Capital press., March 10, 2017, Page 7, Image 7

March 10, 2017
CapitalPress.com
7
Water
The West enters March with ample snow
irrigation season, as it’s likely
reservoir releases will contin-
ue at flood-control levels.
Staff and wire report
Wet weather through the
winter has left mountain snow-
packs in California and the Pa-
cific Northwest with plenty of
moisture for summer crops.
Oregon
California
SACRAMENTO — The
chances of an abundant water
supply for California growers
this summer keep improving
as the water content in snow-
pack remains far above nor-
mal.
The state Department of
Water Resources third manu-
al snow survey of the season
found a snow-water equivalent
of 43.4 inches on March 1 —
well above the average of 24.3
inches for the date.
“It’s not the record, the re-
cord being 56.4 (inches), but
it’s still a pretty phenomenal
snowpack,” state snow survey
chief Frank Gehrke told report-
ers after the survey at Phillips
Station, about 90 miles east
of Sacramento. “January and
February came in with some
really quite phenomenal atmo-
spheric river storms, many of
which were cold enough to re-
ally boost the snowpack.”
In all, California has been
hit with 30 “atmospheric riv-
er” storms this winter, DWR
spokesman Doug Carlson said.
The storms have left a state-
wide snowpack holding 45.5
inches of water, or 185 percent
of the March 1 average of 24.6
inches, according to electronic
readings from the agency’s 98
stations scattered throughout
the Sierra Nevada.
The southern Sierra has
more than double its normal
snowpack for this time of year,
at 46.4 inches, the DWR re-
ports.
The snowpack was a key
factor in the U.S. Bureau of
Reclamation’s decision to allo-
cate 100 percent of contracted
supplies to many farmers in
the Central Valley, including
settlement and exchange con-
tractors along the Sacramento
and San Joaquin rivers, respec-
tively, and the Friant Division
in the eastern San Joaquin Val-
ley.
Federal officials said March
snow measurements will help
determine how much water
they’ll deliver to other Cen-
tral Valley Project customers,
including growers on the San
Joaquin Valley’s west side.
The State Water Project
promises to deliver at least 60
percent of contracted supplies
to its 29 member water agen-
cies. The state issued an initial
allocation of 20 percent in late
November and has raised it
twice; the decision of whether
it will be raised again is still
under review, Carlson said.
Idaho
BOISE — February was an
extremely wet month through-
out Idaho, with the driest part
of the state, the Owyhee Ba-
sin, still receiving 150 percent
of its usual monthly snow
accumulation, according to
the USDA Natural Resources
Conservation Service.
The greatest February
snowpack gains were in
south-central Idaho — 458
percent of normal in the Big
Lost Basin, 438 percent of
normal in the Little Wood and
394 percent of normal in the
Big Wood.
Factoring in early March
storms, every region of Idaho
has now bested its average
snowpack for the date, with
basins such as the Big and Lit-
tle Wood exceeding their usual
annual moisture totals within
the first five months of the wa-
ter year.
“February really put the
icing on the cake,” said Ron
Abramovich, USDA-NRCS
water supply specialist for
Idaho, “Last month, with the
precipitation being so much
above average, we saw a tre-
mendous jump in our stream-
flow forecasts.”
Corey Loveland, water op-
erations manager for the Bu-
reau of Reclamation’s Upper
Snake region, said the Upper
Snake reservoir system is al-
ready 70 percent full, with 152
percent of normal snowpack
remaining in the mountains.
He said BOR has been making
large releases from the Milner,
Lake Walcott, Palisades and
American Falls reservoirs, and
Rich Pedroncelli/Associated Press
Frank Gehrke, right, chief of the California Cooperative Snow
Surveys Program for the Department of Water Resources, plunges
the survey tube into the snowpack as he conducts the third manual
snow survey of the season at Phillips Station, March 1, near Echo
Summit, Calif. The survey showed the snowpack at 179 percent
of normal. At left is Armando Quintero, chairman of the California
Water Commission.
plans to soon commence with
releases from Jackson Lake.
He said releases were also
made from Ririe Reservoir in
early February, with addition-
al releases planned to resume
soon. With 220 percent of
the average snowpack in the
Little Wood Basin, Loveland
said BOR plans to drain Little
Wood Reservoir to near-empty
to free space for runoff.
