[1] Analysis: Dam Breaching Made Simple
Editorial boards around the country have gone all out the past few weeks in their haste to say something wrong about the 2008 salmon plan, recently blessed and bulked up by the Obama administration.
Whether that can be attributed to malice aforethought, math-challenged editors or just plain sloppiness is up to you. But it does seem that the farther one gets from the Columbia Basin, the more effective environmental propaganda becomes.
The New York Times, no less, seems fascinated with the idea of tearing out some dams in the wild and woolly West. In April, as the Obama administration was making up its mind on the 2008 hydro BiOp, the Times editorial page encouraged new NOAA head and official MacArthur genius Jane Lubchenco to consider breaching the lower Snake dams.
But a few weeks ago, when she put the breaching idea on the back burner as a sop to federal Judge James Redden, the editorial writers at The Gray Lady were beside themselves.
After she pronounced the salmon science in the hydro BiOp sound, they dropped her like a hot Idaho spud, and continued on their crusade for breaching.
They didn't even mention the fact that one of the country's most prominent scientists had just told a federal judge the science in the plan under his review was the best available.
"In his written instructions to the Obama administration, Judge Redden made it clear that he wanted a plan that put the salmon on a trajectory toward recovery--one with clear standards by which to measure success, not 'triggers' that only measure failure. Judge Redden has been the salmon's strongest defender, and he may be the salmon's last hope. He should send this plan back to Washington and insist on something better."
However, if the editorial board had spent a few minutes actually checking into what the plan was all about, it might have stumbled onto the fact that the BiOp sets into play a series of performance goals for the hydro system--96 percent survival per project for juvenile spring chinook, 93 percent for little fall chinook.
And there are plenty of other actions in the BiOp designed to help fish. After all, the document was more than 4,000 pages long before the latest additions.
The Gray Lady's editorial writers also made it sound like the Obama administration was adding $100 million in new annual habitat funding, courtesy of the U.S. taxpayer. But we all know that was simply the bill for the "Accords" process in the original 2008 "Bush" plan, added to the yearly salmon bill footed by BPA customers that is already over $700 million a year.
Maybe the editorial board had a hard time swallowing the notion that the dam-loving Bush administration might have actually endorsed such an added extravagance.
But the NY Times wasn't the only paper to get that part wrong. The Los Angeles Times reported a similar tale in a regular news story, though when contacted, LA Times journalist Kim Murphy, the paper's NW Bureau chief, said she was aware of the correct budget numbers, but the problem was one of enforced "brevity."
But for one reason or another, it seems hard for the word to get out that BPA is spending about a third of its annual revenues on fish and wildlife, maybe because it's so hard for regular folks to fathom.
Closer to home, The Seattle Times editorial page botched the budget numbers, too. Though the Times' Sept. 21 editorial was generally supportive, it was more than 700-percent short on the amount spent on fish-recovery costs.
"Regional ratepayers already support annual salmon budgets of $100 million, and another $6 million is pledged for habitat and estuary improvements," said the Seattle paper.
A quick check with BPA spokesman Michael Milstein, an ex-Oregonian scribe himself, found the numbers a bit higher--Milstein said BPA is expecting to pay about $750 million annually for related fish costs over the next two years. That includes the direct F&W program generally administered by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council, added BiOp costs (including the extra $6 million a year to Washington state for estuary work signed last week), and forgone costs and power purchases attributable to hydro operations for added flows and spill.
At least The San Francisco Chronicle got the number right--the $900-million-plus worth of salmon recovery projects over 10 years. But they said it was an expense the Obama people were asking the judge for his OK to spend.
The last time I checked, that money is getting spent right now, thanks to a steady stream of projects being reviewed by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council, since it has been a part of the hydro BiOp from the get go.
But the Chronicle editorial board also needs some quick lessons in agriculture and geography.
They wrote that the BiOp "stops short of much bolder options to order more water flows, which would anger wheat farmers in western Washington, and take down the dams, a position favored by environmentalists. Also, this fall's salmon counts are way up, making drastic steps a hard sell."
To their credit, they did notice that the rivers around here are full of fish. Just how could that be with those dreaded dams in place? The runs sank to 10 percent of previous numbers in the 1990s, and came bouncing back while the last three salmon plans were being fought in court.
They've declined again some, but are expected to rebound next year, given the extraordinary jack counts for both spring and fall chinook. What have dams got to do with it? Mother Nature or Coyote is really running the show, playing dice with ocean conditions, while a federal judge thinks he can control the situation and somehow outflank Mother Ocean.
But I digress. I am really here to announce NW Fishletter's Stinky Salmon journalism award of the year.
The envelope please!
The 2009 hands-down winner is The Tampa Tribune, for its Aug. 24 editorial support for breaching the lower Snake dams, even before the Obama folks showed us their cards.
"The dam turbines crush salmon as they attempt to migrate to or from the Pacific. Efforts to truck salmon around the dams cost $500 million a year but have proved futile," the editorial said.
Huh? Wait a second.
Barging and trucking fish down the Snake and Columbia costs around $3 million a year, said Corps of Engineers' spokesman Nola Conway Leyde. Forget all about the fact that transporting fish past the dams benefits most stocks in most years--especially steelhead.
"In the 1960s," wrote the Tribune's editorial writer, "about 100,000 adult salmon returned to the river each year. Then the dams were erected. Now the number is less than 10,000."
Where do you suppose they came up with those smelly old fish numbers? They got them from a previous Tribune editorial written on July 25, 2000!
And where did they come from? Likely from a 1998 article in a lawyerly journal called Environmental Law penned by Portland attorney Michael Blumm and other dam breaching advocates.
The Tribune could use a significant update. Here it is--less than a year after its 2000 editorial was published, more than 186,000 spring chinook made it to Idaho and about 20 percent of those fish were wild. Since then, the hatchery plus wild numbers have fluctuated between 30,000 and 100,000, but significantly better than 1995's 1,800-fish return and 1999's 6,500.
Stay tuned. This year's huge jack counts have put fish managers and researchers in unfamiliar territory, and sporting dreamy, faraway looks at the possibility of seeing half a million spring chinook swim back to Idaho next year. Unlike many editorial writers, some of them even know how much they don't know. -Bill Rudolph
The following links were mentioned in this story:
NY Times Editorial: Dr. Lubchenco and the Salmon; April 10, 2009
NY Times Editorial Not There on Salmon; Sept. 19, 2009
LA Times New Northwest salmon plan modifies Bush approach, Sept. 16, 2009
Seattle Times A plan for Columbia River salmon recovery to please a critic, Sept. 21, 2009
San Francisco Chronicle Obama hooked into salmon plight, Sept. 24, 2009
The Tampa Tribune Wasteful dams, Aug. 24, 2009
Subscriptions and Feedback
Subscribe to the Fishletter notification e-mail list.
Send e-mail comments to the editor.
THE ARCHIVE :: Previous NW Fishletter issues and supporting documents.
NW Fishletter is produced by Energy NewsData.
Publisher: Cyrus Noë, Editor: Bill Rudolph
Phone: (206) 285-4848 Fax: (206) 281-8035
