[1] Lawsuits Target Canadian Interception Of US Chinook
Two lawsuits filed this week in Seattle District Court take aim at the catch of ESA-listed chinook north of the US border. Charging that federal agencies are not following their own regulations, a coalition of two fish conservation groups and Snohomish PUD called the Salmon Spawning and Recovery Alliance, along with the Native Fish Society and the Clark-Skamania Flyfishers, have mounted a two-pronged attack against status quo harvest arrangements.
The first suit calls for enforcement of a US law that prohibits the importation of endangered species. Many US sportsmen bring home chinook caught in BC recreational fisheries, but the only way to tell ESA-listed wild fish from unlisted hatchery stocks would be to only allow fish with clipped fins across the border.
The other lawsuit calls for immediate re-consultation over the US/Canada salmon treaty to examine impacts of Canadian fisheries on listed stocks, especially chinook listed in Puget Sound. The treaty doesn't call for re-consultation on the issue until 2008, but the coalition says the situation needs immediate review because the high harvest levels jeopardize the nearly completed recovery plans for the weak stocks. That's a fact already acknowledged by NOAA Fisheries in some cases like the Nooksack River chinook stock in northern Puget Sound.
"Canada's fisheries catch a significant share of the ESA-listed salmon runs returning to the Columbia River system and to Puget Sound," said Gary Loomis, president of the alliance, in a Nov. 14 press release. "With these actions, we are asking the US government to exercise its power and influence, so that more native salmon can return to our rivers to spawn."
The alliance says nearly 90 percent of the chinook caught off BC's Vancouver Island come from US waters, and 70 percent of the catch is from areas like the lower Columbia, where chinook are listed for protection. Much of the Canadian catch is made up of marked hatchery fish from the Columbia, but there is no attempt to reduce impacts to wild stocks by keeping only the fish with clipped fins.
The filing takes to task a 1999 biological opinion written by NOAA Fisheries that found Canadian fisheries do not jeopardize the listed stocks. "Information that has become available since 1999, as well as changes in NMFS policy, support revisiting that opinion," says the filing, which points to recent DNA analysis of stock composition of BC fisheries off Vancouver Island that has estimated such large impacts to US stocks. The DNA analysis was first publicized during a presentation on harvest policies at the July meeting of the Northwest Power and Conservation Council (See NW Fishletter 200). The analysis showed that about half of the catch off the west coast of Vancouver Island was made up of fall chinook stocks from the lower Columbia, while another 19 percent were bound for Puget Sound.
The Snake fall chinook made up about 1.5 percent of the Vancouver Island catch, or 2,500 individuals, but that's about 21 percent of the number of Snake falls that made it over Lower Granite Dam by the end of 2003.
But the DNA analysis came in for some criticism at a congressional field hearing on harvest issues last month in Tacoma. NMFS policy analyst Larry Rutter said some of it was wrong, but didn't elaborate much, noting that it had not been vetted through the bilateral committee that is the traditional route for harvest issues under management by the Pacific Salmon Commission. Rutter was unavailable for comment.
WDFW's Phil Anderson said there might be questions about what time of year the DNA analysis was conducted. If it was done during the winter, the stock composition could be quite different from that during the summer months, when most of the harvest effort is focused.
But NMFS harvest analyst Dell Simmons, who took part in the presentation before the Power Council last summer, said the data was taken from the full fishing season in 2003. However, he said there was a "flaw" in the way the results were developed. Simmons said the analysis used a combination of coded-wire-tag and DNA data and a mistake was made in handling the CWT data. "But that probably doesn't make much difference," Simmons told NW Fishletter. He said the final numbers should be pretty close to the results presented last summer. Simmons said they were working to fix the problem. -Bill Rudolph
[2] Mass Marking Threatens Integrity Of Salmon Harvest Analyses, Experts Say
An October report from the Pacific Salmon Commission has highlighted concerns about the unintended effects of legislation that calls for marking all hatchery chinook from federal hatcheries in the Columbia River basin.
It's just one of several recent reviews that describe the increasing complexities of harvest management brought about by a law that calls for mass marking all chinook from federal facilities.
