NORTHWEST
East Oregonian
A2
Tuesday, July 6, 2021
Managers altering water spilling at two dams
By ERIC BARKER
Lewiston Tribune
LEWISTON, Idaho —
Water and salmon managers
opted Friday, July 2, to halt
normal summer spill oper-
ations at two dams on the
Lower Snake in a desper-
ate attempt to keep water
temperatures from rising to
dangerous levels in the midst
of a blistering heat wave.
If the strategy works,
water at Lower Granite and
Little Goose dams will be
incrementally cooler in the
short term, and the fish and
water managers will extend
their ability to cool the lower
Snake further into August.
But the operation that
could help adult sockeye
over the next few weeks
and returning fall chinook
and steelhead in August and
September may make condi-
tions more difficult for juve-
nile fall chinook during their
outmigration to the Pacific
Ocean.
“It’s tough,” said Jonathan
Ebel, a fisheries biologist for
the Idaho Department of Fish
and Game. “Trying to balance
the short-term objectives and
long-term objectives and the
interests of adults and juve-
niles at any one point in time
don’t always align.”
Endangered Snake River
sockeye salmon have begun
Ted S. Warren/The Associated Press, File
In this May 15, 2019, photo, the Lower Granite Dam on the Snake River is seen from the air
near Colfax, Washington. Water and salmon managers opted to halt normal summer spill op-
erations at two dams on the Lower Snake in a desperate attempt to keep water temperatures
from rising to dangerous levels in the midst of a blistering heat wave.
trickling over dams on the
Snake and Columbia rivers.
But they face river tempera-
tures that are pushing into
the low 70s in some spots
in the hydropower corridor
between Portland and Lewis-
ton and even higher upstream.
Temperatures above 68
degrees are considered harm-
ful for salmon.
Idaho proposed the action
and was joined by the Nez
Perce Tribe in bringing it
to the Technical Manage-
ment Team, a group of state,
federal and tribal fish, water
and hydropower managers
in the Columbia River basin.
The forum meets weekly,
and sometimes twice a
week, during the spring and
summer to manage water to
help threatened and endan-
gered Snake River salmon
and steelhead while also
trying to maximize power
generation at federal hydro-
electric dams.
Under the strategy that
will be implemented starting
today, the amount of water
spilled at Lower Granite and
Little Goose between 9 a.m.
Forecast for Pendleton Area
| Go to AccuWeather.com
TODAY
WEDNESDAY
THURSDAY
FRIDAY
SATURDAY
Sunshine and very
hot
Winds subsiding
and not as hot
Sunny, breezy and
pleasant
Sunny and warmer
Very hot with
sizzling sunshine
PENDLETON TEMPERATURE FORECAST
91° 60°
101° 68°
89° 58°
95° 63°
101° 65°
HERMISTON TEMPERATURE FORECAST
94° 64°
104° 72°
92° 62°
99° 63°
OREGON FORECAST
104° 67°
ALMANAC
Shown is today’s weather. Temperatures are today’s highs and tonight’s lows.
PENDLETON
through 3 p.m. yest.
HIGH
LOW
TEMP.
Seattle
Olympia
72/58
93/60
100/71
Longview
Kennewick Walla Walla
100/71 Lewiston
85/59
102/71
Astoria
69/57
Pullman
Yakima 99/67
86/55
103/71
Portland
Hermiston
90/60
The Dalles 104/72
Salem
Corvallis
89/55
Yesterday
Normals
Records
La Grande
100/65
PRECIPITATION
John Day
Eugene
Bend
93/56
99/61
101/62
Ontario
107/70
Caldwell
Burns
99°
67°
86°
57°
108° (1968) 42° (2012)
24 hours ending 3 p.m.
Month to date
Normal month to date
Year to date
Last year to date
Normal year to date
Albany
92/57
Boardman
Pendleton
Medford
100/62
0.00"
0.00"
0.04"
1.93"
1.65"
5.74"
WINDS (in mph)
104/69
100/59
0.00"
0.00"
0.05"
4.34"
8.57"
7.62"
through 3 p.m. yest.
HIGH
LOW
TEMP.
