Batting 1.000 on pH Violations
In 2024, the DRA’s Maupin station went from the first week in April to the last week in October—nearly seven months—without a legal pH reading. 2025 is on track to match.
A Litany of WQ Violations
You may have grown weary of reading in the DRA’s blog posts and science reports about the constant violations of pH, dissolved oxygen, and temperature. (The science team certainly has grown weary of reporting them.) While a disturbing number of temperature exceedances have raised the ire of those who love the Deschutes, the canary in the coal mine, so to speak, remains the thousands of violations of the pH standard.
Let's be real: pH is not sexy. Fitness and health nerds might casually discuss the merits of pH in their designer coconut water, and you might have seen the claim “pH balanced” on your bottle of shampoo. Maybe you have some vague recollection about a science pop quiz you bombed because you filled in the “true” bubble next to the line that read, “pH stands for parts hydrogen.”
You don’t think about pH when you’re fishing. But on the Deschutes, it most definitely affects your fishing experience.
A skeptic of the DRA’s science program once derisively commented, “I don’t fish for pH.” This is a little like saying you don’t shower for soap. Of course you fish to catch fish, just as you shower to get clean. And just as you won’t easily get clean unless that bar of Irish Spring is with you in the shower, your fishing experience will be less satisfying in water that isn’t complying with pH standards.
Ripple Effects
Perhaps the most important thing to know about high pH levels in the lower Deschutes is that it’s a tell-tale sign of excessive aquatic plant growth. The invasion of mats of algae that foul flies and other fishing gear can be directly correlated with the start-up of the Selective Water Withdrawal Tower (SWW). Subsequent years of observation and investigation have tracked the decline in bird and insect populations, the ensuing appearance of black-spot disease in resident trout and some steelhead, and the ever-increasing carpets of slick, snot-like algae that degrade and decrease habitat for aquatic insects, and make wading the river a more harrowing adventure than it should be. Excessive pH levels are the chemical signature of these ongoing problems in the lower Deschutes.
Sensible Solution: Cooler, Cleaner H2O
Violations of pH began almost immediately when the Tower turned on in late 2009. And the explosive growth of algae followed. The DRA’s science program is central to its mission because it allows that last declarative sentence to be written with a high level of confidence that those words are true: the data exist to back up the statement.
Good science also allows the DRA to differentiate between the ongoing misfortunes on the lower Deschutes and a larger trend triggered by climate change on rivers everywhere. According to the EPA, warmer water temperatures and the presence of agricultural runoff are leading to an increase in the harmful algal blooms in many rivers and lakes around the world. The Willamette River, for example, came under a warning issued from the Oregon Health Authority beginning in August, as toxic algae made swimming for people a health risk and a lethal threat for dogs.
It’s worth noting that Lake Billy Chinook, the impoundment behind Round Butte Dam, was also issued a similar, standing warning over harmful algal blooms on June 18th. (The warning was downgraded on July 1st, but the advisory remains in place to keep pets away from the emerald green waters of this reservoir.) It is this warm, nutrient-rich, occasionally toxic water that for much of the year is mainlined into the lower Deschutes. While the harmful algae bloom in Lake Billy Chinook may be influenced by the same frightening climate chaos-driven trends affecting freshwater all over the West, the DRA’s water quality monitoring program has collected convincing data that
1) correlates the beginning of routine pH violations with the beginning of Tower operations, and,
2) points toward a cheap, easy solution for improving water quality in the lower Deschutes.
When Portland General Electric releases cold, clean water from the depths of Lake Billy Chinook, water quality parameters downstream, including pH, quickly drop into compliance with state standards. That’s why the DRA is pushing for state regulators to adopt a new flow regime that would put water colder, cleaner water from the depths of Lake Billy Chinook into the lower river.
To the detriment of the lower river, over the past nearly 15 years, PGE hasn’t made this move often enough. From November through June of the following year, for nearly the past 15 years, that same fetid, brackish frog water on the surface of Lake Billy Chinook comprises the majority of the flow into the lower Deschutes.
Batting a thousand on pH violations continues to bend the future of one of the West’s most cherished rivers into decline. The DRA’s dogged determination to remedy this situation only grows with every violation.
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