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Supplement: Lowering John Day Pool — Page 3 



would hold 7 1 5,000 acre-feet of active (available) storage, or just 85 percent of the flow augmen- 

 tation requirement to equal the John Day lowering. 



At $214 million, the Galloway Dam would cost nearly three times the John Day lowering at 

 $77 million. And the unit prices break out as follows: 



Galloway Dam: $214 million / 715,000 acre-feet = $299 per acre-foot 



John Day lowering: $77 million / 844,000 acre-feet = $9 1 per acre-foot 



John Day at MOP is the clear winner by a factor of three. 



The Northwest Power Planning Council staff had assumed that, as a practical matter, any new 

 flow augmentation would come from the Columbia. The simple fact is that the Columbia — on the 

 U.S. side alone — has twice as much storage as does the arid Snake Basin, and thus the Columbia 

 in any given year offers far more acre-feet available for fish flows. Moreover, new flow 

 augmentation out of the Snake drainage solely, as the Corps had assumed, would not provide benefit 

 to salmon runs in the mid-Columbia stretch, even though the John Day lowering certainly would. 



For these reasons, the Corps in its June, 1993 revised comments calculated a higher flow 

 augmentation equivalence of 1 ,529,000 acre- feet total — of which 1,234,000 acre-feet come down 

 the main Columbia and 295,000 acre-feet from the Snake Basin. By distributing new flow 

 augmentation between the two drainages, the estimate seeks to provide the same improved river 

 speeds to salmon from the mid-Columbia migiBtion corridor as from the Snake Basin as either or both 

 would receive from the John Day lowering. As discussed earlier, spreading faster travel times across 

 the entire migration corridor ignores or glosses over a host of advantages in just speeding up the John 

 Day pool. 



Regardless, in assessing the cost-effectiveness of the John Day drawdown as new storage, we 

 once more divide the capital cost by this estimates of equivalent acre-footage: 



Corps calculation: $77 million / 1 ,529,000 acre-feet = $50 per acre-foot 



These figures show high cost-effectiveness indeed. While the Galloway Dam (at triple the price) 

 would fill the Snake Basin requirement, the Corps knows of no new storage project anywhere in the 

 Columbia watershed with a storage capacity of 1,234,000 acre-feet to supply the need on the 

 Columbia side. Moreover, the agency knows of no new storage project of any size at such small unit 

 prices. 



Again, all of these calculations of cost-effectiveness are performed with the Corps' own 

 numbers — waits and all. Nonetheless, the lowering of John Day still comes up a clear "best buy' 

 at some "fire sale' prices. 



The remainder of the Corps' comments raises questions and doubts about the biological 

 benefits and about ecological impacts from the John Day lowering. The NIU study treats the same 

 issues in greater detail. 



NIU Study 



In an April, 1993 study entitled "Biological Risks Associated with a John Day Reservoir 

 Drawdown,' biologists under contract to Northwest Irrigation Utilities (NIU) and other sponsors 

 charge that the John Day lowering would cause a range of ecological impacts — primarily losses of 

 salmon, resident fish, and wildlife due to drying out and other damage to aquatic and riparian habitats 

 mainly located at the head of the John Day pool. 



