[1] COUNCIL 'GOT IT RIGHT' ON MONTANA FLOWS, SAYS SCIENCE PANEL

The panel of independent scientists charged with examining a Northwest Power and Conservation Council proposal to reduce and stabilize summer flows from its reservoirs agreed with the NPCC's analysis that found the biological tradeoff between upstream and downstream effects is way out of balance. In a report released Dec. 10, the panel said the adverse effects on resident species in Montana from current BiOp operations have been "demonstrated," but benefits to migrating salmon in the lower Columbia are speculative and very small at best.

The proposal, which was part of the Council's latest fish and wildlife program, would both reduce and smooth out summer flow releases from two of Montana's largest federal reservoirs in most years to help resident fish populations. Currently, hydro BiOp operations call for the water to be released in July and August to aid migrating ESA fall chinook in the Columbia River. But the science panel said the change wasn't likely to effect fish survival in the Columbia very much one way or the other.

They also said the kind of evaluation called for in the Council proposal was "unlikely to show effects in a few decades because annual variability in flow and salmon survival (for other reasons) are much larger than the expected effect of the Montana proposal." A NOAA Fisheries statistician had estimated it would take 400 years to get enough data for a statistically significant result.

It's the ultimate vindication for the state, whose representatives have argued for years that its water had little or no effect on the summer migration of ESA fish in the Columbia River.

Back in 1997, this newsletter reported that hydrologist Mark Reller, then a staffer in the Montana office of the Power Council, swore in an affidavit used in litigation over the 1995 BiOp that water releases from his state had a trivial effect on mainstem flow augmentation, "an effect that is within the margin of error of flow measurement."

Reller said the combined releases from both reservoirs added only 1/10th of a foot per second to the average water velocity in the lower river that ranged from 0.30 to 2.00 ft./sec, He said that 700 to 1,000 miles away at the reservoirs, these releases had profound effects because discharges could be 200 to 500 percent above base-flow conditions.

Seven years later, the science panel agrees with the Montana position. "You can't even detect this water downstream," said Dick Whitney, a retired University of Washington fisheries professor and spokesman for the Independent Scientific Advisory Board (ISAB), which looked into the question. Both NOAA Fisheries and the Power Council use ISAB to examine occasional scientific issues related to salmon recovery.

Whitney was part of a small group of scientists that heard from regional researchers and salmon managers at a two-day symposium on the topic held last month in Portland.

Citing continued concern over resident fish needs, Montana last summer requested the operational change of river managers, but the request was turned down. They had asked that Libby and Hungry Horse reservoirs be drafted only 10 feet between July and September during most water years (20 feet in the worst 20 percent of water years) instead of the standard 20 feet in July and August called for in the hydro BiOp's recipe for flow augmentation.

Models Too Coarse

ISAB member Charles Coutant, a resource ecologist with the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, told the Council that models developed to examine water routing are too coarse to determine biological effects on fish.

"The biologists are expected to make very hair-splitting decisions on survival," Coutant said, "and yet, water routing models are really pretty coarse, taking a lot of average flows." He also noted the "big distance" between Hungry Horse and Libby and the area in the lower river where scientists expected to see biological improvement for the salmon. Another factor--Canadian storage reservoirs--creates even more uncertainty because even with a treaty in place, Coutant said there was "no assurance they were going to be operated in a stable way."

He also said that very little is known about the actual water velocities in the reservoirs, a point he also brought up at the November symposium. "We're just making assumptions, pretty much, that an increase in the amount of water, uncertain as it is and very small as it is, will have some effect on the water velocity, and therefore, affect the fish migration rate, and, therefore, survival."

Coutant said the variability in flow, "for a whole lot of other reasons," is likely to be much greater than can be measured from the change in Montana operations.

The Oak Ridge ecologist also said the region has confused temperature issues with general flow increases, but he pointed out that in places like the lower Snake, adding summer water from Brownlee Reservoir to aid the migration of young fish may actually increase their mortality because it is so warm.

Hence, the ISAB recommended that the region needs a better resolution of the physical changes in downstream flows and temperatures to be expected from operational changes at upstream dams.

The ISAB said the entire management of fall chinook needs to be re-evaluated, including flow augmentation and fish barging, because it has been determined that a significant number of Snake fall chinook hold over to migrate the following spring or summer. They said that means any potential value from the Montana changes would be even less significant.

