From left, Katie Kennedy and Pilar Courter, with Mount Hood Environmental, shock and collect fish from a pool in a side channel of the Deschutes River near Lava Island falls on Saturday in Bend. Low river flows cause fish to be stranded in the side channel, and a team of volunteers and professionals collected and transferred fish to a main river channel. 

It was a race against time on Monday at Lava Island Falls.

Armed with nets and electroshock backpacks, a group of volunteers worked tirelessly to scoop fish by the dozen out of a drying-up side channel of the Deschutes River as the water level made its annual autumnal drop. The fish were placed in buckets and then carried upstream where they could be placed in the river’s main channel.

The fish recovery at Lava Island Falls in the Upper Deschutes is now a decade old. It occurs along a mile-long portion of the river where it breaks off from the main stem but is unable to retain water in winter due to changes in irrigation demand.

Every year dozens of ordinary Bend residents volunteer their time to take part in a rescue that saves thousands of fish from dying in the dried-up channel. This year, 90 community members turned out to help.

Hauling buckets

Joe DeLuca, a retired IT worker who moved from Pennsylvania to Bend nearly three years ago, learned about the recovery and signed up to take part. On Monday, three days into the fish salvage, he was responsible for hauling the buckets of fish up the trail to the main stem of the river.

“It’s a good workout. I might not go to the gym today. They are heavy,” said DeLuca, an avid hiker and bike rider.

Despite the challenge, DeLuca says the effort has been worthwhile.

“It has been fun I have met new people who are super nice and very smart about the fisheries. You are outside on a day like today; it’s great. I am glad to help,” he said.

October river flows

A fish salvage at Lava Island Falls is a relatively recent phenomenon. Under natural conditions, before dams and diversions changed the flow of water in the river, the side channel remained active and filled in winter.

It is the manipulation of water in October that causes the side channel to lose its flow. Specifically, when North Unit Irrigation District holds back water behind Wickiup Dam to refill the reservoir, the Deschutes River level drops, cutting off some side channels.

During the winter months, the flow out of Wickiup Dam drops to around 105 cubic feet per second, not enough to keep water flowing through the side channel. Dam operators increase the flow again in April, allowing water to fill up the channel.

Several irrigation districts foot the bill for the fish salvage, including North Unit, Central Oregon, Arnold, Swalley, Lone Pine and Tumalo districts. The cost typically ranges from $20,000 to $26,000, said North Unit General Manager Josh Bailey.

Volunteers rallied

This year the salvage was delayed by a day due to unexpected high flows in the river. The side channel started to lose its connection to the main stem Saturday, allowing the fish salvage to begin.

“It has been going well. All the volunteers really rallied after the delay,” said Gina Maag-Klobas, a biological field technician with Mount Hood Environmental, a consultancy specializing in fish salvage and transport.

The first two days of the salvage netted approximately 3,400 fish, mostly rainbow trout and sculpin. Most fish were juveniles, but around a dozen have measured over 12 inches. A year ago, the three-day effort salvaged 7,000 fish.

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“Every year is a little bit different. This year there were more fish farther down the channel,” said Ben Briscoe, a field biologist with Mount Hood Environmental. “We are really appreciative of volunteers. They always come out with a lot of enthusiasm.”

Piping could help

The need for fish rescue could end later this decade when irrigation districts plan to increase the winter flow of water in the Deschutes River from 105 cfs to 300 cfs, a flow amount required by environmental regulations and the Deschutes Basin Habitat Conservation Plan.

Officials say a release of 300 cfs from Wickiup should be enough to keep the channel wet all winter.

“We have agreements in place within the (Deschutes) basin for large-scale conservation work that will enable more flows to stay in the Deschutes River in the wintertime by 2028,” said Marisa Hossick, a spokesperson for the Deschutes River Conservancy, an environmental nonprofit that organizes the fish salvage.

“That will hopefully mean that this event will not be needed,” she said.

That conservation work is centered on the piping of irrigation canals to prevent seepage but also includes on-farm improvements, such as converting from flood irrigation to sprinklers.

Other factors impact flow

But increasing the winter flow to 300 cfs is no guarantee that water will reach the channel. This is because the flow of water downstream from the dam depends on both releases from Wickiup and the flow of water into the river from springs and tributaries.

When snowpack is plentiful and the aquifer is high, a 300 cfs release from the dam will likely be enough to fill the side channel. But in times of drought, when groundwater levels decrease and spring recharge weakens, there may not be enough water to reach the side channel, said Deschutes Basin Watermaster Jeremy Giffin.

“It will ultimately depend on the type of water year we are having after the flows increase to 300 CFS to determine if the channel is filled, partially filled or dry,” said Giffin.

There could be other options for keeping water in the channel, even in drought years. One option would be to cut a small channel in the bottom of the river to allow water to flow from the main stem into the side channel, said Bailey.

“We were proposing to modify the physical channel, which would mean cutting a 3-foot wide by 2-foot deep trough through the lava, that way it would never dry up,” said Bailey. But there are a lot of regulatory requirements that would have to be met.”

Cutting a channel into the river would require an environmental analysis and permitting from the U.S. Forest Service as the channel lies in the Deschutes National Forest and carries a Wild and Scenic River designation.

“It is not as simple as coming out with some jackhammers and busting out some lava rock,” said Bailey.

Natural state

Emelie McKain, a senior water adviser for the Oregon Water Resources Department, said instead of modifying the river to suit historic low flows, it would be better to restore flow and get the river back to something closer to its natural state.

“There are two approaches here, the one we are taking through the habitat conservation plan, through piping projects that will conserve water is getting that water back in the river to support a natural hydrograph, instead of modifying the river itself,” said McKain.

Back at the river, retired tech worker Tom Hill was knee-deep in a pool of brownish-green water. Hill was one of the volunteers helping to push forward a wide net to corral some of the remaining fish in a large pool.

The fish flopped in the net as other volunteers grabbed them with their hands and placed them in white and orange buckets. Hill, a fly fisherman, said it was interesting to view conservation in action and net the fish as he is used to catching them with his fly rod.

“It has been a ton of fun,” said Hill “I would do it again in a heartbeat.”