The Truth About the Tower
Last week, the Deschutes River Alliance learned about a news piece on the Selective Water Withdrawal Tower at Pelton Round Butte that concerned us, and many of you when you viewed it. The piece could be interpreted as saying the Tower was benefiting the region and the reintroduction program is successful. As we all know neither could be further from the truth.
We addressed many issues in the piece in an email to the reporter which we want to share with our supporters. Since Tower operations began, Portland General Electric has spun several myths which were unwittingly repeated and promoted by the reporter. The result was a news piece that was riddled with inaccuracies.
The River Pays the Price
Since the operation of the Tower began 14 years ago, the lower Deschutes River has paid a price for the failing reintroduction program. The discharging of warm polluted water into the lower River has resulted in:
An increase of Ceratonova shasta which is at three times the lethal level to spring chinook in the river post tower—this is resulting in the impending extinction of spring chinook in the lower Deschutes
The prevalence of black spot disease on native redband trout
Hundreds of violations of the Clean Water Act
The economic downturn caused by declining angling opportunities in communities such as Bend, Maupin and The Dalles that depend on the river’s good health
The true tale of the reintroduction program is one of failure. The chart at the start of this post shows that in the past 14 years the total number of adult steelhead, chinook and sockeye who have returned is around 2,000 total. With the exception of one year, fewer than 100 adults per species have returned each year. There are zero signs of this improving.
The DRA Sets the Record Straight
Below, the falsehoods in this piece are addressed directly.
False statement: “Efforts to restore salmon and steelhead runs in the Upper Deschutes Basin are gaining traction. More than 1 million smolts have passed over Round Butte Dam since the restoration effort began 14 years ago.”
Response: The effort is failing. In the fourteen years since the Tower began operations, 1.7 million hatchery-raised smolts have produced a total of 2,160 returning adult sockeye, steelhead and chinook salmon. Dividing the number of returning salmon by the number of smolts released yields a survival rate. According to the Northwest Power and Conservation Council, the minimum survival rate to simply maintain a population of salmonids is 2 percent. Rebuilding a population requires 4 percent survival. The survival rate for Deschutes reintroduction effort for salmon, steelhead and sockeye salmon is .0012 percent.
Misleading statement: “In 2022, a record 700 adult chinook salmon were released upstream of Round Butte Dam.”
Response: These fish, with the exception of 31 of them, which did return as the result of reintroduction efforts, were excess broodstock from the Round Butte Hatchery. They are of non-project origin. This means these fish were returning to Round Butte Hatchery and were excess to their program needs. These adults were not the result of the reintroduction program. PGE, in fact, asked that these excess broodstock fish be released upstream of the dam to make up for the lack of reintroduction returns, and ODFW granted them the request. The 700 excess broodstock spring chinook coincided in 2022 with the closure of sport fishing for this species on the Deschutes River, to protect the rapidly dwindling wild spring chinook population.
False statement: “Their offspring are now making their way downstream to the ocean. All of them will pass through the Selective Water Withdrawal Tower at Round Butte Dam, where they’ll be counted, sorted by species and marked.”
Response: Fish do not move through the Selective Water Withdrawal Tower. The Tower allows dam operators to move water from different depths of the reservoir. All fish that move downstream from the dam in their juvenile life stage, or return to the fish trap at the base of the Pelton re-regulating dam, are trapped and hauled in trucks around the dam complex.
Misleading statement: “Fish that are already tagged with Passive Integrated Transponders (PIT tags), are scanned without being touched.”
Response: PIT tagging does allow for “scanning” fish without handling them, but the mortality associated with injecting the 8 to 12 mm-long transponder into juvenile salmon comes with a high mortality rate, up to 30 percent, according to a study published by the USGS. While PIT tags are a valuable data gathering tool, the process is not without risk and juvenile mortality.
Misleading statement: “Managers recently shifted from stocking fry to placing smolt-size juveniles in the tributaries, in response to data showing smolts return at a higher rate and compete less with native redband trout.”
Response: Future smolts may compete less with native redband trout, but studies have shown that, unfortunately, intermingling of genes between hatchery steelhead juveniles and a rare, pure strain of native wild redband trout genes has already occurred on McKay and Whychus Creeks, two Deschutes tributaries.
False statement: “The keepers of this process are placed in trucks and hauled a few miles downstream and released into the lower river to continue their journey to the ocean. Species of fish that do migrate to the ocean— bull trout and kokanee — get a return ride to Lake Billy Chinook through tanks that flush like toilets.”
Response:
Bull trout and kokanee do not migrate to the ocean but are resident, freshwater species.
Current water quality conditions in the lower Deschutes River caused by operation of the Selective Water Withdrawal are not optimum for survival for salmonids. State water quality standards are set to protect these species. PGE is in routine violation of the standards.
In the video segment, a naive question is asked:
“This is an enormous investment in restoring all these runs. Why do all this?
Response: Contrary to the impression given in the video, PGE doesn’t pay for fish passage out of the goodness of its heart. Fish passage is required as a condition of PGE’s hydroelectric project operating license, issued by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Successful fish reintroduction is required by state and federal fishery agencies as a condition of project operation. From 1968 to 2010 PGE provided no volitional fish passage at the Pelton Round Butte Complex. They still do not. Fish reintroduction is a “trap and haul” operation, meaning fish still have to be collected, trucked around the dams, and released back into the Deschutes. It is neither natural nor volitional.