With the two passage models suggesting such small changes in survival from the Montana proposal (less than one fish in a 1,000), Whitney mentioned several sources of uncertainty (including the estimate of how many fish pass dams through spill) that make them both somewhat suspect.

Coutant also mentioned one of the report's main points--that "even small changes in flows might have cumulative effects, which are uncertain"--was more of a "caveat" than a "monkey wrench" in the works because "there's a little bit of uncertainty we're left with there. But in our group opinion it's not an uncertainty that should stop decisions from being made."

"The Council had it right," he said.

During a question and answer period, Whitney told the Council that much more water would be needed to add to current flows before any change in fish survival could be detected, even more than could ever be expected to come from the reservoir behind Grand Coulee.

Council members planned to send the report to NOAA Fisheries and the action agencies [BuRec, COE, BPA] along with a letter suggesting that reservoir operations be changed to fit the Montana request. Oregon member Melinda Eden requested more discussion of the Council's original amendment because her state had a different interpretation of the proposal, so a draft letter was prepared for discussion, and expected to be sent to government agencies by Dec. 22.

Outgoing Montana member John Hines told NW Fishletter that sometimes the Council seems to strive for perfect scientific information, "but if that was around, there would be no need for the Council. Our job is to take the best science to make changes."

According to the scientists, Hines said, the key component for aiding summer fish is to reduce water temperatures, but releasing water from Hungry Horse and Libby has no effect on temperatures in the lower Columbia.

The findings of the ISAB were disputed by state and tribal fish managers a few days later. In a Dec. 16 memo, Fish Passage Center head Michele De Hart said that many of the managers' concerns were disregarded by the Council, including the way the symposium was structured. She said changes in fish survival (.01 percent) from the small changes in flow estimated from flow/survival graphs presented at the symposium by NOAA Fisheries and an FPC staffer were used inappropriately. "Using low flow conditions in the modeling exercise would likely show a consistent reduced survival with the Montana plan," DeHart wrote. Her memo didn't acknowledge that Montana's proposal calls for using more of its water in the worst 20 percent of water years, nor did she address the specific criticism that some ISAB members directed at the flow/survival graphs developed by her agency and federal scientists.-Bill Rudolph

[2] ENVIRONMENTAL, FISHING GROUPS FILE AMENDED COMPLAINT OVER NEW BIOP

The same conservation and fishing groups who were successful in having a federal judge throw out the earlier hydro BiOp (NWF v. NMFS), have filed an amended complaint to try to have the revised opinion tossed as well. Led by Earthjustice attorney Todd True, plaintiffs played their doomsday card again, announcing "these fish are expected to continue their downward spiral towards extinction," in their Dec. 30 filing in Oregon District Court. They said federal authorities, "without any rational basis," had concluded that proposed hydro operations aren't likely to jeopardize the ESA-listed salmon and steelhead species migrating through the Columbia and Snake rivers.

They also noted that federal scientists concluded that the fish faced "a serious and imminent risk of extinction," However, they failed to mention the cited government analysis didn't include returns from the last several years, which, thanks mainly to improved ocean conditions, have increased four-fold or better and that such a state of affairs could last for another 20 years or so before cycling into a less productive mode.

Critics of the new BiOp played the jobs card as well. "The plan is a six billion dollar roadmap to extinction, and for the sports fishing community, extinction means financial ruin," said Trey Carskadon, president of the Northwest Sports Fishing Industry Association, one of the plaintiff groups who say the government's new approach takes the burden of recovery off the federal dams.

But even the BiOp writers at NOAA Fisheries, who reportedly made a conscious effort to downplay the good news in the latest document, couldn't totally discount the big improvement in salmon and steelhead numbers. Buried deep in the BiOp itself, they begrudgingly mentioned an analysis by two BPA consultants (Fisher and Hinrichsen, 2004) that 2001-2003 returns of Snake River spring chinook had increased nearly 550 percent over the 1996-2000 time period, "reversing the decline and indicating that, at least for the short-term, the natural origin population has been increasing." The same consultants found a 400-percent increase for Snake fall chinook over the same time frame and more than a 1000-percent boost for upper Columbia spring chinook.

