, , , , ,

1. FEDS HEAR ALASKA FISHERMEN’S CALL FOR BREACHING

By Bill McAllister

Fishermen in Southeast Alaska have finally found unity on a salmon
management issue, thanks to federal consideration of Alaska harvest
cutbacks in order to restore chinook runs in the Snake River.

Paula Terrel of Juneau, a troller who is a member of the multi-state
coalition Save Our Wild Salmon, said before a series of hearings in
Southeast Alaska that she had never seen such consensus.

A federal hearing in Juneau Wednesday — one of four scheduled hearings
in Southeast Alaska — proved her right, in spades.

Of an estimated 350 people turning out in Ketchikan, Sitka and Juneau,
none supported the “conservation-level” management approach that is one
of the options under active consideration by nine federal agencies known
as the Federal Caucus. The caucus is charged with recommending a salmon
recovery plan in accordance with the Endangered Species Act. A fourth
meeting, in Petersburg, was scheduled for Thursday night.

“Alaska’s done all it can to preserve these fish,” said Juneau troller
Dick Hofman. “In fact, it’s done more than its share.”

“Our fishery has been sliced and diced for 20 years,” said Dale Kelley
of Juneau, executive director of the Alaska Trollers Association.

Juneau troller Joe Emerson objected to “continued harassment of Alaska
fishermen.”

The crowds — including elected officials, fish biologists, trollers,
sport charter operators and concerned citizens — were nearly unanimous
in recommending the breaching of four federal dams on the Snake River,
which were described as federal subsidies to powerful agribusiness
interests.

In Juneau, those who didn’t explicitly call for the dams to be breached
generally said the extinction of certain salmon and steelhead stocks is
an inevitability that ought not be fought with draconian measures that
will hurt Alaska fishermen while ultimately proving futile, anyway.

Col. Eric Mogren of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said that the issue
isn’t as simple as dams vs. fish: Of 12 threatened or endangered stocks,
only two or three would be significantly aided by dam breaching, Mogren
said. He also stressed that stocks had been on the decline when the
first dam in the Columbia Basin, the Bonneville, was built in 1938.

The filling of wetlands and other urban sprawl issues also have been a
factor over the years, as the Columbia River watershed, which once
supported an estimated 16 million salmon, now gets about 1 million
annual returns, most of them hatchery fish. Extraordinary measures —
such as barging or trucking the fish past the dams and then releasing
them back into the water — have been employed for 20 years, to little
avail. In fact, possible “indirect mortality” from
transportation-related stress is now under study.

The premise of the Federal Caucus’ “All-H Paper” is that hydropower,
habitat, harvests and hatcheries all must be part of a comprehensive
solution.

“What makes it so complex is there’s so much at stake, both
environmentally and economically,” Mogren said.

Those who testified didn’t find it so complex, however.

“Make the hard decision and tear out the dams,” Juneau troller Richard
Luther told federal officials.

“We’ve studied this to death,” said Nicole Cordan of Portland, a Save
Our Wild Salmon supporter who also attended a hearing in Lewiston,
Idaho. “What else do you need?”

Cordan dismissed Mogren’s talk of a new turbine installation that would
reduce fish mortality at the dams. “Techno-fixes at the dams won’t
recover these fish,” she said.

By all accounts, few Snake River kings are caught in Alaska.

Larry Rutter of the National Marine Fisheries Service said that probably
100 to 200 fall chinook are harvested in Alaska, and he conceded that
the number seems low. But he said that the spawning population is also
very low, making every fish important. There’s 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 wouldn’t recommend any further harvest
restrictions in Alaska unless they were comprehensive throughout the
region and included revisions in the Pacific Salmon Treaty with Canada.

But Alaska’s sacrifice to date is already enough, according to Southeast
residents.

A letter to the Federal Caucus signed by nine legislators from the
region cited the shrinkage of the king salmon season from 160 days a
year to 11. The annual value of the Southeast troll fishery for kings
has declined from $12.5 million to $3.5 million in just one decade, said
the letter, signed by both Democrats and Republicans, including the
Senate majority leader. “These reductions in quota and fishing time were
not implemented in an effort to recover stocks in Alaska, but instead in
an effort to conserve Columbia Basin stocks.”

In 1993-94, the Alaska king salmon harvest was reduced from 263,000 to
230,000 as a direct result of concern about the Snake River, said Dave
Gaudet, special assistant to the Alaska commissioner of Fish and Game.
Since then, complicated treaty negotiations have made the connection
less obvious, Gaudet said. Last year, Alaska had 194,000 non-hatchery
kings allocated under the treaty, he said.

Politically, Alaska is experiencing a disconnect over the issue.

Gov. Tony Knowles, a Democrat, submitted a written statement to the
Federal Caucus complaining that the Endangered Species Act is being used
as a political and economic weapon. The Snake River dams constitute “a
virtual killing field for salmon,” while Alaska fishermen are doing
nothing to deplete those stocks, Knowles said. If dams are not breached,
another science-based alternative must be found, he said.

But Alaska’s powerful three-man Republican congressional delegation has
come out against breaching the dams.

Sen. Frank Murkowski believes that breaching the dams would just trade
one environmental problem for another, as 2,000 daily truck trips would
be needed just to haul the grain that couldn’t go on barges anymore,
said spokesman Chuck Kleeschulte. About 126 million bushels of grain are
barged toward market annually along the Snake River, with alternative
modes of transportation raising costs by 6 cents to 21 cents a bushel,
according to an Army Corps analysis.

Murkowski’s position is based on an understanding that the Pacific
Salmon Treaty has settled harvest issues in favor of “safe passage” to
Alaska, Kleeschulte said. If that turns out not to be the case, it’s
possible the senator would revisit the issue of dam breaching, he said.

A final environmental impact statement on the Snake River, with a
preferred alternative, is due from the Army Corps this summer. It is
unknown when Congress might act on the forthcoming recommendations,
especially considering election-year dynamics, Rutter said.

Congressional authorization is needed to decommission the dams, a $1
billion job, Rutter said. Given the nature of the federal appropriations
process, even an “immediate” decision to breach the dams means it would
take seven years to complete the work, Mogren said.

Link information:
All-H Paper: http://www.bpa.gov/federalcaucus
Lower Snake Draft EIS: http://www.nww.usace.army.mil

/0 Comments/by
, , , , ,

2. BREACHING, FLOW AUG AIRED AT IDAHO FALLS

By Jennifer Langston
From the Idaho Falls Post-Register
(with permission)

Like most farmers, Jerry Scheid grew up in an era when people thought
dams could do no wrong.

