The PFMC determines the annual exploitation or harvest rate for a mix of wild and hatchery fish in coastal areas out to 200 miles offshore. When it sets those quotas, it must keep fishing pressure to a minimum level for the weakest of the Columbia River and Puget Sound salmon stocks listed under the endangered species act.
NOAA Fisheries last week asked a Spokane, Wash., federal court to push back by 90 days the deadline for completion of eight salmon and steelhead Endangered Species Act listing proposals, citing the “unexpected complexity” of the biology and policy related to the task.
The effective date for a recently adopted statewide moratorium on wild steelhead retention will be May 1, consistent with the start of the next fishing season, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife announced this week.
Managers this week asked lower Columbia River gill-netters for better cooperation as the states of Oregon and Washington try to implement a complicated commercial fishing plan that aims to allow maximum harvest of hatchery-reared spring chinook salmon before reaching federally imposed impact limits on protected fish.
The judge presiding over one legal challenge to the federal Columbia River basin salmon protection plan will remain as magistrate of record in a separate lawsuit that attacks the fish strategy from a different angle.
Upper Willamette River and Lower and Middle Columbia River steelhead listings are the latest legal targets of land and water user groups who say the federal government illegally split up fish populations in determining which deserve Endangered Species Act protection.
Clearer than normal river conditions meant poor fishing for the lower Columbia River gill net fleet Tuesday in what was their first full 2004 pursuit of returning hatchery-bred spring chinook salmon.
Last year’s adult return of fall chinook salmon to the Columbia River exceeded everyone’s expectations when 885,000 funneled up the river towards the Hanford Reach, the Snake River and hatcheries and spawning grounds elsewhere.
Spill began at Bonneville Dam Tuesday evening at 8 p.m. to provide safe passage past the dam for tule fall chinook released Monday from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Spring Creek Hatchery. Spill will continue for 96 hours to 8 p.m. Saturday, March 6.
Members of an Oregon House subcommittee at times this week seemed incredulous at the estimated costliness of spill employed during July and August at federal Columbia/Snake river hydro projects to provide a third passage option for outmigrating juvenile salmon.
The Bonneville Power Administration this week agreed to four days of spill at Bonneville Dam to help a release of juvenile tule fall chinook travel safely past the only dam between the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’ Spring Creek Hatchery and the Columbia River estuary.
Organizations representing agriculture-employers, utilities, businesses and other Columbia River users have joined hands with the stated goal of forcing more “cost effective” implementation of basin salmon restoration efforts — beginning with the immediate elimination of the summer hydrosystem spill program.
Weighing in on a proposal to reduce or eliminate spilling water during summer months, environmental groups and fish and wildlife agencies — with the notable exception of the State of Montana – said that the analyses of a half-dozen spill options is insufficient and doesn’t support the proposed changes.
Frustrated with an ever-slipping schedule, the Northwest Power and Conservation Council on Wednesday launched a letter to the region’s top federal officials asking for quick action on research proposals designed to test the biological benefit of hydrosystem spill in late summer to facilitate passage for migrating salmon.
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday rejected an appeal of a Portland federal court judge’s opinion that has forced an almost complete re-evaluation of how NOAA Fisheries decides whether Pacific Coast salmon should be listed under the Endangered Species Act.
An official request sent Feb. 13 by the states of Oregon and Washington to NOAA Fisheries requests that greater impact or “incidental take” be allowed on protected, wild winter steelhead during the course of commercial fisheries targeting returning hatchery-raised chinook in the lower Columbia River.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is planning to release smolts from its Spring Creek Hatchery upstream of Bonneville Dam in early March. This year, instead of providing a safe passage through the dam using spill, as has been done in past years, the hatchery fish will largely travel through the newly completed $50 million corner collector at the dam’s second powerhouse.
It appears that a pair of lawsuits attacking NOAA Fisheries’ Columbia River salmon protection plan from different directions will continue on separate courses, and potentially with different judges presiding.
The fifty-four member Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians on Thursday in a consensus passed a resolution in opposition to proposals to reduce or eliminate summer spill at federal hydro projects in the lower Columbia and Snake rivers that is intended to benefit migrating salmon and steelhead.
Washington’s first effort to recover the largest and oldest freshwater fish in the upper Columbia River will get under way Feb.18, when 2,000 white sturgeon are transported from Canada to the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife Columbia Basin Fish Hatchery in Moses Lake.
The Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission last week adopted new sportfishing rules for the 2004-05 season that include a two-year moratorium on retaining any wild steelhead caught in state waters.
The Columbia River Compact on Thursday agreed to a plan that it thinks will maximize sport and commercial access in the coming months to the hatchery-reared portion of what is expected to be the second largest return of spring chinook salmon to the Columbia River on record.
Fisheries managers were skeptical this week of an analysis provided by federal agencies that look at seven scenarios for summer spill.
The analysis concludes that eliminating spill at Columbia River dams in July and August would reduce adult chinook salmon returns by 19,000 fish, but gain the Bonneville Power Administration as much as $77 million in revenue it now forgoes when it spills water over dams.
In the four weeks since a cougar killed one cyclist and attacked another in California, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife has continued to pursue an aggressive strategy to reduce human conflicts with the Evergreen State’s own population of big cats.
State, federal and tribal scientists are ready to take the first step in an effort to collaborate in the development of the technical underpinnings for NOAA Fisheries’ next assessment of whether the survival of Columbia Basin salmon and steelhead is threatened by federal hydrosystem operations.
Administration officials visiting the Columbia River basin last week took the time to visit what they say is a shining example of the federal/local cooperation they feel necessary to hasten the recovery of salmon and steelhead stocks.
President Bush submitted a 2005 environmental budget this week that the Administration says includes the highest level of funding ever requested by a President for high-priority environment and natural resource programs.
Following the direction of the Washington and Oregon fish and wildlife commissions, the directors of the states’ fish and wildlife departments Friday (Jan. 30) announced that sport anglers in the Columbia River spring chinook fishery will be allowed 60 percent of the incidental impacts to upriver fish listed under the Endangered Species Act and commercial fishers will get 40 percent.
The Alaska Department of Fish is announcing that the Alaska statewide commercial salmon harvest is projected to increase during the 2004 season compared to 2003.
With the comment period over, a draft Artificial Production Review and Evaluation of some 3000 Columbia River basin programs moves on to a new phase — the development of an issue paper that will likely include recommendations on needed reforms to the system.
Interior Secretary Gale Norton today announced that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is awarding 79 grants, totaling nearly $14 million, to help 60 federally recognized Indian tribes conserve and recover endangered, threatened and at-risk species and other wildlife on tribal lands.
Northwest tribes were awarded nearly $2 million in grants.
Wildlife biologists are scaling remote areas of the Cascade mountains to determine why Washington’s population of mountain goats is declining.
The mountain goat research project is detailed with color photos in an updated version of the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife’s online Fish and Wildlife Science magazine on the department’s website at http://wdfw.wa.gov/science/index.html
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council was asked this week to restore nearly $900,000 in funding for conservation enforcement activities that tribal officials say bring big rewards in terms of reduced illegal take of salmon and steelhead.
NOAA Fisheries has released for public review its “Final Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (FPEIS) for Pacific Salmon Fisheries Management off the Coasts of Southeast Alaska, Washington, Oregon, California, and in the Columbia River Basin.”
The financial windfall could be as high as $77 million and the biological loss as high as an estimated 19,000 Columbia River basin adult fall chinook salmon on average annually if hydrosystem “spill” for fish passage is turned off in July and August, according to analysis released this week.
As the rewrite of the biological opinion on the Federal Columbia River Power System’s impact on salmon and steelhead survival hit its halfway point, the judge that ordered the remand is keeping a careful eye on the success the federal government is having at implementing the current “BiOp.”
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has been spilling a small amount of water at one of the Bonneville Dam spillways since Dec. 1, 2003 in order to attract salmon and steelhead to one of the dam’s fish ladders. With a combined average of four hatchery and listed fish passing the dam per day, the Technical Management Team today agreed to end the spill until more fish are present, but it didn’t agree on how many fish must be present before the attraction spill should be turned on again.
In the 2004 and 2005 Columbia River spring chinook fisheries, sport anglers should be granted 60 percent of the allowable impacts to wild fish, and commercial fishers should get 40 percent, with in-season flexibility of up to 5 percent, the Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission has decided.
The Nez Perce Tribe last week initiated a lawsuit against three federal agencies in an attempt stall a plan to harvest 42 million board feet of timber in north-central Idaho Lochsa River drainage.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said today the process to delist the western population of gray wolves can begin once Wyoming approves key changes to state law and its wolf management plan.
At the same time, the FWS announced that wolf management plans developed by Idaho and Montana are adequate to maintain the population of gray wolves above established recovery goals.
The Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission Friday (Jan. 9) supported splitting the allowable impacts to wild fish during this year’s Columbia River spring chinook fisheries 40-50 percent to the commercial fishery and 50-60 percent to the sport fishery.
The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife plans to release up to 30 bighorn sheep on its Chelan Butte Wildlife Area in Chelan County this winter to restore an historic population.
The Willard National Fish Hatchery near Cook, Washington, is releasing 974,000 coho salmon yearlings into the Little White Salmon River today (Tuesday, January 13).
These fish are being released three months prior to their planned April release schedule due to a significant decrease in the mitigation hatchery budget.
NOAA Fisheries has released for public comment four preliminary drafts of “Technical Memoranda,” or “white papers” that summarize some of the key science to be used in rewriting the 2000 Biological Opinion for the federal Columbia River hydropower system.
An aggressive tribal supplementation program, and good timing, has resulted in a burgeoning fall chinook return to the Snake River, where populations teetered for decades on the brink of extinction.
NOAA Fisheries issued a report today concluding that, while some significant progress is being made, the three federal agencies charged with carrying out the ten-year Columbia River Basin salmon-recovery program are not fully meeting expectations.
But NOAA officials added that the agencies are capable of timely resolution of the shortcomings.
A federal judge has rebuffed an attempt to bring upper Snake River federal water projects into consideration during a court-ordered re-evaluation of Columbia River federal hydrosystem impacts on salmon and steelhead.
