[9] "It's Still The Ocean, Stupid"--10 Years Of NW Fishletter
This newsletter has only been around for two or three salmon life cycles, but it has been on scene long enough to track the emergence of salmon recovery science from the Dark Ages of speculation when seven data points (and two of them highly questionable) on fish survival were used to "prove" the flow/survival relationship that has been used to justify the expensive flow and spill regimes in the Columbia River.
It's been a rough ride since then, but the revolution in PIT tag technology shows fish survival past big dams is much higher than the mixed bag of "experts" [PATH] and their hand-picked 1998 "weight of evidence" panel had ever thought. The old power centers are slowly being eroded by painstaking research and open dialog.
But state, tribal, and some federal fish agencies have had to be dragged kicking and streaming into the 21st Century. Some of them still don't believe what other federal scientists have come up with so far--that any flow/survival relationship for spring chinook is weak and inconsistent at best, while ocean-entry timing of juveniles seems to be a huge factor in their survival to adulthood. River temperatures have also been found to play a huge factor in fish survival, especially for fall chinook, at least for the ones who migrate the same year they hatch.
That "weight of evidence" panel from the late 1990s had even denigrated the notion that ocean conditions could make much of a difference in fish survival. But when plankton productivity doubled in cool ocean waters after 1999, salmon numbers climbed fast, leaving a group of astounded fish managers frantically re-tooling their messages.
However, as I said in a 2000 editorial celebrating our 100th issue, "It's the ocean, stupid," but "suggesting that the ocean is both culprit and savior doesn't do much at budget time for preserving a network of hatcheries and harvest managers who are ultimately at the mercy of Mother Nature. It's not fish that folks are trying to preserve here, it's turf."
But some of the old guard, supported by even older judges, and funding from large charitable organizations who want to keep the ESA on the front page, still propagate the notion that a lot more money might fix this mess, despite the fact that the Corps of Engineers has about reached its limit of how to modify dams and their operations to benefit fish. After the money is spent, it will still take another 50 years to figure out what kind of habitat restoration and other actions might really work. And that's assuming scientists can monitor these changes successfully. Some of them have even learned that many of these streams need more nutrients than the kind that comes from decaying dollar bills.
Unfortunately, some of the individuals who led the region down the garden PATH are now playing principle roles in the huge effort to keep track of these changes, and they are up to some of their old shenanigans, like trying to put the scientifically fraudulent upriver-downriver survival comparisons in their new bag of tricks.
Just last week, a federal judge told government agencies they'll have to spend a lot more money on fish before he will bless their next biological opinion. Somebody should tell him what scientists have been finding out in other watersheds in the Northwest--that little salmon die a lot during their migration, and that affordable habitat restoration is likely to have modest benefits. They are also finding out that in Puget Sound's dam-free, and relatively short Snohomish River, only about 3 percent of the migrating fall chinook smolts even make it to the salt water. And if by chance, all the planets, sunspots, spillways, drought, upwelling, fish barges, pikeminnow, smallmouth bass, cormorants, terns, hake, mackerel, sea lions, fish ladders and harvesters give migrating smolts a bit of a break, maybe one, two or three out of a hundred will make it back alive. And we call that success.
The new cadre of experts taking over salmon recovery should be forced to read an old recipe for salmon recovery written by the late Don Bevan and his team, that was later dismissed by federal agencies. It was a monument to common sense and clear thinking.
Now the region is on a salmon recovery rampage, led by a group of theorists who think they can determine whether these fish will be around a hundred years from now. Their veneer of mathematics disguises a simple assumption--if the fish numbers in stream X are trending upward now, chances are they will be going up a hundred years from now. But they are setting the recovery bar so high most of these stocks will likely never reach it. However, they will certainly preserve an industry dedicated more to its own survival than that of the fish.
What follows is a sampling of headlines from both the earliest and later issues of this publication to show how much the landscape has really changed despite the steady drone of lawyers and advocates of one sort and another maintaining a steady assault in the popular press, which never seems to have the time to look behind the curtain. -B. R.
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1996: NRDC CALLS SPILL IMPORTANT TOOL FOR SALMON RECOVERY
A key environmental group is calling the federal program to spill fish and water over Columbia River dams "an important tool in salmon recovery."
