The proposed drawdown at Detroit Lake continues to draw comment and criticism.
Here are recent developments in the saga, which involves a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers plan to lower the level of the lake to help improve the survival rate of endangered fish stocks.
• The Detroit Lake Foundation has engaged in a fundraising campaign to help with legal efforts to fight the drawdown. Detroit and other Santiam Canyon officials are concerned about possible tourism and economic impacts of the drawdown. Go to detroitlakefoundation.org/save-our-lake for more information.
• Marion County has written two additional letters to the Corps, which is collecting feedback that will inform a court-ordered supplemental environmental impact study (SEIS) on the drawdown. The letters cited major deficiencies in the agency’s analysis of water quality, local infrastructure impacts, and fish mortality if Detroit Lake is drained below normal levels. This includes the risk of a kokanee salmon die-off similar to the mass mortality event that followed a drawdown at Green Peter Reservoir on the South Santiam River in 2023.
“Detroit Lake should not be the next site for a preventable kokanee massacre,” said Marion County Commissioner Colm Willis.
An earlier Marion County letter, sent Jan. 6, accused the Corps of missing a federally mandated deadline of Jan. 4 to “report on instances of high turbidity in a reservoir in the Willamette Valley resulting from a drawdown in the reservoir.”
• The city of Salem, the most significant downstream customer that might be affected by the drawdown, also has gone public with concerns it raised with the Corps. City officials in a press release asked the Corps to include additional safeguards as it plans for the drawdowns. And while city officials noted that the Corps’ current plan addresses many of the concerns city staff have expressed, officials remain concerned about the absence of turbidity triggers – ways to identify corrective actions depending on levels of murkiness in the water.
Turbidity (cloudiness of haziness in the water because of sediment) will make filtration difficult or impossible for the water that goes to Salem’s approximately 175,000 residents.
• The Corps, meanwhile, in an email response to questions from Our Town about the Marion County letters, said that the agency is authorized to produce the turbidity report but has not received the funding to produce it in full.
“This all goes back to how the Corps works,” Kerry Sloan, a public affairs specialist with the Corps, wrote to the newspaper. “We need both the authorization to do the work and appropriations (funds) from Congress to act.”
Sloan added that the questions and concerns raised by Marion County and Salem officials as well as those in Stayton and the Santiam Canyon are “exactly what the… process is designed to do: provide an opportunity for them to share information and concerns with us. We want to hear about anticipated impacts that are specific to their community – it’s data that will help us shape the final SEIS. The SEIS team will consider that input along with all the comments we have received.”
The deadline for public comment has passed. The next step for the Corps will be the final drafting of the SEIS and a “record of notice” that will advise the public of its next steps.
The first drawdown is tentatively scheduled for late fall of 2026. The drop to 1,395 feet (full pool is 1,558) is scheduled to take place over three autumns, with the Corps reviewing progress along the way. The drawdown would be away from the boating season.
One of the reasons for community concern is that the drawdown at Green Peter led to massive kokanee dieoffs and water quality problems as far downstream as Albany and Millersburg. Several lawsuits have been filed over the matter.
The biggest downstream Santiam Canyon customer is Stayton, which has expressed grave concerns about keeping its slow sand filtration ponds operating amid high turbidity. When the sediment load in the water gets too high the filters either do not operate as efficiently; or will have to be shut down.
Stayton officials continue to actively participate in the discussion.
