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Corps Spills Dworshak Reservoir by Mike Lee, Herald staff writer Tri-City Herald, January 23, 2001

The Corps of Engineers started spilling some of the Snake River system's best "fish water" Monday morning, more than quadrupling releases from Dworshak reservoir to generate hydropower for the Northwest.

With snowpack and rainfall perilously low, the move essentially just delays the day of reckoning for the region's overloaded and financially strapped power system.

"We are looking at disaster coming at us from the water situation," said Bob Heinith, coordinator of the hydro program at the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission in Portland.

Every dry day means the Northwest slips 1 percent further behind its long-term precipitation average, making irrigators uneasy about the high likelihood of not having enough water to go around this summer.

"It looks pretty bleak," said hydrologist Phil Morrisey at the Natural Resource Conservation Service in Boise. "It's one of the lowest snowpacks we have seen in the last 30 to 40 years.

"You would have to see tremendous storms week after week for the rest of the season" to get back near normal, he said.

The only storms, however, are at the Bonneville Power Administration, which is trying to balance immediate and future power needs with legal obligations to augment river flows when salmon are migrating.

For instance, the agency Monday announced another deal with an aluminum plant that will provide more power by reducing production at the plant in Columbia Falls, Mont.

Notwithstanding its ability to swing deals, "Bonneville is in between a rock and hard place," Heinith said. "They don't want to go into their reserves anymore and spend more money (to buy power) -- but to do that they have to continue to drain these reservoirs.

"The question," Heinith said, "is how far down are they going to go?"

The answer wasn't clear Monday. No end date has been set for the Dworshak drawdown, calling into question whether the controversial federal fish flow program will be used at all this year.

"We are starting to bleed all of (the reservoirs) dry," said Chris Zimmer, fish advocate in Seattle. "We are taking water now that's not only for fish, but is probably for power generation later."

Last week, BPA started an "aggressive" power generation plan by increasing the amount of water spilled at Grand Coulee Dam. Still, the agency spent more than $50 million to buy power from outside the region.

"We can't take anymore from that reservoir," agency spokesman Ed Mosey said Monday, noting the Coulee pool is already well below average for late January. "It's really kind of a balancing act that we are doing."

Now demand has shifted to the substantial Dworshak reservoir, near Orofino, Idaho. The Corps typically releases about 1,300 cubic feet per second from the reservoir this time of year. That was bumped up to 6,000 cfs on Monday.

"That's quite a surprise given the Clearwater Basin is one of the lower snowpack areas," said Morrisey at the snow survey office in Boise. "They don't have water to spare up there. ... I am sure it was a very difficult decision."

Dworshak offers BPA at least one advantage over Coulee: Water released from Dworshak passes nine federal dams on its way to the ocean, generating power at each. The Corps estimated the additional spill could generate enough power for 100,000 homes.

But taking water from Dworshak isn't without risks -- especially given the chances that it won't refill. For one thing, agencies rely on the mountain dam to provide cold water during the summer when the Snake River gets perilously hot for fish.

"Without significant rainfall, we are going to be hard-pressed to fulfill our fish requirements in the spring," Mosey said. "To the extent that we don't expect a refill, we are using both" power and fish water.

On Monday, regional weather watchers came the closest they have since October to predicting those reservoirs won't get back to normal this year. Most of the Northwest lags below 70 percent of normal precipitation -- with some spots as low as 50 percent.

The bulk of Columbia Basin water supply is held in the Rocky Mountains from Wyoming into British Columbia -- and none of it looks good for water supply.

At Mount Revelstoke in southeast British Columbia, for example, water held in the snowpack is about 70 percent of normal. And dozens of Idaho and Montana snow measurement sites show records lows.

"Now that we are almost to February and the levels are really half of normal, it becomes a very low probability of approaching normal conditions by April," Morrisey said.

Conditions in the Yakima Basin are no better -- though water watchers are holding out hope for a miracle. None of the Yakima's five main reservoirs is even half-full, with two of the largest three hovering at about 20 percent of capacity.

"Just hold tight," said Dave Henneman at the Bureau of Reclamation in Yakima. "There is not much you can really do."