Wallowa Lake Dam Rehabilitation project manager David Hockett told a gathering of some 65 persons Thursday morning that he anticipates the $32 million bill to support the comprehensive dam project to pass out of the U.S. Senate within the next week. Hockett was speaking at a public meeting held at the Joseph Community Center.

Many key players in the three-year-old plan were on hand to educate the public on the many aspects of the four-phase project that is anticipated to cost $38.8 million for completion. It is anticipated that much of the additional $6.8 million will come from the Bonneville Power Administration and be earmarked for fish passage.

Project engineer Mort McMillen from the firm of Montgomery Watson Harza in Boise, Idaho, Jeff Oveson of the Grande Ronde Model Watershed in La Grande, Kristen Stallman of Oregon State Parks, Becky Ashe of the Nez Perce Fisheries, Steve Wolfe of the Minam Lake Reservoir Irrigators Association, Bruce Eddy of the Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife and Tom Smith of the Enterprise office of the Natural Resource Conservation Service all spoke during the three hour meeting.

U.S. Senator Gordon Smith’s field representative Richard Krikava assured the group that if the bill is not passed before the current session closes that it will be reintroduced as soon as the next session begins.

In 1996 the Oregon Dam Safety Department said the dam was not strong enough to hold the allowable level of water and demanded short term improvements and a long term plan. Water levels have been reduced, improvements were made in 1996 and the bill before Congress is the long term plan.

The dam is owned by the Associated Ditch Company (ADC) which will not relinquish private ownership under the proposed bill.

The four phase project includes dam rehabilitation, fish passage, a water exchange lower in the valley and hydropower generation. The affected area covers most of the Wallowa Valley from Wallowa Lake to some 40 miles downstream near the city of Wallowa.

The ADC has agreed, in exchange for the dam work, to store 4,500 acre feet of water for release downstream seasonally to enhance fish passage. That release would come at the discretion of fisheries experts, supposedly in August, September or October, when the stream flows are lowest and most critical for fish migration.

Hockett said the dam has not been filled to legal capacity since the late 1960s. By rebuilding the dam to its allowable high mark level and filling to the legal capacity of the dam it could negatively affect both the Oregon State Park at the south end of the lake and private homeowners along the western shore. Hockett has been in contact with the Wallowa Lake Homeowners Association, encouraging west shore homeowners to rip rap their banks.

Stallman thought that the negatives at the state park – flooding on the large parking lot, making the boat ramp unusable and placing the swim beach underwater – could be turned into positives in the long run. She outlined a plan during her 15 minute presentation which included improvements at the parking lot, replacing the boat ramp with a concrete ramp similar to the one at the county park at the north end of the lake and the development of a new swim beach.

When asked what would be the alternative if the ADC did not get the dam repaired, engineer McMillen said that the state of Oregon would in most likelihood require the ditch company to take the dam down.

As it sits the Wallowa Lake Dam is responsible for the irrigation of 16,000 acres of land.

Describing himself as an engineer, an agriculture producer and a taxpayer, John Lenahan of rural Joseph posed some hard questions to the group. He felt that some issues were not getting adequately addressed. He questioned if the federal government was going to invest $32 million in a project and let the ADC keep all benefits with no strings attached. He questioned whether the rights of irrigators were being adequately protected in the proposed legislation. He questioned whether the people in the Community Center had read either the vision statement of the actual bill under consideration.

Oveson answered many of the concerns by stating unequivocally, “There will be no exchange of water rights at all. Period.”

Norman Pratt of the ADC board assured Lenahan that irrigators have been kept abreast of the proposal all along through their local ditch companies.