This film attempts to present one facet of a complex issue. The drawdown of Green Peter Reservoir and it's impact on the ecosystem and the surrounding communities.
So are the "wild" spring chinook they are trying to reestablish above Green Peter with this experiment. The native run was unfortunately lost decades ago.
I'm glad to see you interviewed Elise and Greg, who are good people, and are very much caught between a rock and a hard place. A few points - 1. The first year of dewatering of any reservoir is going to flush out decades of accumulated sediment. The river is literally cutting a new channel through dozens of feet of accumulated muck in the lakebed. Likewise, the lakebed is now exposed to winter rains in a way it hasn't been before. The rain erodes through that sediment outside the main channel, and sweeps it into the river. Subsequent years should see dramatically decreased sediment loads downstream. 2. Green Peter (and the rest of the Willamette Valley dam system reservoirs, including Detroit, Lookout, and Fall Creek, the others subject to the order) is a man-made ecosystem. The dams/reservoirs, intended to stop catastrophic floods in downstream communities (including Sweet Home), have done a good job of that since the project's beginning in the 1950s (1966 for GP, if I remember correctly). When thinking about the need to "preserve" these ecosystems, it's important to acknowledge that there is nothing natural about the reservoirs. Drawdowns have been occurring every year since the project's inception (for flood control purposes), and most of the recreation sites at the reservoirs are unable to be used in the winter and early spring. Seasonal drawdowns are nothing new (although the court-ordered drawdowns are more drastic than those for flood control). 3. The dams have unnaturally reduced sediment load for several decades, as the reservoirs create a place for sediment from upstream to settle out. Clear water in the rivers below the dams in the flood season is not a natural state. A look at Santiam tributaries upstream of the dams (or in nearby non-dam-controlled watersheds like the Calapooia or LNF Santiam) can help show a more natural representation of standard levels of turbidity in the winter after rain events. Some nearby communities have alternate wellfields for use for city water in turbid events. It sounds like Sweet Home and others on the South Santiam system do not. 4. Kokanee salmon are not native to these watersheds. They are plentiful in the lakes mentioned, as well as in dozens of other lakes in the state. There are hundreds of millions of kokanee in Oregon alone. The upper Willamette spring chinook run, on the other hand, is counted in thousands in good years, and hundreds in years with poor returns. It's unfortunate that there appears to be a loss of a sport fishery in these lakes (I often fish in Lookout Point, another reservoir affected by the drawdowns, and I'm sure the warmwater fishery there will be affected), but it's a false equivalency in terms of value to say things like "you're making one species endangered in order to try to save another." Note that comment wasn't in the video, but it's been expressed in many other forums regarding this decision. 5. The "alternate" strategies that are hinted at by the Sweet Home mayor are not new ideas; they've been dismissed over the years as it's simply cost-prohibitive to create effective passage over 300-foot-high dams (much less over several of them across the Willamette project) - either for upstream or downstream migration. Federal money is not "free" and cost estimates for improved passge through trap and haul and similar strategies have been in the hundreds of millions of dollars... for one dam...with no guarantee of effectiveness. www.opb.org/article/2023/10/31/willamette-river-salmon-dams-army-corps-fish-collector-vs-drawdowns/ Did the judge's injunction consider and balance all interests, including those of the nearby communities? No. Did ACOE have any better options available to them once that order was issued? Nope. Could ACOE have done a better job of promoting safe passage for salmonids from the inception of the projects up to the present day, preserving fish passage and thereby making this step unnecessary....? Well...hmm. Could this all have been handled and communicated better? Sure. And I think that's led to some of the conclusions made or suggested in the video.
Clearly, you have a great understanding of the complexity of the situation. I really like Elise and Greg, and it wasn't my intent to do a thump down of the Army Corps. Could it have been handled better? Maybe. Could the communication with the communities have been better, absolutely. Should the drawdown happen again? No. I don't think it is achieving the desired goals.
