Northwest Environmental Advocates--Channel Deepening

Columbia and Willamette Channel Deepening Project, cont.

Glaring Problems Face Columbia/Willamette Channel Deepening

Inaccurate Sediment Forecasts
The Willamette River Portion: Still in the Plan

[9H] Inaccurate Sediment Forecasts

The navigation channel of the Columbia River is 600-foot-wide and rests within the Columbia's greater riverbed. About 60% of the 114-mile navigation channel itself (or 25% of the river in its entirety) will need to be dredged in order to attain the new 43 foot channel depth. The volume of sediment estimated by the Corps for removal over the 50 year life of the project exceeds 400 million cubic yards, including the on-going maintenance at the mouth of the river. This volume would fill a four-lane highway four feet deep between New York and Los Angeles. Even so, scientists believe the Corps has grossly underestimated the volume of dredged material that will have to be removed in this project.

In order to estimate how much dredging will be necessary to construct and maintain the deeper channel and how many acres of disposal sites will be needed, the Corps must determine the volume of sediment that will be dredged. This prediction is called a sediment forecast. It predicts how much sediment will have to be removed to construct the deeper channel, and how much will require dredging later, as sediment moves into the channel after it is deepened.

In the past, disposal sites have been located in other parts of the river, on shorelines, on upland sites, and in the ocean, but it is increasingly difficult to identify sites that are both environmentally sound and available for use. This makes the accuracy of sediment forecasts very important, for both economic and environmental reasons.

The volume of water flowing in the river tends to correlate with the amount of sediment transported along the river bottom: higher flows cause more sediment to accumulate in the bottom of the navigation channel. Also, faster and higher water flows contribute to greater erosion along the banklines, which extends from the shoreline to the river bottom, completely removing material from the site of erosion.

Tables of past dredging that appear in the Corps' Final Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) illustrate a cyclic pattern in the amount of sediment removed from the river that correlates with long-term weather patterns. However, the Corps based its forecast of dredged material volumes for the next 50 years on data from 1980-95, fifteen of the driest years since the dust bowl. Thus, by basing predictions on years with the lowest dredged volumes, the Corps' sediment forecasts may be significantly and unnaturally lower than predictions based on more average conditions. The Final EIS does not establish a basis for using a low-flow scenario to make predictions for the next 50 years. If there is a trend toward drier times as predicted by the Corps, the Final EIS is clearly deficient in proving it. Furthermore, 1996 and 1997 appear to be among the wettest in the last 121 years.

As a result, scientists now argue that the volume of sediment requiring dredging in the next 50 years will be 80% - 200% greater than the current Corps estimates of over 400 million cubic yards. According to research by Dr. David Jay presented in Appendix 2 of the Northwest Fisheries Science Center report, [3L "channel deepening docs"] the inconsistency between the Corps' estimates and reality is already obvious. Actual dredging in the last four years (1996-1999) has averaged more than 175 percent of the average dredging volumes predicted in the Final EIS for the channel deepening project. Likewise, the Final EIS estimates for the project's dredging volumes are approximately 10 percent lower than the maintenance dredging volumes for the current 40' channel from an unusually dry fifteen-year period (1980-1995).

[9I] The Willamette River Portion: Still in the Plan

The channel deepening project includes plans to deepen 11.6 miles of the Willamette River, up to the Broadway Bridge in Portland. Two existing turning basins and one new basin will also be deepened to allow long ships to turn around within the channel. Five miles of the Willamette section will require blasting and mechanical excavation of bedrock. Currently, maintenance dredging is conducted every 2-5 years.

The bottom of the Willamette River is made up of fine sediments, different than the coarse sand of the Columbia River and as a result, more susceptible to the accumulation of toxic contaminants from run off, industrial discharges and port spills. Due to its long history of use by shipping and manufacturing industries, the area of the Willamette proposed for deepening is highly contaminated with toxins like arsenic, chromium, dioxins, copper, lead, zinc, and DDT. These chemicals have caused severe health impacts to fish and wildlife both upstream and downstream of the Portland Harbor, six miles of the most industrialized segment of the Willamette in Portland that is the focus of current clean-up efforts. When fine particles at the bottom of the Willamette are stirred up by ships' propellers or dredging equipment, they remain suspended in the water column and move down the river in the Columbia, settling out in the estuary where the river broadens and slows. This process accounts for much of the contamination of critical habitat and feeding grounds for salmon in the estuary.

