Northwestern Division News

Hydropower helps feed Thanksgiving feasts

Tom Conning — Mon, 24 Nov 2025 22:59:00 GMT

This Thursday, people across the Pacific Northwest will use ovens to bake turkeys, air fryers to crisp vegetables, mixers to fluff mashed potatoes and OLED televisions to gawk at parades and sportsball. Likely, many people are grateful for the conveniences that make Thanksgiving preparations and entertainment relatively easy and enjoyable. However, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers humbly recommends giving appreciation for consistent, affordable and easily dispatchable hydropower (of course, USACE would suggest that).

Weekend weather was wet, wasn’t worrisome

Tom Conning, Public Affairs Specialist — Tue, 04 Mar 2025 18:56:00 GMT

Dry January is typically associated with people making New Years resolutions to stop drinking alcohol for the month, but the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) is the original instigator of this fad. Many USACE dams have flood risk management as an authorized purpose, which means the agency uses them to help reduce flooding to downstream communities.

Dwindling capacity at Tuttle Creek Reservoir calls for an urgent and innovative solution

By Carol C. Coleman, U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center — Fri, 20 Oct 2023 20:27:00 GMT

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) is no stranger to sediment build-up issues. The organization is responsible for maintaining and managing thousands of miles of inland and intracoastal waterways, channels, ports and harbors with a dredging budget of more than $1.7 billion in fiscal year 2023 alone. Presently, USACE researchers are taking on a slightly different challenge and investigating new methods to diminish the accumulation of sediment in lakes and reservoirs caused by dams.

Juvenile salmon benefit from spring spill

Pentagon News — Mon, 08 May 2023 16:47:00 GMT

In April, the Northwestern Division, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers started spilling water on the Snake and Columbia rivers to help juvenile salmon migrate downstream. We met up with Julie Ammann, Reservoir Control Center chief at Bonneville Lock & Dam to check it out.

Coordinated action critical to preventing flooding in Portland, Vancouver

James M. Rabe — Tue, 26 Jul 2022 19:05:00 GMT

PORTLAND, Ore. – Coordinated operations of storage reservoirs across the Columbia Basin reduced water levels by nine feet near Portland and Vancouver in mid-June preventing additional flood damage attributable to a powerful atmospheric river that impacted most of the four-state region, and beyond.

Dam: that’s a lot of work - Corps completes spillway gate repair

Tom Conning, Public Affairs Specialist — Thu, 17 Jan 2019 17:01:00 GMT

In 2009, dam safety inspectors dangled from ropes to inspect the spillway gates at federal dams throughout Oregon. The team, in their top-to-bottom inspection, determined that the aging spillway gates might malfunction when the water levels were high.