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[1] PACIFIC OCEAN SALMON PASTURES MAY BE SHRINKING
Canadian researcher David Welch told a group of interested biologists and hydro managers that in the next 50 years, the big pasture of plankton known as the Pacific Ocean may become too hot to handle migrating salmon. Welch, who is director of high seas research for Canada's Department of Fisheries and Oceans, pitched his notion to an audience at BPA's Portland headquarters on Jan. 29, who were receptive to his message that took some of the heat off the hydro system. Welch said the region's myopic view that focuses on freshwater survival strategies for salmon doesn't reflect the fishs' life history, since only a small fraction of a salmon's life is spent in fresh water compared to its rearing time in the ocean.
Welch said different salmon species seem to be found at different temperatures, but by springtime, they are not found in the North Pacific anywhere that temperatures are below nine degrees C. Since all salmon species "generally act the same way," Welch said ocean warming from the doubling of carbon dioxide emissions over the next 50 years could exclude them from the North Pacific altogether, forcing salmon populations to migrate into the Bering Sea.
Welch contends that not only did a major climate shift occur in 1977 that boosted Alaska and northern BC stocks and had severe adverse effects on Lower 48 and southern BC stocks, but another shift also occurred in 1990 that had significant effects on salmon populations. With the ocean warming again, Welch said there has been a drastic change in ocean nutrients. He said photosynthesis that produces plankton growth is half what it was 10 years ago in areas off the BC coast.
He mentioned other stocks that have shown declines, especially after 1996, like Bristol Bay sockeye, which have returned at half of fish managers' expectations for the past two years in a row. Welch said runs in the Yukon, northern BC and southern BC were all down sharply, too.
Welch said the steelhead population in the Keogh River, on the northeast side of Vancouver Island, has seen smolt-to-adult returns (SARs) decline from 16 percent in 1990 to one percent, a pattern that seems to gibe with large-scale ocean changes that occurred from 1990 to 1994.
But he did point out that other BC stocks, like Fraser sockeye and outer coast stocks on Vancouver Island, showed different patterns of survival: in 1993, Fraser River sockeye had the highest returns in 80 years. But Oregon coho have shown a crash since 1990, going from SARs of six percent before 1976, to half that after, and down to 0.6 percent from 1991 to 1995. Welch said the population has fallen four times faster since 1990, a fact that cannot be attributed to overfishing.
Welch told the group that the poorer ocean conditions off BC have significant effects on the Oregon and Washington stocks and huge impacts on juvenile fish. One of his "key points," he said, is that ocean surveys conducted over the past three years found only the youngest migrating salmon on the continental shelf, with none collected in the deep ocean past the 60 kilometer-wide shelf that follows the Alaska coastline all the way to the Aleutians.
A Fundamentally Different Ecosystem
Welch speculates that the juvenile fish, which could cross the shelf in less than a week to begin their deep water migration, instead spend around 200 days there, which he thinks could signal that the ocean is now a "fundamentally different ecosystem."
Welch also pointed out that two Snake River juveniles were caught off Vancouver Island not long after they entered the ocean at the mouth of the Columbia. He said the fish moved so quickly, they must have been traveling at more than two times their theoretical maximum swimming speed. "They know where they're going and take advantage of the current in a very focused way."
He said the area is one of three places in the world's oceans where nitrate levels do not limit plankton production. But other substances could be the limiting factor--for example, iron that blows across the Pacific in prevailing westerlies from the Gobi Desert. Welch said a 1998 survey showed that all nitrates disappeared by early June in an area off the BC coast--a fundamental change in the ecosystem that also shows up as more fresh water in the surface layer of the ocean off the continental shelf.
As for the recent heat wave, Welch said such fluctuations are three to four times above the standard deviation. In plain English, that means the latest warming of the North Pacific was something that is expected to occur only once in ten thousand years....unless something else like the effects of global warming are now being seen.
Welch said efforts to improve habitat are knee-jerk reactions that don't factor in the huge changes that have occurred in the ocean environment, causing returning salmon to be smaller in size and have reduced fecundity. He said fish managers are not taking such factors into account when they predict run strengths from such tools as the Ricker Curve that estimates spawner/recruit production functions because salmon are about half as productive as they used to be. Welch said the fisheries management structure hasn't recognized these changes mainly because of bureaucratic inertia.