Pendleton 97/60
93/58
24 hours ending 3 p.m.
Month to date
Normal month to date
Year to date
Last year to date
Normal year to date
HERMISTON
Enterprise
101/68
102/70
95°
60°
86°
57°
107° (2007) 38° (1932)
PRECIPITATION
Moses
Lake
84/57
Aberdeen
96/67
98/71
Tacoma
Yesterday
Normals
Records
Spokane
Wenatchee
83/57
Today
Wed.
SW 4-8
WNW 6-12
WSW 12-25
WSW 12-25
SUN AND MOON
Klamath Falls
96/51
Forecasts and graphics provided by AccuWeather, Inc. ©2021
Sunrise today
Sunset tonight
Moonrise today
Moonset today
New
5:13 a.m.
8:47 p.m.
2:37 a.m.
6:14 p.m.
First
Full
and 11 p.m. will be reduced
by raising all but one spillway
at each dam. Some water will
continue to go over specially
engineered weirs at the
remaining spillway at each
of the dams. The weirs are
designed to attract juvenile
fish.
The rest of the water that
would normally go over spill-
ways to help juvenile salmon
move downstream will
instead be directed through
the powerhouse at the dams.
That may help keep tempera-
tures cooler because the
By JACK FORREST
The Oregonian
SALEM — Reports of
race and bias to Oregon’s bias
hotline rose by 134% during
the second half of 2020,
according to an annual report
from the Oregon Criminal
Justice Commission.
A 2019 law passed by
the Legislature requires the
commission to compile and
review all data on reports of
hate and bias made to Oregon
Department of Justice’s Bias
Response Hotline, along with
data from law enforcement
agencies and courts across
the state. This is the commis-
sion’s second annual report
delivered on July 1 of every
year.
The hotline received over
1,000 calls in 2020 report-
ing instances of racial slurs,
threats, assault and murder
that peaked in August after
an initial jump in June.
There were about 470
reports in the first half of last
year and 630 in the second.
The hotline began taking
calls for the first time on Jan.
July 9
July 17
July 23
July 31
NATIONAL WEATHER TODAY
showers t-storms
rain
20s
flurries
30s
snow
40s
ice
50s
60s
cold front
E AST O REGONIAN
— Founded Oct. 16, 1875 —
70s
East Oregonian (USPS 164-980) is published Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday,
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postage paid at Pendleton, OR. Postmaster: send address changes to
East Oregonian, 211 S.E. Byers Ave. Pendleton, OR 97801.
Copyright © 2021, EO Media Group
90s
100s
warm front stationary front
high
low
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July 4 for parts of Idaho and eastern Montana.
Government officials warned people about
the heat, dispersed water to vulnerable people
and set up cooling stations, Brown said.
“We still lost too many lives,” Brown said.
Scientists consider the heat wave an ultra-
rare event that’s nonetheless consistent with
the effects of human-caused climate change.
In announcing the additional deaths,
Multnomah County officials emphasized
the steps they took in what they called “an
unprecedented mass casualty event.” Offi-
cials in Oregon’s most populous county, and
the county to have suffered the most reported
fatalities from the heat wave, noted they
opened their efforts included “cooling centers
and nine cooling spaces, directly contacting
tens of thousands of vulnerable elders, people
with disabilities and pregnant women” as well
as distributing fans and reaching out to people
experiencing homelessness.
— The Associated Press
110s
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Brown: Heat death toll
‘absolutely unacceptable’
PORTLAND — A Pacific Northwest heat
wave has killed nearly 100 people in Oregon
alone, a number that state’s governor called
“absolutely unacceptable.”
“Following events like this we always do
reviews and see what we can do better next
time,” Democratic Gov. Kate Brown said
Sunday, July 4, on “Face the Nation” on CBS.
Shortly after Brown’s appearance on the
national program, Multnomah County officials
revised their estimate of heat-related deaths to
64, boosting the state’s total to 99.
Hundreds are believed to have died from the
heat during the past week in the U.S. North-
west and southwestern Canada.
Records included 116 degrees in Portland
and 108 in Seattle. The hot weather was headed
east, with temperatures well above 100 forecast
Shown are noon positions of weather systems and precipitation. Temperature bands are highs for the day.