@@user-iv1ur9xo3i I'm not sure how we can determine at this point whether the drawdowns have achieved "the desired goals." The goals, as I understand them, are to increase juvenile salmon recruitment, and ultimately, comply with ESA requirements (among other mandates) to preserve adult wild spring chinook salmon populations. First off, as Elise mentioned, ODFW will be surveying below the dams to establish whether spring chinook survival has improved (they may have already for 2024). Survival of above-dam juveniles in absolute terms (the overall number of fish safely passed through the dam) is in part determined by the number of fish passed above the dams to start with. That number isn't consistent from year-to-year. One survey (or one year's worth of surveys) won't be sufficient to show a trend, especially if ODFW lacks before-project baseline data (given the abruptness of the court order, this would not surprise me in the slightest). Surveys will need to be done for several years running to determine whether juvenile recruitment is improving (as proponents of drawdowns suggest), static, or declining. There's also the question of impacts to juveniles from fish spawning below the reservoirs. If, as one interviewee suggests, the macroinvertebrate supply below the dams has been significantly depressed by elevated levels of sediment, this won't be as high as pre-project (as the fish will have nothing to feed on). Conversely, turbid waters tend to contain higher levels of nutrients and support more robust food webs (see just about any river or lake east of the Cascades). Second, the lifecycle of spring chinook is such that the earliest returns (in terms of number of wild adults coming back to spawn) won't be until spring of 2026, with the majority of 2024 spring young returning in 2027. If there's growth in the numbers of fish returning, it follows that there will be more juveniles, and then better returns in the next generation (2030). One could easily make an argument that the population won't have reached the carrying capacity of the "new" habitat for several generations. So, without knowing whether more juvenile salmon are surviving, and whether more adult salmon will return, it's impossible to say whether the drawdowns have been effective, or whether they should continue. It's also important to note that if drawdowns are ineffective (or are deemed to be politically untenable), the problem of Willamette project dams impacting spring chinook survival doesn't go away. It means that the ACOE has to resort to other, much more expensive measures (like those mentioned in the article I linked above). Dam decommissioning and removal is also an option that could be triggered if drawdowns and/or alternate measures are not successful. Sometimes, this is a voluntary decision (see Eugene Water & Electric Board's McKenzie project plans or the Klamath dam removals) as the costs of compliance and retrofitting for fish passage outweigh the benefits of the dams. Sometimes, this is forced by legal action or other mandate (see Elwha dam removals). The impacts on the nearby communities from the drawdowns are certainly not to be pushed aside, but they are nowhere near what would be seen in the case of ACOE needing to totally remove the dams.
If this was so well understood, why was this not taken into consideration? What USACE did was choose the easiest and most expedient way to do this draw down, and damn the residents and anyone else affected. It was a poorly managed and mangled decision from the outset, and once again the people living in the area paid the price for 'ologists' that knew better, but thought - what the heck, let's see what happens... It wasn't PDX's water that was the color of mud, and the all knowing people pulling the levers to make this happen didn't boil their water for weeks. Poorly managed, without consequences, and little care given for the people they are meant to serve- that's how I've come to see the USACE in this whole ordeal.
@@appaloosa6626 Glad to hear that (presumably) ODFW is conducting spring surveys. If they're finding the river "loaded" with winter steelhead, that's a dramatic departure from previous years. The South's winter run has been on life support for the past few decades, and the last data I saw from the Foster trap had about 300 adults returned. That's better than the few years prior, at least. It'll be interesting to see what ODFW finds for juvenile chinook passage/survival, as that will be the determinant of whether these drawdowns are deemed a "success."
Thank you so much for making this film. I don't think we're seen much here in Linn County and our welfare is thought of as unimportant. I live for summers on Foster, Green Peter and the Santiam.
This looks bad, but it is a prime example of our need to reevaluate our watersheds and to find better ways to store and manage our water. My personal belief is that we must create new wetlands on a grand scale, but that is a subject for debate at another time.
Thank you for sharing this video.i use to live in cascadia and would go camping and fishing at green peter frequently.what a disaster this has turned into!! What a shame! The impacts of this will last a long long time.
That is a great video thank you for putting the time into producing such an informative production. It truly is a tragedy that the judge that had no idea what a devastating action his ruling would have to the people and the environment. Not to mention the number of fish species that where released into the Willamette river system such a smallmouth bass and walleye.
Yeah, the number of SMB and walleye both upstream and downstream of Lookout has gone up dramatically. I'd assume there's similar SMB in the South Santiam? Did GP have many walleye? I haven't heard of a big population there, but I know they've established themselves several new places over the past few decades.
I live in this county and was wondering what was going on with this lake. This didn’t quite answer my “why”?, when so many species, from tiny to large, are affected. Where did the wild life get water to drink? Look how the people’s water systems suffered.
