Dam Removals
Access to cool and clean upstream waters is crucial for the health of our native fisheries including ESA-listed salmon and steelhead.
An important element in Fish Passage Improvement is the removal of diversion dams and barrier culverts, with replacement of properly sized, passable structures or alternative, more modern diversion systems like pumps or engineered grade control. Since 2006 in partnership with the local community and agencies the watershed council has removed three small concrete dams on the river, and 8 barrier culverts. Timber industry partners have also contributed to passage in the headwaters per the Oregon Forestry Practices Act.
fish passage improvement
Brownsville Dam
After years of public discussion, the Brownsville community stakeholders made the unanimous decision on January 11, 2006 to support removal of the Brownsville Dam with the caveat that water be maintained in the small, historic canal that runs through the City of Brownsville (2.5 cfs).
The dam provided no commerce, flood control, or community water supply. The dam’s sole purpose was to divert water into the three-mile long Brownsville Canal. Once Sodom Dam, the last major fish passage barrier 8 miles downstream is removed, the Calapooia River will once again be a free flowing river and complete access to over 60 miles of mainstem habitat and several tributary streams will be restored. The successful dam removal, completed in September 2007, significantly improved access to the mainstem and tributary headwaters habitat on the Calapooia to winter steelhead and spring Chinook, both listed as threatened under the federal Endangered Species Act, and to cutthroat trout and Pacifc lamprey.
In November 2008 the Council completed the installation of a pump system at the former dam site to deliver water to the City of Brownsville and Canal Company members. Project partners include the City of Brownsville, Brownsville Canal Company (private landowners), Linn County Parks and Roads Department, Bella Vista Foundation, Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board, Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, Oregon Water Resources Department, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management and Cascade Pacific RC&D, as well as project consultants Cascade Earth Sciences in Albany, OR.
The Council’s project grants supported a contracted, part-time Project Manager to coordinate the technical team, write grants, report to the council and board members, and manage most project activities. A part-time outreach coordinator was also contracted with project funds to coordinate landowners, design and install educational displays, and create media press releases. Oregon State University students performed a three year study of the socioeconomic and biophysical impacts of the Brownsville Dam removal.
fish passage improvement
Sodom Dam
The Calapooia Watershed Council partnered with Oregon Parks and Recreation Department (OPRD) in spring 2008 for addressing fish passage and water management issues at a series of structures formally used to control flows to the historic Thompson’s Mills.
The Sodom and Shearer Dams were managed by OPRD to control operational flows delivered to the Mills. The Mills became a State Heritage Site in 2004, with the property’s special significance being the oldest water-powered grain mills in the state with a system of waterways, dams, control gates, ditches and dikes that had diverted water from the Calapooia River to the Mills’ head gates since 1858.
The Sodom ditch was built in the late 1800’s upriver of the Mills to serve as a high water over-flow channel to divert water around the Mills and minimize flooding along that reach of the Calapooia River. Unfortunately, the Sodom ditch was too effective and shortly after its construction, began to capture nearly the entire flow of the Calapooia River. The Sodom Dam was built around 1890 to divert river water during low flows out of the Sodom ditch and back into the Calapooia River.
The Mills operated to provide flows to power the Mills’ grain processing facility for over 120 years. Beginning in the 1970s, it was no longer economically feasible to grind grain – little grain was being produced in the area – and the Mills began to instead generate electricity that was sold to the energy company, PacifiCorps.
The original structure was a push-up dam, then later a wooden crib dam and finally in 1957, the concrete structure that was recently removed. The dam was an integrated weir and pool fishway. The dam was located approximately 1,400-ft downstream of the bifurcation of the Sodom Channel and the Calapooia River, just downstream from Calapooia RM 19. The Sodom Channel flows parallel to the Calapooia River before the channels converge approximately 7 miles downstream. (Note on nomenclature – due to the fact that the Sodom Channel now conveys a majority of the winter flows for the Calapooia River and is expected to convey 50% of the summer flows after this project’s implementation, the Sodom ditch is now referred to by a more accurate description as the Sodom “Channel”.)
The Sodom Dam was approximately 11-ft in height from the outlet apron to the crest of the dam. Across the crest and the width of the fishway, the dam was 85-ft wide. The sides of the dam were bounded by concrete abutments that extend to a height of 10-ft above the crest of the dam. The abutments had concrete wingwalls that extend into the bank. The fishway was located on the west side of the dam. It was a pool-weir fishway with six pools. The fishway entrance was on the west side, in the scour pool below the dam.
The 1998 listing of winter steelhead and spring chinook as “threatened” under the federal Endangered Species Act, spurred state and federal natural resource agencies to examine this site more closely when it came time for the site to renew its Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) license. NOAA Fisheries, the federal agency responsible for enforcing the Endangered Species Act (ESA), determined fish passage at the dams associated with the Mills would be a necessity. This led to a lengthy multi-year discussion between the natural resource agencies, Pacificorps, Oregon Water Trust (now The Freshwater Trust) and the private owner over how to satisfy the new regulatory framework (cascading from the ESA listing) in order to surrender the property’s FERC license.
