Spring runoff outlook paltry

Despite recent rainstorms that dumped an inch of rain on the Spokane area, the outlook for spring runoff hasn’t improved much in the Inland Northwest.

“The only thing rain does is increase the flow in the rivers for a while,” said Avista Utilities spokesman Hugh Imhof, adding that precipitation can’t be stored unless it falls as snow.

“The Spokane situation is very low snowpack,” Imhof said.

That means the cost of producing power this summer will be higher as utility companies turn to sources more expensive than hydroelectric generation.

Avista Utilities is predicting runoff in the Spokane and Clark Fork river basins will be 58 percent of normal for now through the end of the summer, Imhof said. That will translate to hydropower generation that is 83 percent of an average year, he said.

The recent storms brought Spokane’s rainfall tally for May up to 1.5 inches, compared with the half-inch that usually has fallen by this time of the month, said Charles Ross, hydrologist for the National Weather Service in Spokane. However, in an average year, 12.24 inches of rain has fallen in the Spokane area by this time. This year, that number is hovering around 9 inches, Ross said.

“It’s hard to make up for all that missing snow in the mountains on a long-term basis,” especially for power generation, Ross said. The recent storm hit all of the Snake River drainages, and the headwaters of the St. Joe River picked up some needed rain, Ross said.

However, areas north of Spokane didn’t receive much.

In the Columbia and Snake river systems, runoff predictions are slightly above 70 percent of average, said John Fazio, a senior hydrosystem analyst for the Northwest Power and Conservation Council, during a meeting Wednesday in Walla Walla. Though predictions are up slightly from two weeks ago, runoff remains the 12th lowest of the 77 years on record, Fazio said.

“From 2000 on, every year we’ve had below-average runoff,” Fazio said.

Despite the low predicted runoff, the Northwest will not experience a power shortage. Quite the contrary. Fazio predicted a surplus power supply of close to 3,000 megawatts – enough to power 2 million homes – due to generation available through other sources, mostly gas-fired power plants.

Much of that generation would come from independent power producers, Fazio said. But generation through other sources, such as gas-fired plants, means higher prices. For example, hydropower is about $45 a megawatt cheaper to generate than electricity produced at gas-fired power plants, according to Avista.

The Spokane energy company has said it would turn to its gas-fired plants to make up for predicted hydropower shortages.

“The issue is not whether we have enough supply. The issue is the price of that supply,” Fazio said.