[1] BPA Working On "Secret" Drawdown Deal With Oregon
The Bonneville Power Administration and the state of Oregon are reportedly working on a deal to speed up fish passage this spring by dropping the elevation of the John Day Pool, the biggest reservoir in the lower Columbia.
In return, Oregon would support the upcoming hydro BiOp that should be completed by federal agencies by the end of July, sources said.
Some even say the drawdown strategy is a "deal breaker," and unless it happens, Oregon will walk away from a new BiOp, likely followed by lower Columbia tribes.
Mike Carrier, Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski's natural resource policy director, said he couldn't talk specifically about the drawdown issue, citing confidentiality issues over the BiOp remand.
"But I will say, with regard to all the hydro measures that could be included in a proposed action to be evaluated in the next biological opinion, Oregon continues to advocate that the federal agencies look hard at all the possible measures, including flow and spill measures and reservoir operations that would increase the survival of fish. We need to press them to evaluate those and provide us good justification as to why they would be included in a proposed action," Carrier said.
A new analysis of potential drawdown benefits used by Oregon for spring chinook estimates a 2-percent to nearly 6-percent improvement in the smolt-to-adult return rate on the inriver migrating component of the run.
However, the COMPASS model used by remand participants to estimate fish survivals through different BiOp hydro scenarios came up with a 0.33-percent to 2.7-percent benefit.
Those familiar with the models say Oregon is using a tool developed by IDFG biologist Charlie Petrosky, which has a factor for "latent mortality" that bumps up the SAR compared to the COMPASS model.
One big factor that seems to be missing from Oregon's analysis is that most ESA-listed spring chinook and steelhead from the Snake are barged through the hydrosystem and don't swim through John Day Pool at all (92 percent of the springers were transported in 2005, and 87 percent in 2004, according to the Fish Passage Center).
But Upper-Columbia-listed spring chinook and steelhead are not barged at all, and should gain more benefit from the strategy, if any exists.
However, earlier studies showed even fewer benefits to fish, or actual declines, although they were conducted when PIT-tag data were skimpy. It was reported that COMPASS shows benefits to spring chinook because fish would reach the estuary a little earlier than otherwise, not because of any benefit from a flow/survival relationship.
When irrigators got wind of the possibility that the John Day drawdown issue might be back on the table, they fired off letters to both federal agencies and the Oregon governor's office expressing their displeasure with the idea.
"This is chronically foolish," said Darryl Olsen, representing the Columbia-Snake Irrigators Association. He told NW Fishletter that it would cost millions to modify the 21 or so large pumps used by irrigators to water more than 150,000 acres on both sides of the Columbia, with unproven benefits to fish.
"We are told the analysis claims that shortening juvenile salmon residence times in the reservoirs by a few hours will result in dramatic increases in adult returns of endangered spring chinook of up to 5.79 percent. ODFW refuses to release the proposal (analysis?) claiming that because the state of Oregon has determined to advance its policy objectives with respect to dam operations, in private settlement negotiations under the auspices of Judge Redden, it may operate in secret," Olsen said in his letter to Gov. Kulongoski.
Olsen said his group was confident that if the proposal were released, "its shortcomings would be easily demonstrated," since similar prior efforts have ignored compensatory mortality downstream, increased predator concentrations, and interference with dam passage in claiming asserted benefits, "along with discredited notions of a causal relationship between river flow and salmon survival in the John Day Pool."
Others said the drawdown could negatively affect fish survival at the dam because fish screens would probably not operate as effectively, and would send more smolts through turbines unless spill was boosted.
Steve Eldrige, general manager of the Hermiston, Oregon-based Umatilla Electric Co-op, was also astonished about the latest drawdown proposal. When drawdowns at McNary and John Day Pools were proposed 15 years ago, he said, a study found that "there was one pump station specifically that cost $5 million in and of itself to modify."
In addition, annual operating costs to pump water would go up significantly. "And for what?" he asked. The Corps couldn't establish any benefits for migrating salmon, but the drawdown would hurt resident fish and wildlife, Eldridge said.
"Finally," he said, "it puts the intakes in the navigation channel, which we think would be problematic for barge traffic."
Drawing down the pool from the normal operating level of 267 feet or the minimum irrigation level (262.5) to minimum operating pool (MOP; elevation 257) would leave most pump intakes about 5.5 feet above the level of the pool. In its 1994 evaluation, the Corps said MOP operation at John Day would also "likely require" modification to fish ladders at the dam and to ladder entrances at McNary Dam.
The Corps said a MOP operation would also affect more than 8,000-acres of shallow-water habitat used by resident fish and wildlife, and could block the mouth of the Umatilla River to migrating adult salmon.
The 1994 analysis found that water-particle travel time (WPTT) through the reservoir would be reduced by about 12 percent to 15 percent, but the net change from Lower Granite to Bonneville was only in the 2-5 percent range in the spring.
