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[1] DRAFT BIOP GOES PUBLIC, GAPS AND ALL
The particulars of the new draft BiOp hit the streets Sept. 9, a week after NOAA Fisheries regional administrator Bob Lohn announced the new analysis found that proposed hydro operations will not jeopardize the ESA-listed stocks. A 30-day comment period to solicit input from states and tribes has now begun, with a final document expected by the end of November.
Lohn gave Northwest Power and Conservation Council members a heads-up phone call Sept. 9 explaining how the analysis has changed from the earlier BiOp. He said that data gathered on fish survival over the past 10 years has allowed his agency to differentiate between the effects on fish from dam operations and the existence of the dams. And that, in turn, has given the next BiOp a new focus.
"Legally, what we are focused on--as Judge Redden's opinion clearly directs us to do--- we're focused specifically on the effects we're being asked to consult on," Lohn said at a press conference later that morning.
Lohn said that large improvements in fish runs over the past few years have led the agency to conclude that none of the listed stocks are in danger of going extinct in the near-term and that Snake River stocks could recover with the four lower Snake dams in place.
The new analysis estimated the differences in fish survival between a "reference" operation of the hydro system run with few constraints on the one hand, and the proposed actions on the other, which have essentially been the same since the last BiOp came out in 2000, Lohn said. The difference has allowed the feds to change the environmental baseline and develop a new goal for fish survival of each major stock, to reach the same survival standard estimated from the reference operation.
One of the greatest changes over the last BiOp is the new emphasis on "normative passage," the idea of using removable spillway weirs at all eight dams similar to the one tested at Lower Granite Dam, Lohn said. Another RSW will be in operation by next spring at Ice Harbor Dam.
But the BiOp's focus on dam operations doesn't mean the federal government is reducing salmon recovery efforts. Lohn said his agency remains committed to an approach that includes improvements in hatchery operations, harvests, and habitat with federal spending in these arenas expected in the $6-billion range over the next 10 years.
The BiOp is only a part of the overall salmon recovery picture, Lohn noted, with the Council's subbasin planning effort an important foundation of the recovery effort.
Bonneville Power Administration chief Steve Wright said the proposed operations include all hydro operations in the past BiOp with one change--the reduction of fish transport during the month of April.
The summer spill issue remains an "open" question in the new draft BiOp, Wright said. The action agencies remain committed to looking at alternatives to summer spill with the same or better biological performance, and there will be an ongoing debate about spill through the finalization process of this BiOp, he said.
Wright said there have also been some changes of focus in the habitat area, with more attention being paid to the Wenatchee, Entiat and Methow stocks in the upper Columbia region because the BiOp analysis says they need more help than most other runs in the basin.
The NOAA analysis released last week shows that upper Columbia spring chinook exhibit about a 7-percent survival gap between the reference hydro operation and the proposed operation. The agency predicts the gap will be reduced to only 1.2 percent by 2010 with the addition of two RSWs at McNary Dam and other passage improvements at the four lower Columbia dams.
Big Gap For Fall Fish
Snake River fall chinook exhibited the greatest gap in the survival analysis, about 13 percent, but the draft BiOp says that should be cut by better than half by 2010, though the agency points out recent information shows that survival data is very sketchy for the fall stock. It has been determined that an unknown number of fall juveniles stay in the hydro system or estuary for a year before migrating to the sea. With benefits from transport still unclear, the BiOp says they may be under-estimated if some of these later-migrating fish are barged.
Snake River spring/summer chinook showed less than a 2-percent survival gap compared to a reference hydro operation. The feds expect that to be bridged altogether by 2010. Lohn said spill survival through the RSW at Lower Granite is 98 percent, a full five-percent better than the current route through the concrete and steel spillway.
However, using a RSW at a project like Lower Granite would route fewer spring migrants to barges, which could conceivably reduce overall system survival.
But Lohn said the value of transport was still up in the air, even for spring stocks. "At this time we have no good scientific basis for knowing the relative benefit of transportation versus inriver survival," Lohn said, noting that his own scientists say inriver survival could be anywhere from 50 percent to 150 percent of the survival of transported fish.
"Right now, the science does not support picking any place on that spectrum," said Lohn. "We just don't know."
Later, Corps of Engineers' spokesman Jim Athearn said it was true that RSWs could reduce overall system survival for spring chinook by about 2 percent by routing less fish to barges, but the Corps' plan to start barging two to three weeks' later (when water temperatures exceed 9 degrees C.) than the old BiOp called for, has the potential for increasing smolt-to-adult returns up to 50 percent for the 3 percent or so of the run that reaches Lower Granite Dam that early in the season.
