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[1] COUNCIL SIGNS OFF ON TWO-YEAR MAINSTEM AMENDMENT PROCESS
Northwest Power Planning Council members slogged through the last of their proposed mainstem amendments to the region's fish and wildlife program last week and agreed to a final document that will represent their latest recommendations on federal dam operations on the Columbia and Snake rivers.
During an often contentious meeting last week, the council dealt mainly with last-minute revisions from Washington and Oregon to a "preferred alternative" the council produced last October before accepting more public comment.
"We pretty much hammered it to death over the past two years," said council Chair Judi Danielson, before members voted April 10 to accept the changes to the program. Before the vote, Washington member Larry Cassidy reminded everyone that half the members weren't even on the council when the process began.
When the smoke cleared, recommendations were put forth to provide more benefits for upriver resident species than are currently allowed by dam operations. The latest update calls for tests to evaluate the potential benefits to resident fish from more stable outflows from Montana reservoirs. The council also recommended starting immediate tests of summer spill in the hydro system to weigh the biological benefits of fish passage against the annual $80 million that the passage strategy costs BPA.
The council left spring flow augmentation and spill operations alone after fish agencies and tribes weighed in with comments that strongly supported current BiOp mandates. In fact, the council's final recommendations are more in line with current BiOp operations than the group's earlier preferred alternative, which called for eliminating the April 10 refill requirement for reservoirs. Nixing the refill requirement would have allowed for more flexible power operations over the winter.
But the newest recommendations call for more experiments to determine benefits from other current strategies such as operating turbines to maximize fish survival and postponing flows until later in the summer.
The recommendations are purely advisory in nature, since the council has no authority to implement them. Council members said language in the current BiOp allows for enough flexibility to perform many of the experiments they recommended. The council added specific language calling for federal agencies to implement its plan, which also calls for divvying up any money saved from a reduced spill program between ratepayers and the direct fish and wildlife program. The savings would be used to fund other BPA fish and wildlife projects that have been squeezed out by the agency's need to pay for BiOp-related actions.
The $80-Million Question
The council had earlier estimated that summer spill costs BPA $80 million annually. Some council members hoped that the expenditure could be reduced since few ESA-listed fish are migrating in the river by late summer when spill is still under way at lower Columbia dams. However, the robust stock from Hanford Reach is also heading to sea at that time of year, which is harvested at a rate of about 50 percent. Hence the question: Why spill for fish, most of which will be caught anyway?
Montana council member John Hines suggested that such savings could add another $20 million to help fund BPA's "broader mandate" of improving Columbia Basin fish and wildlife that don't benefit from BPA's prioritized spending on ESA-listed stocks.
Members voted thumbs-down to a proposed revision by Oregon council member Melinda Eden that called for "physically" modifying dams over the long-term to comply with water quality standards for total dissolved gas and temperature set forth in the Clean Water Act. Eden admitted that in her previous role as chair of Oregon's Water Quality Commission, she found that migrating salmonids seem to suffer few deleterious effects from 120 percent total dissolved gas levels (10 percent above the legal limit) in the river.
Action agencies have figured that such modifications could cost hundreds of millions of dollars without guaranteeing that such standards could be achieved at all times.
"All I see is dollar signs," commented Montana council member Ed Bartlett on Eden's proposed revision. Hines said he understood it could cost up to $80 million just to modify Hungry Horse Dam so that colder water could be withdrawn from the project.
All council members except Eden voted to discard her revision and retain the current language in that section of the program. Even Oregon's other council member, Gene Derfler, voted against Eden's proposal.
Eden also failed to get much support for proposed language that, over the long-term, called for modifying dams and taking steps to reduce toxic contaminants, "so we're not poisoning fish we spend millions of dollars on getting downstream," she explained. But Derfler did not support this language either.
Washington's Cassidy was not too excited about the proposed change. "My governor supports dredging," he said. The council did support a general statement that called for reducing contaminants.
After the council voted unanimously to accept the final revisions, Cassidy said he thought the document was "the perfect representation of what regional consensus is. It doesn't give everybody what they wanted and it doesn't keep us from moving forward to protect the resources that we've been obligated to do," he said.