The 2003 legislation was sponsored by Congressman Norm Dicks (D-Wash.), who said it was designed to assure that viable populations of fish were available for harvesting, while wild fish were protected. The hatchery fish are marked by a clipped adipose fin.
Since that's the same fin clipped to mark any fish sporting a tiny coded-wire tag (CWT) deeply imbedded in its nose, the changes in marking protocols have generated big headaches for managers, who for the past 20 years have relied upon CWT program results to sort harvest impacts by different fisheries on different stocks.
The mass marking efforts of recent years have made the database of mixed stock fisheries less robust, scientist Gary Morishima told the Northwest Power and Conservation Council at a symposium last summer. That's because the clipped hatchery fish sustain a higher harvest rate. And many sport fisheries allow only chinook with clipped fins to be kept, in order to let more wild fish spawn.
Morishima, co-chair of a committee that evaluates mass marking proposals, told NW Fishletter last week that sampling efforts in Alaska, Canada and the U.S. will have to be restructured to catch up with the changes and help answer questions about whether the two countries are achieving management goals.
Another problem is that fish agencies are strapped for cash and are hard pressed to pay for new detection techniques without considerable improvements in their budgets, Morishima said.
He said Canadian researchers couldn't even afford to read the tags detected in fish heads saved last year--$15,000 that was reprioritized for other agency needs at the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans.
Morishima said the exploitation rate analysis is two years behind, and fish heads are piling up in agency freezers. They come from high-seas freezer trollers, processing plants, and recreational fishermen, along with some heads from unclipped fish, part of a program designed to improve estimates of catch of wild stocks.
But it's not only a matter of dollars. Politics is playing a big part, too, along with a lawsuit against federal agencies by a coalition of conservation groups and Snohomish County PUD. Supporters of the suit say that, despite harvest cutbacks in recent years, too many wild ESA-listed fish are still being caught. They say, in some cases, government scientists have admitted that current harvest rates are too high to reach fish recovery goals. Their answer to the overharvest of ESA fish is restricting catch to clipped hatchery fish.
However, the salmon commission's review of 23 mass marking proposals outlines some serious roadblocks to improving the analysis of harvest impacts by tagging 64 million chinook, mostly fall chinook from the lower Columbia River and the Washington coast, an increase of 48 percent increase from marked chinook numbers in 2004.
Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens (R) has even weighed into the fray. In the 2004 congressional record, he requested that upriver bright and Washington coastal fall chinook raised in U.S. Fish and Wildlife Department hatcheries not be marked that year. He called on the USFWS to work with his state and U.S. representatives of the salmon commission to make sure that mass marking didn't much interfere with data collection, salmon management programs, or the abundance-based management policy under the treaty.
"The political climate surrounding MM [mass marking] is confused by conflicting policy positions," the Pacific Salmon Commission report says. "On the one hand, Alaskan Congressional representatives have requested a moratorium be placed on MM of far-north migrating chinook stocks. On the other hand, U.S. appropriations bills require MM at federal facilities."
The report says mass marking is likely to increase tag recovery and fishery sampling costs in Alaska and Canada. But these agencies still rely on visual sampling methods rather than electronic methods, which reduces the ability of Lower 48 agencies to get data from both marked and unmarked CWT groups that are used to estimate impacts of mark-selective fisheries.
Until the differences in sampling and tagging methodologies are resolved and once more synchronized between agencies, they will "impact" analysis by commission technical committees.
Another expert panel convened by the salmon commission has just released a report that deals with these issues in more detail, Morishima said. One of its major findings says there is no "viable" short-term alternative to the CWT system. Though some new technologies are promising, the panel said agencies must rely on the CWT program for at least five more years, even if they decide to implement a different methodology in the future.
They listed other problems that have developed over the years, such as changes in commercial fisheries where fish are now unloaded in many different locations, making it harder to sample them. Since sportsfishers now land a greater share of the catch, it has become more difficult to sample than commercial fisheries. The panel also said CWTs aren't likely to be an effective tool to answer fish managers' questions that require the identification of the origin of all fish encountered, or survival and migrations routes of individual fish.
