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Drought persists despite large snowpack By MARK FREEMAN A cold and wet March has shot Oregon's snowpack levels far enough above average that the extra water could wash away most, but likely not all, of the lingering effects from last year's drought. Federal surveys conducted Thursday indicate that the high-mountain snowpack in the Rogue and Umpqua basins is 126 percent of average, four times higher than in March 2001. That much water stored in the snow and ice blanketing the Siskiyous and western slopes of the Cascades will help swell shrunken lakes and moisten soils still dehydrated from last year's hot, dry weather. "Those (snow levels) certainly mitigate for the dry conditions," said Jon Lea, a hydrologist in the Portland snow survey office of the federal Natural Resources and Conservation Service. "It's certainly a very positive step toward addressing the residual, lingering effects of drought last year." But drought is as much an official phenomenon as it is a meteorological one, with the governor's office in charge of declaring droughts as well as ceremoniously ending them. Jackson, Josephine, Klamath and other counties will remain officially in a drought until reservoir levels, groundwater supplies, soil moisture and stream flows all get back to normal - something that has yet to occur. "Overall, I'd say we're in a period of recovery, but we're not ready to declare yet that we've fully recovered from the drought," said Louise Solliday, Gov. John Kitzhaber's natural resources policy adviser. Solliday said the drought declarations will be reviewed in a few months. "Most areas of the state are going to be in good shape this year," Solliday said. "We're headed in the right direction." This year's winter weather patterns created an unusual phenomenon in which rainfall totals measured right around normal but snowpack levels were very high. At locations such as Bigelow Camp, an area 5,120 feet above sea level and west of Applegate Lake, rainfall levels were normal but the snow-water equivalent - the measure of the amount of water in the snowpack - was 152 percent of average Thursday. Last year at this time, the snowpack was just 32 percent of average. The difference is even more pronounced at Fish Lake in the Cascades, where rainfall at the 4,600-foot level was just shy of normal but the snow-water equivalent was 179 percent Thursday. Unusually cold weather that followed March snows helped lock the water in snow and ice resting atop dry soils ready to absorb the melting snow. Snow-survey sites checked manually Thursday across Mount Ashland revealed an overall reading of just 10 percent above normal, according to Steve Johnson, a snow surveyor for the Rogue River National Forest. Locally, stream flows are expected to be at or above normal this year, and the region's two largest reservoirs - Lost Creek and Applegate lakes - are expected to fill by late April. But the drought's effects still will tarry through the summer. Most other reservoirs were drawn so low to satisfy parched agricultural fields that even good snow levels likely won't be good enough to make up for last year's lost water. Jim Pendleton, manager of the Talent Irrigation District, said Hyatt and Howard Prairie lakes probably will not fill this year, "and I have my doubts that Emigrant Lake will fill" because of their low levels heading into this winter. The same holds true for the region's key groundwater reserves such as Big Butte Springs, which has yet to rebound from last year. The springs, which feed Medford's thirst, continue to flow lower than normal and are expected to do so this summer, said Ed Olson, manager of the Medford Water Commission. "It takes a year or two of below-average (rainfall) levels to get us into a drought, and it will take a year or two to get us out," Olson said. The statewide snowpack as of Thursday was 135 percent of average, up 2 percent from last month and well above the 48 percent of average for the end of March 2001, Lea said. At 126 percent of average, the Rogue-Umpqua snowpack levels are about in the middle of Oregon's statewide readings, Lea said. Tops in the state were the basins surrounding Mount Hood, with the Hood River and Sandy basins sporting a snowpack of 165 percent of average, he said. Several basins in Eastern Oregon had snowpack levels of 109 to 117 percent, while the Coast Range had just 27 percent of average snowpack, Lea said. The coastal mountains, however, are more rain-fed and the snow levels are not considered to be that significant. Reach reporter Mark Freeman at 776-4470, or e-mail [email protected] Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.