[1] HIGH FISH SURVIVAL HIGHLIGHTS CORPS' RESEARCH REVIEW

Last week's annual Corps of Engineers research review in Portland produced some good news for fish survival. Biologists monitoring research on dam passage improvements for migrating salmon found that less spill at The Dalles actually saved more fish--although transported fish still seem to be doing better than those that migrate to sea inriver. And it was a good year to be a spring chinook from the Snake, because estimates of survival through the hydro system based on real data that were announced at the review were more optimistic than any results produced by models.

High Inriver Survival Reported

NMFS scientist Doug Marsh reported on the 1998 fish transport study, which included an estimate of spring chinook survival from Lower Granite past the other three hotly contested hydro projects to McNary Dam. The survival rate was a whopping 76.1 percent.

NMFS had more good news from researcher Dick Ledgerwood, who has spent the past couple of years perfecting the use of a small trawl net to detect migrating smolts in the lower river far below Bonneville Dam. He told the assembly that his analysis of the 5,000 bits of data that passed through the end of his experimental net shows that fish survival from Lower Granite to below Bonneville Dam was on the order of 68 percent (ranging from 57 to 79 percent).

Marsh reported that nearly 160,000 fish were tagged at Lower Granite for the ongoing transport study. "We tagged virtually every fish we could get our hands on, regardless of its condition," Marsh said, because his group was worried about the small size of the out-migration. With all the adults back from the 1995 outmigration, Marsh said both wild and hatchery fish that were transported came in at about twice the rate of inriver controls, at ratios of 2:1 and 1.9:1 respectively, though smolt-to-adult returns came in at a disappointing .54 percent for hatchery fish and .38 percent for wild ones.

But Marsh said adult returns for fish that migrated inriver were even worse--.28 percent for hatchery fish and .18 percent for wild fish. He noted that this year's returns from the 1996 outmigration have been disappointing as well, and that by the end of next year, when the three-ocean wild fish return, they still probably won't have enough data to validate the 1996 study.

Improved Bonneville Bypass Routes

Experimental routes for juvenile salmon passage at Bonneville show real promise. Study of a prototype surface collector indicated that nearly ten times the fish entered it relative to the proportion of water entering it; extended length bar screens were found to be about 80 percent efficient at guiding spring chinook into the bypass system; and perhaps most important, the sluice chute at Bonneville's Powerhouse 2 along the Washington shore is showing "great potential" as a corner surface collector.

For spring migrants, the combined efficiency of the sluice chute and submerged traveling screens in front of turbine intakes went up by 50 percent over testing the strategy when the chute was closed.

New fish routes look promising at Bonneville's Powerhouse 2.

That means twice as many fish were led away from turbines, and researchers reported to collect more than 91 percent of the spring fish. Over the past two years, the chute has passed 163,000 more fish than all nine turbine intakes at units 11 through 13, with an opening less than one percent of the cross-sectional area of openings to units 11 to 13.

Surface bypass improved in the prototype collector at Lower Granite Dam as well, most likely because of structural modifications made before the 1998 migration season began. Along with the extended length screens at Lower Granite, the efficiency approached 91 percent; but several recommendations were made to improve entrance efficiency.

New Fallback Studies

Studies with adult passage are showing that fallback--when migrating fish pass through the fish ladder at a dam, yet fall back below the dam, usually via the spillway--is related to the amount of spill at the dam.

By tracking radio-tagged fish in 1998, researchers working with Idaho's Ted Bjornn found that about 13 percent of spring and summer chinook fell back at Bonneville Dam. Bjornn reported on data from 1996, which shows that 13 percent fell back at The Dalles, 12 percent at John Day, nine percent at McNary, eight percent at Ice Harbor, one percent at Lower Granite and four percent at Priest Rapids Dam. But there was no evidence that fallback fish survived at a lesser rate than those that did not fall back.

Less Spill Means More Survival at The Dalles

The second year of a study of spill survival at The Dalles has shown that fish have better luck when the project is passing 30 percent spill rather than the 64 percent that's mandated in the BiOp. At the lower level of spill, subyearling chinook passing the dam through its sluiceway are estimated to have a 91 percent survival rate, with an 85 percent survival rate at the 30 percent spill level, and only a 70 percent survival rate when the project is passing 64 percent of the river as spill.

Coho have slightly better numbers in all categories. Another report at the Corps review suggested that project survival may be 10 percent higher overall at the lower level of spill.

But John Day Dam is another story. Hydroacoustic estimates compiled this year show that nearly four times as many fish pass the dam per volume of spill during the day than at night. Corps researcher Marvin Shutters, who put together the research, said his study "strongly suggests" that 24-hour spill at John Day would benefit the fish, "assuming that spillway is the safest route."

But another report found that coming up with survival estimates at spillways of dams that have flip lips like John Day will not be easy, because of the difficulties in quantifying mechanical injuries to fish passing over the new modifications. "We could be jeopardizing fish," said researcher Michael Ramey of R2 Resource Consultants.

Corps biologist Rock Peters said that gas strategies being developed by agencies have not really considered this issue. "We need to know how to spill smart," Peters told the group, focusing on the best spill patterns that take into consideration the mechanical injury issue, spill efficiency and survivals.

Big Year For Birds

Other researchers outlined work looking into avian predation in the estuary. Dan Roby reported that his group's second year of work has reinforced their 1997 effort that estimated salmonid predation by the Caspian tern colony--"probably the largest in the world"--takes a bite out of the juvenile salmon migration on the order of 6 million to 25 million smolts, which could account for the demise of 25 percent of the basin's young salmon.

And there are more beaks to feed than ever. Roby said the poor 1997 breeding season, when only 400 fledglings were observed, was not repeated this year; his crew counted 4,000 fledglings on Rice Island.

