[1] Northwest Snowpack Up Since 1970s
Salmon recovery planners who having been taking heat from critics ever since the hydro BiOp came out in 2008 may be somewhat off the hook if a new analysis from University of Washington climate scientists is correct. Environmental and fishing groups have long complained that BiOp actions did little or nothing to counteract the impacts of climate change.
But a new paper, titled "A New Look at Snowpack Trends in the Cascade Mountains" which will soon be published in the American Meteorological Society's Journal of Climate. says snowpack in the Cascades actually increased by 19 percent from 1976 through 2007, compared to the 1961-1990 average.
That analysis seems at odds with a world of rising temperatures, and it has been a hard pill to swallow for some scientists. But on the fourth try, the study has finally passed peer review.
Lead author Mark Stoelinga told NW Fishletter that his trip through peer-review hell began back in October 2008 when the paper was first submitted to the journal for publication. It was co-authored by UW researcher Mark Albright and Cliff Mass, well-known professor of atmospheric sciences.
One of its main conclusions is that after accounting for effects of warming and cooling cycles in the North Pacific, Cascades snowpack has declined only 2 percent for each decade from 1930 through 2007.
It's not exactly news, since various versions of their findings have been in the public realm and debated for nearly two years, but their results have now been approved by their peers.
As average global temperatures have climbed, the paper says, a lack of warming in the northeast Pacific Ocean may have played a significant role in keeping snowpack levels higher than many scientists expected.
Other studies have pegged nearly a 50-percent decline in snowpack from 1950 to 1995, but since that period began with a series of high snowpack years, and ended with years of relatively low snowpacks, it has likely overstated the decline. And, as the paper points out, some findings in these other studies "make the picture less clear."
The authors cited two 2005 studies that showed snowpack declines were much less when the period covered began before 1945. One that used hydrological model simulations estimated only a 5-percent loss from 1913 to 2003, and another one showed no losses or even slight gains.
The new paper concluded that the 48-percent decline in snowpack between 1950 and 1997 "is mostly attributable to natural variability in the north Pacific region." The authors found that variable modes in the winter-mean north Pacific sea-level pressure field explained about 80 percent of the downward trend in snowpack during this time frame.
"The total residual loss from 1930-2007 is 16 percent, and is very nearly statistically significant. An unknown portion of this residual loss may be due to anthropogenic global warming."
Using other modelers' estimates of a 0.21 C degree increase in temperature per decade over the northeast Pacific, the authors calculated that the cumulative loss of Cascade spring snowpack from 1985-2025 will be 9 percent, "which is considerably less than the 29 percent loss projected for the same period by a recent climate impacts report for Washington state."
The paper also estimated that during the 1930-2007 period, the days when maximum snowpack and 90 percent melt-out occurred had shifted five days earlier, but "neither of these shifts is statistically significant."
The authors noted that their estimates contained large confidence intervals, and there was large uncertainty built into some estimates when using such short records as the 1970-2006 time frame.
But their results run counter to scary pronouncements in a 2004 document called "Scientific Consensus Statement on the Likely Impacts of Climate Change" on the Pacific Northwest, which was signed by some of the region's most well-known scientists, including Jane Lubchenco, now head of NOAA, and several UW professors, including climate scientist Phil Mote, who also served as Washington's climatologist. However, none of the authors of this paper had endorsed it.
The 2004 "consensus" stated that in some places, peak snowpack had shifted 40 days earlier, that cumulative snowpack had declined by about 50 percent, with modeling showing that half the reduction was due to warming trends, and half to downward trends in precipitation.
Since then, those findings have been used by several Northwest politicians, like former Seattle mayor Greg Nickels, who used the 50-percent loss figures in February 2007 to push anti-warming policy initiatives.
Co-author Albright, a research meteorologist at the UW, who was assistant Washington state climatologist at the time (he had served as climatologist until 1998), made news that year after e-mailing colleagues to say he could see no basis for the 50-percent loss that politicians were talking about.
