[5] Council Hears Comment On How To Replace Controversial Fish Passage Center
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council held a special session Dec. 7 to take public input on how best to replace the Fish Passage Center, slated for demolition by language in a congressional spending bill by Mar. 21. It gave supporters of the Center one last chance to grouse about Idaho Sen. Larry Craig's successful attempt to kill the agency's funding by the Bonneville Power Administration.
Sen. Craig's attack on the FPC was triggered by environmental and fishing groups' use of some of the center's analyses on dam operations and fish survival in ongoing litigation (NWF v. NMFS) over the hydro BiOp, which was seen by some to be biased towards more flow and spill, without adequate scientific support. Those same BiOp plaintiffs were using the latest FPC memos and studies in court papers filed Dec. 7 to argue against the federal agencies' latest proposal on how to operate dams in 2006.
But others were ready to move ahead, especially those administrators saddled with the job of replacing the 11-person center by the end of March. BPA's Fish and Wildlife division head Greg Delwiche said his agency will be ready to issue an RFP within a day or two, to deal with three main areas--fish counting, analysis and smolt monitoring.
Delwiche said the state of Oregon and the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission have had several sessions with the BPA to help develop their own proposal-which would create a single entity to deal with all three basic tasks. Delwiche said he had asked them to provide input to help his agency write the RFP but, so far, he hasn't heard from them on the subject.
He said Oregon and CRITFC had asked the power agency to hold off on the RFP until they had a chance to continue development of their own proposal and seek broader support for it, hoping that BPA would feel "comfortable enough" to make a sole source decision that would not need the RFP process. Delwiche said the joint proposal has become more broadly based and that the Columbia Fish and Wildlife Authority is playing a pivotal role in its development. He said it has promise, but the governance, neutrality and oversight elements need to be much more broadly "fleshed out." But Delwiche was clear that the process for developing the request for proposals would not be slowed. He said special concern was needed to make sure that any future entity was truly neutral.
Brian Lipscomb, director of the Columbia Basin Fish and Wildlife Authority, explained the main elements of the proposal Oregon and CRTIFC have been working on, which he thought would satisfy both short-term and long-term needs.
He said it includes five basic elements. First, the FPC data functions would go into the Authority. Second, technical expertise would be added to address hydrosystem operations on resident fish. Third, an oversight board that has jurisdiction over these functions within CBFWA, with the role of establishing policy guidance and accountability.
Lipscomb also called for creation of a technical oversight board that would develop protocols for scientific review and then provide peer review of the data and its interpretation.
Lastly, he proposed a sub-contract with a neutral third party that could help provide some facilitation to the oversight board in developing the governance and to do the performance audit of the functions, "so it is done out in the open, and clear and at a neutral third-party location," he said, such as the Hatfield School of Government at Portland State University. He said the proposal should be fleshed out in the next two weeks.
Many long-time FPC supporters seemed ready to line up behind the yet-to-be-seen CBFWA proposal. Katherine Brigham of the Warm Springs Tribes, said, "It's really disturbing to have this legislation," referring to Sen Craig's move to end BPA funding for the FPC. "We need a center that speaks for the fish'" she told the Council.
Rhonda Whiting, NPCC member from Montana, said, as a member of an upriver tribe in the region herself, every tribe should have a voice, including those that have only resident fish concerns.
John Platt of the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, responded to a question regarding the lack of peer review of FPC analyses. He said the Center had undergone several reviews from independent science panels as well as audits of its functions, "which were all positive," he added, noting that most FPC reports were reviewed by other agencies in the region as a matter of course.
Sharon Kiefer, anadromous fish manager for the Idaho Department of Fish and Game, said the analyses provided by the FPC had been able to extend the staff of her own agency when dealing with technical analyses. She said any new entity should provide the same key help, with both the data and analyses functions remaining "highly integrated."
But Jim Yost, natural resource advisor for Idaho Gov. Dirk Kempthorne, said what must not be done is to create a new entity that is pretty much the same as the old FPC. He likened that situation to standing on the dock with a return trip ticket on the Titanic.
However, Idaho river guide Jim Norton said the trust in the public process was violated when the FPC was canned because it was only doing its job too well. "Don't let Larry Craig be the only voice for Idaho," he said. He called for a single, independent entity with all the functions of the FPC restored.
Idaho Council member Jim Kempton, reminded the forum that, in 2002, the Independent Scientific Advisory Board gave the FPC high marks for technical work, but criticized how the Center reached preliminary conclusions actually used by fish managers to challenge the Council's work on the subject of flows in its mainstem amendment process. More recently, Kempton said the CSS and summer spill analysis have both been used in court before they were even final documents and peer-reviewed, which has highly politicized the documents.
