[1] Cold Ocean Means More Salmon

Ocean temperatures off the Northwest Coast have remained below normal and may stay that way for the rest of the year, judging from the continued cooling of waters near the equator, the Climate Impacts Group (CIG) from the University of Washington reported last week.

That means La Niña conditions should stick around for some time to come, boosting basic biological productivity in nearby waters, good news for juvenile salmon who will be heading for the ocean in a few months.

(An official La Niña episode is defined as any five-month period when sea-surface temperatures in the middle of the equatorial Pacific remain half a degree C below normal).

The last official La Niña occurred from September 2000 to March 2001. Before that, a stronger La Niña took place between June 1998 and June 2000, coming off a very powerful El Niño that ended officially in March 1998.

By 1999, ocean conditions had improved drastically off the Pacific Coast, with salmon populations increasing in kind, with return rates for many salmon runs improving by an order of magnitude or more.

Lately, coastal sea surface temperatures (SSTs) have been at least 1 degree C below normal along the Washington coast, and at least 2 degrees C below normal along the Oregon and much of the California coast, according to the CIG's latest report.

"This pattern of colder than normal west coast SSTs is consistent with the cold ENSO conditions that have dominated the equatorial Pacific in the last several months," they said.

However, they also said the cooler conditions are slowly heading toward a warmer state, according to the latest numbers that make up the Pacific Decadal Index that tracks long-term warming and cooling trends.

"The existing pattern of colder than normal SSTs along the west coast of North America and on the equator, and warmer than normal SSTs in the central north Pacific is characteristic of the cold polarity of the PDO phenomenon. The amplitude of this pattern in September, October, November, and December was -0.36, -1.45, -1.08, and -0.58, respectively, indicating that the PDO has diminished in strength since October."

But the La Niña that has appeared seems to be stronger than some scientists had anticipated, "with mean October-November-December SSTs 1.48 degree C below the 1971-2000 normal in the Niño 3.4 region (5N-5S, 170-120W), the coldest SSTs at this time of the year since 1988 and the 6th coldest in the 58 year record."

These conditions may stick around for awhile. The NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory experimental SST forecast calls for the PDO pattern to remain negative for the rest of the year.

Nearby ocean temperatures began cooling again in 2006 after two hot years in a row. Canadian researchers measuring SSTs off Vancouver Island found that 2004 and 2005 summer water temperatures were "two of the four warmest in almost 50 years of sampling along this line." But since mid-August of 2006, SSTs have been below normal.

The changes should benefit salmon stocks up and down the West Coast, where it was reported last week that 2007 fall chinook returns (natural and hatchery) to the Sacramento River were near an all-time low. Only 90,000 returned, when the objective was 122,000 to 180,000 fish. About 317,000 natural and hatchery chinook reached the Sacramento in 2006.

The 2007 Sacramento return was the lowest since 1973, and jack counts were only about 10 percent of average, which likely means another extremely poor run for this year.

Some critics blame water diversions in the river for the poor return, but ocean conditions were poor when the fish went to sea in 2005. A lack of tiny shrimp in the waters off San Francisco led to a huge die-off among seabirds in 2005 and 2006.

Fishermens' groups are already talking about getting another relief package from the federal government similar to $64 million in aid that helped out many commercial fishermen and related businesses in California and Oregon after drastic harvest cuts were implemented in 2006 to help the weak chinook run on the Klamath.

But these days the Klamath seems to be doing just fine. About 50,000 wild fall chinook returned to spawn there last fall, twice the number from the previous year, and better than any of the three years before that.

Up the coast, Columbia River fall chinook numbers were down considerably last year from the recent past as well, with fall chinook counts at Bonneville Dam at less than half the 10-year average. Poor ocean conditions in 2004 and 2005 were likely responsible for the downturn.

Jack counts for Bonneville tules took a 40-percent jump in 2007, which should signal a much-improved fall run. Jack counts for the upriver bright run are also better, which has managers expecting an above-average run back to the famous Hanford Reach.

Spring runs in the Columbia are expected to make a huge bounce back from improved ocean conditions, as well. This year's spring chinook run above Bonneville could be way up there--possibly the third highest since 1938, when the dam was completed. In December, Columbia Basin harvest managers released their preliminary number--269,000 springers above Bonneville--three times the size of the 2007 run.

