[1] Administration Hopes BiOp Tweaks Will Satisfy Judge
Against an almost surreal backdrop of the increasing likelihood of absolutely huge salmon runs next year in the Columbia Basin, Obama administration officials said last Tuesday they will support the 2008 hydro BiOp. But they added some significant tweaks before sending it off to BiOp Judge James Redden for his review, hoping to get his final approval. The feds said their additions include a more precautionary approach to salmon recovery than the original plan, mainly due to uncertainties associated with climate change.
Environmental groups who had sued to have the "Bush" salmon plan thrown out were livid, and said the administration had reneged on its word to put science first in all policy deliberations.
But NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco told reporters Sept. 15 that the science behind the salmon plan was solid, a decision she and other officials made after spending months weighing the strengths and weaknesses of the third try by federal agencies to pass the judge's muster since 2000.
Back in May, Judge Redden made some strong recommendations to federal agencies about what would be needed before he would OK the salmon plan, despite the fact that most states and Basin tribes already supported it, and BPA had committed an added billion dollars to pay for it over the next 10 years.
Lubchenco said the points raised by the judge have been addressed, as well as concerns by others. But the administration still didn't give the judge everything he wanted, and the big question is whether they have done enough for him to approve it, or will he side with environmental and fishing groups, the state of Oregon and the Nez Perce Tribe, who all say it should be thrown out.
It has been tough for policymakers to read Judge Redden's intent. Back in March, he said it was a pretty good BiOp that needed some tweaks. However, in May, he confused policymakers when he added a whole slew of conditions that he strongly hinted must be satisfied before he would endorse the 2008 BiOp, including some contingency studies if the BiOp failed to improve ESA-listed stocks, that also looked at the possibility of breaching the four lower Snake dams.
NOAA's Lubchenco said the administration was committed to follow the science in its exhaustive review, a process that included listening to defendants and plaintiffs, intervenors, agency and independent scientists before the decision was made to keep the BiOp and strengthen it by the addition of an adaptive management implementation plan.
"The administration determined that the science underlying the opinion is fundamentally sound," said Lubchenco, "but there are uncertainties in some predictions regarding future conditions of the listed species. As a result, the administration has developed what we're calling an insurance policy for the fish as part of the biological opinion."
She said key additions are new contingency measures that could be triggered by significant declines in fish abundance, along with improved efforts to track and detect climate change and its effect on listed species.
With the added implementation plan, Lubchenco said the BiOp is biologically and legally sound, based on the best available scientific information, and that it satisfies the ESA jeopardy standard, another issue raised by the judge back in May.
She gave credit to the region for its general consensus, and thanked the judge for facilitating regional dialog and collaboration.
The NOAA administrator said the implementation plan has several main elements; accelerated and enhanced actions to protect species; enhanced research and monitoring to improve the certainty of information needed for decision-making; and two types of specific biological triggers for contingencies linked to declining abundance of listed fish, that will prevent further declines if some fish populations start dropping fast.
But fish populations would have to decline significantly before they got a closer look -- down to 20 percent of the four-year average return. At that point, potential "rapid response" actions would be readied to aid in the short-term, like more spill at dams, increased control of predators, reducing harvest, or cranking up safety net hatcheries.
Studies of long-term contingencies could be triggered if a population declined to 10 percent of its 4-year rolling average, implementing strong actions that would take longer to put in place, but have more overall effect. Lubchenco said these actions would be based on a comprehensive analysis of which populations were in trouble, and under which H (hatcheries, harvest, habitat, hydro) actions would be most beneficial.
"Possible breaching of the Snake River dams remains on the table in this plan, but it is considered a contingency of last resort, and would only be implemented if the analysis suggests that it is appropriate and would, in fact, be beneficial," Lubchenco said. Another long-term contingency is the possibility of drawing down John Day Reservoir.
In lengthy analyses during the production of the 2000 BiOp, the Corps of Engineers found that neither of these drastic actions would be needed to recover the ESA-listed stocks, and that was during a time when Snake stocks showed severe declines.