2005: BIOP JUDGE ORDERS MORE SPRING SPILL, LESS STEELHEAD FOR IDAHO
Federal District Court Judge James Redden has ruled in favor of part of a motion by environmental and fishing groups late that calls for more spring spill to help juvenile fish get over federal dams, though he called for less spill than they wanted. At the hearing on Dec. 15, Redden upheld more spill for summer operations--a strategy that began last year when the BiOp plaintiffs [NWF v. NMFS] won part of a motion to change hydro operations. But Redden did not grant the plaintiffs' latest request for more flow augmentation. He said flow benefits were an issue both sides could work out during the year-long remand period that has started ticking down to create yet another hydro BiOp. He's thrown out two of them since June 2003.
1996: SPRING/SUMMER SMOLT COUNTS DOWN DRAMATICALLY FROM 1995
According to federal and state fish agency estimates, the numbers of wild spring/summer chinook smolts arriving at Lower Granite Dam this spring will be down dramatically from last year. A National Marine Fisheries Service report agrees with estimates from the Idaho Department of Fish and Game that only 168,750 wild spring/summers will reach the first dam on the Snake River in 1996. That represents an extraordinary drop from the 1.3 million wild spring/summers that showed up last year. Spring/summer chinook were listed under the Endangered Species Act in 1991.
2001: SPRING RUN BUILDS RECORD MOMENTUM
This year's huge spring chinook run in the Columbia continues to stun biologists, who now say it may be coming in a bit early because of low river flows. The highest single day's count, so far, was April 11, when over 14,400 chinook were counted at Bonneville Dam. By April 11, the run was over 103,000 fish, just shy of one-third the total spring estimate. The past week saw three daily counts that were higher than the entire spring return of 1995 (10,192).
1996: NMFS SURVIVAL STUDY REPEATS EARLIER FINDINGS OF LOW RESERVOIR MORTALITY
The third year of a multi-year study by the National Marine Fisheries Service and the University of Washington confirms earlier results that showed low reservoir mortality for migrating salmon. The so-called Skalski/Williams/Iwamoto study claims that mortality was 10 percent or less in reservoirs between Lower Granite, Little Goose and Lower Monumental dams, with survival rates dropping down to 70 percent when measured between Lower Granite and McNary.
2002: COUNCIL'S MAINSTEM PROGRAM MAY COLLIDE WITH BIOP OVER FLOWS
A presentation on the latest state of salmon science indicates the Council's mainstem amendment process may be on a collision course with the latest NMFS hydro BiOp, which keeps current Columbia River flow augmentation and spill strategies in place for the next 10 years.
At the NWPPC's monthly meeting last week, consultant Al Giorgi reported that after nine years of NMFS research, the agency has found no "apparent" flow/ survival relationship for ESA-listed salmon and steelhead stocks. Council members seemed a bit stunned by the straight talk, though it's really not news. With salmon stocks showing a 10-fold increase in survival rates over the past 10 years, Giorgi, a principal with BioAnalysts Inc., told the Council that "conventional wisdom" holds that the boost isn't anything that could be expected from the fresh water system, but resulted from changes in oceanic conditions.
1996: CBFWA WILL NOT DISBAND, BUT FAILS TO FIND CONSENSUS
The Columbia Basin Fish and Wildlife Authority, which has the critical job of prioritizing fish recovery spending, is still seeking consensus among its member agencies. In a March 13 meeting, the state, tribal and federal fish agencies that make up the group agreed to continue as an organization, but failed to find what one member called "a collective vision."
2005: PRELIMINARY ESTIMATE OF SUBBASIN IMPROVEMENTS PEGGED AT $3 BILLION
The cost of improving habitat and fish production in Columbia River subbasins could exceed $3 billion over the next 10 years, according to a draft decision memo being produced by a workgroup of the Columbia Basin Fish and Wildlife Authority. Just a day before the workgroup released its first estimate of subbasin costs, five upriver tribes in CBFWA from two regions that are likely to receive only about 15 percent of the projected subbasin funding, sent a letter to executive director Rod Sando explaining why they have second thoughts about maintaining the affiliation with the authority. The Colville, Couer d'Alene, Kalispel, Kootenai and Spokane Tribes said the body has changed from a powerful caucus of elected/appointed heads of governments to "more of a forum for managers to stake their claims to BPA's funding."
