[1] New El Niño Heading For An Ocean Near You
El Niño conditions are returning to the equatorial Pacific and waters are expected to continue warming for some months to come, NOAA scientists announced last week.
Already, sea surface temperatures are more than 1 degree C above average in some areas. But a July 9 statement from NOAA's Climate Prediction Center said model forecasts didn't agree over how strong the warming trend will be.
"Current and recent trends," it said, "favor the continued development of a weak-to-moderate strength El Niño into the Northern Hemisphere in Fall 2009, with further strengthening possible thereafter."
The warming episode means that July-September precipitation is expected to be above average over the central and west-central Pacific, with drier conditions over Indonesia.
Closer to home, NOAA expects little change in U.S. precipitation and temperature levels during the summer and early fall, but more precipitation and warmer weather is expected for late fall and the coming winter.
A NOAA press release pointed out that El Niño impacts may include positives like reducing hurricane activity in the Atlantic and providing more rain to the arid Southwest.
But an El Niño also increases the probability of strong winter storms in California and across the southern U.S., and warming of the Pacific Ocean, which hurts salmon productivity.
Off the West Coast, the extra-cold ocean water of the past couple of years that has boosted salmon survival has subsided. Now, much of the near ocean is showing average sea surface temperatures for this time of year.
NOAA Fisheries ocean researcher Bill Petersen, who is based in Newport, Ore., said it is difficult to know just what effects the new El Niño will have in the North Pacific.
"It's a little scary," he said.
But so far, relatively good conditions for salmon still exist offshore, even though the lack of northerly winds in June led to little upwelling. Upwelling conditions help boost biological productivity by bringing up nutrients from deep waters that trigger plankton blooms and start the food chain rattling every spring.
Petersen said the kinds of plankton normally found in northern waters, the best chow for young salmon, are still showing up off the Pacific coast.
"Things are holding together," Petersen told NW Fishletter, though the June survey cruise by NOAA scientists turned up only average to above-average numbers of young salmonids in nearby waters. In May, they saw higher numbers than ever before.
Petersen said ocean conditions are definitely less productive than last year, but with the North Pacific in a strongly negative PDO [Pacific Decadal Oscillation] phase, El Niños tend to be a lot less powerful. He said it may only amount to a "little downturn" in the good conditions of the past several years.
"We still expect a big chinook run next year," Petersen said.
The region should get used to fairly sudden changes in ocean regimes, Petersen said, because they are happening more often, and it's likely a result of climate change.
NOAA scientist Ed Casillas said the latest trawl survey also turned up high numbers of juvenile coho and sockeye. He said the NMFS system for describing ocean indicators has been downgraded a little, from mostly green last year, to between yellow and green.
NOAA's El Niño forecast was seconded by Australia's Bureau of Meteorology, which said conditions had reached such a point in the equatorial Pacific, that should they persist for the next four months, they would consider 2009 an El Niño year.
The Aussies said climate models showed little chance that the warming would stall or reverse, noting some sub-surface sea water temperatures were up to 4 degrees C above average, with a large volume of warmer-than-normal subsurface water evident across the equatorial Pacific. -B. R.
[2] BPA-Funded Acoustic-Tag Study Gets Nod From Peer Review
The number of dams salmon smolts must pass on their migration to the sea has little impact on their long-term survival, according to new research published June 30 in the peer-reviewed Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences.
For years, most state and tribal biologists held the opposite view, namely, that the more dams young fish encounter during their migration, the more stress they accumulate, which leads them to die at a higher rate at some point in the future. But biologists have never been able to prove their hypothesis.
The work is the result of years of preparation by Canadian researcher and consultant David Welch, head of Vancouver, B.C.-based Kintama Research. Welch has led an effort to develop a deep sea ocean tracking system on the continental shelf, called POST (Pacific Ocean Shelf Tracking), and is partly funded by BPA (about $7 million through the end of this year).
Welch co-authored the report with Ph.D. candidate Erin Rechisky and has reported on his findings before, but mostly in non-peer-reviewed settings, such as the Northwest Power and Conservation Council.
The article reports results from acoustic-tag tracking data collected in 2006 from two groups of juvenile salmon, one from the Yakima River that crossed four dams and another from the Snake that crossed eight dams before they reached the sea. The two groups showed nearly identical survivals--about 29 percent plus or minus four or five percent--to a point north of Willapa Bay, off the southwest Washington coast, where an acoustic detection array was placed on the bottom.