In the 1990s, Snake River spring chinook numbers dropped into that 10-percent range, after two strong El Ninos reduced both ocean and fresh water productivity. But after 1999, their numbers increased by an order of magnitude, aided by a strong La Nina, that sent ocean productivity skyrocketing. Since then, productivity has dipped, and bounced back again. In 2008, ocean productivity was the highest seen in over 20 years, and has led to record jack counts in the Columbia for both spring and fall chinook.
"It's pretty obvious that climate change is already under way and is expected to have very significant impacts on the Pacific Northwest, and therefore we felt it important to include that into our planning and our thinking," Lubchenco said.
She said enhanced monitoring will give fish managers a better idea when conditions may be changing for listed fish. She said contingency actions were designed to help respond to unforeseen developments, and a new life-cycle analysis of the salmon will help point out where in their life-cycle added actions would be more beneficial.
Lubchenco also stressed that the ongoing incorporation of science into the plan will allow agencies to take advantage of new developments of their understanding of climate change and how it may affect salmon.
The Corps of Engineers will start building a study plan for contingencies like dam breaching that is scheduled to be completed by March 2010. NOAA and other regional scientists will build the analytical tools to assess the impacts of the dams on salmon, so if a dropping population activates a severe decline trigger, an All-H analysis will be conducted to see if the dams are a factor.
Even if such an analysis is inconclusive, said Brig. General William Rapp, commander of the Corps' Northwestern Division, technical studies will be initiated to examine biological, environmental, and economic factors involved in breaching the dams. They will be completed within two years and give the Corps a basis to decide whether to go ahead and complete an EIS on breaching the dams, a necessary requirement before Congress could authorize the action, which could take another two or three years.
The feds may satisfy Judge Redden with their contingency studies, but they admit they are still at odds with the bench over other issues like the BiOp's jeopardy standard and his spill regime.
They are sticking with the BiOp's "trending towards recovery" jeopardy analysis, but they are changing some terminology. They argue that the BiOp's interpretation is correct because it follows in line with a recent Ninth Circuit Court decision that upheld the "survival with an adequate potential for recovery" interpretation of the survival and recovery prongs of the jeopardy standard (Salmon Spawning & Recovery Alliance v. NMFS, 2009).
In their Sept. 15 brief, the feds said, "To the extent there is any remaining confusion or concern that "trend towards recovery" is the legal standard, as described in our previous pleadings and incorporated here by reference, it is not, and any suggestion to the contrary, is incorrect."
The feds also said they will not automatically implement the court's added spill regime for the life of the BiOp because they still feel that it shortchanges overall Snake steelhead and spring chinook survival in May by barging fewer fish. The BiOp calls for ending spill at Snake dams for two weeks in May to maximize the transport of juvenile fish.
Now the feds say they will evaluate the data each year with members of the regional oversight group before a decision is made. They also said they will work with other parties to end spill at lower Snake dams before Aug. 31, because the benefits to fish are insignificant. By drawing out the action until the end of the month, they say the added spill costs several million dollars, and increases CO2 production from alternate energy sources, along with less ability to integrate wind power.
They also told the judge they won't be committing to additional flows for fish, noting that water temperature, not flow, is the most important factor in July and August, and that water from Dworshak Dam is doing a good enough job to cool the route for Snake fall chinook, "an ESU with remarkable recent return numbers."
As for the judge's questioning whether habitat improvement actions in the BiOp will actually result in predicted survival improvements, the feds said both tributary and estuary projects will be monitored annually, along with a comprehensive review every three years. If they find benefits were significantly overstated, they said replacement projects will be implemented to achieve the benefits that were originally estimated.
Utilities and river user groups were generally supportive of the administration's position, but they were not happy that the breaching contingency was included.
"Dam destruction already has been extensively studied and rejected, doing so again is a waste of time and money," said Terry Flores, executive director of Northwest RiverPartners. "It may not help and may even harm the four runs of listed fish on the Snake, and, in fact, is counterproductive because it would take away resources from efforts to protect all the listed resources."
