1. FEDERAL AGENCIES LAY OUT SALMON RECOVERY BUDGETS

By Mike O’Bryant

Federal agencies this week revealed that overall they will spend more in 2003 and 2004 for Columbia River Basin salmon and steelhead recovery activities than they did in 2002.

However, Northwest tribes said the agency budgets are far from enough to fund all the biological opinion measures contained in NOAA Fisheries’ 2000 BiOp of the Federal Columbia River Power System and that may threaten the dam operators’ ability to meet the three and five year check-in requirements contained in the BiOp.

The budgets were shared among federal agencies and tribes at a Federal Caucus meeting Wednesday in Portland.

According to figures provided by the Office of Management and Budget, the total proposed in the president’s fiscal year 2003 budget for direct and indirect salmon funding spread across 11 federal agencies is $575.4 million, an increase from 2002 actual expenditure of $512.6 million. Although it is early in the FY 2004 budget cycle, expenditures for that year are projected to be $572.3 million.

However, in its recent testimony in the Bonneville Power Administration’s rate case, the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission said the agencies would have to spend $1.203 billion in FY 2003 and $1.913 billion in FY 2004 in order to fully fund the aggressive non-breach strategy of the BiOp.

In addition, Roy Sampsel, representing CRITFC, said the budgets don’t tie dollars directly to individual BiOp measures. He said that detail will be needed — the direct connection between a budget item and a Reasonable and Prudent Alternative from the BiOp — if the region is ever going to get additional funding from Congress.

“The piece that’s missing is the logical trail to follow in the implementation strategy. In other words, we do this in a subbasin to meet this RPA,” Sampsel said. “We will need that level of detail when we tell Congress the level of funding needed to make a difference.”

He added that the Federal Caucus meeting Wednesday gives the agencies, the states and the tribes an opportunity to begin planning for such a meeting with the President’s Council on Environmental Quality, as well as with members of Congress.

“We will need to evaluate all the holes and gaps needed for each RPA,” Sampsel said. “We can do that as part of this exercise.” He wants to have such an evaluation completed by April, which is when the tribes will visit Congress, and he asked that agency representatives participate.

“If we don’t do this by April, then our ability to influence the ’04 budget cycle begins to evaporate,” Sampsel said, adding the federal government’s 2005 budget cycle begins in early summer. “We can’t continue to guess about the implementation and funding levels. I suggest we develop this together as a common agenda.”

In his opening remarks to the Federal Caucus, NOAA Fisheries regional administrator Bob Lohn said that the meeting was to discuss funding of Northwest salmon recovery activities, not about the progress made towards meeting BiOp requirements. He did say that in meetings this week with 23 Northwest congressional offices, he found as a common theme a concern whether funding is adequate to meet BiOp requirements. However, the federal government is operating in what he described a “restrained fiscal environment.”

“The general pitch that we need more money is probably not going to be as successful as it has been in the past,” Lohn said. “However, there is broad support and interest in salmon recovery, not just in the BiOp, but in having healthy watersheds. The congressional members also recognize the need for sustained support.”

He also supported early in the meeting what Sampsel asked for later. “The salmon program is strongest for them (congressional delegation) when we can show clear results and that the product of the measures lead to those results,” Lohn said. “A failure to link improvements to budget measures makes it difficult to get funding.”

He added that the region wants to invest in salmon recovery, but that it is also a region with “many passions.” To get further funding, the region would have to act in a “thorough coordinated manner to buttress our case.”

Agency funding:

** The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers discretionary funding for FY 2002 was $108.75 million. That will rise to $128.2 million for FY 2003 and will drop to $125.1 million, according to the President’s current FY 2004 budget.

Witt Anderson, chief, Fish Management Office Northwestern Division, Army Corps of Engineers, said FY 2002 actual spending amounted to $98 million and that, while the budget request for FY 2003 was $128.24 million, the enacted 2003 budget amounts to $113.52 million. That includes

–$73.8 million for the Columbia River Fish Mitigation Project for juvenile and adult fish passage at eight mainstem Columbia and lower Snake river dams;
— $500,000 to get the Chief Joseph Dam gas abatement project under way, one of only two new projects for the Corps this year;
— $2 million for Lower Columbia River ecosystem restoration, the other new Corps project this year;
— $4 million for the Lower Snake River Fish and Wildlife Comprehensive Plan;
— $8 million for Willamette River temperature control;
— a little more than $1 million for general investigations; and
— $45.33 million for operations and maintenance related to fish operations.

** Department of Interior funding for the Bureau of Land Management, the Bureau of Reclamation, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the U.S. Geological Survey amounted to $23.3 million in FY 2002. That will rise to $27.1 million in FY 2003 and to $31.9 million in FY 2004.

