[1] New Report Supports Earlier Analysis Of Canadian Harvest Changes
A new report from the Pacific Salmon Commission supports a presentation made over a year ago on the impacts recent changes in Canadian chinook harvest practices have had on ESA-listed stocks in the Northwest.
The July 2005 presentation to the Northwest Power and Conservation Council that highlighted the use of DNA analysis to determine the stock composition of commercial catches off Vancouver Island was found to have some minor flaws, but the basic message is still the same. It's still made up of nearly 90-percent U.S.-bound chinook, and while shifts in harvest timing have likely reduced impacts to some ESA stocks, they have increased the catch of others, principally in Puget Sound.
B.C. commercial fishers, out of concern for their own weak chinook and coho stocks, now take most of the summer off. They expend most of their effort to catch chinook in the spring months and after August, which means their impacts on U.S. stocks are not correctly estimated by the model the salmon commission uses.
It also means they don't catch as many ESA-listed chinook bound for the Snake River, but land more early-returning chinook bound for Puget Sound.
However, the latest report also shows that the earlier commercial harvest off Vancouver Island means they catch more lower Columbia tules than the PSC model has historically estimated, which translates into a higher impact on the ESA-listed, lower Columbia chinook, which has never commanded much respect. NOAA Fisheries has OK'd a harvest rate of up to 49 percent on the stock, about three times the rate allowed by the feds this year on the non-listed, but battered, fall chinook run in the Klamath River.
The 2005 presentation by PSC chinook technical folks estimated that almost 45 percent of the chinook caught by the West Coast Vancouver island troll fleet was made up of fall stocks from the lower Columbia. The latest report has pared that back to 28 percent to account for a group of fish not mentioned in the first report--fin-clipped fish that data collectors were unable to assign to any specific stock.
Nevertheless, this collection of mystery fish made up about 12 percent of the catch in the 2003-2004 harvest year. The report says they are definitely hatchery fish from the U.S., but without a coded-wire tag, they have no way of telling just where they came from.
Dell Simmons, co-chair of the PSC technical committee, and a NOAA Fisheries biologist, told NW Fishletter last March that he thought they were tules from the lower Columbia,
But last week, another CTC member, Gary Morishima told NW Fishletter that he thought the fish were from Puget Sound hatchery stocks, where most hatchery fish are marked to keep sports fishermen from bringing down the government. It gives them a chance to keep fishing, and keep marked fish, while reducing impacts to wild stocks, since they are required to return the unclipped ESA-listed chinook back to the water.
The new report also trims the amount of Puget Sound fall fish that were caught off Vancouver Island from 19.4 percent to 17.7 percent, while doubling the Canadians' share of upper Columbia summer/fall stocks to 9.3 percent.
But the Canadian DNA analysis doesn't have enough samples to accurately gauge impacts on stocks that make up less than 5 percent of the catch. However, it does say that impacts on Puget Sound listed fish like Nooksack and Skagit spring chinook are higher than those observed in previous years.
The report also says impacts (troll and sport) on listed Snake River falls averaged only 2.8 percent in 2003-2004, about one-fifth of the rate seen from 1988 to 1994. It does show a 4.4 percent harvest rate on the Snake fish for 2004, the last year for which data is available.
In other documentation, the PSC has estimated that Alaska accounted for about 21 percent of the catch (from Lyons Ferry Hatchery CWT data) in 2003, northern B.C. fishers for about 9 percent. The U.S. troll fishery took 15 percent, sport 17 percent, net (Columbia River treaty plus non-treaty) 35 percent. But the PSC says overall effort has been reduced enough since the mid-1990s for escapement of the stock to rise from 48 percent to nearly 78 percent in 2003.
The report will be discussed at the salmon commission's executive meeting in October, and decisions may be forthcoming on the CTC recommendations for updating the harvest model to reflect the huge change in the timing of the Canadian harvest. Between 1999 and 2004, over 90 percent of the commercial troll catch off Vancouver Island was taken between September and the following May. From 1985 to 1995, almost 90 percent of the catch was taken from June through August.
It's been a long time coming, since they've noted the results derived from CWT data have not meshed with the harvest model for the past six years. Even the latest report was held back for months at the salmon commission's policy level.
During the model's base period (1979-1982) used to determine the relative impacts of current harvest, about 60 percent of the catch took place between June through August. That has obviously changed, said CTC member Morishima, who said development is under way to make the model more receptive to changes in harvest patterns. He said Alaska fish managers have already developed techniques to capture recent spatial or temporal harvest changes in their predictive model.
