from the desk of Joseph Bogaard, May 3, 2014

In early April this year, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy sent an excellent letter to Secretary of State John Kerry responding  to the Dec. 2013 Regional Recommendation expressing the agency's views on the opportunities of and needs for modernizing the the fifty-year old U.S.-Canada Columbia River Treaty.

While acknowledging significant benefits of the Treaty to date, the letter also highlights some of its harmful impacts on the environment and the Basin's Tribal and non-tribal communities as a result of key omissions in the original agreement.

The EPA expresses it support for modernizing the Treaty by:

- fully integrating 'ecosystem function' (health of the river) as a new, third Treaty purpose that considers water quality, fish and wildlife, cultural needs, and economic sustainability and addresses climate change.

- providing the Columbia River Basin Tribes a role in developing and implementing a modern Columbia River Treaty.

It closes by saying "The EPA believes that a modern treaty with Canada will provide multiple benefits to the Pacific Northwest and that a strong commitment to a healthy Columbia River ecosystem will protect human health and safety and promote a strong regional economy in both the U.S. and Canada."

You can read the whole letter here.

March 17, 2019

By The Herald Editorial Board

The state shouldn’t shy away from a discussion of the costs and benefits of breaching four dams.

Nobody said it was going to be cheap. Or easy.

But if two of Washington state’s signature species — orca whales and the salmon on which they depend — are to survive it will take a range of actions, significant funding, some sacrifices and a willingness to adapt.

At last count, 74 Southern Resident killer whales remain in the three family pods that spend part of their year around the San Juan Islands, Puget Sound and the larger Salish Sea, down from a peak of nearly 100 about 20 years ago. While orcas face myriad threats to their health, the most significant remains the decrease in abundance and size of salmon, specifically chinook, on which they predominately feed.

State, federal and Canadian fisheries experts are predicting returns of spring chinook to the Columbia River to drop about 14 percent lower than last year’s returns and amount to about half of the 10-year average. For Puget Sound rivers, less than 30,000 wild chinook are predicted to return. Only coho salmon returns are expected to be about 15 percent above their 10-year average.

Fortunately, there are a range of actions already outlined last year — 36 in all — by the state’s Southern Resident Orca Task Force that seeks to address the array of challenges that salmon and orca are facing, including impacts from marine vessel noise and activity that hamper the orcas’ hunt for salmon and the presence of toxic chemicals that affect their health.

At the end of the year, Gov. Jay Inslee, used many of those recommendations to propose $1.1 billion in spending along with other policies that now are under consideration in the Legislature.

That array of solutions deserves lawmakers’ full consideration; one, in particular, because it already faces significant opposition but presents significant promise in restoring salmon spawning habitat that could help restore healthy runs of chinook and other salmon.

Among the spending sought by Inslee is $750,000 that would support the work of further study and discussion on the impacts and opportunities of removing the four “run of the river” hydro-electric dams on the lower Snake River in Eastern Washington, the Columbia River’s largest tributary.

The removal of some of the state’s smaller dams are also among the recommendations, including one on the Pilchuck River. The recent removal of the Elwha Dam on the Olympic Peninsula shows some of the promise in restoring salmon habitat. Five years after its removal, the forecast for the Elwha River shows better returns for wild chinook.

Opponents of removal of the four Snake River dams, notably U.S. Reps. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Spokane; and Dan Newhouse, R-Sunnyside, have criticized the proposed study as wasteful because, “breaching them is out of the question.” Backers of the dams have pointed to the dams’ roles in providing irrigation, barge transportation for wheat and other agricultural products and electricity.

A closer look at what the dams provide, however, questions the dams’ actual utility and speaks to the potential benefits for salmon, orca and even the economic health of Eastern Washington if the dams were removed.

We’ve discussed earlier that the electricity produced by the four dams can — and in coming years will — be replaced as new wind turbines and solar facilities are built. A study commissioned by the Northwest Energy Coalition found that the four dams produce about 4 percent of the region’s electricity but could be replaced with a mix of wind, solar and energy efficiency programs that would add about $1 a month to the electrical power bills of most consumers.

Continuing the supply of water for irrigation would require little more than moving the pumping equipment.

And replacing the barge transportation, for which the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built the dams and their locks in the 1960s and 1970s, is already happening, as shippers have increased their use of rail to transport grain and other crops.

The shift from barge to rail has not gone unnoticed by Eastern Washington farmers, including Bryan Jones, a Colfax wheat farmer who spoke to the editorial board last week.

Jones doesn’t make the choice on how his wheat is shipped; he just pays the 47 cents for a 60-pound bushel to do it. That decision is made by the shipping company he uses, but increasingly his wheat makes its trip by railcar and not barge.

Shipping by barge is not without its costs, particularly to taxpayers who subsidize the dredging and other maintenance performed by the Corps to keep the locks in operation.

Jones is an admitted minority among his fellow farmers in supporting an examination of removing the four Snake River dams, but it’s one-on-one conversations that he has had with farmers and others in Eastern Washington — a few like himself who can recall what the Snake was like before the dams were built — that show the issue isn’t “out of the question.”

“When you talk quietly with them, they begin to see the possibilities,” Jones said.

Along with a deeper investigation of the costs, benefits and changes that removal of the dams would bring, those conversations need to occur among all whose lives are tied to the Columbia and Snake rivers in Washington, Oregon and Idaho: farmers, community members, commercial and sports fishers, tribes, environmental groups, utilities, electricity consumers and many others.

The possibilities Jones sees are for continued viability of Eastern Washington agriculture but also an economy strengthened by investment in a broader renewable energy sector that is already in increasing demand, as well as for the region’s recreational economy that would be buoyed by healthy returns of salmon to the Snake and its tributaries.

Not too surprisingly, what’s good for salmon and orca could be good for us all.

Four dams and three large reservoirs were removed from the Klamath River in a project that finished last year—and acres of native wildflowers are now in bloom along the river’s edge.

Site of the former Iron Gate reservoir. Photo Matt Mais/Yurok Tribe

May 14, 2025
By Adele Peters

It’s been less than a year since the world’s largest dam removal project was completed along 420 miles of the Klamath River, near the border of Oregon and California. But if you look at the river now, you might not know that four dams had ever been in place. Instead of concrete walls and artificial reservoirs, the river is now free-flowing—and parts of the former infrastructure have been replaced by wildflowers that are in bloom.

“It’s been an incredible transition,” says Ann Willis, California regional director at American Rivers, a nonprofit that supported Native American tribes in a decades-long fight to take out the dams. “It’s really strange and wonderful to stand on the bridge that goes across the Klamath River and look upstream where Iron Gate Dam used to be. I used to imagine a river above it, and now I see the river.”

The dams were built between 1918 and 1962 to provide hydropower, and immediately blocked salmon from migrating. Over time, the ecosystem started to collapse. By 1997, coho salmon in the river were listed as endangered. (The river was once the third-largest salmon fishery in the continental U.S.) In 2002, when the federal government diverted water to farms instead of letting it flow downstream in the river, tens of thousands of salmon died. Local tribes like the Yurok—who have lived by the river for at least 10,000 years, and who consider salmon a central and sacred part of their culture—started the long fight to take out the dams.

Beyond the direct impact on fish, the dams impacted the larger environment as the flow of nutrients down the river stopped. Willis compares dams to a blockage in human arteries that eventually lead to a heart attack. “When you put a dam in a river, there’s an entire living network of things that depends on the flow of the river—the patterns and relationship of the river and its flow with the land around it,” she says. “When you block it, you start this long process of decline. That’s the bad news. The good news is one of the fastest ways to resuscitate a river and its surrounding ecosystem is to simply remove the dam.”

Former Copco reservoir site Photo Matt Mais/Yurok Tribe

The advocacy was a challenge. But the tribes and environmental groups behind the campaign were helped by the fact that it was ultimately more expensive for the power company to keep the aging dams in place than to get rid of them. The power that the dams provided was also relatively easy to replace, since it made up only 2% of the utility’s power generation. (The utility’s overall plan to meet power needs includes more investment in renewable energy, more energy efficiency, and a small amount of natural gas.)

In 2016, after years of negotiation, the power company transferred the dams to a nonprofit in charge of their removal. In 2022, the federal government greenlit the plan, which had a cost of around $450 million, funded both by California state bond money and by utility customers.

The dams were taken out in phases, with the smallest removed in 2023 and the rest last year, all carefully timed to avoid disrupting fish that might try to swim through the area. First, the reservoirs were drained. Then demolition crews blew up larger concrete structures. Dump trucks cleared away rocks, dirt, and sand, returning some of the material to the hillsides it was carved out of decades ago.

Plans for restoring plant life started earlier. A crew of primarily Yurok tribe members began collecting seeds from native flowers and trees in 2019. Most of the seeds went to nurseries, where they were grown in fields to produce more flowers and even more seeds. “There were over 2,000 acres that needed revegetation,” says Joshua Chenoweth, an ecologist who worked with the Yurok tribe on the project. “Because it’s so large, you can’t collect enough seed to just throw it back on the landscape.”

The crew eventually spread billions of seeds using a variety of methods, from hand-planting to using a helicopter in areas where it was too dangerous to walk. Right now, the hills are covered in California poppies and a mix of other plants. “The hand-seeding exceeded my wildest expectations,” Chenoweth says.

The fish also came back faster than scientists expected. “The dam removal was officially complete on September 30,” says Willis. “The first salmon was detected swimming upstream into that ancestral habitat in three days, which was just shocking. Then, within a month, 6,000 salmon were detected swimming upstream. I don’t think anyone expected this quick of a response at this really large scale.”

View more photos at Fast Company: These stunning photos show how nature came back after the world’s largest dam removal project

From the desk of Pat Ford. April 12, 2013.

Climate change is changing the Columbia and Snake Rivers. One timely example is the link between fires in the Snake River Basin, sediment in the lower Snake reservoirs, and taxpayer liabilities for the lower Snake waterway.

Sediment accumulation in the lower Snake reservoirs is already a big expensive problem. Over time it dooms the reservoir behind Lower Granite Dam to a fairly short life, as it steadily fills in and thus creates a fiscally unmanageable flood risk to Lewiston, Idaho. The Army Corps of Engineers’ local office has no taste to squarely face the long-term issue, preferring instead to repeat next winter its usual temporary response: dredge the reservoir’s navigation channel to keep it open a few more years. Retired Forest Service hydrologist Al Espinosa aptly calls this approach “chronic dredging.”

But in its environmental impact statement (EIS) intended to legally justify the next round of chronic dredging, the Corps admits a compounding climate effect. Fire frequency in the watersheds above the dam is increasing, thus increasing already-sizable sediment flows into the reservoir.

During the 1970s 214 square miles of forest burned within watersheds that feed sediment to the confluence of the Snake and Clearwater Rivers. In the 1980s, 1,125 square miles burned. In the 1990s, 2,281 square miles. In the 2000s, 3,025 square miles. In 2012 alone, over 1,300 square miles burned.

Appendix D to the Corps’ document is a study by James R. Goode et. al., Enhanced Sediment Delivery in a Changing Climate in Semi-arid Mountain Basins: Implications for Water Resource Management and Aquatic Habitat in the Northern Rocky Mountains. From that study:

"Climate-modulated interactions among vegetation, wildfire, and hydrology suggest that sediment yields will likely increase in response to climate change. Within central Idaho recent climate-driven increases in wildfire burn severity and extent have the potential to produce sediment yields roughly 10-times greater {emphasis added] than those observed during the 20th century. …these elevated sediment yields are probably outside of the range of expectations for downstream reservoirs, which may have consequences for reservoir management and life expectancy."

The Army Corps does not quantify the sediment and fiscal impacts of this trend. Doing so would show chronic dredging as even more fiscally and environmentally unsustainable than it already is. But residents of Lewiston, waterway users, taxpayers, fishermen, and Northwest elected leaders need that information, so SOS and others are asking for it.

This is not the only climate-related impact of the Corps’ chronic dredging. The Corps’ document, for example, completely ignores the unique value of Snake River salmon and steelhead in the hot-and-getting-hotter Columbia and Snake Rivers – that they are the highest and longest-migrating salmon group on earth, with the coldest spawning areas of any salmon in the 48 states. Yet these are the salmon most adversely affected by both the presence of the Lower Snake dams and chronic dredging of the lower Snake. Climate change also has large effects, which also go un-analyzed, on the Corps’ plan and justifications for disposal of the huge volumes of dredged silt.

Climate change effects are a critical legal, biological, and economic issue confronting people who live near and use the lower Snake reservoirs, Northwest people generally, and American taxpayers. These effects strengthen the already-strong case that what Al Espinosa calls “the lower Snake entitlement” should and will not survive federal fiscal retrenchment.

Climate change as it affects the lower Snake waterway is a taxpayer issue.

============================

*I want to acknowledge my reliance on Linwood Laughy’s expert citizen analysis of the Army Corps’ lower Snake dredging EIS.

August 29, 2019

By Rocker Barker, special correspondent for the Idaho Statesman

The first Snake River sockeye salmon raised in a $14 million hatchery that opened in 2013 returned to the Sawtooth Valley on Wednesday.

A sockeye that was placed in Redfish Lake Creek in the spring of 2017 from the Springfield Fish Hatchery in eastern Idaho returned this week after living two years in the Pacific Ocean. Idaho Department of Fish and Game biologists solved a three-year mystery in 2017 why hundreds of thousands of sockeye were released from the hatchery and no fish returned from the Pacific.

They watched thousands of the 230,000 salmon smolts released that spring die immediately from shock. Then biologists discovered the young salmon smolts had been dying after their release because of stress caused by its different water chemistry.

The water in the Springfield Hatchery has an unusually high level of calcium carbonate, making the water extremely “hard” while Redfish Lake Creek’s water is unusually “soft.” Idaho Department of Fish and Game solved the problem by acclimating the endangered salmon in the Sawtooth Hatchery near Redfish Lake before releasing the smolts into the Salmon River.

The sockeye that returned Wednesday actually had not been acclimated, said Dan Baker, manager of the Eagle Fish Hatchery. Few of the 2017 Springfield salmon survived their entry into Redfish Lake Creek. Officials like Baker can track where the fish came from and when from a computerized tag placed in each fish while in the hatchery.

“This was a little bit of a surprise,” Baker said. “We were expecting more fish from the 2018 release when we had a good outmigration to the ocean.”

So Fish and Game biologists still expect more sockeye from the Springfield hatchery to return this year.

But only 15 total sockeye have returned to the Sawtooth Valley this summer. The first sockeye, a healthy female that came from Redfish Lake, arrived in Idaho on Aug. 2. That’s down from the 1,516 that returned in 2014, the record high since four dams were built on the Snake River in the 1960s and 1970s.

The low productivity of all salmon and steelhead this year is due to the continuation of warm Pacific Ocean conditions from 2014 to 2017 — conditions that have not been seen in longtime historical data. In 2015, the Columbia, Snake and Salmon rivers were so hot in the early summer that of the 4,000 sockeye seen at the first dam on the Columbia, all but 157 died during the migration.

The sockeye program has suffered during the ocean downturn, but Baker is hopeful improving Pacific conditions, along with the adjustments made for the Springfield hatchery, will lead to a strong return in 2020. But they expect more sockeye to return through the end of September.

“I don’t see our numbers doubling from what we have now,” Baker said.

The Snake River sockeye have become symbolic of the multibillion-dollar effort to recover threatened and endangered salmon in the entire Columbia River basin since Lonesome Larry, one of five male sockeye to return to Redfish Lake Creek in 1991. He, along with the last 15 other sockeye that returned the year before, and those that returned in the next two years, held the valuable genetic code of the southernmost sockeye population, which climbs to 6,500 feet above sea level.

Fish and Game began its captive breeding program designed to preserve that genetic material, which has since been considered one of the great salmon conservation success stories. Officials saw an average of more than 1,000 fish returning annually until the 2015 setback.

The Springfield hatchery was completed in 2013, paid for by the Bonneville Power Administration — a federal agency that markets power from dams in the Northwest and whose ratepayers provide a major source of funding for regional salmon recovery. It was designed to add up to 1 million more sockeye that could be released into Redfish Lake Creek near Stanley.

Baker is hopeful they can still reach that ambitious goal.

“I’m hopeful we can reach that in the next couple of years,” he said.

United States House of Representatives

***PRESS RELEASE*** April 12, 2018 Washington, DC – Today, Representative Earl Blumenauer (OR-03) issued the following statement on the House Natural Resources Committee advancing H.R. 3144, related to the management of the Federal Columbia River Power System, through a full committee markup: “Voting on H.R. 3144 is simply another waste of Congressional time and resources. This bill circumvents the judicial process, undermines the Endangered Species Act and National Environmental Policy Act, and prevents the Pacific Northwest from coming together to protect listed Columbia River salmon and steelhead. “Salmon are the lifeblood of the Pacific Northwest, yet we have failed to be responsible stewards of these creatures and their environment. Congress should focus on actually helping this species recover, not undermining this process through backwards legislation not based on sound science or robust public processes. I will vote against this bill if it comes to the floor, and I urge my colleagues in the House and Senate to do the same.” ###

United States moves closer to negotiating with Canada to modernize international River Treaty

CONTACTS:
Pat Ford  (Save Our wild Salmon) 208.345-9067  pford@wildidaho.org (Boise)
Greg Haller  (Pacific Rivers Council) 503.228.3555 greg@pacificrivers.org   (Portland)
John Osborn MD  (Ethics & Treaty Project) 509.939-1290  john@waterplanet.ws (Spokane)
John DeVoe  (WaterWatch of Oregon) 503.295-4039 x1  john@waterwatch.org  (Portland)

Center for Environmental Law & Policy  |  WaterWatch of Oregon    |   American Rivers   |   Pacific Rivers Council  |  Save Our wild Salmon  |  Sierra Club  |  Columbia Institute for Water Policy
 
 Spokane – Today Northwest conservation groups and the fishing community praised the U.S. State Department for including ecosystem function in the nation’s negotiation position as it prepares to negotiate the Columbia River Treaty with Canada.   The State Department’s decision came in a May 20 letter received on May 28 by members of the Northwest Congressional delegation, and is based on Regional Recommendations issued in December 2013 by the Bonneville Power Administration and the Army Corps of Engineers.

 The State Department letter to the Northwest Congressional delegation states, “Based on the Recommendation, we have decided to include flood risk mitigation, ecosystem-based function, and hydropower generation interests in the draft U.S. negotiating position.  We hope to approach Canada soon to being discussions on modernization of the Treaty.”

In the face of mounting regional concern about the need for the United States to move forward and negotiate with Canada, the State Department letter emphasizes that modernizing the river treaty is a priority for the nation:  “The Administration recognizes the significant economic and cultural role the Columbia River plays in the lives of your constituents in the Pacific Northwest, including numerous communities in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Montana.  We assure you that the future of the Treaty is a priority, and internal deliberations are gaining momentum.”   The  State Dept and the Council of Environmental Quality briefed the regional’s Senate staff on February 27 and May 5, and the House staff on May 27.

With glaciers melting in the headwaters and water temperatures rising in the lower Columbia River, climate change is already threatening the river and fisheries that depend on the river.  Adding  ecosystem function as a third treaty purpose co-equal with hydropower and flood risk management would encourage both Canada and the United States to co-manage the Columbia River as a single river, restore salmon to areas now blocked by dams, and reconnect the river with floodplains.     "There is solid, broad-based support among Northwest states, Tribes, businesses and citizens to promptly begin formal talks with Canada to modernize the half-century-old Columbia River Treaty for tomorrow's Northwest,” said Pat Ford, representing  Save Our wild Salmon.  “Conservationists and fishermen applaud the State Department for taking this needed step.” "WaterWatch of Oregon commends the Obama Administration for taking the initial steps needed to get the region to the goals of abundant salmon runs, healthy river ecosystems and economic vitality for the many communities that depend on the Columbia River." The basis for the State Department’s decision is “Regional  Recommendation for the Future of the Columbia River Treaty after 2024,” issued in December 2013.That recommendation includes restoring the ecosystem as a primary purpose of an updated treaty, co-equal to hydropower and flood control -- a feature that will make the Treaty a model of international water management.  “The Regional Recommendation gives the Obama Administration a unique opportunity to improve the health of an iconic international river.  The northwest Congressional Delegation, and in particular, Senators Murray and Wyden, are to be commended for recognizing the need to seize the moment,” said Greg Haller, Conservation Director for the Pacific Rivers Council.  All four Northwest states, 15 Columbia Basin tribes, fishermen and environmentalists support that recommendation.  Religious  leaders have joined in support of Tribes and First Nations, based on the Columbia River Pastoral Letter. “Canada and the United States together have stewardship and justice responsibilities to manage the river as a single ecologic system,” said John Osborn, a Spokane physician and a coordinator of the Ethics & Treaty Project. “In a time of climate change the international effort to modernize the Columbia River Treaty can by summarized with just four words:  ‘One River, ethics matter.’”     The Columbia River Treaty went into effect in 1964.  In 2024 flood-risk responsibility, now shared by Canada and the U.S., shifts to the United States.  Canada would only provide assistance when the U.S. requests help.  Such a change will have major impacts in the U.S. on reservoir levels, hydropower production, water supply, irrigation, and salmon.  As written, the recommendation includes a public process to explore innovative ways to manage river flows and flood risk.   
# # #

February 10, 2016 CONTACTS:
Joseph Bogaard, Save Our wild Salmon Coalition, 206-300-1003 (U.S.)
Martin Carver, Aqua Environmental Assoc. 250-354-7563 (Canada)
Greg Haller, Pacific Rivers, 208-790-4105 (U.S.)
Bob Peart, Sierra Club of BC, 250-386-5255 x249 (Canada) Conservation, fishing and faith communities call for U.S and Canadian government collaboration as an essential step towards modernizing the Columbia River Treaty to protect the environmental values of this important trans-boundary river.   Fifty-one organizations and associations from the Northwest region of the United States and Canadian province of British Columbia sent a letter today to top policymakers on both sides of the border urging them to jointly develop and share critical information as an essential step to protecting and restoring the Columbia River and its watershed in advance of negotiations to modernize the 52-year old U.S.-Canada Columbia River Treaty. Signers of this letter include leaders from conservation, commercial and recreational fishing, and faith communities. They represent millions of people in both countries. The letter is addressed to Canada’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Stephane Dion; United States Secretary of State John Kerry; and British Columbia’s Premier Christy Clark. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. “Modernizing the Columbia River Treaty to meet the challenges of the 21st Century must focus on protecting and restoring the health of this important river and its watershed,” said Martin Carver of Nelson, British Columbia. Mr. Carver is among the non-governmental leaders in Canada working with those in the United States to broaden the Treaty’s current scope to include a new purpose that prioritizes the protection and restoration of the Columbia River.

The scope of the original Treaty of 1964 was limited to just two purposes: coordinated power production and flood management.. The impending negotiations provide an opportunity to elevate the ecological needs of the river and address the mounting impacts of climate change. “The organizations signing this letter represent millions of people who understand that the health of the Columbia River and the interests of communities in both nations will be best served by Treaty negotiations based on collaboration rather than competition,” stated Joseph Bogaard, executive director of the Save Our wild Salmon Coalition. “Though the Columbia River might span two countries, it is one river within its own watershed. Our two nations need to work together to manage and protect it as a single system.” The letter states that the greatest ecological benefit will be achieved “if all stakeholders can access and use a common analytic base. The modeling process should be transparent and informed by our combined best available science.” The coordinated development and sharing of information between the two countries has occurred before. The U.S. and Canada created an international board prior to the original Treaty negotiations to produce common technical analyses and evaluations for both nations. The letter urges policymakers in both countries to “examine this precedent for a common analytic base, and [to] update and expand it with modern tools, collaboration, and transparency.”   “The health of the Columbia River’s ecosystem was compromised from over-development in the last century and now climate change in this one,” said Greg Haller, conservation director for Pacific Rivers. “A modernized Treaty must protect and restore the health of the river, its fish and wildlife and help ensure that its communities are more resilient to the intensifying effects of climate change,” The letter cites the restoration of wetlands and floodplains, minimizing the impact of dam operations on terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems, and the reintroduction of salmon into Canada as examples of what’s needed to improve the ecology of the river. “The Canadian portion of the river was heavily impacted by the construction of dams pursuant to the 1964 Treaty” said Bob Peart, executive director of the Sierra Club of BC.  “Treaty modernization offers the best chance for restoring some of the ecological values and environmental services that were lost when the dams were built and that continue to be impacted on a daily basis. The health of the river will benefit if both nations work together towards mutual environmental goals.” The 2,000 km long Columbia River originates in the Canadian province of British Columbia before flowing south into Washington State. It has been heavily dammed primarily for power, water storage and flood management. The Treaty was first established by the United States and Canada in 1964 to coordinate power production and flood management on the Columbia River. Important provisions of the Treaty are set to expire in 2024 and a window to update or modernize the Treaty opened in September 2014. Over the past 5 years in anticipation of 2024, both nations have begun preparing for negotiations.  
-30-

August 25, 2022

Association of Northwest Steelheaders
Columbia Riverkeeper
Defenders of Wildlife
Earthjustice
Idaho Conservation League
Idaho Rivers United
National Wildlife Federation
Natural Resources Defense Council
Northwest Sportfishing Industry Association
NW Energy Coalition
Sierra Club
Save Our wild Salmon Coalition
Trout Unlimited

SNAKE RIVER: Energy, fishing, conservation groups respond to Sen. Murray’s & Gov. Inslee’s presumptive plan for dam replacement

SEATTLE—Groups across the Northwest today called on elected leaders from the region to fulfill their commitment to salmon restoration in the Columbia Basin, including breaching the four lower Snake River dams as soon as possible.

On Thursday, Washington Sen. Patty Murray and Gov. Jay Inslee released recommendations on the dams, as well as a final report on replacing their services. The officials said they are committed to action that will make dam breaching viable, noting that extinction of salmon and the orca that feed on them is “categorically unacceptable.” They stressed the need for immediate action to replace—or mitigate—the dams’ services in advance of breaching.

Organizations called Sen. Murray’s and Gov. Inslee’s recommendations a presumptive path to dam replacement.

In a statement, Gov. Inslee said that the status quo is not an option, and that saving salmon is imperative. “The state and federal governments should implement a plan to replace the benefits of the Lower Snake River Dams to enable breaching to move forward,” Inslee said.

“We will not permit Washington state to lose its salmon,” the governor and senator promised in their recommendations.

Organizations said they would hold state and national leadership accountable to their commitment to expeditious movement, which organizations said includes breaching the dams by the end of the decade.

Organizations released the following statements.

* * * * *

“The Sierra Club applauds Senator Murray and Governor Inslee for setting forth a presumptive path for breaching the four lower Snake River dams as part of a Columbia Basin salmon plan. The Snake River is the single best opportunity to restore salmon abundance on the West Coast, help our orca, and begin to address long neglected treaty rights responsibilities to the tribes. The joint statement made clear we need to replace the services of the dams before we remove them. The statement was also clear that ‘extinction of salmon, orca and other iconic species in the Pacific Northwest is categorically unacceptable’ and ‘breaching of the Lower Snake River Dams should be an option...and that it must be an option we strive to make viable.’ As the final report from Murray/Inslee shows we can responsibly replace the services from the dams. We call on the Northwest delegation to join with Senator Murray, Governor Inslee, and the Biden Administration to put the investments in place as expeditiously as possible to replace the services and breach the dams to avoid extinction and secure abundant salmon recovery. We are committed to working with all parties to move this forward and hold our leadership accountable for following through on these commitments.” Bill Arthur, Chair, Sierra Club Snake/Columbia River Salmon Campaign

“We agree with the recommendations from Senator Murray and Governor Inslee that lower Snake River dam replacement services can and must be in place so we can breach the Snake River dams as soon as possible. We are pleased to see the emphasis on taking action now, as it is vital to enabling this transformation. While the path forward toward a decarbonized energy system will have its challenges, the region must lean into comprehensive planning and implementation now, so that we can begin to acquire the suite of clean energy resources that will maintain an affordable, clean, and more reliable energy grid. Thank you, Senator Murray and Governor Inslee, for helping to chart our direction." Nancy Hirsh, Executive Director, NW Energy Coalition

“The fishing and conservation groups Earthjustice represents recently agreed to extend a stay of their litigation over dam operations because we believe this is a moment of opportunity for the Biden Administration to work in close coordination with Senator Murray, Governor Inslee, and the rest of the Northwest delegation to address and resolve this decades-long controversy. We will continue our work to advocate for removal of the four lower Snake River dams, which is the only solution to restore healthy wild salmon.” Todd True, Senior Attorney Northwest Regional Office, Earthjustice

“NSIA will be forever grateful to leadership that recognizes that for fish and the fishing industry to succeed, we all must succeed. Our industry has paid the price for the decimation of Snake River stocks, and we are eager to get to work with other leaders in the region to modernize our power, irrigation and transportation systems. Leadership that brings us together for solutions will bring salmon, steelhead and our industry back from the brink. But we need to start today in order to preserve these iconic fish runs and the communities that depend upon them.” Liz Hamilton, Executive Director, Northwest Sportfishing Industry Association

“Governor Inslee and Senator Murray claim that salmon extinction and the status quo are unacceptable. But today’s recommendations will have tribes, salmon, orcas, and the communities that rely on them getting their pie in the sky (if they still exist), after we spend decades showering powerful interests with federal money. This sounds suspiciously like the status quo.” Miles Johnson, Senior Attorney, Columbia Riverkeeper

“Inaction is the greatest ally of extinction and today's report from Sen. Murray and Gov. Inslee provides a critical roadmap of the actions necessary to save imperiled salmon populations. The Murray-Inslee report, combined with the recent words and reports from the Biden administration, and the ongoing leadership of Rep. Simpson, Rep. Blumenauer, and Gov. Brown, together demonstrate a shared commitment to a comprehensive and inclusive approach to salmon recovery that leaves no one behind. Now it's essential that we transform these commitments into action, including breaching the Lower Snake River dams, to ensure we restore abundant salmon populations, fulfill treaty obligations to Columbia River Tribes, and revitalize the Northwest’s economy for future generations.” Collin O’Mara, President and CEO, National Wildlife Federation

"This moment is urgent for salmon recovery in the Columbia River Basin, and we are closer than we’ve ever been to resolving the decades-long conflict between dams and salmon in the Pacific Northwest. We are inspired by the Inslee-Murray report, and the leadership of Gov. Brown and Rep. Blumenauer. We look to our elected leaders across the Pacific Northwest to join them to swiftly advance a comprehensive solution to replace the services that the lower Snake River dams provide and save salmon from certain extinction.” Jason Wedemeyer, Executive Director, Association of Northwest Steelheaders 

“Recovery is within our grasp: we can bring back our fish and do so in a way that strengthens the regional economy, repairs critical infrastructure, retains services, and lifts Columbia Basin communities. Senator Murray and Governor Inslee have shown us a path forward, but we must move quickly beyond these recommendations to pass legislation, remove the lower four Snake River dams, and make critical investments while there is still time for Pacific Northwest salmon and steelhead.” Greg McReynolds, Snake River Campaign Director, Trout Unlimited

“Mile-for-mile, the Snake River basin contains the coldest, most undisturbed stream habitats in the Lower 48. The bottom line is that if we are going to make major investments in wild fish recovery, the Snake is the place to put our money. Restoring a free-flowing Snake River is the most significant action we can take for Pacific salmon and steelhead in the contiguous United States." Helen Neville, Chief Scientist, Trout Unlimited

"Conservation and fishing advocates across the Northwest are deeply grateful for the leadership of Sen. Murray and Gov. Inslee for their efforts to address one of our nation’s largest and most pressing river restoration, salmon recovery, and environmental justice issues. The framework Sen. Murray and Gov. Inslee provided today marks an historic step toward ending decades of loss, uncertainty and expense associated with a failing status quo. Sen. Murray and Gov. Inslee have clearly stated we should move forward with a plan to replace the benefits of LSRD, and implement a new comprehensive approach to protect and recover salmon and steelhead populations facing extinction today. Our region and nation must work together to develop and begin to implement a plan to restore the lower Snake River, honor the treaty rights of Northwest tribes, invest and upgrade aging infrastructure, and create new economic opportunities for communities across our state and region that includes coastal and inland farmers and fishers. We understand there is much work to do to transition the services the lower Snake River Dams provide. We are ready to work, with the urgency the situation demands, with state and federal policymakers, Tribes, stakeholders, and communities to ensure a strategic, effective transition." Joseph Bogaard, Executive Director, Save Our wild Salmon Coalition

“In the decades-long effort to recover salmon and steelhead, science has finally taken precedence over hyperbole. We are on the precipice of undertaking the largest river restoration and species recovery project in history, coupled with a transformational shift in upgrading critical infrastructure in the Pacific Northwest. We need swift action and bold leadership from our other elected officials to bring this across the finish line. We understand there is much to be done to plan and secure investments to transition the LSRD services effectively, yet emphasize the urgency of this matter.” Nic Nelson, Executive Director, Idaho Rivers United

“Defenders urges policymakers to take swift action to make the infrastructure investments necessary to enable dam removal. With Southern Resident orcas increasingly reliant on Columbia River Basin salmon, restoring these runs to abundance is absolutely critical to preventing their extinction. With only 73 whales left, there is no time waste.” Kathleen Callaghy, Northwest Representative, Defenders of Wildlife

“This is a watershed moment in the standoff over the Snake River dams. Senator Murray and Governor Inslee are clear – the dams are replaceable, and the status quo is done. It will take hard work, and the dams cannot come out today, but now is the moment to build a clean energy future that doesn’t sacrifice Snake River salmon or ignore the many injustices perpetuated by these dams against the Columbia River Basin Tribes.” Giulia Good Stefani, Senior Attorney, NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council)

“Senator Murray and Governor Inslee have laid out what is necessary for river restoration. We agree that the dams’ most important services can and must be replaced, but time is of the essence. If we actually want to restore salmon and steelhead, Murray and Inslee must establish a concrete timeline for completing necessary studies and infrastructure improvements, deauthorizing the dams, and restoring the lower Snake River. Across the Northwest, people are recognizing that the status quo is unsustainable, irresponsible, and unjust. It’s time to act and deliver a future that makes all communities whole, including those who’ve been left behind for far too long." Mitch Cutter, Salmon & Steelhead Associate, Idaho Conservation League

New study shows Columbia River Basin’s natural capital worth $198 billion annually

July 6, 2017

Contact:
D.R. Michel, Upper Columbia United Tribes, 509.209.2412, dr@ucut-nsn.org
Sara Thompson, Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, 503. 238.3567, thos@critfc.org
Greg Haller, Pacific Rivers, 503.228.3555 ext. 205, greg@pacificrivers.org
Joseph Bogaard, Save Our Wild Salmon Coalition, 206-300-1003, joseph@wildsalmon.org
David Batker, Earth Economics, 253.678.1563, dbatker@eartheconomics.org

Spokane, WA (July, 6th, 2017)—A new report, released today, shows that the Columbia River Basin’s natural capital provides $198 billion in value annually, in food, water, flood risk reduction, recreation, habitat, aesthetic and other benefits. At 258,000 square miles, the Columbia River Basin is the foundation for communities, fish and wildlife and economic activity from the headwaters in British Columbia, Wyoming and Nevada, through Idaho, Washington and Oregon and through coastal fisheries up to Southeast Alaska. Fifteen Columbia Basin Tribes and several non-governmental organizations (NGOs) contributed to and supported the development of this report.

The report also shows that modernizing dam management and increasing water flows in below average water years would enhance the basin’s natural capital value enhancing salmon runs.  A modest 10% increase in ecosystem-based function would add $19 billion per year to the basin’s value. The report’s release comes at a critical time for the renegotiation of the Columbia River Treaty, which is due for an update in 2024.

"This report comes at a time when the region is poised to take a historic step to modernize the Columbia River Treaty," stated Jaime A. Pinkham, Executive Director for the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission. "There is vast potential for natural capital remaining in the Columbia River system. These findings tell negotiators that incorporating ecosystem based function into the Treaty will broaden and expand the economic benefits that can co-exist with flood control and energy production. We cannot afford to miss this opportunity.”

As it stands, the Treaty currently has only two primary goals: flood-risk management and hydropower generation. Tribes, NGOs, and other regional stakeholders are asking that a third goal, ecosystem-based function, be added to a modernized treaty. Ecosystem-based function is a concept introduced by the tribes during the development of the regional recommendation. It acknowledges what nature provides and peoples’ obligation to protect and nurture it.

“Updating the Columbia River Treaty to include ecosystem-based function and improving dam management would benefit everyone who lives in this sacred place. It would benefit our economy, our wildlife and our culture. It is our responsibility to present and future generations to make this happen for the benefit of all.” stated D.R. Michel, Executive Director of the Upper Columbia United Tribes.

According to the report conducted by Tacoma, WA-based non-profit Earth Economics, adding this provision to the Treaty would prove immensely valuable to the region.

The report clearly outlines both present and future natural resource values in economic terms that are useful to inform the integration of ecosystem values into a modernized Columbia River Treaty.

"The findings in this report provide ample evidence that improving the health of the Columbia River makes good economic sense," said Greg Haller, Conservation Director for Pacific Rivers. "Those who say that the region spends too much on salmon recovery should read this report carefully. Changes in dam and reservoir operations to mimic seasonal flow patterns and reduce river temperatures will boost wild salmon populations significantly, thereby generating tremendous economic benefits for the region at very little cost."

The Columbia River Basin is globally recognized for its natural capital of abundant watersheds and rivers, immense forests, wetlands, native vegetation, farms, diverse wildlife and diverse outdoor recreation opportunities. These assets have supported tribes and residents for millennia, but with industrial and urban development, the basin’s rich resources have been degraded. When assets, whether built or natural, are not managed sustainably, economic loss occurs.

“An updated Columbia River Treaty needs to enhance, not degrade, the largest asset in the Basin, natural capital.  With improved dam management just a small increase in the ecosystem-based function will provide far greater and more sustainable value and jobs.” Stated David Batker, President of Earth Economics.

Understanding and revitalizing the Columbia River Basin’s natural economic assets has been a key goal for Columbia Basin Tribes and residents. Further information about this report is available at the Upper Columbia United Tribes website.

View the full report here.

View a brochure here.

View Frequently Asked Questions here.

Editor's note: On Friday, Dec. 8, the United States State Department issued a brief announcement that talks between the U.S. and Canada to modernize the 50+ year old Columbia River Treaty would begin in early 2018. Senator Patty Murray's statement about this announcement is posted below the State Department media note. -jb

Media Note: Modernizing the Columbia River Treaty Regime Office of the Spokesperson
Washington, DC
December 7, 2017 The United States and Canada will begin negotiations to modernize the landmark Columbia River Treaty regime in early 2018. Certain provisions of the Treaty—a model of transboundary natural resource cooperation since 1964—are set to expire in 2024. The Columbia River’s drainage basin is roughly the size of France and includes parts of Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Utah, Wyoming, and British Columbia. The Treaty’s flood risk and hydropower operations provide substantial benefits to millions of people on both sides of the border. The Treaty has also facilitated additional benefits such as supporting the river’s ecosystem, irrigation, municipal water use, industrial use, navigation, and recreation. For further information, please email WHAPress@state.gov https://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2017/12/276354.htm

-----------------------------------------------

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Friday, December 8th, 2017

Contact:
Kerry Arndt, kerry_arndt@murray.senate.gov, (Press Secretary)
Michael Brewer, michael_brewer@murray.senate.gov, (Deputy Press Secretary)
Press Office: 202-224-2834

Senator Murray’s Statement on Key Announcement on Columbia River Treaty Negotiations

(Washington, D.C.) – Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA) released the following statement in response to news that the United States and Canada will begin negotiations in early 2018 to modernize the Columbia River Treaty.

“The Columbia River Treaty is of immense importance to the economy, environment, and culture of Washington state and the Pacific Northwest. It is clear the Columbia River Treaty in its current form needs to be updated to meet the modern-day issues facing the Columbia River Basin, the region, and the nation. The outcome of pending negotiations will have major impacts far into the future for families in my home state and beyond. I welcome the news that the United States and Canada will begin negotiations, and I support these critical talks moving forward in an efficient, constructive manner that benefits every party involved.“

To read more about the Columbia River Treaty, please click here .

###

July 31, 2019

By Colleen Keltz, Ecology Communications

Proposed changes aim to help increase salmon migration in the Snake and Columbia rivers, support orca and salmon recovery

Olympia – Snake and Columbia river hydropower dams may soon be allowed to spill more water over the dams at crucial times to help juvenile salmon migration. The Washington Department of Ecology is proposing to change the water quality standard for Total Dissolved Gas during the spring spill season on the two rivers.

“Increased spill over the dams has the potential to be a win-win for salmon, orca, and power generation,” said Heather Bartlett, Ecology’s Water Quality program manager. “We are at a critical time for our orca and salmon. This is a change we can make relatively quickly to help with the long-term recovery efforts.”

Taking action to allow more spill over the dams is one of the Southern Resident Orca Task Force recommendations to the Governor. Salmon runs on the Snake and Columbia rivers include Chinook, the Southern Resident orca’s primary food.

Increasing spill over dams leads to an increase in gases in the water, mainly nitrogen and oxygen. There is a water quality standard for this, called Total Dissolved Gas, and Ecology is proposing to change the amount of gases allowed in the water for the Snake and Columbia rivers.

Studies show dam spillways are safer routes for fish migrating downstream, when compared to passing through the turbines. This means spilling more water at specific times could allow more juvenile salmon to make it to the ocean, eventually leading to more prey for orca and more adult salmon returning to spawn.

The proposed changes are specific to the spring spill season – April through June – when large amounts of runoff from melting snowpack typically lead to high water flows in the river systems.

There is a risk with increasing the amount of gases, as it can harm aquatic life through a condition called ‘gas bubble trauma’. The proposed changes aim to minimize the potential negative effects, while improving salmon passage and survival.

Ecology is accepting feedback on the proposed changes from July 31 through Sept. 26. More details on the proposal, information on public hearings, and instructions on how to submit comments are available on Ecology’s rulemaking webpage.

Ecology made a short-term change to the Total Dissolved Gas standard earlier this year, to support the new agreement for flexible spill operations at the four lower Columbia and Snake river dams. The changes Ecology is proposing now would be permanent.

In addition to proposing changes to the Total Dissolved Gas standards, Ecology is taking comment on three other revisions to different parts of the water quality standards. Ecology is proposing these other changes due to a 2018 legal agreement with U.S. EPA and the Northwest Environmental Advocates, and to clarify the descriptions of marine water aquatic life designations. The full description of these changes is in the rulemaking proposal.

By Chuck Chiang

November 5, 2023

First Nations groups on the Canadian side of the Columbia River Basin are adamant that salmon runs that have long been blocked by dams in the United States must be restored, potentially in a renewed river treaty between the two countries.

But experts say possible solutions, such as “salmon cannons” that suck fish through a pipe and shoot them out upstream and over obstacles, are all costly and potentially limited in their effectiveness.

Representatives from the Ktunaxa and Syilx Okanagan nations say they continue to bring up salmon restoration in negotiations for a modern Columbia River Treaty and will not stop until a solution can be reached within or outside a new agreement.

The U.S.-Canada treaty regulates the cross-border Columbia River to prevent flooding and generate hydro power. A key component of the 62-year-old treaty is set to expire in September 2024, lending urgency to the ongoing talks.

“I think what we are doing in the fight to bring salmon back is vital to us moving forward,” said Lower Similkameen Indian Band Chief Keith Crow, who is a member on the Syilx Okanagan Nation’s Chiefs Executive Council and the Nation’s lead in the Columbia River Treaty talks.

“And we’re not going to back down, either,” he said.

The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation says much of the migratory salmon run in the Upper Columbia, both in Canada and the U.S., ended with the completion of the Grand Coulee Dam in Washington state in 1942.

While the Grand Coulee Dam isn’t among four dams built in accordance with the 1961 Columbia River Treaty, First Nations leaders say the talks offer a rare opportunity for them to directly engage American officials about restoring Pacific salmon to the Upper Columbia.

“The salmon hasn’t been a big piece of (the talks), and I’ve been trying to move it forward consistently,” Crow said.

The nation opened its own hatchery near Penticton, B.C., in 2014 to help bring salmon back to Okanagan waters.

The goal, Crow said, is the restoration of natural salmon runs throughout the Upper Columbia Basin.

“We’ve been supplying salmon back to the people for years from our hatchery from the work that we’ve done, but to be able to see them actually swimming freely and coming up the Columbia the way they’re meant to be, I think it’s something I’m hoping I’m going to see in my lifetime.”

Ktunaxa Nation Council Chair Kathryn Teneese said the loss of salmon to the Upper Columbia Basin fundamentally changed communities and their ways of life, since the fish was a staple to traditional diets and held significant cultural value.

“We now have generations of people that have grown up without even knowing that salmon was very much part of our staple diet,” Teneese said. “So, from that perspective, it’s changed who we are. Because one of the things that we say is that we have a word in our language for salmon, but we don’t have access to it.

“We just fill that void with the utilization of all of the other resources off the land that we’ve always used, but there’s just a piece missing.”

Crow said salmon may have comprised up to 50 per cent of traditional Syilx Okanagan diets prior to the region losing its fish runs.

In September, the U.S. pledged more than $200 million over 20 years from the Bonneville Power Administration for reintroducing salmon in the Upper Columbia River Basin.

Crow said he has spoken with British Columbia Premier David Eby about similar long-term financial commitments on the Canadian side.

“Right now, we are kind of doing the best we can with the budgets that we get every year,” Crow said. “So, a long-term commitment would be so much more beneficial. We can get so much more done, I think.”

In June, the province agreed to separate bilateral deals with the Syilx Okanagan, Ktunaxa and Secwepemc Nations so each group receives 5 per cent of the revenue B.C. receives every year from the U.S. through the Columbia River Treaty, funding known as the Canadian Entitlement.

But the challenge in bringing salmon back to the Upper Columbia Basin isn’t limited to funding, experts say.

In 2012, a group of researchers published a report on efforts to restore Atlantic Salmon and other migrating fish species to rivers on the East Coast of North America.

The report found that the effort at three major rivers did not yield “self-sustaining populations in any eastern U.S. river” despite “hundreds of millions” in investment on the construction of hatcheries and fish passages.

“It may be time to admit failure of fish passage and hatchery-based restoration programs and acknowledge that significant diadromous species restoration is not possible without dam removals,” said the report on fish that travel between salt and fresh water.

University of Victoria Biology Professor Francis Juanes was a co-author of the report, and he said that while the topic of fish passage technology among researchers is actively discussed and constantly advancing, studies have shown the only reliable way to fully restore a natural fish run may be a dam’s removal.

Juanes said that when a dam on the Elwha River was removed about a decade ago in Washington state, “you didn’t have to reintroduce (salmon).”

“They came back naturally. In a sense, that is the best way to reintroduce salmon especially to a river system.”

Results on the East Coast where fish ladders were used, particularly the Connecticut River, were not nearly as effective, Juanes said.

“It took so much effort by so many states, and you needed the hatcheries to grow these babies. So, that’s an enormous effort, and the return just wasn’t very good.”

John Waldman, biology professor at Queens College in New York, is one of the main authors of the report.

Waldman said there is rising belief among grassroots and Indigenous groups throughout North America that dam removals may be the optimal way to restore fish runs, in lieu of the poor results from alternative passages.

“I think there’s one universal theme that has emerged over the last two decades, which is that dam removal is without question the best solution to bringing these fish back again,” he said.

“Fish ladders and fish elevators provide what’s called the halfway measure.

“It looks like to the uninitiated that you have a solution and that it works, but the truth is when you look at the actual performance of many of these fish ladders and fish elevators, not that many fish pass through them.”

The biggest dam removal project in the United States began earlier this year on the Klamath River along the Oregon-California border, where four such structures will come down by next year under a budget of US$450 million.

Discussions on removing four dams on another branch of the Columbia River Basin – in the lower parts of the Snake River – have been ongoing for years, with the U.S. federal government rejecting in 2020 the idea due to possible power-grid destabilization if the hydro electricity from the dams are removed.

Last month, U.S. President Joe Biden directed federal agencies to use all available authorities and resources to restore salmon runs in the Columbia River Basin that are “healthy and abundant.”

Biden’s order, however, stopped short of calling for the removal of the dams on the Lower Snake River in Washington state.

The Upper Columbia United Tribes, consisting of five member Indigenous nations in the U.S. Pacific Northwest, said on its website on salmon restoration that while more studies are needed, there have been “encouraging advances” in fish passage technologies such as floating surface collectors and salmon cannons to get past tall dams without the structures’ removal.

But such technology, Waldman said, is unproven in being able to support a large, natural fish migration.

“I think this is a quarter-way measure, not even a halfway measure,” he said.

“You see them emerging once in a while, and somebody gets wind of it on TV, and some late night comedians make fun of fish being shot through these cannons. But no one’s ever ramped them up to be at a level that would sustain a natural level of migratory fish.”

But Juanes said such options may be necessary if dam removals are not possible, even if they may add stress to the salmon population and make them more vulnerable to diseases.

“For one, that’s a very costly thing to do,” Juanes said of fish-passage technology. “For two, it causes stress to the animals. I can imagine that this cannon is not a happy moment for the fish, but maybe it’s better than it dying below the dam.”

