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[1] OREGON F&W COMMISSION RAISES MORE QUESTIONS ABOUT PATH
The Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission heard firsthand from PATH participants last week in an attempt to learn more about the results of the group's grapplings with critical uncertainties about recovery of Snake River stocks.
The Commission wanted more information about the PATH process after a joint meeting two months ago with Idaho's Fish and Wildlife Commission. At that meeting, Idaho biologists had urged Oregon to endorse the dam breaching strategy embraced by their own commissioners.
On April 22, at a special workshop session, chairwoman Susan Foster said the Commission had several questions about the long-term effort by dueling salmon models and modelers that has found breaching lower Snake dams offers weak salmon runs the best chance of recovery. A minority opinion in PATH claims that transporting fish is just as effective a remedy.
But the Commissioners were unaware that by mid-week, the controversial findings were being disputed by two key members of the four-member panel who peer-reviewed PATH results.
Foster said the Commission had questions about the openness of the PATH process, its complexity, objectivity, and whether the group's conclusions were "well founded." Five of the six PATH participants who answered questions, including facilitator Dave Marmorek, agreed that the process was open. UW fisheries professor Jim Anderson disagreed.
Commissioner Henry
Lorenzen said he was concerned that the process "was not as open as it could have been." He reminded the group of the situation a few years ago when the state of Oregon threatened to sue modeler Anderson over FLUSH model results he found during an analysis of dissolved gas and spill issues argued before the state's Department of Environmental Quality.
Tourist at Ice Harbor Lock on the lower Snake. Anderson, who had developed a competing passage model called CRiSP, had obtained the FLUSH model used by states and tribes, and found it predicted system survivals in excess of 100 percent. Oregon obtained a gag order that kept Anderson from releasing the embarrassing FLUSH analysis. "It's been bothering me for a couple of years," said Lorenzen.
Anderson told the Commission that the FLUSH model isn't available during the PATH process. He said the real issue is not which model is correct, but to "resolve whether the flow/survival relationship is strong or weak; and what are its mechanisms." CRiSP posits a weak to non-existent flow/survival relationship that has been backed up by recent NMFS PIT-tag research.
He said the process wasn't open because it took its marching orders from the IT, the regional policymakers who had determined that the models were not designed to discern the effects of in-season flow changes through the hydro system. Anderson said FLUSH was not designed for this, but CRiSP was.
FLUSH modeler Paul Wilson of the Columbia Fish and Wildlife Authority said he was ready to run a "side by side" comparison of the models within the PATH process to reduce the chance of misrepresentation and misuse of his model.
ODFW biologist Howard Schaller wondered how important such a comparison would be. He said both models have "evolved tremendously." Facilitator Marmorek admitted there was frustration on both sides and suggested a general meeting with IT policymakers might help, or even a meeting with the four independent scientists who reviewed the PATH uncertainties, including the flow/survival issue. The four, known as the Scientific Review Panel, decided there was enough empirical evidence for such a relationship to exist.
Marmorek told the Commission that the SRP has peer-reviewed PATH activities and weighed evidence for uncertainties in the analyses, such as delayed fish mortality, poor ocean conditions and upriver/downriver stock comparisons. He said analyses performed after the weighting process showed little difference in outcomes, which suggested "robustness" in the PATH results.
But Marmorek did not mention to the Commission that a review by the SRP released two days before the Commission meeting contained serious doubts about PATH's year-end results.
SRP member Carl Walters, well-known researcher from the University of British Columbia, said he was concerned about model results after comparing them to observed reach survivals. "What this concern means is that I no longer trust your [PATH] assessments about the range of uncertainty in recovery predictions under alternative policies. In particular, I do not trust your finding that there is a very high long-term recovery probability under the dam removal options...I suspect that after some reflection, you are going to have to admit considerably greater uncertainty about whether even these extreme measures will do the job."
