[1] Chinook Run Stymies Managers, Finally Builds Momentum
Numbers finally began to climb fast last week at Bonneville Dam fish ladders as high river flows eased along with the concerns of harvest managers charged with figuring it all out. This morning, they updated their estimation of the run size from the pre-season 88,000-fish number to a more cautious range of 65,000-88,000 chinook. Fishing remains closed to all recreational and commercial fishers in the mainstem, but managers are now discussing whether to re-open them.
Fish counters saw daily numbers hit the triple digits for the first time this year on April 24. By April 28, a paltry 3,000 chinook had appeared, but less than a week later, the run had quadrupled in size, with more than 13,300 fish passing the dam. By last Thursday, more than 2,000 chinook were being counted every day. Two days later, the count was really humming along, with more than 8,600 counted on Saturday and another 7,700 on Sunday.
The total stands now at 35,000, still a pretty miserable showing, since the 10-year average is over 120,000 fish, and even last year, more than 50,000 fish had been counted by now.
The Willamette has finally perked up as well, with over 9,300 chinook counted at the falls by May 1. Only 45 fish had been counted by April 21.
Harvest managers released a statement on May 2 that reflected their continuing state of uncertainty over the run's lateness. They said they still couldn't update the run size from their pre-season expectation of 88,000 upriver chinook (to the river mouth), but signs are pointing to a spring run less than they had expected.
The situation could be a nail-biter for some time because this is one of the latest runs on record. In 1952, the spring run didn't peak until May 27.
By April 23, only 488 springers had been counted at the dam. But on April 25, about 440 were tallied in one day, showing skeptics that the run hadn't completely disappeared. However, it was still a long way from the nearly 90,000 spring chinook that harvest managers originally expected to enter the river this year. And with a normal spring run about half over, the technical advisory committee said that it couldn't yet update the run size.
"Because this run is so low to date, and it is unclear when 50 percent passage at Bonneville will occur, TAC is not able to use run timing to update the run size at this time," the committee said on April 27. "As the run progresses, we will have greater confidence in using historic data to update the run size."
Harvest managers said they didn't have a good explanation for why the counts to date were so low, but suggested several possibilities. The run could be much smaller than anticipated, really late or a combination of the two factors.
The managers pointed out that the 1996 and 2005 spring runs were very late and did not reach 50 percent until May 6. But they had looked at other factors that might explain the situation (water temperature, flow, pH,) but couldn't tie anything together with the paltry show of chinook.
They said no one knows the total effects of predation by sea lions on this years' spring run, either, nor whether it could be delaying the run. TAC did say that average numbers of encounters with upriver chinook in the lower river were documented in the earlier sports fishery, but that hasn't translated into numbers across Bonneville Dam.
With counts lower than anyone had seen since the dam was built in 1938, fish managers asked dam operators to pull a couple of steel grates that had recently been installed to keep sea lions out, to see if it had a detrimental effect on adult fish passage.
But after two days of watching fish counts rise at ladders with and without the SLEDS, the two 10,000-lb. grates were lowered back in place at the ladder near Powerhouse 2.
According to the historical record, the spring run of 1943 came the closest to being this late, when only 2,700 fish had been counted by April 25, but the run ended up around 66,000 fish.
In 1952, only about 3,500 fish had shown by this time of the month, but 116,000 had appeared by June 1--and that was after another 165,000 chinook had been caught by inriver commercial and tribal fishers.
After the first chinook finally showed up April 27 at Lower Granite Dam, The Idaho Statesman used the occasions to pen another editorial supporting dam breaching. By May 7, a whopping 50 chinook had passed the demon dam on their way home.
In coastal waters, harvest managers in Alaska and British Columbia have reduced their allowable catches for fall chinook by about 10 percent because the abundance indexes for most stocks has declined due to less productive ocean conditions.
So far, this year, the Canadian fleet off Vancouver Island had landed about 7,500 chinook by April 19. Managers have aimed for a chinook harvest of up to 28,000 by the end of April, and a 40,000-fish catch by the end of May, down from a preseason target of 55,000. Canadians are concerned about having too much impact on their own weak stock of chinook in the Lower Georgia Strait area.
According to a preliminary DNA analysis of the Canadian catches, few spring chinook from the Columbia River show up in their fishery.
However, concern for another West Coast fall chinook stock from California's Klamath River has led to a severely curtailed fishery in Oregon and California. Pressure from the commercial sector was instrumental in getting Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski to declare a state of emergency on April 24 for his state's coastal communities to ease the economic hit they are expected to take from the closures.
