[5] Analysis: What Kind Of Bang For A Billion Salmon Bucks?

BPA has placed a billion-dollar bet that the new BiOp will pass judicial muster and lead to 10 years of stress-free salmon recovery, uncontested hydro operations and no more debate on dam breaching.

That's how much it will cost ratepayers to bring several tribes and a few states on board the 2008 BiOp boat. And that doesn't include any guarantee that the strategy will work.

In return for supporting the federal plan, the tribes will each get millions in recovery dollars to pay for improvements to unlisted salmon stocks, lamprey, and overall tributary improvements that most say will benefit all stocks.

In fact, the feds claim that 70 percent of that billion dollars will help listed stocks, though it may be hard to prove, since the deal isn't project-specific past 2010. But that doesn't necessarily mean lots more fish. By tweaking the tribes' own accounting, the region will be lucky to see 20,000 more fish from habitat improvements paid for by you and me.

That's where new hatcheries come in. The deal with tribes calls for spending $80 million to $90 million in new supplementation efforts (using hatchery fish to boost wild runs) to expand harvest opportunities. And though it is up to NMFS to judge whether any of these new projects would adversely affect the recovery of ESA-listed stocks, it's unlikely they will drop the hammer on any of the new projects.

Back in May, the Native Fish Society's Bill Bakke expressed doubts about the value of the deal's hatchery improvements. He is even more pessimistic today.

Bakke called the latest review of Columbia Basin hatchery operations "a professional whitewash," and the whole salmon recovery program "bogus." And he is more worried than ever that the expanded supplementation effort could put ESA-listed stocks in even more jeopardy.

And he's not the only one who is worried.

The independent scientists who review salmon recovery issues have never been sold on the value of supplementation and still consider it an iffy proposition at best.

But the three lower Columbia tribes disagree. In their latest court filing supporting the new BiOp, their deal with BPA and the expanded use of hatchery fish to supplement wild chinook runs, the tribes say that the spring runs in the Yakima, Teanaway, Tucannon, Walla Walla, Umatilla and Grande Ronde rivers have all improved. So have fall chinook runs in the Snake and coho runs in the Yakima and mid-Columbia, adding to wild steelhead runs in the Umatilla, they claim.

Time will tell who's right.

The feds say the deal cements the "reasonably certain to occur" funding for habitat restoration that BiOp Judge James Redden found wanting way back when he threw out the 2000 BiOp and began the remand process that has led to the latest salmon plan.

So what's not to like?

Well for one thing, the deal with the tribes secures another 10 years of funding for the Fish Passage Center, the very group that supplies most of the technical mumbo-jumbo used by environmental groups to confuse the judge in the never-ending litigation.

If I were a little more jaded, I might see that as enhanced job security as NewsData's fish reporter and fodder for another 10 years of NW Fishletters.

The good judge will be taking a tour of salmon projects on the John Day River Nov. 13 to see for himself what the region has been up to.

Another facet of the deal with the tribes is that it will likely survive even if the judge tosses out the latest BiOp. That's a scenario no one wants to entertain, since the hydro BiOp's demise could easily topple the new harvest agreement and Upper Columbia operations as well. That's an issue Columbia-Snake irrigators recently pointed out, and it also occupied a prominent place in the latest memo filed by federal attorneys.

The judge has signaled that he was more interested in securing project funding, rather than really caring what exactly was being funded.

However, BPA customers want something for the 4-percent rate hike that will pay for all this, and they have been pushing to ensure that projects outlined in the state and tribal agreements are scrutinized for scientific merit, just like other proposals in BPA's fish and wildlife program.

But that may not happen. As the tribes point out in their court filings, BPA has agreed to fund their projects whether or not they pass muster with the science panel and get a stamp of approval from the Northwest Power and Conservation Council.

Terry Flores, executive director of Northwest RiverPartners, said the tribes have a responsibility to make sure they spend the money wisely, especially if the science review gets sidetracked.

"It's a huge investment. But we are united with them in the desire to get more fish back," she said.

At this point, the Power Council is still struggling with the issue of independent scientific review for these new projects.

Just last week, BPA personnel and council staffers met with Warm Springs tribal attorney John Ogan to develop a guidance document for review of projects that come before the council outside of the standard process. A draft may be discussed at the November Council meeting in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho.

RiverPartners has already called for scientific review of each project, a position not originally shared by BPA. When the tribal MOA was announced last spring, BPA suggested a programmatic review would be more appropriate.

The agreement with the tribes says a variant of the original proposal may be substituted for the original if it doesn't pass muster, but the substitution is exempt from further review.

The individual merit of these projects is of less concern to some other long-time salmon/policy wonks, who say the expense is probably worth the paradigm shift it created in relations between the action agencies and the tribes, who have ended up with about one-third of the outrageous $300 million a year for 10 years that fish and wildlife managers had argued for just a few years ago. They said $3 billion was needed to satisfy all their funding needs.

At this point, the tribes who signed aboard for the BiOp's windfall funding bonanza seem to be pretty satisfied. But according to one regional F&W manager, they may just have a hard time figuring out how to spend all that money. --B. R.

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