Fellow panel member Saul Saila expressed "personal reservations" about the complexities of the PATH analyses. "Added to this, I believe there is considerable additional uncertainty--including the randomness of nature, the accuracy of counts and measurements, systematic counting and measurement error, bias error in making observations, et cetera."
The uncertainty factor in the PATH work was a key point in a NMFS report issued last week, which looked at the group's year-end results and indicated that, based on recent findings from PIT-tag research, the long-term benefits from breaching dams may be little better than results that could be achieved by current operations. NMFS biologist Tom Cooney explained results from the latest NMFS review to the Commission.
By the end of the day, ODFW's chief of fisheries Doug DeHart counseled the Commission that, at this point, it was "not timely" to take a position on PATH. By the end of the day, Lorenzen said he had no idea if the Commission would take a vote on the issue. The next day, commissioners decided to take it up later in the summer, probably in July. -Bill Rudolph
[2] PUGET SOUND SALMON GOALS STILL UNCLEAR
Salmon recovery goals for Puget Sound was a main item for discussion at a panel meeting last week in Seattle. After federal and county officials, legal experts and private developers spoke, it was obvious a huge effort is underway to deal with the endangered chinook listing for the fast-growing region. Federal authorities are asking for blanket protection of ESA-listed stocks while they confer with state and county agencies over development of fish recovery plans.
In the Puget Sound region, a tri-county effort is aimed at recovering wild chinook stocks to as yet undefined "harvestable surpluses," which means higher levels than what the Endangered Species Act usually mandates for recovery.
It's a situation that could lead to a serious debate over just how reasonable these goals may be. University of Washington law professor Bill Rodgers suggested that such a baseline for abundance could be stock levels in 1854, when the Medicine Creek Treaty was signed with local tribes. But one immediate problem with such a standard is that nobody was counting spawners in those days.
From Rodgers' perspective, the salmon problem is basically one of what he called "failed law." He pointed out that laws to help salmon were on the books before statehood. Another statute that called for screening irrigation diversions was passed in 1908 and other important water laws passed went into effect in 1941. He said "lousy enforcement" of these old laws has been a major factor in fish declines.
Sam Anderson of the Master Builders Association of King and Snohomish Counties told the audience of about 40 fish heads that the habitat issue will impact "all of our lives." He said the state's Growth Management Act specifies most development must occur within urban growth boundaries to minimize impacts on rural areas, but that's exactly where the region will have to work hardest to protect fish habitat.
Until state, local and federal agencies agree on what's needed for recovery, Anderson said, NMFS officials have told him they expect properly functioning conditions for fish "all the time."
With 95 percent of county building permits issued within urban growth boundaries and eight million people estimated to be living in the Puget Sound region by 2025, Anderson said recovery of these stocks will be an "unbelievably expensive proposition."
He pointed to another reason for discomfort among developers--third part lawsuits--when literally anyone may sue if they feel not enough is being done to protect fish.
He said the uncertainty is compounded at the federal level, where there is a "big upheaval" over what is required to satisfy "section 7" requirements of the ESA.
NMFS geneticist Robin Waples said it's his agency's job to develop plans to protect "environmentally significant units" [ESUs] of wild stocks, but the ESA isn't clear how many parts of each one can be recovered before the goal is satisfied. The Puget Sound chinook ESU includes stocks from six different watersheds, along with large hatchery components in some areas, which, he said, "makes it hard to sort out the wilds."
But Anderson asked how NMFS would determine when an ESU had recovered enough to de-list.
Waples said every part of the ESU didn't have to be recovered to de-list. He said part of the problem is a limited ability for quantitative answers. In the absence of that, he said the NMFS interim approach will require contributions from every part of the ESU.
But Prof. Ed Miles of the University of Washington said it's basically the same NMFS policy that's being implemented on the Columbia River, "and it's strategy we can't afford." He said it's not cost-effective because it's based on "techno-fixes" that don't work. Miles asked if officials had looked at how much the poor ocean regime had contributed to weak runs.