But other recent research is showing that salmon may be more adaptable to increasing ocean temperatures than previously thought.
Researchers from the U.W., NOAA and Japan reported on recent studies that wired small microprocessors to salmon and recorded thousands of daily temperature readings. The results have shown that chums, coho and pinks rise and fall in the water column every day, rising in the evening to feed, descending in the morning. Data from one chum salmon showed the fish commonly moved between a temperature range of nearly 0 degrees C. to 11 degrees C. within a 24-hour period.
The Canadian scientist told BPA biologists that the latest news is even worse: new global warming models predict that the eastern North Pacific could potentially be shut off for salmon in the next 30 years.
Such speculation is disputed by other researchers at the University of Washington. Atmospheric scientist Nathan Mantua said a newer generation of climate models predict one-half to one-third the levels of global warming that models predicted just a few years ago, like the one Welch cited in his 1998 paper that suggested thermal limits could force sockeye stocks out of the Pacific Ocean into the Bering Sea.
Mantua said his group is in the process of collecting the most recent output from half a dozen of the best available climate models, and though it was premature, he guessed that "some will actually cool parts of the North Pacific, or keep the average temperatures quite close to this century's." -Bill Rudolph
[2] DEBATE OVER SALMON MODELS MAY END UP IN CONGRESS
The continuing debate over the computer models used in the PATH process heated up another notch when CRiSP modeler Jim Anderson enlisted the aid of Congresswoman Helen Chenoweth (R-ID) to help him obtain a copy of the states and tribes' FLUSH model along with "critical parameters that determine reservoir survival."
In a Jan. 22 letter to NMFS Columbia Basin coordinator Danny Consenstein, Chenoweth said Anderson has been requesting the model since October 1997, "but to no avail." She asked for a response by Feb. 15 to let her know that Anderson had been provided the model. Anderson had earlier requested the model from Consenstein himself. Consenstein had testified at a Senate hearing last fall that all the information used in the PATH process was available to everyone.
But FLUSH modelers, in turn, say that CRISP modelers have not let them see the U.W./BPA model's computer code, either.
At issue is which model does a better job of predicting survival through the hydro system. Through PIT tag analysis, NMFS has estimated that juvenile survival of spring and summer Snake River chinook was 50 percent to 60 percent in 1998.
CRiSP modeler Anderson told a group of Boise lawmakers on Jan. 20 (See related story, NW Fishletter 74) that recent PATH results were flawed. He said the group's analyses that concluded ESA-listed stocks had a 60 percent chance of meeting all NMFS recovery standards if lower Snake dams were breached are suspect because conclusions from the FLUSH model don't gibe with the NMFS data.
Anderson said the FLUSH model, favored by a scientific review panel that looked at PATH, actually predicted only 20 percent survival, half the CRiSP results. Anderson said the FLUSH model's hypothesis that ties an increasing rate of fish mortality with the length of time spent in the hydro system is not borne out by the data.
FLUSH modeler Earl Weber of the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission said his group has not yet attempted to estimate spring survival for 1998 "because to date there has been no attempt by NMFS to provide PATH, in general, and my colleagues, in particular, with their assessment from the 1998 season. This has been another unfortunate example of NMFS' willingness to sidestep the PATH process it helped create, and instead manage the news."
NMFS scientists explained their survival results at a Jan. 12 Power Council meeting.
But high noon for the models may be here soon. NMFS researcher John Williams said his agency is analyzing PATH results for the draft anadromous fish appendix to the Corps of Engineers' feasibility study on lower Snake dams. He said FLUSH modelers have promised his agency a 1998 survival estimate by the end of February.
Weber said his group continues to be willing to enter into a PATH-sanctioned comparison of passage models with peer review. "But we are not willing to put our model on the table when the CRiSP handlers have never put their code on the table.
"To date, despite our entreaties," Weber said, "our colleagues at the University of Washington have refused to release their code, and instead have pointed to a series of unparameterized functions on a web page as an indication of their willingness to disclose information. It is not, and we are not willing to enter into a debate outside of the agreed upon, peer-reviewed PATH process."
Anderson disagreed. "We have offered our model to them, including the code. They have never asked for it," he told NW Fishletter.