Crow, for his part, said he understands “there’s no way of getting around the fact” that dams such as the Grand Coulee remain in the migration path, posing a monumental challenge to restoring salmon migration routes.

But he said the reintroduction of salmon runs to the Upper Columbia Basin is important enough to warrant effort and funding.

“There are lots of options out there, but what is going to be the most efficient and least impactful to the salmon, and they can still get back up? That’s the key,” he said.

“I’ve been taught to think seven generations down. So, I’m looking seven generations ahead of decisions that I make today: How is it going to influence or how is it going to impact my great-great-grandkids?”

https://globalnews.ca/news/10072179/first-nations-bc-salmon-return-columbia-basin/

September 25, 2019

By Jeremy P. Jacobs

ALONG THE SELWAY RIVER, Idaho — The only time in his life that he was near water without a rod and reel, Steve Pettit fished with grenades.

He was then a helicopter gunship pilot in Vietnam, and it was an out-of-character fishing technique for someone who would go on to become a champion for Columbia River salmon and steelhead.

And by the time the final dams in the Columbia River basin came on line in the mid-1970s, Pettit was an Idaho Fish and Game biologist.

He saw the dams' impacts and spearheaded challenges to federal managers, surreptitiously capturing video footage inside the dams to use as legal evidence and bird-dogging officials at meetings across the state. He did it for the love of salmon and steelhead.

"I dedicated my whole career to trying to save them," Pettit, 76, said. "I thought I would retire before the fish went down."

But Pettit now gives some runs of salmon and steelhead a decade or less before they disappear.

"It's pretty depressing," he sighed.

Stocky, goateed and frequently profane, Pettit is instinctively combative, possibly the result of what he says is PTSD from his tour in Vietnam and probably the result of years of fighting for fish — often to no avail.

The goal of his long battle for salmon: the removal of four dams on the Lower Snake River in eastern Washington that he and other experts say are the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back for these fish.

The dams, he insists, must be breached if there is any hope of recovering the fish.

"If you don't," he said, "you are just dooming them."

Going back millennia, 10 million to 16 million salmon and steelhead returned to the Columbia River in the Pacific Northwest. Many navigated hundreds of miles into wilderness areas in central Idaho, home to the Snake River, a tributary of the Columbia, and some of the best freshwater spawning habitat in the Lower 48 states.

Those numbers plummeted starting in the 1960s, the result of commercial harvest, development and rampant dam building that included the four dams on the Lower Snake River: Ice Harbor (completed in 1961), Lower Monumental (1969), Little Goose (1970) and Lower Granite (1975).

Since then, 13 runs of salmon and steelhead in the Columbia Basin have been listed as threatened or endangered. They include the Snake River runs, which historically produced almost half of the salmon and steelhead in the basin.

The salmon and steelhead have become some of the most studied fish on the planet. Forced by courts, federal managers have tried virtually everything at these dams to boost survival rates — except breaching.

But even though there have been some good years where numbers have ticked up, the fish are not recovering despite the most expensive endangered species program in U.S. history.

These fish are also the most political.

Every stakeholder in the basin has different statistics and talking points. Many of those arguments are misdirection, and the system's backers have sought to undermine independent science on the fish over the years, including trying to defund a key research center.

Now, conservationists are pointing to a new related problem. A pod of orcas off Washington's coast appears heading for extinction partly due to dwindling numbers of chinook salmon, their main food. From 2015 to 2018, not a single killer whale calf born in the pod survived, according to a task force convened by Gov. Jay Inslee (D).

Pettit has been at the center of it all. He became Idaho Fish and Game's expert on fish passage at dams. He was the expert witness in the first challenge to their federal management, which led to the first of five court rulings against the feds.

"He comes at this as a lifelong fisheries biologist and fisherman who has known the river before it was dammed and after," said Todd True, an Earthjustice attorney who has worked with Pettit on a number of cases.

"He has come to the conclusions he has come to based on his experiences.... His knowledge of that river is pretty much second to none," True said.

Pettit is also relentless. As a fisheries biologist, he would raise fire and brimstone about what needs to be done to save the fish at public meetings. Conservative Idaho governors were forced to dispatch a staffer who subsequently would renounce Pettit's remarks.

"Disregard what Mr. Pettit said," the staffer would inevitably say. "I speak for the governor's office, and we don't want to do that."

Pettit's doggedness has made him a legend among conservationists. To them, the solution is simple: Breach the four dams.

They point to a 2017 report from the Fish Passage Center, an independent research institution, which predicted an estimated fourfold increase in the number of salmon and steelhead returning to the Snake River system if the four dams were removed and spill over dams lower on the Columbia River was increased.

Others agree with the center. In a letter to Inslee's task force, a group of orca scientists recommended "permanently restoring the Snake River by removing the lower Snake River dams."

"Orca need more Chinook salmon available on a year-round basis, as quickly as possible," they wrote.

But again and again, Pettit and his comrades have been rebuffed, sometimes in ways that Pettit equates to an ostrich jamming its head in the sand. Idaho Gov. Brad Little (R), for example, recently launched a "salmon workgroup." But he immediately took dam removal off the table.

To Pettit, that's what makes Idaho Republican Rep. Mike Simpson's recent remarks and new effort to address the region's energy and fish crises paramount (Greenwire, Sept. 3).

Otherwise, Pettit said, it's just more of the same. And asked if the current regime could ever recover the fish, Pettit was characteristically blunt: "F—- no."

"It's like the definition of insanity," he said. "Doing the same thing every year and expecting a different result."

The Best Rivers

Pettit grew up in Mountain Lakes, N.J., and at 15 held the state record for catching the biggest largemouth bass.

During the Vietnam War, he became a helicopter pilot. His job was to provide cover for special forces on the ground. Or, as he put it, to "shoot the shit out of the jungle."

Upon his return home, he wanted to become a fish biologist. He applied to several schools, eventually enrolling at the University of Idaho in Moscow because "it has the best rivers."

Pettit graduated in 1973, right before Dworshak Dam came online. The more than 700-foot-high dam blocked fish passage to the north fork of the Clearwater River, a tributary of the Snake. That included pristine Idaho fish habitat like Kelly Creek.

Pettit conducted research on cutthroat trout there during grad school with professor Don Chapman. He watched as his beloved steelhead were cut off from those spawning grounds by the dam.

"It blocked the most magnificent run of summer steelhead in North America," Pettit said. "They were huge fish, lots of them, and they become extirpated from the drainage."

Pettit found a way to memorialize the run: He named his son Kelly.

The fisherman would build his home on the banks of the Clearwater River. In those days, he rarely saw anyone else and there were plenty of fish. It was a fly fisherman's Shangri-La.

At Idaho Fish and Game, Pettit drafted the first catch-and-release regulations for steelhead, according to journalist Steven Hawley's 2018 profile of Pettit in The Drake, a fly-fishing magazine.

At the time, it was thought catch and release wouldn't work for steelhead. Despite their tremendous strength, most believed steelhead would die after being hooked.

Pettit's research changed that, and those regulations are one reason why the species is still on the planet given what would come next.

Falling Short on Restoration

Salmon and steelhead are anadromous fish, meaning they're born in freshwater, spend most of their lives in the sea and return to freshwater.

They lay their eggs in freshwater creeks and riverbeds. The offspring, or "fry," spend up to two years maturing to migration size. When they are ready, they migrate downstream, pushed mostly tail-first by the current.

Hundreds of miles later, they reach the ocean and their physiology changes. Their kidney function reverses, and they transition to saltwater fish, or "smolts."

They then spend up to four years in the ocean, swimming north to Alaska, growing and storing energy for their return trip.

When the time comes, they reenter freshwater and that physiological process again reverses. They smell their way back to where they were born, swimming some 900 miles against the current to high elevations to spawn and die.

In 1975, Lower Granite Dam on the Lower Snake River was completed, one of the last in the Columbia River system.

Lower Granite was the eighth dam separating the ocean and the prime salmon-spawning habitat in central Idaho — Snake River tributaries like the Salmon, Clearwater and Selway rivers.

The dams had an immediate and deadly impact on the fish.

Without the eight dams, the juvenile migration would take about a week or two. Now, it takes up to six.

The dams create slack water reservoirs, dramatically slowing the current. That makes it harder for the fish to get downstream and easier for predators to hunt them. They also allow temperatures in the river to rise to unhealthy and sometimes lethal levels.

By the time they reach the ocean, the various stressors take their toll. Many of the Snake River juveniles don't return as adults.

The Northwest Power and Conservation Council is, by law, responsible for fish recovery in the region. It's focused on a specific metric: smolt-to-adult returns, or SARs. It measures the number of adults who return from a specific number of smolts, or juveniles. Five percent, for example, means five adults out of 100 smolts made it back.

The council — but, importantly, not federal scientists — has adopted a goal of a 4% average SAR coming from a range of 2% to 6%.

Four percent means the species recovering at a rate that could lead to delisting the run as endangered or threatened.

Less than 2% means the species is dying out; the fish aren't replacing themselves.

The Snake River salmon and steelhead are far from the council's 4% goal.

In fact, they have continued to decline despite the billions of dollars spent on their recovery.

From 1994 to 2017, the SAR for spring-summer run chinook salmon averaged less than 1%, according to the Fish Passage Center. It has only exceeded 2% twice in the last quarter century. The SAR for the species has declined by three-quarters since the dams went in, according to the research center.

Steelhead did slightly better but still haven't reached even the 2% mark, averaging just over 1% since 1997.

Put another way for a different salmon run: Historically, an estimated 150,000 sockeye salmon returned to the Snake River every year. The recovery goal for the endangered run is now 2,500 adults getting over Lower Granite Dam. In the last 10 years, the average has been almost 1,100 — less than half of the goal.

Salmon and steelhead from other, smaller Columbia tributaries are doing better. Spring-summer chinook salmon and steelhead in the Yakima and John Day Rivers are either meeting or nearly meeting the SAR goal. Those fish must navigate fewer dams to reach the ocean — four in for the Yakima and three for the John Day.

The Fish Passage Center is the leading expert on SARs. In 2017, it analyzed various scenarios and how they would affect fish runs.

The most effective for the Snake River runs: breaching the four Lower Snake River dams and increasing spill at other dams downstream was the most effective. That would result in an estimated fourfold increase in returns, it concluded.

Federal Focus on Fish Passage

Federal scientists and dam managers don't see it that way.

Their approach is fundamentally different: Instead of tearing down dams, let's build our way out of the problem.

On a tour of the Lower Granite Dam, the most impressive engineering feat wasn't the 100-foot impoundment and its eight spillway gates.

It was what might be called an amusement park for fish.

When a juvenile fish runs into the dam on its way to the ocean, it encounters a choose-your-adventure game built by the Army Corps of Engineers.

If the fish is lucky, it'll flow over the surface of the reservoir and down a "removable spillway weir," an enormous slip-and-slide that runs from the top of the reservoir, over the spillway to the river below.

Or the fish could dive down 50 feet to reach the entries to the dam's other spillways. Diving that deep isn't easy for juveniles, and it makes them easy hunting for predators.

Or the fish can swim toward the light. Bright beams shine through a series of 10-inch holes in the dam that lead to the fish "bypass" system. It shuttles the fish down a several-hundred-foot slide that starts straight, then corkscrews around a series of turns before reaching a research lab.

There, it's anesthetized and tagged. Then it's off to a holding tank for the anesthesia to wear off, and either onto a barge to be shipped downstream or returned to the river.

The last option: going through the hydropower turbines. Only a small percentage of fish end up going through the turbines anymore, about 10% or less, according to the Army Corps.

If the fish doesn't get onto the barge, it must repeat that process at three more dams on the Lower Snake River, then face four more on the Columbia.

The entire program has cost billions of dollars, and the Army Corps, Bureau of Reclamation and Bonneville Power Administration, which pays for the program, take pride in the passage improvements.

The survival rates for juveniles at each dam are generally good.

According to NOAA Fisheries' statistics, about 96% of juveniles make it through each of the Lower Snake River dams, and roughly 75% make it through all four. They also point out that even if there were no dams, juvenile survival wouldn't be 100% due to predators.

BPA has also spent billions of dollars trying to improve habitat both upstream and downstream for the fish.

It has acquired and set aside more than double the amount of land that was inundated by the dam system. And BPA says it has opened 4,406 river miles of spawning and rearing habitat. Most recently, they broke ground on a $25 million, 1,000-acre floodplain restoration near the ocean estuary, the largest such project ever attempted.

Ritchie Graves, the leader of NOAA's Columbia Hydropower Branch, said these and other measures have helped. He also criticized the SAR metric, saying it doesn't reflect habitat problems that make spawning difficult.

"The ability of habitat to produce smolts is quite variable," he said. "You could have a SARs of 5%, but you still wouldn't make it in some streams because the habitat is limiting the number of smolts."

NOAA spokesman Michael Milstein said the agency views the 4% SAR target as an "aspiration goal" but they are "not sure how achievable it is" given other factors.

But there are fundamental problems with this entire approach, critics say, including the emphasis on juvenile survival rates at each dam.

Even if 96% of juveniles make it through each dam, that 4% mortality rate compounds on itself at each of the eight dams, gradually and continually cutting down the population of fish.

Add in predators and other factors like warm reservoir temperatures, and what looked like a good survival rate quickly evaporates.

It is not unusual to lose half of a juvenile run in a year, and in bad water years that number can be as high as 85%.

The juvenile survival rate per dam also doesn't take into account "latent" or "delayed" mortality, the theory that stress on the fish accumulates through the system, culminating in their death in the ocean.

Further, critics argue that the agencies frequently rely on hatchery fish to highlight raw numbers of juveniles in the system.

But hatchery fish are less robust. They are weaker and dumber and, importantly, they generally don't make it back as adults. Their SARs are even lower than the wild fish's.

Courts have also criticized the focus on habitat.

In May 2016, Judge Michael Simon of the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon ruled that there were "significant deficiencies" with the agencies' focus on habitat mitigation.

He cited studies that found existing pristine spawning habitats were not producing many fish, suggesting the problem lay elsewhere.

And he bluntly said that other measures may be a better use of money.

"[T]he option of breaching, bypassing, or even removing a dam may be considered more financially prudent and environmentally effective than spending hundreds of millions of dollars on uncertain habitat restoration and other alternative actions," Simon wrote.

Jim Norton of the Columbia Rediviva project and the Idaho Conservation League put it another way.

The agencies, he said, are "giving the region a mani-pedi when it is having a heart attack."

Simon ordered the agencies to do another environmental analysis that considers dam removal. The first draft is due next February.

Back at the dams themselves, Army Corps' own data suggests that despite the millions of dollars spent on the program, juvenile survival at Lower Granite Dam has stayed roughly the same since 2006.

Yet the fish have continued to decline. This year's Idaho steelhead count is so low, Idaho Fish and Game closed the fall fishing season on the Clearwater River last week.

Army Corps fisheries biologist Ann Setter said that shows the agency has done pretty much everything it can at the dams for the fish. Other factors, such as a warming ocean driven by climate change, are harming the fish.

The Army Corps' position: Those aren't our problem.

"We can't control that at all," Setter said. "What we impacted was freshwater habitat. So what we've tried to do is mitigate for that impacted freshwater habitat and provide a safe fish passage corridor. That's our responsibility."

Heartbeats for Salmon

The Army Corps' reasoning terrifies Pettit.

He says the agencies are latching on to climate change and cycles of warming ocean that have returned this year to renounce their responsibility for the problem.

"The greatest fear is that they glob onto climate change," he said. "Climate change is going right into their wheelhouse."

On a flight over the Nez Perce National Forest, Pettit pointed out fish habitat on the Selway River, a tributary of the Snake.

The only thing you have control over is the migration corridor, it's the only thing that would possibly have a chance to save our fish.

He looked straight down at the "salmon hole," a 30-foot deep pool in Bear Creek so clear you can see the bottom.

It's perfect habitat for adult salmon on their way back upriver to spawn.

Pettit has seen it teeming with as many as 100 adult salmon. He couldn't see any on this trip.

He looks at climate change another way: If ocean conditions are deteriorating, the only hope for the fish is to improve their path to places like the salmon hole. And that means tearing down the four dams.

"The only thing you have control over is the migration corridor," he said. "It's the only thing that would possibly have a chance to save our fish."

Pettit's own fishing has slowed down. In 2007, his heart stopped, a health scare he attributes to exposure to Agent Orange, the toxic herbicide used in Vietnam to thin forests.

Technically, he said, he died four times on the way to the hospital. His doctor has installed a pacemaker.

But the allure of steelhead is still strong. The fisherman, who has caught more than 6,000 steelhead on the Clearwater River, hunts for them anywhere he can find them.

Next month, he'll depart for the Kamchatka Peninsula — in Russia.

By Howard Garrett
February 27, 2015

Anniversaries are a time for reflection and assessment. A decade ago in 2005, NOAA, the federal agency charged with protecting marine mammals, listed the southern resident killer whales under the Endangered Species Act. Despite having learned much about these imperiled whales since then, NOAA has made little actual progress to meet their essential needs. In the last decade, deaths have outnumbered births by a ratio of two to one. Many scientists now fear the population teeters on the edge of extinction. Those of us who care about southern residents should contact our federal and state elected officials to ensure that NOAA acts quickly to put our cherished orcas on a path to recovery.

Today, we know more about the southern residents than ever before. Recent research in the Salish Sea and near the mouth of the Columbia River, for example, shows southern resident killer whales are highly dependent on chinook — even when other salmon are present. Orca hormone levels, however, reflect severe nutritional stress. Southern resident killer whales today aren’t finding sufficient Chinook to maintain — much less increase — their diminished population.

A preliminary report from the necropsy of J32, or Rhapsody, the charismatic, much-loved 18-year-old female who died with her full-term calf last December, describes a thin, dry blubber layer indicative of chronic food shortages. Nutritional deficits bring orcas more trouble: metabolizing blubber mobilizes harmful toxins that cause other serious conditions like sterility, immune system impairment and death.

Recent research also confirms the importance of Columbia Basin chinook to southern resident killer whales. Southern residents often leave the Salish Sea to hunt at the Columbia’s mouth for both Snake and Columbia River chinook. But this isn’t actually news. In its 2008 orca recovery plan, NOAA acknowledges orcas’ historic reliance on Columbia Basin chinook and describes its population declines as “[p]erhaps the single greatest change in food availability for resident killer whales since the late 1800s...”

This new knowledge can help us to better protect southern resident killer whales, but only with leadership and action from the federal government. In just the last two years, southern resident killer whales have lost eight individuals – a 10 percent decline that leaves just 79 whales. This sudden decline — ten years after being officially classified as endangered — is spurring orca scientists and advocates to demand fast, meaningful action from NOAA.

Unfortunately, recent statements from NOAA are not encouraging. In December, the Seattle Times reported: “officials overseeing whale recovery say it’s too soon to say the situation is…dire.” Yet it is irrefutable that the southern resident killer whales’ future today hangs in the balance and urgent action is needed. The orcas do not have time for “wait and see” — a sure-fire extinction strategy. The time to act is now. The survival and recovery of iconic southern residents can be secured only by significantly increasing the numbers of chinook salmon in the coastal and inland waters orcas frequent — and time is their enemy.

Although we need to stay focused on salmon restoration throughout the southern resident killer whales’ historic range, it is the Columbia Basin — and the Snake River watershed in particular — that holds the greatest promise for restoring significant numbers of chinook in the near-term. For this reason, orca scientists and advocates have recently begun to call for the removal of the four lower Snake River dams.

No other Northwest chinook restoration proposal offers such potential. Investing in a healthy, free-flowing lower Snake River will restore salmon’s spawning access to more than 5,500 high-quality river and stream miles and produce hundreds of thousands more chinook to help southern resident killer whales s survive and rebuild. As orca advocates, we look forward to the opportunity to work with the people of Washington and beyond to craft a plan that restores the Snake River and serves orcas, salmon and our communities on both sides of the Cascades.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
: Howard Garrett is director of Orca Network, based on Whidbey Island. He co-founded Orca Network in 2001 with his wife Susan Berta to provide education about the orcas of the Salish Sea and advocate for habitat restoration, specifically to improve runs of chinook salmon, the primary prey of southern resident orcas.

Read more here: http://www.bellinghamherald.com/2015/02/27/4155907_survival-of-endangered-orcas-in.html

For salmon and steelhead to survive, the dams must go

Jan 14, 2021

Historically, the Snake River basin was the largest salmon producer in the Columbia River system, once home to salmon runs numbering in the millions. Today, all stocks of salmon and steelhead in the basin are gravely imperiled and some are at the precipice of extinction. Over the last 20 years, the federal government has invested nearly $17 billion into the recovery of Snake River Basin salmon and steelhead—with little to nothing to show in the way of results. The reason, scientists say, is the continued existence of the lower Snake River dams, which destroy habitat, create conditions averse to fish survival, and block passage to vital spawning habitat. This week, ten scientists signed an open letter to the governors of Washington, Oregon, Montana and Idaho calling on those states to remove the lower four dams on the Snake River, stating that "abundant, healthy and harvestable wild Snake River salmon and steelhead cannot be restored and sustained with the four lower Snake River dams in place."

Amongst the letter's signatories is Jack Williams, emeritus senior scientist at Trout Unlimited; David Montgomery of the University of Washington, author of The King of Fish: The Thousand-Year Run of Salmon; James Lichatowich, noted salmon fisheries biologist and author of Salmon Without Rivers; Don Chapman, retired state and federal agency biologist; Richard Williams of the College of Idaho; Bruce Rieman and Peter Bisson, retired U.S. Forest Service scientists; Charles Petrosky, retired Idaho Department of Fish and Game biologist; and Howard Schaller, retired project leader for the Columbia River Fish and Wildlife Conservation Office at the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service.

The good news, according to the scientists who drafted the letter, is that the Snake River basin "remains exceptional in its recovery potential." But, the letter warns, fisheries managers find themselves at a pivotal moment, with "every Snake River salmon and steelhead population is listed under the Endangered Species Act (ESA), with recent returns consistently below the threshold needed to avoid extinction." If the dams are not removed, the scientists write, "the basin’s salmon and steelhead are highly likely to become extinct."

"It is our collective opinion, based on overwhelming scientific evidence, that restoration of a free-flowing lower Snake River is essential to recovering wild Pacific salmon and steelhead in the basin. We base our opinion on our deep expertise in the science of salmon and steelhead conservation including decades of collaborative research that has withstood rigorous scientific review. Continued hatchery reform, habitat restoration and other actions are needed, but dam breaching is the essential cornerstone of a comprehensive, effective recovery strategy," the letter states.

The lower Snake River dams are all run-of-river dams, which means they don't store water, and thus don't provide any flood control. Lower Granite Dam is actually regarded to increase flood risk to Lewiston, Idaho. Due to the lack of water storage, the dams also don't offer much in the way of irrigation. In fact, Ice Harbor Dam is the only dam in the lower system that provides any irrigation whatsoever—and in a limited volume that is said to be easily replaced by running intake pipes into a free-flowing Snake. What the dams do offer nearby communities, however, is electricity—only not that much. At peak capacity—a level at which the dams very rarely operate—they can generate 3,000 megawatts of power. But their actual yearly output is just over 1,000 average megawatts—an amount that is easily and relatively cheaply replaced by clean energy sources like wind.

Lacking ammunition to justify the dam's continued existence, defenders of the lower Snake River dams have more recently begun citing poor ocean conditions of the last several years as evidence that the problems facing Snake River salmon and steelhead lie outside the basin. In their letter, the scientists dismiss this charge, calling the logic "flawed" and stating that "it ignores the tremendous body of scientific analysis that clearly demonstrates the importance of the freshwater phase of the salmon and steelhead life-cycle — from eggs in gravel, to migration to the ocean as smolts, and to migration from river entry to spawning grounds as adults." The letter goes on to note that "ocean conditions fluctuate. Recent conditions in the north Pacific have been tough on the fish. But a key to ensuring that salmon and steelhead can persist through poor ocean cycles and thrive during good ocean cycles is access to high quality freshwater habitat that produces abundant, healthy, diverse salmon and steelhead."

Taking care not to dismiss the significance of removal, the scientists close the by stating, "We recognize that removal of the lower four Snake River dams will involve major change in the region, necessitating investment in industries and local communities to adapt to a free-flowing lower Snake River. We believe that there are affordable, cost-effective alternatives that can provide the economic benefits currently provided by the dams. We strongly support taking such measures. The weight of scientific evidence demonstrates there is no chance of restoring abundant, healthy and harvestable Snake River salmon and steelhead with the lower Snake River dams in place."

With the death of Granny, the matriarch of the northeast Pacific’s southern resident killer whales, a century’s worth of knowledge and leadership is lost as well.

by Elin Kelsey
Published January 25, 2017

In late December 2016, Ken Balcomb of the Center for Whale Research in Washington State announced that the world’s oldest-known killer whale had died. Granny, or J2 as she is known in the whale research community, had not been seen since mid-October and her absence from her close-knit community led researchers to declare her dead. She was estimated to be 105, extremely old for any mammal.

Granny was the matriarch and most famous of the southern resident killer whales—an extended family of 78 whales in three pods: J, K, and L. In recent years, she was swimming in the lead of J pod virtually every time she was seen. The question of who will assume her leadership position holds more than just common interest: studies show that killer whale matriarchs play a crucial role in the cohesion and survival of their communities. “In killer whales, these old females are very important,” says Hal Whitehead, an expert in the study of whale cultures at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. This complex social structure is also relatively unheard of. “To have these social systems where elderly, postmenopausal matriarchs have a vital role in the lives of their family members is very rare,” says Whitehead.

Researchers believe it is the knowledge these long-lived individuals have acquired over a lifetime of experiences that enables them to lead their relatives through tough times. Today, for instance, the life skills of older whales are vital since the population of chinook salmon that makes up 80 percent of the diet of these endangered whales has dropped to 10 percent of historical numbers.

Not only are postmenopausal female killer whales important as leaders, their presence is essential to middle-aged males. In a 2012 paper published in the journal Science, a team of international researchers used survival analysis to show that when a mother whale dies, the risk of mortality for her son increases three- to fourteenfold, depending on the son’s age, in the year following her death. (She bolsters his survival in a number of ways, including assisting in foraging and providing support during conflict.) Granny had no living offspring, but she was often seen in the company of a motherless 25-year-old male named L87, leaving researchers to wonder how her death will affect him as well as those in the rest of the pod that relied on her century’s worth of knowledge.
 
Granny played a leadership role in J pod and was most often seen swimming ahead of the other whales. Photo by Marli Wakeling/Alamy Stock Photo
Rich Osborne, a research associate at the Whale Museum in Friday Harbor, Washington, who knew Granny well, says, “Old female orcas probably have a lot of good ecological information that the rest of the pod depends on, but I am sure they have a way of passing it on,” adding that there are “a lot of old gals” quite capable of carrying on the role. Granny’s death leaves J16, age 44, as the oldest female in J pod. It’s unclear whether J16 will take on Granny’s role, or whether it will shift to an older female from one of the other southern resident pods. Osborne suggests they’ll sort it out much like people. “When someone dies, everybody shifts their power structure,” he says. “The same thing probably happens with killer whales. They’ll work out their politics the way they do.”

Fred Sharpe, a research biologist with the Alaska Whale Foundation who often works in the Pacific Northwest, says, “I think we should sing [Granny’s] praises, just as we would do for any elder.” But, with the state of this endangered group of killer whales so precarious, Sharpe says this is also a fitting moment for us to redouble efforts to reduce the noise and chemical pollution that threaten Granny’s surviving family members, and to continue the trend of removing dams and other constrictions to fish. Sharpe explains that in coastal Washington State alone, over 6,000 revetments—dykes and other fortifications—have been removed in the past decade and a half, opening up thousands of kilometers of new spawning habitat. “Things are turning around.”

On January 9, 2017, environmental groups filed a notice asking a US federal court to halt infrastructure projects on four lower Snake River dams in Washington State. A pending review could determine that the dams need to come out to help salmon. This, in turn, would help the killer whales that depend on them.

Protecting the whales’ marine habitat from the onslaught of noise and disturbance from boat traffic is also key to the future of Granny’s descendants. On January 12, 2017, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration filed a request for public comments on a petition calling for a whale protection zone on the west side of Washington’s San Juan Island to minimize vessel impacts on the southern residents. Whether or not these actions were spurred by the outpouring of affection following the passing of the world’s oldest killer whale is uncertain. But taking tangible actions to return vital southern resident habitat would lend meaning to Granny’s life and her death.

https://www.hakaimagazine.com/article-short/what-happens-when-endangered-whale-pod-loses-its-wise-old-grandma

By Kate Schimel, Sept. 4, 2017

The Elwha River starts at Dodwell-Rixon Pass, a high crack in Washington’s Olympic Mountains. There, a hiker who crossed would find the Elwha Snowfinger, formed by heavy winter storms and the avalanches that pour off the surrounding mountainsides. Wedged into a steep-walled gully, it forms the upper reaches of the Elwha basin. If the hiker followed this snow down, eventually she’d find a stream, and that stream would widen and become the Elwha River. As she traveled down, as more streams joined its flow, she would find one of those messy rivers that characterize the Pacific Northwest: Wide, braided channels, scattered with logs and boulders, gravel bars strewn with detritus, a sense of a landscape half-finished. Then the river would round a corner and flow out into an area of high gravel banks stretching on for yards, dozens of feet above the water. These are what’s left of Lake Mills, one of two reservoirs that once trapped the Elwha.

On a nippy November day, I look over the remains of Glines Canyon Dam, which formed Lake Mills, with sediment researcher Andy Ritchie. Snow has already begun to collect on the higher slopes; in the path of the wind whistling out of the river canyon, we struggle to talk without chattering teeth. Ritchie is introducing me to one of the largest experiments in ecosystem repair ever undertaken: Beginning in 2011, the federal government removed this dam and one lower down, blasting them away bit by bit over three years. Dozens of researchers from the U.S. Geological Survey and the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe, University of Washington and the National Park Service, along with universities across the country, have since documented how that removal affected sediment in the water, small mammals, salmon, birds and the ocean the river flows into.

Ritchie’s job was to watch the river’s every move from Lake Mills, past the Elwha Dam site, to the river’s mouth at the Strait of Juan de Fuca in the Pacific Ocean.

“The dam removal dwarfs anything done before,” Ritchie says. A river trapped by a dam is predictable. But undammed rivers carry immense force in the form of sediment, logs and flows that can change course and volume rapidly and violently. He shows me how the freed Elwha dug up part of Lake Mills’ bed and deposited it in front of the dam. Then it carved that new bed into huge stairlike gravel banks, finding its way into old channels but also slashing new ones here and far downstream.

“It was impressive,” Ritchie says. The river’s vigor surprised even the project designers and engineers, moving far more of the lakebed than predicted, devouring swaths of land and choking its own fish with fine sediments.

Read the full article here at HCN.

The tribe is working to replace the generating capacity of the Lower Snake River dams with solar power 

Nimiipuu Energy © Mezia Creative Media

Emily Senkosky
July 1, 2024

If you drive east on Highway 95 through the Idaho Panhandle, the Clearwater River will be on your right, winding its way slowly and surely toward Lapwai, Idaho, on the Nez Perce Reservation. The river, which is the largest tributary to the Snake River, is typically dynamic, though on the days when it’s glassy and still, it clearly reflects the clouds as well as the emission plumes from the paper mill on its banks.

Just past the reservation’s border, a billboard greets the driver with an admonition, urging you to “Honor the Treaty of 1855 with the Nez Perce — Breach the Snake River Dams.”

The billboard is the tribe’s response to the four hydropower dams on the Snake River. The Lower Snake River dams have long been controversial for the part they have played in decimating the Pacific Northwest’s once-abundant salmon and steelhead populations.

As night falls on the reservation, another response can be seen in the growing number of homes illuminated by solar power. In an innovative push to replace the hydroelectricity generated by the four dams, the Nez Perce Tribe is creating a new energy infrastructure that could make it easier to breach the dams and restore the salmon.

SOLAR PANELS SHINE from rooftops across the Nez Perce Reservation thanks to the tribe’s solar initiative, Project 5311. Launched in 2022 under the tribal company Nimiipuu Energy, it is named for the amount of solar power the Snake River dams’ operator says is required to replace the electricity the dams generate: 5,311 megawatts. The tribe’s goal is to eventually produce 5,311 megawatts of energy, beginning by generating 500 megawatts by 2027. It is catalyzing a clean energy transition that could help loosen hydropower’s grip on the Pacific Northwest.

“This is an opportunity to create energy,” said Shannon Wheeler, chairman of the Nez Perce Tribe. “Project 5311 is something of a vision that can be utilized for the development of other energy projects that will definitely come together at some point in time.”

Wheeler first glimpsed this opportunity in the spring of 2021, when Idaho Republican Rep. Mike Simpson proposed an infrastructure plan to replace the dams, marking a historic shift in the politics surrounding the dams.

“Project 5311 is something of a vision that can be utilized for the development of other energy projects that will definitely come together at some point in time.”

Starting on their own reservation, the Nez Perce have installed photovoltaic solar panels on community buildings in Lapwai, including at the Boys and Girls Club, where the panels were installed by an all-female Indigenous crew. Solar panels have also been installed on the wastewater plant, the public safety building, the elder housing community and the casino. In 2023, the tribe started putting panels on house rooftops. By the spring of 2024, panels were in place on 57 homes, with plans to install more.

Nez Perce tribal member Basil George has been a part of the solar initiative since it started. As the lead installer, he was a part of the nine-man crew that mounted solar panels on one of the first buildings, the Pi-Nee-Waus Community Center, back in October 2020.

“What we have accomplished already, it’s huge,” said George. “The whole world wants these things, and, you know, we have it here. It’s a huge thing to be Native American and be able to do this.” The Tesla Megapack, which is used to sustain the tribe’s grid, is the first in Idaho. The project partnered with experts at RevoluSun, a solar installation company, to train its solar panel installers. When Nimiipuu Energy advertised training opportunities for a handful of positions, more than 50 tribal members applied. Today, it employs an all-Indigenous team of 25 workers. So far, the Nez Perce have generated roughly 600 megawatt hours in one year, according to Janet Poitra, the tribe’s executive deputy director.

George says that amount of energy produced is expected to grow exponentially: The new home rooftop panels have the potential to produce between 12 and 15 kilowatts per home.

“People can recognize and see, whoa, they’re really doing something and bringing all these groups together,” George said. “We’re doing it one solar panel at a time.”

LONG BEFORE THE DAMS were built on the river, the Nez Perce way of life was centered on the rivers and tributaries that run through the tribe’s ancestral territory in present-day Washington, Oregon, Idaho and parts of Montana. These freshwater arteries provided the tribe’s primary food source — salmon — which comprised 60% to 70% of the people’s diet. Salmon is integral to Nez Perce culture, so much so that many tribal members believe their own DNA contains the DNA of the salmon.

In the Treaty of 1855, which was a formal agreement between the United States government and the Nez Perce Tribe, the tribe ceded much of its ancestral land for a 7.5 million-acre reservation. But when gold was discovered on the reservation in 1863, the Nez Perce were forced into a second treaty that reduced their reservation to its present-day 770,000 acres along the Clearwater River in Idaho. Both treaties, however, preserved the right to fish in “all usual and accustomed places,” which extend beyond the reservation’s boundaries to include the entire Lower Snake and Columbia River Basins and tributaries.

Less than a century later, hydropower was the new gold rush. As the dams went up into the 1970s, fish populations plummeted, justifying conservationists’ fears about the dams’ environmental costs and diluting the Nez Perce’s longtime treaty rights.

“The decline of salmon was a transfer of wealth, both from the land, and from our people,” Wheeler said. By 1986, coho salmon had vanished, and wild sockeye were nearly extirpated from the Snake. Ten years later, the Endangered Species Act protected all Snake River salmon populations, including the spring and fall chinook. In 2023, just over 6,000 wild spring and summer chinook returned to the Snake. Today, all of Idaho’s salmon and steelhead species are listed as either threatened or endangered, with their populations at roughly 2% of historical levels.

In the summer of 2021, the Pacific Northwest’s tribes met to discuss renewable energy and how it could be used to help save the salmon. In 2022, solutions such as those the Nez Perce had proposed began to materialize, as tribes laid the groundwork for green energy. In 2023, several hundred participants attended the Northwest Tribal Clean Energy Summit online and in person, representing an estimated 12 tribes.

Most recently, on Feb. 23, the Biden administration joined four tribal nations and the states of Oregon and Washington to sign the Columbia River Basin Agreement in support of the development of alternative energy in the Pacific Northwest as part of a path toward breaching all four dams.

“The Biden administration agrees that we need to do something different to recover salmon populations in the Columbia Basin,” said Kayeloni Scott, a member of the Spokane and Nez Perce Tribes and communications consultant for the Nez Perce. “The status quo is not working. It’s not green energy if it’s killing fish.”

OVER THE PAST YEAR, more funding has become available for tribal renewable energy projects through federal programs such as “Solar for All.” Many of the programs support research, development and deployment of solar energy, Wheeler said. Since the Nez Perce launched Nimiipuu Energy, tribes from all over the region have visited Lapwai to examine the solar operations. The Nez Perce have also been helping to consult on the design of other renewable energy projects in the region.

“Having the tribe at the forefront of this type of work is often not the case,” Scott said. “People are getting inspired by knowing that we are continuing the fight to do more to offset the energy produced by the hydro system.”

The tribe is also working actively with the U.S. Department of Energy and other federal agencies and state governments to ensure that the transition away from hydroelectric power considers the needs of all the stakeholders involved with the Lower Snake River dams.

“We want to work with irrigators, we want to work with the transporters, the shipping industry,” Wheeler said. “We want to resolve their issues, because resolving their issues will resolve our issue.”

Although the decision on dam removal is ultimately up to Congress, the federal government plans to partner with a growing consortium of tribes to assist the Pacific Northwest’s energy transition.

“The status quo is not working. It’s not green energy if it’s killing fish.”

“We’re self-sufficient in our capabilities of developing and utilizing resources that are there to modernize us,” Wheeler said. “Energy is a huge thing for us, and we understand that it’s going to help not only us but the region as well.”

The effects of the tribe’s initiative continue to ripple out. In March 2024, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, D, and members of the Washington State Legislature matched $600,000 of federal funds to support a study on the best way to replace the energy, transportation and irrigation services provided by the Snake River dams.

Both Scott and Wheeler believe that Project 5311 is on track to meet its goal by 2027. The working mantra for some of the workers and panel installers is that each solar panel represents one fish. In offering solar for salmon, the Nez Perce Tribe hopes to energize a transition that helps the people uphold the deep cultural relationship they have with the fish.

“To see the salmon return would restore peace in my heart,” Wheeler said. “Fishing with my relatives reminds me of times in my life when I was safe and at peace. That is what the salmon covenant means to me.”

High Country News: 'How the Nez Perce are using an energy transition to save salmon' article link

July 5, 2019

By Adam M. Sowards  On Memorial Day 1948, as Oregonians traveled home from holidays on the coast and the Cascade Mountains, the Columbia River breached a dike at Vanport, an industrial suburb north of Portland. Swollen by abnormally deep snowfall, rapid melting and region-wide rainstorms, the river submerged the town, displacing some 18,000 residents (one-third of them African American), killing at least 51 and damaging property valued at more than $100 million.  In addition to those immediate, devastating effects, the Vanport Flood also catalyzed changes in international relations in the Columbia River Basin — an area roughly the size of France — hastening plans to build three flood-control dams in Canada and authorizing another in the United States. Those projects were codified in the Columbia River Treaty between the U.S. and Canada, in 1961.  Now, with parts of the treaty due to expire in five years, the two countries are renegotiating it. But the political landscape has vastly changed since 1961. The original treaty was implemented before the 1970 National Environmental Policy Act, the 1973 Endangered Species Act and a host of legal shifts that bolstered Indigenous rights in both countries, including 1974’s Boldt Decision, which affirmed Pacific Northwest tribal nations’ right to co-manage salmon. These hallmarks of change emphasize the need to include environmental protection and equity in an updated treaty.  Over its 1,243-mile course to the Pacific Ocean, the Columbia River squeezes through several narrow spots, ideal for hydropower generation. In 1927, Congress directed the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to survey American river basins and create plans to fully exploit their power potential via dams that would also offer navigation, irrigation and flood-control benefits. The Corps’ Columbia River and Its Minor Tributaries, published following the directive, forecast a future river full of dams, capturing energy and transmitting it through wires to light homes and power industries throughout the Northwest. The first dam across the Columbia River, completed in 1933, was a small, private one, a puny preview of what would soon transform the basin: behemoths like Bonneville Dam in 1938 and Grand Coulee Dam in 1942. But there were problems: Lacking fish ladders, Grand Coulee prevented salmon and steelhead from migrating hundreds of miles up the Columbia and its tributaries, including into British Columbia. It also flooded 21,000 acres of the Colville Reservation. Effects of this inundation were multifold and tragic, according to former Tribal Judge Mary L. Pearson. The Bureau of Reclamation waited too long to relocate more than a thousand graves, and many of them were flooded. Compounding this cultural tragedy, the reservoir ruined important hunting, farming and gathering spots. It was a multi-pronged attack against Native nations’ sovereignty and cultural foundations. Then, the 1948 Vanport disaster accelerated regional and international discussions on how to control unruly rivers, spurring the signing of the Columbia River Treaty, which went into effect in 1964. It specified that Canada’s new dams would hold back 15.5 million acre-feet of water. In exchange, the United States paid just shy of $65 million, secured flood control and received a share of the hydropower generated north of the border.  The treaty emerged from the belief that the economic and social benefits of dam-building outweighed any ecological and cultural losses, regardless of the harm produced. But today’s societal values around acceptable tradeoffs have begun to transform.  The U.S. and Canada excluded Indigenous peoples from the negotiating table the first time around. Since then, tribal nations have organized politically and developed crucial organizations within the basin, including the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission and the Upper Columbia United Tribes. Dozens of tribal nations are influencing the renegotiations — attending meetings, publishing position papers and remaining present. Sort of. Despite asking for tribes’ input and their central role as co-managers of the region’s fisheries, American negotiators have excluded them from any official status, while Canadians have extended official observer  to only three First Nations. These sovereign Indigenous nations bring to today’s negotiations a deeper history with the river than either of the nations renegotiating the treaty, and they express that history through distinct values and goals. For instance, they are exploring ways to restore fish runs above the dams, proof that greater involvement produces better ideas and results. Environmental values and laws have also been revolutionized since the original treaty was signed. Today, for example, federal laws make it much harder to build a dam or highway that eradicates a species or excludes stakeholders. And fewer Americans or Canadians would dismiss social or ecological costs as easily as they did two generations ago. Consequently, in 2013, the treaty’s managing U.S. entity, Bonneville Power Administration, recommended adding ecosystem functioning as a third treaty purpose, alongside flood control and hydropower. But Sen. Jim Risch, R-Idaho — chair of the Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee, through which any treaty must pass before ratification — has insisted ecosystem function could jeopardize Idaho’s sovereignty over its water and will not support that measure. Still, widespread public concern about salmon and climate change may not be easy to ignore in the 21st century.  When the Army Corps produced its plan for the basin and the negotiators first signed the treaty, the concerns were floods and lightbulbs, not fish and tribal sovereignty. Those blueprints were shot through with oversights. More people involved today will complicate diplomacy, and changing values will challenge the management of this massively complex river system. Yet for the sake of communities and places, nothing else will suffice.

For 16 consecutive days in August, tribal members, environmental activists and others gathered along the banks of the Columbia River, each day a different group at a different location, working upstream from the river's mouth at the Oregon-Washington border to its headwaters in British Columbia, Canada. The progression followed the route of the 1,200-mile-long river’s once-prolific and now decimated salmon runs, on what has become one of the world’s most industrialized waterways.

The demonstrators aimed to draw attention to the river’s plight and to a seemingly minor but actually monumental legal fact: Sept. 16 marked the first time the U.S. or Canada could terminate, with a 10-year notice, the 1964 Columbia River Treaty — the bedrock law that coordinates operation of 14 dams on the river, plus many more on its tributaries. That possibility has triggered a flurry of action as both countries position to renegotiate the treaty, proposing changes that could dramatically re-shape the river's future.

Paul Lumley, a citizen of the Yakama Nation and director of the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, a tribal agency representing four tribes in river-management issues, is one of many who see a new treaty as a tool for reversing decades of environmental abuse. "It's probably the best opportunity in our lifetimes to affect how the Columbia River is managed," he says, especially when it comes to salmon.

The treaty originated in the aftermath of major flooding in 1948, when heavy rain on a thick winter snowpack churned the Columbia into a monster that wiped out Vanport, Oregon, leaving 18,000 homeless. In response, the U.S. and Canada stepped up efforts to tame the transboundary river. The treaty authorized construction of three major dams in British Columbia — which the U.S. helped pay for — as well as the Libby Dam in Montana on the Kootenai River, a major tributary. The agreement also established a framework for sharing the flood-control and hydropower benefits from those dams and others.

And by those measures, the treaty has succeeded: The Columbia Basin dams, operated in careful coordination by the two countries, have prevented flooding and given the region reliable and cheap electricity. But 15 Columbia Basin tribes have another view, stating with rare consensus in 2010 that the treaty has "degraded rivers … natural resources, and tribal customs and identities." Dozens of the Columbia's salmon and steelhead stocks have gone extinct, and 13 remain listed as threatened or endangered. Much of that collapse occurred before the treaty, the result of over-fishing and the construction of dams like Grand Coulee and Chief Joseph, which lack fish ladders and block salmon from reaching the Upper Columbia Basin. But the treaty added additional dams without fish passage, and the 1960s negotiations, adding insult to injury, completely excluded the tribes.

So in 2010, the tribes demanded to be included in any treaty talks brought on by the 2014 trigger. The Army Corps of Engineers and the region's federal electric distributor, the Bonneville Power Administration — which together represent the U.S. in the treaty — received input from the tribes, as well as from states and federal agencies, and crafted a proposal for treaty changes. Last year, they submitted the proposal to the U.S. State Department, which is responsible for advising the president on treaty matters.

The proposal’s most striking feature — largely bearing the fingerprint of the tribes — is "ecosystem function" as a third major treaty tenet alongside flood control and hydropower. That could provide legal justification for changing dam operations, including timing reservoir releases to enhance fish health and creating an adaptive plan to deal with climate change. "The leadership by the tribes has really been extraordinary," says Rachael Osborn, director of the Washington-based Center for Environmental Law and Policy, which helped to organize the August riverside gatherings. "They have put a vision out there."

The focus of that vision involves restoring salmon to their native Canadian spawning grounds. For decades, that has seemed a daunting, even insurmountable task. Now, a growing coalition of tribes, religious leaders and conservation groups see "ecosystem function" as the needed lever. In a declaration sent Sept. 23 to President Barack Obama and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, many religious leaders — including the Catholic archdioceses of Portland and Seattle — plus representatives of nearly all the Columbia Basin tribes and First Nations, called for modernizing the treaty to restore salmon and other fish "to all historical locations throughout the Columbia River basin."

The actual proposal, however, is more cautious. It would only direct the U.S. and Canada to "investigate" and possibly implement an incremental plan for restoring salmon to the upper basin. That's earned support from over 80 of the region's utilities, which chafe at the prospect of increasing the cost of hydropower. (The region's utility ratepayers, along with American taxpayers, already spend nearly $1 billion annually on fish recovery.) But that compromise hints at cracks between the stakeholders that could widen into bigger rifts.

The utilities' money concerns could indeed prove a major sticking point, potentially overshadowing the enthusiasm for "ecosystem function." In addition to funding salmon recovery, U.S. utilities give British Columbia nearly $300 million in hydropower each year in return for reliable flows from the Canadian dams. The U.S. utilities think this so-called "Canadian Entitlement" is worth significantly less, while British Columbia, which holds treaty authority on the Canadian side, wants to preserve or increase the amount.

And British Columbia has considerable weight behind it: Under the existing treaty, the province's obligation to provide guaranteed flood control to the U.S. expires in 2024. If that were to happen, the U.S. would have to steeply draw down its reservoirs ahead of spring runoff, further stressing salmon as well as hydropower, irrigation and other river uses. Climate change would increase stress with earlier runoff and drier summers, potentially throwing river management into disarray.

British Columbia has indicated its willingness to extend the flood control agreement. But despite First Nations and other Canadian locals’ demand for something like "ecosystem function," the province opposes sweeping changes, such as leveraging the treaty for upper-basin fish passage. That's led to a general sense among stakeholders that the U.S. — which is calling for sweeping changes — will be the one to open talks.

Hence the fragile consensus in the U.S. among the tribes, utilities, federal agencies, state governments and others who support the 2013 proposal — a display of broad support intended to prod the Obama administration into action. All 26 congressional delegates from the Northwest states have urged the State Department to act on the proposal no later than 2015, calling the treaty "an issue of paramount importance for the entire Pacific Northwest." The State Department, considering its options behind closed doors, has given no indication of when it might open treaty talks.

If, and almost certainly, when, those talks occur, it will become apparent how durable the U.S. consensus is — and whether a new Columbia River Treaty can truly reshape the mighty river's future. Until then, "we have to support each other," says Lumley, referring to the diverse set of stakeholders behind the proposal. "If we don't, then the whole thing could unravel."

https://www.hcn.org/articles/watershed-moment

Marshall Swearingen is a contributor to High Country News. He writes from Bozeman, Montana.
    