Welch used Yakima fish because their smolt-to-adult return rates were thought to be generally quite higher than fish from the Snake, though, in recent years, there has been some questioning of that notion from adult PIT-tag returns.
Welch reported his preliminary results in late 2006, after he successfully lobbied the Power Council for adequate funding, following efforts by state and tribal fish agencies that actively sought to cut his BPA money in half.
That year, some of his detection samples were extremely small, especially off the site at the northern end of Vancouver Island.
In the latest article, the authors reported that some acoustic-tagged chinook were reported at arrays off Vancouver Island and Southeast Alaska in 2006. But the low numbers of detections and the fact that smolts arrived at both locations within two days of the arrays' deployment kept them from making reliable survival estimates at these points.
"However," the researchers wrote, "the detection of four Snake and two Yakima smolts on the Vancouver line, some 1,500 km distant from the release site (30 days travel time from Willapa Bay for both populations), and the detection of two Snake River smolts on the Alaska line (and none from the Yakima population), some 2,500 km from the release site, is inconsistent with the delayed mortality hypothesis."
Over the years, Welch has had plenty of critics. Both federal scientists and the Fish Passage Center have panned his work, mostly for using young fish that are too big to be representative of the general populations.
But it couldn't be helped. Welch's group had to raise them extra big to contain the large tag and battery that was surgically implanted in each fish. The batteries lasted for several months.
The extra time it took to rear them also meant they migrated downstream a couple weeks later than the populations they had come from. That raised another issue--if the different groups didn't enter the ocean at the same time, their survival rates may not reflect similar ocean conditions, where predator populations come and go.
Ocean entry timing plays a huge factor in ultimate survival, according to NMFS PIT-tag research, which has shown that differences of only a week or two can easily double or triple survival to adulthood, depending on the vagaries of nutrient upwelling and predator movement, especially when waters are warmer.
Others have pointed out that differences in mortality between the two groups might show up later, and the newly minted paper acknowledges this possibility--"the survival disparity observed in adult return rates may develop later in the marine life history phase."
The authors acknowledged their study limitations--the large fish (longer than 140 mm) and the two-week-late release, as well as the non-simultaneous arrival for the two populations to the array off Willapa Bay--and said these issues will be addressed in future work.
The authors said it is plausible that delayed mortality may operate on smaller fish, but their findings showed that "the number of dams passed within a migration segment did not affect survival" and also backed up other findings showing direct inriver survival has improved in recent decades, "possibly to the level of an undammed river."
The new paper referred to a 2008 peer-reviewed publication of Welch's group that looked at smolt survival in the Fraser and Columbia rivers and found them comparable.
Regional scientists have been arguing about that ever since December 2005, when Welch presented the initial findings from his 2004-2005 Fraser data to the Power Council. The preliminary data indicated chinook survivals in the undammed B.C. river were similar to the highly impounded Columbia/Snake system.
Welch does like to shake things up, and he's had heated debates with some other agencies, mainly the Corps of Engineers, over the direction of acoustic-tag research. The Corps uses smaller tags for smaller fish, but they can only be used in fresh water. And there is some question about how they perform compared to PIT tags--some evidence shows that the Corps' inriver acoustic survival data tracks 10 percent or more lower than PIT-tag data.
Last winter, Welch invited himself to the Corps of Engineers' annual research review in Portland, and presented his latest results, including 2008's preliminary findings that showed two similar groups of smolts both showed similar survival rates all the way up the coast to the northwest tip of Vancouver Island.
At that time, he reported that 11 percent of the acoustically-tagged Snake smolts that migrated inriver were detected in his receiver array off the northwest tip of the island, compared to 9.3 percent of the barged Snake fish, and nearly 11 percent of the inriver migrating Yakima fish.
Welch told NW Fishletter that a new paper is in the works that deals with his 2008 data.
The new paper says it is still unclear whether the entire size range of the Yakima and Snake fish, along with wild fish, show similar survival and behavior to the smolts in this study, but the authors called it a "significant scientific milestone because the POST array allowed for a direct test of a key hypothesis concerning delayed mortality of a population of Snake River spring chinook in the ocean."
They said future improvements in design will allow them to study marine survival throughout the size range of the Snake spring chinook and other ESA-listed salmon in the Columbia Basin. -B. R.