1996: KITZHABER LAUNCHES COHO SALMON INITIATIVE
Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber has launched a coastal salmon initiative aimed at restoring coho salmon. The governor hopes to prevent listing by the federal government as a threatened species. The restoration plan will be given to the National Marine Fisheries Service by October 1, 1996. The initiative is intended to show NMFS that Oregon has a management plan for coho salmon that is sufficient to protect the species and negate the need for federal protection.
2006: OREGON COASTAL COHO DON'T MAKE ESA LIST
The federal government announced last week that the Oregon coastal coho stock, listed as a "threatened species" under the ESA in 1998, will not need legal protection under the law in the future. The coastal coho stocks plummeted in the 1990s when ocean conditions went sour, but have rebounded strongly since then. Their status has been in limbo since 2001 when they became the focus of a court case [Alsea Valley v. NMFS] that ultimately forced NOAA Fisheries to change its listing policy to accommodate many hatchery stocks.
1996: MONTANA DEFENDS RESIDENT FISH NEEDS; ASKS TO JOIN ENVIROS LAWSUIT AGAINST NMFS
Montana says it will go to court to defend fish in Libby and Hungry Horse reservoirs. On May 6, the state sought party defendant status in a lawsuit filed by environmental and fisher groups against the federal Columbia River salmon operations strategy. In pleadings filed in federal district court in Portland, the state called the lawsuit "a direct attack on Montana's reservoirs."
2005: COUNCIL 'GOT IT RIGHT' ON MONTANA FLOWS, SAYS SCIENCE PANEL
The panel of independent scientists charged with examining a Northwest Power and Conservation Council proposal to reduce and stabilize summer flows from its reservoirs agreed with the NPCC's analysis that found the biological tradeoff between upstream and downstream effects is way out of balance. In a report released Dec. 10, the panel said the adverse effects on resident species in Montana from current BiOp operations have been "demonstrated," but benefits to migrating salmon in the lower Columbia are speculative and very small at best.
1996: RANKING OF F&W PROJECTS IRKS CONTRACTORS
Conflict of interest charges are being leveled at Columbia basin fish managers due to recent ranking of salmon restoration projects. Some of those who proposed projects claim the salmon managers gave their own projects high rankings, all but guaranteeing they would be funded by Bonneville. Projects proposed by outsiders were ranked low, claim the contractors, sharply reducing their chances for funding.
1996: SENATE AMENDMENT CALLS FOR NEW PEER REVIEW FOR SALMON FUNDING
A new peer review process for salmon funding has come one step closer to reality with the passage of the Senate Energy and Water appropriations bill on July 26. The bill would attempt to remove any suggestion of a conflict of interest by federal and state fish and wildlife employees and the tribes who benefit financially from the present program.
1996: STATES AND TRIBES COME TO TERMS OVER ALASKA CHINOOK
After years of bickering, Alaska fish managers have reached an historic agreement with Washington, Oregon and Northwest tribal officials over just how many chinook salmon Southeast Alaska trollers will be allowed to catch this season. But Canadian fish managers were howling mad over the accord, claiming that the new harvest was twice as high as it should be. Canadian fisheries officials believe some of their own chinook stocks on Vancouver Island are in such bad shape that no commercial fishing for chinook will be allowed along the B.C. coastline.
2005: POLITICIANS GET EARFUL ON SALMON HARVEST, CANADIAN INTERCEPTIONS
With salmon recovery plans nearly completed for several Northwest regions, some stakeholder groups are wondering if stocks can actually recover if half of the fish are still being caught before they reach their spawning beds. Canada is a major culprit, they told a Congressional panel a couple of weeks ago.
1997: CORPS NIXES LOWER SNAKE SEASONAL DRAWDOWNS; FINAL DECISION ON DAMS DUE IN 1999
The Corps of Engineers has recommended that plans for seasonal spillway crest drawdowns and seasonal natural river drawdowns in the Snake River should be shelved for good because of little benefit to fish and the likelihood for harm to both juveniles and adults from dam passage. The recommendation effectively torpedoes a cornerstone of the Power Council's 1994 Fish and Wildlife Program that called for such measures.
