the film forum library tutorial contact DONATE

Lawsuit Hits Lower Columbia Dam Operator on 'Hot Water Pollution' by Pete Danko Portland Business Journal, December 9, 2021

"Our team is working tirelessly to find solutions that balance all of the purposes of the system, including the needs of
fish and wildlife, flood risk management, navigation, power generation, recreation, water supply, and water quality."

Permits would force study and solutions, Columbia Riverkeeper says.

Environmental advocates are suing the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, alleging unpermitted releases of heated cooling water and turbine lubricants from The Dalles, John Day and McNary dams on the Columbia River.

In its lawsuit, Columbia Riverkeeper charges rising water temperatures are threatening salmon and toxins are threatening the health of people who eat fish from the river.

If that sounds familiar, it should: Eight years ago, Riverkeeper filed a similar suit involving those three dams, another on the lower Columbia and four more on the Snake River.

After a settlement, the four Snake River dams have their permits, but not the ones on the Columbia. (Bonneville Dam also is without a permit, but for technical reasons the new lawsuit does not name it, although it remains a problem as well, Riverkeeper said.)

"No one is above the law; the Army Corps agreed to obtain permits for its dams over seven years ago, but it failed to do so," Miles Johnson, a senior attorney for Columbia Riverkeeper, said in a statement. "Clean Water Act permits would require the Army Corps to study and implement real solutions to the dams' hot water pollution, like drawing down John Day reservoir during the spring and summer to keep the river cool and help salmon migrate safely."

Asked for comment on the lawsuit, the Corps' public affairs office in Washington D.C. emailed this response:

We just became aware of the lawsuit and will coordinate with the Department of Justice to determine the appropriate next steps. The US Army Corps of Engineers applied for the permits at issue in this complaint in 2015, and we take our Clean Water Act obligations seriously.

Our team is working tirelessly to find solutions that balance all of the purposes of the system, including the needs of fish and wildlife, flood risk management, navigation, power generation, recreation, water supply, and water quality.

To dispel misinformation, USACE notes that Columbia Riverkeeper's press release does not accurately describe our ability to manage water behind the dams in the lower Columbia River. Although the pools behind the Lower Columbia River dams are considered reservoirs, they are largely not storage reservoirs, but rather run-of-river facilities. This limits our ability to impact water temperatures by drawing down water levels in the spring.

"Temperature water quality criteria that protect summer salmonid and steelhead migration are exceeded frequently between June and October, and the temperature criteria that protect the fall salmonid spawning are exceeded in the lower Columbia in the fall," according to a recent report from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

The study said dams on the Columbia and Snake raised temperatures at John Day Dam as much as 4.5 degrees Fahrenheit in the late summer, a critical period for the fish.

Water is used to cool various dam components. That contributes to warming in the river, but isn't the biggest issue, Riverkeeper's Johnson said.

"It's really the reservoirs that are creating these big temperature problems," Johnson said. "A lot of the hesitancy (on the Corps' part) is that this permitting process will require the Corps to study and implement solutions to the way those reservoirs are operated that will probably not be well received by hydropower and transportation interests."

Related Pages:
Columbia Riverkeeper v. United States Army Corps of Engineers, Eastern District of Washington for the U.S. District Court, No. 4:21-cv-05152.