Beautiful video, but I wish you had belled the cat, i.e. named the judge who mandated this action, which court the decision was made in, who the plaintiffs were, and provided a link to the decision and whatever information is available from the court. When Greg Taylor spoke in Lebanon, he said the judge could review the USACE data from the first year and possibly modify his mandate after one year. Keep putting pressure on state representatives and the governor. As my favorite civil rights lawyer often says, the court of public opinion does influence the courts. In that regard, this documentary provides some good feedback from the public and the local communities affected.
Thank the environmentalists for their great lawsuit. Perhaps they need to be held accountable somehow? Sounds like an idiot judge made a decision that nobody could counter with science....
The people that need held accountable are the ones that swallow up a "mandate" as law. The idiots are the ones letting judges do anything other than opine. Just like covid... look at the states that had no "mandate", then look at all the sheep that think a "mandate" carries the same weight as law. The amount of people that just laid down and did nothing.... none went to protest at all. They went to a city council meeting to cry, and when it was over, they all went home like good little subjects.
This whole deal is so frustrating to fisherman. I know people who ran guided trips on Green Peter, and any hopes of my usual trout and salmon fishing on the South Santiam this year are pretty much gone
Great video. I would never expect a Federal agency to admit wrong doing, or that what they did caused harm. USACE should be ashamed of what they did and how they did it.
@@nancyinoregon809 So they formally objected to doing this? There were conversations between USACE and the court on what would be the best way to handle this? I was unaware of this. From my lay perspective it seems like the just rolled over and did whatever the radicals wanted. And not to change the subject, but I fully expect them to do the same when it comes time to remove the dams across Oregon when the same radicals get their way pushing their agenda through the courts.
@nancyinoregon809 actually they did have that choice. A mandate is not law. Same with covid. Look at the states that REFUSED to follow any mandates for example. They could have very well told the judge to piss off. Look into the Constitution more carefully
Someone didn't pay attention to what was being said. USACE had no choice as they were ordered by a US FEDERAL Court to do this. No exceptions, no deviations, no let's stop and see how round 1,2,3,etc... goes before moving forward. They were told to do it, do it now, or else! So, saving on endangered species has caused a downward spiral in the health of MANY other species.
I was disappointed that they never actually explained the reason for the draw downs. They never once mentioned the effect this reservoir is having on the river and fish trying to migrate upriver in late fall and winter.
Hi George. I could have spent a half hour, just laying out the course that the lawsuits took. My intention was to keep the film short, and focused on the effects the drawdown had on the surrounding communities, so that as many people as possible would watch it. I made the film to spur conversation, whether I agree with the comments here or not. Maybe someone here can come up with a better solution than what has happened so far. It is incredibly complicated. Manny below is right, that Green Peter was originally put in for flood control. Yes, on Klamath River, 4 dams have been removed. Yet, they left 2 dams. Why? Flood control.
Green Peter, Foster and the South Santiam were some of the most beautiful recreation areas when I was growing up. What exactly were the plaintiffs trying to accomplish with this lawsuit? If this was to assist the chinook in reaching their spawning grounds, it looks like it failed, leaving warm overly silted water to navigate. If this was to help the Spring Chinook smolts navigate the lake, it left warm, silted water where predators like bass could exterminate them. Looks like the entire river system was negatively impacted (unless you're a bass.)
Those townships are due "hardship" imposed by the ESA lawsuit, which should be paid by those filing the injunction. Countersuit should have been filed immediately by all of the townships, creating a class-action suit against the Federal Govt for not following the guidelines of the ESA and Federal management plans.
Flushing the sping salmon smolts past the green peter dam every year is the main goal, but the question is will they survive the sediment load that goes with it , but as far as the Kokanee fishery in green peter, that will be gone. My question is, are they planning on doing the same with foster reservoir, isn't it the same situation there with the salmon smolts.
It's just seems so disgusting to hear ODFW crying the loss of a few non-native landlocked by man stocked fish.Water quality issues a very temporary.Just people playing huge victims for free taxpayer handouts."the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) has discussed the possibility of continuing to stock kokanee in Green Peter Reservoir due to overpopulation issues." You can go to Greenpeter on a busy weekend and there are like two Hill Billy's fishing but they'll freak the fuck out and claim billions of dollars in damages.
What's even worse is everybody blaming the "government", when in fact We The People ARE the government. It makes me wanna puke that folks have forgotten who is in control of the people that have forgotten who they work for. Our Founding Fathers are rolling in their graves
@@appaloosa6626 We are surrounded by cartels and crime organizations but if you use the wrong type of ink pen on your fishing tag there will be 5 different agencies and 15 different types of retarded cops in your face.