The fishery for hatchery-reared steelhead on the upper Columbia and Methow rivers will close Dec. 21 to comply with provisions of a federal permit that authorized fishing in those waters, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife announced today.
Trout Unlimited, the nation’s largest trout and salmon conservation organization, released this week a white paper calling for a “landscape approach” to Columbia River basin hatchery management that would move hatcheries from the “production-factory” model to “organic farm-like” facilities.
Commercial troll fishers from Alaska’s southeast coast have gone straight to the top — President George W. Bush — to discourage consideration of any reduction in summer spill at Columbia River federal hydro projects or attempts to further clamp down on fishing opportunities.
Any attempt in 2004 to measure the effect of reducing summertime spill on juvenile salmon survival would likely take place at a project or two, not across the system of Columbia River federal hydroelectric projects, the Northwest Power and Conservation Council was told this week by staff and by the regional chief of the federal agency charged with protecting salmon and steelhead populations.
A forecast produced by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife predicts that next year’s return of “upriver” spring chinook salmon to the mouth of the Columbia River will be the second largest since 1938.
A spokesman for wholesale power customers and tribal fish advocates, alternately, asked for the Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s support in the ongoing debate over “spill” levels at federal hydro projects on the Columbia and Snake rivers during the summer season.
A first, and admittedly cursory, estimate of next summer’s Columbia River fall chinook return would indicate that numbers will again be strong, though not necessarily in the league with those of recent years.
A federal Libby Dam operations plan designed to avoid jeopardizing endangered Kootenai River white sturgeon is being reworked even as new research shows the long-lived creatures are on a steeper slide toward extinction than was thought just a few years ago.
David Allen admittedly has only just begun to burrow into the complexities of those issues in his immediate environment, the Columbia River basin, and other locales in the Pacific Region. But he agreed this week to offer some of his first impressions about the efforts of his agency, and of others, to maintain and restore the Columbia Basin’s fish and wildlife resources.
Columbia Basin fish and wildlife agencies and Tribes have released the 2002 Comparative Survival Study (CSS) which estimates survival rates for spring/summer chinook – both transported and in-river – from major hatcheries in the Snake River Basin and selected hatcheries from the lower Columbia River.
With the help of experienced hound hunters, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife is collecting DNA samples from cougars in northeast Washington through the end of the year to learn more about the population of the big cats.
The United States and Canada signed an agreement Friday (Nov. 21) that allocates a set percentage of the Pacific whiting catch to American and Canadian fishermen over the next decade.
In the past, the race for fish by both countries resulted in collective overfishing of whiting.
Last week the House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate passed the conference report to H.R. 1904, the Healthy Forests Restoration Act.
The House voted 286-140; the Senate approved the measure by voice vote. The legislation, intended to improve the health of the nation’s forests, will now be sent to the President for his signature.
The Northwest congressional delegation issued statements, reactions and analyses of the impact of the legislation upon the region and Columbia Basin:
Tribes, Oregon and conservation groups gave the Columbia River action agencies a much lower score for their efforts to meet NOAA Fisheries’ 2000 biological opinion for the Federal Columbia River Power System than the agencies claimed for themselves.
Northwest Power and Conservation Council members this week expressed concern that an effort it instigated — to explore more cost-effective options than current summertime spill operations for moving fish past federal hydro projects — could miss deadlines critical for 2004 implementation.
Final congressional passage of a comprehensive energy bill, including
modified hydroelectric dam relicensing reforms,was blocked on Friday in the Senate.
During this week’s Council meeting at the Coeur d’Alene Resort, special projects manager Bruce Suzumoto presented a perspective on “Recent Trends in Adult Returns to the Columbia Basin” from the view of fish counters at Bonneville, McNary, and Lower Granite dams.
An alliance of Idaho water users this week filed a 60-day notice of intent to sue several federal agencies as part of what it describes as an “aggressive” strategy to protect Idaho water.
Federal action agencies released a plan this week that outlines how the agencies will implement conservation measures in the NOAA Fisheries and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biological opinions for the Federal Columbia River Power System (FCRPS).
Conference speakers agreed that perceptions about salmon and salmon runs aren’t always backed up by reality.
Scientists and policymakers converged at the conference Friday (Nov. 14), titled “Salmon Crossroads: Record Runs and New Directions,” where before an audience made up largely of utility representatives, they debated how to interpret the recent favorable salmon return news and what to do next.
David B. Allen, regional director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Pacific Region, has received a Meritorious Service Award for outstanding contributions and leadership. It is the Department of the Interior’s second highest award.
First it was Hungry Horse Reservoir and now it’s proposed for Lake
Koocanusa — by next spring anglers may be fishing for bull trout, a
threatened species, in both reservoirs.
The two disparate Columbia River mainstem user groups — commercial gill-netters and sport anglers — on Wednesday clung stubbornly to their pet options on how the 2004 spring chinook salmon return, predicted to be bountiful, should be divided between them.
“I’m disappointed that the plaintiffs are discussing the Upper Snake in Judge James Redden’s court,” Crapo said. “We take this threat to Idaho water and state water sovereignty very seriously. As long as the plaintiffs pursue a litigation strategy, we will be forced to aggressively defend Idaho’s water and we will do just that.”
Conference co-sponsors include the Bonneville Power Administration; the Northwest Power and Conservation Council; Pacific Northwest Utilities Conference Committee; Portland General Electric; Grant, Chelan and Douglas County public utility districts; Pacific Northwest Generating Cooperative; Pacific Northwest Waterways Association; NOAA Fisheries; and Weyerhaeuser and Energy News Data.
The Columbia River spring chinook allocation decision generated considerable discussion Friday among commissioners, staff and members of the public because the fish is highly prized for its flavor. Commercially-caught fish garner top dollar in the early season and the sport season provides a large economic boost to urban and rural communities along the lower Columbia River.
Subbasin planning participants responded coolly this week to the prospect that they will be asked to redirect some portion of their energies to help NOAA Fisheries shape a new biological opinion regarding operations of the Federal Columbia River Power System.
The BiOp assumes that spill provides the highest passage survival for juveniles through the federal hydroelectric system, but some believe that spill can be reduced and the lower survival of migrants can be compensated with offset measures, such as predator control or changes in operations at dams.
The Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission said Wednesday that tribal fishermen caught almost 126,000 fall chinook in nets and from platforms this fall, accounting for about one quarter of the fall chinook run this year that made it to Bonneville Dam.
The commercial harvest totaled 173.3 million fish, about 22 million fish over the 2003 forecast level of 150.9 million fish.
A $50 million remodeling project at Bonneville Dam’s second powerhouse is expected to draw more migrating juvenile salmon and steelhead away from hydro turbines and deliver them to a safer place in the Columbia River below.
Construction is all but complete on the modification of the powerhouse’s trash and ice chute, which has long been a preferred route past the dam.
Volunteers and Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife staff recently collected 105 adult hatchery steelhead in the lower Grande Ronde River as part of a multi-year pilot project aimed at increasing the number of hatchery steelhead returning in the fall to the Grande Ronde basin.
Larry Cassidy, a Washington member of the Northwest Power and Conservation Council, has been appointed chairman of the Pacific Salmon Commission, an agency of the governments of the United States and Canada that implements the Pacific Salmon Treaty.
The research was just published in a professional journal, the U.S. Fishery Bulletin, by scientists from Oregon State University and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. It may have important implications for management of a commercial fishery and our understanding of marine biology, as well as challenge some erroneous assumptions about the life cycle of this never-say-die marine species.
Catch-and-release rules for salmon and steelhead: The proposal would make it illegal in freshwater areas — except in the Buoy 10 area on the Columbia River — to remove salmon or steelhead from the water, if anglers are required to release the fish. The proposal is aimed at reducing handling stress on released fish.
Salmon release in Marine Areas 5-13: The proposal would make it illegal to bring on board a vessel any salmon that is required to be released in Marine Areas 5-13.
The plans, known as Hatchery Genetic Management Plans (HGMPs), detail the operations of each artificial production program for salmon and steelhead in the Puget Sound region. Prepared in conjunction with Puget Sound treaty tribes, the plans also describe the potential effects of each program on salmon and steelhead species that are protected by the federal Endangered Species Act (ESA).
Congress has agreed to spend $11 million in FY2004 to improve stream
passage on federal lands for migrating salmon and other fish in the
Pacific Northwest.
The Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management today announced the release of a “Final Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement” that proposes wording changes in the Aquatic Conservation Strategy of the Northwest Forest Plan.
A project to evaluate the damage being done by these so-called “ghosts nets,” and recover them, was cited in a recent Federal Caucus mailing as one of the hundreds of steps that have been taken since late 2000 to improve the survival of salmon and steelhead stocks listed under the Endangered Species Act.
Four special interest groups have agreed to drop their lawsuit against the federal government on the promise that NOAA Fisheries will deliver its findings on the Endangered Species Act status of eight Columbia Basin salmon and steelhead stocks by March 31, 2004.
The Fish Passage Center indicated this week that changing the basis of ending spill at Snake and Columbia River dams from the planning date of Aug. 31 — contained in the NOAA Fisheries biological opinion — to fish passage data may not always lead to spill ending in August.
The adult return of endangered Snake River sockeye salmon to Idaho remains a trickle, defying the upward trend witnessed for most other Columbia River Basin salmon and steelhead stock in recent years.
The Lake Pend Oreille Commission agreed this week to a deep drawdown of the lake that was requested by fisheries agencies in order to accommodate a 10-year study of the impacts of fall and winter lake levels on kokanee spawning. Kokanee are important forage for the lake’s threatened bull trout population.
Columbia/Snake river mainstem sport reward fishing season for northern pikeminnow ended Oct. 12 with anglers cashing in $1 million worth of vouchers for doing what researchers say is a job well done.
Instead of focusing primarily on how water levels and flows affect endangered and threatened fish in Oregon’s Upper Klamath Lake and the Klamath River — which runs from the lake and down through northern California before emptying into the Pacific — federal agencies charged with protecting the fish should pay greater attention to other causes of harm, says a new report from the National Academies’ National Research Council.