Farmers and transportation experts are figuring out how to transport goods if the lower Snake River dams are removed.

By Kim Cross
July 29, 2024

Last fall, on a tour of his grain farm on Idaho’s rippling Camas Prairie, Bill Flory stood in a buzz-cut field of recently harvested wheat. A sturdy man with a whitening mustache, the 70-year-old farmer grows wheat, barley, chickpeas, lentils and other rotating crops on land his great-grandfather first tilled in 1904 with a horse-drawn plow. Today, farm trucks haul the wheat about 40 miles to the Port of Lewiston, where it’s funneled onto barges. At peak harvest season, four wheat-filled barges a day leave the port and travel through the locks of eight dams — four on the Lower Snake River, four on the Columbia — on their 465-mile journey to the Port of Portland. There, the grain is loaded on ocean-going ships bound for international markets.

Soon, though, all that could change.

Scientists, tribes and environmentalists see removing the four Lower Snake River dams — a last resort, after decades of other options have failed — may be the best and only chance to prevent the extinction of salmon in the Pacific Northwest. But many local farmers and businesses rely on the dams, locks and reservoirs for transportation, irrigation, recreation and electricity, and they say they cannot afford to lose them.

“It would be like taking out the 405 freeway in Los Angeles. Sure, you could do it. But there’d be consequences.”

Flory isn’t necessarily opposed to dam removal, but he argues that it’s a lot more complicated than proponents suggest. As one of the stakeholders, he has been having tough conversations about transportation logistics and how they would have to change if the dams come down.

“It would be like taking out the 405 freeway in Los Angeles,” Flory said. “Sure, you could do it. But there’d be consequences.”

Shannon Wheeler, chairman of the Nez Perce Tribe, says dam removal is necessary to restore salmon, a species integral to the tribe’s diet, culture and economy for tens of thousands of years.

As part of the Treaty of 1855, the Nez Perce were promised the right to hunt and fish in all “usual and accustomed places.” “We signed up to have fish in perpetuity, not fish on life support,” Wheeler said. “The question we need to pose is how we change the way we do business to ensure the impacts of transportation aren’t contributing to the declining population of a keystone species.”

Flory and Wheeler both participated in a panel discussion about salmon and dams hosted by the Society of Environmental Journalists last spring. They have a cordial business relationship: Flory, who previously served as the chairman of the Idaho Wheat Commission, leases farmland from the tribe and also owns land within reservation boundaries that his grandfather purchased from a homesteader. They represent two of many stakeholder groups that have spent years debating the future of the lower Snake River dams.

“We signed up to have fish in perpetuity, not fish on life support.”

The dam debate — which was basically gridlocked for two decades — is finally evolving from a binary battle into a more collaborative conversation about how to solve an extremely complex puzzle. The driving question has largely shifted from whether or not to remove the dams to how best to mitigate the economic impacts of removal.

The pivot toward collaboration began in April 2019, when Idaho Congressman Mike Simpson, R, announced his intention to restore salmon populations by coming up with a plan that keeps all stakeholders whole. Simpson and his staff then embarked on a three-year fact-finding mission that included 300 meetings with tribes, farmers, officials and other stakeholders. Those meetings informed the proposal Simpson announced in February 2021: a $33.5 billion framework for recovering salmon by breaching the lower Snake River dams and finding other ways to satisfy the needs they serve, including transportation and hydropower.

Simpson proposed allocating $3.6 billion for Snake River transportation, including improvements to the grain transportation network and subsidies to farmers to offset the increased transportation costs. For farmers like Flory on Idaho’s Camas, Simpson envisioned new spur rail lines connecting existing tracks with the Port of Lewiston, where wheat could continue to the Tri-Cities on the BNSF railway, which runs alongside the Snake River.

When Flory imagines a future without the dams — and the shipping they provide — he worries about volume and timing. Each year, around 2.4 million tons of freight travels down the river. About 90% of it is wheat, and most of it is barged downriver to international ports. In the absence of barging, that load — about 10% of the nation’s wheat exports — would transition to trains and trucks. But Flory is uncertain whether the existing railways and roads can handle the extra freight.

Washington’s Department of Transportation is currently engaged in a transportation impact analysis regarding that very issue. Jim Mahugh, lead engineer on the study, said that economic factors complicate what might otherwise be a straightforward engineering question. Infrastructure needs will depend on what percentage of the 2.4 million tons of freight is shipped by train versus truck. It’s hard to predict how that will parse out, because it will be driven by economic factors — international markets, fluctuations in supply and demand, and the price of grain.

Farmers in Washington’s Palouse have an advantage: The state owns a short-line rail system that moves 25% of the wheat grown in Washington. But farmers like Flory, on Idaho’s Camas, would likely have to rely on the stretch of the BNSF railway that connects the Port of Lewiston to Washington’s Tri-Cities, where wheat and other products could be loaded onto barges traveling down the Columbia River or continue by train to Portland.

Flory said he’s open to that idea, though he wonders if the BNSF railroad — a single unidirectional track — has the capacity to handle the four barges’ worth of grain a day that leave Lewiston during peak season.

Plus, there’s the extra time it will require: Railroad hopper cars take longer to load than barges. “In three and a half days, my grain can be on an ocean vessel and heading toward export customers,” he says. That speed and efficiency enables him to respond quickly to volatile export markets. If frozen railroads in Canada derail a shipment of wheat from a competing farm, could Flory Farms fill that void as quickly by rail? Would shipping delays cost him business with foreign customers?

The effect of increased volume on railroad infrastructure is also a concern. During a 1992 test drawdown of the reservoirs, the loss of water pressure against the shore caused the ground to shift and slump, threatening the structural integrity of the railroad tracks built on top of it. Any necessary repairs could cause even more shipping delays.

“If we are working toward equitable business in this country, we must consider all impacted parties and the true cost associated with doing business.”

But Flory’s biggest worries are economic: If barging is removed as an option, he expects his costs to go up and his margins to shrink. According to the 2022 Lower Snake River Dams Benefit Replacement Report, shipping by rail is considerably more expensive: 50 to 75 cents per bushel, compared 30 to 45 cents per bushel by barge.

Flory said he would find it challenging to keep his prices low and market share high in Asia, where his club wheat — a soft, low-gluten variety grown almost exclusively in the Pacific Northwest — is used to make Japanese sponge cakes, and his hard red winter wheat becomes high-end ramen noodles. If his prices were no longer competitive overseas, he would have to find markets closer to home, or else grow other crops.

Some point out that barging prices are artificially low because the federal government and regional ratepayers fund the annual $83 million cost of maintaining and operating the Lower Snake River dams. Environmental activist Lin Laughy, who has looked closely at the economics, calculated a subsidy of $40,000 per barge.“It’s an implicit subsidy,” said Eric Crawford, strategic partners coordinator for Trout Unlimited, a nonprofit conservation group involved in many of the conversations about salmon and dams. “What about reimagining how we spend that money?”

“If we are working toward equitable business in this country, we must consider all impacted parties and the true cost associated with doing business,” Wheeler said. “That includes considering the needs of the salmon, because they can’t change their ways. We can.”

“Let’s continue the conversation,” Flory said. “Let’s force some people to come to the table, not sit in the corner and yell, ‘No!’”

HCN: When the dams come down, what happens to barge traffic? article link

Crews are ready to remove the 10-by-60-foot Pilchuck Dam next week, one chunk of concrete at a time.

GRANITE FALLS — The blue-green waters of the upper Pilchuck River are ideal habitat for some of Puget Sound’s most endangered salmon.

Large conifer trees line the banks, keeping the water shady and cool, while fallen trunks provide “hidey spots” for juvenile salmon to grow. The land upstream is mostly working forest, protecting the river from residential contamination.

But much of this pristine habitat, a third of the entire Pilchuck River, is blocked by a 10 foot high by 60 foot wide hunk of concrete.

A few miles south of Granite Falls, the Pilchuck Dam once diverted drinking water for part of Snohomish. About two years ago, the city stopped using that water source, leaving the dam with no practical purpose.

“It’s pretty much useless now,” said Brett Shattuck, a restoration ecologist with the Tulalip Tribes.

Preparations to remove the major barrier to fish begin next week.

On Tuesday, Tulalip Tribes and United States Geological Survey crews surveyed the river, mapping its floor in order to track how sediment moves after the dam is gone.

The dam never had a reservoir, so it didn’t provide water storage or flood protection.

“Once we remove the dam, it won’t be any different in terms of water coming down,” Shattuck said.

There’s also no expected increase in flooding risk.

In past years, Coho salmon, Chinook and Steelhead all swam upriver and attempted to navigate the structure.
“They just try to jump over the dam and quite tragically smash their faces,” Shattuck said.

The dam was first installed in 1912. A new one with a fish ladder was built in the 1930s, but it never really worked well.

“Normally (the fish) just try to jump over the dam instead of knowing that if they just go to the right there’s a fish ladder,” Shattuck said. “They just see turbulent water.”

The site is on Snohomish city property, and there’s no public access. There are no plans to change that, Shattuck said. But there are some Department of Natural Resource trails nearby that follow the river.

Next week, crews plan to build access routes to the water. By mid-July, excavators will start removing the dam one concrete chunk at a time.

To do that, construction workers will route the river’s flow to one side while they demolish a portion of the dam. Then they’ll switch sides.

Live camera feeds will document the river’s return to its natural state.

The entire project, a partnership between the Tulalip Tribes and the city of Snohomish, will cost about $2 million made up of tribal, local, state, federal and private funding.

The Pilchuck Dam removal is a unique project because nothing needs to be built in its place, Shattuck said. Normally, the removal of one culvert or dam means replacing it with another, more fish-friendly one.

But in this case, the Pilchuck River will be released to run its natural course.

“You’re just going to see a natural river in place of a dam,” Shattuck said.
In September, Chinook salmon will be the first species to reach the reopened waters.

In the past, they’ve run into the dam before fall rains raise the river’s flow. Few, if any, get over the structure, Shattuck said.

Puget Sound Chinook salmon, a key food source for endangered Orcas, are listed as threatened under the federal Endangered Species Act.

Chinook salmon populations have been depressed for many decades, in part due to blockages like the Pilchuck Dam, said Tulalip Tribes Environmental Specialist Colin Wahl.

Last year, the estimated number of Chinook returning to rivers in the Snohomish Basin was the lowest on record, which dates back to 1965. Roughly 1,644 fish made the journey upstream.

In 2019, data from the Department of Fish and Wildlife and the Tulalip Tribes estimated about 50 Chinook returned to the Pilchuck to spawn. The highest estimate on record was in 2008, with 515 spawners.

Historic modeling suggests the Pilchuck could support nearly 12,000 fish spawning each year, Wahl said. The spawning estimates from 2019 are about .4% of that capacity.

Once the dam is removed in August, the fish will have unrestricted access to 37 miles of habitat.

“We’re really hoping that by increasing the Chinook population we can also help Orcas by providing a food source,” Shattuck said.

But the Pilchuck Dam was just one small barrier to fish recovery.

“The removal of the dam is not solely going to save the fish population in the Pilchuck or in Puget Sound,” Shattuck said. “This is part of the puzzle, but definitely not the last piece.”

Julia-Grace Sanders: 425-339-3439; jgsanders@heraldnet.com.

After decades of court cases have rebuffed federal management, it may take a political fix to restore salmon in the Columbia Basin.

September 26^th, 2019

Carl Segerstrom 

On Sept. 20, the Idaho Fish and Game Commission voted to close all fall steelhead fishing on the Clearwater River and part of the Snake, tributaries of the Columbia, because so few fish had returned from the ocean. These steelhead are one of 13 threatened or endangered salmon and steelhead runs in the Columbia and Snake rivers.

Since the Columbia Basin’s rivers were impounded by dams — including four on the Lower Snake, and more than a dozen on the Columbia itself — a handful of salmon populations have died out. Now, about two-thirds of the remaining runs are at high risk of extinction. Compared to pre-dam returns in the 1950s, only 3% of wild sockeye and spring- and summer-run chinook, and 15% of  wild steelhead, returned to the upper Snake last year, according to an analysis by the advocacy group Save our Wild Salmon. This year, returns look even worse.

Years of low salmon numbers, concern over endangered orcas that feed on salmon, and cracks in political support for the Lower Snake dams are breathing new life into the fight to breach those dams. For decades, lawsuits by tribal nations, state agencies and fishing and conservation organizations have forced changes in dam management aimed at improving fish survival. But those court-ordered tweaks haven’t pulled salmon back from the brink. Now, salmon advocates are looking to the court of public opinion in their quest to see the Lower Snake River dams removed. 

In the 1930s, hydroelectric dam construction in the Columbia Basin began, electrifying and irrigating the inland Northwest and sending commodities like wheat downriver on barges. But dams exact a heavy toll on salmon: Reservoirs not only create hotter water than the fish are adapted to, they slow their downstream journey to the ocean and force them to navigate artificial passage systems. To offset those impacts, the Bonneville Power Administration, the federal agency that sells power generated by the dams, has poured about $17 billion into hatchery programs, fish passage projects and habitat restoration.

But since the early 1990s, state agencies, tribes and salmon advocates have sued the federal government, arguing that it’s not doing enough for endangered fish. At issue are “biological opinions” from the National Marine Fisheries Service, reviews of management plans developed by the federal agencies that manage the Columbia basin dams: the Army Corps of Engineers, Bonneville Power Administration and Bureau of Reclamation. The biological opinions assess whether dam operations are likely to cause salmon extinctions and recommend ways to offset harm. But since 1993, federal judges have repeatedly overruled them.  

In the process, courts have become the system’s de facto managers: Judges have ruled that more water be spilled over dams, and forced agencies to develop specific habitat improvement programs. While advocates have long sought the removal of the Snake River dams, federal environmental laws don’t give judges the authority to force dam removal. Judges have, however, ruled that the federal government must assess the impacts of breaching dams as part of a National Environmental Policy Act review, a draft of which is expected in February 2020. 

Salmon advocates have long argued that dam removal is the best way to restore salmon runs. That view is bolstered by a 2017 analysis by the Fish Passage Center, an organization funded by the federal government, which found that breaching the lower Snake River dams and increasing spills over the Columbia’s dams would quadruple the number of salmon returning to spawn, compared to the status quo. But dam removal is not a silver bullet, biologists warn. “Even if we took out the dams, there could be other limiting factors for salmon recovery,” said Christopher Caudill, a fish ecologist at the University of Idaho. Warming headwaters and changing oceanic conditions can harm salmon whether or not the dams are removed, Caudill said.

Any overhaul of the Columbia and Snake River dams likely requires an act of Congress as well as a lot of promises to local stakeholders who stand to lose regional infrastructure. Dam removal has long been anathema to politicians who tout the system’s economic benefits. But the economics are changing as maintenance costs rise and natural gas and renewables undercut hydroelectric prices.

Now, the politics may be changing, too. Earlier this year, Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, broke with area politicians by calling for a serious look at removing the four dams on the lower Snake River. Simpson said he wants to work on a new federal plan to ensure salmon recovery in Idaho, one that would replace the Northwest Power Act, the 1980 legislation that guides dam management in the Columbia Basin.

That political action can’t come soon enough for salmon advocates tracking the threats fish face, including reservoir water temperatures that hit unhealthy levels for weeks at a time. “The climate is changing faster than the laws can keep up,” said Angela Moran, an organizer for Save Our Wild Salmon. “We need political and community support, because we know that will be the biggest step to taking down the dams.”

January 18, 2019

Emily Benson

Less than two weeks after being sworn in as the 33rd governor of Idaho, Gov. Brad Little, a Republican, has broken with national party leaders on climate change, declaring unequivocally that the phenomenon is real.

In an address Jan. 16 at an event organized by the Idaho Environmental Forum, an association focused on discussing environmental policy in the state, Little bluntly told the gathered crowd, “Climate change is real.” In the stunned silence that followed his unexpected pronouncement, he went on to discuss how he’d seen Idaho’s seasons shift over his lifetime: “I mean, I’m old enough that I remember feeding cows all winter long in deep snow … boy, back in the old days when I was a kid, we had winters.”

In response to an audience question on how Idaho is adapting to climate change, Little, the leader of one of the West’s most conservative states, said that change can come from regulation, but also from market forces. (Full disclosure: Little served on the High Country News board in the late 1990s.)

“These ecosystems are changing,” Little said. He highlighted the importance of biological diversity so that landscapes can adapt, and the need to figure out how to cope with the issue. “Climate’s changing, there’s no question about it.”

His comments came as the issue of a warming world becomes central, once again, in national discourse: Recent polls indicate two-thirds of voters are concerned about climate change and support action on the issue; Democratic hopefuls for president are signaling their commitment to aggressive action; and the idea of a Green New Deal that would transform the U.S. into a renewable-energy based economy continues to make headlines. And Little’s stance is a stark deviation from the Trump administration, which has minimized the effects of climate change and muzzled scientists.

“That’s the first time I’ve ever heard (Little) mention those words,” said Becca Aceto, the Idaho Wildlife Federation’s communications and outreach coordinator, who attended the event. “That was very direct, and that was very black and white.”

Such straightforward statements could have significant effects on state politics and policy. About 220 people attended the event, a forecast of the environmental issues that may surface during the 2019 Idaho legislative session. The governor also discussed the intricacies of wildfire management and forest planning processes, the importance of aquifer recharge and other issues. Marie Kellner, the president of the Idaho Environmental Forum board and the Idaho Conservation League’s water expert, said the top-down support for climate science could empower state agencies and environmental groups alike to talk about and plan for climate change and its impacts. “This allows people to acknowledge it, and frame things in terms of climate,” she said.

Kellner’s colleague Ben Otto, who works on energy issues at the Idaho Conservation League, echoed the importance of statewide leadership on climate change. “There hasn’t been a clear energy or climate policy in this state for a long time,” Otto said. “To have the governor say, ‘no, this is happening, we actually have to work on this, we need to fix it,’ is just — finally, we’re going to be wrestling with some incredibly impactful things.”

That’s a hope shared by Democratic state Rep. Rob Mason, who also works for The Wilderness Society. “I’m certainly glad to hear that the governor’s interested in looking at climate change,” Mason said. “It’s something we need to think hard about in this state and address, and I’m eager to find out more about what the governor would like to do and how we can work together.”

Little’s unambiguous statements were in sharp contrast to those of President Trump, who has repeatedly ignored or diminished the catastrophic threats posed by climate change: “I don’t believe it,” he said in response to a major national report on the costs of climate change in November. Little’s comments were also, apparently, a surprise to Idaho state House Speaker Scott Bedke, also a Republican, who presented after Little at the Boise event. While Bedke is “more comfortable calling it variability,” he also discussed the risks to Idaho’s water resources that come with a changing climate, particularly shifts in the timing of precipitation and whether it falls as snow or rain. “That’s going to force change when we get around to getting our minds around that,” Bedke said, a conversation that may have been jumpstarted by Little’s remarks. To laughter from the audience, Bedke acknowledged the remarks were groundbreaking: “I think that — well, you saw the earth move earlier.”

After decades of litigation, the historic initiative among states, tribes and the federal government signals a dramatic change for the region.

By Anna V. Smith
Dec. 15, 2023

On Thursday, the Biden administration announced its support for preparing to breach the four Lower Snake River Dams in the Columbia River Basin through an agreement with four tribal nations, two states and several conservation groups. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers finished building the dams in the 1970s to bolster the Pacific Northwest’s hydropower and agriculture, and they have since become a primary cause of Snake River salmon declines. As a result, multiple salmon runs are veering toward extinction, and the dams have been the subject of litigation for nearly 30 years.

The agreement concludes negotiations begun under the Biden administration in 2021, to resolve the most recent lawsuit over the dams’ hydropower operations. The plan itself, called the Columbia River Basin Initiative, aims to funnel more than half a billion dollars in federal funding to the region for the alternative power sources, irrigation, transportation and more that would be needed if the dams come down. Actually breaching them, however, will require an act of Congress.

The Nez Perce Tribe took part in the negotiations alongside the Warm Springs, Umatilla and Yakama nations as some of the tribes mostly deeply affected by the dams. Each tribe has long been a strong proponent of dam removal, citing salmon runs and the ongoing infringement on tribal treaty rights; the Nez Perce first passed a resolution on the subject back in 1999. Shannon Wheeler, chairman of the Nez Perce Tribe, said Thursday that the agreement would not only aid in the restoration of salmon, it was a clear sign that “we are also witnessing the restoration of tribal treaties to their rightful place under the rule of law.”

The Biden administration foreshadowed yesterday’s announcement in September, when it announced its support for tribally led efforts to restore salmon in the Upper Columbia with $200 million over 20 years from the Bonneville Power Administration. It also directed federal agencies to “prioritize” salmon recovery. In addition to providing funding, the new initiative commits the Department of Interior to analyze the dams’ impact on tribal treaty rights and provide “a comprehensive acknowledgement from the federal government of the dams’ profound negative effects on every aspect of these tribes’ ways of life.” In addition, the initiative signatories, which include Washington and Oregon, agreed to a pause in litigation for at least five years, and 10-year interim operating guidelines for hydropower at the dams.

Recent activity in Congress shows the political fight that any legislation to bring down the dams is likely to face. Earlier this month, House Republicans made public confidential mediation documents regarding yesterday’s announcement, questioning why it was not a public process. On Tuesday, House Republicans held a Natural Resource Subcommittee on Water, Wildlife and Fisheries hearing to disparage the mediation process, which the subcommittee’s chairman, Rep. Cliff Bentz, R-Ore., denounced as “backroom collusion,” even though this kind of federal mediation process is typically limited to the parties involved in the litigation. Minority Vice Chair Rep. Jared Huffman, D-Calif., meanwhile, objected in the hearing that House Republicans used the committee’s “time and resources in an apparent attempt to hobble settlement negotiations” instead of holding a hearing after the initiative was made public.

Many of the Republican members of Congress who represent the region that encompasses the Lower Snake River Dams have been vocal in their opposition to breaching the dams, repeatedly highlighting the possible harm to farmers, irrigators, recreationists and energy rate-payers; around 50,000 acres of farmland could be affected by dam removal. Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, is an exception: In 2021, he introduced a first-of-its-kind comprehensive plan that would remove the dams and provide enough funding, planning and public input to address any negative impacts.

Several other major dams in the Western U.S. have been demolished in the last decade. In 2014, the final dam on the Elwha River in Washington came down, and this year the largest dam removal in U.S. history, on the Klamath River in California, began with the first of four planned removals. Salmon recovery on the Elwha has been modest, but this year, the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe was able to have a small tribal subsistence catch on a free-flowing river for the first time in 112 years. Columbia Basin tribes are hopeful that with the new initiative in place, salmon will rebound on the Snake, too. “For too long we have seen the federal government try to do the minimum amount necessary to pass legal muster,” said Jonathan W. Smith Sr., the chairman of the Warm Springs Tribal Council, on Thursday. The tribe, he said, is optimistic that the agreement “will chart a new course for the federal government that will lead to true restoration of our fisheries. There is no time to waste.”

High Country News: "Lower Snake River dams closer to coming down with new agreement" article link

By Reverend Martin Wells

Dec. 30, 2014 As bishop of the Eastern Washington-Idaho Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, my territory is home to the Columbia River, one of the great rivers of our continent. Whenever I have time and the Spirit allows, I travel throughout this region learning about its history and cultures, and studying its blessings and gifts. In Christian terms, this is called “theology of place,” in which our understanding of the Divine comes through the beauty of the natural world. One site where I feel most deeply connected to God is the Hanford Reach National Monument. Through a sometimes-open gate off Washington's remote Highway 24, a gravel road leads to an overlook where visitors can see the only undammed portion of the Columbia River left in the United States. This is the ancestral home of the Wanapum Tribe, whose name means “river people.” This is salmon ground, holy ground, and it is threatened by radioactive waste seeping toward the river. The Columbia River is indeed holy ground and not a machine, though it has long been treated like one. In 1964, the governments of the United States and Canada ratified the Columbia River Treaty, which mandated the building of large storage dams on the river for flood control and power generation. For these purposes, the treaty has been mostly effective. For Native Tribes and Northwest salmon, though, it has been a disaster None of the 15 Columbia Basin tribes were party to the 1964 treaty. They were treated as if they did not exist as sovereign nations, and as if they had no stake in the living river and the salmon that fed their people. Throughout the dam-building era, First Nations in Canada and Native tribes in the United States were moved from their homes, lost their livelihoods and food source, and saw their sacred ancestral sites flooded. This injustice mars the majesty of the river and the lives of her people. Salmon and steelhead have fared no better. Dozens of the Columbia River’s famed runs are now extinct, and 13 remain listed as threatened or endangered. The Columbia is no longer a living, robust river for most of its 1,200-mile journey. It has become a shackled ghost of its former self.

Last fall marked the first time, with 10 years’ notice, that the U.S. and Canadian governments could renegotiate the Columbia River Treaty. There is reason to hope that a new treaty can revive the river, respect the tribes, and leave a living legacy for all who love and share the abundance of the Columbia. Together with many other faith leaders, I uphold the Columbia River Pastoral Letter written by the 12 Roman Catholic bishops of the international watershed; it is an ethical framework for decision-making as the treaty is renegotiated. The values we invoke embrace conservation of the watershed as a common good, including flood control and power production, protecting species and wildlife, respecting the dignity and traditions of indigenous people, and promoting justice for all beings who share the river. I was also pleased to sign the Declaration on Ethics and Modernizing the Columbia River Treaty, which was sent to President Barack Obama and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper in late September. The declaration put forward key principles for a renegotiated treaty, including: Healthy ecosystem function must be a central purpose of an updated treaty. Without a healthy riparian ecosystem, there is no future for the salmon and steelhead that depend on the living waters of the Columbia. The treaty’s governance must also include a steward, a designated protector of these unique waters. The tribes and First Nations must be parties to the new treaty. Native leaders are strong advocates both for salmon and for their communities, which have already lost so much. We must remember that the future of the Columbia River is a moral issue, and that indigenous rights must be revived and preserved for a just future. Climate change must be acknowledged and dealt with as a factor that will challenge and change the river. For both salmon as well as our communities to survive, the renegotiated treaty must help stem climate change as well as support adaptation to the changes that will surely be manifest in this watershed in the coming decades. Because the Columbia River is a gift given to us by our Creator and a blessing, I hope this understanding frames the renegotiation of the Columbia River Treaty.

http://www.hcn.org/articles/salmon-ground-is-holy-ground

The Rev. Martin Wells is a contributor to Writers on the Range, a column service of High Country News (hcn.org). He is bishop of the Eastern Washington-Idaho Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and is based in Spokane, Washington

Extreme climate conditions over recent years pummeled the king of Western salmon.

This is the time of year when commercial and sports fishermen generally head into the coastal waters off Southeast Alaska in search of the largest and most prized catch of all — the chinook, also known as king salmon. Most years, they expect to haul in at least 30,000 fish over just a few days in a flurry of fishing. Chinook weigh at least 40 pounds, and fishermen get $5 to $8 a pound, far more than they get for other types of salmon. But in early August, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game made the difficult and unusual decision to cancel commercial and sport chinook fishing for the rest of the summer.

Chinook are born in rivers and spend between several months and two years in freshwater before heading out to the ocean. There, they bulk up on smaller fish for two to five years before returning to their home rivers to spawn.

Some of the chinook swimming off Alaska’s southeast coast this time of year started their lives nearby, but others are from British Columbia or as far south as Oregon and California. Surveys off the coasts of Oregon, Washington and the Gulf of Alaska indicate that chinook stocks across the region are extremely low this year. Many of the fish have been hit by extreme climate conditions during their lifetime.

 <http://www.hcn.org/articles/fish-states-restrict-chinook-fisheries/alaskasalmonanchor-jpg/image_view_fullscreen>
A skiff floats beyond the fishing boats docked at the marina in Sitka, in Southeast Alaska, in 2016. This year, the king salmon season has been cancelled there.
Education Images/UIG via Getty Images
In fact, it’s been a double whammy: When the chinook returning this year were juveniles, many of their home rivers were suffering from California’s multi-year drought and the snow droughts <https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/drought/201513#west-secthttps://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/drought/201513>  that hit most of the West in 2014 and 2015. Both made rivers hotter and drier. Then, when the fish swam out to sea, they encountered an enormous mass of warm water in the northeastern Pacific Ocean. This unprecedented phenomenon, which scientists dubbed “the Blob,” developed in late 2013 in the Gulf of Alaska. The next spring, it spread across the entire North Pacific. “It was warm and basically sterile water,” says Laurie Weitkamp <https://www.nwfsc.noaa.gov/contact/display_staffprofile.cfm?staffid=189> , a fisheries biologist who studies salmon for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Normally, winter storms mix up the water in the North Pacific, bringing cold, nutrient-rich water towards the surface. But in 2014, that didn’t happen. The lowest levels of nutrients ever seen in the surface waters of the North Pacific starved the phytoplankton, microscopic algae at the base of the food web, which in turn starved zooplankton, tiny aquatic animals that prey on phytoplankton. And that starved the small fish like herring that eat zooplankton.

Chinook eat those small fish. Surveys off the Washington and Oregon coast in 2015 showed extremely low numbers of forage fish for chinook and coho, another salmon species that has suffered in recent years. “The whole prey base got screwed up,” says Weitkamp. These warm, depleted conditions persisted through most of 2016.

Both the drought and the “Blob” are over now, but the extent of the damage they caused will be revealed as the chinook that survived return to spawn. “Those climate conditions kind of ended this year, in 2017, but they’re still going to impact our fisheries for several years,” predicts Nate Mantua, who leads the salmon ecology team at the National Marine Fisheries Service’s Southwest Fisheries Science Center in Santa Cruz, California.

Officials in Alaska believe unusually warm ocean temperatures also played a role in how poorly chinook fared. The decision to close the chinook fishery came after state officials determined that only about half as many fish as are needed to ensure sustainable fisheries were returning to Southeast Alaska’s rivers this year. “If you don’t adhere to your conservation principles, you’re destined to exacerbate the problem in following years,” Charles Swanton, deputy commissioner of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, says.

California, Washington, Idaho and British Columbia also have severely restricted fisheries for chinook and other salmon species in response to critically low levels of returning salmon. On the Klamath River, poor ocean conditions, drought and disease all contributed to what are likely to prove the lowest numbers in more than 30 years. “We’ve been in a downward spiral in recent years, because the effects of the drought were building on the fishery,” says Eric Schindler, who manages salmon for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. “This year is bad. I don’t see next year being any better.”

Tracking the cause of downturns in salmon populations is complex, and some researchers are not ready to blame the Blob for the dire straits of Southeast Alaska’s chinook. “We don’t know yet what the real effect of the Blob was on chinook salmon,” Daniel Schindler <https://fish.uw.edu/faculty/daniel-schindler/> , a fisheries professor at University of Washington, says. “The warm conditions in the last few years are unprecedented. But it’s too early to tell if the poor returns this year are due to climate or not.” The notion that Alaska chinook would suffer from warmer oceans defies a historic rule of thumb that salmon from Alaska do better when oceans warm up, which usually increases prey. And other stocks of Alaska salmon are thriving. “Sockeye salmon in Bristol Bay were having one of the strongest returns in history,” Schindler says. Silver salmon in Southeast Alaska are abundant, too.

So while the multiyear Blob was harmful, scientists believe that at least some of Alaska’s salmon fisheries won’t be injured by the long trend of gradually warming oceans. But human-caused climate change clearly is bad news for salmon from California, Oregon and Washington, which contribute to Alaska’s fisheries. “The growing influence of human-caused climate change is likely to make things tougher and tougher for salmon in southern end of its range,” Mantua says.

It may already be doing so: Scientists believe human-caused climate change exacerbated California’s drought and low snowpacks. The drier hotter rivers of recent years are consistent with what scientists expect in the future. Climate change is gradually increasing average water temperatures in the North Pacific, raising the baseline for extreme heating events like the blob. But there’s no compelling evidence that the three years of persistent ocean temperature extremes linked to the Blob were consistent with human-caused climate change, Mantua says.

Although the Blob has dissipated, temperatures in the North Pacific this summer are still several degrees Fahrenheit above normal. And recent research by NOAA shows that salmon still are hurting. “We just did our ocean surveys; it doesn’t look good,” says Weitkamp. “There weren’t many young salmon out there and there wasn’t much for them to eat.” The survey results are expected to be released in September.

Climate models don’t project average water temperatures this warm in the northern Pacific for decades. So cooler, more productive waters likely will return. The fishing community is hoping that’s the case and that the restrictions on fishing this season will help ensure more robust numbers of chinook — and less encumbered fishing — in the future. “We strongly support sustainable management and can only hope that conservation will truly be served by this action,” says Dale Kelley, the executive Director of the Alaska Trollers Association, which represents the 1,000 or so businesses that fish for chinook with hooks and lines. In the meantime, though, they’re hurting: She estimates the troll fleet and its processors will lose $6 million this year because of the cancellation of the chinook fishery.

Correspondent Elizabeth Shogren writes HCN’s DC Dispatches from Washington.

-- REPORT FOR AUGUST 30, 2016 --

INTRODUCTION: With weekly updates, The Hot Water Report 2016tracks water temperatures, salmon survival and climate related developments in the Columbia-Snake River Basin this summer.  The report is updated weekly - published here every Tuesday - from early July through September. Each week we will share the most recent temperature data from the Columbia-Snake Rivers, news stories on climate change and current conditions for rivers and fisheries, and share information on actions state and federal agencies and our communities can take to ensure safer, healthier rivers for salmon and steelhead. We will include first-person accounts from anglers, guides, scientists and citizens on the Columbia-Snake rivers this summer.

Will you be on the river this summer? Do you have a story or photo you would like to share?  Please send to Sam Mace.

This is a joint project of the Save Our wild Salmon Coalition, Association of Northwest Steelheaders, Columbia Riverkeeper, Idaho Rivers United and Sierra Club.

 SPRING-SUMMER 2016 WATER TEMPERATURES AT LOWER SNAKE RIVER DAMS (4/1-8/30)

The graph above reflects water temperatures recorded in the lower Snake River reservoirs. The blue-toned lines reflect the average daily mean temperatures in each of the four reservoirs collected in the last 1-8 years, beginning on April 1. The red-toned lines reflect the 2016 daily mean temperatures at each of the four lower Snake River reservoirs since April 1. As one can see, earlier this season, daily mean water temperatures were frequently considerably warmer than the average daily mean temperature collected over the last 1-8 years. There has been considerably more overlap in these temperatures since approximately the middle of July.

Notably, temperatures in the Lower Snake River appear to be beginning to slowly decline. This of course is good news for stressed and endangered salmon and steelhead that are still moving through this reach of the river - upstream as adults or downstream as juveniles. Temperatures in the Lower Granite Dam reservoir are the lowest - still hovering around 66 degrees - and safe for salmon and steelhead. Temperatures in the reservoir behind Little Goose Dam are a little higher, but still at or close to 68 degrees. Further downstream in the reservoirs of Lower Monumental and Ice Harbor Dams  - temperatures are now about 68 degrees. Ice Harbor Dam's reservoir still has the highest temperatures, but it is cooler this week than during the last 6 weeks.

 SPRING-SUMMER 2016 WATER TEMPERATURES AT LOWER COLUMBIA RIVER DAMS (4/1-8/30)

This second graph above reflects water temperatures recorded in the lower Columbia River reservoirs. The blue-toned lines reflect the average daily mean temperatures in each of the four reservoirs collected in the last 1-20 years, beginning on April 1. The red-toned lines reflect the 2016 daily mean temperature at each of the four lower Columbia River reservoirs since April 1. Like the upper graph, earlier this season, daily mean water temperatures were frequently considerably warmer than the average daily mean temperature collected over the last 1-20 years. These temperature differentials have tightened considerably since approximately the middle of July.

Notably, temperatures in all Lower Columbia River reservoirs continue to read consistently above 70 degrees F. - at or above 72 degrees Fahrenheit. These sustained, high temperatures in the lower Columbia and lower Snake rivers are harming fish returning to the Snake River and its tributaries - with lethal and sub-lethal impacts.

These two tables reflect the previous week's high water temperatures in each of the eight reservoirs created by the lower Snake and lower Columbia River dams. On the lower Snake River between August 24 and 30, temperatures have exceeded 68 degrees Fahrenheit twice in Little Goose, five days in Lower Monumental reservoir and all seven days in Ice Harbor reservoir. Temperatures in each of the lower Columbia River reservoirs have exceeded 68 degrees every day. In fact, there were no readings in the lower Columbia below 70 degrees this past week. This week's overall high temperature recording - 72.32 in John Day pool - was more than 1 degree cooler than last week's high in the Columbia (73.58 degrees in the reservoir behind the Dalles Dam).

Overall in the four lower Snake River reservoirs, 68 degrees has been reached or exceeded 14 times this past week (the previous week was 16) and 124 times so far this summer.

In the four lower Columbia River reservoirs, 70 degrees has been exceeded every day in all four reservoirs for a total of 28 times this past week and 199 times so far this summer. Recreational fishermen have told us that while there are decent numbers of fish in the lower river, they are stressed by the high temperatures and not biting. Catch rates in recent weeks have been very low.

Salmon and steelhead begin to suffer harmful effects when water temperatures exceed 68 degrees Fahrenheit. The longer temperatures remain above 68 degrees and the farther the temperatures rise above 68 degrees, the more severe the effects, including: increased metabolism/increased energy usage, increased susceptibility to disease, reduced fecundity or reproductive potential, and/or death.

Temperature data included in these reports come from the USGS Current Conditions for Washington State.Graphs and tables were assembled by SOS Staff.

THIS WEEK ON THE RIVER: Scientists and river managers are paying increasing attention to how migrating salmon rely on cold water refuges, whether they be mainstream rivers, tributary rivers and streams, springs or other sources.  Columbia Basin Bulletin ran this story last week looking at the latest research.  Some of these cold water sources have been buried under reservoirs making them less accessible or inaccessible to stressed wild salmon and steelhead.  Removal of the four lower Snake River dams would deliver multiple benefits, including speeding migrating smolts toward salt water and reducing water temperatures throughout the lower Snake River corridor.  An additional benefit of a restored Snake would be making incoming springs, streams and rivers more accessible to migrating adult salmon, providing cool water stops where fish could rest and wait for lower temperatures when the region experiences heat waves.  Providing cold water “breathers” for our imperiled wild fish populations will become ever more imperative as our climate warms.

Read the full CBB story here.

LINKS TO 2016 HOT WATER REPORTS AND OTHER RESOURCES:

HOT WATER REPORT 2016: #1 - July 6

HOT WATER REPORT 2016: #2 - July 12

HOT WATER REPORT 2016: #3 - July 19

HOT WATER REPORT 2016: #4 - July 26

HOT WATER REPORT 2016: #5 - August 2

HOT WATER REPORT 2016: #6 - August 9

HOT WATER REPORT 2016: #7 - August 16

HOT WATER REPORT 2016: #8 - August 23

SELECT 2016 MEDIA COVERAGE, REPORTS AND OTHER DOCUMENTS

MEDIA: Lawsuit Aims To Lower Columbia And Snake River Temperatures For Salmon (Oregon Public Radio, August 15, 2016)

MEDIA: Hot water poses ongoing threat to Columbia River salmon, groups say(Spokesman Review, August 15, 2016)

MEDIA: Reservoir Drawdown Could Spare Fish (Lewiston Morning Tribune, July 17, 2016)

MEDIA: Steps Taken To Cool Warming Lower Snake, Reduce Thermal Blocks As Large Basin Sockeye Return Heads Upstream (Columbia Basin Bulletin, July 1, 2016)

MEDIA: Columbia Basin Salmon/Hydro Managers Gear Up For Another Hot Summer: Will Sockeye Get Slammed Again? (Columbia Basin Bulletin, June 2016)

MEDIA:Middle Fork could regain role as salmon nursery (Idaho Mountain Express, May 27, 2016)

POLICY: EPA Comments on NOAA Fisheries 2015 Adult Sockeye Salmon Passage April 2016 draft Report(May, 2016)

LAW: N.W.F et al v. N.M.F.S. - U.S. District Court Opinion rejecting the federal salmon plan for Columbia and Snake river salmon and steelhead (Note: The Court's lengthy discussion of climate change begins on page 86. May 4, 2016)

MEDIA: Last year’s heat wave doomed nearly all Okanogan sockeye salmon(Seattle Times, April 13, 2016)

REPORT: Data Request Drawing Down Lower Granite Reservoir to Better Meet Water Quality Standards for Temperature(Fish Passage Center, June 2016)

SELECT 2015 MEDIA COVERAGE, REPORTS AND OTHER DOCUMENTS

MEDIA: Preliminary 2015 Spring Juvenile Survival Estimates Through Snake/Columbia River Dams Dismal (Columbia Basin Bulletin, October 23, 2015)

MEDIA: Dead Salmon, climate change and Northwest dams(Seattle Times Guest Opinion, August 2, 2015)

MEDIA: Snowpack drought has salmon dying in overheated rivers (Seattle Times, July 25, 2015)

MEDIA: Biologists bring sockeye into Idaho on trucks to get them out of hot water(Idaho Statesman, July 2015)

REPORT: Restoring Wild Salmon: Power system costs and benefits of lower Snake River dam removal(NW Energy Coalition, August 2015)

SELECT PRE-2015 MEDIA COVERAGE, REPORTS AND OTHER DOCUMENTS

REPORT: Bright Future: How to keep the Northwest’s lights on, jobs growing, goods moving, and salmon swimming in the era of climate change(NW Energy Coalition, 2009)

FACTSHEET: Bright Future 4-page summary factsheet(2009)

REPORT: A Great Wave Rising: Solutions for Columbia and Snake River Fish in an Era of Climate Change(SOS, NW Energy Coalition, Sierra Club, 2008

-- REPORT FOR JULY 26, 2016 --

INTRODUCTION: With weekly updates, The Hot Water Report 2016tracks water temperatures, salmon survival and climate related developments in the Columbia-Snake River Basin this summer.  The report is updated weekly - published here every Tuesday - from early July through September. Each week we will share the most recent temperature data from the Columbia-Snake Rivers, news stories on climate change and current conditions for rivers and fisheries, and share information on actions state and federal agencies and our communities can take to ensure safer, healthier rivers for salmon and steelhead. We will include first-person accounts from anglers, guides, scientists and citizens on the Columbia-Snake rivers this summer.

Will you be on the river this summer? Do you have a story or photo you would like to share?  Please send to Sam Mace.

This is a joint project of the Save Our wild Salmon Coalition, Association of Northwest Steelheaders, Columbia Riverkeeper, Idaho Rivers United and Sierra Club.

 SPRING-SUMMER 2016 WATER TEMPERATURES AT LOWER SNAKE RIVER DAMS (4/1-7/24)

The graph above reflects water temperatures recorded in the lower Snake River reservoirs. The blue-toned lines reflect the average daily mean temperatures in each of the four reservoirs collected in the last 1-8 years, beginning on April 1. The red-toned lines reflect the 2016 daily mean temperatures at each of the four lower Snake River reservoirs since April 1. As one can see, this year's daily mean water temperatures are frequently considerably warmer than the average daily mean temperature collected over the last 1-8 years.

Notably, Ice Harbor Dam reservoir average temperatures continue to rise above the 68 degree mark and are now very close to reaching 70 degrees. Temperatures in the Lower Monumental Dam reservoir continue to hover around 68 degrees while temperatures at Little Goose and Lower Granite reservoirs are not showing consistent trends but average temperatures are close to - but currently under - 68 degrees.

 SPRING-SUMMER 2016 WATER TEMPERATURES AT LOWER COLUMBIA RIVER DAMS (4/1-7/24)

This second graph above reflects water temperatures recorded in the lower Columbia River reservoirs. The blue-toned lines reflect the average daily mean temperatures in each of the four reservoirs collected in the last 1-20 years, beginning on April 1. The red-toned lines reflect the 2016 daily mean temperature at each of the four lower Columbia River reservoirs since April 1. Like the upper graph, this one also reflects consistently higher water temperatures so far this year, when compared to average daily mean temperature based on data collected over the last 1-20 years.

Notably, average temperatures at the four lower Columbia River dam reservoirs have continued their steady upward trend - and are now all above 68 degrees.

These two tables reflect the previous week's high water temperatures in each of the eight reservoirs created by the lower Snake and lower Columbia River dams. Between July 18 and 24, temperatures have exceeded 68 degrees Fahrenheit between 2 and 7 time in three of the four lower Snake River reservoirs. Temperatures in each of the lower Columbia River reservoirs have exceeded 68 degrees between 6 and 7 times.

Overall in the lower Snake River reservoirs, 68 degrees has been reached or exceeded 14 times this past week and 42 times so far this summer.

In the lower Columbia River reservoirs, 68 degrees has been reached or exceeded 27 times this past week and 57 times so far this summer.

Salmon and steelhead begin to suffer harmful effects when water temperatures exceed 68 degrees Fahrenheit. The longer temperatures remain above 68 degrees and the farther the temperatures rise above 68 degrees, the more severe the effects, including: increased metabolism/increased energy usage, increased susceptibility to disease, reduced fecundity or reproductive potential, and/or death.

Temperature data included in these reports come from the USGS Current Conditions for Washington State.Graphs and tables were assembled by SOS Staff.

THIS WEEK ON THE RIVER: EPA PRESSES NOAA TO THINK BIG TO COMBAT HOT RIVERS & POACHED SALMON: Earlier this spring, EPA's Daniel Opalski sent a letter to NOAA's Michael Tehan urging the agency charged with protecting the Northwest's wild salmon and steelhead to consider additional recommendations and actions to better protect at-risk fish in the Columbia and Snake Rivers from hot water events in the June and July. The EPA is concerned that NOAA's recommendations are limited to "micro-scale temperature improvements at specific dams" and believes that additional measures be considered that "focus on reducing the overall river temperatures" in June and July to improve adult and juvenile salmon survival.

68 degrees F (20 degrees C) is the threshold at which water temperatures begin to harm salmon. Sockeye salmon are particularly at risk as temperatures above 68 degrees result in alarming rates of mortality. According to Mr. Opalski, the Director of EPA's Office of Water and Watersheds, keeping temperatures below 68 in the Lower Columbia and Snake Rivers “would be beneficial for adult summer Chinook and steelhead survival as well and would also be beneficial to juvenile salmon and steelhead out migrating during this period.”
 
To combat high temperatures in the lower Snake River, the EPA proposed various mitigation measures to keep temperatures below 68 degrees. Included in these measures is a recommendation to evaluate the Dworshak Dam cold water release program. This program releases cool water into the Clearwater River just before it enters the lower Snake River upstream of Lower Granite dam. (The beneficial effects of this program can be seen in the graphs above that track daily average water temperature throughout the lower Snake River.)

The EPA also calls on NOAA to evaluate lower Snake River dam operations and asks for recommendations to maximize the impact of the cool water released from Dworshack through all four of the lower Snake River dams. As shown on the graph above, the cold water releases from Dworshack can have a significant effect on water temperatures at the Lower Granite Dam reservoir, but those effects taper the further downriver you go. The release of Dworshak's water appears to have little to no effect on temperatures at Ice Harbor dam.

You can read the EPA's letter to NOAA here.

LINKS TO 2016 HOT WATER REPORTS AND OTHER RESOURCES:

HOT WATER REPORT 2016: #1 - July 6

HOT WATER REPORT 2016: #2 - July 12

HOT WATER REPORT 2016: #3 - July 19

HOT WATER REPORT 2016: #4 - July 26

SELECT 2016 MEDIA COVERAGE, REPORTS AND OTHER DOCUMENTS

MEDIA: Reservoir Drawdown Could Spare Fish (Lewiston Morning Tribune, July 17, 2016)

MEDIA: Steps Taken To Cool Warming Lower Snake, Reduce Thermal Blocks As Large Basin Sockeye Return Heads Upstream (Columbia Basin Bulletin, July 1, 2016)

MEDIA: Columbia Basin Salmon/Hydro Managers Gear Up For Another Hot Summer: Will Sockeye Get Slammed Again? (Columbia Basin Bulletin, June 2016)

MEDIA:Middle Fork could regain role as salmon nursery (Idaho Mountain Express, May 27, 2016)

POLICY: EPA Comments on NOAA Fisheries 2015 Adult Sockeye Salmon Passage April 2016 draft Report(May, 2016)

LAW: N.W.F et al v. N.M.F.S. - U.S. District Court Opinion rejecting the federal salmon plan for Columbia and Snake river salmon and steelhead (Note: The Court's lengthy discussion of climate change begins on page 86. May 4, 2016)

MEDIA: Last year’s heat wave doomed nearly all Okanogan sockeye salmon(Seattle Times, April 13, 2016)

REPORT: Data Request Drawing Down Lower Granite Reservoir to Better Meet Water Quality Standards for Temperature(Fish Passage Center, June 2016)

SELECT 2015 MEDIA COVERAGE, REPORTS AND OTHER DOCUMENTS

MEDIA: Preliminary 2015 Spring Juvenile Survival Estimates Through Snake/Columbia River Dams Dismal (Columbia Basin Bulletin, October 23, 2015)

MEDIA: Dead Salmon, climate change and Northwest dams(Seattle Times Guest Opinion, August 2, 2015)

MEDIA: Snowpack drought has salmon dying in overheated rivers (Seattle Times, July 25, 2015)

MEDIA: Biologists bring sockeye into Idaho on trucks to get them out of hot water(Idaho Statesman, July 2015)

REPORT: Restoring Wild Salmon: Power system costs and benefits of lower Snake River dam removal(NW Energy Coalition, August 2015)

SELECT PRE-2015 MEDIA COVERAGE, REPORTS AND OTHER DOCUMENTS

REPORT: Bright Future: How to keep the Northwest’s lights on, jobs growing, goods moving, and salmon swimming in the era of climate change(NW Energy Coalition, 2009)

FACTSHEET: Bright Future 4-page summary factsheet(2009)

REPORT: A Great Wave Rising: Solutions for Columbia and Snake River Fish in an Era of Climate Change(SOS, NW Energy Coalition, Sierra Club, 2008)

-- REPORT #1 FOR JULY 6, 2016 --

INTRODUCTION: With weekly updates, The Hot Water Report 2016will track water temperatures, salmon survival and climate related impacts in the Columbia-Snake River Basin this summer.  The report will be updated weekly - published here every Tuesday - from early July through the end of September. Each week we will share the most recent temperature data from the Columbia-Snake Rivers, news stories on climate change and current conditions for rivers and fisheries, and share information on actions state and federal agencies and our communities can take to ensure safer, healthier rivers for salmon and steelhead. We will include first-person accounts from anglers, guides, scientists and citizens on the Columbia-Snake rivers this summer.   

