Council/BPA Moving Closer To Approving Huge Increase For Hatchery Maintenance Due To Flush Revenue Year For BPA

Spending on maintenance of Columbia River basin salmon and steelhead hatcheries, as well as fish screens, could see a significant bump in fiscal year 2024 if the full Northwest Power and Conservation Council approves a plan endorsed this week by the Council’s Fish and Wildlife Committee. That approval could come as early as the body’s June meeting.

The half million dollars budgeted each year by the Council and the Bonneville Power Administration since 2018 for non-recurring maintenance at hatcheries and for upkeep on screens could be bumped up to about $25 million over five years due to a BPA revenue surplus last year.

A 5-year assessment of what 37 existing and three new hatcheries will need to remain in good condition was completed this year by Four Peaks Environmental Science & Data Solutions, an independent engineering firm. Once that was completed, an “asset management” subcommittee decided that the annual $500,000 placeholder set aside for both hatcheries and screens would instead go just for screen maintenance. A survey of screen maintenance needs resulted in about 28 requests totaling $1.607 million. Some 30 hatchery maintenance requests totaled $19,996,074 (including a 20 percent contingency).

“One of the hatcheries was four decades old, and many are more than 20 years old,” Jason Sweet of BPA told the Fish and Wildlife Committee, Tuesday, May 16. “We realized that their O&M budgets couldn’t keep up with the maintenance.”

He added that BPA and the Council since 2017 have used funds “scraped together” to pay for some non-recurring maintenance at hatcheries as a way to protect investments in assets. The Council approved a phased asset management strategic plan in 2018 and BPA initiated strategic asset management plans for hatcheries in 2020, all to protect the investment the region has made in BPA-funded hatcheries.

Since 2018, BPA has either reduced funding for its fish and wildlife program or levels of funding remained flat — all part of the agency’s 2018-23 strategic plan.

The uptick in funding now is due to excess revenue the agency realized in fiscal year 2022. BPA finished the year with higher than expected net revenues that totaled $964 million against a target of $172 million. As a result, the power marketing agency will distribute a half-billion dollars of that revenue to customers and to pay down debt, with an additional $50 million, or 10 percent of the total distributed to customers and debt, for upkeep at hatcheries throughout the basin. The money will not be used directly for recovery of salmon and steelhead.

See CBB, March 16, 2023, WITH LARGE BOOST IN REVENUES, BPA STEPS UP FUNDING FOR AGING HATCHERIES’ MAINTENANCE, REPAIRS, UPGRADES,

BPA announced the change in funding at the Council’s March meeting in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. This week at the Council’s May meeting in Wenatchee, WA, the Council and BPA laid out its planned expenditures for FY24 for non-recurring hatchery upkeep and maintenance. The additional funding will enable BPA and the Council to address known needs at hatcheries more rapidly than was budgeted in FY24 and FY25,

“Hatchery managers used the updated condition assessment information along with their professional expertise to provide the highest priority maintenance needs for their facilities,” a May 9 Council memorandum says.

“Given the large influx of funds for Program hatcheries, high priority maintenance needs that would occur in the next 5 years were identified. Fish screens managers continued to use their priority list of Program fish screens. In total we received $1,607,300 in requests for fish screens and identified nearly $20 million of needs associated with the Program hatcheries.”

On February 7th the subcommittee decided to use the annual $500,000 for the Program’s fish screens and that the remaining $25 million would go towards the hatcheries included in the Council’s Fish and Wildlife Program. In February and March, BPA and Council staffs asked for maintenance priorities from sponsors and managers for both screens and hatcheries.

Items are not just to replace screens. Of the $1.6 million in screen expenditures, the highest priced item ($306,000) will Install an automated brush cleaning system to assist with the airburst cleaning system to keep screens from getting clogged, and some of the smallest expenditures are to replace walkways and handrails for safety.

Among the hatchery maintenance items are electrical upgrades, pond painting and alarm system upgrades at the Colville and Chief Joseph hatcheries by the Colville Tribe; alarms for the upper Columbia Tribes; a new heat exchanger at Idaho Department of Fish and Game’s Eagle Hatchery; a new chiller at the Umatilla Hatchery for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife; along with items for the Westland Irrigation District.

Of the $25 million that will be used to fund non-recurring maintenance at hatcheries, some $496,244 will go to IDFG’s Eagle and Springfield hatcheries for maintenance at hatcheries that are helping to recover Snake River sockeye salmon, listed as endangered under the federal Endangered Species Act. A whopping $7,744,130 goes to the Umatilla Hatchery and almost $5 million to Nez Perce hatcheries.

“It looks like the $25 million catches us up on mission critical items at hatcheries,” Andy Traylor of BPA told the Fish and Wildlife Committee. “Having more than one year to complete some of these actions is beneficial.”

For background, see:

— CBB, November 22, 2022, BPA 2022 NET REVENUES EXCEED TARGET BY $792 MILLION; PROPOSING FLAT RATES FOR 2023-25, 8 PERCENT INCREASE FOR SALMON MITIGATION, https://columbiabasinbulletin.org/bpa-2022-net-revenues-exceed-target-by-792-million-proposing-flat-rates-for-2023-25-8-percent-increase-for-salmon-mitigation/

— CBB, Sept. 30, 2021, SCIENCE PANEL REVIEWING BPA-FUNDED BASIN FISH/WILDLIFE PROJECTS SAYS TIME TO DO THINGS DIFFERENTLY; MORE SYNTHESIS, SOLICIT NEW PROJECTS, https://columbiabasinbulletin.org/science-panel-reviewing-bpa-funded-basin-fish-wildlife-projects-says-time-to-do-things-differently-more-synthesis-solicit-new-projects/

— CBB, June 20, 2021, “BPA Opens Fish/Wildlife Budget Process For FY2020, Hopes To Hold Spending Steady,” https://columbiabasinbulletin.org/bpa-opens-fish-wildlife-budget-process-for-fy2020-hopes-to-hold-spending-steady/