News

By ERIC BARKER of the Tribune

November 15, 2015

A pair of studies funded by two Northwest environmental groups conclude the four lower Snake River dams are needed neither to keep the region's commerce moving nor its lights on.

Carried out by Anthony M. Jones of the Boise economic consulting firm Rocky Mountain Econometrics, the first study targets navigation on the lower Snake River and notes commerce made possible by the dams has been in steady decline and at best can only hope to stabilize at a fraction of former levels. Jones writes that container traffic on the lower Snake River has been eliminated and petroleum products have nearly disappeared. With new competition from rail, he said wood products and wheat and barley are down from historic levels, but may stabilize at current levels.

"The long-term high forecast for tonnage on the lower Snake River looks to be about 2.7 million tons," he wrote, and noted the low forecast is similar.

The study was released before the Port of Lewiston announced this week that a small amount of container traffic would return to the river.

At the high point of river transportation, when more goods were shipped by barge and the price difference between rail and river shipping was greater, barging produced a benefit of about $20 million per year. He said based on current shipping prices and river transportation tonnage, those who choose to move products by barge instead of rail save about 2.4 cents per ton, or about $7.6 million annually.

Jones calculated it costs the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers about $227 million a year to maintain the dams, and attributed about $17.8 million of that to the transportation system. When the $7.6 million barging benefit is divided by the operation costs, it works out to about a 43-cent benefit for every dollar spent.

However, that calculation doesn't include the massive amount of money spent annually, $782.3 million last year, to mitigate the harmful effects dams on the Snake and Columbia rivers have on salmon and steelhead. Jones attributed 25 percent of those mitigation costs to Snake River dams, which lowered the barging benefit to 21 cents for every dollar spent.

"Container traffic is gone, petroleum is gone, wheat and barley is down by a third from decades ago," he said. "The products being shipped have either stopped outright or are in a state of decline, and the operation and mitigation costs are going up at something like 5 percent a year. That is not a pretty picture in the business world."

Put another way, he said "the cost is so high, if you shut the dams down today you would save enough money to pick up the (rail) shipping costs of everything that moves on the lower Snake River and still have money in the bank."

By his calculations, the corps could save about $10 million a year by removing the dams and paying farmers the $7.6 million they now save a year by using the river for transportation.

Jones also found that the small percentage of the Northwest's hydroelectric power produced at the dams could be easily replaced. In fact, he said the Northwest has a surplus of power today. Removing the dams would still leave the region with a healthy surplus of energy, he said. He even calculated that residential power bills would decline by 6 cents a month if the ongoing maintenance costs to turbines at the dams were eliminated by breaching.

The navigation study was funded by Idaho Rivers United of Boise, and the power portion was commissioned by Save Our Wild Salmon at Seattle. Both groups advocated for breaching the dams. Kevin Lewis, conservation director for Idaho Rivers United, said dam supporters and the corps have been saying for decades that the dams provide a benefit to the region.

"These reports and others clearly show that such assertions are less than honest," he said. "And while we've been enduring the government's rhetoric, endangered wild salmon, Puget Sound orcas, and Northwest fishing communities have suffered as collateral damage."

Lt. Col. Timothy Vail, commander of the corps' Walla Walla District, recently said the dams "provide a great return on investment" to the region and the country. Not surprisingly, the groups and the corps use different numbers to arrive at their conclusions. According to Vail, the dams cost only $62 million to operate and maintain and provide $200 million a year of carbon-free electricity.

"As we face future challenges with optimizing fish recovery, ensuring the efficient flow of goods through the Snake River navigation channel and providing low-cost energy, I am confident that, with the support of the American people, we will continue to ensure the Snake River dams provide outstanding value to the nation," Vail said in an October news release.

The navigation study is available at http://bit.ly/1j026xc and the power study can be found at http://bit.ly/1lnSiyT.

(Correction: The transportation report was funded by the Save Our wild Salmon Coalition, and the energy report was funded by Idaho Rivers United.)

For more information on these two reports, click here to view the SOS/IRU press release.

Analysis says removal of lower Snake River dams would net $8.6 billion; critics call report a ‘slap in the face’ to agricultural economy

July 31, 2019

By Eric Barker of the Lewiston Morning Tribune

A new economic analysis indicates that the benefits that would be derived from breaching the lower Snake River dams as a means to recover threatened salmon and steelhead populations outweigh the costs.

The “Lower Snake River Dams Economic Tradeoffs of Removal” was compiled by ECONorthwest for the Seatle-based Vulcan Inc., a company founded by Paul Allen, the late co-founder of Microsoft. It acknowledges substantive costs associated with breaching Ice Harbor, Lower Monumental, Little Goose and Lower Granite dams.

Those costs included making it more expensive for grain growers to get their crops to market and the loss of power generated at the dams. However, the study says the benefits of reducing the extinction risk for Snake River salmon and steelhead, combined with increases in river-based recreation over reservoir recreation, plus the jolt of spending and jobs that would accompany the work to physically remove the dams, would exceed costs by $8.6 billion.

“The Snake River dams provide valuable services; however, a careful exploration of the range of economic tradeoffs on publicly available data suggests the benefits of removal exceed the costs, and thus society would be better off without the dams,” wrote project director Adam Domanski of ECONorthwest in the report’s executive summary.

Domanski said people are willing to pay as much as $40 a year more for electricity if it means salmon and steelhead would be saved. He said dam removal pencils out even at the modest cost of about $8 more a year in electricity costs for the average household. The report acknowledges that replacing the power generated at the dams could lead to a modest increase in greenhouse gas emissions.

Kerry McHugh, manager of corporate communications for Vulcan Inc., said the company has a history of tackling complex issues and noted the last rigorous look at the costs and benefits of the dams was done by the Army Corps of Engineers in 2002.

“Our goal in commissioning the report is to inform the public on this important regional issue,” she said.

The Bonneville Power Administration that markets electricity generated at federal dams on the Snake and Columbia rivers would lose revenue if the dams were breached, but the agency would also experience lower costs to maintain the dams and reductions in costs associated with mitigating for the harm the dams cause to fish.

While the costs associated from a loss of barge transportation would be steep, Domanski said they could be mitigated. Grain shippers would likely switch to rail or truck, or a combination of both, to get their crops to ports at the Tri-Cities, Portland and Seattle. That would put strains on the rail and highway systems and investments would be required to increase the capacity of those systems, according to the report. Shippers within 150 miles of the river system would pay more in fuel costs and shipping rates, and the region would see more traffic on highways, an increase in trucking-related accidents and more wear and tear on highways.

“The policy challenge should be trying to figure out a way to mitigate or compensate those costs,” Domanski said.

Dam removal would increase survival of juvenile salmon and steelhead as they migrate to the ocean and, in the long run, increase spawning habitat for fall chinook, according to the report.

The study was panned by Reps. Cathy McMorris Rodgers and Dan Newman, both Republicans representing eastern Washington, as well as agriculture and shipping groups.

Those groups issued this joint statement: “This privately-funded study is a slap in the face of our state’s agricultural economy. It is another example of Seattle-based interests seeking to disrupt our way of life in central and eastern Washington.

Increases in carbon emissions, higher electricity bills and billions of dollars in infrastructure improvements that would be needed for irrigation and transportation hardly come across as a ‘public benefit.’ This report, like many others before it, fails to consider the consequences of dam breaching for communities and industries throughout the Northwest.”

The value of the dams, some of which have been in place for more than 50 years, versus the harm they cause to wild populations of Snake River spring, summer and fall chinook, steelhead and sockeye salmon has been a contentious issue for nearly three decades. Salmon advocates have long pressed for dam removal and say it is the surest way to save the fish that are protected by the Endangered Species Act.

Conversely, dam advocates say the dams are not primarily to blame for salmon and steelhead declines and removing them would be too costly. The federal government is in the midst of a yearslong look at the issue and is expected to release an environmental impact statement and economic analysis on the issue next year.

Among the highest costs associated with breaching identified by the ECONorthwest study would be replacing the carbon-free hydro power produced at the dams, as well as the cost to actually remove the dams and to restore the formally impounded areas, according to the report.

But it found that a system of locks at the dams that allows barge transportation between the Tri-Cities and Lewiston that is used by many but not all farmers to get their crops to oversees markets operates at a loss. It also said the irrigation system the dams provide, mostly near the Tri-Cities, could be upgraded without substantial costs.

Kristin Meira, executive director of the Pacific Northwest Waterways Association, said dam removal would “devastate towns, businesses and families,” in the region. She said the region should wait for the federal government’s analysis of dams and salmon before passing judgment.

“We are nearing the end of a tremendously thorough, science-based effort to work toward salmon recovery in the Columbia-Snake River System,” she said. “Federal agencies are already studying the river system, and that includes breaching Snake River dams. With findings expected in early 2020, it is prudent for all of us to keep our eyes on the prize — science-based salmon recovery — and not get distracted with advocacy reports that have the appearance of, but not the facts of, science.”

Officials at the Port of Clarkston criticized the study for giving short shrift to the economic benefits of the cruise boat industry in the Lewiston-Clarkston Valley and said the fish can be saved without breaching the dams.

“Fish and dams are both critical to our valley and the Pacific Northwest,” Port Manager Wanda Keefer said. “We do not need an either/or approach to these issues. We need solutions that support salmon recovery, carbon-free hydropower, low-carbon and safe river transport, and recreational opportunities for all ages.”

Sam Mace, of the Save Our Wild Salmon Coalition, said the study is valuable for the benefits that it shows would come with dam breaching, but she said it excluded some of the most obvious.

“The study doesn’t take into account all the additional jobs that would be created in central Idaho and coastal communities and communities up and down the river from restored salmon. There are a lot of other benefits the study didn’t take into account,“ she said.

Diminishing fish returns on the Snake-Columbia river systems are sparking renewed calls for taking out the dams

By ERIC BARKER, October 22, 2017

More than a decade ago, the looming effects of climate change convinced one of the most respected salmon biologists in the Pacific Northwest to change his position on dam breaching.

Don Chapman, who had taught many of the fisheries biologists in the region as a professor at the University of Idaho, ruffled fins when he took a job consulting for the hydropower industry and staunchly backed keeping the lower Snake River dams.

It was a position in contrast with the beliefs of many of his former students, who endorsed breaching Ice Harbor, Lower Monumental, Little Goose and Lower Granite dams as the best thing that could be done to save endangered sockeye and threatened spring and summer chinook and steelhead.

Chapman later changed his stance, saying that a warming climate with the dams in place was one obstacle too many for the fish to overcome. That was 2005, and nothing that has happened in the intervening dozen years has eroded the strength of his argument.

"It's the biggest threat they are facing, it's what I call the fifth horseman of the apocalypse and it's coming galloping at us," he said recently in a telephone interview from his home in McCall.

Dam breaching on the table
The northern Pacific Ocean, which naturally flips between conditions that are alternately good and bad for salmon, is in the midst of a bad spell, and salmon and steelhead runs are in decline. The bountiful returns of hatchery fish of the recent past and modest gains made by protected wild fish have been replaced with returns that led to truncated fishing seasons, a decline in wild fish abundance and renewed calls for dam breaching.

Scientists say climate change, by altering weather patterns, has made the bad cycles worse and the good times less so. To wit: the infamous "blob," a mysterious mass of warm water off the coast of the Pacific Northwest that started to form in 2013 and gained full strength in 2015, before fading last year. It hammered juvenile salmon and steelhead, robbing them of critical food sources and making the ocean more habitable to warm-water predators from the south.

