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[1] HARVEST CRITIC SAYS CURRENT POLICIES THREATEN SALMON RECOVERY
The millions of dollars being spent on salmon recovery throughout the Northwest may be wasted unless harvest is reduced on most ESA-listed Puget Sound and Columbia River salmon and steelhead stocks, Seattle attorney Eric Redman told the Northwest Power and Conservation Council at its Jan. 19 meeting in Vancouver, Wash.
When ratepayers and taxpayers realize what is happening, "the lawsuits will be horrendous," Redman said.
Redman was invited to address the council after he presented a paper on the subject at another forum last October called, " A Look At The Logic Of Salmon Policy."
As a young staffer to the late-Sen. Warren G. Magnuson (D-Wash.), Redman worked on the legislation that created the Northwest Power Act in 1980. The fish and wildlife provisions in the act were created specifically to try to avoid ESA listings of Columbia River salmon because "we all thought an ESA listing would mean the end of harvest." But, he added, NMFS' "sleight-of-hand" simultaneously listed the fish and said harvest was no problem."
Noting that recovery efforts throughout the region are focused on recovering salmon to harvestable levels, Redman said such a goal "has nothing to do with the ESA," which says that threatened and endangered animals can't be harvested on purpose.
As an example, he used the Columbia white-tailed deer, which is listed under the ESA. Though the deer's population overall is healthy, the Columbia population is not and hunting them is strictly prohibited. Alluding to the call for dam breaching by some environmental and fishing groups, Redman said, "Trains and cars kill deer accidentally, yet nobody in the region suggests that we tear out the highways to protect the deer so that hunters can shoot them. It's not logical."
Redman recommended using more fisheries that target stocks near their spawning areas to reduce impacts on the small numbers of ESA fish that are caught along with abundant, non-listed fish in mixed-stock fisheries off the B.C. coast, the West Coast and Alaska. Developing more selective fisheries is another way to reduce harvest impacts on ESA fish, Redman said. That's when hatchery salmon, usually marked by a clipped fin, can be identified and kept while wild fish are released.
Redman pointed to the high seas, mixed-stock fisheries that cause the most harm. "We should handle harvest differently, at least temporarily, while the fish remain listed," Redman said.
He also took issue with the notion fostered by fish agencies that harvest isn't a significant factor in the mortality of ESA salmon. "It's not true," he said pointing out that the harvest of ESA-listed Snake River fall chinook has ranged from 40 percent to 70 percent. In 2003, Canadian fishermen increased their catch of listed Puget Sound stocks by 36 percent, while Puget Sound-area Tribes and others cut back. And earlier this month, NOAA Fisheries proposed tripling the incidental take of winter steelhead in the lower Columbia, non-Indian gillnet fishery (from 2 percent to 6 percent).
"This would not happen for any other ESA-listed animal," said Redman, who added that it was impossible to appreciate "the carnage" that occurs on the sports fishing grounds off the west coast of Vancouver Island that's made up of mostly U.S. citizens.
In the Snohomish watershed north of Seattle, where the county habitat plan calls for a 25-percent maximum harvest rate of the local chinook, Redman said it's back to being harvested at a 50-percent rate since the Canadians boosted their catches again. If things don't change, "they will have spent $130 million to protect the Snohomish River and those chinook are likely to go extinct anyway," Redman said.
Redman thought there was a total lack of candor with the public about harvest and recovery issues dealing with ESA fish. He suggested that fish recovery would be a lot cheaper and quicker if non-treaty fishing was suspended or made more selective during the recovery period.
He also said the current salmon treaty with Canada shouldn't be used as an excuse to keep from limiting harvest further. He called for making tribal fishing more "ESA-friendly," partly to help fishers catch more salmon from abundant stocks that are currently under-harvested due to ESA constraints.
Redman said that some groups involved in the fish recovery effort in Puget Sound have realized that the millions of dollars being spent to save spawning habitat may be wasted unless the federal government takes steps to get more adult fish get back to spawn. To that end, they are creating a new alliance of municipal governments, some utilities, and environmental groups to focus on harvests by both humans and marine mammals with an announcement coming soon.
WDFW's Columbia River policy leader Bill Tweit said he was "offended" by some of Redman's remarks, saying he has spent a lot of time trying to bring harvest issues before the public. He called for a Council-sponsored panel to air all sides of the harvest debate.
Washington council member Larry Cassidy also took issue with some of Redman's points, but admitted that the U.S. has just filed a protest over increased Canadian catches because they may target more ESA-listed fish bound for our watersheds.