Montana's Hines said he wanted to acknowledge the efforts of other council members who worked to accommodate his state's concerns "while both effectively and relentlessly pursuing their own concerns." He said some people will view the council's work "as a very small change in the program while others will view it as a very significant change." He praised what he called a strong collaborative effort to improve fish and wildlife in the Columbia Basin while trying to increase the power system's efficiency.
Oregon's Eden thanked other members for considering her state's concerns, but qualified her praise for the effort. "The state of Oregon would say that these changes, for the most part, are positive," she said. "But our state remains concerned that fish and wildlife affected by the hydro system still might not be on the road to recovery even with the actions in this plan."
Eden said the council's October alternative would have rolled back provisions in the BiOp, but the new one uses the BiOp as its foundation. "The state of Oregon sees this as tremendous progress." She said the council had spent a lot of time debating whether the benefits to anadromous fish had to be reduced to benefit resident fish or the power system.
Eden reminded members that their mandate is to protect and enhance all the region's fish and wildlife, and to ensure a reliable and adequate power supply, not trade off one element against another.
Eden said she hoped that upcoming assessments of key river operations will prove the legitimacy of the overall program, so the council can get on with the job of protecting the habitat and multiple species in the mainstem. She said she hoped that when the council once again revises its program in five years, recent debates will no longer be required and members can do what is necessary "to build this river back into the biological wonder it once was."-Bill Rudolph
[2] OREGON COUNCIL MEMBER QUESTIONS VALUE OF SUMMER SPILL
Oregon's newest Northwest Power Planning Council member, Gene Derfler, dropped a bomb at the group's March 29 meeting when he proposed a last-minute amendment to the council's mainstem program. Derfler wanted to end all summer fish spill in the hydro system.
Derfler told other council members that he decided it was an issue worth looking into when he realized that the region was spilling $80 million worth of water every summer that could otherwise be generated into electricity at a time when the Northwest was in a recession.
During the summer, water is spilled at most lower mainstem Columbia River dams to help fall chinook downstream, but not at three of the four lower Snake dams or McNary Dam, where efforts to barge the fish are maximized.
With some number-crunching backup by council staffer Bruce Suzumoto, Derfler pointed out that the spill continues through August, "when there are very few fish in the river."
Suzumoto told the council that the federal hydro BiOp mandates a "spread the risk" philosophy for ESA-listed spring chinook in the Snake by barging only a portion of that run. The BiOp also calls for barging as many protected fall chinook as possible during the summer. As a consequence, few listed fish benefit from summer spill at mainstem Columbia dams, he said.
Suzumoto pointed to an earlier analysis that looked at the effect on fish of reducing summer spill to reduce total dissolved gas levels from the BiOp-mandated 120 percent to 115 percent. Its value in terms of additional power generation was pegged at roughly $25 million.
Suzumoto said there would be little benefit for the Snake fall chinook because there were so few in the river. For every 100 fall chinook that pass Lower Granite Dam on the Snake, Suzumoto said about 87 fish are put into barges. After predation by pikeminnow and other predators, only two fall chinook are still inriver by the time they reach McNary Dam, and only one makes it to Bonneville Dam.
Suzumoto said other unlisted stocks migrate in the lower Columbia, like those from the Klickitat, White Salmon, Deschutes and Umatilla rivers. They would be affected by reduced spill, along with the large migration of fall chinook from the Hanford Reach--although many of them are barged from McNary in the summer. During high flow years, he said lowering spill would reduce the Hanford run by about 2.2 percent and in low flow years, by only 0.7 percent.
However, up to 50 percent of the Hanford fall chinook are harvested, Suzumoto said. "When you look at this, you have to understand that we're talking about two adults here that we're saving as compared to 50 adults that are being harvested."
Suzumoto also said the region may not be using spill to its best advantage. He presented a graph that showed how few fish were actually passing through the system in August. He said it may by possible to use spill more strategically to help disperse predators at dams that feast on fall chinook.
Montana member John Hines suggested there may be ways to fine-tune the spill strategy to improve BPA's financial condition while preserving fish survival.
"I'm not saying that we should necessarily shut off spill completely during all the months," because survival should be promoted in all segments of any one population, Suzumoto said.
