Long article in this morning paper (you can get full details tomorrow at www.mailtribune.com) on what may end up being a massive fish kill of juv. salmon and steelhead on the upper Rogue.
In my ongoing thread about fish counts, water flows, etc., I'd noted the US Army Cors of Engineers controls the water flow coming out of Lost Creek Lake/Dam. Due to the fast run off of snow filling the lake the Corp had increased the flow from about 1200 cfs to 1500 then in a matter of days kicked it up to 3000.
Too much water issue goes away and they turned off the tap ..... In one day ..... and left thousands of smolt trapped in areas they couldn't/can't escape in back waters, temporary ponds created by the high water etc. By regulation ODFW has long recommended (an earlier fish kill of this nature in the early 1980's taught them what happens if the flow is cut too quickly) a slow change in outflows as would happen naturally in a stream.
Regs state "dam releases in the spring not drop faster than 150 cfs and not more than 750 cfs per day" to allow the fish time to adjust to the dropping water flows. In one day they cut the flows more than twice this amount.
A survey of less than 1% of the river effected found a few already dead smolt and several thousand more were found in land locked pools.
Why the screw up? "Corps spokeswoman Dawn Edwards blamed the mistake on a failure to give the project's new regultor, Mike Posovich, the ODFW recommendations in the agency's official water flow manuals when he took over from Russ Davidson about three months ago." As they say in the Navy: "Someone always fails to get the word."
Answer to the now what: They'll either have to kick the flow back up to allow the juv's access back to the main river or get a zillion volunteers with dip nets to trap/transport the fish back to the main river.
As the old cartoon character Pogo was want to say: "We has met the enemy, and they is us."
In my ongoing thread about fish counts, water flows, etc., I'd noted the US Army Cors of Engineers controls the water flow coming out of Lost Creek Lake/Dam. Due to the fast run off of snow filling the lake the Corp had increased the flow from about 1200 cfs to 1500 then in a matter of days kicked it up to 3000.
Too much water issue goes away and they turned off the tap ..... In one day ..... and left thousands of smolt trapped in areas they couldn't/can't escape in back waters, temporary ponds created by the high water etc. By regulation ODFW has long recommended (an earlier fish kill of this nature in the early 1980's taught them what happens if the flow is cut too quickly) a slow change in outflows as would happen naturally in a stream.
Regs state "dam releases in the spring not drop faster than 150 cfs and not more than 750 cfs per day" to allow the fish time to adjust to the dropping water flows. In one day they cut the flows more than twice this amount.
A survey of less than 1% of the river effected found a few already dead smolt and several thousand more were found in land locked pools.
Why the screw up? "Corps spokeswoman Dawn Edwards blamed the mistake on a failure to give the project's new regultor, Mike Posovich, the ODFW recommendations in the agency's official water flow manuals when he took over from Russ Davidson about three months ago." As they say in the Navy: "Someone always fails to get the word."
Answer to the now what: They'll either have to kick the flow back up to allow the juv's access back to the main river or get a zillion volunteers with dip nets to trap/transport the fish back to the main river.
As the old cartoon character Pogo was want to say: "We has met the enemy, and they is us."