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Oregon Digital
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The same parties collaborated in water conservation measures to address instream and out-of-stream needs. Working with the Environmental Defense Fund, they developed a water marketing pilot project to work in conjunction with Washington's Trust...
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The same groups worry that new storage would come to be seen as a panacea that would supplant conservation and other nonstructural measures.' While these concerns need to be addressed, the Yakima remains one of the basins in which forward momentum...
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Implementing the Umatilla Basin water exchange was harder than might have been expected. Because the Umatilla Basin Project Act contemplated changes in water rights, approval by the Oregon Water Resources Department was required. However, when the...
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WaterWatch withdrew its objections to some out-of-district irrigation water rights. The Oregon Water Resources Department crafted water permits to implement the settlement.18
Not all of the water issues are resolved in the Umatilla, obviously....
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for streams. In 1994, four leases were negotiated with water users. There were ten in 1995, and more than 25 in 1996.24 In 1996, the Trust acquired the first water right under Oregon's conservation statute. Funding was supplied by the Oregon...
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a variety of conservation projects.30 In 1996, Congress passed legislation authorizing "Deschutes Basin Ecological Restoration Projects," including such an organization.31 The project also negotiated an innovative lease-option contract with an...
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The Henry's Fork. The Henry's Fork Watershed Council in northeast Idaho, near Yellowstone National Park, is one of the Basin's better-known watershed planning processes. The Henry's Fork is a world-class trout stream, cherished by anglers: The...
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by watershed.41 The 1993 plan for the Middle Snake noted that the State Water Plan specifies zero flows at Milner, but committed to work for higher flow levels to "improve some aspects of water quality and fish habitat, and restore some of the...
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by watershed.41 The 1993 plan for the Middle Snake noted that the State Water Plan specifies zero flows at Milner, but committed to work for higher flow levels to "improve some aspects of water quality and fish habitat, and restore some of the...
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Canyon, which forms the basin's eastern boundary. The watershed is typical of basins in the arid west, with substantial snowpack in upper elevations melting in a spring freshet, then diminishing to summer flow levels sustained by groundwater...
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2. The Wallowa County-Nez Perce Initiative
Watershed efforts first took shape in Wallowa County, the ancestral home of the Wallowa band of Nez Perce Indians (also known as the -Joseph band). Headwaters begin in the steep canyons in the...
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Species Act listings made sense. The Nez Perce sought the return of harvestable salmon. Wallowa County wanted fish back, but also to protect livelihoods, many of which depended on the forests, pastures and streams of this scenic, isolated valley....
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measures to reduce human impacts, it does not propose setting aside a stream reach and allowing natural restoration processes to unfold.53
The tribe and-county sent the Wallowa County Salmon Plan to the National Marine Fisheries Service for...
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restoration on private lands, and coordination of activities on federal and private lands to achieve comprehensive watershed management.54
The Model Watershed Board, appointed by the Union and Wallowa County governments, met for the first time...
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to argue that the makeup was unrepresentative of these communities. Arguably, tribal representation and the board's one environmental representative provided adequate breadth of perspective. The impasse was finally resolved through creation of a...
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the ground soon. Enough was known about sources of salmon mortality (e.g., passage barriers; unscreened diversions) to justify early projects that would generate momentum.
The question of who decides which projects merit state funding also...
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experts assembled the subbasin assessments and plans. In April, 1994, a report from Clearwater Biostudies consultants provided a more complete technical survey. With the pressure for immediate results eased, state and local teams'focused on...
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side benefit of the Dawson lease, the local watermaster agreed that a gauging station should be installed on Crow Creek. This helps ensure that no other water user would be disadvantaged by the lease and collect badly needed flow data useful-to...
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Relations with the Forest Service vary at different levels of the bureaucracy, generally with much better cooperation at the forest level than at the regional level. The Forest Service made an abortive attempt to address salmon concerns in 1992....
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Service's role in the Grande Ronde has been limited primarily to negotiations over the Wallowa County habitat conservation planning process, discussed above.
The Bureau of Reclamation and the Corps of Engineers had been involved in flood...
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Some fish killers, such as unscreened diversions and passage barriers, were obvious. Some, such as high late-summer water temperatures, were equally obvious, but there were gaps in the data and complications in distinguishing causes and designing...
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replace a less effective screen). Ultimately, the 1994 matrix became a checklist. Priority is now given to projects in "focus areas:" Catherine Creek, the Upper Grande Ronde, Bear Creek, Big Sheep Creek and others in which more sophisticated...
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ideological problems is undeniable. If the data say low streamflows and high temperatures undermine productivity, there is less room to evade the obvious solution.
Bonneville is funding the development of a more sophisticated analytic tool for...
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C. Summary
The Grande Ronde, Clark Fork, Henry's Fork and other processes are heartening for the trust and cooperation they have built between what are too often warring factions in the West. They have resulted in innovations that might be...
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VI. Seismic Events in Salmon and Hydropower Policy
Many of the activities of the 1980s rested on a certain set of assumptions about the relationships of rivers, salmon, and human activities. In the 1990s, three developments called these... |