LOLOLOLOLOL, they convinced the townsfolk that the increase on their water bills were not drawdown, and when they get the fed money for extra costs incurred, the rates will not decrease nor any funding go back to the people. The behind the scenes stuff at the city council clearly shows most of the stuff of this video is a joke
@@appaloosa6626 I'm glad you feel the film is a joke. At least it has spurred conversation. Instead of using a comment section of a video to complain, spend 6 months of your free time and your money to make a film that articulates how everybody is wrong and you are right. I look forward to the chance to see that film.
@user-iv1ur9xo3i LOL I've been involved with this since the beginning....looooooong before the city had a clue what to do. The cities weren't talking with each other, and the conversations down there were ludicrous at best. It near took pitchforks and burning torches to even get anybody to move on it. No leadership stood to fight. Every last one of them cried like leppy calves about it being "not their jurisdiction". Well it wasn't theirs back in the spotted owl days either, yet every timber affected town stood up and lead their people to rallies and political campaigns. Not a single one has stood against ANY "mandates"..... which are not laws, yet are enacted as law by the judiciary branch. I have the documentation to PROVE some of the council said that I.... yes, ME.... was the catalyst to the city handing out water and being more transparent with testing and other issues brought up. I tried numerous times to get local media to dig, but none would return any calls. No sweet home facebook pages would allow anything negative to be posted, and then when it did, the city social media redcoat started removing posts and took a defensive posture, which caused the manager to set him down in the corner for a day or so and make an apology. I stand by every single thing I've said in every single comment I've made on this comment section, and that's my last word on the matter. My friend LaVoy told me two days before he was shot in the back "it matters how you stand"....
My Wife and I lived in Sweet Home from 2006 till May of 2023....when we moved last year I was telling friends and family this is going to go horrible and is looking to be true....any time the enviro crazies like this and a radical judge who is not affected by this get there way it seems to and then just shrug and walk away like nothing happened...or like urkel "did I do that...sorry" as an old song lyric goes...."they have eyes o look but not to see"
The Corp of Engineers should - IGNORE!!! the Federal Government and the State - and Stop the draw downs. Man has no Clue what they think they are doing! Natrue and God Know best about this world! Just Leave the Lakes alone! Let the lake refill -= ( and Leave it alone! ~ M.A.
See my comments above about what comes next if ACOE does not comply with the court orders. It's an even bigger legal snafu, requiring ACOE to return the river to its (actual) natural state. For those taking notes, that's one without dams (and man-made reservoirs behind them).
Kokanee were planted, non native salmon
@jefflong8449
Exactly! 💯!
So are the "wild" spring chinook they are trying to reestablish above Green Peter with this experiment. The native run was unfortunately lost decades ago.
I'm glad to see you interviewed Elise and Greg, who are good people, and are very much caught between a rock and a hard place.
A few points -
1. The first year of dewatering of any reservoir is going to flush out decades of accumulated sediment. The river is literally cutting a new channel through dozens of feet of accumulated muck in the lakebed. Likewise, the lakebed is now exposed to winter rains in a way it hasn't been before. The rain erodes through that sediment outside the main channel, and sweeps it into the river.
Subsequent years should see dramatically decreased sediment loads downstream.
2. Green Peter (and the rest of the Willamette Valley dam system reservoirs, including Detroit, Lookout, and Fall Creek, the others subject to the order) is a man-made ecosystem. The dams/reservoirs, intended to stop catastrophic floods in downstream communities (including Sweet Home), have done a good job of that since the project's beginning in the 1950s (1966 for GP, if I remember correctly). When thinking about the need to "preserve" these ecosystems, it's important to acknowledge that there is nothing natural about the reservoirs. Drawdowns have been occurring every year since the project's inception (for flood control purposes), and most of the recreation sites at the reservoirs are unable to be used in the winter and early spring. Seasonal drawdowns are nothing new (although the court-ordered drawdowns are more drastic than those for flood control).
3. The dams have unnaturally reduced sediment load for several decades, as the reservoirs create a place for sediment from upstream to settle out. Clear water in the rivers below the dams in the flood season is not a natural state. A look at Santiam tributaries upstream of the dams (or in nearby non-dam-controlled watersheds like the Calapooia or LNF Santiam) can help show a more natural representation of standard levels of turbidity in the winter after rain events. Some nearby communities have alternate wellfields for use for city water in turbid events. It sounds like Sweet Home and others on the South Santiam system do not.