And the short-term improvement will last at least another year after Columbia Basin salmon managers announced Dec. 20 that another good run of spring chinook is expected throughout the basin, including the ESA-listed chinook from tributaries of the Snake River. The managers are estimating a Snake River spring/summer run of about 128,000 fish, a few thousand more than 2004's return, with about 23,000 expected to be wild fish. In 1994, only about 2,000 wild spring/summer chinook were counted at Lower Granite Dam before they reached Idaho, and the wild run through the mid-1990s averaged less than 4,000 fish.

In remarks during the Nov. 30 rollout of the new BiOp, NOAA Fisheries regional administrator Bob Lohn said that improved ocean conditions had done much to improve fish runs in recent years, but he also pointed out that improved juvenile survival in the hydro system has helped Columbia Basin runs take advantage of those improved conditions.

And last September, when the draft BiOp was released for public review, Lohn said that big improvements in fish runs over the past few years had led the agency to conclude that none of the listed stocks were in danger of going extinct in the near-term and that Snake River stocks could recover with the four lower Snake dams in place.

But plaintiffs in the amended complaint used comments by state and tribal biologists to argue that the feds used an "artificially constrained base timeline" which gives an "inappropriately optimistic picture of salmon numbers and survival."

They also charged that one major defects in the new BiOp was the feds' analysis that separated the dams' existence from their operation. The complaint says the analysis improperly relies on a "fictional" reference operation that the federal agency used to estimate the very best way the dams could be run with fish survival in mind "that has no basis in law and is incomplete and irrational in any event." The groups say the new BiOp has also neglected to include upper Snake projects operated by the Bureau of Reclamation in its analysis.

According to the amended complaint, the new BiOp also fails to adequately assess whether the proposed action is likely to destroy or adversely modify critical habitat and that the incidental take statement for the proposed action is illegal because the BiOp's jeopardy analysis fails to address all of the take caused by the agency action, which the groups say should include counting fish mortality caused by the dams' existence, instead of simply comparing two relatively similar operations. -B. R.

[3] FISH RECOVERY PLAN CALLS FOR 75-YEAR EFFORT TO REACH SUSTAINABLE GOALS

The first official recovery plan for some Northwest salmon stocks was handed off to NOAA Fisheries by Washington Gov. Gary Locke (D) in early December. The reportedly 2000-page draft plan for improving stocks in the lower Columbia region (Washington side only) was given to regional NOAA Fisheries head Bob Lohn, whose agency will use it as the backbone for one of their ESA-mandated recovery plans.

"We are making progress and have seen a slowdown in the decline of our salmon populations, thanks to these many years of hard, innovative work, and with the help of improved ocean conditions," Locke said. "It is important that we recognize and celebrate our progress, but that we also not slow down. By continuing our commitment to this work, we can and will succeed in restoring our wild salmon populations so that they no longer need protection under the Endangered Species Act."

NOAA's Lohn used the occasion to stress the importance of "bottoms-up" input. "Local involvement is absolutely vital to salmon recovery," he said. "Without locally-led efforts, no recovery plan will succeed. We're committed to this plan as the foundation for salmon recovery. It's good for salmon and it's good for the region."

The recovery plan is the first of at least six expected to be released for public comment over the next six months. The plan has a 25-year time frame, but its authors say it will likely take 75 years or more for "full restoration of habitat conditions and watershed process for all species of interest."

The lower Columbia plan calls for the implementation of more than 500 actions by 100 partners that include federal and state agencies, tribal and local governments, and many non-governmental groups. It mingles ESA concerns, subbasin planning efforts under the auspices of the Northwest Power and Conservation Council, and watershed improvement and habitat restoration work mandated in state statutes like the Salmon Recovery Act.

ESA-listed stocks in the region include fall chinook, chum and steelhead, along with bull trout. Coho were proposed for listing as threatened last May.

Lower Columbia gillnetter unloading at Skamokawa in the early 1990s.

No price tag has yet been attached to the mammoth effort, but the draft document calls for a cost/benefit analysis to help make decisions about implementing recovery actions in 18 major and several lesser watersheds in the 5,700 square-mile area that adds up to more than 1,700 river miles.

Using the EDT methodology [Ecosystem Diagnosis and Treatment] developed by Mobrand Biometrics, the plan identifies fish runs that are highly productive where improvements are likely to provide the most biological benefits. The plan identifies potential goals for 71 different lower Columbia populations after habitat is restored or unblocked to open new areas for colonization. For instance, the Grays River fall chinook population, which now consists of about 70 fish, is estimated to have the potential for a 1,400-fish run.