The four scientists on the review panel who weighed evidence in the PATH process found the FLUSH model simpler and more empirically based than CRiSP. The group also felt that CRiSP predictions were too optimistic. But critics like Anderson said the panel hadn't been given adequate information to judge the models.
NMFS researchers also reported last fall that there is little evidence for a strong relationship between flow and survival of spring and summer chinook, another basic hypothesis in the FLUSH model.
One panel member, Carl Walters of the University of British Columbia, wrote last September that "Empirical evidence for both models is low--partial reach survivals are matched by both models, but full reach survivals are not available because survival to below Bonneville is not measured. The FLUSH model alone explains historical declines in SARs [smolt-to-adult returns]. CRiSP needs a 'demon in the ocean' to explain decline in SARs, but declines in SARs of other stocks that live in the ocean are not as severe and start later than declines in the Columbia. However, CRiSP should still get a reasonable overall probability because it can explain some empirical data (e.g., gas disease) better than FLUSH."
But survival to below Bonneville has now been measured and the 'demon in the ocean' may play a big role in stock declines. Another Canadian researcher has pointed to the changes in the ocean environment for answers. A Jan. 29 presentation at BPA's Portland headquarters by researcher David Welch, head of High Seas Salmon Research for the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, pointed to poor ocean conditions as the major factor in reductions of southern BC salmon and steelhead stocks to one-quarter of their previous size.
He said that a complete cessation of harvest after 1990 would not have compensated for the increased ocean mortality that occurred. Welch said steelhead survival in southern BC had sunk so low that after three generations the population would only be 1.6 percent of its previous level.
More scrutiny of elements in the PATH process is coming up. NMFS and the Power Planning Council will jointly host a technical discussion of the PATH process on Feb. 25 in Portland. The briefing will primarily focus on questions and issues submitted in advance to the NMFS Portland office by Feb. 4. A hearing for the Northwest congressional delegation on PATH issues may take place in Washington DC sometime soon as well.
On Feb. 6 the Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission endorsed the PATH process, without supporting the dam breaching scenario. The commission passed a motion that endorsed PATH as the "preferred process for developing biological information contributing to the decision-making process concerning alternatives for recovery of Snake River salmon and steelhead, and that the commission directs the department to continue its involvement in the PATH process."
Commission member Bob Tuck said, "It is fair to call PATH the region's attempt to get its arms around this 2,000 pound marshmallow we have been wrestling with for over half a century and come to regional consensus on the biology. It is the preferred process over the chaos we have had." -B.R.
[3] POWER MANAGERS OFFER PROPOSAL TO REDUCE FISH STRANDING
Power and fish managers spent another day meeting at a Seattle motel to discuss ways to reduce springtime water fluctuations in the Hanford Reach caused by changing daily power demands. The operation can trap young salmon as water recedes, but biologists have been unable to quantify the problem. The reach is home to 20-60 million fall chinook fry, the most productive salmon run in the Basin.
On Feb. 4, the managers traded lectures on hydro operation and "rewetting scenarios." Both sides heard what the other group wanted in the way of 1999 spring operations, but it remains to be seen whether a Hanford Reach stranding policy will emerge before the chinook fry do in late March.
The operators, a group of managers from the mid-Columbia PUDs and BPA, proposed operations for next spring—when the day average discharge at Priest Rapids will be less than 150 kcfs-- that called for alternate weeks of moderately fluctuating flows, sandwiched by weeks devoted to periodically re-watering sites of potential fish stranding. It was called a strawman strategy for fish managers to consider. The fish folks had earlier gone on record opposing fluctuations when flows were below 150 kcfs.
The power people told fish managers that such an operation would satisfy four main criteria. It would provide substantially higher protection for fish than in 1998; it would allow for a reasonable load following capability for the seven-dam project; alternating weeks of fluctuating flows would allow biologists to collect more data relative to stranding and entrapment; and finally, based on modeling assumptions, it wouldn’t kill a lot of fish because hydro managers would agree to change operations if "substantial" mortality was observed.
Hydro managers explained a complicated strategy based on hourly coordination between power agencies to try to maintain steady flows below Priest Rapids. With about 270 vertical feet of storage available, and depending on the type of water year, nearly every upriver reservoir could be involved at some time. Chief Joseph contains about one-third of the storage, while the reservoir behind Wanapum contains only about one-tenth of the available storage.