Even more predators live closer to the mouth of the river. Roby said the largest cormorant colony on the Pacific Coast is situated at East Sand Island.

Other work in progress in the Snake drawdown feasibility area was reported as well, including a review of how long it would take sediment to be carried out of the lower Snake reach if dams were breached there. The modeling suggests no more than five years, with most of it ending up in the mainstem Columbia between the mouth of the Snake and the Walla Walla rivers.

Further analysis of existing PIT tag data to look at Snake River stocks was discussed as well. Scientists from Columbia Basin Research in Seattle, along with consultant Al Giorgi and NMFS statistician Steve Smith, are working the PIT tag database to evaluate its hundreds of thousands of discrete bits of data for further study of the differences in outmigration dynamics of wild and hatchery stocks, to see if the use of hatchery fish in these studies is appropriate. They will also look into refining survival estimates by partitioning them into two components--reservoir and dam passage.

They also want to look at ways that might relate smolt survival data to the condition of the fish, such as size, weight, and rate of growth. Lastly, they would like to develop survival rate estimates in free-flowing stretches of the Snake for comparison to survival through impounded reaches. Another wrinkle they would like to examine is looking at ways to evaluate more than 40,000 PIT tag detections recently uncovered in bird colonies in the estuary. It may even be possible to develop a survival estimate for salmon in the estuary itself through the detections obtained at a cormorant colony downstream from the now-famous tern habitat at Rice Island.

The last speaker at the three-day marathon was Prof. Jim Anderson, who explained an approach to model the drawdown with his salmon passage model, CRiSP. He reported that for spring chinook , survival though a drawn down lower Snake River would be between 59 percent and 85 percent, as opposed to the 70 percent survival his model predicted for the fish this year--results that indicate drawdown could either increase or decrease survival by 15 percent. -Bill Rudolph

[2] CONTROVERSY OVER PATH PROCESS CONTINUES

Idaho's congressional delegation heard from NMFS regional administrator Will Stelle on Oct.7 while he was in Washington DC with other agency officials to brief federal authorities. Accompanying Stelle was Vancouver BC-based consultant David Marmorek, facilitator for the ongoing PATH process, who recently unveiled a report that was characterized in the popular media as the latest scientific word to support breaching lower Snake River dams. Marmorek reportedly told the Idaho delegation that the scientific review panel that weighed evidence for various assumptions about fish survival was given "limited information" on which to form their judgments.

Stelle told the politicians that the PATH report was "premature" and not the end product of the process that is testing assumptions about salmon survival. Stelle also said he was penning an op-ed piece to express his agency's views.

The report in question was based on a "weight-of-the-evidence" review by four independent scientists who felt strongly that the FLUSH model created by states and tribes was a better fit to empirical data than the UW/BPA salmon passage model, which attempts to fit current survival data in its calibrations. The FLUSH model posits a strong flow/survival relationship and reflects a hypotheses that the rate of fish mortality increases the longer a fish remains in the hydro system.

Marmorek told the Implementation Team that the latest PATH exercise, which made use of the panel's weightings, showed nearly 80 percent of the computer runs that model breaching of lower Snake dams came in with results that predicted returns above the 48-year NMFS recovery threshold. That compares to about 40 percent for the other two alternatives--present BiOp conditions and maximized transportation of juvenile fish.

At the same Oct. 1 IT meeting where the PATH report was announced, NMFS scientists reported that the 1998 juvenile salmon PIT tag studies--as in previous years--showed no within-year relationship between flow and survival and only a weak one when all years were added together.

Proponents of the UW/BPA model, who are also PATH participants, charged that the review panel had been misinformed during the weighting process, which used two other facilitators as well to feed information to the panel from both modeling camps.

BPA consultants and scientists huddled in Portland on Oct. 8 to outline their objections to the report and build their case for using recent salmon survival data.

After the latest PATH results went public, conservationists and some biologists, including Power Planning Council staffer Chip McConnaha, told the Oregonian that the new report made an overwhelming case that science supports breaching the dams. The remark prompted a statement from Power Council chair John Etchart, who said the Council hadn't yet taken a position on dam breaching, and that it remained to be seen whether such a strategy was the most appropriate course of action.

Sen. Larry Craig (R-ID) said Stelle told him that the level of uncertainty in the models used by the scientific panel is very high and conclusions in the report were in no way absolute. "They are merely relative probabilities with wide gaps between what is known and what is not known," Craig told a Congressional oversight hearing on salmon recovery issues the day after Stelle met with the Idaho delegation. Craig said popular news accounts of the PATH report were directly contradicted by Stelle. Several senators, including Craig, may hold an oversight hearing to look further into the PATH process itself.

PATH Scientists Support Process

Meanwhile, six scientists involved in the process have taken issue with media characterizations that the latest exercise designed to weigh evidence for various salmon recovery hypotheses was flawed. At issue was a recent story and editorial in the Oregonian.

The four sent letters to NMFS policymaker Brian Brown, who chairs the Implementation Team, made up of federal and state agencies, that meets monthly in Portland to hash out wrangling over the BiOp that governs hydro operation in the Columbia Basin. Part of its duties include providing direction for the PATH process, and that's where the flap began.

The Oregonian story somewhat misinterpreted the panel's findings by attributing to the panel PATH computer runs that used the weighed evidence to support a case for breaching lower Snake dams. But an editorial sided with BPA's complaint, saying the scientists on the panel were "sandbagged" and given limited information with which to judge the hypotheses.

In his letter to NMFS, Randall Peterman, resources and environmental management professor at Simon Fraser University, said the newspaper was "ludicrous" to suggest such a thing.

