Friday, July 10, 2015
OFF PAGE ONE
FISH: Biologists are experiencing similar problems in the Grande Ronde River
Page 10A
East Oregonian
Continued from 1A
spawners left over despite the
drought and what he said was a
robust ¿shery.
“It’s a challenging year, but we’ll
still get by,” James said. “We just
hope this doesn’t become the norm.”
The problem isn’t limited to
salmon. Steelhead, trout and carp
all rely on colder water to thrive.
When Àows drop and temperatures
increase, it lowers the amount of
oxygen and habitat for the species
and saps their energy.
The key is mountain snowpack,
which typically melts slowly
through spring and gradually
recharges rivers heading into the
dog days of summer. Snowpack in
the Umatilla Basin was just 50-60
percent of normal, according to the
Natural Resources Conservation
Service.
The same report predicted the
Umatilla River would Àow at just
38 percent of its normal volume
between June and September.
Mike Ladd, region manager
for the Oregon Water Resources
summer Àows,” Ladd said.
Fish biologists are experiencing
similar problems in the Grande
Ronde River and its tributaries. Jeff
Yanke, district biologist in Enter-
prise, said they have heard reports
from river guides and the general
public about ¿nding dead trout,
suckers and non-game species.
The department is preparing to
check pre-spawn salmon mortality
in the upper Grande Ronde and
Imnaha rivers, Yanke said. Flows
in the Grande Ronde are running at
500 cubic feet per second in some
areas, compared to the usual 3,000
cfs.
Yanke said the conditions are
unprecedented in his career.
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
“We’ve seen low-Àow years like
A dead carp on the shore of McKay Reservoir on Wednesday south this, but this is the earliest we’ve
of Pendleton. Developing drought conditions are causing fish encountered such conditions,”
die-offs all over Eastern Oregon.
Yanke said. “We have a few more
Department in Pendleton, said they around September in time for the fall months to deal with this, unless the
are still releasing water from McKay chinook, coho and steelhead runs, weather changes dramatically.”
ODFW is taking proactive
Reservoir for irrigators, though which are prioritized by ODFW and
measures to protect future salmon
farmers can expect less than a full the CTUIR.
season’s worth of water available to
“Fish managers look at the pool runs, he said, and collecting all
them.
water they have, and my under- broodstock for hatcheries early.
“It’s still too early to tell, but if
Water releases for ¿sh will begin standing is the lower priority is on
we have a lot of pre-spawn and
incubation mortality, that could be
pretty bad for the persistence of our
salmon populations up here,” he
said.
Trout originally set to be released
into stock ponds around Enterprise
will also be sent to Wallowa Lake
instead, since the water there is
deeper, cooler and cleaner.
Fish tend to go off the bite anyway
when it gets this warm, Yanke said.
He advised anglers to try ¿shing in
the morning or evenings, when the
water has had a chance to cool off.
James said the tribes are closing
¿shing on all Umatilla River tribu-
taries early this year to avoid putting
additional stress on ¿sh so close to
spawning. Years like this are not
unheard of, he said, but the region
can’t afford many more like it.
“If we have several bad water
years in a row, that would really
impact us,” James said. “I hope this
is an outlier.”
———
Contact George Plaven at
gplaven@eastoregonian.com
or
541-564-4547.
BILL: Does not create any
new mandatory spending
Continued from 1A
Federal Forests Act isn’t as
far-reaching and enjoys bipar-
tisan support from fellow
Oregon Democrats Peter
DeFazio and Kurt Schrader.
“Hopefully this time, the
Senate will be able to make
some progress,” Walden said.
More than $461 million
was spent ¿ghting large
wild¿res in 2014 in Oregon
and Washington. The total is
already more than $17 million
in 2015, including the 28,766-
acre Corner Creek Fire near
Dayville.
Currently, the government
does not pay for wild¿re
suppression the same as
other natural disasters. The
Forest Service and Bureau of
Land Management must shift
money from other programs
to cover the cost of ¿re¿ghting
during particularly intense
years — a practice known as
“¿re-borrowing.”
The Resilient Federal
Forests Act would end
¿re-borrowing by creating an
account under the Disaster
Relief Fund speci¿cally for
wild¿res. The Forest Service
or Department of Interior
could request funding from
the Federal Emergency
Management Agency within
30 days of exhausting their
¿re¿ghting budget.
The bill does not create
any new mandatory spending,
and is still subject to caps set
in the Budget Control Act,
according to a report by the
House Committee on Natural
Resources.
In addition, the bill aims to
increase active forest manage-
ment by expediting environ-
mental review of thinning and
reforestation projects. Projects
crafted by collaborative forest
groups could be fast-tracked
up to 15,000 acres in size, and
75 percent of areas must be
reforested within ¿ve years
after suffering a large ¿re.
The Forest Service esti-
mates it is 30 years behind
schedule keeping up with
restoration in the Blue Moun-
tains, working at its current
pace. Meanwhile, over the
past 30 years, Walden said
northeast Oregon has lost 19
mills and 4,700 timber jobs.
“Our communities are
suffering,” Walden said.
“We have to ¿x this. We
need a sustainable forest that
supports healthy, sustainable
economies.”
Walden didn’t have any
speci¿c estimates on the
number of jobs or revenue
the bill would create. He
said projects would still have
to follow individual forest
management plans, and
would not allow logging in
wilderness or other roadless
areas.
“If we can get the forests
back into shape, ¿res won’t
be as destructive,” he said.
Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Or-
egon, has proposed his own
bill for O&C timber counties
which he said would double
timber harvest “in a sustain-
able way.”
“Without a balanced
approach, this House legisla-
tion risks restarting the timber
wars and denying Oregon’s
rural counties the lasting
solution they so desperately
need,” Wyden said.
A Wyden spokesman said
the senator continues to look
at ways to boost the Eastern
Oregon timber industry to
create jobs and restore forest
health.
With new leadership in the
Senate Committee on Energy
and Natural Resources,
Walden said he is more opti-
mistic than he was a year ago
about getting a House-led bill
passed.
“The urgency is there,” he
said. “We should be able to
get this done.”
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BUSINESS: A few people testi¿ed
against the change in policy Tuesday
Continued from 1A
law enforcement.
“We’re
not
always
contacting them because
they owe us something,”
Ward said. “We could be
contacting them because we
know something they would
want to know, too.”
Not everyone is happy
with the change.
Jack McWhinnie, who
owns two rental properties in
Umatilla, said he thought it
was “absurd” when he got a
letter telling him he needed to
get a business license.
“I just can’t believe the
city is stooping this low to
hit the property owners,” he
said.
McWhinnie said he could
afford the $30 but it was the
principle of the thing that
bothered him. He said he
felt that the city was trying
to raise extra revenue and
that he thought there must
be something better for the
staff to do than to “just start
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McWhinnie and a few
other people testi¿ed against
the change in policy at Tues-
day’s city council meeting.
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