Just as the blob was hitting its most damaging phase, an unusually dry and warm Pacific Northwest winter was followed by a scorching summer. Rivers saw record or near-record low flows and soaring water temperatures that devastated sockeye salmon in particular.

The hostile fresh water conditions and the blob also hit Snake River steelhead and spring and summer chinook. The 2016 return of A-run fish - composed primarily of steelhead that entered the ocean a year earlier during the peak of the bad conditions - tanked. This year, a disappointing spring and summer chinook run ended fishing seasons early, and now A-runs and B-runs are faltering.

In August, steelhead seasons that allow anglers to catch and keep the hard fighting sea-run rainbow trout were canceled in favor of catch-and-release regulations. Harvest, with lower-than-normal bag limits, was restored last week following a late push by mostly A-run steelhead destined for the Snake, Salmon, Grande Ronde and Imnaha rivers.

Climate scientists have said the hostile conditions seen in 2015 could become commonplace in the coming decades.

"I think this summer in many ways was a climate change stress test on Northwest salmon habitat," Nate Mantua, a climate and fisheries scientist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Santa Cruz, Calif., said in 2015. "You could see which runs were especially vulnerable to a situation with much higher temperatures, much reduced snowpack in our mountains and about average precipitation for Northwest watersheds."

All of which begs the question, in the face of a warming climate and what appears to be a period of bad ocean conditions, is the strategy employed by the federal government over the past two decades to save Snake River spring summer chinook, fall chinook and steelhead up to the task?

Chapman and many others say no and that removing the dams remains a critical step to preserve the wild fish.

"The more fish that we deliver in as good a condition as possible to this poor ocean the better," said Joseph Bogaard, executive director of Save Our Wild Salmon in Seattle.

The federal government is expected to take a new look at dam removal. U.S. District Court Judge Michael Simon of Portland all but ordered it to do so when he overturned the federal government's latest plan to reconcile dam operations with the needs of the fish.
Simon is directing the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers along with its partners, the Bonneville Power Administration and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, to subject the dams to National Environmental Policy Act scrutiny via an environmental impact statement and has asked all options be on the table.

Habitat work still needed
Much but not all of the salmon recovery efforts of the past two decades focused on juvenile fish. Billions of dollars have been spent on efforts to improve spawning and rearing habitat in headwaters of the basin and to make changes at dams so the fish can pass them at higher rates of survival and in better condition.

There has been some success. Cooling flows released from Dworshak Reservoir on the North Fork of the Clearwater helped to mitigate temperatures for juvenile fish in Lower Granite Reservoir. But the cooling effect largely dissipates by the time the water reaches the downstream side of Lower Granite Dam.

Removable spillway weirs have made it easier for the fish to find their way over the dams, but the warm slackwater reservoirs remain and they are increasingly hurting returning adults.

Even so, many say the focus on headwater habitat work was and remains desperately needed. David Johnson, director of Nez Perce Tribal Fisheries, points to legacy land-use practices such as clear-cutting and road building that have degraded fish habitat in parts of the Clearwater and Salmon river basins. The tribe has worked with money provided by the Bonneville Power Administration on things like replacing old culverts with bigger pipes that allow fish to reach formerly blocked spawning grounds, obliterating old logging roads that cause erosion, restoring flood plains that keep water cool and filter out sediment, and planting brush and trees along denuded stream sides.

"Using the (Bonneville Power Administration's) fish and wildlife program to improve juvenile habitat on those streams was a great opportunity and it was a good thing to do, you can't deny that whatsoever. The hatchery programs coming into full swing like they have, provided harvest for folks and made it a reality like it wasn't really in the 1980s and 1990s," Johnson said. "It's just, boy the things we are seeing - it's really kind of scary things that are happening - and it's scary to me because it's going to take a huge lift for our country and our society to kind of address it."

As proof for the need for bold actions, some point to poor salmon returns to areas where the habitat is in pristine condition. Rick Williams, an independent fisheries scientist based in Eagle, cites the Middle Fork of the Salmon River in the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness Area. Spring and summer chinook runs there have produced an average smolt-to-adult return rate of 0.9 percent since 2000. That is below the 2 percent needed for the run to simply replace itself annually and well below the 4 to 6 percent biologists say is needed for the runs to grow.

Ritchie Graves oversees efforts to improve salmon passage on Snake and Columbia river dams for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. He said salmon recovery to date, combined with previous good ocean conditions, helped boost the runs far above the numbers seen when the fish were listed.
That could change quickly and he compares it to the hit savings can take if you lose a job or suffer serious expenses.

"If you know you are going to have withdrawals on your bank account you better have more money in there to begin with," Graves said. "All that means is you can withstand one or two or three bad ocean years before getting down to the lower level."

But he also believes continuing to work on spawning habitat is important. There have been years when the capacity of headwater streams to support more spawning adults and their offspring has been in question. A good run might lead to more spawning and more juveniles but in many cases those juveniles must compete with each other for limited food and space in their natal streams.

"A lot of the habitat work is aimed at removing those problems so we have capacity of generating more smolts," Graves said.

More may be needed and he acknowledged that fresh water remains the focus over dam removal. But Graves doesn't dispute breaching would improve fish survival.

"Dams are not good for fish. My agency has never said dams are good for fish. We have worked to try to minimize those effects the best we can. Will fish be better off without dams? I think the answer is yes but how much better?"

A recent study, still in draft form, by the Fish Passage Center determined that dramatic increase in spill at Snake and Columbia river dams would produce a 2 to 2.5 percent increase in Snake River spring and summer chinook and breaching the lower Snake dams combined with increased spill in the lower Columbia would garner up to a fourfold increase in fish returns.

When good ocean conditions have aligned with good water years, many wild fish stocks have exceeded the 2 percent smolt-to-adult return levels. But Williams said salmon recovery policies can't rely on the best of conditions.

"This is like a big slot machine. When it comes up all sevens or cherries everything works but how often can you count on that? At the other end of that, there is the possibility of coming up with all Xs."

His prescription calls for employing fixes that empower nature, not those like hatcheries that substitute technology for natural processes. That means doing things such as dramatically increasing spill at Snake and Columbia river dams and planning for a future without the dams on the lower Snake River.

"My gut feeling is if nothing is changed on the lower Snake River dams the Idaho fish won't persist long term."

By Eric Barker

July 26, 2019

Nez Perce follows suit with two groups by suing over water quality agreement in regard to Hells Canyon dams. A recent deal between environmental regulators in Oregon and Idaho that promised to advance Idaho Power’s attempt to relicense its three-dam Hells Canyon Complex is facing a pair of lawsuits. This week, the Nez Perce Tribe and the environmental groups Pacific Rivers and Idaho Rivers United challenged, in two separate lawsuits, Oregon’s water quality certification of the dams for what they say is a failure to provide fish passage and adequately insure water quality standards for temperature and mercury will be met. The Nez Perce Tribe filed suit against the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality in Oregon’s Marion County Circuit Court while the environmental groups filed their case against the agency in Oregon’s Multnomah County Circuit Court. Idaho Power is seeking a new 50-year license for the dams that were built between 1958 and 1967. The dams provide 70 percent of the power the company sells to 530,000 customers in southern Idaho and eastern Oregon. When they were built, the dams lacked adequate fish passage and wiped out 80 percent of the spawning habitat for Snake River fall chinook and eliminated other salmon and steelhead runs from reaches above the projects. To compensate, the power company agreed to fund salmon and steelhead hatchery programs downstream of the dams. But the reach above the dams remains identified as critical fall chinook habitat and, despite its degraded habitat and water quality, could one day see reintroduction of the fish. The company’s original license to operate the three-dam complex expired in 2005. Ever since, the company has been in the process of seeking a new license from the Federal Energy Regulator Committee and operating on temporary licenses issued on a year-to-year basis. Key to getting a new license is securing state water quality certification stating the dams are in compliance with section 401 of the federal Clean Water Act and Idaho and Oregon state water quality standards. For years, the two states that share a border along the Snake River in Hells Canyon took different approaches to water quality certification. Oregon had insisted that the dams be outfitted with fish passage equipment that would allow salmon, namely fall chinook, to migrate upstream. Idaho, on the other hand, opposed fish passage measures or the reintroduction of threatened fish species above the dams. Last month, the two states hammered out a water certification agreement that did not include fish passage at the dams but called for the company to spend $400 million on projects designed to improve aquatic habitat and reduce water temperatures on tributaries to the Snake River. Each state’s departments of environmental quality then issued water quality certifications to Idaho Power, allowing the recertification process to proceed. The lawsuits by the tribe and environmental groups contend that Oregon’s certification violates both the Clean Water Act and Oregon statute. Oregon law requires all dams to provide fish passage unless exempted. Neither the state nor the federal government has issued the company an exemption. Rick Eichstaedt, a Spokane-based attorney representing the environmental groups, said they chose to file in Oregon because of the state’s strong fish passage law. Both the tribe and environmental groups also claim slack water behind the dams leads to the conversion of mercury to methylmercury that accumulates in the flesh of fish, which poses health risks to people who eat the fish. They also said the certification does not include concrete assurances that water quality standards for temperature and mercury will be met over the course of a new 50-year license. “The tribe has consistently advocated for the adoption of 401 certifications for this project that are protective of the tribe’s treaty-reserved rights and resources due to the central role water quality plays in the protection of those resources,” said Shannon F. Wheeler, chairman of the Nez Perce Tribal Executive Committee, in a news release. “This in turn helps protect the health and welfare of the tribe’s citizens who exercise their treaty rights in waters within Oregon.” The dams are within the tribe’s historic territory and tribal members once fished for salmon, steelhead, Pacific lamprey and white sturgeon there. The environmental groups say their members enjoy fishing for salmon and steelhead and have a mission to protect and restore rivers, anadromous fish runs and water quality. “Idaho Power has failed to protect the rights of Idahoans in sustaining the important fisheries of the Snake through the proposed actions on the dams it operates,” said Nic Nelson, executive director of Idaho Rivers United at Boise. “Compliance with water quality standards is not optional, and we must take action to preserve the integrity of this river system.” Jennifer Flynt, chief public information officer for the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, said the agency does not comment on pending litigation.

Simpson speaks at two-day conference in western Washington

By Eric Barker
July 8, 2021

SHELTON, Wash. — Rep. Mike Simpson was the only member of the Northwest congressional delegation to attend the first day of the Salmon and Orca Summit here, where all involved expressed the need for urgent action to save the two species intertwined in the culture and natural history of the Pacific Northwest.

The Republican from Idaho has largely been alone since he introduced his $33 billion salmon and dams concept back in February but has won the support of tribes throughout the Pacific Northwest and beyond.

Simpson’s idea, built on breaching the four lower Snake River dams and investing in affected communities and industries, has received scant support from his colleagues in Idaho, Washington and Oregon. Some Republicans, like Reps Cathy McMorris Rodgers and Dan Newhouse of Washington, have attacked the plan, while key Democrats like Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell have given it a cool reception. Murray and Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, sent aides to the two-day conference but did not attend in person.

The Nez Perce and Shoshone Bannock tribes of Idaho, where most Snake River fish are from, have been Simpson’s most ardent supporters, and they in turn have lobbied for and won more tribal support, first from other Columbia River tribes, then the Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians and now the National Congress of American Indians.