A debate began between Albright and Mass on one side, and several climate scientists from the UW's Climate Impacts Group on the other, which included Albright's boss, Phil Mote.
The disagreement culminated in a statement released by the University on Feb. 22, 2007, that described the results of a meeting between the scientists to straighten things out.
Dennis Hartmann, chair of the UW's atmospheric sciences department, said the overall snowpack decline from 1945 to the present was more like 30 percent, and about two-thirds of the trend could be "associated" with temperature increases.
"The absence of a trend in the last 30 years seems to be associated with increased precipitation rather than with a lack of warming," said the statement.
"The warming projected for the 21st century is expected to have a significant negative impact on snowpack," said Hartmann, "particularly mid-elevation snowpack, even if increased precipitation from natural variability and/or climate change is enough to 'hold off' the impacts of warmer temperatures on snowpack in the near term. Changes in 21st century precipitation are less certain than temperature, however. Given that approximately 50 percent of the snowpack in the Cascades sits below 4200 feet, where spring snowpack is very sensitive to small increases in average temperature, preparing for climate change impacts is critical."
According to The Seattle Times, Mote was sore that Albright was distributing his work without letting his boss see it first. Mote said Albright's work had to be reviewed by him, if it was tied to the climatologist's office. After Albright refused to accept Mote's order, Mote fired him.
Cliff Mass told The Times that Albright was doing nothing wrong--"simply airing his analysis and seeking feedback. "In all my years of doing science, I've never seen this sort of gag-order approach to doing science," Mass said, in the March 2007 story.
Mote disagreed, and said he only wanted to check for quality, not squelch debate.
More recently, in a June 2009 letter to her state's Congressional delegation that urged them to support the energy bill working its way through Congress, Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire said the state had lost 20 percent of its snowpack in the last 30 years, citing a UW study that no one can point to now.
Meanwhile, the Stoelinga et al. paper has finally got the stamp of academic approval, though it wasn't easy.
By e-mail, Stoelinga told NW Fishletter that the problem was a "combination of bad reviewers and an editor who refused to exercise editorial leadership. His solution in each iteration was to add more reviewers, rather than make an editorial decision. This allowed opposing reviewers to hold up the process and nearly argue the paper to death."
Stoelinga said the paper was read by seven separate reviewers, an editor, and then chief editor of the journal.
"What finally broke the logjam was when Cliff Mass contacted the chief editor to complain about the process. The entire review package was transferred from the editor to the chief editor, and then it went through very quickly. Chief Editor Andrew Weaver should be commended for his handling of the situation."
Stoelinga said the reviewers were a mixed bag.
"Some were so opposed to the paper they rejected it without any real explanation why," he said. "And the opposition came from both sides. Some did not want to accept our conclusions about less influence of global warming on snowpack than had been implied by previous work, while in contrast, one reviewer in particular did not want to accept even the 2 percent per decade decline that we concluded might be due to global warming. On balance, however, the former complaint was probably more prevalent." -Bill Rudolph
[2] Columbia Basin Snowpack Feels El Niño
With the current El Niño nailing the West Coast with textbook conditions, a shift in the jet stream has channeled steady storms into California, leading to a milder, somewhat drier Northwest, and snowpack that may end up well below average for the Columbia Basin.
However, snowpack levels in the upper Columbia north of the border were still running right at average on Jan. 15, according to data from the BC River Forecast Centre, with the lower Columbia at 87 percent (up 5 percent from the week before).
Early snowfall had the upper Columbia running 138 percent of average by Dec. 1.
South of the border, early snows have given way as temperatures have risen. Upper Columbia watersheds were averaging 88 percent of average snowpack by Jan. 21, with overall precipitation at 95 percent.
Further south, the Yakima drainage was at 86 percent of average snowpack.
