[4] Feds Back Down From Their No-Spill Spring Barging Strategy

NOAA Fisheries said it will go along with an independent science panel's recommendation to spill more water and barge fewer fish next year, even though it will likely kill more of them in the long run.

According to documents filed Dec. 17 in the ongoing litigation over the hydro BiOp, the federal agency said it would back off from its maxed-out fish barging policy for two weeks in May. Spill at three lower Snake dams was originally slated to stop for a two-week period in May to corral more juvenile chinook and steelhead for the barges.

The maxed-out barging scenario was one of the fish operations spelled out in the new BiOp released last May. But the feds decided to change the operation after a Dec. 12 meeting with agencies and sovereign parties gave them all a chance to hear from a member of the Independent Scientific Advisory Board about the "spill versus transport" question before they weighed in on three options.

The ISAB had recommended in a recent report that some spill be maintained during the May barging season to accommodate its concerns. Board members were worried ESA-listed Snake River sockeye may survive better by migrating inriver than by being barged.

In its report, the ISAB did note it didn't have much to back up that hunch--only some sporadic data about descaling at dam bypass systems. Nor did the ISAB cite any conclusive research that backed up the recommendation of using spill as the default mode of passage at the dams.

The board also said more spill was probably helpful to lamprey migration. And by keeping more young salmonids in the river, it speculated that their sheer numbers might swamp fish predators and actually improve their overall survival.

The federal agencies discussed several spill/transport options at the Dec. 12 meeting. Option 1 was to implement the BiOp; Option 2 called for modifying the spill/transport policy for one year, and reevaluating after garnering another year of adult return data. Option 3 called for modifying operations for two years.

The feds were recommending the second option. In a declaration filed Dec. 17 by Corps biologist Rock Peters, the Action Agencies and NMFS said they had decided to implement Option 2.

"The process to arrive at this decision for spill and transport in 2009 exemplifies the effectiveness of the 2008 adaptive management provisions," said Peters in his filing, "and more importantly, the continued emphasis by the Action Agencies to collaborate on the best available scientific information, and solicit and consider the views of the sovereigns in the RIOG [Regional Implementation Oversight Group] process."

The RIOG is a creature of the new BiOp. It's something like the old Implementation Team, but now combined with the Policy Work Group, the collaboration of agencies and sovereigns that hashed out issues in the new BiOp.

The ISAB report had put the agencies between the proverbial rock and a hard place over the spill/transport issue. But the agencies were loath to neglect the science panel's recommendations after using previous ISAB findings to support their positions before BiOp Judge James Redden.

The feds had used other ISAB recommendations from earlier reports to back up the use of their fish passage model [COMPASS] and the way they treated the "latent mortality" question in their analyses of dam operations on ESA-listed fish populations.

In fact, according to a Dec. 17 declaration filed in Redden's court, NMFS hydro division branch chief Ritchie Graves pointed out that the COMPASS model estimated that average relative smolt-to adult return rates back to Lower Granite Dam would be reduced by about 1 percent for spring chinook and 6 percent for steelhead by modifying the barging plan next year.

But he pointed out that the "operational adjustment" wouldn't affect the overall conclusions in the BiOp across its 10-year time frame.

Furthermore, Graves said "the impacts of the operation are likely to be mitigated because ocean trends have been favorable in recent years and there is no indication at present that these trends will be reversed in 2009--meaning that SARs will likely be higher for 2009 outmigrants than the 'average' estimates in the COMPASS modeling would predict (about 0.9 percent for chinook and 1.8 percent for steelhead)."

Back in October, when the spill/transport issue was raised at the monthly IT meeting, the feds were singing a different tune. At the time, Bruce Suzumoto, assistant regional administrator for NOAA Fisheries, characterized the difference between the ISAB recommendation and the feds' original position as "trading uncertainty for real benefits."

The battle over the 2008 BiOp will continue Mar. 6, when oral arguments are scheduled in Judge Redden's courtroom. -B. R.

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