Another Canadian, University of British Columbia professor Carl Walters, said ESSA (Marmorek's employer) "has done a really admirable job of bringing together data, people and models into a balanced overview of uncertainty about the future of Columbia River salmon." Walters said, "It is disgusting and grossly unfair for anyone to call their effort 'unbalanced.'" In his letter, Walters said Marmorek had requested the responses to the BPA charges.

Four others--Larry Barnthouse, Louis Botsford of UC Davis, Rick DeRiso of the International Tuna Commission and the University of Wisconsin's Steve Carpenter--a member of the "weight of evidence" panel himself--all supported the integrity of the process. -B.R.

[3] GORTON, WHITE HOUSE STILL AT ODDS OVER DAMS

As Congress kept re-setting its deadline for adjournment last week, representatives of Senator Slade Gorton (R-WA) and the Clinton Administration continued their negotiations over dam-related language in the Interior Department appropriations bill. Earlier reports of a settlement between the two factions turned out to be false; a compromise was off, and the two sides had reverted to issuing dueling press statements.

Gorton's came first: according to his Oct. 15 news release, Administration officials had made clear to him what the senator "had already feared true: The Clinton Administration wants to keep the power to remove dams on the Columbia and Snake Rivers without getting approval from Pacific Northwest residents or Congress." Later in the day, Council on Environmental Quality chair Katie McGinty charged Gorton with "doing his best to thwart salmon recovery--and the will of the people--in the Pacific Northwest."

Prompting the exchange was the Administration's failure to accept Gorton's seventh revision of language the Senator says is meant to protect dams on the Columbia and Snake Rivers from being removed without Congressional authorization. The final version of Gorton's so-called dam rider had the same essential requirements as earlier versions--Congressional approval would be needed for any federal or state agency to study removal or breaching of any dam that is part of the Federal Columbia River Power System, or to undertake removal or breaching of any FERC-licensed dam on the Columbia, Snake or their tributaries without the consent of the licensee--but the final version also set a five-year expiration date on the rider.

Gorton spokesman Rob Nichols said the White House's refusal to accept the final version of the rider indicates the Administration has changed its position. While the Administration has said that Gorton's measure was unnecessary because Congressional approval was already needed before any federal dams on the Columbia and Snake could be removed, Nichols said Administration officials believe that "under current laws they have the right to remove non-federal dams...and they don't want to give it up." By including FERC-licensed dams on the Snake and Columbia and their tributaries, Gorton's rider goes beyond federal dams.

Meanwhile, back in the other Washington, BPA Adminstrator Judi Johansen and Washington Sen. Patty Murray (D) expresssed doubts about the political feasibility of breaching Columbia and Snake River dams. According to the Tri-City Herald, Johansen told a Pasco-Kennewick Rotary Club meeting last Wednesday that dam breaching will prove too costly for Congress to approve. "I think it's a remote outcome given the politics of this...especially given the tenuous nature of the data," Johansen said. Sen. Murray told the Herald that dam breaching "is the wrong issue."

As promised, Gorton stuck by his resolution to pull from the budget $22 million in funding for removal of the lower Elwha River dam. The statement from CEQ's McGinty said Gorton is "holding Elwha hostage to his unreasonable demands on the Columbia/Snake issues. We were not willing to pay the ransom."

McGinty said there is a "careful, deliberate process" in place that will lead to sound decisions on salmon recovery on the Columbia and Snake River systems, based on "regional consensus and the best available science." She claimed Gorton's rider would "have moved the decisionmaking powers from the people of the Pacific Northwest to the halls of Congress and the board rooms of monopoly power companies."

In her statement, McGinty reiterated that no federal dam can be breached or removed without Congressional authorization and pointed out that no federal agency can "unilaterally remove or order removal of a private dam;" such a decision can only be made by FERC.

That may be the reason Gorton included non-federal dams in his rider. But some reports indicate the final hang-up was the Senator's refusal to remove the reference to tributaries of the Columbia and Snake rivers from his rider. Regardless, Gorton says he'll be back with a new proposal next session.

Also deferred to the 106th Congress is the fate of the Interior Columbia Basin Ecosystem Management Project. Gorton had included language in the Interior appropriations bill that would have essentially ended the four-year study, but Nichols said a "stalemate was reached on that one" and the Senator agreed to remove the language and "revisit pulling the plug" on the project in January. While the appropriations bill does not earmark any money for the $40 million project, Nichols said the Interior Department could use existing funds to keep it alive. -Jude Noland

[4] GOVERNORS GET UPDATE ON RIVER GOVERNANCE

Northwest governors met Oct.5 to hear updates on BPA subscription, the multispecies framework and a summary of comments received on the Columbia River Basin Forum (aka Three Sovereigns) and the four other river governance models the governors proposed last July.

The governors did not make any final decisions, agreeing instead to move forward on both long-term governance options that would require legislation and short-term options that would not.

"I thought it was a positive meeting," said Mike Field of Idaho, one of several NWPPC members who attended the session. "The governors are working and said they will continue to do so. This doesn't happen fast, unfortunately," but by steadily moving the process forward, "that's progress." He said the governors intend to meet again in November to see how things are going by then.

Marilyn Showalter, Washington Transition Board member and aide to Gov. Gary Locke, said that between now and November the governors will consult with and among each other's staffs. "What we need to be doing now is review the options more among each other."

The presentation on the river governance proposals was made by the Power Planning Council's John Volkman. "The perception that river governance needs improvement is widely shared," Volkman told the governors in a document prepared for the meeting. "Current management of fish and wildlife recovery is viewed as fragmented and unaccountable." He said while none of the five models outlined by the governors "attract broad and unreserved support, commentors see the discussion as important."

