[1] Sockeye Slapdown: NMFS Pans FPC Spill Memo
NOAA Fisheries scientists have panned a recent Fish Passage Center memo that attributed good sockeye returns to more spill and flow.
The July 14 FPC memo is one of more than a dozen released by the agency since early June that could help plaintiffs in upcoming BiOp litigation.
The popular media had picked up the FPC memo and touted its results in newspapers and radio, but there was nary a word about the response from the federal scientists.
The July 24 NOAA memo, from hydro division staffer Ritchie Graves to assistant administrator Bruce Suzumoto, was blunt: "The [FPC] memo fails to provide an analysis of Smolt to Adult Returns (SAR)--a glaring omission considering that the apparent goal of the memo is to describe factors which likely contributed to the larger than expected returns of sockeye salmon in 2008."
The NOAA response said the FPC memo suffered from some serious shortcomings, and failed to mention the variability in ocean productivity and freshwater factors like the total numbers of migrating fish, instead of simply citing hatchery releases; the relative survival through free-flowing reaches before entering the mainstem Columbia and Snake rivers; and other factors besides spill and flow that likely affect survival--temperature, turbidity, fish conditions, and removable spillway weirs.
NOAA said the FPC analysis was driven by a single data point--2001--a year when little spill occurred. The feds called that a "serious oversight which should be remedied by providing an analysis of the data without 2001. Such an analysis would show essentially no relationship (low r squared, highly insignificant) without 2001."
They also said the FPC analysis that showed a relationship between fish travel times and water travel times was "not well correlated."
The NOAA review also noted the FPC memo failed to mention other actions undertaken by Canada besides hatchery releases to increase productivity, "especially improved management of flows to protect redds."
The FPC memo also "fails to provide any data supporting the claim that more adults returned because transport rates were lower than usual," said the feds, who pointed out that no upper Columbia sockeye had been transported for years, and starting in 2006, about 97 percent of all PIT-tagged sockeye from the Snake River had been diverted back to the river.
"So few had been transported that we would not expect to observe PIT-tagged adults that were transported as juveniles," said the NOAA review.
The feds' findings clashed with assertions by the state of Oregon, which argued in its latest BiOp complaint filing that the feds' maximized barging strategy to improve steelhead returns would shortchange Snake River sockeye.
FPC director Michele DeHart was quoted in an Associated Press story on sockeye touting the benefits of spill on the sockeye returns, and Nicole Cordan, from Save Our Wild Salmon, told a radio audience on Oregon Public Broadcasting July 28 that the FPC "found" three reasons for the good sockeye returns on the Snake--a good flow year in 2006, additional spill, and less transport of Snake River fish.
The NOAA memo said the FPC analysis failed to provide a figure relating average spill to sockeye survival in the mid-Columbia as they did for sockeye in the Snake.
Nor did the FPC take a closer look at why inriver survival rates for juvenile sockeye were so high in 2006, a trend that didn't seem to show up with other species of salmon. The feds said these data "should be carefully reviewed to ensure that they are not spurious."
"The memo contains many statements like 'strong' or 'likely' that are NOT supported with statistical results (i.e., significant P-values or high r2 values)," said the feds' review (a P-value of 0.05 is equivalent to a confidence interval of 95 percent). "In fact, P-values are not reported for any of the analyses, leaving the reader unable to assess which, if any, of the relationships are statistically significant."
NOAA Fisheries is expected to expand their sockeye analysis. Its July 24 memo was an "initial critique," it stated.
There was speculation that some members of the Northwest Power and Conservation Council would ask the Independent Scientific Advisory Board to review the FPC memo, but since the feds are expanding their own review, they probably won't ask for it now, said ISAB coordinator Erik Merrill. He said the "ISAB will consider sockeye, and to a limited extent 2008 returns, in its spill-transport review, but this won't be a specific peer review of the FPC analysis."
Last week, the Fish Passage Center said there is nothing wrong with its recent analysis concluding that increased spill, flow and less barging have boosted sockeye returns in both the mid-Columbia and Snake rivers.
"We found no technical basis for modifying the original conclusions," the FPC said in an Aug. 6 memo that responded to the critique by NOAA Fisheries scientists.
In its latest memo, the FPC argued that if ocean conditions likely played a large role in the good returns, as the feds say, other West Coast sockeye populations should also have shown increased returns.