More potentially positive news: one NMFS researcher told NW Fishletter that it's not uncommon for another La Niña to follow a year behind the first one. -Bill Rudolph.

[2] BPA May Shell Out Tens Of Millions More For BiOp Support

BPA has slammed the door on a request by the Columbia Basin Fish and Wildlife Authority to pony up another $28 million to fund aspects of the region's fish and wildlife program that CBFWA said was seriously underfunded. But that may be chump change compared to the terms being negotiated by the power agency with lower Columbia tribes and the state of Oregon to gain their support for the next hydro BiOp.

Sources tell NW Fishletter that the results of the negotiations could add another $50 million to $60 million a year in habitat and hatchery projects over the next 10 years.

CBFWA, the 18-member agency that includes tribes, states and federal agencies in the Columbia Basin, has been feeling its oats since a recent 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel told BPA it should give more weight to the analyses of fish and wildlife managers. But BPA still stiffed their request.

"I saw no new information in the staff memo that suggests additional factors or justification sufficient for BPA to revisit implementation decisions made in February (and reconfirmed at the start of the current fiscal year), in regards to the identified projects," said BPA Vice President Greg Delwiche in a Dec. 31 written response.

Delwiche said CBFWA's resubmission of earlier funding requests, "without apparent change, perpetuates a pattern in which BPA decisions are not considered to be final unless they are exactly consistent with what it proposed or requested. In the absence of new information, I see no basis to revisit my prior decisions about the merits of these individual projects."

CBFWA requested the additional funding last November, with abstentions by members NOAA Fisheries and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

The authority identified more than a hundred F&W projects they judged to be insufficiently funded. However, they said some "critical and unmet needs" could be met with existing funding, adding that an additional $28 million over the next two years might be needed.

CBFWA also said that BPA needed to pay more than $4 million more to satisfy interim agreements hammered out in a $3-million deal between some tribes and BPA to support 2007 hydro operations.

The agreement raised hackles with some parties in the region, including some members of the Northwest Power and Conservation Council, because the projects had not passed scientific muster as part of the council's regular budget process.

Some Columbia Basin fish and wildlife managers have felt more empowered by language in a recent decision from the 9th Circuit Court[Golden Northwest Aluminum v. BPA] that reiterated an earlier Niners' decision [NW Resource Information Center v. NWPPC et al.] that called on BPA to "give substantial weight" to fish and wildlife managers' analyses.

In his letter, BPA's Delwiche acknowledged that his agency will incur future F&W costs above the current $143 million in annual expenses and $36 million in capital spending. But until those future costs are estimated--including the long-term settlements with some tribes and states that will trade more habitat and hatchery projects to gain their support for the next BiOp--BPA can't provide a final estimate of those future F&W costs.

Delwiche said a public workshop is planned to ensure those future estimates will be as accurate as possible before they are plugged into the next rate-case proceeding.

The Niners, in the Golden Northwest decision, ruled that BPA disregarded the analysis of F&W managers' claims that Bonneville had underestimated the annual costs of its fish and wildlife program by $300 million a year. BPA contested that analysis and said, in the end, it had gotten the numbers right.

Delwiche said the managers could present any new information on funding at the public workshop.

As for the progress on those long-term settlements, all parties have maintained official radio silence, though sources say that the main sticking point at this late stage (the BiOp is now scheduled for release May 5) is that tribes want the future funding deals to stay alive whether the new BiOp stays in place or not. Sources also say, so far, BPA will not agree to such terms.

And the added cost? It could be as high as another $60 million a year. This would be tacked on to the $45 million in annual habitat projects in tributaries and the estuary already projected by action agencies to be spent over the next 10 years, in numbers they announced last September.

At the time, the agencies also said another $34 million would be spent over the next two years to improve hatcheries and $4 million would go to pay for operations after modifications are completed.

It seems the ante has gone up quite a bit since then, but whether these new projects will be subject to the same scientific scrutiny as the rest of the fish and wildlife program is not yet clear.