They provided new sources of power and cheap electricity, gave farmers
reliable irrigation water and created reservoirs where people could boat
and fish.
But the local farmer – breaking ranks with most of his counterparts –
told government officials Tuesday night he wants them to remove four
dams on the Snake River in Washington state.

He was one of 440 people who turned out to hear about the federal
government’s options for restoring the Northwest’s decimated salmon and
steelhead runs.

In the first hour and a half of public testimony, those in favor of
dismantling the dams – Shoshone-Bannock tribal members, outfitters,
environmental activists, fishermen and regular citizens – outnumbered
those who defended them 3 to 1.

With 90 people wanting to speak, the meeting was expected to run past
midnight.

Scheid, 63, who grows wheat and potatoes west of Idaho Falls, said the
Endangered Species Act and tribal treaties make it clear real efforts
must be made to save the fish.

He thinks that’s important, since he’s got fond memories of hauling his
bedroll, fishing gear and groceries on horseback to the Middle Fork of
the Salmon to try to catch one.

He also thinks that if the dams aren’t sacrificed, the government will
require eastern Idaho farmers to give up more of their irrigation water
to help move young salmon downstream faster.

“I think we’ve studied the question long enough,” he said. “If we don’t
breach the dams, we’ll see increased demands for more and more water to
increase streamflows … and I think that could be an immense threat.”

Federal officials stressed that finding ways to save the fish won’t be
easy, and they urged everyone who lives in the region to look for common
ground.

The debate so far has largely focused on what should happen to four
lower Snake River dams in Washington state. The Corps of Engineers is
studying ways to make the dams less lethal to fish traveling downstream
to the ocean.

The options include barging more fish around the dams, making
improvements to dams to boost fish survival, or removing parts of the
dams and restoring the river to more natural flows.

A coalition of federal agencies is also taking a broader view, asking
for input on strategies to restore habitat, reduce harvests or change
hatchery production.

“The problem is not just the Snake River dams,” said Lt. Col. Bill Bulen
of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the agency that operates the dams.
“It’s much bigger than that … and there is no single silver bullet
solution to solve these problems.”

Eastern Idahoans were particularly concerned about pressure from
constituents in other states to use Idaho’s irrigation water to flush
fish downstream.

The agencies haven’t made a decision on whether that’s necessary or how
much water might be required. Last year the Bureau of Reclamation
studied using an additional million acre feet and found that could dry
up farms and put up to 1,200 eastern Idahoans out of work.

Del Raybould, who farms in Madison and Fremont counties, said Idaho has
already been sending water downriver, and it’s done nothing to help the
fish.

Raybould and other local irrigators also opposed something as drastic as
breaching the dams. The government needs to consider the impacts of
climate change and ocean conditions, predators and harvesting, they
said. They said it would be foolish to take down the dams without proof
it will work.

Taking more eastern Idaho water would create “intolerable” economic
losses and could destroy the region’s rural culture, Raybould said. He
said his family dug canals and cleared sagebrush to carve farms out of
eastern Idaho.

“Don’t tinker with such a fragile segment of our economy,” he said.
“It’s my heritage as well as others that has a stake with the decisions
you might make.”

Jerry Myers, who lives in Salmon and guides on the river, said there are
30 to 40 businesses in that small mountain town – from air charter
services to grocery stories to outfitters – that depend upon remaining
steelhead runs.

He said while people talk about losses to the farming and shipping
industries if the dams are breached, nobody seems to care about the
2,700 jobs in Idaho that will be lost if the steelhead go extinct.

“Idaho salmon and steelhead fishermen have shouldered the devastation
that these dams have given us,” he said. “We don’t see these dams as
valuable … but as mistakes.”

Vern Johnson, who caught his first salmon on a gaff hook in 1944,
brought the last big fish he caught to demonstrate what’s been lost
since the dams were built in the 1960s and ’70s.

Before the dams were built and the runs declined, the fish were so thick
they’d slap into your knees and knock you down in the riffles, said the
69-year-old Shelley resident.

His 45-pound stuffed monster is starting to decay around the gills after
sitting on the wall for two decades. He pulled it out of the Elbow Hole
on the Middle Fork in 1978, the last year salmon runs could support a
widespread fishing season in Idaho.

Johnson said if the region’s politicians won’t do what’s necessary to
bring the fish back, he hoped to erect a bronze memorial on the Salmon
River with their names, to remind future generations who was
responsible.

“They can either take a stand now and be a giant, or leave the dams in
place … and the world is going to know who the people are that allowed
these fish to go away.”

Link information:
Idaho Falls Post-Register: http://www.idahonews.com

/0 Comments/by
, , , ,

4. NMFS BIOP SETS ESA HARVEST RATE FOR MAINSTEM

By Mike O’Bryant

The National Marine Fisheries Service reviewed the impacts of proposed
tribal and state harvests of salmon on the mainstem Columbia River and
concluded that a 9 percent harvest rate of the most critical salmon
stocks would be appropriate to avoid jeopardy.

In a biological opinion released Feb. 29, NMFS determined that harvest
at levels proposed by tribes and states would not jeopardize some stocks
listed as threatened or endangered under the federal Endangered Species
Act, but that it would jeopardize other stocks. In making that
determination, NMFS took into account the cumulative effects of
non-Indian commercial fisheries and state sport fisheries in Oregon and
Washington.

According to the BiOp, its objective is to determine whether winter,
spring or summer 2000 fisheries in the Columbia River mainstem are
likely to jeopardize the continued existence of salmon and steelhead
listed under the ESA, or result in the destruction or adverse changes to
their critical habitat.

Those stocks not likely to be jeopardized by the proposed harvest levels
are the lower Columbia River and upper Willamette River chinook salmon,
the Snake River sockeye salmon, and the lower Columbia River, upper
Willamette River, mid-Columbia River, upper Columbia River and Snake
River steelhead.

But the BiOp concluded that the continued existence of the upper
Columbia River spring chinook and the Snake River spring/summer chinook
salmon would be jeopardized and so set the 9 percent harvest limit.

NMFS said that in the past it has accommodated these fisheries,
“particularly as they seek to balance their short and long-term trust
obligations to the tribes.”

“But in making that accommodation and thereby assuming the associated
additional risk to the species, there must also be some clear limit to
harvest that is not exceeded until the stocks of concern show sustained
and unambiguous progress toward recovery,” the BiOp said.

For more than 10 years, fisheries in the Columbia River basin were
managed under Columbia River Fish Management Plan, but that plan expired
in July 1999. Absent the CRFMP, NMFS proceeded on this consultation
under section 7 of the ESA.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs provided a biological assessment on behalf
of the tribes that described the proposed tribal fisheries. States
applied for an incidental take permit and, although the action with the
tribes and that with the states are separate actions, they have been
lumped in one biological opinion, according to NMFS’ BiOp.

