[1] It's Official: La Niña Will Stay For Winter
Think rain and plenty of snow next winter for Northwest watersheds--that's the Aug. 5 prognosis from NOAA's Climate Prediction Center.
The agency has officially announced the onset of a La Niña episode after the equatorial Pacific has been cooling for months, ever since the moderate El Niño peaked last year. The ocean is expected to cool even more over coming months.
But the agency says signals are mixed about the potential strength of the coming cool period.
NOAA says most of its dynamical models predict a moderate-to-strong episode, while most statistical models point to a weaker one. In any case, in the Northwest, it's expected to pick up steam later this fall, and to last through early 2011.
In other parts of the country, its effects will likely be felt sooner.
Changes to wind patterns in the Gulf of Mexico are likely to increase the number of hurricanes there over the next two months.
But east of the International Date Line, the top 300 meters of the eastern equatorial Pacific holds a deep layer of below-average-temperature water.
Typical of a La Niña, NOAA reported, convection was enhanced over Indonesia, but remained suppressed over the western and central tropical Pacific, along with enhanced low-level easterly trade winds and anomalous upper-level westerlies over the western and central equatorial Pacific.
The Australians agree.
The Aug. 2 El Niño-Southern Oscillation wrap-up from the Australian Bureau of Meteorology said, "All indicators in the Pacific Ocean show that we are now in the early stages of a La Niña event. Computer models predict the central Pacific will continue to cool in coming months, indicating some further strengthening of the event is likely."
They also reported that in some regions, the sub-surface water was more than 3 C cooler than average in July.
Sea surface temperatures are already 1-3 F colder than average off the Washington and Oregon coasts, where a large body of water of more average temperature lies farther offshore.
Albacore tuna, which like to travel along edges between warm and cool currents, have been caught 20-40 miles off the Oregon coast in recent weeks, along with a few bluefin and yellowtail.
Closer to shore, salmon fishing has picked up considerably, north of the Columbia River for returning fall chinook.
Nearly 700,000 are expected to return to the Columbia this year. Most returning adults headed to sea in 2007, a year of relatively good ocean conditions, but nothing like the productive regime of 2008 that occurred during the last La Niña, which helped produce this year's excellent spring chinook run, the third highest in the Columbia since 1938.
This year's sockeye run also went to sea in 2008 and returned this year--setting a new record since biologists began counting them in 1938 after Bonneville Dam was completed.
Researchers have said all spring that La Niña-like conditions seemed to be brewing off the Northwest coast, but upwelling had been spotty due to lingering southerly winds.
However, by the end of July, upwelling had generally improved, chlorophyll levels were rising in the ocean, and sea surface temperatures off the mouth of the Columbia are 4°F cooler than last year at this time. -Bill Rudolph
[2] Feds Tackle Hatchery Reform
NOAA Fisheries has finally released its draft of alternatives for future operation of Columbia Basin hatcheries, hoping to reduce their adverse impacts on wild populations of salmon and steelhead, which only make up about 20 percent of the returning salmonids.
Since their process to examine Mitchell Act hatcheries began way back in 2004, its scope has widened to include all 178 programs in the basin. They say the wider analysis will give them a headstart on their future review of basin hatchery programs under the ESA.
It's not hard to see where the new policy is headed. The Obama administration has added language to the hydro BiOp that calls for more examination of impacts of hatchery fish on ESA-listed wild populations.
So NOAA Fisheries is starting with the facilities that were built to mitigate for salmon losses from building some of the first mainstem dams. The Mitchell Act has provided annual funding for these programs since the 1940s, which still produce about 35 percent of all salmonids released in the basin. These facilities are operated or funded by BPA, the Corps of Engineers, the Bureau of Reclamation, and the US Fish and Wildlife Service. In recent years, Mitchell Act spending has ranged from $11 million to $16 million annually.
The DEIS [Draft Environmental Impact Statement] borrows heavily from another years-long review of hatcheries completed in 2009. That was the Congressionally-mandated HSRG's [Hatchery Scientific Review Group] examination that was coordinated by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council.
One of the HSRG's major findings was that reforming hatchery operations by itself would not be enough to significantly reduce impacts of hatchery fish on wild fish--but that harvest reform was also a necessary component of the effort.