The Nez Perce and the Squaxin Island Tribe are playing host to the two-day conference attended by dozens of tribes and designed to garner further political support for the plan, or something like it.

“It’s a challenge politically,” said Leonard Forsman, chairman of the Suquamish Tribe of Washington and president of the Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians. “We have to keep pushing. We have very little time here. We do have the issue of the dams being in Washington, so we need the Washington delegation to get engaged.”

Snake River spring chinook are listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. Analysis by the Nez Perce tribe shows 42 percent of wild chinook populations that spawn in the basin have returned so few spawners over the past four years that they are in are in danger of going extinct, and a study by scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration indicates climate change and warming oceans could drive the fish to blink out by 2060.

Hemene James, a member of the Coeur D’Alene Tribal Council, summed up the high stakes of salmon conservation, describing how dams built decades ago blocked salmon from returning to the homeland of the northern Idaho tribe he represents.

“My people are relegated to getting fish out of the back of a truck,” James said. “All of you who have salmon should be freaking out. Excuse my language, you should be crapping your pants because you don’t want to end up like us.”

Orcas and chinook stitch together otherwise disparate parts of the region. Snake River salmon spawn up to 900 miles from the mouth of the Columbia River in mountain streams that feed the Salmon, Imnaha, Tucannon and Grande Ronde rivers. The country is wild, semi-arid and high above sea level.

The whales, also known as orcas, call the Salish Sea and Puget Sound home but make hunting forays up and down the West Coast of North America, dipping as far south as California and pushing north along the coast of British Columbia.
In the late winter and spring, the two animals often occupy the same waters, the outer shelf off of the mouth of the Columbia River. The chinook, fat after spending two to three years in the ocean, are staging for their upstream journey toward natal spawning streams. The whales are there to feast on the rich and oily flesh of the fish and fatten up after a lean winter.

Both are in trouble. The whales, which number just 74 animals, are listed as endangered. Snake River spring chinook are threatened and have struggled over the past five years. Fewer than 30,000 spring chinook returned to the Snake River this year. While that represents an improvement over the abysmal returns of 2019 and 2020, it is still less than 60 percent of the 10-year average and dominated by unprotected hatchery fish.

Both animals are sacred to the tribes of the Pacific Northwest, who often refer to themselves as salmon people.

“Our history, culture and our lives are intertwined with the life and health of the salmon, the Columbia River and its tributaries and the natural and cultural resources that they sustain,’’ said Virgil Lewis Sr., vice chairman of the Yakama Nation.

Many scientists have concluded the Snake River salmon and steelhead can’t be recovered with the four lower Snake River dams in place. The federal government has determined dam removal offers the best chance for the fish to achieve recovery, but has opted for less costly and controversial measures.

Shannon Wheeler, vice chairman of the Nez Perce Tribe and organizer of the summit, said those other measures, such as habitat restoration, predator control and changes at the dams have proven insufficient.

“A lot of those dials have been turned to the fullest, so there is a need to turn some of the bigger dials. That is what breaching is. Breaching is turning one of the biggest dials out there,” Wheeler said.

Last month, the Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians passed a resolution in support of Simpson’s Columbia Basin Initiative. On Wednesday, the Nez Perce Tribe announced the National Congress of American Indians recently backed a resolution supporting Simpson’s effort.

“It should be clear to the Administration and Northwest delegation that Tribal Nations across America stand united on the need to remove these obstacles that are choking our rivers and causing the extinction of salmon and orca,” said Fawn Sharp, NCAI president, in a news release. “We can no longer stand by and wait for action. Now is the time to ensure that there are resources available to make real changes. Now is the time to restore the Snake River to its free-flowing nature. Now is the time, Mr. President, to honor the treaties that your nation made with ours.”

Simpson spoke at the conference, twice coming to the brink of tears, and said the tribes are instrumental in the effort to win broader support. “The key to this whole thing is you all,” he said. “The Endangered Species Act requires me, I believe, to try to find a solution to this problem, to try to make sure we can actually recover these salmon. What I have learned and come to understand is it’s more than that for you. While you want to restore salmon for the same reason I do — we should not let them go extinct — but you are trying to preserve a history, a culture and a religion. Those are powerful motivating factors.”

Simpson said while a plan to save the fish looks like it may not be included as part of a bill to invest up to $1 trillion in the nation’s infrastructure, he still hopes it can win support before the next election. If the Republicans win back a majority in the House of Representatives, Simpson said any bill forwarding his concept will face long odds.

“I think this would be very hard to pass in a Republican House, so I think this needs to be done in the next year,” he said. “So it’s a lot of work to do.”

If the plan doesn’t move forward in the short term, Wheeler said it would be a setback but not a defeat.

“We are going to continue this fight. We have been fighting for a long time, and we are not going to go away.”

The conference continues at 8 a.m. today.

https://lmtribune.com/northwest/tribes-call-for-action-on-salmon-dams/article_e46b2649-cfea-51b0-a2f0-e1d722a0b4fa.html

President orders cabinet to withdraw from deal in which federal government invested in salmon recovery and study, in exchange for pause on lawsuitsEric Barker, June 12, 2025

President Donald Trump is killing the sweeping agreement that pledged significant investments in salmon recovery and could have paved the way for breaching the four lower Snake River dams.

In a presidential memorandum issued Thursday, Trump directed members of his cabinet to withdraw from a memorandum of agreement between the Biden administration and Columbia River Basin tribes like the Nez Perce.

That pact exchanged a pause in salmon-versus-dams litigation for salmon recovery investments and a series of studies on the best way to replace the hydropower, irrigation and commodity transportation made possible by the dams. While the agreement stopped short of sanctioning dam breaching, it was designed to lay the groundwork for the move.

"My Administration is committed to protecting the American people from radical green agenda policies that make their lives more expensive, and to maximizing the beneficial uses of our existing energy infrastructure and natural resources to generate energy and lower the cost of living," the president said in the memo.

Trump also rescinded Biden’s executive order issued in September of 2023 that called for a “sustained national effort” to honor treaty commitments to the Nez Perce and other tribes by restoring Snake and Columbia river salmon and steelhead to healthy and abundant levels.

"This action tries to hide from the truth. The Nez Perce Tribe holds a duty to speak the truth for the salmon, and the truth is that extinction of salmon populations is happening now," said Shannon Wheeler, chairperson of the Nez Perce Tribe in a news release. "People across the Northwest know this, and people across the nation have supported us in a vision for preventing salmon extinction that would, at the same time, create a stronger and better future for the Northwest."

According to a White House fact sheet published Thursday, “President Trump recognizes the importance of ensuring the future of wildlife populations in the Columbia River Basin while also advancing the country’s energy creation to benefit the American Public,” but it did not elaborate on how to save the imperiled fish.

The deal between Biden and salmon advocates was expected to bring more than $1 billion in federal investments to help recover wild fish in the Snake and Columbia rivers. But it was viewed by dam proponents as an unfair pact for which they had little input.

Hydropower proponents like Kurt Miller, executive director of the Northwest Public Power Association, cheered the move. A news release from his organization said keeping the dams “provides a lifeline for the Northwest’s clean energy economy and its most vulnerable families.” Miller and others claim the agreement was one-sided.

“As someone directly involved in the broader process leading up to the agreement, I can say with confidence that public power utilities — who serve tens of millions of Americans — were deliberately excluded from the negotiations. In short, the MOU was never authorized or endorsed by the people or communities most affected by increasing energy costs.”

Abandoning the agreement will almost surely mean the issue will return to federal court, where litigants have battled for more than 30 years. In each iteration of the case, the salmon advocates have succeeded in convincing federal judges of the inadequacy of the government’s plan to protect 13 runs of threatened and endangered salmon and steelhead, including four runs that return to the Snake River and its tributaries in Idaho, Washington and northeastern Oregon.

Prior to 1850 and the over-exploitation of the runs by commercial fishing along with habitat damage, and followed by development of the hydropower system, as many as 16 million wild fish returned to the Columbia River Basin annually. By the 1990s, that number dipped to about 1.3 million, according to the Northwest Power and Conservation Council. Over the past two decades the return has climbed to 2.3 million.

Most returning adult fish are now from hatcheries and Snake River wild spring chinook, steelhead, sockeye and fall chinook are all protected by the Endangered Species Act.

Scientists have long identified the dams, which have fish ladders for adults and sophisticated fish bypass systems for juveniles, as a significant source of mortality. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration went on record three years ago saying dam breaching is required to restore the runs to abundance.

Breaching would benefit the fish, according to multiple studies, but it would also end tug-and-barge transportation on the lower Snake River and reduce the amount of electricity generated by the federal hydropower system at a time energy demand is rising sharply.

When the Nez Perce and other tribes of the lower Columbia River Basin signed treaties with the federal government, the pacts enshrined in the Constitution protected their rights to fish for salmon at usual and accustomed places. The tribe’s have argued the dams are driving the fish that are central to their culture, well-being, religion and economies to extinction and amount to a breach of their treaty rights.

Chris Wood, president and chief executive officer of Trout Unlimited, called the president’s move a missed opportunity and “a good day for the lawyers.”

“The history of salmon recovery in the Northwest has been driven by court orders and regulations, and what made that agreement unique is that it was collaborative in nature,” he said. “I think it's unfortunate we are not going to give that a shot to work. What it will do is drive people back to the courtroom, and I don’t know how many salmon have been recovered as result of court orders, but I know there has been a tremendous amount of social and economic dislocation as result of that approach.”

Lewiston Morning Tribune: Trump spikes Northwest salmon agreement

May 1, 2019

By Eric Barker

Process would examine how to help farmers and others if breaching were someday approved

A boat makes its way up the Snake River toward Lower Granite Dam in this June 2018 file photo. The budget passed earlier this week by the Washington Legislature includes more than $700,000 to study the effects of dam removal. Washington will lead an as-of-yet undefined process looking at how to help farmers, shippers, utilities and others if the four lower Snake River dams were removed to help recover threatened chinook salmon populations and Puget Sound orcas that feed on them. The final two-year budget passed by Washington legislators this week included $375,000 each in fiscal years 2020 and 2021 for Gov. Jay Inslee’s office to contract with a “neutral third party” to set up and run the process. The Army Corps of Engineers, U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and Bonneville Power Administration are collectively writing an environmental impact statement on the operation of federal dams on the Snake and Columbia rivers and how they affect threatened and endangered salmon and steelhead. The document, a draft of which is due to be released next spring, will include an alternative that looks at removing one or more of the four lower Snake River dams. Instead of trying to determine if the dams should be breached, the Washington process will focus on learning how the state’s residents and businesses may be harmed by breaching and what can be done to mitigate that harm. For example, breaching the dams would eliminate the barge transportation many wheat farmers rely on to get their crops to overseas markets. It would also make it more difficult for farmers near the Tri-Cities to draw irrigation water from the river, and it would eliminate the dams’ ability to produce carbon-free electricity.

If the federal agencies were to recommend dam breaching, something only Congress can authorize, Washington officials want to be prepared to advocate for appropriate mitigation, said J.T. Austin, a senior policy adviser to Inslee.