4. Kokanee salmon are not native to these watersheds. They are plentiful in the lakes mentioned, as well as in dozens of other lakes in the state. There are hundreds of millions of kokanee in Oregon alone. The upper Willamette spring chinook run, on the other hand, is counted in thousands in good years, and hundreds in years with poor returns. It's unfortunate that there appears to be a loss of a sport fishery in these lakes (I often fish in Lookout Point, another reservoir affected by the drawdowns, and I'm sure the warmwater fishery there will be affected), but it's a false equivalency in terms of value to say things like "you're making one species endangered in order to try to save another." Note that comment wasn't in the video, but it's been expressed in many other forums regarding this decision.
5. The "alternate" strategies that are hinted at by the Sweet Home mayor are not new ideas; they've been dismissed over the years as it's simply cost-prohibitive to create effective passage over 300-foot-high dams (much less over several of them across the Willamette project) - either for upstream or downstream migration. Federal money is not "free" and cost estimates for improved passge through trap and haul and similar strategies have been in the hundreds of millions of dollars... for one dam...with no guarantee of effectiveness. www.opb.org/article/2023/10/31/willamette-river-salmon-dams-army-corps-fish-collector-vs-drawdowns/
Did the judge's injunction consider and balance all interests, including those of the nearby communities? No. Did ACOE have any better options available to them once that order was issued? Nope. Could ACOE have done a better job of promoting safe passage for salmonids from the inception of the projects up to the present day, preserving fish passage and thereby making this step unnecessary....? Well...hmm.
Could this all have been handled and communicated better? Sure. And I think that's led to some of the conclusions made or suggested in the video.
Clearly, you have a great understanding of the complexity of the situation. I really like Elise and Greg, and it wasn't my intent to do a thump down of the Army Corps. Could it have been handled better? Maybe. Could the communication with the communities have been better, absolutely. Should the drawdown happen again? No. I don't think it is achieving the desired goals.
@@user-iv1ur9xo3i I'm not sure how we can determine at this point whether the drawdowns have achieved "the desired goals." The goals, as I understand them, are to increase juvenile salmon recruitment, and ultimately, comply with ESA requirements (among other mandates) to preserve adult wild spring chinook salmon populations.
First off, as Elise mentioned, ODFW will be surveying below the dams to establish whether spring chinook survival has improved (they may have already for 2024). Survival of above-dam juveniles in absolute terms (the overall number of fish safely passed through the dam) is in part determined by the number of fish passed above the dams to start with. That number isn't consistent from year-to-year. One survey (or one year's worth of surveys) won't be sufficient to show a trend, especially if ODFW lacks before-project baseline data (given the abruptness of the court order, this would not surprise me in the slightest). Surveys will need to be done for several years running to determine whether juvenile recruitment is improving (as proponents of drawdowns suggest), static, or declining.
There's also the question of impacts to juveniles from fish spawning below the reservoirs. If, as one interviewee suggests, the macroinvertebrate supply below the dams has been significantly depressed by elevated levels of sediment, this won't be as high as pre-project (as the fish will have nothing to feed on). Conversely, turbid waters tend to contain higher levels of nutrients and support more robust food webs (see just about any river or lake east of the Cascades).
Second, the lifecycle of spring chinook is such that the earliest returns (in terms of number of wild adults coming back to spawn) won't be until spring of 2026, with the majority of 2024 spring young returning in 2027. If there's growth in the numbers of fish returning, it follows that there will be more juveniles, and then better returns in the next generation (2030). One could easily make an argument that the population won't have reached the carrying capacity of the "new" habitat for several generations.
So, without knowing whether more juvenile salmon are surviving, and whether more adult salmon will return, it's impossible to say whether the drawdowns have been effective, or whether they should continue.
It's also important to note that if drawdowns are ineffective (or are deemed to be politically untenable), the problem of Willamette project dams impacting spring chinook survival doesn't go away. It means that the ACOE has to resort to other, much more expensive measures (like those mentioned in the article I linked above).
Dam decommissioning and removal is also an option that could be triggered if drawdowns and/or alternate measures are not successful. Sometimes, this is a voluntary decision (see Eugene Water & Electric Board's McKenzie project plans or the Klamath dam removals) as the costs of compliance and retrofitting for fish passage outweigh the benefits of the dams. Sometimes, this is forced by legal action or other mandate (see Elwha dam removals).
