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[1] 200 SCIENTISTS TELL CLINTON TO BREACH THE DAMS
More than 200 fish scientists sent a letter to President Clinton last week that called for breaching lower Snake River dams to recover endangered runs of salmon and steelhead. Otherwise, they say, the fish will go extinct over the next 30 years. Their recommendation comes several months ahead of any official word on the subject by the Corps of Engineers, the agency charged with studying fish recovery alternatives, including breaching. The Corps won't have a draft EIS on the subject completed until early summer, leading to a final recommendation by the National Marine Fisheries Service in early 2000.
About half of those signing the letter hailed from Idaho, where the dam breaching issue is a hot potato. More than 50 Idaho signatories were reported to be employees of the state's beleaguered Fish and Game Department.
But other Idahoans said the letter has hurt the dam breaching cause. Will Hart, press secretary for Sen. Larry Craig (R-ID), said the letter "has automatically put into question their credibility by focusing on the dams as the one big factor causing salmon declines. They completely ignore things like poor ocean conditions, predation by terns and other factors."
Corps biologist John McKern, chief of fish management for the Walla Walla District, says the letter to Clinton is misleading. In a letter of his own to Robert Kendall, president of the American Fisheries Society, McKern said "recent research results by National Marine Fisheries Service scientists have shown that the PATH (Plan for Analyzing and Testing Hypotheses) model results upon which the petition is based are grossly in error. Yet many of the signers of the petition are members of the PATH team, the ISAB (Independent Scientific Advisory Board), or SRP (Scientific Review Panel). They are 'scientists' involved in analyzing the biology in the study involving breaching the dams. They know the information that has been made public is not correct. Yet they have signed a petition based on false results."
In McKern's view, the signatories to the Clinton letter have broken standards of conduct. "When I joined the AFS, I pledged to support and adhere to the Standards of Professional Conduct of the AFS. Those standards expressly prohibit using false information and being dishonest with or misleading your agency or the public in fisheries issues. Many of the people whose names are on the petition are federal employees. By signing this petition they seek to mislead their ultimate boss, the President of the United States, and by releasing information like this petition to the public, they seek to sway public opinion."
Idaho fish geneticist Rick Williams and Oregon consultant Phil Mundy, who sit on a panel of independent scientists to peer review issues for both NMFS and the Power Planning Council, also signed the letter. Their action disturbed some Council members. "It's regrettable that this has occurred," said Oregon Council member Erich Bloch, who chairs the group's fish and wildlife committee. "You have to separate your private opinions from your professional conduct." He said that by signing the pro-breaching letter, the two panel members' support for the controversial strategy has raised questions about "appearance," but Bloch said it didn't necessarily mean that Williams and Mundy weren't objective in their judgments while serving on the ISAB.
But Montana Council member John Etchart said that by signing the letter, the two scientists have called into question the scientific objectivity of the ISAB process. Over the past two years, the ISAB has judged the value of many aspects of the Columbia Basin's salmon recovery efforts.
"When Dr. Williams or anybody aligns himself on one side or the other, it works to our detriment," Etchart said. Power Council attorneys are looking into the question of whether Williams' and Mundy's action violated conflict of interest.
In a press release that accompanied the letter, Williams said "continuation of status quo management and recovery programs or the politically palatable slight variations presently favored by virtually all of the Northwest governors and Congressional delegations will doom many Snake basin stocks to certain extinction within the next one to three decades. Recovery of the upper basin stocks can only be achieved by restoration of natural ecological functions in major key habitats..."
The March 22 letter had been distributed throughout the region for months by the conservation group Idaho Rivers United. In part, it said the scientists who signed "are especially concerned that the current management approach appears to be fixed on a path of technological solutions instead of a return to more normative river conditions."
The letter said the situation was particularly acute in the Snake River Basin, where runs have declined by nearly 90 percent after the lower Snake dams were built.
The scientists said fish transportation systems would fail to produce enough fish to rebuild the stocks because the most recent data "indicates a five- to fifteen-fold increase in survival rates is needed in order to meet NMFS recovery goals."