[3] Idaho Sockeye Numbers Beating Last Year's Record
With another excellent sockeye run entering the Columbia River, most are heading for the upper Columbia and beyond--to southeastern British Columbia's Lake Osoyoos.
But a few are peeling off and heading to the Snake River and Idaho's Redfish Lake, far up into the Sawtooth Range, where they lay claim as the southernmost sockeye run on the Pacific coast. The Redfish Lake run is the product of an expensive captive broodstock program designed to bring the stock back from the brink.
Last year, more than 600 made it to the weir near the lake, 462 miles past Lower Granite Dam, where 900 or so were counted. In all, it's a 900-mile freshwater migration.
And so far this year, the news is good as well. By July 13, 914 sockeye had been counted at Lower Granite, compared to 691 last year, nearly 30 percent higher. The run is a little earlier than last year, with strong daily counts still showing.
Back in 2007, only 34 had been counted by now, and in 2006, 7 sockeye had made it past the dam by July 12. The final dam tally for those years was 52 and 17, respectively.
The Redfish Lake sockeye was the first salmon run to be listed for ESA protection in the Columbia Basin, back in 1991.
Since then, returns have been mostly meager until last year, when a relative bonanza showed up. Some fish managers credited most of the increase to added spill for juvenile migrants, but a hard look by federal scientists said the improved ocean conditions were likely the main influence.
They estimated that about 600 Snake-bound sockeye would enter the Columbia this year.
Last March, Idaho Department of Fish and Game biologist Paul Klein told the Northwest Power and Conservation Council that 2008's count of sockeye jacks at Lower Granite could mean even better adult returns this year. About 900 adults and jacks were counted there.
He wouldn't speculate about the size of this year's run because of the uncertain relationship between sockeye jacks and adults returning the following year. But in 2000, when 300 adults made it to the dam (the previous high), seven jacks were seen the year before, he said.
However, 150 jacks were counted last year. Klein said the lack of data keeps biologists from developing a relationship between jack numbers and adults, but he expected this year's sockeye return to be at least as good as last year's and possibly higher.
But a few will still be nabbed by fishermen. With around 400 gillnets counted in the treaty fisheries above the dam, tribal fishers were expected to catch about 10,000 sockeye by July 2, along with 12,000 summer chinook and 355 steelhead.
The ESA-impact limit on sockeye for the treaty fishery is 7 percent, and only 1 percent for non-treaty fishers. -B. R.
[4] Obama Administration Gets More Time To Study BiOp
BiOp Judge James Redden granted the Obama administration another 45 days to study the latest hydro BiOp, after Justice Department attorneys requested extending a June 30 deadline.
The DOJ's June 19 letter to the judge noted that the new leadership conducted listening sessions May 26 with technical personnel and sovereign parties, and planned another session June 25 for non-sovereign parties to the BiOp litigation.
The feds now say they will advise the court of the administration's leadership perspectives on the BiOp and "on whether further discussions are warranted."
The new administration has three choices--to defend the BiOp as is, work with plaintiffs on a settlement, or toss it out and start all over again.
In the end, it comes down to whether they accept the judgment of their own scientists, or side with plaintiff environmental and fishing groups, Oregon and the Nez Perce Tribe, who support long-standing beliefs in more flow, spill and dam breaching.
New NOAA head Jane Lubchenco was in Portland for the May 26 session, and sources said she is taking a special interest in the scientific issues related to the latest salmon plan.
However, at this stage, all parties are still where they were in April, committed to jointly exploring "all legal avenues" for settling on a BiOp.
The June 25 session had several defendant- and plaintiff-intervenors in Washington, D.C., for a chance to air their perspectives, after a recent media blitz by both sides on the salmon plan and the pros and cons of breaching Snake River dams.
Terry Flores, executive director of Northwest RiverPartners, headed back to D.C., after the alliance of ports, farmers and businesses issued a statement saying they were counting on the new administration "to send a strong signal to the judge in favor of the BiOp. That signal has the potential to put the Northwest on a positive path toward salmon recovery. Without it, there is a great risk of more extensive litigation, involving not just this BiOp, but others covering harvest and the Upper Snake River/Nez Perce agreement, which are linked to it."
They said though the 10-year plan's $10-billion cost "hasn't been easy to swallow, we've accepted it as part of an historic opportunity to bring about a resolution to litigation and provide constructive actions to help fish."
