[1] MOST TESTIMONY SUPPORTS SCIENTIFIC REVIEW OF F&W FUNDING AT SENATE HEARING

Sen. Slade Gorton (R-WA) listened to differing viewpoints on the value of last year's scientific review of the Columbia Basin's fish and wildlife program at a congressional oversight hearing he chaired in Vancouver, WA on Feb. 14. The review was mandated by Gorton's 1996 amendment to the Northwest Power Act, which led the Power Planning Council to defer more than $57 million in fish and wildlife funding for 1998. More than half of the deferred funding was earmarked for the basin's tribal entities.

Flanked by senators Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Gordon Smith (R-OR), Gorton presided over a well-orchestrated affair that included agency heads, scientists and tribes. Except for the tribes, all the feedback was positive. After the testimony, Gorton characterized his amendment as a modest step forward in the way we deal with this complex question."

The senators heard five minutes of oral testimony from Power Council chair John Etchart, acting BPA head Jack Richardson, and Brian Allee of the Columbia Basin Fish and Wildlife Authority.

Etchart said even though lower basin tribes are suing the Council over the deferred funding, Council members feel they applied the terms of the amendment fairly.

"Our votes were unanimous," Etchart said, referring to all eight members of the four-state forum. The Council approved $90 million in funding for 1998 out of $144 million proposed by CBFWA, only $127 million of which was budgeted for the year.

Robertson said BPA was aware of the "tensions" surrounding salmon recovery, but "the focus on science should unite us." He told Gorton the potential was there to strengthen the amendment to apply the review to activities of the Bureau of Reclamation and US Fish and Wildlife Service.

He said his agency has taken the recent Moss Adams audit of BPA contracting processes "seriously," and is taking immediate action to improve accountability by following its recommendations.

CBFWA director Brian Allee told the senators the media is wrong when it calls salmon recovery in the Columbia Basin a $3 billion failure. He pointed out that adverse habitat, drought, and great variability in estuary and ocean conditions have all contributed to salmon decline. Expectations for real recovery in such a short time frame as the past 15 years are "unrealistic."

But tribal leaders expressed disappointment with the new review and told Gorton his amendment has only added another layer of bureaucracy and confusion to the fish and wildlife process.

Nez Perce tribal representative Tonia Garcia testified that the Power Council has not lived up to its charge of restoring fish and wildlife. "This is largely because the Council did not defer to the recommendations of the region's fish and wildlife managers and because the Council failed to enforce the program it adopted."

She said the project review called for by Gorton's amendment has created a redundant effort "and has unnecessarily interfered with accountability measures." The Northwest should instead implement the accountability provisions of the BPA Fish Cap, Garcia added.

Gorton asked her how the review panel could be modified to address her concerns. Garcia said the review should establish "mutually agreeable criteria" and reflect a clear distinction between policy and science, recognizing that "deference" to the tribes in fish and wildlife matters is a legal obligation.

She told Gorton that tying up 84 percent of the tribal fish and wildlife projects was clearly "discriminatory" and cited tribal "fish successes" to show their value-salmon restoration on the Umatilla and a low-cost Nez Perce project that returned 78 coho last year. The science panel charged with reviewing projects has confused policy with science, according to Garcia, because the projects have been reviewed numerous times already. "We're interested in putting fish in the river," she told Gorton.

Her sentiments were echoed by Ted Strong, executive director of the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission. "It's time to take [fish] out of the concrete hatcheries and put them where they belong," said Strong.

In his written testimony, Strong declared the Gorton amendment "has proven to be a monumental failure from nearly every perspective." He said the science panel created by the amendment "undertook to transform the fish and wildlife program favoring putting fish in the river, to a monumental research and analysis project, favoring studies, reviews, and reports over bold action. On this score, the amendment's 1997 implementation was a boon to research for the Seattle scientists in lab coats, and a bust for the local managers who wear work boots in the field."

But one man's bold action may be another man's boondoggle. Bill Bakke, director of the Native Fish Society (and contributing editor to NW Fishletter) said state and tribal fishery agencies set out early to capture all the money for fish and wildlife "and they did it."