Washington’s statewide annual limit for recreational sturgeon fishing will drop from 10 fish to five, beginning next April 1.
The month ahead will be used to evaluate the technical and financial feasibility of a set of Columbia-Snake hydrosystem summer spill study alternatives that are being developed at the request of the Northwest Power and Conservation Council.
A long-held Coeur d’Alene Tribes strategy for rejuvenating native fisheries, and westslope cutthroat trout in particular, to tribal waters hit a dead end this week when the Northwest Power and Conservation Council rejected a plea for continued planning for a new trout hatchery.
More than 100 members of Congress are urging the Bush administration to study the option of Snake River dam removal before adopting a new Columbia Basin salmon recovery plan.
A draft report released for public comment this week by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council describes in broad terms strengths and weaknesses of a Columbia River basin hatchery network developed over the past century, and suggests it is time for some changes.
A good news/bad news scenario for lower Columbia River mainstem gill netters has become heavily weighted on the good news side this late summer and fall with the demand, the price and the catch growing beyond expectations in recent weeks.
A Bonneville Power Administration funding decision finalized late last week both squeezes and expands budgets, and ushers fish and wildlife projects on and off the Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s recommendation list, in balancing the fiscal 2004-2006 budget for the mainstem/systemwide “province.”
A preliminary report out of the NOAA Fisheries Northwest Fisheries Science Center in Seattle shows survival for juvenile salmon and steelhead through Snake and Columbia River reservoirs and dams this spring is near the 1995-2002 average.
Debate began at this week’s Technical Management Team meeting on whether the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers should complete this year a deep drawdown of Lake Pend Oreille to accommodate a 10-year study of the impacts of various fall and winter lake levels on kokanee spawning and on the lake’s threatened bull trout population.
Negotiations focused on steelhead recovery among two Mid-Columbia public utility districts, area tribes and the state of Washington have resulted in an unusual agreement that meshes hatchery and harvest management, as well as recovery monitoring and evaluation, on the upper Columbia River.
With steelhead returns to the upper Columbia River expected to reach the second-highest level in 15 years, central Washington anglers can now catch hatchery fish with clipped adipose fins in the upper Columbia, Methow and Okanogan rivers.
A continuing flood of salmon into lower Columbia River hatcheries has forced up estimates of the 2003 fall chinook return to a level not seen since at least 1942.
The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife euthanized 33,000 rainbow trout being held at Leaburg Hatchery Tuesday because they had an incurable disease.
The trout had been destined for release in the Salem area this fall. Replacement trout have been purchased from private trout grower Desert Springs Trout Hatchery by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to allow the stocking program to continue as scheduled. USACE funds Leaburg Hatchery.
A long-anticipated 2003 “check-in” report describes methodical progress toward implementation of the 10-year federal Columbia river salmon and steelhead recovery strategy — and meteoric, relatively, improvements in the status of the stocks in question.
Now on a tight schedule set by a Sept. 12 consent decree with conservation groups, NOAA Fisheries is beginning the difficult work of analyzing the economic impacts of designating critical habitat for 20 evolutionary significant units in California, Oregon, Idaho and Washington.
An attorney representing agricultural and home building interests says his clients and others that continue to suffer economic hardship will “go to court again and again” until salmon and steelhead listings they feel are illegal are struck down.
for
the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife the Pacific Fishery
Management Council, The Bureau of Land Management and the Oregon Coastal
Zone Management Association. He is currently vice chairman of the PFMC.
Radtke detailed a variety of factors that have reduced the Columbia
Basin salmon economy to a shadow of its former self. At estimated
historic average runs sizes, the basin had the potential to net
fishermen $272 million in 1998 dollars at a 50 percent harvest rate.
That …
Federal agencies’ lack of progress in sorting out conflicting mandates,
and a meddlesome Clinton Administration, have brought into question
the
agencies’ ability to make sound salmon recovery decisions, according
to
Northwest members of the U.S. House of Representatives Resources
committee.
A committee oversight hearing held Thursday in Pasco, Wash., to hear
testimony on “practical and incremental steps that can be taken over
the
near-term to recover endangered salmon” turned at …
Wide ranging suggestions on the near-term direction of Columbia Basin
salmon recovery efforts were offered Thursday by witnesses called to
testify at a U.S. House of Representatives Resources Committee hearing
in Pasco. All but a few said dam breaching should be dropped from
consideration.
Meanwhile, the federal agency at the front in efforts to address
Endangered Species Act issues is expected to prescribe an approach
that
withholds a breaching decision while it weighs aggressive …
The smolt-to-adult return rate of Columbia Basin hatchery salmon and
steelhead have been declining during the 1990s, along with the adult
fish’s value to fishers, according to natural resource economist Hans
Radtke.
The result has been a skyrocketing cost for producing each harvestable
hatchery fish.
That double-edged sword should force policy makers to rethink their
strategies both for hatchery operations and harvest management, Radtke
told the Northwest Power Planning Council …
worsening ocean conditions that hurt survival.
Survival estimates have shrunk from relatively banner years in the 1970s
and 1980s to Columbia Basin adult returns that amount to less than
one
per hundred smolts in the early 1990s (.9 percent for coho compared
to
2.72 percent in the 1980s, .22 percent for spring/summer chinook
compared to .69 percent, .30 for fall chinook compared to .49 percent
and .42 for steelhead compared to 1.38 percent).
Radtke notes that that there has been no …
Harvest of salmon in the Columbia River is at the lowest allowed level
ever. Further changes to harvest rates would not add significantly
to
salmon recovery.
Members of the Columbia River Basin Forum, meeting last week, generally
agreed with these statements. (The Forum is attended by representatives
of Northwest governor’s offices, tribal governments, and federal and
state agencies.)
Yet, fishing continues to be culturally important to Northwesterners
and
for political reasons …
The Northwest can neither morally or legally allow salmon to go extinct.
This is one of the most difficult challenges facing the region and
the
region will be remembered for how well it does.
This is one of the conclusions Lori Bodi, senior policy advisor for
fish
and wildlife at the Bonneville Power Administration, offered to a
gathering of lawyers, students and salmon policy people at this week’s
Northwest Water Law & Policy Project fifth annual conference in
Portland.
The …
If a collaboratively developed subbasin assessment template is to answer
the needs of all involved in Columbia Basin fish and wildlife recovery,
it will have to stand broader scrutiny than has so far been prescribed,
or funded.
“We do feel strongly that the use of three analytical tools is essential
to provide planners” with the necessary assessment information for
both
Endangered Species Act recovery planning and hydrosystem mitigation
responsibilities, according to Dr. Robert Bilby …
It calls for preserving and expanding habitat types that are currently
in short supply. It recommends protections for areas that are unroaded,
and old growth stands that have dwindled by as much as 80 percent,
for
some species, over the last 150 years.
It projects a basin-wide 21 percent increase in merchantable timber
harvests, but just an 8 percent increase in western Montana, where
there
are wet forest types that provide habitat for creatures such as the
recently listed lynx. It …
Local forest planners are looking for the devil in the detail of a
restoration plan that covers 62 million acres of federal lands in the
Columbia Basin.
But some who got a taste of the Interior Columbia Basin Ecosystem
Management Project last week think they’ve already found the devil,
and
it’s not necessarily in the detail.
“One of the big concerns is all the overlapping of all these issues
and
initiatives,” said Chuck Samuelson of Montanans for Multiple Use. “I
don’t know how they’re
Two Northwest Republican senators
this week said they suspect the delay
of federal agencies’ recommendation
for modifying or removing lower
Snake River dams to improve salmon
recovery is aimed at helping Vice
President Al Gore’s presidential
campaign.
Army Corps of Engineers Brig.
Gen. Carl Strock said the agency recently
granted a 30-day extension of
the public comment period on its final
environmental impact, which had
been scheduled for completion in
October. The extension …
Harassment of Caspian terns in
the lower Columbia River estuary ran into
a roadblock this week when environmental
groups filed for an injunction
against hazing the birds on Rice
Island. The filing resulted in a
temporary restraining order stopping
the hazing until at least April 24,
when a Seattle U.S. District
Court will listen to arguments from both
sides.
The hazing was part of a plan
to move the terns from Rice Island to East
Sand Island and was intended
to reduce predation …
— Spring Chinook Count At Bonneville Stays High
The tally of adult spring chinook at Bonneville Dam is the largest in
more than 20 years for this date. The high fish counts could add up
to
one of the best years for Columbia River spring salmon since the strong
returns of the 1970s, says a Bonneville Power Administration press
release.
Scientists say Mother Nature has cooled down parts of the Pacific Ocean
where these fish mature, increasing the odds of survival for the fish.
An …
A proposed federal land management
plan for roughly 63 million acres in
Idaho, Oregon, Montana and Washington
is intended to leave a lighter
footprint both on the land and
on the resource-based economies within
that territory.
The Interior Columbia Basin Supplemental
Draft Environmental Impact
Statement released for public
review last week brings focus to a
“preferred alternative” during
a 90-day public comment period.
“Of the three alternatives presented,
Alternative S2 was …
Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, on
Thursday introduced a bill to place a
moratorium on the Environmental
Protection Agency’s proposed regulations
for reducing water pollution
from runoff.
The EPA rulemaking is designed
to reduce pollution from farming, logging
and urban streets, which have
not been as strictly regulated as point
sources like factories and municipal
sewage treatment plants.
EPA proposed requiring states
to develop TMDL (Total Maximum Daily Load)
plans for reducing …
F&G URGES BREACHING RECOMMENDATION
Alaskan fisheries officials,
and the state’s governor, say that
breaching four lower Snake River
dams must be “part of the solution” if
the federal government is to
properly meet its Endangered Species Act
obligations to recover listed
fish.
In comments on the Corps of Engineers
draft Lower Snake River Juvenile
Salmon migration feasibility
study and environmental impact statement,
the Alaska Department of Fish
and Game commissioner’s …
A banner forecast for adult spring
chinook returns to the upper Columbia
and Snake rivers appears to be
coming true with daily counts mounting
and the cumulative number of
fish arriving at Bonneville Dam as of April
13 representing nearly 3 1/2
times the recent 10-year average.