Will you be on the river this summer? Do you have a story or photo you would like to share?  Please send to Sam Mace.

This is a joint project of the Save Our wild Salmon Coalition, Association of Northwest Steelheaders, Columbia Riveerkeeper, Idaho Rivers United and Sierra Club.

 SPRING-SUMMER 2016 WATER TEMPERATURES AT 4 LOWER SNAKE RIVER DAMS

The graph above reflects water temperatures recorded in the lower Snake River reservoirs. The blue-toned lines reflect the average daily mean temperatures in each of the four reservoirs collected in the last 1-8 years, beginning on April 1. The red-toned lines reflect the 2016 daily mean temperature at each of the four lower Snake River reservoirs since April 1. As one can see, this year's daily mean water temperatures are frequently considerably warmer than the average daily mean temperature collected over the last 1-8 years.

 SPRING-SUMMER 2016 WATER TEMPERATURES AT 4 LOWER COLUMBIA RIVER DAMS

This second graph above reflects water temperatures recorded in the lower Columbia River reservoirs. The blue-toned lines reflect the average daily mean temperatures in each of the four reservoirs collected in the last 1-20 years, beginning on April 1. The red-toned lines reflect the 2016 daily mean temperature at each of the four lower Columbia River reservoirs since April 1. Like the upper graph, this one also reflects consistently higher water temperatures so far this year, when compared to average daily mean temperature based on data collected over the last 1-20 years.

Further, for the first time this year, water temperatures on the lower Snake River have exceeded 68 degrees - in the reservoir behind Little Goose Dam. Salmon and steelhead begin to suffer harmful effects when water temperatures exceed 68 degrees Fahrenheit. The longer temperatures remain above 68 degrees and the farther the temperatures rise above 68 degrees, the more severe the effects, including: increased metabolism/increased energy usage, increased susceptibility to disease, reduced fecundity or reproductive potential, and death.

Temperature data included in these reports come from the USGS Current Conditions for Washington State.

THIS WEEK ON THE RIVER:On July 4, the New York Times published an editorial - The Salmon's Swim for Survival - lauding two landmark court victories concerning wild salmon and healthy rivers in the Northwest. First, the newspaper celebrated Northwest Tribes winning a case requiring Washington State to fix fish barriers in order to honor the Tribes' treaty rights. Second, the editorial heralded federal Judge Michael Simon opinion throwing out the agencies’ illegal Columbia-Snake Biological Opinion (Salmon Plan) and requiring a new Environmental Impact Statement (EIS).  Judge Simon agreed with fishing and conservation groups (joined by the Nez Perce Tribe and State of Oregon) that, among other things, the agencies did not address climate change impacts in their failed plan.  He strongly urged the agencies to consider dam removal as the most ecologically and economically sound alternative for protecting and restoring salmon in danger of extinction.

We agree that dam removal is key to providing safe access for wild salmon and steelhead in the lower Snake as water temperatures continue to rise this century.

LINKS TO 2016 HOT WATER REPORTS AND OTHER RESOURCES:

HOT WATER REPORT 2016: #1 - July 6

SELECT 2016 MEDIA COVERAGE, REPORTS AND OTHER DOCUMENTS

MEDIA: Steps Taken To Cool Warming Lower Snake, Reduce Thermal Blocks As Large Basin Sockeye Return Heads Upstream (Columbia Basin Bulletin, July 1, 2016)

MEDIA: Columbia Basin Salmon/Hydro Managers Gear Up For Another Hot Summer: Will Sockeye Get Slammed Again? (Columbia Basin Bulletin, June 2016)

MEDIA:Middle Fork could regain role as salmon nursery (Idaho Mountain Express, May 27, 2016)

LAW: N.W.F et al v. N.M.F.S. - U.S. District Court Opinion rejecting the federal salmon plan for Columbia and Snake river salmon and steelhead (Note: The Court's lengthy discussion of climate change begins on page 86. May 4, 2016)

MEDIA: Last year’s heat wave doomed nearly all Okanogan sockeye salmon(Seattle Times, April 13, 2016)

REPORT: Data Request Drawing Down Lower Granite Reservoir to Better Meet Water Quality Standards for Temperature(Fish Passage Center, June 2016)

SELECT 2015 MEDIA COVERAGE, REPORTS AND OTHER DOCUMENTS

MEDIA: Preliminary 2015 Spring Juvenile Survival Estimates Through Snake/Columbia River Dams Dismal (Columbia Basin Bulletin, October 23, 2015)

MEDIA: Dead Salmon, climate change and Northwest dams(Seattle Times Guest Opinion, August 2, 2015)

MEDIA: Snowpack drought has salmon dying in overheated rivers (Seattle Times, July 25, 2015)

MEDIA: Biologists bring sockeye into Idaho on trucks to get them out of hot water(Idaho Statesman, July 2015)

REPORT: Restoring Wild Salmon: Power system costs and benefits of lower Snake River dam removal(NW Energy Coalition, August 2015)

SELECT PRE-2015 MEDIA COVERAGE, REPORTS AND OTHER DOCUMENTS

REPORT: Bright Future: How to keep the Northwest’s lights on, jobs growing, goods moving, and salmon swimming in the era of climate change(NW Energy Coalition, 2009)

FACTSHEET: Bright Future 4-page summary factsheet(2009)

REPORT: A Great Wave Rising: Solutions for Columbia and Snake River Fish in an Era of Climate Change(SOS, NW Energy Coalition, Sierra Club, 2008)

-- REPORT FOR AUGUST 16, 2016 --

INTRODUCTION: With weekly updates, The Hot Water Report 2016tracks water temperatures, salmon survival and climate related developments in the Columbia-Snake River Basin this summer.  The report is updated weekly - published here every Tuesday - from early July through September. Each week we will share the most recent temperature data from the Columbia-Snake Rivers, news stories on climate change and current conditions for rivers and fisheries, and share information on actions state and federal agencies and our communities can take to ensure safer, healthier rivers for salmon and steelhead. We will include first-person accounts from anglers, guides, scientists and citizens on the Columbia-Snake rivers this summer.

Will you be on the river this summer? Do you have a story or photo you would like to share?  Please send to Sam Mace.

This is a joint project of the Save Our wild Salmon Coalition, Association of Northwest Steelheaders, Columbia Riverkeeper, Idaho Rivers United and Sierra Club.

 SPRING-SUMMER 2016 WATER TEMPERATURES AT LOWER SNAKE RIVER DAMS (4/1-8/15)

The graph above reflects water temperatures recorded in the lower Snake River reservoirs. The blue-toned lines reflect the average daily mean temperatures in each of the four reservoirs collected in the last 1-8 years, beginning on April 1. The red-toned lines reflect the 2016 daily mean temperatures at each of the four lower Snake River reservoirs since April 1. As one can see, earlier this season, daily mean water temperatures were frequently considerably warmer than the average daily mean temperature collected over the last 1-8 years. There has been considerably more overlap in these temperatures since approximately the middle of July.

Notably, temperatures in the Lower Snake River appear to have leveled off in recent weeks. Temperatures in the Lower Granite Dam reservoir are the lowest - hovering around 66 degrees. As you move downstream into the reservoirs of Little Goose, Lower Monumental and Ice Harbor  - temperatures gradually increase. Ice Harbor Dam's reservoir has the highest temperatures - hovering around 70 degrees.

 SPRING-SUMMER 2016 WATER TEMPERATURES AT LOWER COLUMBIA RIVER DAMS (4/1-8/15)

This second graph above reflects water temperatures recorded in the lower Columbia River reservoirs. The blue-toned lines reflect the average daily mean temperatures in each of the four reservoirs collected in the last 1-20 years, beginning on April 1. The red-toned lines reflect the 2016 daily mean temperature at each of the four lower Columbia River reservoirs since April 1. Like the upper graph, earlier this season, daily mean water temperatures were frequently considerably warmer than the average daily mean temperature collected over the last 1-20 years. These temperature differentials have tightened considerably since approximately the middle of July.

Notably, temperatures in the Lower Columbia River reservoirs continue to read consistently above 68 degrees F. - ranging between 69 and 72 degrees Fahrenheit since mid-July.

These two tables reflect the previous week's high water temperatures in each of the eight reservoirs created by the lower Snake and lower Columbia River dams. Between August 8 and 15, temperatures have exceeded 68 degrees Fahrenheit all 7 days in two of the four lower Snake River reservoirs. Temperatures in each of the lower Columbia River reservoirs have exceeded 68 degrees every day.

Overall in the four lower Snake River reservoirs, 68 degrees has been reached or exceeded 16 times this past week and 93 times so far this summer.

In the four lower Columbia River reservoirs, 68 degrees has been exceeded every day in all four reservoirs for a total of 28 times this past week and 143 times so far this summer.

Salmon and steelhead begin to suffer harmful effects when water temperatures exceed 68 degrees Fahrenheit. The longer temperatures remain above 68 degrees and the farther the temperatures rise above 68 degrees, the more severe the effects, including: increased metabolism/increased energy usage, increased susceptibility to disease, reduced fecundity or reproductive potential, and/or death.

Temperature data included in these reports come from the USGS Current Conditions for Washington State.Graphs and tables were assembled by SOS Staff.

THIS WEEK ON THE RIVER:Fishing, conservation groups file to sue the EPA over failure to address hot water impacts on endanger salmon

Groups including the Pacific Federation of Fishermens Associations, Columbia Riverkeeper, Snake Riverkeeper and Idaho Rivers United filed a 60-day notice of intent to sue the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under the Clean Water Act for failure to develop a plan to manage hot water temperatures in the Columbia-Snake Rivers affecting endangered wild salmon and steelhead.  If the agency doesn’t finalize a plan for managing lethal water temperatures and establish a Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) for water temperatures, groups will file suit.  

“Our members’ livelihoods depend on healthy salmon runs,” said Glen Spain, Northwest Regional Director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations and the Institute for Fisheries Resources.  “It’s simply unacceptable to let hot water kill otherwise-healthy adult salmon before they can spawn.“

"Agencies responsible for protecting wild salmon and our rivers have dragged their feet for years in addressing the growing threat of hot water temperatures caused by dams and climate change.  It’s time to develop real solutions to provide salmon with necessary refuge so they can thrive in the next century."

This notice was filed by the Advocates for the West. Read the legal notice, press release and Spokesman-Review story.

LINKS TO 2016 HOT WATER REPORTS AND OTHER RESOURCES:

HOT WATER REPORT 2016: #1 - July 6

HOT WATER REPORT 2016: #2 - July 12

HOT WATER REPORT 2016: #3 - July 19

HOT WATER REPORT 2016: #4 - July 26

HOT WATER REPORT 2016: #5 - August 2

HOT WATER REPORT 2016: #6 - August 9

SELECT 2016 MEDIA COVERAGE, REPORTS AND OTHER DOCUMENTS

MEDIA: Lawsuit Aims To Lower Columbia And Snake River Temperatures For Salmon (Oregon Public Radio, August 15, 2016)

MEDIA: Hot water poses ongoing threat to Columbia River salmon, groups say(Spokesman Review, August 15, 2016)

MEDIA: Reservoir Drawdown Could Spare Fish (Lewiston Morning Tribune, July 17, 2016)

MEDIA: Steps Taken To Cool Warming Lower Snake, Reduce Thermal Blocks As Large Basin Sockeye Return Heads Upstream (Columbia Basin Bulletin, July 1, 2016)

MEDIA: Columbia Basin Salmon/Hydro Managers Gear Up For Another Hot Summer: Will Sockeye Get Slammed Again? (Columbia Basin Bulletin, June 2016)

MEDIA:Middle Fork could regain role as salmon nursery (Idaho Mountain Express, May 27, 2016)

POLICY: EPA Comments on NOAA Fisheries 2015 Adult Sockeye Salmon Passage April 2016 draft Report(May, 2016)

LAW: N.W.F et al v. N.M.F.S. - U.S. District Court Opinion rejecting the federal salmon plan for Columbia and Snake river salmon and steelhead (Note: The Court's lengthy discussion of climate change begins on page 86. May 4, 2016)

MEDIA: Last year’s heat wave doomed nearly all Okanogan sockeye salmon(Seattle Times, April 13, 2016)

REPORT: Data Request Drawing Down Lower Granite Reservoir to Better Meet Water Quality Standards for Temperature(Fish Passage Center, June 2016)

SELECT 2015 MEDIA COVERAGE, REPORTS AND OTHER DOCUMENTS

MEDIA: Preliminary 2015 Spring Juvenile Survival Estimates Through Snake/Columbia River Dams Dismal (Columbia Basin Bulletin, October 23, 2015)

MEDIA: Dead Salmon, climate change and Northwest dams(Seattle Times Guest Opinion, August 2, 2015)

MEDIA: Snowpack drought has salmon dying in overheated rivers (Seattle Times, July 25, 2015)

MEDIA: Biologists bring sockeye into Idaho on trucks to get them out of hot water(Idaho Statesman, July 2015)

REPORT: Restoring Wild Salmon: Power system costs and benefits of lower Snake River dam removal(NW Energy Coalition, August 2015)

SELECT PRE-2015 MEDIA COVERAGE, REPORTS AND OTHER DOCUMENTS

REPORT: Bright Future: How to keep the Northwest’s lights on, jobs growing, goods moving, and salmon swimming in the era of climate change(NW Energy Coalition, 2009)

FACTSHEET: Bright Future 4-page summary factsheet(2009)

REPORT: A Great Wave Rising: Solutions for Columbia and Snake River Fish in an Era of Climate Change(SOS, NW Energy Coalition, Sierra Club, 2008

-- REPORT FOR AUGUST 2, 2016 --

INTRODUCTION: With weekly updates, The Hot Water Report 2016tracks water temperatures, salmon survival and climate related developments in the Columbia-Snake River Basin this summer.  The report is updated weekly - published here every Tuesday - from early July through September. Each week we will share the most recent temperature data from the Columbia-Snake Rivers, news stories on climate change and current conditions for rivers and fisheries, and share information on actions state and federal agencies and our communities can take to ensure safer, healthier rivers for salmon and steelhead. We will include first-person accounts from anglers, guides, scientists and citizens on the Columbia-Snake rivers this summer.

Will you be on the river this summer? Do you have a story or photo you would like to share?  Please send to Sam Mace.

This is a joint project of the Save Our wild Salmon Coalition, Association of Northwest Steelheaders, Columbia Riverkeeper, Idaho Rivers United and Sierra Club.

 SPRING-SUMMER 2016 WATER TEMPERATURES AT LOWER SNAKE RIVER DAMS (4/1-7/24)

The graph above reflects water temperatures recorded in the lower Snake River reservoirs. The blue-toned lines reflect the average daily mean temperatures in each of the four reservoirs collected in the last 1-8 years, beginning on April 1. The red-toned lines reflect the 2016 daily mean temperatures at each of the four lower Snake River reservoirs since April 1. As one can see, this year's daily mean water temperatures are frequently considerably warmer than the average daily mean temperature collected over the last 1-8 years.

Notably, temperatures in the Lower Snake River appear to have leveled off in recent days. Temperatures in the Lower Granite Dam reservoir are the lowest - hovering around 66 degrees - while temperatures at Ice Harbor Dam reservoir temperatures are highest - hovering around 70 degrees.

 SPRING-SUMMER 2016 WATER TEMPERATURES AT LOWER COLUMBIA RIVER DAMS (4/1-7/24)

This second graph above reflects water temperatures recorded in the lower Columbia River reservoirs. The blue-toned lines reflect the average daily mean temperatures in each of the four reservoirs collected in the last 1-20 years, beginning on April 1. The red-toned lines reflect the 2016 daily mean temperature at each of the four lower Columbia River reservoirs since April 1. Like the upper graph, this one also reflects consistently higher water temperatures so far this year, when compared to average daily mean temperature based on data collected over the last 1-20 years.

Notably, temperatures in the Lower Columbia River continue to rise in all four reservoirs with readings ranging between 70 and 72 degrees Farhenheit.

These two tables reflect the previous week's high water temperatures in each of the eight reservoirs created by the lower Snake and lower Columbia River dams. Between July 25 and 31, temperatures have exceeded 68 degrees Fahrenheit between 2 and 7 time in three of the four lower Snake River reservoirs. Temperatures in each of the lower Columbia River reservoirs have exceeded 68 degrees every day in all four reservoirs.

Overall in the lower Snake River reservoirs, 68 degrees has been reached or exceeded 14 times this past week and 56 times so far this summer.

In the lower Columbia River reservoirs, 68 degrees has been exceeded every day in all four reservoirs for a total of 28 times this past week and 87 times so far this summer.

Salmon and steelhead begin to suffer harmful effects when water temperatures exceed 68 degrees Fahrenheit. The longer temperatures remain above 68 degrees and the farther the temperatures rise above 68 degrees, the more severe the effects, including: increased metabolism/increased energy usage, increased susceptibility to disease, reduced fecundity or reproductive potential, and/or death.

Temperature data included in these reports come from the USGS Current Conditions for Washington State.Graphs and tables were assembled by SOS Staff.

THIS WEEK ON THE RIVER: LESSONS FROM THE 2015 COLUMBIA-SNAKE HOT WATER SALMON KILL - From the desk of Pat Ford.August 1, 2016

In late spring and summer of 2015, an estimated 250,000 adult salmon died in the main-stem Columbia and Snake Rivers while trying to reach their home waters to spawn their next generation.  The main cause was 70 days of sustained hot water in both rivers. Water temperatures at Bonneville Dam on the Columbia, and Ice Harbor Dam on the lower Snake, hit 68 degrees F on June 24, rose quickly to 72-73 degrees for two weeks in early July, and did not fall below 68 degrees again at either dam until early September.  (68F, or 20C, is the reference temperature – an aim, not a requirement – established by NOAA Fisheries to protect Columbia-Snake salmon and steelhead from the adverse effects of hot water.)  Two other factors also contributed to the kill: a low 2014-15 snowpack that led to low 2015 runoff, and the dam-and-reservoir system whose baseline stresses to migrating salmon in both rivers exacerbated the hot water effects.

This major salmon kill has sparked wide concern among people who care about the salmon and health of the Columbia and Snake rivers.  Spring and summer temperatures in both rivers have been rising for several decades now, and Northwest climate and salmon scientists expect the trend to continue as human-caused climate change pushes global air temperatures upward.  In the wake of 2015, many Northwest people are asking with urgency, what can we do to help salmon successfully migrate climate change?  What’s in our toolbox now, and what new tools can we add? 

READ PAT'S ENTIRE ESSAY HERE.

LINKS TO 2016 HOT WATER REPORTS AND OTHER RESOURCES:

HOT WATER REPORT 2016: #1 - July 6

HOT WATER REPORT 2016: #2 - July 12

HOT WATER REPORT 2016: #3 - July 19

HOT WATER REPORT 2016: #4 - July 26

HOT WATER REPORT 2016: #5 - August 2

SELECT 2016 MEDIA COVERAGE, REPORTS AND OTHER DOCUMENTS

MEDIA: Reservoir Drawdown Could Spare Fish (Lewiston Morning Tribune, July 17, 2016)

MEDIA: Steps Taken To Cool Warming Lower Snake, Reduce Thermal Blocks As Large Basin Sockeye Return Heads Upstream (Columbia Basin Bulletin, July 1, 2016)

MEDIA: Columbia Basin Salmon/Hydro Managers Gear Up For Another Hot Summer: Will Sockeye Get Slammed Again? (Columbia Basin Bulletin, June 2016)

MEDIA:Middle Fork could regain role as salmon nursery (Idaho Mountain Express, May 27, 2016)

POLICY: EPA Comments on NOAA Fisheries 2015 Adult Sockeye Salmon Passage April 2016 draft Report(May, 2016)

LAW: N.W.F et al v. N.M.F.S. - U.S. District Court Opinion rejecting the federal salmon plan for Columbia and Snake river salmon and steelhead (Note: The Court's lengthy discussion of climate change begins on page 86. May 4, 2016)

MEDIA: Last year’s heat wave doomed nearly all Okanogan sockeye salmon(Seattle Times, April 13, 2016)

REPORT: Data Request Drawing Down Lower Granite Reservoir to Better Meet Water Quality Standards for Temperature(Fish Passage Center, June 2016)

SELECT 2015 MEDIA COVERAGE, REPORTS AND OTHER DOCUMENTS

MEDIA: Preliminary 2015 Spring Juvenile Survival Estimates Through Snake/Columbia River Dams Dismal (Columbia Basin Bulletin, October 23, 2015)

MEDIA: Dead Salmon, climate change and Northwest dams(Seattle Times Guest Opinion, August 2, 2015)

MEDIA: Snowpack drought has salmon dying in overheated rivers (Seattle Times, July 25, 2015)

MEDIA: Biologists bring sockeye into Idaho on trucks to get them out of hot water(Idaho Statesman, July 2015)

REPORT: Restoring Wild Salmon: Power system costs and benefits of lower Snake River dam removal(NW Energy Coalition, August 2015)

SELECT PRE-2015 MEDIA COVERAGE, REPORTS AND OTHER DOCUMENTS

REPORT: Bright Future: How to keep the Northwest’s lights on, jobs growing, goods moving, and salmon swimming in the era of climate change(NW Energy Coalition, 2009)

FACTSHEET: Bright Future 4-page summary factsheet(2009)

REPORT: A Great Wave Rising: Solutions for Columbia and Snake River Fish in an Era of Climate Change(SOS, NW Energy Coalition, Sierra Club, 2008)

-- REPORT FOR AUGUST 9, 2016 --

INTRODUCTION: With weekly updates, The Hot Water Report 2016tracks water temperatures, salmon survival and climate related developments in the Columbia-Snake River Basin this summer.  The report is updated weekly - published here every Tuesday - from early July through September. Each week we will share the most recent temperature data from the Columbia-Snake Rivers, news stories on climate change and current conditions for rivers and fisheries, and share information on actions state and federal agencies and our communities can take to ensure safer, healthier rivers for salmon and steelhead. We will include first-person accounts from anglers, guides, scientists and citizens on the Columbia-Snake rivers this summer.

Will you be on the river this summer? Do you have a story or photo you would like to share?  Please send to Sam Mace.

This is a joint project of the Save Our wild Salmon Coalition, Association of Northwest Steelheaders, Columbia Riverkeeper, Idaho Rivers United and Sierra Club.

 SPRING-SUMMER 2016 WATER TEMPERATURES AT LOWER SNAKE RIVER DAMS (4/1-8/7)

The graph above reflects water temperatures recorded in the lower Snake River reservoirs. The blue-toned lines reflect the average daily mean temperatures in each of the four reservoirs collected in the last 1-8 years, beginning on April 1. The red-toned lines reflect the 2016 daily mean temperatures at each of the four lower Snake River reservoirs since April 1. As one can see, earlier this season, daily mean water temperatures were frequently considerably warmer than the average daily mean temperature collected over the last 1-8 years. There has been considerably more overlap in these temperatures since approximately the middle of July.

Notably, temperatures in the Lower Snake River appear to have leveled off in recent days. Temperatures in the Lower Granite Dam reservoir are the lowest - hovering around 66 degrees - while temperatures at Ice Harbor Dam reservoir temperatures are highest - hovering around 70 degrees.

 SPRING-SUMMER 2016 WATER TEMPERATURES AT LOWER COLUMBIA RIVER DAMS (4/1-8/7)

This second graph above reflects water temperatures recorded in the lower Columbia River reservoirs. The blue-toned lines reflect the average daily mean temperatures in each of the four reservoirs collected in the last 1-20 years, beginning on April 1. The red-toned lines reflect the 2016 daily mean temperature at each of the four lower Columbia River reservoirs since April 1. Like the upper graph, earlier this season, daily mean water temperatures were frequently considerably warmer than the average daily mean temperature collected over the last 1-8 years. These temperature differentials have tightened considerably since approximately the middle of July.

Notably, temperatures in the Lower Columbia River continue to stay high in all four reservoirs with readings up above 68 degrees F. - ranging between 69 and 72 degrees Fahrenheit

These two tables reflect the previous week's high water temperatures in each of the eight reservoirs created by the lower Snake and lower Columbia River dams. Between August 1 and 7, temperatures have exceeded 68 degrees Fahrenheit all 7 days in three of the four lower Snake River reservoirs. Temperatures in each of the lower Columbia River reservoirs have exceeded 68 degrees every day in all four reservoirs.

Overall in the lower Snake River reservoirs, 68 degrees has been reached or exceeded 21 times this past week and 77 times so far this summer.

In the lower Columbia River reservoirs, 68 degrees has been exceeded every day in all four reservoirs for a total of 28 times this past week and 115 times so far this summer.

Salmon and steelhead begin to suffer harmful effects when water temperatures exceed 68 degrees Fahrenheit. The longer temperatures remain above 68 degrees and the farther the temperatures rise above 68 degrees, the more severe the effects, including: increased metabolism/increased energy usage, increased susceptibility to disease, reduced fecundity or reproductive potential, and/or death.

Temperature data included in these reports come from the USGS Current Conditions for Washington State.Graphs and tables were assembled by SOS Staff.

THIS WEEK ON THE RIVER: WILD SALMON AND CLIMATE CHANGE - THE LAW

From the Desk of Pat Ford - August 8, 2016

U.S. District Court Judge Michael Simon’s May 2016 verdict in the long-running Columbia-Snake salmon and dams case sets clear legal sideboards for helping salmon migrate climatic changes.  (You can read the court’s verdict here.)  The salmon and climate change section is pages 86-102.)    

First, it makes plain what the law requires, and thus sets basic standards for any strategy and recommendations on the subject.  The standards will apply to the government’s sixth attempt in 18 years to craft a lawful plan to restore Columbia-Snake wild salmon and steelhead.

Second, it crisply summarizes the basics of climate-salmon science as we know them today.  Scientists at NOAA, the Universities of Washington and Oregon, Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, and others have published much research on salmon and climate change in the past 15 years.  The court finds that “the best available information indicates that climate change will have a significant negative effect” on endangered or threatened salmon and steelhead species in the Columbia and Snake Rivers.  The court finds that NOAA paid illegally scant attention to this information, much of it developed by NOAA’s own scientists, in its 2014 plan to restore Columbia-Snake salmon.

Third, the court established a public process in which that science must be assessed, and in which Northwest people’s views on salmon and climate change must be heard. 

READ PAT'S ENTIRE ESSAY HERE.

LINKS TO 2016 HOT WATER REPORTS AND OTHER RESOURCES:

HOT WATER REPORT 2016: #1 - July 6

HOT WATER REPORT 2016: #2 - July 12

HOT WATER REPORT 2016: #3 - July 19

HOT WATER REPORT 2016: #4 - July 26

HOT WATER REPORT 2016: #5 - August 2

SELECT 2016 MEDIA COVERAGE, REPORTS AND OTHER DOCUMENTS

MEDIA: Reservoir Drawdown Could Spare Fish (Lewiston Morning Tribune, July 17, 2016)

MEDIA: Steps Taken To Cool Warming Lower Snake, Reduce Thermal Blocks As Large Basin Sockeye Return Heads Upstream (Columbia Basin Bulletin, July 1, 2016)

MEDIA: Columbia Basin Salmon/Hydro Managers Gear Up For Another Hot Summer: Will Sockeye Get Slammed Again? (Columbia Basin Bulletin, June 2016)

MEDIA:Middle Fork could regain role as salmon nursery (Idaho Mountain Express, May 27, 2016)

POLICY: EPA Comments on NOAA Fisheries 2015 Adult Sockeye Salmon Passage April 2016 draft Report(May, 2016)

LAW: N.W.F et al v. N.M.F.S. - U.S. District Court Opinion rejecting the federal salmon plan for Columbia and Snake river salmon and steelhead (Note: The Court's lengthy discussion of climate change begins on page 86. May 4, 2016)

MEDIA: Last year’s heat wave doomed nearly all Okanogan sockeye salmon(Seattle Times, April 13, 2016)

REPORT: Data Request Drawing Down Lower Granite Reservoir to Better Meet Water Quality Standards for Temperature(Fish Passage Center, June 2016)

SELECT 2015 MEDIA COVERAGE, REPORTS AND OTHER DOCUMENTS

MEDIA: Preliminary 2015 Spring Juvenile Survival Estimates Through Snake/Columbia River Dams Dismal (Columbia Basin Bulletin, October 23, 2015)

MEDIA: Dead Salmon, climate change and Northwest dams(Seattle Times Guest Opinion, August 2, 2015)

MEDIA: Snowpack drought has salmon dying in overheated rivers (Seattle Times, July 25, 2015)

MEDIA: Biologists bring sockeye into Idaho on trucks to get them out of hot water(Idaho Statesman, July 2015)

REPORT: Restoring Wild Salmon: Power system costs and benefits of lower Snake River dam removal(NW Energy Coalition, August 2015)

SELECT PRE-2015 MEDIA COVERAGE, REPORTS AND OTHER DOCUMENTS

REPORT: Bright Future: How to keep the Northwest’s lights on, jobs growing, goods moving, and salmon swimming in the era of climate change(NW Energy Coalition, 2009)

FACTSHEET: Bright Future 4-page summary factsheet(2009)

REPORT: A Great Wave Rising: Solutions for Columbia and Snake River Fish in an Era of Climate Change(SOS, NW Energy Coalition, Sierra Club, 2008)

Issue 3 - July 19, 2019

Welcome to the Snake and Columbia River Hot Water Report, Week 3. This weekly report during Summer 2019 will present conditions - including water temperatures and status of salmon and steelhead returns - on the lower Snake and Columbia rivers via graphs, analyses, and stories. The harmful effects on struggling fish populations caused by federal dams and their reservoirs is now being exacerbated due to our warming, changing climate.

Each week’s report will give a real-time update on water temperatures in the lower Snake and Columbia River reservoirs, the highest weekly temperature in each reservoir, and the status of adult returns for each species as they make their way back toward their natal spawning grounds. We’ll also hear from scientists, tribal fishers, fishing guides, and salmon and river advocates about challenges facing the Columbia and Snake rivers - and the opportunities to improve their health and begin to rebuild healthy, resilient fish populations and the many benefits they deliver to Northwest culture, economy and ecology.

If you are unfamiliar with the location of the lower Snake and Lower Columbia rivers and their dams, find them on this map.

Will you be on the river this summer? Do you have a story or photo you would like to share?  Please send them to Angela Moran. 

The Hot Water Report is a joint project of the Save Our wild Salmon Coalition, Idaho Rivers United, Idaho Conservation League, Sierra Club, Friends of the Clearwater, Columbia Riverkeeper, Pacific Rivers, American Rivers, and Natural Resource Defense Council.

MEAN DAILY WATER TEMPERATURES ON THE SNAKE AND COLUMBIA RIVER

The daily mean temperature at the forebay - the upstream side of each dam - is represented with solid lines, while the 10-year average (2009-2019) for each reservoir is represented by the dashed line of the same color. For this initial report, 10-year historic data was only available for 4 of the 8 dams we will be monitoring. Finally, the dotted line across the top of the graph represents 68° - the upper end of “comfort zone” for juvenile and adult salmon. 

Harmful water temperatures reached in the lower Snake and lower Columbia river reservoirs: The first three dams along the Snake River from the Columbia have peaked over the threshold (68 degrees) this week. Lower Granite dam reservoir dipped this week before climbing once more, which aligns with the Army Corps of Engineers implementation of water release from Dworshak dam to cool down the reservoir (read last week’s Hot Water Report to learn more about this process).

The Columbia River dams have all peaked over the threshold temperature and hovered around 69°F for the entire week.

WEEKLY HIGH TEMPERATURES

Lower Granite was the only dam reservoir to benefit from the increased water release from the cool Dworshak reservoir and not have temperatures exceed the 68°F threshold. The first three dams on the Columbia moving east reached above-threshold temperatures for 6 of the last 7 days. 

Temperature data included in these reports come from the USGS Current Conditions for Washington State. Graphs and tables were assembled by SOS Staff.

FEATURED FISH: Snake River Sockeye – our most endangered salmon in the Columbia Basin

Graphs display year-to-date returns. Note the differences in scale between returns to (1) Bonneville and (2) Lower Granite dam.

*Wild salmon numbers are calculated as a proportion of total returns 

Sockeye salmon, when spawning, are striking in their appearance. Both males and females transform their silver, ocean-tuned bodies into bright red freshwater ones, with males developing a green hooked nose to fend off potential rivals at the spawning grounds. Beautiful? Frightful? Whatever you think, they are a symbol of the Pacific Northwest. From tribal art to city murals, storm drain signage to statues, sockeye are everywhere.

These beautiful endangered fish will be our focus this week as most of the Snake River sockeye run has migrated past the confluence of the Columbia and Snake Rivers in south-central Washington, and are now traversing the lower Snake River. That said, this year’s seasonal sockeye return is dismal – just 19 fish have been counted as of July 17, 2019 passing Lower Granite dam near Lewiston ID – the last dam they must pass headed home.

Sockeye are the third most common of the Pacific salmon species due primarily to still-abundant Alaskan populations whose habitats are largely unobstructed and intact. Snake River sockeye, however, are far from common. They were the first salmon population (in 1991) anywhere in the United States to be listed as endangered. A century ago, scientists estimate ~150,000 sockeye salmon returned to the Snake River and its tributaries - spawning in natural lakes in the Wallowa Basin in northeast Oregon and Stanley Basin in central Idaho. Today tells a far different story. In 2017 and again in 2018, only 11 natural-origin sockeye survived the 900-mile, 6,500 vertical foot swim from the Pacific Ocean to central Idaho’s Redfish Lake.

Redfish Lake in the Sawtooth Mountains was named for the brilliant color of the sockeye salmon that historically returned en masse from the ocean to spawn and die. More than 35,000 fish once returned to this lake. The construction of dams and other human activities in recent decades have decimated this once prolific run.

In 1992, a single fish survived the 900-mile journey back to Redfish Lake. “Lonesome Larry” brought new attention to the plight of Snake River sockeye salmon. A partnership of state, tribal and federal fish managers initiated a conservation hatchery program to save the Redfish Lake Sockeye Salmon population. While the program may have prevented extinction, the species remains at extreme risk. According to NOAA – the federal agency charged with sockeye protection programs - “Snake River Sockeye Salmon cannot be said to be recovered until it is made up of natural-origin fish spawning in the wild and surviving their two-way journey in far greater numbers.” We need to make some big changes quickly in order to protect this population from extinction and to recover it; the population goal for delisting is 2500 natural fish.

Sockeye are persistent.  Unlike steelhead and chinook, which will rest in cool water to recuperate during their journey home, sockeye never take a break when they return to the river. This attribute, coupled with the unique timing of their return upriver in July, August and early September, when dammed sections of the Columbia and Snake Rivers become overheated - makes them especially vulnerable to hot water-caused mortality over the course of the 900-mile migration.

Links:

Alaska Public Media: Record warm water likely gave Kuskokwim salmon heart attacks (July 12, 2019)

CBB: Corps releases Dworshak water to cool Lower Granite tailwater for salmon; Low sockeye run downgraded by one-third(July 11, 2019)

Previous Links:

Idaho Fish & Game: Very few sockeye salmon returning to Idaho (July 9, 2019)

CBB: Treaty Fishing To Begin For Summer Chinook, Sockeye; Run Forecasts Down From Last Year’s Actual Returns (June 12, 2019)

CBC: Southern resident killer whales last seen in poor health now missing (July 9, 2019)

Lewiston Morning Tribune: Spring Chinook Season Comes to a close (June 5, 2019)

Seattle Times: Chinook bust on the Columbia - Spring returns worse than forecast on Northwest’s largest river(May 30, 2019)

Seattle Times: Washington State to Regulate Federal Dams on Columbia, Snake to Cool Hot Water, Aid Salmon(January 31, 2019)

Seattle Times: Hunger, the Decline of Salmon Adds to the Struggle of Puget Sound’s Orca(February 24, 2019)

Past reports are archived here: Hot Water Reports - Compiled

Visit wildsalmon.org/HWR for the latest Hot Water Report

2023

HOT WATER REPORT 2023: #11 - September 18  - Welcome to the eleventh issue of the 2023 Hot Water Report: Warming Waters in the Lower Snake and Columbia Rivers. In this final Hot Water Report issue, we will summarize this year’s high water temperatures in the lower Snake and Columbia reservoirs, the number of days each of the reservoirs experienced above the 68°F threshold, and review the current return status for Snake River salmon and steelhead in comparison to their recovery goals. Given the current returns for wild Snake River Spring/Summer Chinook, steelhead, and sockeye, these fish are far closer to extinction than recovery. Wild fish return as adults at just 1-2% of historic levels and each year salmon and steelhead are returning far, far below their historic and recovery levels.

HOT WATER REPORT 2023: #10 - September 8  - Welcome to the tenth issue of the 2023 Hot Water Report: Warming Waters in the Lower Snake and Columbia Rivers. Read the tenth issue to view current hot water temperatures in the lower Snake and Columbia rivers from September 1 - September 6. Issue 10 is focused on the Nez Perce Tribe’s Department of Fisheries Resources Management’s 2023 Snake River Basin Anadromous Fish Status Report Card that outlines (i) the historical returns for Snake River fish, (ii) forecasted 2023 returns for Spring/summer Chinook salmon and steelhead, (iii) Quasi-Extinction Threshold for Spring/summer Chinook salmon and steelhead (QET; critical threshold signaling fish are nearing extinction), and (iv) urgency to restore Snake River fish. 

HOT WATER REPORT 2023: #9 - September 1 - Welcome to the ninth issue of the 2023 Hot Water Report: Warming Waters in the Lower Snake and Columbia Rivers. Read the ninth issue to view current hot water temperatures in the lower Snake and Columbia rivers from August 24 - August 31. For Issue 9, we discuss this summer's adult returns for Snake River sockeye salmon. Unfortunately, hot water has prevented almost an entire generation of critically endangered Snake River sockeye from reaching their spawning grounds in Idaho. This year, just 24 natural-origin sockeye have been able to navigate through the lower Snake River dams and up to Idaho’s Stanley Basin to spawn. Sockeye salmon are nowhere near their recovery goals. 

HOT WATER REPORT 2023: #8 - August 24 - Welcome to the eighth issue of the 2023Hot Water Report: Warming Waters in the Lower Snake and Columbia Rivers. Read the eighth issue to view current hot water temperatures in the lower Snake and Columbia rivers from August 18 and August 23. In Issue 8, we’re addressing how the lower Snake River dams’ impact Snake River salmon and steelhead and their freshwater ecosystems. This issue also reports the current estimated status of Snake River salmon and steelhead returns as of August 17, 2023.

HOT WATER REPORT 2023: #7 - August 18 - Welcome to the seventh issue of the 2023 Hot Water Report: Warming Waters in the Lower Snake and Columbia Rivers. Read the seventh issue to view current hot water temperatures in the lower Snake and Columbia rivers from August 9 and August 17. For Issue 7, we have a special addition to the Hot Water Report - a series of articles about Southern Resident orcas and the urgency to restore the lower Snake River through dam removal to bring salmon back to abundance and significantly increase the amount of salmon available to the Southern Residents.

HOT WATER REPORT 2023: #6 - August 9 - Welcome to the sixth issue of the 2023 Hot Water Report: Warming Waters in the Lower Snake and Columbia Rivers. Read the sixth issue to view current hot water temperatures in the lower Snake and Columbia rivers from August 3 and August 8. In this issue, Miles Johnson, Legal Director for Columbia Riverkeeper, uncovers the critical role of the Clean Water Act in addressing dams’ hot water pollution, also known as heat pollution, to protect endangered salmon and steelhead from extinction. 

HOT WATER REPORT 2023: #5 - August 3 - Welcome to the fifth issue of the 2023 Hot Water Report: Warming Waters in the Lower Snake and Columbia Rivers. Read the fifth issue to view hot water temperatures in the lower Snake and Columbia rivers from July 26 - August 2 and to learn more about how salmon and steelhead declines impact the commercial fishing families in the Pacific Northwest. 

HOT WATER REPORT 2023: #4 - July 27th - Welcome to the fourth issue of the 2023 Hot Water Report: Warming Waters in the Lower Snake and Columbia Rivers. Read the fourth issue to view hot water temperatures in the lower Snake and Columbia rivers from July 19 - July 25 and to learn more on how salmon and steelhead declines impact the Northwest recreational fishing economy.

HOT WATER REPORT 2023: #3 - July 19th -Welcome to the third issue of the 2023 Hot Water Report: Warming Waters in the Lower Snake and Columbia Rivers. Read the third issue to view hot water temperatures in the lower Snake and Columbia rivers from July 12 - July 18 and to learn more on historical and current wild Snake River salmon and steelhead returns. For each salmon population, we will compare current returns to their established recovery goals – the adult returns deemed necessary to recover these populations and remove them from the Endangered Species Act list. 

HOT WATER REPORT 2023: #2 - July 12th - Welcome to the second issue of the 2023 Hot Water Report: Warming Waters in the Lower Snake and Columbia Rivers. Read the second issue to view hot water temperatures in the lower Snake and Columbia rivers from July 6 - July 11 and learn about the water temperatures suitable for juvenile and adult salmon as well as lethal, and the urgent need to restore a freely flowing lower Snake River to provide cold, clean, and healthy waters for salmon and steelhead.

HOT WATER REPORT 2023: #1 - July 6th - Welcome to the first issue of the 2023 Hot Water Report: Warming Waters in the Lower Snake and Columbia Rivers. Click on the link above to read the hot water temperatures in the lower Snake and Columbia river from June 28 - July 5 and learn about salmon and steelhead’s role in NW biodiversity. 

2022

HOT WATER REPORT 2022: #11 - September 16th  

HOT WATER REPORT 2022: #10 - September 8th

HOT WATERREPORT 2022: #9 - September 2nd

HOT WATER REPORT 2022: #8 - August 18th

HOT WATER REPORT 2022: #7 - August 10th

HOT WATER REPORT 2022: #6 - August 3rd

HOT WATER REPORT 2022: #5 - July 27th

HOT WATER REPORT 2022: #4 - July 20th

HOT WATER REPORT 2022: #3 - July 13th

HOT WATER REPORT 2022: #2 - June 29th

HOT WATER REPORT 2022: #1 - June 22nd 

2021

HOT WATER REPORT 2021: #12 - September 8th

HOT WATER REPORT 2021: #11 - September 1st

HOT WATER REPORT 2021: #10 - August 25th

HOT WATER REPORT 2021: #9 - August 18th

HOT WATER REPORT 2021: #8 - August 11th

HOT WATER REPORT 2021: #7 - August 4th

HOT WATER REPORT 2021: #6 - July 28th

HOT WATER REPORT 2021: #5 - July 21st

HOT WATER REPORT 2021: #4 - July 14th

HOT WATER REPORT 2021: #3 - July 7th

HOT WATER REPORT 2021: #2 - June 30th 

HOT WATER REPORT 2021: #1 - June 23rd 

2020

HOT WATER REPORT 2020: #8 - September 2nd

HOT WATER REPORT 2020: #7 - August 26th

HOT WATER REPORT 2020: #6 - August 19th

HOT WATER REPORT 2020: #5 - August 12th

HOT WATER REPORT 2020: #4 - August 5th

HOT WATER REPORT 2020: #3 - July 29th

HOT WATER REPORT 2020: #2 - July 22nd

HOT WATER REPORT 2020: #1 - July 15th

2019

HOT WATER REPORT 2019: #9 - August 30th 

HOT WATER REPORT 2019: #8 - August 26th

HOT WATER REPORT 2019: #7 - August 16th

HOT WATER REPORT 2019: #6 - August 9th 

HOT WATER REPORT 2019: #5 - August 2nd  

HOT WATER REPORT 2019: #4 - July 26th

HOT WATER REPORT 2019: #3 - July 19th

HOT WATER REPORT 2019: #2 - July 12th

HOT WATER REPORT 2019: #1 - July 5th

2018

HOT WATER REPORT 2018: #1 - June 28

HOT WATER REPORT 2018: #2 - July 5

HOT WATER REPORT 2018: #3 - July 13

HOT WATER REPORT 2018: #4 - July 20

HOT WATER REPORT 2018: #5 - July 27

HOT WATER REPORT 2018: #6 - August 3

HOT WATER REPORT 2018: #7 - August 10

HOT WATER REPORT 2018: #8 - August 24

HOT WATER REPORT 2018: #9 - August 31

2016

HOT WATER REPORT 2016: #4 - July 26

HOT WATER REPORT 2016: #5 - August 2

HOT WATER REPORT 2016: #6 - August 9

HOT WATER REPORT 2016: #7 - August 16

By Brenda Peterson
November 2, 2015

It's rare with any endangered species to rejoice--but the birth of six new orca whale calves this year to the J, K, and L pods has the Pacific Northwest breaching for joy. In any culture, we celebrate long-awaited births with gifts. What can we offer these orca families to commemorate their newborns, this happy "baby boom" after three years of heart-breaking losses of their calves? We can finally make good our government promises by tearing down the Snake River dams and so help nourish orcas with the Chinook salmon they need to thrive.

"The Class of 2015," these new orca calves are dubbed as we welcomed the sixth baby orca, J53, whose mother is a 38-year-old grandmother in J pod. The J pod matriarch, Granny (J2), is 104. Orca families are matrilineal; new research reveals that orca mothers live longer after menopause because "the presence of mothers ensured greater survival of adult sons to breeding age." Like humans, orcas have strong family societies, cooperative hunting, and complex communication skills.

These newborn orca calves, including several males, will never leave their mothers; and this profound life-long bond is obvious when watching how closely orcas swim, bodies almost touching. Elder matriarchs, like Granny (J2) lead the J, K, and L pods and teach their newborns to navigate the many dangers--busy shipping lanes, pollution, dwindling fish stocks, and military sonar. But even centurion orcas cannot give these newborns what's most crucial for their survival: the nutrient-rich, fatty Chinook salmon. Only we can restore their salmon.

"We know these orcas are hungry," Joseph Bogaard, of Save Our Wild Salmon.

Bogaard, along with other salmon and orca advocates, are hoping to renew traditional salmon runs for these highly endangered orcas by removing four dams on the lower Snake River. This "largest stronghold for Chinook" on the Columbia River's tributary, the Snake River, would help safeguard this new orca baby boom. A federal judge, James Redden, who presided over fish litigation in the Columbia Basin, has ordered that federal agencies consider demolishing these Snake River dams since 2003. But as yet, agencies have not followed this directive. Nationally, 241 dams have been removed in a growing effort to improve American rivers. The Washington Post reports "Faced with aging infrastructure and declining fish stocks, communities are tearing down dams across the country in key waterways that can generate more economic benefits when they're unfettered than when they're controlled."

Why not also remove these expensive, obsolete "deadbeat dams" on the Snake River? Veteran orca researcher, Ken Balcomb, of the Center for Whale Research, notes in a National Geographic column, "Even many of the Army Corps of Engineers' internal documents recommend that returning the river to natural or normative conditions may be the only recovery scenario for Snake River fall Chinook salmon."

Balcomb and other researchers, including Orca Network's, Howard Garrett, highlighted an October event, "Intertwined Fates: The Orca-Salmon Connection." Joining together the orca and salmon scientists and advocates, as Howard Garrett explains. First: to remove the Snake River dams and "open 140 miles of riverbed and 5,500 miles of upstream habitat for salmon." Garrett notes that unlike deep-ocean transient orcas, who prey upon seals or other marine mammals, the Southern Resident orcas only eat fish. Eighty percent of their diet is salmon.

There is a growing and urgent movement to bring down the Snake River dams. A popular petition sponsored by the Southern Resident Killer Whale Chinook Salmon Initiative urges the federal government and Congress to immediately "remove these concrete barriers to the orcas' continued survival." A popular Twitter campaign #FREEtheSNAKE inspired a flotilla of hundreds of kayak protesters. A fascinating YouTube video "Free the Snake: Restoring America's Greatest Salmon River," shows why restoring rivers, the "circulatory system" of our lands, is vital not only to salmon and orcas, but to our shared land and sea habitats.

