[2] Feds Want Fish Projects To Include Survival Targets

The Northwest Power and Conservation Council will play a major role in implementing the next hydro BiOp, Bob Lohn, regional NOAA Fisheries administrator, told the council at its Nov. 14 meeting.

But Lohn cautioned that BPA-funded habitat projects that focus on estuary and tributary improvements will need more scrutiny to ensure improved survival of ESA-listed salmon and steelhead.

With 73 "reasonable and prudent actions," some containing hundreds of elements, Lohn said the job of selecting, identifying and working through those projects "is a hugely valuable activity and it's one the council has historically provided for all of us."

BPA's Sarah McNary told the council that the new BiOp's projects target factors that are limiting for specific fish populations, but will need an additional layer of review to develop a "benefit analysis" that relates improvement in habitat quality to a survival change at each specific population level.

The current screening of F&W program proposals includes a scientific review by an independent board of scientists, who judge the merit of each project, but there is no quantitative assessment of future fish benefits.

Washington council member Larry Cassidy asked McNary if the feds were calling for another process in addition to the science screening that F&W proposals now undergo with the ISRP.

McNary's answer was vague. She said the quantification analysis would be completed before the council made its final review and recommendations to BPA.

Cassidy told her that figuring out how many fish return per mile of habitat was an issue he has wrestled with for nine and a half years.

Montana council member Rhonda Whiting said more review would add more bureaucracy and count as a major change to the current F&W program, which is just starting a yearlong amendment process.

The added review is needed to hold the action agencies accountable for achieving a certain level of benefit during the 10-year time frame of the BiOp, Lohn said

However, he said, the means by which the benefit is assessed is not something his agency intends to proscribe, adding, "our general view, speaking on behalf of NOAA, is to use existing institutions and processes as much as possible."

But that didn't help to clarify the issue.

Council spokesman John Harrison said NWCC staffers were not sure what it means for the future, whether the ISRP could perform the analysis of these proposals or if another process will have to be generated.

The biological assessment that the action agencies--BPA, BuRec, and Corps of Engineers--released in August, which morphed into the draft BiOp, released Oct. 31, did include some estimates of survival improvements developed by participants in the habitat workgroup of the BiOp remand process.

Noting that time was limited, they agreed they didn't have the luxury of using complicated computer models such as EDT or Shiraz to help them, and so they gathered input from state, tribal and federal biologists, along with project sponsors and a large amount of "best professional judgment" from local biologists.

The group also assumed that a certain percentage improvement in habitat quality translated into a similar improvement in egg-to-smolt survival.

As an example, the analysis found that upper Columbia spring chinook numbers in the Methow River have been boosted by 2 percent since 2000 from habitat restoration efforts and that could go up another 6 percent by 2017.

Meanwhile, in the nearby Entiat River, it found a similar 2-percent gain since 2000, but that could jump another 22 percent if all prospective actions were completed by 2017.

The action agencies' analysis noted that it was not formally endorsed by the remand workgroup and that "some critics did not endorse a numerical approach to expressing habitat functionality and potential improvements."

Lohn also addressed the other 'H's, and used the podium to lock horns with critics who have said, in some cases, since there is less spill in the new BiOp, "therefore it couldn't be good." They wanted to see more spill and more flow.

"The reality is that within the Columbia Basin," Lohn said, "the water that is available to be programmed for fish has been entirely used. If you see an unused reservoir, a couple of MAF that are hanging around some place, we'd love to know about it. But short of making more water, we feel like we tried to optimize the available water."

As for high levels of spill, Lohn said a decade ago, in some circumstances, that strategy was the best the region could offer. But the new technology that has brought removable spillway weirs and other forms of surface passage has changed all that.

He said the region shouldn't be penalized for being able to pass fish faster at dams with fewer injuries using less spill than in days of yore.

As for hatcheries, he pointed out that each of the 186 hatchery programs is being reviewed to make sure it doesn't impede ESA fish recovery efforts.

Current harvest levels were used in the hydro BiOp's baseline analysis, Lohn said, and a new BiOp for harvest will be written next year.

"We've also kept an eye on future U.S. v. Oregon negotiations," he said. "We're well aware of them, and that the opinion as written will accommodate the future U.S. v. Oregon agreement. At least the one that has been tentatively reached, with what I would call a relatively minor exception, which is under discussion," he said.

The parties to the agreement have been very conscious about maximizing opportunities for harvest while, "if possible, improving conservation benefits for listed stocks," Lohn said. The next agreement, he said, will contain elements that are significantly better for listed fish.

He said he didn't think that James Redden, the federal BiOp judge, was especially interested in just another analysis, but is looking for agreement over a new BiOp by all the parties.

Though he admitted that it will probably be litigated, Lohn said what matters most to the region is having an action plan that doesn't focus on planning or on the divisions between the different parties.

Rather, the plan should focus on the large areas where agreement has been reached to protect salmon, their watersheds, "and the underlying habitat, which benefits far more than salmon."

A review of the draft BiOp is slated for Dec. 12 in Judge Redden's courtroom. -B. R.

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