The Corps estimated that WPTT would be reduced by about one-half day over the 15-day trip a water molecule took to get from Lower Granite to Bonneville Dam. But passage modeling by the 1994 University of Washington CRiSP model estimated that spring chinook survival would actually decrease by 2 percent through the reservoir at MOP.
During the latest round of litigation over the 2004 BiOp, Oregon intervened on the side of plaintiff environmental and fishing groups and supported a John Day MOP operation for the summer in 2005, when plaintiffs called for more spill and flows throughout the hydro system.
Corps of Engineers' biologist Dave Ponganis pointed out impacts of a MOP operation at John Day in a declaration filed at the time. Noting that his information was based on the Corps' 1994 report, he said the water supply at fish ladders would have to be modified, but bypass system passage efficiencies "would be expected to result in more juveniles passing the dam through the turbines."
Sources said that the agreement for the MOP operation could be announced soon, and may come in the form of a "study" that would analyze results from the changes.
But it would be difficult to see any benefits unless the dam modifications are completed first. In 1994, those costs were estimated at $65 million, along with $10 million to modify pumps. Adding inflation and lost hydro puts the potential tab in the $185-million range, according to sources.
Irrigator spokesman Olsen promised a full-scale war in the courts over tribal harvest in the Columbia River if the John Day operation is OK'd.
In his letter to Gov. Kulongoski, Olsen said, "It is also disturbing to see Oregon's lack of understanding surrounding the fragile political dynamics of the Columbia River system, relative to Tribal fisheries and their empirically measurable impacts to ESA-listed stocks. An attempt by Oregon to establish a John Day Pool drawdown will cast greater light on the impacts of the Columbia River fisheries and quickly lead to a much broader litigation front, well beyond the existing BiOp remand parameters."
But are irrigators out in the cold all by themselves over this issue? Not according to Olsen, who said he had been told by Washington Department of Ecology staffers that the state would not support a John Day drawdown.
Bob Nichols, Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire's chief salmon policy advisor, did not return calls by press time. -Bill Rudolph
[2] Economists Flunk Enviro Report On Economics Of Dam Breaching
A panel of independent economists that provides reviews for the Northwest Power and Conservation Council has thoroughly panned a report that says the region could save money by taking out the lower Snake dams.
The panel says the report, titled Revenue Stream, underestimates the cost of replacement power by so much that it "invalidates" the report's conclusion.
The Independent Economic Analysis Board was asked by Council members to take a look at the report, which was released last November.
The panel submitted its scathing review to the Council last week, noting that the report was not the product of peer review or an open public process, and that "many of the sources of the report came from other reports that were also not products of open process and peer review.
The IEAB said the report contained several other major methodological failures, including not discounting future benefits and costs of dam removal, and questionable accuracy of agency fish budgets.
Perhaps its biggest flaw, the board said, was reliance on a 2004 report by Idaho-based economist Don Reading that estimated huge benefits from a fully restored recreational fishery.
The panel panned Reading's report in 2005 for his pie-in-the-sky estimates. It found that Reading "had made a number of methodological errors which seriously biased his benefits upward." Reading had said fishing benefits could top $500 million a year.
The panel said the report's estimates of benefits to commercial fishermen were open to question as well, since they were not peer-reviewed. The numbers came from the Institute of Fisheries Resources, a group associated with one of Revenue Stream's sponsors, the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Association.
The economists said it might be time to do a follow up to the Corps of Engineers' EIS on impacts of removing the four lower Snake dams that would fix weaknesses in that huge analysis, and reflect the "many changes" in the economy, transportation systems, power generation and the state of fish recovery efforts.
But the panel failed to mention the misuse of a 2004 report commissioned by American Rivers, one of Revenue Stream's own sponsors, which was used to peg the costs of upgrading railroads to be between $18 million and $231 million. The consulting firm that completed the study actually estimated that costs of changing over from barge transportation to rail could add up to more than $1.4 billion. The consultants complained at the time about their work being misrepresented by their client.
Other cost estimates were lowballed as well. BPA spokesman Scott Sims said the lower Snake dams generate $400 million to $550 million in power every year, which is about three times the cost of replacement power cited in Revenue Stream if the dams were breached. BPA said when accurate numbers were used in the calculation, net benefits claimed in the report become a net cost of $1.5 billion to $3.8 billion over 10 years.
The Revenue Stream estimate came from a 2002 Rand report, and from numbers developed by the Northwest Energy Coalition. The panel said it was unclear whether the report's estimate of replacement power included transmission and ancillary costs, which would likely be even higher than for combined-cycle combustion.
In a Feb. 28 press release, Steve Weiss, senior policy associate for the NW Energy Coalition, said the IEAB made a "major error" by assuming the hydropower would be replaced by fossil-fueled gas turbines, "something that never would be considered given the high cost of natural gas relative to efficiency and wind power."