After several years of discussions and negotiations, in 2004, OPRD purchased the property, including the dams. Also in 2004, dam’s private owner sold 12 cfs of the property’s historic 1858 water rights to the Trust for transfer to instream rights.
Over-arching problems associated with the managed water system included the following
Water control facilities were inadequate to ensure water availability for fish in the Calapooia River, and flows are too warm in Sodom Ditch during hot summer months to support migrating and juvenile fish
Prior to this technical assistance and outreach effort, there had not been community outreach efforts to develop a sustainable solution to the managed flow system that was dependent on significant partial barriers to fish passage, Sodom and Shearer Dams
The bifurcation becomes plugged with sediment and woody debris and requires maintenance in order to keep the Calapooia River channel active
All the watershed’s spawning and rearing habitat for salmonids is upstream of these former dam sites. Steelhead and chinook once had to negotiate one or the other of these dams in order to reach the cool pools and spawning gravels in the upper watershed
Problems Associated with the Sodom Dam Included:
1
The dam was an aging structure that reaching its as-built life expectancy. There was significant deterioration of the fishway’s concrete with daylight visible through the fishway wall in a number of locations. Flows actively seeped through the wall of the fishway. Two of the six pools had severe abrasion from bed load with exposed rebar along the walls and floor.
2
Some areas of concrete along the scour apron and lower portion of the dam had deteriorated or been abraded by bed load. Exposed rebar was evident at the toe of the three buttresses. Scour under the outlet apron had occurred along the center portion of the outlet edge in excess of 4-ft.
3
The existing fish ladder did not meet current design criteria established by ODFW and NMFS. It did not have the appropriate jump/drop height in the pools. Attraction conditions during high flows were inadequate because the first two pools of the fishway were submerged. Attraction conditions during low flows prevented migrating fish from finding the inlet to the ladder because the fish congregate at the spillway where flows are higher. The ladder was frequently non-functioning due to accumulated debris from winter storms that is not removed because there was no access to the fish ladder during high flow conditions (the fish ladder was on the opposite bank from the only road to the dam)
4
Steelhead have been observed spawning in the Sodom Channel. Spawning in this channel is a concern because the juvenile winter steelhead do not likely survive the high summer water temperatures in this reach (ODFW, 2003)
fish passage improvement 2011
shearer dam
The Shearer Dam was also originally a push-up dam, then later a wooden crib dam and finally the concrete structure that was removed, built in 1956. The dam’s purpose was to divert Calapooia River flows to the Mills via a human-dug channel (mill race).
The Shearer Dam was located on the Calapooia River at approximately RM 23. The dam was a 40-ft wide concrete structure, 5 feet in height from the scour apron to the crest of the dam. The crest of the dam was 7.1 feet higher than the water level in the downstream scour pool under stagnant conditions. The weir and pool fishway was comprised of three pools 6-ft wide by 9.5 ft long by 3-ft depth.
Problems Associated with the Shearer Dam Included:
1
The dam had a fishway along the west bank of the dam which did not meet current fish passage criteria and did not provide passage during low flow conditions, due to the presence of rock ballast at the outlet that extends above the water level.
2
Additionally, the fishway pool weirs were not appropriately sized, allow too much water through them, thus creating adverse hydraulic conditions for fish passage. Under stagnant conditions this was a barrier to fish. At low stream flows the flow depth may have been too shallow for fish to traverse and jump into the fishway entrance.
Along with Sodom dam, Shearer dam had been known fish passage problems for decades, but because of their complexity and lack of a simple, inexpensive solution, nothing had been done to address them until recently. Between 2007 and 2011, the Calapooia Watershed Council (CWC), with the support from State parks and an active Technical Team composed of local, state and federal natural resource officials and local landowners, built the relationships and did the outreach necessary to obtain stakeholder support for removal of Sodom and Shearer Dams in 2011 and continued maintenance of the project site in the coming few years.
2013 Update on the Sodom Channel Restoration Project (Powerpoint)
OSU Monitoring Data at Sodom and Shearer Dam sites
Calapooia River and Sodom Ditch Discharge
Archived-Preferred Alternative Design
Archived-Permits and Bid Documents, Sodom and Shearer
Archived-Sodom Dam Project Monthly Updates
2011 Dam Removal Construction Footage and Photos
4/12/12 Project Performance Presentation by River Design Group
fish passage improvement 2013
Cox Creek
The Cox Creek-Willamette River confluence area has an active floodplain including mature riparian forest, riffle-pool stream morphology, and an off-channel pond. The site is characterized by seasonal inundation, diverse microhabitats, and transitional vegetation cover. During the winter and spring of 2013, the Council worked to remove non-native species such as reed canary grass, Himalayan blackberry and English ivy.
