New Opportunities to Improve Deschutes Water Quality

Over the last year and a half, the Deschutes River Alliance (DRA) has worked tirelessly to ensure that the lower Deschutes River’s redband trout have access to water with dissolved oxygen levels needed to thrive. Oregon law has strict standards to ensure the health of these fish, but at every step, Oregon’s Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) has ignored current laws, misrepresented what is actually required, and delayed taking actions to meet the biological needs of redband trout. Until DEQ does better, our fight continues.

Since August 2020, the DRA has submitted a series of pollution complaints and petitions to DEQ and their governing body, the Oregon Environmental Quality Commission. All along, our request has been simple – enforce the dissolved oxygen levels required by Oregon’s currently approved laws.

Our most recent petition was given a special hearing in front of the Environmental Quality Commission in October. Unfortunately, that hearing continued the trend of inaction. DEQ’s memo outlining our stance provided to the Commissioners mischaracterized our concerns and resulted in a less than productive discussion on the matter. As a result, the Commission deferred to DEQ and chose to wait to resolve the issue. That decision guarantees that the lower Deschutes’ redband trout will face at least one more spawning season lacking water with sufficient dissolved oxygen.

During the October hearing, the Commissioner ordered DEQ to hold a meeting to discuss the many water quality issues on the lower Deschutes. The meeting will be held “before March” 2022. Planning another meeting to discuss this issue is not enough. This issue needs to be solved urgently and our team isn’t backing down.

Following the October hearing, DEQ asked the DRA to be a member of a Rules Advisory Committee. As part of this Committee, DRA will help review updates to Oregon’s water quality standards. The Committee will address the same dissolved oxygen issue that we have been raising, among many other topics. This gives the DRA a seat at the table to help ensure that any changes to water quality standards will benefit, and not further harm, aquatic life.

In addition, the DRA has sent a trio of letters expressing concern over the demonstrated lack of urgency in addressing this matter. The first was sent to the DEQ seeking temporary protections until DEQ’s promised law updates. The second letter asked DEQ how it justifies its memo’s mischaracterizations. Neither letter has received a substantive response.

Late last month, we sent a third letter to the Environmental Protection Agency and asked for further clarification on the issue. We eagerly await their response and are preparing to pursue the issue further with the EPA if necessary.

Our work will continue until the lower Deschutes River’s water quality supports all of the fish, wildlife, and people who rely on it. In the coming months, we will call on our supporters to share their voices to protect the river we all love. Please keep close watch to see how you can take action on this issue.