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Shipping in Pacific Northwest Halted Due to Cracked Barge Lock at Bonneville Dam

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Shipping in Pacific Northwest Halted Due to Cracked Barge Lock at Bonneville Dam Shipping in Pacific Northwest Halted Due to Cracked Barge Lock at Bonneville Dam Reports of a broken barge lock at the Bonneville Dam on the Columbia River surfaced on September 9th. The crack was discovered last week and crews began working Monday morning on repairs. The cause of the damage is unknown. To begin the repairs, the crews must first demolish the cracked concrete section. It remains unclear, however, when the repairs will be complete. Navigation locks allow barges to pass through the concrete dams that were built across the Columbia and Snake Rivers to generate hydroelectricity for the West. A boat will enter the lock which is then sealed. The water is then lowered or raised inside the lock to match the level of the river on the other side of the dam. When the levels match, the lock is then opened and the boat exits. The concrete that needs to be repaired acts as the seal for the lock. The damage to the concrete at the Bonneville Dam resulted in significant leaking—enough that water levels were falling when the lock was in operation. Thus, immediate repair was necessary. The Columbia River is a major shipping highway and the shutdown means barges cannot transport millions of tons of wheat, wood, and other goods from the inland Pacific Northwest to other markets. Eight million tons of cargo travel inland on the Columbia and Snake rivers each year. Kristin Meira, the executive director of the Pacific Northwest Waterways Association said that 53% of U.S. wheat exports were transported on the Columbia River in 2017. According to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, about $2 billion in commercial cargo travels the system annually, and it is the top export gate in the U.S. for wheat and barley and the number two export gate for corn. This shutdown comes as terrible news for farmers in inland Oregon, Washington, and Idaho trying to ship their wheat out. Rob Rich, vice president of marine services for Shaver Transportation, said that farmers truck their wheat to 27 inland grain elevators where it is loaded onto barges headed to the Pacific Ocean. He also stated that rail and trucking are not reliable alternatives. Make sure to stay tuned to Schroeder Law Offices’ Water Blog for more news that may affect you. Willamette Project’s 50 Year Anniversary: Flooding and Reallocation The year 2019 marks the 50th anniversary of the Willamette Valley Project, a tumultuous time in the history of the project. These dams are operated by the United States Army Corp of Engineers’ (“Corp”) Portland District, which utilizes 13 dams to prevent flooding and provide water storage for various water users and aquatic species in Western Oregon. (https://www.nwp.usace.army.mil/Locations/Willamette-Valley/) Since their construction, flooding like that seen in the Christmas Flood of 1964 has been rare. This April, the Willamette Valley saw substantial flooding as an “atmospheric river” overwhelmed the capacity of the dams, forcing the Corp release water at historic rates to prevent overtopping of the dams. (https://www.statesmanjournal.com/story/news/2019/04/07/oregon-flooding-willamette-river-santiam -river-eugene-salem/3393877002/). As these dams were created specifically to prevent flooding, what went wrong? The various interests in water stored in these dams leads to considerable controversy over how to operate the Willamette Valley Project dams. Combined, these dams hold 1.6 million acre-feet in the summer months for various uses including municipal, irrigation, and hydropower. The controversy in operations relates to these uses. For example, storing additional water in the dams benefits electricity production and recreational boating uses (requiring high lake levels), but harms aquatic species and irrigators. Releasing the stored water during the summer reduces electricity production and leaves little for migrating salmon in the fall, but provides irrigation for many Willamette Valley farms. The Corp is left to balance these competing interests for the use of “conservation storage” (the water stored for use in the summer months). Recently, the Corp considered reallocating water between theses interests, which focuses primarily on how to use the water stored in the summer months. We have discussed this potential reallocation here: https://www.water-law.com/study-willamette-valley-project-reallocation/. The allocations of uses between these interests has not been reconsidered since the original construction of the dams. (The Capital Press recently covered the discussion here: https://bit.ly/2IyzCfr). While the reallocation will determine how stored water is used, the dam regulation curves determine when the dams are emptied and space is made for flood