Volkman told the governors that while most parties agree a legislative solution will be needed in the long term, "many urged the need for an interim strategy" involving the Columbia River Basin Forum, the NWPPC, the multispecies framework, or all three.

Volkman said that "while there is relatively broad support for a more authoritative governance entity...the comments in this area were limited." Considerable comment was received on representation, especially with respect to tribes, with many parties supporting "the idea of including tribes in decision making at some level, [while] several said the tribes should have fewer votes in river governance" than as envisioned in the proposed Columbia River Basin Forum MOA. Proportional representation was viewed as inequitable to rural interests. Many support active involvement of stakeholders and several suggested Canada be represented, possibly as a non-voting member.

"While probably no commentor would buy off on any single option, the Regional Resource Council option attracted a fair amount of interest and support," Volkman said. Under the RRC plan, according to the governor's July proposal, "a more broadly representative and authoritative new council would be authorized to develop an integrated resource plan to offset the effects of hydropower facilities on anadromous fish, resident fish and wildlife...The council plan would link and integrate fish and wildlife obligations, power system operations, energy conservation and resource needs."

Some see the RRC "as a logical extension of the existing Council, with appropriately balanced mission, representation and authority," Volkman told the governors.

Water users said another model the governors suggested, the Delaware River Basin Commission, would intrude on water rights. Still another model, the "regional Endangered Species Act entity," attracted little support.

Roy Sampsel, who facilitated the Columbia River Basin Forum process, made a presentation on the council's multispecies framework. He emphasized the framework is intended as an analytical tool to be used by decision makers, not a decision making body itself. He said it is meant to assess scientific and economic impacts of proposed actions.

Regional observers have been stressing this aspect of the framework at least since a Forum group meeting in early September. There, when asked about industry reaction to the Forum's revised governance MOA, Idaho's Mike Field said his contacts thought it was improved, but were focusing instead on the multispecies framework. The minutes of the meeting indicate that Montana Power Planning Council member Stan Grace "supported Mike's observation stating that industry wants to focus on the framework and see if that works out, before they would commit to a concept like the [Forum]." A lively discussion on the relationship between the framework and the Forum ensued.

Regarding the Forum, participants at that same meeting discussed the time line. Field told the group that the Nov. 16 target date for signing the MOA "might not provide enough time to build trust" among river users, who Showalter said had felt alienated by the Forum. He suggested February or March as the time for signing the MOA. A decision on the MOA should not be forced until the time is ripe, he told the group. Also, since the public comment period is technically still open, there may yet be further changes to the MOA. In addition, the Oregon Department of Justice and its counterparts in at least some of the other states must review the final document.

Moreover, while the Forum's MOA has been forwarded to the governors, it is not ready for review because the financing portion has not been finalized, Showalter noted last week. Still to be determined is what kind of a budget the Forum will need, how much of that can be handled on an "in-kind" basis, and how to divide up the remaining costs.

Ed Sheets, who is overseeing the interim committee on the Forum's finances, said they are currently considering a budget of between $96,000 and $286,000, depending on the amount of in-kind resources. He said the interim committee is exploring options such as using existing personnel and existing budgets to cover as many of the expenses as possible. "There's an expectation that the Forum will identify improved ways to coordinate activities that could result in additional efficiencies," he also noted. -Ben Tansey

[5] FRAMEWORK GROUP DRAFTS ECO-OVERVIEW OF COLUMBIA BASIN

The Multi-Species Framework Management Committee seems to be moving on a fast track. Committee member Chip McConnaha, Power Council manager of program evaluation and analysis, said the group wants interested parties to present their fish and wildlife policy alternatives by the end of this month. The committee has also scheduled a workshop for mid-November, and last week released the first draft of an ecological overview of the Columbia River Basin (Documents can be downloaded from the framework web site).

"From a policy standpoint, the overview so far is very preliminary," said Montana council member Stan Grace, who also serves on the Framework Committee. McConnaha stressed that anything the committee releases at this point is a draft document. "We are pushing transparency," he said. "You will hear lots of preliminary thinking that will probably get changed."

There doesn't appear to be too much that would need changing in the draft overview, however. It's essentially an outline of the information to be included in a final overview. The overview will be used as a baseline against which to analyze the various policy alternatives that might be proposed for the Columbia Basin. "The goal of the ecological analysis, therefore, is to define the ecological states that would result from a management alternative and describe how that state relates to achievement of the goals of the alternative," the draft reads.

Basin-Wide, Broad-Scale Thinking

The important thing about the ecological overview, according to McConnaha, is that it is a way to "think more broadly than the back yard"--to consider fish and wildlife and human activity in the Columbia River basin on a broader scale than traditionally used. At the same time, however, the ecological overview presents the Columbia River Basin as a sub-set of the Columbia River ecosystem and breaks the basin itself down into sub-basins ranging from the Columbia Plateau, the Blue Mountains and the Snake River headwaters, to the north Cascades, south Cascades and the northern glaciated mountains. Within these sub-basins are "ecological provinces," or groups of watersheds that might have climate, geology, and species assemblages in common; and next, individual watersheds. (The document also includes and defines a list of important concepts; McConnaha said the intent is to maintain a glossary.)

McConnaha said the overview won't contain all the information for every watershed, nor will it describe every single sub-basin. But it will talk about what makes the Columbia River a system and how the various alternatives fit into the system--and how they might change the system.

More Visions on Paper

At the Oct. 6 framework meeting, the committee decided to ask interested parties to submit a five-page concept paper for each alternative they want to propose. Utilities, agricultural groups, irrigators, environmental groups, and Indian tribes might each have a vision for the Columbia River, McConnaha said; the committee wants these visions presented in the concept papers. "We'll use these to scope out the size of the problem."

