DEQ Proposes, DRA opposes lower water quality standards

Falling Down on the Job

The DRA recently asked the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to review the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality’s proposed new rules for water quality on rivers in the state of Oregon. 

A letter sent in mid-February to Region 10 EPA Acting Director Mike Szerlog pointed out that the proposed new standards fail to provide adequate protection for salmon, steelhead and trout in all Oregon rivers, particularly the lower Deschutes. “DEQ’s new Fish and Aquatic Life Use rules,” the letter states, “fall short of the DEQ’s duties to protect, maintain and improve the quality of water for their beneficial uses, and fail to make decisions based on the best information currently available.” 

Quick review: The DEQ’s Rule-Making process was at issue last year, when a critical mass of DRA supporters delivered over 200 comments to DEQ to hold the line on a proposed change to the pH standard in the Deschutes Basin. But other new proposed rules came through unscathed by the public comment process. Hence the EPA letter.

The letter also points out that the new standards overlook existing data and assign less protective minimum standards than are currently in place, and asks EPA to reject the proposed rule changes and instruct DEQ on how to modify them to better protect trout, salmon, steelhead and bull trout. 

Half the Trout Left Out

The proposed new rules would institute a single, state-wide end-date of either May 15th or June 15th for trout spawning in all Oregon rivers. The earlier calendar date would apply to designated “Salmon and Trout Migration,” waters; the later date to “Core-Cold Water Habitat.” The Deschutes would fall under the latter, less stringent category. But as several studies, including extensive data collected by the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW), have documented, trout spawning in the Deschutes takes place under a much longer period of time. One investigation found trout spawning from February through August. The proposed DEQ rule changes, according to this report, would ignore half the trout population in the Deschutes. 

The rules would also mistakenly lump trout and steelhead spawning into the same time narrower time frame. On the Deschutes, while some overlap occurs between trout and steelhead spawning and egg incubation timing, the same study found that the two species’  spawning periods have only 14% of their respective spawning days in common.

Downgrade for the Deschutes

For the Deschutes, one of the most dire consequence of DEQ’s rule change would be its designation as “core cold water habitat,” meaning, under prescribed management protocols laid out by DEQ, that the Deschutes would be managed for non-salmonid species. “Designating the lower 84 miles of the Deschutes River for ‘cool water species’--i.e, habitat not primarily used by salmon, steelhead and trout–completely ignores the reality of the fish community in the river,” the letter contends. “The river guides who make hundreds of trout fishing trips annually down the Deschutes are not fishing for suckers, chubs or sculpins. Put another way, it would be hard to find another stream in Oregon more famous for its trout fishing than the lower 100 miles of the Deschutes River…”. 

While the DRA awaits a response from the EPA, Executive Director Sarah Cloud is calling for better cooperation between the two state water management agencies. “What’s frustrating is that ODFW has the maps and the data,” says Cloud. “ DEQ just isn’t bothering to use it. Every year these two agencies hold a joint meeting and ask us to believe that they’re working together to manage waterways in the state. But there’s no reason that DEQ couldn’t use ODFW’s data and come up with standards specific to each basin.”