Last week, in consultation with the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality and Warm Spring Tribal Natural Resources, PGE was granted flexibility to adjust the outflow schedule this year, if needed, to keep discharge temperatures below natural thermal potential.

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This spring, I had the great fortune to watch native summer steelhead spawning on a gravel bar in Trout Creek, a tributary of the Deschutes River. The scene was at Trout Creek Ranch, a 3,000-acre property purchased by Portland General Electric in 1999 for fish and wildlife habitat mitigation.

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July 1 marked the beginning of a new era of managing temperatures on the lower Deschutes. Hydro operators adjusted some controls on the new Round Butte Selective Water Withdrawal Tower (SWW) and the lower Deschutes River grew cooler. They had begun mixing the cold, deep water in Lake Billy Chinook with warmer water on the surface.

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