The independent panel of scientists, which helps both the Power Council and NMFS deal with thorny questions of science, produced its own synopsis of the marking situation in July after it said it couldn't tell whether the harvest of ESA stocks was being adequately managed. The panel said the ability of the coded-wire tag system to continue as the foundation for chinook and coho salmon management in the Northwest was very much in doubt.
"Despite their 'common sense' appeal," said the panel, "mass marking and mark-selective fisheries have not been shown to be an effective management tool to constrain impacts on natural stocks of chinook and coho salmon to allowable levels. The effectiveness of mass marking and mark-selective fishing has not been evaluated prior to widespread application, and has instead, been blindly accepted as a matter of faith." -B. R.
[3] BiOp Plaintiffs Ask For Changes To Winter, Spring Dam Operations
Plaintiffs in the ongoing litigation (NWF v. NMFS) over the Columbia Basin hydro BiOp are asking a sympathetic federal judge for more spill and flow augmentation to help boost survival of ESA-listed spring chinook in 2006.
Calling the extra spill granted by Judge James Redden last summer an unqualified success, attorneys for environmental and fishing groups filed an Oct. 31 motion to add more spill at some dams in the spring, along with more flows in late spring and early summer. Their goal is "to produce a higher flow pulse in the late spring and higher flows throughout the migration season thereafter."
To accomplish this, they want dam operators to hold more water behind Grand Coulee in late winter (Feb. 1 to April 30), and move more flood control to Lake Roosevelt from other Northwest reservoirs, which will be able to hold more water for fish flows than under current operations. In addition, they want another 630,000 acre-feet of water for added flows, either from behind Coulee and Banks Lake or from non-treaty storage in Canada.
Earthjustice attorney Todd True said in the motion that the injunction's most significant request would require the Corps of Engineers and Bureau of Reclamation to manage reservoirs and reach agreement with Canada on managing storage reservoirs north of the border. He cited a new declaration by Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission analyst Bob Heinith that said several million acre-feet more water could be used for fish flows without increasing flood risks.
The proposed changes in reservoir operations call for limiting drafts from February through March to upper rule curve elevations, which the motion admits would limit power production to "some degree," but claims it would not adversely affect the stability or reliability of the power system.
The motion also calls for moving away from the current practice of running the river to meet flat targets towards a goal of producing a peak hydrograph of average May flows of about 345 kcfs at The Dalles. According to Heinith's declaration, these added flows would boost fish survival above benefits from operations outlined in the 2004 BiOp, now ruled illegal by Judge Redden, but still in place for the time being.
But just how much benefit from the added spill and flow would be gained is never mentioned in the motion or the declarations.
Attorney True says more spill in the spring and summer will allow higher survival of inriver fish. He cited a declaration by CRITFC hydrologist Tom Lorz, who used the federal fish-passage survival model to estimate that the added spill would reduce the portion of the spring chinook run that would be barged from about 74 percent under normal BiOp spill to 55 percent. This would spread the risk more evenly between both strategies, since the feds haven't shown that barging is beneficial to either the wild spring or fall chinook runs on the Snake.
Previous results from federal research have shown that barging wild chinook has been neither much better nor much worse than keeping fish inriver, while hatchery chinook have benefited from barging. However, NMFS results announced this week at a Corps' research review in Walla Walla show that the 2002 migration of Snake spring chinook benefited greatly from the barging strategy; the ratio of transported to inriver non-detected returning fish was 1.64.
But results for 2002 migrating hatchery fish were similar to earlier findings for wild fish--nearly equal survivals to adult return of both barged and inriver hatchery fish.
Washington Gov. Christine Gregoire weighed in against the proposed injunction last week. "I am concerned about the lack of demonstrated benefits and the very real costs," the governor said in an Oct. 31 press release. "We are still awaiting an evaluation of the expensive experiment with spill last summer."
Gregoire also panned the proposed drawdown behind Grand Coulee. "Those actions have serious consequences, and not just financial impacts. They may damage cultural resources, resident fish species, and cause other environmental and health effects," she said. "We simply cannot solve one problem by creating a host of others."
FPC Memo Takes Some Heat
In the filing, both environmentalist declarations cited a Fish Passage Center memo that analyzed last summer's spill effort that said it had paid off in improved fish survival.
