Written by Peter Pearsall/Satellite photo taken March 1, 2025 by Landsat 9
Malheur Refuge Maintenance Supervisor Ed Moulton reports: “The water situation is high. Malheur Lake is starting to push across Highway 205 at the Refuge boundary with a neighboring landowner. The Blitzen is still running high but has been fluctuating between 200 and 800+ cfs for the last few weeks. Burns is under a flood warning from the Silvies River until Friday (3/28/2025) and has already flooded the north end of town. Moon Reservoir has been running through the spillway for a little over a month, so the Double 0 Valley looks like a big lake. We’ve been able to mitigate any major infrastructure damages so far, so that is a win for us. We’re expecting a lot more run-off than normal due to snowpack at Steens Mountain and surrounding ranges being over 200% of normal. I anticipate that we will see Malheur Lake levels at or above those in 2011 (the last major flood year), considering our run-off from the Steens will not accrue until mid to late May.”
March 31st update of the reading from the old stone damn upriver from the Page Springs Campground at the USGS gauging system says the river is flowing at 300 CFS. P Ranch Substation Manager, Zack McCoy shared, “Most of the ‘low snow’ is gone including from around Frenchglen and the west side of the valley though rain and snow did come down this morning.”
FOMR will continue to provide water updates in the months ahead.
