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Dworshak Tapped Again for Power by Eric Barker Lewiston Tribune, February 16, 2001

Low reservoir levels around the Northwest blamed for change in corps policy

The tap is on again at Dworshak Reservoir.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers increased flows out of the reservoir at midnight Monday to ensure the Bonneville Power Administration could meet its power load.

According to a news release from the BPA, cold weather combined with unusually low reservoir levels in the Pacific Northwest has once again resulted in a regional power shortage.

The agency asked for increased flows to avoid the need to buy more power on the open market, where prices have soared because of California's ill-fated attempt to deregulate its power industry.

BPA has spent $500 million to purchase power between October and January.

"That is 120 percent of what we projected we would spend for the entire year," said spokesman Ed Mosey at Portland.

Last week the agency said salmon-friendly flows might be sacrificed to meet load or power demand. But it also said BPA would try to spare water behind Dworshak Dam so more flows would be available to help flush young salmon to the ocean this spring and summer.

Mosey said Tuesday that Grand Coulee and other reservoirs on the Columbia River are too low to exclude Dworshak water.

"We are seeking to appropriately balance the needs of fish and electricity consumers during a serious drought," said Steve Wright, acting BPA administrator.

"Even so, we have employed every means available to minimize deviations from salmon guidelines this year and will continue to do so."

In normal years BPA relies on surplus power from California in the winter months to meet its demand. But shortages and problems related to deregulation in California have dried up that surplus.

Dworshak is used as a tool to help flush young salmon through slackwater reservoirs on the Snake and Columbia rivers and to cool the Snake River during the heat of summer.

To protect that option in what is sure to be a low water year, the National Marine Fisheries Service, Idaho Fish and Game Department and the Nez Perce Tribe have encouraged the corps and BPA to rely on other dams for power generation.

But flows from Dworshak are desirable because the water can also be used to generate power at the eight dams downstream.

According Mosey, water released from Dworshak and other projects since Jan. 18 is projected to decrease flows in May and June at lower Granite Dam, 30 miles west of Clarkston, by 1.8 percent, and flows at McNary Dam on the Columbia River by less than one half of 1 percent.

"We are not hammering these reservoirs to meet power supply. In fact it's very little water," said Mosey.

However, Dworshak has only about a 68 percent chance of refilling this summer, and is some 60 feet below the flood control level projected by the corps.

Each year the corps calculates the level the region's reservoirs need to be to avoid flooding during spring runoff. In most years, it has to order water releases to reach flood control elevations.