Picture Post

Well, Becca is here and we are presumably off camping somewhere, so I will not have internet access. Instead, here are some pictures I like that did not previously make the blog.

Hoh Rainforest:


Dungeness Spit:


You can't really tell, but this is an eagle. Not that it matters, I like the picture anyways.


Taken from the Oregon side of the river at John Day on an AM shift.


Oregon side of John Day on a PM shift.

Becca's coming to visit

Becca is flying in tonight. I worked last Sunday so that I could take the day off to get ready. At the time that I am writing this our plans are still a bit fluid due to weather. I have never in my life seen such a worthless forecast as they have here. The forecast for the day is usually alright, but anything past that is worthless. The 10-day changes drastically every day.

Anyways, the ideal plan is to see some sights in Portland, Camp a bit in the mountains, and then perhaps check out the desert a bit before returning to The Dalles. Should be a great trip. I'll be working next weekend so that I can take Monday/Tuesday off to facilitate all of these activities. Let's hope the weather cooperates.

While I am away I have scheduled some posts of previously unused pictures. They're some good ones that didn't make the first cut.

I believe this was was called Rose Beach. It's in Olympic National Park:


The Deschutes:


The view east from Dog Mountain:


Mount Adams at sunset from Sorosis Park:

My Shelter

Working outside has advantages and disadvantages. I do really appreciate getting to spend so much time outside, but the weather has an enormous bearing on how enjoyable a day of work is. The biggest problem at John Day (where I've been for the last couple weeks) is the wind. There is almost always a pretty strong wind there. The gorge is renowned for its wind, and it is pretty bad at John Day. Not to mention that it's still a little bit chilly here for my Virginia-raised bones (it's only gotten out of the 60s a couple of times!).

A nice thing about John Day is that, when you are working on the Washington side of the river, you are out on the Navlock Peninsula, a place where no one else goes. There is also an abundant supply of driftwood. Perfect conditions for building a shelter.

It started out as just a windbreak on one side. The wind here almost always comes from the west. Something about the desert air heating up and rising, thus pulling air through the gorge from the west. One day, though, the wind was from the other side, so I put in a wall over there. And then I threw a roof on for good measure. It's actually become pretty comfortable. And it saved my skin last Friday. I was working the Washington side, but forgot to check the weather, so I didn't bring proper rain gear. It has some leaks, but it kept me pretty warm

It may not look like much, but driftwood and rocks are the only building materials out there.


This is a photo of me hanging out in the shelter before I had fleshed out the roof.

Predation Deterrents

The dams have installed a number of predation deterrents to increase the percentage of salmon smolt that successfully migrate out each season. The spillways have been renovated to reduce pressure changes and physical impacts undergone when the salmon pass over. Walls have been constructed to ensure that the smolt going over the spillway are directed into a deep part of the river to make them harder for gulls to pick off. The two most visible (and probably most expensive) deterrents are the avian line arrays and hazers.

The avian line arrays are arrays of very thin cables that stretch from one side of the river to the other over the areas of highest predation. This sounds very simple, but it becomes complicated when stretching the cables over a mile wide river in an area where a pretty nice day can involve sustained winds upwards of 25 MPH.

The above picture is from the navlock peninsula at John Day. The large tower on the left is one of the avian line anchors. They have to be this tall because of how much slack the cables need to have in order to span the river and put up with the high winds. They actually just redid the avian lines at John Day. They had used very thin braided steel cable before, but they found that it broke far too often. They switched over to some sort of nylon I believe.

Since you can't see them, I suppose I should explain what they look like a bit better. When I first heard about them I expected an array similar to a large net. There are nowhere near that many lines. And they only run straight across the river, no crisscrossing. They are also spaced pretty far apart. Maybe 15 feet between lines at the center of the river.

Despite seeming pretty far apart to keep birds out, these lines appear to be pretty effective. The birds can definitely slip between them, and sometimes they do, but far more rarely than they forage outside of the lines. I'm not sure if it's because they can't see the lines very well or if it's the noise of the wind going over all the lines (which is pretty loud), but something keeps most of the birds out of the areas with avian lines. Which is where the hazers come in.

The hazers seem to have a pretty sweet job. They're USDA Wildlife employees, and what they do all day is cruise around the river in the little boat pictured above and shoot fireworks at the gulls. There are a few varieties of fireworks. Their favorite is very similar to a bottle rocket, it spirals a long distance and whistles loudly (I think they call these screamer rounds). And then there are a couple that shoot up a ways and detonate with a bright flash of light and a loud bang. One of them shoots off four bright white sparks very similar to a traditional firework. All of them are fired from some sort of pistol. I try to spy on them from time to time, but they typically only shoot during high activity, when my eyes need to be elsewhere.

Like I said, the avian arrays keep most of the birds away from them. This means that all the birds congregate right at the end of the arrays to forage. The hazers work pretty well at dispersing them. There are always a couple gulls that stick around to forage, but that is pretty insignificant. Without the hazers present I once counted over 80 gulls in a zone. So, reducing that to a couple of actively foraging gulls makes a big difference.

