[5] Grant PUD Finishes Settlement Talks Over Fish Issues

Grant PUD announced settlement talks have been completed with state agencies and tribes over salmon and steelhead issues relating to the utility's existing and new license for the Priest Rapids Project.

In a Dec. 21 press release, the utility said the settlement agreement is the third and final piece of the project's salmon and steelhead protection program. It follows the biological opinion issued by NOAA Fisheries in May 2004, and the April 2004 agreement that reduced flow fluctuations in the Hanford Reach for improved protection of fall chinook.

Tim Culbertson, Grant's general manager, said the process to reach these agreements has spanned the past 20 years. "Grant PUD continues to work collaboratively with fish agencies, other dam operators, tribes and other interests to design programs and make decisions that are scientifically founded. Following the science will always be the cornerstone of our natural resource protection programs, now and in the future."

According to the PUD, the settlement provides greater guarantees on timing of water delivery, provides new weekend protection flows and limits flow fluctuations for juvenile fall chinook rearing in the Hanford Reach.

The new BiOp calls for downstream fish passage facilities to aid ESA-listed chinook and steelhead, aggressive monitoring and evaluation, predator controls, funding for habitat protection, hatcheries designed to protect naturally spawning populations, and the replacement of old turbines at Wanapum Dam with new ones that improve fish survival.

On Dec. 14, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission gave its approval for the utility to install nine more new turbines at Wanapum Dam. The approval was given after successful testing of a new one found overall fish survival as good as at the old turbines, and better than at most other projects in the Columbia River. The new turbine also improved generation capacity by 14 percent and was three percent more efficient in their water use. The nine remaining turbines will be replaced by 2012, at an estimated cost of $150 million. -B. R.

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