The harvest issue has already raised some serious questions about the value of the Council's sub-basin planning effort that is expected to provide the backbone for the basin's recovery effort.
Council staffer Bruce Suzumoto briefed members on a new tool developed by EDT [Ecosystem Diagnosis and Treatment] guru Lard Mobrand. EDT tries to integrate potential harvest and hatchery policies with expected benefits from the habitat-based plans being developed under the guidance of the Council. The new tool includes a "fitness factor" for hatchery fish that spawn in the wild to address whether such strays are helping or hindering the overall recovery effort, and whether current and projected harvest rates will significantly impede recovery efforts.
Rob Walton, NOAA Fisheries assistant regional administrator for salmon recovery, was on hand to support the new tool, called the AHA [All-H Analyzer], noting that it was developed as part of the ongoing fish recovery process in Puget Sound and now undergoing scientific review by NOAA scientists. -Bill Rudolph
[2] OREGON'S DEJA VU DRAWDOWN SCENARIO STUNS SALMON WONKS
The Oregon Governor's Office is quietly circulating a draft proposal of its latest ideas for running the hydro system, which it says will save the lower Snake River dams, but "provide a pathway for the region to restore wild fish populations."
A copy of the draft proposal obtained by NW Fishletter and shown to several fish policy wonks, who asked not to be identified, provided a dreary sense of déjà vu because it calls for more spill and deep reservoir drawdowns throughout the hydro system.
"This is drawing on the state of the science from about 15 years ago," said one long-time participant in the salmon wars, who said he was simply stunned by the proposal. He said it seemed more of a response to the new BiOp that took dam breaching out of the recovery equation altogether after years of analyzing flows, fish survival and a previous BiOp that nixed the idea of drawing down reservoirs to help fish. By the late 1990s, the Corps of Engineers had concluded that partial-year drawdowns were technically unfeasible and more expensive than breaching dams on the lower Snake.
According to the introduction, there is no guarantee that it will work, but "Gov. Ted Kulongoski believes that we must make this attempt. If this debate comes down to 'fish vs. power,' the citizens of the Northwest, as well as the fish, will be the losers."
The draft seems to draw heavily from recommendations for river operations drafted annually by the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, few of which have ever been implemented. They include the call for another million-acre feet of water from both Canada and Idaho to boost flows.
Perhaps the most stunning proposal is the call for deep drawdowns at lower Snake and John Day reservoirs to boost fish survival, but the proposal never cites any documentation that might connect fish survival with the increases in water velocity that might occur.
The 17-foot drawdown behind John Day (mainstem reservoirs currently operate within a five-foot range) recommended in two-thirds of the summers to increase water velocity would render both the juvenile and adult passage systems unusable and make it hard for turbines to generate power, said others. It would also make the navigation locks unnavigable and irrigation systems suck air. The bypass systems at lower Snake dams would not work either, if the 13-foot spring (in 34 percent of the spring migration periods) and 9-foot summer drawdowns (82 percent of the summers) were implemented as the proposal recommends.
Consultant Darryll Olsen said there have been at last three major studies of John Day drawdown to minimum operating pool and spillway crest. "The studies measured no salmon benefits or exceedingly small benefits with significant impacts to the fish and wildlife habitat," Olsen said, "not taking into consideration other things like navigation, irrigation, power and recreation costs. What the hell could Kulongoski be thinking?"
The Oregon draft plan also calls for more spill at all dams, even at those projects where recent studies have found no benefit for increased volumes, and compliance with Clean Water Act standards, reducing fish transport, and changing flood control strategies.
The document says these specific options should serve as a starting point for discussion between states, tribes and federal agencies about creating a strategy that's best for fish, yet maintains the economic benefits of the hydro system. It calls for the Corps of Engineers to conduct studies to "determine minimum contingencies" and evaluate alternatives over the next three to five years, so they can be implemented if current actions don't meet expectations.
The draft document says the Oregon governor's representatives were meeting with feds to try and agree on the "aggressive, non-breach" strategy, but noted that the state is prepared to participate in the ongoing litigation over the issue if talks should fail. The state recently filed a notice-of-intent to sue federal agencies over the new BiOp. -B. R.
[3] PRELIMINARY ESTIMATE OF SUBBASIN IMPROVEMENTS PEGGED AT $3 BILLION
The cost of improving habitat and fish production in Columbia River subbasins could exceed $3 billion over the next 10 years, according to a draft decision memo being produced by a workgroup of the Columbia Basin Fish and Wildlife Authority. When completed, the cost estimates of BPA's future fish and wildlife obligations will be used in the ongoing process of setting power rates from 2007 to 2009.
