Other State Water News

Oregon’s problems with blue-green algae have spread to another lake. State officials have issued a health advisory for Upper Klamath Lake. It’s in southern Oregon, west of Klamath Falls.

Work continues after a massive storm that stalled over the North Shore dropped 28 inches of rain in 24 hours from April 14 to 15. The only road through the area, the westernmost stretch of Kuhio Highway, was severely damaged by flooding and mudslides.

State Engineer Tom Blaine and his predecessor as New Mexico’s chief water administrator, Tom Turney, are among those challenging state Court of Appeals approval of a deal awarding San Juan River water rights to the Navajo Nation, one of the largest such settlements in state history.

Amy Haas, deputy director and general counsel of the Upper Colorado River Commission, will replace the retiring Don Ostler as the UCRC’s executive director July 1. Amy, formerly general counsel of the New Mexico Interstate Stream Commission, has been with the commission since last year, and has a long history of working within the interstate Colorado River governance process, including playing a central role in the negotiation of the recently signed U.S.-Mexico agreement known as Minute 323. 

Having detected toxins in its water distribution system since Memorial Day weekend at levels that occasionally exceeded state and federal health guidelines, officials in Salem are warning children, the elderly, and those with liver and kidney disease not to drink the tap water. A bloom of cyanobacteria, also called blue-green algae for its colorful, scum-like appearance, formed in Detroit Reservoir, the manmade lake on the Santiam River that is the Oregon capital’s drinking water source.

A coalition of environmental and fishing groups filed a federal lawsuit Wednesday against the state of Oregon, alleging logging in the state’s two largest forests is threatening the survival of coho salmon that breed in streams flowing through the coastal region.

Leaders of the Blackfeet Nation and U.S. Interior Department on Tuesday put into effect a $471 million settlement of water rights claims that was decades in the making for the northwestern Montana American Indian tribe.

Washington state must restore salmon habitat by removing barriers that block fish migration after the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday left in place a lower court order. The justices divided 4-4 in the long-running dispute that pits the state against Northwest Indian tribes and the federal government. The tie serves to affirm a lower court ruling.