To give an idea of what it will take for recovery of the natural
spawning stocks most affected by mainstem harvest, 3,276 spring/summer
Snake River chinook returned in 1999, while the recovery escapement
level requires a return of 31,440 fish.

For upper Columbia River chinook, returns in 1999 of natural spawning
chinook to the three main subbasins (in an area that is often called the
mid-Columbia when referring to dams) were 119 in the Wenatchee River, 64
in the Entiat River and 73 in the Methow River. NMFS expects higher
returns in 2000 when 1,295 are expected in the Wenatchee, 180 in the
Entiat and 811 in the Methow. Recovery levels in the three streams are
determined to be 3,750, 500 and 2,000 respectively.

Including upper Columbia River stocks that naturally spawn in the
mainstem Columbia River, NMFS is predicting a return of 4,500 upper
Columbia River chinook in 2000. And it is expecting a return of
spring/summer chinook to the Snake River of 7,800.

That’s the natural spawners. The predicted return for all upriver
chinook, including hatchery produced fish, is 134,000. This is the first
year since 1977 that the aggregate upriver return was expected to exceed
128,800. Based on that return, the tribes proposed to harvest at a 9
percent level. However, when measuring the in-season run, if the return
falls below 115,000 fish, the tribes proposed to lower the catch to 7
percent. Whatever the return, the “tribes intend to manage their
fisheries conservatively so as not to exceed the 9 percent limit, but
can reasonably be expected to manage up to that constraint,” the BiOp
said.

That would leave the tribes with about 12,000 spring chinook in 2000.
This compares to catches that have averaged about 3,400 over the last
five years.

On the other hand, the states proposed to manage their fisheries for
upper Columbia River chinook at equal to or less than 2 percent and
Snake River spring chinook and sockeye at equal to or less than 1
percent. For Snake River summer chinook the expected harvest rate is 0.1
percent.

Doing the math, the combined harvest of tribes and states is either 11percent
for run sizes greater than 115,000 (2 percent non-Indian and 9 percent treaty Indian)
or 9 percent for run sizes less than 115,000.

“NMFS has continued to maintain that increases in harvest are
inappropriate given the critically depressed status of the stocks and
propose to limit the total harvest to 9 percent given pre-season abundance or
6 percent if the anticipated return declines in-season….” the BiOp said.

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 stocks and their prospects for
survival and recovery has changed,” the BiOp concludes.

Link information:
NMFS: http://www.nws.noaa.gov

/0 Comments/by

7. GORTON INTRODUCES YAKIMA EXCHANGE PROPOSAL

A Northwest senator is seeking a federal feasibility study of pumping
irrigation water from the Columbia River in exchange for reducing
diversions from the Yakima River.

Sen. Slade Gorton, R-Wash., introduced legislation on March 2 on behalf
of local irrigators, who say it would aid fish restoration in the lower
Yakima River.

The amendment to the 1994 Yakima River Basin Water Enhancement Act would
direct the Bureau of Reclamation to conduct an engineering feasibility
study of the proposed water exchange in lieu of the planned
electrification of the hydraulic driven Chandler Pumping Plant at
Prosser Diversion Dam.

The bureau would prepare a report that describes project benefits,
contains feasibility level designs and cost estimates, “and secures the
critical right-of-way areas” for a pipeline from the Columbia River.
Also, the agency would prepare an environmental assessment and any other
studies or investigations “necessary to develop a water exchange.”

At a Senate subcommittee hearing on budget issues this week, Gorton
asked reclamation Commissioner Eluid Martinez to support the measure.
Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash., is considering introducing the legislation
in the House.

The new system, estimated to cost $52 million, would eliminate the
Kennewick Irrigation District’s diversion from the Yakima River at
Prosser Dam, increasing base flows from 400 cubic feet to 1020 cubic
feet per second in the Prosser-Wanawish Reach in low water years.

Plans to electrify the Yakima pumping station has been put on hold
pending the Columbia water exchange study.

The proposal also would replace most of the Columbia Irrigation
District’s diversion from the Yakima River at Wanawish Dam, increasing
flows in the Wanawish-mouth reach of the Yakima from 1020 to 1220 cfs.

Fish benefits expected in the 47-mile stretch of the lower Yakima River
include improved habitat, water quality and food supply and a faster
smolt out-migration that would help them avoid predators, according to
Kennewick Irrigation District officials.

The project outline calls for installation of a dozen electric pumps
that would require 60 million kilowatts of power.

Preliminary results from a lower reach habitat study conducted for the
irrigation district indicate the improved flows would greatly help
salmon survival and benefit bull trout in the reach.

District officials said the feasibility study is supported by the Yakima
Indian tribe, local Bureau of Reclamation officials, National Marine
Fisheries Service, Fish and Wildlife Service, Bonneville Power
Administration, Washington departments of fish and wildlife and ecology,
Northwest Power Planning Council, the cities of Kennewick and Richland
and American Rivers.

The proposal is modeled after successful salmon restoration efforts on
the Umatilla River in eastern Oregon. The $50 million federal project
also used the Columbia River as a replacement source for irrigation
water that had been diverted from the Umatilla River.


/0 Comments/by
, , , ,

8. KITZHABER MEETS WITH EASTERN OREGON CONSTITUENTS

Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber on Thursday met with Eastern Oregon
constituents for the first time since he publicly supported breaching
the four lower Snake River dams as a viable option for salmon recovery.

He told river users he would not back away from the breaching position
he took in February, and he offered to promote a salmon restoration plan
developed by the four treaty-fishing tribes.

“I’m not here to apologize for the position I’ve taken,” Kitzhaber said
in the first of two meetings to discuss salmon recovery options. “I’m
here to cast into a larger perspective and see if we can find common
ground.”

Kitzhaber met first with river users, including farmers, ranchers and
irrigators, along with representatives of food processing, wheat
growers, a public utility cooperative, barge operators and businessmen.
Later in the morning he met with officials and staff from the
Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation and vowed to help
showcase the Umatilla Basin Project, a cooperative effort that has
brought salmon back to the Umatilla River.

Noting that “headlines did not accurately characterize the message,”
Kitzhaber outlined his position, discussed a recent meeting with three
other Northwest governors and then heard from river users, who said they
were frustrated because their efforts have gone mostly unrecognized.

Kitzhaber said breaching is not a silver bullet, and that habitat,
harvest and hatcheries must be addressed with the hydrosystem to create
a successful salmon recovery plan.

“If you significantly reduce any one option, the other three have to
pick up the burden,” the governor said. “Breaching is a viable
alternative that cannot be discarded out of hand.”