"We could be wasting a lot of resources that could be used for other things." Derfler said, adding that it was important to look at the economics of the spill issue. Other council members, including Washington's Larry Cassidy and Oregon member Melinda Eden, downplayed the cost of spill, saying it was just a tiny percentage of BPA's overall revenues.
After an animated discussion, members supported an amendment calling for immediate tests of summer spill's benefits, which made it into the council's mainstem amendment plan at its regular council meeting last week.-B. R.
[3] SNAKE SPILL STARTS AFTER DEBATE OVER WATER SUPPLY, SCIENCE
With an improving water supply forecast in their pockets, Columbia Basin fish managers made a formal request for spill to begin at lower Snake River dams to improve juvenile fish survival. The issue was debated at the technical level April 1 and bumped up to policy managers April 3, when it was approved after a lively discussion at the Implementation Team meeting in Portland. The first water started spilling on the evening of April 4.
Just last month, the basin's water supply forecast seemed too low to allow for spill, and managers were prepared to maximize the fish barging policy. When no water is spilled over the dams, more fish are collected in dam bypass systems, where they can be routed to barges that transport them past the dams.
But with last month's heavy snowfall, some areas, particularly in Idaho, were exhibiting nearly normal precipitation for the year. US Army Corps of Engineers' flow modeling, using the mid-month March forecast, had estimated that spring flows would be slightly below the 85 kcfs target that would begin the spill program. A slightly updated version had pegged them at 83 kcfs, which put the spill decision right on the cusp.
Fish managers like Idaho's Sharon Keifer pointed out April 2 that heavy snow in the Clearwater Basin--up to two feet by mid-week--made it likely that the water supply forecast would stay the same or even improve slightly. She also said juvenile fish were showing up early this year. In addition, a large number of wild spring and summer chinook is expected--about 1.7 million fish--as a product of 2001's comparatively large adult returns.
Fish managers had said over 16,000 spring smolts had already been counted at Lower Granite. Last year at this time, only 3,000 young fish had appeared.
Other managers cited a recent review of newer research presented by NOAA Fisheries scientists at the March 19 TMT meeting, which seemed to indicate that, in some years, early migrating chinook survived at higher levels than barged fish. The NMFS analysis also showed that steelhead did not fit this pattern.
NOAA Fisheries spokesman Paul Wagner told IT members that transporting fish early had "little or no benefit in the spring season." Wagner said the analysis showed flows were not a central factor during migration.
But consultant Jim Litchfield, representing the state of Montana, said the data on smolt-to-adult returns "was not convincing" or "something we understand yet." He said only extremely small groups of fish were available for marking early in the season, making for lots of uncertainty about the statistical results.
But NOAA policy manager Jim Ruff said his agency felt comfortable supporting spring spill now, citing the similarity of this year's water supply forecast with that of 2000, when agency data showed most benefits for the earliest inriver migrating chinook.
The Corps of Engineers' Jim Athearn said his agency was willing to do spill now, though he expressed some frustration with the process. He also said his agency didn't view the decision as "precedent-setting."
Athearn said the newest water forecast would give fish and hydro managers time to assess the issue at their next meeting April 9 to see if managers are "still in the same situation we are today."
BPA's Suzanne Cooper said the power agency's financial crisis is not expected to be remedied in the near term. Spill "is a cost to us," she said, "but we also recognize that it's part of our obligation under ESA." She supported the Corps' recommendation to look at the next forecast to ensure that flows will still be estimated at levels high enough to call for the lower Snake spill.
Spill began at Lower Granite Dam at 6 p.m. on April 3, with about 50 kcfs directed over the spillway, about two-thirds of the lower Snake flow. Spill at the next two downriver dams was implemented at two-day intervals.
Some fish transportation has already begun, with smolts being trucked downriver. When smolt numbers become large enough, the Corps will shift to transporting the fish by barge. That was expected to happen in the next few weeks.
"We acknowledge we put the action agencies on the spot," said NOAA Fisheries' Jim Ruff. He agreed with Montana representative Litchfield that a plan should be developed to better integrate "new information" into the planning process. Although there is uncertainty in the data, Ruff said it has led them to believe "the fish are better off in the river right now." -B. R.