Some members of the "regional coalition" have suggested that BPA develop a formal Memorandum of Agreement with the Power Council to ensure that any new project included in the long-term agreements be subject to the same screening process for scientific merit as is the rest of the basin's fish and wildlife program.

BPA may already be laying the groundwork for folding the new projects into the region's fish and wildlife program.

In another Dec. 31 missive to the Power Council offering some suggestions regarding the F&W amendment process--which has been extended through April 4--Delwiche said his agency "intends to fully integrate implementation of additional actions with current mitigation efforts in the program if BPA enters into MOAs "that sharpen and enhance the focus on ESA-related actions (within the scope of the program)."

To placate the state of Oregon, it was reported that one of those possible actions would be to get the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to study John Day Pool drawdown for possible survival benefits to juvenile migrating salmon.

Back in the late 1990s, the Corps took a serious look at the issue and decided any survival benefits to fish didn't outweigh the adverse biological and economic impacts. -B. R.

[3] Judge Grants May Extension For Completion Of Hydro BiOp

BiOp Judge James Redden ruled Jan. 29 that NOAA Fisheries will get more time to complete its biological opinion on the operation of federal dams on the Columbia and lower Snake rivers. The new deadline is May 5.

The judge had already given the agency more time--until March 18--but after being smothered in more than a thousand pages of comments from 47 different entities, along with 18,000 form letters from environmental groups, NOAA told the judge it needed more time to respond.

In a declaration to the court, NOAA Fisheries assistant administrator Bruce Suzumoto said his agency's response wasn't a formal requirement, "but it is our intention to show how the major substantive comments were taken into account and, if they called for changes that were not included in the final biological opinion, why the changes were not adopted." He wanted an extension until May 2.

Earthjustice attorney Todd True argued that the feds weren't justified to ask for so much time since NOAA didn't show evidence that any comments were going to get the agency to make substantive changes. He suggested a 21-day extension and asked Redden to rule on the motion for extension only after all parties had agreed to 2008 hydro operations.

However, on Jan. 29, Judge Redden granted the feds' motion without further comment. -B. R.

[4] Northwest Fish Experts Debunk Controversial Sea Lice Study

A group of Northwest fisheries experts say that wild Canadian pink salmon runs are not in danger of extinction from sea lice infections picked up at British Columbia salmon farms during their juvenile migration, contrary to findings in a recent article (Krkošek et al.) published last December in the weekly journal Science.

The popular media took the original article at face value and ran with it--NPR said wild runs were being "ravaged" by the sea lice and the AP story characterized it as "the most direct evidence yet" that young pink salmon were dying from sea lice infections, while the Washington Post headline ran "Salmon Farming May Doom Wild Populations."

It's a hot-button issue in British Columbia, where salmon farms raise enough Atlantic salmon and chinook to make their products the province's top agricultural export. In 2006, export sales topped $450 million.

Any suspicion that these farms may have adverse effects on wild populations is sure to create a stir. For years, one of the study's authors, ex-whale researcher Alexandra Morton, has been blaming salmon farms in the Broughton Archipelago for infesting wild fish with sea lice.

But Port-Townsend, Wash-based fisheries consultant Kenneth Brooks and Canadian federal fisheries biologist Simon Jones, said when all the watersheds in the Broughton Archipelago were examined, pink salmon returns have "steadily increased" since 2003, "with no indication that they are threatened with extinction."

Their response is in press at the peer-reviewed journal Reviews in Fisheries Science, and should be posted on their website by next week. It has been endorsed by 18 other senior scientists working in this field in both academia and government agencies, including several researchers at NOAA Fisheries.

Brooks and Jones said the Krkošek paper also failed to acknowledge lab studies that show pink salmon can mount an effective resistance to sea lice, a trait not included in the paper's population model that predicted extinction.

They also took issue with the paper's assertion that the salmon farms are the source of larval sea lice--since research reported in 2006 found plenty of lice on sticklebacks in the region, and other work found that pinks that stayed in coastal waters in the Eastern Bering Sea showed about a 25 percent infection rate, which led other researchers to conclude that the overwintering salmon contributed to infestations of migrating smolts in the spring through release of lice larvae.

