Marmot & Little Sandy Dam Removal

Final Report

August 2009

Bruce McCammon Photography 10691 NW Harding Ct.

Portland, OR 97229 www.bpmphotography.com

Contract Number AG-046W-P-07-0099

Contents

Introduction ................................................................................................................................................... 1

Photopoint Locations ................................................................................................................................... 1

Field Technique .............................................................................................................................................. 4

Station identification ...................................................................................................... 4

Camera setup and photography ............................................................................... 5

Image Post-processing ................................................................................................................................ 5

RAW conversion ............................................................................................................... 5

Directory structure ......................................................................................................... 6

File naming convention................................................................................................. 7

Panorama creation .......................................................................................................... 8

Results ................................................................................................................................................... 9

Appendix ................................................................................................................................................ 29

Site Reference photos ................................................................................................. 30

Camera setup .................................................................................................................. 32

1

Introduction

This report is submitted to the USDA Forest Service, Mount Hood National Forest as substantial

completion of contracted work. The contract was designed to provide photographic coverage of

channel, riparian and dam areas in the vicinities of the Marmot Dam and the Little Sandy Dam prior

to and after dam removal. This report contains photos and information that spans the period June

2007 to September 2008. This timeframe covers the pre- and post-removal periods at the Marmot

Dam site and the pre-removal and immediate post-removal periods at the Little Sandy Dam site.

Additional information will be added to this report when the final set of photos is taken in August

or September of 2009. The additional photos to be added will show conditions at the Little Sandy

Dam area after one high flow season as well as additional photos of the Marmot Dam sites.

The monitoring conducted under this contract was part of a coordinated monitoring plan involving

federal, state and private organizations. The primary photopoint locations were coordinated with

and accepted by the US Forest Service (Mt. Hood National Forest and Pacific Northwest Experiment

Station), the USGS, the City of Portland and the Sandy River Watershed Council. The photo

monitoring covered here was also coordinated with academic institutions that are involved in

monitoring and analyzing the effects of the removal of the Marmot and Little Sandy dams.

This contract was initiated by the Mt. Hood National Forest. Dan Shively is the designated

Contracting Officer Representative. Connie Athman provided contract inspection and coordination

service. Todd Parker, Zig Zag Ranger District, Mt. Hood National Forest provide valuable field

information and access coordination.

Photopoint locations

The photo monitoring strategy was pretty simple – establish a series of locations that could

be revisited to allow sequential photography to record changes in the channel and riparian

zones along the Sandy and Little Sandy Rivers in the vicinity of the Marmot and Little Sandy

dams. One of the coordinated monitoring group partners requested that the initial set of

photo point locations be increased to include shots from several bridges crossing the Sandy

River and Bull Run River. Five bridges were added – four crossing the Sandy River and one

crossing the Bull Run River. Figure 1 shows the general location of the photo points in

context with the Sandy River watershed.

Locating the photo points on the ground was complicated by the robust deciduous and

coniferous riparian plant community. While access to the areas is quite good, finding sites

that offered visibility of the channel in both upstream and downstream directions was

much more limited. Every attempt was made to locate the photo points so that the site

would not be affected by channel changes after dam removal. It didn’t always work that

way. Two sites, M1 and M2, were totally destroyed during the removal of Marmot dam or

shortly after the dam removal.

2

Site M1 was located above Marmot dam. The Sandy River channel adjusted tens of feet

laterally and 10 to 15 feet vertically after dam removal. The bank that site M1 had been on

was totally removed by these channel adjustment. Site M2 was initially located near the

dam in an area believed to be safe from dam deconstruction activity. This proved to be an

error since the entire site was totally regraded during dam deconstruction. The M1 and M2

sites were replaced with sites M1A and M2A, respectively.

Figure 1. Photopoint locations

Additionally, the first site located at the mouth of the Sandy River (SRD1) was replaced by a

location downstream to provide more elevation above the river and a more encompassing

view of the river and delta area.