"Large fish runs, historically in Northwest, are like a nitrogen pump scavenging food from the oceans and bringing it back on land," says University of Washington's David Montgomery. "Anything that blocks a river, like a dam does, limits their access to part of their world that salmon need to complete their life cycle. "Voice of the Orcas" and Blackfish cast member, Dr. Jeffrey Ventre adds "The science is clear: a healthy salmon fishery feeds people, bears, and killer whales. Breach the Snake River dams and let nature heal itself. No fish, no blackfish."

Restoring these once-generous salmon runs not only saves orcas and salmon, it also helps protect us on land and sea from global climate change. Like salmon, orcas carry nutrients from our waters deep inland. A new study in Science Daily reports, "in the past, this chain of whales, seabirds, migratory fish, and large land mammals transported far greater amounts of nutrients than they do today." These nutrients carried in feces kept the whole planet fertile. When we disrupt the earth's nutrient cycle by killing whales and destroying salmon, "this broken global cycle may weaken ecosystem health, fisheries, and agriculture."

Chief Seattle said, "All things are connected, like the blood that unites one family." In the 21st century, we are just beginning to truly understand this profound connection between ourselves and all the animals sharing our habitat.

As we welcome these newborn orcas and the nourishing natural cycles that will also benefit our own children, let us sing and bring the birthday gift of breaching these deadbeat dams. For centuries Native Peoples have sung and danced to celebrate the orcas, these "People Under the Sea." Every summer, many people travel to the San Juans, home of the Southern Resident orcas, to sing to them at Lime Kiln Point. Watch this inspiring video of OrcaSing-- when the J, K, and L pods actually joine their vocalizations with the human choir--and take a moment to sign the petition to bring down the dams and feed the orcas. Think of it as a birthday gift and a good meal for hungry newborns.

Brenda Peterson is a National Geographic author of 18 books including Sightings: The Gray Whale's Mysterious Journey and Between Species: Celebrating the Dolphin-Human Bond.

http://www.BrendaPetersonBooks.com

by Waylon Lewis - July 1st, 2010

The environment is our environment.

Yet another example (think tourism-rich Florida, which banned offshore drilling decades ago, vs. drill rig-happy Louisiana re: the BP Oil Spill) of how tourism can be just as fruitful--economically-speaking--as harming our earth for quick and dirty profit.

The below comes via Working Snake River:

In the conservation movement, it's crucial to remember that everything is always interconnected. Be it economics, social or environmental implications, one decision affects another--and often, in a big way. That's what's currently taking place in Washington State, where business and community leaders are taking a stand on an issue that relates to salmon, energy, agriculture, and transportation issues and has political implications for the state and the broader Pacific Northwest region. The effort is called Working Snake River, and it's a concentrated effort to bring citizens, businesses, and elected leaders together to restore salmon and steelhead and ensure economic prosperity for the state and regional economy.

So how do fish and economy go hand in hand?

"Salmon aren't just a part of our state's natural heritage, they are also important to our economy," said Jeremy Brown, commercial salmon troller and Washington Trollers Association board member. "Especially in our coastal and river communities, salmon has traditionally been a huge source of good jobs and income. The population declines of Columbia Basin salmon in the past several decades have taken a heavy toll on the health of our communities. It's time to sit down together to figure out how we can constructively address these issues for people on both sides of the mountains."

Read more from Waylon Lewis at the Huffington Post

March 24, 2025
By Emily Senkosky

Time is running out to save Pacific Northwest wild salmon and steelhead, but studies conducted by tribes and the states of Washington and Oregon are providing data needed to preserve them and the ecosystems and economies that depend on them.

In February 2024, a joint agreement between Pacific Northwest tribes and the Biden administration commenced a new approach to recovering salmon and steelhead in the Columbia River Basin. Parties agreed to consider breaching the four lower Snake River Dams, which have long been contentious for their part in decimating fish populations. To remove the dams, which provide energy, irrigation and transportation routes, data on the feasibility of replacing their infrastructure was needed.

The Washington Department of Ecology and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation conducted the first study, which showed that the removal of the lower Snake River Dams would not affect the river's capacity to supply water for irrigation or for municipal and industrial purposes.

By providing three options for service replacement, the research was meant to give the public and decision makers baseline data that could inform future actions – with water service replacement estimated to cost between $1.7 and $3.5 billion. According to Kayeloni Scott, executive director of the Columbia and Snake River Campaign, the studies were geared at finding out if dam removal was even possible.

“These pieces of information are critical for moving forward,” said Scott. “The studies were meant to find out what would need to be replaced, what actions would need to be taken, and what it would cost.”

Regarding energy replacement, several studies have indicated that energy needs in the Pacific Northwest are projected to nearly double by 2050. The lower Snake River Dams are “run of the river” dams, meaning they are entirely dependent on snowpack and its rate of runoff. This type of energy generation makes them relatively unreliable compared to some other dams in the federal Columbia River system – especially in recent years with decreasing snowpack.

While the Snake River Dams have a collective generating capacity of 3,033 megawatts, their average yearly output is around a third of that at around 1,075 average megawatts. According to actual generation data from 2010-2015, the average output for the dams was even lower, at 930 megawatts of power per year.

“The lower Snake River dams are outdated structures that will require significant funding to update and maintain. We have an opportunity to invest in the region through options that not only consider the needs of salmon, but also stakeholders,” said Scott.

The second study by the Washington State Department of Transportation is multi-phased and aimed at evaluating the transportation impacts of dam removal. The first phase gathered data on current freight volumes and transportation networks to develop a predictive model for future movement and transport needs. A second phase, that began in 2025, will analyze safety and broader impacts, incorporating input from technical and community advisory committees.

The ongoing research aims to fill critical knowledge gaps left by previous federal reports, ensuring policymakers can address the logistical challenges that could come up without the Snake River Dams in place.

Sustaining salmon

For decades, the return of salmon and steelhead to the Snake River Basin has been shifting away from wild-origin and to a great extent to hatchery-origin fish. According to Jay Hesse, fish biologist for the Nez Perce Tribe, over half of the native populations of spring and summer Chinook salmon are now gone. The 32 native populations remaining are in dire condition and listed as an endangered species. Replenishing these fish to the federal standard established by the Endangered Species Act is a much lower bar than getting the fish back to a “healthy and harvestable” status.

“The (federal) regulations are a floor for fish performance within the hydro system,” said Hesse.

The new NOAA report, in combination with efforts by Columbia Basin tribes and state fish managers, is helping to communicate how well fish populations, or stocks, are doing and what types of changes are needed for their protection. If a salmon or steelhead population has had 50 or fewer wild fish on an annual basis for four consecutive years, they have reached what is known as a Quasi Extinction Threshold, which is an indicator that the stock is headed toward extinction.

“We are in dire straits. Nearly half of the spring and summer Chinook populations are at the (threshold) level,” said Hesse.

Metrics showed that 1.9 million salmon passed through the Bonneville Dam in 2024, as compared to historical estimates of 8-16 million. According to Hesse, achieving healthy and abundant management goals will require discourse that considers fish biology, environmental habitat, and human behavior.

“For Snake Basin stocks, the heart of the resolution is to breach the four lower Snake River dams while taking care of the communities and services that those dams provide,” said Hesse.

Powering progress

The new studies are helping to move toward tangible outcomes, but spending freezes and job removals are directly affecting tribes’ commitments as set forth in the Resilient Columbia Basin Agreement – a manifesto based on the priorities outlined in the joint agreement with the Biden administration.

Despite these challenges, the new studies will help lay the groundwork for a path forward. Resilient Columbia Basin Agreement advocates are taking a grassroots approach by participating in town hall meetings and prioritizing direct engagement with stakeholders to hear the concerns of potentially impacted communities. According to Scott, people have been mostly receptive and positive, with their main concerns being for agriculture and reliable, affordable energy.

All of this work has led to an updated environmental impact statement that incorporates new information and circumstances into the 2020 environmental impact statement of the dams. Public meetings for this supplementary statement are scheduled for the week of April 7th, and a public comment period is open now through May 9th. For tribes of the Columbia River Basin, this progress has been a long time coming and is something that could have profound ripples.

“It’s deeper than salmon going extinct,” said Scott. “For tribal members, the survival of the species is the survival of our way of life.”

ICT: New studies may lead to removal of Snake River dams

Read more news

Continually declining salmon counts on the Salmon River is a flashing red light, writes guest columnist Pat Ford. The warning? Extinction.

By Pat Ford
January 27, 2022

On a map, the heart of Idaho is the Middle Fork of the Salmon River, and its nearly two million-acre watershed. This is a big, wild heart.

The world comes to Idaho to run the Middle Fork, and taste for a week the wildness the river gathers. Idahoans can taste it any time we want. Whether from Paris or Pocatello, people who come to the Middle Fork leave exhilarated, and often redeemed.

Mountain Shoshoni and Nez Perce people have used the Middle Fork, and passed it on, for some 10,000 years. Today nearly all of it is public land, each one of us a co-owner. And almost all of it has permanent protection in the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness. Thus secured, the Middle Fork is a cultural and economic engine, especially for central Idaho. It is also a place of pilgrimage.

Winter is its essential season. The watershed is a sponge, filled each year with snowmelt that is meted out through the year as glorious life. Salmon are its essential creatures. They have named its river and lands. They bring their ocean bodies up to 850 miles inland and 7,000 feet high to reproduce – and then, in death, feed plants, trees, insects, trout, ouzels, eagles, bears, otters and more.

Yet salmon are nearly gone from their river today. Biologists report that, in 2021, the Middle Fork watershed’s 500-plus miles of superb spawning habitat held just 362 salmon redds. (Redds are the nests female salmon scoop into streambed gravels, then fill with eggs.) Since 2017, for five years running, the best salmon habitat in the Northwest has hosted less than one redd per mile of stream. That is a flashing red light, whose message is extinction, soon.

Three Idaho scientists have estimated that the Middle Fork watershed hosted over 20,000 redds into the 1960s. Over 40,000 salmon! Such capacity still exists. The Middle Fork is the largest, highest, coldest, wildest, best-connected and best-protected salmon stronghold in the 48 states. The place being special, so are its Chinook salmon. Their wide native diversity, free of hatchery influence, equips them to persist.

There’s no mystery why this stronghold now holds so few salmon.

Downstream of Idaho, eight federal dams and 320 miles of reservoir have, since 1975, massively degraded the migratory habitat through which salmon reach and return from the North Pacific Ocean. Mortality also now comes from heat, steadily rising in the ponded reservoirs. Summer water temperatures are routinely at or above 70 degrees for two months, killing and depleting cold-water salmon.

Kyle Dittmer, who studied climate change for Columbia Basin tribes, called the Middle Fork and the lands around it a “Noah’s Ark for Salmon,” our best chance to sustain salmon in an uncertain future. Five main reasons: its high cold spawning habitat, vast extent, high percentage of public and ceded lands, wide diversity within its salmon populations, and the comparatively hotter spawning conditions facing lower-elevation salmon. But the Ark in central Idaho meets an anti-Ark downstream. Salmon can survive a few dams; they did so into the 1960s, with four dams. But not eight, and not with the heat those added four dams now concentrate.

One Idaho political leader has responded. Congressman Mike Simpson has developed a balanced plan to remove four of the eight dams downstream, while extending life for the other four; replace and exceed the energy and agricultural benefits from the four dams that go; and expand state and tribal authority over federal salmon spending. Oregon Gov. Kate Brown and 57 Northwest tribes support his initiative. It will bring salmon, and steelhead trout, back into the Middle Fork and central Idaho.

So far, Idaho’s other elected leaders are sitting it out. Dismembering Creation in the evermore Salmonless River seems fine with them. The Shoshone-Bannock and Nez Perce Tribes see more deeply. The tribes’ skilled, prayerful advocacy for their own salmon people and traditions is defending all Idahoans, now and to come, against extinction of salmon in our state. Take a quiet moment, if you’re inclined, to send your thanks their way.

Spurred by tribal and non-tribal people in Washington, and by salmon-starved orca whales along their coast, Gov. Jay Inslee and U.S. Sen. Patty Murray of Washington are examining, in depth, if and how to restore the lower Snake River by removing its four dams. They promise a yes or no decision by July. If yes, the fulcrum of Northwest politics will shift, and Idaho salmon, including in the Middle Fork, will have what is likely a last chance.

I hope Murray and Inslee come see the Middle Fork this spring. If they come, they will remember. They will also better know what Idaho mountain salmon can do for people, justice, orcas, and resilience in Washington, if the lower Snake River is freed.

I believe I’ve been somewhere in the Middle Fork every year since 1986. For too many of those years, I let work keep my trips to one or two. Bob Dylan said it pretty well: ah, but I was so much older then. I’m younger than that now.

By Roy Akins
Feb 26, 2020

Idaho salmon and steelhead guides and outfitters have kept our boats on the trailers more than we would like to admit. We’ve been plagued with dismal fish returns, potential lawsuits, and hatchery issues. I see my industry and my town of Riggins continuing to fight the core issue: Our fish aren’t coming back.

Last month, I left my boat on the trailer, but this time to join other outfitters and community leaders in Washington, D.C. We brought the voice of Idahoans who are currently feeling the real impacts of the same sharp, downward trajectory of Idaho’s anadromous fish returns. We’ve been forced to become advocates for the future of our communities and our fish.

We usually don’t buy that politicians care about issues in our small towns. Rep. Mike Simpson shattered that presumption. We were 2,500 miles away and on the wall of his chief of staff’s office is a satellite image of my home river stretch. We were in awe of the amount of attention Rep. Simpson has given into a solution to bring back Idaho’s fish.

All four walls of Simpson’s office displayed the Columbia River system and the relationship of fish, energy production, and agricultural history. Every stakeholders’ questions and answers, knowns and unknowns were taped up on those walls. The dedication put into an issue that directly affects us -- and our family and sister river communities -- drew tears from some.

When the complexity of the issues facing the future of the Northwest is laid out, you realize the only way to bring our fish back while securing our energy future and low-cost agriculture product transport, requires input – not political grandstanding – by everyone.

Rep. Simpson is taking the most comprehensive approach to bring salmon back in a way that doesn’t jeopardize others in the same way the current system does to my industry. He has the will to question why we continue with a system that once benefitted everyone decades ago, but is hurting many Idahoans today. He gives us hope for the future of our fish and our communities.

We met with all of Idaho’s delegation and appreciate their hard work on addressing ways to hold us together in the short-term. But we encourage Sen. Mike Crapo, Sen. Jim Risch, and Rep. Russ Fulcher to be leaders for the future. Rural Idaho is depending on you. We will fail if Idaho’s delegation shies away from a holistic approach.

This approach emphasizes the need to improve habitat and hatcheries, better regulate harvest to give more equity for Idaho, scrutinize the future of the Snake River hydrosystem, and decrease predation rates.

I support my family by chasing steelhead and showing clients what a great resource Idaho has the potential to return to again. The outfitting community makes sacrifices, yet still there is not one outfitter who wishes anyone to live with as much uncertainty as our businesses do right now. Rep. Simpson left me inspired and motivated to see a Northwest solution that does not leave us with winners and losers, but a future that all Idahoans will benefit from. Idaho just needs to support him.

Roy Akins is a fishing outfitter and city council member from Riggins. He is also the chair for the Riggins chapter of the Idaho River Community Alliance.

July 9, 2019 Boise, Idaho — Idaho Fish and Game biologists expected few sockeye to return to Idaho this year, and midway through the run, the number of fish crossing the dams is lower than expected. The exact number of Idaho fish returning is difficult to determine because few of the fish have electronic PIT tags that help biologists monitor the run. “With most of the returning Snake River sockeye currently making their way through the Columbia River to Idaho, over the next couple of weeks, we should get a better idea of whether our Snake River sockeye salmon were affected by the same processes that led to the downgrade in the Columbia River-wide sockeye forecast at the end of June,” said John Powell, Fish and Game fisheries research biologist. “Through July 8, we have observed a single PIT tagged fish pass Bonneville Dam,” Powell said. “With only one PIT tag, we are unable to make a precise estimate of the number of Snake River sockeye salmon that are currently in the Columbia River.” On average about 75 percent of the sockeye destined for Redfish Lake have passed Bonneville Dam on the Columbia River on or before July 4. But Idaho’s sockeye are typically mixed with other sockeye that continue up the Columbia, while Idaho’s fish proceed up the lower Snake River and are counted through its four dams. Through July 7, eight sockeye had crossed Lower Granite Dam, which is about 25 miles downstream from Lewiston and the last dam the fish cross before reaching Idaho. “It is still early for most of these fish to have made it to Idaho, approximately 50 percent of the run usually crosses Lower Granite Dam in the two weeks following of July 4, thus, we will know more about the size of the Snake River sockeye run in the next couple of weeks,” Powell said. A major factor in the low forecast and likely low return revolves around how long sockeye spend in the ocean before returning to the Sawtooth Basin near Stanley. Typically, about 83 percent of Fish and Game ’s hatchery-released sockeye and 75 percent of the naturally produced fish spend two years in the ocean, so most of this summer’s return went to the ocean in 2017. Post-release survival of young sockeye reared at Springfield Hatchery was the lowest in 2017. Only 16.4 percent survived the downstream migration to Lower Granite Dam, which is still about 400 miles from the Pacific Ocean. Biologists also estimated that 2017 had the second-smallest number of natural-origin juveniles leaving Redfish Lake since 2002. Idaho’s sockeye face a long and arduous journey. They must travel about 900 miles and 6,000 vertical feet to return to their spawning sites in the Sawtooth Basin. In 2018, the first sockeye arrived to the Redfish Lake Creek trap on July 26. A total of 276 sockeye crossed Lower Granite Dam in 2018. Of those, 113 completed their migration to the Sawtooth Basin. The 10-year average is 620 sockeye returning to the Stanley area.

Wednesday, June 1, 2016
 
Idaho salmon populations have been decimated to the brink of extinction by a lot of lip service and no action to address the dams that are killing them, even dams that are producing little in the way of electricity or economic benefit.

For the fifth time in 15 years, a federal court rejected a 10-year plan to protect Columbia River Basin salmon last month.

In a long opinion, a federal judge wrote that federal agencies have tried to revive threatened salmon and steelhead runs by restoring habitat without affecting electricity production by dams.
Those efforts have cost billions of dollars and haven’t worked.

The judge ordered the federal agencies responsible to go back to the drawing board and come up with a plan to protect threatened and endangered salmon populations. U.S. District Judge Michael H. Simon wrote that a proper analysis “may well require consideration of the reasonable alternative of breaching, bypassing, or removing one of more of the four Lower Snake River Dams.” However, he stopped short of ordering such consideration.

If recent history is any guide, federal agencies such as NOAA Fisheries, the Army Corps of Engineers and the Bureau of Reclamation will write yet another plan that will fail to pass legal muster and recommend what needs to be done to recover salmon and steelhead populations.

The process in which federal agencies write fish protection plans, courts reject them, and insufficient re-planning and rewriting occurs again is a dance of death. It’s time to end the dance by analyzing and undertaking any necessary dam removal, the last hope for survival of the species that are an important food source in the Northwest. Perpetuating the dance will only deprive future generations of their rightful salmon legacy, courtesy of their procrastinating and foolish forebears.

http://www.mtexpress.com/opinion/editorials/stop-dance-of-death/article_6382c7fe-2780-11e6-a106-17c3519a6fd0.html#.V1BI16Ty6j4.email

But biologist says out-of-basin factors remain obstacles

May 27, 2016

by Greg Moore

The Middle Fork of the Salmon River could become one of the most productive wild Chinook salmon-rearing area in the Columbia River basin, but will not do so until out-of-basin factors, including 325 miles of slack water behind eight dams on the Columbia and Snake rivers, are addressed, a fish research scientist said Tuesday in Ketchum.

Russ Thurow, who works at the U.S. Forest Service’s Rocky Mountain Research Station in Boise, spoke to an audience of almost 100 people at the Community Library at an event co-hosted by Idaho Rivers United and Lost River Outfitters.

Thurow said that before white settlers began to impact the fish in the late 19th century, the Columbia Basin is considered to have been the most productive Chinook salmon habitat in the world, with an estimated 10 million to 16 million fish in the basin, and 2 million to 6 million fish in the Snake River and its tributaries. By 1995, only 1,200 wild Chinook reached the Snake River basin.

“The population collapsed,” Thurow said.

He said federal agencies attributed the decimation of the wild fish population to four H’s—harvest, habitat degradation, hatchery fish and hydropower development.

Thurow’s talk indicated that by far the most significant factor now is the last of those four. He said dams have entirely blocked fish passage to more than 70 percent of the original habitat in the Columbia Basin, and dams built on the Columbia and lower Snake in the 1960s and 1970s have had devastating consequences for both juvenile salmon headed to the Pacific Ocean and adult fish headed back upstream to spawn.

Under natural conditions, Thurow said, water velocity in the two rivers was 6-10 mph, and juvenile fish reached the Columbia estuary in one to two weeks. Now, the rivers flow at less than 1.5 mph, and it takes fish up to six weeks longer to reach salt water.

“The slower the migration, the fewer that survive,” he said.

Thurow said that research by other scientists reported that in the 1960s, the survival rate of smolts to returning adults was 3.5 to 6.5 percent, but by the time the last reservoir on the lower Snake River was filled in 1975, that dropped to less than 1 percent.

Once reaching the ocean, the fish do a long counter-clockwise trip up the coast of Canada and out to the Aleutian Islands, spending up to several years before returning eastward to the mouth of the Columbia to begin their spawning migration. Thurow said that due to a range of times spent by fish in both fresh and salt water, up to 18 age classes of spring and summer Chinook can spawn in the Middle Fork on any one year. He said that diversity of ages contributes to the population’s resiliency.

Thurow said the bad news for salmon in the Middle Fork is that redds, where eggs are deposited in riverbed gravel, have been reduced from possibly 17,000 to 20,000 in the 1950s to an average of 807 between 1995 and 2015. The good news, he said, is that the quality of the habitat remains very high, and if factors outside the drainage can be resolved, the potential still exists for the population to regain its original level. In fact, he said, biologists in the 1940s estimated that there’s suitable gravel in the Middle Fork and its tributaries to support 92,000 redds.

Thurow said the many wildfires that have swept through the Middle Fork drainage, burning 52 percent of the area since 1993, have provided benefits for salmon habitat. He said the resulting debris flows have created gravel fans at the mouths of tributaries, without which the small gravels needed by the fish would eventually get washed downstream.

He said the Chinook population’s potential resiliency is boosted by the fact that each female produces an average of more than 5,000 eggs.

Fish spawning in the Middle Fork of the Salmon drainage reach the highest elevation of any spring and summer Chinook in the world, Thurow said, and that makes the area especially important to fish survival as the climate gets warmer. He said climate researchers have reported that high-elevation habitats like the Middle Fork are probably going to provide “cold-water refugia.”

“So Middle Fork stocks need to be a top priority for recovery in the overall Columbia River basin,” he said.

Thurow said the Middle Fork contains only wild Chinook, and just 4 percent of the historic spring/summer Chinook range in the Columbia Basin now does so. He said the introduction of hatchery fish may have reduced the wild population by competing with it for resources in the Columbia estuary.

Thurow said the Northwest Power Act of 1980 required electricity production and salmon to receive equal priority. However, he said, Chinook salmon were placed on the endangered species list in the early 1990s, and recovery plans that focused on habitat improvements and hatcheries have not brought about restoration of the species.

Thurow said the federal agencies that operate the Columbia and Snake River dams have said a 4 percent mean rate of return of smolts to adult fish is needed for the species to recover, with a range of 2 to 6 percent rate as the goal. However, he said that between 2000 and 2013, the rate has risen to 2 percent only twice.

On May 4, a federal court invalidated the fifth in a series of Columbia Basin salmon recovery plans dating to 2003. The U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon ruled that the 2014 Columbia Basin salmon biological opinion, drawn up by NOAA Fisheries, violated the Endangered Species Act and the National Environmental Policy Act.

Judge Michael Simon ordered that a new biological opinion and full NEPA analysis of “all reasonable alternatives” be completed by March 1, 2018. Though Simon stated that he was not ordering consideration of any specific alternatives, the analysis “may well require” consideration of removing one or more of the four lower Snake River dams.

“This is where, if you’re interested in saving salmon, get involved,” Idaho Rivers United board member Andy Munter told the audience Tuesday. “It’s time to get involved however you can in the public comment process.”

Several people noted that unlike the four dams on the Columbia River, the lower Snake dams produce little power, and were built to enable barge traffic.

“The science has been settled for years,” Munter said. “Now it’s the economics.”

Local salmon advocate Scott Levy also urged people to get involved in a new recovery plan’s environmental impact statement.

“This is going to win,” he said. “If you get involved, you can be part of making a huge change in Idaho.”

To view article with graphs and photos go here.

Legislation being considered by the U.S. House of Representatives would nullify two federal court rulings regarding the operation of dams on the Columbia and Snake rivers to benefit endangered salmon and steelhead, some of which swim upstream for 900 miles from the ocean to spawn in the upper Salmon River and Redfish Lake.

In May 2016, the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon invalidated the federal government’s operations plan for 14 dams in the Columbia Basin. Judge Michael Simon ruled that the 2014 Columbia Basin salmon biological opinion, drawn up by NOAA Fisheries, violated the Endangered Species Act and the National Environmental Policy Act. The judge ordered a new biological opinion and full NEPA analysis, adding that he doubted such a document could be written without considering removal of eight dams on the lower Snake River in Washington.

Federal courts have declared five successive Columbia Basin salmon plans, dating to 2003, to be illegal.

In March 2017, Simon also ruled that starting in 2018, federal dam operators must increase spring water releases over spillways at the eight dams to improve survival rates for juvenile salmon migrating to the ocean.

HR 3144, a bill co-sponsored by a bipartisan group of five Oregon and Washington representatives, would override those rulings by ordering that the dams be operated according to the 2014 plan until at least Sept. 30, 2022.

“The U.S. District Court required federal agencies in charge of the Columbia-Snake hydro system to consider new alternatives in a publicly involved process that is already underway,” said Zack Waterman, director of the Idaho Sierra Club. “If this bill passes, it would undermine the judiciary, halt this public process and prevent federal agencies from even considering alternatives to the failing status quo.”

A hearing on the bill was held last Thursday before the House Natural Resources Committee’s Subcommittee on Water, Power and Oceans. The legislation, said subcommittee Chairman Doug Lamborn, R-Colo., “looks to provide certainty and reliability to a hydropower system thrust into a state of legal purgatory.”

“The choice doesn’t have to be between dams and fish—both can prosper in harmony,” Lamborn said.

Three witnesses testifying in the bill’s favor cited a need to end litigation that they said is increasing the cost of power in a system that’s working to bring back endangered fish populations. The one opposing witness noted the economic benefits that could be achieved by an expanded sport-fishing industry if anadromous fish were fully recovered.

Alan Mikkelsen, acting commissioner of the Bureau of Reclamation, said that since the early 1990s, the biological opinions have been the subject of continuous litigation, and meeting the resulting court orders “puts a strain on our operations of the system.”

Beth Looney, president of Portland, Ore.,-based PNGC Power, a nonprofit electric coop, said that in fiscal 2016, fish- and wildlife-related costs of the Bonneville Power Administration’s hydro system were $622 million, one-third the total costs of operation. She said the BPA passes along all its costs to power customers. Looney said she expects the 2018 spill “experiment” ordered by Simon to cost $40 million, requiring a 2 percent increase to BPA customers, on top of a 5.4 percent increase two weeks ago and a 30 percent increase over the past few years.

“My rural customers cannot dig any deeper,” she said. “They are already just getting by. Even more concerning than the recent large rate increases is the potential for more rate increases.”

Looney said that if electricity gets too expensive, BPA’s customers will choose other sources of power, leaving it without enough money to cover its costs—“costs that include the fish and wildlife program.”

In an interview, Kevin Lewis, executive director of Boise-based conservation group Idaho Rivers United, said much of the mitigation costs are due to losses of fish at the four Snake River dams.

“If those dams go away, the cost of mitigation goes down and the price of power goes down,” he said.

Lewis also said there is a 15 percent surplus in electricity available in the Northwest, and the dams could be removed without causing a shortage.

However, HR 3144 sponsor Rep. Cathy McMorris Rogers, R-Wash., said at the hearing that the Snake River dams are “crucial to meeting BPA’s peak loads during the hottest days of the summer.”

Jack Heffling, president of the United Power Trades Organization, a union for Northwest hydropower workers, said that three nuclear, six coal-fired or 14 gas-fired power plants would be required to replace the dams’ peaking capacity.

“That’s what the main function of these dams are—peak power,” Heffling said.

Heffling said studies have shown that survival of fish migrating through the lower Snake dams is equal to or higher than survival rates of fish in rivers without dams, and that fish that are barged survive at five times the rate of fish that are not barged.

“This information strongly contradicts any claims by environmental groups that the removal of the dams is necessary for fish to survive and that barging juvenile fish through the dams is ineffective,” he said.

Heffling also said additional spill would force fish through passages not designed for them and create more saturation of nitrogen in the water, resulting in gas bubble problems in the fish.

“Even if there was some kind of order to increase spill, it couldn’t be done without being incredibly dangerous to the fish,” he said.

In an interview, Idaho Rivers United Communications Director Greg Stahl acknowledged that there is a limit to the volume of water that can be spilled without putting too much nitrogen in the water, but he said “we’re not there yet, according to the scientists.”

At the hearing, Rep. Rogers noted that juvenile fish migrating downstream pass through the dams with a 97 percent survival rate.

But conservationists have called that figure misleading. Stahl said the figure applies to each dam, and therefore must be multiplied by eight to include the entire system. In addition, he said, it does not take into account mortality from the slack reservoir water, delayed mortality from the stress of navigating the system and mortality caused by hot weather on impounded and low water.

“Add those together and you have a significantly higher percentage of mortality,” he said. “Any useful analysis should focus on spawning bed to spawning bed.”

Liz Hamilton, director of the Northwest Sportfishing Industry Association, told the subcommittee that sportfishing sustains 34,500 jobs and generates nearly $4 billion annually.

“If [the bill] becomes law, it will lock in an expensive status quo that has failed salmon, that has failed businesses and rural economies,” Hamilton said. “The eight federal dams on the Columbia and Snake rivers inflict tremendous harm on the salmon and steelhead fisheries and for the businesses that depend on this renewable resource. We know the dams and their reservoirs are the salmon’s main cause of human-caused mortality.”

Hamilton said that since the early 1990s, spill has clearly helped returns. Between 2005 and 2012, with new spill, she said, the fall Chinook run tripled.

“The evidence was indisputable that spill works,” she said.

However, Hamilton said, spring Chinook are “in deep decline.”

She said each fish is worth about $900 spent by fishermen.

“These fish are worth their weight in gold, sending money to rural communities from Astoria, Ore., to Riggins, Idaho,” she said.

At the end of the hearing, Rep. Lamborn asked Heffling whether he thought conservationists’ arguments in favor of additional mitigation measures are reasonable, or do some people have ulterior motives? Heffling said he had talked to and heard testimony from environmental groups just made up of attorneys who earn their living suing the federal government.

“I believe that’s all there is left on tearing down these Snake River dams,” he said. “It’s already been proven that the fish and the dams can coexist.”

Lamborn agreed.

“It seems to me that that’s an abuse of the Endangered Species Act and it’s for an ulterior and hidden motive,” he said.

http://www.mtexpress.com/news/environment/bill-would-void-court-order-on-salmon-recovery/article_8f7c72ea-b38b-11e7-9b7d-c79963d22c2c.html

Greg Moore 

March 21, 2019 Changes in the economics of hydropower generation in the Pacific Northwest are giving anadromous fish advocates optimism that four dams on the lower Snake River could soon be removed. The dams are widely blamed for being the main cause of salmon and steelhead declines in Idaho since they went into operation in the 1960s and ’70s. “The lower Snake River dams are not economically viable in the larger context of what’s happening in the Pacific Northwest,” said river guide and Idaho Conservation League board member Jim Norton during a symposium at The Community Library in Ketchum on March 13-14. “I’ve never been more convinced that this is the moment.” In an interview, Idaho Rivers United Executive Director Kevin Lewis said he agreed. The causes of that optimism are a widening spread between the price of Bonneville Power Administration electricity and market rates, looming high maintenance costs at the lower Snake dams and flat demand for power in the region. “Our power customers have expressed significant concerns that BPA’s recent pattern of rising costs and rates is unsustainable,” the federal agency states in its “2018-2023 Strategic Plan.” The plan goes on to say that “Bonneville is committed to remaining a cost-effective power supplier, but its cost advantage has eroded. A substantial challenge is low wholesale power prices caused by persistently low natural gas prices and ever-increasing renewable energy expansion during a time when electric loads remain flat. Supply is outpacing demand. . .” The plan also notes that BPA “faces cost pressure from maintaining aging generation infrastructure” and “increasing costs to meet fish and wildlife obligations.” The most significant maintenance cost coming up is $1 billion to replace 22 of 24 turbines on the four Snake River dams by 2035, Norton told the audience in a mostly filled library lecture hall last Wednesday night. According to the strategic plan, fish and wildlife costs account for about 25 percent of BPA’s direct power costs; combined with the financial impacts of spill, those costs account for about one-third of BPA’s power rates. “They are on their way to going effectively broke, if it weren’t for their access to capital markets [to borrow money],” Norton said. “The long-term trend is against them.” A crucial time for BPA will come in 2028, when all its 20-year power-sale contracts with its 142 public-utility customers expire. During a presentation in Portland in March 2018, BPA Administrator Elliott Mainzer noted that the agency’s power price is close to $10 per megawatt-hour over the average wholesale market price, adding that “if that spread opens up more I think we’re going to look at some significant problems” keeping customers, who will be free to buy power from other suppliers after 2028. Norton equated the potential situation to a run on the bank. “If a couple of large customers decide to exit together, it could be catastrophic for spreading the cost to other ratepayers in the system,” he said. “If people start exiting, everyone’s going to race to get out the door.” Norton said BPA has run down its cash reserves from $900 million in 2006 to about zero now. It has stayed afloat due to borrowing, primarily from the U.S. government. At the end of 2017, BPA had consumed $5 billion of its borrowing authority, leaving $2.7 billion remaining, the 2018-23 Strategic Plan states. “Based on projections from BPA’s most recent rate filing, this source of financing will be depleted by 2023, putting BPA’s future capital program at risk,” the plan states. “To continue investing in and maintaining the tremendously valuable federal power and transmission assets, BPA will need to look beyond its traditional financing source and consider an ‘all of the above’ capital financing strategy.” Mainzer said during his presentation in Portland that he’s “not in a panic mode, but I’m in a very, very significant sense of urgency.” This looks like a good time, Norton and other conservationists say, for BPA to unload poorly performing assets. On that list could be the Snake River dams. Those dams were built primarily to create a 140-mile-long water route for barges to transport grain from Lewiston, Idaho, on its way to Portland, Ore. They produce far less electricity than do the four big dams on the lower Columbia River. In addition, the run-of-the-river dams on the Snake produce about half their annual power during spring runoff, outside of the peak demand season during winter. “They are contributing to what has become a problematic surplus for the federal power family,” Norton said. Most of that surplus had been sold to California, Norton said, but since 2008 that state has been installing a lot of solar power, greatly reducing demand there. Norton said that if the lower Snake dams are removed, they will not immediately need to be replaced by other sources of power. He said a projection for the power surplus 10 years from now equals the total output of the four lower Snake dams. “The Pacific Northwest is awash in power,” he said. Idaho Rivers United Director Lewis said in an interview that barge traffic on the lower Snake has dropped by half over the past 20 years. He said farmers co-ops in the Palouse, near Lewiston, have built several “unit loaders,” big loops of railroad track to allow trains to be loaded with grain. That allows the grain to be shipped by rail anywhere in the country, and not just to Portland. “Changing needs, on the agriculture side and on the energy side, are making the dams obsolete,” he said. Despite its admission of challenging times, the BPA expresses optimism that its carbon-free power will continue to be valued as part of efforts to combat global warming. In fall 2016, the BPA (which sells the power from the dams), the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (which operates the dams) and the Bureau of Reclamation began a Columbia River System Operations Review to update their long-term plans. The review includes analysis of navigation, hydropower, irrigation and fish conservation. According to the BPA 2018-2023 Strategic Plan, the review will also produce a recommendation on the future of the lower Snake River dams. A draft EIS available for public comment is scheduled to be completed by March 2020 and a final EIS by Sept. 30, 2020.

Letter to Biden expresses ‘strongest support’ for Rep. Mike Simpson’s proposal to remove dams

By Tony Evans
May 21, 2021

Since 1991, the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes have played an integral role in saving the unique genetic legacy of Snake River sockeye salmon, a species central to their culture and a source of traditional subsistence for thousands of years.

On Wednesday, tribal representatives and their fisheries and wildlife staff gathered at Pettit Lake—the highest spawning reaches of Snake River sockeye—to celebrate their ongoing effort and send a message to President Joe Biden in support of Idaho Rep. Mike Simpson’s $33.5 billion Northwest energy and salmon proposal.

Advocates hope that Simpson’s proposal to remove four dams on the lower Snake River could ensure the salmon species’ resurgence—and restore a crucial component of the tribes’ legacy.

“Salmon is a big part of our culture and that is why we are here today,” said Shoshone-Bannock Tribes Fish and Wildlife Director Chad Colter while standing on the eastern shore of Pettit Lake.

Colter was joined by Shoshone-Bannock Business Council members Ladd Edmo and Elma Thompson, tribe Snake River Sockeye Manager Kurt Tardy and Policy Analyst Daniel Stone. A number of salmon and conservation advocates and friends from around the region joined in for the event.

Edmo delivered prayers before those gathered made speeches about the significance of sockeye for the tribes. The group then departed for a tour of a newly reconstructed $1.4 million fish weir designed to track and study outgoing smolts, or juvenile salmon, as they begin their 900-mile journey to the ocean.

Tardy conducted a tour of the weir, which will also be used to capture returning adult sockeye as they return to the lake two years later, after their arduous journey to their spawning grounds on the gravel shoals of Pettit Lake.

Staff from the Tribe Fisheries Department caught smolts as they wriggled downstream and into catchments at the weir, taking some to a nearby trailer where they were DNA-tested and tagged before returning the anesthetized fish to the stream.

Tardy said about 10% of smolts leaving now during the first spring flows are geo-tagged to monitor their location within the river system. About 30% are DNA-tested in a continuing effort to identify sockeye progeny to measure the success of ongoing sockeye recovery efforts at Pettit Lake.

“Two years ago, we saw only two fish return from Pettit Lake,” Tardy said. “Last year we saw 38 return. We want to increase that effort every year.”

Some 30 years ago, only one Snake River sockeye returned to the Sawtooth Valley, according to the tribes’ agenda report for the Wednesday gathering. Nicknamed “Lonesome Larry,” the fish was the sole survivor that year of the longest salmon run in the Columbia River Basin.

In 1991, the tribes petitioned the federal government to list sockeye as an endangered species and devote resources to promote their recovery. Later that year, the National Marine Fisheries Service listed sockeye under the Endangered Species Act as endangered, a listing that was reaffirmed in 2005 and 2015.

The tribal representatives on Wednesday praised early efforts by former Chairman Lionel Boyer and others to get the species listed. They also recalled early salmon recovery efforts by the late Doug Taki, former sockeye program manager, and the late Kenneth Ariwite, former lead technician for the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes’ sockeye program.

“Two years ago, we saw only two fish return from Pettit Lake. Last year, we saw 38 return. We want to increase that effort every year.” - Kurt Tardy, Snake River Sockeye Manager, Shoshone-Bannock Tribes

Sockeye recovery efforts at Pettit Lake, including construction of the weir, are part of a decades-long regional effort costing hundreds of millions of dollars and supported by state and federal agencies. It includes a captive breeding program that raises fish from eggs from returning adults in the Sawtooth Valley and releases them back to the river to restart their migration.

The weir at Pettit Lake was funded by the Bonneville Power Administration, in collaboration with the state of Idaho and the tribes. Many millions of dollars have been spent over the years on sockeye recovery, primarily by the BPA, which operates the four dams on the lower Snake River, considered by scientists and many tribes along the river corridor to be a major impediment to salmon migrations.

Now, the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes are backing Simpson’s effort to breach four dams along the snake river and return a 140-mile stretch of slack water to riparian flows—a move the Congressman hopes will spur salmon recovery. On March 17, the tribal leaders sent a letter to President Joe Biden signed by tribal Chairman Devon Boyer expressing their “strongest support” for Simpson’s proposal.

“Our desire is to bring a measure of long-ignored environmental justice to our people and our homelands,” the letter states. It also supports the goal of creating a legislated infrastructure package that would allow updated energy production systems.

“Our constant duty as tribal leaders is to our Tribes and people, and to the vision we hold of a better future,” the letter stated.

The Nez Perce Tribe, which also has a culture and history based in part around salmon, also announced support for Simpson’s plan on Monday.

The sockeye recovery projects in the Sawtooth Valley are manifold. Recovery efforts at nearby Redfish Lake are overseen primarily by the Idaho Department of Fish and Game. The tribes run efforts at Pettit and Alturas lakes, which focus on natural spawning. Regardless of locality, both the tribes and the state work collaboratively to achieve a unified goal: sockeye salmon recovery, Tardy said last year.

“Typically, there is always a fitness difference between hatchery stock and wild stock,” Tardy said. “Nothing can beat a natural female.”

Email the writer: tevans@mtexpress.com

By Cooper McCauley
Apr 13, 2023

BOISE, Idaho — Next week the Youth Salmon Protectors (YSP) will be heading to Washington D.C., calling on Congress to take action and protect endangered salmon and steelhead found in the Snake River.

The YSP is a program of the Idaho Conservation League. Despite being created in 2021, the YSP has grown to a coalition of over 2,000 people across the Northwest region advocating for salmon, steelhead, and tribal justice.

Salmon and steelhead are threatened by the presence of hydroelectric dams which cause warmer waters, slower migrations and even foster invasive predators.

During their week-long trip, the YSP will be joined by other conservation groups from the Pacific Northwest, including the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation (CTUIR). These groups will be meeting with elected officials to discuss the dire state of wild salmon and steelhead and push for the breaching of the four lower Snake River dams.

“Not only are salmon a critical food source, they’re also part of our spiritual and cultural identity,” said a member of the CTUIR Youth Leadership Council. “In our language, we are ‘Wy-Kan-Ush-Pum (salmon people).’ ‘Wy-kan-ish (salmon)’ are important for our sacred life renewal ceremonies, our daily food, and for our economy. The salmon that swim from the ‘Naxiyam Wana (Snake River)’ and ‘Nchi’-Wana (Columbia River)’ into the Pacific Ocean are family to us.”

The YSP believes breaching Snake River dams will aid in the restoration of these keystone species while also upholding commitments made by the United States to indigenous tribes in treaties.

“Salmon and steelhead are integral to the Pacific Northwest way of life. As a keystone species, hundreds of other species rely directly on them, creating a system that is central to indigenous and local cultures as well as our economy,” said Lilly Wilson, a member of YSP and a Youth Engagement Assistant with Idaho Conservation League. “The four dams that sit on the lower Snake River could be removed and fully replaced with new infrastructure that works better for the region while saving wild fish and restoring our native ecosystem.”

These advocates regularly take time out of their school and extracurricular activities to urge elected officials to take immediate action to remove harmful dams, replace their services with sustainable alternatives, and restore healthy salmon populations to Idaho.

https://www.kivitv.com/news/idaho-youth-head-to-u-s-capitol-to-protect-salmon-and-steelhead

By: Lynsey Amundson
December 4, 2020

For over a year and a half, the Salmon Workgroup, comprised of representatives from the fish industry, conservation, and other stakeholders, has met to draft recommendations on how they can recover the salmon and steelhead population and present those recommendations to Governor Brad Little on Dec. 15.

“Despite having some good runs we are still in an extinction trajectory, and we are getting down to the red line here, these last few years have been incredibly scary,” said Brian Brooks, Idaho Wildlife Federation Executive Director & Salmon Workgroup member.

If absolutely nothing is done, he said that data shows the salmon and steelhead populations in our region will be extinct within the next 20 years, which will have a significant ecological and economic impact.

“Just a couple of years ago we had the shutdown of just the Clearwater steelhead fishing season, we were able to measure the impact, and they lost $8.9 million a month in that region just on that one fish alone,” said Brooks.

The recommendations the group is finalizing address the impact of the four H's: hatcheries, hydro system management, harvest, and habitat.

The group received thousands of public comments from Idahoans with the majority concerning the dams.

"The water behind these dams is too warm for the salmon to survive. In the era these dams were built, we didn’t have renewable energy like solar and wind. Now we do. These dams are aging," said Julie Sheen in the public comment form.

"The fish did fine before we meddled in their habitat. It can go back to the way it was. Free-flowing rivers. The Snake River Dams are the problem for these fish.," said another comment in the forum made by Scott Schnebly.

"They are responsible for over 50 percent of fish mortality when our fish are migrating from Idaho out to the ocean," said Brooks. "That’s half of our fish gone because of the hydro system,”

However, since the dams on the Lower Snake River are not located in the state of Idaho, they cannot address that concern. That means the recommendations won't be sufficient enough to be a recovery plan.

“These recommendations constitute a list of actions of which we find consensus, and we believe if implemented they will help fish in some way, but we also recognize this will not get us to the healthy and harvestable levels that Idaho needs, and that’s because so much of what is killing Idaho’s fish is outside of the state.”

He said that it is a step in the right direction, but it will take a regional effort to save the salmon and steelhead, which is already in the works.

In October, the four governors of Washington, Oregon, Montana, and Idaho agreed to work together and develop a way to restore the Columbia River Basin salmon and steelhead.

You can submit your comments to the group up until Dec. 14. To do so, click here.

Their next meeting is on Dec. 15 via zoom.

April 23, 2019

By Xavier Ward

BOISE — Idaho’s wild fish population is in dire straits, but energy officials and conservationists are starting to discuss how to bolster those numbers.

“It’s not that complicated,” said Giulia Good Stefani, an attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council. “My kids swim in that river; they enjoy it at 70 degrees, but the salmon don’t.”

Stefani was one of 10 panelists at the 2019 Environmental Conference at Boise State University Tuesday discussing the relationship between power companies and salmon populations. The conference featured officials from conservation groups and energy companies alike, discussing solutions for salmon that are affected by hydropower dams.

There was a consensus that both groups could not depend on politicians to find an amenable way to resolve the problem.

“We can create the political will by the people sitting in this room sitting down and talking about what they need,” said Nancy Hirsh, director of NW Energy Coalition and panelist. If people come together to find a solution, she believes politicians will follow suit. “The people in this room can create the political will that moves mountains.”

The simple solution to Stefani — and many conservationists — is to remove the dams on the lower Snake River that are preventing schools of salmon from swimming upstream to reproduce in the cold Idaho mountain waters.

Chris Wood, president of Trout Unlimited, said the Idaho salmon population is effectively on the brink of extinction. Historically, between 2 million and 6 million fish could be found in the Snake River. Most recently, counts are around 7,000. Only 500 salmon were found in a recent count, Wood said.

“These fish can’t migrate to their native streams,” he said.

While many talk about solutions in the years to come, Wood worries there may not be time to find a solution.

“We don’t have a lot of time,” he said. “If the issue is how do we protect these wild fish, we are running out of time.”

However, utility companies across the Northwest rely on the energy produced from those dams to supply their customers with clean, reliable energy.

“We’re contributing a tremendous amount of money into fixing these problems,” said Bear Prairie, the general manager for Idaho Falls Power.

Prairie said power companies use hydropower to keep the lights on and heat working, especially during winter.

Prairie said the issue is complicated, and he and his peers are committed to helping find solutions.

Gov. Brad Little spoke to the conference at the beginning, touching on the need for a solution that is agreeable to both parties. Little also talked about putting together a task force to tackle the issue of wild fish population comprised of many people who attended the conference.

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“What stays the same is our cumulative desire to maintain our incredible quality of life in this amazing state,” Little said. “I think everyone agrees the current efforts are not enough.”

Jaime Pinkham, director of the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, said while there’s progress to be made, he’s encouraged by the willingness to have tough conversations between groups that are historically at odds.

He noted these discussions could not have happened in the 1980s, when the trends in fish population started to spiral downward, because the two parties were unwilling to talk.

Elliot Mainzer, the director of the Bonneville Power Administration and one of the panelists, said taking out the dams could have consequences for power customers in his area.

Mainzer said the company is searching for a solution.

Justin Hayes, executive director of the Idaho Conservation League, said the true solution for saving the salmon population is removing the dams. However, he doesn’t want an onslaught on power companies and officials. He said if they feel attacked, they won’t come to the table to discuss a mutual solution.

“What you saw is an understanding (that) these dams are an important part of the current system,” he told the Idaho Press.

Hydropower isn’t the only thing that makes the dams an integral part of the river, but also farms and agriculture. A number of farmers in Idaho use the river to transport their crops via barges. If the dams are taken out, the river levels will fall.

“We know there’s a problem, we suspect it might be the dams. We are pretty sure it might be climate change,” said Sam White, chief operating officer of the PNW Farmers Co-Op grain division.