According to Corps of Engineers
counts posted on the Fish Passage
Center’s internet site, 33,967
spring chinook adults had reached the dam
through Thursday compared to
the recent 10-year average of 9,490 fish
The region’s fish and wildlife
managers spent Wednesday weighing their
options for influencing a Columbia
Basin fish and wildlife program
amendment process that has begun
to pick up speed and add layers of
complexity.
During a meeting in Portland,
Columbia Basin Fish and Wildlife Authority
members worked to fine-tune a
planned recommendation for Phase I of the
Northwest Power Planning Council’s
process for amending its regional
fish and wildlife recovery program.
They also pondered
A one-year experiment to use
surplus adult hatchery spring chinook to
repopulate stream reaches in
the Walla Walla River Basin of eastern
Washington and Oregon has been
approved by the Northwest Power Planning
Council.
The recommendation was made to
allow the Confederated Tribes of the
Umatilla Indian Reservation to
spend $8,800 to transport 1,500 “Carson
stock” spring chinook from the
Ringold Hatchery in western Washington to
a South Fork Walla Walla holding
facility. The …
As the federal agency charged
with protecting salmon and steelhead
species listed under the Endangered
Species Act, the National Marine
Fisheries Service is involved
in a number of processes aimed at both
ensuring survival and promoting
recovery of the species.
Many of those efforts are directed
at the Columbia Basin, where the
number of listed species has
swelled to 12. Newly appointed NMFS
Columbia Basin coordinator Ric
Ilgenfritz has as his task coordinating
those efforts, …
Upper Columbia River spring chinook
and steelhead stocks peaked in the
1960s and early 1980s and have
been in decline ever since. The chance
that decline will end in extinction
is being estimated by National
Marine Fisheries Service biologists
in a report that inserts a new layer
of data into the agency’s Qualitative
Analytical Report.
But it seems the risk of extinction
has a lot to do with the historical
data used to predict the future.
Using brood years 1980 to …
Federal scientists conclude that drastic action must be taken soon to
head off extinction for Columbia Basin salmon runs in the worst shape,
and decision-makers must take that plunge without the certainty that
those actions will work.
During a March 29 workshop co-sponsored by National Marine Fisheries
Service, scientists stressed that the peril faced by certain salmon
and
steelhead populations demand immediate action — action that cannot
be
delayed until numerous biological …
With federal Columbia Basin salmon recovery decisions looming, the
four-state Northwest Power Planning Council plans to submit testimony
asking for congressional appropriations that are sufficient funding
to
carry out past and potential federal fish and wildlife related mandates.
The Council’s funding recommendations for federal fish and wildlife
recovery activities mirror in many instances the Clinton
Administration’s budget requests for fiscal year 2001. In other cases
it
says the …
the
policies.
The requested new $1 million budget line items should be used for
completion of Hatchery Genetic Management Plans and monitoring and
activities consistent with the APR recommendations, according to the
Council testimony.
The Council also asks that the Mitchell Act hatchery program funding
be
increased from the Administration’s 2001 request of $15.2 million to
$16.307 million. The administration request targets $11.4 million for
hatchery operations, $3.365 million for …
was to relocate the dams juvenile outfalls to an area with higher
velocity water. Predators, such as pikeminnows, cant feed as
efficiently on the downstream migrants in faster water.
So, the Corps completed a two-mile juvenile bypass outfall flume and
put
it into service last year in March. At the same time, it improved the
bypass facilities at the second powerhouse, something the Corps says
helps juvenile fish pass through the dam more easily.
NMFS performed onsite tests at a …
to
(509) 527-7832.
For more information on the Corps’ Lower Snake River FR/EIS visit
www.nww.usace.army.mil. *
— Bonneville Hatchery Takes Action to Prevent Heron Deaths
Hatchery personnel removed protective netting covering several ponds
at
Bonneville Hatchery to prevent the death of any more great blue herons
feeding on juvenile steelhead.
More than 100 herons have died since last spring, according to Oregon
Department of Fish and Wildlife Hatchery Manager Scott Lusted. …
the states were forced to shut down a small commercial fishery that
targeted a Willamette River hatchery chinook run. The states also closed
their lower river recreational salmon fishery targeting on the
Willamette River hatchery fish.
— However, the permit allowed remaining state fisheries to use 0.5
percent of the total 9 percent impacts, thus allowing tribal fisheries
to use 8.5 percent of the impacts. This, say state officials, severely
constrains the ability of the states to …
the number seems low. But he said that the spawning population is also
very low, making every fish important. Theres no way for Alaska
trollers to avoid Snake River kings specifically, so about half of
the
Alaska catch would be cut under the most stringent harvest-related
option, Rutter said.
Rutter promised that his agency wouldnt recommend any further harvest
restrictions in Alaska unless they were comprehensive throughout the
region and included revisions in the Pacific Salmon …
NMFS said that even if the high return of fish materializes as it is
forecast for 2000, that does not provide sufficient evidence of a
substantive change in the status of natural-origin spring stocks to
justify an increase in harvest….
The 2000 forecast suggests that there may be a higher return and
improved survival rates this year. However, the anticipated return
needs
to be realized and extended for several years before we can reasonably
conclude that the overall status of the …
survival improvement if you want to meet those standards. You are
starting from a lower point than you were before.”
The new PATH work estimates it will take more than a 7.5-fold
improvement in life-cycle survival to boost populations to levels that
meet the 24-year “survival” standard 70 percent of the time. A 2.7-fold
increase would be needed to meeting population “recovery” goals at
least
half the time over the next 48 years.
“Using the hypothesized survival effects of the …
Breaching Four Lower Snake River dams is not the only way, but it’s
the
best way to start rebuilding threatened and endangered Columbia Basin
salmon and steelhead stocks, Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber said last Friday
afternoon (Feb. 18).
In the speech to Oregon’s chapter of the American Fisheries Society,
Kitzhaber stressed the need for immediate, aggressive action to stem
the
decline in the region’s fish populations.
“Removing the four Lower Snake River dams is, at least for the …
Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber’s demand for immediate salmon recovery action
startled some with its call for Lower Snake River Dam breaching, but
didn’t immediately swing political momentum in his direction.
Although tribal officials and conservation groups cheered the breaching
statement, representatives of Kitzhaber’s fellow Northwest governors
instead pointed to qualifying statements Oregon’s chief executive made
during the Friday speech in Eugene to the Oregon Chapter of the …
A study of impacts to Oregon transportation and farmers shows that there
is a significant domino effect from breaching four lower Snake River
dams in Washington that could cost the Columbia River barge industry
in
Oregon between $4 million and $11 million annually.
The $105,000 study was commissioned by the Port of Portland, along with
the Oregon departments of Agriculture, Economic Development and
Transportation, to explore the specific impacts to Oregon consumers
and
businesses of the
The Umatilla Tribes on Wednesday gained funding approval for further
study toward their goal of restoring Pacific lampreys in the Umatilla
River to self-sustaining and harvestable levels.
The Northwest Power Planning Council signed off on an overall
“Restoration Plan for Pacific Lampreys in the Umatilla River, Oregon.”
It also endorsed $381,000 in fiscal year 2000 spending for pilot studies
aimed at judging techniques for carrying out that restoration. Pilot
study funding had earlier been
by
Mark Fritsch, the Council’s fish production coordinator. The cost of
implementing the restoration plan is $2.6 million.
The next steps approved by the Council include 2000 research to:
–estimate lamprey abundance before and after outplanting adults in
the
Umatilla River;
–determine reproductive success of adult outplants, and
–estimate adult lamprey abundance in the Columbia River at the John
Day
Dam.
The restoration plan describes the Pacific lamprey as an …
The Pacific Northwest’s fishing industry will have to specialize if
it
is to survive in the face of the startling growth in the sale of
“farmed” salmon imported to the United States from Chile, Canada, Norway
and elsewhere, according to Alaskan economist Gunnar Knapp.
Northwest, and Alaskan, fishers must refine techniques to present higher
quality products and target “niche” markets help their profitability,
Knapp told the Northwest Power Planning Council Wednesday.
Knapp, who has …
Expecting the largest ever return of spring chinook salmon, Indian and
non-Indian fishing opportunities will be expanded in the Umatilla River
this year when the seasons open April 15.
Some 3,500 spring chinook adults are expected to return to the Umatilla
River this spring, said Gary James, fisheries program manager for the
Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation.
?It’s a real bright spot in a lot of downers,? said Jon Germond of the
Oregon Department of Fish and …
Federal officials were bombarded Tuesday with comments from tribal,
sport and commercial fishers who said their communities and cultures had
been plundered by hydrosystem development aimed at benefiting upstream
interests and by salmon recovery plans that ignore the obvious — the need
to breach dams.
Recovery efforts to date have focused on technical fish passage improvements,
including the barging of juvenile salmon around the dams. Those efforts,
costing about $3 billion, have been …
Opponents of dam breaching, accusing federal officials of threatening
their livelihoods and Indians of overharvesting, came out in force Thursday
at an emotionally charged federal hearing in Pasco.
More than 1,200 people, including sign-waving, anti-breaching picketers
and an Indian drum group, attending the hearing, which was split into afternoon
and evening sessions. About 800 people attended the afternoon session where
dam-breaching opponents who testified outnumbered those who …
Federal officials who say decisions will be based on pure science and
economics were met with a flood of emotional pleas Tuesday during a meeting
in Spokane to discuss, among other things, dam breachings potential for
aiding salmon and steelhead recovery.
An estimated 500 people turned out for afternoon and evening sessions
in Spokane, the second in 13 stops scheduled by the nine agencies that
are members of a federal caucus guiding Columbia Basin salmon recovery
planning.
As at the …
The National Marine Fisheries Service would increase spending on Northwest
salmon recovery by $9 million in FY2001, under the final budget of President
Clinton’s term.
The increase, which is being sought on top of a $10 million boost this
year, would fund 41 new staff positions for habitat assessment, population
dynamics, risk assessment and risk management, according to NMFS budget
documents released on Monday.
