[1] Feds Give Thumbs Up To Latest Salmon Plan

Before the draft BiOps for the hydro system and Upper Snake operations even hit the Internet this week, the latest attempt by NOAA Fisheries to satisfy a federal judge was taking flak from environmental groups, who started up a new round of dam breaching rhetoric, claiming it was too little and too late to aid ESA-listed Snake River salmon and steelhead stocks.

But on Oct. 31, the feds carefully explained just what they did in order to satisfy Oregon federal judge James Redden's concerns. They returned to the bones of the 2000 hydro BiOp with its all-H approach, added hundreds of pages of updated research and analysis with their peer-reviewed passage model, and made a serious effort at making sure that actions to improve habitat "are reasonably certain to occur," one of the principal reasons Redden threw the old BiOp out.

NOAA Fisheries regional administrator Bob Lohn said the feds will now accept comment on the latest draft from parties in the ongoing litigation -- environmental and fishing groups, tribes, states, and other parties to the lawsuit -- with a final document coming after that.

Lohn said the collaboration ordered by Redden has helped the process and created a new BiOp that is quite different from its predecessors. "In the last two years," he said, "we've held over 300 technical and policy meetings with remand working groups. We've drawn upon hundreds of millions of dollars of research that's taken place over the last decade. I think collectively, that process and the better science has helped narrow the disputes and draw us closer on solutions."

He mentioned serious, ongoing settlement discussions, "I know we will all be striving to work toward an agreement in the near term." Conspicuously absent from the complainers' side were lower Columbia tribes who are still working with BPA to finish agreements that are likely to cost plenty but are designed to ensure that the tribes will support the new 10-year salmon plan when it is finalized around the end of January. Lohn said it was up to the judge to schedule the end of comment period and deadline for the final opinion.

Lohn said the new BiOp has raised the bar for determining jeopardy, and his agency wants to see all seven ESUs affected by the hydro system "trending toward recovery."

He said the new BiOp is also different because it goes into much greater detail than previous ones which focused on specific groups of fish at the ESU level. He pointed out that the technical recovery team for the Interior Columbia has identified 78 distinct populations in those seven ESUs. "Both the status determination, that is, the look at how are they doing, and the mitigation -- what do they need -- has been custom-tailored to those 78 populations," Lohn said.

"The picture that emerges is not pretty, but it's hopeful," he added. Some populations are in dire shape, others could rebound with modest improvements, "and there are some in really pretty good condition."

Lohn said the new opinion uses nine different metrics to assess population growth, while the 2000 BiOp used only one. However, he said the new BiOp does follow the older one in a significant way -- it also finds that hydro actions alone do jeopardize the ESA-listed runs, and includes an RPA [Reasonable, Prudent Alternative] which, if carried out, should avoid jeopardizing listed fish. He said the new document contains 73 sets of detailed actions ("When I say detailed, most of them have a dozen or more specific requirements. Some of them have hundreds of requirements.")

He said the actions were screened to make sure they were certain to occur, so they would pass the judge's standard, and allow recovery planners to know where the benefits would occur.

Lohn said the most important assumption to make about predicting future fish numbers is how ocean conditions will affect them. He said the dataset being used in the BiOp analysis has only four years favorable to salmon and 18 years unfavorable, so the feds' analysis of the future is likely very conservative. If near-term ocean conditions are similar to what has occurred since the turn of the century, then "the results obtained should be considerably better than those displayed in this opinion," he added.

Breaching Not An Option

Lohn said lower Snake dam breaching wasn't analyzed for several reasons. First, it wasn't a "technical necessity" to achieve success for the affected runs. Also, breaching would only impact four of the 13 listed ESUs in the Columbia Basin.

And since the judge ruled that the BiOp should include only those actions "reasonably certain to occur," Lohn said the federal agencies cannot propose such a measure because it is not within their authority. "Legally, it's off the board as well."

The biggest spending boost in the new plan will come in the habitat arena -- about $45 million a year from BPA for tributary and estuary restoration, according the BPA Administrator Steve Wright, along with $500 million on dam passage improvements over the 10-year life of the opinion.