Kitzhaber said he could support a salmon recovery program that includes,
or does not include, dam breaching, as long as the plan includes
brokered mitigation.

“This is not a zero-sum proposition, it’s not a win-lose. I recognize
the economic benefits of dams to the region –power, transportation,
irrigation, jobs, but I don’t think we can trade environmental health
for economic benefits.”

He also warned that without decisive action the region could be “caught
between two legal posts” and risk losing control of the issue.

Kitzhaber reminded river users that the federal government has treaties
with Native American tribes, and he suggested that, should tribes
litigate the issue, “federal courts won’t turn their backs on the
treaties.”

He noted, too, that federal judges have enormous authority.

“We shouldn’t underestimate federal judges, who could, among other
things, order drawdown, order increased spills, curtail all fishing, cut
all grazing and stop any new water diversions,” he said, recalling how a
federal judge shut down forest logging in the early 1990s.

Kitzhaber said governors from Washington, Idaho and Montana agreed that
they need to reach consensus on a recovery plan that does not
necessarily hinge on dam breaching. Further, he said, governors will ask
the Bonneville Power Administration to hold $185 million in unspent
funds for use in a mitigation plan, possibly as an amendment to the
Northwest Power Planning Council’s Fish and Wildlife Program.
Additionally, Kitzhaber said, the governors would seek support from
Congress to authorize an objective economic mitigation study for various
strategies and begin development of an economic mitigation plan.

“I won’t support ecosystem recovery without mitigation,” he said.

Kitzhaber heard from a number of individuals.

State Sen. David Nelson, R-Pendleton, told Kitzhaber farmers do not
receive the proper credit for their efforts to conserve water and
habitat to help fish.

“We feel like if we do anything, it won’t make any difference,” Nelson
said. “The perception is that you support dam breaching.”

Said Kitzhaber: “I’m not running away from that.”

Fred Ziari, a consultant representing Eastern Oregon Irrigators, told
Kitzhaber that he agreed with many of the points he made in his Feb. 18
speech to the American Fisheries Society. And he reminded the governor
about the success story of the Umatilla Basin Project.

“You are in a county with successful fish recovery, which required
cooperation from farmers with tribes and federal agencies 15 years ago.
It is a model for the Northwest,” Ziari said. “No other place in the
Northwest can show this kind of success in bringing the fish back. It
all points to what we’ve done here, and we can do it again. There are a
dozen major projects identified in Washington, Idaho and Oregon. We can
take it and run with it.”

Ziari, expressing his frustration with a lack of action from federal
agencies, suggested “guerilla tactic fish recovery” and said all
revenues from the four lower Snake River dams should be used for habitat
restoration.

Steve Eldrige, manager of the Umatilla Electric Cooperative in
Hermiston, told the governor that even more than a regional plan, the
Northwest needs to decide what recovery means.

“Until we do that, we can’t choose a plan,” he said, noting that
discussions with members of the Power Planning Council revealed that
they don’t have a definition for recovery.

“If anyone in the region can say what recovery is, it’s you,” Eldrige
said. “The grenade rolled out on dam breaching got the attention” of the
Northwest and focused “more energy in getting somewhere, and announcing
what recovery is will have the same affect.”

Kitzhaber said he will “elevate the focus on the irresponsible approach
of federal agencies” and “recovery stifled by process.”

In his meeting with tribal officials, Kitzhaber said he wants to
“showcase” the Umatilla Basin Project and send the salmon recovery plan
of the four treaty-fishing tribes to the other three Northwest governors
“to make sure you are engaged.”

Kitzhaber said the Umatilla Basin Project can demonstrate that recovery
does not have to be a win-lose situation.

Kitzhaber also said he will support the third phase of the Umatilla
Basin Project, which would provide more flows in the Umatilla River for
fish with another bucket-for-bucket exchange with the Westland
Irrigation District near Hermiston.

Kitzhaber told tribal leaders that what’s needed now is a written plan
that the tribes, the four governors and economic stakeholders can use as
a starting point to debate, with a goal of reaching consensus and
developing a plan to save salmon.

Antone Minthorn, chairman of the Confederated Tribes, invited Kitzhaber
to a May 20 dedication for the completion of the second phase of the
Umatilla Basin Project; to the Indian and non-Indian spring chinook
fishery on the Umatilla River, which opens April 15; and to the May
15-26 Salmon Walk, in which the Tribes invite the region’s communities
to experience the return of salmon to the Umatilla River.

Tribal leaders commended Kitzhaber for the “courage” required to take
his stand in support of breaching as a salmon recovery option.

“We know you are taking a beating on your stand,” said Bill Quaempts, a
member of the Tribes? Board of Trustees. “You’re talking to people who
have taken a beating for 150 years. We understand.”

/0 Comments/by
, ,

9. AMERICAN RIVERS DECLARES SNAKE MOST ENDANGERED

In an effort to drum up more public support for breaching federal dams
to “halt salmon extinction,” a national conservation group has declared
the lower Snake River its most endangered river for the second year.

Joined by members of a coalition of Northwest and national groups
campaigning to remove the four dams, American Rivers made its
announcement at a Washington, D.C., press conference. About 100
supporters, including some dressed in fish costumes, then “migrated” to
the White House to deliver thousands of public comments on the proposal.

Calling the loss of salmon a national crisis, American Rivers President
Rebecca Wodder said, “Americans must act now to save this legendary fish
and vote to remove these dams that simply don’t make sense. If we delay
any longer, the fish will go the path of the buffalo and a national
treasure will be lost forever.”

The Columbia and Snake Rivers Campaign coalition urged people to submit
comments by March 31 to federal agencies that have been conducting
hearings in the Northwest on a draft environmental impact statements and
“All-H” salmon recovery plan concept. Spokesman Dave Wise, said more
than 120,000 citizens are calling on the Clinton-Gore administration “to
do the right thing” and said the group hoped to increase that number.

American Rivers will release its year 2000 list of the nation’s Most
Endangered Rivers on April 10. Wodder said the group made the “early
emergency announcement” putting the Snake River at the top of the list
for the second year in a row in order to spur people to speak up before
the public comment period ends.

The groups said the administration will make crucial decisions on
Columbia-Snake salmon recovery and that current measures are costing
several hundred million dollars a year while failing to stop salmon
declines. “Every study has shown that dam removal is the best – and
probably only – way to restore the salmon. And if we don’t remove the
dams, federal taxpayers will be stuck with a billion-dollar bill,” she
said.

Wodder was joined by Don Sampson, executive director of the Columbia
River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, which represents five Indian tribes
with treaty rights guaranteeing them traditional access to salmon.
American Rivers said tribes guaranteed the right to fish by federal
treaty could be entitled to over $10 billion in compensation-money that
would come from federal taxpayers-if there is not enough salmon to
support tribal fisheries.