[4] LATE SNOW BUMPS UP LATEST WATER FORECASTS
The April "early bird" update of the January-July water supply forecast for the Columbia River above The Dalles bumped up four percentage points from last month's early forecast, to 77 percent of average. That forecast, released March 27, included results from the big regional snowfall in early March. The April "final" forecast released ten days later racheted the water supply up a couple more notches to 79 percent.
The current forecast for the Columbia River Basin above Grand Coulee is about 84 percent of average, up 6 percent from last month's early forecast. Overall March precipitation above Coulee was 200 percent of average, according to the National Weather Service. It was nearly that high for the Columbia River above The Dalles, at 175 percent of normal. The improved forecast has boosted the "probable" forecast for April-July inflows at Lower Granite Reservoir to 17.1 million acre-feet from 14.7 MAF last month.
An analysis by the US Army Corps of Engineers using the mid-month forecast (16.6 MAF) said flows would average about 79 kcfs for the spring. At the time, BPA's Scott Bettin said that translated into a 65 percent chance of spill this spring. Since then, hydro and fish managers agreed to start the spill program at lower Snake dams.
The hydro BiOp calls for target flows in the 85- to 100-kcfs range at Granite if the April-July flows are estimated between 16 MAF and 20 MAF. Below 85 kcfs, the BiOp does not require spill at three of the four lower Snake dams.
Other basins also saw extremely high precipitation in early March, as tropical moisture came ashore early in the month and led to flooding in some areas. Montana's Flathead Basin was 200 percent of average for March with an 89 percent of average snow-water equivalent. Idaho's Clearwater Basin has received enough precipitation lately to have a snow-water equivalent 94 percent of average.
The situation in the Yakima Basin has also improved, and is now about 74 percent to 90 percent of average snow-water equivalent. The April-September water supply forecast now stands at 78 percent to 81 percent of average.
March has stood in extreme contrast to February, when precipitation throughout the Northwest was extremely low: 54 percent of average above Coulee and 69 percent of average for the Columbia River above The Dalles. The Snake River above Ice Harbor fared better in February, with 89 percent of normal precipitation.
Observed precipitation for the October-April period is now at 90 percent of average for the Columbia River above Coulee and 94 percent of average for the Columbia above The Dalles.-B. R.
[5] STUDY POINTS TO IMPORTANCE OF NUTRIENTS FOR SNAKE SALMON
Small populations of ESA-protected fish in Idaho may not be getting enough to eat, according to a new peer-reviewed paper by NOAA Fisheries scientists, who say that juvenile fish survival may be limited by the amount of nutrients released into streams by dead spawners. They suggest the pace of recovering those stocks could be speeded up by adding more carcasses to streams.
In particular, the paper's hypothesis--that such small numbers of fish are exhibiting density-dependent effects--contradicts the views of other federal researchers who have assumed that juvenile fish survival is not related to the small number of returning adults.
The paper, published in a recent issue of Ecology Letters [(2003) 6:335-342], hypothesizes that "the evidence of density dependence we report stems from a shortage of nutrients derived from decomposing salmon carcasses." In layman's terms, there may not be enough food in Idaho streams to go around, even for the small numbers of fish that live in them.
Authors Steve Achord, Phil Levin and Rich Zabel of the Northwest Fisheries Science Center said the big drop in salmon populations caused by over-harvesting and hydro dams "ostensibly has resulted in a nutrient deficit in the spawning and rearing streams we investigated."
If their hypothesis is correct, the scientists said, the region must change its view of salmon recovery.
While harvesting in Idaho streams has been cut and the impact of dams on fish has been "largely mitigated" over the past 20 years, ocean productivity has boosted survival of Snake River stocks, the scientists point out. With such conditions in place, fish populations could return to historical levels "fairly rapidly," they said.
But if marine-derived nutrients limit the size of fish populations, the latest generations of salmon will die because of density dependence "and recovery would be much slower than the former case" in which salmon are not affected by marine-derived nutrients, they said.
The paper also points out that non-indigenous brook trout may be impeding recovery of some salmon stocks in the Snake River Basin. The authors found density of chinook parr 30 percent lower in streams with brook trout than in streams without them. The scientists said the trout may be preying on chinook eggs or juvenile salmon-reducing fish density sufficiently to reduce effects of density-dependent mortality. "Thus," the authors said, "the brook trout not only reduce survival of chinook, they may also fundamentally alter the mechanisms that determine chinook population size."