The Corps of Engineers' Witt Anderson, chief of its fish policy division, said the new draft BiOp's spill and fish transportation strategies are the result of the latest biological information on smolt-to-adult return rates from various routes of passage. He said the Corps and NOAA Fisheries have optimized fish survival in the operation plans for each of the dams from the perspective of juvenile passage survival, egress conditions in the tailrace, reducing forebay delay, and changing powerhouse operations and spill to improve adult passage.

Anderson said there have been some adjustments to the transport strategies on the lower Snake to provide optimum benefits for steelhead, who seem to benefit from barging all spring long, while chinook do better migrating inriver during early spring.

He also said the Corps would be evaluating a higher level of spill at Bonneville Dam in the early spring next year, while it plans to end spill at lower Snake dams after August 1 if juvenile fall chinook numbers decline significantly, but turn it back on if fish numbers bump up again.

Lohn took issue with spill advocates. "I wonder if the person raising that issue has kept up with the science or technology. At one point, spill was one of the best ways to get fish past the hydro projects, and increasing spill did increase survival. But since then, we've been moving to, what I would say is a better approach, that probably many of the readers may have not understood."

He described the spillway weirs now in place at some dams that are biologically "much more successful" and use less water than traditional spillways.

BPA user groups predictably lined up behind the draft BiOp. "Remember that this is already by far the largest species recovery program in the country and represents an enormous investment by electricity ratepayers," Scott Corwin, executive director of the Public Power Council, told NW Fishletter. "So, it is helpful that the BiOps are taking a science-based approach to better prioritize the measures needed to move the effort forward."

"The proposed actions and the new BiOp are on the right track. It certainly looks like this new BiOp will rebuild endangered fish runs while maintaining the many economic benefits of the Columbia and Snake River dams," said Glenn Vanselow, Executive Director of the Pacific Northwest Waterways Association.

Terry Flores, executive director of Northwest RiverPartners, said the draft salmon plan "is unprecedented in its collaborative development and uses a rigorous science approach never before seen. This is in stark contrast to claims made by the usual outliers that this plan is more of the same."

She said the new draft is notably different. "Clearly, the environmental extremists and harvesters had their minds made up long ago. They would not support any plan that rejects the impractical notion of removing dams which provide the Northwest with renewable, carbon-free energy and help our local communities prosper."

But Earthjustice attorney Todd True told the New York Times that the new Biop wasn't much different from previous attempts. ""It's the same pig in a different tutu, but it still can't dance."

The environmental group's press release claimed that inriver migrants that were helped by court-ordered spill in 2005 and 2006 came back in "far greater numbers" than fish barged from the lower Snake.

But federal biologists like the Corp's Witt Anderson were perplexed by the Earthjustice statement. "I don't know where they are getting that information," he told NW Fishletter, "because we certainly don't have any results yet." He said the analysis wouldn't be complete until the 2009, 2010 and 2011 adult salmon returns are in.

The new draft BiOp doesn't call for any cuts in harvest rates or more water for flow augmentation, though it does tweak Bureau of Reclamation operations on the Upper Snake to add more flow in the late spring, which reduces it slightly in the summer when there are few fish still migrating in the Snake.

But some fishing groups were not impressed. "This plan is a platinum-plated roadmap to extinction, and for the sportfishing community, that means more job losses and economic hardship," said Liz Hamilton, Executive Director of the Northwest Sportfishing Industry Association.

And others were still beating up on the hydro system despite growing evidence that juvenile fish survival in the Columbia and Snake may be pretty good compared to some large rivers without dams. "Science continues to tell us that upstream habitats and population genetics are suitable for survival of Snake River stocks. What we don't have is reasonable passage through the hydrosystem," said Dr. Jack Williams, Senior Scientist for Trout Unlimited. "Time is slipping away for these upriver stocks and unfortunately this new plan falls far short of providing the needed help."

Where Do Fish Die?

But instead of the same old pig in a new tutu, as some have characterized the new BiOp, other critics say it's more like a pig in a poke. Portland attorney James Buchal still takes issue with the whole notion of augmenting flows to aid fish.

Buchal, who has represented Snake-Columbia irrigators in past litigation, said NOAA Fisheries still can't demonstrate a significant relationship between river flow and salmon survival, though NMFS salmon passage modelers say they have seen some evidence of it in their interpretation of recent survival data.

