Astounding Facts, Boating, swimming and fishing

You might fish for salmon here someday, not just silvers

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Between a renewed push for re-introducing salmon to the Columbia River above Grand Coulee Dam and a newly developing technology, a consortium of tribes is hopeful that somehow, there will be a way to bring salmon back.

The icon of the Pacific Northwest has been gone from the upper reaches of the Columbia since the building of Grand Coulee Dam. Now they’re actually stopped at Chief Joseph Dam, more than 50 miles downriver.

But a treaty may open for negotiations between the United States and Canada that dictates exchanges of water and electricity and infrastructure provided. And the Upper Columbia United Tribes is hopeful, along with the Colville Confederated Tribes, that a way for cheap transport may have been discovered by company touting its “salmon canon.” Picture a kinder, gentler form of the same kind of suction tube that takes your deposit at a drive-up bank.

Whooshh Innovations, of Bellevue, Washington, has more information about adapting their fruit moving technology, to help solve the problem of letting fish move upstream. Below is a video that demonstrates the innovation. The company has lots more on its website, which was even recently featured in a segment on Last Week Tonight with John Oliver.

Although a way may be found to move salmon upstream over huge dams, that may actually be the easier part of the problem to solve. After hatching, the young salmon have to get back to the ocean. They only swim upstream, so they have to be pushed by a considerable current, which is not present in Lake Roosevelt above Grand Coulee Dam.

But the salmon canon idea is still fun to watch:

 

Image of a chinook salmon by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service used under Creative Commons license.

Boating, swimming and fishing

Lake Roosevelt level is dropping

The flood control level needed for Lake Roosevelt is set in the blue triangles for 2015, compared to the 2014 history depicted by the pink dotted line. -- USBR graph
The flood control level needed for Lake Roosevelt is set in the blue triangles for 2015, compared to the 2014 history depicted by the pink dotted line. — USBR graph

The level of Lake Roosevelt has already dropped to to a level not predicted until March, in a forecast put out in mid-January, 2015.

On Friday, Jan. 30, the lake surface was at about 1,276 feet above sea level, which will put out of reach several boat launches on the lake, but certainly not all. (See the list below).
The deepest access is offered at the Spring Canyon launch near Grand Coulee.

The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, which operates Grand Coulee Dam, which controls the lake, had published an estimate of the lake level drop this year showing a flood control schedule that would have still held the level at full pool until the end of February and eventually dropping to about 1,243 in April, not as far down as in 2014. But factors including weather and power demand can be hard to predict.

MINIMUM BOAT LAUNCH ELEVATIONS
Crescent Bay 1265′
Spring Canyon 1222′
Keller Ferry 1229′
Hansen Harbor 1253′
Jones Bay 1266′
Lincoln Mill 1245′
Hawk Creek 1281′
Seven Bays 1227′
Fort Spokane 1247′
Porcupine Bay 1243′
Hunters Camp 1230′
Gifford 1249′
Daisy 1265′
Bradbury Beach 1251′
Kettle Falls 1234′
Marcus Island 1281′
Evans 1280′
North Gorge 1280′
Snag Cove 1277′
French Rocks 1265′
Napoleon Bridge 1280′
China Bend 1277′

Astounding Facts

Helicopter capture of Lincoln area bighorn sheep scheduled Feb. 10

Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) staff will be working to capture bighorn sheep from the Lincoln Cliffs herd in northern Lincoln County on Tuesday, Feb. 10, weather permitting, with a helicopter contractor.

One of the less well-known features of the area is that these big game animals live near Lake Roosevelt in the cliffs of the Lincoln area, north of Creston.

Up to 20 bighorn sheep will be ear-tagged and nine equipped with GPS tracking collars, then released so biologists can better monitor their movements, productivity, and survival, wildlife biologist Carrie Lowe said.

The sheep will be captured with nets shot from the helicopter, then moved to a staging area for handling by a ground crew. Information about each captured animal, including sex, age, and condition, plus blood samples for tracking disease, will be taken before release.

Lowe notes that the department is in the process of securing permission to access private land in the Lincoln and Whitestone Rock areas near the Lake Roosevelt shoreline for the work.

Bighorn sheep areas in Washington (WDFW).
Bighorn sheep areas in Washington (WDFW).

 

Top image: Bighorn on the shores of Lake Roosevelt. Photo by Beth Goetz

Astounding Facts, In Your Own Words, To Dos

People are amazed, and here’s a video to show why

People are constantly amazed by the size of the dam and the achievement of building it.
People are constantly amazed by the size of the dam and the achievement of building it.

Visitors using Instagram are always posting how amazed they are when they see Grand Coulee Dam.

“It amazes me how humans built this large, amazing structure more than 80 years ago!” wrote @lishlo this morning in a public post.

The Bureau of Reclamation has produced a top quality documentary on the building of Grand Coulee Dam to show you the amazing story behind the immense effort, the big thinking, innovation and, yes, even politics it took. If you want to visit it, you’ll appreciate it even more if you understand the whole story, so we’ll post the video here, which you can also watch on a big screen in comfortable seats at the Visitor Center when you get here.

Events, Soon

Fall into fun at the Harvest Festival Sept. 12-14

Harvest Fest Hay Ride
Hay wagon rides are a big hit at the Harvest Festival

Here’s a quick bit on the upcoming Harvest Festival you can send on to your friends and relatives.

The Third Annual Harvest Festival, Sept. 12-14, at North Dam Park, is a fun festival for the entire family and a good way to polish off what has been a great summer.

And it’s free!

Always wanted to take a helicopter ride? You can do it at this year’s Harvest Festival, at a nominal price. Soar through the sky and look down on the things you’ve seen all year long, except from a different vantage point. Rides are available from 11 a.m. to dusk on Saturday and from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Sunday.

Get on a hay wagon and relive those early days when the horse drawn wagon was a common mode of transportation. You can Saturday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at North Dam Park.

Can you bake a berry pie? There’s competition in the berry and apple pie-baking event. Judging will begin at 1 p.m. Saturday in the picnic area with winners announced at 2 p.m. Bring two pies, one for judging and the second for a pie raffle.

One of the featured events is the barbecue competition. This is serious stuff for barbecue enthusiasts and some of the best in the Pacific Northwest are head our way.

Luckily for them, we also have an excellent beer garden planned, featuring brews from one of our favorite Washington state microbreweries, Iron Horse Brewery. Among the brews featured: High Five Heffe, 509 Style, and, of course, Irish Death. (That last one is so smooth and not bitter, for a dark beer, that you’re tempted not to take it seriously, a mistake at least one ex-sailor I know won’t repeat.) For those of you not into such craft beers, and there are a lot of you, the beer garden will also be stocked with Bud Light.

That’s Saturday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Sunday 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Judging and the awards ceremony begin at 4:30 p.m. Sunday. Samples will be available for purchase. The BBQ event is in conjunction with the Pacific Northwest Barbecue Association. Ribbons and trophies will be given and there are some $3,500 worth of cash prizes. The chamber of commerce, organizer of the festival, has info and a signup sheet here.