Hydroelectric Power vs. Salmon

During my first week in Portland I went out with Lizzie Strohmeyer and some of her friends for a drink. I was talking to one of them about my job, and she expressed a strong dislike for the dams because of what they have done to the salmon population around here. I was stunned. I probably shouldn't have been, but in my mind I had always weighed the value of abundant carbon neutral electricity much higher. I understand that salmon are both a valuable economic resource in the region and a part of the local culture, but there are some pretty nice advantages to having these dams around.

So, first a bit of history. Bonneville Dam, the first dam on the Columbia, began construction in 1934. Bonneville Dam is the furthest downstream of any dam on the Columbia. It is also open to the public still, and you may remember that Becca and I visited there on the trip out. Since Bonneville, an enormous number of dams have been constructed on the Columbia and its tributaries. The two dams I am working at, The Dalles and the John Day, are the next two upstream from Bonneville. One of Jon's friends at the Bulldog referred to the Columbia as the most dammed river in the world. Many of these dams create hydroelectric power, but some exist only for flood control. The majority are Corps of Engineers projects, but not all of them.

This extensive damming initially created some serious problems for salmon. Some salmon running up the Columbia used to go as far as British Columbia and Idaho. The number of fish returning each year plummeted. They have never recovered to their original numbers, but things get better for them all the time. And a huge amount of money and energy are put into protecting them. Everything from deterrents such as avian lines and hazing (which I will discuss in a later post) to the extensive hatchery operations.

Really, the means by which they seek to protect salmon are astounding. The fish ladders are immense and complicated, the employees the hire (like me and the hazers) are expensive, they even use barges to transport smolt out to sea, as absurd as that sounds.

At this point I have only presented the negative side of the dams. They endanger the Columbia salmon population, which has only been managing to stay around because of the buckets of money they dump after it. The advantages to these dams are flood control and huge amounts of electricity. Between the wind farms and the dams, pretty much all energy in the northwest is renewable (I think there is one nuclear plant in Oregon).

I have been told that electricity in The Dalles costs about half as much as the national average. And it isn't producing carbon emissions or giving off mercury like the coal plants back east. Most of the energy produced at The Dalles isn't consumed around here, though. Most of it is shipped off to southern California, where they have a much larger need.

The Corps of Engineers is responsible for producing this energy. There is some sort of company that they sell the electricity to that is responsible for the business side of things. But this still brings in a lot of money for the Corps of Engineers. And it is this money, not taxpayer dollars, that funds all of the efforts to restore the salmon populations. I thought this was a bit silly when it was told to me, because presumably if that money wasn't being spent on salmon it would find another use in the government, but it is still good that the problems caused by the dams are not being remedied with additional taxes.

It's a complicated issue. I still lean in the direction of hydroelectric power. But that could be because of who I'm working for. I know that some salmon are returning to areas in Idaho again. And the populations appear to be doing pretty well. But they might not be without all the hatcheries dumping smolt into the river/ocean every year.

What do you all think? Is it worth risking an economically and culturally significant species to produce clean electricity? But more importantly, doesn't that plate of salmon below look pretty good?

Deschutes River

This past weekend I went to Deschutes River State Park. The park is located about 15 miles away from The Dalles just off the highway. It is a small park centered around the mouth of The Deschutes. Popular primarily as a fishing spot, I believe. The park itself only has one trail, so I went there expecting not to hike too much. But the mountain-biking trail that starts in the park is an old railroad grade that runs parallel to the river for I'm not sure how far. I ended up hiking up five miles of it before turning around.

One of the amazing things about the Gorge is how rapidly the ecosystem completely changes. Thirty five miles up the road is Hood River, where the towering Douglas Firs begin, and here you are in high desert. The largest plants growing away from the river being the sweet-smelling sagebrush that lined the trail.

After hiking five miles in, I decided to climb up the side of the canyon. It was very steep and taller than it appeared, but I made it up eventually. On top, there were agricultural fields on both sides, taking advantage of the flatter areas between these canyons.

This is a view of the river from part of the way up.

On my way up I also spotted a herd of deer. I followed them from the ridgeline for a while until I was able to get a good picture. There must have been 15 or so of them. It was pretty cool.


It's a very pretty area. On my way out I passed a lot of folks coming in with packs. I think I'm going to have to go back and camp there sometime this summer.

The Native Fishermen

At both dams there are groups of local Native Americans that come to fish. They are the only non-USACE employees that are allowed on the project. I think they are also the only fishermen allowed to use nets to catch salmon.

All around the dam both on the project and on the nearby shores are these precariously constructed platforms that they fish from. The majority use gill nets which they set and check once or twice a day. Once there were a couple of natives pole-fishing from the shore, but that is rare. Here's a picture to illustrate the questionable construction of some of these platforms:


Thus far I have only seen a few groups of people out fishing at The Dalles (John Day has more, but it has an area open to the public, so most of them are pole-fishing and aren't Native Americans). These are the folks that come every day. One guy just naps in his car all day, waking occasionally to check his nets. I'm surprised to not see more people out there. I've seen them haul in five or six pretty large fish in one go. And from my understanding, the spring chinook (which should be running about now) are the best eating in the river.

The natives also appear to have a fondness for tiny dogs. Every group of fishermen has one. This little guy followed me around for a bit one day while I was working.