The latest draft from CBFWA, the regional group of fish and wildlife managers from four states, USFSW, NOAA Fisheries and 13 Columbia Basin tribes, has preliminarily pegged BPA's direct F&W costs at an annual $470 million from 2007 to 2016 if the subbasins plans are funded over 10 years. But it would go down to $280 million a year if the plans were funded over a 25-year time frame, or $245 million annually over a 100-year time frame. Currently, BPA's direct F&W costs are around $134 million a year.
According to the CBFWA draft, the cost estimates were derived from 19 subbasin plans, and are expected to go up as information from more subbasins is added.
"As expected, habitat and fish production are the major costs to implement the draft subbasin plans," says the draft document. A preliminary series of spreadsheets has pegged nearly $300 million to pay for new hatcheries over the 10-year time frame, along with nearly a billion dollars for the cost of land protection, and over $800 million for enhancement and restoration costs.
Another $192 million is allotted for improving small tributary passage and $212 million for additional major tributary passage, with an additional $320 million to pay for more wildlife mitigation over the 10-year period.
The draft says CBFWA staff considers BPA's subbasin funding obligation effort still only a fraction of the estimated $12 billion needed "to treat" habitat problems throughout the basin. "While these are large costs," says the draft, "they are consistent with earlier estimates of BPA costs to meet its F&W obligations."
But BPA's funding obligations are still not clear. Another CBFWA draft "issue memo" calls for a biological analysis of expected results from the subbasin plans to determine whether the actions they have identified for funding would exceed BPA's responsibility. However, it points out that the Power Council once called for doubling the size of the fish runs from 2.5 million fish to 5 million fish.
If future analysis indicates that BPA shouldn't have to foot the entire bill, the memo suggests that fish and wildlife managers work with the power agency to identify other sources.
In any case, the latest draft calls for ratcheting up BPA's fish spending in FY 2006 to reach $250 million in FY 2007 and $350 million in FY 2009, which it estimated would cost an average consumer about $2 a month.
BPA customers are just getting hints of the projected costs being developed by the workgroup. "The total bill to ratepayers is already averaging $600 million, and the $139-million level for the current direct program is already over double what it was just nine years ago," said Scott Corwin, vice president of the Pacific Northwest Generating Cooperative. "With already high energy rates and high returns of fish, ratepayers are not supportive of increasing it further. We need to see a much better discussion about what the goals are and whether there is accountability for real biological results."
The CBFWA workgroup was slated to meet early this week to refine its analysis before coming up with final cost numbers in mid-February.
The big numbers had some utility folks downright testy, especially after Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski's recent call for big reservoir drawdowns at federal projects to improve fish survival. "It seems like a contest to see who can come up with the stupidest plan," said one, who wished not to be identified.
Just a day before the workgroup released its first estimate of subbasin costs, five upriver tribes in CBFWA from two regions that are likely to receive only about 15 percent of the projected subbasin funding, sent a letter to executive director Rod Sando explaining why they have second thoughts about maintaining the affiliation with the authority.
The Colville, Couer d'Alene, Kalispel, Kootenai and Spokane Tribes said the body has changed from a powerful caucus of elected/appointed heads of governments to "more of a forum for managers to stake their claims to BPA's funding."
The tribes said, "Self-interest (usually involving money) surpassed the goal of working mutually and cooperatively to achieve benefits for fish and wildlife. Trust that had been built through policy dialogue deteriorated as Members began using CBFWA's processes as a diversion while they pursued their interests through other channels."
For now, the tribes say CBFWA is not authorized to represent their interests or claim to have their consent in any communication with other entities. They want their concerns addressed before a Feb. 23 CBFWA meeting. If the situation isn't resolved by then, the tribes said they would reconsider their continued affiliation with the authority. -B. R.
[4] UPPER COLUMBIA RECOVERY FISH RECOVERY PLAN PARTIALLY REVEALED
If all goes according to plan, it may take another eight to 30 years for spring chinook in the Upper Columbia region to be officially crossed off the endangered species list. That's the best estimate from part of the draft recovery plan released Jan. 6 for the upper Columbia region if "a large amount of work within all Hs" is completed on schedule.
Though better ocean conditions largely account for the more than 90 percent increase in chinook stock since 2000--about 3,000 returned in 2002--it's still classified as "endangered." But the draft plan says its status could be changed to "threatened" within the next 15 years if the population can be maintained at a 12-year geometric mean of 4,500 spawners.