The scientists said earlier conclusions, which suggest there is little room to improve juvenile survival in relatively pristine habitats such as the Snake Basin, may be incorrect.
If their hypothesis is correct, the scientists said a program to supplement nutrients in streams could reduce mortality and increase survival rates. They recommend experiments to "more rigorously test the patterns we report here." But they add that, "Nonetheless, our results suggest that recovery of salmon populations may be hindered by decades of historical human impacts." -B. R.
[6] 9TH CIRCUIT REJECTS PETITION OVER BAKER DAM OPERATIONS
The 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals has dismissed a petition for review of FERC orders dismissing a petition by several environmental groups that called for the federal power agency to formally confer with the National Marine Fisheries Service.
Washington Trout, Washington Environmental Council and American Rivers had gone to court after alleging that Puget Sound Energy had harmed salmon redds by reduced flows at Baker Dam in the north Cascades during the spring of 2001.
PSE had said operations were the result of the drought that year. Flows in the Baker River slowed to a trickle after the project began refilling over the 2000 Thanksgiving holiday when power demands were down. Redds near the confluence of the Baker and Skagit rivers and some length downriver were possibly affected.
The Niners ruled March 5 that although they have jurisdiction to review FERC orders, their jurisdiction is limited to final orders. "Beyond that," said the ruling, "review is only permitted when the order will inflict irreparable harm and judicial review will not invade the agency's exercise of its discretion."
Since FERC is still considering the issue, the court said the petition was not "ripe for judicial review." They said it was "a classic case of a premature challenge to a possible decision, in an instance where the facts have not yet been properly developed.
The court said that FERC has not refused to take action on the environmentalists' concern over the dam's operation, but that the federal agency has said it will ultimately take action, "if any is called for." -B. R.
[7] SCIENTISTS OUTLINE DIFFICULTIES IN DETERMINING RESTORATION STRATEGIES
Attendees at last week's meeting of the Power Planning Council heard about a new report from two members of the independent science panel who said it's going to be difficult to gauge habitat recovery plans because of a paucity of data needed to develop models that could be used to predict effects of certain actions. "At this point," said the scientists, "we don't know the 'best way' to determine restoration priorities."
Weyerhaeuser's Bob Bilby and Pete Bisson of the US Forest Service said that models like the EDT [Ecosystem Diagnosis and Treatment] approach that's being used extensively by the council in its subbasin planning efforts has "unknown predictive power" because it is based on expert opinions and not empirical modeling techniques that relate species abundance to habitat attributes
However, the lack of data hampers effectiveness of the statistically-based efforts as well, Bilby said. The SWAM [Salmon Watershed Assessment Method] model used by NMFS can explain only about 50 percent of salmon abundance at this time.
The scientists suggested that a combination of both kinds of models should be used to develop recovery plans. If both methods "point to the same locations and habitat conditions as being important factors limiting fish production, considerably more confidence can be placed in these conclusions."
Up to now, most restoration efforts have been evaluated at the reach scale, but the scientists said that to be most effective, restoration efforts must be evaluated at a scale large enough to enable complete freshwater rearing. And such an effort would not be cheap, the scientists said.
Bilby estimated that that the monitoring and evaluation effort should make up 25 percent to 30 percent of fish restoration costs, "decreasing on a sliding scale," he told the council last week.
"The expense and effort needed to obtain the data necessary for evaluating the response of salmonids to habitat restoration is considerable," said their report, "and this supports an approach of focusing intensive monitoring efforts on a relatively few locations. It is likely to require several fish generations to get statistically supported answers to questions about effectiveness of habitat restoration." -B. R.
[8] EARLY SHOW FOR COLUMBIA SPRINGERS : WILLAMETTE A DIFFERENT STORY
With nearly 70,000 spring chinook already counted at Bonneville Dam, this year's fish run is off to its best start since most anyone can remember. The early show of upriver chinook has already played havoc with Oregon and Washington harvest managers who were trying to give lower river gillnetters some time on the water. But in the end, commercial fishermen got only a few days of fishing before their season was closed over concern for wild ESA-listed springers heading upriver.
Most of the early fish were big ones, too, having spent three years in the ocean. Now, however, the two-ocean fish are beginning to show, which usually means the big fish numbers will taper off.