But environmental groups were still trying to paint the plan as Bush-era thinking. "This Bush salmon plan appears to be inconsistent with President Obama's public statements about relying on sound science," said Bill Shake, former regional director for the United States Fish and Wildlife Service. "We scientists believed the President when he said he would protect science and strengthen the ESA, but Secretary Locke has seemingly allowed political pressure to circumvent a decision based on sound science. The federal agency action today is a true reversal of fortune for the Pacific Northwest economy, for an important American resource and endangered species, for communities that depend on salmon for their livelihood, and those who believe that policy should be based on science not politics. We had hoped for more because fishing families and communities deserve more."
Consultant Darryll Olsen, speaking for the Columbia-Snake Irrigators Association, said he was OK with the federal response to the judge's recommendations. He said plaintiffs have told the Justice Department they will not accept the feds' response as adequate and will likely ask for some form of injunctive relief.
Olsen said if Judge Redden rejects the BiOp, he would likely install his court oversight review committee, and call for more spending and other actions. If the judge throws out the salmon plan, Olsen said a clear decision path is open for defendant-intervenor groups to file a lawsuit against the 2008 harvest BiOp, which used the same jeopardy standard in its analysis as the hydro BiOp.
Plaintiffs are not about to give up. "We look forward to explaining to the Court just how little this latest effort accomplishes," said Earthjustice attorney Todd True. "We can do much better -- but not by trying to avoid the problems facing wild salmon in the Columbia and Snake rivers." -Bill Rudolph
[2] BiOp Plaintiffs Turned Down Settlement Talks
Plaintiff groups in the hydro BiOp litigation turned down an Aug. 17 invitation by the federal government to meet with "all parties" to see if a settlement over the 2008 salmon plan could be reached before the Obama administration announced its final position on the BiOp on Sept. 15. The feds suggested a mediator might help, as well.
But in their Aug. 19 response, plaintiffs said "no way," and presented a set of conditions to the feds before they would consider a meeting with only the feds minus "all parties."
The plaintiffs said it appeared the feds "either intentionally or unintentionally substantially misread" their position outlined in an earlier August filing in U.S. District Judge James Redden's court that called for a status conference.
They wanted a status conference--which necessarily includes all parties to the BiOp--to voice their concerns about the process the Obama administration was going through to develop its final position on the hydro BiOp.
Plaintiffs told the judge they had not had any "meaningful engagement" with agencies and the administration to determine whether further talks were warranted.
Up to that point, plaintiffs had presented their positions to administration officials in a pair of hour-long "listening sessions." Defendant-intervenors got equal time. Federal officials also heard from agency scientists and independent ones, as well, who weighed in on the scientific merit of the salmon plan.
However, after reviewing some documents and emails garnered through the FOIA process, plaintiffs said it was clear the administration was moving forward to accept the "Bush" salmon plan, and that deficiencies in the 2008 BiOp, identified by both plaintiffs and the judge, "apparently have been largely ignored or down-played."
The judge denied their request Aug. 12. Five days later, the administration offered to meet with "all parties."
Then plaintiff attorneys wanted the administration to put its position in writing before the feds' Sept. 15 deadline for reporting to the judge so their clients could review it before any possible meeting.
If they decided to meet with the feds, plaintiffs said they expected it to include only federal defendants and the National Wildlife Federation, the state of Oregon, and the Nez Perce Tribe, not "all parties."
They also wanted any potential facilitator to be appointed or approved by the court, not an employee or contractor employed by the feds, along with "clear, written assurance from the federal defendants committing to engage in substantive discussions about the elements we have consistently articulated as necessary to resolve this case."
Some of those elements were likely deal breakers for supporters of the salmon plan.
In May, Earthjustice attorneys sent a letter to the Obama administration echoing an earlier letter they sent to Redden calling for throwing out the "trending towards recovery" jeopardy standard used by the feds in the 2008 BiOp.
The attorneys said a revised analysis would show "in simple terms, how deep is the hole in which we find ourselves." They said it would also recognize the need for more flow and spill, seasonal reservoir drawdowns, and breaching the four lower Snake dams to avoid jeopardizing the ESA-listed salmon and steelhead stocks, along with more evaluation of habitat mitigation actions and effects of hatcheries and global warming.