“This is an opportunity for folks who have interests along the river to come together and talk about impacts of a decision around the dams,” Austin said. “It’s more of bringing together the Washington voices. We could use what comes out of that work group to help inform the Washington position, or input, on the federal process.” For example, Jim Cahill, a senior budget assistant for Inslee in the Office of Financial Management, said the group will likely examine the degree to which grain growers who use barges could switch to rail and how the rail system may need to be upgraded. How the information will be gathered is still to be determined, but Austin said the idea is to have it led by someone without a stake in the outcome. “Our intent is to get a third-party, neutral facilitator for that conversation. It would not be the governor’s office, and it would not be any agency that might have an interest in the outcome,” she said. “We want to have the conversation on neutral ground.” Even so, the process is rife with controversy even before it begins. Many Republicans in the Legislature opposed the $750,000 price tag for the effort that grew out of recommendations from Inslee’s orca task force. Three groups of orcas in the Puget Sound region are listed as endangered. They feed largely on chinook salmon and often forage off the mouth of the Columbia River in the late winter and early spring. Rep. Mary Dye of Pomeroy, a farmer and staunch supporter of the dams representing Washington’s 9th Legislative District, said the breaching mitigation study was killed in the House but came back to life during “closed door” budget negotiations from which Republicans were excluded. Dye said she is not interested in seeking common ground that may lead to dam removal. Instead, she said salmon recovery efforts should should focus on habitat recovery, properly funding hatcheries, controlling predators and reducing commercial gill net fishing. “This is just to build political momentum for dam removal in my opinion,” she said. “This is all politics and all optics.” Kristin Meira, executive director of the Pacific Northwest Waterways Association said the federal process is sure to include an economic analysis that will ask many of the same questions the state intends to pursue, and state money would be better spent on things that directly benefit both salmon and orcas in the Puget Sound region. “If there is an extra $750,000 available to recover those three orca pods, there are many unfunded or underfunded habitat projects that would have a direct benefit to those three pods,” Meira said. Sam Mace of the Save Our Wild Salmon Coalition doesn’t see the work as duplicative. Mace said the federal government’s environmental impact study will not likely go into great detail about how to mitigate harm caused to people by dam removal. “We don’t want a process that just researches the issue more. We want something that is looking at the ‘what if’ questions, and that hasn’t happened in a substantive way with all the affected interests at the table,” she said. “If those dams come out, what are the transportation investments we need? Where do we need rail line upgrades? What does it cost to upgrade the irrigation system at Ice Harbor Dam to keep farmers farming?” Congressman Mike Simpson is asking some of those “what if” questions. Simpson raised eyebrows at a Boise salmon conference when he said he has been meeting with stakeholders and looking at possible ways to save Snake River salmon. Many of Simpon’s questions are based on a future without dams. Simpson plans to continue meeting with people who would be affected and talking with other congressional Republicans, such as Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers and Rep. Dan Newhouse. The two Republicans representing eastern and central Washington oppose dam breaching as a way to save salmon and orcas.

Lewiston Morning Tribune: Washingtonians say they'd take salmon over the dams, poll finds By ERIC BARKER of the Tribune

March 31, 2018

Washington residents favor salmon over dams and wouldn't mind if their power bills increased modestly as a result of breaching, according to a poll paid for by groups pushing for removal of the four lower Snake River dams.

Fairbank, Maislin, Maulin, Metz & Associates surveyed 400 Washington residents, including 150 in eastern Washington, for the poll commissioned by the National Wildlife Federation, Defenders of Wildlife, Earthjustice, Natural Resources Defense Council, Sierra Club and American Rivers. When asked if they preferred saving wild Snake River salmon or the four dams in eastern Washington, with no mention of dam removal in the question, 60 percent of respondents favored salmon, 22 percent favored the dams and 19 percent said they didn't know.

In a similar questions, respondents who were told transportation on the lower Snake River has declined 70 percent in the past two decades, the dams produce just 4 percent of the electricity used in the state and that dams have reduced salmon runs, 53 percent said they support removing the dams, with 28 percent strongly in support and 22 percent somewhat supportive. Of those opposed to dam removal, 19 percent were strongly opposed and 13 percent somewhat opposed.

Respondents also said they would be willing to pay more for electricity if the dams were breached. When asked if they would be willing to pay $7 more per month for electricity in exchange for restored wild salmon runs and improved water quality via breaching, 63 percent said yes and 33 percent said no. Of those willing to pay more, 39 percent said they would be very willing and 24 percent said they were somewhat willing. Those who said no included 22 percent who were very unwilling and 11 percent who were somewhat unwilling.

If electricity where to increase just $1 a month, 74 percent said they would back breaching with 64 percent very willing and 11 percent somewhat willing. In contrast, 18 percent said they would be very unwilling to pay more and 5 percent said they would be somewhat unwilling.

When given a brief description of Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers' bill that would keep the dams in place and "prevent any new measure for aiding wild salmon," 26 percent said they support her legislation and 62 percent said they oppose it.

"This poll confirms what we've known all along: Northwest residents are more than willing to do what it takes to save our region's wild salmon", said Todd True, senior attorney for Earthjustice at Seattle, in a news release. "Studies show we can affordably and efficiently replace the declining benefits of the lower Snake River dams without increasing electrical bills by much more than a dollar a month. The poll confirms that a large majority of people know salmon are worth this and more."

True is a lead attorney in a long-running lawsuit that the groups who funded the poll have waged against the federal government's strategy for balancing the needs of 13 protected stocks of salmon and steelhead in the Columbia River basin and operation of the government's hydropower system on the Snake and Columbia Rivers. The groups support breaching Ice Harbor, Lower Monumental, Little Goose and Lower Granite dams on the lower Snake River.

John Freemuth, a public policy professor at Boise State University who specializes in public land and resource management policy in the West, said polls such as this can often serve as a jumping-off point that allows people to talk differently about controversial issues. He cited a poll on attitudes held by Idahoans about wolves prior to their reintroduction in central Idaho in the mid 1990s. The survey conducted by the University of Calgary in 1989 showed 53.3 percent of respondents favored what was then still just a plan to reintroduce wolves to the state. Freemuth said the surprising findings helped change the debate about wolves.

"I think it did show people that people were a little beyond just the myth of the wolf as evil. It created a space for people to talk more about how to manage them," he said. " I think polls can do that. It's what people do with the information that matters."

A summary of the poll results and questions is available at https://bit.ly/2GXnrVI.

Congresswoman backing legislation to revive 2014 proposal on fish, dams struck down by federal judge

July 1, 2017

By Eric Barker
   
U.S. Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., is pushing legislation that would revive a 2014 salmon-and-dams plan previously struck down by a federal judge, and nix court-ordered spills at dams on the Snake and Columbia rivers.

If passed and signed into law, it would make the government's latest plan - which attempts to reconcile operation of the dams with the needs of threatened and endangered fish - valid through 2022.

Known as a biological opinion, the existing plan was completed in 2014 and set aside last year by U.S. District Judge Michael Simon at Portland, Ore. At the time, Simon chastised officials at the National Marine Fisheries Service, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Bonneville Power Administration for failing to come up with a plan that better meets the needs of wild salmon and steelhead.

"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, which have been in these waters since well before the arrival of Homo sapiens, are to have any reasonable chance of surviving their encounter with modern man," Simon wrote at the time.

Instead of a new approach, the legislation co-sponsored by Republicans Jaime Herrera Beutler and Dan Newhouse of Washington and Greg Walden of Oregon, along with Oregon Democrat Kurt Schrader, would lock the 2014 plan in place and eliminate a 2018 deadline to replace it.

The new bill also mandates that nothing that could restrict electrical generation at any of the dams or navigation on the Snake River be implemented without the consent of Congress. That provision would seem to block Simon's order earlier this year that additional water be spilled at the dams starting next spring to help juvenile salmon and salmon survive their annual migration to the Pacific Ocean.

In a news release, McMorris Rodgers, who has served as chairwoman of the Republican caucus since 2013, said the bill would help keep energy prices low.

"Hydropower provides 70 percent of our energy in Washington state - much of which is produced on the Federal Columbia River Power System," she said. "The (system) ensures people in eastern Washington have access to clean, renewable, reliable and affordable energy every single day - all while achieving record fish returns. There is still work to be done, but dams and fish can coexist, and the (system) proves that."

Salmon advocates said the bill is an attempt to circumvent the law and to wipe out proven techniques that have boosted salmon survival rates.

"The clear purpose is to prevent the implementation of the court's spill injunction. Although the bill doesn't say that and the press release doesn't say that," said Todd True, an attorney with the environmental law firm EarthJustice at Seattle. "So there is a big effort here to hide the ball and that is unfortunate."

True said the spill-blocking provision appears to go even further. Simon ordered the federal government to write an intensive environmental impact statement on the dams under the provisions of the National Environmental Policy Act. That effort, which is scheduled to wrap up in 2022, is likely to include a number of potential alternatives that might help the fish. But True said the bill forbids even the study of actions like dam breaching or additional spill that could lead to reduced energy output or navigation.
"This is a wolf in sheep's clothing," he said. "It looks like it is aimed at short-circuiting the (EIS) process the court has ordered."

Supporters of the dams said the bill, by eliminating the need to write a new biological opinion by the end of next year, gives federal scientists more time to concentrate on the environmental impact statement. The lessons learned from that effort, they say, will help shape a biological opinion for 2022 and beyond.

"I think it makes sense to say 'let's get the (National EIS) process done first and have the benefit of that information to develop a new biological opinion instead of trying to develop one in 2018,'" said Terry Flores, executive director of Northwest River Partners.

NOAA given until 2013 to come up with detailed plan

By Eric Barker of the Tribune The Lewiston Tribune

In the wake of their third straight legal victory, salmon advocates are calling for the federal government to take a hard look at dam breaching as a vehicle toward Snake River salmon recovery.

"We think that is a starting point of what the Obama administration should do; they should commit to take a close and in-depth look and to us that means scientific, economic and engineering," said Pat Ford, executive director of the Save Our Wild Salmon Coalition in Boise.

Although the coalition made up of conservation and fishing organizations has worked hard to keep dam removal as a viable option in the public debate over salmon recovery, the government has not seriously weighed the pros and cons of breaching since it was dismissed by a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers study that wrapped in 2001. Instead the corps backed a combination of habitat improvement projects and technological fixes to the dams. That strategy was endorsed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the federal agency in charge of salmon recovery.

Two weeks ago federal Judge James Redden of Portland, Ore., ruled the details of a 2008 plan using that strategy remain too ill-defined and uncertain to pass muster with the requirements of the Endangered Species Act. He is allowing the plan and its habitat-improvement measures to stay in place through 2013 but wants NOAA Fisheries to come up with a more detailed plan by 2014.

Although Redden did not say a more defined plan relying solely on the same strategy would fail, he strongly suggested it would and ordered the government to consider "more aggressive" actions like dam breaching and reservoir draw down.

It is unclear if the NOAA Fisheries will simply try to fix the plan, known as a biological opinion, by providing more details on future habitat projects and the fish survival benefits that can be expected from them or if it will look for a new strategy. Barry Thom, deputy regional administrator for NOAA Fisheries at Portland, said officials have not decided how the plan will be fixed but said he was encouraged Redden is allowing it to stay in place for the next two years.

"I think the judge recognized it does have beneficial effects moving forward. I think that is definitely a positive from our standpoint but we are disappointed the judge didn't just come out and agree with all of our arguments."

He noted by the end of 2013 the plan will have been in place for six of the 10 years it was designed to cover and there will be pressure to prove it is working.

"The federal government will need to tighten the certainty behind the benefits and how the benefits accrue to the fish," he said.

Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber is calling for a regional discussion that seeks a new path forward. Oregon joined with the Save Our Wild Salmon Coalition and the Nez Perce Tribe to challenge the government's 2008 salmon and dams plan.

Brett Brownscombe, one of Kitzhaber's natural resources policy advisers, said the talks should involve not only the plaintiffs and defendants in the case but other regional interests.

"He (Kitzhaber) wants to play a meaningful role in advancing a new way forward," Brownscombe said. "That is going to start with having conversations with relevant stakeholders in the region."

Brownscombe said he doesn't expect that conversation to start with breaching.

Supporters say they didn’t have a fair chance to participate in discussion on Snake River dams and salmon recovery

By Eric Barker Of the Tribune
Apr 1, 2023

A U.S. government listening session Friday was dominated by speakers in favor of breaching the four lower Snake River dams.

More than 50 people told representatives of the federal government that the river should be restored to its free flowing state to recover wild salmon and steelhead, compared to just three people who said the dams are vital to the region’s economy and should be retained.

Breaching advocates said the science backing dam removal is clear, that it is necessary to honor tribal treaty rights and that services provided by the dams can and should be replaced. They said salmon are keystone animals important to a wide range of other species from orcas in the Puget Sound to trees in inland forests.

“Federal leadership needs to recognize the dire need for regional planning and investment that will lead to lower Snake River dam removal now and in this decade,” said Tess McEnroe, a rafting guide on the Middle Fork of the Salmon River in Idaho’s Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness Area.

The Middle Fork is one of the state’s pristine, high-elevation streams that fisheries experts say will remain cool even as the climate warms and serve as a vital refuge for wild salmon and steelhead. But while working there over 16 summers, McEnroe has seen fish numbers dwindle.

“I would like my future grandchildren to see the Columbia and Snake rivers, and its hundreds of other tributaries, swollen with the red backs of these fish just as it used to be 100 years ago,” she said.

Julian Mathews, a member of the Nez Perce Tribe from Pullman, said his ancestors gave up claims to a vast territory in the 1855 Treaty in exchange for promises their way of life would be protected.

“We ceded 15 million acres of land and retained rights to hunt, fish and gather and to me the agreement is not being upheld by the government,” he said.

The three-hour, online session was organized by the White House Council on Environmental Quality and is tied to settlement talks over a long-running lawsuit centered on threatened and endangered Snake River salmon and federal dams in the Columbia River basin. The dams have fish ladders but scientists say the slackwater they create impedes migration of adult and juvenile fish and is a leading cause of mortality. Studies show too few wild salmon and steelhead survive from smolts to adults for the runs to grow.

The plaintiffs in the lawsuit include the Nez Perce Tribe, Oregon and a coalition of environmental and fishing groups. They have won multiple rounds of the litigation that dates back more than 20 years but have not yet been able to convince the government to breach the dams.

That could be changing. The administration has said business as usual will not recover fish protected by the Endangered Species Act. As part of the settlement negotiations, it has committed to considering recovery thresholds higher than those needed to remove the fish from ESA protection and it has said it will explore dam breaching.

Last year, a NOAA Fisheries report said breaching one or more of the dams, along with a suite of other actions, is needed to recover the fish to healthy and harvestable levels. Last week, President Joe Biden said he is committed to working with tribal and political leaders of the Pacific Northwest to recover the fish. Biden specifically named Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, who backs breaching and Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, who along with Washington Gov. Jay Inslee said last year breaching offers the best chance of recovering the fish but shouldn’t be done until the power, transportation and irrigation made possible by the dams is replaced.

Breaching the dams would end tug-and-barge transportation of wheat between Lewiston and downriver ports, eliminate about 900 average megawatts of hydroelectric generation and make it more difficult for irrigators near the Tri-cities to access water.

Several speakers cited the work of Simpson, Murray and Insee, who have committed to varying degrees of mitigation to solve the problems created by breaching. Speakers also extolled the economic benefits a recovered fish population would bring to the region from the mouth of the Columbia at Astoria, Ore., to tiny inland towns like Riggins.

“The importance of these fish and the outfitting & guiding industry to these rural Idaho communities cannot be overstated,” said Aaron Lieberman, executive director of the Idaho Outfitters and Guides Association. “Yet fishing outfitters and guides and their communities continue to helplessly watch the downward arc of Idaho’s anadromous fish.”

The few people who spoke in favor of the dams said they play a central role in the region’s prosperity and are key to fighting climate change.

“It is critical that we maintain a healthy hydro system which is the backbone of our low carbon emissions electric grid,” said Jennifer Jolly of the Oregon Municipal Electric Utilities Association. “Breaching four highly productive dams with state of the art fish mitigation would be a huge setback for our nation’s decarbonization efforts just when we’re beginning to implement the groundbreaking Inflation Reduction Act. The massive level of electrification required to fuel clean vehicles, clean buildings and clean manufacturing, incentivized by the act will require more hydropower, not less.”

Kurt Miller, executive director of Northwest River Partners that represents community-owned utilities that get much of their electricity from the federal hydropower system on the Columbia and Snake rivers, said after the meeting that dam supporters didn’t get a fair chance to participate.

“I personally don’t believe, given who I heard speak, that these people were selected on a first-come, first-serve basis. I believe it was a curated list. I think it was intentional and if it wasn’t intentional it was incompetent. At the end of the day millions of customers my organization represents were completely left out.”

Matt Philibeck, a commissioner with the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, said the speakers were selected according to the order in which they registered earlier this month. The session, which was not publicized by the government, was limited to three hours and speakers were given three minutes to talk. A second three-hour season will be held Monday but all of the speaking slots are full. An additional meeting will be held May 25 but it is not yet open to registration.

https://www.lmtribune.com/local/anti-dam-overtakes-listening-session/article_ead7c07e-869b-590a-9960-beada90a6535.html

McMorris Rodgers, Newhouse act days after Biden commits to bolstering salmon

By Eric Barker Of the Tribune
March 24, 2023

Washington Congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers and her colleague Rep. Dan Newhouse, both of Washington, introduced legislation Thursday to protect the four lower Snake River dams.

The move comes just a few days after President Biden said he is committed to working with Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho and Washington senators Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell, both Democrats, to save Columbia and Snake river salmon. Biden did not say he supports dam breaching and of the politicians he mentioned, only Simpson has publicly backed the idea.

McMorris Rodgers and Newhouse are both Republicans who represent districts that are home to one or more of the four dams.

“I am growing increasingly concerned about President Biden’s openness to breaching our dams,” said McMorris Rodgers in a news release. “From his administration’s recommendation to rip them out — without any scientific evidence to back it up — to his desire to work with anti-dam advocates, it’s clear our dams are in danger.”

The Biden administration has not recommended breaching the dams. But last year, NOAA Fisheries, the agency in charge of protecting threatened and endangered salmon, released a draft report saying wild Snake River salmon cannot be recovered to healthy and harvestable levels without breaching. The “healthy and harvestable” standard is a much higher threshold than recovering the fish to the point they can be removed from federal protection.

For example, delisting criteria call for consistent returns of 33,500 wild Snake River spring and summer chinook to their spawning grounds. The healthy and harvestable level, set by the NOAA-convened Columbia River Partnership Task Force, is about 98,000 wild spring and summer chinook returning to the Snake River. Historic returns were exponentially higher.

Two years ago, Simpson, who represents Idaho’s 2nd Congressional District, released a $33.5 billion plan that would breach the dams and invest in affected communities and industries across the Northwest. Newhouse said Simpson and others have not been honest about the dams and their effect on migrating salmon and steelhead.

“The Four lower Snake River Dams are integral to flood control, navigation, irrigation, agriculture, and recreation in central Washington and throughout the Pacific Northwest — to put it simply, we cannot afford to lose them,” he said in a news release. “Yet President Biden, Governor Inslee, Senator Murray, and Representative Simpson have been misleading the American people with unscientific information in order to breach these dams, putting our communities at risk.”

Wild Snake River salmon and steelhead have been under the protection of the Endangered Species Act since the late 1990s. During that time, their numbers have gone up and down from year to year but they remain far from recovery. In 2021, the Nez Perce Tribe released an analysis showing 42% of wild spring chinook populations and 19% of wild steelhead populations in the Snake River basin have reached the quasi-extinction threshold — an analytical tool used by the federal government to assess the risk. The threshold is tripped when a population of fish has 50 or fewer spawners return to natal streams for four consecutive years.

Last year, about 200 wild spring chinook returned to the Tucannon River in the state’s southeastern corner and in McMorris Rodgers’ district. This year, the state is expecting only about 20 wild fish. An expected low return of spring chinook to the entire Snake River basin this year is expected to constrain fishing for hatchery spring chinook in the Columbia River.

The dams turn the river from a free-flowing stream into a series of slackwater reservoirs. While they have fish ladders and other facilities allowing salmon to pass up and downstream, studies have shown the dams delay juvenile fish during their migration to the ocean, expose them to predation from other fish and birds and induce stress and injury that lead to lower survival.

Removing the dams would reduce mortality of juvenile and adult fish and according to some studies boost returns by four-fold.

But it would come at a steep price — the loss of about 900 average megawatts of hydroelectric power that would complicate the region’s effort to convert fully to carbon-free power. It would also end some irrigation near the Tri-Cities in Washington and stop tug-and-barge transportation between Lewiston and downriver ports — making it harder for farmers to get their crops to overseas markets.

Simpson’s dam breaching concept acknowledges the benefits provided by the dams and seeks to mitigate the losses through investments in infrastructure and economic development. He shot back at his fellow Republicans via a statement and called their legislation a “Hail Mary attempt.”

“If the choice is between flushing Idaho’s upper Snake River water downstream for four dams in Washington state, I choose keeping Idaho water for Idahoans,” he said. “Each year eastern Idaho sends almost a half million acre feet of irrigation water downstream for salmon recovery — that is water that is not being used to recharge our aquifer, not being used for irrigation, and our salmon are on the verge of extinction.”

The bill, known as the Northwest Energy Security Act, which was also introduced as a Senate bill by Sen. Jim Risch of Idaho, would essentially codify the federal government’s 2020 Supplemental Biological Opinion on operation of the Federal Columbia River Power System. That document acknowledged that breaching would be beneficial to salmon and steelhead but concluded lesser actions, like spilling water at the dams, improving inland habitat and other reforms, would be sufficient to prevent extinction of Snake River sockeye, spring and fall chinook and steelhead.

The Nez Perce Tribe, Oregon and a coalition of fishing and environmental groups sued the federal government over that plan, charging it fails to meet the level of protection required by the Endangered Species Act. That lawsuit was put on hold more than a year ago, when the parties agreed to enter mediation. They have until this summer to reach an agreement.

Shannon Wheeler, vice-chairperson of the Nez Perce Tribal Executive Committee, said the tribe is ready to work with anyone to not only save salmon but also build a stronger future for the region.

“We have come to the table and want to talk about what the energy system looks like, what the transportation system looks and what we want the Pacific Northwest to look like. We want it to grow and prosper and for salmon to grow and prosper,” he said. “Things like this don’t give (salmon) recovery much of a chance.”

https://www.lmtribune.com/local/bills-unveiled-to-save-snake-river-dams/article_21d645b8-54d6-58e2-a7e0-8bb001c77914.html

July 8, 2018

by Eric Barker

Battling growing competition and looking at

costly upgrades, Northwest power agency is

trying to right its ship. Could dam breaching

be a solution?