The impacts on the nearby communities from the drawdowns are certainly not to be pushed aside, but they are nowhere near what would be seen in the case of ACOE needing to totally remove the dams.
If this was so well understood, why was this not taken into consideration? What USACE did was choose the easiest and most expedient way to do this draw down, and damn the residents and anyone else affected. It was a poorly managed and mangled decision from the outset, and once again the people living in the area paid the price for 'ologists' that knew better, but thought - what the heck, let's see what happens...
It wasn't PDX's water that was the color of mud, and the all knowing people pulling the levers to make this happen didn't boil their water for weeks.
Poorly managed, without consequences, and little care given for the people they are meant to serve- that's how I've come to see the USACE in this whole ordeal.
@@cirritus6738the river is loaded with winter steelhead. They are doing surveys as I type in a shitload of creeks and yes... they are finding fish
@@appaloosa6626 Glad to hear that (presumably) ODFW is conducting spring surveys. If they're finding the river "loaded" with winter steelhead, that's a dramatic departure from previous years. The South's winter run has been on life support for the past few decades, and the last data I saw from the Foster trap had about 300 adults returned. That's better than the few years prior, at least.
It'll be interesting to see what ODFW finds for juvenile chinook passage/survival, as that will be the determinant of whether these drawdowns are deemed a "success."
This seems like a legit reason for an organized peaceful protest.
On a positive note I recently fished the s santiam and caught many fish. A summer run steelhead and large trout.
That's great good to know 🙂
Thank you for the time it took you to make this. I hope it gets shared
Thank you for putting this out for people to see. Spent many summer vacations their. How sad.
Thank you so much for making this film. I don't think we're seen much here in Linn County and our welfare is thought of as unimportant. I live for summers on Foster, Green Peter and the Santiam.
This looks bad, but it is a prime example of our need to reevaluate our watersheds and to find better ways to store and manage our water. My personal belief is that we must create new wetlands on a grand scale, but that is a subject for debate at another time.
Thank you for sharing this video.i use to live in cascadia and would go camping and fishing at green peter frequently.what a disaster this has turned into!! What a shame! The impacts of this will last a long long time.
it'll probably never recover..... Might as well take the dam out!🤔
all water holds are being depleted. not for the reasons given, just a cover for the destruction it is intended to lead to.
That is a great video thank you for putting the time into producing such an informative production.
It truly is a tragedy that the judge that had no idea what a devastating action his ruling would have to the people and the environment. Not to mention the number of fish species that where released into the Willamette river system such a smallmouth bass and walleye.
Yeah, the number of SMB and walleye both upstream and downstream of Lookout has gone up dramatically. I'd assume there's similar SMB in the South Santiam? Did GP have many walleye? I haven't heard of a big population there, but I know they've established themselves several new places over the past few decades.
Small mouth Bass have been in Santiam and Willamette for many years now.
If you have an audio version of this, KORC Radio in Corvallis would be interested! Thank you!
you can play it on your phone, screen record and isolate the audio. Assuming the maker is ok with this approach.
I live in this county and was wondering what was going on with this lake. This didn’t quite answer my “why”?, when so many species, from tiny to large, are affected. Where did the wild life get water to drink? Look how the people’s water systems suffered.
Beautiful video, but I wish you had belled the cat, i.e. named the judge who mandated this action, which court the decision was made in, who the plaintiffs were, and provided a link to the decision and whatever information is available from the court. When Greg Taylor spoke in Lebanon, he said the judge could review the USACE data from the first year and possibly modify his mandate after one year. Keep putting pressure on state representatives and the governor. As my favorite civil rights lawyer often says, the court of public opinion does influence the courts. In that regard, this documentary provides some good feedback from the public and the local communities affected.
Thank the environmentalists for their great lawsuit. Perhaps they need to be held accountable somehow? Sounds like an idiot judge made a decision that nobody could counter with science....
Yes, sue the Enviro Wackos!!!!~ M.A.
The people that need held accountable are the ones that swallow up a "mandate" as law. The idiots are the ones letting judges do anything other than opine. Just like covid... look at the states that had no "mandate", then look at all the sheep that think a "mandate" carries the same weight as law. The amount of people that just laid down and did nothing.... none went to protest at all. They went to a city council meeting to cry, and when it was over, they all went home like good little subjects.
