Going With The Flow Northwest Dams Are Spilling Extra Water To Cope With High Runoff

Fri., May 31, 1996

Associated Press

Dams throughout the Northwest are spilling water to reduce the backlog from a wet winter.

The amount of water headed toward the Pacific is something that hasn’t been seen in a generation, said Dulcy Mahar, a spokeswoman for the Bonneville Power Administration.

The Snake River now carries more water than the Columbia normally does this time of the year. The Columbia has twice its usual flow.

Forecasters expect about 134 million acre-feet to pass The Dalles, Ore., this year through the end of July.

By late last week, only 85 million acre-feet had flowed down the Columbia, leaving 49 million acre-feet to come - much of it still locked in Rocky Mountain and British Columbia snow.

That 49 million acre-feet is enough to cover the state of Washington with one foot of water.

Still, officials don’t expect flooding, except in a few susceptible areas, said Clint Stiger, a hydrologist for the National Weather Service in Portland.

There could be flooding in low areas along the Yakima River, said Doug McDonnal, a Weather Service hydrologist in Seattle.

Predictions of water height next month at Parker, near Yakima, range from 8.6 feet to 10.6 feet. Flood stage in that section of the river is 10 feet, McDonnal said.

The last time the Columbia flooded massively in June - in 1948 - the snowpack was substantially greater than this year, Stiger said. Storage dams high in the Rockies and in British Columbia offer more flood control than in 1948, he said.

The big water supply is good news for farmers.

The Bureau of Reclamation has nearly filled most of its irrigation storage reservoirs in the Yakima’s headwaters, said Stephen Fanciullo, a hydrologist for the bureau in Yakima.

Surveys last week showed the Yakima’s snowpack water content to be 114 percent of normal, he said.

Dams on the Columbia and Snake systems also are beginning to store water, said Bob Mazurkiewicz, a BPA executive based in Richland.

Water managers used the reservoirs to blunt the worst of flooding in February, but drew then released water for about two months as they prepared to capture the spring flow, Mazurkiewicz said.

Reservoirs began storing water about two weeks ago. But flows are so great that water managers are sending huge amounts downstream even as they fill reservoirs, Mazurkiewicz said.

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