diff --git a/CHANGES.txt b/CHANGES.txt
index 542e0fd58d..2f34a1589f 100644
--- a/CHANGES.txt
+++ b/CHANGES.txt
@@ -32,6 +32,8 @@
  * avoid caching token-only decoratedkeys (CASSANDRA-2416)
  * preserve version when streaming data from old sstables (CASSANDRA-2283)
  * fix backslash substitutions in CLI (CASSANDRA-2492)
+ * count a row deletion as one operation towards memtable threshold 
+   (CASSANDRA-2519)
 
 
 0.7.4
diff --git a/src/java/org/apache/cassandra/db/Memtable.java b/src/java/org/apache/cassandra/db/Memtable.java
index 3c39bb24fd..4bf50734c6 100644
--- a/src/java/org/apache/cassandra/db/Memtable.java
+++ b/src/java/org/apache/cassandra/db/Memtable.java
@@ -128,7 +128,9 @@ public class Memtable implements Comparable<Memtable>, IFlushable
     private void resolve(DecoratedKey key, ColumnFamily cf)
     {
         currentThroughput.addAndGet(cf.size());
-        currentOperations.addAndGet(cf.getColumnCount());
+        currentOperations.addAndGet((cf.getColumnCount() == 0)
+                                    ? cf.isMarkedForDelete() ? 1 : 0
+                                    : cf.getColumnCount());
 
         ColumnFamily oldCf = columnFamilies.putIfAbsent(key, cf);
         if (oldCf == null)