That's a controversial topic the new DEIS doesn't touch. The HSRG had tried to grapple with it, and promised completion of a white paper on harvest issues, but such a document has never seen the light of day. It's "dead in the water," according to one HSRG member, who added that the HSRG is pretty much dead in the water as well.
The group did suggest in its 2009 review that more selective fisheries in the basin would go hand in hand with improved hatchery practices. That's where a fish can be caught in a purse or beach seine or fish wheel, and either harvested if it has a clipped fin (hatchery fish), or released if its a wild fish (intact fin).
Since then, both the Colville Tribes and WDFW have been researching different methods of selective fishing, and are gearing up for a major effort this month in the lower Columbia to test various gear on the fall chinook run.
It's all part of a revised salmon recovery policy that has been underway for years, but strongly criticized by some harvest groups worried that hatchery reform could mean reduced harvests and could conflict with other legal mandates that support tribal fishing regimes. Since Columbia Basin hatcheries produce about 80 percent of all returning chinook and steelhead, they could be right.
One of the alternatives examined in the new DEIS would produce only about one-third of the 144 million salmon and steelhead smolts now released every year.
But selective fishing supporters say if their harvest regimes were in place, such draconian cuts would be unnecessary, and that the level of commercial harvest could be much higher, while having less impact on wild stocks.
At the same time, catching more marked fish could reduce the number of hatchery fish that spawn in the wild.
"We are not huge fans of marking all hatchery fish," said Mike Matylewich, manager of the fishery management department of the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission. He said the lower Columbia tribes are not really sure that more selective fishing would be as effective as some claim. Matylewich said there are so many hatchery fish compared to wild fish, that it would seem to be really difficult to achieve conservation goals by boosting selective fisheries.
He said the research being done by the Colville Tribes and others on selective fishing was laudable, but he questioned whether the ultimate survival of wild fish that were released from beach seines was as high as some think.
He said CRITFC would be sending comments to NOAA Fisheries about the DEIS, but it will take some time to go through the huge document. The comment period is for 90 days.
He noted that the CRITFC tribes agreed with some parts of the earlier HSRG report, and disagreed with others. He said it would be useful "as a tool, not a rule" because there are legal obligations to mitigate for dam losses.
Matylewich said the tribes are still working to put more hatchery fish past the dams, and he called it a "more, in place, in kind" policy that would help upriver fishers. Most Mitchell Act hatcheries were built below Bonneville Dam and provided most of the increased harvest opportunities for ocean and lower Columbia fisheries.
But the NOAA Fisheries DEIS sticks strictly to hatchery operations. The agency is now soliciting public comment on the five alternatives it has developed.
The first alternative calls for maintaining the current system, which produces mostly fall chinook for harvest opportunities in the ocean and the river.
The second alternative would end all Mitchell Act funding and close those hatcheries, which would substantially reduce catches of Columbia Basin salmon and steelhead (by 50 percent in all ocean and river fisheries). But programs would remain that kept wild stocks better separated from other programs devoted to producing fish for harvest. No new hatchery programs would be in the works under this alternative, either.
A third alternative would apply an intermediate performance goal (developed by the HSRG) to all basin hatcheries to reduce negative effects on natural-origin fish and add seasonal weirs to streams to keep more hatchery fish out of natural spawning areas. Mitchell Act funding would continue to fund these efforts.
Alternative four would also apply an intermediate performance goal to hatcheries in the basin, but a stronger goal (also developed by the HSRG) for programs in the Willamette/Lower Columbia region, with some new hatchery programs allowed to boost harvest opportunity below Bonneville Dam and in ocean fisheries. Mitchell Act money would be spent to carry out this comprehensive plan.
A fifth alternative would still use Mitchell Act money, but it would apply the stronger performance goal to all basin hatchery programs that affected primary and contributing salmon and steelhead populations in the Interior Columbia domain.
According to the DEIS, the second alternative would reduce the number of adult Columbia River salmon in the ocean by about 33 percent. NMFS says this could significantly reduce food sources for ESA-listed killer whales from Puget Sound.
The DEIS also estimates that running hatcheries under the third alternative would cut overall production by 7 percent, while alternative four would reduce it by only about 2 percent, and the fifth alternative would reduce production by 5 percent.
The region will probably not stand for anything close to implementation of the second alternative, which the agency estimates would reduce hatchery smolt production by 52 percent, while reductions from the last three options ranged between 12 percent and 19 percent fewer smolts than produced now.