Earthjustice attorney Todd True, along with attorneys for the state of Oregon and the Nez Perce Tribe, penned a June 24 letter to Redden emphasizing the need, in their view, "for actual, substantive engagement by the new administration and federal agencies" and themselves, "to explore options for resolving our differences and developing a comprehensive solution, both for the future of ESA-listed salmon and steelhead and to address federal, state, tribal and other concerns."
In a May 18 letter to all parties, Redden applauded the new administration for its "efforts to become more fully engaged in the complex issues presented in this case," then laid out a slew of recommendations for a possible settlement. That letter destroyed the optimistic sentiments most BiOp defenders nurtured after his March hearing, where he told everyone that it "was a pretty good BiOp."
Redden also suggested more flow and spill at dams, more habitat actions, and the inclusion of a contingency plan for the listed stocks that includes the study of breaching the four lower Snake dams, if habitat improvements and other actions fail to keep the stocks from avoiding jeopardy.
In short, it seems that Redden is prepared to deny the salmon plan as is. In his letter, Redden reiterated his concerns over the feds' analysis, and said their conclusion that all 13 listed ESUs in the Columbia Basin were heading toward recovery was "arbitrary and capricious" for a bevy of reasons.
He also complained that the feds had not offered a "rational explanation" for why the BiOp calls for spilling less water than his temporary court order that is in effect again this spring and summer.
The feds are privately scratching their heads over this one, since they have already argued in Redden's court that their survival passage analysis shows that ESA-listed steelhead would benefit from less spill and more barging for several weeks in May.
An independent panel of scientists had earlier agreed with the feds' appraisal, which also found little to no correlation between spill and adult returns. But the panel said more barging might hurt ESA-listed sockeye, although they acknowledged there was no data to support that conclusion.
The judge sided with the science panel's recommendations, which irked some, who felt the panel had strayed out of scientific matters and into the policy arena.
Now, federal scientists may be in an awkward position with the new administration, if it wants to placate the judge, since they can't very well discount their previous computer passage analyses. In fact, it has been reported that a recent update of their spill and transport research, using data from 2006 and 2007 adult fish returns, adds even more weight to their original conclusion.
But the judge wants the feds to agree to spill more water over the 10-year life of the BiOp. That could be a deal breaker, since NMFS officials say privately that would doom millions of ESA-listed young steelhead that would have otherwise made it to adulthood by being barged downstream. All out of concern for potential adverse effects on a few hundred hatchery-raised ESA-listed sockeye?
A few years ago, a similar panel of independent scientists suggested pulling the plug on the entire program for the Redfish Lake sockeye captive broodstock program, because the stock was too far gone to be saved by the questionable supplementation effort.
Some say they trust Lubchenco to stick with her troops, but others caution that at this stage in the evolution of the region's latest BiOp, the science has definitely been trumped by political considerations. -Bill Rudolph
[5] Managers Tweak Sockeye, Summer Chinook Run Estimates
Columbia Basin harvest managers took a fresh look at ongoing salmon runs in the Columbia River and decided the summer run will not meet their preseason expectations of 71,000 fish (to river mouth).
By July 12, about 42,500 summer chinook had been counted at Bonneville Dam. The managers figure now that about only 55,000 will enter the river this year, after tweaking their preseason estimate a week ago to 58,000, Now it's expected to come in about 23 percent below the preseason number.
Most of those fish are of hatchery origin and are bound for the upper Columbia. Since they are not listed for ESA protection, a fair amount have been harvested. Tribal fishers in Zone 6 above Bonneville split the harvest allocation 50-50 with non-tribal fishers, and Colville and Wanapum tribal fishers further upriver.
The Zone 6 fishery was expected to catch about 11,600 summer chinook by July 11, along with 10,000 sockeye. About 5,000 summers have been caught in non-Indian sport and commercial fisheries below Bonneville Dam.
On July 6, the managers had bumped up their expectations for sockeye by a small amount--to 190,000 from about 184,000. But that has been revised to 185,000.
By July 12, the Bonneville sockeye tally added up to more than 174,000--about 100,000 fish above the 10-year average. Most are headed for British Columbia's Lake Osoyoos, and some for Lake Wenatchee, with a trickle headed up the Snake for Idaho's Redfish Lake.
