Bull Run Watershed Research Articles

Evaluating the Sensitivity of Projected Reservoir Reliability to the Choice of Climate Projection: A Case Study of Bull Run Watershed, Portland, Oregon

Climate change has the potential to alter the quantity and timing of runoff, which may pose significant challenges for reservoir management. One challenge is developing operating policies for an unknown and uncertain future. Here, we develop a suite of ‘optimal’ operating policies for the reservoir system of Portland, Oregon. We assess the sensitivity of projected reservoir reliability to the choice of GCMs and time periods used to develop each of our policies. Results indicate that, while different GCMs and fitting periods produce different optimal operating policies, when those policies are applied across all the other GCM scenarios, the overall projected reliability does not change due to the great variability between simulations. Across the simulations, we note a trend of decreasing reliability in the future which is not sensitive to the choice of GCM or fitting period. This indicates that the projected reliability is dominated by uncertainty in climate projections that cannot be mitigated by tuning operating policies to projected changes.

Eco solution increases fish rehabilitation

The Bull Run Watershed is the primary drinking water supply for the City of Portland in the US. It also plays an important role in supporting the larger aquatic ecosystem of the Sandy and Lower Columbia rivers where, due to warm summer water temperatures, some of the fish species have recently been in significant decline.

A Tribute Rick Harmon August 30, 1952 - May 20, 2004

A Mute Rid Harmon Aipst 1,1952-May 20,2KM Rick Harmon (left),Michael Munk, and Omar "Slug" Palmer (back to camera) at theOregon Historical Society's annual meeting in 1997, where Munk received the Joel Palmer Award. RickHarmon, editor of theOregon Historical Quarterly from 1987 to 1999,died on May 20,2004. We are grateful toSteveHallberg for allowing us toreprint part of theeulogy hewroteforRick and toRick's other colleagues for helping us remember hismany contributions to thejournal and theOregon Historical Society. I met Rick for the first time in 1983when he arrived at theOregon Historical Society to takeon theposition of oral historian. Naturally, his hiring raised a few eyebrows among us northwesterners, who were not quite surewhether we could safely entrustOregon history to a California!!. It took no time at all, however, to figure out thatRick was exactly the right person for the job. His intellect,work ethic, and integrity were evident right from the beginning, and theymade a strong impression on me and his other colleagues. Rick stepped into an oral history program with a strong foundation laid down by his two predecessors, Charles Digregorio and Linda Brody Dodds. His biggest innovation was amove toward longer,more in-depth interviews that explored all stages of a person's life;and over the next fewyears, Rick used this approach to conduct remarkable sessions with people as diverse as federal judge Gus Solomon, civil rights activist Kathryn Hall Bogle, and writer Clyde Rice. Excerpts from several of his oral histories, published in theOregon Historical 502 OHQ vol. 105, no. 3 ? 2004 Oregon Historical Society Quarterly, convey just how good an interviewer he was ? able to draw people out and get them to think and speak about their lives in revealingways. In 1986,Rick was chosen to succeed Priscilla Knuth as editor of theOregon Historical Quarterly, a post she had held for three decades. "PK" would have been a tough act for anyone to follow, and in some respects, the two of them could not have been more different. What they shared was a commitment to thework. Over the year thatRick spent working alongside Priscilla, the two formed a strong bond, and PK passed on stewardship of theQuarterly in 1987, confident that it was in good hands. When I think of Rick as editor, I picture him seated inhis office, shoes off, cross-legged with his feet tucked underneath him, his chair pushed farback fromhis desk, leaning across empty space with his red pen to edit copy at arm's length. I never figured out how he could work in that position, much less get in and out of it. Itmust have suited him, though, because he was remarkably productive. A quick browse through theQuarterly's table of contents for the years of his tenure reveals an astounding range of subjectmatter, from oil drill ing inHarney County to an episode ofMcCarthyism atReed College. In 1993, Rick added "The Journal ofRecord forOregon History" to the titlepage of the Quarterly. He set thebar high and lived up to the standard. In 1991,Rick added a feature that I used to look forward to almost asmuch as the articles themselves: the editor's introduction. It was typically a shortpiece intended to set the stage for the articles, but the thinkingwas original and the writing was pithy. It was thefirst indication some ofus had thatRick was as good awriter as he was an editor. I think the experience of producing the editor's in troductionwhetted his appetite to spendmore time on his own writing. Between 1995 and 1998,while attending to themillion and one details involved inputting out a quarterly journal, Rick published two fine articles of his own inOHQ, one on the history of the Bull Run Watershed and another on Oregon geologist Thomas Condon. Eventually, the desire tomake writing a full-time occupation won out, and in 1999Rick resigned his position as editor. By a fortunate circumstance, a project ideally suited to Rick's talents and interestscame along a short time later when theFriends ofCrater Lake National Park asked him towrite the park's centennial history.He had been waiting for just thiskind of opportunity?the chance todeal with complex environmental policy issues...