This whole deal is so frustrating to fisherman. I know people who ran guided trips on Green Peter, and any hopes of my usual trout and salmon fishing on the South Santiam this year are pretty much gone
Great video. I would never expect a Federal agency to admit wrong doing, or that what they did caused harm. USACE should be ashamed of what they did and how they did it.
The USACE did not have any choice. They were not given that privilege by the judge who mandated this. Look into the details more carefully.
@@nancyinoregon809 So they formally objected to doing this? There were conversations between USACE and the court on what would be the best way to handle this? I was unaware of this. From my lay perspective it seems like the just rolled over and did whatever the radicals wanted. And not to change the subject, but I fully expect them to do the same when it comes time to remove the dams across Oregon when the same radicals get their way pushing their agenda through the courts.
@nancyinoregon809 actually they did have that choice. A mandate is not law. Same with covid. Look at the states that REFUSED to follow any mandates for example. They could have very well told the judge to piss off. Look into the Constitution more carefully
Someone didn't pay attention to what was being said. USACE had no choice as they were ordered by a US FEDERAL Court to do this. No exceptions, no deviations, no let's stop and see how round 1,2,3,etc... goes before moving forward. They were told to do it, do it now, or else! So, saving on endangered species has caused a downward spiral in the health of MANY other species.
Is Cougar Reservoir effected also? I was recently camping there , and it looks the same.....
I was disappointed that they never actually explained the reason for the draw downs. They never once mentioned the effect this reservoir is having on the river and fish trying to migrate upriver in late fall and winter.
Hi George. I could have spent a half hour, just laying out the course that the lawsuits took. My intention was to keep the film short, and focused on the effects the drawdown had on the surrounding communities, so that as many people as possible would watch it. I made the film to spur conversation, whether I agree with the comments here or not. Maybe someone here can come up with a better solution than what has happened so far. It is incredibly complicated. Manny below is right, that Green Peter was originally put in for flood control. Yes, on Klamath River, 4 dams have been removed. Yet, they left 2 dams. Why? Flood control.
When is the 2024 draw down scheduled for
Thank you. 😢
Green Peter, Foster and the South Santiam were some of the most beautiful recreation areas when I was growing up. What exactly were the plaintiffs trying to accomplish with this lawsuit? If this was to assist the chinook in reaching their spawning grounds, it looks like it failed, leaving warm overly silted water to navigate. If this was to help the Spring Chinook smolts navigate the lake, it left warm, silted water where predators like bass could exterminate them. Looks like the entire river system was negatively impacted (unless you're a bass.)
What was the legal reason for the drawdown????????????????????
I don’t understand the rapid drawdowns. Why not extend the drawdowns over, maybe a two year period, so the turbidity won’t get as bad.
“Trust the experts”……
What a terrible shame!
Killing thousands of fish to attempt to establish a new run of "wild" fish that are not even native to the waters above Green Peter. Insanity.
Those townships are due "hardship" imposed by the ESA lawsuit, which should be paid by those filing the injunction. Countersuit should have been filed immediately by all of the townships, creating a class-action suit against the Federal Govt for not following the guidelines of the ESA and Federal management plans.
Oregon has become victim of some of the worst government ever inflicted on its citizens.
@glennryan9770 I don't agree. I think the only thing Oregon's government is bad at, is explaining the scientific process to some of its citizens.
Flushing the sping salmon smolts past the green peter dam every year is the main goal, but the question is will they survive the sediment load that goes with it , but as far as the Kokanee fishery in green peter, that will be gone.
My question is, are they planning on doing the same with foster reservoir, isn't it the same situation there with the salmon smolts.
It's just seems so disgusting to hear ODFW crying the loss of a few non-native landlocked by man stocked fish.Water quality issues a very temporary.Just people playing huge victims for free taxpayer handouts."the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) has discussed the possibility of continuing to stock kokanee in Green Peter Reservoir due to overpopulation issues." You can go to Greenpeter on a busy weekend and there are like two Hill Billy's fishing but they'll freak the fuck out and claim billions of dollars in damages.
What's even worse is everybody blaming the "government", when in fact We The People ARE the government. It makes me wanna puke that folks have forgotten who is in control of the people that have forgotten who they work for. Our Founding Fathers are rolling in their graves
@@appaloosa6626 If there is a U-Haul parked in front of the capital building in Salem it is probably just somebody moving furniture.