This request could result in a large number of different visions and policy alternatives. At the same time, however, Grace said the region has "never before started with a biological process, and as open and inclusive a process for stakeholders, to come up with something that's do-able." It's a two-way street, he added; the region must determine "what's biologically necessary to recover species and politically what's real."

McConnaha said some of the alternatives the committee receives may be able to be grouped together; for example, several utilities or a number of environmental organizations might have common goals. The committee hopes to have a limited number of alternatives to discuss during the workshop in November, when they'll sit down with the scientists and economists involved in the framework to determine how the various alternatives fit in--how the alternatives affect different parameters in the ecological overview and how trends identified in the overview might affect the alternatives.

Developing Workable Alternatives

"All we're trying to do in the framework is say, 'this alternative would work'," McConnaha said. "Some alternatives may not work," he added, and the framework should be able to "point out that the system cannot do what you want." The goal, at the end, is to come up with a limited number of scientifically feasible alternatives that have also been analyzed for their economic and cultural impacts and that "will work within the capability of the system."

McConnaha said another goal of the framework is to develop alternatives that will also meet the requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act. He said the Framework Committee will work with BPA to make sure studies conducted as part of the framework will meet requirements of the NEPA process as well. "The worst thing would be to go through all of this and then have to go through the NEPA process," which could take an additional two to three years.

"We're not trying to come out of this with a new fish and wildlife program," McConnaha cautioned, "just an overview of where the region might want to go."

Just who will decide where the region will go isn't determined at this point. The Framework committee is trying to work around NMFS' 1999 mitigation decision, McConnaha said, which is due in late '99 or early 2000. "We want to contribute to the regional debate."

"If we have policy options that look promising, NMFS could use one or the Power Council could use one," said Grace. "Hopefully, they'd be the same one."

While he's optimistic about the framework, Grace said he still gives it about a 50-50 chance of coming up with a solution to species recovery. The fact that a more diverse group of stakeholders is involved is a positive sign, both Grace and McConnaha agree. Among the framework management group are representatives of irrigating utilities, food producers and processors, Oregon grain producers, wheat growers, BPA, PPC, PNUCC and the Inter-tribal Council.

"It's taken awhile to convince people that this isn't just another process," Grace said. "I'm hopeful we can do it. There's a core group of folks that are really willing to try." -Jude Noland

[6] CORPS' BUDGET PICTURE IMPROVES AFTER SCIENTISTS JUDGE MORE PROJECTS

The Independent Scientific Advisory Board has issued recommendations after its review of the Corps of Engineers' gas abatement program and surface bypass for juvenile salmon at federal dams in the Columbia Basin. Their reviews are part of a larger look at the Corps' capital spending, as mandated by Congress last year. The spending picture will improve as well, after Congress restored $35 million in cuts at the last minute, bringing the Corps' 1999 salmon allowance up to about $89 million.

The budget news was positive because the scientists supported expensive modifications at some of the dams. The group concluded that the gas abatement program to reduce dissolved gas supersaturation to levels "as low as practicable" should be continued, with modified short-term and long-term objectives.

Recognizing that reducing involuntary spill to 110 percent as mandated by the Clean Water Act is not attainable short of dam breaching or major drawdowns, board members said it should be considered as a policy issue separate from technical considerations. They suggested technical work focus on what can be achieved that is biologically acceptable.

The ISAB recommended a few more studies to refine estimates of acceptable levels of supersaturation, "now believed to be about 120 percent," to serve as a near-term goal (less than 10 years). They said such studies would be valuable, but not necessary for the Corps' program to proceed.

They also suggested that physical risks to fish from alternative gas abatement devices be evaluated before such devices are installed. They recommended that the Corps stick with its efforts to monitor and model dissolved gas production and equilibration and biological effects, "and relate its findings to the gas bubble trauma monitoring programs conducted by others."

The ISAB said installation of flip lips as an interim measure should proceed as quickly as possible, "regardless of decisions about future hydro system configuration," which they say will likely take more than 10 years to implement.

Finally, they recommended the Corps look into all reasonable concepts for long-term gas abatement solutions, "but at a low level and subject to peer review and before prototype testing."

The ISAB also concluded that the Corps should continue development and testing of surface bypass prototypes, making sure they are built where they can do the most good, their effects on federally listed species are understood, and where they can be implemented to protect the widest possible biological diversity.

They recommended an aggressive "non-traditional" approach to development, including fast-track design, construction and testing, with a ten-year time frame for developing proper evaluation and a focus on developing data to evaluate the hypotheses on which the surface bypass systems are based. The ISAB said an alternate set of hypotheses should be developed for future testing, if any of the Corps' basic hypotheses are rejected. The ISAB stressed that development of surface bypass and gas abatement measures are closely related and need to be consistent with one another.

Corps spokesman Dave Geiger of the Pacific Salmon Coordination Office said his agency hadn't yet reviewed the ISAB's Sept. 29 recommendations. The agency was in a major belt tightening mode when it looked pretty certain that Congress was going to cut $35 million from the Corps' salmon passage budget. In fact, a budget prioritization meeting had already penciled out any project past the $56 million-dollar mark.

But that all changed by the end of last week, when the latest spending bill put together by the harried politicians had reinstated the $35 million, reportedly after heavy arm twisting at the Administration level by NW regional administrator Will Stelle. Stelle was relieved that the budget seemed back on track. The region would probably have had to initiate re-consultation over the present BiOp to find ways to circumvent the measures lost from budget cuts, as well as deal with "an inevitable lawsuit," Stelle said on Oct. 15.