But Morishima echoed the report's caution about using data from the small sampling size in the current DNA data. He pointed out that the samples were taken mainly from wild fish, which biases the results. He said a much larger sampling effort would have to be designed and implemented before an accurate assessment of the stock composition could be completed.
Meanwhile, Seattle attorney Svend Brandt-Erichsen said the latest PSC report only reinforces the arguments in two lawsuits that are taking on different aspects of ESA issues and current salmon harvests.
Brandt-Erichsen said litigation by the Salmon Spawning and Recovery Alliance that calls for the Customs Service to enforce the federal law banning the import of endangered species has been moved from federal district court to the Court of International Trade, where a briefing schedule has been set.
The alliance, made up of two conservation-oriented angler groups and the Snohomish County PUD, along with the Native Fish Society and the Clark-Skamania Flyfishers, want the government to enforce regulations that would keep U.S. sports fishermen from returning home with chinook caught in B.C. because they might be from an ESA-listed U.S. stock.
Another lawsuit filed by the group in Western Washington District Court wants to force the U.S. into immediate reconsultation over terms of the U.S./Canada salmon treaty in hopes of reducing impacts on listed U.S. stocks. Parties are still waiting for district court judge Ricardo Martinez to rule on a motion by the feds to dismiss the case.
The alliance said in their notice-to-sue letter that Snake River fall chinook made up less than 2 percent of the Canadian's Vancouver Island catch, but that's more than 50 percent of the ocean catch of the listed stock, and equals the number of Snake River falls caught in all the in-river Columbia fisheries.
The letter also reported that the Canadians catch many chinook bound for Puget Sound streams, where chinook are listed under the ESA for protection. According to the letter, between 1985 and 2002, B.C. fishers landed more than 55 percent of the Skagit River chinook caught in all fisheries, and just last year caught 70 percent of the natural-origin chinook bound for the Nooksack.
The alliance says these interceptions can be reduced if Canadians develop a mark-selective fishery for chinook like they have for coho, along with more terminal area fisheries.
They sent another notice-to-sue letter to NOAA Fisheries in January that calls for reconsultation over the federally approved harvest plan for Puget Sound chinook. Washington state fish managers have recognized increasing impacts in recent harvest reports, citing data that shows Canadian sport and commercial harvest on weak Puget Sound stocks has been up to 36 percent higher than they had expected.
The increased harvest by Canadians is allowed under the abundance-based management regime instituted under the salmon treaty between the two countries, but state officials have said the effectiveness of harvest cuts on the U.S. side of the border have been reduced by the bump in the Canadian catches.
But the politics get more complicated the further north one goes. U.S. hatchery fish, mainly from the Columbia River and caught by Canadians, are part of a deal that allows Alaskans to catch a lot of Canadian fish in return.
A preliminary DNA analysis of the 1999 Alaska troll fishery found that over 20 percent of their harvest was made up of B.C.-bound chinook, with another 22 percent made up of upper Columbia summers, falls, and Snake River falls, about 25 percent from Oregon and Washington coastal stocks, with another 21 small groups making up nearly 18 percent. The state's own hatchery system supplied only about 7 percent of the chinook caught in the troll fishery.
Re-negotiation over interception issues in the treaty is scheduled for 2008, but Brandt-Erichsen says talks should begin now. While state fishery officials are concerned, they don't seem inclined to push for an earlier resolution. -Bill Rudolph
[2] Feds Stick To Upper Snake Agreement In Remand
Government attorneys told BiOp Judge James Redden earlier this week how they plan to deal with the remand of the Upper Snake BiOp. The feds said they will only analyze the effects of a proposed action to add 487 kaf from the Upper Snake to flows for ESA-listed salmonids migrating in the lower Snake and Columbia. It is the amount agreed upon by all parties to the Snake River Basin Adjudication for the next 30 years, and about 60 kaf more than called for in the BiOps that have governed lower Snake operations in recent years.
It's not going to make plaintiff environmental groups happy, who are using the litigation to try to force more water from upper Snake storage reservoirs to aid the migration of ESA-listed fish in the lower Snake. In 2003, Redden denied a supplemental motion by other environmental groups to expand the federal action area of the 2000 hydro BiOp to include the upper Snake that was in remand at that time. Later, they went after the Upper Snake BiOp that governed operations by the Bureau of Reclamation's storage projects, leading to Redden's ruling last May that threw out the BiOp because it relied on the same flawed jeopardy analysis used by the feds in their 2004 BiOp of the federal hydro system.
