Oregon Field Guide Education Program; Focus on Places; Part 2

The Sandy River is not only beautiful, but it's also very easy to get to. Only 20 miles from the center of Portland. And that means a million people live within an hour's drive. That also means the river is in trouble because all those people bring new threats to the Sandy River. It's uh, a valuable fish resource. It's close to the city. It's - it's primitive. It's wild. It's beautiful. The Sandy River is not very long. Only 56 miles from the glaciers of Mount Hood, where it empties into the Columbia River at Troutdale. But in that short distance, the river and its tributaries provide habitat for a remarkable variety of wildlife and fish. People flock to the river to go after the fish, to relax beside the cool water, and to seek excitement or solitude floating its canyons. And over 700 thousand of us depend on it for something even more important: the water we drink. Alrighty. [splashing]

To find out how the Sandy is holding up through all this use, producer Jeff Douglas floated a section with Charles Ciecko, director of Park Services for Multnomah County. I've, uh, lived and worked on the Sandy for 16 years now and I'm always amazed by the wild character that it's managed to maintain despite its proximity to the Portland metropolitan area. But because of that proximity, more people are building along the river, and often the first thing they do is remove trees and bushes along the bank. This situation here, this is a brand new home and it's a beautiful home. And I believe what they were trying to accomplish here was to maximize their view. What they've done, and I believe it was done inadvertently, was actually jeopardize the safety of their home as well as this entire riverbank. If you look down here just in front of the boat and off to the left, you see early signs of the bank beginning to slump and fail already. So eventually these people may lose their house? Uh, that's a possibility. Hopefully, they've set it back far enough that things will stabilize before that happens.

Erosion is just one of the problems of removing the streamside vegetation. Riparian vegetation is also the basis of the food chain that feeds insects, fish, and birds. Fish need cool water to survive and the plants provide shade. Jeff, what I wanted to show you here is an example of some healthy riparian vegetation. You can see the willows and the grasses growing right down to the water's edge. These willows, then, are really important habitat for beaver. In fact, right here we have some beavers sign. They've been in here feeding on on the willows. It's also particularly valuable for deer and elk. A few homeowners just ignore laws protecting riverbanks. These pilings for a boat dock were put in without a permit. This dirt boat ramp is also illegal. During heavy rains, it washes sediment into the river, damaging spawning areas. They were ordered to restore the site. And you can see that there's been no efforts made to restore this area at all. Because of inadequate funds for enforcement, not much happens now when homeowners break the rules. But a bigger problem is that homeowners don't even know the rules or the reasons for them. They just want a nice lawn and a view of the river.

That would be my assessment of the situation. They just don't know the damage-? They just don't understand the dynamics of a river. High water brings a lesson in river dynamics. Where trees have been removed, the river cuts into the bank, gradually eating away the expensive property. This is usually the typical next step after the riparian vegetation has been removed and the erosion has begun. Uh, people either legally or illegally come in and place riprap in an effort to try to uh, stabilize their banks. The riprap can be anything from large rocks to concrete slabs. These baskets filled with rocks are called gabions. Most of these efforts fail eventually, and some are nearly worthless. It's too small to really do any good, so it really just detracts from the aesthetics of - of the river. Water quality in the Sandy is generally good, but there are occasional problems with chemicals running off nearby nursery and farm fields. Upstream logging puts sediment in the river and even changes flow patterns.

Removal of the tree cover also results in snow melting quicker, which means we have higher floods during the winter and lower flows during the summer. In spite of these problems, longtime river watchers believe the Sandy's future is bright because public attitudes have changed. Yes, I do. I think people are getting more respect for - for our resources,our natural resources and preserving them. Dr. Arch Diack has had a cabin above the Sandy Gorge for more than 50 years. He points to returning osprey and other wildlife as evidence that the overall river environment is improving. Diack has been perhaps the most diligent protector of the Sandy. He spoke up for declaring it a wild and scenic river and then, along with his family, donated hundreds of acres along the river to the Nature Conservancy. The wildlife who were here originally, this was their land to begin with, after all, um, apparently began to filter back in here when they had the protection and there were no city hunters out there. We have at least 1 herd, possibly 2 of ?inaudible? elk or more. [goose honking] You hear the geese down there? They're nesting somewhere down there. There are uh, foxes and coyotes and river otters and beaver and all kinds of wildlife. [laughs] Amazing. And here you are 22 miles from - from home. [laughs].