“As far as water supply
goes, we’re pretty optimistic
about having the water to fill
the reservoirs at this point in
time,” Loveland said. “We’re
in flood-control mode as far as
needing to evacuate space in
the Upper Snake system.”
BOR officials say the Boise
River reservoirs are at 57 per-
cent of capacity, but with 156
of normal snowpack to date
in the surrounding mountains,
they started making flood-con-
trol releases on March 6 from
Lucky Peak Dam, ramping up
the volume incrementally until
it reaches 7,000 cubic feet per
second.
The spring flood-control
releases have provided an op-
portunity for Wes Hipke, who
manages the state’s managed
aquifer recharge program, to
test new recharge infrastruc-
ture in the Upper Snake. Re-
charge involves intentionally
injecting surface water into
the aquifer through unlined
canals or spill basins to replen-
ish declining groundwater lev-
els. The state’s Upper Snake
recharge right only comes in
priority when water is released
for flood control and would
otherwise pass through the
system unused.
Hipke said the opportunity
to conduct Upper Valley re-
charge should help him come
close to his initial goal of re-
charging 100,000 acre-feet
of water this season, thereby
helping regional groundwater
users who have entered a wa-
ter call settlement requiring a
reversal over time in aquifer
declines. Hipke said the re-
charge right should remain in
effect even after the start of the
PORTLAND (AP) — The
average statewide snowpack
for Oregon is well above nor-
mal for March after a harsh
winter that featured heavy
snow across much of the state.
However,
hydrologists
warn that an early thaw could
quash hopes for above-average
summer stream flows.
Snowpack levels as of
March 1 were 138 percent of
normal, according to num-
bers released Tuesday by the
USDA Natural Resources
Conservation Service.
The service conducts the
surveys monthly during the
water year, which runs from
Oct. 1 to Sept. 30, said Scott
Oviatt, a snow survey supervi-
sory hydrologist for the USDA
service.
The last time Oregon’s
snowpack was well above nor-
mal on March 1 was in 2008,
when it was 157 percent of
normal. Last year, the snow-
pack was 94 percent of normal
at the end of February.
The news came as a boon
for farmers, ranchers and ir-
rigators who have weathered
several years of drought in
much of Eastern Oregon. If the
weather remains cool and the
snow doesn’t melt until late
spring, above-average stream
levels could replenish drinking
water supplies and also mean
good news for migrating salm-
on, Oviatt said.
“Snow
accumulation
during February was twice the
normal amount at many moni-
toring locations,” he said.
Last year, excitement
about near-average snowpack
levels evaporated when un-
usually warm April weather
melted the snow early, depriv-
ing farmers, salmon and res-
ervoir operators of late-season
runoff they needed.
All basins in the state have
received well-above-average
precipitation for the 2017 wa-
ter year.
Lake County and Goose
Lake basins have gotten the
most, at 152 percent of aver-
age, while Mt. Hood, Sandy
and the Lower Deschutes ba-
sins have had 111 percent of
normal precipitation, the ser-
vice said.
Lake Owyhee Reservoir,
near the Idaho border, is now
at 128 percent of average after
several years of water levels
that were well below average.
The lake is now storing more
than 500,000 acre-feet of wa-
ter for the first time since 2012,
Oviatt said.
Washington
WENATCHEE — Wash-
ington’s mountain snowpack
is much improved since a
month ago and streamflow
forecasts for April through
September are up 10 to 20
percent.
It bodes well for farmers
dependent upon mountain
snowpack for summer irriga-
tion.
“It all turned around the
first week of February with
that winter storm blast and
more that rolled in from off
shore. It was definitely what
we needed,” said Scott Pattee,
water supply specialist of the
Washington Snow Survey Of-
fice of the USDA Natural Re-
sources Conservation Service
in Mount Vernon.
Statewide snowpack was
112 percent of normal on
March 6, up from 102 percent
of normal in early February
and 91 percent in early Janu-
ary.
“We picked up a lot of
good snow. We saw more
snow in February than we
usually do and that was the
only way we could catch back
up and get ahead of where we
were,” Pattee said.
January was cold and dry.
February was warmer and
wetter.
The short-term outlook is
for below-normal tempera-
tures and above-normal pre-
cipitation, which should bring
more snow, Pattee said. A sud-
den warm-up causing rapid
runoff, as happened last April,
does not look likely, he said.