Department of Justice attorneys Coby Howell and Bridget McNeil responded in an Aug. 25 letter saying the plaintiffs did not accurately represent the administration's efforts.
"Specifically, we would note that the Federal agencies have had meetings with your clients [Northwest Wildlife Federation, Oregon, Nez Perce Tribe] designed to further explain the Administration's current position and hear feedback from your clients," it said.
The feds' letter said those meetings included discussions with "high level administration officials," and "have allowed us to continue to modify our position as we move forward."
The feds said they would be willing to meet with the plaintiffs alone, but sovereign states and tribes that supported the BiOp still need to be consulted "and agree to any proposal resulting from such a meeting."
However, the feds flatly excluded any possibility of getting their position down on paper for the plaintiffs before the Sept. 15 date for reporting to the judge. They also said the other preconditions requested by the plaintiffs were not necessary "to a meaningful discussion on whether there is common ground that can be achieved, based on the Administration's review, and we are hopeful that you can agree to a discussion without these preconditions."
In a footnote, the feds said they had met individually with each plaintiff to explain the administration's process and position on the FCRPS BiOp, "so that you do have information to evaluate before determining whether you would like to meet with us further. We understand that it would be preferable to have this information in writing, but note that other parties, including the state of Oregon, have been able to provide input based on these oral presentations."
The feds suggested a Sept. 2 meeting in Portland. It was reported a meeting was actually held between Earthjustice attorneys and administration attorneys in Washington DC on that day, but the two sides found little common ground and no reason to continue talks. Soon after, word was trickling out that the Obama administration was going to stick with the overall BiOp, but adding some tweaks that would hopefully satisfy the judge. -B. R.
[3] Estuary Science Confab In Astoria
Scientists and policymakers from the Northwest Power and Conservation Council met in Astoria last week to hear about the Columbia River estuary and the work being done to improve conditions for fish.
It's an area of the Columbia that has been singled out by BiOp judge James Redden, who said last May that more work needs to be done there before he gives the new hydro BiOp a passing grade.
But the estuary had been getting more scrutiny long before District Judge Redden made much of it.
In 2005 and 2006, initial results from survival studies of acoustic-tagged juvenile salmon showed it might be a giant bottleneck to salmon recovery, with mortality to juvenile fish per kilometer much higher than in the hydro system itself.
Since then, researchers say, improved technology has reduced the original mortality numbers, and narrowed down the region where most fish disappear. Geoff McMichael of the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory said the lowest 50 kilometers in the river between Bonneville Dam and the ocean is still where most acoustic-tagged salmon seem to die.
But why that is remains a mystery, since the scientists estimate only about 10 percent of that 25- to 30-percent mortality can be explained by avian predation -- even with more than 20,000 cormorants now nesting near the mouth of the river.
McMichael says that an added receiver array had been placed at the Astoria Bridge to help unravel the puzzle, along with a mobile tracking project staffed by NOAA personnel. So far, no simple answers have been found.
McMichael said young spring chinook tagged at Bonneville generally make it to the ocean in less than four days, with later-migrating fish moving even faster. In April, they average 60 km a day. Later on, they speed downstream, covering about 100 km a day. But at the widest part of the estuary, around the Astoria bridge, they seem to slow down to about 25 km a day and eventually only about 70 percent of them make it to the ocean.
For the much smaller subyearling fall chinook, the trip doesn't take much longer. But the later migrating fish take their time -- about 36 percent of the subs were tracked in off-channel habitats, compared to 29 percent for yearlings. Eventually, though, most made it to the mouth -- 90 percent in 2008, according to McMichael.
However, some subyearlings may hold over in the estuary for the entire winter and head out to sea the following spring. That's one reason why the Corps of Engineers and PNNL have added a receiver array to track fish in the freshwater plume beyond the mouth of the river.