The agency said it is not wedded to any particular alternative, and that the final result will probably be a combination of them. In fact, NOAA didn't seem very supportive of the performance goals that it had put forth.
In an executive summary, the agency said even though it tried to quantify the amount of hatchery influence on a population by borrowing the HSRG's performance goals (an index based on the number of hatchery-origin spawners in the natural escapement of a population and the percent of natural-origin broodstock used in the hatchery program), "no determination has been made on their adequacy under the ESA. NMFS is not advocating their use by fishery managers."
They said they hoped reviewers understood the dynamics of population that affected these values.
A little-recognized 2009 review of these metrics by yet another group--mainly NMFS agency scientists called the Recovery Implementation Science Team--cautioned that the HSRG's efforts to quantify fish fitness underestimated the uncertainty of the exercise. They said the results were rather arbitrary and may or may not lead to actions that would help recover natural populations. They said they did not think the model used (AHA or All-H) "incorporates enough information to accurately predict the outcomes of specific hatchery or habitat actions in a quantitative way." -B. R.
[3] Report Says Invasive Mussels Could Gain Foothold In Upper Snake
The potential cost of battling invasive mussel species in the Snake River could top $200 million a year, according to a new report produced by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council's Independent Economic Advisory Board [IEAB].
That's close to what BPA spends now on its direct costs for the region's fish and wildlife program.
The report said the region should expect the mussels to show up in Northwest waterways sometime soon, but there is some good news attached.
Growth of the dime-size zebra and quagga mussels seems to be limited by the calcium concentration in the water itself, which could mean the tiny invaders won't be as big a problem as in the Colorado River, where they are so prolific they have reduced water flows through trash racks at Hoover Dam by 50 percent, and threaten to clog pipes that carry water to keep turbine bearings cool and well lubricated. (see NW Fishletter 265).
"In the mainstem Columbia and Snake rivers below the Clearwater River, calcium concentrations are seasonal and within a range believed to limit mussel populations," said the July 14 report.
But above the mouth of the Clearwater, the story becomes a lot more serious, where calcium levels in the Snake and some parts of the Salmon, John Day and Pend Oreille basins "may be generally favorable for mussels."
Much of the upper and mid-Columbia contain lower calcium levels than the Snake, but the report said there were areas that could support mussel colonies--which produce free-floating larvae called "verligers" that could float downstream and lead to mussel colonization during part of the year.
But most of the Yakima and Deschutes basins would probably not support them, nor would the Columbia below the Willamette, nor the Willamette, either, said the report.
The potential worst-case scenario assumes that the mussels will colonize turbine intake screens at dams on the Snake and grow at their maximum rate. "If screens cannot be cleaned fast enough to operate within prescribed passage criteria," said the IEAB report, "then survival of migrating juvenile salmon and steelhead might be reduced."
They estimated some potential annual costs associated with controlling a zebra and quagga mussel infestation. That included $16 million to protect main cooling systems at dams on the Snake and Columbia federal dams; $3 million to $10 million at spillway gates and stilling basins, and about $3 million to keep fish passage facilities and bypass screens clear.
The IEAB's worst case include the possibility that the mussels grow fast enough at screens to impact fish survival and reduce power generation.
To keep the mussels from gaining a foothold at some 20 regional hatcheries, the economists estimated each one would need a new million-dollar filtration system, plus annual costs of $4 million to keep them all mussel-free.
The impact to recreation, boats, marinas, and water-supply facilities could be huge. The IEAB said the maximum potential cost is unknown, but put out a $50-million annual estimate, noting that it could range between tens to hundreds of millions.
The report's worst-case scenario also found that a serious infestation in the Snake Basin could adversely impact food webs and native species, possibly adding tens to hundreds of millions of dollars to recovery costs. The IEAB said more biological assessment is needed.
Since biologists are generally resigned to the fact that the invasive mussels will eventually be introduced to the region, the report says it will pay to keep this from happening for as long as possible, and that means spending more on the action plan that has been developed by 19 western states to combat the tiny invaders.
Even with stepped-up boat inspections at state borders, the mussels will probably hitchhike into the Northwest undetected on the bottom of some boat trailered from the Midwest. -B. R.