By early this week, the money still seemed to be there, though the president hadn't yet signed off on it. Corps spokesman Witt Anderson said Senate sources told him that "it's not a question of if, but when." -Bill Rudolph

[7] TROUBLE ON THE TUCANNON

Wild spring chinook in Washington's Tucannon River are in a very bad way. This tributary of the Snake flows north out of the Blue Mountains near Walla Walla, and its spring run has declined from 6,000 at the turn of the century to about 2,000 in the 1950s--and about 150 wild fish today.

The declining trend for this population has been steep since 1986--about 700 fish. A major shift for all Snake River wild chinook populations began in 1990, with a dramatic decline in adults and recruits per spawner. In the Tucannon, the adult run declined, for the first time, to below 200 wild fish in 1994.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service assessed the ESA-listed Tucannon stock in the 1998 Lower Snake River Compensation Plan Status Review.

In 1994 and 1995, runs to the Tucannon River were predicted to be less than 100 fish. Severe flooding in 1996 and 1997 nearly eliminated all natural production, which affected inriver rearing for the 1994, 1995 and 1996 brood years, said Joseph Bumgarner, of the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife.

It's a stock that's been getting help from a hatchery since 1984, when a supplementation program was initiated. A total of about 1,900 wild spring chinook have been used to supply eggs.

But hatchery practices have not been all that benign. The report says that one reason for a shift in spawner distribution from the better spawning areas above the hatchery to marginal habitat below the hatchery has been the "mining" of potential spawners from the upper river for an egg supply.

Other factors causing the shift in spawner distribution are delays at the hatchery trap and the practice of releasing juveniles below the hatchery, which keeps them from returning to the upper watershed. Also, prespawning losses above the hatchery weir may be higher than below it.

According to the report, the hatchery program has not been able to reach its mitigation goal. Other program goals are to establish a locally adapted brood stock to preserve the integrity of the stock, provide harvest opportunities, produce hatchery fish that mimic the wild run in life history characteristics, and maintain the wild spawning population .

The hatchery program has been successful in establishing a local broodstock for the hatchery, but it's not known whether the genetic integrity has been maintained.

Returning hatchery spring chinook do not mimic the wild population in life history traits. The hatchery fish are smaller, younger, and the females produce fewer eggs. The remaining small wild population are being replaced by the hatchery population.

Once the hatchery spring chinook juveniles are released, they do not perform as well as the wild fish. "We believe the high velocities and steep gradient of the river may cause considerable mortality before the hatchery fish even leave the river." Bumgarner said. "This problem is being addressed by exercising the hatchery fish in ponds by swimming against an induced current."

Under the Comp Plan goals, mitigation would be achieved with 0.87 percent smolt to adult survival rate goal. Mean smolt-to-adult survival from eight complete brood years of wild and hatchery fish are 0.64 percent and 0.17 percent respectively.

"Based on those survival estimates," said Bumgarner, "it will not be possible to reach the mitigation goal until the limiting factors (habitat: in-basin, and migration corridor) are addressed."

The wild population is now below the replacement level, and in some years, the hatchery population comes in below replacement as well. But as or now, the hatchery is maintaining the population in the river and is "essentially providing a place to maintain the genetic make-up of the Tucannon stock."

The egg-to-smolt survival goal in the hatchery is 70 percent, which the hatchery has achieved. In contrast, the wild spring chinook egg-to-smolt survival has been estimated at about 5 percent each year. The wild fish are limited by floods, loss of spawning and rearing habitat and warm water.

Initially, the first returns of hatchery spring chinook to the Tucannon Hatchery had a higher number of jacks (15-44 percent) than the wild run (2-5 percent). Also, the hatchery fish exhibited lower female fecundity. This was corrected, according to Bumgarner, by shifting the release size for smolts from 10 fish per pound to 15 fish per pound. By reducing the smolt size, the hatchery and wild spring chinook are now more similar in age, size and fecundity.

Prespawning mortality is another problem limiting the productivity of the Tucannon spring chinook. The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife combated an 18 - 44 percent prespawning mortality of hatchery fish with inoculations of fromalin and by providing shade over the holding ponds, but this did not reduce mortality. The adult spring chinook, which require cold water, were being held in water of 60 F. at the Tucannon Hatchery, so fish were moved to Lyons Ferry Hatchery on the Snake where the water temperature is a constant 52 F. That move cut prespawning mortality to less than 10 percent.

In 1994 and 1995, the spring chinook run in the Tucannon was predicted to be less than 100 adults. "The question arose as to whether we should collect fish for the hatchery broodstock, or pass all fish for natural spawning." Bumgarner said. "Based on the parent-to-progeny survival rates between the hatchery and wild fish (a 4:1 advantage for hatchery fish), and high prespawning loss in the river...it was decided to collect all fish for the (hatchery) broodstock."

About 30 percent of the run stays below the hatchery weir to spawn, so there would be some natural rearing, but severe flooding in 1996 and 1997 nearly eliminated all natural production from the 1994 through 1996 brood years in the river. "Because of our extreme intervention with the hatchery program," said Bumgarner, "we preserved fish from those brood years to aid in our recovery efforts."

According to Bumgarner, "Future run predictions for the Tucannon stock do not provide much positive outlook, and have raised the issue of starting a captive broodstock program to aid in recovery. We fully realize that captive brood will not recover the population on its own. We hope that identified problems in the system survival, habitat within the Tucannon and mainstem passage for adults and juveniles, can be improved to the point that the wild population will be able to sustain itself with limited hatchery intervention. The current hatchery program is vital if we hope to maintain and recover the Tucannon stock." -Bill Bakke

[8] LITTLE SUCCESS FOR LOWER SNAKE HATCHERIES

The Lower Snake River Compensation Plan was authorized by Congress in 1976 to offset losses in salmon and steelhead from construction and operation of the four federal dams. But a recent review has found that the program has not achieved its goal.

