[1] Proposed 2008 Hydro Operations May Short Spring Chinook Survival

The deal offered to BiOp plaintiffs by federal attorneys last December may contain one huge glitch.

The offer to repeat last year's hydro operations in 2008 in return for a promise that enviros won't file any motions to change operations this year isn't likely to preserve the "spread-the-risk" policy between transported and inriver migrating spring chinook.

In fact, if things go like last year, only 25 percent of the spring chinook would be barged at all, whereas all recent BiOp mandates have called for a 50-50 split.

With up-to-date research showing overall survival benefits from barging for both wild and hatchery stocks of both species, the offer could end up killing a lot of fish, all because the feds said they didn't have the manpower to handle a preliminary injunction and keep the new BiOp on schedule. Federal scientists reported last fall that juvenile wild spring chinook that were barged in 2004 returned at nearly five times the rate of inriver migrants.

It didn't seem like much of an issue last summer when preliminary estimates of barged and inriver percentages were floated at a science/policy exchange in Portland sponsored by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council. NOAA Fisheries scientist Steve Smith reported that about 47 percent of the non-PIT-tagged spring chinook (most of the run) were transported from lower Snake dams, along with 67 percent of the non-tagged steelhead.

But later, the numbers were firmed up and released at a Nov. 28 "lessons learned" review by the technical team that manages week-to-week hydro operations. By then, the percentage of non-tagged, barged spring chinook had dropped significantly -- to 24 percent, and barged non-tagged steelhead was estimated at only 33 percent.

The reasons for so few fish being transported?

At the review, NOAA scientists said it was hard to estimate the non-tagged percentages, but transportation started late in 2007, May 1, when many young chinook had already passed the dams. The scientists said 57 percent of the wild chinook had passed Lower Granite Dam by May 1, along with 24 percent of the steelhead. Also, higher spill levels at Little Goose and Lower Monumental dams meant that fewer smolts were bypassed and barged at those collector dams.

Those estimates have changed a little since then. Ritchie Graves, acting branch chief for NOAA Fisheries' Portland-based FCRPS group, told NW Fishletter that the latest estimates of the 2007 transport percentage are 25 percent for non-tagged spring chinook and 41 percent for the non-tagged steelhead.

He said the agency expects more Snake spring chinook and steelhead to be barged than last year, "but not as many as in the past."

In some years, especially before the super-efficient spillway weir was installed at Lower Granite, more than 90 percent of the fish were sometimes barged.

Graves also said that recent data has shown that as flows rise in the Snake, it seems that spring chinook find dam bypass systems more quickly than steelhead, who seem to spend more time hunting for the spillway weir and passing the dam via that route. With higher flows expected this year, he said, it's likely more chinook will end up in barges than last year.

Bob Lohn, NOAA Fisheries regional administrator, told NW Fishletter that rolling over the 2007 operations was the "most palliative" way to get through this year, and that the action agencies also agreed.

He did confirm that the number of spring chinook that would be barged his spring would be "about the same" as last year's 25 percent.

"It represents an acceptable way to get through 2008 operations, though we would not recommend it as a long-term operation," he said.

Before last December's offer to roll over 2007 operations was made in BiOp Judge James Redden's court, some parties to the litigation were concerned about the potential shortchanging of barged fish. They say they were assured by federal attorneys that agency scientists had found their low estimates were inaccurate and nothing to worry about.

But at the Feb. 20 status conference to discuss rollover issues, the barging question never came up. -Bill Rudolph

[Feb. 28 update: The IT met Feb. 28 and agencies stuck to their no spill decision. At that point, Oregon representative Ron Boyce asked that the issue be raised to the federal executive level—the highest policy rung. He said his governor’s office supported the move. Others speculated there might not be enough time for the agency heads to meet before the fish were to be released in early March.]

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