Brooks and Jones said it is "misleading" to conclude that sea lice infections are mostly associated with releases of larvae from salmon farms. "What is clear is that sea lice are found on juvenile salmon wherever we look in the Northeast Pacific and that there are numerous wild sources of these lice in addition to those contributed by salmon farms."

The critics also say Krkošek's model does not consider that fact that it is very unlikely that sea lice larvae can develop to an infective stage in the few days they are in the vicinity of the farms before being dispersed by wind and current.

Perhaps the most damning criticism Brooks and Jones leveled at the Science paper is their assertion that an analysis of the entire pink salmon database leads to the opposite conclusion reached by Krkošek et al. When all the numbers are examined, they say it's pretty obvious that the huge pink return to the Broughton region in 2000 (3.6 million) led to the population crash in 2002. They produced a graph of fish numbers that went back to 1953 to show "periodic declines, that, when analyzed over short periods of time, could be used to predict the extinction of pink salmon stocks."

With the marine survival of Fraser River pinks averaging little more than 1 percent, and coastwide around 2 percent to 3 percent, Brooks and Jones said pink survival in the Broughton Archipelago has been equal to or better than observed survival along the B.C. coast for the last four years.

The critics said the purpose of their own paper "is not to deny that salmon farms may contribute sea lice to the marine environment. The fact is that at this time research has not determined the relative contribution from wild and farmed sources of lice. Rather, this discussion is intended to provide additional information giving readers a broader perspective of these issues."

Brooks told NW Fishletter that Science refused to publish their letter rebutting the sea lice paper. He said the journal told him that it wasn't printing their response because it contained essentially the same information that was in their "in press" paper.

But Brooks disagrees. He said several other scientists have sent letters to Science that have taken the journal to task for publishing to the sea lice paper. But it remains to be seen whether Science's editorial board will publish any criticism of the Krkošek article.

A group called the Pacific Salmon Forum took issue with Krkošek's finding and went public with their concerns a few days after the Science article was published. The Forum bills itself as "a group of well-informed citizens, chaired by Hon. John Fraser, appointed by the BC Government in 2005 to commission research into salmon issues, fill knowledge gaps, and make recommendations in 2008 aimed at ensuring sustainable wild and farmed salmon industries."

They found similar results to Brooks and Jones. "However, interim findings from this research, to be released in early January 2008, do not support the Krkošek prediction of rapidly declining pink and chum salmon stocks in the Broughton. The marine survival of pink salmon to the Glendale River, the region's major producing river for pinks has been equal or better than the survival rates for pinks in other coastal watersheds where there are no salmon farms. Pink salmon returns in the other Broughton watersheds were as good as or better than those that occurred in 2005. All the field researchers noted that over 80 percent of the wild salmon smolts migrating out of the Broughton in the spring of 2007 had no lice whatsoever."

But in an interim report, the Forum recommended no net increase in farmed salmon production in the Broughton Archipelago until its research results are completed later this year.

The Forum has also invited Krkošek, who is a Ph.D candidate at the Centre for Mathematical Biology at the University of Alberta, to meet with their scientific committee to discuss his study. -B. R.

[5] Power Council Elects New Chair, Gets New Member

Idaho member Bill Booth, a relative newcomer to the Northwest Power and Conservation Council, has been elected to chair the council for the coming year, succeeding Tom Karier of Washington. Booth, of Coeur d'Alene, was appointed to the council in January 2007 by Idaho Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter.

He is a former U.S. Air Force officer and senior minerals industry executive in environmental and public affairs. He holds a degree in business administration from the University of Idaho and earned an MBA from the University of North Dakota while serving in the Air Force. He is an avid fly fisherman and a member of Trout Unlimited.

Montana member Bruce Measure was voted vice-chair. Fellow Montana member Rhonda Whiting will continue to chair the Fish and Wildlife Committee, while Oregon member Melinda Eden will lead the council's Power Committee in 2008.

Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire has reappointed Tom Karier to serve another term (until Jan. 2010) as one of the state's two representatives to the Council.

On Feb. 5, she announced the appointment of Dick Wallace to fill a seat vacated by Council member Larry Cassidy, who is retiring.

Wallace is a director with the Washington Department of Ecology and works on policy initiatives such as Puget Sound cleanup, watershed management and salmon recovery.

