[5] Agencies Say No To Spring Creek Hatchery Spill

The Corps of Engineers said yesterday that it will satisfy most parts of a request by salmon managers to help Spring Creek hatchery fish over Bonneville Dam in early March, but it won't implement a key element -- four days of spill.

It's a big difference from years past, when dam operators spilled for 10 days to get the fish downriver. But that was before the region spent $200 million on better ways to get the fish past the dam and its turbines -- first with the juvenile bypass system, then the corner collector at Powerhouse 2.

At the Feb. 27 meeting of the Technical Management Team, the state of Oregon contested the Corps' decision and raised the issue to the policy level of the Implementation Team, which plans to meet Feb. 28. However, the feds aren't expected to change their minds.

Fish managers wanted 100 kcfs spill to help speed more than 7 million fall chinook smolts past the dam. They say the early releases from the USFWS hatchery upstream from Bonneville Dam provide nearly half of the adults that return to the facility and provide much of the harvest opportunity for both ocean and inriver fisheries.

Cindy LeFleur, WDFW's TMT representative, said the fall chinook are "an important fish to protect."

But Action Agencies were not impressed by an analysis of adult returns cited by fish managers. The study, posted on the Fish Passage Center's website, said results were not "statistically significant," but estimated an 18-percent benefit in adult returns for fish that passed the dam via spill rather than the expensive ($55 million) corner collector at Bonneville's Powerhouse 2, built a few years ago, which Action Agencies consider the best way to pass fish at the dams. They estimate its spring chinook survival at around 100 percent, with spillway passage the least benign route, about 96 percent survival.

The smolt-to adult-return rate estimated from the corner collector release was .10 percent and .118 percent from the spilled fish.

The analysis was based on results from one year of jack returns, and two years of adult returns from the 2004 releases from Spring Creek hatchery. But the analysis is heavily affected by the jack count, though miniscule. Six jacks returned from the spilled group, and none returned from the corner collector route. In following years, SARS have been nearly equal.

BPA representative Tony Norris said the spill would have cost about $2 million, and his agency couldn't see doing it, given the statistically insignificant results of the analysis.

However, USFWS staffers say that the benefits would have been more pronounced if the Corps had actually spilled the 50 kcfs as promised in 2004. A calibration problem at the dam led to only 25 kcfs being spilled for the test.

However, in the end, the Fish and Wildlife Service didn't even sign on to the official request for this year's Spring Creek spill. It was reported that USFWS regional director Ren Lohoefener, after meeting with other agency execs, decided his agency would not submit a request, but might sign on to one, if NOAA Fisheries signed on.

But NOAA Fisheries spokesman Paul Wagner told TMT members at the Feb. 27 meeting that his agency was not supporting the request. Though his agency agrees that spill is generally a better way to get fish past dams, the corner collector was adequate for passing the fall chinook, since predation is low at that time of year. He noted that the population is unlisted and used for fisheries enhancement. Actually, the hatchery stock is listed, but it is exempt from ESA take provisions because all are marked for harvest.

The Corps left open the possibility that it may study the issue in the future, but it's unlikely the study design will mimic that of the 2004 effort. Critics have pointed out that since the fish are released from the hatchery way upstream of the dam, researchers cannot even be sure which passage route they have taken to pass the dam.

There is also a process in place to reprogram the fall chinook production to a facility below the dam, which would make the March spill action unnecessary. But it has been in the works for years and little progress has been made. It's part of a larger process in the US v. Oregon negotiations.

WDFW's LeFLeur said, in the meantime, "We need to be sure we've got these fish to support our fisheries." She said BPA may think it's an expensive operation, "but it's an expensive operation for fisheries that don't have these fish to harvest."

In 2002, before the collector was in place, Corps of Engineers' biologists reported that spilling would boost survival from 95 percent to 96.5 percent overall. BPA spilled for three days at Bonneville that year to aid the Spring Creek release. In 2003, the March spill lasted only 36 hours, after the power agency originally said deteriorating financial conditions would keep it from spilling at all. Even then, BPA figured the spill would cost $3,000 for every extra adult fall chinook created by the effort.

Last year, fish managers asked for four days of 75 kcfs spill, but were turned down. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service wasn't a signatory to that spill request either. Mid-level USFWS staffers who had lobbied for more spill were overruled by higher ups in Portland.

Other agencies that supported this year's request included fish agencies from Idaho, Oregon and Washington, the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes, the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission and the Nez Perce Tribe.

The state of Oregon has asked the spill issue be elevated to Implementation Team's policy level for further discussion. The same situation occurred last year, but Action Agencies stuck to their guns then and are expected to do the same later this week. -B. R.

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