I am a supporter of Central Oregon LandWatch. They do great work in Central Oregon in many areas and since Tod Heisler became affiliated with them have become an important voice in local water issues. Over the past few months they have written a series on steelhead which is generally informative (see past posts for some comments). The final installment was recently released, which I appreciate but, of course, have comments. The final installment revisits the shortcomings in the Deschutes Basin Habitat Conservation Plan, which I discussed extensively years ago, but there is value revisiting them and I applaud COLW for continuing this discussion. Unfortunately, the article attempts to make too strong a connection between irrigation withdrawals and the success, or lack thereof, of reintroducing steelhead into the Upper Basin. Paradoxically, they make no mention of spring chinook or sockeye, the other two anadromous species that are impacted by the Pelton Round Butte dam complex.

The article is framed by the statement that “efforts to reestablish a naturally reproducing Upper Basin steelhead population remain limited by insufficient water quality and quantity due to withdrawals for irrigation.” Water quantity and quality, particularly in the Crooked River, are certainly factors but they are not the primary ones with regard to anadromous fish reintroduction.

Without question, the biggest factors precluding the reintroduction of naturally spawning steelhead and spring chinook in the Upper Basin are the existence of the Pelton Round Butte project, the use of hatchery stock, and global warming.  The SWW is at best a band aid and highly domesticated fish such as those from the Round Butte Hatchery have very low rates of reproductive success.  Poor ocean conditions from global warming, in spite of cooler waters far off shore last summer which helped this year’s steelhead returns, continue to trend worse and are negatively impacting all Columbia Basin anadromous fish.  I have had a number of posts recently on this.

Of course, there is no doubt that irrigation practices are a key factor in local fish health.  The Middle Deschutes and Crooked rivers along with Whychus, McKay, and Ochoco creeks suffer from lethally low and variable flows that impact resident fish along with anadromous fish.  Nevertheless, until there is effective fish passage for wild fish, not only hatchery fish, steelhead and spring chinook will struggle.  Further, until ocean conditions consistently improve there will not be enough wild fish to pass them into the Upper Basin.

Like most of the scientists I talk to, I remain a supporter of the reintroduction effort as operation of the SWW as it appears to have no negative impact on resident fish heath in the Lower Deschutes, but acknowledge that odds of sustainable reintroduction success remain low even if water quantity and quality in the Crooked improves (where most steelhead and many chinook want to go) and Bowman and Ochoco Dams are removed (not in my lifetime). BTW, the biggest threat on the horizon is the incoming president’s proposal to gut the EPA which could negate or weaken enforcement of the ESA and the DBHCP.  Yikes!

In spite of these comments, I encourage you to read COLW’s article. It certainly has has good information on the shortcomings of the DBHCP.