McMichael said researchers are still wondering about the higher juvenile mortality near the ocean -- they don't think it can be pinned on a tag effect since they don't see much difference in mortality on the bird islands between PIT-tagged fish and PIT-tagged fish that sport the surgically implanted acoustic tags.
Tom Karier, Washington's Northwest Power and Conservation Council member, asked about making the connection between where the most mortality occurs and where "we can focus the dollars."
But NOAA Fisheries scientist John Ferguson said that wasn't the right way to look at the situation.
"Ultimately, to get to recovery you need to figure out what the response is in terms of adults," Ferguson said. "And you back up from there and you look at how juveniles respond to habitat changes, how those responses propagate up through the life cycle and turn into adults coming back. And adults coming back in a way that they can adjust to a variable environment -- that's the issue of persistence of the populations and that's the issue of bio-complexity that leads to persistence. That's what the scientific literature is telling us we need to do."
To do that, he said, complex habitats are needed because "we have lots of different types of fish using the habitat."
Ferguson said using survival as the measure is the wrong way of looking at it. "It is a measure, but it is not the measure," he said.
If restoration work were focused on the lower end of the estuary where most of the acoustic tag data on mortality shows up, Ferguson said, "we would ignore the upper end of the river where a lot of different stocks that weren't tagged, that aren't in those survival estimates, are using those habitats," such as the Willamette stocks and the Snake River fall chinook that may be overwintering there.
This means, he continued, that "we need to step back and be clear that you have a set of information that is only as good as how representative those fish are of the whole composite array of stocks and pops and life-history diversities that are out there."
Ferguson said the tagging data that have been collected are very good but relatively narrow, since they only include active migrators at Bonneville Dam at least 95 mm long. A lot of fish inhabiting the estuary's off-channel habitat are only 50-60 mm, too small for these tags.
Other scientists are still sorting out which stocks do spend more time hanging out rather than using the estuary as a simple conduit to the sea.
Ferguson said preliminary genetic data suggests that chinook stocks may not be distributed uniformly from the mouth to Bonneville Dam, with Upper Columbia stocks more prevalent in the upper estuary, and most restoration work now concentrated on the lower estuary.
Preservation and restoration of shallow-water habitats are important to maintain food webs that support these smaller fish from natural populations, said NOAA Fisheries scientist Ed Casillas. He said work is being done to determine how much more such habitat is needed to improve diversity and spread the risk for fish populations, especially as climate change will make it more difficult for less diverse populations to cope.
Other researchers brought council members up to speed on contaminant issues and ecosystem restoration in the lower Columbia.
BPA's estuary lead Tracy Yerxa outlined a new way the BiOp is being implemented to improve monitoring and help guide estuary restoration efforts using a complicated tool being developed by the University of Washington, the U.S. Geological Survey, and the Estuary Partnership.
The tool classifies the ecosystem using geology, topography, bathymetry and land cover in order to focus on the most effective actions that will help improve ESA-listed stocks in the Columbia Basin.
NOAA's Ferguson said there are other questions that need to be answered, such as why smolt-to-adult return rates vary with ocean entry timing -- that is, what conditions in the river plume boosting survival can measured and used to tune actions in the fresh water, such as timing of hatchery release, barging fish, and flow augmentation.
He also noted more study needs to quantify the effects of marine mammal predation on returning adults -- 1,500 sea lions may be eating 20,000 spring chinook every year.
He supported Canadian researcher David Welch's ongoing ocean tracking project that so far has shown no evidence of delayed mortality, and said more scrutiny should be focused on the use of Rogue River chinook in a lower-river netpen fishery, since it's an out-of-basin stock that has strayed and spawned in two lower river reaches. -B. R.
[4] No Benefit To Snake Springers From Court-Ordered 2007 Spill
A recent draft report from the Fish Passage Center shows both wild and hatchery Snake River spring chinook transported down the Columbia in 2007 did better than fish that migrated inriver.
The inriver fish had the added benefit of more spill, thanks to a court-ordered spill regime that went into place in 2006.