Actually, some of them have--the Fraser River's early summer run was pegged at 425,000 sockeye last week by the Pacific Salmon Commission.
In 2007, the early-summer run came in about 150,000 strong. The summer run is estimated at around 1 million fish now, down a bit from pre-season prediction of 1.8 million. Last year, the summer run came in at around 650,000 sockeye.
The Lake Washington sockeye return has been dismal, though. Only about 35,000 have returned this year, around one-third of the pre-season forecast. State officials say lake and marine survival rates are highly variable from year to year.
NOAA Fisheries is expected to release a more extensive review of the likely reasons behind the good sockeye returns by the end of August. -Bill Rudolph
[2] Sides Line Up As New BiOp Heads For Court
With only a few days left to secure intervenor status in the latest round of BiOp litigation, several parties have filed motions requesting to take part, including the Columbia-Snake irrigators and the Salish-Kootenai tribes from Montana, who say they will support the BiOp.
So far, only the state of Oregon has sided with plaintiff environmental and fishing groups, but the Nez Perce Tribe may soon join them. The other states have thrown their lot in with federal defendants, along with the Colville Tribe and three of four lower Columbia tribes, who have signed agreements with the action agencies to support the new hydro BiOp in return for hundreds of millions in fish recovery projects (see NW Fishletter 245).
The Nez Perce Tribe has not come to terms over an agreement for BiOp support. Recently, however, they were back at the negotiating table.
But Greg Delwiche, BPA's vice president for environment, fish and wildlife, on Aug. 6 told NW Fishletter that the tribe had quit the talks on the grounds that signing an MOA in return for supporting the BiOp was not "in their best interest."
The tribe has already submitted a long list of potential projects to the Northwest Power and Conservation Council, as part of the council's process to amend its fish and wildlife program. That includes funding for the Northeast Oregon Hatchery, a project that was also included as a potential action in the new BiOp, with BPA ready to fund it, once NMFS had approved a tribal management policy for its operation.
The main sticking point between the tribe and the action agencies over the MOA was the Nez Perces' reluctance to give up their advocacy for breaching the four lower Snake dams for the next 10 years, according to sources familiar with the negotiations. The other tribes that signed MOAs agreed to do so.
The big question was whether the Nez Perce would stay on the sidelines during the upcoming litigation. Evidently not. Rebecca Miles, former chair and a member of the Nez Perce Tribes' executive committee, told NW Fishletter that the tribe has decided not to accept any proposed MOA and plans to proceed with the BiOp litigation.
With the Nez Perce staying in the lawsuit, the plaintiffs may have an easier time countering defendants' argument that the new BiOp represents a real collaboration of sovereigns (except for Oregon), as BiOp Judge James Redden had called for.
Specific language in the new MOAs calls for them to remain in place if the new harvest or hydro BiOps are found to be illegal. But Delwiche said any party could leave the agreement if "material" changes to the BiOps do occur.
Delwiche said if tribal harvest rates are significantly changed from those in the new harvest BiOp, a tribe could find reason enough to walk away from them.
So far, no one is expected to challenge the new harvest BiOp in court. But Terry Flores, executive director of Northwest RiverPartners, said if Judge Redden throws out the new hydro BiOp, they will likely challenge the harvest BiOp. The two BiOps are linked, with the new harvest rates used in some of the hydro BiOp analyses.
Meanwhile, the Columbia-Snake Irrigators Association filed a motion to intervene in the BiOp case last week. Two years ago, they were denied intervenor status, due to timeliness.
Back then, they were challenging NMFS' use of the "best available science." This time around they propose supporting the defendant agency, "and focus on refuting erroneous views concerning the relationship between river velocity and salmon survival to be proferred by the state of Oregon and plaintiffs."
Of special concern, they say, is Oregon's push for a drawdown of John Day reservoir, which would directly interrupt their irrigation operations.
The irrigators also propose looking at harvest rates. They say they have commissioned new scientific work "proving excessive harvest rates prevent recovery," and that the irrigators are probably the only party both willing and able to provide the court with accurate information concerning the full range of options for equitable relief."
But siding with the feds doesn't mean they support everything in the new BiOp. In their filing, the irrigators said the feds' new BiOp still shows that the government's decisions "continue to mangle the applicable law and misapply the pertinent scientific data"--since they believe NMFS has "grossly overstated flow-survival relationships."
