[1] Corps Admits Big Foul Up In Montana Dam Operations
A combination of ESA fish obligations, optimistic computer models, and just plain bad luck all played roles that led to flooding below Montana's Libby Dam last June, according to a U.S. Army Corp of Engineers' report released Nov. 2.
But the report also concluded that if dam operators had stayed within their normal guidelines for refill and flood control, the flooding at Bonners Ferry, Idaho would never have occurred.
A large thunderstorm rolled through Montana in June, when the reservoir was full. Up to 55 kcfs had to be released all at once, including about 31 kcfs as spill in emergency operations that peaked on June 17, causing high water conditions downstream for weeks.
The report also failed to mention that seepage behind levees caused by high water levels in the Kootenai River caused about $10 million in property and crop damage, according to Boundary County's agricultural Extension Office in Bonners Ferry. The Corps only reported that it incurred about $1.5 million in emergency costs related to the incident, and damages that were prevented assuming the dam wasn't even there ($27 million to $45 million).
Corps spokesperson Nola Leyde said she did not know why the actual loss estimates weren't included, but she noted that nearly every year there is some crop loss from seepage. Other sources reported that some estimates of crop and power losses from the June event were included in an early draft of the report, but later excised.
The report also failed to include the potential cost of repairs to levees, said Sara Howe, University of Idaho Extension educator at Boundary County's Ag office. She said that could add about $50 million to the cost, since the bill for repairing the levees is estimated at about $1 million per mile.
The normal flood control guidelines developed by the Corps are part of a group of interim water management rules called VARQ (variable discharge flood control), that were developed to better balance upstream and downstream fish needs in Montana, and maintain more flexibility than standard flood control operations. VARQ tailored operations more to the estimate of the size of the water year, to make it easier for dam operators to achieve refill elevations mandated for salmon flows, even though the risks of floods slightly increased.
In addition to salmon flows, the Corps was expected to deal with a recent dam-operations BiOp completed by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service for ESA-listed sturgeon in the river. To help spawning sturgeon, the plan called for a spring pulse from Libby of 10 kcfs above the 24-kcfs capacity of the Libby powerhouse.
But after consulting with other agencies and concerned tribes, the agency adopted a "stacked flow" strategy to reduce adverse impacts downstream, while hoping to help initiate spawning activity among sturgeon near Bonners Ferry, which hasn't happened in over 30 years. Dam operators planned to release full powerhouse capacity on top of the local freshet (peak input from tributaries below the dam) in mid-to-late May to evaluate this operation's effectiveness for providing habitat attributes necessary for sturgeon.
The Corps of Engineers, using its water forecasting tools and updated water supply data, decided there wasn't much risk in keeping more water than VARQ operations called for in the reservoir behind Libby in early spring to help with the sturgeon pulse. Besides, it would also make it easier to get the reservoir to full elevation by June 30 to augment flows in the mainstem Columbia for ESA-listed salmon as called for in the FCRPS BiOp.
VARQ operations alone would have started reservoir outflows around April 20, nearly a month earlier than they actually began, but the Corps kept outflows at only one-quarter of VARQ mandates. When the large thunderstorm and rain event struck in June, it led to high water conditions downstream for weeks. The reservoir was too full, forcing the rapid release of as much as 55 kcfs, including about 31 kcfs as spill in emergency operations that peaked June 17.
Once the levees had been waterlogged, dam operators had to reduce flows slowly over a period of weeks to keep them from failing as they dried out.
On Oct. 25, at a meeting of the technical management team (TMT) that governs in-season hydro operations, Montana state biologist Brian Marotz presented results of fish surveys that showed most bull trout below the dam exhibited symptoms of gas bubble disease from the large amount of spill in June. He later told NW Fishletter that he doesn't think the spill had an extremely negative effect on the fish, but won't know until another survey of fish populations below the dam is conducted next spring.
At the same meeting, the Corp's Cathy Hlebechuk from the agency's Reservoir Control Center in Portland, said that before mid-May, all forecasts had pointed to a normal water year, with the sturgeon recovery team recommending the sturgeon pulses begin no sooner than May 16. But she said after the middle of the month, warm temperatures and rain on snow led to "incredible" runoff, with more heavy precipitation in June. She said it was easy to "second-guess" the operation now, but "we need to keep in mind the conditions we faced at the time."
