As it publicly considers its strategic plan, the Port of Portland puts high on its list of needed projects deepening the Columbia River navigation channel by three feet to accommodate newer deep draft steamships.

The quasi-governmental agency is the lead port in a regional effort to push through the $156 million channel deepening project, which also involves the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the states of Oregon and Washington.

A stormy late-December and early January helped pull Columbia River Basin snowpack totals up, but much work remains if Mother Nature is to bank the amount of moisture needed to satisfy the desires of hydro generators, agricultural interests and fish managers.

An early forecast of the Columbia River Basin water supply for the coming year is far below normal and, if precipitation and snow accumulations don't improve, January through July 2003 could prove to be the fifth lowest water year on record.

Oregon and Washington are considering the final permits that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will need to move ahead on its $156.2 million project to deepen the Columbia River channel from 40 feet to 43 feet between Portland and the river's mouth.

Oregon told the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers last week that the agency's application for a clean water certification for its project to deepen the Columbia River shipping channel by three feet is incomplete, which could delay approval for the certification by up to 60 days.

Dam operators and fisheries managers this week agreed at a multi-agency Implementation Team meeting to swap a reduced level of spill in August at some dams so that biologists can conduct a spill test at The Dalles Dam in October.

A panel of economists handpicked by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and meeting this week in Portland, Ore., determined that the agency's economic analysis of the Corps' $149 million project to deepen the Columbia River shipping channel by 3 feet overall is reasonable and prudent.

There was no middle ground this week as members of the public got their first chance to express their opinion about an updated $156.2 million proposal to deepen the lower Columbia River's shipping channel to accommodate the deeper draft vessels that are becoming more common in maritime trade.

The Bureau of Reclamation said that it can deliver this summer to Snake River dam reservoirs owned by Idaho Power Company only about two-thirds of the water required to augment river flows in the lower Snake River.

A recently completed reconnaissance level study says that it would be technically feasible to build a new water storage facility in central Washington that would effectively "meet the entire need for fish and people."

"The economic viability of the project is more difficult to establish," according to the Black Rock Reservoir Study final report.