[8] Corps Calls For Public Comment On Flood Control Report
The Corps of Engineers has just released a draft report that identifies possible new ways of handling its flood control obligations while providing more water to meet flow objectives for fish migration in the Columbia River.
In a Jan. 26 letter to interested parties, COE District Engineer Debra Lewis said the purpose of the study is to determine if there is a federal interest in pursuing a "more detailed feasibility analysis" for modifying current operations to benefit ESA-listed fish. She estimated that it would take about 6 years and $30 million to accomplish the study.
According to the study's executive summary, its objectives were based on Congressional language and supplemental language used in the 2000 hydro BiOp that calls for looking at ways to reduce effects of flood control operations on the spring freshet. The language calls for focusing on years of average and below-average runoff, so that spring and summer flow objectives in the Snake and Columbia rivers could be met more often.
Other study objectives include minimizing flow fluctuations when fall chinook are emerging, and achieving a high probability of refill at large reservoirs, but still providing "acceptable" flood protection for inhabitants of the floodplain.
The Corps says in 2004 NMFS compared fish survivals between its proposed operations and a hypothetical reference operation that the agency considered the best operations scenario for fish passage in the hydro system. NMFS estimated that ESA-listed Snake fall chinook and steelhead and Mid-C steelhead would get a 3-percent to 4-percent survival boost. The reference operation shifts water from Columbia storage for summer flow augmentation.
"These increases are based on the assumption there is a positive flow/survival relationship," says the Corps' report. "Without this assumption, the increase would only be one percent for all species."
Many different measures may have to be taken before operations are changed, including purchasing land and water, building new storage dams, upgrading levees, and improving the reliability of runoff forecasts.
The draft says there is a federal interest in pursuing a feasibility study and the report contains an alternative plan that could provide acceptable levels of flood control, fisheries benefits, and is "environmentally acceptable." But such an alternative would change systemwide storage control and calls for upgrading or removing levees, along with re-defining "acceptable levels of damage reduction." -B. R.
The following links were mentioned in this story:
Draft Columbia River Reconaissance Report, December 2005
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