Future sockeye runs in the Columbia may get a boost from a new program sponsored by the Yakama Nation that plans on trapping 500 pair of sockeye at Priest Rapids Dam and releasing them in Lake Cle Elum, far up the Yakima watershed. The first batch of sockeye was transferred last week.
The 200,000-fish sockeye run in the Yakima watershed was extirpated more than a hundred years ago after the irrigation storage system was developed without fish passage at local dams.
"The restoration of sockeye salmon to the Yakima River Basin is a significant step for the people of the Yakama Nation," said Ralph Sampson, Jr., chairman of the Yakama Nation.
"For centuries, the sockeye took care of our people until it was carelessly extirpated from this river. From this day forward this precious resource will once again call the Yakima River and these beautiful mountain lakes and streams home," he said.
The tribe has already started a program to raise coho in the lake, and has developed a temporary outlet for migrating smolts. But a flume designed to get fish out of the lake only works now if the lake refills.
The Bureau of Reclamation and the Washington State Department of Ecology are working on an EIS for modifying the dam at the lake for juvenile fish passage. There are plans to build a tower that will allow the fish to leave even when lake levels aren't at their maximum. However, returning adults would still have to be trapped and hauled back into the lake.
The tribe is also working with WDFW to evaluate a supplementation effort to restore fish populations above the dam. -B. R.
[6] New Date Set For Klamath Agreement; Oregon Bill Signed
Parties in negotiations over the future of PacifiCorp's Klamath River hydroelectric project have targeted Sept. 1 as the new date for a final agreement. The previous target, announced as part of an Agreement in Principle last November, was June 30.
Mike Carrier, the Natural Resource Policy Director for Oregon Governor Ted Kulongoski, said a codicil formally extending the date was still being circulated for final signatures as of June 30, but that staff to the four AIP parties--the states of Oregon and California, the Department of Interior and PacifiCorp--had agreed on the new date.
The AIP includes a clause allowing any signatory to withdraw from the agreement if the June 30 deadline is missed, unless all agree to an extension. Carrier said none of the parties expressed a desire to withdraw.
Although only the four principal parties signed the AIP, 22 other basin interests are involved in the negotiations and are expected to sign the final agreement.
Carrier said the negotiations took longer than expected because of the number of parties involved and because Oregon was busy with its legislative session. Others said delays were added due to the time it took the Obama administration to get appointments made and policies reviewed.
Carrier said the parties are "making great progress."
PacifiCorp affirmed that the parties are "close to a final settlement," although it warned there were still "significant mile posts along the way" and that passions in the basin "present an immense challenge to reaching reasonable peace and compromise."
In what critics have called its least workable element, the AIP calls for a "non-federal" entity to assume liability for dam removal. Carrier said "we continue to have that discussion" and that the parties have looked at a number of different options; other sources confirmed that provision remains a "sticky wicket."
The parties also appear to be negotiating a change to the deadline for the Secretary of Interior's determination that dam removal benefits outweigh the costs and risk. The AIP sets that deadline for March 31, 2012. But parties are wary of extending the deadline too long, and don't want to push it so far that that the deal risks being subjected to the review of another new presidential administration in 2013.
"I am anxious to see this thing wrapped up," said Craig Tucker, spokesman for the Karuk Tribe, which is one of the 22 parties negotiating the final agreement. He said if the new Sept. 1 deadline does not stand, the parties may risk losing federal funding for the studies Interior plans to conduct to inform the Secretary's determination. The economic stimulus bill allocated $4 million toward such studies.
In the meantime, Kulongoski signed Oregon Senate Bill 76--required under the AIP--which authorizes Oregon ratepayers' share of the removal costs. SB 76 allows PacifiCorp to rate-base up to $200 million in removal-related costs. It passed the House 34 to 24 on June 12 and the Senate 19 to 9 on June 22.
Under the AIP, California voters also must approve a general obligation bond for $250 million for that state's share of the costs. Some parties are worried about that element, as California wants to fold the bond into a much larger $15 billion bond measure aimed at funding construction of the Peripheral Canal--an ambitious plan to divert water directly from the Sacramento River to the San Joaquin Valley so as to bypass the San Joaquin delta--hub of the State Water Project--where fresh water withdrawals endanger a species of smelt. Parties are worried about the prospects for passage of such a large bond measure at a time when California is in serious economic crisis and are suspicious that California wants to add the Klamath element as way to "green-up" the combined bond measure.