Idaho's Upper Snake region was running at barely half the average snowpack, while the Clearwater and Salmon River watersheds were slightly better, at 66 percent of average.
In Montana, the Kootenai and Flathead basins were at 82 percent of average snowpack.
Back on Jan. 8, the National Weather Service's River Forecast Center estimated that the Jan.-July water supply at the Columbia above The Dalles would be about 82 percent of normal. Snake River flows at Lower Granite were pegged at 75 percent of average. A new water supply forecast will be out in a few days.
This may improve a bit since precipitation levels above The Dalles have been nearly normal this month, 94 percent of average. Last month saw only 57 percent of average precipitation.
But the outlook for the region is for below-average precipitation and above average temperatures through March.
Ocean temperatures in the equatorial Pacific where the El Niños are born, have "eased slightly" over the past two weeks, according to the Australian Bureau of Meteorology, but are still more than 2 degrees C above average in many areas, "and generally remain above values observed at the peak of the 2006 El Niño event." The bureau's Jan. 20 update said temperatures are expected to remain above El Niño thresholds until the coming southern autumn (our spring).
The Jan. 18 update from NOAA's Climate Prediction Center also expects the El Niño to last into the coming spring. -B. R.
[3] Latest Barging Analysis Still Touts Survival Benefits
The latest NMFS analysis of PIT-tag survival data covering 10 years of barging Snake River fish past Columbia/Snake dams has shown that the strategy is still beneficial for spring chinook and steelhead most of the time, whether they are wild or hatchery bred.
The analyses has been complicated by changes in operations and dam spill since 2006, when all juvenile fish were returned to the river from bypass systems early in the season, rather than putting them in barges. The new report says results may have changed from earlier years, but such differences are hard to pin down.
The new analysis not only examined smolt-to-adult return rates between inriver migrants (detected only once at a Snake dam) and transported fish, but also looked at smolt-to-adult returns [SARs] between the run at large, which includes bypassed fish that returned to the river, plus the non-detecteds and the transported groups.
"The results indicated that transported fish had significantly higher rates of return compared to migrant fish over the majority of the outmigrations," said the December 2009 report, which is not yet available on the Web.
"These results essentially corroborate results produced by COMPASS modeling, the outputs from which formed much of the basis for the 2008 BiOp. In our re-analysis, most cases when transported fish had lower return rates than migrants occurred in the early part of the migration season."
The review cited findings from the Independent Scientific Review Panel's 2008 report that found hatchery and wild chinook, and hatchery and wild steelhead all benefited from barging between May 7 and May 20.
The panel noted increased survival of juvenile migrants to Bonneville Dam had increased from structural (removable spillway weirs and other modifications at dams) and operational improvements (more spill) in 2006 and 2007, but was uncertain how "this would change relative SARs of transported and migrant fish without seeing the adult returns. The ISAB was also concerned about the effects of increased straying caused by transport."
The NMFS report says since 2006, the ratios of SARs between barged and inriver migrants for wild and hatchery chinook and wild steelhead seem close to patterns observed in earlier years when all bypassed, non-tagged fish were barged, but the T:M [Transport:Migrant] ratio for hatchery steelhead may have changed--"the only instances in the 11 years of data of significantly lower returns for transported hatchery steelhead occurred in the early parts of the 2006 and 2007 migration seasons."
Citing two other analyses, the review cautioned that SARs from the PIT-tagged fish were likely lower than those from the unmarked population.
More data to be collected in the next two years, 2010 and 2011 adult returns from the 2008 and 2009 outmigrations, will show if the recent trend in hatchery steelhead returns is maintained. The review noted that PIT-tag detections of adult hatchery steelhead that migrated in 2008 "already are near 4 times higher than the total adult returns for hatchery fish from all the preceding years combined."
The report also took a crack at analyzing results from the 2008 spring chinook outmigration, even though researchers can only use returns from jacks in 2009. So far, it shows a definite benefit for transported fish throughout the 2008 migration season.
