July 2, 2002

Environmental Watch: Kleinfelder adds Haugen

BELLEVUE -- Marlea Haugen has joined the Bellevue office of Kleinfelder Inc. as a senior geotechnical and materials engineer.

Haugen, a registered Washington professional engineer, has experience in soil stabilization, emergency management and operations, and agency management. She formerly worked for the state of Washington in emergency management and state parks maintenance.

She served as the geotechnical expert for the Washington State Emergency Management Division, responsible for response to major landslides in Kelso and Grand Coulee. Her projects for Kleinfelder include stabilization of construction sites, disaster planning and technical direction for Kleinfelder's Bellevue laboratory.

Kleinfelder, based in Sacramento, is a $140 million geotechnical and environmental engineering company active throughout the western U.S.

Two hires at Anchor

SEATTLE -- Anchor Environmental has hired Michael Whalen and Sheri Salvador to boost the firm's geotechnical and marketing staff.

Whalen, a geotechnical engineer, has seven years of experience in managing waterfront projects. For Anchor his duties will include engineering and construction oversight for sediment remediation, waterway and coastal projects.

Salvador joins Anchor as a project assistant responsible for document production and marketing efforts.

Both Whalen and Salvador will work in Anchor's Seattle office. The firm also has offices in Portland, Oakland and Irvine in California, and College Station, Texas.

Ecology opens Walla Walla office

WALLA WALLA -- The state Department of Ecology now has opened a field office in Walla Walla to deal with water rights and water acquisition.

Located at 1815 Portland Ave., the office is open most weekdays. Because staff often works in the field, however, the agency advises calling ahead to make sure someone will be available .

The Department of Ecology says it opened the office to save money and travel time and to give area residents better access to those who manage water issues in southeast Washington.

Corps says 'McKenzisippi' returning to normal

EUGENE (AP) -- A U.S. Army Corps of Engineers project on the McKenzie River this spring muddied the river but did not lead to unsafe levels of contaminants in the water, according to an agency report.

A corps survey of water and sediment samples taken June 4 and 5 from around Cougar Lake did show traces of the pesticide DDT, but experts said it has likely been in the sediment for some time.

The corps began lowering the Cougar Reservoir on April 1 to prepare for a $41 million (in 1998 dollars), three-year project to build a water-temperature control tower at the Cougar Dam. Wildish Construction of Eugene is performing the work.

The drawdown resulted in turbid conditions in the river below the dam. The water was so muddied -- turning chocolate brown for a time -- that fishermen and boaters began referring to it as the "McKenzisippi."

The drawdown stopped in late May and the corps suspect that the higher-than-normal DDT levels were caused by erosion resulting from the drawdown. The erosion likely brought decades-old sediment to the surface of the reservoir's lake bed, said Heidi Helwig, corps spokeswoman.

DDT was once commonly used on crops, in forests and for mosquito control. It was banned in 1972. The DDT in the McKenzie River samples ranged from 5.32 parts per billion to 32.63 parts per billion. Those levels are far below the dangerous level of 2,000 parts per billion, according to the corps.

Feds may de-list white-tailed deer

ROSEBURG, Ore. (AP) -- The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is proposing the removal of the Columbia white-tailed deer from its list of endangered species.

The deer, feared extinct at the turn of the century, once lived in abundance in Western Oregon but largely disappeared after settlers turned wildlands into farmland.

In Douglas County the local numbers are up from a recorded low of about 300 animals in the 1940s to more than 5,000 today.

Douglas County residents will have a chance to comment on the proposal at a hearing on July 30.

Under the Endangered Species Act, the deer became one of 78 original species listed for protection in 1967 with two key populations identified along the Columbia River and along the North Umpqua River in Douglas County.

Plan proposed for Idaho reservoir spill

OROFINO, Idaho (AP) -- Deep winter snowpack has breathed new life into the proposal of the state and Nez Perce Tribe to keep Dworshak Reservoir full longer than normal this summer.

Snowpack in the region is still 129 percent of normal, the reservoir is full and the melt is providing an inflow equal to the outflow of 17,000 cubic feet per second through the dam.

In the past, the federal government has begun drawing down the north Idaho reservoir in late June to help flush juvenile salmon to the ocean, dropping the water level 80 feet by midsummer.

The state Fish and Game Department along with the Nez Perce Tribe and the Columbia Basin Inter-tribal Fish Commission have unsuccessfully lobbied to spread the drawdown out over a longer period so some of the water could benefit returning adult steelhead and fall chinook as well.

But the heavy snowpack this year may finally get them heard.

Rudd Turner of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' Reservoir Control Center said the situation this year is giving water managers more flexibility. The team that maps out the reservoir's management strategy will take up the state-tribal plan on Wednesday.

The one drawback on the full reservoir and high inflows has been the releases that keep the North Fork below the dam running high at a time when anglers are trying to catch adult spring chinook.

Toyota to lease fuel cell hybrid SUVs

DETROIT (AP) -- Toyota Motor Sales USA will lease about 20 fuel cell hybrid sport utility vehicles at the end of the year in the United States and Japan, the automaker announced.

The vehicles will be offered to selected companies and research facilities that have access to a hydrogen supply and service facilities.

The announcement indicates increased competition in the area of fuel cell vehicles, said David Friedman, senior analyst for the Union of Concerned Scientists in Berkeley, Calif.

Fuel cell hybrid vehicles operate using electricity created by a reaction between hydrogen and oxygen and a secondary battery. A pure fuel cell vehicle does not use the secondary battery.

The vehicle will be based on the Highlander in the United States and the Kluger-V in Japan. The cost of the vehicles was not immediately available