mitigation. Flood control is another “interest” competing for the Corp’s attention and a reservior’s capacity. In the winter, these dams are emptied to allow the space to be used to absorb the brunt of storms. In the spring, the dams are gradually refilled up to their maximum operating capacity during the summer, for use for power and water storage. The image to the right depicts the regulation curve for the Cougar Reservoir, which stores water from the South Fork of the McKenzie River. The Corp developed the operating curve for the Cougar Reservoir in 1964, located in the Cougar Reservoir Regulation Manual. (https://bit.ly/2PtpANm). Each dam has its own manual, determining how and when water is released from the reservoir. While the allocation determines how stored water is used, the “conservation storage” hump determines when, how much, and for how long the dams are filled. This year’s atmospheric river struck on April 7-8, 2019, just as these dams were being filled for use as summer storage. While not at “max conservation pool” level (occurring around May 1), the dams were approaching their upper limits. Cougar Reservoir, for example, was at around 494 meters (1620 feet) before the storm and according to its operating curve, the reservoir should have been around 500 meters (1640 feet) (seen in the graph to the right, reservoir levels are measured by elevation to sea level, not depth). After April 12, 2019, the South Fork of the Willamette River discharged between 3,000 and 5,000 cubic feet per second (“cfs”) compared to its typical average of about 400-800 cfs at this time. (https://on.doi.gov/2Izcf5n). By April 13, 2019, Cougar Reservoir levels had shot up to nearly 515 meters (1690 feet), the maximum summer flood control level shown in the regulation curve above, several weeks early. By releasing record volumes of water from these dams, and using up any remaining storage capacity still available, the Corp prevented overtopping of the dams at the cost of downstream riparian landowners. Water releases over this period prevented an overflow, but opens the question of whether more flood control space may be required for spring storms in the future. When the reservoirs are full late in the season, the Corp has little choice but to open the gates, flooding downstream homes, farms, and cities. Calls for changing the Corp’s dam regulation curves may also come alongside the calls to reallocate stored water, adding even more controversy for the Willamette Valley Project near its 50th birthday. Make sure to stay tuned to Schroeder Law Offices’ Water Blog for more news that may affect you! Columbia River Treaty Negotiations Begin Map from U.S. Bureau of Reclamation While the negotiation of U.S. international treaties has been in the news lately, the renegotiation of an international treaty of particular importance to the Pacific Northwest has not received much coverage. However, May 29-30, 2018 marked the first round of negotiations between the U.S. and Canada in the effort to renegotiate the Columbia River Treaty. Notably, May 30, 2018 also marked the 70th anniversary of the historic Vanport flood that wiped out a town of approximately 18,000 residents situated between Portland, Oregon and Vancouver, Washington.[1] On that day in 1948, the Columbia River crested at Portland to fifteen feet above its flood plain and breached the embankment protecting Vanport, which just years earlier was Oregon’s second largest town.[2] While the town of Vanport no longer exists, one of the many legacies of the devastating flood is the Columbia River Treaty and its flood control provisions. A Columbia River Treaty between the U.S. and Canada was seriously considered beginning in 1944, but it was not until 1960 that the U.S. and Canada began negotiating the Treaty, which was signed in 1961 and took effect in 1964. The Treaty has no specific end date, but 2024 is the earliest either party may terminate the Treaty and to do so, the party must provide a minimum of 10 years written notice of termination. The impetus for renegotiating now is that the assured annual flood control procedures in the Treaty will end after 2024 whether or not the Treaty is terminated.[3] After 2024, on-call flood control measures will apply requiring the U.S. to ask Canada to store water after the U.S. has used all available flood control space in U.S. reservoirs.[4] These on-call procedures have been referred to by Oregon and Washington’s Congressional Representatives Peter DeFazio and Cathy McMorris Rodgers as “ad hoc, unplanned” and with the likely potential to cause uncertainty and international disputes.[5] The Canadian storage created by the Columbia River Treaty includes 15.5 million acre-feet of water in the upper reaches of the Columbia, including the storage behind Libby Dam, which sits near the U.S. and Canada border in Montana and created Lake Koocanusa, a reservoir that backs up 42 miles into British Columbia.
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