It's administered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, with BPA reimbursing costs from power revenues. The funding covers a small empire of 12 hatcheries and 14 trapping and acclimation facilities, along with monitoring, evaluation, and fish health operated by the state and tribal fish managers.

The production goals for the LSRCP hatcheries include returns of 18,300 fall chinook, 58,700 spring/summer chinook and 55,100 steelhead back to the lower Snake; the plan did not set goals for wild fish. After 20 years, hatchery mitigation goals have not been achieved, and now all wild, native salmon and steelhead in the Snake River are listed under the Endangered Species Act.

Compensation for loss of anadromous fish was based on a 15 percent mortality of smolts passing the dams, with cumulative losses estimated at 48 percent. The plan called for the creation of hatcheries to produce juveniles to compensate for the 48 percent loss, with two additional goals of replacing the adult returns in-kind and in-place. In 1997, the program cost $11.8 million for operations, monitoring and evaluation.

The latest report spells out the bad news. "Neither the...hatchery nor the naturally-spawning chinook populations have done as well as expected. Steelhead...hatchery populations have done quite well in a number of years, whereas the naturally-spawning populations

Lyons Ferry Hatchery on the Lower Snake

have deteriorated to the point that all endemic populations are now listed in the Snake River basin. In summary....the LSRCP mitigation efforts haven't been able to meet expectations and come close to the pre-dam target levels for adult chinook returns." The plan excluded mitigation for coho and sockeye salmon, and the last last native coho salmon died in the Grande Ronde River in 1986. The sockeye stock is now listed under the ESA.

In his summary of the steelhead status review, Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife's Richard Charmichael said, "The objectives of the steelhead program are to restore and sustain recreational fisheries, with little or no emphasis on natural production enhancement. The only exception to this would be the Imnaha River steelhead program. Broodstocks were developed from non-local populations, with the exception of the Clearwater and Imnaha broodstocks. This broodstock development strategy allowed for the rapid development of adequate broodstock numbers, and the ability to reach full smolt production goals in almost all programs quickly.

"The steelhead hatchery programs are all very similar, the fish are reared to produce yearling smolts which is in contrast to naturally-produced smolts which rear in nature from one to four years.

"With the exception of the Lyons Ferry Hatchery, survival rates and adult returns have not achieved mitigation goals in most programs in most years.

"Although many of the LSRCP steelhead programs have not achieved adult mitigation return or survival goals, they have demonstrated a high degree of success in restoring and maintaining recreational fisheries.

"For many reasons, I believe these (hatchery) programs may have to be significantly modified because 1) natural steelhead populations are severely depressed in the basins where hatchery programs are operating, 2) naturally-spawning Snake River steelhead populations have been listed under the Endangered Species Act, 3) our emphasis will have to shift from enhancing recreational fishing to the recovery of natural populations, 4) there are a number of genetic risks associated with continued large-scale hatchery supplementation in this basin (about 8 million steelhead smolts are released annually) and there is risk of genetic effects from non-endemic hatchery fish spawning with wild steelhead, 5) there is significant potential for competitive interaction between the hatchery and wild stocks, and 6) there may be impacts of our recreational fishery on naturally-produced fish. The challenge is to bring the impacts of these hatchery programs down to acceptable levels.

"There are a number of adaptive management options available to us -- we can reduce production, we can change release strategies to emphasize local broodstock sources, and use the hatcheries to assist in the recovery of natural populations."

Ed Bowles of the Idaho Department of Fish and Game summarized the technical reports on spring and summer chinook. "Overall, I think it is fair to characterize what we have heard today as a bleak picture with respect to the goals of the LSRCP program.

"There are some extremely important legislative and court sanctions and mandated promises that were made. Those promises relate to the LSRCP, U.S. v Oregon and Idaho Power settlement agreement; they are not going away. Those promises all resulted from construction and operation of dams, and they all chose hatcheries as the primary tool to mitigate for those effects. Based on the presentations we have heard today, it may be time to take a step back and ask ourselves whether we, as a society, have chosen the right tool for the job. If we depend on hatcheries as the only tool for the recovery of Snake River chinook stocks, we may be setting ourselves up for failure.

"Given that context, perhaps it would be more productive to evaluate the LSRCP in terms of its two-pronged objective. The first objective is production -- how well are we doing in terms of producing adults to provide fishery opportunities? The second objective has to do with conservation -- how well are we protecting the wild natural fish, and how are we doing in terms of recovering those stocks through (hatchery) supplementation?

"In the hatcheries, almost all of the programs are finding that they are successful in providing the egg-to-smolt survival necessary to meet their targets; however, that is being limited by access to the adults necessary to provide the eggs. Post release survival is where we are really hurting in all of these programs...

"One thing we have to bear in mind is that supplementation, if it works, can increase the number of naturally-spawning fish. However, it can't increase the survival of those fish in the wild. Given that fact, unless the problems that originally drove those naturally-spawning populations down are fixed, we're going to be stuck with supplementation for an indefinite period. And the longer we're stuck with supplementation, the higher the risk of adversely affecting the very populations we're trying to help.

"So while we move toward more conservation-type approaches, those efforts must be closely linked to a commitment to fixing the problems that caused the declines in the first place -- in my view, the main stem migration corridor and the dams. Otherwise we're doomed in the long haul. Supplementation programs are necessary to preserve and maintain the genetic integrity of these stocks until those fixes can occur, but they are not enough, in and of themselves, to bring about recovery, based on what we've heard today."

The LSRCP status review included an independent science panel to respond to the information provided in the review. Panel member Cindy Deacon-Williams responded with these remarks. "First, it is clear that the hatcheries cannot solve the problem on their own. Furthermore, if we continue to expect the hatcheries to shoulder that burden on their own, a very rapid result will be the complete loss of Snake River basin wild populations.