White said he’s ready to look for a solution, though he recognizes his priorities lie with grain. If farmers can’t ship their crop, it’s not an agreeable deal.

He said he would consider railroad transportation of crops if it were made available. Currently, the farmers in the area don’t have the rail access they would need to do that.

“I’m confident that we can sit down and discuss (solutions),” he said. “It’s going to involve a compromise.”

U.S. Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, challenged attendees to ask themselves what they’ll do to improve fish populations — no matter if they’re approaching the issue from the conservation side or the industry side.

“I have concluded that I am going to stay alive long enough to see salmon return to healthy populations in Idaho,” Simpson said.

By Thomas Plank
August 11, 2020

As of Monday, 16 sockeye salmon had made it back to Redfish Lake in central Idaho.

The iconic Pacific salmon species has started its return to Redfish Lake this season after a record-low 17 sockeye salmon — which give the lake its name — made their way back to Idaho in 2019.

The returning salmon are part of an ancient cycle that has been disrupted by hydroelectric dams, climate change and other human infringements on waterways across the Northwest. This year should see better return rates than last year, and Idaho Department of Fish and Game fishery experts Dan Baker and John Powell said the sockeye’s survival is not totally in jeopardy yet.

According to an email from Baker and Powell, “Naturally produced sockeye salmon migrate from the Sawtooth Valley lakes in the late spring along with hatchery reared smolts which are released in early May to Redfish Lake Creek. Snake River sockeye salmon spend one to three years with a majority of the sockeye salmon returning after two years in the ocean before returning to the Sawtooth Valley. Unlike other salmon, Snake River sockeye spawn and rear in lakes.”

So far in 2020, 412 sockeye have passed the Lower Granite Lake Dam on the Snake River in southeastern Washington. Those fish are working their way up the river into Idaho, where they will eventually be trapped by IDFG and transported to the Eagle Hatchery, where genetic testing will determine if they will be incorporated into the captive broodstock that has kept sockeye salmon populations alive in Idaho.

In the late 1800s, between 25,000 and 30,000 sockeye salmon returned to the Stanley Basin. But as dams were thrown up across their migratory paths, the sockeye’s range and population were drastically reduced.

There are two sockeye breeding programs that maintain captive breeding populations of salmon: IDFG’s Eagle Fish Hatchery and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries’ Burley Creek Fish Hatchery. Those two programs are intended to prevent the extinction of the sockeye as well as keep the population genetically diverse.

“Therefore, even if no adult sockeye salmon returned from the ocean the Redfish Lake sockeye salmon population would continue to persist through the efforts of this program. A year with no returning sockeye is obviously the worst case scenario, and will hopefully never come to pass,” Baker and Powell said.

Idaho Conservation League spokesman Scott Ki said that while the higher numbers of returning sockeye in 2020 was encouraging news, the fish still face considerable obstacles to their continued survival.
“Factors that keep wild salmon from returning include warm water and ocean conditions, predators, degraded habitat, commercial and sport fishing (harvests), hatchery fish and dams (hydropower),” Ki wrote in an email. “It’s a wonder that any of these fish can still make it back.”

Ki also noted even if all 400 sockeye salmon that have passed the Lower Granite Lake Dam make it back to Redfish Lake to spawn, that number of fish is still far below the minimum population to delist the species from the Endangered Species List or to recover “abundant, harvestable stocks to Idaho.”
“To put this into perspective, even if you released a million smolts (IDFG’s goal for the number of smolts raised at its Springfield Hatchery in Springfield, Idaho near Blackfoot), you’d need at least 40,000 sockeye adults to return in order to restore abundant, harvestable stocks to Idaho. 400 is more, but very far from being enough,” Ki wrote.

According to IDFG experts, there are a few population benchmarks that could delist the Sawtooth Valley sockeye salmon. One is a 10-year average natural-return of 1,000 sockeye to Redfish Lake, 1,000 to Alturas Lake and 500 to Pettit Lake. From 2010-2019, the annual sockeye return to the Sawtooth Basin has averaged 558 fish in total.

“The current goal of the recovery program is to return enough anadromous adults from our hatchery releases to recolonize the natal habitat in the Sawtooth Valley lakes and increase natural production,” Powell and Baker wrote.

By Rocky Barker, August 04, 2017

Editor’s note: The Northwest has yet to figure out a sustainable plan to save imperiled Columbia salmon. This is part two of a series exploring whether salmon can ultimately survive.

PASCO, Wash. The fate of the Northwest salmon may be decided by the way you use your heater and your air conditioner.

In the near future, the U.S. electric grid will be able to digitally manage the vast Northwest hydroelectric network in a way unimaginable just a few years ago. With consent from customers, it will be able to adjust the heaters and air conditioners of millions of homes and buildings, or tap into the batteries of electric cars or other smart appliances.

It’s a revolutionary change for the Northwest economy, the energy market, the Columbia Basin dam system and the salmon that migrate through it.

The four dams of the Snake River in Washington are less valuable now due to a power surplus caused by wildly successful energy-efficiency programs, cheap natural gas, and rapidly growing wind and solar energy options.

Read the full story here.

July 9, 2017

By Rocky Barker and Brittany Peterson

FRIDAY HARBOR, Wash.

Editor’s note: Research, tenacious advocates and $16 billion have lifted Columbia salmon from the brink of extinction. But the Northwest has yet to figure out a sustainable long-term plan to save the fish that provide spiritual sustenance for tribes, food for the table, and hundreds of millions of dollars in business and ecological benefits. This is part of a special series of reports exploring whether salmon can ultimately survive.

Just one of the three pods of endangered southern resident killer whales has shown up this year in the Salish Sea near the San Juan Islands northwest of Seattle, their summer home as long as researchers have followed them since 1976.

Deborah Giles, research director of the Center for Whale Research, said she isn’t concerned yet for the other two pods of fish-eating orcas. But she worries about what the next decade holds for the beloved sea mammals that share the Puget Sound with millions of people, thousands of boats and just a fraction of the salmon that historically were the orcas’ main food source.

If humans don’t make saving orcas and salmon a higher priority, she fears both will disappear. With just 80 individual orcas left, the southern resident population has the least amount of time.

Read more here.

July 8, 2017

By Rocky Barker

Editor's note: Research, tenacious advocates and $16 billion have lifted Columbia salmon from the brink of extinction. But the Northwest has yet to figure out a sustainable plan to save the fish that provides spiritual sustenance, food for the table, and hundreds of millions in business and ecological benefits. Today, we start a special series of reports exploring whether salmon can ultimately survive.

The salmon of the Northwest are the stuff of legends.

Pioneers talked of rivers so thick that they were tempted to cross on the backs of the fish. When Meriwether Lewis led his band of explorers through the Northwest in 1805, he marveled in his journal of “almost inconceivable” numbers of salmon.

At one time, 8 million to 16 million Columbia and Snake river salmon rode spring flows from tributaries such as the cold, clear Salmon and Clearwater rivers to the ocean, living one to three years before making the daunting upstream trip to their native waters to spawn and die.

By 1995, that number had plunged to fewer than 1 million, and 13 species of Northwest salmon were placed on the Endangered Species List. Over the past quarter-century, research, tenacious advocates and $16 billion in federal investment have helped keep Northwest salmon from tipping over the brink into extinction. With bad ocean conditions this year, salmon returns are depressed again and fishing seasons are shortened.

Read the full story at the Idaho Statesman.

By Rocky Barker
January 30, 2018

The Bonneville Power Administration will spend more on modernizing its grid and less on salmon recovery, the agency announced Tuesday.

The agency must find $40 million in cuts from the $300 million it spends annually on fish and wildlife. Those savings are needed to make up for the power generation the agency believes it will lose due to a federal judge’s latest order on salmon migration issues.

Expected cuts will be made on hatcheries, state and tribal management programs and other fish and wildlife programs.
The cuts are part of a five-year plan to stay competitive in a rapidly changing electricity market. Also included in the plan: reducing staff, developing new markets, and taking “an intellectually honest” look at removing four dams on the Snake River in Washington. BPA is the leading funder for salmon recovery efforts across the Pacific Northwest, spending more than $16 billion over the last 20 years. It not only supplies power for much of the region, but also shares its revenues with residential customers of Idaho Power and other regional private utilities.

U.S. District Judge Michael Simon ordered BPA and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to examine breaching four dams on the Lower Snake River through an environmental review they must complete by 2021.

Read the full story here.

BY ROCKY BARKER

rbarker@idahostatesman.com

May 7, 2018 

Salmon and trout anglers across the Pacific Northwest are going to have fewer places to fish over the next 40 years, concludes a new study published this month.

Scientists at the Forest Service's Rocky Mountain Research Station in Boise found that in the summer and early fall, rivers in the Pacific Northwest have already warmed 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit since 1976. That's the same rise measured at the Bonneville Dam over the last 80 years and used in models by climate scientists.

The researchers studied 391 monitoring sites. The temperature pattern gives them confidence the warming trend is going to continue for the next 40 years, said Dan Isaak, the lead researcher. That means salmon and trout are going to have less habitat, and will be replaced by warm-water fish like smallmouth bass.

"This will be a big deal for people who fish for trout," said Isaak. "It might be that places their grandfather and father took them, there might not be trout anymore."

The good news is that the warming isn't happening as fast as scientists previously thought. That gives both the fish and managers time to adapt. But adjusting will be harder for some species than others...

Read the full article here

April 23, 2019

By Cynthia Sewell

Last year, Idaho U.S. Rep. Mike Simpson and some of his staff went to Marsh Creek, the headwaters of the Middle Fork Salmon River, to watch a returning salmon create its redd, or nest, lay its eggs and die.

“She swam 900 miles to get back to Marsh Creek. All to lay her eggs for the next generation of salmon,” Simpson said Tuesday in his keynote speech during the Andrus Center environmental conference on salmon, energy, agriculture and community at Boise State University.

“It was the end of one cycle and the beginning of a new one,” Simpson said. “These are the most incredible creatures, I think, that God has created. It is a cycle God created.”

But, Simpson lamented, they saw only one salmon.

“You have got to ask yourself,” he said, “after spending $16 billion on salmon recovery over the last how many years, is it working?”

It isn’t, Simpson said.

“All of Idaho’s salmon runs are either threatened or endangered,” he said. “Look at the number of returning salmon and the trend line is not going up. It is going down.”

The salmon recovery efforts that we have engaged in have probably kept the salmon off the extinction list, he said.

“But we should not manage just to keep these salmon off the extinction list. We should manage them to bring back a healthy, sustainable population in Idaho.”

And then Simpson, who just spent 15 years wrangling and shepherding to get the Boulder-White Clouds declared a federally designated wilderness, made a new vow.

“I am going to stay alive long enough to see salmon return to healthy populations in Idaho,” he said.

NORTHWEST POWER ACT 2.0

Enacted in 1980, the Northwest Power Act addresses the Columbia River’s hydroelectric dams’ impact on fish and wildlife by “authorizing Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Washington to develop a regional power plan and fish and wildlife program to balance the Northwest’s environment and energy needs,” according to the Northwest Power and Conservation Council.

The Bonneville Power Administration, a federal agency, administers the act.

“The BPA is operating under regulatory regimes set up in the 1980s,” Simpson said. “It worked well in the 1980s and I am not being critical of it,” he said. But it’s nearly 40 years old.

Simpson has been asking himself, “is it time for a Northwest Power Planning Act 2.0?” His conclusion?

Absolutely.

“Either we can do it, or it will be done for us,” he said. “Someone else will write it and impose it upon us.”

The challenge of updating a 40-year-old power plan for the next 40 years creates an opportunity to address the power challenges that we face and the salmon crisis, he said.

“You cannot address the salmon issue without addressing dams,” he said. “You cannot address the salmon issue without addressing the challenges the BPA has. They are interwoven.”

ALL OF THE COSTS OF DAMS, NONE OF THE BENEFITS

In addition to salmon and energy challenges, Simpson said he has another issue he wants to address, one that may not sit well with his Washington and Oregon colleagues.

“I’m getting tired of Idaho paying the costs of those dams and getting none of the benefits,” he said.

Of all the power being produced by the BPA, about 6% comes to Idaho, Simpson explained. The power generated “is very important for Washington and Oregon. But we pay for it by sending 487,000 acre feet of water down the river … and most of all, we are not getting salmon back in Idaho.”

Simpson said he is about ready to tackle the first step in reworking the power plan and restoring Idaho’s salmon.

“One of the challenges I am going to have to face sooner rather than later is I am going to have to sit down with the Pacific Northwest (congressional) delegation, Republicans and Democrats, and tell them what I am doing,” Simpson said.

“It used to be that we were all supportive of the BPA, Republicans and Democrats. But I am starting to see some division within the Pacific Northwest delegation,” he said. “Maybe I am causing some of it because I ask the question, ‘You get all the benefits, we pay all the costs. What the hell is going on?’ They don’t want to address that.”

But, Simpson stressed, it needs to be addressed.

“There is a looming problem and it is approaching quicker than anyone might think. It is kind of like the sideview mirror on your car: Objects may be closer than they appear.”

Included in that looming problem is climate change and thinking about the future generations inheriting our world.

“I actually do believe in climate change. I do believe it is happening,” Simpson said. “Climate change is a reality. It is not hard to figure out.”

And then Simpson threw down the gauntlet:

“Make no doubt about it. I want salmon back in Idaho in healthy and sustainable populations. Can this be done? I honestly don’t know. I don’t know if the willpower is there to do it. I don’t know if the willpower is in Congress to do it. But I will tell you that I am hard-headed enough to try,” he said.

“It is not unsolvable if good people come together and say we are going to save this animal from extinction,” Simpson said, concluding his nearly hour-long speech, which garnered two standing ovations from the audience.

“You could hear a pin drop when he made his remarks,” Justin Hayes, Idaho Conservation League program director and incoming executive director, told the Idaho Statesman.

“Congressman Mike Simpson made the most important speech from an Idaho politician in 15 years,” Hayes said. “He understands fully the challenges that all Idahoans face in working to find a solution that saves Idaho salmon and steelhead while keeping everyone whole.”

BREACHING THE STATUS QUO

Idaho Gov. Brad Little provided opening remarks at the day-long conference that included energy, tribal, conservation and agricultural leaders from around the region.

“Above all else, my overarching goal is to create the best environment for us to thrive and for our grandkids to want to stay here,” Little said.

“When it comes to salmon and steelhead, I want to state publicly right here this morning that I am in favor of breaching the status quo,” Little said, giving many in the audience a start when he said the word “breaching.”

Everyone agrees current efforts are not enough, he said.

Little said predictability with salmon and steelhead runs, power supply and regulations are key.

Like Simpson, Little acknowledged climate change.

“Things change. Idaho must adapt to change. There are changes in the climate. There are changes in ocean conditions,” he said. “What stays the same is our cumulative desire to maintain our incredible quality of life in this beautiful state.”

Little made two announcements during his brief speech.

Since 2005, Idaho and Oregon have been working to resolve disagreements on water quality and fish passage along the portion of the Snake River that is shared by both states. In 2016, after reaching an impasse, the two states and Idaho Power — which operates three Snake River dams — agreed to one last effort to resolve the outstanding issues.

Idaho and Oregon announced on Monday significant advancements to resolve those disagreements in Hells Canyon, Little told the audience.

“This long-awaited agreement supplies clean, affordable energy for Idahoans, improves water quality, and provides additional fish for recreational and tribal ceremonial purposes,” Little said.

According to a news release from the governor’s office, under the settlement agreement, Idaho Power will implement significant investments in water quality projects, resulting in cleaner, colder water flowing downstream. In addition, the company will increase production at its Rapid River Hatchery, enabling 800,000 additional Chinook salmon to bolster state and tribal fishing opportunities in the future. In return, Oregon will not require fish passage as a condition of its water quality certification for the operation of the Hells Canyon dams.

Little also announced he is creating a statewide working group to develop an Idaho-based solution to salmon recovery.

The project “is in its infancy, and there is no timeline yet for selection or announcement of group members,” Little’s communication director, Emily Callihan, told the Statesman.

“Gov. Little has tasked his Office of Species Conservation with assembling a group of stakeholders and industry representatives with knowledge and expertise in salmon and energy issues — including many of the individuals who were present at the conference today,” she said. “He would like the members to develop realistic, consensus-based goals and outline meaningful steps to achieve the goals.”

Sarah Miller
August 7, 2021

A crowd of about 50 traveled down the Boise River on Saturday afternoon, one in a flamingo tube and others with trout balloons tied to their rafts and kayaks. But they weren’t there just to float — they wanted to send a message.

The float was organized by the Idaho Conservation League are part of a coordinated effort in Idaho, Washington and Oregon to raise awareness about endangered salmon and steelhead, and to call for breaching the four lower Snake River dams.

Rachel Brinkley, community organizer with the Idaho Conservation League, said there’s more national attention and momentum this year because of a $33.5 billion plan to breach the dams put out by Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Simpson, of East Idaho.“Every year, the situation becomes more and more dire,” Brinkley told the Idaho Statesman.

Simpson’s plan, known as the Columbia Basin Initiative, would start the process of removing the four lower Snake River dams in Washington in 2030. It also includes provisions to invest in shipping alternatives to compensate the farmers who currently use reservoir water.

The plan would also replace the energy the dams currently produce. The four dams currently turn out an average of 1,004 megawatts every year, according to the Bonneville Power Administration. That’s enough to power about 800,000 typical homes in the Northwest for a year.

The Columbia Basin Initiative has garnered the support of Native American tribes in the region. Northwest tribes gathered at the Salmon and Orca Summit a month ago in Shelton, Wash., to discuss salmon recovery. Earlier this year, members of the Northwest Tribal Salmon Alliance sent a letter to Congress and President Joe Biden in support of breaching of the lower Snake River dams.“

Failure to act isn’t just a violation of our treaty rights, it is a threat to our lives as salmon people and amoral failure of the highest order,” the letter said. “A solution to this problem can no longer be passed on to the next Congress and the next generation of tribal leaders.”

ENVIRONMENTAL ACTIVISTS SAY SALMON NEED IMMEDIATE ACTION

Activists for Saturday’s rally started out at Barber Park and floated down the Boise River to Ann Morrison Park, carrying signs such as, “Wild fish need a wild river.” A few met the rafters at the end of the path, where there was beer and tables with pamphlets, T-shirts and other information. Organizers stuck signs in the grass with “Snake River Dams” crossed out in red circles.

Pat Ford, one of the rafters who previously worked at the Idaho Conservation League, said events like this keep up enthusiasm and are a good way to recruit volunteers to work with on salmon issues. One of these newer recruits is 15-year-old Merriam Dockter, who floated the river to get to know more people and raise awareness for environmental issues.

Ford said now is the time to act.

“Idaho salmon are in severe trouble unless they get help,” Ford said. “They’re going to go extinct.”

By Rocky Barker
rbarker@idahostatesman.com
October 07, 2017
 
STANLEY, ID. What is the future of the Columbia River and its salmon? Look to 2015.

That year’s extraordinary combination of overheated river water and low flows killed hundreds of thousands of returning sockeye salmon, devastating a run that had rebounded from near-extinction.

Millions of new sockeye and steelhead smolts migrating the opposite way, to the Pacific, died throughout the river system; only 157 endangered sockeye made it back to the Sawtooth Valley this year.

By the middle of this century, scientists suggest, the temperatures we saw in 2015 will be the norm. The low snowpack and streamflows were examples of what the Pacific Northwest should expect at the end of this century due to rapid climate change caused by the burning of fossil fuels, climatologists say.

“2015 will look like an average year in the (2070s) and there will be extremely warmer years than that,” said Nate Mantua, a NOAA atmospheric scientist in Santa Cruz, Calif.

Scientists, politicians and energy officials have argued for decades over the best way to restore troubled salmon runs along the Columbia and Snake. Their focus has largely been on the dams and human development that reshaped the rivers. But regardless of what other steps we take for the fish, climate change could catch up with them in the coming decades and pose a major threat.

Already, scientists have seen regional snowmelt reach rivers an average of two weeks earlier than historical records indicate. The average temperature of the Columbia River and its tributaries has risen more than 1 degree Fahrenheit since 1960.
     
Climate modelers at the University of Washington’s Climate Impacts Group predict  <https://cig.uw.edu/resources/special-reports/> that the Pacific Northwest’s average annual temperatures will rise a total of 4 to 6 degrees Fahrenheit by 2050. High estimates suggest the increase could exceed 8 degrees, said Joe Casola, the group’s deputy director.

Salmon and steelhead that migrate in the summer and those that spawn and rear in lower-elevation tributaries to the Columbia may not survive these temperatures. In water of just 68 degrees, salmon will begin to die.

READ THE FULL STORY here.

By Rocky Barker
November 1, 2021

A large crack formed in the wall of opposition to breaching the four Snake River dams in Washington to prevent salmon from going extinct.

Washington Democratic Sen. Patty Murray has long resisted any salmon recovery plan that included removing the four dams, which scientists have long said must go to prevent extinction of salmon and steelhead in the Snake River Basin, including Idaho. But she issued a joint statement Oct. 22 with Washington Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee announcing a study of how to replace the hydroelectricity, the barge shipping and other services provided by the four dams.

“We approach this question with open minds and without a predetermined decision,” they wrote in their statement. “Both of us believe that, for the region to move forward, the time has come to identify specific details for how the impacts of breach can, or cannot, be mitigated.”

Their study, they said, would be completed by July 31, 2022. That’s the same day that a pause in a lawsuit, reached on Oct. 21, would end. The lawsuit filed by the Nez Perce, the state of Oregon, and environmental and sporting groups against federal dam managers said all of the federal dams in the region violate the federal Endangered Species Act by killing endangered fish.

By cutting the short-term lawsuit deal, the salmon advocates give the Biden administration a chance to join them in settlement talks for a comprehensive plan to save the fish.

“We need the United States government to comprehend the situation and act,” said Nez Perce Tribe Chairman Sam Penney. “The science is clear: Salmon and steelhead need a free-flowing, climate-resilient Lower Snake River, not a series of slow, easily warmed reservoirs.”

Murray and Inslee’s process offers a way to reach out to all of the stakeholders on both sides. The path was pioneered in February when U.S. Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, unveiled a $33.5 billion plan to pay for replacing the power from the dams; providing alternative shipping of grain; economic development for Lewiston and Washington’s Tri-Cities; and other programs that would offset the loss of the dams.

When the region’s American Indian tribes stuck by Simpson’s plan despite opposition from across the region, the Washington state Democrats and the Biden administration recognized the Snake River salmon issue to be one of tribal justice. That changed the political equation.

“For the sake of everyone who lives in the Northwest, it is time to chart a more sustainable path in the Columbia River Basin,” said White House Council on Environmental Quality Chair Brenda Mallory. “The administration is committed to reaching a long-term solution in the region to restore salmon, honoring our commitments to Tribal Nations, ensuring reliable clean energy, and addressing the needs of stakeholders.”

In their announcement, Murray and Inslee said they would rely on the 2022 Water Resources Development Act, a biennial bill authorizing programs carried out by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which operates the four dams. Murray said she will work to get an analysis of the four Lower Snake River dams that will evaluate the costs and impacts of breaching, alongside other options.

Murray said such a study would be necessary before the dams could be breached. Idaho Conservation League Executive Director Justice Hayes disagrees.

“We expect Senator Murray to be prepared to use WRDA to deauthorize the lower Snake River dams, not to create yet another study showing that dam breaching is possible and necessary to restore Snake River salmon and steelhead to abundance,” Hayes said.

Hayes pointed to Simpson’s prediction that Republicans likely will take back the House in 2022 — something that often happens in midterm elections when the White House is occupied by the other party. If legislation does not get passed next year, U.S. Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Washington, and other Washington state Republicans will stop it, Simpson told a tribal summit in July.

McMorris Rodgers, as well as Reps. Dan Newhouse and Jaime Herrera Beutler, blasted Murray and Inslee in response to their study announcement the same way they attacked Simpson and his plan.

“This appears to be nothing more than a predetermined backdoor deal in the making, and it should sound the alarm for anyone interested in transparency and a balanced public dialogue over the vital role the dams play in the Pacific Northwest,” their statement said. “There is something fishy going on.”

Todd True, a senior attorney for Earthjustice who represents the environmental groups in the lawsuit against dam managers, said the Biden administration’s commitment to a long-term solution, combined with the efforts of Murray and Inslee, are a breakthrough after 20 years of litigation.

“We look forward to working with the administration and Congress to ensure that legislation that authorizes the breach of these four dams, sets a timeline for doing so and makes other necessary investments, is achieved in 2022,” said True.

Rocky Barker is author of “Saving All the Parts: Reconciling Economics and the Endangered Species Act.” He has covered salmon, wolves, wildfires and environmental issues in the West since 1985.

July 28, 2019

The Associated Press      Lewiston, Idaho - Steelhead anglers hoping for strong returns this year on the Snake River likely will be disappointed, according to the Idaho Department of Fish and Game. State biologists are forecasting another poor return to the Snake River and its tributaries, especially for the larger B-run fish, the Lewiston Tribune reported .
    
They are also forecasting few B-run steelhead for the Clearwater River. Biologist Alan Byrne in Boise said the state expects 60,700 steelhead to return at least as far as Lower Granite Dam this fall. That includes 55,100 A-run steelhead that tend to spend just one year in the ocean. Only 5,600 of the larger B-run steelhead, which usually spend two years at sea, are expected.
    
The A-run will include about 35,950 hatchery fish that have had their adipose fins clipped, making them available for harvest, Byrne said, and 2,250 unclipped hatchery fish. Wild A-run steelhead will number about 16,950.
          
The B-run is looking much worse. Biologists forecast 5,600 fish and just with just 4,130 to be clipped hatchery fish.
     
Another 770 unclipped hatchery fish are expected to return. Just 665 wild fish are expected.
     
The B-run is likely to be similar to returns in 2017, when the agency put rules in place to restrict the harvest of bigger steelhead, Byrne said. If the modest prediction for the A-run return proves overly optimistic, it will be a tough year for anglers, he said.
     
Last year, the state counted about 94,700 steelhead at Bonneville Dam on the Columbia River. This year, regional fisheries managers are expecting 118,000 to return at least as far as Bonneville.
     
"It's not very good compared to the last 10 to 20 years, but better than our actual run last year," he said. "But if the one-ocean component (A-run steelhead) is a no show, that forecast at Bonneville is likely optimistic."

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By Rocky Barker
March 29, 2021

Whether Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon and Republican Sen. Mike Crapo of Idaho continue their bipartisan successes will determine if President Biden has any chance of getting the two parties to work together.

Many of the most controversial agenda items will have to go through the powerful Finance Committee, which Wyden chairs and where Crapo serves as ranking minority member. Issues like taxation and health care will test the skills of the two senators who have made collaboration a critical value.

Perhaps the first big test will be how they address Idaho Republican Rep. Mike Simpson’s ambitious $33 billion concept for upgrading the electrical grid, replacing the current barge shipping on the Snake River and making the communities of Lewiston and the Tri-Cities in Washington whole while removing the four Lower Snake River dams to keep Idaho’s salmon from going extinct. Simpson seeks to place the proposal on Biden’s “Build Back Better” infrastructure bill, and he will need Wyden and other Pacific Northwest Democrats to carry it forward.

So far Wyden and Crapo have the same approach to Simpson’s concept: Make sure all the stakeholders are at the table and find the collaborative solution that meets everyone’s needs.

“Both of us are very realistic about the challenges of this,” Wyden said in a telephone interview earlier this month.

“Ron and I have already discussed this at a very high level,” Crapo said in a telephone interview. “I think he understands the need for collaboration and involvement of stakeholders.”

Their best-known partnership came when they forged a wildfire funding bill in 2018 after more than a decade of debate. The law allowed more flexible funding for the federal firefighting agencies so they could keep doing thinning and other work to reduce the threat of fires while still spending what was necessary to fight fires.

Simpson was one of the main sponsors of the wildfire bill in the House.

The two Westerners’ other major thrust is continuing funding for rural counties and schools, which had lost timber revenues when harvests on federal lands plummeted after court rulings on endangered species and water quality. They led the effort to reauthorize the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self Determination Act through this year to provide critical funding for roads, schools and conservation.

Wyden replaced this program in the new $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package, which only garnered Democratic votes earlier this month. The new $1 billion-per-year payments program will give rural counties and Indian tribes funding like Secure Rural Schools did.

Crapo supported the program but did not vote for the entire bill. Wyden said he and Crapo will seek a permanent solution before the funding runs out. The problem always has been to figure out where to get the money to pay for the popular program in rural communities.

The same issue will make it hard for the two collaborators to find common ground in Biden’s Build Back Better bill. Even if the two can agree on how to spend the more than $2 trillion expected in the infrastructure and energy bill, it’s doubtful they can find common ground on the taxes to pay for it.

They face a similar political landscape around Simpson’s concept. Very few of the stakeholders in the salmon and dam issue are stepping forward in support of Simpson’s comprehensive proposal beyond a coalition of environmental groups, sporting groups and the region’s Indian tribes.

Others, like the region’s utilities, are analyzing the potential to replace the power and capacity from the dams while lengthening the licensing of private dams like Idaho Power’s Hells Canyon Complex. But Palouse wheat farmers, barge shippers and Southern Idaho farm interests are simply saying no despite billions for water quality funding.

In fact, Idaho leaders like House Speaker Scott Bedke and most of the Republican Legislature are joining a coalition of environmental groups in opposing the effort.

“This is a bad idea any way that you look at it,” Bedke told Newsradio 1310 KLIX.

The environmental groups want their Democratic senators to stop Simpson because he has proposed a 35-year moratorium on litigation.

“This proposal would ensure a future for the basin that includes more polluted, hotter water in the basin’s rivers, the extinction of wild salmon runs, more toxic fish for people to eat, and no accountability for dams and agricultural special interests,” said Kurt Beardslee, executive director of the Wild Fish Conservancy. “What a terrible legacy this could leave for the next generation in the Columbia Basin.”

Wyden and Crapo hope they can get all these intransigent groups to come to the table and work out an agreement that will work for the entire region. They point to their own legislation to protect the Owyhee Canyondlands in Idaho and Oregon.

“You have to make sure everybody is at the table,” Wyden said. “In this political climate, if you don’t have a bipartisan framing, everybody goes into their separate corners.”

But if he and the rest of the Oregon and Washington delegation don’t engage with Simpson and together recognize that the Snake River salmon and steelhead will go extinct if the four dams are not removed, no one will come to the table and the courts will finally decide the issue.

By Keith Ridler
October 29, 2020

A meager return of sockeye salmon to central Idaho this year despite high hopes and a new fish hatchery intended to help save the species from extinction has fisheries managers trying to figure out what went wrong.

The Idaho Department of Fish and Game plans to form a working group to understand why only 27 of 660,000 juvenile fish raised in the hatchery and released in central Idaho in 2018 survived the two-year, 1,800-mile roundtrip to the ocean and back to return as adults. Fisheries managers expected about 800.

The working group will “look at possible mechanisms that could have contributed to the poor survival,” said John Powell of Fish and Game. The working group is expected to be formed in November.

Powell said the young fish showed good survival rates as they swam down the Salmon River to the Snake River to the Columbia River and to the ocean.

Things looked good for the return trip as well.

“We do know that environmental conditions were favorable while the (adult) sockeye were migrating back from the ocean,” he said.

That would appear to indicate, he said, that significant losses occurred in either the Columbia River estuary or the Pacific Ocean.

Powell said adults that did return to Idaho tended to be smaller this year, an indication that ocean conditions might not have been favorable.

On a more positive note, 125 sockeye produced in Redfish and Pettit lakes by spawning adults and reared in the wild returned this year. Officials estimate the number of those juvenile fish, called natural-origin fish, leaving the two lakes in 2018 to be about 30,000. Sockeye salmon typically spend two years in the ocean.

Powell said natural-origin fish survive at greater rates than hatchery-origin fish. But hatchery fish surviving at a rate 30 times below natural-origin fish is much worse than typical.

An estimated 150,000 sockeye at one time returned annually to central Idaho, and Redfish Lake, near the small town of Stanley, was named for the abundant red-colored salmon that spawned there. Federal officials say the run declined starting in the early 1900s due to overfishing, irrigation diversions, dams and poisoning, eventually teetering on the brink of extinction in the early 1990s. The fish were listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act in 1991.

An elaborate hatchery program that tracks the genetics of individual fish was started in the 1990s to save the species, including raising brood stock that never enter the wild and help produce future generations. Those fish are raised at the Eagle Fish Hatchery in southwestern Idaho and at another hatchery at NOAA Fisheries’ Manchester Research Station in Port Orchard, Washington. The dual system is intended to prevent the loss of the species if a catastrophe occurs at one of the hatcheries.

Officials most recently started using a new hatchery in southeastern Idaho, the $13.5-million Springfield Fish Hatchery, to raise sockeye salmon for release in central Idaho. That hatchery is intended to eventually increase the number of young sockeye released into the wild to more than a million.

For the first time in 2017, all the young fish released came from that hatchery. But only 16% survived the trip from central Idaho to Lower Granite Dam in western Washington. Many of the fish died not long after being released into Redfish Lake Creek.

Biologists determined the young fish died because they couldn’t acclimate to the hard water in the creek after being raised in the soft water at the Springfield Fish Hatchery.

So, in spring 2018 and 2019, biologists first let the young fish acclimate at the Sawtooth Fish Hatchery near Stanley that has medium-hard water.

It appeared to work as a good number of the 2018 fish successfully headed downstream, raising hopes of a good return this year. That was dashed when only 27 adult fish came back.

Of the 125 natural-origin fish that did make it back this year, genetic sampling showed that 38 came from Pettit Lake and 87 from Redfish Lake. One of the Pettit Lake fish died in captivity, and the remaining 37 were released into Pettit Lake to spawn naturally.

All 87 fish from Redfish Lake were taken to the Eagle Fish Hatchery to be artificially spawned along with the 27 hatchery-origin fish, a process that’s been going on this month.

Meanwhile, biologists have released 894 hatchery-raised adult sockeye into Redfish Lake to spawn naturally. Another 101 hatchery-raised adult sockeye were released into Pettit Lake to bolster the 37 natural-origin fish released there. The young fish they produce will remain in the lakes for one to three years before heading to the ocean.

The number of fish returning to central Idaho has fluctuated widely over the last three decades. From 1991 to 1999, only 23 fish returned to central Idaho. In 2014, the program reached its peak with more than 1,500 adult fish making it back.

But in 2015, about 90% of the adult sockeye salmon returning to the Columbia River Basin died due to high water temperatures. Only 91 adult sockeye made it to Idaho, with many of those trapped in Washington after the magnitude of the unfolding disaster became clear.

Numbers rebounded following that until 2019, when only 17 made it back, followed by this year’s 152.

“It’s definitely encouraging to see the number of returns increase from last year,” Powell said. “Last year was a very low return. But based on what we’re seeing this year, it makes it difficult to set expectations for next year.”

By Rocky Barker
July 16, 2021

Two of the key players in the Northwest debate over breaching four dams to prevent Snake River salmon from going extinct say it’s time to identify how to replace the power from the four dams and other services, such as grain shipping.

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee and a spokesperson for U.S. Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, both Democrats, told a summit of Northwest tribal leaders earlier this month that they essentially want to ask the “what if” question. That’s the question Idaho Republican Mike Simpson asked at a 2019 Andrus Center for Public Policy conference that led the longtime U.S. representative to propose a $33.5 billion plan to remove the dams, replace the power and keep farmers whole.

“We should be committed to getting down to business to determine what can provide the services these dams provide, so we can define how to replace these services so we can build support in our communities for taking the next steps in the dam breaching discussion,” Inslee said.

Inslee and Murray’s initiative couldn’t come soon enough, in the eyes of dam breaching supporters. Sockeye and summer chinook are migrating right now up the Columbia and Snake rivers through deadly hot water as they try to return to their spawning streams. And the state of Oregon, the Nez Perce Tribe, and a coalition of fishing and conservation groups on Friday filed a demand for injunctive relief in a longstanding lawsuit calling for expensive measures to help salmon get through eight dams between Idaho and the Pacific Ocean.

Simpson’s bold comprehensive proposal has had support from Oregon Gov. Kate Brown and U.S. Rep. Earl Blumenauer, both Democrats, but has not been considered for President Biden’s Build Back Better Plan for infrastructure. But it has strong support from the region’s Native American tribes and even national tribes. The Biden administration has not yet commented on the Simpson plan.

Liz Klein, senior counselor for Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, attended the summit and expressed support for the tribal cause.

“We share the concerns of many that salmon and steelhead species that rely on the Columbia and Snake River systems for their survival continue to experience serious declines,” Klein said in a statement to the Idaho Statesman. “Rebuilding sustainable stocks of these populations is critically important to multiple tribes in the region, whose existence is intrinsically tied to salmon and steelhead.

“We are committed to working with our partners and stakeholders in the region toward a comprehensive solution.”

The Biden administration decision regarding the four dams isn’t only about infrastructure bills. The ongoing litigation surrounding the biological opinion for the Columbia River presents a major threat to ratepayers of the Bonneville Power Administration, which supplies 28% of power to public utility customers throughout Idaho, Oregon, Washington and Montana.

The federal agencies that control the dams completed a court-ordered environmental impact statement in 2020, but they used rules generated by the Trump administration that raise new issues in court.

The Biden administration has already backed out of the clean water rules and is expected to reject the National Environmental Policy Act rules under which the impact statement was written. The federal dam agencies have been unable to write a legal plan since Idaho and then-Gov. Cecil Andrus began a series of lawsuits in 1993.

The injunctive relief sought by Oregon, the Nez Perce and environmentalists could add millions of dollars to the costs of the federal dam operation as early as January, if it is granted by U.S. District Judge Michael Simon. The group asked Simon to increase the amount of water required to be spilled over the dams and away from electric-generating hydro turbines. It also asked the judge to order dam managers to lower reservoirs during hot weather to make it easier to reduce river temperatures.

Water temps in the Snake River have climbed as high as 74 degrees recently; salmon can start to die off when they hit 68.

The federal government is supposed to respond to the injunction request by October, with Simon expected to rule in December.

The plaintiffs also are asking the Biden administration to stop the federal government from fighting them in court. They urged the administration to build on the work done by the Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians and Simpson.

“What we need to stop this extinction crisis in our backyards is leadership from the Biden administration,” said Todd True, attorney for Earthjustice, who represents the groups who filed the lawsuit.

June 19, 2019

By Cynthia Sewell

Following through on a promise that he would assemble a panel to address salmon issues, Idaho Gov. Brad Little on Wednesday announced the panel’s members and plans for its first meeting.

He first announced the formation of the panel during the April 23 Andrus Center Environmental Conference in Boise.

The first meeting of the Governor’s Salmon Workgroup will take place from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. June 28 in the Idaho Room at the Idaho State Museum in Boise’s Julia Davis Park. The meeting is open to the public. Little is scheduled to address the group at 8:30 a.m.

“Idaho has shown time after time we are a leader in collaborative conservation efforts in the Northwest,” Little said in a news release. “I sincerely look forward to receiving the policy recommendations from my Salmon Workgroup. Together we will develop effective salmon and steelhead policy for Idaho to ensure that abundant and sustainable populations of salmon and steelhead exist for present and future generations to enjoy.”

Little has directed the group to develop Idaho-based, innovative policy recommendations for Idaho salmon and steelhead recovery.

The workgroup, comprising 20 representatives from industry, conservation, sportsmen, state and local leaders, along with a staff member from the state’s Office of Species Conservation, will host several public meetings throughout Idaho. The meeting schedule will be announced in the coming weeks.

Workgroup members include: ▪ Roy Aikin, Idaho River Community Alliance ▪ Paul Arrington, Idaho Water Users Association ▪ Merrill Beyeler, former state representative and rancher ▪ Brian Brooks, Idaho Wildlife Federation ▪ David Doeringsfeld, Port of Lewiston ▪ Brett Dumas, Idaho Power ▪ Ladd Edmo, Shoshone-Bannock Tribes ▪ Kira Finkler, Trout Unlimited ▪ Will Hart, Idaho Consumer Owner Utilities Association ▪ Scott Hauser, Upper Snake River Tribes Foundation ▪ Justin Hayes, Idaho Conservation League ▪ Sen. Dan Johnson, Idaho State Senate ▪ Aaron Lieberman, Idaho Outfitters and Guides Association ▪ Mark Menlove, The Nature Conservancy ▪ Joe Oatman, Nez Perce Tribe ▪ Scott Pugrud, Office of Species Conservation administrator ▪ Stacey Satterlee, Idaho Grain Producers ▪ Richard Scully, sportsman ▪ John Simpson, Barker Rosholt & Simpson LLP ▪ Rep. Fred Wood, Idaho House of Representatives ▪ Jim Yost, Northwest Power and Conservation Council

Following Wednesday’s announcement, some of the group’s members issued news releases applauding Little’s actions:

Kira Finkler, Trout Unlimited: “Idaho’s salmon and steelhead runs are shadows of their former selves. We need innovative thinking and bold action to bring them back to healthy, abundant levels throughout the Snake Basin. Gov. Little’s decision to form the salmon working group is exactly the kind of leadership that will help us come together to find Idaho-grown, collaborative solutions. We look forward to working with all of our fellow participants to develop recommendations for the governor.”

Justin Hayes, Idaho Conservation League: “We thank Gov. Little for his leadership in convening a working group on salmon recovery and appreciate his invitation to participate. We look forward to working together with other stakeholders to find a solution for bringing healthy, sustainable populations of wild steelhead and salmon back to Idaho.”

At the same Andrus Center conference, U.S. Congressman Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, also advocated for new salmon recovery efforts and vowed to look into enacting a new Northwest Power Plan. The plan addresses the Columbia River’s hydroelectric dams’ impact on fish and wildlife.

By Rocky Barker

December 7, 2016

Three federal agencies that manage and market electricity from the Columbia and Snake river federal dams continue to have a conversation with residents of the Pacific Northwest about the future of the dams and endangered salmon.

More than 2,000 people have attended meetings where they’’ve shared what they think should be the scope of an environmental review ordered in May by U.S. Judge Michael Simon. Despite many improvements, the judge and scientists say more needs to be done to ensure future sustainable populations of wild salmon.

But Darryll Olsen, board representative for the Columbia-Snake River Irrigators Association, doesn’t want to have that conversation or the environmental review. He and his group have asked the Trump transition team either to intervene directly or to convene the Endangered Species Committee, a little-used panel that he says could decide that the federal agencies status quo plan is enough.

The committee is commonly known as the God Squad, because it can play God and allow an endangered species to go extinct. The committee and its exemption process was added to the Endangered Species Act in 1978.

Federal agencies under the act must ensure that its actions won’t cause species to go extinct. To grant an exemption, the God Squad must find there are no reasonable and prudent alternatives; must determine that the benefits of the exemption outweigh alternatives; and that the agencies had not already made an irreversible commitment of resources.

This has proved to be a high bar. In 1992, the Bureau of Land Management took timber sales it planned in Oregon old-growth forest to the God Squad for a ruling because protections for the spotted owl had stopped the sales.

The panel exempted 13 of 44 timber sales, but told the BLM it first had to develop a scientifically sound plan for protecting the owl. The agency was back to square one.

Today, Olsen believes the God Squad would rule differently on the Northwest salmon than have three federal judges in five major decisions over 23 years. He wants someone to stop the federal agencies from doing the environmental review.

“It is driven by a biased court decision in what has become a salmon- recovery industry over the last 20 years,” Olsen said. “It is not how the Endangered Species Act was meant to be used.”

Whether he likes it or not, the judges have ruled exactly as the 1973 Endangered Species Act was meant to be used. The federal government has no alternative, short of triggering the God Squad, than to do what it can to keep species from going extinct.

Olsen appears to understand that fact and that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Bonneville Power Administration might this time propose to do what it takes to preserve Idaho’s wild salmon. That might include alternatives such as increasing the amount of water “spilled” over the dams to aid migrating fish. Or it might mean drawing down one or more reservoirs on the Columbia and Snake rivers.

What Olsen and his members fear the most is the possibility that breaching the four dams on the lower Snake River could be the alternative the review now under way says is “reasonable and prudent.”

Read the full article at the Idaho Statesman here.

By Rocky Barker
December 12, 2017

The latest government plans to restore spring-summer chinook and steelhead that spawn in the Snake River Basin “will not get us to recovery,” a report by NOAA Fisheries states.

But federal scientists are more confident about a new roadmap to save Snake River fall chinook, which they believe can be self-sustaining in the future despite dams, predators, pollution and other threats.

NOAA Fisheries issued recovery plans for the three threatened fish Tuesday that detail what needs to be done to take them off the list of species protected under the federal Endangered Species Act. The plans include measures like controlling sea lions and other predators, eliminating barriers the fish face while traveling the rivers, and reducing the effects of interbreeding with hatchery fish.

The new plans advise improving migration through eight dams on the Snake and Columbia rivers, but stop short of calling for the removal of four Lower Snake dams. They raise questions about how Snake River salmon will fare in a time of climate change.

“We believe we have the best set of actions but there are a lot of things we don’t know,” said Rosemary Furfey, NOAA salmon recovery coordinator. “The plan is adaptable to new information.”

The plans are important because they detail the federal government’s strategy to recover fish that feed the Northwest, provide us jobs and play a special role in the culture of our region’s tribes. Recovery also has ramifications for the Northwest’s hydropower network, and for many Northwest electrical ratepayers who help fund the Bonneville Power Administration’s work to restore the fish.

Read the full story here.

BY ROCKY BARKER

rbarker@idahostatesman.com

Federal agencies can breach four Snake River dams to help salmon and still have a more reliable energy system with lower costs — if the dams are replaced with changes in consumer behavior and more renewable energy, a new study concludes.

The study was commissioned by the NW Energy Coalition, an advocacy group for energy efficiency, renewable energy and low-income energy users, and conducted by Energy Strategies, a Utah-based energy consulting firm. It used the Bonneville Power Administration’s own numbers to determine the changes could save BPA money and make its system more reliable for its customers. The BPA markets $3 billion worth of electric power for use by 10 million people across the Pacific Northwest.

The four dams in question sit along the lower Snake in Washington state. Fisheries biologists ranging from the Idaho Department of Fish and Game to the National Marine Fisheries Services say endangered Snake River salmon would have a better chance of survival if the dams were removed. The question has been whether the region’s power grid could still meet demand during peak energy use times and still effectively back up solar and wind plants without the four dams...

Read on at The Idaho Statesman 

Grand Coulee Dam ©Peter Marbach

By Annette Cary
July 11, 2024 

Kennewick, WA The United States and Canada have reached an agreement in principle to modernize the 1964 Columbia River Treaty that has governed hydropower operations and management of flood risks on both sides of the international border. As outlined in the agreement, the treaty will provide a path for the two nations to work together for the next 20 years.

It re-balances energy coordination between the United States and Canada, allowing the United States to keep more clean hydropower energy while giving Canada more opportunities to import from and export to U.S. markets, according to a statement from President Joe Biden posted Thursday morning.

Senior administration officials said in a virtual meeting with news media that the hydropower energy that Canada could claim under the “Canadian entitlement” was valued at about $2.8 billion over 20 years under current market basis. It would drop to $1.5 billion over 20 years under the tentative treaty agreement.

The agreement would result in an immediate 37% reduction in hydropower that the United States delivers to Canada currently and a reduction of 50% by 2033, according to the U.S. Department of State. The agreement also calls for connectivity between the power grid across the Western U.S. and Canada to avoid blackouts and help in extreme weather that impacts energy systems. It could also facilitate renewable energy transfers between the Bonneville Power Administration and Canadian utilities, according to the State Department.

The U.S. will benefit from pre-planned water storage at Canadian treaty dams to help manage high flows originating in Canada to control flooding in the U.S. Predicable flows also help stabilize shipping on the Columbia River, support recreation and protect efforts to support salmon populations.

When the treaty was originally ratified the United States paid $65 million for construction of storage in Canada. Under the agreement to continue to benefit from the water storage, the U.S. will pay about $37.6 million a year, with the annual amount increasing with inflation over 20 years. If Canada decides to use more water storage at treaty dams in British Columbia to meet needs in that country, power transfers to Canada would be further reduced.

The modernized treatment, as proposed, would give more voice to U.S. tribes and Canada’s indigenous nations, including to make recommendations on river flows to benefit endangered salmon, according to the Biden administration.

However, conservation groups criticized the agreement as doing too little to address the Columbia River ecosystem and its salmon and steelhead populations.

Senators react to treaty agreement Once finalized, the updated treaty must be ratified by the U.S. Senate. “The United States and Canada reaching an agreement in principle to modernize the Columbia River Treaty regime after over six years of tough negotiations is an important step forward for Washington state and the entire Northwest,” said Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., in a statement.

Murray is hopeful that the agreement works for electric ratepayers, tribes, river users and the Washington river ecosystems, she said. She has pushed for the Biden administration to engage with tribes and organizations in Washington dependent on the Columbia River system and will continue to do so as the treaty modernization is drafted, she said.

Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., said the agreement in principle to modernize and optimize the hydrosystem for clean power and environmental considerations is a positive step forward. “The region will need to review and weigh in on the details,” she said. “But I appreciate President Biden and Prime Minister Trudeau reaching a smart agreement to grow clean energy capacity in both countries and create opportunities for future cooperation that could expand electricity generation at a time when the region has big demands for more power.” She has pushed since the Obama administration to make modernizing the treaty an administration priority.