The irrigators say the Niners' decision in the earlier case--to deny the right of irrigators to intervene because they were already adequately represented by the Farm Bureau--no longer holds because the Farm Bureau has no active role in this litigation, since the bureau itself is represented by the Northwest RiverPartners, "a group dominated by electric power interests."
River Partners also filed a motion to intervene as a substitute for the BPA Customer Group. Since it intervened in the 2004 BiOp, the group has been reformulated into a more diverse coalition of river users, representing agriculture, navigation interests and other commercial and municipal river interests. No parties objected, as in the irrigators' motion to intervene, which has been opposed by plaintiffs.
The Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes from Montana have also filed for defendant-intervenor status. Although they have monitored the litigation and have had discussions with the state of Montana, the tribes said they now must "engage directly with the Court and parties to ensure that its resources are adequately considered and protected."
They said it was particularly important now, when considering the tribes' interests in the upper Columbia watershed "that will be affected by interests and actions in the Lower Columbia River."
The issue of whether to use a panel such as former ISAB members to judge the scientific merit of the actions in the new hydro BiOp will be discussed by all parties Aug. 21 in Federal District Court Judge James Redden's courtroom.
Redden sent a letter to all parties asking for input on several questions, including whether it was legal to use a science panel to look at the new BiOp before he ruled on it. He said if he finds the new BiOp is legally flawed, he may not remand it to the agencies, but may vacate the opinion, and enter orders of preliminary and/or permanent injunction. He asked the parties whether the court does have the discretion to appoint an independent expert during injunction proceedings.
He also wanted their opinion on whether the court has the authority to appoint an independent science panel to help the court in potential settlement discussions if he does find the BiOp flawed.
He also wanted to know why the feds are willing to rely on the ISAB's review of some issues, but not others. "May the court or the parties submit additional questions to ISAB, or suggest the ISAB evaluate additional or different mitigation actions?" And he asked counsel for specific question to ask an independent panel.
Federal agencies say the ISAB has already weighed in on many of the important issues, and such a change would probably draw out the briefing schedule already agreed upon by all parties.
Plaintiffs are calling for the scientific review, but the feds say the new BiOp already uses the "best available science," and that depending on a panel would ignore the three-year collaborative process among tribes, states and agencies that produced the latest salmon plan. The feds also argued that a panel review would be counter to an en banc decision issued last month by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Lands Council v. McNair, that found agency decisions deserve deference by courts. -B. R.
[3] Fall Chinook Season Opens On Columbia
Harvest managers have closed the books on the summer chinook run and opened the Columbia River to recreational chinook fishing again on Aug. 1, hoping that this year's plentiful fall returns will allow the lower river Buoy 10 fishery to remain open through Labor Day. Last year, the fishery was open only 12 days.
Commercial fishing opened a few days later, with five 12-hour periods allotted to lower river gillnetters. After four fishing periods, the gillnetters had caught more than 7,500 chinook, so their fishery was closed until late August.
Tribal fishermen were getting ready to net their 23-percent share of the fall run above Bonneville Dam, along with 15 percent of the B-run steelhead. Non-Indians (sport and commercial) are allowed 8.25 percent.
Managers expect a fall chinook run of 377,000 fish. That's 170 percent better than last year's return, but 75 percent of the 10-year average. About 50,000 B-run steelhead (hatchery and wild) are expected (8,500 wild).
Their estimate includes about 6,400 ESA-listed wild fall chinook headed for the Snake, about 140 percent of the 10-year average.
The largest component of the fall run will be made up of upriver brights, headed for the Hanford Reach area. About 164,000 are expected this year, up 44 percent from last year's numbers, and about 75 percent of the 10-year average.
Lower river wild fall chinook, also listed under the ESA, are expected to return close to last year's numbers--3,800--only 25 percent of the 10-year average.
Also expected is a near-average return of hatchery tules above Bonneville, about 86,000. Last year, less than 15,000 tules returned to the hatchery above the dam.
Upriver summer steelhead are also expected to return in similar numbers to last year's 319,000, close to the 10-year average.
