[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.

[2] Budget Battle Nearly Doomed Netpen Fishery Project In Lower River

A 12-year-old program that produces chinook and coho salmon in netpens in the Columbia estuary for commercial and recreational harvest nearly got lost between the cracks of BPA's ongoing budget process. But a last-minute deal between Washington and Oregon at this month's meeting of the Northwest Power and Conservation Council has likely kept it alive for another three years.

The $1.8 million program is just a drop in the bucket compared to the $153 million that BPA plans to spend annually on its direct fish and wildlife program. The project has taken heat before because some say it does nothing to mitigate effects of the power system.

BPA's contribution, about 60 percent of the project budget, has helped to produce more harvestable salmon for the gillnet fleet, while allowing fishermen to set their nets in areas away from the main corridors of migrating ESA-listed salmonids. But critics say in the long run, it hasn't led to any reduced effort on listed stocks either. In fact, the commercial gillnetters were even forced to curtail their effort in one of the "select areas" because so few chinook had returned that managers were worried about trapping enough broodstock at one facility to produce next year's outmigration.

In addition to the nearly $2 million from BPA, the original proposal called for more than $800,000 in other funds from a diverse group of agencies and the federal government, including more than $200,000 from the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Department, along with voluntary assessments from the fishermen themselves.

While the state of Oregon said the select area fishery project is important, a review by the state's subbasin planning and implementation team [OSPIT] also said other proposals in the estuary province should have a higher priority for funding with the limited dollars available, only $3.66 million for 2007.

Todd Jones, director of the fisheries project for Clatsop County, writing in the summer 2006 issue of the Columbia River Gillnetter, said funding requests for BPA money "have been channeled through a new process that pits the project sponsors against each other in what has been equated to throwing a hunk of meat in a pen of hungry lions." He said the proposal was ranked "based on criteria for which we are not designed."

OSPIT still recommended the program for high priority funding, but in a document posted on PNCC Web site in June said the budget for the estuary province will not support the dollars requested by project sponsors. They said the project should be judged within the context of multiple subbasins, and agreed with The Lower Columbia River Funding Board on the Washington side of the river that the SAFE [Select Areas Fisheries Enhancement] proposal should be ranked as a priority in the "systemwide" budget category.

Astoria - where spring chinook prices went through the roof.

The LCRFB's rationale for moving the proposal into the systemwide category is that "the conservation benefits of the SAFE project apply to every anadromous fish population within the Columbia River watershed."

But Washington NWPPC member Larry Cassidy told NW Fishletter a week before the Council meeting that it was unlikely there was enough wiggle room in the systemwide budget category for the SAFE project to be funded there. The mainstem, basinwide section already had more than $70 million in annual proposals with about a $30 million cap.

In 2004, the netpen fishery produced 2.46 million juvenile coho, 1.55 million spring chinook and 0.57 million SAB fall chinook, a long way from their first release of 50,000 young coho in 1997.

However, the question remains for BPA and others, does this project actually help mitigate effects of the power system on Columbia River stocks? BPA has previously questioned the ultimate value of the project, and another report on its value is due at the end of the month.

The project received lukewarm praise last year from a joint review by a group of independent scientists and economists who examined an October 2004 report on the effort produced by fish and wildlife staffers from Oregon and Washington and economic development staff from Clatsop County.

The states said the netpens also produce fish that are caught in ocean commercial and recreational fisheries. In fact, they estimated about one-third of the returning fish produced by the netpen project were hooked before they reached the mouth of the Columbia.

However, the economic panel said the states' report didn't include enough data to calculate net benefits of the fishery, which precludes an analysis of costs and benefits.

The states said boosted values for wild spring chinook--after consumers were scared by publicized health concerns over farmed salmon--helped river fishers catch more than $800,000 worth of salmon in the SAFE fishery in 2003, up about $200,000 from 2002. In the late 1990's, the value from the SAFE fisheries to lower river commercial fishers was around $200,000 a year, but started climbing when more fish returned from much improved ocean conditions.