But Justice Department attorney Coby Howell said to produce a valid biological opinion, NOAA Fisheries must examine whether the effects of the proposed action (adding the 487 kaf) , together with any "cumulative effects," jeopardize the continued existence of the listed species when added to the environmental baseline. Reading from Redden's May ruling, Howell noted that NOAA may include the FCRPS consultation in the environmental baseline of the Bureau of Reclamation's proposed action of the upper Snake or vice versa.
"That's how we intend to coordinate," Howell told the judge, who had ruled that upper and lower Snake and Columbia actions must be analyzed together, whether it was in one BiOp or two. Environmental groups had pushed for one big BiOp, but the judge didn't rule in their favor.
Howell explained that in the FCRPS [Federal Columbia River Power System] consultation, NOAA Fisheries is going to put the upper Snake consultation into the environmental baseline, put the two together, and perform a comprehensive analysis within that consultation.
The feds are going to put the results from the FCRPS consultation in the environmental baseline for the upper Snake consultation, analyzing the proposed action defined by the SRBA and do a comprehensive analysis "aggregating those two," Howell said. He said the practical result is that the FCRPS consultation is largely the same as the Upper Snake consultation "because you're flipping environmental baselines."
"It seems a little bit odd, but it's a result of the court order--the aggregation principle--and the SRBA agreement," Howell said. "We have to have two separate biological opinions to be in compliance with that statute."
He said the upper Snake consultation could not be finished until after the FCRPS consultation is completed and suggested another 6 months to complete it after the FCRPS consultation is finished. He said it was largely a staffing concern, because the analysis was going to be nearly the same.
Earthjustice attorney Todd True said he was concerned because of a legal issue involved, since the ESA says only a completed consultation can be included in an environmental baseline. But if both BiOps are completed at the same time, it would be legal, "and provide the analysis the court is looking for."
Judge Redden said he would keep the current Upper Snake BiOp in place during the remand, and gave both sides a chance to work out the language of a satisfactory remand order, along with developing a schedule for progress over the next two weeks.
Judge Redden raised another possibility. After noting that the Nez Perce Tribe had said that the SRBA is an "action," and the 487 kaf is "in play" for both consultations, "I think that perhaps we may even go up to the route with what we referred to as the Canadian water in the FCRPS, [that it has] has got something to do with the Snake River."
Whether more water from anywhere will really aid the fish is still a bone of contention. Norm Semanko, executive director of the Idaho Water Users Association, a party to the SRBA, said his group still thinks the added flows won't provide any survival benefits for fish, since it would only boost flows about one-tenth of an mph. He said the extra 60 kaf is natural river flows in the summer.
Semanko said operations of Idaho Power dams in Hells Canyon are the big question mark in all this analysis. Since they are in the midst of a relicensing process with FERC and not part of this BiOp, it's not clear how much water will actually by delivered to the lower Snake. FERC staff, in a draft EIS, has proposed that the utility release 237 kaf in the early summer to aid the migration of juvenile fall chinook below the project, similar to volumes released the past two years and from 1989-2000. FERC staff said the value of the flow augmentation from Idaho Power's Brownlee Reservoir could then be evaluated by the utility, along with added flows from Dworshak and the Upper Snake.
In the 2005 Upper Snake BiOp, NOAA Fisheries analysts estimated that BuRec operations for storage and irrigation would reduce average spring flows in the lower Snake by 8 percent, and flows in the Columbia by 2 percent to 5 percent less than hypothetical dam operations maxed out for fish benefits. Such conditions were expected to reduce inriver survival rates by only about 1 percent, with less than a 0.1 percent difference if transported fish were factored in.
The feds expected flows in the lower Snake to actually increase about 8 percent in the summer from the upper Snake operations, boosting survival about 8 percent from the hypothetical, boosting overall system survival by about 4 percent.
But that analysis using hypothetical operations was part of the jeopardy analysis that Judge Redden found flawed, and a new analysis is underway, with a more sophisticated survival modeling effort.
While no official results have yet been announced, it was reported that the different dam operational scenarios recently modeled in the FCRPS remand showed only minor differences in survival from the kind of changes to flows and spill that action agencies have the discretion to perform, with differences not evident until one looked past the "third decimal place." With such small differences in survival in the mainstem, it's not likely that any changes from Upper Snake operations would have a truly detectable effect on survival through the hydro system.
But attorney True said the action that involves flows from the BOR projects set by the SRBA agreement "may not be the only thing that we can look at in the upper Snake to help solve this equation. There's water in the Hells Canyon reservoirs, there's water in other reservoirs that can improve Snake River flows. It may turn out that getting water from Mica in the upper Columbia doesn't actually do anything for the fish traveling down the Snake River. We need to know that at the time we're looking at coming up with these actions so that both of them can comply with the law."