Overall, the Clinton administration proposed a $657 million budget for
NMFS,
A preliminary outline of Columbia Basin direct fish and wildlife program’s
fiscal year 2001 funding approval process would direct project proposals
down two separate paths.
With the Northwest Power Planning Council intending to shift from an
open project solicitation process to a process that will target specific
“provinces” and eventually subbasin, needs, the near future is transitional.
Under recent procedures both the Columbia Basin Fish and Wildlife Authority’s
fish and wildlife …
The Independent Economic Review Board hasn’t officially been asked to
review the outcomes of the Multi-Species Framework project’s Human Effects
report.
But Dr. Terry Morlan, the Northwest Power Planning Council’s liaison
to both the IEAB and Human Effect Work Group, has asked the panel to help
him better translate the consequences of seven fish and wildlife management
scenarios outlined in the Framework economic report.
The panel was formed by the Council to offer economic advice on …
By Jim Mann
Two conservation groups have petitioned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
to provide endangered species protection to a small population of burbot
in Idaho’s Kootenai River.
The eel-like fish is a member of the cod family. In Idaho, it is found
only in the Kootenai River near the Canadian border.
Montana-based American Wildlands and the Idaho Conservation League say
the unique population is on the brink of extinction because of unnatural
influences from Libby …
The Northwest Power Planning Council this week unveiled preliminary
analysis of seven river management schemes that shows all the options producing
positive change for chinook salmon populations in the Columbia River Basin.
The recently developed Multi-Species Framework analysis also invites
the region to pick the price they are willing to pay to revive fish and
wildlife populations in the Columbia-Snake river basin.
All seven river management schemes considered in the analysis …
The Multi-Species Framework process drew polite applause this week from
Columbia Basin interest groups that for the most part like the potential
and intent but withheld judgment on its usefulness in guiding salmon recovery
processes.
The Northwest Power Planning Council, which funded the bulk of the 1
1/2-year-long process, on Tuesday heard the results of an initial analysis
conducted on seven different approaches to managing the Columbia River
and its tributaries. The attempt to quantify
Federal officials heard repeated pleas about the need to restore salmon
populations, and preserve the economic functions fueled the Columbia Basin’s
hydroelectric system, during the first in a series of public meetings planned
around the region to gather public comment on fish recovery planning efforts.
The Thursday meeting in Portland was intended to air several federal
efforts, but a list of nearly seventy commentators during an afternoon
session focused primarily on the prospect of …
A first attempt to describe what the future Northwest Power Planning
Council fish and wildlife program might contain did what the “strawman”
is intended to do — stimulate discussion about how to produce the best
results from the expenditure of hydroelectric dollars.
The sample “strawman” produced by Council staff received a verbal editing
Tuesday by council members who criticized the document as being indecisive
and occasionally pulling punches, particularly on the issue of dam …
Following a meeting between Columbia River Indian tribes and federal
agencies in Washington, D.C., last week, the White House Council on Environmental
Quality has pledged the government will consult them on salmon issues,
including the All-H recovery approach.
The assurance was made by CEQ Chairman George Frampton in a Jan. 28
letter to Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission Executive Director
Don Sampson.
While federal agencies at the regional level will be focusing on …
In June, 550 adult lampreys will be released into the Umatilla River
in a restoration program being conducted by the Confederated Tribes of
the Umatilla Indian Reservation.
The Tribes will follow a supplementation plan developed over the last
two years in a project expected to be approved Feb. 22 by the Northwest
Power Planning Council and funded by Bonneville Power Administration.
The lampreys, commonly but erroneously referred to as eels, will
be planted in the river to naturally …
Review of the primary analytical processes being used in Columbia Basin
recovery planning, and a hard look at the region’s fish harvest practices,
head the near-term work list for the independent science group assembled
three years ago by the Northwest Power Planning Council and the National
Marine Fisheries Service.
Due also in the coming months will be a review of the impacts of Columbia
River estuary conditions and management on the Council’s efforts to “protect,
mitigate and …
Farmers, ranchers and loggers took turns in Pendleton Jan. 25 bashing
the 4(d) Rules proposed by the National Marine Fisheries Service.
More than 80 people attended the public hearing, the ninth of 15 scheduled
in the Northwest, to hear about and comment on the proposed rules for 14
species of steelhead and salmon listed as threatened under the federal
Endangered Species Act.
The 4(d) rules are an ESA mechanism for protecting threatened as opposed
to endangered species. They also proposed
Politicians and business interests say the Corps of Engineers John
Day Dam recommendation makes perfect sense.
But conservation groups and fishing interests say the Corps ignored
biological logic with its findings that a John Day drawdown would incur
great costs and bring little benefit to threatened and endangered salmon
and steelhead species.
The Corps on Thursday released a summary report of its John Day Dam
Drawdown Phase I study draft report, “Salmon Recovery Through the …
The National Marine Fisheries Service on Thursday told tribal and non-tribal
fishers that there might not be enough Columbia-Snake river spring chinook
salmon to satisfy everyone’s harvest desires this year.
Documents sent to NMFS last month indicate treaty tribes would like
to harvest up to 9 percent of this year’s run, predicted to be the largest
since 1977. Oregon and Washington would like to allow non-tribal sport
and commercial fishers to take up to 2 percent over the next few …
Oregon set harvest levels for returning Willamette River spring chinook
at the lower of two options and further reduced harvest in the Clackamas
and North Santiam rivers.
Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife staff laid out two options for
this years harvest, the higher a 20 percent level and a recommended harvest
level of 15 percent, at the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission meeting
last week. Commissioners voted unanimously for the lower option as the
state prepares for recovering the
( Editors note: Larry Swisher, independent political columnist for
Northwest newspapers, recently interviewed BPA Administrator Judi Johansen
in Washington D.C. The following is an account of their discussion.)
Bonneville Power Administration CEO Judi Johansen is defending the
Federal Caucus’ decision in December not to propose a Columbia Basin salmon
plan and instead seek regional discussion of its All-H Paper.
“The reaction we’ve gotten from the region is, ‘Gosh, feds. You …
The federal caucus will be taking its developing salmon recovery products
on the road next month, spotlighting Corps of Engineers study of Lower
Snake River hydrosystem configuration options; a Phase 1 study of John
Day Dam drawdown; the multi-agency “All H’s” recovery plan; and other documents.
The effort to educate the public about those processes begins Feb. 3
in Portland and touches down in 12 other locations in Idaho, Montana, Alaska,
Oregon and Washington over the following five …
The Columbia Basin Forum Committee this week met for the first time
in three months, setting for itself an ambitious agenda to begin its policy
level exploration of the regions four Hs — hydro, harvest, habitat and
hatcheries
This was its ninth meeting since March 1999, but the first since October,
when it nearly decided to disband. Stan Grace, Montanas representative
to the Forum and one of Montanas Northwest Power Planning Council members,
declined to attend the meeting, …
Objections from Idaho and Oregon fish and wildlife officials have left
in question planned pilot studies intended to explore impacts of dam passage
on adult salmon’s survival and reproductive success.
The two studies related to adult passage through the federal Columbia
River hydrosystem were late additions to the fiscal year 2000 research
program. They were developed in part due to criticism in a 1999 Independent
Scientific Advisory Board report that certain adult passage issues were
not
Key positions in the National Marine Fisheries Service’s salmon recovery
staff hierarchy will witness change due to personnel shifts and an early
retirement.
Rick Applegate ends his tenure at NMFS with retirement at the end of
the month. He has served for the past year as assistant regional administrator
for habitat conservation, one of four division chiefs who report directly
to administrator Will Stelle. The others are Brian Brown in hydro, Bill
Robinson in sustainable fisheries and …
Allowable commercial and sport harvest levels for Willamette spring
chinook will be decided at this weeks Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission
meeting. Just as in 1999, the harvest level will be based on salmon returning
to the river.
However, since last year when both commercial and sport fishers harvested
the salmon, the National Marine Fisheries Service listed on May 24, the
upper Willamette and Clackamas River spring chinook under the Endangered
Species Act. By Oregon Department of …
Washington’s Larry Cassidy is perhaps uniquely positioned to influence
the course of salmon recovery in the Columbia Basin.
Little more than a year after his appointment by Gov. Gary Locke to
the four-state Northwest Power Planning Council, Cassidy was elected this
month to chair that body. The Council recommends annually how $127 million
is spent on regional fish and wildlife projects.
Last year the Vancouver businessman was also appointed, again by Locke,
to the state’s five-member …
Despite a stand-offish policy stance reiterated this week by Washington
Gov. Gary Locke, the governors of Oregon, Idaho and Montana decided Thursday
to forge ahead with a plan to bring the region more authority in fish and
wildlife recovery decision-making.
Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber, Montana Gov. Marc Racicot and Idaho Gov.
Dirk Kempthorne have indicated they feel the region needs a firmer grip
on that power, particularly on how Bonneville Power Administration recovery
money is …
About 30 people offered opinions Tuesday during the National Marine
Fisheries Services first of 15 scheduled public hearings in the Northwest
to accept comments on its proposed 4(d) rules for 14 species of steelhead
and salmon listed as threatened under the federal Endangered Species Act.
At the Portland hearing, NMFS Rob Jones and Rosemary Furfey emphasized
in their introductory remarks that the rules are drafts and that NMFS seeks
constructive feedback. They also emphasized that all …
The Northwest Power Planning Council has asked the public to judge whether
benefits of a plan to supplement westslope cutthroat trout populations
with hatchery-produced juvenile fish outweigh the potential risks to native
cutthroat.
The westslope cutthroat are being considered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service for listing under the Endangered Species Act. A USFWS status review
team completed its report in September following a 1997 petition asking
that the cutthroat be listed …
If early forecasts prove correct, it appears that Columbia River-Snake
river fall chinook runs may not show the same leap in numbers that is expected
of their spring chinook kin in 2000.
The spring run is expected to the best since 1977 with much of the credit
given to improved ocean conditions. The fall chinook run is expected to
be average or below average compared to recent years.