A major area of uncertainty in the draft plan is gauging the potential adverse effects on wild runs from the 33 million tules and other hatchery fish that are released each year. NOAA Fisheries is working on an environmental impact statement to evaluate the effects of federal hatcheries on all listed stocks. It's expected to be finished by fall 2006.

NPCC staffer Bruce Suzumoto said the Congressionally-mandated artificial production review of Columbia Basin hatcheries now underway will eventually contribute to the plan as well.

Though the overall goal is to recover stocks enough to sustain harvestable fisheries for sport, commercial, and tribal fisheries, recovering some of them may take quite a while, as long as both commercial and sports fishers keep hammering away at them.

Listed populations of the lower river's tule chinook are still subject to fairly intense harvest (45 percent) compared to other regional fish stocks, though it's still considerably less than historic high harvest rates that the plan pegged in the 80-percent range. In the early 1940s, commercial fishermen had a 270-day season in the lower Columbia River. It was reduced to 200 days in 1943. Since then, commercial harvests have been severely reduced, with the spring season closing in 1977, and only re-opened recently for a few days every year.

As for listed chum, only a couple percent are now being harvested, compared to historic high rates of 60 percent. But some biologists have questioned why the lower Columbia chum are even listed, with their dramatic comeback in the last few years. Index counts have pegged their numbers in the 20,000-fish range, but overall, their returns may be twice that number. -B. R.

[4] STRONG FORECAST FOR 2005'S SPRING CHINOOK RUN IN COLUMBIA RIVER

Columbia Basin fish managers are looking forward to more than 250,000 upriver spring chinook to return to the Columbia River this year. That's about 10 percent more than last year's count, similar in size to other returns since 2000 when ocean conditions drastically improved.

The managers severely overestimated the 2004 spring run, expecting 360,000 upriver chinook. However, after it came in about 40 percent less, at 222,000 fish, the group made some changes in the way it estimates the run. The technical committee that produces run-size estimates is using a new methodology and said the upriver chinook count will now be defined as fish passing Bonneville Dam by June 15, which includes Snake River summer chinook.

They have also predicted a Snake River spring/summer run of about 128,000 fish, a few thousand more than 2004's return. About 23,000 of that number are expected to be wild fish.

The upper Columbia segment of the run is estimated to come in at 47,000 fish, much better than 2004's 19,000-fish return. Around 6,000 chinook are expected to make up the wild component, about twice last year's return. -B. R.

[5] MONTANA'S NEW GOVERNOR APPOINTS TWO TO POWER COUNCIL

Montana governor-elect Brian Schweitzer, a Democrat, has named Rhonda Whiting and Bruce Measure to represent his state on the Northwest Power and Conservation Council.

Whiting, a member of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes on the Flathead Indian Reservation is vice president of a tribally owned IT company and is active in Democratic circles. Measure is a Kalispell attorney and serves as president of the board of trustees for the Flathead Electric Coop. According to the Billings Gazette, both are well-known Democrats.

"Energy is critical to this state," Schweitzer told the Gazette, "These two individuals understand the importance of management and policy that will help move Montana forward and away from soaring energy costs." -B. R.

[6] PUGET BAKER SETTLEMENT TERMS WOULD COST $360 MILLION

Puget Sound Energy announced in early December that it had reached a settlement with two dozen parties on the conditions for relicense of its largest hydroelectric resource, the 175-MW Baker hydroelectric project in Whatcom and Skagit counties in Northwest Washington. The utility, which has been using FERC's alternative relicensing process for Baker, intends to ask the commission for a new 45-year license term.

The settlement includes a draft of about 50 license articles on matters such as fish passage, flood storage, instream flows, recreation and aesthetics, water quality, terrestrial resources, habitat, protection of cultural resources and adaptive management. PSE has said it committed to pursue federal authorization for an increase in the project's flood storage capacity during winter by up to 29,000 acre-feet. But during its settlement presentation to FERC, it appeared there was still some disagreement between Puget, Skagit County and the Army Corps of Engineers about the meaning of the license article on flood storage. The disagreement led one FERC staffer present to question whether the agreement was really "comprehensive."