Also taking part in the event were Jim Martin, retired chief of
fisheries, Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife and currently
conservation director of Pure Fishing, a major fishing tackle company,
and, in costume, Lewis and Clark and three people dressed as salmon.

Rep. George Nethercutt, R-Wash., whose congressional district includes
the four dams, ridiculed the participants. “National environmental
groups are playing politics with the Snake River,” Nethercutt said in a
statement. “While I am working to find solutions for commonsense salmon
restoration, this group is dancing around in costumes with inflatable
fish!”

Nethercutt, a member of the House Appropriations Committee, noted that
Congress would have to authorize and fund the dams’ destruction. House
Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., has said he will follow Nethercutt’s
leadership if the issue comes up for discussion there, according to
Nethercutt’s office.

The listing of the Snake as the most endangered river also was
immediately challenged by the Columbia River Alliance, which represents
commercial river and hydropower users. The Snake is “a healthy
ecosystem” with biologically diverse and scenic habitat, said Bruce
Lovelin, CRA executive director. The Washington state fishery agency
forecasts 30,000 adult salmon will migrate upriver through the lower
Snake dams to Idaho this spring.

“The most endangered thing today is the credibility of organizations
that beat the drum for risky dam removal with little certainty that
removal will bring back the salmon,” National Hydropower Association
President Mike Murphy said. “We should all be concerned that a leading
environmental organization would take such a cavalier attitude toward
protecting air quality in this debate.”

The hydropower group said the loss of 1,268 megawatts of electric
generating capacity would result in dirtier air from replacement fossil
fuel power generation and increase truck traffic to replace the Snake
River barging system.

Opponents also criticized American Rivers for using the issue to recruit
new members and raise money and for offering new members who declare
support for dam breaching a “free deluxe 35 mm camera.”

According to the hydropower group, the America Rivers announcement on
the Snake River was preceded by a fund-raising letter that ?grossly
exaggerates the dams? effect on salmon.?

In a recent four-page direct-mail letter addressed “Dear Friend of
Rivers,” Wodder writes, “You and I must take deliberate action now, or
the Snake River salmon will slide quickly into extinction.”

The letter urges recipients to sign a pro-breaching petition to Vice
President Al Gore and offers anyone who returns the signed petition a
special yearly membership fee of $12 plus gifts. Among the gifts for
signing the petition and joining American Rivers are the camera,
calendar, newsletter and 10 percent discount on its products and
publications.

Link information:
American Rivers: http://www.americanrivers.org
National Hydropower Association: http://www.hydro.org
Columbia-Snake Rivers Campaign: http://www.removedams.org

/0 Comments/by
,

3. TERN HARASSMENT TO BEGIN NEXT WEEK

By Mike O’Bryant

Active harassment of what may be the largest colony of Caspian terns in
the world will begin next week in an attempt to move the birds closer to
feeding grounds where they will feast less on juvenile salmon and more
on other marine species.

A plan developed by the multi-agency Caspian Tern Working Group was set
in motion last week and will continue through the terns’ nesting season
— April to July. The plan is aimed at relocating all 16,000 terns from
Rice Island, five miles up the Columbia River from Astoria, Ore., to
East Sand Island lower in the Columbia River estuary near Chinook, Wash.
The terns are believed to consume from 7 million to 15 million migrating
juvenile salmon and steelhead each year, many of them from populations
listed under the Endangered Species Act. With the move, the work group
expects to reduce salmon smolt losses this year by 25 to 40 percent, or
3 million to 6 million smolts.

Activity to prepare for the big move is intensifying. On March 28, the
working group began to alter East Sand Island’s habitat by removing
existing European beach grass to create four acres of sandy habitat that
terns like for nesting. This is all to attract the birds to the island,
said U.S. Army Corps of Engineers spokesman Matt Rabe.

To detract them from the upstream island, on March 29, workers began
“making habitat on Rice Island as unfriendly to terns as possible,” Rabe
said. Last year, in an attempt to move 20 percent of the nesting terns,
the Corps planted grass seed and used silt fencing to pare down an eight
acre nesting area to only a one acre sandy plot. Nearly 6,000 breeding
pairs of terns still crowded onto that one acre, while almost 2,000 more
moved to East Sand Island, all at a cost of nearly $160,000.

This year workers re-installed the fencing and strung red surveyors’
tape, but they did not plant grass seed because the seed planted last
year did not grow due to a lack of nutrients in the sand and rock soil
dredged from the Columbia River shipping channel, Rabe said. Instead
humans will act as a deterrent to nesting on the one-acre unseeded and
unfenced area. He said, this year the cost will be less than $100,000
and the Corps expects better results.

Rabe said even though the site on East Sand Island is half the size (4
acres) the Rice Island nesting area was in 1998 (8 acres), biologists
believe it is large enough to accommodate 100 percent of the terns.

This week, biologists captured, banded and released a number of birds
they will monitor throughout the season to find out if and where they
relocate. Some birds will have radio telemetry tags that will allow
biologists to track their location and feeding routes.

Next week, active harassment begins. To make sure the harassment works
this year, the Corps hired a contractor to maintain a human presence on
the island during all daylight hours from April 11 to July 1. The
$62,000 contract was awarded to Michael K. Johnson Marine of Kelso,
Wash.

“We are giving the contractor general guidelines to follow — such as
not harming birds — but we’re leaving it up to him to decide how to do
it as he gets to know the island,” Rabe said. “We believe a simple human
presence will deter nesting.”

He said the contractor will have a minimum of two people on the island
to discourage nesting. They will target congregations of terns that
exceed 25 birds on three islands — Miller Sands Spit, Rice and Pillar
Rock islands — all located in roughly the same area of the Columbia
River estuary.

With all this activity, the terns may lay some eggs, so the U.S. Fish
and Wildlife Service has granted a permit for biologists to remove up to
300 of those eggs. Caspian terns are protected under the federal
Migratory Bird Act and fall under the care of Fish and Wildlife.
Although Dan Roby, an associate professor at Oregon State University and
working group member, told the Northwest Power Planning Council in
mid-March that the eggs would be destroyed, Rabe said they will not be
destroyed, but will be used instead for research.

The working group expects some terns to also nest outside the estuary in
areas along the Washington coast, such as in Willapa Bay or Grays
Harbor. In fact, until March, the plan included actively encouraging
nesting in Grays Harbor, but political pressure from Washington and
local officials who fear the terns will feed on their salmon stopped
that element of the plan. Terns will be encouraged only to nest on East
Sand Island, according to Rabe.

