[1] Power Council Makes Draft Recommendations For 2007-09 F&W Budget
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council voted last week to put the Bonneville Power Administration's next fish and wildlife budget up for public scrutiny. The Sept. 13 vote represented the culmination of months of work by various committees that sorted through hundreds of proposals and weighed recommendations by a scientific panel for total, partial or no funding at all, along with local input from each province in the Columbia Basin.
The final product entailed a lot of cutting and pasting to shoehorn a combination of ongoing projects and new ones into the document. Some proposals were still likely to move over to the capital side of the budget, which was hovering in the $50-million range. All in all, it added up to about $143 million in annual spending, with another $8 million or so in placeholders.
The 07-09 direct program budget is split into mainstem-basinwide and provincial segments, with each province in the Columbia Basin the target of many more potential projects than the budget could allow.
The Columbia plateau region, for instance, had a budget of $21.7 million slated for 2007, but nearly $45 million in different projects were reviewed by various groups before the proposals were winnowed down to levels accepted by most members.
But some Council members still complained that BPA's F&W budget should be significantly boosted. Both of Oregon's NPCC members went on record before the vote to express their unhappiness with the status quo.
Melinda Eden said the Council needed to focus more attention on the needs of fish and wildlife that weren't listed for ESA protection.
But Montana member Rhonda Whiting, chair of the F&W committee, said that was not the consensus of her committee. On Sept.12, the "Fish Four," as it is known, slogged through every proposal in the program, voting 3-1 in many cases, to put their recommendations before the full Council. Oregon's other member, Joan Dukes, was usually the dissenter in these split votes.
Council chair Tom Karier said they were still trying to follow the guideline of "70-15-15," budget language which means 70 percent of the F&W budget is expected to go for anadromous fish, 15 percent for resident fish needs, and 15 percent for wildlife mitigation in the Columbia Basin.
Before the vote, members argued over how to handle the funds for the successor to the Fish Passage Center, since several competing proposals are on the agenda. Montana's Bruce Measure called for a vote to recommend the BPA/Battelle proposal for funding.
Since the fate of the FPC is still in court, the council was split on the motion. "Our decision has the potential of mooting the case," said Montana member Bruce Measure.
But Oregon and Washington members wouldn't support his motion, which was backed by Idaho as well, and it was finally decided to move the potential funds for the FPC tasks to the "unallocated" column in the budget.
After the council voted to pass its budget recommendations on to the public, a forum of tribal leaders from the lower Columbia picked up the inadequate-funding theme from the Oregon council members.
Kathryn Brigham of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Reservation said, "We need more, because it's not working."
When Idaho Council member Judi Danielson pointed out that the tribes had received over $400 million in F&W funds since the Northwest Power Act was enacted, Brigham said the budget's emphasis on "ESA" was "not a good focus," and the budget is not enough."
A late-afternoon panel on estuary issues caused a little heartburn among some Council members, who were told that 40 to 50 percent of the improvements to juvenile fish numbers they might make would be going down the drain in the 150-mile stretch between the last dam on the Columbia and the ocean.
The panel said up to 40 percent of juvenile spring chinook, and 50 percent of juvenile fall chinook would die in the estuary. (NW Fishletter has learned that any official pronouncements about estuary survival rates will not be available until November, though it's likely the mortality rates would be more moderate, in the 10 percent to 25 percent range).
One panel member said 23 different actions were being examined in a planning exercise to determine what was needed to boost survival by 20 percent in the estuary and river plume offshore. Consultant Phil Trask said a little improvement in each action could help overall, but all the actions were "highly constrained" and it would be a difficult goal to reach.
One of the Council's recommendations is to cut the pikeminnow predation project by $800,000 to $3 million annually, which would likely increase juvenile fish mortality in the estuary. Reduced funding for the popular sport reward fishery for pikeminnow--heavy predators of young salmon and steelhead in both reservoirs and the lower Columbia below the hydro system--would likely cut the catch of pikeminnow significantly. ODFW data suggests that the exploitation rate on large pikeminnow by reward fishers would decrease by nearly half, from 19 percent to 11 percent, if the funding cut goes through. <.i>-B. R.
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