Marotz said the Corps expected to release 10 kcfs above turbine capacity for the sturgeon pulse, which had worried the Kootenai Tribe enough to ask the Corps restrict the pulse to turbine capacity only. He told TMT members that there were times in May when the Corps couldn't release even that much, because high flows downriver would have flooded Bonners Ferry.
As it was, Marotz said, the spawning pulses in 2006 came too late to be very beneficial for the sturgeon.
The Corps' after-action report said the agency had determined that the risk associated with delaying higher releases "was somewhat low" given the water forecast issued for April. But it also said that using no flexibility with VARQ to shape flows in other years like 2003 to 2005 would have compromised the ability to fill the reservoir later to provide summer flow augmentation for salmon.
As for any benefits to sturgeon, the report said eggs were found near Bonners Ferry after the onset of spill, and spawning "may have occurred" in other places before and after the spill occurred. Five radio-tagged sturgeon were tracked to the highway bridge at Bonners Ferry, three before the spill, and two after it commenced on June 8. But it will take two or three years before any spawning success will be determined, when juveniles can be counted with conventional sampling gear.
After a Nov. 6 public meeting in Bonners Ferry sponsored by the Corps to discuss their report, Marotz said the agency "came clean" and admitted that if they had operated the dam according the VARQ, no flooding would have occurred, since they would have been releasing 18 kcfs at Libby starting April 18.
In the report, the Corps acknowledges that conflicting mandates between releasing water for sturgeon pulses, then later getting to full reservoir by June 30 as per the salmon BiOp, has put them in a bind.
It's got the Corps very concerned about using the VARQ guidelines in the future. Corps spokeswoman Karen Durham-Agularia told participants in the Nov. 6 Bonners Ferry meeting that her agency isn't yet ready to sign off on VARQ. The agency has already spent several million dollars developing an EIS on the water management that isn't yet complete.
The report itself said the Corps is committed to completing a detailed review to find out if the "operations that actually occurred fell within the range of conditions anticipated and considered in the development of the VARQ FC [flood control] Operating Procedures."
The Corps' recent Libby operations were recently criticized from another angle, when retired NOAA Fisheries employee Chris Ross sent a 'whistleblower' letter to the Inspector General's office at the Department of Defense in September calling for an investigation of the Corps' actions. Ross' letter says the Corps' delay in formally adopting VARQ led to the forced spill at Libby that cost the region $20 million or more in lost hydro revenue, in addition to losses from crop damage for which the feds may be liable.
Ross said the "flood" event was not caused by weather conditions outside the range of conditions considered in the development of VARQ.
Ross pointed out that if the Corps was not operating according to VARQ refill procedures, then it also violated the ESA by the unlawful taking of a listed species, namely, resident bull trout that were probably harmed by dissolved gas from the spill.
Ross told NW Fishletter that the DOD Hotline has referred the matter "to the appropriate authorities within the Department of Defense for information and any action they deem appropriate."
Meanwhile, the Corps must decide by December just what operation it plans for Libby next year. In any case, they are likely to be a lot more careful about downstream affects. Their after-action report contains a 41-page section on "Lessons Learned," but no mention of any potential liability for ESA fish losses, crops, or dike repair.
Bruce Measure, Montana member to the Northwest Power and Conservation Council, said he went away from the Nov. 6 meeting at Bonners Ferry feeling better. He said the Corps has promised to be more cautious in its assessments from operations in the future.
"We haven't had any problems until they started screwing with Libby," said Bonners Ferry mayor Darryl Kirby. "We support salmon recovery, but without destroying us at the same time."
Kirby said damage to the levees was huge and they will have to spend a lot to get them "up to snuff" to qualify for Corps funding. However, he said he was "truly flabbergasted," at the Nov. 6 meeting, "when they basically said they screwed up." -Bill Rudolph
The following links were mentioned in this story:
U.S. Army Corp of Engineers' report
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