“We’re not directly encouraging the terns to move outside of the
estuary, although we do expect some to investigate other areas,” Rabe
said. “There are some marginal habitat areas in Willapa Bay and Grays
Harbor, but those locations have predators and less desirable habitat.”

Gray’s harbor was historically home to a smaller population of terns,
but growing populations of eagles and gulls that plunder tern nests
caused them to move to Willapa Bay closer to the Columbia River mouth
and then to East Sand Island before finding the salmon-rich location at
Rice Island. A recent NMFS biological opinion specified that the Corps
move the terns from Rice Island, where salmon made up 75 percent of
their diet, to East Sand Island, where biologists expect 40 percent of
the birds’ diet to consist of salmon. The rest will be made up of other
marine fish species.

Link information:
BPA fish and wildlife: http://www.efw.bpa.gov/cgi-bin/efw/FW/welcome.cgi


/0 Comments/by
, , , , ,

4. SCIENTISTS STRESS ACTION FOR LOOMING FISH EXTINCTIONS

By Barry Espenson

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 uncertainties are put to rest.

“We don’t have time to wait,” said Beth Sanderson, a member of NMFS’
Cumulative Risk Initiative scientific team. She and other CRI members
stressed there is insufficient data to formulate prescriptions which
guarantee recovery for the Basin’s 12 threatened or endangered species.
And that a painstaking collection of needed data could prove fatal.

“Large scale management experiments” must be launched that allow a
quicker definition of the relationships among actions such as habitat
improvements, dam breaching and hatchery changes and salmon “recruits
per spawner” or productivity.

NMFS’ CRI team March 29 discussed the results of a recently released
draft study of extinction risks faced by stocks and the magnitude of
improvements in hydrosystem, habitat, harvest and hatchery arenas needed
to reduce that extinction risk. The study also intends to evaluate the
potential of management actions to improve survival chances at various
stages in the fish’s life cycle.

The diagnosis is grim.

“…what is not uncertain is the substantial rates of decline for Snake
River spring/summer chinook salmon and even worse rates of declines for
several other ESUs,” the draft paper finds.

An analysis of 11 listed Basin “evolutionarily significant units”
(excluding Snake River sockeye) showed that nine had declining growth
rates. The Upper Columbia spring chinook and Middle Columbia, Upper
Columbia and Upper Willamette steelhead ESUs’ populations are decreasing
at a rate of at least 10 percent per year, meaning “we can expect to see
only tiny fractions of their already depressed populations surviving out
to 24 years,” according to the study.

Two-thirds of the 57 index populations within those ESUs also show
declining populations, with a third declining at least at the 10 percent
per year rate. Extinction risks for those index stocks collectively were
estimated at 12 percent over the next 24 years and 58 percent over 100
years, according to the preliminary results.

Those with the most rapidly declining rates, generally, also will
require the biggest improvement to mitigate the extinction risks. Needed
improvements for the individual ESUs and stocks ranged from 1 to 65
percent with most falling between 5 and 20 percent.

The quandary that policy makers face is that “there are no clear-cut
analyses that allow confident predictions about likely improvements in
lambda (increasing the number of recruits per spawner) if actions are
taken in hydropower, habitat or hatcheries,” the report says. The
impacts of reductions in harvest are calculable but would provide
significant improvements in a limited number of cases.

The preliminary study issues a call to action.

“A summary of the available data suggests that in the short term, there
is little hope of obtaining reliable indicators of the likely efficacy
of any of the management options being considered. For example, even for
the best studied ESU, the Snake River spring/summer chinook salmon,
there is good evidence that dam breaching would increase lambda, but not
enough evidence to say by how much. Similarly, there is some evidence
that habitat improvements might increase lambda for this ESU, but not
enough evidence to calculate a likely percent increase.”

The report’s findings stress that “although there is some evidence that
dam breaching is necessary for mitigating the extinction risk face by
Snake River spring/summer chinook salmon (especially given the lack of
evidence that needed improvements can be made by non-breaching
management actions), it is highly unlikely that dam breaching alone will
recover these populations. Hence, even in this most-studied of all
cases, action will be predicated on uncertainty. But what is not
uncertain is the substantial rates of decline for Snake River
spring/summer chinook salmon and even worse rates of decline for several
other ESUs.”

The paper emphasizes that no single management prescription could be
developed that fits all Basin ESU’s. Lower Snake dam breaching, for
example, has the potential only to benefit the three listed Snake River
ESUs.

From a scientific standpoint, the ideal course, given that uncertainty,
is “rapid, targeted management action with effective monitoring
programs,” the report said.

“Those would be huge opportunities to learn large quantities of
information” that could be applied in directing succeeding management
actions, Sanderson said. “When we say large scale we mean that.” The
risks posed indicate the need for fast action.

“What we really need to do is learn in large increments,” Sanderson
said.

The study says “it is imperative that this last point be emphasized to
the public and policy makers: collectively we have failed to manage
Columbia River Basin salmonid populations and are now forced to
undertake management actions as experiments, accepting that some will
fail, but if they are properly designed, we can learn from our
mistakes.”

The extinction figures presented in the CRI analysis are startling,
according to Rob Masonis, regional director of dam programs for American
Rivers, which co-sponsored the workshop to discuss CRI and other
recovery modeling processes.

“The take home message is that there is no time to waste. We don’t have
10-15 years” to carry out additional studies and “flog the existing
data,” Masonis said. The draft anadromous fish appendix prepared by NMFS
for the Corps’ Lower Snake River Juvenile Salmon Migration feasibility
study brought up the option of delaying a decision on breaching until
critical scientific uncertainties regarding it and other management
actions could be resolved.

“We continue to think the best grand experiment to do is remove the four
Lower Snake River dams,” he added.

“Dam breaching is unlikely to be a ‘silver bullet,’ ” that would in
itself lift Snake River stocks to recovery levels, Masonis said. But “it
is the only bullet that’s been identified. It is the most robust single
action you can take.”

“If you’re going to recover fish you’ve got to take out the dams,”
Masonis said, as well as look for improvements to habitat and in
hatchery operations.

The NMFS analysis has identified high mortality during the first year
and the estuary segments of the salmon life cycle and says that’s where
management action should be targeted to reverse declines in population
growth. That conclusion, however, came with no recommended course of
action, Masonis said.

The workshop was scheduled to answer critics of the evolving CRI
extinction analysis, as well as explain its results and methods. Some
still disagree with the process’s basic methods, but expressed pleasure
that the NMFS scientists had shown some flexibility in the attempts to
answer process questions.