[4] NW Sockeye Runs Full Of Surprises
Columbia River and Snake River sockeye aren't the only runs in the region responding to extra-productive ocean conditions in 2008, when the fish went to sea.
Spill proponents in the Columbia Basin have argued that if ocean conditions were so good in recent years, then other sockeye runs should be showing as much benefit as the Columbia and Snake runs.
Early indications are that some runs are returning in much greater numbers than expected this year, including the first component of the granddaddy of regional sockeye runs--British Columbia's Fraser River.
The early summer component of the Fraser sockeye run has been boosted to 1.6 million fish from a preseason 950,000-fish estimate. Managers had already bumped up the preseason estimate of the Early Stuart run to 105,000 from 41,000.
They expect at least 8 million more sockeye to appear from the later running stocks, and planned to update their assessment in a few days. Some commercial fishing has already been allowed this year, with 75,000 harvested by commercial fishermen and 189,000 caught by First Nations, charter, recreational and test fisheries.
After getting burned big time over last year's Fraser River prediction, Canadian biologists have developed a more complicated way of trying to estimate this year's return.
Last year, only about 1.5 million sockeye showed up from the 10-million-fish prediction. Department of Fisheries and Oceans biologists said the actual return was way down in the 10-percent range of probability and most Fraser stocks showed the lowest productivity on record. That puzzled managers, who thought that ocean conditions had improved a great deal when the fish went to sea in 2007.
But there is some evidence that juvenile fish suffered high rates of mortality shortly after they entered the salt water in 2007. A federal judicial inquiry is underway to look into the suspected causes, which range from warm water to sea lice infestations at B.C. fish farms.
Out on Vancouver Island, the wild sockeye run in Barkley Sound was upgraded on July 6. The Somass River run--used as an index stock for the area--was bumped up to 700,000 from a preseason forecast of 600,000. Then on July 12, managers ratcheted their estimate up again, this time to 850,000 fish. And most recently, managers increased it again--to 1.1 million this time. Last month, they had said the Barkley Sound run might be returning two weeks early, but if it was right on time, more than a million sockeye could show up.
Farther north, near Prince Rupert, it was reported that B.C.'s Skeena River sockeye run was returning at about twice the forecast.
Closer to home, the Lake Washington sockeye run has also beat preseason expectations with nearly 157,000 counted by the end of July. The preseason prediction was 124,000, and it's based primarily on fry production from 2006 and 2007 spawner numbers.
The last big run in the lake occurred in 2006, when 120,000 sockeye had been counted at the Ballard Locks by July 8; but by the end of the month, over 400,000 had passed by. Only 22,000 returned last year.
However, some Alaska sockeye runs are not fulfilling expectations. The cumulative harvest as of Aug. 6 from Prince William Sound's famous Copper River is 620,000 sockeye and 9,350 chinook salmon. This compares with a historical five-year cumulative harvest average of 1.2 million sockeye and 25,000 chinook salmon for this date. Kodiak area sockeye runs are running below forecasts as well.
Bristol Bay sockeye came in late, but close to expectations. Over 28 million fish have been harvested there, and more than 11 million have been allowed to spawn. Managers had expected about 40 million to return, with a potential harvest of 30 million fish. -B. R.
[5] Idaho Sockeye Will Get New Hatchery
With ESA-listed sockeye returning to Idaho in record numbers, the run is showing the benefits of an expensive captive broodstock program for the third year in a row.
The program will get a significant boost with BPA's purchase of an old trout farm in Idaho that will be transformed into a state-of-the art fish hatchery owned and operated by IDFG and designed to produce one million smolts a year.
"This purchase is an important tool that moves us from merely preserving this species toward rebuilding it," said Bill Maslen, director of BPA's fish and wildlife program in a July 23 press release. "The progress so far has come only through enduring commitments and close partnerships. We're determined to keep that going."
In 2008, 650 adult sockeye made it all the way back to the Stanley Basin, and more than 800 returned in 2009. With more than 2,126 counted already at Lower Granite Dam, and relatively cool migration conditions, more than half should make it back to the Redfish Lake region where most of the run began their journey as hatchery smolts. By Aug. 12, 701 adults had returned to the Stanley Basin.
A few adults have been trapped at the dam this year and trucked to the IDFG hatchery at Eagle, Idaho, to test the strategy that might improve broodstock numbers in other years when migration conditions are poor for the last 450 miles of their journey.