He didn't get much of an answer. King County ecologist Bob Fuerstenberg said the tri-county plan, called "Bring Back the Kings," is focused on $60 million in projects for habitat restoration. He admitted that up to the present, efforts at restoring habitat have failed to bring back fish. He said it didn't work most of the time because it was done in the wrong places with the wrong things. The new effort begins with the premise, "do no harm." It will be up to NMFS officials and the 17 biologists who work for the county to make those determinations.
Others said it was dangerous to set a numerical goal. U.W. law professor Bill Rodgers said hatcheries have had negative effects as well. He said hatchery managers have acted with unbelievable arrogance and "they did it all wrong." He pointed to new operations, like the Yakama tribal hatchery in Cle Elum, where chinook fry are raised in more natural conditions and are subject to "merganser training" to reduce predation rates once they are released.
Jim Lone of the Pacific Fishery Management Council mentioned harvest reductions to increase returns of Puget Sound fish. He said no directed fisheries would take place, except in the northern Sound, where most stocks are of Canadian hatchery origin. For the rest of the region, a November fishery will focus on hatchery-raised yearling chinook which spend much of their lives in the Sound. He called for strengthening a scientifically approved hatchery program.
Anderson said the science has been driven by policy, rather than the other way around. He said the governor's plan was DOA when it reached the legislature, but he had hope for the county-level strategies. Speaking for developers, he said if the tri-county effort fails with NMFS, "we'll all go off and do our own HCP to cover our rear end.
"Right now, Anderson said," it's easy to be for saving salmon." -B.R.
[3] TRIBES WANT THEIR TRIBS EXEMPT FROM WILD FISH POLICY
This week, Columbia River treaty fishing tribes initiated a bill in the Oregon legislature, HB 3609, to exempt all Oregon tributaries above Bonneville Dam from the state's wild fish policy. A hearing was held on the proposed legislation, but no tribal members showed up to testify in support.
In a March 18 letter to Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife Director Jim Greer, the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission requested that "all co-managed restoration or recovery programs in Oregon be exempted from the Oregon Wild Fish Policy," and asked if Greer would support a legislative exemption for co-managed programs under the wild fish policy.
In their letter, the tribes asked, "When ODFW supports use of the hatchery tool to supplement natural production, the effort is often limited geographically and numerically because of genetic concerns and a view that supplementation is experimental and therefore should be minimized. Why is ODFW content with small population levels that don't meet escapement or harvest objectives?"
The tribes also pointed out the ODFW steelhead hatchery program uses a non-native stock on the Grande Ronde River, but on the Walla Walla River the agency does not support a hatchery program proposed by the tribes that would also use native stock.
"In general," wrote the tribes, "we are concerned that ODFW seems to have an anti-hatchery supplementation position which impedes fisheries restoration efforts and state-tribal relations."
The Oregon Wild Fish Management Policy was first adopted by the state's Fish and Wildlife Commission in 1978. It was revised in 1992 with the purpose of providing guidance for native, wild fish conservation and the protection of genetic and life history diversity. The policy also integrates hatchery and wild salmonid production by setting numerical guidelines for the number of hatchery fish that can spawn with native salmonids in each river, based on genetic similarity. The policy calls for lowering numbers of hatchery spawners as genetic differences between hatchery and wild fish increase.
The Wild Fish Management Policy does not preclude the use of hatchery fish, but it does set limits on the number of non-native hatchery fish that can spawn in streams. The policy encourages hatchery managers to use native brood stock. Guidelines for limiting artificial selection hatcheries are now being developed.
However, a number of hatchery programs don't comply with the wild fish management policy, such as the Grande Ronde summer steelhead program. But the agency says it is moving to correct this problem by converting to native stock at the hatchery. There are numerous other examples of Oregon streams where management programs are out of compliance with the policy.
In their letter to ODFW, the tribes noted problems with Grande Ronde River steelhead management. The Grande Ronde native steelhead have been listed as a threatened species by the National Marine Fisheries Service. The Oregon biologists have identified six distinct wild steelhead populations in the river and agreed to use only four of them in a hatchery program.