Kulongoski's declaration is likely to help the federal government free up disaster funding for the hard-hit communities, even though recreational fishing will not be affected as much by the closures
California senators Barbara Boxer (D) and Diane Feinstein (D) have introduced a bill in Congress that would provide $81 million for strapped fishermen, tribes and businesses adversely impacted by the Klamath closure. Included in the measure is $45 million to pay for "immediate" conservation measures on the Klamath River, and a requirement for NMFS to produce a recovery plan in six months.-Bill Rudolph
[2] Judge Mulls While Enviros And Water Users Trade Shots
Federal Judge James Redden got an earful during oral arguments last week in a lawsuit by environmental groups [American Rivers v. NMFS] trying to force NOAA Fisheries to combine ESA consultation on Upper Snake storage dam operations with the current remand of the BiOp governing operations farther downstream in the mainstem Snake and Columbia.
In an April 26 order that spelled out the hearing schedule, Redden said he was leaning toward agreeing with enviros that the consultations were improperly segmented, and that his primary concern was whether the federal defendants' failed to meet ESA obligations to provide a comprehensive jeopardy analysis.
But by the time it was over, he seemed to appreciate the complexity of the issues, and said he would rule within two weeks.
The environmental groups continue to argue that more water from the upper river could be used to help listed salmonids migrate through the lower Snake.
But in their 2005 upper Snake BiOp, the feds said that the operation of Bureau of Reclamation storage projects didn't jeopardize ESA-listed fish downstream, and that the 427,000 acre-feet of water that Idaho ponies up every year is enough to help the listed fish. They had estimated that current operation of upper Snake irrigation projects reduced survival of juvenile spring chinook by only 0.3 percent, while summer operations actually increased survival of fall chinook by 4 percent.
Another 60,000 acre-feet has recently been added to augment flows even more, a result of the historic settlement between stakeholders in the Snake River Water Rights Agreement.
But the judge wondered if flows for salmon were given the lowest priority in the upper Snake agreement. He noted that a single consultation that included both the upper and lower Snake would look into where more water might come from, and not just from Idaho.
Norm Semanko, executive director of the Idaho Water Users Association, said the question at the hearing was whether to merge the BiOps, but soon after the proceedings started, environmental lawyers were telling the judge that more water was needed for the fish.
"I found that appalling," said Semanko. He said environmental groups are continuing to try to blackmail water users to support breaching dams on the lower Snake.
In a press release issued the day of the hearing, Michael Garrity, American Rivers' associate director of Columbia Basin programs, said the lawsuit was about "shining light on the facts regarding the effectiveness and economic consequences of pursuing salmon recovery with and without the four costly, outdated lower Snake River dams in place."
Garrity said by removing the four lower Snake dams, Idaho farmers could keep their water and the fish would recover. "Those who insist that these four dams remain in place are increasing the likelihood that more Idaho water will be needed to help salmon get downstream."
But Semanko said his group recognizes the value of the dams for both navigation and power production. "I told the judge that calling for more water puts the Agreement [Snake River Water Rights Agreement] at risk."
That was a sentiment echoed by attorney David Cummings, who represented the Nez Perce Tribe. He said the settlement not only provided more flows for fish but also gave the tribe more land, a fish hatchery and $68 million for habitat restoration. By keeping the consultations separate, Cummings said options in the federal remand would still not be limited.
The lawsuit has unified water users in Idaho, who fear that the judge may trash state water rights and eventually order more water now used to irrigate agriculture for downstream needs of fish. In that case, they would walk away from the Snake settlement.
Semanko said the settlement agreement has been passed by Congress and calls for a single BiOp on the upper Snake. It also calls for state of Idaho to use more water for fish needs than ever before. But he said if the water users were told by a federal judge to cough up more, then they would lead an appeal to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, where even the water settlement could be jeopardized.
He hoped the judge recognized the huge problems that would appear if the BiOps were joined because there are about 60 different actions on the upper Snake that affect flows. Another concern is how to get Idaho Power to change its operations to pass on more flows than the settlement now calls for.
Semanko disagreed with Judge Redden's notion that the fish may be the lowest priority in the settlement. "The Nez Perce were fierce advocates for the fish," he said.
The possibility that the Snake settlement could go down in flames has many Idaho parties stunned. The last ten years of wrangling over Idaho water was characterized as "a very painful decade," by Judi Danielson, Idaho member of the Northwest Power and Conservation Council. "Everybody involved had moved significantly from their original positions."