But an "after-action" report, released last week by federal agencies, looked into various aspects of the $74-million summer spill and took issue with the main FPC finding that 2005 fish survival increased significantly later in the season.
The memo said the 2005 results were unlike any year examined since 2001, when survival either remained low or declined throughout the summer period.
But the feds said the FPC memo may be "misinterpreted as evidence that overall survival in 2005 was better than the past few years." They said it was difficult to draw such a conclusion because most Snake River fall subyearlings have been transported in recent years, thus not subjected to lower inriver survival rates. Also, a "considerable" part of the run had already migrated down the Snake River before the spill program had even started.
The after-action memo said a more extensive look at the data would show that inriver survivals from Lower Granite Dam to McNary were generally higher in the 1998-2000 period, compared to later years.
A federal analysis said spill benefits in 2005 were very uncertain, depending on how well barged fish survive. They said the added spill might have improved survival up to 7 percent over a no-spill scenario, or could possibly have had a 6-percent negative effect. All in all, they said the overall difference in system survival between the two operations ranged from only about minus one to plus one percent.
The feds also said that the particular dates used by the FPC to separate fish into pre- and post-spill groups didn't take into account the different historical run timing that has occurred in each of those years, or accounted for differences in actual spill levels in those years.
Lastly, the feds said the FPC analysis didn't indicate whether the spill program might have influenced the behavior of the fish that overwinter and migrate the following spring, which has created major headaches in recent survival studies.
But the feds may have pulled a major punch when they didn't include findings from a BPA-sponsored analysis of the FPC memo that was reportedly excised from their own report at the last minute. The review, by University of Washington statistician John Skalski, reportedly found generally similar survival rates to those reported in the FPC memo, but the survival differences between the early and late periods were "not significantly different," a major difference from the FPC analysis.
Skalski's analysis also found little statistical correlation between spill and survival over the years, but did find a relatively high correlation between water temperature and fish survival that the FPC analysis did not find. His analysis used a weighted regression, which weighed the survival data according to its relative precision.
However, dueling experts may not find themselves in court as they had expected. BiOp judge James Redden had earlier scheduled two days of evidentiary hearings in December and one day for oral arguments over interim dam operations. But in a Nov. 2 opinion, Redden cancelled the hearings and also said the case did not need any help from an independent scientific expert or panel to help sort out the arguments, as some parties had suggested.
He also said that declarations would not be limited in length nor number, as he had originally ruled on Oct. 17, when he told major groups that they would only be allowed two experts apiece.
So it seems that interim operations during the yearlong BiOp remand will be determined based on "dueling declarations," similar to the recent battle over last summer's spill, with no evidentiary hearing or cross-examination. The feds had supported evidentiary hearings, but said two days weren't enough time to make their case.
Defendants and amicus responses are due Nov. 22, with replies due Dec. 7. Redden said Dec. 15 will be set aside for oral arguments on legal issues raised by the motions.
But the judge took up one suggestion. He said he would like another presentation on flow augmentation issues that was already done before the region on Sept. 29. Along with Redden, his technical advisor Howard Horton and two law clerks will be in the audience Nov. 22. -B. R.
[4] Enviros' Spill And Flow Strategy Could Add Hundreds Of Millions In Power Costs
A preliminary review of a far-reaching proposal by environmental and fishing groups to boost spill and flows in the Columbia River says it would have cost $400 million if implemented this year, according to an analysis released yesterday by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council. And it might kill a lot more chinook in the Hanford Reach than current operations by de-watering salmon redds ten times as often. The proposal is now before BiOp judge James Redden as the plaintiffs' recipe for interim dam operations.
Council senior staffer John Fazio told members that costs would range between $125 million and $560 million, depending on the water year. He said his analysis assumed that the power market would be large enough to absorb the expected changes in generation, which may not be valid under some conditions.
He also said the proposal would increase the probability of power emergencies, with the loss-of-load probability [LOLP] at 7.5 percent, well above the current value near zero and the historical 5-percent standard used by the Council. Fazio said a more liberal allowance for emergency operations would be necessary to restore the LOLP to an acceptable level, which means some reservoirs may not be filled to required elevations by early April.