Joe Lukas of Grant PUD explained some modeling studies based on different water years. He said that in some years, even water behind Wells Dam would be needed.
Douglas PUD officials quickly objected to the very thought of it, citing recreational and cultural restraints and possible adverse effects on summer chinook fry.
The managers said they really hadn’t figured out how to "distribute the pain," but it looked like Priest Rapids would bear the brunt since it was the last dam before the Hanford Reach.
Doug Ancona of Grant PUD said he guaranteed Priest Rapids wouldn’t be the only place to feel it.
Power managers said some flexibility is needed in the system, especially at Grand Coulee, where operations within a two- to three-foot band would make it easier for project managers to coordinate their efforts. The managers’ proposal of alternating weeks where flows would be allowed to fluctuate 20-30 kcfs corresponds to about a four-foot vertical change at Priest Rapids and translates into a two-foot fluctuation in the Reach.
The power folks told fish managers they needed to operate projects a minimum of six hours for load following to be valuable. Fish managers say that fish stranded for more than 12 hours before their entrapment areas are rewatered suffer a high degree of mortality.
Ancona spoke plainly. He said their proposal was not to eliminate mortality, but to limit it. He said no estimate of the cost in lost power had yet been made, but later one attendee told NW Fishletter that it would be in the "single-digit millions."
Fish managers estimate 20-60 million chinook fry inhabit the reach in the spring, with millions of juvenile salmon potentially at risk. Unfortunately, the fish managers have been unable to quantify the potential risk, but in 1998 they saw thousands of young salmon die from stranding.
Power managers point to the high level of water fluctuations that year, caused by drum gate repair work performed at Grand Coulee. In 1997, with high flows, few fish were seen to be stranded.
Researchers in the reach have observed little risk to fish when flows are 150 kcfs or above that level. They found flows at that volume raise water levels to the edges of vegetation beyond which young salmon do not seem to stray. Consequently, they have recommended that flows either remain steady, only ramp up, or fluctuate when volume is at or above 150 kcfs.
Attendees discussed how such scenarios would fit in with the constraints to operation already spelled out in the 1995 BiOp and its 1998 supplement. The new regulations, added for ESA-listed steelhead, call for a flow target of 135 kcfs in the mid-Columbia to aid their migration. Some suggested the Technical Management Team, a group of fish and water managers who meet weekly and are responsible for getting flows to BiOp targets, should be involved in the effort. Others, like Keith Wolf of WDFW, thought the SeaTac group should be more of a "pushing mechanism" on the TMT. Fish managers caucused at lunch to develop a response to the morning’s proposal.
When the meeting resumed, Wolf told power managers their operational proposal raised mortality and risk concerns that fish folks weren’t happy with.
He reiterated their recommendation of allowing fluctuations only when flows were 150 kcfs or above. Below that, they wanted an operational scenario of flows that steadily increased to 150.
Power managers were somewhat incredulous after their lengthy explanations of BiOp constraints on river operations due to ESA concerns. "Did you see anything that made you think [the system] could accommodate this?" a power manager asked Wolf.
The two groups discussed meeting again Feb. 19 to negotiate a final agreement. But before they adjourned, power managers caucused themselves. When they returned, they reiterated their proposal. Ancona pointed out that it was based on operational feasibility, "not economics." He stressed the higher level of protection for fish in the coming year, along with the need for a "reasonable" load following capability at all seven dams.
But fish managers tripped over what power managers meant by the word "substantial" in the offer to change operations if "substantial fish mortality" was observed.
Bob Heinith of the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission said "We don’t want to see any impact at all, but we could negotiate down from that."
Grant PUD consultant Al Wright said his group wasn’t looking for a license to kill, and that’s why the offer to change operations was part of their proposal.
Potential runoff may be high enough for little worry about stranded fish this year, but before they adjourned, the group was still reminded that federal operations were based out of concern for ESA-listed fish first. But flood control remained the highest priority. Operating to achieve hourly coordination came in a distant third.
Fish managers promised to get a consensus response back to the hydro operators by mid-week.
