US Army Corps of Engineers ®

News Release

Release Number:	00-168
Dated:	9/18/2000
Contact:	Public Affairs Office, 503-808-4510

Portland, Ore. – The Portland District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, believes it has enough information without further study to make a decision on drawing down John Day reservoir.

The Corps collected this information during the first phase of a possible two-phase study of drawdown options for John Day Dam on the Columbia River.

The completed John Day Drawdown Phase I Study Final Report now will begin its path to Congress. Stuart Stanger, project manager, said, “Our recommendation is that no further study is necessary to allow Congress and the Region to make a decision regarding drawdown of the John Day reservoir, or removal of the John Day Dam. That recommendation is based on biological findings and economic assessments.”

In October 1998, Congress directed the Corps to study drawdown of the John Day reservoir and appropriated $3.7 million for the first phase of that study. Congressional direction limited the first phase to two options for lowering, or drawing down, the reservoir: “spillway crest” and “natural river level.” Congress asked the Corps to conduct the study and recommend either further study or that no further study is needed, which would mean eliminating John Day drawdown from further consideration.

“As we began this study,” Stanger explained, “our goal was to gather enough facts on effects, both biological and economic, to make a sound recommendation to Congress. We wanted to either be able to recommend dropping all further study of lowering the John Day reservoir off the regional agenda because of what we learned, or recommend further study of drawdown, which would include evaluating an expanded list of drawdown alternatives.

“The Corps is the fact-finding agency. We identified the effects of both options: spillway crest and natural river, each with and without flood damage reduction. We evaluated biological, social, and economic benefits and costs, plus potential physical impacts,” Stanger said.

Normal reservoir operating level is elevation 265 (normal pool). At spillway crest drawdown (about 50 feet lower), fish passage systems at John Day Dam would have to be modified and there would be effects on other users of the river. At natural river (about 100 feet lower), the river could be rerouted to bypass John Day Dam or the dam could be breached. There would be dramatic effects on navigation, irrigation, recreation, hydropower production, cultural resources and water supplies.

“Our report details impacts on all the above, plus fisheries and flood damage reduction, as well as hydraulics and hydrology effects, and associated structural changes at John Day Dam. We assessed potential biological benefits and economic costs,” Stanger said. “Our biological studies show that drawdown would contribute little to the survival and recovery of listed Snake River fish.”

John Day Dam, which spans the Columbia River from Washington to Oregon 215 miles upstream from the Pacific Ocean, creates a 76-mile-long reservoir (Lake Umatilla). Reservoirs slow river current, thus slowing juvenile fish migration through the river system, and Lake Umatilla is the longest reservoir on the lower Columbia River.

Lowering reservoirs behind the dams to levels that are substantially below the normal operating range is called drawdown. Lower water levels decrease reservoir width and depth, which increases water velocity. Increased water velocity could move juvenile fish through the reservoir more quickly, thus mimicking historically faster journeys downriver. This may increase survival rates.

The second phase, if directed by Congress, would evaluate the costs, benefits and physical impacts of a wider range of alternatives, including potential physical modifications to the dam. That phase would include an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) and related National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) coordination. Public comments are part of those processes.

Neither the first nor a potential second phase of this study would include actual physical modifications at the John Day Dam. Two series of open houses coupled with public information meetings were held in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska during the course of the study, one series in late winter 1999, and the second series in late winter 2000. Comments were taken at those meetings, as well as by mail and electronically.