10s
said 31% of bias incidents
reported to the hotline were
perpetrated by the govern-
ment and 14% by police.
The report points out that
50% of calls made to the
hotline went to voicemail
and nearly a third went at
least a day without receiving
a call back. The commission
recommended hiring addi-
tional staff for the hotline in
the report.
The report noted 78 arrests
and 82 charges for bias crimes
in 2020, down from 88 arrests
over the year before. The
Legislature changed the name
of the charge “intimidation”
to “bias” and reclassified it as
a felony in 2019.
Of those 82 people charged
with bias crimes last year, 16
were convicted — 15 received
probation and one was
sentenced to prison, accord-
ing to the report.
While the report captures
instances of hate and bias
incidents, it said the data is
incomplete. Ten police depart-
ments reported no data on bias
crimes and 45 departments
reported incomplete data.
IN BRIEF
High 113° in Palm Springs, Calif. Low 39° in Leadville, Colo.
0s
2, 2020, which could help
explain the jump in reports in
the latter half of the year.
Among the reports, 492
were for harassment, 142 for
assault and one for murder.
Over 60% of those reports,
454 in total, involved anti-
Black incidents, including
250 directly related to Black
Lives Matter protests and
other reaction to the murder of
George Floyd in Minneapolis
by a police officer, according
to the report.
There were 110 reports of
anti-Latino incidents, 68 anti-
Asian incidents, 65 anti-Na-
tive American or anti-Alaskan
Native incidents, 22 anti-Arab
incidents and 21 anti-white
reports, over 100 reports did
not specify a race.
Nearly 100 people reported
a bias incident related to
COVID-19 and the racial
scapegoating associated with
the pandemic.
Multnomah, Washing-
ton and Clackamas coun-
ties accounted for 394 of
all reports: 271, 61 and 62
reports, respectively.
In a footnote, the report
Last
Yesterday’s National Extremes: (for the 48 contiguous states)
-0s
to one additional day of cold
water releases from Dwor-
shak.
“Being able to extend the
use of Dworshak cooling
water is important, one could
say critical, to adults,” Ebel
said.
The tradeoff is more
juvenile fall chinook will
go through hydroelec-
tric turbines because of the
reduced spill levels and fish
travel time will be increased.
Studies show the fewer
powerhouses encountered
by juvenile fish as they travel
to the ocean, the better they
survive to return as adults.
To compensate, the juve-
niles will be trapped as they
move through powerhouses
and taken downriver in trucks
to be released below Bonne-
ville Dam.
Many members of the
forum expressed reservations
because of the potential harm
to juvenile fish, but ultimately
either supported or declined
to object to the strategy.
“We understand some
of the concerns with alter-
ing the summer spill pattern
and potential effects on juve-
nile fish and travel time,”
said Claire McGrath, of the
National Oceanic and Atmo-
spheric Administration.
“Given the river conditions,
river temperature management
is our priority at this time.”
More than 1,000 hate and bias crimes
reported to Oregon hotline last year
NATIONAL EXTREMES
-10s
intake for the powerhouse at
each dams is about 30 meters
deep, compared to just 10 to
15 meters deep at the spill-
ways. The deeper water
is cooler and reducing the
spill also reduces mixing of
warmer surface water with
cooler water at depth.
It also means less water has
to be released from Dworshak
Dam on the North Fork of the
Clearwater River about 70
miles upstream from Lower
Granite Dam. Water released
deep below the surface of
Dworshak Reservoir is about
42 degrees and is used each
summer in an attempt to keep
temperatures of the Snake
River below Lower Granite
Dam at or below 68 degrees.
The reduced flows from
Dworshak are important
because the heat wave that
produced seven consecutive
days with temperatures at or
above 100 degrees in Lewis-
ton compelled the Army Corp
of Engineers to begin the cool
water releases nearly two
weeks early and before the
reservoir had refilled. That
means the water that gener-
ally lasts through August will
run out three to four weeks
early this summer and just as
adult fall chinook and some
steelhead are pushing upriver.
Modeling shows that for each
10 days the strategy adopted
Friday is in place, it will lead
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