3

Station Latitude Longitude Description

M1A N45⁰ 23’ 56” W122⁰ 07’ 42” Uppermost station on Sandy River

M2A N45⁰ 24’ 01” W122⁰ 07’ 55” Upslope along low standard access road to

site M1A; in the Marmot dam vicinity

M3 N45⁰ 23’ 57” W122⁰ 08’ 13” Below Marmot dam near USGS gage

M4 N45⁰ 23’ 44” W122⁰ 08’ 55” ~0.9 mile downstream from Marmot dam

M4A N45⁰ 23’ 44” W122⁰ 08’ 58” ~ 100 yards downstream from site M4

MFB N45⁰ 23’ 58” W122⁰ 07’ 59” Midspan on the Marmot dam foot bridge

MS1 N45⁰ 23’ 58” W122⁰ 07’ 49” South bank of Sandy River, upstream from

Marmot dam footbridge

MS2 N45⁰ 23’ 58” W122⁰ 07’ 49” On top of a bedrock exposure in the center of the Sandy River channel; accessible only at low flow

SRD2 N45⁰ 33’ 36” W122⁰ 23’ 36” Near the mouth of the Sandy River; west bank

LS1 N45⁰ 24’ 55” W122⁰ 10’ 39” On the cutbank above the Little Sandy dam

LS2 N45⁰ 24’ 55” W122⁰ 10’ 40” Downstream from the Little Sandy dam; on a

terrace above the channel

LS3 N45⁰ 24’ 54” W122⁰ 10’ 34” At channel elevation at bottom of construction road access to channel; above dam

LS4 N45⁰ 24’ 53” W122⁰ 10’ 34” On south bank of Little Sandy River;

accessed from road above site

Table 1. List of photo point locations and station location code.

4

All the above stations, with the exception of the Sandy River delta site, are shown in greater

detail in Figure 2.

Figure 2. Station Locations

Field Technique Station identification

A variety of markings were used to identify the photo point locations in the field. When

possible a three foot piece of rebar was pounded into the ground and capped with an

aluminum cap that had the site ID stamped into the top. Bridge railings were marked by

filing a small notch into the railing. Paint was used to mark any site that is located on

bedrock. All sites except the bridge sites had location photos taken to document the actual

photo point location relative to local landmarks and topography.

5

Camera setup and photography

Many pictures have been taken during this photo documentation. The majority of the

images were made as a sequence of images panning across the scene to form a panorama of

the channel area. All panorama files were made with the same camera body and lens. A

Nikon D200 camera and a 20mm Nikkor lens were used exclusively for the panorama

images. I occasionally used a 10.5mm Nikkor fisheye lens at the photo points. This was

done to supplement the photo record and to provide a single image record of the scene

rather than a panorama formed by stitching together numerous images. None of the

fisheye images have been used in the results presented in this report. The fisheye image

files are included on the DVD of images and can be found in the “miscellaneous” directory

on the DVD.

A Manfrotto tripod fitted with a Manfrotto leveling base and Nodal Ninja panorama head

was used for the capture of all but the June 2007 images. The June 2007 images did not

utilize the Nodal Ninja head. The Nodal Ninja panorama head allows for more accurate

capture of the image sequence and a much better composite image after stitching.

After setting the tripod over the photo point mark the tripod was leveled using the leveling

base. The Nodal Ninja panorama head was checked for level across the range of the image

sequence and adjustments were made as necessary to ensure that the camera was level.

June 2007 images were captured with the camera in a horizontal (landscape) orientation.

After post-processing these images I decided to switch to vertical (portrait) orientation for

all subsequent images. This provides more scene capture in each of the individual images

and allows for more of the channel area to be incorporated.

Images were captured by setting the camera view to the left extent of the scene and

sequentially moving the camera through the series using the detent settings on the Nodal

Ninja panorama head. Image capture was made by using a cable release rather than

manually pushing on the shutter.

Post-processing Raw conversion

All images were captured as RAW rather than JPG files. This provides a great deal of

flexibility to adjust exposure or white balance prior to the creation of the panorama

composite. All RAW images were converted to JPG for delivery to the Mt. Hood National

Forest using Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2.3

6

Directory structure

The digital files that accompany this report are divided into 5 broad categories:

1. Miscellaneous files – photos taken at locations other than the established photo

points or with different camera bodies or lens combinations

2. Breach Sequence – photos taken on October 19, 2007 during the breach operation at

Marmot Dam.

3. Bridges – all image files taken as either single views or panorama sequences at the

Revenue Bridge, Bull Run Bridge, Dodge Park Bridge, Troutdale Bridge or the Stark

Street Bridge

4. Panoramas – all images that have been stitched together to form composite views of

channel conditions at a given site. This set of images represents the most useful,

completely processed files delivered under this contract.