** The BOR budget for salmon recovery includes $11 million in FY 2002, $15 million in FY 2003 and $19 million in FY 2004. Speaking about the $19 million in the FY 2004 budget, Jim Fodrea, BOR, said $6.4 million is for water acquisition, National Environmental Policy Act activities and other activities. Some $3 million to $4 million of that is to acquire water from the Snake River to provide 427,000-acre feet of water for summer flow augmentation. The budget for to subbasin improvements is $10.45 million.

He also pointed to other activities not included in the federal salmon budget, totaling $23.194 million in FY 2004 that will also benefit salmon. Those include $12.73 million for the Yakima River Basin Watershed Enhancement project, $6.626 million for operation and maintenance activities, and more than half a million dollars for bull trout activities, among others.

** Bill Shake of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said his agency’s budget was $10 million, which includes about $4 million to implement the Fisheries Restoration and Irrigation Mitigation Act, part of which doesn’t go directly to Columbia River Basin activities. The FY 2003 budget is $9.7 million and is likely to be $10.5 million in 2004.

Most of the remaining budget goes to support the NOAA Fisheries and U.S. Fish and Wildlife BiOps and for hatchery operations, which includes hatchery upgrades. The USFWS also has $179 million in its 2003 and 2004 budgets for Columbia River estuary restoration.

** Sampsel said the $400,000 budgeted for salmon activities by the Bureau of Indian Affairs is inadequate.

“The fact is the BIA is essentially not funded for these statutory requirements,” Sampsel said. “It’s a question of funding of tribal government participation in these multi-agency efforts and an increase in this funding should be on the table. $400,000 for 13 tribes is not an adequate response.”

** NOAA Fisheries’ budget, which spent $24.6 million in FY 2002, will rise to $36.6 million in FY 2003 and to $39.7 million in FY 2004. Brian Brown of NOAA Fisheries said the agency requested about $10 million more for monitoring and evaluation activities in preparation for a “fairly intense scientific process” prior to the check-ins, but was denied. That may also affect NOAA Fisheries’ participation in subbasin planning, he said.

“Why is it that the lead agency for ESA compliance doesn’t get any dollars for monitoring just before the three year check-in?” Sampsel asked.

Brown said the reason might be that the level of funding for monitoring and evaluation at other agencies “contributes to a perception that there is a lot going on there already.” He added that the budget denial means that NOAA Fisheries will not be able to staff its Science Center as the agency had hoped.

** The Department of Agriculture FY 2002 funding for the U.S. Forest Service and the National Resource Conservation Service was $84.4 million. That falls this year to $78.5 million (all of the change is in the Forest Service budget) and to $76.8 million in FY 2004. The Forest Service budget for FY 2002 was $56.5 million, $50.6 million in FY 2003 and $48.9 million in FY 2004.

** The Environmental Protection Agency budget is flat across all three years at $18.3 million. Mary Lou Soscia of EPA said the agency delegates much of its funds as grants to the states to implement the Clean Water Act. It gave $3.7 million in 2002 to support tribes and will maintain that support in 2003. About $5.7 million goes to non-point source management plans, $3.297 million to support developing Total Maximum Daily Load plans, and $4.4 million for 49 people assigned to Columbia River Basin activities.

** All discretionary federal spending (budgets from all agencies described above) amounted to $259.3 million in FY 2002. This year that spending is expected to be $288.7 million and in FY 2004 it will rise to $291.8 million.

** The only mandatory federal funding category is with the Bonneville Power Administration. Direct fish costs at BPA for FY 2002 were $253.3 million. That rises this year to $286.7 million, but falls in FY 2004 to $280.5 million. Sarah McNary of BPA said that the total is higher if the agency includes its Treasury repayment. For FY 2003, the total with repayment is $367.9 million and $370.6 million for FY 2004.

The budget items include $150 million in FY 2003 for Offsite Mitigation, or the payments BPA makes to other agencies for activities under the ESA and Northwest Power Act (including the Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s fish and wildlife program). McNary said the actual budget figure for FY 2003 is now $139 million, but the $150 million amount was reported to the OMB earlier and has yet to change. FY 2004 expenditure will be $139 million and that will continue through FY 2006, which is the end of BPA’s rate case period.

The BPA budget also includes funding for operations and maintenance for the Lower Snake River Compensation Plan and other O&M activities, as well as funding for the Pacific Northwest Power and Conservation Council, the Offsite Mitigation capital expense, repayment to the Treasure and transmission costs associated with BiOp RPAs.

The cost of spill would add an additional $303 million to Bonneville’s total cost for salmon operations. That includes $162 million in lost revenues when the agency spills water instead of uses the water to generate electricity, and $141 million to purchase energy to make up for that loss. With average 50-year water, the loss amounts to 982 annual average megawatts. According to BPA budget information, the “loss in energy production due to fish restoration and protection is .about 10 percent.”

Links:
Federal Caucus: www.salmonrecovery.gov
CRITFC: www.critfc.org

Author
Recent Posts

Andrew Bacon

1. FEDERAL AGENCIES LAY OUT SALMON RECOVERY BUDGETS

Leave a Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

newsroom@staging.columbiabasinbulletin.org