The Bonneville Power Administration is one of a few self-funded federal

agencies that operates like a private concern, but difficult market

conditions are eroding the business model it's depended on for

decades and threatening to upend its future.

In response, the agency is looking at cutting its fish and wildlife

budget, among other measures. That could have an impact on the

effort to recover salmon and steelhead runs protected under the

Endangered Species Act. But some environmentalists say the agency

could save money, improve its financial standing and help fish by

walking away from costly future upgrades to the four lower Snake River

dams.

The agency is also trying to shore up its finances by reducing its debt

ratio and maintaining its credit rating while making needed investments to infrastructure, coming up with new products like reliable power for noncontract customers and better meeting the needs of customers.

Cheap renewable energy like wind and solar produced in California and

the southwest, along with conservation and the low cost of abundant

natural gas, have driven down the price of wholesale electricity and

disrupted the market for surplus electricity.

The agency once counted on selling its surplus electricity to places like

California for a nice profit, which it used to keep its own rates low. But

with prices and demand both down, Bonneville has often been forced

to sell its surplus electricity at a loss. It has also had to raise the rates

it charges regional customers by about 30 percent in the past decade.

Those customers are locked into long-term contracts and are now

paying well above the market price. For instance, Bonneville sells its

power for roughly $36 a megawatt. On the spot market, which

fluctuates constantly, the price is often around $20 a megawatt, or

even lower.

Agency officials such as BPA administrator Elliot Mainzer are diligently

seeking ways to right the ship, particularly prior to the expiration of

those contracts held by small and large utilities in the Pacific

Northwest. Utilities managers are naturally eyeing the cheaper prices

elsewhere. Most of the contracts expire in 2028, but negotiations for

renewal are expected to heat up in the next three to four years.

"The trend would not allow them (BPA) to be a competitive power

supplier when the next set of contracts are signed," said Scott Corwin,

executive director of the Public Power Council, a coalition of publicly

owned utilities that use BPA power. "It's an important matter for

Bonneville to get control of their costs and turn the trajectory of what

have been significant rate increases over the last several rate periods."

BPA markets power it produces at 31 federal hydroelectric dams and

energy produced at the Columbia Generating Station, a nuclear plant

in Washington. According to its website, it provides about 28 percent of

the electricity used in the vast Pacific Northwest region and maintains

about three-quarters of the transmission lines in its service territory.

Customers include big public utilities such as Cowlitz Public Utility

District and tiny rural cooperatives like Clearwater Power and Idaho

County Light and Power.

Clearwater Power, which supplies electricity to homes and businesses

in parts of north central Idaho, is keeping a close watch on BPA's

efforts to curb costs as well as its rates as the so-called 2028 contract

cliff approaches.

"Our cost of wholesale power is about 42 percent of our monthly bills

for our members," said David Hagen, Clearwater Power general

manager at Lewiston. "It's impacting us. We are concerned about the

trajectory Bonneville is on. With rate cases every two years and rising

rates depending on the year, it's a concern, especially when you

compare it to what the wholesale market is right now."

Hagen said it's too early to say if Clearwater will seek to reduce the

amount of power it purchases from Bonneville in the next contract and

replace it with other sources. But it's a possibility. It's also a possibility

other, much larger utilities will seek to diversify from Bonneville, which

could raise rates on those who remain customers of the agency.

"I'm guessing we are going to have to make a decision in 2023 or 2024

about those contracts," Hagen said. "Until we know all the terms and

the pricing, it's going to be very difficult to make a decision."

The fact that Bonneville customers are at least mentally shopping

for better deals has the agency worried. Mainzer said power from BPA,

even at a higher price than the volatile spot market, still has value, but

he knows rising agency costs and prices are a looming problem.

"We are not strictly competitive on pure price point basis," he told the

Northwest Power and Conservation Council earlier this year. "I would

say that I still think there is tremendous value in the product. I think

right now that when you unpack all the different elements of the

Bonneville product - it's carbon free, it's dispatchable, it's firm reliable

components and everything else that comes with BPA - I still think it's a

tremendously valuable product, but if that (price) spread opens up

more I think we are going to face some significant problems."

Anthony Jones, a Boise economist, thinks the agency's above-market

rates pose a serious danger. The more utilities choose to reduce their

Bonneville purchases, the more the prices will rise for those who

remain.

"Big utilities are saying, 'Why don't I cut back on my big contract with

BPA and buy at least part of my power on the open market.' It's risky,

sure, but if you are willing to assume some risk, there is the potential

to do some big savings," he said. "That is a huge problem for BPA. BPA

has sort of a fixed level of costs and spreads those costs over its known

demand, over customers. If customers cut back, some costs have to be

spread over fewer people, and that means higher rates for the

remaining customers. It's called a death spiral in economics. It's

descriptive and it's true."

The agency also faces liquidity problems and scrutiny from credit

rating organizations. To help make ends meet and to avoid further rate

hikes, the agency has burned through much of its reserves and used

the lion's share of its credit. Mainzer told the Northwest Power and

Conservation Council it has spent about $800 million of its cash

reserves and $5 billion of its $7 billion federal borrowing capacity. He is

trying to maintain at least $1.5 billion in credit and enough cash to

fund each of its division for at least 60 days. The agency is seeking

nonfederal sources of credit to relieve some pressure.

Bonneville officials are also attempting to retire debt, but at the same

time the agency needs to continue to invest about $900 million

annually in upgrades to the dams and transmission system.

It all adds up to stressful times for the agency that's mission is to be

"an engine of economic prosperity and environmental sustainability,"

for the region.”

Mainzer said the agency can't get out of its predicament with cost

cutting alone and must find new revenue by continuing to sell its

surplus electricity, a difficult task given the market.

The agency's costs include debt payments to the federal treasury and

its considerable fish and wildlife obligations. With little control over the

wholesale market, the agency is seeking to control what it can - its own

budget. That will mean a nearly $30 million cut to its $300 million fish

and wildlife budget for fiscal year 2019, in addition to cost-saving

measures at its other divisions. This comes at a time when the return

of Endangered Species Act protected wild salmon and steelhead runs

have been declining. Last year, the return of wild B-run steelhead was

alarmingly low. By some accounts, fewer than 500 wild B-run steelhead

returned to the Columbia River systems. Another estimate by the Idaho

Department of Fish and Game puts the still-unconfirmed number at

about 1,000.

Whichever is right, it's a low number. Spring chinook returns are far

from robust this year, and biologists are not expecting steelhead to

make much of a rebound this fall.

By law, the agency must give equal consideration to providing a

reliable power system for the region and to helping fish and wildlife

populations affected by the construction and operation of dams in the

Columbia River basin. To meet its fish and wildlife obligations, the

agency's fish and wild program pays for a plethora of projects including

hatcheries, habitat improvement in places like Idaho's salmon and

steelhead streams and work designed to ease passage of adult and

juvenile salmon at the dams.

The fish and wildlife budget jumped in 2008 when the agency

negotiated the Columbia Basin fish accords that gave states and tribes

a boost in funding in exchange for them not pursuing litigation over the

impacts of federal dam operations on salmon and steelhead. Those

accords expire this year and are expected to be renewed but for a

shorter time span than the original 10-year agreements. Oregon and

the Nez Perce Tribe did not sign on to the accords.

The fish and wildlife program is undergoing review and cuts are

coming. Thus far, the agency is trying to trim fat without hurting the

projects that most help threatened and endangered fish. It will do that

by looking to slash things like research, monitoring and evaluation,

how much it pays researchers and fisheries managers to attend

scientific conferences, and training. It will also look at cuts to programs

that can't demonstrate success when it comes to improving fish runs.

"We are really trying to make sure the investments we retain are the

highest biological value," said Bryan Mercier, executive manager of

Bonneville's Fish and Wildlife Division. "We are not going to do

anything that puts us in jeopardy of meeting our ESA obligations."

The agency has indicated that any additional costs, such as spilling

water at the dams, needs to be made up with cuts elsewhere. Water

spilled at the dams is counted as a cost in the form of forgone revenue

because it doesn't run through turbines.

Fisheries officials who receive funding from the fish and wildlife budget

are both sympathetic to the position the agency is in but also looking

to make sure the agency meets its mitigation obligations.

"They still have a responsibility under the Northwest Power Act to

mitigate for the effects of the hydro system and to give equal

consideration to fish as the power that is produced. That still needs to

be their standing direction," said David Johnson, director of Nez Perce

Tribe Department of Fisheries Resource Management.

Some activists have suggested the agency walk away from the four

lower Snake River dams that need costly turbine upgrades in the

coming decades and are responsible for a significant portion of the

agency's fish and wildlife costs. Breaching the dams is the cornerstone

strategy of many Snake River salmon advocacy groups.

Critics are skeptical that selling more power when the market is

depressed can succeed.

"Good luck and at what price?" said Linwood Laughy of Kooskia, who

worked with economist Jones, journalist Steve Hawley and producer Jim

Norton to write a white paper on the issue.

The men say the agency should consider divesting the four dams,

which could pave the way for their removal. According to their

reasoning, breaching would save money by eliminating the needed

upgrades and reduce mitigation costs associated with the dams.

Buried in the agency's five-year strategic plan is this line: "And through

the Columbia River System Operations Review, BPA and its federal

action agency partners will produce a recommendation on the future of

the lower Snake River dams after completing a comprehensive

analysis."

The single sentence is devoid of details, but for some it is loaded with

foreshadowing regarding the agency's commitment to the dams and

the costly upgrades they will need in the next few decades.

"I read that and said the lower Snake River dams are clearly in their

sights, and I think they should be," Jones said.

Jones sees the dams as something that can relieve some of

Bonneville's financial pressures. The aging dams need turbine

rehabilitation that could cost $1 billion-plus, according to Laughy's

calculations. The dams are responsible for a large chunk of the fish and

wildlife mitigation payments Bonneville is required to make. Work by

the Fish Passage Center indicates breaching the dams could lead to a

fourfold increase in Snake River salmon and steelhead runs.

"It would actually be cheaper to save the fish than to pretend the dams

aren't damaging the fish," Jones said. "Realistically those particular

four dams are just very high-priced assets. They generate 53 percent

of their power April to June when nobody needs the power and prices

are down around $5 to $10 a megawatt and their remaining power the

rest of year, and they really don't supply much. Regardless of how well-

intentioned they were when (the dams were) put in, they are just not a

good fit for the Northwest market."

There is no indication the agency is contemplating a future without Ice

Harbor, Lower Monumental, Little Goose and Lower Granite dams.

Officials say the dams serve as an important backup source for

renewable energy sources. When the wind doesn't blow and the sun is

covered by clouds, the dams can be used to take up the slack.

"The way I view those dams, which have very high concrete survival

rates (survival rates for juvenile fish passing them) by the way, are

very significant in the region for us in integrating renewables such as

wind and solar," Mercier said. "They provide a ton of flexibility for us to

provide reliability in the region. They are four giant batteries, and those

batteries are critical to the operation of a reliable system."

In response to written questions submitted to the agency, BPA

spokesman David Wilson said Bonneville plans to invest about $500

million in the lower Snake River dams over the next 20 years. Most of

that will focus on equipment that is not directly related to power

generation, such as turbines.

Based on the investments, the agency calculates power produced at

the dams will cost $13 to $14 a megawatt hour.

"The cost of production is lower than even the most pessimistic

replacement power forecasts over the same time period, making the

projects cost-effective resources," Wilson said.