With wildlife returning and scenic river protection in place, what is the biggest threat facing the Sandy? At this point, I would have to say further development of the Bull Run River for municipal water for the city of Portland. Legally, they have water rights to every drop of water in the Bull Run. The Bull Run is the main tributary to the Sandy. Two dams divert more than one fourth of its flow to meet Portland's demand for water. That isn't the whole story. Here's how the Bull Run looks in the spring. [water flowing] And here it is in the summer.[silence] Until fall rains begin, the dams essentially divert all the water. As the Portland population continues to grow, and it is projected to grow by an additional 500,000 people in the next 20 years, that period of leakage only around the dams is going to increase. And as that happens, it's going to create some problems in this stretch of river. And one example would be for spawning fall Chinook, which are kind of marginal right now in terms of having adequate flow.

Low flows in years past have already taken a toll. As a matter of fact, they've so abused the tributaries of this river that there- there is no longer a fall run cutthroat that used to be profuse in this river. They're gone. Low summer flows also cut into recreational use of the Sandy. There's plenty of water in the spring for boaters looking for fun and excitement. But by mid-summer, when more water is diverted to other uses, there's just not enough left to float a boat. While, legally, Portland can take the entire flow of the Bull Run, Dr. Diack argues absolute water rights should be balanced by the needs of fish, wildlife, and recreation. Why it's untouchable, I don't understand. If they're planning for the future, they should be looking this thing in the face and finding out where Portland can go to increase its reservoir capacity or to increase its water supply.

There's no question the city will need more water. The question is, should we concentrate the impact on the Bull Run in Sandy? Or should we spread it out to other rivers? Either way, it's going to cost us something. Bruce Niss of the Portland Water Bureau: Really, it's a question of uh, how much money do we want to spend in order to uh, in order to create the facilities, the dams and conduits, uh in order to bring it to town, versus what would be at the expense of tapping another source, say, the Willamette or the Columbia. And, and you're looking at 2 different kinds of costs, obviously, not just the, the economic costs, but the environmental impact as well, the environmental cost. The search for more water might even have a silver lining for the Sandy. It's possible another dam on the Bull Run could bring benefits rather than harm for fish and summer recreation. 1 of the things that I suppose would be possible if a third dam were built would be to build it large enough so that there would be the possibility of perhaps some dry season or low flow releases uh, to- to help put water back in the Sandy River during the summer. [water flowing] Of course, that's going to require some additional expense. And its a question do the people of the region uh, simply want to pay for it?

The future of the Sandy River depends on how people answer these critical questions. Where will a growing population get the water it needs? And how should more development be balanced with the needs of fish, wildlife, and recreation along the Sandy? Charles is optimistic that people will find good answers. Answers that protect the Sandy into the future. In the urban area, people recognize the fact that a lot of the reasons that they moved to Oregon are slowly slipping away. And in the Sandy River they're able to see and enjoy some of those characteristics that actually brought them here or keep them here in Oregon. The Sandy is yet another lesson that we are the caretakers of the land. We should enjoy it, but with that comes responsibility. A couple of years ago, one of our regular viewers sent me an article on Oregon's balancing rocks. That was the first I'd ever heard of them. And since they sounded so interesting, well I started to investigate. I looked through a number of books on Oregon and still didn't find anything. Well, I finally tracked down a guide to show us this wonderful natural phenomenon.

[boat motor] The first leg of the trip was easy enough, just follow the signs for Cove Palisade State Park, located outside of Madras. This is a great camping spot, perfect for anyone who loves water sports. But while they frolicked under the blazing sun, we had to journey on another 18 miles or so. We eventually entered part of the Deschutes National Forest, driving along unmarked gravel roads. The last leg of the trip involved a short hike downhill. The only way we were able to find this spot was because of our guide, Larry Chitwood, a geologist with the Deschutes National Forest. Up until now, I wasn't sure what to expect. I'd heard about the balancing rocks, but I'd never met anyone who had actually seen them. But suddenly there they were. They're rather unique, certainly in this area. They are completely unique. There's not very many balancing rocks anywhere but where they are they're so interesting.

Amazing is more like it. You can't help but marvel at the massive, yet fragile, giants that make up this small area of balancing rocks. They roughly cover a half-acre plot of land on a west slope overlooking the Metolius River arm of Lake Billy Chinook. In order to really appreciate this unusual phenomenon you may need a little history lesson. This area is made up of lava flows formed during volcanic eruptions in the Cascade Range. The rock around here is uh, on the order of 5 million years old. Years after the lava flows - it's impossible to say exactly when - the Cascades roared to life again. Big eruptions that sent large clouds of hot gases and red hot particles down the slopes of this side of the Cascades. These are called ash flows and they move at hurricane speeds. They're tremendously devastating. They would totally destroy the forest that you see here. And they leave when they're done, uh, a layer of ash over the landscape. That layer is at least 30 feet thick. It's only partially welded together from the heat of the eruptions and will eventually make up the pillars of the balancing rocks. The balancing rocks are made up of two parts: the pillars and the large chunk of harder rock on top, known as capstones or caprocks.