The analysis noted that the proposed injunction also calls for changes in the operation of Canadian reservoirs, which means the US side would have to send about 800 average megawatts north of the border as compensation, a factor not added to the study.
"Changing the hydro generation pattern, as called for in the proposed operation," says the Council's Nov. 17 memo on the analysis, "would put the power supply into a deficit situation over winter months."
During the summer, when the hydro system is usually in a surplus mode, energy production in July and August would be lower if the injunction is granted, because it calls for higher spill requirements than current BiOp operations. But if fish and wildlife operations were curtailed during power emergencies, then summer LOLP would not likely be affected.
Fazio said an important assumption in his analysis is that the power market will be able to supply the energy needs of the region during deficit months-- January, February, April, July, and the last half of August. The worst hit would come in January, when the change in generation would be the highest, a deficit of about 4,600 mw-months, enough energy to supply four Seattles for a month, that could cost $348 million to replace.
According to the analysis, Columbia river flows would be lower than average in April if the injunction were granted, but more than 44,000 cfs above average in May to 313,000 cfs (at McNary); 17,000 cfs above the 317,000 cfs average in June. Little change would be noticed in July, while the first half of August would see a boost in flows of nearly 18,000 cfs above the 174,000 cfs average, but the second half of August would see a reduction of about 2,600 cfs.
Flows on the lower Snake would increase from April through July, but go down in August.
Since some reservoirs would end up at lower elevations under the injunction, carryover effects would have to be dealt with the following year. Grand Coulee would end up about 10 feet lower than under current operations, and Idaho's Dworshak would end up about six feet below the current end-of-August elevation.
The injunctive changes could have profound effects on fish, according to the Council's analysis, which estimated that chinook redds in the Vernita Bar area of the Hanford Reach would be de-watered in 30 out of 50 years, while under the current BiOp, analysts expect them to be de-watered in only 3 out of every 50 years. Chum redds below Bonneville would get a little more water because of the seasonal shifting of hydro generation under the injunction. -B. R.
[5] Upriver Tribes Want In On BiOp Remand Talks
The Spokane Tribe has filed for amicus status in the ongoing litigation over the hydro BiOp. In an Oct. 26 filing, the tribe says it "possesses long-term interests in the survival/recovery of ESA-listed species, and it offers a unique perspective to these proceedings." The Kootenai Tribe of northern Idaho has already weighed in with federal defendants.
The Spokane Tribe is concerned about possible changes to reservoir operations behind Grand Coulee stemming from BiOp settlement talks that may call for more flow augmentation and flood control from Lake Roosevelt.
The tribe says large fluctuations in reservoir elevations could adversely impact resident fish populations that were established as part of an economic development program for mitigating the loss of salmon above Coulee.
Drawdowns, water pulsing and more flow augmentation could also adversely impact tribal grave sites and the stability of underwater toxic pollutants on tribal lands.
The Colville Tribes announced Oct. 28 that they will also file for amicus status in the case. In a message sent to attorneys involved in the proceedings, reservation attorney Stephen Suagee said, "The Colville Tribes has significant rights and interests that may be affected by the ongoing proceedings in this litigation, and has previously participated as amicus in similar litigation before Judge Marsh."-B. R.
[6] Wash. Extends Agreement To Study 'Modest' Drawdown At Grand Coulee
The Washington State Department of Ecology announced last week that the state has extended an agreement with the Colville Tribes and the Fish and Wildlife Department to allow a task force wrestling with development of a new water policy for the Columbia River more time to complete its work. Participants are trying to forge an agreement that will allow for new water withdrawals for irrigation and municipal needs, while providing adequate flows for ESA-listed fish.
The extension, now good through September 2006, will also provide additional time to study potential impacts of a modest drawdown of Lake Roosevelt behind Grand Coulee Dam, and to release funding to implement the agreement, if it is provided by the 2006 legislature.
