Bending the Rules: A Timeline of PGE’s Failure to Comply With Water Quality Standards
The pea-green water of Lake Billy Chinook. The water you see here flows into the lower Deschutes, and often doesn’t meet the terms of PGE 401 Certification—a key part of its permit to operate the dam.
Understanding the Legal Framework of the Pelton Round Butte Hydroelectric Complex
By Hannah Camel, DRA Water Quality Coordinator
Licensing a hydroelectric complex is more than just securing permission to produce electricity — it’s a comprehensive process that weighs energy needs against ecological health, tribal and community interests, recreation, and water quality. In the United States, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) oversees this licensing, issuing permits that can last decades and developing detailed requirements for environmental protection and monitoring. State agencies play a critical role too, particularly through Clean Water Act 401 certifications, which ensure projects comply with state water quality standards. Together, these overlapping authorities create a framework of federal, state, and local requirements that determine how dams are operated, how rivers are managed, and how impacts to fish and ecosystems are addressed.
Background
The Pelton Round Butte hydroelectric complex, operated by Portland General Electric in partnership with the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs, received its original 50-year FERC license in 1955. When the project was relicensed in 2005, regulators, tribes, operators, and stakeholders negotiated new requirements and enforceable commitments that reshaped project management, including solutions to improve water quality and restore fish passage. The most notable change to meet the new requirements was the construction of the Selective Water Withdrawal Tower. The relicensing process established a framework of legal and technical requirements, including a FERC license, a Clean Water Act 401 certification, and an appended Water Quality Management & Monitoring Plan (WQMMP), all designed to protect fish, water quality, tribal interests, recreation, and other resources.
The Water Quality Management & Monitoring Plan (WQMMP)
The WQMMP was developed as a condition of Oregon DEQ’s Clean Water Act 401 certification for the Pelton Round Butte Hydroelectric Project, and it remains the backbone of how the project’s water quality obligations are managed. The plan outlines what parameters must be monitored — such as temperature, dissolved oxygen, pH, and nutrients — where and how frequently samples are collected, and what thresholds require action. Data gathered under the WQMMP guide key operational decisions, particularly the use of the Selective Water Withdrawal tower at Round Butte Dam. In this way, the WQMMP functions both as a compliance tool and as an adaptive management framework, ensuring that the project’s day-to-day operations are continually informed by real-world monitoring results and meet state water-quality standards.
Interim Agreements
Despite projections that operation of the Selective Water Withdrawal tower would improve water quality, the project has often struggled to consistently meet the standards and requirements set out in the 401 certification and WQMMP. Rather than adjusting operations to meet requirements set by the original WQMMP, as required under the definition of adaptive management, licensees negotiated interim agreements that set short-term operating limits, often relaxing water quality requirements so the project can remain in regulatory compliance. There have been several interim agreements put in place since the PRB project was relicensed, all completed without public notice or input. Below is a brief timeline of these agreements and what each one did.
Lower standards, Poorer Water Quality
2011 Interim Agreement
The 2011 Interim Agreement was adopted after Oregon DEQ raised concerns that the Pelton Round Butte Project was failing to meet water-quality standards, including dissolved oxygen monitoring requirements. In response, DEQ and PGE agreed that in 2011 the project would implement a new operational approach called “Blend 17”, which shifted how surface and bottom water were mixed at the Selective Water Withdrawal tower. Blend 17 prioritized surface water most of the year, gradually adding bottom water in summer to reach a 50/50 mix, with consultation required if discharge temperatures strayed more than 1°C from natural targets. The agreement was intended as a stopgap measure to gather data and guide future adaptive management while addressing immediate temperature management shortcomings.
2012 Interim Agreement
The 2012 Interim Agreement adjusted water quality requirements by allowing discharge temperatures to exceed the Natural Thermal Potential by up to 0.5°C for three days during sudden cooling events, and by relaxing dissolved oxygen standards in summer months from 11.0 mg/L to 8.0 mg/L. These changes aligned project requirements with updated state criteria and gave licensees more flexibility in managing the Selective Water Withdrawal Tower. The stated purpose was to collect additional data on temperature and oxygen performance, but in practice it marked a shift toward loosening water quality requirements rather than strictly modifying operations.
2013 Interim Agreement
The 2013 Interim Agreement further revised water quality requirements by relaxing the temperature standard for water released from the project, requiring PGE to begin blending operations when the discharge temperature approached 12.0° C, rather than 10.0° C as required in the WQMMP. It also lowered the dissolved oxygen requirement from 11.0 mg/L to 9.0 mg/L year-round, even though the agreement itself acknowledged there wasn’t enough data to justify the change. These adjustments raised concerns that altering WQMMP criteria without formally modifying the 401 Certification sidestepped the public process required for such changes.
“Addendum” to 2013 Interim Agreement
The 2013 Addendum did not modify temperature rules in the original 2013 agreement, but it did significantly weaken dissolved oxygen standards for summer months. The addendum replaced the 9.0 mg/L requirement with a 30-day mean minimum of 8.0 mg/L, a 7-day minimum mean of 6.5 mg/L, and an absolute minimum of 6.0 mg/L. These changes came after PGE was unable to meet even the lowered 2013 standards, and rather than adjust operations, regulators agreed to further relax the criteria.
2014 Interim Agreement
The 2014 Interim Agreement maintained the weakened dissolved oxygen standards from the 2013 Addendum and left temperature requirements unchanged from 2013. Additionally, operational challenges like the ineffectiveness of “Blend 17” and differing views on spawning dates highlighted ongoing tensions over compliance and the potential need to modify the 401 Certification.
2015 Interim Agreement
The 2015 Interim Agreement raised the temperature at which blending operations begin to 13.0°C (up from 12.0°C in 2013) and changed the reference standard from “Natural Thermal Potential (NTP)” to “Without Project Temperatures (WPT)”. Dissolved oxygen requirements remained the same as in 2014. The change to 13.0°C likely reflects regulatory guidance for streams with salmon and steelhead spawning and also provides PGE more operational flexibility during periods of rising inflow temperatures.
2017 Interim Agreement
The 2017 Interim Agreement maintained the blending temperature (13.0°C) from the 2015 agreement, but allowed for short-term exceedances during cooling events. It also continued the lower dissolved oxygen standards for summer months originally put in place during the 2013 agreement. The agreement also outlined a process for reviewing and, if necessary, revising the WQMMP and 401 Certification to ensure ongoing compliance with applicable water-quality standards.
2019 Interim Agreement
The 2019 Interim Agreement maintained the blending temperature (13.0°C) and dissolved oxygen standards from the 2017 agreement. The agreement also established a timeline for reviewing and potentially revising the WQMMP in consultation with DEQ, the Warm Springs Water Control Board, and other stakeholders, following the release of a water quality study conducted by PGE. Six years later, a revised WQMMP has yet to be issued by DEQ and the lower water quality requirements continue to be applied, violating the requirements of the current 401 Certification.
Adaptive Management?
The language in PGE’s license is rife with references to “Adaptive Management.” In theory, this means that management strategies for the lower Deschutes River should be subject to constant monitoring and evaluation, as well as input from the public and various stakeholders. Adjustments should be made when standards for water quality and fish reintroduction aren’t being met. In practice, PGE, with the acquiescence of the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, and notably, without public input, simply lowered the standards while its failing management strategies remain in place.
Stay tuned for part 2 of this blog series, where we will be diving a bit deeper, looking at where we stand today when it comes to 401 certifications and license requirements.
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