Up on the ridge nearby is uh, the caprock or what will become caprock. Once it breaks off, it falls down and it lies at the angle of the slope and becomes a capstone. So the caps protect the ash underneath it to protect it directly from rain. So when rain lands on- or is falling here, it falls on these hard tops and the rain drips off those rocks, protecting the ash that's underneath it. Otherwise, the rain takes away the- the ash leaving uh these columns. Here's a good example of a uh of some pillars just beginning to form. Here's a cap- caprock here and one just below us. The ash below is beginning to erode away. So here's the beginning of a new pillar right here. But eventually, these will become tall pillars with these capstones high up in the air, just like the ones nearby. As you can imagine, it's a very long process. One estimate is that the pillars are formed at the rate of one foot every thousand years. That works out to about an inch every 80 years.

A wild guess is that these are- the ones we see right here formed in the last uh 20,000 years, perhaps. Certainly nobody knows that, but that's uh, an estimate. And they're continuously being formed. One of the reasons for that is that there comes a time when the pillars are too small to support the big caprock. So the caprock falls off and it lands on the ground below and it then becomes the top of a new pillar. As Larry and I stroll among the rocks, you begin to see just how delicate a balance exists in these configurations. A lot of the capstones are actually resting on a couple of smaller points on the pillars. It wouldn't take much to tip one over, destroying thousands of years of nature's work. You may remember that a little earlier I mentioned that it was almost impossible to find this site without a guide. Well, it turns out that's deliberate. And the reason for that is simple and also very depressing. There is a problem of vandalism. Um, I know this national forest, the Deschutes National Forest, is not interested in having such a nat- nice and interesting natural feature vandalized. It would be easy for somebody to come up here with 3 or 4 guys and topple some of these things. That would be a tragedy.

And they have done that? They have done that. Right. Now, imagine that. Here we have a natural phenomenon that has taken thousands of years to create, and all it takes is one foolish person to destroy it. Really makes you appreciate just how fragile nature is, doesn't it? Oregon is home to hundreds of bird species. And our next report takes us to central Oregon for a look at an oasis in the middle of hundreds of miles of sagebrush and alkaline flats, a sanctuary for thousands of birds. [geese honking] It's almost hypnotic, watching this huge flock of snow geese fill the Oregon skies, accompanied by their shrill falsetto cries. And when the birds decide it is safe enough to land they touch down on one of Oregon's more spectacular, but little known, bird sanctuaries. This is the Summer Lake Wildlife Management area, located on the northern tip of Summer Lake just off Highway 31, about 70 miles south of La Pine. From the air it may not look like much but, once you move in closer, one begins to see why it's so popular to the wide variety of birds that call Summer Lake home. Like the Rough-legged Hawk. Or this blue heron.

Well, there's well over 200 species, you know, year-round [fade out] Marty St. Louis manages this 18,000-acre wetland refuge for the Department of Fish and Wildlife. One of his jobs is to keep tabs on the birds, like this large group of whistling swans. It's like a family group. There are quite a few of these birds- the geese, and the swans especially. They move in- in family units, that looks like 2 adults on- on each side and 4 signets right in the middle, they're the gray ones. Unlike the snow geese, the swans prefer to stay in smaller groups and are much quieter. Their cry is a soft low 'hoo' that can sound like a whistle. They weigh on the average of 16 pounds, and when they take to the air, they have a wingspread of 6 to 7 feet. Their takeoff is punctuated by a loud slapping sound. [slapping sound]

That's their feet hitting the water while they're trying to take off, get enough lift. They're a pretty big bird. So they have to run across the surface of the water while they're flapping wings 'til they can get enough. Despite the beauty, there was a time when all of this was in danger of being lost forever. Wetlands in the past were always considered a- a liability and stuff. Something in the way of progress. In fact, the number of wetlands in the U.S. and Canada has been dropping dramatically since the '30s. That's why the department took over this area back in 1944. It was bought to provide habitat and also recreational opportunities for the sportsmen. Um, you know, it's- it's pretty tough for- for hunters to find places to go.

The Summer Lake Area is a flat alkaline marsh that's fed by the nearby Ana River through a series of springs. But this area is what is known as a closed basin. Once the water gets in, it has nowhere to go. The only way for it to get out is through evaporation. Evaporation, you know, on the magnitude of 45 inches a year with precipitation running 12 to 14, it uh, just doesn't balance out. And this is what's left behind. This is not snow, but huge deposits of alkali salt that can kill most types of vegetation. But thanks in part to funding from organizations like Ducks Unlimited, which is devoted to restoring wetlands for waterfowl, plant life is returning. The water levels are now controlled by a number of dikes that crisscross the marsh. This is an area that's still being developed. Large bodies of water will help dilute the alkali salts and eventually vegetation will be planted on the manmade islands. Once the vegetation becomes established on 'em ducks will use 'em for nesting.