True said his side was willing to sit down with the government to work something out. "I'm not sure we're seeing eye-to-eye exactly on how this is going to work." -B. R.
[3] More Briefs, Barbs Exchanged Over Fish Passage Center
With oral arguments scheduled for Sept. 12 in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals over the future of the controversial Fish Passage Center, a final flurry of briefs was exchanged in early August to prepare the court for the coming battle.
The Yakama Nation accused the Bonneville Power Administration of character assassination by insinuating that a memo by FPC head Michele DeHart was written expressly for the litigation. It was the latest blow in a battle that began last fall when an Idaho Senator added language to a Congressional appropriations bill that called for BPA to end funding for the FPC.
Friends of the center soon headed to the appeals court, where they have petitioned to have the $1.3 million restored. The court granted a March 17 emergency stay of the FPC's defunding after the environmental groups and the Yakama Nation separately filed motions to keep the center alive.
The National Environmental Defense Center, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, and the Northwest Sportfishing Industry Association argue that the power-marketing agency had no right to end the FPC's funding.
BPA has agreed to fund the Center through November. However, it says it had an obligation to follow Congressional report language added by Sen. Larry Craig (R- Idaho) that defunded the FPC and called for BPA to distribute its data gathering and analysis duties to other entities.
But plaintiffs say that the report language is not legally binding, and by refusing to fund the Center, BPA's action was not consistent with its own fish and wildlife program developed by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council.
The Council joined the fray as an intervenor, weighing in with two briefs. It agreed with BPA's assertion that in the "overwhelming majority of measures" in the fish and wildlife program, BPA followed the program's provisions guiding hydro system mitigation.
But the Council also said BPA wasn't required to fund every single measure in the program as long as it fulfilled its "substantive obligation" to act "in a manner consistent with" the Council's program. An appraisal, it said, was for the Niners to decide.
The NEDC brief says BPA's defunding action was not consistent with the program, while BPA says the NEDC doesn't even have standing because the court lacks the authority to make it hire back the FPC.
BPA argues that it was well within the administrator's "broad contracting discretion" to choose other entities to implement the measure in the fish and wildlife program that called for the collection of fish passage data and related functions. BPA seems to admit that the report language was not legally binding.
The Yakamas say that BPA and the Council should be deferring to the expertise of state fishery agencies and tribes, but Bonneville countered that its interpretation of the Northwest Power Act was already acknowledged by the court.
In a long footnote of its first brief, the Council's attorneys said the states and tribes had already been given deference in the recommendations that went into the program, but the law does not say they are owed deference during the implementation of the program. Rather, the brief says BPA and the Council owe deference to the program when making implementation and funding decisions.
The Yakamas bluntly state that BPA should have given substantial deference to the tribes' proposed version of an FPC entity, which was virtually identical to the existing FPC."
Another lawsuit FPC personnel have filed against BPA in federal district court has been fully briefed, but the judge in the proceeding withdrew the schedule for oral arguments, originally slated for June, and has not rescheduled.
In a declaration filed in the district court proceeding, FPC director Michele DeHart said that "people in the region" have "suggested" that she had been "personally targeted" by Sen. 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." -B. R.
[4] Yakamas Sign Fish Protection Settlement With Grant County PUD
Representatives of the Yakama Nation joined Grant County PUD officials last week in signing a long-term fish protection agreement that fulfills part of the utility's relicensing requirements for its Priest Rapids Project.
The two entities have come a long way in the past few years. It wasn't too long ago that the Yakamas had partnered up with PacifiCorp to compete against Grant over the re-licensing of the project. More recently, Grant has supported the Yakama Nation in its development of a tribal utility.
According to an Aug. 14 press release, the settlement agreement is the third and final piece of the Priest Rapids Project Salmon and Steelhead Protection Program.
NOAA Fisheries completed a biological opinion in May 2004, and an agreement to improve flow protection for Hanford Reach Fall Chinook was signed that year as well.
The accord signed last week works in conjunction with the Hanford Reach protection agreement to provide 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.
"Grant PUD looks forward to working with the Yakama in implementing the terms of this agreement," said Tim Culbertson, Grant PUD general manager. "We continue to work collaboratively with fish agencies, other dam operators, tribes and other interests to design programs and make decisions that are scientifically founded."
Other parties to the agreement are the Colville tribes, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and NOAA Fisheries. -B. R.
[5] Feds Release Proposed Recovery Plan For Hood Canal Chum
Saying that Hood Canal chum have suffered mainly from overharvesting and habitat loss, NOAA Fisheries announced last week a plan to recover the chum, listed for protection under the ESA since 1999, that says the effort could take 50 to 100 years. Costs for the initial 10-year phase of the recovery effort are estimated at $136 million, mainly for improvements to chum habitat.