These invasives covered roughly 70 percent of an area that also supports remnant native plant communities including cottonwood-dominated floodplain forest, mixed riparian forest and willow dominated shrub-scrub wetland. Although degraded to varying extents, these plant communities continue to provide important habitat, water quality and recreational functions. The riparian and confluence sites are owned by City of Albany, ATI Wah Chang (ATI), and Oregon Parks and Recreation Department and are managed for light recreational use by hikers and bicyclists. Site management consists of parking lot and sidewalk maintenance for public access, as well as a trail system that parallels the Willamette River from Baldwin Park downstream to the second Oxbow Lake (Second Lake).
The Council's restoration work at the site involved the following:
Invasive Species Control
11 acres of intensive vegetation control, 9 of which required intense reed canary suppression - 2500 stems/acre
Dam Removal
The dam was originally built to impound water for a meat packing plant that formerly occupied the site. ATI now manages the property and the dam long ago outlived its useful lifespan. ATI and City of Albany supported dam removal to reduce liability and improve fish passage on Cox Creek.
Riparian Restoration
5 acres of standard riparian vegetation control- 1000-1500 stems/acre
Education
Held a field trip involving sixth graders from Central Linn Elementary in the benefits of restoration and fish passage barrier removal at Cox Creek
Funding
Two additional sources of mitigation dollars to support all 16 acres of site preparation, planting and maintenance through 2017 and received City of Albany in-kind assistance with plant watering and some maintenance
Improved Recreation Access
Educational and demonstrative components such as signage along trails and high traffic areas, and public tours with City of Albany
These dam removal, riparian restoration, and confluences sites are adjacent to the City of Albany’s Talking Water Gardens, an innovative, integrated wetlands system designed to provide an additional level of natural treatment for combined municipal and industrial treated wastewater effluent.
Infrastructure on the terrace adjacent to the project area includes the City of Albany wastewater treatment facility, ATI, and transportation corridors including the railroad and road systems. These facilities are located on the eastern perimeter of the sites, but influence Cox Creek. The facilities directly affect channel morphology, aquatic and riparian habitats, and water quality. However, relative to past interactions between these properties and the adjacent waterbodies, contemporary impacts are undoubtedly a fraction of the historical disturbance. Limiting factors for the Albany Oxbow Lakes and Cox Creek confluence area are taken from NMFS (2008) and include observations from the assessment.
Limiting factors include:
Altered water temperatures
Degraded water quality due to stormwater runoff and discharge from industrial facilities
Riparian vegetation loss due to riparian conversion for agriculture and industrial development
Habitat simplification due to historical and contemporary industrial use of oxbow lakes and the adjacent floodplain
Fish passage barriers on tributary streams.
Specific actions identified in the Recovery Plan to address limiting factors in the mouths of tributaries to the Willamette River and other approaches to address problems in the Albany Oxbow Lakes area include the following:
Assess and address fish passage barriers particularly on Cox Creek.
Using the framework in the “Willamette Planning Atlas,” protect and restore aquatic habitat function at the mouths of tributaries; increase non-structural capacity of floodwater, restore natural riparian communities and their function; increase channel complexity; and increase native floodplain forest.
Manage invasive plant species and expand native riparian areas
Enhance habitat in Oxbow Lakes and lower tributary reaches
Address stormwater inputs to tributaries and oxbow lakes.
“Creek, floodplain restoration projects underway“, City Bridges, City of Albany Newsletter, January 2013
“Cox Creek to get makeover” Democrat Herald, July 10th 2012
“Two watershed projects planned in Albany,” Democrat Herald, January 1, 2013
“Albany set to begin 2 watershed projects,” KGW Online, January 2, 2013
Springtime on Cox Creek (An Update), Hasso Herring, March 30, 2013
In April 2008, the State Land Board recognized the Calapooia Watershed Council and its many partners for the Brownsville Dam Removal in an awards ceremony honoring exemplary projects that promote responsible stewardship of Oregon’s natural resources. In presenting the Stream Project Award, Governor Ted Kulongoski, chair of the Land Board, commended the Council for developing a broad partnership to “Protect Oregon’s natural resources for future generations.” This project exemplifies the spirit of cooperation that is so important for a successful outcome.”
Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board’s 2008 Guide for Small Dam Removal, written by Denise Hoffert-Hay
Biophysical and socioeconomic monitoring results for the Brownsville Dam Removal Project, led by Oregon State University. This study has been funded by the Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board and NOAA’s Open Rivers Initiative.
Journal articles relevant to the environmental outcomes of dam removal:
- List of all OSU publications, dissertations, presentations related to the Brownsville Dam Removal monitoring project, 2008-2011
- Kibler KM, Tullos DD, Kondolf GM. 2010. Learning from dam removal monitoring: challenges to selecting experimental design and establishing significance of outcomes. River Research and Applications. DOI: 10.1002/rra.1415.
- Kibler KM, Tullos DD, Kondolf GM. 2011. Evolving expectations of dam removal outcomes: downstream geomorphic effects following removal of a small, gravel-filled dam.
- Journal of the American Water Resources Association (JAWRA) Evolving Expectations of Dam Removal Outcomes: Downstreem Geomorphic Effects Following Removal of a Small, Gravel-Filled Dam