And you can see that it is working in the more established sections of the marsh. Over the years, the numbers of ducks using Summer Lake has grown, and so has a number of hunters going after them. A duck may have a brain the size of a pea, but it's smart enough to know where it's safe. We saw over a thousand ducks in the protected areas using the swans as a sort of shield, but just across the dike where hunting was allowed, not a one, despite the fact that duck hunting season was over. But there were plenty of signs of geese hunters in the area, and Marty makes it a point to talk to them all so he can keep tabs on the number of geese shot on a daily basis. It was about a quarter after 4:00 when I got the first one. Then, a few minutes later, I got the others. It's very important to keep track of the geese and their migratory patterns. So when Marty isn't talking to the hunters, he can usually be found further in the protected areas, peering through a scope, looking for tags on this large flock of snow geese that stopped off here as part of their winter migration. These birds we're looking at right now, there's quite a few of them, who've got these red collars on. They're from Wrangel Island, Soviet Union.

Marty is gathering information on the geese as part of a neck banding project involving wildlife experts from the Soviet Union, Canada, and the U.S.. The other day I was out, there were some black collars. Those came from the Western Canadian Arctic. Banks Island, kind of the Northwest Territories. There was one yellow color that came from the Central Canadian Arctic, which is further east, Queen Maud Gulf area. There's blue ones from the north slope of Alaska. In a typical year, there'll be anywhere from 75 to 100,000 snow geese. Uh, everyone's picking their heads up. There's something going on. [geese crying] This year is very atypical, and I think it was due to the- the fairly mild September and October that we had. Seems like a lot of the birds have gone on bias in or out to the winter [environs?] in California. They're very gregarious and like to feed and move in large numbers. They're unlike the- the other Goose species, especially this Canada Goose or the Honker. From here, they go on down to the Sacramento Valley, California, and- and the San Joaquin. Some even end up down in Mexico. We were so busy watching the geese put on this magnificent display that we almost missed the show Mother Nature puts on nightly. The sunsets in this portion of Oregon are truly breathtaking. We spent two nights in Summer Lake, and the twilight show just got better and better. A fitting end to a very successful trip.

The best time to see the birds is in late October or early November. Now, you can find them earlier in the year, but I should warn you. Summer Lake is a wetland and that means mosquitoes. They're big. They're hungry. And there's lots of them. Oregon is home to a number of amazing natural phenomena, but a lot of us just don't get a chance to see them because they're so remote. And one area that has more than its share is southeastern Oregon's Jordan Craters. Jim Newman spent two weeks capturing the pristine beauty of the area. And this next report is on just one of the areas he visited. [crickets] Nighttime. The middle of nowhere. We get Bosie on the car radio, just barely. Otherwise, the airwaves are worn to nothing but static by their long-range travel to reach us. And locally there is only the sound of the coyotes, the night bugs, and the wind. We are in deep southeastern Oregon. It is an area that could be called the Oregon Outback. The first sunlight illuminates an arid landscape. The dusty, unpaved track is the last hint of the civilization we left 30 miles back at an outpost called Jordan Valley. The antelope we pass seem on top of it out here. They, the coyotes, and the badgers know the ropes on the high desert range. But we, relying on a battered GMC, just hope that the tires hold out. History says early explorers passed near here a 170 years ago. You could not prove it looking at the land today. There is no more sign of man here than there is a mastodon, mammoth, and giant bison. But plenty such prehistoric creatures roamed here as the last ice age ended 12,000 years ago. This land was a lush Eden then, dotted with freshwater lakes hundreds of feet deep. Up ahead, we catch a first glimpse of our destination. It is very likely the most prominent feature here of the ancient past. But it does not recall an idyllic era of lush inland seas. No, it is of a slightly more recent, a hellish time. Our guide is Jerry Hubbard of the Bureau of Land Management. He has promised to show us this landmark of pre-history, Jordan Craters. As we arrive, a lake of lava spreads out the forests. The flow covered 20,000 acres of rolling upland, sometime between 2,800 and 9 thousand years ago.

This is what they call pahoehoe lava, a ropey lava. It's not nearly as blocky as what you see up towards the cascade volcanoes. Got a completely different texture to it.