It also pegs possible improvements to the endangered upper-C steelhead stock, already up 126 percent since 2000, so that its status might be downgraded to "threatened" within the next 15 years. It could be delisted in the next eight to 30 years if a 3,000-spawner geometric mean can be maintained for 12 years, with recovery possible 10 years after the delisting.
The Upper Columbia draft released for public comment doesn't mention any specific recovery actions. That section is still being developed, said Douglas County Senior Natural Resource Planner Chuck Jones. "It's going to be a whole lot different" than the 2,000-page lower Columbia plan released last month, "with a certain level of specificity lacking in the lower Columbia," yet only about 200 pages long, he said.
Jones said its building blocks will be the subbasin planning efforts in the Wenatchee, Entiat, Methow, Okanogan, Lake Chelan and the upper mainstem Columbia watersheds that are being coordinated by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council and funded by BPA. He said that while a limited economic analysis would be included, both time and money were running out.
Most of those subbasin plans are still being developed and are currently out for public comment. Public testimony was taken at a hearing in Wenatchee on Jan. 26.
After a recent subbasin review suggested that most of the plans haven't explained how current hatchery programs would fit in with future habitat restoration activities, they will likely undergo further analysis that integrates harvest needs as well.
There are 10 major state and federal hatcheries in the upper Columbia region that release about 4 million spring chinook smolts and nearly a million juvenile steelhead annually in the four main subbasins.
Lars Mobrand, whose firm developed the EDT [Ecosystem Diagnosis and Treatment] method being used by most subbasin planners to estimate potential fish productivity, has a new tool called the "A-H analyzer," or AHA model, which will likely be used to tease out other factors imposed by policies that have developed outside the particular subbasin, such as harvest obligations to tribes.
The AHA tool has been used on three fish populations in Yakima and Kalama subbasins to measure objectives and goals for harvest and escapement needs, and to develop quantitative goals for hatchery returns, natural escapement and harvest needs both in the subbasin and beyond.
Jones sees the added tweak as a positive thing, noting that the limiting-factors analysis of upper Columbia stocks showed that habitat improvements by themselves aren't going to recover these stocks. He said impacts from activities downriver, such as spring recreational harvest and tribal harvest, must be reduced if for no other reason than to allow upriver tribes and recreationists a crack at the fish themselves.
A habitat conservation plan underway by mid-Columbia utilities will provide some tributary improvements, Jones said, and other funding will come from state and federal money distributed by the state's salmon funding board. Money is also expected from NOAA Fisheries, BPA and conservation groups like Trout Unlimited, with cost-sharing among counties available for stormwater mitigation, road-building activities and compliance with a critical areas ordinance that governs wetlands, fish and wildlife conservation areas, geologic hazard areas, frequently flooded areas, and critical aquifer recharge areas. -B. R.
[5] OREGON'S EDEN TO CHAIR NORTHWEST POWER AND CONSERVATION COUNCIL
Members of the Northwest Power and Conservation Council elected Oregon representative Melinda Eden to chair the group for the coming year.
Eden has been on the Council since 2003, and served as vice chair this past year. Before her stint on the Council, the Milton-Freewater attorney and rancher chaired Oregon's Environmental Quality Commission from 1999 to 2003.
Idaho council member Jim Kempton was voted vice chair. He has served on the Council since 2001, recently chairing the power committee and directing preparation of the NPCC's latest power plan. After retiring from the Air Force, Kempton served in the Idaho legislature before he joined the Council. -B. R.
[6] PACIFICORP POSTPONES CONDIT REMOVAL TO PAY HIGHER PERMITTING COSTS
PacifiCorp has reached an agreement with stakeholders to delay the decommissioning of the 14 MW Condit hydroelectric project for two years. Doing so will allow "additional generation of revenue that will help to cover the additional cost of permitting that has become much more complicated than originally envisioned," said Gail Miller, PacifiCorp's Condit project manager.
Miller said that while a 1999 settlement allocated $2 million for permitting, it now appears the cost will be closer to $5.3 million in 1999 dollars. She said there was no one factor driving the increase.
In 1991, PacifiCorp filed to relicense Condit (FERC No. 2342), which is located on the White Salmon River in Washington state. But by 1999, the stakeholders had agreed on a plan for dam removal. The settlement amounted to about half the cost of accepting a prospective new license, which the company believed would have rendered the project uneconomic, said Terry Flores, PaciCorp Hydro Licensing Director. Rather than having to accept and litigate such a license, the company decided its customers' interests would be better served by a settlement which would bring a faster and more efficient resolution to the issues.