The DOE press release took a jab at ongoing litigation over hydro operations, calling the Nov. 9 signing "critically important in light of actions requested by plaintiffs in the ongoing Federal Columbia River Power System Biological Opinion litigation in Judge Redden's court. The state's partnership with the Colville Tribes to carefully consider and mitigate for the potential effects of a modest drawdown of the lake stands in sharp contrast to the BiOp plaintiffs request for large scale summer drawdowns at Grand Coulee Dam with no consideration of the effects such actions would have on Lake Roosevelt or the people that live near it and depend upon it for their health and livelihood."
A 2004 report by the National Academy of Sciences cautioned about implementing a policy of increasing water withdrawals in low-flow years because of potential adverse impacts to fish, but an economic review of adding more water for regional needs said it would have a large benefit for the economy. By the time ex-Gov. Gary Locke left office, neither stakeholders nor the legislature were ready to support it. Work on the initiative was suspended by incoming Gov. Christine Gregoire, who called for the new legislative/executive task force to look into the policy alternatives.
Gerry O'Keefe from the Department of Ecology, spoke at a legal seminar in Seattle this week, telling participants that that plaintiffs' proposal could interfere with the state's plan to free up water. "Our concern is that the scale of injunctive relief doesn't leave room for the state to work with federal partners in accessing water from Canada," he told NW Fishletter later.-B. R.
[7] Early Forecast Tool Calls For Near-Average Water Year
While still sounding the alarm for global warming, some Northwest climate researchers are calling for a pretty much average water year in 2006. That was the message from an Oct. 26 meeting in Seattle, a day before some were to take part in a regional get-together on climate change, hosted by King County and billed as, "The Future Ain't What It Used To Be."
The affair, sponsored by the University of Washington's Climate Impacts Group, was a low-key meeting of researchers and water users who heard that the high-powered hydrologic experts are now using ESP to help them generate long-term forecasts, but it's not the kind found in old late night TV shows. ESP stands for Ensemble Streamflow Prediction, a way to predict future water supply that starts with current soil conditions, and then adds past precipitation and temperature data to produce simulated flow scenarios.
The good news so far is that the Oct. 1 forecast (for April-Sept.) calls for the water year at The Dalles to be at 95 percent of average, about 97 percent at British Columbia's Mica Dam on the Columbia, and better than average, about 103 percent, at Montana's Libby Dam on the Kootenai River. Snake River flows at Hells Canyon are expected to be about 80 percent of normal, while southern Idaho rivers may see flows in the 45-percent to 60-percent range.
A forecast based on data from the National Weather Service's Climate Prediction Center is more optimistic, though the agency's official water supply forecasts won't begin until December. It calls for 104 percent of average flows between next April and September at The Dalles, 104 percent at B.C.'s Mica, and about 108 percent of average at Libby. Lower Snake River flows are pegged around 115 percent of average, and southern Idaho flows more than 120 percent of average. The CPC forecasters are saying that the next three months should see warmer-than-normal temperatures throughout the West, but neutral El Nino conditions should remain in place for the next 6 to 9 months.
But the ESP factor is only part of an ambitious experimental forecast system developed at the University of Washington that was described at the meeting last week. The big model uses forecast data sources such as NOAA and NASA, along with a dash of El Nino data and information on the Pacific Decadal Oscillation to create the final product dubbed the VIC hydrology model, or variable infiltration capacity macroscale hydrologic model.
Still one of the main conclusions from UW researchers Alan Hamlet and Andy Wood was not exactly a barn burner--they said it's early in the year for making water forecasts, especially in an ENSO-neutral year when signs of either El Nino warming or La Nina cooling are lacking. They said most Pacific Northwest basins are still on the dry side by 3 percent to 10 percent, with exceptions being the south edge of the Snake River and B.C. Because of higher rainfall, westside basins in the Cascades are more likely to recover from "moisture deficits."
That may already be happening since the weather service's River Forecast Center reports that October precipitation above Grand Coulee has been 147 percent of average, 117 percent of average at The Dalles, but only 92 percent of average on the Snake River above Ice Harbor. September was wet as well in many basins, where some like the Flathead in Montana received nearly 200 percent of average precipitation.
The UW's Matt Wiley gave the Puget Sound region "a forecast of average conditions, with a good chance of everything else." Describing how the region snapped out of a serious water deficit earlier this year, he said, "ten or twelve inches of rain between March 1 and July 1 can sure solve a lot of problems."