"Dick has a keen understanding of the balance between the growing energy needs of Northwest businesses and families, and the need to protect our natural resources," Gregoire said in a press release. "He will be an asset in building partnerships between state and local officials and business and interest groups to help work toward balancing our power and natural resource issues."

Wallace has more than 25 years of experience in natural resource issues, including water and watershed management, agriculture, forestry, stormwater and salmon recovery.

"I'm pleased the governor has asked me to serve the citizens of the state and region on the council," Wallace said. "With climate change, there is a growing link between energy policy and protection of our fish and wildlife resources. This is an incredible opportunity to help shape that future."

The Montana native graduated from Whitman College with a Bachelor of Arts in biology and environmental studies, and studied executive management at the Evans School of Public Affairs at the University of Washington. Wallace started his career as a field representative with the Washington Conservation Commission. In 1986, he moved to Ecology, where he advanced to the senior management level working on the agency's environmental responsibilities. -B. R.

[6] Feds Put Oregon Coho Back On ESA List

NOAA Fisheries announced Feb. 4 that it was once again listing Oregon coastal coho for protection under the Endangered Species Act.

The agency decided in 1997 that listing wasn't necessary because Oregon had developed a plan to recover the stock, but a federal judge said the fish agency was wrong because many of the state's measures were voluntary. So in August 1998, the stock was listed as "threatened."

Then in Sept. 2001, federal judge Michael Hogan ruled that NOAA Fisheries couldn't separate the ESU into wild and hatchery components, yet list the wild ones for protection. That effectively de-listed the stock.

The state began writing a new recovery plan that said the coastal coho populations were down, but still viable at lower levels than before. NMFS agreed and pulled its listing proposal in Jan. 2006.

But conservation group Trout Unlimited took the feds to court over the decision. Last July, another federal magistrate ruled that the Oregon assessment was not the best, available science, and in October, another judge threw out NMFS' decision not to list the ESU. This week, the federal fish agency officially listed the fish.

Regional NOAA Fisheries administrator Bob Lohn said a limited time frame ordered by the court didn't give his agency a chance to consider new information about the habitat and the benefits the fish are getting out of the state's plan. "Had it not been for these limitations," Lohn said, "we may have reached a different conclusion. I continue to believe that there is great value in the Oregon plan. It boosts salmon recovery through funding, protective regulations and--most of all--through the voluntary restoration efforts being undertaken by thousands of Oregon's landowners. I think the plan is making an important difference."

The new listing means the feds are designating critical habitat and prohibiting certain activities that harm fish. It also may impact coastal timber harvests, which is one of the big reasons environmental groups have fought hard to keep the fish listed. But the feds say effects on landowners will be minor.

But other new information on the coho is not so upbeat. It has been reported that wild coastal coho returns were extremely poor in 2007.

By 2000, Oregon wild coastal coho spawners had climbed to more than 230,000 from only 30,000 in 1997, after the runs had been hammered by a combination of over-harvesting and poor ocean conditions. For five of the past six years, spawning numbers have been more than 100,000, higher than any year since 1971.

But in 2007, coastal coho returns plummeted to around 60,000 fish, which took managers by surprise. Their preseason estimate was 426 percent higher than the actual return.

NOAA Fisheries scientist Pete Lawson told NW Fishletter that the poor wild coho returns have everybody "scratching their heads" since ocean conditions had been pretty good during the stock's tenure in the ocean, and that the high pre-season prediction was based on those good conditions. "Obviously, something has decoupled," Lawson said.

There was an odd decline in coastal upwelling in the spring of 2006, after it started off with a bang in April. However, winds changed, and upwelling stopped altogether in May, but perked up again later in the summer.

The phenomenon likely led to the formation of a large "dead zone" off the Oregon coast that year, where dying plankton sank to the bottom and rotted, leading to a large region of oxygen-depleted water. But scientists saw most adverse effects on deep water species like crab and bottomfish.

It's still a matter of speculation what got the coho, Lawson said. He said others have guessed it could even be some new predator, possibly Humboldt squid that have moved north from southern California when Northwest waters warm. These squid are voracious eaters, live about a year and can weigh a hundred pounds. However, there has been no direct evidence collected that shows these squid prey on young salmon. -B. R.

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