The tribes said "Another example currently being discussed in the US v. Oregon negotiations is the conversion to endemic steelhead broodstock in the Grande Ronde Basin. We feel this type of approach is driven by numerous 'genetically unique' subunits and related research will preclude meaningful supplementation and recovery of natural production. The federal and tribal position in this case is to manage the upper Grande Ronde as a one-composite stock unit..."
Jim Myron of Oregon Trout opposes the legislation. "This is a breach of faith on the part of the tribes," said Myron, "to go to the Oregon Legislature with a bill while negotiating with Oregon in the court-ordered US v. Oregon process for a new fish plan on the Columbia. If I was Oregon, I would be upset."
Myron said, "All parties can take a shot at revising the wild fish policy during the governor's review, but Don Sampson, executive director for Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, told me he did not want to lose the legislative opportunity."
Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber's executive order on the Oregon Plan calls for a review of the wild fish policy this year. This review is open to all parties and ODFW head Greer said he anticipated changes in the policy. -Bill Bakke
[4] ECONOMIC COALITION TAKES ON NMFS OVER SALMON HARVESTS
Barely a month after Puget Sound chinook salmon were listed for protection as a threatened species, a coalition of agricultural, building and real estate interests has announced it will sue the National Marine Fisheries Service over salmon harvest issues and other elements of the federal agency's interpretation of the ESA.
The coalition, called Common Sense Salmon Recovery, includes the Washington Farm Bureau, the Washington Association of Realtors, the Washington Cattlemen's Association and the Building Industry Association of Washington. Coalition spokesman Sam Pace announced the action at an April 28 press conference in Seattle.
The lawsuit, to be filed in Washington DC, is designed to force NMFS to stop the "over-harvest and predation of salmon" that have been listed as threatened or endangered under the ESA, Pace said. Almost 60 percent of all Puget Sound chinook are caught on the high seas, he added, while another 20 percent are caught by tribal and sports fishers and another 10 percent are consumed by marine predators like sea lions and seals.
The coalition's figures were disputed by Washington F&W head Jeff Koenings, who said recent harvest cuts have kept fishing exploitation at 25- to 30 percent of the total stock. The coalition has taken its numbers from a 1998 NMFS status review that cited a 1994 study by the Pacific Salmon Commission.
Pace said NMFS has taken no effective steps to reduce harvest since the stock was proposed for listing, choosing instead to focus on habitat.
"NMFS offers no evidence, scientific or practical," said Pace, "that its one-dimensional focus on habitat will save salmon." He said such a focus will threaten the economy's vitality, increase housing costs and property taxes and push farmers closer to bankruptcy. "And in the process, we'll fail to save the salmon."
The group's attorney, James Johnson, said the
lawsuit would also take issue with NMFS definition of "species." Language in the suit calls NMFS' concept of evolutionarily significant units "unlawful," and claims that it excludes "identical hatchery salmon which are a majority of those fish." The plaintiffs contend that if hatchery fish were counted, the stocks would not qualify for listing. They say that there is no biological basis for distinguishing between natural and hatchery produced stocks, contending that both have been reproducing since 1899 when hatchery production began.
According to the suit, "Puget Sound populations have continuously interbred with populations from neighboring ESUs and so fail to meet the criteria of a distinct population segment under the ESA."
The coalition says that NMFS has failed to adjust ocean fisheries to protect the stocks, despite a Congressional mandate to amend plans by December 1998. Further, they charge that NMFS, by authorizing "directed take" by ocean, tribal, recreational and commercial fisheries, has violated the ESA. NMFS has already been told by a federal court to produce an EIS that deals with salmon harvest effects on listed Columbia Basin stocks, but it has not yet been released for comment.
Attorney Johnson said courts have the right to adjust tribal fishing. He said allowing them to continue with a "take" permit is not enough to satisfy the ESA.