Columbia River and U.S. economy The Columbia River and its tributaries generate 40% of U.S. hydropower, irrigate $8 billion in agriculture products and move 42 million tons of cargo annually, according to the Biden administration. The flood control portion of the treaty expires in September, putting pressure on the Biden administration to reach an agreement with Canada.

The treaty was established 60 years ago to provide the framework for the U.S. and Canada to invest in water storage capabilities in the Columbia River Basin and to increase coordination of flood control and electric generation to benefit both countries.

The Canadian water management also helps the United States provide irrigation water and river navigation. In return, Northwest electricity users pay a “Canadian Entitlement,” which provides electrical power to Canada.

Environmental groups and tribes had pushed for the environment also to be a priority in the modernized treaty. Does treaty do enough for fish?

“The health of the Columbia River must become an explicit purpose and priority in a new, modernized treaty,” said Joseph Bogaard of the Save Our Wild Salmon Coalition after the agreement was released. “The Columbia Basin is out of balance today.”

But the treaty agreement continues to emphasize hydropower and flood control over the needs of fish populations, according to a news release from the coalition, the Sierra Club, Earth Ministry and WaterWatch of Oregon.

“The agreement focuses on revenue for BPA (Bonneville Power Administration) and customers while the salmon and Columbia River are left with a status quo that was already inadequate,” said Bill Arthur of the Sierra Club.

Flood control could be done more conservatively under the terms of the new agreement, said senior Biden administration officials Thursday.

“Such changes, if done without careful attention to the health of the river, and without full partnership of residents and communities, could upend vital salmon flows, perpetuate harms to Tribal and non-tribal communities, and limit our region’s options to address warming waters,” Bogaard said.

The State Department said that having a long-term agreement to continue water flows from Canadian reservoirs will support salmon migration throughout the Columbia Basin and that the agreement includes a strategy to bolster flows during dry years.

In addition, both countries are committing to coordinate on studies on salmon reintroduction, which will be led by U.S. tribes and Canadian indigenous nations.

Idaho Statesman: 'Northwest U.S., Canada reach vital Columbia River pact. Some worry it’s not enough to protect salmon' article link

Rocky Barker for the Idaho Statesman
April 30, 2021

Oregon Democratic Rep. Earl Blumenauer will hold a virtual town meeting with Idaho Republican Rep. Mike Simpson to give Oregonians a chance to hear about the $33 billion Columbia Basin Initiative.

Blumenauer, a liberal Democrat, is the first Congressman of either party to express general support for Simpson’s concept, which includes breaching four dams on the Snake River to prevent the extinction of Snake River salmon and steelhead. The virtual town hall is scheduled for 7 p.m. Mountain on Tuesday at Blumenauer’s YouTube channel. The actual conversation will take place at 6 p.m. Mountain on Monday, with questions solicited in advance.

Simpson’s ambitious concept calls for upgrading the electrical grid, replacing the current barge shipping on the Snake River and making the communities of Lewiston and the Tri-Cities of Washington whole while removing the four Lower Snake dams to keep Idaho’s salmon from going extinct. Simpson seeks to place the proposal on President Joe Biden’s “Build Back Better” infrastructure bill.

Blumenauer said the status quo clearly is not working.  “It is an existential threat to iconic fish species, to indigenous ways of life, and to sustainability and prosperity throughout the region.,” Blumenauer said in a press release. “We have an opportunity to end this cycle of conflict, degradation and regional uncertainty.”

He called Simpson’s proposal “a bold starting point to address this” that “deserves thoughtful consideration from all sides.”

So far Simpson has support from the region’s Indian tribes, many environmental and sporting business groups and Democratic Gov. Kate Brown of Oregon. But Idaho Gov. Brad Little, the Idaho Legislature, grain farmers who ship on the Snake and a separate group of environmentalists who oppose the proposed litigation moratorium, have come out against Simpson’s idea.

Others, including the Democratic senators from Oregon and Washington and Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, have supported a collaborative process but have not endorsed adding the plan to Biden’s infrastructure bill. Washington Sen. Maria Cantwell told The Spokesman-Review in Spokane she did not believe there was enough time to add the comprehensive proposal to Biden’s bill.

With the salmon and steelhead runs so low this spring, the pressure for political action is rising. Twelve Northwest Indian tribes, a major constituency of downstream Democrats and Biden, came together this month in Pendleton, Oregon, and issued statements in support of Simpson’s concept.  “We invite and challenge our partners and our neighbors to take a hard look at how Congressman Simpson’s proposal could benefit our energy security, our economies and our critical natural resources."

Blumenauer also will join Simpson on May 13 as a speaker at the Andrus Center for Public Policy’s follow-up virtual conference to its 2019 conclave, where Simpson began his salmon and dam talks. Washington Republican Rep. Dan Newhouse, a staunch dam supporter, also will speak along with Nez Perce tribal chairman Shannon Wheeler.

“These days it’s rare to see a Democrat and Republican thoughtfully discussing something together, but I’m committed to working with him and communities across the region to help craft solutions that protect and restore salmon throughout the (Columbia) Basin, ensure environmental protections, and help our communities thrive,” Blumenauer said.

https://www.idahostatesman.com/news/northwest/idaho/article251082684.html 

By Rocky Barker Idaho Statesman Special Correspondent

February 18, 2020

Oregon Democratic Gov. Kate Brown said removing four dams on the lower Snake River in Washington must be a part of a comprehensive plan to save endangered salmon, steelhead and orcas and to protect the region’s cheap clean energy and agricultural economy.

“No other action has the potential to improve overall survival two-to three-fold and simultaneously address both the orca and salmon recovery dilemma,” Brown said in a letter obtained by the Idaho Statesman addressed to Washington Gov. Jay Inslee.

Brown’s letter, dated Feb. 11, came to light Friday in a story by the Statesman’s sister newspaper the Tri-City Herald. Washington state’s three Republican U.S. Congressmen said they were outraged, Annette Cary reported.

“Gov. Brown’s position is not only misguided, it is shocking and extreme,” said Reps. Dan Newhouse, Cathy McMorris Rodgers and Jaime Herrera Beutler, in a joint statement Friday afternoon.

Brown’s letter came as Inslee has held a series of meetings across Washington to discuss the threat of extinction for orca, as well as the Snake River salmon and steelhead that make up a critical part of their diet. He is gathering views about removing the four dams as a way to help the fish and orcas. A final report from that effort is expected in early March.

Restoring the Snake River must be a “key presumption” of solution-based collaborative discussions that ensure the region has “an affordable, nimble and reliable power system that can help us to integrate renewables to meet our climate goals; continued water supplies for agriculture and municipalities; and efficient and affordable ways to get commodities to market,” Brown wrote.

Brown said removing the earthen portions of the four dams must be a part of the solution because it would reduce direct and delayed mortality of wild and hatchery salmon associated with dam and reservoir passage, reduce water temperatures in the lower Snake and Columbia rivers, and aid migration to and from the alpine headwaters in Idaho and Oregon most resilient to shrinking snowpacks.

Oregon, the Nez Perce tribe and the Bonneville Power Administration had spearheaded an agreement between all four Northwest states and the Native American tribes. That agreement provides additional spilling of water over the dams away from hydroelectric turbines to aid salmon migration except when the power can bring the most revenue. This “flex-spill” agreement began a collaborative process that Brown urged Inslee to continue.

“Hopefully we can work together to improve on that agreement, which will enhance survival of juvenile wild and hatchery salmon which translate into additional orca forage only two years later,” Brown wrote. “Second, Oregon has capacity to increase interim hatchery production of salmon important for orca forage.”

Federal dam managers are expected to release a draft environmental study of the region’s power system at the end of this month, as ordered by a federal judge. The Republican Washington Congressmen told the Tri-City Herald in their joint statement Brown should have waited for the federal government study’s release.

“This is yet another example of state officials trying to interfere in the operation of critical federal infrastructure,” they wrote.

Idahoans are divided on dam removal

Earlier this month, the Boise State University School of Public Service released its 2020 Idaho Public Policy Survey that showed Idahoans are divided on the issue. About 40% of people surveyed said they were in favor of dam removal on the lower Snake River to aid salmon recovery. About 38% of people were opposed. Another 22% answered they were not sure, suggesting a large group of Idahoans want to know more before they decide.

Lost hydroelectric power was the most commonly cited reason for opposing dam removal.

Idaho Gov. Brad Little convened a Salmon Workgroup at a conference held last April sponsored by the Andrus Center for Public Policy. Since then, the workgroup, which includes salmon advocates, farmers, tribal representatives, shipping interests and electric utilities, has met around the state. Little has avoided talking about dam removal.

“Governor Little remains committed to finding creative solutions that help bolster our anadromous fish populations in Idaho,” said Little’s Press Secretary Marissa Morrison Hyer. “He directed this diverse group of stakeholders to come up with pragmatic, consensus-based solutions that promote healthy salmon populations and thriving river communities in Idaho, and not to fixate on a single divisive issue that will only serve to stall the workgroup’s progress.”

At the same Andrus Center conference, Idaho Republican Rep. Mike Simpson advocated that the Pacific Northwest do everything it can to restore healthy, sustainable wild salmon populations to Idaho.

The Republican U.S. congressman stopped short of calling for the removal of the four lower Snake River dams. But Simpson asked all interested parties to consider “what if?” What if those dams, which provide grain shipping from the Palouse in Idaho and Washington, as well as electricity and backup for wind and solar power in the region, come down?

That triggered much of the new debate over the issue as salmon and steelhead numbers have plummeted despite more than $17 billion in spending by federal dam managers over the last 25 years.

The reaction of Washington’s Republican delegation portraying dam removal as extreme keeps people from asking the “what if” questions and stifles solution-based discussions, said Justin Hayes, executive director of the Idaho Conservation League and a member of Little’s working group.

“People are trying to protect their interest alone and not trying to find a solution for everyone,” Hayes said.

Hayes believes, as Brown said in her letter, that dam breaching must be a part of the solution. However, he said it will take many actions and ideas, including options Little’s working group is examining, to make a difference. Some of those options must include having a plan to deal with predators, harvest and other measures. Ensuring the power, agriculture and transportation issues surrounding the dams must also be addressed, he said.

“The river provides transportation for grain and that’s really important to those people,” Hayes said. “And we’ve got to find alternatives that work for farmers.”

Kurt Miller is the executive director of Northwest RiverPartners, a group that represents public-owned utilities and transportation interests across the region. His members believe breaching the four dams and replacing their power will cost billions of dollars.

“We are looking to form partnerships with people we have not typically agreed with — environmentalists, Indian tribes — but the important caveat is we have to agree to disagree about dams,” Miller said.

Overcoming this gap — and the fear that once groups agree to discuss breaching they won’t be able to go back — are the challenge the governors in Oregon, Washington, Idaho and to a lesser degree Montana, which is tied to the public power grid, must overcome to find a solution.

With his own caveat, Little is optimistic, Morrison Hyer said in her email response.

“He is confident the Salmon Workgroup members are up to the task,” she said.

Read more here: https://www.idahostatesman.com/news/local/environment/article240373061.html#storylink=cpy

by Rocky Barker
Idaho Statesman

Ron Wyden sat next to Sen. Mark Hatfield at what would become a pivotal hearing on the future of salmon and steelhead in the Columbia and Snake rivers.

It was 1990 and the two sat in a federal building in Portland that is now long gone. Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, was a congressman then.

Before the lawmakers sat the major economic and political powers of the entire Columbia Basin, an area the size of France. There were water attorneys representing Idaho, Oregon and Washington farmers. There were tribal leaders and aluminum company representatives. The Bonneville Power Administration, fishermen, environmentalists, barge company executives, utility officials and biologists were there — all to talk about how they might avoid listing salmon as an endangered species. It was an act that most saw as a threat to the economy of a region that then had about 9 million people. (It’s 13 million now).

Hatfield pressed the players to sit down for a series of talks that became known as the Salmon Summit. A year later, it became clear a listing could not be avoided. The summit laid the groundwork for the restoration efforts that have come in the succeeding 22 years.

Wyden, now a U.S. senator, has not been a major salmon player since.

That might be changing.

Wyden will become the ranking Democrat on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee next year when New Mexico’s Jeff Bingaman retires. If the Democrats hold the Senate, Wyden will be chairman.

The committee oversees the Bonneville Power Administration and many of the agencies involved in salmon management.

BPA has been the leader of the federal family on salmon matters for the past decade. Its administrator, Steve Wright, brought together Washington, Montana, Idaho and most of the Columbia tribes into what it calls the Columbia Accord to support the federal biological opinion — essentially a salmon management plan — for dams on the Columbia and Snake rivers. It was a great accomplishment, but he could not get fishermen, the Nez Perce Tribe, environmental groups and the state of Oregon on board.

Those parties, calling the plan inadequate, continued to sue — and won. In September, Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber called for a new alternative approach, bringing to the table the groups that were left out and the people in the communities that will be affected.

Under court order, the federal government has to come up with a new plan that will meet the requirement of the Endangered Species Act by 2014. Kitzhaber’s call is not a surprise or a new position for the only elected official in the Pacific Northwest to go on record calling for breaching the four lower Snake dams to save salmon.

Wyden, who has not said much about the issue for 22 years, quickly joined Kitzhaber.

“Time and time again we’ve seen that good things happen when folks agree to meet face-to-face and tackle the tough issues facing Oregon,” Wyden said in a statement. “I’m glad to see that Gov. Kitzhaber has taken the initiative and announced his support for a roundtable that will bring together tribes, fishermen, farmers, power customers, conservationists and officials from state and local governments to discuss Northwest salmon issues.”

The Obama administration has largely ignored Oregon in the past four years, as the state has called for more action to improve salmon migration conditions. But the White House won’t be able to ignore Wyden, who is on the verge of becoming one of the most powerful people in Washington on energy and environmental issues.

Of course, Obama might not be in the White House next year. Mitt Romney could be deciding who will lead salmon policy in the region, and he might lean heavily on Washington Republican Rep. Doc Hastings, chairman of the House Resources Committee, who has not been very collaborative.

Or, people such as Idaho Republican Sens. Mike Crapo and Jim Risch, who have expressed support for collaborative talks on salmon, might step to the forefront.

Whatever happens, Wyden will be a player.

“This is the kind of collaborative process that the region needs to find a solution to such a thorny issue,” he said.

Rocky Barker: 377-6484

By Rocky Barker
Sunday, Sept. 10, 2017

Stanley, ID - It’s in places like Marsh Creek where the hope rests for spring chinook and other Northwest salmon.

No hatchery-born fish have ever sullied the genetic stock of the chinook that run in the clean, clear waters of the 15-foot-wide tributary of the Middle Fork of the Salmon River, 10 miles west of Stanley and 870 miles from the ocean.

These native fish in Central Idaho’s pristine habitat are in the worst shape since 1995, when no chinook returned amid some of the worst recorded Pacific Ocean conditions for salmon, and 2015, when low river flows devastated their numbers.

The DNA of these salmon carries the imprint of 10,000 years of adapting to this watershed. Their range of traits and diversity allows them to survive incredible odds and obstacles as they migrate downstream, then return from the ocean to spawn in their native waters. Natural selection has equipped these fish to face the longest, highest migration of any salmon in the world.
But the habitat of Marsh Creek is, if anything, better than it was in the 1960s, when nearly 2,000 wild fish returned to spawn annually.

That’s why the wide majority of fisheries biologists believe these salmon can rebound quickly if four dams on the Snake River — half of the eight that stand between Idaho and the Pacific — are removed.

Read the full story here.

BY HELEN NEVILLE

NOVEMBER 18, 2019 12:13 PM 

In his recent op-ed, Kurt Miller, the executive director of Northwest River Partners, an association of businesses that supports retention of the federal dams on the Columbia and Snake rivers, argued against removing the four lower Snake River dams to save gravely imperiled salmon and steelhead in the Snake River Basin. To support his case, Mr. Miller spliced together several pieces of information — some accurate, some not — that ultimately didn’t support his conclusion.

Mr. Miller argued historical commercial over-fishing was the primary culprit behind declines in the Columbia and Snake rivers. He was correct that unregulated commercial fishing caused severe declines in the late 1800s and early 1900s. But as agencies regulated harvest, stocks responded and remained relatively robust, even as the lower Columbia River dams were built. In fact, the precipitous declines in wild Snake River salmon directly mirrored the timing of the completion of the lower Snake River dams.

Mr. Miller also noted that salmon and steelhead declines track recent ocean conditions. The ocean is an important driver of salmon abundance and has been for millions of years. Luckily, salmon and steelhead have developed remarkable life histories that lend resiliency in a highly dynamic freshwater and ocean environment – until the last five decades, when Snake River stocks seemingly approached the limits of their resiliency (in contrast, stocks in tributaries below the Snake River dams have 2-4 times the adults returning from a given cohort of smolts, despite using the same ocean). After more than $16 billion invested to ameliorate the effects of the Columbia Basin hydro system on fish and wildlife, Snake River spring/summer chinook and steelhead are at record low abundances, and sockeye are barely hanging on. Climate change increases the urgency to restore passage.

How many fish do we need to achieve abundant, resilient, fishable levels? A diverse group of stakeholders from across the region, including Trout Unlimited and several members of Northwest River Partners — Mr. Miller’s organization — worked collaboratively over several years to come up with the answer. The group, known as the Columbia Basin Partnership, agreed that for spring/summer chinook salmon, 124,000 naturally reproducing adults in the Snake system would be an appropriate recovery goal. For steelhead, the recovery goal was set at 104,000 naturally reproducing adults. And according to the Columbia Basin Partnership, the Snake has, by a long shot, the greatest production potential for spring/summer chinook and steelhead.

How do we meet these collaborative goals for wild, naturally producing Snake River spring/summer chinook and steelhead and sustain them through fluctuating ocean conditions and a warming climate? Mr. Miller says he supports science-based decision-making, so I ask him to join me in looking at the overwhelming scientific evidence that we need a free-flowing lower Snake River. Multiple collaborative, peer-reviewed, high-integrity scientific assessments that have included tribal, federal, university, consultant and state agency (including Idaho) scientists, have come to this conclusion. As a science-based organization, this is why we support removal of the lower Snake dams as the best way to give these fish a chance.

Helen Neville is the senior scientist for Trout Unlimited. She lives in Boise.

https://www.idahostatesman.com/opinion/readers-opinion/article237497309.html

2017 marks the 20th anniversary of the Idaho Statesman's endorsement of removing the four lower Snake River dams to save salmon and save money. The arguments made then are only stronger today - and have been joined by a new set of pressures on the dams: their declining services, the plight of salmon-reliant orcas, the intensifying impacts of climate change, and more.

The series comes at a critical time - as 2017 adult returns appear to be collapsing and fishing opportunities in Washington and Idaho are shut down.

Saving Idaho's salmon: Nature again turns against returning fish that already face long odds

Take a look at this first-in-the-series to:

-- Learn more about the history of the issue and where the series is headed,

-- Post a comment online at the bottom of the article

-- Share out on social media

And we'll be sure to keep you apprised as the series develops.

Here’s what changed Statesman editorial board’s mind.

By Rocky Barker

July 20, 2017

The editorial board of the Idaho Statesman, then a relatively conservative body, shocked the Pacific Northwest when it called for breaching four dams on the Snake River to save Idaho’s endangered salmon and steelhead.

In 1997, the only people who had taken a serious public stand on removing the dams were Reed Burkholder, a Boise piano teacher and renewable energy activist, and John Young, a biologist for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. The Statesman’s six-member editorial board headed by Publisher Pam Meals and Editor John Costa made a bold statement in an unprecedented three-day series of editorials, graphics and background beginning that July 20.

In his own separate column that ran with the series, Costa summed up the case. In short: A natural river saves salmon and money.

“We are aware that there are folks who passionately believe that the dams should stay,” he wrote. “But we do not believe that their case can be made against the broader interests of all in Idaho and the Northwest.”

Read the whole article here.

April 25, 2019

By Rocky Barker
 
Mike Simpson didn’t seek to set anyone’s hair on fire Tuesday with his bold speech advocating that the Pacific Northwest do everything it can to restore healthy, sustainable wild salmon populations to Idaho.

The Republican U.S. congressman stopped short of calling for the removal of the four lower Snake River dams in Washington state — federal dams that have been the center of regional debate since the Idaho Statesman’s editorial board first called for breaching them in 1997.

But Simpson and his chief of staff, Lindsay Slater, have been asking all interested parties to consider “what if?” What if those dams, which provide grain shipping from the Palouse in Idaho and Washington, as well as electricity and back-up for wind and solar power in the region, come down?

Those questions alone have brought discomfort to the dam boosters in Washington’s Tri-Cities and Lewiston. For instance, the Tri-City Herald on April 12 wrote an editorial criticizing Bryan Jones, a Washington farmer, for exploring alternatives to ensure that people like him can get their crops to market if the dams are breached.

“Any group that says it wants to plan in case the dams are removed is, in reality, trying to justify their removal,” the editorial said.

Simpson has heard the same thing.

“I’ve had people say, to my chief of staff, not to me, say, ‘We don’t even like someone of Simpson’s seniority asking these questions,’” Simpson told the crowd at the Andrus Center for Public Policy energy and salmon conference Tuesday.

That framing of the issue has kept dam breaching off the table politically. That’s despite federal judges repeatedly ordering studies on the issue. That’s despite 20 years of strong consensus among fisheries biologists that say breaching the four dams would be the most effective and least expensive way to “restore healthy, sustainable” salmon populations to the Snake River — the most productive salmon tributary to the Columbia River.

“If you can’t defend what’s going on … then these questions have to be asked,” Simpson said.

They especially have to be asked if the Pacific Northwest is going to have to go to Congress to save the Bonneville Power Administration, the agency Franklin Roosevelt created to market power from the Columbia dams. Simpson said the BPA is in trouble.

BPA sells billions of dollars worth of electricity every year for use by the 10 million people who live in the Pacific Northwest, with its $820 billion economy. Its annual 10,000 megawatts of electricity account for 28 percent of all of the power produced in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, and parts of California and other states.

But its financial position has changed dramatically as the electricity markets have been transformed by low-cost natural gas and the huge growth of wind and solar power generation.

Since 2006, wind power produced along the Columbia has grown from 500 megawatts to more than 3,500 megawatts, enough to power seven cities the size of Seattle. By 2020, wind and solar power in the region could grow to 8,000 megawatts.

BPA Administrator Elliot Mainzer, who also spoke at the conference, said the time is now to make the necessary changes to manage the shifting role of its hydroelectric dams. He called for “urgent, not hasty” action.

He and other dam managers have been forced, by a federal judge’s decision, to ask Simpson’s “what if” question as well. They are supposed to have initial results early next year.

Simpson and Slater have been asking the uncomfortable questions because they not only want to save Idaho salmon, which are on the path toward extinction, but also want to save the BPA and the low-cost power services that are the foundation of the region’s economy.

Simpson revealed that he is working on a bill to replace the Northwest Power Planning Act of 1980, which restricted the federal agency during a past economic crisis. Simpson and Mainzer said the electricity industry has changed dramatically since then.

Simpson said a “Power Act 2.0” is necessary — but impossible — unless the congressional delegations of Oregon, Idaho, Washington and Montana all get behind it. But in these divisive times, such unity will take leadership.

Simpson, knowing the stakes, accepted the challenge, getting a standing ovation from the Andrus Center audience.

Simpson primed the pump of creativity he hopes residents of North Idaho and eastern Washington can muster to make the area whole if the dams go and a scenic canyon returns. For Lewiston, which would lose its seaport, the congressman talked about a high-tech research park bringing together the resources of the University of Idaho, Washington State University and Lewis-Clark State College.

Tri-Cities, the home of the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, could get a small, modular reactor to replace the dams and perhaps could become the center of battery research. That would be the key to making wind and solar power more stable, Simpson said.

How about a rail line that’s owned by the shippers to replace the barges?

“That’s an exciting idea,” said Sam White, chief operating officer at Pacific Northwest Farmers Cooperative, a grain-shipping company in Genesee, Idaho. “It would fix our problem, but it wouldn’t fix others.”

The two speakers at the conference from the Tri-Cities — David Reeploeg, vice president of the Tri-Cities Development Council, and Jeff Gordon, of Gordon Estate Wines near Pasco, whose vineyards depend on wells tied to the Ice Harbor Dam reservoir — wouldn’t bite.

But a key dam supporter who was at the conference told the Lewiston Tribune that she was willing to hear Simpson’s ideas.

“We are always open to conversations with the congressman,” said Kristin Meira, executive director of the Pacific Northwest Waterways Association. “He’s been open about these questions, and we will look forward to being part of the conversation.”

Idaho Gov. Brad Little said he will convene a panel to look for consensus on the salmon and dam issue. His commitment came the same day that Washington state debated whether to support a similar effort there.

What if the two states can get such talks going and Oregon can develop a similar process? These questions will now carry the issue beyond past efforts by people such as Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, who tried to start talks in 2009 with “all options on the table.”

The only option Simpson left off the table is allowing Idaho’s wild salmon to go extinct.

August 2, 2019

By Rocky Barker

More than a hundred sockeye salmon were delivered from Stanley to the Eagle Fish Hatchery in late September. These sockeye have migrated from the Pacific Ocean to Redfish Lake, climbing more than 6,000 feet in elevation. 

The first Snake River sockeye to complete the trip to Redfish Lake Creek in the Sawtooth Valley, some 800 miles from the Pacific Ocean, arrived Friday.

The red-bodied salmon that give Redfish Lake its name are struggling to make the final climb to spawn in the cold waters. But caught in a trap just above the lake, the female sockeye, who arrived in good condition, was trucked to the Eagle Hatchery, where biologists determine its genetics as a part of Idaho’s captive breeding program.

Biologists worry few are going to follow.

So far only 50 sockeye have been seen at Lower Granite Dam on the Snake River in Washington, the final of eight dams between the Pacific and Idaho. Dismal returns have been recorded this year for all salmon and steelhead, but the sockeye, which have rebounded remarkably over the past 27 years, are having a particularly rough time.

About 1,000 sockeye usually would have passed over Lower Granite by now, using average numbers from the past decade. And more than 300 were already seen at Ice Harbor Dam during this migration. Where they went, no one knows.

“It’s a mystery,” said Paul Kline, Idaho Department of Fish and Game deputy director.

The Effects of Climate Change

Unless more show up soon, Idaho can expect about only half of the sockeye seen at Lower Granite to arrive at Redfish Lake Creek, an event celebrated with joy throughout Idaho. But a new report by NOAA Fisheries biologists says the Snake River sockeye is one of the most vulnerable salmon on the Pacific Coast when it comes to climate change.

The low productivity of all salmon and steelhead this year is the continuation of warm Pacific Ocean conditions from 2014 to 2017 — conditions that have not been seen in longtime historical data. In 2015, the Columbia, Snake and Salmon rivers were so hot in the early summer that of the 4,000 sockeye seen at the first dam on the Columbia, all but 157 died during the migration.

Low flows that year also hindered the migration of the juvenile sockeye that left the Sawtooth Valley for the Pacific. And all of the young salmon raised in the new Springfield Hatchery died due to stress caused by the hatchery’s water chemistry.

The Snake River sockeye have become emblematic of the multibillion-dollar effort to recover threatened and endangered salmon in the entire Columbia River basin since Lonesome Larry, one of five male sockeye to return to Redfish Lake Creek in 1991. He, along with the last 15 other sockeye that returned the year before, and those that returned in the next two years, held the valuable genetic code of the southernmost sockeye population, which climbs to 6,500 feet above sea level.

Fish and Game began its captive breeding program designed to preserve that genetic material, which has since been considered one of the great salmon conservation success stories. Officials saw an average of more than 1,000 fish returning annually until the 2015 setback.

Climate scientists predict that temperatures will continue to warm across the region. By 2070, conditions like those seen starting in 2015 are predicted to be more frequent and even worse. But this year, temperatures in the Columbia and Snake rivers have not been significantly warmer than usual, said Russ Kiefer, a Fish and Game research biologist.

“This is not a year when temperature is impacting Snake River sockeye,” he said.

So why have only 17% of the sockeye who made the trip to Ice Harbor Dam been seen at Lower Granite?

Kline and his staff of biologists guess that many of the sockeye at Ice Harbor were from the much larger Upper Columbia sockeye populations, which followed the cooler waters into the Snake River. Last year, the staff sampled sockeye in the Lower Granite ladder — where the salmon climb over the dam — and 20% were Upper Columbia sockeye. Counters also might have mixed up the sockeye with other fish.

“It doesn’t take much to make the counts out of balance,” Kline said.

High Risk to Go Extinct

As vulnerable as the Idaho sockeye are to climate change, they are not alone. The Chinook in California’s Central Valley are equally at risk, said NOAA research biologist Lisa Crozier. Those fish have less genetic diversity due to their mixing over decades with hatchery stocks, and have some of the higher-elevation spawning streams blocked off by dams.

Others of the 33 population groups studied at high risk are coho in northern California and Oregon, and spring Chinook in the lower Columbia and Willamette river watersheds.

All 33 salmon population groups were found to be vulnerable to lower stream elevations and sea surface temperatures, along with ocean acidification.

“Salmon have always adapted to change, and they have been very successful — otherwise they wouldn’t still be here,” said Crozier, lead author of the report. “What we are trying to understand is which populations may need the most help with anticipated future changes in temperature and water availability, and what steps we can take to support them.”

Good News for Idaho Salmon?

The report says Snake River spring-summer and fall Chinook salmon are among the fish with the highest “adaptive capacity” to survive the coming climatic conditions. The Chinook migrate earlier and later than the sockeye, so they avoid the hottest water during migration, Crozier said.

Many of those populations have little if any hatchery influences genetically, which enhances their ability to adapt. They also have a diversity of behaviors, such as where and how long they rear in freshwater. For instance, Snake River fall Chinook, cutoff from much of its spawning habitat by Idaho Power’s Hells Canyon complex of dams, stay in the cooler Clearwater River longer before migrating to the Pacific.

Still, this year, spring Chinook numbers are also low, and fewer than 700 wild steelhead are expected to return to Idaho. If nothing else is done, these fish could go extinct.

“Idaho sockeye are the canary in the coal mine for all of Idaho’s salmon and steelhead runs,” said Justin Hayes, Idaho Conservation League executive director. “We’re spending tens of millions of dollars to keep sockeye from going extinct. “

The climate report says habitat restoration projects — including removing dams that prevent adequate fish passage — could provide some species with more of a buffer against changing temperatures and flows. This comes as federal agencies are studying whether to remove four dams on the lower Snake River in Washington to increase salmon runs.

The federally funded Fish Passage Center predicts that this will increase salmon and steelhead numbers as much as fourfold.

“The fish will change; we have to be prepared for that,” Crozier said. “Given a chance to persevere, they will take advantage of it.”

by Rocky Barker

Sockeye entered the Columbia River this week, beginning a 900-mile migration that very nearly ended 20 years ago.

Only four Snake River sockeye made their way through eight dams and past nets and predators in 1992, a year after the fish that makes its home in Idaho’s Sawtooth Valley was listed as endangered. Only one male completed the final climb up the Snake and Salmon rivers to a weir on Redfish Lake Creek Aug. 4.

Allyson Coonts, the 7-year-old daughter of Sawtooth Hatchery technician Phil Coonts, named the sockeye Lonesome Larry. When then-Idaho Gov. Cecil Andrus put the stuffed fish on his office wall, Lonesome Larry became the symbol of the entire Snake and Columbia salmon restoration program.

Read more from the Idaho Statesman.

By Rocky Baker Idaho Statesman Special Correspondent
February 24, 2020

An unlikely group of environmentalists, river users and public utilities wrote a letter Monday to the four Pacific Northwest governors and Native American tribes asking them to convene collaborative talks to restore abundant stocks of salmon and steelhead.

Seventeen groups — ranging from Save our Wild Salmon, the Sierra Club, the Natural Resources Defense Council and Trout Unlimited to the Port of Lewiston, as well as public utilities including Idaho Falls Power and the Flathead Electrical Cooperative in Montana — called for a plan to recover salmon. They said it’s time to “honor and protect tribal needs and way of life, and strengthen the electricity and agricultural services that communities rely on.”

The letter comes only days before federal dam and power managers release a draft environmental plan for operating the region’s electric power system that includes 29 dams and one nuclear power plant.

The study was ordered by a federal judge after he ruled the federal agencies’ plan for protected endangered salmon and steelhead was inadequate to protect the fish, which are spiritual sustenance for the region’s tribes and critical to the economies of communities from the Pacific into central Idaho.

Many of the signors have long been locked in a battle over whether to remove the four dams on the lower Snake River in Washington. Save our Wild Salmon, the Sierra Club and Trout Unlimited all advocate for dam removal while the Port of Lewiston is among the strongest voices for keeping the dams that provide its wheat farmers a barging route to the Pacific.

“If we respect our differences and direct our energy toward identifying the strategic investments needed to meet our shared vision and goals for the Pacific Northwest, we can build a comprehensive regional plan and investment package that will be supported by the region’s sovereign leaders, including the Northwest congressional delegation,” they wrote.

“Signatories of this letter represent a broad alliance of river interests committed to restoring abundant salmon and steelhead runs,” said David Doeringsfeld, general manager of the Port of Lewiston in a statement released with the letter. “We are hopeful that diverse interests throughout the PNW will unite around meaningful recovery efforts.”

Bill Arthur, chairman of the Sierra Club’s Columbia-Snake campaign, echoed Doeringsfeld’s hope in the statement.

“It is time to bring people and communities together to forge a solution that restores abundant salmon and steelhead and a healthy river, sustain strong communities and local economies, and assure our region continues to benefit from reliable clean energy,” Arthur said.

The letter comes only two weeks after Oregon Democratic Gov. Kate Brown expressed support for a similar process but said it must include “a presumption” that dam removal is included in the plan.

The letter, which sources said had been in the works for months, made no reference to dam removal.

Instead it laid out shared goals for the region’s salmon and energy challenges. Those shared goals include abundant and harvestable salmon; an enhanced economy for farming, transportation, fishing, recreation and ports, and preserving treaty rights and tribal culture.

Washington Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee has been asking residents to comment on a study of dam removal he requested in light of the endangered status of orca, which depend on Columbia and Snake River salmon. Idaho Republican Gov. Brad Little also has convened many of the groups in the letter and others, including the Nez Perce and Shoshone-Bannock tribes, in a collaborative process to guide his own salmon and steelhead policy. Democrat Steve Bullock is the governor of Montana.

The signatories of the letter are:
• David Hagen, General Manager Clearwater Power Company
• Frank Lawson, General Manager Eugene Water and Electric Board
• Mark Johnson, General Manager Flathead Electric Cooperative
• Bear Prairie, General Manager Idaho Falls Power
• Chad V. Jensen, CEO Inland Power and Light
• Giulia Good Stefani, Senior Attorney Natural Resources Defense Council
• Nancy Hirsh, Executive Director NW Energy Coalition
• Wendy Gerlitz, Policy Director NW Energy Coalition
• Roger Gray, President and CEO PNGC Power
• David Doeringsfeld, General Manager Port of Lewiston
• Joseph Bogaard, Executive Director Save Our wild Salmon Coalition
• Debra J. Smith, General Manager and CEO Seattle City Light
• Bill Arthur, Chairman Snake/Columbia River Salmon Campaign Sierra Club
• John Haarlow, General Manager Snohomish County Public Utility District #13
• Chris Robinson, General Manager and Superintendent Tacoma Power
• Rob Masonis, Vice President for Western Conservation Trout Unlimited
• Joe Lukas, General Manager Western Montana G&T

Letters from the West

April 21, 2016

By Rocky Barker

Federal ocean scientists warn that continuing warm temperatures in the Pacific and a cyclical shift in climate signals dropping productivity for the salmon and steelhead.

The fate of the fish are important even beyond the sportsmen, tribes and businesses that rely on fishing for recreation or livelihoods. In addition to being the living embodiment of the wild character of the Pacific Northwest, the salmon’s health is tied to the future of dams, power rates, water for farming and barge transportation between Idaho and the Pacific.

The unprecedented mass of warm water thousands of square miles wide across the Pacific first appeared in 2014 and was dubbed by scientists as “the blob.” This year it has shown signs of dissipating. But the effects on ocean currents and the food chain continue, reducing the size and numbers of salmon seen off the coast, said Bill Peterson, a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries oceanographer.

Meanwhile, a potentially longer shift in climate called the Pacific Decadal Oscillation appears to be returning, Peterson said. That’s bad because the oscillation coincides historically with a dramatic drop in ocean salmon productivity. In the 1990s, the last time the Columbia River and the Northwest saw such strong climate effects, the Snake River salmon nearly went extinct.

“If this keeps going, it’s looking like the 1990s again,” Peterson told the Statesman.

HOT WATER

The harsher conditions salmon find in the Pacific come after unprecedented hot temperatures in the Columbia and Snake rivers in 2015 killed 99 percent of returning endangered Idaho sockeye salmon. Already, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has committed to fisheries officials to improve adult fish-passage facilities, to help salmon make the trip through the dams easier in warmer temperatures.

And NOAA Fisheries is trying to organize what it calls a Columbia Basin Partnership of states, tribes and other groups involved in salmon recovery to seek a path forward. Workshops are planned in May and June. And a federal judge in a decades-old lawsuit is poised to release a decision on the current federal plan to make the Columbia and Snake River dams meet the requirements of the federal Endangered Species Act.

Every plan issued since 1993 has been ruled deficient, but judges so far have stopped short of the measures that salmon advocates want — including removal of the four lower Snake Dams in Washington.

Even though hatchery salmon have flourished during the years of good ocean conditions, wild stocks still aren’t returning at rates that would recover the species, said Joseph Bogaard, executive director of the Save our Wild Salmon coalition of environmental groups, sportsmen, sporting businesses and tribes.

“It’s time to get people to pay attention,” Peterson said.

BEYOND HUMAN CONTROL

A lot of factors affect the health of Idaho’s sea-going salmon and steelhead: habitat and water flows and conditions in the Snake and Columbia tributaries; dams and the passage devices that fish use to navigate the dams; fishing techniques and seasons; and predators such as seals and birds. But ocean conditions are among the most critical, because the fish spend much of their lives maturing in the ocean, and the shape of the ocean is largely beyond human tinkering.

The remarkable improvement in salmon and steelhead runs since the 1990s is at least partly due to the favorable ocean cycle. Peterson has documented that when the north Pacific is warmer, the Columbia and Snake rivers’ salmon and steelhead productivity drops dramatically.

More voracious predators such as mackerel and even Humboldt squid show up, expanding their territory and eating the salmon. Food that young salmon eat, such as the small crustaceans known as krill, also disappears in warmer waters.

Until the blob showed up, the Pacific had been colder most years.

The blob primarily affected surface temperatures, which in turn most affect the coho salmon that stick pretty close to shore, Peterson said. But the counts of spring chinook jacks — fish that spent only a year in the ocean in 2015 and are a barometer for the larger chinook that spend two year and three years in the ocean — were down dramatically.

And the number of Chinook that have returned to Bonneville Dam on the lower Columbia so far this spring are one-tenth the number of last year.

“We’re looking at another year of lousy ocean conditions,” Peterson said. “The food chain is just a mess.”

NOT PANICKING YET

No one was expecting the high Chinook returns the Columbia saw in 2015. And federal fisheries managers aren’t ready yet to write off this year’s run. Pete Hassemer, Idaho Fish and Game’s salmon and steelhead fishery manager, said he needs to wait another month before he gets worried.

“The spring (Chinook) count should be picking up right now,” Hassemer said. “Right now it’s going in the wrong direction.”

Stuart Ellis, harvest management biologist for the Columbia River Intertribal Fish Commission that represents the Yakama, Warm Springs, Nez Perce and Umatilla tribes, expects the run to be lower and later but still within the norm of the past decade.

“I don’t share that gloomy of an outlook, yet,” Ellis said.

In 1997, NOAA scientist Nate Mantua and his colleagues first showed that adult salmon catches in the northeast part of the Pacific correlated with the Pacific Decadal Oscillation. The cool years of 1947–1976 coincided with high returns of Chinook and coho salmon to Oregon, Idaho and Washington rivers. During the warm PDO cycle from 1977 to 1998, salmon numbers declined steadily.

Mantua doesn’t expect the current poor ocean conditions to last as long as they did in the 1990s. The El Niño climate pattern that has contributed to the warm ocean temperatures is shifting to the cool El Niña pattern and could reverse the oscillation like it did in 1998.

But even if that happens, the Columbia salmon will have faced three poor year of ocean conditions, which will inevitably have an impact on future runs.
“It’s not going to change overnight,” Mantua said.

Read full article here.

December 1, 2018

By Brett Haverstick

In 1997 the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) listed Snake River Basin steelhead as “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Both A-run and B-run wild steelhead are federally protected. A-run steelhead spend one to two years in the ocean before attempting to return to their spawning grounds, while the B-run spends two to three years in the ocean.

Unfortunately, listing these iconic fish under the Act has not prevented them from being at high risk of going extinct. The past two years witnessed the lowest return of wild steelhead to Idaho since the 1970s, and the 2019 return is expected to be as bad or worse.

Due to lack of action by the state of Idaho to protect wild steelhead, Friends of the Clearwater recently joined five other groups in filing a 60-Day Notice of Intent to Sue (NOI) the state of Idaho and the Idaho Department of Fish & Game (IDFG) for authorizing a steelhead fishing season, despite these dangerously low numbers, and despite not having a NMFS-approved fish management plan and ESA “incidental take permit.” This permit is required under the Endangered Species Act whenever a listed species may be “harmed, harassed or killed...” during a proposed agency action — in this case, the steelhead fishing season.

Idaho has not had a take permit since 2010. The federal government has not approved Idaho’s Fisheries Evaluation & Monitoring Plan (FEMP) in eight years. It is crucial that management plans be updated and legal. As a result of being noncompliant with the law, IDFG commissioners closed the steelhead season effective Dec. 7, 2018. The state’s action shutters steelhead fishing on the Clearwater, Salmon and Little Salmon rivers, as well as the Idaho bank of the Snake River.

Public accountability has also resulted in the federal government finally analyzing Idaho’s FEMP. This should have been done years ago but federal agencies have cited more “pressing needs” for not doing their job. NMFS is currently accepting public comments to assist them in their evaluation of Idaho’s FMEP. The comment period closes Dec. 6. We encourage everyone who cares about the future of wild steelhead to participate in this process.

Adding to Idaho’s salmon and steelhead woes, Gov. Butch Otter recently signed an extension of Bonneville Power Administration’s (BPA) Fish Accords, guaranteeing the state’s continued support for more of the same failed policies that have led to present conditions. The governor continues to take the bribe.

By re-signing the BPA “Fish Accords,” Idaho’s governor sold for a pittance the state’s independent voice regarding fish policy. His continued pledge of silence ignores collapsing fish runs and backhands Idahoans who rely on fish for food, and are dependent on fishing-related jobs.

The status quo approach to fish management is badly broken, and unless we make drastic changes, both salmon and steelhead will wink out. If the federal government continues to fail wild fish and fish-dependent communities, then Idahoans need to call them on their negligence. And if the state continues to support the failed federal policy through the Accords, and in return, bankrupt its own people, then we need new leadership and decision makers. Idahoans and the fish deserve much better.

Brett Haverstick is the Education & Outreach Director for Friends of the Clearwater in Moscow.

September 8, 2019

By Eric Barker of the Lewiston Morning Tribune

Daily fish counts at Lower Granite and Bonneville dams foreshadowed recent moves by state, federal and tribal fisheries managers in the Northwest to downgrade their official forecast for the return of steelhead to the Columbia River and its tributaries, including the Snake River.

The moves, not unexpected, follow weeks of ugly steelhead counts recorded at dams on the Snake and Columbia rivers. For example, for the past week steelhead passage at Bonneville Dam has numbered between 477 and 814 per day. The 10-year average for daily steelhead passage at Bonneville during the same time span ranges from 2,714 to 2,921.

At Lower Granite Dam on the Snake River, daily steelhead counts over the past week ranged from a low of 17 to a high of 38. The 10-year average for daily steelhead counts over the same period ranges from 215 to 1,063.

The numbers reflect the failure of A-run steelhead to meet preseason expectations. In response, fisheries managers in Washington reduced steelhead bag limits to just one hatchery fish per day on the Snake, Grande Ronde, Tucannon, Touchet and Walla Walla rivers. The state also adopted regulations that require anglers fishing on the Snake River between its mouth and the Couse Creek Boat Ramp south of Asotin to release any steelhead 28 inches in length or longer. Washington also extended a steelhead fishing closure on the lower reaches of the Wind, White Salmon and Klickitat rivers.

Washington and Oregon extended a steelhead harvest closure below the Dalles Dam on the Columbia River through September. Idaho earlier reduced steelhead bag limits to one per day and implemented requirements to release steelhead 28 inches or longer caught from the Clearwater River and its tributaries and the Snake River downstream of Couse Creek. The latest steelhead forecast, released last week, calls for 76,000 A- and B-run to return at least as far as Bonneville Dam. The preseason forecast was a modest 118,200 which was downgraded to 86,000 in late August.

Fisheries managers did not update the forecasts to reflect how many of the expected steelhead will belong to the A-run and how many to the B-run. The A-run returns earlier and those fish generally spend just one year in the ocean. The B-run fish are bigger and return later in the year after spending, on average, two years in the ocean.

The downgrade was based on the performance of A-run fish. B-run steelhead are just starting to show up at Bonneville Dam and fisheries managers won’t know for some time if those fish will live up to the preseason forecast.

But even if they do meet expectations, the B-run is not likely change the forecast for the better. That is because fisheries managers are calling for only about 8,000 of the big steelhead to return to Bonneville Dam this year and only about 5,300 to Lower Granite Dam on the Snake River.

“We weren’t expecting a very big (B-) run, so any sort of a downgrade in that component is going to make it even more grim,” said Alan Byrne, a Boise fisheries biologist for the Idaho Department of Fish and Game. “But we probably need a few more weeks before we can say anything about that component.”

Chris Donley, fish program manager for the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife at Spokane, said wild steelhead are performing as expected, but hatchery fish are lagging. The difference in performance means this year’s run to date has been dominated by fish anglers can’t keep.

Through Tuesday, 2,072 steelhead had been counted at Lower Granite Dam since July 1. Of those, 1,397 or about 67 percent, were either wild or unclipped hatchery fish. Based on the 10-year average during the same time period, wild and unclipped steelhead should make up about 40 percent of the run.

Wild steelhead are protected as threatened under the Endangered Species Act and anglers who catch them are required to let them go.

This year’s steelhead run is the third in the row to perform well below most runs over the past two decades. The poor returns have led to bag-limit and size reductions and to acrimonious posturing between state fisheries managers, some conservation groups and anglers.

Fisheries managers suspect lingering poor conditions in the Pacific Ocean have led to low survival of the fish during their time at sea. They had hoped the A-run would see a modest rebound this year based on indications that ocean conditions are improving.

Donley said even with the disappointing steelhead numbers, anglers still have fishing opportunities. He said the fall chinook salmon run is performing as expected, and the coho salmon run is also looking like it will live up to forecasts.

“At least we are in a good spot there,” he said.

Nez Perce Tribe 
Feb 28, 2020

Restoring the lower Snake River and its salmon, steelhead, and lamprey could not be more significant for the Nez Perce people, given the location of the Tribe’s homeland and treaty-reserved territory, and the central role of salmon, steelhead, and lamprey in Nez Perce culture. The dams on the lower Snake River and the mainstem Columbia have had — and continue to have — an enormous impact on salmon and steelhead, and the Nez Perce people. The Nez Perce Tribe has long publicly supported restoring the lower Snake River by breaching the four dams there and investing in affected local communities.

“We view restoring the lower Snake River as urgent and overdue — and we are committed to continuing to provide leadership in all forums: from the halls of Congress, to our federal agency trustees and partners, to the courtroom, to the statehouses, to conversations with our neighbors, energy interests, and other river users, to this Environmental Impact Statement,” stated Chairman Shannon F. Wheeler.

“Accurate, complete, and transparent information and analyses of the impacts of the four lower Snake River dams is necessary for national and regional decision-makers, and is required by law under the National Environmental Policy Act,” Chairman Wheeler continued. 

The Tribe has actively participated in the Endangered Species Act and National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) litigation involving the impacts of the federal dams on the lower Snake River and mainstem Columbia River. The Tribe agreed with U.S. District Judge Michael Simon about the unique opportunity a comprehensive Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) provides — that a comprehensive Environmental Impact Statement “may be able to break through any logjam that simply maintains the precarious status quo” while the Federal Columbia River Power System “remains a system that ‘cries out’ for a new approach and for new thinking” if wild Pacific salmon and steelhead are to have any reasonable chance of surviving their encounter with modern man.

The Tribe has participated as a cooperating agency in the Environmental Impact Statement process, with the acknowledgement that such participation would not — and could not — alter the United States’ Treaty, trust, and Government-to-Government obligations to the Tribe, and that cooperating agencies may or may not support the ultimate National Environmental Policy Act documents and decisions made by the federal co-lead agencies.