The review said that changes need to be made to tagging strategies to get a better idea just how well the new management regime is working. It said more fish need to be tagged and put into the barges before May 1. -B. R.
[4] Ocean Productivity Declined In 2009
NOAA Fisheries scientists who monitor biological and physical conditions in the ocean off the West Coast say conditions for salmon have declined from 2008.
But they are not surprised, since 2008 conditions were "unprecedentedly positive" for salmon, according to NMFS scientist John Ferguson, who heads the Fish Ecology division at the agency's science center in Seattle.
And they are still upbeat since they saw spring conditions for migrating salmonids that were still generally favorable, but by the time fall chinook and coho hit the ocean, the situation had deteriorated "significantly," he said.
"Our September coho catches were the lowest on record, and reflected a complete reversal of the state of the ocean at that time," Ferguson said, via an e-mail update.
He said the late summer ocean survey detected few forage fish or juvenile salmon, "but warm water predators like Humboldt squid had come up and onto the shelf and (presumably) ate everything in sight."
According to preliminary data, the spring chinook survey ranked fourth highest since 1998, and there were plenty of lipid-rich copepods for them to eat. The length of the upwelling season was also the fourth best since 1998.
But by September, waters had warmed, and the juvenile fish survey trawled up small silvers at a rate of only 0.01 coho/square km. In 2008, the coho survey was 27 times better than that. -B. R.
[5] Feds Want Limited BiOp Remand
Federal attorneys have told U.S. District Judge James Redden they are OK with a limited, voluntary remand of the 2008 BiOp if it sticks to the matter at hand, by simply adding an adaptive management implementation plan (AMIP) to the BiOp that was written by the Obama administration after its review of the salmon plan. But plaintiffs in the case say that would not be legal.
In November, Redden had asked the feds if they would reinitiate consultation of the BiOp for the purpose of adding the AMIP. Redden was worried that by simply supplementing the BiOp with the AMIP, as the feds had suggested, it would run afoul of the Administrative Procedures Act. And upon appeal, might be sent back to his court by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals because of the procedural snafu.
But at the Nov. 23 hearing in Redden's Portland courtroom, Justice Department attorney Coby Howell said federal agencies were leery of reinitiating consultation for fear that plaintiffs would try to expand the remand to include other areas of disagreement--like the jeopardy analysis used as the plan's backbone.
But Redden indicated that he was inclined to OK the plan if his concerns were allayed, although he didn't buy defendants' argument that simply adhering to the adaptive management provisions of the BiOp was enough to legally add the AMIP to the salmon plan. The feds argued that the administrative record could be supplemented according to the Ninth Circuit's exceptions to record review principles.
However, even in their Dec. 21 filing, the feds still seemed a bit gun-shy about reinitiating consultation. They portrayed the AMIP as the completion of an "informal" remand that began after a May letter from the judge outlined some recommendations the plan needed before he was inclined to rule it legal.
In their latest filing, the feds said they have two alternatives. First, they could supplement the administrative records with all the material from the Obama administration's review and development of the AMIP, and have the judge approve the move in accordance with the Niners' exceptions to record review principles.
By doing that, the feds said the court would then have the entire record on which to conduct its review.
The other alternative would be a limited, "voluntary" remand process to add the AMIP to the BiOp, an action they said could be done within 10 days of the Court's approval.
The feds were leery of plaintiffs' reaction to such a situation. "Plaintiffs will likely argue that there must be some recognition of deficiency before the court can grant a voluntary remand. This is not the case," said the feds' brief, which explained that an agency may request a remand without confessing error.
Such a voluntary remand could be limited in scope, and the feds cited several cases to support their argument.
The feds brief distinguishes between the Judge's question about whether they would reinitiate consultation to just integrate the BiOp and the AMIP, and a voluntary remand process, which they preferred. They said in a footnote that a reinitiation process might be much broader and therefore, take much more time.
