[9] Grant PUD Sets Vernita Bar Flows For Fall Chinook

Grant County PUD has announced that the utility would maintain a 70,000 cfs minimum flow in the Columbia River through the Hanford Reach for the next seven months to protect fall chinook redds.

PUD biologists estimated that 40,000 to 50,000 fish spawned in the reach this year. They said it's lower than recent years, but only a bit less than the 10-year average.

Their numbers jibe with information released by Columbia Basin salmon managers, who estimated that the upriver bright stock returned slightly less than the predicted return (to river mouth) of 249,000 fish. With jack returns similar to the 2005 run, they expect that the 2007 Hanford run could be less than 200,000 fish.

Overall, the 2006 total fall chinook run in the Columbia came in slightly under their 460,000-fish prediction. They said next year's return could be less than 400,000. -B. R.

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