Sanderson said the most recent analysis attempted to address many of the
concerns expressed about the CRI effort. A re-evaluation of data
indicating first-year and estuary survival to have a large impact on
adult returns reinforced the belief that improvements there are vital to
reduce extinction risks, CRI’s Michelle McClure said.

Likewise the revised analysis showed dam breaching even less likely to
increase population growth enough by itself to adequately mitigate
extinction risks for the Snake River spring/summer chinook. Policy
makers must decide what experiments they are willing to take in the
recovery effort.

“Things that at one point weren’t options may now be necessities,”
McClure said.

Gretchen Oosterhout said in her “Seven Questions about the Cumulative
Risk Initiative” that the methodology was flawed, producing overly
optimistic estimates of extinction risk in its initial drafts.

CRI “did a better job of answering the questions than they did in their
first response (to the paper she produced for American Rivers and Trout
Unlimited,)” Oosterhout said. “They’re really trying to move in the right
direction, I think.” She said none of the points made in her critique
were novel; many were also pointed out in earlier reviews by the
Independent Scientific Advisory Board and others.

Among those issues was CRI’s definition of “quasi-extinction” as being
one fish from a population returning in one year. Sanderson said CRI had
broadened its definition of what it now calls absolute extinction to one
fish returning to a stream over a life cycle.

The updated results don’t veer far from prescriptions produced by PATH,
or from extinction analysis produced last by Dr. Phil Mundy that
likewise predicted the likelihood of relatively near-term extinctions,
Oosterhout said.

“The latest CRI models are coming close to what Mundy predicted,”
Oosterhout said. No matter what data is used, “we still get to the same
place.”

The Public Power Council’s Rob Walton said the CRI analysis properly
puts the focus on the earliest stages in the life cycle, “but the fish
and wildlife managers don’t believe that” or feel there are no practical
remedies. They continue to say “it really is all the dams.”

Researcher should “find a way to protect the juveniles in the hatching
and rearing habitat because there is huge mortality there,” Walton said.


Link information:
CRI: http://www.nwfsc.noaa.gov/cri

/0 Comments/by
, , ,

5. JOHANSEN: UNSPENT $180 MILLION NEEDS REGIONAL PLAN

By Barry Espenson

The Bonneville Power Administration’s top official admitted Tuesday that
ESA-spawned mandates may increase immediate Columbia Basin fish and
wildlife program needs, but she showed a reluctance to juggle funds from
one account to another to answer those needs.

In a discussion with the Northwest Power Planning Council, BPA
administrator Judi Johansen noted a growing debate “about the so-called
$180 million” that was budgeted, but so far has not been spent, to repay
Treasury loans for Corps of Engineers and Bureau of Reclamation fish
passage capital construction projects. A memorandum of agreement among
federal agencies anticipated an average annual expenditure of $112
million for the period from 1996-2001.

No single year’s expenditures have approached that cap “due to Congress’
decision not to appropriate funds to the Corps and Bureau on the
schedule that was anticipated,” Johansen wrote in an April 3 letter to
the Council. The capital investment account’s unspent balance has grown
steadily with the last year of the MOA — which outlines BPA’s fish and
wildlife mitigation obligations — fast approaching.

State and tribal fish and wildlife managers have expressed the desire to
have those unspent capital funds reallocated to fund pressing project
needs. Johansen, in the past and again Tuesday, said that need had to be
justified in the context of an agreed-upon “regional plan.”

Johansen said she foresees a coming together of that regional plan once
federal agencies complete work this summer on a biological opinion on
long-term operations of the Federal Columbia River Power System and the
Council amends its $127 million per year direct fish and wildlife
program. The direct program is funded as part of the MOA.

“?between the time the regional plan is adopted and the expiration of
the current MOA, there could be some increased funding needs,” Johansen
wrote. “Additional actions may be necessary for the protection of
ESA-listed species as well as high-priority, immediate actions to
benefit fish and wildlife that have regional support and are
scientifically sound.”

“We anticipate that such actions would be brought through the Council’s
review process (perhaps in an expedited fashion) to ensure consistency,”
she wrote, and paid for with funds already available to the program.

“I would look first to any unallocated funds in the direct program
budget, second to any funds that are made available through
de-obligating funds from closed contracts under the direct program, and
finally, if necessary, to reallocation between categories under the
MOA.”

“I do not support reopening the MOA now,” Johansen told the Council. The
region first needs to identify potential implementation measures and
subject them to scientific scrutiny.

“We’ll figure out the funding issues then,” she said.

Bob Austin, BPA’s deputy fish and wildlife division director, estimated
that $35 million to $40 million in unspent funds had been carried
forward into the 2000 budget of $127 million. About 40 percent of that
amount had been contractually obligated through the first two quarters
of the fiscal year. He said about $10 million in unallocated reserve
categories, and as much as $6 million gained from those closed,
underspent contracts, could be made available for immediate action
projects that pass the Council’s and BPA’s scrutiny.

A number of processes are at work to identify actions that can be
implemented in the short-term to avoid jeopardy to populations listed
under the Endangered Species Act.

The needs are plenty, according to Donald Sampson, executive director of
the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission.

“Our tribes are preparing specific actions and measures and we will
submit high priority actions to the Council,” Sampson said. Critical
habitat acquisition and intervention strategies using artificial
propagation are among the many priority actions the tribes support to
help critical fish stocks.

A biological opinion prescribing anything other than breaching will
require large and innovative investments, particularly in habitat
improvements, to satisfy “both biological and legal imperatives,”
according to Oregon’s Eric Bloch, Council vice chairman.

Federal District Court Judge Malcom Marsh, in previous decisions
regarding hydrosystem jeopardy to listed species “indicated he’d be
looking for a major overhaul” via the new opinion, Bloch said. Sans
breaching, NMFS will have to make a strong case with a focused habitat
improvement plan.

Bloch said the region should seize the moment and press to implement
scientifically validated early action and high priority projects.

“We’ve got everybody’s attention focused” because of the long-awaited
biological opinions and the Council’s effort to produce a scientifically
based, long-term program framework.

He used as an example irrigation diversions, many of which are
unscreened or without adequate screens, that take a toll on migrating
juvenile fish. The region should decide, he said, to provide
NMFS-approved screens for all diversions within the next five years.

“That would be huge. If it’s something we’ve known is beneficial for
fish it is time to move on that,” Bloch said. “It’s time to connect up
the needs and the funds.” Those needs could well outstrip the funds now
available.

“We ought to be able to access the funds that have accumulated in the
capital expense fund” if the projects are scientifically warranted,
Bloch said.

That position is backed via a letter co-signed by Oregon Gov. John
Kitzhaber, and Montana Gov. Marc Racicot, who point out that recent ESA
listings “demonstrate that substantial work remains to be done” to
protect, enhance and mitigate fish and wildlife populations.