But nothing seems very usual so far this year. The Willamette springers have finally started to show in numbers, with good catches right off Portland's downtown waterfront. Harvest managers had expected a huge part of the Willamette run to be three-oceans, but that doesn't seem to be holding up. The Willamette run is late, too, old timers say.
The big unknown at this point is how well the Columbia spring run will stack up against the pre-season forecast of about 145,000. Presently, the numbers are running nearly three times the ten-year average; harvest managers hadn't expected the number of 3-ocean upriver Columbia fish that have shown.
WDFW manager Joe Hymer said the 2003 run is tracking fairly well with the 2001 run for timeliness, but the experts don't believe that the numbers will continue this high for long. They expect the 2-ocean component to be fairly small this year, since they migrated seaward as juveniles in the drought year of 2001, when flows were exceedingly low. Though most of the Snake River fish were barged through the hydro system as juveniles, it remains to be seen how much they were affected by the drought, though jack counts last year seemed to indicate that this year's return was not going to be the catastrophe some had earlier predicted.
Meanwhile, NOAA Fisheries announced that this summer's Oregon coastal and Columbia River coho runs should more than double last year's returns. "This high forecast of coho about to return to Northwest rivers is great news," said NOAA Fisheries regional administrator Bob Lohn. "It's way above last year's estimate of 434,100 adults and could represent the fourth consecutive year of potential coho runs near or above a million fish." -B. R.
[9] TWO EXTINCT COHO POPULATIONS REAPPEAR IN LOWER COLUMBIA
Last year, Oregon found only two wild coho populations in tributaries of the Columbia River, but this year two more have been discovered. It's got ODFW biologist Mark Chilcote telling his fish and wildlife commission that "recovery is under way."
Petitions to list the lower Columbia River coho salmon as an endangered species under the federal ESA were first initiated in May 1990, but they weren't listed because NOAA Fisheries could find no wild coho populations at all.
Then in 1999, Oregon's fish and wildlife commission listed the lower Columbia coho salmon as "endangered" under the state Endangered Species Act. The state developed a recovery plan and improved the way it counted spawners.
In 2000, conservation groups re-petitioned NOAA Fisheries to list the coho, but these fish are still not protected by a federal listing, even though the feds' biological review team reported in 2003 that "a majority of the votes for Lower Columbia River coho fell in the 'danger of extinction' category… The most serious overall concern was the nearly total absence of naturally produced spawners throughout the ESU, with attendant risks associated with small population, loss of diversity, and fragmentation and isolation of the remaining naturally produced fish."
The feds were concerned about the number of hatchery coho spawning in streams with wild salmon, but they concluded that the hatchery populations "contain a great deal of genetic resources that might be tapped to help promote restoration of more widespread naturally spawning populations."
On the other hand, Chilcote reported to Oregon's F&W commission that the "percentage of hatchery fish in four of the six populations exceeded the 10 percent level suggested in the recovery plan…these results indicate that the issue of naturally spawning hatchery fish may be a greater obstacle to restoration of these populations than previously believed." Based on improved spawning survey methods, 3,171 wild coho spawners and 7,290 hatchery spawners were counted, with the hatchery fish making up about 70 percent of the total.
The greatest concentration of naturally spawning hatchery fish were found in the Astoria and Bonneville populations [These are geographical names for collections of coho salmon streams]. Hatchery spawners account for about 91 percent of all coho spawning in Astoria area streams, and about 67 percent around Bonneville.
By contrast, the number of hatchery strays in natural production areas of the Sandy and Clackamas rivers and Scappoose Creek were none to 12 percent.
Chilcote also said that scale reading shows a substantial number of unmarked fish are of hatchery origin. "Therefore, more hatchery fish may be present in these populations than the fin clip data suggests."
He said that 65 percent of the unmarked coho returning to the Hood River in 2003 were later determined to be hatchery fish, and noted that a similar pattern existed in 2001 and 2002, with hatchery fish comprising 89 percent and 73 percent, respectively, of the unmarked coho observed.
"The source of these unmarked hatchery fish has yet to be determined." said Chilcote. "However, they are a problem for monitoring efforts and implementation of recovery strategies."