Power Council member Tom Karier, Washington’s eastside representative, said he was encouraged by the process. "They’re a lot further along than I thought they would be." -B. R.
[4] HATCHERY WORKSHOP FINDS LITTLE CONSENSUS
In January, the Power Planning Council invited state and federal fish managers, tribes and a sprinkling of environmental representatives to a two-day workshop on artificial production. Northwest attorney Jim Waldo, long experienced in water and fish issues, facilitated the Portland meeting, which served as part of a review mandated by Congress. Many participants took aim at a recent hatchery report sponsored by the Council.
Last December, a team of scientists introduced the report on Columbia River artificial production programs. The document generated a fair amount of criticism, and agency and tribal representatives again challenged the report’s credibility at the Jan. 19-20 workshop and called for revising it.
Council staffer John Marsh told the workshop the report had left out much scientific information and presented a narrow perspective on artificial production based primarily on genetics. He said the review did not meet the standard for using the best available scientific information.
John Platt, counsel for the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, said that legal, historic and political principles should guide artificial production in the Columbia Basin rather than the science. He said the SRT report "was not tied to legal mandates, the science was too narrow, it was not peer reviewed, and it created mandatory yet vague statements that only lead to distrust of the scientists."
Dan Diggs of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service wanted to revise the report. He said it was very important to identify how hatcheries are a part of the solution for salmon recovery, but he admitted the Columbia River hatchery program "suffers, perhaps, from a lack of coordination."
Diggs called for a hatchery program that was clearly linked to sub-basin plans and integrated with salmon recovery. He wanted hatchery objectives spelled out and hatcheries evaluated against those objectives. "All hatchery uses are valid as long as they are consistent with science," Diggs said.
Power Council staffer Chip McConnaha responded to critics. He said the SRT scientists had wanted peer review, but time constraints precluded it. Congress wants the hatchery report by early May.
McConnaha agreed with comments that the recommendations were general, but he said the report’s purpose was to develop general hypotheses for hatchery operations. However, he also said no one had a lot of problems with the recommendations.
But Don Campton of the U.S Fish and Wildlife Service disagreed. He said it was very difficult to defend the recommendations "scientifically," pointing out that assumptions, interpretations and conclusions about hatchery operations were accepted without review or comment. He said it was not appropriate that the objectives in the SRT report were not evaluated and recommendations made without the benefit of peer review.
Diggs said USFWS "could not support the SRT report on hatcheries going to Congress in its present form without scientific review."
IHOT Review Not Considered
Another issue for some attendees was that the Integrated Hatchery Operations Team review of Columbia River hatcheries was not considered by the SRT reviewers. Larry Peck, of the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife said the real issue was "trust." He told the workshop that his agency doesn’t believe there will be integrated hatchery operations in the Columbia Basin. "Not having IHOT principles considered by the SRT review is a major problem."
Liz Hamilton, speaking for the NW Sport Fishing Industry Association, said the report "gives hatcheries a black eye."
NMFS representative Steve Smith pointed out that the problem was how to get the science implemented. "We don't need a lot of new policies," he said, "there is a lot we can do given existing policy. From an ESA perspective, we need to focus on our hatchery broodstocks and acclimation practices to move the hatchery program toward a locally produced stock."
"We are dealing with an altered environment that won't change anytime soon," said NMFS’ Mike DeLarm. "So, we need a vision for the future and to establish a risk analysis for the hatchery program."
Participants agreed that additional elements would be added to the hatchery report, including a discussion of resident fish hatcheries, a review of the IHOT principles for hatchery operations in the basin, and a discussion of the ecological effects of hatchery fish on native, wild salmonids.
Genetics Ignored
A few members of the Scientific Review Team attended the session, including Canadian biologist Brian Riddell of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. He told workshop participants that hatchery managers have not adequately addressed concerns about gene conservation.
"By not measuring genetic diversity changes over time," Riddell said, "we have not collected information important to the success of salmon management. There is a genetic basis for the diversity and productivity of salmon populations and the way to maximize your future benefits is by maintaining diversity within the species." He said the report stressed genetics because it’s important to success, "but it has been completely ignored in the past."