Using a Halloween theme, Buchal lambasted the new BiOp in his own analysis published on the web this week. He said the agency has dropped the ball in another fundamental way as well, by not estimating how many fish would die in the river, even if the dams weren't there.

"But the biggest ghost is the ghost of natural mortality, he wrote. "As more and more data are gathered, it is now clear beyond doubt that most of the young salmon and steelhead migrating down lengthy rivers on the West Coast die before they ever reach the sea. Indeed, it appears we can actually measure higher system survival through eight Columbia and Snake River dams than has been measured in natural, undammed rivers."

Some preliminary evidence shows that Buchal may be on the right track. In an Oct. 2 memo from NOAA Fisheries' own Science Center to the Portland-based division responsible for writing the BiOp, federal scientist John Ferguson outlined results of recent acoustic tag research by different agencies in the Fraser, Sacramento and Columbia rivers.

The memo makes it plain that the results are preliminary, and also says "it is not appropriate to imply their meaning regarding policy issues at this time." But it reported that Canadian researcher David Welch has estimated that acoustically-tagged juvenile spring chinook in the undammed Fraser survived their 2006 migration (several hundred kilometers) at a rate that ranged from 14 to 34 percent.

That's less than half the current survival rate of Snake River spring chinook from Idaho past eight dams to the ocean.

The new BiOp says passage improvements could boost average survival in the Columbia from 49 percent to 55 percent, and with tweaks to spill and transport, a net gain of 8 percent to adult returns could be achieved. That's not counting projected benefits from improving tributary habitat, which ranges from less than 1 percent to 41 percent for some populations.

The Oct. 2 NMFS memo also reports that in the regulated Sacramento River, only 2 percent of subyearling (fall) chinook and 5 percent of steelhead survived their migration from below Shasta Dam to the Golden Gate Bridge in 2007, an extremely low flow year in that region.

The new BiOp hasn't quantified expected benefits to fall chinook in the Snake and Columbia because survival research has been confounded by so many juveniles holding over in reservoirs and the estuary, migrating later when detection systems are turned off.

Other NMFS researchers say there is little correlation between inriver juvenile survivals and adult returns since ocean conditions seem to play such an important role in the size of adult runs. At a science/policy confab in September, NMFS scientist John Williams even questioned the value of developing survival goals for juvenile passage through the Columbia and Snake hydro system. Fellow federal scientist Steve Smith pointed out to the freshwater-centric crowd that most of the fish died in the ocean, not the river.

The NOAA Fisheries scientists also reported on their latest modeling results at the September meeting, which showed that each dam and reservoir accounted for about 10 percent of juvenile mortality, with about half occurring at each dam, and the other half in the accompanying river reach. -Bill Rudolph

[2] Power Council Prepares To Open F&W Amendment Process

State agencies briefed the Northwest Power and Conservation Council last month on the upcoming process to revise the Columbia Basin's fish and wildlife program. BPA pays more than $140 million annually for the program, and its costs are likely to rise this year.

In a memo to members, council staffers pointed out that the fish bill may go up "significantly" this time around, driven by the new hydro and upper Snake BiOps, a hatchery review process, and "possible long-term settlements between BPA and some of the basin's fish and wildlife management entities."

The settlements referred to are prospective 10-year MOUs with states and tribes that BPA is currently involved with as part of the new hydro BiOp process. Rumors are flying about how much they may add to future F&W costs. Some say these agreements could double current direct spending.

WDFW's Bill Tweit spoke for the Columbia Basin Fish and Wildlife Authority, the umbrella group of state, federal and tribal agencies that deal with salmon recovery actions in the region.

He said that CBFWA would work to develop its own "gap analysis" to determine the difference between current fish and wildlife populations and their recovered status in the future. Tweit said that will help CBFWA members develop "targeted" proposals to identify commonly agreed-upon gaps and objectives, so that "priority threats" can be addressed to narrow or remove those gaps.

"As well," Tweit told the council, "we note that this gap analysis should help inform the extent of Bonneville's obligation to the program."

But his presentation didn't describe how CBFWA members propose to analyze these gaps. According to documents posted on CBFWA's Web site, it will try to use a tool called the AHA model, developed by regional consultant Lars Mobrand.