Another party to the negotiations, the Hoopa Valley Tribe, remains annoyed that PacifiCorp has not filed interim conservation measures promised last November in the AIP and in letters the US Fish & Wildlife Service and NMFS sent to PacifiCorp, which cited "our mutual understanding for the immediate implementation" of the measures. The Tribe has sued in the DC Circuit to have conditions filed by BLM implemented immediately as interim measures.
"The AIP discussions are a road to nowhere," said Hoopa Valley attorney Tom Schlosser. "It's a plan for delay." He said the agreement to push back the date for the final agreement reinforces the Tribe's position. -Ben Tansey
[7] Condit Removal Delayed Again; PacifiCorp Cites Permits
Delays in securing permits prompted PacifiCorp in May to notify FERC it has again pushed the date to commence removal of the 14 MW Condit project back another year. Progress was made this month when the state of Washington released findings that are expected to accelerate issuance of a water quality certification, but the plan still faces local opposition among its host counties.
Dam removal has the potential to restore 32.4 miles of new steelhead habitat and 15.3 miles of new salmon habitat. The 97-year-old project is on White Salmon River, a tributary to the Columbia River in south central Washington (FERC No. 2342). Its previous license expired in 1993.
Under the original 23-party settlement agreement signed Sept. 22, 1999, the dam was to be removed in October 2006 for a total cost of $17.1 million. But by 2005, the estimated $2 million for permitting and mitigation costs had ballooned to $5.3 million (all 1999 dollars), so the parties agreed to push the date back to 2008 to give the project time to generate a share of the increased cost. Then in May 2008, PacifiCorp said it had to push commencement of removal to October of 2009 due to permitting delays. For aquatic purposes, October is the best time to begin removal.
But on May 20, PacifiCorp told FERC it needs still more time. The settlement on removal is contingent on having all the permits in, the utility noted; and to date, three remain outstanding--a dredge-and-fill permit from the Army Corps of Engineers; FERC's decommissioning authorization; and a Section 401 water quality certification permit from the Washington Department of Ecology (DOE).
After the permits are secured, it's estimated that it will take nine months to allow any appeals to run their course and complete procurement and mobilization of a contractor. The licensee "is hopeful that it can obtain final permits in time to allow dam removal to commence in October 2010." In the meantime, Condit will continue to generate power.
"No one is happy that it's getting pushed back another year, including PacifiCorp," said Rich Bowers of the Hydro Reform Coalition, which represents settlement signatories such as American Rivers and Trout Unlimited. "But we understand. The permit process just bumped it out of the construction phase. We hope it won't be delayed any further."
The settlement caps permitting and mitigation costs at $5.3 million. PacifiCorp project manager Todd Olson said the total cost of the removal package is now $28 million in 2009 dollars. "We hope it will come in around that, but won't know until we get contractors bidding on the work."
There is also the possibility that the host counties, Klickitat and Skamania--neither of which signed the settlement--will resist. Both oppose dam removal, "but if the dam is to be removed, it must be in the most environmentally sensitive way," said P. Stephen DiJulio, the counties' special deputy prosecuting attorney. "The counties are particularly opposed and will challenge the 'blow and go' method that is currently advocated by PacifiCorp."
PacifiCorp originally wanted to relicense the project, but decided to go the removal route in 1996 after FERC issued a final EIS estimating that a new license would likely include fish passage and other conditions costing $30 million in 1996 dollars, which is equal to approximately $40 million in 2009 dollars.
On May 12 of this year, PacifiCorp withdrew and immediately resubmitted its Section 401 permit application to give DOE more time to complete processing. It was the ninth time the 401 permit has been withdrawn and refiled. As a precursor to the 401, DOE published a draft supplemental environmental impact statement (SEIS) on Sept. 30, 2005, and said it would publish a final SEIS in March 2006. In January 2005, state officials reported "considerable progress," but didn't publish a final SEIS until March 2007.
Before March was out, however, DOE received information that mercury levels in the sediments of the lake created by the dam were higher than originally thought. State and federal agencies worried how the release of such sediments during dam removal would impact aquatic resources, so a second SEIS was ordered.