"Even an optimistic conclusion forces us to acknowledge that, for many of the natural populations, extinction will take place by about 2025. For many of these populations, a 5 to 10 fold increase in SARs (smolt-to-adult survival) will be required to avoid extinction and bring about a recovery. This means that a very large part of the improvement in survival must come from outside the hatchery system. In order to bring about the kind of system wide changes needed to produce that level of improvement in SARs, it is crucial to build political will and societal will in support of those changes. To do that we need to very clearly let people know what is going on, and what the implications of that information are.

"Our more specific recommendations for steelhead are we think it is prudent to aggressively explore the development of locally-adapted broodstocks. All of the steelhead programs need to invest energy and effort in the development of management criteria and targets that will allow them to know when to shift their operations from responding to demographic concerns (losses due to small population size) to responding to genetic concerns (losses in genetic traits among and within populations) This also applies to spring, summer and fall chinook. For the fall chinook we would add that you need to reintroduce wild fish into the broodstock."

Fisheries consultant Rick Williams, and member of the Power Planning Council's science board, was concerned about the poor survival of the hatchery fish following release. "...more attention needs to be paid to how the smolts...interact with their environment. There are indications that there may be...biological, behavioral, and ecological diversity in...these stocks that the hatchery programs, if they are run with too narrow a focus, will constrain. The key to re-establishing some of these populations may be to allow more diversity within them.

"It is clear to me," said Williams, "that we are on the verge of extinction for many stocks, so some of the debate we've heard about mitigation vs. conservation disturbed me. We must first be concerned with the simple persistence of these stocks -- once they are stabilized through conservation, we can begin to discuss rebuilding them to sustainable, harvestable levels."

The members of the science panel were asked how they felt about hatchery programs prior to the status review and how those opinions have or have not changed.

Deacon-Williams said: "I dislike the fact that hatcheries existed to assist the societal delusion that we could build the dams without any negative effects. If hatchery technology had not existed, I think we would have been forced, as a society, to confront more honestly the effects of those dams on the ecosystem. We are now at a point where our populations are at such a low ebb that we are going to have to rely on hatcheries to conserve them until habitat and hydro improvement can be made." (For a copy of the Lower Snake River Compensation Plan Status Review Symposium, 1998, write to: LSRCP, 1387 South Vinnel Way, Suite 343, Boise, ID 83709). -B. B.

[9] FED-STATE CONSERVATION PARTNERSHIP ANNOUNCED

Governors of Oregon and Washington announced over the past few days a groundbreaking partnership with the federal government designed to improve riparian habitat for endangered species in agricultural areas. The two states will get enough federal help over the next 15 years, close to half a billion dollars, to aid an estimated 2,000 miles of streamside habitat in Oregon and 3,000 miles worth in Washington, mainly to reduce water temperatures and control sedimentation.

"This agreement signals Washington state’s commitment to provide incentives to private landowners to do the right thing for salmon," said Washington Gov. Gary Locke, adding that the new program "provides a foundation for the agricultural component of the state’s salmon recovery."

The agreement, named the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program, calls for the Department of Agriculture to fund about 80 percent of the expected $250 million cost to aid Washington streams over the next 10 to 15 years, with the balance coming from the state and private landowners. The federal government plans to lease streamside land to create buffer zones up to 150 feet wide (40 feet in eastern Washington) and reimburse farmers half the cost for planting trees and shrubs and fencing off riparian areas. State governments would pick up another 25 percent of the cost.

Steve Meyer of the state's Conservation Commission said the state became aware of the federal funds after vice-president Gore signed an agreement with the state of Maryland, using the Department of Agriculture program, created in 1996, to help clean up its waterways.

Meyer said the Washington legislature appropriated $6 million in the supplemental budget last March to help pay Washington’s share while the application was made with the federal agency.

He said any landowner on a stream with a fish population designated by a 1993 state survey as "critical" or "depressed" is eligible to take part in the program. The value of leasing streamside farmland would depend on the area, he added, with annual payments to landowners in the King County region possibly as high as $190 per acre.

Meyer said fir and cedar would be the preferred kinds of trees to plant along west side streams, with cottonwoods and willows for streams east of the Cascades.

Spokesmen for the Washington Farm Bureau and the Washington Association of Wheat Growers said their groups supported the program, even though most of the money will be spent west of the Cascades, with considerable impact on dairy farmers. A similar program for dry land agriculture has been in place since 1985.

Congressman Norm Dicks (D-WA) said the program provides a flexible tool that can adapt to the diverse needs of individual landowners, "while making a solid contribution toward salmon recovery."

But just what "recovery" means is still unclear. The question came up last week at a Vancouver, BC conference on salmon problems sponsored by the Greater Seattle Chamber of Commerce. According to news accounts, regional NMFS administrator Will Stelle begged off on calls for coming up with numerical recovery goals by results-oriented business types and suggested the region set the goals themselves.

Later, Stelle told NW Fishletter that he was impressed with the leadership of William Ruckelshaus who helped organize the conference, in dealing with the Puget Sound endangered salmon issue. He said Ruckelshaus represented a concerned group that had met several times with Stelle to discuss the region’s ESA-related concerns. Stelle said his agency would develop the numbers. -Bill Rudolph

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Link/Document Annex
Works Cited

LINKS/DOCUMENTS FROM NW FISHLETTER 069:: Below are listed links and documents referred to in the text of NW Fishletter issue 069.

• Weight of Evidence Review
• Framework Web Site
• Review of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' Capital Construction Program, Part II, Oct. 5, 1998

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

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