"We cannot prevent the loss of survival fitness in hatchery salmon," said Riddell. "We can only adopt gene conservation measures in hatchery practices that slow it. Hatchery fish become narrow in their diversity, smaller in size compared to the wild fish, produce fewer eggs per female, provide smaller fish to the harvester, and are less fit for survival in natural environments where they spend most of their life."
WDFW’s Bob Foster told the workshop that the older IHOT report requires genetic guidelines, but it did not identify any of them to follow. "At the time the IHOT report was done," Foster said, "no one wanted to establish genetic guidelines for hatcheries."
Tom Backman, biologist with the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, agreed that a genetics plan is needed for hatcheries, but "at the same time, it should not be too prescriptive."
Brian Allee, executive director of the Columbia River Fish and Wildlife Authority, said there were rudimentary elements for gene conservation in IHOT, but it was not designed to tell managers how do it. "The IHOT reports only address hatchery operations and not the effects of the hatchery on wild stocks," Allee said.
Funding Issues Take Over
The workshop gave up seeking consensus on scientific principles and concluded with discussion of a strategy to approach Congress for more funding of the hatchery program. Power Council staff attorney John Shurts asked the group if they could agree on items that Congress could fund because he would like to get the list sent off soon.
Inter-Tribe’s Platt said, "We can define our success and these are the plans and actions that will give us more fish. Why wouldn't you want to tell Congress about the success stories such as the Yakima, Umatilla, and Snake River hatchery programs?"
But Jim Myron of Oregon Trout said he was disappointed at continuing criticism of the new hatchery report’s recommendations about future operation. "The fish agencies and tribes seem intent on protecting the status quo regardless of what the scientists are saying," Myron said.
Myron said the best approach would be to use the SRT report as the basis for that Congressional report. "The only way to change these programs, that is, Mitchell Act and Lower Snake Compensation Plan hatcheries, is to make them more compatible with the ESA and native fish recovery and to have Congress redirect how federal dollars are spent."
The SRT report got another vote of confidence from Scott Yates of Trout Unlimited, who said the SRT report was a good first step. "The scientists analyzed current data and arrived at some logical conclusions and recommendations. The fish managers in the Columbia Basin need to acknowledge the problem of hatcheries and start working cooperatively to ensure that hatchery programs are not in conflict with wild fish. Otherwise, Congress may decide to reduce hatchery funding, or maybe cut it off."
Facilitator Waldo will prepare a report on the workshop results for Congress by this May.
Policy Heads In Opposite Directions
At the Feb. 8 meeting of the Artificial Production Review Committee, facilitator Waldo continued discussion of hatchery polices and distributed a hatchery framework proposal developed by Power Council staff.
Tom Scribner of the Yakama Indian Nation put the group on notice. "The Power Council policy is trying to integrate wild and hatchery stocks, but the agencies involved in the re-negotiation of the Columbia River Fish Management Plan are moving in the direction of keeping hatchery and wild salmon separate. The money for mass marking of hatchery fish is available for coho, spring chinook and steelhead. The hatchery program will be managed for keeping wild and hatchery fish separate through the US v. Oregon process and that is the way hatcheries will be managed in the future."
But Jim Myron of Oregon Trout asked, "Don’t you have to have agreement on the science before you can develop standards by which the hatchery program will be evaluated?"
NMFS biologist Steve Smith told the committee, "You will never get agreement on the science in this room."
But Myron continued. "Perhaps we should qualify this report to Congress by stating it may be decades before there is agreement in the region on science."
Smith told the group that the scientific criteria for hatcheries should be no more stringent than the criteria used to support other programs in harvest, habitat and hydro areas. He reminded the committee of NMFS’ experience last spring when federal judge Malcom Marsh threw out the proposal to provide more protection for native steelhead from hatchery intervention because it was more stringent than the government’s hydro policy.
When talk turned to the upcoming report to Congress, questions were asked concerning what was needed to make changes in hatchery operations. Trout Unlimited’s Jeff Curtis said he could remember having the same conversation about hatchery reform in 1985.
"We need to act with dispatch," said Waldo. "The fish will be better off and so will funding for your hatchery programs."
Jack Wong, head of the Power Council’s fish and wildlife program, told the group "Congress believes the situation here is chaotic and wasteful. We are competing with other uses for this funding, so unless Congress has assurance there is a cooperative, objective-based hatchery program, we may lose funding."