PREDICTIVE MODEL FOR NITRATE LOAD IN THE BULL RUN WATERSHED, OREGON1

ABSTRACT: Predictive models for nitrate in four streams in the Bull Run Watershed in the Cascade Mountains of Oregon were developed from a record of 17 years of nitrate samples. The models are time series regression models written in terms of Log(nitrate load). The independent variables are logarithm of 14‐day mean daily stream discharge, current day's precipitation, logarithm of the previous day's precipitation, total precipitation for the previous seven days, a hydrograph position variable that indicates rising or falling limb, and average maximum air temperature for the preceding 14 days. The models describe annual cycle and seasonable trends and variations in nitrate load, but are unable to describe large day to day variations like those associated with hydrograph peaks.

GIS in Stormwater Management

This chapter presents a case study illustrating an application of Geographic Information System (GIS) in developing watershed rainfall­ runoff simulation models to be used for state-wide watershed storm water management plans mandated by the Stormwater Management Act of Pennsylvania. GIS is used to estimate input parameters for Penn State RunoffModel (PSRM), a watershed rainfall-runoff simulation model. The model is used to simulate runoff hydrographs for various durations and frequencies. Hydrographs are manipulated to create peak .flow presenta­ tion and release rate tables which are used to develop a watershed stormwater management plan. The use of GIS eliminates the subjectivity ofthemodelerinmanually estimating certain model input parameters. The application is illustrated for the Bull Run watershed, an 8.4 square miles rural catchment, located in Union County, Pennsylvania.

Cooperation and Conflict in a Federal-Municipal Watershed: A Case Study of Portland, Oregon

A windstorm in the Columbia River Gorge in 1983 downed 5,770 acres of timber in the Bull Run watershed (Figure 1). Salvaging this timber reignited the conflict among the city of Portland, environmentalists, the U.S. Forest Service, and the timber industry regarding Bull Run management. Since the selection of Bull Run in the 1880s as Portland, Oregon's municipal water supply, there has been controversy over its management. Water quality concerns led to the 1904 Bull Run Trespass Act (P.L. 206), which forbade any entry into the watershed except to protect the water supply. The U.S. Forest Service initiated large-scale timber harvesting in the 1950s in Bull Run, declaring that by removing old growth timber they were decreasing the possibility of disastrous fires. Environmental groups sued, claiming the Forest Service was violating the Trespass Act. The Portland Federal District Court agreed and closed the watershed to logging.

WATER QUALITY AFTER LOGGING SMALL WATERSHEDS WITHIN THE BULL RUN WATERSHED, OREGON1

ABSTRACT: Road building, clearcutting 25 percent of the watershed, and slash disposal by broadcast burning or by natural decomposition caused changes in water quality of two small streams in the Bull Run Watershed in Oregon, which supplies water to the Portland, Oregon, metropolitan area. Concentrations of suspended sediment increased slightly, primarily owing to construction of a permanent logging road that crossed streams. Changes in nutrient cycling occurred due to logging and slash disposal in both watersheds where cutting was done. NO3‐N concentrations, which increased most where logging residue was left to decompose naturally, increased more than sixfold and commonly exceeded 100 pg/i during the October‐June high‐flow season for seven years after logging. Where logging slash was broadcast burned, NO3‐N concentrations increased roughly fourfold, but rarely exceeded 50 μg/l, and increases had mostly disappeared six years after slash burning. Changes in outflows of cations and other anions were not apparent. Annual maximum stream temperatures increased 2–3°C after logging, but temperature increases had mostly disappeared within three years as vegetation regrowth shaded the streams.

Volcanic ash effects on water quality

No major detectable changes in overall water quality can be attributed to the March through June eruptions of Mount St. Helens, a U.S. Geological Survey report suggests. The report is based on analyses of water samples collected from the Bull Run watershed which supplies metropolitan Portland. Better results were obtained for groundwater quality than for precipitation.To determine whether ashfall changed groundwater, hydrologists in Oregon's water resources program analyzed 25 water samples collected at different times from three streams in the watershed. Temperature, pH, specific hardness, and concentration of dissolved salts and minerals were measured. ‘Our findings show no significant changes in water quality as a result of ashfall,’ says S.F. Kapustka, program district chief.

Flow Forecasting for the Bull Run Watershed

As a result of a 1972 landslide in the Bull Run area of Oregon, monies were allocated to the Portland Water Bureau to conduct an investigation with the intention of ultimately preventing another such occurrence. Given here are details of that study.

High Yield From the Bull Run Watershed

In order to determine whether water production is higher or lower than should be expected, the magnitude of water loss to components of the hydrologic cycle must be measured. In this article, the actual discharge of the Bull Run watershed is compared with computed yields.