of the pinnipeds – intended to reduce predation on salmon, steelhead, lamprey and other fish species.
For additional information on sea lion predation at Bonneville Dam, visit the CRITFC’s sea lion page at critfc.org. The website provides links to a fact sheet, video of predation, hazing activity, and photos of damage done to migrating salmon by sea lions.
Studying impacts of storms, waves on Pacific coast
Knowing that the U.S. west coast was battered during the winter before last by a climatic pattern expected more often in the future, scientists have now pieced together a San Diego-to-Seattle assessment of the damage wrought by that winter’s extreme waves and higher-than-usual water levels.
Getting a better understanding of how the 2009-10 conditions tore away and reshaped shorelines will help coastal experts better predict future changes that may be in store for the Pacific coast, the researchers say.
“The stormy conditions of the 2009-10 El Niño winter eroded the beaches to often unprecedented levels at sites throughout California and vulnerable sites in the Pacific Northwest,” said Patrick Barnard, USGS coastal geologist.
In California, for example, winter wave energy was 20 percent above average for the years dating back to 1997, resulting in shoreline erosion that exceeded the average by 36 percent, he and his colleagues found.
Among the most severe erosion was at Ocean Beach in San Francisco where the winter shoreline retreated 184 ft., 75 percent more than in a typical winter.
The erosion resulted in the collapse of one lane of a major roadway and led to a $5 million emergency remediation project.
In the Pacific Northwest, the regional impacts were moderate, but the southerly shift in storm tracks, typical of El Niño winters, resulted in severe local wave impacts to the north-of-harbor mouths and tidal inlets.
For example, north of the entrance to Willapa Bay along the Washington coast, 345 ft. of shoreline erosion during the winter of 2009-10 destroyed a road.
The beach erosion observed throughout the U.S. west coast during the 2009-10 El Niño is linked to the ‘El Niño Modoki phenomenon,’ where the warmer sea surface temperature is focused in the central equatorial Pacific (as opposed to the eastern Pacific during a classic El Niño).
As a result of these conditions, the winter of 2009-10 was characterized by above average wave energy and ocean water levels along much of the west coast, conditions not seen since the previous major El Niño (classic) in 1997-98, which contributed to the observed patterns of beach and inlet erosion.
As even warmer waters in the central Pacific are expected in the coming decades under many climate change scenarios, El Niño Modoki is projected to become a more dominant climate signal.
When combined with still higher sea levels expected due to global warming, and potentially even stronger winter storms, these factors are likely to contribute to increased rates of beach and bluff erosion along much of the U.S. west coast, producing regional, large-scale coastal changes.
The study, “The impact of the 2009-10 El Niño Modoki on U.S. West Coast beaches”, published in The American Geophysical Union’s “Geophysical Research Letters,” was led by the USGS in collaboration with the Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries, University of California-Santa Cruz, Washington Department of Ecology, Oregon State University and Scripps Institution of Oceanography.
The authors took advantage of up to 13 years of seasonal beach survey data along 148 miles of coastline and tracked shoreline changes through a range of wave conditions.
Columbia Basin Bulletin
Study: Danger of ‘trojan gene effect’ in modified Salmon
If genetically modified Atlantic salmon were to escape from captivity they could succeed in breeding and passing their genes into the wild, Canadian researchers have found. Research, published in Evolutionary Applications, explores the potential reproductive implications of “GM” salmon as they are considered for commercial farming.
“The use of growth-enhancing transgenic technologies has long been of interest to the aquaculture industry and now genetically modified Atlantic salmon is one of the first species to be considered for commercial farming. Yet, little is known about the potential impact on wild salmon populations if the GM species were to escape captivity,” said lead author Darek Moreau from the Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada.
One of the key concerns about a transgene escape is the “Trojan gene effect,” caused when a GM fish outcompetes or reproduces equally against wild rivals, however if the resulting offspring are genetically inferior this could lead a species towards eventual extinction.
Until now there is no empirical research to demonstrate the ability of transgenic Atlantic salmon to breed naturally and infiltrate the wild gene pool.
In the wild, reproducing males present two main forms of rivals which any escaping transgenic male would have to compete with; large males which have migrated and returned from the sea and smaller male parr which have matured in freshwater.
