Updates on the Feasibility Study can be found at: http://www.nww.usace.army.mil/wwrbasin/default.htm
 

PowerPoint Presentation on Storage Sites
(presented 6/16/03 at WWBWC Meeting, PowerPoint, 1.5MB)

SPENDING BILL INCLUDES $1 MILLION TO BOOST WALLA WALLA FLOWS

By Wil Phinney

The Energy and Water Development Appropriations Bill signed into law by President Bush on Nov. 11 includes $1 million to fund a Corps of Engineers' feasibility study to determine how best to maintain salmon-sustainable flows in the Walla Walla River.

Leaders of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, a driving force behind salmon restoration in the Walla Walla Basin, are currently negotiating with the Corps to become the project's formal sponsor.

The project actually began more than five years ago in 1996 when the Corps began to develop the Walla Walla River Watershed General Investigation Reconnaissance Report under the authority of the Resolution by the Senate Committee on Public Works. During 1996, the Corps spent $58,000 on that effort. The Reconnaissance Report was completed in 1997 utilizing Corps funds in the amount of $225,000.

The reconnaissance study was designed to "determine if the federal government should proceed to the next step, feasibility phase, in the resolution of the identified problems." The report concluded, "For salmon reintroduction, the Corps has a direct federal interest in seeing this effort pursed in more detail through a feasibility study."

Further, the report stated, "As part of the federal government, the Corps has a trust responsibility under the Treaty of 1855 with the Walla Walla, Cayuse and Umatilla Indian Tribes. The Walla Walla River Basin is part of the ceded territory these tribes relinquished as part of the peace treaty of 1855. As part of that trust responsibility, the Corps is required to insure that there are salmon in the rivers for the Tribes to gather."

The Corps' reconnaissance study identified potential solutions for in-stream flow enhancement, including an exchange of Columbia River water, pumped to an existing irrigation system in return for reduced water diverted from the river; conservation and consolidation of an irrigation delivery system that includes leaky lines running parallel to each other; purchase of available water rights; and off-channel headwater storage.

The reconnaissance study was the first phase in a three-legged plan that includes the feasibility study, expected to take two to four years, and then, following congressional approval and funding, construction of a project that resolves long-term flow problems.

The feasibility study was sidelined at least twice, but was revived by congressional action, a revision in the Bush Administration's fiscal agenda following the terrorist attacks in September, a strong grass-roots lobbying effort and cooperation from the Northwest's congressional delegation.

The funds were introduced into the House Energy and Water Appropriations bill by Rep. George Nethercutt, R-Wash., with the support of Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., and the Senate Energy and Water Development Appropriations Bill by Washington Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell, both Democrats, and Oregon Sens. Ron Wyden, a Democrat, and Republican Gordon Smith.

Support of both the Washington and Oregon Congressional delegations was
crucial because the Walla Walla River Basin straddles the state line.

For nearly a century, the Walla Walla River near Milton-Freewater, Oregon, and at lower stretches in Washington, has run dry, prohibiting the restoration of salmon in what is considered pristine headwaters. However, the Walla Walla Irrigation District, under a civil penalty settlement with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which listed the bull trout as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, agreed last year to maintain flows of 13 cubic feet per second. This year, the irrigators left 18cfs in the river and next year they will be required to leave 25cfs in the channel for fish.

This year, with the 18cfs, was the first time since irrigation began that the river did not run dry. Also for the first time this year, biologists did not have to rescue fish stranded in potholes.

Ron Brown, chairman of the Walla Walla Irrigation District, said the federal appropriation is necessary to save the agricultural economy of the region.

"If a million dollars can bring water into the valley it's a good thing," said Brown. "We need the study to supplement irrigation and the only way to do the study is with federal money. The farmers here are maxed out on what we're paying with the USFS civil penalty settlement and improving the piping system for efficiency. I think it's a good plan."

Brown said it will require a water exchange or off-stream storage in the mountains or on farmland to provide enough water for all users.

"If we're going to try to have sustainable agriculture and fishery industries, we have to work together to make that happen," he said. "The Tribes have been good. You've seen what they've done with the river -- fixing diversions, sponsoring ladders, helping with the piping. I don't see any reason not to support this."

Brent Stevenson, manager of the Walla Walla Irrigation District, said the study -- and hopefully it's eventual resolution -- "means the survival of irrigation and reintroduction of chinook salmon."

Stevenson said he's optimistic that funding of the study will lead to appropriations for construction of a project in a few years.

"I'd hate for this to be just another study. We hope the intention is to complete the project," he said.

The irrigation district spokesmen were echoed by John Zerba of Milton-Freewater, chairman of the Walla Walla Watershed Council, which in June received a grant of $73,000 from the Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board to move the existing Huffman Canal into an enclosed PVC pipe. (Funding of $4.2 million in watershed improvement grants to watershed groups comes from a voter-approved ballot measure, which designated 15 percent of lottery proceeds for watershed enhancement and maintenance of state parks.) The canal-to-pipe project also is funded through cost-share with the Oregon Water Resources Department, the Hudson Bay Irrigation District and the Bureau of Reclamation. The water saved through use of the more efficient pipe -- about 2cfs -- will be left in stream for fish.

Gary James, Fisheries Program manager for the Confederated Tribes, has called the Walla Walla a "salmon factory waiting to happen." He said fish are available for supplementation, pristine headwater habitat is abundant, degraded habitat is being improved, passage problems are being fixed, and flows have been increased temporarily through the civil penalty settlement. All that's left, he said, are sustained, long-term flows.

More than 1,200 adult spring chinook salmon, surplus from the Ringold Hatchery near Priest Rapids, Wash., were released into the Walla Walla River in August during the second year of an effort to restore the extirpated run.

Last year, 364 mature adult spring chinook produced 136 redds in the South Fork Walla Walla River and its Mill Creek tributary. Biologists from the Confederated Tribes saw juveniles last spring from that initial outplanting and measured even greater success this fall from the two-day release that occurred in early August.

"We can have as much or more success in the Walla Walla as we are having in the Umatilla River," said James. For the second year in a row, more than 5,000 spring chinook salmon returned to the Umatilla River, where Indians and non-Indians have enjoyed a season in eight of the last 12 years. So many hatchery-produced fish have migrated back to the Umatilla River that the restoration program is now able to use its own returns as hatchery broodstock.

The Walla Walla River originates in the Blue Mountains of northeast Oregon and generally flows west and north, entering the Columbia River at river mile 315 near Wallula. It drains 1,758 square miles. Elevations range from more than 6,000 feet in the Blue Mountains to 270 feet at the mouth. The main tributaries are the North Fork, South Fork and Touchet rivers, and Couse, Birch, Mill, Pine, Dry, Yellowhawk and Cottonwood creeks.