Project Update

Sodom Dam Fish Passage Improvement and Flow Management Project

Prepared by: Denise Hoffert-Hay, Project Manager
Prepared for: Project area landowners January 2009
Questions?  Please call or email Denise at: (541) 619-5896 or hofferthay@peak.org

Council and Oregon State Parks Meeting Summary
On December 12th, the Calapooia Watershed Council (CWC) met with representatives of Oregon Parks and Recreation Department (OPRD) to discuss project background and history, the November landowner outreach meeting, project technical team concept and to begin to outline the Council and OPRD roles and responsibilities for the project.
 
In attendance:
Bud Baumgartner (Council Co-Chair)	Mark Running, Council Co-Chair	
Tara Putney (Council Coordinator)	Jennifer Cairo, Region Manager OPRD	
Denise Hoffert-Hay (Project Manager)	Dennis Wiley, Parks Manager, OPRD	
John Potter, Assistant Director, OPRD	Darin Wilson, Project Manager, OPRD	
Julie Whalen, Parks Manager, OPRD	Teresa Moritz, OPRD	
Wendy Hudson, Regional Program Representative, OWEB	

Denise described the Council’s background with the project (brief summary included here, longer summary available upon request). 

The CWC became involved with the project in March 2002, when they were invited to participate with the Thompson’s Mills Working Group (TMWG) meetings. The TMWG was formed at the Governor of Oregon’s request in January of 1999 to carry out the mission of the Oregon Plan for Salmon and Watersheds and to avoid a lengthy court battle regarding managing the Mill property while also meeting the provisions of the Endangered Species Act (ESA). 

The CWC provided leadership for a technical team of state and federal agency advisors that conducted the initial technical assistance effort for the site during 2002-04.  Funding from OWEB was used to fund ODFW fish surveys to better understand fish usage of the Sodom/Calapooia complex and to inform fish passage preliminary designs for the Sodom Dam (developed by engineering firm, Inter-Fluve). Data collected on low summer flows helped inform the decision to return 12 cfs of the Mills’ water rights to instream rights upon State Park’s purchase of the property.  Technical Team meetings and agendas from 2002-04 are available from the CWC upon request.

Through the collaborative process in developing the planning documents described above, OPRD believed that once they purchased the Mills, NOAA Fisheries and ODFW would be leaders in developing alternatives for improving fish passage at Shears and Sodom Ditch dams, which turned out not to be the case.

While there has been staff turnover in OPRD and none of the participants from this original group are present in the agency, the majority of federal and state agency staff from the other agencies who participated with the Technical Team are still onboard for the next phase of this project. 

Darin Wilson, OPRD Project Manager explained how OPRD purchased the Thompson’s Mills (Mills) in 2004 from a private owner. OPRD hired Tetra Tech early 2007 to complete technical assessment, hydraulic modeling and alternatives analysis for the Sodom Dam based on the initial work done in 2002-04. In June 2007 OPRD met with landowners in the field with the engineers to collect local knowledge of the river system’s challenges and problem sites. In December 2007, OPRD received the conceptual report with alternatives.  In March 2008, OPRD, ODFW and the CWC met to discuss the technical assistance problems associated with the report due to the complexity of the project and site and it was at that point CWC was asked to take on the leadership role for the project because of their relationship with landowners and experience with large in-stream fish passage improvement projects.

OPRD staff explained at the meeting that their primary concerns in the Sodom Project are fish passage, satisfying water rights, future operations and management to maintain flows in the system, and water availability in the millrace. The Council explained that their interest in the project, per their stated mission, is to facilitate a process and to be an advocate for stakeholder interests.

The group was not able to finalize roles and responsibilities of the CWC and OPRD in the Sodom Project outlined by ORPD in response to the original MOU draft delivered from the CWC.  The group agreed to meet in January to continue the discussion and begin to formulate a “Declaration of Cooperation” for Phase I of the project, which will include the technical assistance and outreach phase and to exclude the preferred alternative design phase.  This meeting is scheduled for January 12, 2009.

Engineering Design Update
River Design Group (RDG) has developed a detailed Scope of Work for the remote sensing, field data collection and hydraulic modeling tasks of the project.  These tasks will be completed by mid February and will be ready to share with landowners and the Technical Team by late February.  This is a few weeks later than originally anticipated due to high water conditions making on-the-ground data collection difficult.  The main deliverable from this phase of the project is a report summarizing river corridor function.  The report will include: influence of historical and current river management, land use, channel stability and future management issues.  Data to be collected include 3 main tasks: 1. Air photos from 1936, 1956, 1967, 1991 and 2005 will be used to evaluate channel conditions over time.  2. Underlying soils and geology data layers will be used to create a map to overlay on the 2005 aerial photo of the project area that reflects how channel conditions relate to the distribution of soil and geologic units.  3. Cross-sections of the river will be surveyed to evaluate existing channel shape this information will be used in computer modeling to evaluate hydraulic conditions.  These cross sections will be used to illustrate flood elevations associated with various storm event sizes.  If you would like to see the full description of the data collection tasks, I am happy to provide you with the 4-page document.  This summary is just to give an overview of what the engineers are working on for this phase. 

Miscellaneous

Next Landowner Meeting Details: February XX, 2009 from XX to XX we will meet at XX.  Meeting agenda will be mailed in the next XX.  The meeting will include a presentation from the project engineers on the results from the data collection efforts described above.  We will have a guest speaker from the Wasco SWCD on government landowner conservation incentive programs.

Tech Team Kick-Off Meeting Details: 

The Water Resources Department (OWRD) Dam Safety Inspector visited the Sodom Dam site with Denise Hoffert-Hay, Bud Baumgartner and John Matlock on January 7, 2009.  He was in the area for another project and tagged this project onto his visit just to get familiar with the site.  He will be able to provide an inspection of the dam in late spring/early summer when the water level comes down to give some insight into the condition of the concrete and the life expectancy of the structure itself (both the dam and fish ladder).