One member of the committee asked what was the link between the policy report to Congress and carrying out hatchery reform.
Waldo responded simply by saying, "Money." But by meeting’s end, it was still not clear what it would take to make agencies more accountable. -Bill Bakke
[5] MONTANA JOINS IN AS REGIONAL FORUM TAKES SHAPE
Montana has decided to join the growing group of tribes, states and federal entities that began as the Three Sovereigns process and is now known as the Columbia River Basin Forum.
John Etchart, one of Montana's representatives to the Power Planning Council, said Gov. Marc Racicot has changed his mind and decided to climb aboard for three main reasons. First, said Etchart, most of the onerous provisions of the draft MOA have been removed. Second, since the Forum will happen, Racicot felt it would be to Montana's benefit to be part of it. Third, Racicot wants to help Oregon Gov. Kitzhaber work toward development of a longer term regional body made up of tribes, states and perhaps the federal government, which eventually would develop decision-making authority.
Etchart was careful to point out that such authority would have to come through legislation proposed by the four governors. Racicot has previously held out for expansion of the Power Planning Council as the best way to create a new regional forum, adding tribal and federal representation.
Etchart said Racicot is now convinced that real progress is being made in the Forum discussions, but he's signing on with the feeling that it's an interim solution.
Idaho, settling into a new gubernatorial administration, has still not decided whether to join. Both Washington and Oregon have said they will sign on, as will a majority of the 13 tribes in the basin, along with federal agencies. But with a regional fish and wildlife Framework now being developed in another venue and scientific monitoring and evaluation tasks being undertaken by other agencies, it's not clear what direction the Forum will go. At this point, Etchart said, it's unclear what the Forum will do besides function as an information-gathering body.
His counterpart, Stan Grace, on his way to the Portland meeting, said one thing is sure: the Forum won't take over the Framework process. He said without "credentialed" representatives from each group, about the most that would be accomplished at the Forum meeting would be passage of a proposal to "move ahead" because "critical mass" had been reached. Grace said the next meeting would be more productive if all designated representatives can sign aboard to legitimize the operation. After that, Grace said another two or three meetings would be devoted to developing ground rules for operation.
A roll call at the Jan. 29 forum meeting of participants gave the process a thumbs up, minus one state and several Indian tribes. Grace showed up with a letter bearing his governor's signature, leaving Idaho the lone holdout among the states. That state's new governor, Dirk Kempthorne, is still studying the issue, commented Idaho Power Council rep Mike Field, who was not attending in any official capacity, but said he was only there to observe.
The federal agencies have all signed on, but the Umatilla and Nez Perce tribes expressed misgivings and have not signed. The Nez Perce showed a list of conditions they said need to be met before they would climb aboard, including the provision that "the United States must commit to asserting positions in the Forum only after consulting with the Tribe pursuant to the Tribe's treaty rights and the United States' trust obligations." They also want their own representative, rather than sharing one with other tribes.
Spokane tribal representative Howard Funke said the document has undergone "excruciating scrutiny" and strikes a balance among the sovereigns.
But just what the Forum will accomplish remains unclear, and though some participants call it a neutral plan where authorities can meet with the public, it's a fact of life that the feds, Oregon, Washington and the lower Columbia tribes are still negotiating hatchery and harvest issues in secret as part of the ongoing court-sanctioned US V. Oregon process.
As for the fish and wildlife Framework process, it was reported at a Jan. 27 meeting that several alternatives are being developed by the parties involved. Utility and industrial groups are working on one or two; tribes are working on one they might all sponsor; environmental groups are developing an alternative of their own, and according to the Framework meeting minutes, "the federal agencies may or may not be working on something in common."
The alternatives should be developed by Feb. 8, while the ecological work group is doing a dry run on a case study before it tackles the alternatives. The Human Effects Group is also practicing a dry-run exercise. On Feb. 8, staff, technical groups and the 12-member management group scheduled a working retreat to review the alternatives and hear how analysts intend to review them. -Bill Rudolph
[6] ISAB BACKS DAM IMPROVEMENTS FOR ADULT PASSAGE
The Power Planning Council's Independent Scientific Advisory Board reported last week that all 16 projects planned by the Corps of Engineers to help adults migrate through the hydro system should be implemented, but they cautioned that more dam modifications may be necessary.