Study says it's possible, suggests renewable energy sources that could
replace dams By ERIC BARKER of the Lewiston Morning Tribune Apr 4, 2018 A study commissioned by the Northwest Energy Coalition shows that a combination of renewable energy sources, conservation and better management of energy use could replace electricity generated by the four lower Snake River dams without significantly increasing costs or emissions. The group says the study can be used as a template for federal officials who are in the midst of a court-ordered look at how to
operate the dams and recover wild salmon and steelhead populations. That look is expected to include a dam-breaching analysis. "The study shatters the myth that replacing the lower Snake River dams and restoring our wild salmon would compromise the reliability of our power system and cause major increases in rates and greenhouse gas emissions," said Nancy Hirsh, Northwest Energy Coalition executive director. The group is described as "an alliance of about 100
environmental, civic and human service organizations, progressive utilities, and businesses in Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana and British Columbia" on its website. Many salmon advocates have called for Ice Harbor, Lower Monumental, Little Goose and Lower Granite dams on the lower Snake River to be breached. Doing so would restore that portion of the river to free flowing and eliminate the harm they cause to both juvenile and adult fish as they migrate to and from the ocean. Many stocks of wild Snake River salmon and steelhead are protected by the Endangered Species Act. Critics of breaching, including officials at the Bonneville Power Administration and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, have said dam removal would be too costly, in part because it would reduce electricity generation at the dams that likely would have to be replaced by natural gas-fueled energy plants. A 2016 BPA fact sheet said switching to low greenhouse gas emission hydropower, produced at the dams with electricity from natural gas generators, would increase emissions by 2 million to 2.6 million metric tons per year. That is equivalent to adding 421,000 passenger cars to the region's highways annually. In addition, it said switching to natural gas would increase power costs by $274 million to $372 million per year. The same BPA report suggested wind and solar power are too unreliable to be counted on as replacements for the hydropower produced at the dams. For example, on calm or cloudy days, the report said, other sources would be needed to make up for the lack of renewable generation sources and hydropower produced at the dams is exceptionally suited to do that. The dams also are remarkably reliable, according to the BPA report, and able to generate power quickly at times of peak demand or
when other generating sources unexpectedly go offline. The report also indicated the dams are important for keeping the region's transmission lines operating reliably and efficiently. But the new analysis, conducted by Keegan Moyer of the independent consulting firm Energy Strategies, says a combination of wind and solar generation in combination with conservation, storage and managing electricity consumption to transfer some use to parts of the day when demand is lower - known as demand response - could replace power generated by the dams within the next 10 years. Doing so would not require construction of new natural gas plants, according to the report, and would be just as reliable, possibly more reliable, and provide the same benefit to transmission lines. Under one scenario, replacing the dams with renewable sources and conservation could cause a 1 percent increase in greenhouse gas emissions and cost ratepayers an additional 4 cents per day. If states like Washington and Oregon were to institute measures such as a tax on carbon use, the analysis says greenhouse gas emissions could be reduced. The study did not factor in the actual cost of breaching the dams, estimated at $1.3 billion to $2.6 billion by the BPA in its 2016
report. But Northwest Energy Coalition spokesman Sean O'Leary said his group released a report in 2015 that showed breaching costs would be outweighed by forgone future expenditures on the dams, such as the expense of refurbishing hydroelectric turbines and annual salmon and steelhead mitigation programs. "In that study we did look at the cost of dam removal and the associated savings or avoided costs. At that time, the avoided costs were greater than the costs of dam removal, providing a net benefit." O'Leary also said the study only analyzed the level of renewable sources and conservation needed to replace power generated at the dams. He said the federal government's ongoing analysis of the dams, and possibly breaching them, may well produce a mix of renewables and conservation that performs even more efficiently and at an even lower cost. "We hope they will seize on that opportunity to do that extra examination to see just how good we can make this," he said. The study is available at www.nwenergy.org.

March 17, 2019 

Eric Barker LEWISTON, Idaho  — The way dams and storage reservoirs on the Columbia River and its tributaries are managed could change dramatically in a short five years if negotiators from the United States and Canada don't strike a deal. At issue is the Columbia River Treaty, a transboundary agreement that has governed flood risk management and hydropower production for more than five decades. The treaty is evergreen, meaning it doesn't have an end date unless either nation decides to sever the agreement following a 10-year notice. Neither side has given that notice, but both are engaged in talks led by the U.S. State Department and Global Affairs Canada aimed at updating the treaty, The Lewiston Tribune reports. Under the current terms, the way flood risk is managed changes dramatically in 2024, and that could affect Idaho water. Right now, three huge storage reservoirs in Canada and one in Montana do much of the heavy lifting when it comes to reducing flood risk in places like Portland and Vancouver, Wash. The treaty was precipitated in part by the 1948 Vanport Flood near Portland, that killed 15 people and displaced more than 18,000 who lived in a low-lying development. The dams are managed jointly by the U.S. and Canada, and the treaty dictates that reservoirs behind Mica, Arrow and Duncan dams in British Columbia are drafted to hold back more than 15 million acre-feet of water during spring floods. The water captured by the dams is released later in the year, and Canada is compensated for 50 percent of the released water's potential hydropower production as it moves downstream through U.S. dams. Flood control

Starting in 2024, the Canadian dams will no longer be obligated to provide downstream flood control protection unless the United States first demonstrates it has done all it can to reduce flood risk by capturing spring flows in its reservoirs. Once that happens, the U.S. can "call upon" Canada to capture water behind its dams. Under such a scenario, reservoirs in the U.S. would likely be drawn down much lower than they are now prior to spring runoff, threatening the potential for them to refill. And it's not clear which U.S. dams would have to participate. The U.S. believes its large storage dams named in the treaty — Libby, Hungry Horse and Kerr in Montana; Dworshak, Brownlee and Albeni Falls in Idaho; Grand Coulee in Washington and John Day Dam in Oregon — would have to be tapped to provide additional flood control. Canada interprets the treaty to say all dams on the Columbia River and its tributaries south of the border would have to play a bigger role in flood control. Under that scenario, dozens of other dams and reservoirs would be involved. For example, dams that provide local flood control or capture water for summer irrigation may have to help in systemwide flood control. Nor do the two sides agree on what constitutes a flood large enough for the U.S. to "call upon" Canada for help. The U.S. side believes flows projected to reach 450,000 cubic feet per second at The Dalles Dam in Oregon would meet the requirement. Canada believes projected flows would have to reach 600,000 cubic feet per second. The value of water
The flood control regime isn't the only difference negotiators are trying to bridge. The treaty gives Canada the right to half of the hydropower that can be produced in the U.S. by the water the Canadian dams hold back and then ultimately release — known as the Canadian entitlement. Depending on market prices, the power can be worth $150 million to $300 million per year. Those power payments, plus 30 years of hydropower purchased by U.S. companies at the onset of the treaty, paid for the construction of the dams in Canada. But the U.S. believes the formula that decides the power value of Canadian water is outdated. Because the formula doesn't account for things like how much of the Canadian water is spilled at U.S. dams to improve fish passage, American hydropower interests say the power payments sent to Canada are as much as 10 times what they are actually worth. U.S. interests want the treaty changed to reflect that actual value of the Canadian water. "It's one of those aspects of the treaty that really calls out for modernization," said Scott Corwin, executive director of the Public Power Council at Portland. "The assumptions that went into the formula that created the downstream power-benefit sharing have become outdated over time. It's a lot of power off the federal side of the system that is sent to Canada, and it's a lot of value to ratepayers of the U.S. that we think should accrue to citizens." Canada's checklist
Canadians also have identified issues they want to solve in negotiations. The dams have dramatically altered local ecosystems and inundated communities and valuable bottomland behind the dams. The Canadians think they should be compensated for that. When Canadian dams are drawn down, water levels fluctuate dramatically, disrupting recreation, fish and wildlife habitat and exposing huge mud flats that can produce dust storms. The construction of Washington's Grand Coulee Dam prior to the treaty, which Canada did not object to at the time, blocked salmon that once returned to British Columbia rivers, harming Canada's First Nations. They want fish passage and salmon reintroduction to be considered. The Canadians also say their dams allowed lucrative floodplain development around Portland. They would like compensation for that service. The Canadian government wants to retain the post-2024 flood control regime that alleviates pressure on its dams and reservoirs. They also want more say in the way Libby Dam in Montana is managed. The dam backs up the Kootenay River more than 40 miles into Canada and creates Lake Koocanusa. (The river is spelled Kootenai in the U.S. and Kootenay in Canada.) Negotiations
Talks between the two countries began last May. Those talks are centered on the future of flood control, hydropower generation and ecosystem function, which would be a new aim of the treaty. Several years before negotiations began, the U.S. held domestic talks involving Northwest states, 15 American Indian tribes in the Columbia Basin and hydropower and agricultural interests, to develop goals for treaty modernization. The tribes on both sides of the border wanted a seat at the negotiating table, but the countries chose to exclude them in favor of small teams. "The tribes were left out of that conversation in the original treaty," said Scott Hauser, executive director of the Upper Snake River Tribes Foundation. "We feel it's absolutely imperative they are part of it this time." At the outset, the U.S. is seeking two big goals. First, it wants to avoid the 2024 change in flood control regime. Next, it wants to update the way the Canadian entitlement is calculated. The U.S. also wants ecosystem functions be incorporated in river management. The region spends hundreds of millions of dollars annually in efforts to mitigate effects of the dams on threatened and endangered salmon and steelhead. Idaho's Sen. Jim Risch sits in a power position as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. If the two countries reach an agreement, the updated treaty must be ratified by the Senate. It's up to Risch to introduce the new treaty if and when it's complete. Risch told the Tribune he intends to flex his legislative muscle. "The chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee decides if it's going to be heard or not," he said. "So it's going to be a good deal for Idaho, or it's going to be no deal at all." He insists the treaty should only cover flood control and hydropower production. If it includes ecosystem function or anything that might threaten Idaho's sovereignty over its water, Risch said he won't let the treaty be debated. In fact, he said adding ecosystem function is dead on arrival. That means no more flows for fish and no reintroduction of salmon in places they aren't now. "It's not going to happen," he said. "The third one (ecosystem function) is not in there now, and it's not going to be added. The reason I say that is I believe we would — I think almost certainly — end up on the short end of the stick. He said he has a chummy relationship with President Donald J. Trump and has spoken to him about the treaty. Risch also has constituents in Idaho urging him to use his position to exclude ecosystem functions. The Idaho Legislature passed a nonbinding House Joint Memorial in 2014 saying an updated treaty must protect state sovereignty over water. A group of more than 20 water users, from public power companies like Clearwater Power and Idaho County Light to southern Idaho irrigators and navigation interests like the Port of Lewiston, want the updated treaty to exclude ecosystem function. "It just creates another piece of red tape, another legal hurdle to operate the system," said Paul Arrington, executive director of the Idaho Water Users Association. "Both countries have laws and regulations to deal with these issues, and it should remain as such." Even others who want ecosystem function added said they agree with Risch on the need to protect Idaho's water. For example, the Nez Perce Tribe, the state of Idaho and the federal government are parties to the Nez Perce Agreement that helped settle hundreds of water rights disputes in the state. Part of that agreement calls for the state to send 427,000 acre-feet of upper Snake River water downstream each year to help migrating salmon and steelhead. "I share his concerns on Idaho's water," said Jaime Pinkham, executive director of the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission and a member of the Nez Perce Tribe. "Years ago I was part of the (Snake River Basin Adjudication.) We worked long and hard with a diversity of interests to bring some peace to the issue. I am as sensitive as he is in protecting the agreement." Pinkham said that doesn't mean ecosystem function shouldn't be on the table. He said the talks could still produce provisions to improve conditions for fish in the basin that are beneficial to both sides. He cites the recent agreement between states, tribes and the federal government that will spill more water at Snake and Columbia river dams yet allow hydropower production part of the time as an example of creative solutions that are possible. "Those are great solutions that help the energy sector and help fish, and if we can find the same kind of creative options in the Columbia River Treaty I want us to stay open to that," Pinkham said. Canada's cards
Canada might seem to be in a position of power. The U.S. wants to maintain the current flood control regime and yet pay its neighbor less for the water it holds during spring runoff. But Canada may have difficulty fully flexing its muscle. Jim Heffernan, a policy analyst at the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, said Canada also wants to protect its own downstream communities from flood, which may require it to hold back much of the spring flows even before the U.S. asks it to. In addition, he said Canada's hydropower system was constructed to operate on the regime in place for more than 50 years. That means the country would likely have to run the system in much the same way it does now to maximize its power production. "Because of the way they built their system, they have to operate it the way they do now," Heffernan said. "To hurt us they have to hurt themselves." Canada also benefits from the water spilled at U.S. dams to help salmon. Heffernan said both sockeye and spring chinook returning to the Okanogan River in Canada have improved because of fish-friendly management of U.S. dams. If salmon were reintroduced above Grand Coulee and Chief Joseph dams so they could recolonize rivers in British Columbia, Heffernan said those runs, too, would benefit from spill at U.S. dams. "Sockeye salmon and spring chinook returning to the Okanogan watershed in Canada are currently benefiting from changes we made to the system for U.S. stocks," he said. "That is a really important point, because they gloss over that." A chance to restore balance