Perhaps because it is surrounded by such great distances, the Jordan Craters has about it the sense of something untamed. You forget it has been frozen for centuries and centuries. We can get up on top and get a good view of the whole panorama here. You feel, or think you do, the last vibrations, the aftermath of the disaster that buried the gentle hills. Once we get up top here, we'll have a sense of how that flowed. You can see drainage channels, you can see pressure ridges, ripple marks, all the distinct indicators of rock in motion. We climb to the top of Coffeepot Crater, the one cinder cone and possible main source of the flow. The crater is 100 feet deep or more. This is the stuff of tourism, but there isn't an interpretive center in sight. Few on holiday are likely to brave the labyrinth of dirt roads and on most Oregon maps, Jordan Craters is nonexistent anywhere. It is an eerie, quiet place. If a Person wants to come some place to hear themselves think, this is a really good spot to do it in.

Even cattlemen aren't to be seen, though the surrounding meadows are the heart of cow country. Of course, livestock don't eat lava, but the flows lap at the edge of rich grasslands. Whatever its impact after the millennia, a cataclysm of Jordan Craters scope and violence invites exploration. Jerry Hubbard leads us out onto the surface of the flow. It's a place of strange, rugged shapes. The game is to make sense of them. The old cinder cone, eroded at the top by gushers of molten rock, is a clue. Like spill after spill of molasses, the new lava roared down, pushing the old out of the way. And they'll just spill out, come down, follow the path of least resistance here, sometimes butting up against each other, sometimes flowing around obstacles and meeting up again. So you get pressure ridges, um, all sorts of interesting mosaics of flow patterns, and layer over layer over layer. Flow on top of flow on top of flow.

Exactly. The lava bed was alive during its creation. Even after the surface had cooled to rough, black crockery, veins of red hot rock moved underneath. This is [inaudible] where the lava came down. Um we had crusting on this surface and that remained. We still had that molten rock moving down below. It just continued to flow on down this course, leaving a lava tube behind, remnants of a channel where this stuff actually flowed out. Lava tubes may be tiny like this, but some tubes are giant caves that wind for miles beneath the surface of a lava bed. Are you game? Here in Jordan Craters, Jerry Hubbard knows where the caves are. He leads the first-time visitor right to an entrance through the terrain of knife-edged outcroppings and jumbled, confusing black shadows. Jordan Craters is home to rattlesnakes and it is home to sinkholes of plummeting depth that could surprise a caver in the dark, send him crashing to oblivion. But Jerry's confidence seems to be a guarantee of safety. He is, so one reasons, the guide. It's dramatically cooler down here, at least 30 degrees cooler.

And this goes beyond this, huh? Yeah. Yeah, it looks like there's another chamber right beyond here. Looks like a little light, there may be a hole coming in from the surface. The first cavern is a big room but it gets narrower up ahead. Look at it, it's got like a whitewash of mineral salts all over the inside of the roof in here. The sides close in quickly. A dim glow barely penetrates the darkness of the cave. A chunk of the ceiling has fallen, leaving a fractured splinter of light in its place. It fell at the time of Christ.. or it fell yesterday. Think it's gonna fall in on us? I- well, at least one piece fell out. [laughter] I wouldn't have wanted to be here when it did. Right, Jerry. You're the guide. At the surface, the temperature is rising. Perhaps it reaches 150 degrees here on a hot summer day. But we have water and sunblock. We can handle it. A gaping pit has attracted our attention. We make our way toward it across the heat distorting surface of the flow. We come to the edge of one of the most prominent sinkholes in Jordan Craters. Some visitors have reported seeing rattlesnake skeletons at the bottom of the hole. We see nothing of the sort, but we wonder if snakes do fall in or if they are dropped into the pit by birds of prey. This sinkhole was probably an underground chamber that caved in. Jerry points out what might have been part of the fallen roof. Right here.

Well, how stable is what we're standing on, then? Well, I get concerned like you do. [both laugh] As at the cinder cone itself, lava is thought to have bubbled from this gaping hole, time after time. This was a- a lava source where the lava came up, and over the top. And then when the eruptions stopped, receded. And here we see the various layers. There are evidence of flow after flow after flow. Right. Stacked up like pancakes. On the path out of Jordan Craters, opposite the ruins of the great Coffeepot, are some spatter cones. They are evidence of slower, lethargic eruptions in this circus of volcanic activity. Imagine that uh, this spatter cone is- is operating. What would we- what would we be seeing? Well, what we'd see is blobs of molten rock put up in the air, probably at least 10 to 15 feet. But coming down a rather short distance, something like a boiling mud pot, if you ever seen one of those in Yellowstone. You can think of being on a beach and making a sandcastle with wet sand. It's that sort of blobbing action, probably solidifies about that fast also. The spatter cones are sandcastles with drip candle facing on their crumbling sides. They are an oddity among oddities and people rarely see them. But a visit confirms that something monumental happened here before recorded time and were such an enormous flood of lava to ooze from the earth today, the public would have to pay attention. The fact that this is the farthest reach of southeastern Oregon wouldn't matter. The New York Times and the evening news would surely scream the fiery progress of Jordan Crater's flow to a breathless world.