Eric Salathe, UW researcher, believes humans are partly responsible for the change in climate, particularly in the last 30 years. He said some climate models show a decrease in future precipitation by the 2020s. But it's more likely that with more warming in summer than winter, precipitation changes are uncertain, though it is possible that winters will be wetter and summers drier than now. "We are entering unknown territory," Salathe said, noting that most climate modelers expect temperatures to increase between 3 and 11 degrees F by 2100.
The climate change meeting slated for the following day was a mix of speakers and discussion groups, where breakout sessions were designed to tackle tough questions about coping with a future of reduced snowpacks, early runoff, increased winter flows and decreased summer flows.
Groups met to discuss specific problems for hydropower, agriculture and fisheries that may occur if things warm up as much as many expect, possibly three degrees F by the 2040s in the Northwest, and twice that by the 2080s, when precipitation could go up as much as 18 percent. Electrical production may have to shift toward renewables, nuclear or thermal, while reservoir operations may have to be adjusted, more conservation efforts begun, or even more dams built.
Salmon stocks could suffer from increased water temperatures, and some folks are already stumping for the integration of climate change information into salmon recovery planning. NOAA Fisheries scientists are working with the UW's Climate Group to look into the impacts of a changing climate on fish recovery alternatives being developed in Puget Sound's Snohomish Basin. Participants said that by comparing expected results from a range of management options, federal scientists could choose the plan that would have the best survival benefits for ESA-listed stocks, like local chinook.
One study dealing with Columbia River salmon (Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, 2004) reported by session planners says earlier reservoir refill and more water storage could help managers reach flow targets and mitigate some negative effects from climate warming, but such a strategy could reduce power production up to 35 percent.
Another session was slated to discuss future impacts of climate change on the agricultural sector, where irrigation water may become scarcer. A study has predicted that water for irrigation in the Yakima Basin could decrease by 20 percent to 40 percent in the next 50 years. -B. R.
[8] Grant PUD's New Turbine Passes Fish Test
Grant County PUD has successfully tested fish passage through its new turbine, an advanced design that produces more electricity while letting nearly 98 percent of juvenile salmon survive the trip through the turbine bay. The PUD says survival rates "generally" exceed those of existing turbines at Wanapum Dam, while generating 14 percent more power and boosting water efficiency by 3 percent.
With 70 percent of the migrating fish using the turbines to pass the dam, the PUD had to prove to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission that the new unit was at least as successful at passing fish as the older turbines before the feds would approve replacement of the other nine units at the dam.
The district expects to replace all 10 turbines over an eight-year period and boost power output by 900 to 1100 MW at a cost of about $150 million.
But fish survival in the old turbines wasn't that bad. According to the evaluation released in August by Columbia Basin Research and Normandeau Associates, survival actually averaged a little higher in the old turbine than in the new one, 97.5 percent versus 96.95 percent.
However, researchers said the survival of fish higher in the water column was a bit better in the new turbine. After weighting for vertical distribution, overall passage survival in the new turbine was 97.82 percent, compared to 97.71 percent in the old one. Survival of fish that entered the new turbine lower in the water column was actually a little worse than in the old turbine, but the report said, "passage survival through the new turbine was not significantly lower than through the existing unit."
Survival of yearling chinook through the Wanapum spillway has generally been found to be less than 90 percent. An agreement between the utility and federal, state and environmental agencies requires 43 percent of the spring flow at Wanapum and 61 percent at Priest Rapids be spilled during the smolt migration period.
Grant has to comply with a biological opinion that calls for reaching a 93-percent juvenile project (dam and reservoir) survival standard by 2010. A 2004 study found yearling chinook survived, on average about 86 percent through both dams and reservoirs. To improve juvenile fish survival, the utility has developed programs to reduce predation by northern pikeminnow and birds. -B. R.
[9] BPA Says FPC Study Short-Changes Benefits Of Fish Barging
The Bonneville Power Administration said the latest draft of an ongoing study of fish survival in the Columbia Basin by the Fish Passage Center suffers from serious problems. The study has tagged hundreds of thousands of hatchery fish and compared passage routes and survivals from different facilities, both upriver and down, since 1996.
