Owyhee Marginalia

19 June 2016

Pacific lamprey in the Owyhee

  Yesterday’s Oregonian carried a front-page story on the annual harvest of Pacific lamprey at Willamette Falls by Columbia river tribal members.  As many readers will know, the lamprey is an anadromous species that for millions of years (the article says 360 million) has migrated up the Columbia and its tributaries and has been used by Columbia Basin tribes for ritual purposes as well as a food source.  Like the salmon, the lamprey’s fate in the last century or more is a cautionary tale in the unintended consequences of man’s efforts to “improve” on nature.  The Owyhee serves as an excellent example.

  When European Americans began settling the Owyhee canyonlands in the mid 19^th century, the annual migrations of Pacific lamprey and salmon were rich.  One estimate puts the annual take of salmon by tribes in southeastern Oregon and northern Nevada at around 90,000 fish.  I’ve seen no estimates for the lamprey, which is perhaps a reflection of non-Native American attitudes toward the species; it is a parasite and their round sucker-like mouth with rows of sharp teeth used to attach to fish makes them unattractive. 

  The Owyhee settlers’ first impact on the Pacific lamprey came when they constructed enormous waterwheels–in one case reaching as high as sixty feet–to lift water from the river to their fields and pastures.  Diversion dams were built to direct the water’s flow to fill the waterwheel buckets.  Lampreys carried along with the flow were willy-nilly picked up by the waterwheels and dumped into the irrigation ditches that carried them into fields where they died.  As one resident described the phenomenon, “When we irrigated in the spring, the eels used to come up that river and I’ve seen them so thick in the field after they come up the flume that you couldn’t hardly get out into the field because of them old dead eels.  The water wheel picked up them things because they had to go through the wheel when the came through the river.  They couldn’t get through the dam.  The buckets picked up a lot of them.”

  Most of the waterwheels disappeared when the Owyhee dam was built and the reservoir flooded farms north of Watson that had relied on them.  A remnant can be seen at the Birch Creek ranch south of the end of the reservoir.  The dam presented an even greater threat to the lamprey as well as to the salmon.  The highest arch-gravity arc in the world when it was completed in 1932, unlike dams on the Columbia and later on the Snake, the Owyhee dam made no provision for the migrating salmon.  (I doubt it occurred to the builders dams to make provision for the lamprey.)  The result was predictable:  the Pacific lamprey disappeared from the Owyhee watershed.  So did the salmon.  And so did an important source of aquatic nutrients for the watershed and, sadly, a characteristic element in the way of life of the original inhabitants of the region.

21 April 2016

Owyhee Dam

  I’ve been gradually wending my way across the state to see my sister and nephew in Idaho.  Being patriarch in our minuscule extended family has its obligations, albeit obligations joyfully accepted like one’s wedding vows.  (Can’t wait to see what comments that elicits.)

  The Owyhee river is often discussed in terms of a division between the Upper Owyhee and the Lower Owyhee, with the dividing line approximately at Rome where Highway 97 crosses the river.  There is an additional dichotomy between the river and the reservoir beginning at about Leslie Gulch, which is embodied in float craft (rafts and kayaks) on the river and power boats on the reservoir.  The reservoir is little discussed in connection with “wilderness” protection but for its entire length it is bounded by a Wild and Scenic River Corridor, Wilderness Study Areas, or Areas of Critical Environmental Concern.  It offers access to some of the most stunning parts of the Owyhee Canyonlands.

  Construction began in 1928 and the dam was completed in 1932.  It is a concrete-arch gravity dam with a storage capacity of 1,120,000 acre feet.  I found interesting that of this, only 715,000 is available for irrigation, the rest being “dead pool” since it is too low in the reservoir to be let into the irrigation system.  Though one might wish the dam hadn’t covered such an extensive section of the canyon, it is rather aesthetically pleasing (as dams go) and is on the National Register of Historic Places.

  Below the dam, the reservoir had an enormous impact on the economy of Malheur County that extended even into Southwestern Idaho.  The area benefitting from its water totaled 120,000 acres and now declares itself the “Onion Capital of the World”  (1 billion pounds produced each year.)  This is not to be smirked at.  It is an important contribution to the economic well-being of many–producers, processors, suppliers and consumers.  And, of course, speculators in onion futures.  Without such people–in many sectors–our capitalist society could not function. 