A preliminary projection produced by state, federal and tribal harvest
specialists says 232,000 …
Representatives of two “stakeholder” groups expressed apprehension Wednesday
about the products that are about to emerge from the Northwest Power Planning
Council’s Multi-Species Framework analytical process.
A variety of interest groups are now awaiting the results of what has
been described as a massive outpouring of data from the framework process’
computer modeling effort. The framework ecological work group and science
steering committee are in the process of reviewing the …
The National Marine Fisheries Service has released a draft of a supplemental
biological opinion on operation of the Columbia River federal power system
to federal and state agencies, along with tribes, for quick review. It
hopes to complete the BiOp by the spring 2000 juvenile migration.
The draft biological opinion, which is a supplement to similar BiOps
released in 1995 and 1998 for the Columbia River hydroelectric projects,
addresses the addition of six species of salmon and …
Basing the region’s salmon recovery efforts on “the best available science,”
— a phrase included in nearly every salmon-related state, federal or tribal
document these days — is easier said than done, according to a federal
researcher.
In a pair of papers published recently, Robert T. Lackey urges the Columbia
Basin’s fishery biologists to be true to their science and says both scientists
and policy makers must infuse their judgments with a greater touch of reality.
The first …
A supplemental biological opinion completed last month blesses a plan
to continue federal operations which times the release of 427,000 acre
feet of reservoir water in Idaho to coincide, primarily, with the migration
of Snake River fall chinook salmon listed Endangered Species Act.
That National Marine Fisheries Services decision was made to the chagrin
of the state of Idaho, which maintains that it has sovereignty over water
uses within its bounds. The Bureau of Reclamations principle …
The National Marine Fisheries Service counters some criticisms, agrees
with others and essentially says, “we’ll get back to you” regarding other
perceived shortfalls in its Anadromous Fish Appendix and a late-produced
addendum to that document.
Among the incomplete tasks are rationalizations for differing conclusions
reached by the two analytical methods being used to judge the effects of
alternative Lower Snake River dam operations’ on fish.
The federal agency in a Nov. 16 document …
A memorandum of understanding signed by the state of Oregon and soon
to be signed by tribal authorities will guide the way subbasin recovery
plans are developed in the future under Oregon House Bill 3609.
The Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission and three central and eastern
Oregon tribes negotiated the MOU in a government-to-government consultation
in November and December 1999. The MOU applies to Columbia River tributaries
upstream from Bonneville Dam, but its template may influence …
Oregon Board of Forestry members expressed the feeling they, perhaps
unfairly, had been “put at the point” of the effort to bring state agencies
into conformance with standards aimed at aiding the recovery of wild salmon
and steelhead.
The board heard first-hand the rationalization for 19 recommendations
for changes to state forest practices regulations offered by the Independent
Multidisciplinary Science Team. Those recommendations, documented in an
September 1999 report, are now …
No one is ready to lay the total blame for a southeast Washington landslide
on a logging
clear-cut, but state fish and wildlife officials are sure of one thing
— the silt flushed into the Lewis River has caused troubles at a downstream
hatchery.
And the resulting silt load in the river could cause problems for Endangered
Species Act-listed fall chinook salmon that spawn in the river.
The slide occurred Dec. 16 on Colvin Creek about two miles upstream
of a state-run hatchery on the North
Federal agencies released a pair of documents today that they say represent
a first step toward resolving scientific uncertainties and contradictions,
and providing the economic analysis necessary to build a Columbia Basin
fish and wildlife recovery plan.
The documents include a study of options for improving conditions for
salmon and steelhead in the Lower Snake River and a Basinwide recovery
analysis that reveals serious extinction risks for Upper Columbia and Snake
River …
Breaching the four lower Snake River dams would increase the cost of
power, the cost to transport goods downriver from eastern Washington and
western Idaho and impact irrigators. The costs would outweigh the
benefits, according to information released by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
this morning.
However, other alternatives to breaching that call for maximum transportation
of juvenile fish or adding major system improvements come with more benefits
than costs. System …
In response to the release of two major federal reports on salmon recovery
options, two Northwest senators said they plan to hold hearings next year
and seek a regional consensus.
But one of them, Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, questioned the science used
by federal agencies to develop their “All-H Paper” on salmon recovery options
and the apparently inconsistent positions on dam removal among their scientists.
“I seriously question the science they have used,” Crapo, who chairs
the fisheries,
The National Marine Fisheries Service Tuesday took a step forward in
its efforts to conserve 14 evolutionary significant units (ESUs) of West
Coast salmon and steelhead populations listed as threatened under the Endangered
Species Act by announcing proposed 4(d) rules for those populations.
NMFS will publish three proposed 4(d) rules in the Federal Register
in about two weeks. One proposed rule will cover seven threatened
steelhead ESUs: Central California Coast, …
Agency, tribal and interest group representatives and others gathered
at a Seattle legal seminar on Dec. 9 and 10 to discuss solutions to Columbia
River environmental issues, focusing on the restoration of salmon and steelhead
runs.
There was a consensus that a shift from the seemingly endless information
gathering and studying processes to taking decisive action is critical
to saving salmon and steelhead from extinction and maintaining the regions
control over management of the …
The federal caucus members have not yet named a preferred alternative
in any of its fish and wildlife recovery planning processes.
Thats not the case for an audience that gathered Wednesday in Spokane
for an update on the caucus’ “All-H’s” working paper and other federal
works in progress. Most of those who spoke out said “save the dams.”
Drafts of the federal caucus’ All Hs (formerly 4-H) paper and the Corps
of Engineers Lower Snake River Juvenile Salmon Passage feasibility study
and …
In 1999, members of Congress got a taste of the raging Northwest controversy
over a proposal to remove four federal dams on the Snake River to rescue
endangered salmon.
But regional legislation that would have put Congress on record in
favor of retaining the dams did not come up for a vote or debate in the
full House or Senate, keeping the issue out of the limelight.
A coalition of environmental, fishing, tribal and taxpayer groups launched
a national campaign in favor of …
EDITORS NOTE: On a regular basis the CBB will be interviewing key participants
in efforts to protect and restore Columbia River Basin fish and wildlife
populations.
Fish and wildlife managers need to stop bickering and unify their stand
as they embark on the monumental task of subbasin planning, says Gary James,
new chairman of the Columbia Basin Fish and Wildlife Authoritys Anadromous
Fish Managers Caucus.
CBFWA is a consortium of 13 basin tribes, the four state fish …
Key dates and data rest in the new millennium for a number of planning
processes intended to propel the regions Columbia Basin Fish and Wildlife
program down a new path.
The bulk of the Northwest Power Planning Council’s 1999 effort was focused
in three separate but related areas — providing more scientific and financial
accountability in its fish and wildlife project selection process; building
a scientific framework on which to base an amended program; and then reshaping
the …
Though deadlines kept getting pushed further into the future, federal
agencies worked intently through much of 1999 to devise a long-term Columbia
Basin fish and wildlife recovery strategy, and a plan to pay for it.
While a strictly defined federal “1999 decision” is not imminent as
the year comes to a close, key elements were coming into public focus.
That decision process has been driven in large part by a 1995 biological
opinion which said Columbia-Snake river federal hydrosystem …
:
On p. 5, the Friday, Dec 10,1999 CBB says “‘Ever increasing populations
that allow ever-increasing harvests — that’s success,’ Chapman said.”
I said nothing of the kind. As a matter of fact, my statement
was, when
asked what should be the measure of success for supplementation in
the
Hanford Reach, “Don’t screw up the robust naturally-spawning
population.”
Al Wright said that increased harvest and increased hatchery and natural
populations pointed to a successful hatchery …
The Northwest Power Planning Council this week recommended that $18.6
million worth of Columbia Basin fish and wildlife restoration projects
be funded with Bonneville Power Administration revenues, adding to the
$119 million previously approved.
Hatchery projects and phase-out funding for the scientific analytical
team PATH (See story No. 5 below) received the Council’s blessing Tuesday,
pushing planned “direct program spending” to about $137.6 million for the
fiscal year that began …
The National Marine Fisheries Service has reached a fork in the road
as it prepares a biological assessment of alternatives for Lower Snake
River hydrosystem configuration.
And it appears at first blush that NMFS should follow the road its own
scientists are building rather than one created by PATH, according to a
panel of scientists.
The Independent Scientific Advisory Board was called on this summer
to review the analytical methods on which NMFS based its draft Anadromous
Fish Appendix
A group of experts Wednesday agreed to disagree in the long-running
debate over the role of hatchery “supplementation” in Columbia Basin fish
recovery efforts.
But most of the panelists called together by the Northwest Power Planning
Council did agree on the need to focus research efforts to validate claims
of supplementation’s benefits or risks.
Dr. Brian Riddell of Canada’s Department of Fisheries and Oceans concluded
the two-hour discussion of supplementation by noting literally …
Two Oregon conservation groups asked the National Marine Fisheries Service
to take another look at listing as endangered lower Columbia River coho
salmon resident in the Sandy and Clackamas rivers near Portland.
After learning from NMFS staff in Portland that they did not have enough
time or staff to do the work required to consider listing the species under
the federal Endangered Species Act, Oregon Trout and the Native Fish Society
both sent letters to NMFS asking the agency to …
Two Northwest senators, adamant and inflexible opponents of dam breaching,
assured irrigators Nov. 23 that they will make a stand together against
any national affront to the magnificent and prosperous society that hydropower
has created in the Columbia Basin.
Flexing their political muscle, Sens. Slade Gorton, R-Wash., and Gordon
Smith, R-Ore., said any authorization for dam removal would have to first
get through subcommittees they chair.
To take them (dams) out, they gotta take us …
A reduction in the congressional appropriation for Mitchell Act activities
has prompted quick action from the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife,
which on Tuesday announced the immediate closure of one hatchery and reduced
fish production at other facilities.
Recently concluded budget negotiations resulted in a Mitchell Act appropriation
of $15.43 million or $2.645 million less than was available in fiscal year
1999, according to R.Z. Smith of the National Marine Fisheries …
State and tribal fish and wildlife managers on Wednesday urged their
federal counterparts to take the lead in assuring that budget commitments
made in a 1996-2001 federal fish funding “memorandum of agreement” are
paid in full during that time period.