But Earthjustice attorney Todd True said joining up the BiOps would have no effect on the agreement. He said parties would stay if they were truly committed, but the feds need to know where to look for more water in the state.
Federal attorney Coby Howell argued that if the jeopardy analysis was wrong, the upper Snake BiOp should be remanded, instead of expanding the scope of the federal actions.
Attorney Mark Stermitz, representing Washington, Montana and the Kootenai Salish Tribe, said combining the two BiOps wouldn't just make more work for the parties now involved in the remand, but would create a new situation that doesn't match up all the parties, and would create a "whole new puzzle."
Semanko is hopeful that Judge Redden is developing a better appreciation for the complexity of the situation. "What is important is what he didn't do yesterday." After all, said Semanko, even the judge has noted in an earlier ruling that the old flow/survival paradigm had been skewered by the independent science panel that looks into scientific issues related to salmon recovery.
Semanko said if more water from the upper Snake is added to the summer migration, analyses by the University of Washington shows that it's usually too hot to do any good, and will kill fish instead of improving their survival. -B. R.
[3] Feds Say FPC Lawsuit In Wrong Court With Wrong Targets
The federal government filed a motion April 14 in U.S. District Court to dismiss a lawsuit by Fish Passage Center personnel. The suit accuses the Bonneville Power Administration and its administrator Steve Wright of abusing the First and Fifth Amendment rights of FPC staff, and engaging in a conspiracy to prevent the FPC from gathering and analyzing the impacts of dams and water flows on fish survival.
The suit, filed by six FPC staffers, alleges that after the FPC produced a fish-survival analysis that environmental groups used to support boosting spill last summer at federal dams, BPA retaliated by cutting off its future funding.
But the government said BPA was only following a Congressional committee's report language that called for defunding the center's 2006 operations, a directive that Idaho Sen. Larry Craig (R) inserted. And while "report language doesn't have the force of law, other than a federal statute," the feds said, "it is considered 'the most authoritative' statement of Congress' intent."
The motion points out that the debate over the legality of the issue is already proceeding in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. By allowing additional litigation to continue at the district court level, the feds argue, the final rulings could be inconsistent. Besides, they said, the district court lacks the jurisdiction to deal with the BPA contract issue and the Northwest Power Act.
The original complaint also accuses BPA administrator Steve Wright of conspiring with Sen. Craig and his staff, "as well as other members or supporters of [the] hydroelectric industry, to prevent plaintiffs from associating and communicating with persons and organizations who supported conservation of water resources and protection of fish in the Columbia and Snake River Systems."
But the feds' motion points out that the Ninth Circuit has issued a stay of the defunding process, and that BPA will be paying for FPC operations through November.
The motion argues that this leaves only "emotional distress damages" for any alleged First Amendment and due-process violations by the BPA administrator, who they say should not be individually liable anyway. Nor do the plaintiffs cite any facts to support their conspiracy theory linking Wright and Craig, say the feds.
U.S. District Court judge Ancer Haggerty has already nodded their way. After refusing last month to approve a temporary restraining order that would have kept the FPC open, the judge voiced concern that the lawsuit may be in the wrong court and that it would be hard to prove the retaliation allegation.
The six FPC employees, including FPC director Michele DeHart, filed declarations in their complaint. In her filing, DeHart said that "people in the region" have "suggested" that she had been "personally targeted" by Craig and BPA, and that the possibility of continued retaliation was a real deterrent for any agency or tribes to consider her for future employment. "This sends a chilling threat to other scientists in the region whose findings are counter to powerful hydropower industry interests."
Another declaration by FPC hydrologist David Benner alleges that a BPA employee had told him BPA might not have terminated the FPC contract if it had not conducted the 2005 analysis of summer spill. "He expressed the opinion that BPA officials were particularly interested in ensuring that Michele DeHart lost her job."
The feds' motion argues that BPA Administrator Wright is entitled to qualified immunity, a precedent that allows government officials "performing discretionary functions," to be shielded from liability for civil damages as long as their conduct doesn't violate established constitutional rights. They argued that the doctrine of official immunity uses an objective standard of "reasonableness so claims of improper motive are irrelevant to the defense."
On April 19, BPA spokesman Mike Hansen told NW Fishletter that no damages had occurred, so the charges are moot. He said neither BPA nor Administrator Wright instigated the defunding. He said Wright was acting in his official capacity to carry out the Congressional language, and should not be subjected to claims that threaten him personally. -B. R.