The group recommended further study of problems associated with adult passage, noting that the way fish are counted now at dams isn't very reliable. The ISAB called for PIT tag detectors to be installed in fish ladders, more research into the effects of reservoir temperatures on adult migrants, and more monitoring to help fish managers improve estimates of spawning escapement. They also wanted the Corps to find ways to reduce fallback, when fish pass a fish ladder, then fall back via spillway or turbine and have to swim the ladder again. The problem is compounded during times of high spill when juveniles are migrating downstream, a strategy the ISAB itself has recommended be increased to improve young fish survival.
The report drew the ire of Bruce Lovelin, executive director of the Columbia River Alliance, who faulted the ISAB for not better quantifying the magnitude of adult mortality. He said the report mentioned few studies, but cited work by Don Chapman in 1991 that estimated inter-dam losses between John Day, McNary, and either Ice Harbor or Priest Rapids at only five percent. Lovelin said the ISAB briefing at the Power Council's Feb. 3 work session displayed "an unfortunate trend of the region's scientists to reach beyond scientific fact." -B.R.
[7] OR, NMFS GIVE UP APPEAL OVER COHO LISTING
Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber announced Jan. 22 that his state was withdrawing from an appeal of the court decision last June that forced NMFS to list his state's coastal coho as a threatened species. The federal agency had previously agreed not to list the fish because of proposed state efforts to recover the stocks spelled out in a recovery plan. The court took issue with the plan because it relied too heavily on volunteer efforts and speculative improvements.
NMFS planned to drop its appeal as well, but is developing a new policy that will make it clear that the feds will consider future and voluntary actions in deciding whether to list a species under the ESA.
Kitzhaber said Oregon dropped the appeal because it looked likely that the fish would remain listed even if Oregon won in court. "The current low numbers of coho make it unlikely that we will see coho taken off the threatened species list anytime soon," Kitzhaber said. "At this point, we need to put our energies into restoring our watersheds and recovering salmon in a way that works for Oregon."
Kitzhaber recently signed an executive order that expanded his state's recovery plan to include all salmon and steelhead. -B. R.
[8] CLINTON BUDGET INCLUDES $100 MILLION FOR SALMON RECOVERY
West Coast governors got a wake-up call from the Clinton Administration when the President announced his budget would include only half the amount of money they had requested to begin salmon recovery efforts. California, Oregon, Washington and Alaska had asked for $200 million, promising to match it with state money. Sen. Slade Gorton (R-WA), meanwhile, has proposed the feds come up with $310 million for salmon with state and local governments making the decisions on how to spend it.
Most of the proposed funding is aimed at habitat improvement--even in Alaska, where Bob King, Gov. Tony Knowles' press secretary, said money for habitat acquisition and restoration would be welcome.
With ESA listing for more salmon stocks imminent in western Washington, Gov. Gary Locke unveiled a salmon recovery strategy two weeks ago that counted on $200 million in federal dollars for his state alone over the next two years.
But Clinton had other priorities. He said as much as 10 percent of the federal money would be used for tribal salmon restoration projects. The president also proposed a $25 million increase for NMFS to help develop salmon recovery plans and $12 million to go towards removing Elwha River dams.
The president's budget also includes $100 million for the Corps of Engineers to fund fish mitigation in the hydro system, with $41 million to pay for structural improvements at dams and $59 million to fund continuing studies and evaluations for long-term passage improvements that include surface bypass, drawdown of lower snake reservoirs, John Day hatchery mitigation, turbine passage, gas abatement, adult passage and a Lower Columbia River Configuration Study that was called for in the 1998 supplemental BiOp. The new study would include an evaluation of a drawdown of McNary Dam. -B. R.
Subscriptions and Feedback
Link/Document AnnexLINKS/DOCUMENTS FROM NW FISHLETTER 075:: Below are listed links and documents referred to in the text of NW Fishletter issue 075.
- NW Fishletter 74
- Review of Artificial Salmonid Propagation in the Columbia River Basin, December, 1998
- ISAB Report 99-2, Capital Construction Program, Part III - Adult Passage, Jan. 26, 1999.
THE ARCHIVE :: Previous NW Fishletter issues and supporting documents.
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