Snake River steelhead stocks showed only a 0.2 percent gap, but upper Columbia steelhead evidenced a nearly 9 percent gap, which was expected to be reduced by 5 percent by 2010 with more help from tributary improvements and reduced bird predation in the lower Columbia.
Wright said NOAA's Lohn deserved a lot of credit for working with action agencies and creating an environment for putting together the new BiOp, but environmental groups rejected the new plan altogether. A "fact sheet" distributed by American Rivers rejected the plan on all counts, especially for limiting flows and treating dams as part of the natural river environment.
Earthjustice attorney Todd True, who led the court battle that toppled the last BiOp and led to this one, claimed the new BiOp disregarded sound science and the law. "As a consequence," True said, "it will hurt the people of the Northwest in the long run. Such an extreme change of directions is not just bad news for imperiled salmon; it is bad news for people, too. This administration was asked to take several reasonable steps forward toward long-term salmon recovery and instead they have taken pretty much every giant step backwards they could find."
BPA customers were predictably buoyed by the new draft BiOp. "This plan acknowledges the intense effort that the region has put forth for salmon," said Shauna McReynolds, spokesperson for the Coalition for Smart Salmon Recovery. "And it builds on the significant increase in adult salmon returning to the river."
The word from lower Columbia tribes was not supportive, however. Ron Suppah, chairman of the Confederated Tribes of the Warms Spring Reservation, said the draft plan "relied on measures ranging from absurd to speculative" and wasn't in keeping with the Court's directive. Tribal authorities said the RSW technology was promising, though largely untested, especially for fall chinook and sockeye. -Bill Rudolph
[2] FALL CHINOOK MYSTERIES HAUNT NEW BIOP
Strong hints of more debate over summer spill were in the air at the Sept. 16 meeting of the Implementation Team as mid-level state and federal policy folks were formally introduced to the new draft BiOp developed in the wake of last year's remand process.
The new draft calls for continued summer spill operations at four dams for ESA-listed fall chinook from the Snake River, but also includes language that calls for cost-effective adaptive management, as well as future studies to learn more about the stock and its migration patterns.
The stock at risk, Snake River fall chinook, has been rebounding nicely for the past several years, helped by an infusion of hatchery fish, reduced harvest, safer passage through the hydro system and better ocean conditions. Six thousand fall wilds are expected this year, a far cry from most of the 1990s, when numbers hovered around a thousand at best. NOAA Fisheries had earlier pegged an interim recovery goal of 2,500 fish.
The improving numbers were one reason that action agencies proposed a reduced summer spill regime this year, but the proposal was nixed in federal court, and the expensive summer spill strategy continued, costing BPA $78 million to implement this past July ($40 million) and August ($38 million).
With the fall migration early this year, few listed fish actually benefited from the August spill or barging effort. Information from the Fish Passage Center showed that only 44,000 fall chinook were barged and trucked from lower Snake dams in August, out of nearly 1.6 million fish barged altogether. With only about 10 percent left inriver after passing the collector dams on the Snake, that means about 4,000 fall smolts reached the Columbia River in August.
In 2003, about twice as many, 82,000, Snake fall fish were barged during August than this year, with nearly 2 million of them barged overall.
Snake fall chinook getting the once-over. In light of the many uncertainties dealing with the stock, both Idaho and Oregon representatives questioned the wisdom of keeping the maximized barging policy in the new draft as both the document's reference operation and proposed operation. NOAA's draft analysis says a 13 percent gap between the hypothetical reference operation that's maxed out for fish survival and proposed operations could be cut in half in five or six years.
Oregon's Ron Boyce questioned the policy of "putting all our eggs in one basket."
Jim Ruff, from NOAA Fisheries' Portland hydropower group, said his agency's scientists have said that no empirical data exists to show whether transportation of the Snake falls is either beneficial or harmful to them.
"The lack of scientific information turned out to be both a science issue to us, in discussions with the Science Center [Seattle], and a policy issue," Ruff said, adding that a policy decision was made "at the management level here" to continue current operations to keep from jeopardizing the good returns in recent years.
"Management was concerned." Ruff said, "that if we made a major change from the way we've been doing things, either it would improve or it would hurt, and they didn't want to take the risk that it would hurt the adult return rate."
The action agencies [BPA, BuRec, COE] have put a high priority on gathering information to answer the years-old question of whether transportation helps the fall run, Ruff said. In the new BiOp, the agencies proposed starting a transport study in 2007 after surface bypass systems are installed at lower Snake dams where the fish are barged.
Boyce said he believed the good returns were more related to good ocean conditions than transportation. But Ruff said the NMFS Science Center thinks a high proportion of returning fall adults spent a year in the hydro system before migrating to sea. Up to now, most biologists have held that most fall chinook migrate to sea after only a few months in the hydro system. Ruff said some research indicates the yearling migrants may come principally from the Clearwater River, where a large effort is underway to develop a fall run from the main lower Snake stock that has evolved in a much warmer ecosystem.