2004: SCIENCE PANEL FINDS BIG HOLES IN SUMMER FLOW ANALYSES
At last week's flow symposium in Portland, an independent panel of scientists said the region needs to get a much better handle on measuring both water flows and fish survival before it can hope to implement a policy sure to benefit ESA-listed fall chinook. Panel members, who were charged with making a recommendation about Montana's proposal to modify current hydro operations, panned a federal fish passage model that links summer flow augmentation with improved fish survival. They also questioned the accuracy of current survival rate data after hearing about recent research that found half the ESA-listed Snake River fall chinook returning as adults had never been counted as juveniles migrating to sea.
1997: SCIENCE BOARD GIVES PIT TAG STUDY PROVISIONAL OK
The power council's scientific peer review group has given a lukewarm thumbs up for a controversial PIT tag study proposal from the Fish Passage Center. The Independent Scientific Advisory Board sent its recommendation to the power council to fund the PIT-tagging of hundreds of thousands of Idaho hatchery salmon this year because it will generate "new information of relevance to the evaluation of the mainstem hypotheses of the Fish and Wildlife Program and the NMFS biological Opinion." But the ISAB told the council that the proposal needs "substantial revision" before it can achieve enough scientific rigor for the scientists to endorse it as the basis for a long-term study.
2005: FEDERAL SCIENTISTS SLAM FPC SURVIVAL STUDY
Scientists from NOAA Fisheries' Science Center in Seattle say the Fish Passage Center's latest draft survival study of hatchery and wild chinook in the Columbia and Snake rivers is misleading because its analyses are incomplete and don't "fully support" the findings in the Comparative Survival Study's executive summary.
1997: CHANGE IN OCEAN CURRENT MAY SIGNAL SHIFT TO COLDER, WETTER, CLIMATE REGIME
Three Northwest scientists have just submitted a paper that says a change in ocean currents is a sign that we may be looking at 20 years of colder, wetter weather. "Locally," they write, "with costly decisions with regard to altering operations of, or removing Columbia River dams being imminent, we urge decision makers to consider newly acquired information on the potential for a climate shift." They say that the most recent phase, which began in 1977, "appears to be one of the longest in the past five centuries. The switch, if it has not already occurred, is imminent."
2001: 27,000-FISH DAY AT BONNEVILLE DAM!
Harvest managers who had originally thought this year's record spring chinook run was peaking early got a big surprise. After counting more than 17,000 chinook on April 13, they were prepared to settle in with their original spring forecast of 364,000. But the April 18 daily count climbed to 27,000--bringing the total to nearly 226,000 fish by then--about 10 times the 10-year average. Harvest managers soon revised their estimate up to 440,000 fish, a move that gave both tribal harvesters and sports fishermen another crack at the run.
1999: 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.
2005: 'SPEECHING' WON'T AVOID BREACHING THE DAMS, BIOP JUDGE WARNS
Federal District Court Judge James Redden issued his final remand order of the 2004 BiOp on Oct. 7, warning that breaching the four dams on the Lower Snake River would become a possibility if the final remand is not successful. The mention of breaching surprised some attorneys, because it wasn't included in the draft order the Judge sent out earlier in the week.
2003: QUESTIONS RAISED OVER SALMON/PCB STUDY
A July 30 report that said farmed salmon contain five to 10 times as much PCBs as wild salmon has created a worldwide stir over health concerns. But now that more than 75 versions of the fish story have appeared, ranging from the New York Times to the BBC and even showing up on web-based news sites in Saudi Arabia, it seems likely the major media have been duped once again.
2005: MORE PCBS SHOW IN PUGET SOUND CHINOOK THAN OTHER STOCKS
New research has reinforced earlier findings that showed Puget Sound salmon contain more PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls) than other wild salmon on the West Coast. The latest results show that Sound chinook contain nearly three times as many PCBs as chinook from northern BC or Alaska, with levels in the Sound's resident chinook even higher.
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