In fact, wild Snake River spring chinook that were barged survived to adulthood at a 15 percent better rate than inriver migrants, according to the FPC's 2009 draft Comparative Survival Study, released Aug. 31.
Hatchery spring chinook did even better. Barged springers from Idaho's Rapid River Hatchery had an 84 percent higher return rate than the stock's inriver component. Dworshak Hatchery transports have returned at more than twice the rate of their inriver counterpart, while springers released at Catherine Creek did 46 percent better in barges.
McCall Hatchery summer chinook that were barged did twice as well as their inriver brethren, and springers from the Imnaha Hatchery had a 57 percent higher smolt-to-adult return rate (SAR) than inriver migrants from that facility.
In 2006, it was a different story. Wild Snake chinook seemed to do better migrating inriver -- the smolt-to-adult return rate was 20 percent better than the SAR of the barged fish. But there wasn't much overall difference -- the SAR of the barged fish averaged 0.77 percent and the inrivers averaged 0.97 percent.
However, the SARS for some hatchery springers that were barged in 2006 turned out better than inriver return rates. The barged Rapid River Hatchery SAR was 0.58 percent, compared to 0.42 percent for inrivers, and the McCall Hatchery barged SAR was 1.16 percent, with 1.03 percent for the inriver component.
Dworshak Hatchery spring chinook that were barged had a SAR 90 percent that of inriver migrants (0.35 percent versus 0.39 percent), but Catherine Creek and Imnaha hatchery springers only did about half as well as their inriver components.
No data is available yet for the 2007 steelhead outmigration, but an August 27 FPC memo to Ed Bowles, chief of ODFW's fish division, said the added spill in the recent past has likely helped create this year's huge steelhead return.
However, according to the latest draft CSS study, hatchery steelhead that were barged in 2006 had a 49 percent better return rate than inriver migrators. Wild barged and inrivers did almost exactly the same.
In most recent years, both hatchery and wild steelhead have shown huge benefits from barging. Wild steelies had five-times-better SARs in 2005 and 14 times better in 2004, which was a relatively low flow year. -B. R.
[5] Fall Chinook Taper Off; Jack Count Going For Record
In early September, the Columbia River's fall chinook run shifted into high gear, with more than 15,000 counted at Bonneville Dam on Sept. 2 alone, shadowed by a jack return that may set a modern record, and signal a huge return next year.
By Sept. 13, more than 221,000 had been counted at the dam, along with 78,000 fall jacks -- about four times the 10-year average.
Steelhead are still pouring in as well. The count by Sept. 13 was well over half a million, at 547,000.
Harvest managers were looking forward to more than half a million hatchery and wild upriver-bound fall chinook entering the river this year -- the largest component expected to be the wild run heading for the Hanford Reach, close to 300,000. On Sept. 10, they said the upriver bright run appeared to be early and may be less than predicted.
The mainstem commercial gillnet fishery was shut down Aug. 27 until mid-September after fishers were expected to reach their impact limits for ESA-listed lower Columbia fall chinook. They had caught more than 23,000 fall chinook by then. Non-Indian impact limits to Snake fall chinook are 11 percent. They are now fishing in select areas outside the mainstem to reduce impacts on listed stocks.
Sport fishers, who share non-Indian impacts with commercial gillnetters, are allowed slightly more than half of the total impact limit on listed lower Columbia fall chinook, and slightly less than half of the total non-tribal impact on Snake River fall chinook
Pre-season expectations in the lower Columbia Buoy 10 sport fishery were a catch of 10,700 chinook and more than 119,000 coho. By Aug. 19, they had caught about 3,200 chinook and 9,200 coho.
According to Seattle Times outdoors writer Mark Yuasa, salmon anglers made 47,100 trips on the Lower Columbia River in August, landed 5,663 adult chinook, 6,000 summer steelhead, and released another 3,700 steelhead.
"The total effort, fall chinook and steelhead catch numbers are all record highs for the month of August since records began in 1969. The previous records for August were 5,133 fall chinook in 2002 while 4,525 steelhead were kept in 2007," Yuasa's numbers came from WDFW staffer Joe Hymer.