[4] Hydro Remand Gets 3-Month-Plus Extension
Following an April 21 status update in his Portland courtroom, BiOp Judge James Redden granted a federal request to extend the BiOp remand until Feb. 1, 2007. The judge denied a request by plaintiff environmental and fishing groups to use their schedule for phasing in remand milestones.
Redden also called on the plaintiffs to work more with the feds during the collaborative process that has been underway for some months to produce a new BiOp for federal hydro operations on the Columbia and lower Snake Rivers.
The judge was obviously impressed with the feds' progress on the remand, since he had earlier told them he would not grant any extension unless they could show real progress.
Redden also said he expected the February 2007 deadline would not be the last extension in the process. -B. R.
[5] Enviros Want Oregon's Coastal Coho Stocks Back On The ESA List
Environmental and fishing groups say Oregon's coastal coho stocks should be relisted for protection under the Endangered Species Act, and are heading to court to make it happen.
The coho were delisted in January after federal policymakers agreed with an Oregon state review that said the stocks had the moxie to persist during downturns in ocean productivity.
But environmentalists say the coho still need protection because their numbers are declining again after a short-term boost. By 1998, the population had sagged to about 40,000 wild spawners, but rebounded to 265,000 fish in 2002.
The enviros say that the coho are returning in numbers that fall short of full recovery, but according to data released by the Pacific Fishery Management Council, the Oregon coastal spawner numbers were well over 130,000 fish in both 2004 and 2005, which was the fifth-highest return on record. In fact, returns over the past five years are the highest numbers seen since 1980.
Much of the good news comes from the fact that commercial and sport harvests of wild coho were drastically cut when stocks plummeted in the early 1990s. Spawner numbers were generally below 50,000 during the past 30 years, when harvest rates sometimes reached 80 percent or better.
Oregon state biologists said the low marine survivals of the 1990s were "unprecedented" in the past 50 years. During the 1990s, the coastal stocks also endured drought and a major flood event. But the biologists concluded that the fish's life cycle, population dynamics and structure, along with the broad geographic distribution of the species, reduced the likelihood of succumbing to a perfect storm of adverse environmental conditions.
Environmental groups don't agree. They called the bump in numbers since 2000 "a slight rebound." They cited a memo from NMFS' own scientists expressing concern about the direction of the stocks over the next few years, and said removing federal protection would strip safeguards from a third of prime coho habitat found on federal lands.
"Now is not the time to slack off on habitat protections for coho salmon, or we risk another Klamath-type crisis," said Glen Spain, of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations. "Eliminating these protections shifts the conservation burden onto the backs of fishermen, without protecting the rivers and streams the coho depend on." Without federal protection, he said there was no assurance that the coho would recover or that heavy fishing restrictions would ever be lifted.
But Oregon has pumped $20 million to $30 million annually into coho protection since 1997, Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski said in January when the population was delisted. He also cited the contributions of private forest and agriculture landowners, watershed councils, local governments and other organizations working together to improve coho populations along the state's coast.
The groups suing over the coho delisting are represented by Patti Goldman and Jan Hasselman of Earthjustice, and include the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations, Institute for Fisheries Resources, Pacific Rivers Council, Trout Unlimited, Oregon Natural Resources Council, Native Fish Society, and Umpqua Watersheds. -B. R.
[6] PacifiCorp Calls For Trap And Haul At Klamath River Dams
After federal agencies called for the addition of fish ladders at PacifiCorp's 151-MW Klamath Hydroelectric Project earlier this month, the utility responded last week with a proposal to trap and transport salmonids into areas now blocked by its project on the Klamath River.
PacifiCorp filed documents April 28 with the departments of Interior and Commerce that propose testing the feasibility of the trap and transport idea. The utility made its recommendation under a new licensing provision of the 2005 Energy Policy Act.
In an earlier FERC filing, NOAA Fisheries had recommended that the dams be removed, but it lacked authority for such a draconian order, and said another option would be to build fish ladders at the four dams involved in the relicensing process.
The federal fish agency said the modifications would restore access to 58 miles of habitat for chinook, steelhead, and lamprey, improve connectivity for resident redband trout, and include 46 miles of habitat for the threatened coho salmon. They said it could eventually lead to a plan to reintroduce salmonids to more than 300 miles of habitat above the project, which was blocked in 1918 by the construction of Copco 1 Dam, 196 miles from the mouth of the river.
