Position Statement re. Current SWW Tower Operations at Round Butte Dam

Operation over more than a decade of a “selective water withdrawal tower” (SWW Tower) at the Pelton-Round Butte Hydroelectric Complex has degraded the quality of water flowing into the lower Deschutes River. That water is now warmer, pH levels greatly exceed Deschutes Basin water quality standards set by the State of Oregon, and nuisance algae now blanket the riverbed.

• Surface Water Withdrawal (SWW) at Round Butte Dam (the uppermost dam of the three dam PRB Complex) has transferred agriculturally polluted Crooked River water directly into the lower Deschutes River below the PRB Complex, causing a failure to provide water quality improvement in water discharged from the dam complex (one of the two mandated goals for tower operations). o Those discharges have loaded the lower Deschutes River with contaminants and has increased water temperatures during most of the year. In turn, there have been major ecological/biological changes consistent with changes seen in other rivers where nutrient pollution occurs. o Multiple studies—including independent studies by DRA as well as recent studies funded by Portland General Electric and the Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs Reservation—have confirmed the deleterious changes to the lower Deschutes River stemming from SWW Tower operation. • The SWW Tower was constructed largely to create surface water currents in Lake Billy Chinook (the reservoir created by Round Butte Dam). o These surface currents were intended to guide juvenile migratory (anadromous) fish to a fish collection facility from where they would be trapped and transferred to trucks for transportation around the three dams. o The fundamental goal of this program, primarily the resurrection of self-sustaining runs of anadromous salmonids above the dam complex, has not been achieved -- despite over a decade of effort. • Instead, SWW Tower operations to date have imposed great financial cost on ratepayers and substantial harm to the biological integrity of the lower Deschutes. Such water quality degradation and harm to aquatic life is fundamentally inconsistent with the Clean Water Act and the 1988 designation of the last 100 miles of the lower Deschutes as a Wild and Scenic River. • DRA believes there are viable alternatives, confirmed by PGE and CTWS modeling studies, to the present SWW Tower operations—alternatives that can comply with the law, including fundamental water quality standards, and improve chances for successful fish reintroduction above the PRB Complex.