@@appaloosa6626 We are surrounded by cartels and crime organizations but if you use the wrong type of ink pen on your fishing tag there will be 5 different agencies and 15 different types of retarded cops in your face.
@@appaloosa6626 I have a photo of 15 cops all drawed down on two little kids.
@@appaloosa6626 Then 3 retired judges own the entire Yamhill valley.
This affects my community. I’m saddened by the impact the Feds decision has had locally.
The feds did not do this willingly. It was court ordered. Blame the idiot environmental groups.
Yall need to fix this
FILE SUIT AGAINST THAT JUDGE WHO CAUSED ALL OF THIS BECAUSE OF BUROCRACY!
IT'S AN EMERGENCY AND WE NEED MILLIONS OF TAX DOLLARS THEN WHERE'D ALL THE MONEY?
Never had it, never was a issue, why now? How about fight wildfish freaks and stand up against that.
I hope that the Sweet Home government learns from this mistake!
LOLOLOLOLOL, they convinced the townsfolk that the increase on their water bills were not drawdown, and when they get the fed money for extra costs incurred, the rates will not decrease nor any funding go back to the people. The behind the scenes stuff at the city council clearly shows most of the stuff of this video is a joke
@@appaloosa6626 I'm glad you feel the film is a joke. At least it has spurred conversation. Instead of using a comment section of a video to complain, spend 6 months of your free time and your money to make a film that articulates how everybody is wrong and you are right. I look forward to the chance to see that film.
@user-iv1ur9xo3i LOL I've been involved with this since the beginning....looooooong before the city had a clue what to do. The cities weren't talking with each other, and the conversations down there were ludicrous at best. It near took pitchforks and burning torches to even get anybody to move on it. No leadership stood to fight. Every last one of them cried like leppy calves about it being "not their jurisdiction". Well it wasn't theirs back in the spotted owl days either, yet every timber affected town stood up and lead their people to rallies and political campaigns. Not a single one has stood against ANY "mandates"..... which are not laws, yet are enacted as law by the judiciary branch. I have the documentation to PROVE some of the council said that I.... yes, ME.... was the catalyst to the city handing out water and being more transparent with testing and other issues brought up. I tried numerous times to get local media to dig, but none would return any calls. No sweet home facebook pages would allow anything negative to be posted, and then when it did, the city social media redcoat started removing posts and took a defensive posture, which caused the manager to set him down in the corner for a day or so and make an apology. I stand by every single thing I've said in every single comment I've made on this comment section, and that's my last word on the matter. My friend LaVoy told me two days before he was shot in the back "it matters how you stand"....
Human error 👍
Hope you found eggs
Did you ?
Survey 🧐
My Wife and I lived in Sweet Home from 2006 till May of 2023....when we moved last year I was telling friends and family this is going to go horrible and is looking to be true....any time the enviro crazies like this and a radical judge who is not affected by this get there way it seems to and then just shrug and walk away like nothing happened...or like urkel "did I do that...sorry" as an old song lyric goes...."they have eyes o look but not to see"
Enviro crazies 😂 You mean people that don’t want the native Willamette River chinook salmon runs to go extinct?
The Corp of Engineers should - IGNORE!!! the Federal Government and the State - and Stop the draw downs. Man has no Clue what they think they are doing! Natrue and God Know best about this world! Just Leave the Lakes alone! Let the lake refill -= ( and Leave it alone! ~ M.A.
See my comments above about what comes next if ACOE does not comply with the court orders. It's an even bigger legal snafu, requiring ACOE to return the river to its (actual) natural state. For those taking notes, that's one without dams (and man-made reservoirs behind them).
lol it’s not a lake though? It’s a reservoir
These lakes are man made lololol
Ignoring the courts is why we experienced January 6th 2021. The Green Peter dam was primarily built for flood control.
Go back in 5 years and see what it looks like
The best kind of government, is no government.
HAVE YOU EVER WONDERED WHY WE HAVE SOOOOO MANY HATCHERY FISH TRUCKS FLIPPING OVER AROUND HERE COSTING TAX PAYERS MILLIONS???
The damage was done filling these lakes. This is all the aftermath of poor decisions made long ago, not recent ones.
Remove the dams.
The people who allowed this insane corruption of a watershed should be prosecuted but of course they won't because they are Democrat politicians!
It appears censorship is alive and well with anything negative. What a joke