Boyce said he also had questions about how the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife distinguished sub-yearling from yearling migrants based on scale samples.
Others questioned waiting for the installation of removable spillway weirs before initiating the studies, because it wasn't known whether the passage devices would work for fall chinook. They said a "spread-the-risk" policy should be developed that kept more fish inriver.
"The only thing I'll say," said Ruff, "is our Science Center said, 'you have no information to determine what's the best operation for transportation. We can't tell you what it is. There is little or no empirical information to say whether it works or doesn't work. We can't tell you whether to continue with it, or stop it.'"
Ruff said uncertainties about the life history of yearling fall chinook are substantial. No one knows in which reservoir they spend the winter, or if they go down to the estuary instead. Nor do scientists even have a clue when the yearling fall chinook move downstream. He said action agencies are also proposing studies to get answers to these questions.
In an Aug. 24 memo from the NMFS Science Center posted online with the BiOp earlier this month, federal scientist John Williams said, "we have no data that could provide a basis for meaningful modeling of this important aspect of the complex life cycle of Snake River fall chinook salmon." But Williams did point out that "it appears" about 50 percent of the returning adults migrated to sea as yearlings.
States and tribes have several more weeks to comment on the draft BiOp, which must be completed by Nov. 30, as ordered by federal Judge James Redden. -B. R.
[3] UPRIVER RUN GETS LATE BOOST; SNAKE FISH MAY SET RECORD
Taking note of a big Sept. 14 spike in adult returns at Bonneville Dam, official fish prognosticators bumped up their estimate of the fall chinook return twice in five days.
With daily fish numbers rising from about 20,000 a day to 35,000-fish a day on the 14th, the season total reached 484,000 fish by Sept. 20 for the upriver run, with about 65 percent in the bright category, and the rest tules headed for Bonneville Pool.
Fish managers raised their overall forecast (to Columbia River mouth) from 635,000 to 702,000 fish, which includes fall stocks returning to areas below Bonneville Dam.
Though they stayed with a preseason estimate for wild Snake River fall chinook (6,100 to Columbia River mouth), wild and hatchery numbers combined are running comparatively high in the lower Snake. With about 42 percent of the fall run estimated to have passed Lower Granite Dam, the fall count stands at 8,452 fish, nearly four times the 10-year average. Last year, about 12,000 hatchery and wild fish were counted, with about one-third of them estimated to be wild.
At present, over 500 fish/day are being counted at Lower Granite. That's more fish than were seen during the entire fall seasons of some years since 1976, when the dam, the last of four projects on the lower part of the river, was completed.
Managers estimated that about 80 percent of the upriver run had passed Bonneville Dam, with the escapement goal for fall chinook at McNary Dam topped for the 21st consecutive year. So far, numbers there are about two and one-half times the 43,500-fish goal, with the University of Washington's in-season forecaster estimating that about 72 percent of the upriver run has made it beyond McNary, most headed for the vaunted, and lately crowded, Hanford Reach spawning grounds.
But state and tribal fish managers say steelhead numbers are less than anticipated, with both early and late runs nearly 30 percent below predictions. Tribes reported Sept. 16 that they had caught nearly 81,000 fall chinook, with nearly 29,000 estimated to be upriver brights. They proposed another four days fishing from Sept. 20 to Sept. 24.
They had pegged their projected impact to date at only about 9 percent out of an allowable 23 percent of the upriver bright run. The tribes had also caught about 13,000 steelhead, and projected an 8.2 percent harvest on the wild listed 'B' steelhead run headed for Idaho out of an allowed 15-percent allowable impact.
This year, most tribal harvesters were netting above John Day Dam to waylay a larger percentage of more valuable upriver brights and catch fewer low-value tules headed mainly for the Spring Creek hatchery in Bonneville Pool. The tules fetch much lower prices because they are nearly ready to spawn.
Lower Columbia sports fishermen don't like to keep tules, either. Many tules were reported floating among the sports fleet, after sporties had unhooked them in the Buoy 10 fishery, where chinook were not allowed to be retained after Sept. 7. By then, sporties had landed 16,100 chinook and 14,400 coho. The sports fishery for chinook and coho is still open above the Buoy 10 area all the way up the Columbia to above Pasco.
Commercial gillnetters in the lower Columbia caught more than 11,000 chinook in August, about two-thirds brights and one-third tules. Earlier this month, they began their select area fishery, targeting local hatchery returns in the lower river to keep from impacting listed upriver stocks. - B. R.