NMFS regional administrator Will Stelle told Seattle reporters the lawsuit was "strange" and that it bordered on the embarrassing because it was so far off the mark. Some agricultural groups, like the Columbia/Snake Irrigators Association declined to participate in the lawsuit because they felt it was technically inadequate and misguided, according to consultant Darryl Olsen. A spokesman for the Master Builders Association of King and Snohomish Counties said his group would not play an active role in the suit either.
But the coalition's criticism of NMFS' narrow interpretation of an "ESU" echoed longstanding tribal complaints about the agency's policy that differentiates between most wild and hatchery stocks. "A salmon is a salmon," said coalition spokesman Pace.
Later that afternoon, Seattle mayor Paul Schell held a press conference on a grassy parking strip at a local library to push for salmon-friendly lawn care. -Bill Rudolph
[5] BPA'S LOHN WILL HEAD NWPPC'S F&W PROGRAM
BPA's fish & wildlife manager and former Northwest Power Planning Council general counsel Bob Lohn will return to the Council to direct its fish planning operations, sources indicated. In an unrelated development, current NWPPC general counsel John Volkman will join former Power Council fish division director Rick Applegate at NMFS.
Jack Wong, current Power Council fish division director, will move to the post of senior counsel for fish and wildlife. John Shurts, who had held that senior counsel job, will become acting general counsel succeeding Volkman. Volkman will divide his time in May between the council and NMFS and will assume full-time work with the fisheries agency June 1. Applegate recently was appointed NMFS assistant regional administrator for habitat conservation and is based in the agency's Portland office.
At week's end, it was reported that no successor to the popular Lohn had been named, nor had an acting manager been designated. Sources said that senior BPA fish & wildlife staff would be meeting April 30 with Alex Smith, Bonneville vice president for environment, fish & wildlife, on an acting appointment and related matters. -Cyrus Noë
[6] BRIEFS: CUTLER CALLED IN; OCEAN FISHING REGS ANNOUNCED; COAST GUARD NABS ILLEGAL GILLNETTER
Lloyd Cutler, who once served as President Clinton's legal counsel, has been named by the administration as a special representative to help break the deadlock over salmon treaty between the US and Canada. The announcement was puzzling, since rumors surfaced mid-week that an agreement about salmon harvest between the two countries was about to be signed. The arrangement would last for 12 years and base harvests on fish abundance rather than pre-determined ceilings as the original 1985 treaty spelled out.
Cutler, 81, will serve as White House liaison with Northwest governors, tribes and work with Congress to help expedite a fisheries agreement and fish restoration funding. He is also expected to communicate with Canada's fisheries minister and help states reach agreement over harvest.
A major sticking point with Canada and the US is allocation of chinook catches in Southeast Alaska where most chinook are bound for rivers in BC or Washington state.
The Pacific Fishery Management Council has adopted ocean fishing regulations for 1999 that bump chinook catches off northern Oregon and Washington up nearly four times from last year's harvest of 22,500 fish. This year's north of Cape Falcon catch will begin May 1 and is capped at 79,900 chinook, with 30,000 going to treaty fishermen, 28,500 to non-treaty commercials, and 21,400 to sports fishermen.
Last year, sportsmen took only 2,200 chinook in the fishery. Non-Indian commercial fishermen will not be allowed to fish near Cape Flattery to avoid distressed Puget Sound stocks.
Coastal catches have been increased off southern Oregon and California, where over 700,000 chinook are expected to be caught, with over 500,000 chinook slated for commercial fishermen. In Southeast Alaska, the directed chinook harvest is projected at 192,000 fish.
The Coast Guard has caught a Chinese driftnetter fishing illegally 440 miles southwest of Attu Island. A boarding team found more than 6 tons of salmon in the hold. The 170-foot Yng Fa had cut its net and fled after being spotted April 27 by a Canadian surveillance plane, but it was later stopped by the US Coast Guard Cutter Rush. The cutter had earlier boarded a Russian vessel fishing illegally in the North Pacific.
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