Members of the Columbia Basin Fish and Wildlife Authority were briefed
this week on issues that plague an “MOA work group” formed to try resolve
spending issues. Chief among those issues is the desire of state, federal
and tribal fish …
Federal officials offered scientific observations, but little direction,
this week as they headed for a winter-long gauntlet of public hearings
over what is the best course for Columbia River Basin fish and wildlife
recovery planning.
Mid-December is expected to bring a draft Corps of Engineers feasibility
study on Lower Snake River dam breaching and other salmon passage alternatives.
Planned for release at the same time is a draft “federal caucus” Four-H
paper aimed at weighing …
Those who follow Columbia River Basin salmon recovery efforts had a
mixed reaction to a federal agency caucus’ outline of fish and wildlife
management options presented Tuesday in Portland.
But they were unanimous on one topic: Someone must take the reins if
a plan is to be defined and implemented to revive fish populations.
Twelve salmon and steelhead “Evolutionarily Significant Units” and seven
resident fish and other aquatic species in the region have been listed
as threatened or …
Northwest members of Congress who oppose removing dams to save at-risk
salmon said the Four-H Working Paper this week confirmed their belief the
federal agencies won’t pursue that option.
But citing the vagueness of the document, some were less certain about
that conclusion than others.
“The devil’s in the details, but it looks like the dams may be off the
table,” Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., said. “I may not have to chain myself
to the top of the dams after all.”
In public speeches on the
Neither initial conclusions reached in large part from PATH analyses,
nor an addendum to National Marine Fisheries Service’s Anadromous Fish
Appendix, utilizing the agency’s own scientific analysis, are the stuff
from which dam breaching decisions should be made, according to reviews
penned by the Independent Scientific Advisory Panel.
The 11-member ISAB completed reviews over the past month of NMFS’ draft
appendix to the Corps of Engineers “Lower Snake River Juvenile …
The National Marine Fisheries Service describes its Cumulative Risk
Initiative as a work in progress.
And the Independent Scientific Advisory Board agrees after its review
of CRI analysis methods and results added this summer to the Anadromous
Fish Appendix to the Corps of Engineers Lower Snake River Juvenile Salmon
Migration feasibility study.
The CRI is, by its own description, “a network of NMFS scientists working
to synthesize information and provide clear, consistent and …
Though they don’t match up with so-called historic numbers, several
chinook salmon runs this past year, and forecasts for the spring of 2000,
surpass recent history.
An early prediction is that 134,000 Columbia-Snake upriver spring chinook
will pass Bonneville Dam next spring, the most since 1977 when 143,000
were estimated to have passed the first dam on the Columbia River on their
way to spawning grounds in tributaries and upper reaches.
And the fall chinook run that dwindled …
Biological testing of a new generating turbine at the Bonneville Dam
began this week that will show just how fish-friendly the blades on the
new turbine are compared to turbines installed in the 1930s.
While the testing will not determine if the turbines will be installed,
it could influence strategies that balance power production and fish passage
at the dam in the future.
The “MGR” is a specially-designed turbine that leaves less room around
the turbine hub and blades and the outer …
A congressional Endangered Species Act waiver for the Alaskan salmon
fishery has been rewritten so that instead, the federal government would
have to take several actions prior to applying any additional harvest restrictions.
The original waiver for fishing conducted according to the new U.S.
Canada Pacific Salmon Treaty was authored by Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska,
and backed by Alaska Gov. Tony Knowles. But it was opposed by President
Clinton, the governors of Oregon and Washington and …
The conclusion of a recent biological opinion on the Pacific Salmon
Treaty — and the deferring of fisheries management to the state of Alaska
— says that such actions will not likely jeopardize 16 stocks of listed
salmon, steelhead or cutthroat trout.
The National Marine Fisheries Service came to that conclusion in a BiOp
made public Nov. 12. At the same time, it included a binding Incidental
Take Statement that restricts the harvest “exploitation rate” for Snake
River fall chinook to a
A plan to ease the worlds largest Caspian tern colony downriver as
a first step toward ridding the Columbia River estuary of the salmon-hungry
birds was accepted, grudgingly, Wednesday by the Northwest Power Planning
Council.
The Council indicated six weeks ago, in a letter from Chairman Todd
Maddock, that it wanted the terns impact on migrating salmon smolts reduced
to no more than 5 percent and suggested measures to prevent any nesting
in the estuary. But that goal is not achievable, or
Federal agencies are refusing to disclose their secret deliberations
on options for a Columbia Basin salmon recovery plan, Sen. Mike Crapo,
R Idaho, charged this week.
“The Four-H process seems to be going forward with the federal agencies
working in secret to devise the options that we will be allowed to consider
in the region and then imposing those options on the region,” Crapo said.
“The state and local governments and the people of the region need to be
a part of this decision-making
The man who is leading salmon recovery in the Northwest said it will
take a combined effort of federal, state, local and tribal governments
to bring back salmon, and he wondered if the states will be able to make
the tough decisions necessary for recovery.
Will Stelle Jr., director of the National Marine Fisheries Service
Northwest office, said the difference between listing of the northern spotted
owl as an endangered species and the ESA listing of nine salmon and steelhead
species …
Dissatisfied, in particular, with judgments made about tribal hatchery
proposals, the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission has asked the
Northwest Power Planning Council to lead a regional effort to reshape what
the tribes call a biased “independent scientific review” process.
CRITFC Executive Director Donald Sampson followed up earlier tribal
testimony before Congress by asking the NPPC to help craft suggested modifications
to rules regarding Independent Scientific Review Panel …
The Northwest Power Planning Council on Wednesday recommended $33.2
million in funding for fish and wildlife projects that gained scientific
backing following a second round of technical review.
The Council, meeting in Twin Falls, Idaho, now has committed more than
$101 million of the amount it has to spend through its FY2000 direct fish
and wildlife program. The total available is about $136 million, Bob Lohn,
NPPC Fish and Wildlife Division director, told the Council. That …
Although roughly three-quarters of its fiscal year 2000 fish and wildlife
program budget has been earmarked, some of the biggest funding decisions
remain for the Northwest Power Planning Council.
PATH (Plan for Testing and Analyzing Hypotheses), major tribal hatchery
initiatives and “innovative” proposals still await Council decision making
more than a month into the new fiscal year.
The Council annually recommends how $127 million in federal hydropower
revenues will be spent on …
In-river boxes intended to protect eggs and newly hatched salmon and
steelhead fry, engineered streams that counteract the effects of dams on
migrations, and strobe light configurations that steer fish away from mincing
dam turbines — all are old fish recovery ideas whose time may have come
as alternatives to dam breaching.
Those ideas were the focus of a trio on presentations Wednesday at the
Northwest Power Planning Council’s meeting in Twin Falls, Idaho. Guiding
the discussions …
A ballot initiative that would have banned most commercial fishing nets
from Washington waters barely received 40 percent of the vote in this weeks
elections. It was the second time such an initiative had been defeated
in Washington in the past four years.
Despite gaining the support of The Columbian, the daily newspaper in
Vancouver, Wash., as well as late support from fishing organizations and
some environmental groups, Ban All Nets also got some late opposition from
the Sierra Club and
The National Marine Fisheries Services Northwest region since 1990
has experienced a rapid rise in both funding and staffing as a result of
Endangered Species Act listings of salmon and steelhead.
President Clinton’s initial budget proposal had asked that NMFS salmon
recovery planning efforts continue that trend with a $23 million increase
in funding for FY2000 as the agency addresses 11 new West Coast salmonid
listings this year.
But the net effect of the bill sent by Congress last …
Clinton administration officials this week said the new U.S.-Canada
Pacific Salmon Treaty agreement is being jeopardized by Congress’ refusal
to adequately fund its implementation and attempt to rewrite its terms.
President Clinton on Tuesday vetoed the FY2000 spending bill for the
departments of commerce, state and justice in part because of the funding
problem and objectionable legislative riders being demanded by the Alaska
congressional delegation and state Gov. Tony Knowles.
The …
An inter-regional war of words between Alaska and Northwest officials
has erupted over the role of Columbia and Snake river dams in depleting
salmon populations and the North Pacific fishing industry.
Alaska Gov. Tony Knowles this week called the dams “a killing field”
for salmon that are at the root of the dispute, which is threatening to
undermine a new U.S.-Canadian salmon fishing treaty that would help endangered
fish recover. But most Northwest officials strongly oppose a proposal …
Voters in Washington will decide next week whether the state should
ban commercial gillnets and other net fishing in Puget Sound and, perhaps,
on the Columbia River.
Initiative 696 has recently been picking up speed with voters and gained
the endorsement of The Columbian in Vancouver, Wash. as well as the support
of environmental and fishing groups.
It also has received some unexpected opposition from the Sierra Club
and the Seattle Audubon Society, which oppose I-696 because the …
A major end-of-session battle over Pacific salmon restoration is brewing
between members of Congress and President Clinton, and could wind up being
settled in high-level closed-door budget negotiations.
Clinton is being urged to veto the annual appropriation bill for the
departments of commerce, state and justice because it contains an Endangered
Species Act exemption for Alaskan salmon fishermen and lower-than-expected
funding for West Coast state salmon recovery projects and …
A bill to expand the scope of the Independent Scientific Review Panel
to fish and wildlife projects of three additional federal agencies received
support from most witnesses at a Senate subcommittee hearing on Wednesday.
During the hearing by the Water and Power Subcommittee, chaired by Sen.
Gordon Smith, R-Ore., representatives of the Northwest Power Planning Council,
Bonneville Power Administration and Public Power Council said the panel
has been a success since its creation in …
A decision to hold Idaho’s Lake Pend Oreille at the traditional wintertime
level in 1999-2000 is being revisited after the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service expressed concern about potential impacts on bull trout listed
under the Endangered Species Act.
The Corps of Engineers, which operates the lake’s outlet at Albeni Falls
Dam, has for the past three years only allowed the wintertime level to
drop to 2,055 feet above sea level — four feet higher than normal. The
Corps maintained the …
A Nez Perce hatchery plan aimed at proving supplementation and “natural
rearing” techniques remains in limbo while the Northwest Power Planning
Council, and its Independent Scientific Review Panel, sort out concerns
about cost and science.