"Reinitiation is not necessary," the brief said, "nor advisable, in light of the region-wide consensus in getting out of the courtroom in order to start implementing the many beneficial aspects of the 2008 BiOp and AMIP.
The feds pointed out to the judge that there are also differences between a voluntary and involuntary remand. An involuntary one, they said, would need the court to make findings on the merits of the BiOp and "explain why there are deficiencies."
They said plaintiffs will likely ask that the scope of any remand be broadened to deal with their issues, but such an expansion would convert a voluntary remand order into an involuntary one.
As if on cue, BPA and federal agencies released on the same day a progress report on the 2008 salmon plan detailing improvements made in hydro operations, harvest, hatcheries and habitat to benefit ESA-listed salmonids in the Columbia Basin.
"Tribes, states and federal agencies are rightfully proud of their progress," said BPA Administrator Steve Wright. "This program spans four states and involves hundreds of millions of dollars a year. Given that scale, it's a challenge to keep the program on track while spending countless hours managing litigation. We're all anxious to concentrate wholly on our work for fish in the rivers and streams where it counts most."
On Jan. 15, plaintiffs responded, arguing that the feds can't use a "voluntary remand" to "aide and abet them in accomplishing something they are otherwise barred from doing: using post-decisional evidence to construct a rationale justifying a decision already made."
Earthjustice attorney Todd True, said in his filing, that the judge could rule on the BiOp without regard for the AMIP, followed by a carefully structured , court-ordered remand to produce a legally adequate biological opinion.
True said federal agencies could also make a "genuine request" so agencies could reinitiate consultation on the 2008 BiOp "to correct the analysis and the RPA, include aspects of the AMIP, and other necessary steps and issue a new decision."
True said another option would be a negotiated settlement between plaintiffs and federal defendants, perhaps even using the AMIP as a starting point. But they admitted the feds don't seem interested in "mutual, substantive discussion of the issues NWF and others have raised about the 2008 BiOp, it would appear this option may not currently be available."
Since the government is unwilling to seek a genuine remand, reinitiate consultation and make a new decision, True said Judge Redden should decide the summary judgment motions, without the AMIP, and find the 2008 BiOp illegal for all the reasons they have argued, so they can come up with a new, valid opinion quickly, and proceed on to consider plaintiffs' pending injunction motion, "both to ensure diligence by the government during the remand effort and to ensure protection of ESA-listed salmon and steelhead until the government complies with the law."
It is fairly clear what plaintiffs want in an injunction. Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski was blunt about that in a recent op-ed in The Oregonian, where he said he wanted more flow and spill at dams, a reservoir drawdown at John Day Pool, and getting lower Snake dam-breaching studies under way now so their removal can begin if the fish "are not on a clear path to recovery within 10 years." Federal attorneys have already pointed out that many studies would have to be completed before a drawdown at John Day or dam breaching could be judged beneficial to the Snake River stocks.
The feds get the last word in this exchange before the issue is settled by the judge. Their comments are due Jan. 29. -B. R.
[6] Sport Group Launches Anti-Net Initiative In Oregon
After getting the cold shoulder from Oregon legislators earlier this year, sportfishers in Oregon announced Dec. 24 they are leading an initiative drive that would outlaw the use of gillnets and tanglenets by non-Indian fishers.
The petition drive has put lower Columbia commercial gillnetters in their crosshairs, but sporties say they do not want the commercial fleet to disappear, just fish cleaner.
According to a briefing document from the Coastal Conservation Association (nearly 3,500 members in Oregon), the proposed law would help commercial fishermen with funding to transition from traditional net fishing to more selective fishing gear like beach seines or fish wheels.
The changes in fishing methods would allow fishers to release more wild, ESA listed salmon and steelhead alive, and keep more hatchery fish to sell, creating a "sustainable" fishery.
The CCA said the changes would also provide a greater return on the investment of Oregon taxpayers towards salmon recovery, but neglected to mention that the lions' share of recovery funding comes from BPA.