The study, which has been funded by the power marketing agency at about $1 million annually, has been mired in controversy since its very beginnings when a special panel of independent scientists was convened to assess its potential value. The panel OK'd the study, but noted serious shortcomings in the study design it said could be worked out later. It seems that many of those old issues are coming back to haunt the FPC's latest results.
In comments sent to the Fish Passage Center last week by BPA Fish and Wildlife director Bill Maslen, the agency says the comparative survival study, under the supervision of FPC director Michele DeHart, suffers from a serious drawback--the lack of an underlying statistical model. Without it, smolt-to-adult ratios for transported fish are negatively biased. However, estimators for control inriver fish are unbiased, "which means that all transport/inriver ratios (also known as transport benefit ratios) i.e., T/C are incorrect. This is a serious problem affecting many of the results presented throughout this report and minimized the benefits of transportation."
The BPA letter says the bias is apparent when compared to empirical results. It points to the 2003/2004 CSS report that included a table which showed that CSS estimates were often low by a factor of 2. It also noted that the table was omitted from the latest CSS draft.
But even with the negative bias against transport, Maslen said the latest CSS draft demonstrated "overall" benefits of transportation. In the drought year 2001, CSS noted T/C ratios from 5.32 for hatchery chinook (Catherine Creek) to nearly 60 for hatchery steelhead. Wild chinook showed huge benefits as well that year, with a T/C ratio of nearly 9, while wild steelhead showed a T/C of 37.
In non-drought years, Maslen said the CSS study used a geometric means construct to figure average survivals from year to year, which always will be less than the arithmetic average. "A re-analysis with proper and unbiased estimates of SARs for the transported smolts will result in higher and more realistic estimates of the benefits of transportation," says the BPA letter.
The focus on delayed mortality is also misguided, according to the BPA comments, because the effectiveness of transport is gauged better by T/C ratios. The years-long debate about whether barging fish causes later mortality misses the fact that barged fish, once released below Bonneville Dam, are still at risk from poor condition or disease that would have killed inriver fish during their migration through the hydro system.
The letter also takes issue with another point that fish agencies and tribes have argued about with federal agencies for years. "The upriver-downriver comparison of Chinook salmon stocks to extract hydrosystem effects has been misguided from conception," says BPA, noting that data from the CSS shows related stocks from nearby hatcheries don't even show similar SARs, and data from code-wire tagging shows different stocks have very different ocean migration patterns and are intercepted in fisheries differently.
BPA says earlier CSS comparisons confirm this because, "Initially, the study started with multiple downriver stocks, but these hatcheries have been reduced to only the Carson NFH, when the other hatcheries had SAR values less than upriver hatcheries. If investigators eliminate all the information that does not conform to their conceptual model, as in the case of the upriver-downriver comparison, you are often left with nothing but coincidences or wishful thinking."
BPA said the greatest contribution of the CSS has been the release of PIT-tagged smolts for study. "However," it said, "the data interpretations in the CSS report are technically flawed, resulting in skewed interpretations that minimize the benefits of transportation and the return rates of salmonids.
The future of the comparative survival study is unclear at the moment since the Fish Passage Center's funding has been jerked by Congressional action, after Sen. Larry Craig (R) of Idaho inserted language in the energy and water appropriations bill that said BPA could no longer pay for the Center's operation. The bill has passed Congress and has been sent to the President's desk for signing. It orders BPA and the Northwest Power and Conservation Council "to ensure that an orderly transfer of the Fish Passage Center functions (warehouse of smolt monitoring data, routine data analysis and reporting and coordination of the smolt monitoring program) occurs within 120 days of enactment of this legislation. These functions shall be transferred to other existing and capable entities in the region in a manner that ensures seamless continuity of activities."
Critics, especially utilities, have complained about the advocacy role by FPC personnel for years, but state fish agencies and tribes had always been successful at fending off earlier attempts to reduce the FPC's power in regional fish politics. Environmental and fishing groups who have successfully sued to throw out recent hydro BiOps have depended on FPC analyses in their arguments, and have cited the latest CSS draft in their latest filings to change interim dam operations. -B. R.
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