6 OCTOBER 1, 2003
Smoke Signals 2003 water feature
The Columbia River is Full of Surprises
Despite too many dams, over-fishing, ignorant timber and irrigation practices and dredging, one of the
Northwest's most important water resources still produces fish runs.
In the 2001 edition of Honoring Our
River, a student anthology, 8-year-old
Katie Finley, wrote:
We're mad at you
Us bugs are mad at you
You pollute our habitat
Us turtles too
You dump garbage in our water
And us frogs won't forget
And us snakes too.
Though Katie Finley may not have
had all of the fine points at her dis
posal when writing this, the facts cer
tainly back up her outrage:
D An Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) Superfund site was
established at the Portland Harbor
in 2000, but the Superfund recently
declined to fund a clean-up;
The Environmental Toxicology
Section in the Oregon Department
of Human Services advised based on
mercury tests of edible fish tissue
that all species of resident fish in the
main stem of the Willamette River
(a Columbia tributary) be eaten only
in moderate amounts;
B Dams block ancient salmon and
steelhead runs every 50 or so miles
along much of the length of the
1,214-mile river; and while some
have facilities to help the fish get
through, "one-third of all salmon
habitat in the Northwest has been
blocked by a few dams that do not
allow fish passage," according to the
Federal Caucus, a group of nine lead
ing federal agencies responsible for
the well-being of Northwest fish.
B In the spring of this year, a fed
eral judge in Portland called inad
equate a federal plan to save endan
gered salmon migrating through the
What's Bubbling Up
It's clean but it isn't always clear.
There are bubbles in the water
in Grand Meadows.
The problem, according to Tribal
Housing Authority Develop
ment and Construction Coor
dinator Duane Hussey, is that
the water goes through a great
drop in height very quickly as
it comes out of the mountains
from the spring source, and
then through a few bottlenecks
along the way to Grand Mead
ows, all of which force air into
the water.
This is not like pockets of
air, which are just bled off au
tomatically through strategi
cally, located air release
valves, said Tribal Engineer
Eric Scott. "This is 'entrained
air,'" which is the equivalent
of a lot of little bubbles not so
easily separated from the wa
ter. "If it sits a minute, it'll all
clear up," said Hussey.
J3 u
o
a.
Tribal Elder Maxine Leno, who
lives in the Grand Meadows devel
opment, agrees. "I don't have any
discoloration," she said. "It's just
kind of bubbly sometimes, but not
Columbia and Snake River system.
B Many environmentalists fear that
an upcoming dredging project will
dump enough river bottom sludge to
fill the Rose Garden 119 times on
delicate fish habitats (See Smoke
Signals 51503 issue).
Ten to 16 million adult salmon and
steelhead returned to the Columbia
each year in the days before the great
white influx of the mid-1800s, accord
ing to estimates cited by the Federal
Caucus. Today, we're lucky to see a
million swimming back up the river,
and 80-percent of those are raised in
hatcheries. Twelve salmon and steel
head species in the Columbia and
Snake Rivers are now listed under the
Endangered Species Act. And because
so few fish are still wild, every har
vest takes a greater toll on wild fish
than on hatchery fish, which contin
ues a disastrous dilution of the wild
stocks.
While it is tempting to blame the
dams for the on-going decimation of
these ancient fish runs, dams are only
a part of the problem.
"Dams were the primary cause,"
said John Harrison, Information Of
ficer for the Northwest Power Plan
ning Council, but blame also is due to
a number of less obvious practices:
B The resource was over-fished from
late in the 19lh Century through the
1920s and 30s.
B Forest practices caused much dam
age. They included "splash dams."
"Typically, at the turn of the cen
tury," said Harrison, "a few (trees)
were cut to fall over a river tribu
tary. A reservoir would build up
behind. More would be cut and
dragged into the pond. Ultimately,
all the time either. It doesn't taste bad
or anything."
"Bugged by it?" asked Tribal mem-
i r
Many Grand Meadows Residents
Rely On Bottled Water Tribal Elder Donna
Stronach holds up a glass of water from the tap at her
son's house in Grand Meadows. The local water
authority has said local water lines need to be
flushed more and the Tribe has said they are willing
to try the idea if it helps clear up the problem.
ber Jon George. "Naw. We're not. We
know what it's caused by. It clears
up. You put it in a glass and it clears
up in less than a minute. Tastes just
fine. Grand Ronde Water's some of the
"If d"
It's A Mystery The Columbia River has suffered some great environmental
humiliations but efforts to turn bad practices around seem to be making headway.
With countless factors playing a part, however, nobody knows yet if the river really is
better for the long run.
they would dynamite the dam and
all of the trees in the water would
sluice down into the river. It was
devastating for salmon spawning
habitat.
Irrigation practices have hurt the
fish runs. Withdrawing water from
salmon spawning streams has al
lowed temperatures to rise above
what is healthy for fish.
Cattle drinking from rivers and
streams have destroyed vegetation
along stream banks and polluted the
waters with their wastes. Vegeta
tion keeps water cool in the summer
and its lack allows the water to heat
up as well as increase erosion.
In the face of all these issues, the Co
lumbia is now nevertheless experienc
ing the second year in a row of record
in Grand
best around. Comes off the springs on
the hillside."
But Tribal Elder and Tribal Council
member Val Grout drinks
bottled water instead.
"It's cloudy," she said. "It's
been that way ever since I've
been here." She brought up the
matter at a water board meet
ing two years ago, but has just
gotten used to it since.
"I've learned to live with it,"
she said and isn't even sure
there is anything wrong with
it. "Maybe because it's not
clear, I wonder."
The fix can not focus on the
extreme drop out of the moun
tains, said Scott, because the
system relies on gravity to
bring the water through the
system, and while easing the
drop might lessen the turbu
lent flow, it also would defeat
the purpose of having a grav
ity fed system.
On the other hand, when the water
is down to the level of local homes and
businesses, then different-sized pipes,
the newer ones with air release valves
and the older ones without, have an
fish runs that nobody can fully explain.
"The big unknown," according to
Harrison, "is the ocean. Conditions
vary and are cyclical. If the ocean en
vironment is good and there is an ad
equate food supply, then they do well,
obviously. If ocean conditions are poor,
we see the impact in fewer returning
fish."
It is not as if everybody has been sit
ting still as the fish runs declined, but
neither is it true that the efforts have
showed steady improvement over the
years. Still, the success of the last few
years has been hard to argue with.
"I don't want to be polly-annish about
it," said Harrison, "but compared to
where we were 20 years ago, we're see
ing some success. You can't deny the
fact."
Meadows?
impact that can be fixed.
"More loops," said Scott, referring
to pipes laid out in a circular pat
tern, which gives the air time and
space to rise to the top and be bled
off; and to reduce the bottlenecks, ret
rofitting with pipes of similar sizes.
"We've been looking at that for a
couple of years now," said Karl
Ekstrom, Manager of the local wa
ter system. "Originally we were go
ing to take care of it piece by piece
but now we're going to try to take
care of that all at one time."
The project is not yet scheduled,
however, and Ekstrom was unable
to predict when it might be. He sug
gested a simple way to lessen the in
convenience. "With that system, there are. sev
eral dead end lines, and they should
be flushed regularly," Ekstrom said.
"The Health Division requires pub
lic systems to be flushed on a regu
lar basis. If you're getting com
plaints, they you would flush a little
more regularly."
"If that would help the problem,"
said Public Works Director John
Mercier, "I'd be glad to try it."