News Release
| Release Number: | 04-071 |
| Dated: | 4/19/2004 |
| Contact: | Heidi Y. Helwig, 503-808-4510 |
Portland, Ore.-Some U.S. Army Corps of Engineers reservoirs in the Willamette Valley may not fill this summer. The Corps will present this and other water regulation news during two public meetings planned for April 26 and April 28.
The meeting on Monday, April 26, will begin at 7 p.m. at the Sweet Home Senior Center at 880 18th Ave., two blocks south of Main St. (Hwy 20) behind the high school in Sweet Home. The meeting on Wednesday, April 28, will begin at 6:30 p.m. at the Detroit Ranger District Office on Hwy 22 next to Detroit Lake in Detroit. If dry conditions continue, other public meetings may be added later this spring.
At the April meetings, Corps officials will provide an outlook of projected reservoir levels and seek public input, as well as lay out how the system will be operated based on forecasts and operating criteria.
Using current weather conditions and computer models, Corps water regulators say it is unlikely that reservoirs will be full by Memorial Day weekend, except for Foster and Detroit reservoirs. Despite the dry weather (March 2004 is the 3rd driest March on record), regulators say they don't expect conditions to be as dire as those seen during the drought of 2001, though hydraulic modeling shows many of the reservoirs will be 5 feet to 20 feet below normal levels through May. A caveat to all this data, said Matt Rea, Corps Willamette Basin coordinator, is that rainfall would improve the situation.
Until the rains come, however, the Corps will make continual adjustments this spring and summer to affect lake elevations and downstream flows, Rea said. "The Corps will do all it can to keep at least two of the heavier-used reservoirs-Foster and Detroit-as full as possible throughout the recreation season. But, the water has to come from somewhere in the Santiam Basin," he conceded. "There's limited water with many demands on it." The only other major reservoirs capable of supplying water to the system are Green Peter and Lookout Point/Hills Creek.
"Cougar has been drained for three years. With 15 percent of our systemwide storage located at Cougar, we really missed it last year. We're really going to miss it this year, too," Rea said, referring to construction of a water temperature control structure at Cougar Dam on the McKenzie River. This construction precludes water storage and subsequent release from that reservoir. Providing there is enough rain, the Corps will refill Cougar reservoir in time for the 2005 recreation season.
Part of the balancing of water flow needs throughout the basin includes releasing water from the reservoirs to meet downstream requirements for fisheries, water quality and irrigation.
Therefore, meeting participants also can expect to hear about some of the biological monitoring conducted in 2003 to ensure special releases for fish and water quality were indeed beneficial. "Essentially, we tried to document whether additional flows were adequate to protect steelhead eggs incubating in gravels below Foster and Big Cliff dams. We want to make sure the additional flows are providing the intended biological benefit," said Corps biologist Greg Taylor.
The first week of April, the Corps increased water releases from the Green Peter/Foster project and the Hills Creek/Lookout Point project at the request of NOAA Fisheries to meet spring flow requests for the main stem Willamette River.
The original request was for 20,500 cfs (cubic feet per second) at Salem. Due to the dry conditions these flows were reduced to 15,000 cfs in consultation with NOAA fisheries. As of April 14, the unregulated flow (as if the dams were not in place) at Salem was 13,500 cfs. This means that cumulatively the Corps projects were drafting 1,500 cfs, rather than filling.
The Corps, NOAA Fisheries, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Oregon Water Resources Department are continuing consultations regarding operation of the Willamette Projects under Section 7 of the Endangered Species Act, Taylor said.