PacifiCorp had said that fish ladders would cost about $200 million, about twice the expense of tearing the dams out. They had earlier argued that reintroducing fish above the project was a dicey proposal because of water quality problems that begin far upriver.
PacifiCorp Energy president Bill Fehrman said the utility was trying to strike a balance among the concerns over fish and reliable power generated at a reasonable cost. -B. R.
[7] Power Council Pans Corps' Proposal For $30 Million Flood Control Review
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council has penned a letter to the Corps of Engineers saying the agency should put a hold on an ambitious flood control review until the region sorts out important issues about the value of flow augmentation for fish.
"As presented," said the Council letter, "the $30 million study would be extremely expensive and would have no demonstrable benefits for fish and wildlife." The Council also said that ratepayers should not be saddled with any costs associated with the review.
The Council noted that a 1997 study by the Corps had already addressed many of the issues in the new proposal.
A draft report released in January, when the Corps called for public comments, said there was a federal interest in pursuing a feasibility study. The report also contained an alternative plan that could provide acceptable levels of flood control, fisheries benefits, and be "environmentally acceptable."
But such an alternative would change systemwide storage control, and calls for upgrading or removing levees, along with redefining "acceptable levels of damage reduction."
According to the study's executive summary, its objectives are based on Congressional language and supplemental language used in the 2000 hydro BiOp that calls for looking at ways to reduce the effects of flood control operations on the spring freshet. The language calls for focusing on years of average and below-average runoff, so that spring and summer flow objectives in the Snake and Columbia rivers could be met more often.
The council suggested that the Corps should cut the review's costs, and emphasize flood control.
Other groups have "vigorously" opposed the study altogether. In a March 10 letter to the Corps, Northwest Requirements Utilities' executive director John Saven pointed out that even BiOp Judge James Redden recognized the uncertain benefits of flow augmentation.
Saven said if the expensive study went forward, it would short-change other more important fish-related projects. He said support for it by other agencies and the public was "questionable," at best. -B. R.
[8] Surplus Sales Lift BPA Revenues
The Bonneville Power Administration's net revenues for the year could be $250 million higher than originally forecast, thanks to an above-average snowpack and high market prices.
The federal power-marketing agency last week revised its net revenue projections for fiscal year 2006 to $450 million--up from its initial forecast of $200 million made at the start of the fiscal year.
But BPA warned that increased revenues might be counterbalanced by increased spending on salmon recovery, negating any potential rate reductions. Bonneville plans to release its rate structure for 2007-09 in September.
The revised forecast was evidence that BPA is almost out of the financial ditch it was pushed into by a series of low water years and the West Coast energy crisis. If the forecast holds, it would be the fourth year in row BPA has finished in the black, and would bring it within $40 million of financially breaking even for the years 2001-2006.
In 2001 and 2002, BPA lost more than $700 million.
"We finally see daylight after spending the last five years climbing our way out of a deep financial hole created by the energy crisis and several years of low water," said Steve Wright, BPA administrator, in a prepared statement.
The revised forecast calls secondary revenues to be $810 million, based on a slightly above average water year of 108 million-acre feet. Initial forecasts were based on 104 million-acre feet of water and $560 million in secondary revenues.
The revised forecast is another ripple of good financial news that has lifted BPA recently.
Last month the Internal Revenue Service ruled that BPA could make direct payments on $6.5 billion in BPA-backed bonds, rather than deducting the bond payments from its customers' bills late in the year.
Bonneville has been hinting that it may be able to lower rates by 5 percent. -Steve Ernst
[9] Mainstem F&W Proposals Undergo First Review
A team of regional fish and wildlife managers facilitated by the Columbia Fish and Wildlife Authority has completed its draft recommendations of 161 proposals for the next three-year cycle of BPA's fish and wildlife funding. They recommended that only 13 percent (21 projects) not be funded. The projects will now undergo scientific scrutiny by the Independent Scientific Review Panel.
Twenty-eight projects were placed in the Core Program category ($41M), 32 were placed in the High Priority category ($20M), and 55 were placed in the Recommended Action category ($17M).
The team said 10 on-the-ground projects that added up to $2.7 million in funding were better suited to local review and were not prioritized. Also, several groups of projects were not ranked, pending a review in special categories (i.e., fish passage monitoring, database management, and fish and wildlife manager coordination). All but two multi-province projects were provided a review by the team and incorporated in the Program framework. -B. R.
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