They went on to say that scientific consensus is building that the natural river option is the surest way of restoring the salmon runs. They cited results from the PATH process and a recommendation from the Idaho Department of Fish and Game that said the natural river option is "logical, biologically sound, has the highest certainty of success and lowest risk of failure, and is consistent with the preponderance of scientific data."
Others say the jury's still out on the value of breaching. NMFS is addressing the value of the PATH analysis in its anadromous fish appendix to the Corps of Engineers' draft EIS on the lower Snake. Though the review is not yet public, sources say the NMFS appendix will view the PATH report as inadequate and conclude that dam breaching by itself will not recover the stocks.
And as far as PATH results are concerned, the group's year-end report--the results of which are still being contested by various participants--said that breaching the dams had a 48 percent probability of meeting all NMFS jeopardy and recovery standards for spring, summer and fall chinook, while status quo operations had a 27 percent chance of meeting all the standards.
But the letter to Clinton says the natural river option (breaching) is the only action that has a "high likelihood" of restoring the runs to a healthy level, and that "the natural river option is the only recovery strategy under consideration that is consistent with the normative river principles outlined in Return to the River."
"That's not accurate," Council member Bloch said. He said the report outlined a continuum of possible actions based on those principles. Montana Power Council member Stan Grace said Williams' and Mundy's support for breaching the dams "is like a jury foreman declaring the verdict before the jury's even met."
Montana scientist Jack Stanford, a former ISAB member himself, also signed the letter to Clinton.
Both Williams and Mundy are near the end of their terms on the ISAB. Council staffer Doug Marker said his agency is currently waiting for the National Academy of Sciences to send another list of names for consideration. Others say it's not likely that the two will be re-nominated to serve another term. Both NMFS and the Power Council share in the process of selecting new members.
Williams also serves on the Independent Scientific Review Panel, made up of mostly ISAB members, whose task is to prioritize proposals for annual funding through BPA's fish and wildlife program.
Geneticist Williams felt it was time to speak out. On March 23, he told the Lewiston Tribune, "We assumed if we did objective science that would be enough. Clearly that isn't. Some of us wanted to raise the issue." -Bill Rudolph
[2] WILD FALL CHINOOK RUN ON SNAKE REVISED DOWN
Last November's report that over 900 wild chinook had passed Lower Granite Dam has turned out to be wishful thinking. It's more like 304 fish, said Glen Mendel of the Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife, with about that many jacks as well. He said the revised run size came after preliminary numbers were analyzed over the winter. Nearly 4,000 adults and jacks were counted going over the dam last fall. Most were supplemented fish, raised as yearlings or subyearlings at Lyons Ferry Hatchery on the lower Snake, then released from several sites above the dams.
Mendel said that's quite a bit below the official estimate of an expected return of 900 to 1,300 wild fish, which the Technical Advisory Committee had estimated. Last September, harvest managers had increased their estimate of Snake River falls returning to the Columbia from 2,000 to 3,000 salmon. The bump in numbers increased the inriver harvest rate as well. Non-treaty fishermen were estimated to have caught about 122 of the listed fish, The tribal fishery was estimated to have caught about 660 of the listed Snake stock, along with 47,000 other chinook, most headed for the Hanford Reach.
More than 1,500 hatchery strays from Lyons Ferry were trapped at Lower Granite in 1998 and trucked back to the hatchery. Most supplemented fish were detected using various combinations of clipped fins and other marks.
But NMFS biologist Steve Smith explained that after the season, harvest managers reassessed their original estimate of 2,000 Snake River fall chinook entering the river and came up with a post-season number of only 800 fall chinook.
In past years, said Smith, wild fish have made up about half the fall returns to Lower Granite. Last year, however, wild fish made up only about seven percent of the total fall run counted at the dam. He said about 450 chinook adults came from supplementation efforts.
And though Smith said the actual in-river harvest rate on the Snake fall chinook was lower than projected, harvest managers are changing their methodology for dealing with the stock. The issue is further complicated by the fact that the progeny of supplemented chinook, unlike their parents, will be counted as part of the wild ESU when they return in a few years.
Some biologists speculated that severe flooding in the winter of 1995-1996 scoured wild chinook redds in the Snake, causing the meager return. Others, like WDFW's Mendel, think it shows that ocean conditions haven't really changed for the better. -B.R.
