News Release
| Release Number: | 99-110 |
| Dated: | 12/15/1999 |
| Contact: | Public Affairs Office, 503-808-4510 |
Portland, Ore. – During Endangered Species Act consultation for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Columbia River Channel Improvement Project, the Corps and the National Marine Fisheries Service identified two separate concerns related to fish recovery in the Columbia River.
Some concerns were directly related to affects of the proposed Channel Improvement Project, and are integral to that project. Related, but separate concerns result from the 100-year pattern of development on the river. Those impacts of 100 years of development, the agencies agreed, should be addressed separately from the Channel Improvement Project.
The end result: a future increase of about 3,000 acres of shallow-water habitat for salmon in the Columbia River estuary, that complements regional goals for the Columbia River estuary.
Columbia River Channel Improvement Project
The Corps’ Columbia River Channel Improvement Project, which recommends deepening the 40-foot federal navigation channel by three feet from Portland to the ocean, includes 250 acres of restoration. The Channel Improvement Feasibility Report and the Corps’ April 1999 Biological Assessment identified no significant habitat impacts as part of the channel improvement project. The 250-acre restoration will be accomplished as part of the improvement project with pile-dike work at the Miller-Pillar project, between river miles 24 and 27, when deterrent measures are shown to solve bird predation problems in that area.
The Corps, in coordination with NMFS, will do extensive monitoring of any potential affects of channel improvements, both during and following channel construction. This work is intended to verify the Corps’ conclusion of no significant impacts from physical changes of channel deepening, and also the effectiveness of the initial and long-term restoration work.
The NMFS’ Biological Opinion on the Channel Improvement Study is expected to be signed later this week.
Additional work for salmon recovery
Recognizing the historical impacts over the last 100 years of river development, the agencies agreed during consultation under the Endangered Species Act to perform additional work intended to improve salmon recovery in the Columbia River estuary.
Work is planned in the river downstream of Puget Island, at about river mile 37, and through the mouth of the Columbia River. In a separate action, the Corps plans a reconnaissance study in 2001 to examine watershed and estuary health in the lower Columbia in a comprehensive manner. This study will include identifying appropriate means to address the historic problem of wetland and marsh habitat losses and other issues that affect the proper functioning of the ecosystem.
The Corps plans to re-establish 750 acres of tidal wetlands or other habitat that will enhance food chain (macrodetrital) production so important to the fishery. This work is expected to be completed by 2005.
Other work will be expedited as funding is available. The Corps will work to restore a total of 1,500 acres by 2005 and 3,000 acres by 2010. The Corps will pursue this work as part of its ecosystem restoration mission and responsibility. This restoration effort is independent of the Channel Improvement Project. The work, however, would support goals stated in the Lower Columbia River Estuary Program.
Columbia River Channel Improvement Project
The Corps’ Chief of Engineers’ Report on the Channel Improvement Project, including the final recommendation to Congress, is scheduled to be issued this month. A Record of Decision (ROD) will be issued in early 2000, and the project will be included in the Corps’ budget request. Congress, which authorized the project during its last session, must still appropriate funds for the work. The estimated cost of the proposed 43-foot channel, including environmental restoration of 250 acres in the estuary and $5.6 million of wetland and riparian habitat restoration at Shillapoo Lake, Wash., is about $196 million.
The Corps will, within one year after the ROD is issued, identify and prioritize additional areas where shallow water habitat, low velocity wetlands, and other productive estuarine habitat could be created or restored. That plan will identify restoration work to have changes in place within five years. Under this plan, dikes will be removed along the tidal-freshwater floodplain, and backwater channels, sloughs and oxbows will be reconnected to the main river by using a variety of actions.
Two years after the ROD is issued, the Corps will prepare a multi-year plan for estuary restoration. Retrofits at tide gates will open 39 miles of salmon spawning habitat, an action requested by the Ports, and identified in the CRCIS Final Report. Also improvements in embayment circulation will be made to restore 335 acres of estuarine habitat, also as noted in the CRCIS Final Report.
The earliest date that actual construction of the improvement project could begin is 2002, if Congress appropriates funds for the project. The ecosystem restoration work under the Lower Columbia River Estuary Program and the Corps’ planned reconnaissance study, would start before construction begins.
The purposes of the proposed project are to improve transport of goods on the Columbia River, and also to provide ecosystem restoration for fish and wildlife habitats. The need for navigation improvements is driven by the steady growth in waterborne commerce and the use of larger and more efficient vessels to transport bulk commodities. As the use of deep-draft vessels grows, so do limitations created by the existing channel dimensions. The existing 40-foot channel keeps many larger vessels from loading to full capacity.
The 43-foot recommended alternative requires dredging 20 million cubic yards of sandy material, and removing 220,000 cy of hard basalt rock and 450,000 cy of cemented sand, gravel and boulders. The amount of in-water disposal for the 43-foot channel is less than for the existing channel because more disposal sites would be placed on land.
Over the 50-year project life, 26 mcy less material would be placed in-water for the 43-foot channel than for maintenance of the current 40-foot channel. A total of 29 land sites (primarily agricultural and industrial), numbering 1,681 acres, will be used. The Corps will mitigate the loss of 67 acres of riparian habitat and 20 acres of wetland habitat.
The Project’s non-federal sponsors are the six lower Columbia River ports – Portland and St. Helens in Oregon, and Longview, Kalama, Woodland and Vancouver in Washington. In addition to the above mitigation, in 1996, the Ports asked the Corps to add an ecosystem restoration component to the project. Valued at $5.6 million, the ecosystem restoration projects restore more than 1,550 acres of wetland and riparian habitat at Shillapoo Lake, Wash., and elsewhere throughout the lower river. These projects include the retrofits to tide gates to improve fish rearing and spawning habitat on streambeds tributary to the lower Columbia, as mentioned earlier.
The sponsors and Corps are committed to continued work with regulatory agencies and environmental and community groups to meet or exceed federal and state environmental requirements during the Channel Improvement Project.
Two new ocean disposal sites have been selected for disposal of construction and channel maintenance dredged material, a deepwater site and Site E by the North Jetty at the Mouth of the Columbia River.
The Willamette River portion of the project is on hold because of concerns with contaminated sediment in the Portland Harbor and disposal of that sediment. The sponsoring ports asked the Corps to delay that portion of the project until an Oregon Department of Environmental Quality investigation and remediation planning are completed.