The states' report also pegged the estimated value of 2,400 chinook and coho caught by recreational fishermen at nearly $200,000. The total value of the SAFE fish was estimated at more than $3 million when all fisheries were accounted for, with a $735,000 estimated worth for the 14,000 SAFE-produced coho caught in ocean recreational fisheries.

When the Power Council met this month, they found themselves in Astoria, Ore., of all places, the home turf of commercial non-Indian gillnetters and expected to face some hostile questions from irate harvesters over the fate of their selective fishery, especially since the independent science panel that judges all the F&W proposals deemed the SAFE project "fundable."

But Washington Council member Cassidy hammered out an agreement with Oregon member Joan Dukes before the regular session took place, a day after an editorial in the Daily Astorian pushed for continuation of the netpen project.

Cassidy said he had heard from both sports fishers and commercial groups, which led him to suggest that his state would split funding equally between Bonneville and Oregon to keep the project alive. Cassidy's support came with the caveat that Oregon should work to allow Washington commercial fishermen more access to the Youngs Bay fishery near Astoria, which targets the chinook and coho returning to the net pen areas.

About 70 to 80 boats participate annually at peak harvest periods, a staffer at the fisheries project office in Astoria told NW Fishletter. Last spring, the non-Indian harvesters landed more than 4,300 chinook in their regular fishery, and another 5,200 or so from the select area fishing zones. With early prices averaging better than $5 a pound, their spring catch from the select areas alone added about $400,000 to their pocketbooks. -B. R.

[3] Seattle Judge Dismisses Challenge To Current Harvest Practices

The lawsuit filed in Seattle district court calling on the federal government to reopen talks with Canada over fish interceptions has been dismissed.

The suit, brought by the Salmon Spawning and Recovery Alliance, a group of conservation-based angler groups and Snohomish County PUD, along with the Native Fish Society and the Clark-Skamania Flyfishers, argued that recent data show that Canadian interceptions of U.S. salmon stocks listed for ESA protection, especially from Puget Sound, are being harvested at levels too high to recover.

But Judge Ricardo Martinez ruled Sept. 12 that the defendants do not have standing to assert their claims, and that harvest levels now depleting the stocks may be due to other causes, such as ocean warming or natural population cycles.

"Further," wrote the judge, "the direct cause of the injury is the action of Canadian fishermen, independent third parties over whom this Court does not have jurisdiction."

Plaintiffs' attorney Svend Brandt-Erichsen told NW Fishletter that his clients have not decided whether to ask the judge to reconsider his ruling or appeal.

But in any case, the plaintiffs will move ahead in other litigation and will sue NOAA Fisheries over the Puget Sound Harvest Management Plan, Brandt-Erichsen said. He said harvest rates are too high for the fish to recover--a fact that federal scientists already acknowledge.

In related news, Alliance attorney Eric Redman has sent a letter to NOAA Fisheries head William Hogarth proposing treaty protection for listed salmon stocks on the West Coast under the Convention of International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna (CITES).

Redman said the proposal should be offered at the next meeting of parties to the agreement in June 2007.

He said such a move may spark criticism because it would disrupt legitimate trade, but harvest practices could be adjusted to spare most ESA-listed fish by marking all hatchery-reared salmon and steelhead. "It would be cruelly ironic to conclude that there exists today too much trade in an ESA-listed native salmon to allow them to be listed and protected under CITES." Redman said in his Sept. 13 letter. -B. R.

[4] Fall Chinook Run Late And Less Than Expected

Last week, Columbia Basin harvest managers reduced their estimate of this year's upriver bright fall run by about 20 percent. It's now pegged at 199,000 fish. The group also downgraded the tule (lower Columbia) run by about 27 percent, from 52,000 to 38,000 fish.

A few diehards are still hoping that the run is just late, but time is running out for a more optimistic take on the season.