"There has been no decision," said Kempton, "no opportunity to have an analysis of either one of those studies before they were introduced into the court--that's politicizing the issue." Norton agreed that using such documents before they were completed was inappropriate, but such things didn't justify the "evisceration" of the Fish Passage Center.
Jack Glass, representing the Northwest Steelheaders Association, said the data collected from the FPC was vital to fisheries management on the river, and any new entity should keep all the information in one place.
Kevin Banister, spokesman for PNGC, BPA's fourth largest customer, said his group has long supported the best available, peer-reviewed science in fish analyses. PNGC supported Craig's language, but said the transfer of functions must be made to entities that are unbiased and fair. Banister said there have been questions raised about the advocacy role of the FPC for a long time. He said the issue was mentioned in a history of the Corps of Engineers' efforts to improve Columbia /Snake salmon runs published in 1995.
Nicole Cordan, representing the Save Our Wild Salmon Coalition, said Craig's move to kill the FPC was a bad way to conduct public policy. She said SOWS was "gravely concerned" about the future of the Fish Passage Center and that Craig's action may actually increase fish costs in the region and hinder salmon recovery. She called on the Council to transfer all the FPC functions to a single new entity, a position taken by several NW senators and five congressmen, including Washington congressman Norm Dicks, who had earlier declined to sign an August letter circulated among the Northwest Democratic delegation that called for saving the Center.
Idaho Council member Judi Danielsen reminded everyone that the entire Northwest congressional delegation voted to support the appropriations bill that ended the Fish Passage Center, but the letters coming out now don't seem to reflect that.
But Cordan said the report language added by Craig was not voted on by most Northwest members. Danielsen said she had "heard enough of taking the senator's [Craig] name in vain. I really have." Her fellow Council member Jim Kempton said he would object to any further testimony that castigated his state's senator.
Lee Corum, a biologist with the Pacific Northwest Utilities Conference Committee, said the region can't afford any speed bumps in salmon tracking trends. He stressed the use of peer review and transparency of data in the development of a replacement for the FPC. "I want to get my data from someone who doesn't have a stake in the fight," he told the Council.
Oregon Council member Joan Dukes asked if a new entity shouldn't primarily do analyses for states and tribes, as the FPC had done, and was originally intended to do. Korum said any BPA-funded operation should be available to be used by everybody.
Terry Flores, executive director of the Northwest RiverPartners, a large coalition of BPA customers, said the stakes were huge in developing cost-effective salmon recovery. She said the clear intent of the law was not to create another Fish Passage Center, and there are regional institutions now available that can perform the needed functions in an unbiased way, like the University of Washington. Her group supported the BPA process and urged the Council to develop a central storage place for all salmon data, and make sure all studies be independently reviewed before they are funded.
John Saven, executive director of Northwest Requirements Utilities, which represents 50 utilities in seven states, said, as a former budget director in a very large city, change is always difficult. "I honestly believe that we need a source of objective information that everyone can rely upon in the region," he told the Council, but until now, for one reason or another, the region has not been getting the type of information that a "significant portion of the community could rely on for the purposes of doing work, and I think that's inexcusable, frankly," Saven commended the Council and BPA for developing a new proposal, noting that the most important question is how "whatever is created going to be governed or directed in the future."
Another federal agency even showed up to make comments. But after USFWS spokesman Mark Bagdovitz finished his comments, he took heat from Montana Council member Bruce Measure by neglecting to mention resident fish in his analysis of the necessary functions of an entity to replace the FPC.
Liz Hamilton, representing the Northwest Sportsfishing Industry Association, and a member of the FPC's oversight board that was created by the Council in 2000 to deal with concerns over the advocacy role of the Center, took a few parting parts at critics like Danielsen, who said the board hadn't done its job. Hamilton said the Power Council had the opportunity to insert some "professional, personal, and agency integrity into this hideous, indecisive, shameful situation we find ourselves in," and called on the Council to work with BPA to delay the RFP process until the CBFWA proposal is ready.
Larry Cassidy, Washington council member, who chaired the FPC Oversight Board, said most of the board's members, including himself, didn't have the technical qualifications to make judgments on the technical and scientific analyses done by the Center. He said when the board was created, "I don't think the Council fully understood how complicated that technical part was, and here we are today." -B. R.
The following links were mentioned in this story:
Request For Proposal, BPA, Dec. 8, 2005
Subscriptions and Feedback
Subscribe to the Fishletter notification e-mail list.
Send e-mail comments to the editor.
THE ARCHIVE :: Previous NW Fishletter issues and supporting documents.
NW Fishletter is produced by Energy NewsData.
Publisher: Cyrus Noë, Editor: Bill Rudolph
Phone: (206) 285-4848 Fax: (206) 281-8035
