After seven months of 24/7 duty, one of the DRA’s data sondes gets prepped for the long winter break.
By Hannah Camel, DRA staff scientist
As fall swiftly transitions into winter, our 2024 monitoring season has come to a close. On Thursday, November 21st, we carefully removed both of our YSI data sondes from the river. These sensors, which have been continuously collecting critical water quality data since their deployment on April 7th, are now on their way back to YSI for their annual cleaning, maintenance, and calibration.
This process is a critical step in ensuring the accuracy and reliability of our data collection efforts. The YSI sondes are sophisticated tools, equipped with sensors to monitor key water quality parameters such as temperature, dissolved oxygen, pH, and turbidity. Over months of exposure to flowing water, sediment, and biological growth, the sensors can experience wear and drift that may compromise their precision. Routine maintenance ensures they remain in top condition for the next monitoring season.
Commitment to Excellence
As the sondes make their way to YSI’s facilities, our team will shift focus to analyzing the data collected over the 2024 season. This data will be compiled into our annual water quality report, which is anticipated for release in February or March of next year. The report will provide insights into the river’s current conditions and help guide our ongoing efforts to ensure its health and sustainability.
Looking ahead, the sondes will return to us in time for the next monitoring season, freshly calibrated and ready for redeployment in the spring. Until then, our team will continue to advocate for the Deschutes River’s well-being and prepare for the upcoming monitoring season. As always, we are deeply grateful to our supporters, donors, and partners. Your dedication and generosity make it possible for us to continue this vital work. Stay tuned for updates as we dive into this year’s data and begin preparations for the 2025 monitoring season.
More From The Blog
“Out of basin stray adult hatchery steelhead have been great for angler success in the Lower Deschutes for the last 30 years. However, these hatchery stray steelhead pose real risk to the reproductive success of wild steelhead in the Deschutes through loss of hereditary adaptations.”
-ODFW’s Jason Seals
The lower Deschutes is also home to an equally rich and diverse group of less visible and famous residents and the subject of this installment. Most of these residents go unseen by the average fisherman.
The consistent element in mid-Columbia steelhead management protocols is that all wild steelhead must be released. But is that enough?
True to its name, this large and unmistakable caddisfly makes its appearance as autumn takes hold, adding a splash of orange to the river just as the leaves begin to do the same.
Benthic macroinvertebrates give us a unique window into the health of the lower Deschutes River. Because these organisms spend much or all of their lives in the river and respond differently to changes in water quality and habitat, long-term monitoring can reveal ecological patterns that may not be apparent from water quality measurements alone.
Undoubtedly, these changes to the CWA have the potential to affect the Deschutes. Much of the basin relies for its drinking water on sources that would no longer be protected.
The Deschutes River needs more wild steelhead. Poor water quality may be one of the biggest obstacles to acheiving that goal.
Specifically for the Deschutes River, the 137,000 acres of inventoried roadless lands protected under the Roadless Area Conservation Rule help protect the headwaters of one of the state’s most beloved rivers, as well as in its most pristine tributary, the Metolius River.
“Also, while adults quickly escape from the pupal exoskeleton, they will often run rapidly across the surface trying to reach shoreline rocks or vegetation. And yes, trout don’t ignore such suicidal behavior.”
“As important as fall Chinook are to sport anglers, they are very important to members of the Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs Reservation. Harvested at the Sherars Falls area for millennia by members of the tribes that make up the Warm Springs Reservation, fall Chinook are important for ceremonial and subsistence purposes, and are the preferred salmon species for the traditional preservation method of drying. Tribal fishers can be seen to this day harvesting fall Chinook from platforms or scaffolds by traditional dipnet fishing. Hundreds of tribal fishers spend thousands of hours annually at this site to harvest around 2,000 adult fall Chinook.”
The pain partly stems from the frustration of a more widely shared knowledge of what needs to be done, and seeing it remain undone, season after season, and witnessing ongoing deterioration rather than recovery. It turns out that river management policy, which on the surface seems simply a matter of implementing the best available science, is oftentimes more vexing than understanding the science.
“The Deschutes steelhead closure and the potential closure of the John Day will jeopardize small businesses like ours and our rural communities.”
-Mia Sheppard, co-owner Little Creek Outfitters
“We need unclipped/wild steelhead. I don’t want my name on the last steelhead that swims up the Deschutes River. If I truly believed I was causing harm to this fishery, I would stop guiding. I don’t believe that myself and the others are doing damage.”
-Brad Staples,
We're excited to add algae sampling to our monitoring program and look forward to sharing what we learn. Stay tuned as we begin this new chapter in understanding - and protecting - the lower Deschutes River.
net-spinning caddis larvae actually produce sounds underwater…The sounds are loud enough to be detected by underwater microphones and are thought to help establish territories, discouraging nearby larvae from encroaching on an occupied feeding site. Different species produce slightly different chirps because the shape and spacing of their ridges vary, almost like each species has its own unique underwater language.”
The lower Deschutes River needs to flow with the maximum amount of available cold, clean water, not only for the sake of Deschutes river trout, salmon and steelhead, but for the protection of salmonids throughout the Columbia Basin.
Deschutes summer steelhead have long endeared themselves to anglers for their willingness to take a fly presented at or near the surface, and they are generally willing to bite a variety of lures.
The DRA provides real-time water quality updates, including temperature, at all three of our monitoring stations, as well as weekly water quality updates that go out with our Thursday morning email blast. Keep an eye on water temperatures, and plan your angling experience accordingly.
For anglers, Pale Evening Duns represent an exciting hatch and a chance to watch trout feed on the surface. For scientists, they tell a much bigger story. Changes in the abundance and diversity of these sensitive insects can serve as an early warning sign that environmental conditions are shifting and that the health of the lower Deschutes River may be under increasing stress.
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How to Support the DRA
Everyone wants clean, healthy water in the Deschutes River. Oregonians cherish our clean and healthy waterways to provide drinking water, wildlife habitat and recreational activities. The lower Deschutes River is a federally designated Wild & Scenic River, and a national treasure. It must be protected for the environmental and economic health of Central Oregon. We believe by working together we can return the lower Deschutes River to full health.