But coho returns are not expected to fare well this year. Only 165,000 are predicted to come back to the Columbia, compared to last year's 329,000. The early part of the run has been pegged at 96,000, only 32 percent of the 10-year average. The late stock return is pegged at nearly 69,000 fish, about 40 percent of the 10-year average.
Another bright spot this year turned out to be the abundant spring/summer chinook run on the Snake River, where the returns to some hatcheries were excellent.
Recreational fishers were also able to target hatchery (Sawtooth) chinook for more than half of July on the Upper Salmon River, where the season opened for the first time in over 30 years.
This year's 15,900 spring/summer chinook jack count at Lower Granite Dam even topped 2000's high numbers (14,000), which presaged a return of more than 184,000 chinook in 2001.
With ocean conditions in prime shape, next year's spring run to Idaho might top 200,000 fish, almost three times this year's return of 72,000 and nearly seven times the 2007 return. -B. R.
[4] 2007 Snake Fall Chinook Run Makes Big Gain
Harvest managers weren't making much of a fuss over their recently released estimate of last year's Snake fall chinook run, about 7,600 fish. It was included in a table in their July 22 fact sheet that announced their estimates of this year's expected returns, about 6,400 ESA-listed wild fall chinook, about 140 percent of the 10-year average.
But the 2007 return of 7,600 fish would make it by far the highest since the fish were listed for protection under the ESA.
WDFW's Robin Ehlke told NW Fishletter that the number was not a typo, and was expected to change little, if at all, with further analysis. That means last year's return was about three times higher than the ESU's interim recovery goal of 2,500 fish.
USFWS researcher Billy Conner said biologists are still trying to estimate how much of a boost the supplementation effort has had on the returns, when hatchery fish are allowed to spawn in the wild. It's obviously had some benefit. The 2007 wild return is nearly a hundred times better than the 1990 return, when only 78 wild fall chinook passed Lower Granite Dam.
But it's been hard to count returning fish at Lower Granite Dam, and identify whether they are wild or of hatchery origin. Over the years, many hatchery fish from the Nez Perce facility on the Clearwater River have not been marked. Once hatchery fish have successfully spawned in the wild, there has been no way to tell them apart from the original wild component. But biologists are working on a way to read the fishes' DNA to do just that.
However, since supplementation efforts began, many more fall chinook redds have been found in four major areas, Conner said, in the mainstem Snake below the Salmon River, in the mainstem above the Salmon, in the lower reaches of the Grande Ronde, and in the Clearwater.
Most biologists attribute the big boost in the wild run to the success of the supplementation effort focused at Lyons Ferry Hatchery in the lower Snake. Young fish are raised there and then trucked above Lower Granite to acclimation ponds. Fall chinook from the Nez Perce Hatchery have added to the numbers as well, since they have been allowed to spawn in the Clearwater, where no fall chinook run previously existed, a situation likely due to the extremely cold water compared to traditional spawning grounds in the lower Snake. -B. R.
[5] Settlement Reached Over Pesticide Review
The National Marine Fisheries Service has agreed to complete consultations on the effects of 37 pesticides on West Coast salmon and steelhead as part of a settlement in a lawsuit brought by a coalition of environmental and fishing groups last year to get the feds to comply to terms of an earlier ruling. The parties have agreed to a schedule for completion over the next four years with the first reviews to be finished by October.
A federal court ordered the EPA to consult with NMFS over the pesticides more than five years ago, but NMFS has never come up with a plan for reducing their effects on fish.
"Today's agreement is a victory for all of us," said Aimee Code of Northwest Coalition for Alternatives to Pesticides, a plaintiff in the case, on July 30, "Keeping pesticides out of the river also keeps pesticides out of drinking water and out of our bodies."
Some lab studies have shown detrimental effects on young salmon from some chemicals in pesticides, like diazinon on the homing instinct. Soon after the settlement was announced, NMFS released a draft report that examined diazinon and two other pesticides. In the draft, NMFS says there is overwhelming evidence that suggests the pesticides are interfering with the ability of salmon to swim, find food, reproduce and escape bigger fish trying to eat them.
Back in 2002 in earlier litigation, Seattle federal court judge John Coughenour granted part of a motion for summary judgment agreeing with a claim by the Washington Toxics Coalition that the EPA had failed to consult with NMFS about effects of registered pesticides on listed fish and their habitat. But he denied their claim that EPA had violated a section of the ESA that called for the agency to promote the conservation of threatened and endangered salmonids.