PSE estimated the license terms will cost it $360 million over the next 30 years. It said that while Baker's power production costs will rise, its hydropower will still be "favorably priced, long-term, compared to other available power resources." Baker generated 686.6 million KWh for Puget during the 2003-2004 water year.

"We are deeply grateful for the extraordinary amount of time and effort that everyone at the table devoted to reaching the accord" over the last five years, said Steve Reynolds, PSE president and CEO.

The parties, including tribes, federal and state resource agencies, private resource groups, cities and counties, initiated 76 major studies and held over 400 meetings to reach the agreement, PSE said.

Some of the major features of the settlement include construction of improved upstream and downstream fish passage facilities, new fish hatchery facilities, and an increase in the minimum outflow and reduction in maximum outflow of water from Lower Baker Dam.

FERC issued a notice soliciting comments on the settlement, with a deadline of Dec. 23, 2004. -Ben Tansey

[7] PUGET SOUND BUSINESSES GET SALMON RECOVERY NEWS

Unless we adjust the way in which we interact with our ecosystem, the region will lose both endangered salmon stocks and the underpinnings of the region's financial prosperity, Puget Sound salmon czar Bill Ruckelshaus told a Seattle group this week. He raised the specter of a federal judge running the fish recovery effort if business interests don't get behind the regional salmon plan whose goal is to create sustainable, harvestable fish populations throughout the basin.

"The courts are not any good at recovering salmon," said Ruckelshaus, who once headed EPA, now chairs the state's salmon recovery funding board and serves on the development committee of the Shared Strategy, the voluntary effort to create a salmon recovery plan for Puget Sound, where chinook and chum stocks are listed under the ESA.

He said the salmon recovery effort is a test of whether free societies work and could grapple successfully with the issue to solve such chronic problems.

Ruckelshaus said over $400 million has been spent on habitat restoration in the last five years with 65 percent of the money coming from the federal government. With Congress facing fiscal cutbacks over the next few years, Ruckelshaus said without a plan, "the money will dry up." And he said it was risky, since the science isn't ready to show where the best places are to spend the money.

The Puget Sound recovery plan is expected to be submitted to federal fish authorities by June 30 and will include detailed programs to improve 14 watersheds in Puget Sound.

Ruckelshaus gave the Bush Administration good marks for endorsing the "bottom-up" approach to the fish recovery effort that puts local watershed groups in a prominent place. He said a plan will be something the region can stand upon when the "inevitable lawsuits" occur. To add their own input, he and other speakers encouraged businessmen to attend the Jan. 26-27 Shared Strategy Summit in Tacoma.

But representatives of business like Sam Anderson, executive director of the Master Builders Association of King and Snohomish Counties were not as optimistic.

"Not one positive thing has occurred to business since this listing," Anderson told the group. But one bright spot, he noted, was the adoption of new land and stormwater regulations in the mid-Sound region, though they have come without federal assurances that they are enough to satisfy ESA concerns. Anderson did say NOAA Fisheries seems more receptive to getting things resolved than a few years ago.

However, with nearly 600,000 new people expected to move into King and Snohomish counties in the next 10 years, Anderson wondered where they would be all be living, due to the growth boundaries mandated by state law. "Nobody likes sprawl, but they like density even less," Anderson said. He said developers are already paying for stormwater improvements, to the tune of $8,000 to $30,000 per new housing unit. If older developments had been subject to the latest critical areas ordinance adopted by King County, Anderson said 50 percent of the lots would have been lost.

Steve Lewis, retired president of Weyerhaeuser Real Estate Company, said a recovery plan will provide more certainty "about how we do business," and will put the business community in a stronger position if sued.

About 50 people showed up at the Jan. 5 gathering, sponsored by the Puget Sound ESA Business Coalition and the Greater Seattle Chamber of Commerce. -B. R.

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Link/Document Annex
Works Cited

LINKS/DOCUMENTS FROM NW FISHLETTER 190:: Below are listed links and documents referred to in the text of NW Fishletter issue 190.

• ISAB Findings From The Reservoir Operations / Flow Survival Symposium, Dec. 10, 2004
• NW Fishletter 188, Nov. 18, 2004
• Lower Columbia Fish Recovery Board Plan, Dec. 15, 2004

THE ARCHIVE :: Previous NW Fishletter issues and supporting documents.

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