[4] PROGRESS ON SUBBASINS, FLOW SYMPOSIUM PLANNED
Members of the Northwest Power and Conservation Council got a mixed-news update at their September meeting on the subbasin planning process that's being billed by federal agencies as the backbone of regional salmon recovery. Though only 25 percent of the plans have passed muster with an independent science panel, and another 25 percent may need a short supplement to satisfy planners, the rest of the 62 plans will need some significant work before they are approved.
Council staffer John Ogan said many had "linkage" issues--difficulties developing explicit connections between salmon recovery strategies that improve areas identified as "limiting factors." Ogan also said that some of the plans failed to integrate hatchery operations with other elements of the subbasin plans. A fair number of plans also failed to provide for adequate monitoring and evaluation.
But he still characterized the "remarkable progress" of the plans in the last year, and said that monitoring needs will depend on how NOAA Fisheries uses the plans in its new BiOp. A regional approach to monitoring is now under development.
Council staffers have proposed a three-track system for adoption of the subbasin plans, depending on how much work still needs to be done. Most plans were on a schedule to be completed by mid-February 2005, with a drop-dead final adoption date of May 2005. The new BiOp, which is counting on some help from tributary habitat improvements in the plans, is scheduled to be finalized by the end of November.
Hatchery issues were also discussed after council staffer Bruce Suzumoto reported that little public comment was fielded on an issue paper that discusses a "new paradigm" for the use of hatcheries, one that emphasizes species diversity and local watershed needs. With the original draft garnering many critical comments and the current lack of negative feedback with the final product suggested to some Council members that Suzumoto was on the right track and had satisfied most of the region's concerns.
But comments from the Pacific Fishery Management Council suggested that not only priorities of Columbia River subbasins should be addressed in the paper. They pointed to "no mention of the ocean fisheries and coastal communities which depend on Columbia Basin hatchery production."
The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife also gave the issue paper a mixed review, claiming their own paradigm for reform was broader in nature.
Suzumoto said the complete draft report on hatcheries for Congress may be ready by the next Council meeting.
Flow Symposium Planned
Council members discussed the need for a symposium on mainstem issues, a notion first floated by Bob Lohn, NOAA Fisheries regional administrator, last July after his agency refused to level off flows coming from Montana reservoirs through August. He said there wasn't adequate monitoring in place to study the change. In fact, Lohn said it was probably impossible to develop a scientific experiment to detect survival differences from the small differences in flows.
Montana council members had pushed for the change, saying there was little evidence that augmented flows in the mainstem Columbia from the drawdowns actually improved fish survival. To the contrary, Montana has long held that the strategy disrupted resident fish and food webs in the reservoirs and streams below Libby and Hungry Horse dams.
Lohn suggested his agency get together with the Council and interested tribes to discuss the state of the science on flows and fish survival. Last week he said he would like it convened before the BiOp is finalized at the end of November.
Some council members were less than enthused at the prospect. "I'm not interested in the same dogfight next year," said Oregon Council member Melinda Eden, who voted against the Montana proposal last summer. She said the real issue is about what kind of experiment can be developed to get an adequate evaluation.
There's the rub. Some scientists say it would take both millions of dollars in PIT-tagged fish and actually several hundreds of years' worth of data collection before a statistically valid result could be achieved.
Doug Marker, who heads the Council's fish and wildlife division, suggested the final result could be a report similar to the flow/survival paper presented to the council in January 2002 by consultant Al Giorgi.
Fish Spending Tracked
Staffers from the Columbia Basin Fish and Wildlife Authority unveiled volume one of their new report on actual BPA fish and wildlife spending for the 2001-2003 period of the direct program, an amount that added up to nearly $434 million. When volume two is completed, all ongoing projects will be able to be tracked in individual subbasins, including results of the actions.
Surprising Salmon Predators
Bird expert Julia Parrish from the University of Washington reported on her recent work with Chelan County PUD to examine predation on juvenile salmon. To the researchers' surprise, Caspian terns and cormorants were not the biggest culprits in the upriver region. Rather, gulls, and especially mergansers, which have a high-energy demand, posed the biggest threat. Parrish also reported that gulls, which prey on salmonids early in the year, may actually help reduce other salmon predators later in the year when they are actually subject to "lethal control," because they eat an estimated 50,000 to 70,000 young pikeminnow each year on the PUD's turf. -B. R.
Subscriptions and Feedback
Link/Document AnnexLINKS/DOCUMENTS FROM NW FISHLETTER 185:: Below are listed links and documents referred to in the text of NW Fishletter issue 185.
- Draft FCRPS BiOp on Remand, Sept. 9, 2004
- NWFSC Memo, Aug. 24 2004
- Artificial Production Review and Evaluation Issue Paper, July 15, 2004
- Rolling Provincial Review Implementation, Aug.31, 2004
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