All those pyrotechnics seem to be fueled by a phenomenon hundreds of miles away under the Pacific. Geologists believe the seafloor is colliding with North America and the resulting friction is producing heat so intense it has triggered eruptions for millions of years. This next report may make you a little nervous. After all, predicting the future is always risky. But consensus is building in what may lie ahead for us all. And the forecast is global warming. Jon Tuttle went to a number of Oregon scientists to find out what we should expect here in Oregon if global warming does come. An increasing number of reputable scientists foresee the end of Oregon as we know it. The snow-capped mountains, the Douglas fir forests, the high desert country, the Willamette Valley, all changed beyond recognition and changed within a lifetime [baby crying] of Oregonians like this. Ron Nielson, a bio-geographer with the Environmental Protection Agency's research lab in Corvallis.

The science that I produce is scary all by itself. I don't have to inflate the results to make it look scary. The scary science Ron Nielsen is talking about is weather forecasting. A lot of scientists are on the verge of saying global warming has begun. Several things can be stated. Seven of the warmest years in the last century have occurred in the last 11 years. The decade of the 80's was 1/3 degree warmer than the decade of the 70's and was the warmest decade in the last couple of centuries. The worry is that the warm weather may be a first sign of the so-called greenhouse effect. For years, we've released carbon dioxide with the burning of fossil fuels like gasoline, coal, and natural gas, along with the chlorofluorocarbons from our industries and methane from cattle production. Those gases and others are in the atmosphere, trapping heat that would normally be reflected off the earth's surface.

Everything from the least sophisticated back of the envelope calculations on the effects of that, to the absolutely most sophisticated, complicated atmospheric models that we run on the fastest and biggest computers in the world, they all come up with the same answer. The planet should warm up. Warmer weather sounds great. We'll all get better tans and we won't have to buy as many sweaters. Except this is more than air temperature. It also means changes in winds and humidity and precipitation, and that ties to ocean currents and winter snowpack, to stream flows and soil moisture and vegetation, to virtually every aspect of life, all life in Oregon. The Oregon Blue Book tells the story of our weather today. Through the winter, frequent rains from an active storm belt wash the western section of the state. At higher elevations there's a very deep snowpack. Rains are infrequent in the summer. What the Blue Book doesn't mention is that we survive our dry, warm summers with the water from the snowpack. It's hard to think of the Pacific Northwest as a place that could be short of water.

EPA hydrologist Danny Marks. Probably 60- 50/60 percent of the streamflow uh, during the growing season, comes from melting snow in the mountains. And so even if you maintain the same annual precipitation, if you reduce the snowpack by 20 or 30 percent, you substantially reduce the amount of water that's gonna be available during the growing season. Warmer winters means the precipitation falls as rain, not snow. So we don't have the snowmelt to get us through the summer. And worse, because it fell as rain: It runs off immediately. It's gone. And that means the potential for flooding. So, you've got winter flooding. The low-lying areas across the river here, uh, you would expect that to get flooded regularly. If not every year, you know, every 2 or 3 years. In big storms, you might even take out- be taking out bridges and that sort of thing. So you'd have those kinds of flooding problems in the wintertime, um, because you've got more rain in the mountains. That water is going to leave the mountains right away and uh, and cause those kinds of problems. Floods in the winter, followed by summertime drought. And the drought also means stress for trees, leaving them susceptible to insect infestation. Short term, the outlook includes fire, flood, and pestilence, before the real problems begin.

The environmental problem or the ecological problem is that if- if this change were to occur over 500 or a thousand years then the vegetation would adjust. But the prospect is an enormous weather change. A 3-8 degree warming predicted in the next 50 to 100 years. As great a change in the next century as Oregon had in the last 10,000 years. The problem arises when you force that rate of change very, very fast. Then you're taking things like large, long-lived trees and trying to move that whole life zone across the map hundreds of miles almost overnight in the lifespan of that tree. Consider that a Douglas fir will take four to five decades from when it's born to when it can first produce offspring. So, it's an adolescent at four to five decades. In that timeframe, the climatic rug could get pulled out from under it. The forests of Oregon would have to begin a long migration north to cooler climates, with the trees moving at one speed, the weather at another. Oregon State University Professor David Perry.