"For comparison, the fishery peaked in 2003 when anglers made 113,000 angler trips during an entire uninterrupted fishery. Last year, the Lower Columbia was closed for chinook retention in August," he reported.
Tribal fishers above Bonneville are still fishing as well. They are allowed a 27-percent impact on ESA-listed Snake River fall chinook (non-Indian 11 percent) and a 20-percent impact on listed B-run steelhead on their way to Idaho. If the upriver bright run is downgraded below 200,000, the tribal impact will be reduced to 23 percent on the upriver fall run and 15 percent on the steelhead.
By Sept. 18, tribal fishers were expected to catch around 57,000 fall chinook, with about 31,000 upriver brights -- only an 11.35 percent harvest rate. They had caught about 23,000 steelhead, with an estimated harvest rate on the B run of nearly 5 percent.
With good numbers of fall chinook bound for the Snake again this year, WDFW managers announced that parts of the lower Snake opened Sept. 1 for hatchery chinook. They expected it to remain open until Oct. 15 unless the fishery's impact limit on listed wild falls is reached before then.
Meanwhile, back in the lower Columbia, a new WDFW study is underway to investigate selective harvest techniques.
WDFW biologist Pat Frazier said the study will look at beach seines and purse seines as a way for commercial fishers to reduce their impacts on ESA-listed lower Columbia wild chinook and coho, while allowing them to catch more hatchery fish -- and help to reduce the numbers of hatchery chinook that end up on spawning grounds with the wild ones.
The seines allow wild fish to be caught and released with minimal damage. Frazier said it's starting to look like the mortality of the released fish may be as low as 5 percent. The released fish are being tagged to track them if they are caught upriver.
He said the $200,000 funding for the pilot study came from the Pacific Coast Salmon Recovery Fund and some dollars left over from previous projects.
But funding for next year is problematic. Frazier said. He hoped he could interest BPA in possibly paying for part of it. He also said Washington congressman Norm Dicks, may help find future dollars to keep the project going.
Dicks has played a big role in helping reform Northwest hatcheries, and sponsored legislation to mark hatchery fish so that listed stocks have a better chance at recovering, while allowing selective fisheries to continue.
Frazier said fishers could catch a lot more hatchery chinook and coho if managers can find new ways to protect wild fish. But he acknowledged it could be difficult to figure how commercial gillnetters in the lower Columbia would transition to these new selective gear types. He said the agency hoped that the fishermen themselves would figure out how to divvy up the catch.
Recreational fishers shouldn't feel left out. On Sept. 2, NOAA head Jane Lubchenco announced that she was creating a new position of senior policy advisor for recreational fishing that will report directly to the assistant administrator for NOAA Fisheries to help coordinate fisheries policy.
"As a first task" Lubchenco said, "the advisor will coordinate, in cooperation with the angling community, a recreational fishing summit to identify issues of concern and possible solutions. This national meeting will be followed by a series of joint problem-solving roundtables to identify roadblocks to an improved relationship and to design reasonable solutions. Suggested specific topics include data and resources needed to incorporate the economic value of recreational fishing into NOAA's information and reports, recreational fish habitat considerations, a review of NOAA's implementation of the Magnuson-Stevens requirements for closure of areas to fishing, expectations for NOAA's new Marine Recreational Information Program, marine spatial planning, catch shares, NOAA's strategic plans and the role of recreational fisheries, and how NOAA Fisheries can focus personnel and financial resources on the recreational sector. No issue will be off limits..." -B. R.
[6] Steelhead Numbers Keep On Climbing
Summer steelhead counts at Bonneville Dam are finally tapering off after a huge run in August. More than 547,000 of the fish have passed the dam since July 1, peaking on Aug. 13, when 34,000 were counted.
In a single week, more than 100,000 went by, on the move again after being bottled up below the dam by the scorching weather in late July.
In any case, the numbers are likely to end up among the top three or four in the last 70 years of record-keeping. Returns in 1940, 1952, 1986 and 2002 all topped 400,000.
In 2001, during the second-lowest water year on record, more than 630,000 made it past the dam.