Bakke said fish runs will decline as long as the agencies and tribes have control over spending. He said the agencies were unable to agree among themselves, lacked a common goal and focused on hatcheries to replace natural stocks.

Bakke said the Gorton amendment was "a breath of fresh air," and the Power Council needs the full support of Congress to maintain its course towards more accountability and the development of scientific underpinnings for its fish and wildlife program. He pointed out the agencies are seeking an "end run" around another scientific review panel who rejected many watershed projects for funding last month, hoping to get the Council to approve them.

Director of the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife Bern Shanks said his state supports scientific review and his department is "moving towards that." But Shanks said the region cannot let scientific uncertainty delay us in making decisions. He told Gorton the imminent ESA listing of Puget Sound chinook was like "a giant spotted owl circling around the economy of the state."

UW fisheries professor Jim Anderson said Gorton's amendment was making the current review process better, but there is a great need for improved information management. Expanding on that theme in his written remarks, Anderson said "no scientific group responsible with assessing the relative merits of projects has access to the types of information needed for this ecosystem and basin-wide evaluation. Neither does any group have access to the information needed to develop a basin-wide plan."

Anderson said an Internet-based data modeling system is needed to give scientists, managers and the public up-to-date information on fish and wildlife projects and this information could be coupled to models to provide potential impacts of the projects on fish. The task would not be too daunting, he added, since the major data sets and information tools already exist.

He also mentioned the need for a more open review of agency policies, and pointed to the ongoing development of flow targets for the mid-Columbia. Anderson said the process should be more open to stakeholders. "Developing policies should not be conducted in a closed process in which unreviewed science is presented through internal memos which end up in the press as scientific facts."

Public Power Council assistant manager Rob Walton testified that the role of independent science is important. "We must find ways to improve survival in runs without taking out dams." He emphasized the human factor in salmon recovery, pointing out that habitat protection and improvement will fail if local residents aren't involved.

Senator Smith asked Rick Williams, chair of the science panel that reviewed the fish and wildlife program, if the region will have enough data by to make a judgment on salmon recovery by 1999. That's when federal authorities have said they will decide the best route for recovering Snake River stocks--improved transport by barging juveniles downstream, or tearing out dams.

"I hope so," said Williams. "It's critical to upriver stocks. We don't have time to delay the decision."

After the hearing, Power Planning Council chair John Etchart came back to the microphone to address Garcia's charge of discrimination. "I cannot let it slide by," said Etchart, who emphasized the color-blind nature of the review process. -Bill Rudolph

[2] BPA'S CONTRACT PROCESS REVIEWED: MORE ACCOUNTABILITY NEEDED

An independent review of the contracting processes of the Columbia Basin Fish and Wildlife program has come up with a series of recommendations to improve accountability of all parties--the Power Planning Council, BPA, the Columbia Basin Fish and Wildlife Authority and other stakeholders. The Portland-based accounting firm of Moss Adams began work on the report last September, and it was released Feb. 6 at a Power Council news conference.

"It's quite helpful to all of us," said BPA F&W director Bob Lohn, who added that by developing clear goals and better definition for the F&W program, it would be much easier to see how the different projects fit into the big picture.

The report calls for a comprehensive update of the basin-wide F&W program every five years, based on monitoring and evaluation results. Moss Adams recommended the coordination of all stakeholders to build one regional plan that would encompass the ESA and the tribal plan.

John Hancock of Moss Adams said all participants were very helpful. He said he was very pleased with the process and was both hopeful and confident about the report. "Now it needs a champion," said Hancock.

That champion may just turn out to be BPA's Lohn. He said BPA hopes to engage the firm to help "best implement" some of its management recommendations.

Lohn said one significant suggestion in the report called for agencies and tribes to have a new role in the process. The report calls for improving teamwork among BPA, CBFWA and the Power Council in administering contracts and monitoring and evaluating project progress and results. "Focusing stakeholder participation in the planning process, where possible, will represent a more proactive role for CBFWA," said the report.

To implement the firm's recommendations, the report says significant changes will have to be made in the way the F&W program is run. The report called for streamlining BPA contracting functions and the proposal review, establishing more stringent information reporting requirements for F&W managers and contractors, instituting an annual planning process and developing a comprehensive performance monitoring and evaluation framework.