Over two years later, on June 5, 2009, DOE released its report on the mercury issue. It found "the release of the material during dam removal would actually reduce risks from the mercury by making it less likely to accumulate in fish," and that concentrations "would be sufficiently diluted" upon entering the Columbia River that neither DOE's standard for aquatic life nor EPA's for the protection of human health would be exceeded. It proposed no new mitigation measures and is taking comment on the report through July 20.
The report also evaluated the settlement parties' new plan to place concrete from the dam in the "bench" cut along a nearby hillside for the flowline, instead of merely storing it in one or two piles and covering it over.
A DOE spokeswoman said it's unclear when the final second SEIS will come out. But while DOE has until next May to complete the Section 401 permit, she said it hopes to issue it by the end of this year.
Meantime, the Army Corps is waiting to see the 401 permit before it will issue a 404 permit.
Release of DOE's mercury report came after PacifiCorp notified FERC of the most recent delays but didn't change its assessment of the timeline. PacifiCorp's Olson said the mercury report serves to "break loose the rest of the agencies to get moving." He expects the 401 and Army Corps permits this summer and a FERC order by year's end, setting the table for removal to begin in October 2010.
FERC has taken no substantive action on the removal plan since issuing a declaratory order in May 2005. In that ruling, the commission affirmed that the Federal Power Act pre-empts all local jurisdictions, but nevertheless added that it could not give prospective assurance that FERC would not require the licensee to comply with any local county ordinances. "To the extent that state or local regulations make compliance with our orders impossible or unduly difficult, we will conclude that such regulations are pre-empted," FERC wrote.
PacifiCorp maintains the declaratory order means it does not have to get state or county permit approvals, but that FERC may opt to include them if it feels they don't conflict with its surrender order. But the host counties--Klickitat and Skamania--reject PacifiCorp's interpretation of the declaratory order.
PacifiCorp said it went ahead and applied for county permits in June 2007, "not because such permits are required," but because it wanted to find out what requirements the counties would like to see imposed as part of FERC's surrender order.
The counties responded in September 2007, saying their ordinances require PacifiCorp to reimburse their costs to process the permit applications. PacifiCorp maintains that under the declaratory order, it does not have to comply with the reimbursement provision, but nevertheless requested an estimate. It received no response until it wrote again in June 2008.
According to PacifiCorp, the counties' counsel again disputed the meaning of the declaratory order and accused PacifiCorp of acting in bad faith by maintaining its interpretation. PacifiCorp denied the assertion of bad faith and reiterated its desire "to work collaboratively with the counties" to see what requirements they want imposed.
The parties finally met last September, and in November the counties sent a proposed reimbursement agreement. They said that based on other large-scale projects that have been undertaken in the counties, the cost of the permit review could exceed $50,000.
PacifiCorp asked for a more specific "good faith" estimate of the cost and scope of the review. In March, the counties wrote back, saying they had already done so. They added that until a reimbursement deal is reached, or until PacifiCorp gets a FERC order explaining why the counties' land use review processing fee requirement is--in the declaratory order's words--"impossible or unduly difficult," their "review will continue to be delayed."
The counties' DiJulio said PacifiCorp has "refused to cooperate" because it has neither signed a reimbursement deal nor proffered an alternative. He said the counties can't provide the information PacifiCorp wants until the agreement is in place.
On June 11, PacifiCorp wrote the counties, at length parsing what it said were inaccuracies in the counties' March letter. The letter said the utility "regrets" that the counties are, for reasons it says are "unfounded," delaying review of the material it sent them. It said it is willing to fund up to $75,000 for the review and to work with the counties to help them develop conditions that FERC could include in the surrender. But it "is not willing to support the process of developing proposed decommissioning requirements if that process is allowed to devolve into an unnecessarily expensive or time-consuming exercise." It warned that if the counties delay much longer, FERC may simply go forward with a surrender order without their input.
The counties also have a beef with DOE, arguing the agency had no business signing the removal settlement in 1999. "They entered into an agreement for removal before even evaluating the impacts of that decision, which flies in the face of every state agency obligation" under the state Environmental Protection Act, DiJulio said.
"It is the position of the counties that DOE has been proceeding with the assumption that [removal] is a fait accompli" and that all DOE's reports have been "directed to dam removal." The agency has given no consideration to alternatives to the "blow and go" approach. Also, he said, there are now less expensive fish passage and more efficient trap-and-haul options than those FERC studied in its 1996 FEIS. -Ben Tansey
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