But the process envisioned in the settlement is "taking much longer than we originally anticipated and as a result of that is costing more than we originally expected," Miller said, according to a transcript of FERC's Dec. 9 Hydropower Relicensing Workshop, at which both Flores and Miller spoke. "We reached a point where the costs were exceeding the cost criteria in the settlement," Miller continued. Under the settlement terms, the company could have walked away from the agreement. It did explore relicensing, but instead the settlement parties worked out the deal to put off removal to generate more revenue. Under it, Condit would cease operations in October 2008, rather than October, 2006. Miller said the proposed amendment to the settlement agreement would be submitted to FERC soon.
FERC Commissioner Joseph Kelliher asked Flores why exactly the project became uneconomic. "Was it mandatory conditions? Was it 10(j) conditions? And if it was mandatory, was it state water quality [or] federal resource agencies?"
"It's a 14 MW project and so the expense of that was a little much to bear," Flores replied. "I don't want to leave the impression that was the only thing that was driving the situation, but I'd have to say that was probably the primary [reason]." Representatives of NOAA Fisheries, American Rivers and the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission all said they support the amendment to the settlement.
NOAA Fisheries' Brett Joseph said his agency's biological opinion on listed coho and steelhead, which was due in August 2002, is now "virtually complete and should be out any time now." The US Fish & Wildlife representative said her agency would file its BiOp on newly listed bull trout in February.
The Section 401 water quality certification is another story. Representatives of the Washington State Department of Ecology said they'd made "considerable progress" of late resolving technical and regulatory issues, but that the state is still working on a supplemental environmental review under its state Environmental Policy Act.
As a result, the certification is not formally due until May, 2005. But the state won't make that deadline either, because the state environmental review has another 10 months to go, meaning the application will have to be withdrawn and refiled yet again. DOE deputy director Polly Zehm said it is likely the certification won't be ready before next December. -Ben Tansey
[7] BPA CUSTOMER GROUPS MOVE TO INTERVENE IN BIOP LAWSUIT
Several BPA customer groups have filed a motion to intervene in the second phase of the BiOp lawsuit (NWF v. NMFS) that will put the revised biological opinion for hydro operations back in court before the fish start running later this spring. Alcoa, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, the Industrial Customers of Northwest Utilities, Northwest Requirements Utilities and Pacific Northwest Generating Cooperative filed a Jan. 14 motion to intervene as party defendants, citing common interests arising from implementation of the ESA, namely the cost and availability of electric power sold by BPA to its customers. They say if plaintiff environmental and fishing groups prevail, more water will likely be wasted in expensive river operations that do little or nothing to help fish, but have a significant adverse effect on the Northwest economy.
Another party in the defendants' corner, the Inland Ports and Navigation Group, which already had intervenor status in the litigation, has asked the court to have its status reduced to amicus.
In a related matter, Oregon District Court Judge James Redden, who is presiding over the hydro BiOp litigation, denied Jan. 24 a motion for partial summary judgment by plaintiffs in another lawsuit that challenged the NOAA Fisheries biological opinion on upper Snake operations. Plaintiffs American Rivers, National Wildlife Federation and others, took issue with the federal agency's determination that upper Snake operations (mostly storage for irrigation managed by the Bureau of Reclamation) were not likely to jeopardize existence of ESA-listed salmon and steelhead stocks much further downriver. The groups also said NOAA and BOR improperly developed two separate opinions, when the action area should have been the same.
Redden said the jeopardy issues raised in the motion are now moot because a new opinion on the upper Snake is expected by March, and "will rely on a jeopardy analysis that differs radically from all previous jeopardy analyses for the upper Snake operations." But the judge also said the plaintiffs' claim about improperly segmented opinions was not moot. And since the 2004 hydro opinion does not include upper Snake operations in its jeopardy analysis, Redden said it was clear the feds were maintaining their old position that the two actions were separate with different action areas. Therefore, the plaintiffs' arguments "pertain equally" to both operations described in the 2004 hydro BiOp and the upcoming BiOp on the upper Snake.
Redden said he would defer ruling on the separation issue and combine argument on that subject with argument on the issues relating to the 2004 BiOp. -B. R.
Subscriptions and Feedback
Link/Document AnnexLINKS/DOCUMENTS FROM NW FISHLETTER 191:: Below are listed links and documents referred to in the text of NW Fishletter issue 191.
- A Look At The Logic Of Salmon Policy, Eric Redman, Oct. 5, 2004
- NW Fishletter 187, Oct. 27, 2004
- Draft Cost Issues Memo, Jan. 25, 2005
- Draft Upper Columbia Salmon Recovery Plan
THE ARCHIVE :: Previous NW Fishletter issues and supporting documents.
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