In a footnote to Revenue Stream, the authors said updated information from a 2000 NWEC report called "Going With the Flow" was used to develop the upper limit of their estimate of the cost to replace power from the dams, with more that 80 percent coming from conservation, and about 18 percent from wind power.
But the IEAB pointed to a 2002 review of the earlier RAND report by NPPC staffer Terry Morlan that found conservation and renewables would not reduce the cost below that of combined cycle generation. The board said that upper bound in Revenue Stream "appears to incorporate" some of the same conservation cost assumptions from the RAND report.
But Weiss neglected to mention that wind power is notoriously unreliable and generally needs some type of expensive backup to ensure reliability. During last year's heat wave in July, regional wind power facilities barely generated 12-15 percent of their capacity simply because there was no wind.
BPA said the lower Snake dams not only produce more than 1,000 average megawatts a year, up to 15 percent of its total power supply, but they are also "helpful to fill in behind intermittent sources of power such as wind and provide the region with electricity reserves that help maintain overall system reliability." -B. R.
[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.
[4] NOAA Fisheries Calls For Less Harvest On Listed Lower Columbia Chinook
NOAA Fisheries wants to cut the U.S. harvest of ESA-listed lower Columbia tule chinook by 14 percent. The recommendation came in a letter from the fish agency to the Pacific Fishery Management Council, which is beginning its annual process to weigh harvest options for the upcoming salmon season on the West Coast.
The change could have major repercussions in upcoming summer fisheries, since the small numbers of listed salmon are mixed in with large numbers of hatchery fish.
The agency said analysis of rebuilding exploitation rates and population viability showed that harvest impacts needed to be reduced on the lower river stocks, and that more conservative measures may be required in the future. They said past harvest impacts may have been underestimated.
The reduction of the lower Columbia tule harvest level--from 49 percent to 42 percent--is just the first step in changing management practices to reduce effects of hatchery fish on spawning grounds, NOAA Fisheries said.
"The community of fishermen and managers should anticipate that there will be a period of transition from the kinds of management we have seen in recent years to some future state that will depend, in large part, on decisions relative to future hatchery production," the agency said in the March 1 letter to the management council.
Existing hatchery programs will either have to be substantially reduced or eliminated, or existing production reprogrammed to reduce straying, and allow fishermen to "differentially harvest hatchery fish," which likely means moving to a mark-selective fishery for fall chinook, the letter said.
That's a topic sure to be the subject of lively debate at the next round of talks with Canadian fish managers. The wild tules make up a tiny portion of the total fall chinook catch managed by the Council, but many are also caught in Canada and the Columbia River. They are mixed in with huge numbers of hatchery fish from the lower Columbia, most released from the Spring Creek Hatchery.
According to the latest data from the Pacific Salmon Commission, in 2005 the Spring Creek hatchery tules made up about 40 percent of the Washington and Oregon sport fishery, and 15 percent of the commercial and sport fishery off Vancouver Island. -B. R.
[5] Aussies Say El Niño Is Officially Over
The Australian Bureau of Meteorology announced Feb. 21 that the current El Niño is over, and that all the main El Niño-Southern Oscillation indicators "show that neutral conditions have returned to the Pacific Basin."
The Bureau said sea-surface temperatures along the Equator are cooling rapidly, "and have been below their El Niño thresholds for about a month now." Computer models also show more cooling is expected in the Pacific, "with a La Niña not out of the question." There is a better than 20-percent chance that a La Niña would develop, bringing more rain to the country, the Bureau said.
The latest weekly update from NOAA also said subsurface conditions in the ocean were favorable to creating a La Niña.
Earlier this month, the agency said the equatorial upper-ocean heat content peaked in late November, "and has been decreasing rapidly since that time, with the latest values being negative for the first time since early April 2006."
NOAA said the trends in surface and subsurface ocean temperatures indicated that the warm episode was weakening, but some areas could still expect El Niño-related effects over the next month, mainly in the central tropical Pacific.
Ocean temperatures off the coasts of Washington and Oregon were mainly average in January, with colder-than-average areas off the Columbia River and the mid-Oregon Coast. -B. R.
[6] Power Council Miffed At BPA's Final F&W Budget Decisions
With the region nearly halfway through fiscal year 2007, BPA has finally released its final budget document for fish and wildlife spending for the next three years. But after complaints from several members of the Northwest Power and Conservation Council at their meeting last month in Portland, the agency pulled back its document for a bit of wordsmithing and re-released it on Feb. 26.
The Council's objection had to do with language that described BPA's view of how its actions are consistent with the program, a tender issue after the recent decision by the Ninth Circuit Court to re-instate funding for the Fish Passage Center. The language seemed to disregard the issues brought up by the decision, but it was excised and substituted with boilerplate language from the NW Power Act in the revised version.