Mobrand led the development of the EDT (Ecosystem Diagnosis and Treatment) method, which has been used extensively in the council's subbasin planning process to determine limiting factors and potential fish productivity in many of the subbasin plans developed under the aegis of the council.

According to one regional biologist very familiar with the AHA [All H Analyzer] tool, it was developed to look at effects on returning fish numbers in particular subbasins from different combinations of hatchery and harvest actions, and was never intended to produce quantitative goals for any kind of gap analysis. He said the inputs are very simple and not meant to be used to develop potential fish numbers.

But an Aug. 31 CBFWA committee memo says some members want to define BPA's obligation by simply running the model with "dams in, dams out" scenarios that hold other inputs steady.

The committee also wants to use the model to "evaluate and prioritize strategies by comparing population responses among strategies to recover/restore populations," including habitat improvements.

The memo says the tool could be used to allow co-managers "to evaluate various scenarios and get an 'order of magnitude' expected response."

The AHA tool was originally developed in Puget Sound as a hatchery-planning tool to aid in reforming artificial propagation facilities to reduce adverse impacts of hatchery fish on natural spawners. In 2005, the Council was briefed by then-staffer staffer Bruce Suzumoto (Now NMFS regional assistant administrator) on the AHA tool, which included a "fitness factor" for hatchery fish that spawn in the wild to address whether such strays are helping or hindering the overall recovery effort, and whether current and projected harvest rates will significantly impede recovery efforts.

At the time, Rob Walton, NOAA Fisheries assistant regional administrator for salmon recovery, was on hand to support the new tool, noting that it was undergoing scientific review by NOAA scientists.

The tool has since been employed to help complete the ongoing review of Columbia Basin hatcheries, and was characterized by the consultants who developed it as a way "to explore the implications of alternative ways to balance these four major areas (4 H's) of management control over abundance and persistence of salmon populations." They said AHA did not make decisions or judge the correctness of management policies, but that "it simply illustrates the implication of alternative ways of balancing the four "H"s so that informed decisions can be made." [AHA User Guide, June 2005 Draft]

Bob Austin, BPA's deputy director for fish and wildlife, said judging from what he knew of the AHA tool, using AHA to define BPA's obligation would be an inappropriate use of the model.

CBFWA has already signed a contract with consultants Mobrand-Jones and Stokes to conduct a series of workshops on how to use the All-H model. The first one was scheduled for Oct. 30-31 in Boise to deal with Idaho fish populations.

Critics say that to get a more balanced view from the AHA model, it should be run with each H taken out at a time, leaving the others intact, rather than simply focusing on the hydro H, as will be done in these workshops.

It was reported that attendees of the Boise workshop were willing to run the model without the hydro and hatchery functions, but were not ready to look at results when all harvests were removed from the analysis.-B. R.

[3] Idaho Delegation Supports Craig Language In Water Bill

Idaho's congressional delegation--all four of them--have circled their wagons around appropriations-bill language inserted by Idaho Sen. Larry Craig calling on the U.S. Secretary of Interior to implement the 2005 Upper Snake BiOp a federal judge has ruled illegal.

In an Oct. 11 letter to Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Rep. Norm Dicks (D-Wash.) -- chairs of appropriations subcommittees responsible for the Interior Department budget -- the Idaho politicians focused on a major point BiOp critics had not made: implementing the 2005 BiOp would also implement a long-term agreement over Snake River water.

That 30-year Snake River water pact between agencies, water users and the Nez Perce Tribe took policymakers many years to produce. It provides the basis of much of the Upper Snake BiOp, which deals with operations of Bureau of Reclamation irrigation-storage projects.

Idaho's congressional delegation said the bill's language would direct the Secretary of Interior to "move forward" with the 2004 Snake River Water Rights Act, "contrary to the assertions" in a letter from some environmental and fishing groups that have claimed implementing the BiOp would hinder salmon recovery.

Congress passed the Snake River Water Rights Act in 2004 to implement the settlement and authorize federal funding. The Idaho Legislature and Nez Perce Tribe ratified the settlement in March 2005. The Snake River Basin Adjudication Court Consent Decree process was completed in March 2007, and last May, actions certifying all preconditions for final settlement had been completed.

