The Lookout Point Project and Upper Willamette Chinook Salmon: a case study of a wicked problem in resource management

Description: Managers of natural resources such as water or fisheries are often faced with making decisions about complex systems that affect multiple stakeholders. Different stakeholders may hold different values, while scientific uncertainty about the effect of different decisions varies. Easy problems in resource management are those where agreement among stakeholders is high and where uncertainty is low. When there is considerable stakeholder conflict and scientific uncertainty is high, natural resource management decision become wicked problems.

This talk will focus on the wicked problem of the US Army Corps Willamette Valley Project (WVP) and the ESA-listed Upper Willamette Chinook Salmon. The WVP is water resource management system consisting of 13 dams that were authorized, built and operated for multiple purposes. The primary purpose of the WVP is flood control, but other authorized uses include hydropower, irrigation, recreation, and fish and wildlife. With the advent of a 2021 federal court injunction, management for recovery of ESA-listed fish species has taken priority over all other uses other than flood control. In this talk, I will review the scientific uncertainty and complexity of water resource management for Upper Willamette Chinook Salmon in the Lookout Point Project on the Middle Fork Willamette River. I will highlight what we’ve learned from an acoustic telemetry evaluation of the deep drawdown of Lookout Point Reservoir in 2023. I will discuss how this study, when viewed in context of our understanding of reservoir ecology, shows that even if you just limit yourself to the question of “What’s best for Upper Willamette Chinook Salmon?” the problem is a wicked one.