By looking at the record of- of pollen that's buried and preserved in bogs, you can- you can tell something about the rate at which forests moved northward at the end of the last glaciation. And, on the average, that was somewhere around 200, 400 meters, about a- roughly a fifth of a mile per year. The- The rate of change in climate that we're looking at now is- is more like on the order of 1,000 to 2,000 meters per year. Over a mile per year. So, again, there's- there's quite a difference. The climate is changing faster than the forests can adjust. The forests, of course, are more than trees. And the implications are obvious for Oregon Fish and Wildlife. Fisheries biologist David Buchanan. These species and populations are groups of individuals within a species that are- have evolved together. Um, a lot of them have- uh, are very narrow in their range of capabilities. And some of these species just aren't gonna make it. Some of these populations just aren't going to make it.

The question we asked was how would global warming change Oregon? Every one of our experts agreed, the real answer is that no one knows. But David Perry was willing to make some educated guesses. Corvallis would look something more like in terms of its temperature regime, would look something more like northern California, perhaps central California. So we'd expect to see a- a more open forest type, assuming everything made the transition alright. And we could just, that all the species out there could catch the bus and ride north and get off and plant themselves without any problems. We'd have more Ponderosa pine. We'd have- actually what I really think a very beautiful forest, that- the mixed conifer force of southern Oregon, northern California would be pushing themselves up here. The familiar vegetation of the Willamette Valley would yield to plants that require less water. East of the Cascades, the prospect of spring rains could be beneficial, where there's desert today.

We would have uh, more- more grasslands. Uh, the- if you go to the east side of the Cascades, that- the grasslands would extend farther up the slopes and correspondingly the Ponderosa pine would come farther up the slopes. Many of our true fir forests, which are our most high elevation forests, would disappear. They wouldn't be there anymore except on the higher mountains. Our alpine zones would uh, disappear. So we- we would have um- if- if you got your car and drove south down around Redding, California, and take a look around, it would be pretty close probably what- what we would have here. Less snow. More grasslands to the east of the Cascades. Less fir and more pine trees. Oregon would look like northern California, if all goes well. And if it doesn't? Let's say that the transition isn't made very smoothly from one forest type of vegetation type to another, and that we begin to get multiple stresses. We- uh insects, fires. We begin to lose soil fertility. Then we could see a situation more similar to what uh ha- we know happened throughout the Mediterranean basin uh, over the last few thousand years. And that is a transition from forest lands to essentially shrub lands. That is not implausible. That could happen if things came together and- and uh, did not come together in the right way so that the transition of community types was a smooth one.[keyboard clicking]

All this is pure speculation. There is still no reliable confirmation of global warming and there is no computer model, nothing to go on, that can accurately predict the change for Oregon if the world does warm. But the threat is serious enough that a state task force has compiled a list of recommendations. Many of them the same recommendations we ignored after the oil crisis of the 1970's. They're back. They're measures that just simply make good sense from an everyday perspective. Let's insulate our houses so we don't have to pump as much fossil fuel through them to keep them warm. Let's move to fuel-efficient automobiles so that we don't need as much fossil fuel. Let's move more toward mass transit so that we don't have as many automobiles on the road. Let's cut down fewer trees so that we're not injecting as many- as much burning of wood into the atmosphere. Let's plant more trees.

We can do all these things and the gas accumulations in the atmosphere will not disappear. The greenhouse phenomenon just won't keep growing as fast. At best, we appear to be able to slow it down and not likely stop it. But if we can just slow it down, then the potential ecological consequences will have been reduced. Reduced is the best the forecasters can offer us. Slowed down, but not stopped. Across Oregon and around the world, the forecast is for change.

There are some scientists who believe the earth will compensate for the greenhouse phenomenon and that the effects will be far less than what you've just heard. We simply don't know who's right. What we do know is that the human race seems to be conducting an enormous experiment with the world's atmosphere and that our children will have to live with the results. Early astronomers were little more than mapmakers who recorded the location of the stars. But now computer technology allows astronomers to collect incredible amounts of information about the galaxies. Jim Newman reports that the University of Oregon's Pine Mountain Observatory promises to be at the cutting edge of future, computer-aided astronomical research. In the volcanic badlands of central Oregon, great peaks, remains of ancient eruptions, rise thousands of feet above the desert floor. The violent mountain-building drama is in intermission. Geologists believe it may not begin again for 5, 10, 15 thousand years. Yet these alpine slopes are a front-row seat for a light show far greater than any of the fiery Cascades could provide. And so it is that an obscure central Oregon peak has become critical in humankind's exploration of the night sky. Nestled in a protective saddle below the summit, the Pine Mountain Observatory is 6300 feet above sea level. It is an altitude high enough to escape pollution and most distorting effects of the atmosphere. Still, to the first-time visitor, the compound seems only a crude outpost of science. There is no single giant telescope here under a dome big enough to cover a basilica. Three unimposing silo-like structures house three relatively small telescopes. Each is only a fraction of the size of the instruments used by astronomers at some observatories. But computer technology has given the Pine Mountain telescopes incredible power, enough to explore the deepest mysteries of the universe. The city of Bend, some 30 miles away, begins to glow in response to the approach of night. The lights are much too far away to interfere with the study of the stars and there will be no obscuring cloud cover tonight. Pine Mountain's 24-inch telescope is watching the southern sky. But there is no astronomer at the eyepiece. Instead, observatory director Greg Bothun is intent on a computer screen. On the screen, the collected light of the heavens will be processed into images of the universe never before possible.

