There are just a few weeks left in 2011, so here’s a year-end wrap up on downstream fish passage.

We had some exciting and historic milestones this year when fry planted upstream of Pelton Round Butte returned as adults. Read more on that topic below. But the big story of 2011 is yearling sockeye salmon.

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In our Q&A on water temperature posted July 29, I noted that “We fine-tuned the system to make it more responsive, and this year expect to be able to make changes as needed — remembering that Natural Thermal Potential remains the target.”

What’s Natural Thermal Potential? It refers to what the water temperature below the dams would have been without the reservoirs and dams in place.

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The selective water withdrawal facility is now in its second year of operation, and we’re getting questions about how we’re managing water temperatures in the Lower Deschutes.

What’s PGE’s role in managing water temperatures in the lower Deschutes?

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There he was, a Chinook salmon with a history that involved me, a 30-year dream and 16 years of hard work by a host of people. The fish looked much like the others swimming in the shaded concrete pond below Round Butte Dam, but this one was special. Like the others caught in the Pelton Fish Trap this May, it was beautiful, about 12 pounds, bright and shiny, strong and thick from two years gorging itself in the rich Pacific. The difference was that this one was missing part of the small bone along the right side of its mouth.

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With the salmon fly hatch on the Lower Deschutes River in full swing and many anglers pursuing trout that rise to the big bugs, I am getting frequent calls about the high flows. Anglers are somewhat used to flows higher than normal during wet years, but this year is exceptional.

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A 12-pound male salmon, one of thousands of Chinook that biologists and volunteers released into the Upper Deschutes tributaries above the Pelton-Round Butte Hydro Project in 2008, has made history. It’s the first fish to return.

A fish with its right maxillary bone clipped — a marker indicating it was released in the Upper Deschutes tributaries, swam into the Pelton fish trap on May 25.

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Our first-of-its-kind underwater tower is the talk of Washington D. C. The 273-foot-tall floating fish collection facility and underwater tower at Pelton Round Butte continues to receive accolades for innovation, and just won two more top awards in our nation’s capital.

The Selective Water Withdrawal project won two awards in April.

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Our fish passage crew is working overtime trying to keep up with the large numbers of yearling sockeye smolts migrating into the new downstream fish capture facility at Round Butte Dam. These smolts are the offspring of the abundant kokanee population that Lake Billy Chinook has long been known for.

In spring 2010, about 50,000 sockeye smolts migrated downstream. This spring, we are seeing even more.

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The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has convened a panel of five experts to review the populations of bull trout and their prey in the Metolius River-Lake Billy Chinook system. The agency, which is partnering with PGE and the Confederated Tribes of Warm springs to restore salmon and steelhead runs above Round Butte dam, wants to ensure that an overly abundant bull trout population doesn’t hinder salmon and steelhead recovery.

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PGE and the Confederated Tribes of Warms Springs are putting logs on the banks of the lower Deschutes River to create better fish habitat. Crews pick up logs longer than 10 feet that float into Lake Billy Chinook and transport them to the lower Deschutes.

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