Norm Semanko, executive director of the Idaho Water Users Association, said if U.S. District Court Judge James Redden throws out the next Upper Snake BiOp, the Snake water agreement could unravel fast because of a provision in the agreement allowing parties to pull out if the feds declare a "jeopardy" opinion.

Redden tossed the 2005 BiOp, ruling it illegal because federal authorities used the same "flawed" jeopardy analysis they had used in their mainstem Columbia hydro BiOp. However, the old BiOps were allowed to temporarily stay in place.

The new Upper Snake plan calls for no more water for fish than did the 2005 document, 427 kaf on a willing-seller/willing-buyer basis, with another 60 kaf for fish flows added by the Snake River Water Act. In the latest plan, some water previously used to augment summer flows may be shifted to help fish earlier in the migration season.

Idaho politicians said they are confident the new Upper Snake plan would stand up to scientific scrutiny, but "we are equally confident that plaintiffs will continue to oppose implementation of the Snake River Water Rights SRWRA as a means to force dam removal."

The letter said the Snake agreement was specifically written to exclude the dam removal issue. The delegation also said the Nez Perce Tribe's pro-SRWRA stance, while still advocating dam removal on the lower Snake, demonstrates "lack of any conflict" between the Snake agreement and fish-passage issues on the lower Snake and Columbia mainstem.

Idaho politicians said any long-term solution to the Northwest salmon wars must include making agreements "without being held hostage over the dam breaching issue."

They said language in the Interior bill would provide a safety net "to ensure the integrity of the Snake River Water Rights Act," and they offered to work with the subcommittee to end concerns the language would require the Secretary of Interior "to implement a plan that the court has found illegal."

Washington Sen. Maria Cantwell sent a letter in September to the subcommittee asking the language be stricken. Others say chances are good the language will not survive once the $27-billion appropriations bill reaches the floor of Congress for a vote.

However, Semanko's group praised his state's delegation for "reaching out and working cooperatively with both sides of the aisle in Congress to protect Idaho water."

He had harsh words for the groups seeking to have Craig's language quashed. "The environmentalists have been unrelenting in their efforts to force breaching the four lower Snake River dams," Semanko said.

"Their attempt to hijack legislation implementing the Nez Perce agreement, an accord of almost incalculable importance to the economic well-being of Idaho, so it can be made hostage to their dam breaching goals, is a crystal-clear indicator of exactly where they stand. They could care less about the well-being of Idaho, only about achieving some type of Pyrrhic victory," he said.

The dam-removal issue has long been a top priority for Idaho politicians. Freshman Idaho Rep. Bill Sali introduced a House resolution last July calling for Congress to oppose breaching dams on the lower Snake and Columbia rivers.

With a new draft BiOp for mainstem dams expected by Oct. 31, some groups have already invited Northwest legislators to attend a Nov. 1 briefing in Washington, D.C., to describe their take on the new plan, led by Earthjustice attorney Todd True.

The invitation sarcastically asks politicians to join them at the briefing if they are "curious whether Columbia Basin salmon can beat the odds and survive the nation's largest hydropower system," or if they "have a soft spot for sprawling biological opinions, acronym soup and a welter of obscure information."

Attorney True, who has led litigation against various hydro BiOps for more than 10 years, suggested last September that the God Squad may ultimately be needed to settle the issue. -B. R.

[4] Idaho Gov. Names Jim Yost To NPCC

Jim Yost, a long-time adviser to Idaho governors on natural resources issues, has been named to succeed Jim Kempton as one of two members representing the state on the Northwest Power and Conservation Council, Gov. Butch Otter announced Oct. 16.

Kempton is leaving the council to fill a vacancy on the three-member Idaho Public Utilities Commission left by Otter's appointment of PUC President Paul Kjellander to lead the new state Office of Energy Resources. All three moves should be completed by the end of the month, according to a news release.

Yost, 59, is a Rupert native educated at the College of Southern Idaho in Twin Falls and Boise State University. He previously worked for Union Pacific Railroad and the Idaho Farm Bureau, and served two terms in the Idaho Senate representing the Magic Valley's north side.

He became a natural resources adviser to Gov. Phil Batt in 1995, and subsequently advised Govs. Dirk Kempthorne and Jim Risch, as well. He has been a project manager since Otter took office in January.

Yost will join Bill Booth of Coeur d'Alene on the council. -Rick Adair

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