The large males are aggressive and develop attributes to fight off their rivals, while the smaller male parr use cryptic colouring and ‘sneak fertilisation’ to compete.
To measure the ability of transgenic males to complete with wild males during the reproductive season the team monitored breeding behavior in a naturalized laboratory setting and used genetic analysis to determine the success of competing individuals at producing offspring.
Large, migratory wild males outperformed their captivity-reared transgenic counterparts in terms of a variety of spawning behaviors. Moreover, despite being less aggressive, non-transgenic male parr were also able to outperform their GM rivals in spawning behavior, and as a result, achieved higher overall fertilization success.
“While the transgenic males displayed reduced breeding performance relative to their non-transgenic rivals they still demonstrated the ability to successfully participate in natural spawning events and thus have the potential to contribute modified genes to wild populations.”
While the study provides an estimate of breeding performance under only a single set of physical and demographic environmental conditions, it does mimic a likely invasion scenario where the genetic background of the transgenic population differs from that of the wild population.
“Our study provides the first empirical observations on the natural reproductive capacities of growth hormone transgenic Atlantic salmon,” concluded Moreau. “While the resulting ecological and genetic effects of a transgene escape remain uncertain, these data highlight the importance of preventing reproductively-viable GM salmon from entering natural systems.
NOAA initiative to increase of domestic aquaculture output
During a wet and cool April and May – a time when the Columbia River basin’s water stores usually begin to drain – estimated runoff volumes were boosted by more than 23 million acre feet of water, according to Bonneville Power Administration officials.
Peter Cogswell, Steve Oliver and Rick Pendergrass on Tuesday briefed the Northwest Power and Conservation Council on the current status of the Federal Columbia River Power System and how its dams are being operated to meet power generation, salmon protection, flood control and other demands in what is one of the highest runoff seasons in many years.
Low elevation meltdown has fueled high flows in recent weeks. But mid and high elevation snowpacks across the Columbia-Snake river continued building into the spring season and now hold in excess of 150 to 175 percent of average moisture content. “We expect that to come off here in the next six to eight weeks,” Pendergrass said.
“It is a very unusual occurrence” for the basin to experience such a period of sustained high flows. 2011 flows have been nearly as high as in 1997 when the highest runoff on record flowed down from the Snake and upper Columbia River.
The Northwest River Forecast Center’s June 7 final water supply forecast is for a runoff volume from April through September of 134 million acre feet past The Dalles Dam on the lower Columbia. That would be 136 percent of normal and the fourth largest volume on the 41-year record. The highest volume was 140.9 MAF in 1997, followed by 139.7 MAF in 1974 and 134.8 MAF in 1972.
The wet spring resulted in The Dalles forecast being boosted considerably. The April 7 final forecast was for 107 MAF, which would have been 108 percent of the 30-year average runoff during the April-September period.The Snake River basin is particularly laden. The new NWRFC forecast predicts 37.3 MAF will flush down from the upper Snake and past Lower Granite dam in southeast Washington. That would be 155 percent of average for the April-September period. Lower Granite is the fourth dam upstream from the Snake’s confluence with the Columbia.
The reservoir backed up by Dworshak Dam in west-central Idaho is expected to receive 142 percent of its average inflows. Dworshak is on the North Fork of the Clearwater, which feeds into the Clearwater and then the Snake upstream of Lower Granite. Grand Coulee Dam inflows are predicted to total 80.4 MAF this year, which would be 126 percent of average.The high flows so far have forced dam operators to spill even more water to provide passage for juvenile salmon and steelhead headed for the ocean. Bonneville has since May 18 been forced to implement its new “environmental redispatch policy” for parts of all but two days.
The policy calls on non-hydro energy flowing into the transmission grid, including fossil-fuel and other thermal generation and wind energy, to be partially and temporarily limited so that hydro production can be maximized during low power demand periods. Running more water through the turbines reduces the volume that has to be spilled. Spill stirs up “total dissolved gas,” which can be harmful to fish.
A total of 59,313 megawatt hours of energy had been displaced as a result of the redispatches, Pendergrass said. With an uptick in Snake River runoff, much of the responsibility for holding down flows past Bonneville Dam has been shifted to the mid-Columbia’s Grand Coulee Dam in central Washington.