"We're in the tail of the run," said WDFW harvest manager Joe Hymer. He didn't expect any more large peaks in the counts, either. The run has cut several hatcheries short of broodstock, for the time being anyway. Commercial fishing in a select area near Big Creek hatchery in the lower Columbia was curtailed so more spawners could make it back to the Oregon facility.

But in the two days since Hymer spoke, the fall numbers have picked up momentum again, nearly doubling daily counts from earlier in the week, and adding another 18,000 to the overall fall chinook tally at Bonneville Dam of 221,000, leading to more speculation that possibly a lot more fish will show before the end of the season.

Hymer said the Spring Creek hatchery above the dam was still waiting for its 7,000-fish broodstock goal to be reached, but he expected no problem there. In the past few years, hatchery personnel have seen excess returns in the 60,000 fish range.

Tribal fishermen above Bonneville Dam had expected to catch about 57,000 upriver brights in their 88,000-fish allotment, but they have only caught a bit more than half (38,000) and about 35 percent of the limit of wild ESA-listed B run steelhead heading for Idaho.

The tribes didn't expect to reach their projected harvest rate on the upriver stocks by the end of their fourth fishing period on Sept. 15, which is limited to about 23 percent to protect ESA-listed fall chinook returning to the Snake River. Their 15-percent allowable harvest rate on wild listed steelhead is not likely to be reached either. Managers expect more of a 9-percent rate on the steelhead.

Sport fishermen landed only about 1,700 chinook in the lower Columbia Buoy 10 fishery, below expectations. But fishing was better further upriver, where about 5,000 chinook were landed.

Commercial fishers landed nearly 11,000 chinook by the end of August, with more fishing available in select areas where nearly 5,000 more chinook are expected to be caught, along with about 10,000 coho. The commercial gillnetters also fished earlier this week, having given up some fishing time in August for the chance to catch fish in late September. -B. R.

[5] El Nino Likely Heading Our Way

The National Weather Service says the Northwest should expect a warmer and drier than average winter in 2006-07, courtesy of a new El Nino brewing in the equatorial Pacific.

The NWS' Climate Prediction Center issued the news Sept. 13, after four straight months of conditions that have signaled warming in the tropical Pacific. It's latest forecast calls for the warm episode to last into next spring.

The last major El Nino began in April 1997 and continued through May of 1998, with two other lesser events since then, the last between June 2004 and March 2005.

The announcement comes on the heels of good news from the University of Washington, which reported that the index which tracks the Pacific Decadal Oscillation took a big dip into negative territory last month, which generally means a trend toward wetter, cooler ocean conditions that are good for fish and umbrellas. But with a weak to moderate El Nino on the way, the U.W. researchers say the PDO index is likely to go positive soon and stay that way for the next few seasons.

"The unusually fair weather pattern has also included stronger than average coastal upwelling for Oregon and Washington, and coastal ocean temperatures in August were generally 1 to 2 degrees C below the long-term average from extreme Northern California to Vancouver Island," according the UW Climate Impacts Group.

NOAA's National Climatic Data Center reported that Northwest temperatures for May-July 2006 were the warmest on record (June-July-August was 3rd warmest for the PNW on record), and the first seven months of 2006 was the warmest January-July of any year in the U.S. since records began in 1895.

As for just how much rain is expected, the government is hedging its bets, noting that in the absence of strong El Nino or La Nina conditions, precipitation forecasts are "marginally skillful."

The Oregon Climate Service at Oregon State University expects warmer than average temperatures, average to somewhat above-average precipitation, a good chance of one or more significant snow events in the Portland area (less likely elsewhere in western Oregon), and an average snowpack in the mountains (possibly higher than average in southern Oregon).

But the Oregon forecasters said that "a sustained warming beginning in August or September would be unusual, given that ENSO events typically begin to evolve between March and June. Our forecast favors a continuation of the current neutral-to-slightly-El Nino conditions. If the Pacific reverts back to weak La Nina conditions, a much wetter winter is likely - similar to last year." -B. R.

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