In 1998, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) deemed the condition of Willamette sediments worthy of inclusion on the National Priorities List, (the Superfund program,) a list of the nation's most serious sites of toxic contamination. Oregon attempted to maintain its lead in the clean-up efforts, but those attempts failed to meet the requirements of the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Superfund designation process for the Willamette River was begun in April 2000.

The Corps has agreed to "delay" the Willamette portion of the channel deepening project until activities can be coordinated with the sediment remediation plans of EPA, but it has not removed the project from any of the formal project plans, such as the Final Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) and the Corps' Chief of Engineers' Report to Congress released in December, 1999. Even so, the Corps has asked federal and state agencies reviewing the project for permits and other approvals to restrict their reviews to the Columbia portion of the project.

The Corps has made no contingency plans or budgets to address the economic and environmental costs of removing and disposing of the contaminated sediments that will be encountered should the Willamette deepening go forward. Dredging of the Willamette River, both those sections that would be performed as part of this project and those that would be foreseeable as a result of this project, has not been fully analyzed in the Final EIS to address the real risks posed by resuspension of toxic contaminants.

Thus the Willamette, in its delayed status, still remains part of the project that will be submitted to Congress for appropriations even though the Corps instructed reviewing agencies to consider only the Columbia portion in their assessments. Yet, there is no doubt that the Willamette River is a substantial source of the toxic contaminants currently causing violations of Oregon water quality standards in the Lower Columbia. It will continue to do so even in the absence of the deepening project. Furthermore, the amount of biologically available toxins in the Lower Columbia River will be increased if the Willamette River shipping channel is deepened. On the basis of existing information about contamination of the Willamette, including but not limited to shipping berths and turning basins, this increase would likely be significant.

Inarguably, the additional loading of toxins into the Columbia as a result of deepening the Willamette should have been evaluated by reviewing agencies along with the Columbia, since it is still part of the plan. Three scenarios should be considered:

1) the Willamette and Columbia projects proceed together,
2) the Willamette portion commences after the Columbia project is completed, and
3) the Willamette portion is never dredged.

If the first scenario occurs, agencies reviewing water quality impacts must evaluate both rivers systems together. To do otherwise is to seriously underestimate the effect of the project on the beneficial uses of both water bodies. For example, analyses of the effect of toxic contaminants on out-migrating salmon must evaluate the duration of the exposure. Salmon using both rivers will receive different exposures than those that do not. Studies on Puget Sound salmon populations have demonstrated that use of contaminated habitat by juvenile fish for just three weeks causes a range of disorders including immune deficiency problems. Species such as birds that use both rivers as a source of food will be affected by the two projects being done in tandem.

If the second scenario occurs, then the reviewing agency must take into account the doubled duration of exposure to salmon using both rivers.

And finally, even if the proposed channel deepening project for the Willamette is terminated, reviewing agencies do not have sufficient information about the effects of the sediment clean-up plan on the Lower Columbia River. It is known that some form of remediation, whether removal or capping, will have to be done. Any decision to remove sediments from specific sites and/or the river will result in contributions of toxic contamination to the Lower Columbia River. Any decision not to remediate will result in storm-driven contributions downstream. Since reviewing agencies have no knowledge whatsoever of how or when Willamette sediments might be disturbed or remediated, to proceed with a determination on the channel deepening is premature. To segregate the evaluation of the Columbia and Willamette channel deepening projects is to seriously jeopardize the integrity of the analysis.

The Corps' plan is seriously defective until a complete analysis has been done on the impacts of both delaying and deepening the Willamette. The Port of Portland has four terminals on the Willamette: Terminal 2, Terminal 4, Terminal 5, and Terminal 6, plus the Portland Shipyard. Other companies like Dreyfus operate ports on the river. The Final EIS does not address the need for or likely success of the Columbia dredging if the Willamette is not approved for the 43-foot channel alternative. Without the Willamette, deepening the Columbia will have an even more reduced economic effect on the listed ports compared to its overwhelming negative environmental effect. The bifurcation of the two fundamentally alters the cost-benefit analysis.

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