Council members were also miffed that BPA had added some projects to the budget that had not passed scientific review, but had dropped others at the expense of tailoring a program more to the needs of anadromous fish, effectively short-changing resident fish projects above Grand Coulee and Hells Canyon.
But after the complaints, the changes to specific Council-approved proposals have stayed in place, and BPA says it plans to manage spending at an average of $143 million per year, along with about $36 million per year in the capital category.
The Council's Fish and Wildlife Committee met Mar. 5 to discuss the situation. BPA's changes re-allocated the standard 70-15-15 formula in the Council's program (70 percent for anadromous fish, 15 percent for resident fish, 15 percent for wildlife) to a 73-17-7 split for FY 07, compared to the Council's 70-21-7 breakout of spending for this fiscal year.
BPA's numbers add up to decreases in spending for five of the 11 provinces, with the Intermountain province taking the largest hit, with a $6-million cut from the nearly $46 million recommendation over the next three years, but the Middle Snake province received the largest percentage hit, more than half of its $10-million budget.
But the other six provinces received increases, with the Columbia Cascade province getting nearly twice the Council-recommended amount of $9 million.
All in all, the BPA decision added up to $15.6 million more than the NPPC version, for total direct-program spending of $416 million for FY 2007-09.
Greg Delwiche, BPA's vice president for Environment, Fish and Wildlife, told the committee that the final budget included over 90 percent of projects that were recommended by the Council. He explained that the agency's scrutiny over the proposed 07-09 budget had several sources--the large number of projects starting, implications of the agreement with five basin tribes for 2007 that funded a number of projects in return for their support of hydro operations, and implications of within-year changes, projects stopping and starting.
"We felt like we needed to be absolutely sure that our decision added up to something that fit within the budget. In particular, my worst fear was that, right out of the chute in FY 07, we could, if we didn't undertake a fair amount of scrutiny, on a project-by-project basis, find ourselves in a situation at the end of FY 07, where we potentially could greatly exceed the annual average for the three-year budget, putting us behind the eight-ball in years two and three..."
Delwiche said the changes from Council recommendations reflect a "minor" policy shift to more on-the ground spending and less in the realm of research, monitoring and evaluation. He said there was an additional $17 million to $20 million to fund additional projects--and with the Council's help, could fund projects in those provinces that have come up short.
Delwiche stressed the importance of how to move forward, "as partners," in implementing these projects over the next several years.
Idaho Council member Bill Booth said his state was seeing more than $7 million in reduced funding from the final budget. Delwiche said the "in lieu" situation had a lot to do with the changes, where BPA has determined that other entities should shoulder some of the costs.
Washington Council member Larry Cassidy said when BPA has made adjustments to 151 out of 291 projects sent to the power agency by the Council, "I would interpret that as some repudiation of our process." He said he didn't see the partnership with BPA is as strong as it was six months ago.
Cassidy raised the question of whether BPA should be putting up additional funding to satisfy ESA requirements instead of putting the burden on the fish and wildlife plan that deals with both listed and unlisted fish and wildlife populations.
Delwiche said he thinks the region has chosen to integrate the Power Act and ESA obligations because so many of the activities affect both listed and non-listed fish.
F&W committee chair, Rhonda Whiting said she was pleased to hear about the extra $20 million being out there but another process should be clarified to make sure that all entities have an equal opportunity to access those funds. She said her goal is to get both the Council and BPA to work better together.
Next week the full Council will discuss these issues at their meeting in Boise and decide whether to make a formal response to BPA's latest budget revisions. -B. R.
[7] Enviros Petition To Raise TDG Standards In Washington For More Spill
The Save Our Wild Salmon Coalition filed a petition with the Washington Department of Ecology to raise total dissolved gas standards at Columbia and Snake river dams. Such a change would allow dam operators to boost spill in forebays now limited by a 115 percent gas cap to 120 percent, a change that enviros say could add another 4 maf to spill regimes for migrating salmon.
The coalition says the boosted spill caps won't harm fish. "It's time to update the standards to meet state and federal laws and to ensure that endangered salmon and steelhead are getting what they need to survive," said Rhett Lawrence, a SOWS policy analyst, in a Mar. 1 press release that included praise for Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire for supporting a similar change in Oregon.
But it turns out that Gov. Gregoire never did submit comments or communicate in any way with the Oregon agency that is dealing with the spill waiver, said Agnes Lut, of the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, which solicited comments through Feb. 1. But Lut said WDFW did support an Oregon waiver in comments submitted.
Gov. Gregoire's press office confirmed the fact that she had not endorsed the request to boost the gas cap in Oregon.
The Washington Department of Ecology will study the petition over the next 60 days to determine whether it is valid, and decide if rulemaking is warranted, said Susan Braley of the DOE's water quality program. -B. R.
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