[3] CANADA SAYS HARVESTS CUTS HAVE PAID OFF
Canadian fisheries minister David Anderson has announced that deep harvest cuts in last year's salmon fisheries have paid off in improved escapements for critical BC coho stocks.
"Domestic salmon management measures combined with interim bilateral agreements with the US insured our conservation goals were met," Anderson said in a March 12 press release. He said BC fishermen only caught three percent of upper Skeena coho in the northern BC area. Alaska fish managers have argued that Canada lowballed coho abundance in 1999, and their own coho catch last year has proved them right. Last year's salmon plan included a minimum 6- to 8-year building period and called for extremely limited fishing in areas were coho were prevalent. In some places, coho had to be released by commercial and sport fishermen. The plan also included an arrangement with Washington state for a reciprocal reduction of harvests.
Anderson said coho mortality was reduced in the Strait of Georgia, the Fraser River and off the west coast of Vancouver Island, but returns were still modest. This "suggested that poor ocean survival rates are continuing."
Other natural factors took their toll as well. High temperatures in the Fraser led to a significant loss of spawners during the summer sockeye run.
On March 23 Anderson announced that another 647 commercial salmon licenses had been bought out by the Canadian government. Trollers and gillnetters were being paid around $80,000 on average to give up their fishing privileges, and seiners received more than $400,000 apiece. The 1998 license reduction program has cut the Canadian commercial fleet by about 25 percent. The government began buying back licenses in 1996. Since then, the fleet has been cut by nearly 40 percent at a cost of $187 million.
Anderson said another round of government license buyouts will take place next fall after a series of harvest allocation workshops is completed. Canada's new policy calls for the recreational fishing sector to focus on chinook and coho unless harvestable surpluses allow for commercial catches. -B. R.
[4] TRIBES KNOCK NEW FEDERAL F&W CAUCUS
Lower Columbia tribes have questioned the intent of federal efforts to help create a regional fish and wildlife plan. In a March 16 letter to NMFS regional director Will Stelle, CRITFC director Ted Strong said a memo distributed by the feds at the last Forum meeting that outlined the caucus committee setup among federal agencies "must be regarded as representing a failure by the federal government to coordinate."
Strong said the federal effort duplicated work already underway in the Framework process. He said the workplan was developed in secret, which offends the principles of the new Forum process made up of tribal, state and federal policymakers.
Strong pointed out that some basin tribes had joined the Forum "hoping to insure an open and collaborative process. "From your memorandum, however, it now appears that the federal parties have instead opted to implement a separate framework process behind closed federal doors that somehow will be 'coordinated with, and, where possible, build on the activities of the Framework.'"
None of the four lower Columbia tribes have officially signed on to the Forum process yet, while all upper basin tribes have OK'd the arrangement that puts state, federal and tribal policymakers around the same table. The Yakama and Warm Springs have said they intend to join the Forum, but the Nez Perce and Umatilla have not. -B. R.
[5] FRAMEWORK PROCESS NEARLY OUT OF MONEY
It's no joke: the first phase of the Multi-species Framework Project will end April 1, and so will funding for the regional effort. To keep the work on track, the Power Planning Council is asking three federal agencies to pony up $270,000 apiece for phase two of the exercise designed to develop a scientific basis for the recovery of Columbias Basin fish and wildlife.
The first phase was funded solely by BPA, which contributed $960,000 to get the process rolling. The Framework has so far developed the outlines for seven alternatives that spell out the future of fish and wildlife recovery efforts in the Columbia Basin. Montana Power Council member Stan Grace said the Council feels that ratepayers shouldn't get stuck with the rest of the bill.
On March 17 the Council sent a request to NMFS, USWFS, and the Corps of Engineers to fund the next portion of the Framework process. Corps spokesman Witt Anderson said it would be difficult to come up with the money given his agency's lengthy budget process. It was reported that the other two agencies were strapped. Something may be worked out short-term with the Corps, said Grace, with BPA reimbursing the agency later.
On March 24 Grace said the framework had enough funding to continue another month. -B.R.
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