Chilcote said the added hatchery fish reduces production, "regardless of the number of hatchery spawners or the origin of the broodstock. Having 50 percent hatchery fish on the spawning grounds is just like harvesting 50 percent in the fishery." He recommended that these unmarked hatchery fish need to be identified and kept from straying into natural production areas.
Chilcote's remarks made an impression on the commission. Chair John Esler asked for more discussion of unmarked hatchery fish at their next meeting. -Bill Bakke
[10] REPAIRS BLOCKED WINTER FISH PASSAGE AT JOHN DAY DAM
Repairs to the Oregon shore fishway at John Day Dam over the winter blocked the migration of some ESA-listed steelhead. According to ODFW's Ron Boyce, the adult fish ladder was shut down for needed repairs as requested by the state. He said the fishway was not passing fish properly; in some cases, they would hang up for weeks and not move through it. But exactly how long the ladder was inoperable is still unclear.
"There is some confusion about this, and it needs to be cleared up," Boyce said.
ODFW district fish biologist Tim Unterwegner said the ladder was closed from November 14 through April 3rd, but Boyce said he had heard it was closed from February 14 to March 3rd.
Unterwegner was not informed by his own agency that the ladder would be closed. He only learned about it from a state police wildlife officer who told him a lot of people were catching lots of fish below the dam. Not normally a "hot" fishery, Unterwegner heard that fishermen were catching ten fish a day per boat. And there were lots of boats.
Unterwegner also said he was never consulted about the timing of the fishway's closure. He was concerned about the ESA-listed wild steelhead headed for the John Day River. These fish normally move into the John Day in October and November, after river flows rise after the end of irrigation season.
The John Day River joins the Columbia about a mile above John Day Dam, so its water does not mix much with the Columbia. Rather, it sends a plume down the Oregon shore. During floods, Unterwegner said he has seen the John Day send a muddy plume out into the Columbia that stays on the Oregon side of the Columbia. Based on this observation, the ODFW biologist is worried that most of the John Day's wild steelhead were blocked when the fishway was shut down.
Unterwegner said that radio tags put into steelhead at Bonneville Dam have shown that steelhead move into the John Day River in November. "Twenty radio tags were put in fish and the first one was located in the lower John Day River in the first of November. These fish encountered cold water and it took them 120 days to move upstream."
In late April, the last radio tagged fish came through. He said the steelhead can travel 20 miles as day up the river as the water warms.
It is the unusual migration timing of the these fish that has Unterwegner most concerned, because the Oregon shore ladder was closed when he expected to see them move over the dam and into the John Day River. However, he said that there is no winter passage information from the Army Corps of Engineers to confirm their migration.
NOAA Fisheries fish passage program manager Gary Fredricks said that his agency has been trying for years to get the Corps to conduct winter passage counts because the window of opportunity for fishway repair is between November to March, a time when the fish ladders can be closed for a month.
In fact, at John Day Dam, Fredricks said the closures of the north and south ladders overlapped, creating a total migration block at John Day Dam over the winter for about two weeks. "Right now we are pretty much blind after November" when it comes to counts, he said. But the Corps has now agreed to begin tallying the fish.
According to Fredricks, the Oregon shore ladder was closed from mid-November to February 27th in order to complete the reconstruction of a fish passage problem that has been going on for eighteen years. "A new flow control section was created to solve a passage problem in the ladder," he said. "Steelhead would hold in the ladder and some would jump out." A net had been placed over the ladder but fish would still jump out and they were getting abrasions from hitting the concrete walls of the fishway.
ODFW's Boyce said "the fish just piled over the ladder" when the Oregon shore passageway was re-opened. Biologists say about 80 percent of the adult salmonids moving up the Columbia use that ladder, especially when there is no spill.
"I don't say it won't happen again," Unterwegner said, "but the work should have been delayed until January so that the John Day steelhead were not blocked." -Bill Bakke
Subscriptions and Feedback
Link/Document AnnexLINKS/DOCUMENTS FROM NW FISHLETTER 160:: Below are listed links and documents referred to in the text of NW Fishletter issue 160.
- April "final" Forecast, Northwest River Forecast Center
- Ecosystem Diagnosis and Treatment Home Page
- A review of Strategies for Recovering Tributary Habitat, Independent Scientific Advisory Board, March 24, 2003
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