4/10/24

Corps advances Spring Pulse in upper MO basin

On the eastern slope of the Rocky Mountain Front Spring runoff allows endangered pallid sturgeon in Yellowstone tributaries like the Powder and Tongue Rivers to spawn but the Corps canceled the Spring Pulse below Lewis and Clark Lake in 2022 due to inadequate runoff into the Missouri River. 

So today, dry winter and low mountain snowpacks are driving the Corps to release storage in the Missouri River mainstem dams hoping to prop up the navigation season at the risk of providing less water for hydroelectric generation. Pallid sturgeon are living dinosaurs but when the Missouri River dams were built it sealed the fate of the ancient species. Scientists and the US Army Corps of Engineers have learned that unless newly hatched pallid sturgeon have several hundred miles of unimpeded waters they cannot survive.
“Even with the lower than average runoff forecast the hydrologic conditions are sufficient to conduct a flow test from Fort Peck Dam,” said John Remus, chief of the Corps’ Missouri River Basin Water Management Division, in a news release. The goal is to boost flows from Fort Peck by 1,700 cfs each day until the peak flow at the Wolf Point gauge reaches 16,000 cfs. [Fort Peck Reservoir water releases planned for pallid sturgeon research]
During heavy Spring runoff Fort Peck Dam partially failed in 1938 then was tested by flood waters again in 2011 when this interested party was living in Montana.

Under President Joe Biden and pressure from the US Fish and Wildlife Service the Corps boosted releases from the Fort Peck Dam in 2021 for spawning pallid sturgeon after it was suspended during the horrors of the previous administration.
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1 comment:

  1. larry kurtzJune 5, 2024 at 5:01 AM

    "Test releases from Fort Peck to assess the potential benefits of alternative management scenarios for the pallid sturgeon began on April 26 and will be completed by Sept. 1." May runoff slightly above average; Fort Peck flow test continues

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