Snow water equivalent
snowpack in the Spokane ba-
sin was 93 percent of normal
on March 6. The upper Colum-
bia (Okanogan and Methow
rivers) was 112 percent. The
central Columbia (Chelan, En-
tiat and Wenatchee) was 98,
the upper Yakima was 91 and
the lower Yakima 101.
The lower Snake near Walla
Walla was 105, lower Colum-
bia was 133, south Puget Sound
(from Cascade crest to low-
lands) was 105, central Puget
Sound 109, north Puget Sound
98 and the Olympics 111.
Those numbers were all im-
proved from a month earlier.
Streamflow forecasts for
April 1 through September are:
Spokane basin 92 to 97 percent
of normal, upper Columbia 86
to 110, central Columbia 88
to 93, upper Yakima 82 to 90,
lower Yakima 93 to 131, lower
Snake 102 to 126, lower Co-
lumbia 104 to 112, south Puget
Sound 102 to 107, central
Puget Sound 100 to 110, north
Puget Sound 90 to 98 and the
Olympics 101 to 103.
The five mountain reser-
voirs critical for one-third of
the water needed to irrigate
464,000 acres of farmland in
the Yakima Basin are at 51 per-
cent of capacity and 91.6 per-
cent of average for this time of
year. Inflows are 97 percent of
average and releases 106 per-
cent of average.
Reporters Tim Hearden,
John O’Connell and Dan
Wheat contributed to this
report.
Columbia-Snake River Irrigators Association
Media/Press Release — For March 9, 2017
More Information: 509-783-1623
Killing Fish — Columbia River ESA Litigation
and 2015 Fish Operations
One tragic scene from the Vietnam War came from a U.S. Army Officer who conveyed that “to save
the village, they would have to destroy it.” The Columbia-Snake River Endangered Species Act (ESA)
litigation, now belaboring for twice as many years as the Vietnam Era, induced a similarly destructive
image in 2015, when state/federal fish managers engaged in lethal, in-river juvenile fish passage
actions instead of relying on the Lower Snake River fish transportation program. Today, an injunction
motion was heard in U. S. District (Oregon) Judge Michael Simon’s Court to perpetuate killing fish,
and the ESA fish survival objective is being turned around backward by environmental groups and
the state of Oregon.
The long years of Columbia-Snake River Biological Opinion (BiOp) legal wrangling have cost the
region billions-of-dollars, and nourished some fanatics within the “salmon recover industry” who
seek solely to breach the Lower Snake River dams rather than acknowledge the projects’ substantial
benefits; including operation of a well-developed juvenile fish transportation system that can protect
fish in years when low water and high temperature conditions prevail--a year like 2015.
CSRIA’s legal counsel methodically described the legal and operational management principles
that should have guided fisheries operations in 2015, but were either overlooked or deliberately
altered. Citing a forensic management review prepared by Seattle-based Columbia Research Corp., it
was apparent that important warning signs and protocols were ignored:
•
The 2015 in-river conditions were the worst since 2001, and low water flows were forecast well
before the start of the fish migration period. The early spring water temperatures were high.
•
At a minimum, state and federal fish managers should have been following a BiOp (Court)
mandated fish passage policy known as “spread the risk,” where roughly equal numbers of
juvenile fish are diverted by spillway passage or placed in water temperature controlled
transport barges.
•
But the fish passage managers, some unyielding supporters of project passage fish spill,
delayed the start of the juvenile fish transportation program.
•
Not everyone agreed with delaying fish transport, and twice, NOAA Fisheries’ key scientists
called for immediate fish transport operations. They were rebuffed by the on-site fish passage
managers.
•
In a year when juvenile fish transport should have been maximized (and called for under the
BiOp), fish transport numbers were reduced to an all-time low, with only 13% transport. River
water flows and temperatures were comparable to 2001, where the documented fish survival
benefits from the transport program totally overshadowed in-river fish passage survival.
•
Fish managers had to have known the danger. The 2015 fish passage operations will
contribute significantly to impaired adult salmon/steelhead returns to the Columbia-Snake
River system in 2017 and 2018.
The 2015 fish operations stand as a testament to CSRIA’s call for invoking the Endangered Species Act
Committee (God Squad) to settle, with reasoned judgment, the required fish protection measures for
the Columbia-Snake River system. The 25-years of BiOp litigation have failed the fish.
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