The proposed plan was mostly written by the Hood Canal Coordinating Council, with a supplement added by the federal fisheries agency. In its Federal Register notice, the agency said that some of the chum stocks in the ESU, like those that spawn in the Quilcene, have been subjected to harvest rates up to 90 percent.
The plan calls for improving habitat for the eight stocks left of the 16 that were thought to be historically present, and continuing a supplementation effort with a conservation hatchery strategy that the feds have OK'd.
The plan points out that the Hood Canal summer chum are at the southern end of the spawning limit of all summer stocks between Alaska and Puget Sound, and may be less productive than fall stocks, which could hinder their recovery from high harvest levels in the past. Stocks declined abruptly in 1989, the same year that Canadian effort peaked at 43 percent. Total exploitation rates in both Canadian and US fisheries were high through 1991, when nearly half were caught, and the rate on the Quilcene summer run hit nearly 90 percent. But harvest has declined considerably, with the total exploitation rate on most summer chum in the region now less than 2 percent, though the Quilcene fish still face an 18-percent rate.
During years of high harvest in the 1980s, winter rivers flows increased and whole summer spawning flows declined, which reduced productivity even more. But in recent years, escapement of the Hood Canal summer run has improved dramatically from around 4,000 fish in 1998 and 1999 to nearly 70,000 in 2004.
The agency will accept public comment on the proposed plan until Oct. 16. Send comments to Elizabeth Babcock, Puget Sound Salmon Recovery Coordinator, NOAA Fisheries Service, 7600 Sandpoint Way NE, Seattle WA 98115; or submit by e-mail to HCsalmonplan@noaa.gov. -B. R.
[6] WDFW Calls For Comment On Steelhead Report
The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife is asking for public comment on its draft assessment of steelhead populations that will lead to a new plan for managing what's left of the state's steelie stocks.
The report says habitat loss has reduced productivity more than 80 percent on average for the 21 populations examined, and recommends that agency expertise be available to help local watershed groups identify habitat needs and funding sources to help fix it.
The report includes many other recommendations as well, part of the agency's embrace of the viable salmonid policy developed by federal agencies that gauges abundance, productivity, spatial structure and diversity as the main elements.
"This assessment is based on the best current scientific information available on Northwest steelhead," said WDFW director Jeff Koenings. "It will provide the scientific foundation for the future management of this important resource."
But the report also says there is going to be a fair amount of uncertainty in the management process since a lack of data has kept the agency from rating nearly half of the steelhead populations. It has also found that hatchery practices, especially in western Washington, pose risks to wild stocks. Only two hatchery stocks are used in about 70 percent of the steelhead hatchery production west of the Cascades.
The draft report says 90 percent of the steelhead runs on the Olympic Peninsula are healthy, while 60 percent in Southwest Washington are in the same category, but only 20 percent are considered healthy in the rest of the state.
The report says most habitat loss has occurred on the Columbia River, where hydro projects have blocked access to migrating fish, but nearly all of Puget Sound's historical steelhead habitat is still accessible and 96 percent of the region's historic populations remain viable.
A draft of the management plan's first section that focuses on Puget Sound stocks is scheduled to be finished by next January. NOAA Fisheries has proposed listing the Sound stocks as "threatened." All wild steelhead stocks in the Columbia and Snake systems have been listed for years, but their numbers have generally improved since they received protection under the ESA. -B. R.
[7] Niners Tell Corps To Keep On Dredgin'
A three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court has voted 2-1 to uphold a district court opinion that said the Corps of Engineers had indeed taken a "hard look" at the factors involved in deepening the Columbia River shipping channel in its EIS, and the operation which began in 2005 may continue. The Corp's project to deepen the channel three feet to allow the transit of ever-larger container ships to Portland was challenged by Northwest Environmental Advocates.
The August 23 majority opinion said the National Environmental Policy Act doesn't require an agency "take the most exhaustive environmental analysis theoretically possible, but that it take a "hard look" at relevant factors. The Niners' ruling noted that the Corps even took the additional step by altering plans to minimize sediment loss.
"Once again, the courts have agreed with our arguments," said Laura Hicks, project manager for the Corps, in a press release. "We have nearly two decades worth of work--evaluating this project and ensuring that it complies with all applicable laws--to stand behind."
The lone dissent came from judge Betty Fletcher, who said her fellow judges took an "ostrich's head-in-the-sand approach to reviewing the agency's analysis," and settled for the Corps' explanation without reviewing its decision making. -B. R.
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