  Above the dam, the picture is somewhat different.  First, the settlers whose ranches and farms were among the lands to be flooded by the reservoir were forced to sell to the federal government.  Although they ostensibly received market value for their land, they were not compensated for the economic benefit of being able to graze their cattle and sheep on the neighboring public lands.  That value had been calculated into the price of a ranch sold between private parties, resulting in a discrepancy.  Walter Perry described one case in which the government gave the owner about half what what he’d paid for the place six or seven years previously.  As for squatters–those who had never filed a homestead–they received only the value of the improvements (house, garden, waterwheel, etc.) and nothing for the land, which of course belonged to the government.  With what they received, many were unable acquire comparable places elsewhere.  Here one can see the beginnings of the contentious issue that has come to a head at the Malheur Wildlife Refuge, southern Utah and Nevada–Does use of the land bestow individual ownership?

  The dam’s impact on the Native Americans was even greater.  When the dam was constructed, no provision was made for fish to be able to migrate upstream.  Fish ladders and similar devices were not yet widespread, and the focus was on irrigating land below the dam.  It has been estimated that before the dam was constructed, the Duck Valley Indian Reservation enjoyed three annual salmon runs with a potential yearly catch of 90,000 pounds.  These were blocked by the dam.  Another plentiful species was the Pacific lamprey, which being also anadromous was blocked by the dam.  The lamprey was an important ceremonial food for some tribes.  Steelhead would also have been affected.  The implications for tribal lifestyle must have been rather like eliminating steak and hamburger from local supermarket cold cases.

  This brings us to an impact that was even more fundamental–that on nature.  The author of the Owyhee SubBasin Plan, Stephen C. Vigg, noted in a letter to Jordan Valley rancher Mike Hanley, “It is a well-know natural phenomenon that as soon as adult salmon enter fresh water during their spawning migration, that their physiology begins to change, and ultimately the anadromous salmon are programmed to die after spawning in the upriver tributaries.  Since Pacific salmon die within a few days of spawning, the nutrients in their carcasses become available to the ecosystem, in our case, far inland from the ocean where the nutrients were derived.  These salmon-transported nutrients are important for the maintenance of ecosystem biodiversity and fish production….Thus elimination of anadromous salmon from the Owyhee system in 1933 could have resulted in significant nutrient losses to both aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems in the Owyhee Subbasin over the past several decades.”  Another example of the unforeseen consequences of man’s actions when he sets out to improve upon nature.

  When I visited the dam, I couldn’t resist asking whether there had been any talk of eliminating it as elsewhere, though I knew the answer.  The consequences–economic and otherwise–would be too great.  Much of the farming in southeasern Oregon and southwestern Idaho depends on water from the reservoir.  The dam also produces some power–about 4.3 megawatts.  Then there are the recreational uses represented by improvements in the Owyhee State Park campgrounds and boat ramps.  All of these activities may eventually affected by declining river flows.  The reservoir was last full in 2011, and several times in recent years the flows have been too low to float the lower Owyhee.  When I was there, the water level was 15-20’ below the lip of the Glory Hole; Rex Franklin, the dam supervisor, said that was as high as it would go.  Rex, by the way, was a pleasure to meet and will open the visitor center, which has a small museum, and answer questions.

  There is another aspect to the reservoir that hadn’t really occurred to me until I paddled my kayak a few miles up the lake.  As I was looking up the draws on either side for signs of tamarisk, it dawned on me that I was viewing the upper third to a half of the overall canyon.  I had a view of rimrock that otherwise would have required hiking several hours hours to reach.  I mentioned this to a fellow staying in the next campsite, and he told me that while on the water, he’d checked his depth sounder and found the bottom to be 212 feet down.  What was down there? he wondered.  With all the discussion of protection of the Canyonlands cutting off access for the disabled and others, it occurred to me that the reservoir provides miles of access to parts of the canyon that could otherwise be reached only with time and effort.  There are numerous places to land, should one want to explore.  I was content to float on placid water and listen to the water against my hull, screeching raptors and the occasional scream of an Evinrude (Ever-rude?) sailing past.