Corps Begins Reducing Dworshak Dam Spill Those Upset With The Use Of Reservoir Water Continue To Prepare For Legal Action

The Army Corps of Engineers has started reducing the spill from Dworshak Dam as the Snake and Clearwater rivers surged to their highest levels this year and provided enough water for migrating salmon.

The corps moved as the Idaho Division of Environmental Quality prepared for a meeting today in Lewiston to debate the merits of the spill at Dworshak.

Meanwhile, the Orofino Chamber of Commerce and others who are upset with the use of Dworshak Reservoir water to help speed young steelhead and endangered salmon smolts in their migration to the sea continued preparing for legal action against the spill.

The corps began closing spillway valves at Dworshak Dam on Monday to cut the flow of water by nearly 60 percent to about 9,400 cubic feet per second. Releases had been at about 23,000 cfs since mid-April, causing the reservoir to drop about 30 feet.

Weekend rains and warmer weather increased runoff and raised the levels of the Clearwater and Snake rivers downstream from Dworshak to seasonal peaks on Monday. The flow of the Snake at Lower Granite Dam topped 130,000 cfs, prompting the corps to reduce the Dworshak release, a spokesman at the agency’s Reservoir Control Center in Portland said.

The National Marine Fisheries Service has targeted a flow of 100,000 cfs at Lower Granite - 32 miles west of Clarkston, Wash. - to protect migrating chinook salmon and steelhead smolts. The agency also is spilling water over the dam each night when the fish are most active to give them another route around the dam’s turbines.

Forecasts call for the Snake’s flow to remain above 100,000 cfs for at least four or five days.

Jim Bellatty, the Idaho Division of Environmental Quality’s acting regional administrator in Lewiston, said today’s meeting will gather testimony on the effects of and public opinions about the Dworshak spill.

Last Friday, Gov. Phil Batt granted federal agencies an extension until May 20 of a waiver allowing them to violate state standards for levels of dissolved gases in the Clearwater River below Dworshak Dam. But Bellatty said the exemption could be canceled if new evidence shows the spill is hurting beneficial uses, such as fish.

Meanwhile, an attorney for the Orofino Chamber of Commerce and its allies said they would sue the federal government if it calls for more water from Dworshak after May 20.

The National Marine Fisheries Service’s plan for operating federal dams to help the salmon calls for drawing as much as 80 feet of water from Dworshak Reservoir by late July.