The Nez Perce had initially submitted a $20 million proposal for funding
through the Council’s direct fish and wildlife program in 2000. More than
$17 million was ticketed for land acquisition and construction.
Following its review of the project, …
With the tide of scientific opinion rising
about the strong influences of estuarine conditions, the Northwest Power
Planning Council intends to find out how that salmon lifecycle segment
might be manipulated to improve survival.
The effects of channel dredging, predation
and water flows on migrating salmon are among the Columbia River estuary
issues the Council hopes its Independent Scientific Advisory Board will
address over the coming months.
Conclusions would hopefully be outlined
in
The groundwork is set now that a Columbia
Basin artificial production review –nearly two years in the making —
will soon be on its way to Congress.
The Northwest Power Planning Council on
Wednesday approved a final draft of the report and appendices, though last-minute
editing was ordered to make sure Congress knew who should bear the cost
of implementing anticipated hatchery reforms.
Washington’s Tom Karier pointed out that
the document’s executive summary included six …
The National Marine Fisheries Service released
four draft white papers from its Northwest Fisheries Science Center on
aspects of salmon survival through the Columbia/Snake River hydropower
system that it says will provide scientific background for the upcoming
NMFS 1999 biological opinion.
NMFS will take comments on the studies
until Oct. 29, and after that the papers will influence both the 1999 BiOp
and the way the Columbia River power system will operate in the coming
years.
The …
PATH updated its 1998 preliminary report
on fall chinook survival and presented those changes at last weeks meeting
of the inter-agency Implementation Team.
Though the updated report has gone through
more extensive review by PATH scientists and the Scientific Review Panel,
it lacks any defining conclusions because of wide variances in the uncertainty
of juvenile survival rates of transported fish compared to non-transported
fish, or D-value.
With a low delayed mortality, or “D” …
Steady flows below Bonneville Dam continued
this week to aid early-arriving fall chinook and will probably continue
through the winter as endangered Columbia River Chum salmon are expected
soon.
The US Army Corps of Engineers is operating
the dams outflows to reduce fluctuations that normally occur this time
of year because of power production. The extreme fluctuations posed the
danger of de-watering areas where fall chinook may have already spawned.
“Typically, the hourly …
The Corps of Engineers will await peer review of
analytical methods and
biological information before releasing its draft
Phase I John Day
drawdown study.
That preliminary biological information gives a slight
edge — with
caveats– to John Day drawdown as the alternative
providing the biggest
potential benefit for Columbia-Snake river salmon
populations.
The Phase I report will recommend to Congress whether
or not further
study of reservoir drawdowns behind John Day Dam
for …
A “new” Tucannon captive propagation project
could get fiscal year 2000 funding through the Northwest Power Planning
Council if its master plan passes muster and the proposal makes it through
the agency’s three-step review process.
The Council on Wednesday abided by its
fish and wildlife committee’s recommendation that $134,000 be reserved
to expand and help operate eastern Washington broodstock rearing facilities.
Despite getting positive funding recommendations
from the Independent …
With computer and operators still trying
to digest the input, the Northwest Power Planning Council must await the
results of an analysis of seven far-ranging visions for managing the Columbia
River Basin’s fish and wildlife resources.
So a Wednesday presentation focused on
the type of information that could potentially be gleaned from the Ecosystem
Diagnosis and Treatment analytical model. The Council hopes to use that
information as it builds its management framework.
The …
Northwest Power Planning Council members spent much
of the week in
Washington D.C. shopping around a nearly completed
document they hope
will be the blueprint for reform of the Columbia
Basin’s costly
artificial production system.
The group that includes Council members Eric Bloch
of Oregon, Larry
Cassidy of Washington and Stan Grace of Montana is
seeking congressional
support for an evolving reform implementation recipe
that will require,
eventually, a large infusion of federal …
Still-surging estimates of the 1999 upriver bright
fall chinook salmon
run allowed the Columbia River Compact to offer something
for everyone
Monday.
The Compact on Monday approved a one-day extension
of one non-Indian
commercial fishery and OK’d two others for next week.
The
Oregon-Washington compact, which sets mainstem Columbia
commercial
fisheries, also endorsed a tribal commercial fishery
Sept. 29-Oct. 2
And the states’ two representatives to the Compact
agreed to reopen …
The 1 1/2-year-old Multi-Species Framework
process has “cranked up the
engine” on a Battelle Laboratories’ megacomputer
and staffers now await
the opportunity to interpret data that
predicts potential biological
impacts of seven proposed fish and wildlife
strategies.
The Framework’s management committee heard
an update of the process
during a recent meeting in Spokane. The
seven strategies were distilled
from nearly 30 submitted by tribes, state
and federal agencies, …
Most of the tough decisions still remain despite the fact that the Northwest
Power Planning Council on Wednesday allocated more than half of its $127
million direct fish and wildlife budget for fiscal year 2000.
The Council mulls project proposals and recommends which should receive
Bonneville Power Administration hydrosystem mitigation funds. In choosing
projects, the Council considers advice from the public, staff, the Columbia
Basin Fish and Wildlife Authority’s fish and wildlife …
The pursuit of fall chinook salmon in the mainstem Columbia River likely
will end soon as harvest totals approach allowed impact levels on the Snake
River populations listed under the Endangered Species Act.
The Oregon and Washington state fishery managers that comprise the Columbia
River Compact on Tuesday approved a treaty fishery proposal that had tribal
fishers spreading their nets at 6 a.m. the following day.
By the time the fishery ends at 6 p.m. Saturday (Sept. 25) the …
The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife issued Tuesday incidental
take permits for wild lower Columbia River coho salmon, listed as endangered
under Oregons Endangered Species Act, but not until after gillnet fishing
for coho opened Monday.
A letter sent Saturday by Oregon Trout to Jim Greer, director of ODFW,
warned the agency that opening fishing for coho salmon before issuing the
permit would be a violation of the state ESA, a state law ODFW is responsible
to enforce.
“Oregon Trout
After sporadic debate that stretched over nearly two months, the Senate
on Thursday passed a $14 billion FY2000 spending bill for the Interior
Department, Forest Service and related agencies. The vote was 89 to 10.
The annual appropriation measure would earmark money and give congressional
direction to various Northwest salmon recovery and ecosystem projects.
The next step will be for House and Senate appropriators to hammer out
a compromise bill before the fiscal year starts on Oct. …
One state would reap the fish and wildlife benefits. Another state,
and a federal power marketing agency, would bear the costs.
So a split four-state Northwest Power Planning Council Wednesday offered
a compromise of sorts to those debating the worth of the Lake Pend Oreille
kokanee study. The Council decided to give the Idaho Department of Fish
and Game the $379,000 it wanted to monitor and evaluate the effects of
lake level on kokanee salmon productivity.
But the Council failed to …
A leader of a scientific team that developed the first old-growth forest
management alternatives for the Clinton administration this week urged
it to use another such task force to avoid renewed gridlock in the Northwest
woods.
Forestry professor Norman Johnson of Oregon State University recommended
creation of a group of outside experts to help resolve turmoil over implementing
surveys of potentially at-risk species of native plants and animals. Johnson
said he and other members of …
Oregons Independent Multidisciplinary Science Team unveiled at a meeting
in Salem this week a report with 19 recommendations to improve Oregon forest
practices.
Seventeen of the recommendations could be put into practice almost immediately,
while two are fraught with difficulties that will require policy changes
in Oregons Forest Practices Rules as well as the Oregon Plan for Salmon
and Watersheds.
The recommendations are specifically for western Oregon forests and
the Siskiyou …
Construction of a nine-year, $56-million federal water-exchange project
should be completed this month, about the same time that an estimated 3,000
to 5,000 adult fall chinook and coho salmon and summer steelhead begin
their return to the Umatilla River.
The Umatilla Basin Project, prompted when the Confederated Tribes of
the Umatilla Indian Reservation claimed their reserved water rights, delivers
Columbia River water to three irrigation districts, which, in exchange,
leave water in …
The governor of Idaho was among those on hand Wednesday to celebrate
the release of 21 adult sockeye salmon into Redfish Lake — a signal of
success for a captive breeding program intended to revive a species listed
in 1991 as endangered under the Endangered Species Act.
The release witnessed by Gov. Dirk Kempthorne was the fifth into the
lake from the broodstock program.
But this year’s release was different in that three of the 21 fish released
had made the 900-mile journey to the ocean
Even if Congress passes legislation to allow it to ignore two federal
court rulings to improve at-risk species surveys, the Clinton administration
would not use the authority, a Forest Service official testified on Thursday.
Northwest senators have included discretionary legal authority in the
FY2000 interior appropriations bill, which is expected to pass the Senate
next week.
Under President Clinton’s 1994 Northwest Forest Plan for protecting
old-growth forest areas, federal land …
Sport fishermen were put on hold in the Columbia River below Bonneville
this week until state and federal officials can reassess the size of the
incoming fall chinook run and the combined impact that the recreationists
and tribal and non-tribal commercial fishers have had to-date on listed
Snake River fall chinook.
Representatives from Oregon and Washington fish and wildlife commissions
agreed Sept. 10 to suspend the sport-fishing season from the river’s mouth
at Buoy 10 to …
Members of the Regional Forum’s System Configuration Team balked at
a request to squeeze new projects into the Corps of Engineers fiscal year
2000 Columbia River Fish Mitigation Program work plan, but did leave the
door slightly ajar.
Still, a spokesman for tribal interests at Wednesday’s project priority-setting
session claimed no satisfaction.
“What’s going to happen to the projects they (the 13 Columbia Basin
tribes) put on the table?” Bob Heinith asked SCT members. The tribes …
Portland General Electric is testing a new hydroelectric relicensing
process at its Clackamas River projects that could save time in the long
run and encourage greater collaboration with interested parties along the
way.
PGE is only the second license applicant to use the new process, which
involves a third party contractor putting together an environmental impact
statement at the same time the utility puts together its license application.
The New York Power Authority is the only …
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