That's welcome news for some of BPA's employees, like Tom Pansky. "Maybe it will change things for the better," he said of the report. Last year, after Pansky questioned some elements of a $2 million contract with the Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission, he found the contractor complaining to higher-ups at BPA calling for his replacement because "specific dollar amounts were never tied to specific tasks." Eventually Pansky was replaced. At the time, BPA's F&W director Lohn said it was a "personality conflict."

BPA biologist Tom Vogel found himself removed from the Yakima Hatchery project because of questions he raised over risks to natural runs from the proposed hatchery and how to address the possible loss of these wild chinook. The Yakama tribe actually passed a resolution calling for his removal, and he left the project in April 1996.

Vogel was philosophical about the situation. "It all went back to the key first questions when I started in this business-we didn't know what we wanted." Vogel said that is still the biggest unknown.

The Moss Adams review seems optimistic about changing the present contract process, but recognizes that some of the recommendations would require revisions to BPA Purchasing Instructions, the Fish Cap on spending, the Northwest Power Act and possibly, new legislation.

Lohn said his agency will look at all the recommendations. "We anticipate implementing many of them."

The report said adjustments to administrative processes could be achievable within a matter of weeks and changes in roles, responsibilities and organization could take several months. Revisions that require policy or statutory change, however, could take from one to three years.

CBFWA executive director Brian Allee said his member agencies had not analyzed the report yet, but any suggestions to improve accountability and speed recovery of salmon runs "are valuable."

Rick Taylor, spokesman for the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, said some of the recommendations weren't clear to his group. He cited the report's call for developing a framework for "transitioning" maintenance and operations costs from BPA to other sources of funding. Moss Adams called for a phased process of gradually decreased BPA funding for M&O.

"It's not clear where the money would come from," Taylor said. Moss Adams' Hancock said such funding should probably come from those who benefit from the projects.

The report also called for applying the same standards to both public and private contractors, because the reviewers found indications that lower standards regarding information requirements are applied to public contractors.

"Public entities appear to have provided less detailed work plans than their private sector counterparts. This has been particularly true of cost estimates," said the report, which also found that contractor work plans "are often developed to justify a cost estimate equal to the BPA budget allocated to the project. It was reported that contractors viewed BPA budget allocations as guaranteed funding."

The report also suggested that BPA increase competition for contracts as well, though it recognized some cases where competitive bidding would not apply. -B.R.

[3] MOST WATERSHED PROPOSALS FLUNK FIRST TEST

A working group put together by members of the Columbia Basin Fish and Wildlife Authority has evaluated over $20 million worth of watershed projects for the FY '98 funding cycle and found that only 27 percent of the 135 projects pass muster.

The nine members of the working group were chosen from nominations submitted by federal and state agencies, industry groups and environmental organizations. After meeting in Portland Jan. 14-16, the group formalized its recommendations and concluded that 39 percent of the proposals were fixable, meaning sponsors should have the opportunity to revise and resubmit them.

But the group judged 34 percent failed (including 26 percent of ongoing projects) because they weren't technically sound or feasible. That accounts for about $13 million in the proposed watershed funding. Included in this category were $295,000 worth of planning and support for the Grande Ronde Model Watershed and a $5 million project sponsored by the Yakama Indian Nation to acquire habitat in the Yakama Basin. The group nixed another Yakama tribal proposal for $775,000 to go for Teanaway River Instream Flow Restoration.

CBFWA told the Power Council some of the "failed" proposals should be put back on the table, according to Council staffer Doug Marker. He said CBFWA wants to address its concerns at the next council meeting in Boise on Feb. 23 and 24.

Examples of projects that passed the review are a Yakama-sponsored $799,000 project to restore the Satus River watershed and $766,000 to consolidate irrigation diversions on the Upper Salmon River in Idaho.

The group concluded they needed additional information before some proposals could be judged, including a clear description of each program's direction and demonstration of the direct relationship to improved conditions for fish and wildlife.