Just by putting these devices on telescopes, you've cut down your workload, or your integration times, by a factor of 70. So what in the past would've taken you 70 nights to do you can do in one night. [computer beeps] And that's pretty much a major step forward.

An example is Galaxy M101. This image collected by telescope earlier is already processed and stored in the computer's databank. The process picture contains 70 times more detail than the clearest conventional photograph from a telescope. Some dots on the screen may be galaxies never before visible because they are too faint to register on film. They may be billions of light-years farther away than anything seen before. Technology this powerful opens the universe to exploration undreamed of 10 years ago. Consider Galaxy M51. Film exposed by a conventional camera shows two points of light. Two independent galaxies just below the Big Dipper. And then if you, you know, do a better job, you find that, lo and behold: These two galaxies are actually connected. They're physically associated with one another. They're not two distinct objects. They're interacting.

It is the computer's capacity to detect very dim sources of light which permit such a startling revelation. See, all these faint extensions represent stars from this- from this galaxy that are being thrown out of the galaxy. I mean, this is violence. Yes. Yes. I mean, there are galaxies that eat, literally, small galaxies. Some galaxies spiral in to become cannibalized by bigger galaxies. From his Pine Mountain vantage point, computer at the ready, Dr. Bolton intends an unprecedented odyssey of discovery into deep space. It's like going to a foreign country, right? I mean, you can look at travel brochures, think- kind of have a rough feeling for what it's going to be like. But then when you go there, you're going to discover things that- that weren't in the guidebook. Right? It's the same deal. That's the universe to you. That's what- Yeah. That's the exciting part. On a wall of the Pine Mountain complex is a map of the stars. Bothun wants to go beyond anything it can tell him. He and his computer will probe beyond the known galaxies for light infinitely older than the high peaks of central Oregon. It is a light so far away it began its travel before the Earth's solar system was created. It is light, now detectable by computer, that is twice as old as the earth. Such faint glimmers in the night sky carry unguessable information about the development of the universe. What you want to do is you want to be able to look at a representative sample of galaxies at various look times, one, two, three, four, five, all the way up to 10 billion years. 'Cause if you can build up that sample, then you can watch galaxies evolve by just measuring your properties at these different epochs. So that's really the goal behind all of these deep space observations and the sky mapping and stuff, is to find galaxies at various stages in their evolutionary histories. [mechanical whine]

It is well past midnight. The night cycle of celestial observation and computer analysis will last until dawn. Dr. Bothun faces untold hours at the computer. He plans a computer-enhanced mapping of the entire northern hemisphere with the aid of the Pine Mountain telescopes. It is a project that may take six years. But at remote Pine Mountain, where prevailing winds clear away dust particles that scatter starlight, conditions for such work are almost ideal. The skies are very dark here and the weather here is very stable for about six months of the year. It's not very good in the winter, of course. So, there's a potential 100 to 150 nights a year that can be devoted to this- these kinds of surveys. That's a lot.

The gutted remnants of Pine Mountain's earliest computers are still on site. Ancient punch tape technology and snail-paced computing capacity are little more than an historical oddity here now. But even Pine Mountain's state of the art computer, with its high-speed processor, is slower than it needs to be. Dr. Bothun, after all, plans to collect a nearly overwhelming mountain of data about outer space. So, the potential there is to build these monumental databases and learn fascinating things about the universe. But in practice, we still haven't got our software and our processing up to speed. But that'll change as processors get faster. With his powerful computers and sense of adventure, Dr. Bothun expects to map the universe more completely than has been done before. In distant, unexplored space, accessible for the first time, where entirely new phenomena await discovery, Bothun finds the thrill of his profession. That's what's truly exciting you just- and then you just kind of stand back and you're all of a sudden a child and you just go, wow, I don't understand that, but it's real, you know? And then that gives your career a new direction. You've got whole new avenue now to go down, try and figure out if you understand this.

And we hope you gain a better understanding of this amazingly complex and interrelated universe we live in. As I'm sure you can tell from all the reports we've shared with you, there are no easy answers to any of the problems we face in these modern times. But it is up to us to keep looking. Thanks for joining us.