The Tribe has continued to support additional interim improvements to benefit salmon. The Tribe entered into the 2019-2021 Spill Operation Agreement, agreeing to forbear from pursuing litigation until completion of the Environmental Impact Statement and intending to incrementally benefit juvenile salmon passage in 2020 and 2021, as the Tribe continued working to address the significant fish mortality from the dams and ensure a full National Environmental Policy Act analysis of lower Snake River dam breaching. “The Tribe made it clear that the 2019-2021 Spill Operation Agreement was acceptable only as an interim operation for the term of that Agreement,” Chairman Wheeler said. “A Draft Environmental Impact Statement that offers a Preferred Alternative that provides no more protection for salmon than the 2019-2021 Spill Operation Agreement that was intended to provide time and space for the development of a more significant system improvement, is unacceptable.” 

The Tribe will be reviewing the Draft Environmental Impact Statement carefully, and will be submitting formal comments for the record.

May 10, 2019

By Samantha Wohlfeil

"Are you going to study the Southern Residents when you grow up?" a voice off camera asks young London Fletcher, who is already passionate about the remaining pods of orca whales that live in Puget Sound.  "Well that really just depends if the Southern Residents are still around when I grow up," she answers.  Her response quickly sums up the devastating stakes for whale researchers, who for decades have tried to figure out how to keep the orcas from going extinct.  The struggle to save the declining Southern Resident killer whales is the subject of the new documentary Dammed to Extinction, which was produced and directed by Michael Peterson and writer Steven Hawley.  The film will be screened for free in Spokane at 7 pm, Thursday, May 16, at the Garland Theater. The event is sponsored by Sierra Club, Earth Justice and Save Our Wild Salmon, a coalition working to breach four Snake River dams in order to save salmon runs throughout the Columbia/Snake River system. A Q&A with the filmmakers will follow the screening of the roughly hourlong film.  The Inlander caught up with Peterson by phone to get some background on the making of the documentary.  Peterson grew up in the Tri-Cities and graduated from Eastern Washington University back in 1986. After working in local TV and radio for a few years, he moved to L.A. to launch his film career.  Over two decades, his work in visual effects landed him credits on movies such as Independence Day, Armageddon, Star Trek: First Contact and Volcano. He also did a lot of work on commercials for major companies and music videos for popular singers.  With changes in the industry enabling movie-quality production to be cheaper than ever, and the draw of being closer to his parents, getting married and starting a family, Peterson moved back to the Pacific Northwest, where he can work on projects that feel more important to him.  "I worked on commercials for huge companies like McDonald's, and selling sugary cereals to kids. Stuff I didn't feel so great about," Peterson says. "Helping shoot these films like Dammed to Extinction has a lot more redeeming value."  The idea for the orca documentary, which was made with a team of Hollywood transplants throughout the Northwest, initially came from a conversation with Hawley, who Peterson has been friends with for close to 20 years.  Hawley wrote the book Recovering a Lost River, which had already inspired another documentary, DamNation, and he felt there was more to show.  "We were floating down the Deschutes River one day in his drift boat and he said, 'There’s a chapter in my book I’d like to bring to life in a movie,'" Peterson says. "It was about how Southern Resident killer whales are starving to death."  Among other issues, the whales have experienced a severe lack of Chinook salmon, which have dwindled in recent years. Fewer of the female whales are having calves, and fewer of those calves are able to survive.  As presented in the documentary, one of the best ways to help more Chinook survive and help feed the whales is to remove four lower Snake River dams that make it hard for juvenile salmon to make their way out to sea. 

As someone who grew up near the dams, Peterson wanted to approach the topic as sensitively and fairly as possible.  "I grew up in Richland, and they’re just part of your culture, they’re part of your life. You go water skiing behind the dams, fishing behind the dams," he says. "They’re these huge structures you could never imagine being gone."  Exploring dam breaching as a way to help the whales wasn't something Peterson had thought about before, but the science and data were convincing.   "I am a filmmaker, and I’ve become a reluctant environmentalist, honestly. Now I’m quite a champion for the cause," Peterson says. "Now that I look much closer, I realize how destructive they are. The mitigation and hatcheries are just not able to keep up."  Throughout the film, Peterson and Hawley explore the subject through interviews with researchers, retired engineers and wildlife professionals, and by looking at the state of Bonneville Power Administration, which sells power from the dams and are run by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.  There is also a moving interview with Carrie Chapman Nightwalker Schuster, a Palouse Tribal elder who describes the riverside home she grew up in, and the devastation for her family when the dams were built, destroying everything they'd known.  Peterson says the film team tried to get interviews with Republican U.S. Reps. Dan Newhouse and Cathy McMorris Rodgers, who have rigorously fought to protect the Snake River dams, as well as with someone from BPA, but none of them agreed to be in the film.  However, he still hopes that no matter where people stand on dam removal, they'll come to the screening with an open mind.  "The main thing is, I wanted this film to be watchable for everybody. Whatever side of the issue you’re on, it’s not going to offend people," Peterson says. "People who are pro dam, I hope they don't dig their heels in, and instead go, 'That’s an interesting point. I never considered that.'"  Dammed to Extinction • Thu, May 16 at 7 pm • Free • All ages • Garland Theater • 924 W. Garland • dammedtoextinction.com

April 18, 2019

By Samantha Wohlfeil

Saving Puget Sound's southern resident orca pods and the salmon they depend on for food is not a contentious idea. People across the political spectrum agree they want to see those endangered species survive and thrive.

But hackles raise when it comes to looking at proposals like whether taking out the four Lower Snake River dams might help, or even asking how Washington state would be impacted if that were to happen.

So while a $750,000 budget item typically wouldn't get much attention in the broader scope of Washington state's more than $54 billion operating budget, a proposed series of community meetings to talk about dam removal has generated significant debate, says Sean O'Leary, a spokesman for the Northwest Energy Coalition. The coalition has studied how renewables could replace power generated by the dams.

"The mere notion of talking about dam removal has really upset a lot of people in the Tri-Cities and in Eastern Washington," O'Leary says.

The statewide "stakeholder process" to consider the positives and negatives if the dams were removed to help salmon runs was recommended by Gov. Jay Inslee's Orca Task Force. Currently the Senate operating budget includes $750,000 for that work, but the House operating budget does not.

"So in the next few weeks there's going to have to be a negotiation to determine whether or not this element of the Orca Task Force goes forward," O'Leary says. "This is one of those rare occasions in which people on both sides of the dam removal issue are very focused and passionate."

Study of the four Snake River dams that were finished between 1962 and 1975 — Ice Harbor, Lower Monumental, Little Goose and Lower Granite — has gone on for decades, as conservationists, fishermen and others have pushed the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for solutions to save fish runs along the federal waterway.

It's resulted in significant investments to help fish better traverse the dams, including by increasing the amount of water allowed to flow freely instead of through turbines. But courts have also ruled the government hasn't gone far enough in considering how to help the fish.

In May 2016, U.S. District Court Judge Michael Simon rejected a 2014 plan put together by federal agencies to protect salmon and steelhead trout. As part of that decision, Simon ordered a full environmental review, including whether breaching or removing the dams might help restore fish.

That environmental impact study (EIS) is being put together now. The White House put it on an accelerated timeline, meaning the draft should be done by February 2020.

For some, spending state money to look at the impacts of breaching the dams would be repeating part of the federal study, which will analyze economic impacts. Dam decisions also fall to federal entities.

"For the state of Washington to divert taxpayer dollars for a stakeholder study of something that they ultimately wouldn't have any direct enforcement on seems like a highly duplicative effort," says Rob Rich, vice president of marine services for Shaver Transportation Company, which barges grain along the Snake River. "Because the state would not be in any position to exert any action over the operation, it seems like it could be more politically motivated rather than motivated by any demonstrated void or need."

That said, Rich says he does see value in the state better understanding the importance of the Snake River dams, which enable 10 percent of the country's grain exports to be barged to port. A little less than half of Shaver's barges originate in the Snake River, Rich says, and their 100-employee company is just one of several that ship products along the river system.

Getting into that kind of detail, and digging even deeper, is the exact reason dam removal proponents want to see the state stakeholder process take place.

Where the federal study will get a bird's eye view, a state process would allow people to get into specifics, says Sam Mace, Inland Northwest Director for Save Our Wild Salmon, which has been pushing for dam removal for more than 20 years.

"The EIS process that's going on is not going to get to those nuts and bolts of what a transition plan would look like, or the real costs for Lewiston, Clarkston, Washtucna and Colfax," Mace says.

The state study could do that, and if it turned out that dam removal would be economically dire, that would come out in the process as well, she says.

"I wonder, ultimately, what they're so afraid of," Mace says of those who oppose the meetings. "If the dams are the linchpin of Eastern Washington's economy, like they like to propose, those kind of analyses will come out in this planning process.... If there are other ways to meet the needs those dams provide and have communities be better off, that will also come out in that process."

Wheat farmer Bryan Jones' farm is a mile outside of Dusty, Idaho, and about 19 miles from Central Ferry, where his grain has been loaded on barges and shipped downriver.

To him, the state process is necessary. It will likely be left to the state to figure out how much it would cost farmers to change their shipping methods, or where infrastructure upgrades and grain storage are needed, he says.

"I think really to examine this issue with the little bit of money that's actually being requested is nothing but wise," Jones says. "I'm for a conversation that allows us to perhaps look at some solutions to a 40-year, 50-year problem that actually may result in a savings of dollars, and a more efficient method to save salmon, and help farmers get their grains to market."

Jones says he now pays 47 cents per bushel in shipping costs to the grain elevator where he sells his wheat, but they decide whether it ships by barge or rail. He can't control that shipping cost, or the price of wheat, so any solution ultimately has to include farmers' voices, he says, because they can't just eat higher costs.

"I think we can look at this practically and find solutions that work for everybody," Jones says. "Before the dams, we managed to get our grain to market. After the dams, we'll manage to get our grain to market. Things will change."

Others who ship commodities along the Columbia Snake River System from Lewiston/Clarkston to Portland say the state stakeholder process is, at the least, premature.

"I think we all agree that we need to do something for the salmon and something for the orcas," says Kurt Miller, executive director of Northwest RiverPartners, a coalition of public utility districts, farmers and other businesses.

But the federal study should be completed before the state spends money to look at its options, Miller says.

"That needs to be completed before we would ever think it would be appropriate to start preparing communities for life after dams," Miller says.

Indeed, even undertaking the state's stakeholder work presupposes that dam removal would be recommended by federal agencies to help salmon, when, so far, it hasn't, says Kristin Meira, executive director of the Pacific Northwest Waterways Association.

"These questions are already being asked, and being asked in a way that follows the correct federal process," Meira says, "not a hastily called stakeholder panel from those who think they already know what the answer should be."

Plus, if the dams were removed, that process would take years to unfold, Meira says.

"It would not be an overnight process," Meira says. "So the idea that Washington has to hold a stakeholder panel in 2019 otherwise folks would be caught unprepared is also just not true."

But Mace can't help but think of her Oregon hometown. They didn't plan for timber companies to ever leave. When they did, there was no contingency plan, she says.

"I come from a resource community, a little timber community that saw the writing on the wall and did not start looking at the what-if scenarios," Mace says. "It's in our best interest to be prepared for the negatives and positives of whether the dams stay or whether the dams go."

State budget negotiations are ongoing, with the normal end of session scheduled for April 28.

October 14^th, 2019

By Samantha Wohlfeil

On Monday, Oct. 14, Yakama Nation joined allies in a meeting at the location that was once Celilo Falls (pictured), a fishing area that was destroyed with the completion of the Dalles Dam in 1957.

With the artificially calmed waters of the Columbia River in the background, Yakama Nation and Lummi Nation leaders held a joint press conference on Monday calling for the federal government to remove dams along the lower Columbia River.

On the day formerly celebrated as Columbus Day, now celebrated by many as Indigenous Peoples Day, Yakama Nation Tribal Council Chairman JoDe Goudy shared a brief history of how the lands were colonized and the waters eventually controlled with dams.

Goudy set the historical context for how Yakama Nation eventually lost its fishing areas, providing an overview of how the Columbia River was "discovered" and named by Capt. Robert Gray in 1792, how the terms "manifest destiny" and the doctrine of Christian discovery were first used and how the treaty of 1855 came to be.

Importantly, he argued, the Columbia was controlled with dams in the 1900s without the informed prior consent of the Yakama Nation, which only later was given a "settlement" for their loss. There was no consultation beforehand as reserved under the treaty of 1855.

The area behind where Goudy stood was once Celilo Falls, a bustling fishing village until the area was inundated with water after completion of the Dalles Dam in 1957.

"Today Yakama Nation with its allies are calling upon the United States for the removal of Dalles Dam, for the removal of Bonneville Dam, for the removal of John Day Dam," Goudy said. "We are calling upon that action to happen."

In the same way that the doctrine of Christian discovery formed the basis of genocidal acts against Native nations as Europeans invaded their traditional lands, Goudy said, the United States government gave itself the ultimate authority over rivers, despite the treaties.

"When you go back you understand the truth, the truth with regard to what has materialized this lake behind us all," Goudy said, "that assertion of dominion over all lands, waters and territories of people they deemed to be infidels. We’re not infidels, nor are we savages."

Goudy and others gathered, including Lummi Nation Chairman Jay Julius, called on the United States to reject that doctrine and remove the dams, which have "decimated the Yakama Nation's fisheries, traditional foods and cultural sites."

"We have a choice, one or the other: dams or salmon," Goudy said. "The native people of this land will be fighting... for the salmon, for the water. This is why we have gathered here on this day formerly known as Columbus Day, to speak about the truth of history."

Julius offered up his support, as a witness, as chairman of Lummi Nation and as a lifelong fisherman descended from generations of fishermen.

"We don’t have much time. The killer whale, they don't have much time. The herring don't have much time," Julius said. "What happens to them inevitably happens to us. What has happened to us historically is happening to them today. We have to take a stand, if not for them, for future generations."

Importantly, Goudy said, the call to reject the doctrine of Christian discovery was not an attack on Christianity, but a call for those who follow that faith to reject its prior use to justify horrible acts against people around the world.

"This isn't just for Native people, this is for everyone," Goudy said. "Today we bring forth a will, for the removal of Dalles Dam, removal of Bonneville Dam, and the removal of John Day Dam. 'These are no small things,' someone may say. For what’s at stake, they are very small things."

July 29, 2019

By Bob Berwyn

The fish, critical to local economies and the food chain, were already under pressure from human infrastructure like dams. Climate change is turning up the heat.

Pacific salmon that spawn in Western streams and rivers have been struggling for decades to survive water diversions, dams and logging. Now, global warming is pushing four important populations in California, Oregon and Idaho toward extinction, federal scientists warn in a new study.

The new research shows that several of the region's salmon populations are now bumping into temperature limits, with those that spawn far inland after lengthy summer stream migrations and those that spend a lot of time in coastal habitats like river estuaries among the most at risk.

That includes Chinook salmon in California's Central Valley and in the Columbia and Willamette River basins in Oregon; coho salmon in parts of Northern California and Oregon; and sockeye salmon that reach the Snake River Basin in Idaho, all of which are already on the federal endangered species list.

These populations will need help to survive the warmer waters, more acidic oceans and changed seasonal streamflow patterns caused by global warming and other human impacts, said Lisa Crozier, a salmon researcher with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries program and lead author of the study, published July 24 in the journal PLOS One.

"They are very resilient and opportunistic. That's why we have hope. We just have to give them half a chance," she said.

The salmon live much of their lives in the ocean, but they swim far upstream to spawn. In the process, they're a key part of the food chain, including for bears and whales, and they are important to indigenous groups and fisheries along the U.S. West Coast.

Human infrastructure, including dams and water diversions, were already affecting their streams, reducing the flow and reducing access to the coldest habitats that can serve as a hiding place for salmon during heat waves or drought. Global warming is now intensifying those impacts. 

The salmon populations that have persisted in Western rivers since the dam-building era have adapted to some of that warming, and their sensitivity to climate factors has been incorporated in conservation plans, Crozier said.

But beyond 2 degrees Celsius of warming (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) compared to the pre-industrial era, all bets are off, she said, because then the chances increase for significant changes in the ocean that could lead to a catastrophic failure of salmon populations.

Timing Is Everything

Some salmon migrations coincide with high spring runoff from melting mountain snows, while juvenile salmon return to the sea in sync with seasonal plankton blooms off the coasts.

Global warming is already disrupting those cycles for some salmon populations, including sockeye that swim 900 miles to spawn in streams high in the mountains of Idaho.

To spawn successfully, they need exactly the right combination of stream flows and temperatures at exactly the right time of year. But warmer temperatures are rapidly changing the timing of snowmelt and runoff in Western mountains, making it harder for the fish.

Snake River sockeye are listed as endangered. In some streams, only a few hundred reach their spawning grounds. Their overall numbers grew slightly between 2008 and 2014 (the most recent numbers available), thanks mainly to conservation measures, including the introduction of hatchery-raised fish to bolster the population after Snake River sockeye nearly disappeared from the region.

Sometimes they need human help to reach their goal, so they're transported past dams in an "assisted migration," which might become an important (and expensive) strategy to adapt to global warming for other species, as well.

Chinook salmon in California's Central Valley face even more daunting challenges, and some of those populations might be the first to blink out, said University of California, Santa Cruz, researcher Mark Carr, who studies salmon in their coastal habitat.

"These runs down in central California may simply not persist in the face of a changing climate and water conflicts. Can't say they are lost causes, but they are the most likely candidates," said Carr, a co-author on the new study.

"It's frustrating," he said. "I work on many species other than salmon, so it's pretty overwhelming to try to identify how to mitigate or adapt to the growing impacts to so many species simultaneously. It's even more frustrating to know that some policies, particularly the current administration's, are fully counterproductive to the work."

The Central Valley Chinook also have to compete with humans for water, and they are already losing that contest. The greatest salmon declines are where the greatest conflicts over water occur, including the demand for agricultural water in the Central Valley.

"California has a long history of destroying the freshwater ecosystems required to maintain strong salmon runs," Carr said. "If we want salmon around in the future, we need to start working to ensure we have healthy freshwater ecosystems that will better tolerate the changing environmental conditions."

How Climate Change Threatens Salmon Survival

The new study covered 33 salmon populations along the U.S. Pacific Coast, from the Mexican border to the Canadian border, assessing how local environmental conditions will change and whether salmon populations will be able to adapt to the changing climate.

The research spells out several ways that global warming endangers the fish. Among them:

Young salmon die when the water warms above a certain threshold, and droughts can leave salmon stranded or exposed to predators by low water levels.
 

Flooding can also flush eggs and young fish from their nests, so the scientists included projections of how global warming will affect extreme atmospheric river rain storms in California as one of the ways to measure the growing threat.
 

Warmer stream temperatures have also increased outbreaks of fish disease that can affect salmon, including pathogenic parasites. In May, a toxic algae bloom along the coast of Norway killed 8 million farmed salmon at an estimated cost of about $82 million. In Alaska's Yukon River, a parasite linked with global warming has taken a big toll on the salmon fishery.

And in recent weeks, local indigenous observers in Alaska have posted numerous reports of dead salmon in rivers in the western part of the state, as water temperatures reached record highs during Alaska's record-setting heat wave.
 

Salmon are also sensitive to changes in ocean currents that carry nutrients, as well as sea level rise, which affects the physical connection between ocean and stream ecosystems, like coastal wetlands in California. Some salmon populations living near the edge of the range of suitable conditions will start to cluster in rivers near the coast, unable to reach their historic spawning grounds unless "access to higher-elevation habitats is restored and habitat quality in rearing areas and migration corridors is improved," the scientists wrote.

Crozier said scientists worldwide have been documenting "almost synchronous declines in salmon populations. Time after time, we see the same patterns of long-term decline." For example, global research shows that climate change is expected to reduce reproductive success and jeopardize salmon migration.

Most types of fish are affected by global warming. Research last year showed many species important to U.S. coastal communities will move hundreds of miles northward during the next few decades.

Some salmon will also move northward seeking cooler waters, and that is bad news for West Coast tribes whose place-based fishing rights are linked to pre-colonization fishing grounds.

Native American communities can't just relocate to another area to catch their allocation if the fish move away, said Tom Moore, an oceanographer with the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission.

What Can Be Done to Protect the Fish?

Maintaining any salmon populations will require significant restoration efforts to make sure they have large areas of connected habitat, the researchers wrote. 

Other conservation strategies include releasing hatchery-spawned salmon, boosting streamflows at the right time with water releases from reservoirs, and even assisted migration, in which some fish are trapped, transported over dams and then released in rivers above the dams.

Carr said the study will help conservation efforts because it shows exactly when and how salmon vulnerability is highest at different stages, with the freshwater environment the key.

To sustain themselves, adults need to be able to successfully migrate to spawning habitat, and survival of the eggs and larvae require cool water temperatures, appropriate gravel structure, sufficient water flow and oxygen while eggs are in the sediments. And finally, there has to be enough water flow to allow them to migrate back to the sea.

"All of these are changing in ways that threaten the survival of salmon runs," he said.

To buy tickets and for more information about the Orca - Salmon Alliance, please visit these links:

The Orca-Salmon Alliance website

Events tickets are available at Brown Paper Tickets

The Orca-Salmon Alliance on Facebook 

March 12, 2019

By Brad Shannon

OLYMPIA – Puget Sound’s beloved orcas are at risk of extinction. A historic population of roughly 200 has shrunk to 75. Now thestate Legislature is getting involved, considering a battery of options to save the distinctively marked marine mammals.

A key to heading off extinction, scientists say, is improving the health of oceangoing runs of chinook salmon, the biggest, fattest and most nutritious kind of salmon and the killer whales’ main food source. To do that, some lawmakers would like to open up more than 1,000 miles of prime inland spawning areas that are currently blocked to the fish. Even those who would rather not are feeling the pressure to do so after an order from the highest court in the land told them they had to. But the Legislature is stuck, struggling to identify a source of funding for the project.

And what is blocking all those fish? Culverts. These are the pipes and tunnels that pass under roads throughout the state, allowing water to flow downstream. It turns out that many old highway projects in the state were poorly engineered where they intersect with salmon-bearing streams and as a result can block the fish in a variety of ways.

The livelihood of Chinook Salmon depends on repairs to faulty culverts which prevent spawning salmon from passing through waterways.

This year’s legislative session marks the first time lawmakers have met to adopt a state spending plan since the U.S. Supreme Court refused last year to hear the state’s appeal of lower-court rulings in favor of more than 20 Indian tribes that sued the state over the faulty culverts. The court’s action left the burden for fixing the faulty culverts squarely in legislators’ laps, with no further appeals possible. State officials had resisted the tribal claims for nearly two decades.

Washington state transportation officials estimate upward of $3.1 billion more is needed to rectify past mistakes. That’s beyond the several hundred million dollars already spent or allocated for fish passage improvements since a 2013 federal court order in favor of the tribes.

U.S. District Court Judge Ricardo Martinez found the state had a duty under treaties from the mid-1850s to repair or replace culverts, opening up roughly 1,000 miles of stream habitat for salmon runs by 2030. Tribes depend on the fish for both economic and cultural reasons.

The order from Martinez that the Supreme Court let stand requires the state to remove potentially more than 900 culverts on state properties by 2030 and more in later years.  The state estimates it can meet Martinez’s order to restore access to 90 percent of the blocked habitat by fixing about 415 fish-passage barriers.

Fast forward to today in Olympia and the Legislature again is in a familiar posture – in effect facing a court order to find money to fix a problem the state has long delayed fixing.

Legislators faced similar orders from state courts in 2012 to fix school funding, which ultimately led to a contempt of court finding and fines. More recently the state has been under the gun of federal courts to fix major failings in a deeply flawed mental health system.

But just as those solutions have taken years to resolve, and are still not fully carried out, the culverts case has dragged on since tribes first turned to the courts in 2001. The state Department of Transportation has been repairing or removing fish barriers since the 1990s.

In what looked like a potentially major step forward, Gov. Jay Inslee proposed to spend more than $1 billion over the next two years on orca and salmon recovery, including ongoing commitments to improve Puget Sound water quality and fish habitat.

Inslee’s proposed budget, released in December, included $275 million that was specifically targeted for culverts – an amount that could, based on Department of Transportation estimates, balloon to $726 million per two-year budget cycle in future years. Importantly, Inslee’s plan for the first time provided funds on a long-term basis.

But while tribes hailed the effort to move forward and provide permanent sources of funds, the proposal to ramp up the pace of projects over a few years has tribes worried. They’d like to see more money invested right away, evening out the investments in future budget cycles and getting results – specifically better fish runs – sooner.

There are three main types of barriers that stop fish from passing through the culverts: excessive water surface drop, high velocity, and shallow water depth.

“To delay necessary funding will only make it more difficult for the [s]tate to satisfy the requirements of the (court order) and fails to timely address the restoration of our rapidly declining salmon and orca resources in Washington ecosystems,” wrote Lorraine Loomis, chair of the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission, in a Jan. 31 letter to Inslee and legislative leaders.

Loomis added that the issue is “critical not only to the treaty tribes but also to all Washingtonians.”

The state’s progress has been slow. As of the end of 2018, the state said it had fixed 66 of the 992 faulty culverts at issue since 2013, or about 11 a year. In order to make the court-imposed deadline, that pace would have to pick up to about 84 fixes per year.

But as state legislators move into the second half of their 105-day session, Inslee’s proposal is going nowhere fast. And no clear politically palatable alternative is taking shape. The House Capital Budget Committee is scheduled to take up the issue on Thursday.

It is increasingly likely that lawmakers will take a piecemeal approach. If that happens, it will be similar to the smaller or incremental funding they have provided in recent budget cycles since the injunction – going from about $27 million for stand-alone fish-passage projects in 2013-15 to $70 million in 2015-17 and closer to $109 million in 2017-19. All those numbers pale in comparison to Inslee’s proposal.

Though minority Republicans oppose new taxes, the Inslee approach relies on exactly that. The Democratic governor proposed to change state real estate sales tax formulas to require a higher tax rate on high-end property transactions such as commercial projects and lower rates for less expensive ones valued at less than $250,000. Overall, that could produce more than $200 million a year in extra revenue.

House Democrats have considered changing the tax rates on property sales in the past, and they are proposing it again this year. But the Democrats are considering using that money to cover housing programs and other operations costs of government, not fixing culverts.

The Senate may be more open to Inslee’s idea. Senate Ways & Means Committee Chair Christine Rolfes, D-Bainbridge Island, said all funding ideas remain on the table as the Senate waits to see how the various ideas fare.

Rolfes said it is possible that a solution to paying for orca recovery and culverts includes some money from all three of the state’s major budgets – the operating budget, the capital or construction budget, and transportation.

There is one approach that would provide new permanent transportation funds for culverts and other road or transportation infrastructure projects. This is a carbon-tax and gas-tax bill pushed by Sen. Steve Hobbs, D-Lake Stevens, who chairs the Senate Transportation Committee.

Hobbs’ plan, which includes controversial fees on new construction projects, would specifically cover culvert costs and pay for major highway projects such as a bridge over the Columbia River and new electrified ferries.

Hobbs says he is open to amending Senate Bill 5971, which cleared its first big hurdle on March 6. The legislation received approval on a largely party-line vote in the Transportation Committee and was sent to the Rules Committee, which determines if or when it can move to the full Senate floor for action.

The measure has plenty of detractors. Republicans including Sen. Curtis King of Yakima are dead set against a carbon tax, saying it could increase fuel costs for motorists and truckers.

Senate Republican Leader Mark Schoesler of Ritzville and other GOP members are quick to note that voters rejected a carbon tax in 2016 and 2018. Another sensitive point is that Washington’s gas tax is second highest in the country at 49.4 cents per gallon, following a two-step increase of nearly 12 cents in 2015-16, and Hobbs is recommending another 6-cent increase.

However, unlike the failed ballot measures, Hobbs’ legislation uses carbon-tax proceeds for road and fish-habitat restoration, and the other proposals were not linked so directly to transportation. Transportation is the state’s leading sector for greenhouse gas emissions linked to global warming, so Hobbs’ carbon-tax proposal has a logical tie-in to transportation.

Still, the Hobbs approach isn’t expected to go far because it is a pricey $15 billion plan, and it usually takes a few years to build the political support for that large an increase.

Rep. Jake Fey, a Tacoma Democrat and chair of the House Transportation Committee, thinks a gas tax increase is eventually a good approach that could help pay for culverts. But he thinks it is probably too soon to win support for the tax.

Instead, Fey said lawmakers may need to look for a short-term answer to culverts funding and then take up a proposal to increase the gas tax in 2021. He said details of his approach will be clearer in late March, when he expects to release his two-year transportation budget proposal.

But how much the state can raise by looking for short-term options is unclear.

The Department of Transportation is seeking $275 million for the 2019-21 biennium because it believes that is a reasonable target for projects the agency could complete on that timeline, according to Megan White, director of the environmental services office for the DOT.

Because current-law budgets contain about $89 million identified for culverts in the coming biennium, White said the actual new money in Inslee’s and the department’s funding request is closer to $186 million.

Fey is skeptical that DOT can do that many projects and said he does not want to raise taxes for culverts this year if there is a chance some of the money will be idled in an account.

But White said the agency has been ramping up since the 2013 court ruling. This year’s $275 million request is “based on what we thought we could do in the next biennium,” White said.

Kim Mueller, manager of DOT’s fish-passage delivery program, said there are a few big projects that could add dozens of miles of important habitat but which require new funds to go forward in the next biennium.

The biggest is a set of four barrier removals in Kitsap County located around State Route 3 and Chico Creek and a tributary. This $55 million project would remove four fish barriers and add a long bridge near an estuary, opening up or improving fish access to 21 miles of habitat, Mueller said.

“That is the largest barrier project we’ve had to date,” Mueller said.

The project would help the chinook salmon that are so important to orcas and also other fish runs important to the Suquamish tribe, Mueller said. Other barriers have already been fixed both upstream and downstream of this project, she said.

One other big project awaiting funds is between Port Angeles and Sequim along U.S. 101 at Siebert Creek. The $20 million job would improve access for salmon to 34 miles of habitat.

Top Republicans on the House Transportation Committee, led by Rep. Andrew Barkis of Thurston County and Rep. Jim Walsh of Grays Harbor County, are developing a counter-proposal. Barkis and Walsh said in an interview they believe there is money available to shift in the transportation budget – or from other sources – to cover the short-term need.

Details were still scarce last week, but Barkis and Walsh said their plan would give more authority to the Fish Barrier Removal Board that funds projects for local governments and private interests.

The lawmakers want to make sure funds are available for local governments to remove stream barriers for which they are responsible that are downstream or upstream of important state projects.

Local governments are not subject at this point to the federal court order – but their culverts block streams just like the state’s culverts. So the state Department of Fish and Wildlife has requested roughly $50 million for about 82 of the fish-barrier board’s projects over the next two years, some off which would fix the local governments’ culverts. The agency says it could open more than 160 miles of habitat.

Rolfes, the top Senate budget writer, thinks the state is already doing a good job of removing stream barriers in multiple jurisdictions along a single stream, but the senator said there may be better ideas to consider.

Rolfes also said it is not unusual to still be searching for a solution to a problem like orca and salmon recovery at this point in a session. She said it is possible the Legislature will again take a more piecemeal approach to this budget challenge rather than adopt a whole-hog approach, as embodied in Inslee’s proposal with real estate taxes and in Hobbs’ carbon-tax proposal.

“That may be the approach this year. But I don’t know,” she said.

Brian Cladoosby, chairman of the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community, one of the tribes that sued the state, said lawmakers must get serious about the funding challenge.

“It’s not like the state didn’t see this train leaving the station 20 years ago – that they would potentially be on the hook for hundreds of millions of dollars …” Cladoosby said. “The legislators better open their eyes to the fact that they are under the gun and that funding this is not an option for them. They have to take it serious and they have to start putting in the resources to make sure they abide by this (court) decision.”

Clearly, the clock is starting to tick a little louder for legislators. The Legislature’s scheduled adjournment date is April 28, and Senate Majority Leader Andy Billig, D-Spokane, noted: “Culverts, it’s a riddle we’ve got to solve.”

The Biden administration said officials historically gave “little, if any, consideration” to impacts on tribal fishing. But some sought deliberately to upend the harvest, according to documents obtained by ProPublica and Oregon Public Broadcasting.

by Tony Schick, Oregon Public Broadcasting
June 25, 2024

Before building dams on the Columbia River, the U.S. guaranteed the tribes of the Pacific Northwest salmon forever. But the system it created to prevent the extinction of salmon has failed, and a way of life is ending.

The Biden administration released a report last week acknowledging “the historic, ongoing, and cumulative damage and injustices” that Columbia River dam construction caused Northwest tribal nations starting in the 20th century, including decimation of the salmon runs that Indigenous people were entitled to by government treaty.

Across 73 pages, the report from the U.S. Department of the Interior concludes “the government afforded little, if any, consideration to the devastation the dams would bring to Tribal communities, including to their cultures, sacred sites, economies, and homes.”

But here’s what’s not in the report: The injuries to Native people were not just an unforeseen byproduct of federal dam building. They were, in fact, taken into account at the time. And federal leaders considered that damage a good thing.

In government documents from the 1940s and 1950s, obtained by Oregon Public Broadcasting and ProPublica, government officials openly discussed what they called “the Indian problem” on the Columbia River, referring to the tribes’ fisheries that were protected under federal treaties. At times, they characterized the destruction of the last major tribal fishery as a benefit that dam construction would bring.

The archival government records were released to Columbia River treaty tribes several years ago under the Freedom of Information Act. They were first made public by OPB and ProPublica in March and April episodes of the podcast “Salmon Wars.”

The documents reveal that the government’s 1950s era of dam building on the Columbia was marked not by a failure to consider tribal impacts, but rather by a well-informed and intentional disregard for Native people.

“These documents shine a spotlight on a historic wrong” U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley, an Oregon Democrat, said in a statement to OPB and ProPublica. “The government’s actions wiped out tribal communities, houses, villages, and traditional hunting and fishing sites with thousands of years of history.”

In response to emails detailing what the documents contained, Merkley said he would push the federal government to develop new tribal villages to replace the Indigenous fishing settlements that the dams flooded out.

U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, a fellow Oregon Democrat, said he looked forward to working with tribes and the federal government to “to repair that shameful past.”

The Interior Department’s new report “writes yet one more painful chapter in the awful and deceitful history of federal decisions that willfully ignored Tribal communities’ rights and humanity,” Wyden said in an emailed statement.

What’s Left Out
The report does not mention any of the discussion from government officials previously reported by OPB and ProPublica.

A spokesperson for the Department of the Interior declined to comment when emailed the documents and asked whether the department was aware of them.

“We have nothing further to add beyond what’s in the extensive report,” press secretary Giovanni Rocco said in an email.

The report is a component of a recent 10-year agreement between the White House and tribes to restore endangered Columbia River Basin salmon populations.

Northwest tribes lauded the report as a long-overdue accounting of harms and a demonstration of the current administration’s commitment to listen to tribes and do right by them.

“The analysis highlights the many different ways the dams have impacted our cultures, lifestyles, diets, and economies and it got this information directly from the tribal people who have been affected,” Corinne Sams, chair of the Columbia River Intertribal Fish Commission, said in an emailed statement. “By listening to and including these testimonies, interviews, and statements, the federal government has taken tribes into consideration on this topic from a relationship of respect and willingness to learn.”

Salmon are estimated to have once totaled more than 10 million in the Columbia River, and they were central to the way of life for many tribes across the river basin. People fished along the river and its many tributaries in what are now Oregon, Washington, Idaho and parts of Canada for thousands of years. Salmon were a fixture of Indigenous people’s diet, religion and commercial trade.

Now, the river system’s salmon hover around 1 million. The decline is attributed largely to dams and other habitat loss stemming from development, along with overfishing.

Documents show government officials in the 20th century came to view the Native presence on the river as a detriment to the government’s own plans for hydropower – and harmful to the fish themselves.

In one memo from 1951, Sam Hutchinson, the acting regional director for the Bureau of Fisheries, summarized a conversation about the anticipated impact of The Dalles Dam, which ultimately drowned the tribes’ last major fishery, at Celilo Falls, when it was completed in 1957.

Hutchinson wrote, “I stated that the beneficial effects would compensate for the detrimental conditions that exist there at present.”

One of those benefits, according to Hutchinson: “The Indian commercial fishery would be eliminated and more fish would reach the spawning grounds in better condition.”

The successor agency to the Bureau of Fisheries, which is now a part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, declined through a spokesperson to comment on Hutchinson’s historical remarks.

Hutchinson’s sentiment was also documented in meeting minutes from a 1947 committee of state, federal and local governments about future dam plans.

“We get up above and we run into the Indian problem at Celilo and other places. They are allowed to fish at will,” said Milo Moore, director of what was then called the Washington Department of Fisheries, according to the minutes. He said the tribes’ fishing made it difficult to maintain a constant supply of fish for the department’s own purposes. The state agency’s role included protecting and promoting the commercial and sport fisheries downriver, whose participants were predominantly white.

The head of the Port of Vancouver at the time, Frank Pender, also told federal officials of “the Indian problem” and said of tribal fishing, “certainly we don’t want it to stand in the way of the development of our own way of life.”

At one point during the proceedings, a man named Wilfred Steve was introduced as “our public relations officer for the Department of Fisheries and the Indians,” meeting minutes say. Steve acknowledged “these dams are going along and they are going to destroy their very life, the essence of life of these various tribes.”

Later in his remarks, the public relations officer praised the potential of education programs to assimilate Native people and stated “we hope that there will be no Indians.” He recommended paying the tribes in exchange for flooding their lands and destroying their fisheries.

Like the others quoted in the documents, Steve is now deceased.

Paltry Restitution

Randy Settler, a Yakama Nation fisherman whose family history of salmon fishing was previously documented by OPB and ProPublica, said the money his family received in exchange for the dam flooding Celilo and other tribal lands amounted to roughly $3,200 per individual.

After dam construction, Congress and agency officials created programs to boost fishing opportunities that involved stocking the river with massive numbers of fish.

The archival government documents detail how these programs were used to justify allowing the dams to block the migration of native salmon. However, 99% of the stocked fish were almost entirely aimed at the fishing grounds below the dams that were used predominantly by white fishermen.

“It was kind of like what happened to the buffalo,” Settler told OPB and ProPublica during the initial reporting for “Salmon Wars.” “If they could rid the natural food of those tribes that they were dependent upon, they could weaken the tribes and get them to stop going across their ancestral territories. They would be more confined to their reservation lands where they could be controlled.”

The Biden administration has promised tribes it will restore wild salmon populations. As part of the 10-year agreement it signed with tribes, which includes a pause on any lawsuits over the dam system, the White House announced a plan to invest heavily in tribal-led salmon restoration and energy projects that could potentially replace the power from some hydroelectric dams. President Joe Biden also signed a memorandum calling for federal agencies to prioritize salmon recovery and to review the work to make sure they’re doing enough.

InvestigateWest: 'The Federal Government Just Acknowledged the Harm Its Dams Have Caused Tribes. Here’s What It Left Out.' article link

by Emily Greenberg
Journal Reporter
Jan 31, 2015

What started as a petition to be submitted to Washington state congressional representatives will soon find its way to the nation’s capital.

Southern Resident Killer Whale Chinook Salmon Initiative, an organization formed recently by San Juan islanders, is petitioning for removal of the lower four Snake River dams. The group wants the dams removed to help recover the beleaguered southern resident orca population that rely heavily on chinook salmon for food. The dams are located in southeast Washington.

The population of the southern residents sits at 78 whales, a 30-year low.

“The orcas are starving,” said Sharon Grace, organizer of Salmon Initiative. “Breaching the Snake River dams is the most effective means to provide food to the orcas.”

The group’s petition for removal of the Snake River dams was launched on the petition platform Change.org in mid-December. As of Jan. 26, it’s been signed by  more than 8,500 supporters.

The petition has gained momentum quickly, which attracted the attention of two major organizations headed to Washington D.C. to lobby for the same cause.

To push for removal of the Snake River dams, the local Salmon Initiative is now working with Save Our Wild Salmon, a coalition of conservation organizations and businesses, and Patagonia, the outdoor clothing company with a focus on conservation.

The plight of the orcas, brought to the surface by Salmon Initiative’s petition, will be presented in D.C. by Save Our Wild Salmon and Patagonia alongside other critical information.

The southern resident orca population was declared endangered in 2005, and the National Marine Fisheries Service lists lack of food as one of the major threats to orca survival. There were four orca deaths in 2014 including a pregnant female, J-32, and a newborn calf, L-120.

According to the Center for Whale Research, upon necropsy of J-32’s carcass, her blubber was observed as thin and dry of oil, consistent with inadequate diet for an extended period.

“Science has confirmed that the orcas rely heavily on Snake and Columbia Rivers’ salmon,” Save Our Wild Salmon Executive Director Joseph Bogaard said. “Salmon numbers have plummeted in the last decade. There’s a lot of reasons to take this seriously, and orcas are one more reason.”

Linking orca survival to the troubled salmon populations could be the tipping point needed to initiate the dams’ removal. Treaty obligations to First Nation Tribes in the Columbia River Basin is another main component of why the coalition is pushing for dam removal.

According to Boggard, “spill” tactics applied during the salmon migratory season is proof that dam removal would improve salmon stocks. Spill sends water over the dams when the bulk of the fish migrate, mimicking the natural flow of the river. When implemented, more fish survive the migration, he said.

The salmon coalition and Patagonia are sending representatives to Washington, D.C. in the last week of January to screen the film “Damnation” and lobby for removal of the Snake River dams. “Damnation” chronicles the removal of the Elwha River dam.

The film, which was produced by Patagonia, featured Jim Wadell, a civil engineer retired from the Army Corp of Engineers.

Wadell will represent Patagonia in D.C. and present the facts in regard to the lower four Snake River dams no longer being economically viable. Samantha Mace will represent Save Our Wild Salmon and focus on the effects the dams have on salmon. In their testimonies, both will include the  perilous condition of the southern residents and present the petition put forth by Salmon Initiative.

Mace and Wadell will meet with congress and other federal organizations, including the White House Council on Environmental Quality.

Wadell was a project manager for a dam study conducted by the Army Corps of Engineers in Walla Walla, Wash., in 2000. The study would determine if the lower four snake river dams should be removed for salmon population recovery.

It was determined that the dams should be breached in order to recover salmon, but there were gross overestimates for the cost of removal and underestimates in the cost of keeping and maintaining the dams, Wadell said. These factors have prevented the dams from being removed for the last 15 years.

“I can’t believe they want to hang on to these dams when it’s costing this much money,” he said. “Save money, save salmon, save orcas. It’s implausible to think the state of Washington would allow these creatures to go extinct.”

In the last year-and-a-half Wadell has studied the economic effects of the lower four Snake River dams. What he found suggests that the original calculations were off, and the dams are operating at a deficit. He said removing the dams would encourage new enterprises and recreational opportunities, and ultimately benefit the economy by up to $150 million per year.

If salmon populations are not recovered and the southern resident orcas meet their demise due to lack of food, negative economic impacts of keeping the dams will trickle up to San Juan County.

Grace is excited to have such strong organizations backing the same initiative, and hopeful that meetings in D.C. prove to be beneficial. For now the local Salmon Initiative is posting flyers around town directing people to the petition, and educating the public on the connection between the Snake River dams and orca survival.

“Those dams will come down,” she said. “They’re old. They don’t make ecological sense. Whether or not they will come down in time for the orcas is the question.”

For more information, visit the Salmon Initiative Facebook page atwww.facebook.com/SRKW.CSI or email srkw.salmoninitiative@gmail.com. The petition is atwww.tinyurl.com/mvazpbh.

http://www.islandsweekly.com/news/290382191.html

From the desk of Gilly Lyons, April 23, 2014

We’re not sure if this has ever happened before: all 26 members of the Northwest congressional delegation – from all four states, both chambers of Congress, and both sides of the aisle – signed a letter to President Obama last month, urging timely action on the United States’ efforts to renegotiate the Columbia River Treaty with Canada. The letter underscores the need for the State Department’s active engagement on Treaty negotiations within the next few months in order to ensure that the Northwest’s Regional Recommendation for Treaty modernization can move forward in 2015:

“In our view, it is essential that the Administration now advance this work through discussions with Canada to ensure that a post-2024 Treaty better reflects the interests of our constituents in the region and in the United States as a whole….We agree that it is critical that this process move forward in a timely fashion in order to best position the United States for a positive outcome in future discussions with Canada.”

While the delegation’s letter is silent on specific aspects of the Regional Recommendation – such as the need to consider ecosystem function as part of the Treaty’s purposes – its call for timely action on Treaty renegotiation is great news for the Northwest and all who care about modernizing this 50-year-old framework so that it provides the benefits and protections that the Columbia Basin needs in the 21st Century.

With the entire Northwest delegation on board, we sure hope the Obama Administration is listening.

You can read the full letter here.

Friday evening, Sept. 8 and Saturday, Sept. 9 2017

Chief Timothy State Park, Clarkston, WA

Last year more than 400 people from throughout the Pacific Northwest came together on water in support of the return of a free-flowing lower Snake River.  This year, river, salmon and orca advocates, tribal members, anglers, and others will gather again on the river to Free the Snake.

Here’s a chance to experience the lower Snake River for yourself and learn more about why removing four dams is so critical to restoring salmon, orcas, lamprey; and why it is necessary to honor treaties with Native American tribes.  These four dams impede salmon from reaching the largest piece of intact salmon habitat left in the lower 48, thousands of miles of pristine river habitat across millions of acres in Idaho, northeast Oregon and southeast Washington. Meanwhile, the benefits these dams have declined dramatically while their costs to both salmon and taxpayers have grown.  

The need for dam removal grows more urgent every day.  The Columbia-Snake basin has suffered huge salmon losses due to dam impacts.  This year, we are witnessing the lowest return of wild Snake River steelhead seen in decades.  It’s time to stand up for our rivers and salmon and bring back the abundant runs our rivers can support if given half a chance.
 
This year’s route begins at Chief Timothy State Park Saturday morning near Clarkston and heads downriver for 3 miles and then back to the park.  Speakers, music and camping Friday and Saturday nights.  Friday will feature tribal speakers followed by Spokane’s Folkinception.  Saturday’s after-celebration will include music featuring Smackout Pack and Atlas Hugged.

​Join us September 8 and 9, 2017 when we'll say with one clear voice: it's time to remove four outdated, low-value, deadbeat dams on the lower Snake River. It's time to free the Snake!

To register and to get all the details, scroll down this page and visit: www.freethesnake.com

Questions: Contact Sam Mace at sam@wildsalmon.org, 509-863-5696

Note: new launch site and destination for 2017!

CAMPSITES: We have reserved more than 60 campsites at Chief Timothy Park for the evening of Friday, Sept. 8 and Saturday, Sept. 9. All tent sites and RV sites are first-come, first-served. You do not need to make a reservation with the park. Flotilla volunteers will collect $10 per tent and $20 per RV (per night) at the park entrance to help cover the cost of reserving the park. Cash only.

WATERCRAFT: If you need to rent a watercraft, these places may be of help. It is your responsibility to contact, rent, pick up and return all equipment. Kayaks, canoes, SUPs and rafts are acceptable watercraft. Keep in mind this is slack water with little current. All boaters must wear a personal floation device. Please arrange watercraft rental before Saturday, Sept. 9.
 
Whitman College Outdoor Program:
Walla Walla Washington 509-527-5965
 
Washington State University Recreation:
Pullman, Washington 509-335-1892
 
University of Idaho Outdoor Program:
Moscow, Idaho 208-885-6170
 
Lewis-Clark State College Campus Recreation:
Lewiston, Idaho 208-792-2664
 
Tri-State Outfitters:
Moscow, Idaho 208-882-4555
(store locations in Lewiston, Coeur d'Alene, Moses Lake)

DIRECTIONS:
To Chief Timothy from Lewiston, Idaho and Clarkston, Washington:  
Take Highway 12 west for 8.2 miles from downtown Clarkston. Turn right at Silcot Grade Road and cross a short bridge to Silcot Island and Chief Timothy Park.
Friday, Sept. 8, 2017

SCHEDULE - Friday evening, Sept. 8 and Saturday, Sept. 9:

September 8, 2017:

5 p.m.
A guest speaker and live music from Folkinception at Chief Timothy Park. Flotilla participants are encouraged to join for camping both Friday and Saturday nights. Camping is first-come, first-served..

Saturday, Sept. 9, 2017

8 a.m.
Meet at Chief Timothy Park boat launch parking lot in Clarkston, Wash. There will be parking lot volunteers to greet people, facilitate unloading watercraft and parking vehicles. Look for flotilla registration table to sign waivers. Coffee and light breakfast foods will be provided. A flotilla logistics and water safety team talk will follow.
 
10 a.m.
Launch boats. You are responsible for your own water, snacks, etc. See Flotilla Essentials above. This year we will paddle 3 miles downstream from the park through several beautiful portions of the Snake River Canyon. Round-trip paddle will be 6 miles.

3 p.m.
Return to Chief Timothy Park and eat lunch. There will be food for sale, but participants are welcome to bring food, too.The remainder of the afternoon is for conversation, relaxation and reflection. For those who are camping at the park it will be a good time to set up camp.

5 p.m.
Live music by Smackout Pack, Atlas Hugged and additional festivities at Chief Timothy Park. Camping available.

You can also visit: freethesnake.com for updates and further information.