The technical work group made several recommendations. First, prioritize subbasins and watersheds. Second, clearly describe project objectives. The group found that only about half of the proposals did an adequate job in that area. More than half of the projects needed more detail and structure for monitoring and evaluating results.

The group also supported using a portion of BPA's fish and wildlife budget to purchase critical property and water rights. Members were concerned that consolidating diversions and lining ditches would not aid instream flows unless a water right was created.

The group also recommended peer review of model watersheds and raised questions about "the amount of money invested in coordination and felt that funding for some focus and model watershed coordination was in excess of what was required to do the work."

They also expressed concern about the question of "in-lieu" funding of about 15 projects, and asked of why BPA is paying for activities that may be the responsibility of other state and federal agencies, such as harvest enforcement, screening and diversion regulations, and correcting problems to do with Forest Service timber sales. -B.R.

[4] STEELHEAD STRATEGIES DISCUSSED AT IMPLEMENTATION TEAM MEETING

The Feb. 5 meeting of the Implementation Team (IT) had the group wrestling with questions of how to complete the BiOp on steelhead before the fish start migrating in April. The first piece of the puzzle went into place Jan. 21 when action agencies (BPA, BuRec, Army Corps of Engineers) completed their biological assessment and called for more fish transport and less spill to help Snake River and mid-Columbia steelhead, the newest listed stocks on the block.

NMFS spokesman Brian Brown was clear that his agency expected to have a draft opinion completed by the end of February. He hopes that steelhead and chinook consultations can be consolidated into a single 1998 BiOp that covers all the listed stocks.

Brown said discussion will also begin on developing a target flow for the mid-Columbia to help steelhead. No numbers were discussed, but he did say that moving flow augmentation 10 days forward to April 10 would benefit steelhead, who begin their migration earlier than chinook. More flow for mid-Columbia steelhead can only come from Grand Coulee, where, he said, it is possible that 800,000 acre-feet could be used at an earlier date than the one set by the current BiOp. However, that could conflict with present flood control operations at Coulee. Over the long term, Brown suggested flood control curves may be changed.

The science panel (ISAB) that does double duty for NMFS and the Power Planning Council was supposed to present a recommendation on the value of more transport for steelhead at the meeting, but NMFS' Mike Schiewe said the group won't be prepared to release its findings until the week of Feb. 16.

The IT policymakers were originally scheduled to hear a review from PATH modelers, but they weren't ready, either. Another meeting was scheduled to hear from them (later rescheduled for Feb. 19), which will push the next meeting of high-level agency heads into the middle of March, when some of these policies will be near the final decision point.

Brown suggested some long-standing questions be addressed early to make room for the steelhead issues. He cited the annual discussion with fish managers over meeting seasonal versus weekly flow targets for flow augmentation in the Snake and Columbia. "We've been doing it for ten years," Brown said.

NMFS scientist Schiewe reported on continuing chinook studies in the Snake and prospective steelhead PIT-tagging at McNary. He said NMFS sees a lot of value in doing a PIT-tag study from Lower Granite. "It's the only realistic way to take a look at wild fish," he said. He noted that survival data from McNary needs to be looked at carefully, and any PIT-tag work from there will require an adult detector before returning fish can be counted.

Tim Stearns of Save Our Wild Salmon addressed the IT with his group's plan for the 1998 migration--a series of strategies that include taking McNary and John Day pools to minimum operating levels, optimizing spill and--though he's "resigned" to barging--keeping half the fish in the river to spread the risk.

Stearns said the "more times you handle the fish" the worse it is for them--a reference to a recent analysis by Idaho Fish and Game. The agency says recent NMFS PIT-tag data show fish that are undetected in the hydro system return at a much higher rate than those counted at one or more bypass systems. Undetected fish pass dams via either turbines or spillways throughout their migration.

Most agencies haven't seen the analysis yet, and the small sample size (seven returning adults from a group of several thousand smolts) has biologists questioning whether it's statistically valid. Fish returning this year could make the finding more robust. For now, Schiewe said there is a very small amount of data, that can't be looked at "realistically," but his group is pursuing the issue.