The judge approved a schedule for the federal agency to consult with NMFS over the effects of 55 active ingredients of pesticides, because plaintiffs "have provided some evidence of potential harm to the species of their interest, salmon." But he dismissed environmentalists' claims with respect to another 898 unidentified ingredients, saying they "submit absolutely no evidence in any form showing that EPA's respective actions are fairly traceable to an actual or threatened injury to threatened and endangered salmonids."
In 2003, Judge Coughenour ruled that, for the time being, he would go along with environmentalists' recommendations that called for buffer zones along streams to keep pesticides from harming wild salmonids listed under the ESA. His ruling said the plaintiffs had demonstrated "with reasonable scientific certainty" that the buffers, 20 yards for ground applications and 100 yards for aerial applications, "will, unlike the status quo, substantially contribute to the prevention of jeopardy." In 2005, the 9th Circuit Court upheld the ruling. -B.R.
[6] DFO's Latest Ocean Report Good News For Salmon Numbers
The North Pacific ocean has cooled off considerably over the past couple of years, but just how much? A new report by Canada's Department of Fisheries and Oceans said the Gulf of Alaska in January was the coldest in the past 35 years.
"This local cooling was the global exception," says the report. The cooling has been good news for salmon and steelhead going to sea. The scientists expect improved survival rates for many Canadian stocks migrating to sea in 2008.
"Blame it on La Nina. (Or thanks to La Nina if you love coldwater fish)", said the report, which noted winter winds over the past couple of years have blown from a more westerly direction, rather than the more typical warm southwesterly.
A series of robotic buoys that periodically rise from the deep to measure and transmit temperature and salinity data showed an unexpected strengthening of the easterly bearing North Pacific Current and increased flow into the California Current "which may have contributed to cooling of near shore oceans observed through 2007."
But according to the report, weather systems weakened the mechanism that pushes warm water offshore, and led to warmer summer sea surface temperature on the outer coast from California to SE Alaska in 2007, which "was likely poor for local marine life."
However, in February 2008, sampling by a research ship found increased concentrations of nutrients and a deepened mixed layer in the ocean, similar to the pattern of the strong La Nina of 1999.
Zooplankton species shifted to cool-ocean types in 2007, from the warmer water species of the previous report, which means better food for young fish, and contributes to larger body size and higher energy content.
The report also noted that warm-water loving hake populations off BC have declined 27 percent since 2005--and closest to the lowest recorded biomass seen in 2001. That's more good news for salmon, since hake are thought to be a heavy predator of young migrants. The hake survey also found populations had scattered, which might be related to the reduced abundance of their preferred food--T. spinifera, small, shrimp-like crustaceans. The presence of jumbo squid may also have scattered hake populations, since squid like to eat them.
Sardines had spread farther into northern BC waters, helped by a strong year-class from 2003 when waters were warm.
But herring populations on the west coast of Vancouver Island are at historically low levels, and researchers didn't expect that trend to turn around until predator numbers declined from the change in ocean conditions.
The report also noted that sockeye returns in the Fraser were extremely low in 2007. The low returns were "almost certainly" due to the unusually poor ocean conditions in 2005 once the fish left the river, which were worse in Georgia Strait than offshore. Fraser stocks are less influenced by La Ninas and El Ninos than coastal stocks because they enter the ocean in more protected estuarine waters. But these waters warm up later and stay warmer longer than the ocean-which generally means a delayed adverse effect from El Ninos. Marine survival of the Chilko Lake sockeye in 2005 tied for the second lowest in more than 50 years of recordkeeping. The Chilko is the largest producer on the Fraser system.
But a funny thing happened on the way to the Gulf of Alaska. In another report published recently by Canadian fish scientists, they were happy to report, but truly mystified by the huge 2007 juvenile sockeye migration from the lake. At about 78 million smolts, that is about twice the previous highs in the mid-1990s. "Something truly mysterious began in 2005 that made Chilko Lake far more friendlier for sockeye salmon than normal."
They said at the lowest marine survivals they've even observed, the Chilko return would still be around one million fish. At average survival, it would be around 6 million, and if better-than-average, as they consider 2007 to be, "what a spectacular vintage it will be." -B. R.
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