My sister and her family live on a working farm in Jefferson, OR. They have water frontage on the Willamette River as well as Keesneck Lake on one corner of their property. Keesneck lake is manmade and is fed by the Sidney Irrigation Cooperative System. The irrigation district pumps water from the Santiam River. Keesneck Lake is the last stop before it dumps into the Willamette River. When they moved onto the farm, the lake was barren, devoid of fish, frogs or even much plant life. My brother-in-law worked hard to rehabilitate the lake and was successful. Recently there was an algae bloom that covered the lake, indicating a lack of oxygen resulting in the fish dying. Back to square one.
When contacted, a representative of the Sidney Irrigation Cooperative System said the they’ve been doing it this way for 200 years and it is not their responsibility if farmers or dairies along the system pollute the water. Nor were they in the least bit concerned about the fish in Keesneck Lake. What a stupid argument. Two hundred years ago, slavery was legal in the United States, cocaine and heroin was considered medicine and water pollution, what was that?
Interestingly, when the Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) was asked to become involved the Sidney Irrigation Cooperative System was notified and the irrigation lines were magically flushed out. No evidence of pollution could be found. At least not in Keesneck Lake. Unfortunately, all this did was sweep the problem into the Willamette River. The real problem remains unresolved and will likely happen again.
According to the Willamette Riverkeeper, ”While not all of these sources of pollution and habitat modification can be attributed to any one negative aspect of today’s Willamette River, we do indeed have the following realities on the river:
- The Willamette is on the Clean Water Act 303 (d) list for violations of water quality standards.
- The Willamette currently violates temperature, bacteria, and mercury standards.
- A large section of the river, some 40-miles known as the Newberg Pool, is home to resident fish (those that don’t migrate such as the northern pikeminnow) that exhibit high percentages of skeletal deformities. For example, in some samples in this area over 50% of the juvenile fish were deformed. This section of the river, as well as others, contains PCBs, dioxin, and PAH among others.
- A six-mile stretch of the river in Portland is now a federally designated Superfund site. This site is highly polluted with all manner of toxic pollution, heavy metals, and other substances. It is now going through a cleanup process that will likely push a decade to complete.
- Spring Chinook and steelhead, the Willamette’s native salmonids, are listed as threatened under the Federal Endangered Species Act.
- Other species such as lamprey eel and white sturgeon have been found to contain significant concentrations of man made chemicals in their tissues.
- There is a fish consumption advisory for people that eat ANY species of resident fish. This is pretty much any fish other than salmon, lamprey, and sturgeon.
- New studies are underway that are looking into additional impacts from toxic and other pollution on the Willamette River and the species that inhabit it.”
Seems to me “Not my job” just doesn’t cut it any more. We are all responsible and it shouldn’t take an act of congress, so to speak, for people to clean up their act.
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I agree with you it is our responsibility to save our world because we are the one who are responsible for destroying it. We have to save our water resources for our future generations. I think the biggest source of water pollution is industries. Industrial sector is consuming vast amount of water. Major problem with industrial water usage is a huge percentage out of this water consumed leads to production of wastewater which may or may not degrade quality of nearby resources. Industrial water treatment Consultant should be consulted in this regard.
This is an interesting post.
I’m not sure that the health of the fish (mostly carp and chub at my last count) in a man-made irrigation conduit are something to get excited about.
I must acknowledge that the Willamette is woefully polluted, but please do not wrongfully attribute this to irrigation runoff from Bashaw creek. (By the way, the community you are so concerned about is called Sidney – with one Y.)
I do hope your brother-in-law realizes that he may be outside of his rights in any interference he has made to the legally protected water rights of area agricultural concerns through his “rehabilitations”…
What is the definition of “working farm” anyhow?
Thanks for the update…
The pollution in the Willamette comes from many sources.
The EPA’s lists E. COLI and FECAL COLIFORM as contaminants in Bashaw Creek – http://oaspub.epa.gov/tmdl/enviro.control?p_list_id=OR1231234447873_0_4.8&p_cycle=2006.
Personally, I think the health of fish in an irrigation conduit is an indication of how healthy the downstream waters are going to be, in this case the Willamette. Wouldn’t we all be better served if farms using irrigation did a better job of managing runoff, so water isn’t polluted?
Definition of a working farm – “A farm whose agricultural land and buildings are in active use for crop production and/or the raising of livestock.”
Thanks for the name correction. I corrected it in my post.
Your finding with the EPA is exactly my point…
The use of unregulated “organic” (read: liquid cow poop) fertilizer on the local dairy paddocks and/or those of its forage growers is in fact the key culprit. By lumping in the impact of local grass and rowcrop farmers in this, you do a disservice to your allies. The pollution in question, which rendered this waterway barren over 30 years ago, has been flowing from a small number of key sources miles down the system from Keesneck lake.
Perhaps the main area of disagreement for me lies in my preconception of the very large difference for between farmers and dairymen, especially when it comes to conservation and environmental responsibility. My definition of working farm includes this…
I thank you for your thoughtful response.
Ah, I see your point and didn’t consider how folks might lump the grass and crop farmers together with dairy farms so I appreciate your calling attention to this point. In fact, my sister and brother-in-law lease their farmland to a grass seed grower.
Thank you for your comments and clarification.