Faults, Fault and Falsehood Part 2
Will Portland General Electric “do the right thing,”--live up to the requirements laid out in their 50-year license to operate dams on the Deschutes River or engage in a campaign of deceit, deferring any accountability to the end of the license period in 2055?
PGE’s current actions–or lack of them–sure make it look like the company is willing to prevaricate for another 32 years.
The Deschutes River Alliance’s 2022 water quality report outlines in fine-grained detail the trouble caused by PGE’s selective withdrawal tower.
Here’s the highlights:
Flow regimes from Lake Billy Chinook, the reservoir behind Round Butte Dam, from early November to early summer, are 100% surface water. This water is highly polluted. It is contaminated with nitrates that exceed federal limits for both fish and humans. It also features high levels of chlorpyrifos, a pesticide recently banned by the Environmental Protection Agency.
“The amount of blue-green algae in Lake Billy Chinook is a health hazard. The Oregon Health Authority has issued a standing advisory that the water here is unsafe for human consumption, and that swimming in the reservoir poses a risk for humans, and could be lethal to dogs.”
Current flows also warm the lower river disproportionately to intentional cooling that occurs in the fall. (more on this in a bit.) This includes intentionally warming the river during critical spawning and rearing periods for chinook, steelhead trout and bull trout.
This water also contains alarming levels of planktonic, free-floating algae, as well as cyanobacteria. The amount of blue-green algae in Lake Billy Chinook is a health hazard. The Oregon Health Authority has issued a standing advisory that the water here is unsafe for human consumption, and that swimming in the reservoir poses a risk for humans, and could be lethal to dogs. Again, this is the water that is mainlined into the lower Deschutes River for ten months out of the year.
Both increased water temperature and agricultural pollution from Lake Billy Chinook cause excessive algal growth, which accounts for the explosion in nuisance diatom, the variety of algae that has infested the lower Deschutes River as the result of surface water releases from Lake Billy Chinook. Excessive algae interrupts the life cycle of aquatic insects that rely on clean rock surfaces.
In 2022, the lower Deschutes River less than a mile downstream of Pelton Dam registered 170 days of violations of pH standards. These violations occur because of the massive increase in photosynthesis in-river, which is the result of increased algal growth.
Also in 2022, the last seven days of the designated spawning period for steelhead and salmon in the lower Deschutes coincided with violations of the state standard for water temperatures.
Portland General Electric's mismanagement tarnishes the pristine beauty of the Lower Deschutes River, a desert oasis betrayed.
An 8,000-fold increase in the polychaete (little worm) that hosts the ceratanova shasta parasite was measured in the lower Deschutes. C. shasta lethal to spring chinook salmon. Though data is lacking, the presence of c.shasta is likely the result of deteriorated water quality in the lower river.
So what is Portland General Electric doing to address these issues? Not enough. Violations of water quality standards have continued into 2023. What’s crazy-making about this scenario, as the Deschutes River Alliance weekly science snapshot shows, is that the problems PGE has created with its selective withdrawal tower are fixable. Simply by releasing the maximum amount of cold water from the bottom of the reservoir, temperature and pH come into compliance. Fish are happier. And so are fishers, of the human and non-human variety.
So what gives? If PGE can fix the river it broke with the flip of a switch, why doesn’t the company do so? Stay tuned. I’ll attempt to answer that question on Friday’s edition. Thanks for reading.
If you enjoy what you’ve read, and you want to support my mission to remove dams throughout the US, please purchase my latest book, Cracked: The Future of Dams in a Hot Chaotic World.
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