It’s Not Just Water Over Dam To Some Grand Coulee Release Angers Fish Farmer, Tribe

A huge surge of water over Grand Coulee Dam killed more than 2,000 steelhead at a commercial fish farm this week.

The flood-prevention spill, which may have violated state law, sparked criticism from the Colville Confederated Tribes.

“It is unacceptable and unnecessary to kill fish in the name of routine flood prevention,” tribal officials wrote in a press release issued Friday.

While the tribes don’t own the fish farm, their reservation borders Lake Roosevelt and Rufus Woods Lake, the reservoirs above and below the dam.

The rush of churning water is causing gas bubbles in the commercial fish. Wildlife experts don’t know whether many wild fish also are suffering from gas bubble trauma.

Similar to the bends, the condition occurs when river water is dropped long distances or with great force, trapping undissolved nitrogen under the surface.

The trauma is taking its toll at Columbia River Fish Farm, 16 miles downstream from the dam, said Ed Shallenberger, vice president of the aqua-farm.

The gas raises blisters on the fins and gill plates of some fish and causes others’ eyes to bulge. It boils out of their bodies, lining the sleek fish with tiny, pearl-like bubbles.

Shallenberger said he won’t know the exact toll for a few days, when a scuba diver finishes plucking dead fish from the bottom of 13 pens. Diver Mick Dennis removed 2,371 of the one- to three-pound carcasses this week.

Shallenberger said Monday’s spill killed more fish than he’d lost in the entire previous year.

Monday afternoon there was no problem. All the water was flowing through the dam’s power producing turbines so none had to be spilled over the top.

But by 11 p.m., the amount spilling over the top was 49,000 cubic feet per second - roughly equivalent to the Spokane River at flood stage.

Shallenberger’s fish started dying the next morning, just as he predicted when dam operators called Monday night to warn him about the spill.

“I told the (dam) operator, ‘Don’t do that. You’re going to kill the fish,”’ said Shallenberger.

Steve Clark, power manager at the dam, said the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation had no choice but to release the water.

Dams on the Snake and Columbia rivers are running at full capacity, draining water from reservoirs to make way for a larger than average runoff expected before summer. The electricity being generated is more than power lines can handle, so some water must be spilled over dams most of the time.

Clark said a transmission line malfunctioned on Monday and dam operators had to divert water away from the turbines quickly or risk blowing out the line. That’s what caused the huge spill.

By Friday, the flow had been reduced to 25,000 cubic feet per second. The spills should continue through the month, as dam operators continue draining Lake Roosevelt, Clark said.

According to state standards, sustained nitrogen levels in rivers should not top 110 percent, meaning 10 percent of the nitrogen remains undissolved. Saturation can hit 125 percent, but only for two hours at a stretch.

At Shallenberger’s fish farm, the nitrogen level topped 135 percent Tuesday morning, and has remained above 120 percent ever since - raising the possibility that the spills are illegal.

“That really is astronomical,” said Ralph Elston, a Seattle-based fisheries consultant. Shallenberger is one of Elston’s clients.

Clark said much of the trouble starts upstream from Grand Coulee at British Columbia’s Hugh Keenleyside Dam. The nitrogen content of water coming out of Canada lately has been about 122 percent, he said.

Tribal officials believe Grand Coulee is the problem. On Friday, they issued a “notice of violation,” charging the Bureau of Reclamation with exceeding water quality standards and directing the agency to “take immediate steps to modify its operations.”

Clark said federal attorneys are reviewing the tribes’ demands and also checking on whether dams can exceed the state-mandated nitrogen levels, if they’re spilling water to prevent floods. He believes such exemptions are allowed.

Shallenberger raises steelhead for restaurants. The 1-year-old fish that died this week would have sold for more than $34,000, if they’d survived another two years, he said.

While he’s sympathetic to the loss, Clark noted the aqua-farm has operated six years and the dam for more than 50.

“When he put his business in, we indicated to him that there were times during the year when we had no choice but to spill,” Clark said.

Fish that aren’t penned can find safety in deep water, said Elston, the fisheries consultant. Even so, extreme levels of nitrogen eventually claim some wild fish, he said.

Shallenberger said he’s seen four dead wild fish - a walleye, a carp and two rainbow trout - since the big spill on Monday. His workers have seen sea gulls eating others.

“If you see a few dead fish, that means there’s probably a lot more” because most drift far downstream before coming to the surface, said Elston.

Joe Foster, a state fisheries biologist in Ephrata, said he would have heard by now if wild fish are dying in large numbers.

“They’d be pooling up” in eddies and behind debris, he said.

Rufus Woods Lake isn’t the only reservoir overloaded with nitrogen.

Water below several dams exceeds the state standard, said Eric Schlorff of the state Department of Ecology. Federal agencies are working to improve some of the dams this year, but Grand Coulee isn’t on the list.

The Associated Press reported Friday that 32 percent of the salmon smolt passing over Lower Granite Dam on the Snake River show symptoms of gas bubble trauma.

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