“In light of this situation, the logical course appears to be for the
region to identify a package of scientifically sound, high priority
needs, to determine the funding requirements for such a package, and to
develop the criteria and procedures by which projects would be selected
for funding,” the governors wrote in a March 3 letter to Johansen.

“For its part, Bonneville should commit to then reallocate money from
the capital account to the direct program to fund this package of high
priority needs along with other aspects of Bonneville’s fish and
wildlife obligations.”

The MOA clearly allows for reallocation of funds with the approval of
the parties to the MOA in consultation with the (Northwest Power
Planning) Council and tribes, and we request assurances that Bonneville
will agree to a reallocation for the purposes described above.”

The Council on Wednesday altered its ongoing amendment process to
accommodate the submittal of high priority or immediate action items.
The deadline for submitting amendment recommendations was stretched from
April 18 to May 12 both to allow more time for formation of such action
proposals and development of broader program visions and objectives.

The Council decided to send out a notice as early as next week asking
recommendations for criteria and procedures for deciding on
scientifically sound, high priority projects that could be implemented
on an expedited basis following completion of the initial phase of the
amendment process. Actual priority project proposals would be accepted
as well. The Council is now scheduled to adopt a basic program framework
of basin- and province-level visions and objectives, along with
scientific principles, on Aug. 30.

Link information:
BPA: http://www.bpa.gov
NWPPC: http://www.nwppc.org/

/0 Comments/by
, , , , ,

1. NW SENATORS GRILL FEDS ON SALMON RECOVERY

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 was granted at the request of states and tribes,
Strock said on Wednesday during a hearing on Northwest salmon recovery
issues before the Senate Water and Power Subcommittee.

The draft EIS, which was released in December, did not select a
preferred alternative among four options, including dam breaching, but
the final EIS will recommend a plan in conjunction with the National
Marine Fisheries Service and other federal agencies.

Subcommittee Chairman Gordon Smith, R-Ore., noted the extension will
delay the final EIS until after the Nov. 14 election and that the
federal agencies’ recommendation on whether to remove the lower Snake
dams will “not be part of this presidential election.” Smith said he was
not charging Corps officials acted out of political motives but that he
might make such an allegation “at a higher level.”

Sen. Slade Gorton, R-Wash., who also took part in the hearing, later
said, “I see this administration constantly not wanting to throw Al Gore
into the hot water of a recommendation for dam removal before the
election.” Gorton predicted the EIS would come out after Election Day
but said, “I don’t think that’s going to fool people any in Washington
(state).”

Gorton and Smith strongly oppose the proposal to breach four federal
dams on the lower Snake River to restore endangered salmon, as does
presumptive Republican presidential nominee George Bush, governor of
Texas. “I think it is a huge threat under a Gore administration, and for
all practical purposes there’s no threat at all under a Bush
administration,” Gorton told reporters on Friday.

At Wednesday’s wide-ranging hearing on salmon recovery, National Marine
Fisheries Service Northwest regional director Will Stelle denied federal
agencies are considering the removal of four public utility-owned dams
on the mid-Columbia River to save upper Columbia salmon, including the
Lake Wenatchee spring chinook.

Stelle agreed NMFS analysis shows upper Columbia salmon and steelhead
are more at risk of extinction than Snake River chinook. But he assured
Gorton the agency is negotiating with the Chelan and Douglas county
public utility districts, which own the mid-Columbia dams, on a
long-term conservation agreement. “We are not considering removal of
these projects,” Stelle said. “Quite the contrary.”

But Gorton later expressed skepticism. “I do not accept as the truth,
the whole truth and nothing but the truth the statement that it’s not
under consideration that they should be removed,” he said Friday. “I
have never felt that this administration – and the kind of ideas that
it’s expressed – would be content with removing four dams on the Snake
River.”

Meanwhile, a new endangered species biological opinion on the federal
hydropower system has also been delayed. Stelle said the BiOp and a new
All-H Paper are expected to be issued by summer. The agency had hoped to
complete them this spring before the start of the juvenile salmon
migration but has been delayed for several reasons, Stelle said.

Those reasons include the need to make sure the biology is complete and
can withstand scientific peer review. Also, NMFS is applying a new tool
for setting salmon recovery goals and measuring progress, performance
standards. Delay was also caused by the time required to conduct public
hearings and consult with Indian tribes that have treaty fishing rights,
Stelle said.

Senators also grilled Stelle on the biological justification for dam
breaching and on several of his agency’s policies and proposals to
protect and restore endangered salmon. Senators questioned Stelle
closely about the scientific evidence in support of dam breaching,
aspects of NMFS’ cumulative risk assessments of salmon populations and
the practice of killing surplus hatchery fish to prevent them from
spawning in the wild.

Smith said disclosures that thousands of hatchery-reared salmon are
being clubbed to death at a time when wild salmon are endangered and dam
removal is being considered “a big p.r. problem” for NMFS. “We look like
fish Nazis trying to genetically cleanse these streams,” Smith said.

But Stelle said the Endangered Species Act and scientific opinion
supported preservation of wild salmon stocks without allowing them to
intermingle with hatchery fish because that would erode the wild
population’s long-term resiliency and strength. “It’s entirely
counterproductive to everything we’re doing,” he said.

If large-scale hatchery production is to continue, wild stocks must be
protected, he said. Smith said he remained unconvinced since eggs from
wild fish are used in hatcheries, and Stelle agreed to provide
additional information.

Stelle said NMFS has not determined whether salmon are dying in the
ocean due to “delayed mortality” after being transported around dams by
truck and barge. If additional years of PIT tag data show that barged
salmon survive at better rates than in-river migrants, the case for
breaching dams will be weakened, he said. On the other hand, if the data
show the reverse to be true, the case for dam removal will be
strengthened, he said.

Stelle once again stressed the need to improve habitat and water quality
in Columbia Basin tributaries and in the Columbia River estuary to
increase salmon survival in the first year of life. He said the agency’s
analysis had pointed to those improvements as providing “the best bang
for the buck.”

But Stelle agreed with Corps officials that the lower Columbia River
channel deepening project posed little threat to salmon, because they do
not migrate at the depths where most sediment disturbance will take
place.

Also testifying at Wednesday’s hearing were Steve Wright, vice president
of Bonneville Power Administration, and Bill McDonald, Northwest
regional director of the Bureau of Reclamation.


/0 Comments/by

newsroom@staging.columbiabasinbulletin.org

The American Whistleblower is proudly produced by Virtuoso Media LLC

Produced by Virtuoso Media LLC

© Copyright 1997-2025 - The Columbia Basin Bulletin. All Rights Reserved.