But Brown is hoping the many questions can be settled by the end of February so a public hearing on steelhead consultation can be held in mid-March. "NMFS is trying to work with both salmon managers and action agencies," he said. By the end of the day, the consensus around the table was that the steelhead consultation is an immensely difficult challenge to resolve in such a short time. -B.R.

[5] IDAHO WEIGHS IN ON STEELHEAD

Idaho Gov. Philip Batt has told the Clinton Administration that his state opposes barging smolts this spring from McNary Dam because it will increase the number of transported fish to an "unacceptable level."

In a Jan. 27 letter to director of the White House Council of Environmental Quality Katy McGinty and NMFS regional administrator Will Stelle, Batt said if NMFS decided to transport Columbia River stocks, "it should be done in a way that does not increase the collection and transportation of Idaho stocks."

But the letter doesn't offer any advice on how to separate ESA-listed Columbia River steelhead from Idaho steelhead. According to one regional biologist, about the only way that could be accomplished would be to build another dam above the confluence of the two rivers.

Batt also said his state opposes any reduction in fish spill during the spring migration period, a strategy proposed by the US Army Corps of Engineers for the 1998 migration to maximize barging for steelhead.

Batt said that the government should adopt a more "clearly defined" interim spread-the-risk policy for Snake River fish in its upcoming BiOp for steelhead and maximize inriver migration when river conditions are favorable, to help decide which migration works best in the long run.

"Current PIT tag tests indicate in-river migration may be as successful as barging," Batt said, referring to a recent analysis by his state's Fish and Game department that says estimates of "true" inriver migrants (those that pass dams via spillway or turbines, not bypass systems) had a higher survival than transported fish.

An IDFG flyer released on Jan. 12 estimated .38 percent survival for "true" inriver migrants v. a .26 percent survival for transported fish, slightly higher than the NMFS numbers, though "the difference was not statistically significant," which had other analysts in the region scratching their heads. "If the difference is not statistically significant," said one, "Then they can't really say the inriver survival is higher."

The difficulty with the analysis is the small sample size being analyzed; it's only seven fish out of more than two thousand. NMFS statisticians are currently developing error bounds for the analysis, because the results depend on many estimates, including spill efficiency at dams. NMFS biologists say as little as a two percent difference in estimates of spill efficiency (numbers of fish passing over spillway divided by total project passage) can make large changes in the results.

Since recent hydroacoustic research at dams has shown that more fish may be going over the spillways at Lower Snake dams than previously acknowledged, the analysis could be seriously flawed.

At Lower Granite, for instance, the new work has shown that the assumed one-to-one relationship between the percentage of water spilled and percentage of fish that travel over the spillway varies daily from .83 to 2.3, "and was usually greater than 1.0," according to an abstract from last fall's annual review of Corps sponsored research.

The IDFG release said the state has maintained that NMFS overestimated the number of wild fish that will return to Idaho this year and has not tried to correct "misconceptions" about last summer's NMFS memo that said transported fish benefit 2 to 1 over inriver migrants. The "two-ocean" wild fish--which spent two years in the ocean environment, returned last year; the rest of the 1995 outmigration will come back to Idaho streams this year.

The NMFS memo stressed the "preliminary" nature of the data, since the wild fish that spend three years in the ocean would not be counted until this year. But NMFS is still counting on over 80 percent of the 1995 wild outmigration to come back this year as "three-ocean" fish, even though NMFS policy analyst Brian Brown told Power Council members that the Idaho analysis had "shaken" NMFS' belief in transportation. The agency's own scientists however do not seem to share his view. By the end of May, enough fish should be counted at Lower Granite to see if their analysis is right. -B.R.

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Link/Document Annex
Works Cited

LINKS/DOCUMENTS FROM NW FISHLETTER 053:: Below are listed links and documents referred to in the text of NW Fishletter issue 053.

• Columbia River Basin Fish and Wildlife Program Management Review of Contracting Processes, Moss Adams LLP, December 1997
• 1998 Watershed Project Proposals
• Biological Assessment for 1998 And Future Operation of the Federal Columbia River Power System, Upper Columbia and Snake River Steelhead, US Army Corps of Engineers, Bonneville Power Administration, US Bureau of Reclamation
• Save Our Wild Salmon

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

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