[3] Spring Creek Spill Nixed For Hatchery Release

Much to the dismay of Columbia River fish managers, action agencies stuck to their guns last week and wouldn't give in to the latest call for spilling 75 kcfs for four days at Bonneville Dam to aid the passage of millions of hatchery fall chinook. The fish were scheduled to be released on March 5 and March 9 from the Spring Creek Hatchery operated by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

The fish will likely be better off without the projected $1.8 million in spill, anyway, since the Corps of Engineers pointed to passage survival studies that show the spillway at Bonneville is the most lethal passage route at the dam, with even higher fish mortality than at the turbines.

Besides, dam operators will be using the new corner collector at the dam instead, allowing the fish a turbine-free passage without spilling much water all, just enough to guarantee the efficient egress of the young fish from the tailrace of the dam.

Ironically, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service wasn't even a signatory to the spill request. Mid-level USFWS staffers who had lobbied for more spill were overruled by higher ups in Portland.

But the request, which was not granted at the TMT level last Wednesday, was elevated to the IT level the next day, giving fish-agency types a final forum to sound off before they gave up and decided not to press the issue to the "executive" level, where agency heads would convene to make a final decision.

WDFW's Bill Tweit said he was "extremely dismayed by today's conversation," noting that the 7 million fall chinook released in March made a significant contribution to both U.S. and Canadian fisheries. With this year's tule (lower river) chinook returns expected to be only about one-fourth of last year's, Tweit said, the onus of conservation efforts will lay with U.S. fishers, because the Canadians are not legally bound to cut their harvests. Without the spill, he said, fish runs would be less.

The salmon managers cited a one-year study from coded-wire-tagged fish released in 2004 that claimed to show higher adult returns from the spilled fish (0.056 percent) when compared to those that passed the dam via the corner collector (0.031 percent).

But reviewers poked holes in the study's findings. First off, the two groups were released 10 days apart, and return rates can change considerably in time. Further, they said, the difference in SARs from fish returning in 2005 came from only six fish. That year, none of the study fish returned from the corner collector group.

In 2006, SARs between the two groups were nearly identical--0.03 percent for the spilled fish (31), and 0.027 percent for the corner-collector fish (34).

The Spring Creek spill supporters also included ODFW, the Shoshone-Bannock Tribe and the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission. -B. R.

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