Last year, 358,000 were counted. Managers originally expected this year's return to be close to that, which would have put it at 18 percent above the 10-year average.
In late August, they bumped up their estimate of the Group A component to 425,000, from a preseason prediction of about 279,000 fish. Group A fish spend only one year in the ocean.
On Sept. 9, they bumped it up again, to 565,000.
Group B steelhead spend two years in the ocean, and most are heading for Idaho. Not enough have yet been counted to update that part of the run, but the Group B stock (hatchery plus wild) forecast of 57,000 is 21 percent above the 10-year average.
However, the ESA-listed wild component of the "B" steelhead run was predicted to be only about half the size of last year's 18,500-fish return, which was the largest wild return since 2002, when 32,000 wild B steelhead returned to Idaho.
Throughout the 1990s, the wild Idaho steelies returned in extremely poor numbers, barely topping 5,000 fish in 1994. In 1995, fewer than 2,000 returned. More than 22,000 have been already counted passing Lower Granite Dam this year, along with more than 50,000 hatchery fish.
Last week, the managers said the B run may actually come in a little shy of their preseason forecast.
During the blockbuster year of 2001, when more than 600,000 steelhead were counted at Bonneville Dam, only about 12,000 were wild and heading for Idaho. -B. R.
[7] Fraser River Runs Pink
This year's Fraser sockeye run was a major disappointment, but the pink run has returned in numbers better than expected. On Sept. 11, the Pacific Salmon Commission announced it had boosted its estimate of the Fraser pink salmon run to 19.5 million fish, up nearly 2 million fish from its preseason forecast.
The boost in run size has allowed more commercial fishing on the pink run in both US and Canadian waters. Close to 3 million pinks had been caught by commercial fishers by Sept. 11.
The Commission said the fish are about a half-pound smaller than average, but that's a condition likely associated with the large run size. A large pink run has headed into Puget Sound streams as well. About two-thirds of the Fraser run has followed a route around the southern end of Vancouver Island, with the rest heading down the inside through Johnstone Strait. Warmer ocean temperatures usually means more salmon are diverted to the inside route.
Recent weather systems packing southerly winds have raised temperatures in some coastal waters, and mackerel have been reported caught inside the mouth of the Columbia River. In early August, hundreds of Humboldt squid, normally found in warmer waters off California and Baja, were found beached along the west side of Vancouver Island.
El Niño forecasters from Australia say that the current warming event will likely turn out more moderate than previous forecasts had indicated. NOAA's Climate Prediction Center said on Sept. 10 that current trends point toward a moderate El Niño event continuing through the winter.
"Expected El Niño impacts during September-November 2009 include enhanced precipitation over the west-central tropical Pacific Ocean and the continuation of drier-than-average conditions over Indonesia. Temperature and precipitation impacts over the United States are typically weak during the Northern Hemisphere summer and early fall, generally strengthening during the late fall and winter." -B. R.
[8] Anderson Named New WDFW Director
The Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission has selected Phil Anderson as WDFW's permanent director. Anderson has served as interim director for the past nine months.
"We've had a healthy discussion on the future of the Department of Fish and Wildlife and we're confident that together the commission and Phil will set the priorities to guide the department in its vital mission of protecting Washington's natural resources," said Miranda Wecker, chair of the citizen commission.
Anderson served as WDFW's deputy director for resource policy for more than a year before being appointed interim director. Before that, he served as assistant director of WDFW's Intergovernmental Resource Management Program, leading the department's North of Falcon team which sets annual salmon-fishing seasons for marine waters including Puget Sound and the coast. Anderson also is WDFW's representative to the Pacific Fishery Management Council (PFMC).
Anderson joined WDFW in 1994 after serving seven years on the PFMC as a private citizen, including duties as PFMC vice chairman and chairman. Anderson began his professional fishery career over 30 years ago as owner and operator of a charter fishing boat business. He attended Grays Harbor College.
As director, he will report to the commission and manage a department of 1,386 employees, with a biennial operating and capital budget of more than $350 million. -B. R.
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