It looks like that strategy was a success this year. It was reported that the 19 sockeye trucked (only one or two at a time) are all resting comfortably at the hatchery. -B. R.
[6] First Take On Columbia River Treaty Options Released
If the Columbia River Treaty remains in place after 2024, the Canadian share of downstream benefits will continue to decline at a slower rate than anticipated, putting added cost pressures on BPA and the Mid-Cs to deliver the Canadian share.
On the other hand, if the treaty is terminated, the region will have to obtain an estimated 225 aMW in additional resources to make up for reduced water availability.
Those are two of the conclusions reached in the Columbia River Treaty 2014/2024 Review Phase I Report, which BPA, the Army Corps and BC Hydro published July 30.
The report is aimed at providing regional interests preliminary data with which to consider what positions to take as the 10-year treaty termination notice deadline approaches on Sept. 16, 2014. It does not deal with non-power issues such as fish operations, irrigation or water supply.
Under the 1961 treaty, the U.S. got permission to back Libby Dam's reservoir 42 miles into Canada, which was paid for by half the estimated value of flood damage prevented. Canada built 15.5 MAF of storage, and was allotted half the downstream benefits (the Canadian Entitlement, or CE).
The energy component of the entitlement is currently about 567 aMW, and BPA is responsible for returning 72.5 percent of its half to Canada, and the Mid-C PUDs supply the rest.
Phase I, developed under a confidentiality agreement with the Canadian side, is a modeling analysis that looks at three options: allowing the treaty and CE deliveries to continue; terminating the treaty and the CE; and continuing the treaty with pre-2024 conditions.
Under the first two, the current flood-control operating plan (FCOP) reverts to a "Called Upon" flood control operation under which the U.S. would still have access to Canadian flood control storage, but would have to compensate Canada for operating and lost opportunity costs.
Under the third, a deal to retain the FCOP would be negotiated and CE deliveries would continue. Phase I looks at 13 scenarios with varying time horizons, flood-control objectives and water-supply simulations.
The report points out that "there are different views" between the U.S. and Canadian side about how to interpret provisions of the "Called Upon" operating regime. Although the treaty mentions it, details such as what level of flooding would trigger BPA's right to invoke "Call Upon" operations would have to be negotiated, said Nancy Stephan, BPA's project manager for the report.
For example, under the existing FCOP, flooding begins when flows at The Dalles hit 450 kcfs--a level that is currently under review by the Army Corps--while "major damages" occur at about 600 kcfs. The lower the figure, the greater is the frequency of "Called Upon" operations. The report said the amount of "Called Upon" storage that will be needed in the "treaty continues" and "treaty is terminated" studies ranged substantially between 1 MAF and 11 MAF, respectively.
According to the report, when the treaty was signed, it was anticipated that the energy component of the CE would decline due to the impact of increases in the thermal displacement market, which in turn is affected by the region's load growth and resource mix. The calculation of the CE was based on these assumptions. However, load has not grown as much as anticipated and increasing proportions of conservation and wind in relation to thermal resources has stalled the decline in the CE.
BPA's Stephan also said the treaty, which was signed with power and flood control in mind, did not anticipate the significant derating in Federal Columbia River Power System capability due to fish operations. Deliveries to Canada "do not take that into account," she said.
"We give them half of what's calculated, but not what is actually generated," she said, which is less. The inequity on the U.S. side is self-imposed by fish and wildlife policies that do not apply in Canada, she acknowledged.
The document also concluded that if the treaty remains in place:
But if the treaty terminates:
Stephan said BPA now intends to begin a process of public engagement to share the results of the Phase I study and to seek input from a wide range of constituents.
She said now that most aspects of the confidentiality agreement between the Canadian and U.S. side have lapsed, BPA will be freer to discuss and share information and invite other groups to participate in the next phase of studies, which will look more closely at the Called Upon regime, climate change, system power studies and other elements.
Stephan said the report, which is about a year overdue, was delayed because the complexity of designing and implementing the Called Upon model, two mid-stream decisions to make changes to certain fundamental assumptions in the studies, and the vagaries of trying to coordinate three agencies on a neutral document covering sensitive matters they all would likely soon be negotiating. -Ben Tansey
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Publisher: Cyrus Noë, Editor: Bill Rudolph
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