5. Source files – all the individual image files that were used to form the panoramas.

In past delivery of image files to the Forest Service I learned that some of the files were too

large to be used within some applications on the government computers. To accommodate

any future use by the Forest Service I include two sets of panorama and source image files.

The first set is the full size images for the stitched panoramas and the source files used in

each panoramic composite. The second set is comprised of panorama and source images

that have been resized to never exceed 1024 pixels horizontally or 768 pixels vertically.

There are over 1800 image files on the DVDs that accompany this report. Organizing the

files for future use was an important part of the entire photo documentation process. Since

the files were all generated over a sequence of field visits on different days, the easiest way

to store and reference the files was by day and then by station within any given day.

However, the real utility of the images is to show the change at a given station over time.

This required a different filing and organization strategy. The digital files included on the

DVDs are filed by photo point, by year and by day within the year. An example is shown

below.

7

Source Files

o Marmot Dam

Site M1A

2007

o M1A_070507_JPG

o M1A-070507_JPG_Small

o M1A_071607_JPG

o M1A_071607_JPG_Small

o M1A_082207_JPG

o M1A_082207_JPG_Small

o M1A_092607_JPG

o M1A-092607_JPG_Small

o M1A_102407_JPG

o M1A_102407_JPG_Small

2008

o M1A_070208_JPG

o M1A_070208_JPG_Small

o M1A_073108_JPG

o M1A_070308_JPG_Small

o M1A_091908_JPG

o M1A_091908_JPG_Small

File naming convention

The directories ending with “ _JPG” contain the full size image files. Directories ending with

“_Small” contain image files that have been resized to 1024 x 768 pixels. Within a directory

for any date the individual files follow the same naming convention as the directory. For

example:

M1A_070507_001.jpg (M1A = station ID; 070507= date of capture; _001 = sequence no.)

Files in the “Small” directories are labeled the same and an “s” is appended to the file name

(M1A_070507_001s.jpg)

The Marmot Footbridge, Revenue and Bull Run bridge sites have directories that contain

images for upstream and downstream views. The directory naming and file naming within

a directory include “D” for downstream and “U” for upstream. (e.g.,

MFBU_091908_JPG_Small).

8

Naming Convention – Bridges

I used an abbreviation for each bridge location as follows:

Abbreviation location

BRD Bridge – Revenue, downstream

BRU Bridge – Revenue, upstream

BBRU Bridge – Bull Run, upstream

BBRD Bridge – Bull Run, downstream

BDP Bridge – Dodge Park

BSS Bridge – Stark Street

BT Bridge - Troutdale

The date was appended to the abbreviation to form unique file names, e.g., BRD_071607.jpg

(Bridge- Revenue- downstream view, July 16, 2007)

Panorama creation

Sequences of individual image files captured at each site were stitched together to form a

composite panorama view. The program Panorama Maker Pro, version 4 by ArcSoft was

used to perform the stitching. This program uses advanced algorithms to match and blend

the image sequence into a final composite.

Figure 3. Blending 8 images into a single composite

Figure 3 is an example of the blending zones used to make a final panorama from site M1A

after the Marmot Dam was removed.

9

Results The following pages present a series of panoramic views for each station on 3 dates: July

16, 2007 (pre-breach), October 24, 2007 (5 days post-breach) and September 19, 2008..

The reader is referred back to Figure 1 and Figure 2 for location information for each

station.

Stations M1, M2 and SRD1 are not included since these stations did not persevere over

time.

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11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

Marmot Dam breach October 19, 2007

29

Appendix

The following pages contain photographs taken at most of the field photo point sites. The intent is

to provide some visual context for the photo point to make it easier to relocate the photo points in

the future. Additionally, one photograph shows the full camera setup as used to make the

panorama sequences at each photopoint.

30

Site Reference Photos

Site 1A

Site 2A

Site 3

31

Site 4

Site 4A

Site MS1

Site MS2

32

Nikon D200 camera

Nikkor 20mm f/2.8 lens

Nodal Ninja panorama head

Manfrotto leveling base

Bogen double bubble level

Nikon cable release

Bogen Manfrotto tripod