"Oregon's failure to protect and enhance our wild salmon runs threatens the state's credibility as a leader in sustainability," said Dave Schamp, chair of the Oregon CCA board of directors and a lead petitioner in the action. "Each year, taxpayers, electric utility rate payers and others collectively contribute about $1 billion to recovery efforts, yet wild salmon, an important natural economic resource for out state, remain on the brink if extinction."
Critics say the initiative is just another ploy to increase the catch of sports fishers at the expense of the commercial sector, though sports fishers are already allowed a higher impact on ESA-listed stocks like upriver Columbia spring chinook than the lower Columbia gillnetters.
In addition, they say the initiative would do nothing to curtail tribal gillnetting above Bonneville Dam, which is allocated five to six times more impacts on the listed upriver stocks.
If commercials would be catching fewer listed fish in the future, sporties would likely be allowed an even higher level of ESA impacts.
Columbia Basin harvest managers released information earlier this year that showed the non-tribal sports fishery is allowed about 69 percent of the allowable ESA impacts on upriver spring chinook and non-tribal gillnetters 31 percent.
In 2009, sporties caught more than 11,000 upriver hatchery spring chinook, the gillnetters landed nearly 4,000 hatchery fish.
Both groups must release all wild fish, and fishing regulations recognize impacts are different from the two types of fishing. Managers estimate about 10-percent mortality from hooking releases, and about 30 percent from gillnets.
So far, sports groups have not had much luck convincing the public that the nets should go. Voters turned down net ban initiatives in Washington state in 1995 and 1999.
The CCA sponsored a bill in the Oregon legislature this year that mandated more selective fishing methods in the state, but it never survived committee hearings.
Another bill was pushed hard by the Northwest Sportfishing Industry Association and included their plan developed last year which called for increasing gillnet catches by boosting the so-called SAFE fisheries, now funded mostly by BPA, that raised hatchery fish in netpens out of the mainstem to allow harvest with fewer impacts on ESA-listed fish.
Yet another bill, introduced by Oregon state senator Fred Girod (R-Lyons) called for outlawing gillnetting in the state. Neither proposal made it out of committee. -B.R.
[7] Nearly 1,500 Fall Chinook Redds Counted In Snake River
Recent aerial surveys of the Snake River below Hells Canyon have counted a record number of shallow-water salmon redds, the nests made by females before they lay their eggs. More than 1,450 were seen from a helicopter, and another 29 were tallied by ground surveys.
That beats the old record from 2004, when 1,218 redds were found, according to a press release from Idaho Power. For years, the utility has maintained steady flows from its Hells Canyon Project between Oct. 12 and Dec. 8 to help spawning fall chinook, which are listed for protection under the ESA.
Flows will remain above 8,500 cfs to protect the incubating embryos.
The utility also reported that about 35 percent of redds were observed in the Snake River below its confluence with the Salmon River, and 65 percent upstream. Preliminary results from underwater videos have counted an additional 387 deep-water redds this year. -B. R.
[8] Measure Named NPCC Chair
Montana's Bruce Measure has been elected to chair the Northwest Power and Conservation Council during the coming year. He has represented his state on the Council since 2005.
Measure said he was honored to be picked. "It is an exciting time with the expected release of a new power plan that contemplates meeting nearly all of the region's load growth with conservation, and a new spirit of collaboration in salmon recovery. I look forward to be working with the Council members, states, tribes, ratepayers, and the public in general on the important matters of energy and fish and wildlife mitigation in the Columbia Basin."
Measure has been a practicing attorney since 1988, and before that he worked in the forest industry. He has also served as a representative in his state legislature and president of the board of trustees of the Flathead Electric Cooperative.
Washington member Dick Wallace was elected vice chair. He has been on the Council since 2008. Wallace is a former regional director of his state's Department of Ecology. -B. R.
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