Many see a moral reason to include ecosystem function. John Osborn, an environmental activist and physician at Vashon Island, Wash., said the treaty negotiations are a chance to right wrongs to American Indian tribes and Canadian First Nations — and to the environment. He said negotations should address fish passage and salmon reintroduction, climate change, reconnecting rivers to their flood plains and better sharing the benefits and burdens of the dams and reservoirs. "We are truly blessed to live on one of the most remarkable river systems in the world," Osborn said. "I think it asks us to look at what has happened in really the short amount of time since Lewis and Clark — the profound changes that have benefited some, perhaps many, but come at wrenching costs — and we find a way to bring balance back to the system, and we build reserves. That is going to be absolutely critical in the time of climate change."

By Eric Barker / Lewiston Tribune

Scientists hired by port and shipping interests confirmed some juvenile salmon and steelhead suffer from delayed mortality after passing through the Snake and Columbia River hydrosystem, a key scientific justification for Snake River dam breaching, but said there is significant uncertainty surrounding the phenomenon.

Proponents of breaching four dams between Lewiston and the Tri-Cities have long claimed stress and injury suffered by migrating Snake River salmon as they pass through turbines and fish bypass systems at the dams, as well as migration delays caused by the impoundments, lead many of them to perish soon after reaching the Columbia River estuary and Pacific Ocean. They also say salmon and steelhead from other Columbia River tributaries like the John Day and Yakima rivers, which have to pass only three or four dams to reach the ocean, survive at significantly higher rates than Snake River fish. They argue breaching the dams would greatly enhance juvenile fish survival.

The phenomenon, known as delayed or latent mortality, has arisen out of numerous studies across decades of research. According to some studies, the effect is significant enough that breaching Lower Granite, Little Goose, Lower Monumental and Ice Harbor dams, combined with spill at remaining dams on the Columbia River, would lead to a four-fold increase in returns of adult fish.

But breaching would end tug-and-barge transportation of crops between Lewiston and downriver ports, eliminate hydroelectricity produced at the dams and greatly complicate irrigation withdrawals from the river near the Tri-Cities. The idea remains bitterly controversial but has gained momentum over the past three years — including a partial endorsement from the federal government and a proposal from Idaho Congressman Mike Simpson to breach the dams and spend $33.5 billion to compensate affected communities and industries.

The Inland Ports and Navigation Group hired Mount Hood Environment to review literature on the delayed mortality hypothesis. The scientists said it is real but not well understood.

“We conclude that delayed mortality may be occurring in the ocean as a result of carryover effects from exposure to the Columbia River hydrosystem,” they wrote in a 20-page paper. “However, mechanisms of delayed mortality are not well-defined, and the magnitude is unknown. Furthermore, it is unclear how removal of the lower Snake River dams would reduce hydrosystem-related delayed mortality because the mortality mechanism may be a function of broad-scale habitat changes caused by operation of the entire (Federal Columbia River Power System), not exposure to individual dams.”

They said more research is required to determine the degree to which dam breaching would help Snake River salmon and steelhead. Port officials said the uncertainty is reason to step back from breaching proposals.

“Many of the dam breaching arguments we hear are based on the theory of delayed mortality, which claims that juvenile salmon are weakened as they make their way through the federal dams on the Snake and Columbia rivers, and this affects their ability to survive in the ocean,” said Pacific Northwest Waterways Executive Director Heather Stebbings in a news release. “We want the region to truly understand the science on this matter, and where the gaps in information might be.”

Ian Courter, one of the authors of the document and a principal investigator at Mount Hood Environmental consultants, said the findings are not exactly what port officials had hoped for. For them, he said, the ideal outcome would be a finding that delayed mortality does not exist. Instead, he said it is real but the magnitude is foggy.

“So far as we can tell, that is a huge unknown,” he said. “If it is tiny that means you remove the lower Snake River dams and you don’t really see a major difference in adult fish returns, but if it is larger, you do see a difference in adult fish returns.”

The paper also said what is causing delayed mortality and how it manifests itself needs to be studied further. For instance, Courter said dams on the Snake and Columbia rivers and downstream development have significantly changed the estuary and that could be the cause of delayed mortality. If that is the case, he said breaching Snake River dams will have little effect.

Courter believes the uncertainties can be answered with further studies, perhaps in as few as three years. He suggests researchers study stress levels in migrating fish, examine Snake River fish collected from the estuary to determine if they have discernible injuries, study when Snake River fish arrive at the estuary and study the relationship between estuary habitat and ocean survival.

But he noted, more study can lead to more study.

“The trouble with science is that one question likes to lead to another,” he said.

Science can also be adversarial at times and disagreements are common. That is true in this case. Charlie Petrosky, a retired Idaho Fish and Game fisheries scientist who worked on many of the studies that established the delayed mortality hypothesis, disputes the findings of the Mount Hood Environmental paper. He said numerous studies over several years that have approached the problem from multiple angles and using different data sets all come to similar conclusions — that there is “a high level of delayed mortality for Snake River spring/summer Chinook and steelhead.”

“That is one thing the consultants didn’t really address very well,” Petrosky said. “They mentioned there has been a bunch of research and studies but not that they all strongly support each other.”

In addition to reducing injury and stress, Petrosky noted dam breaching would greatly reduce the time it takes juvenile fish to reach the estuary and ocean. He also dismissed the idea that delayed mortality is caused by conditions in the estuary.

“This would seem to imply that it would have to selectively affect Snake River fish,” he said. “We know the downriver populations are surviving three to four times better, and we have multiple populations we have compared and it is pretty consistent.”

Stebbings said more studies are needed before something as dramatic as dam breaching is tried.

“After 30 years of research, there are many significant questions that remain unanswered regarding the theory of delayed mortality, and we can’t ask our policymakers to make catastrophic decisions such as dam breaching without having all of the information,” she said. “PNWA is choosing to focus on science-based efforts that we know will improve conditions for fish, increase populations, open up habitat, and bring more salmon and steelhead back to the Columbia River Basin. We continue to be committed to this comprehensive approach, and to being part of the long-term solution to salmon recovery.”

https://www.lmtribune.com/northwest/dam-study-more-research-required/article_b9addd92-4fbc-54c5-be4b-8b232aa91a91.html

More than 300 people listen to panel talk about saving fish, fate of four lower Snake River dams

By Eric Barker of the Tribune
January 8, 2020

More than 300 people turned out to listen to a dialogue about the future of the lower Snake River, its dams, threatened salmon and steelhead runs, agriculture and power production at a meeting in Clarkston on Tuesday evening.

The burgeoning discussion between stakeholders representing various interests was the result of a 115-page draft report commissioned by Washington Gov. Jay Inslee and his Orca Task Force that focused on the attitudes of Washington residents on the dams and fish.

The report will help guide Inslee’s comments on a coming federal Environmental Impact Statement on the Columbia and Snake River Hydropower System and its effects on protected salmon and steelhead. The EIS will examine, among other things, whether the dams should be breached to save the ailing fish runs.

Consultant Jim Kramer gave a brief summary of the report’s findings before overseeing the discussion between people who have often battled over the best way to save the fish. Much of that two-decade-plus-long debate has revolved around dam breaching, an action supported by salmon advocates. Breaching would help the fish migrate to and from the ocean, but would also end use of the river by farmers to get their crops to overseas markets and reduce the hydroelectric capacity of the Pacific Northwest.

Kramer asked panelists how the process might be moved forward. As the discussion evolved beyond normal talking points, some of the panelists began to open up and agree that listening to each other’s needs could produce results.

Bill Newbry, president and chief operating officer of the Pacific Northwest Farmers Cooperative, said if farmers and shippers are to be brought to the table and entertain the possibility of breaching the dams, they first need to see an upgrade in rail and highway infrastructure.

“We need the infrastructure and it’s not there,” he said. “Let’s start with some infrastructure changes and some low-hanging fruit and we can make some changes.”

Sam Mace, of the Save Our Wild Salmon Coalition, said face-to-face talks are helpful and she praised Inslee and other political leaders for recent leadership. But she said people at lower levels can also be effective by meeting face to face.

“I think that kind of dialogue is important,” she said.

Dustin Aherin, a river rafting outfitter from Lewiston who runs trips on the Middle Fork of the Salmon River that has some of the best salmon and steelhead habitat in the region, agreed that dialogue can move the dial.

“We haven’t gotten very far in the recovery process by arguing with one another and developing different plans,” he said. “People like us, the users and affected people, need to realize my actions can adversely affect someone else. We need to work together to find middle ground that keeps my industry whole and other industries whole.”

Birgit Koehler of the Bonneville Power Administration noted the Snake River dams are part of the region’s energy mix and are vital at certain times of year. She said people sometimes say it would be easy to replace the power produced at the dams with wind and solar sources but they don’t acknowledge that wind and solar is also being tapped to replace coal and natural gas-generating plants that are being retired.

“One of my concerns is we do have to have an understanding of what the trade-offs are,” she said.

But Nancy Hirsh of the Northwest Energy Coalition said the power puzzle can be reconciled.

“The energy piece is solvable, there are other sources, other ways to operate the system,” she said.

Joel Kawahara, a commercial fisherman from Quilcene, Wash., said people need to take a long view of the problem.

“We are lacking overall vision of what we want the region to be,” he said. “Do we want an economy to be accommodating to people on the east and west sides equally? I think yes.”

Alex McGregor of the McGregor Co. noted removing the dams and barge transportation would require 43,000 more rail cars and as many as 167,000 trucks. He stressed the need to follow sound science but expressed optimism that solutions can be reached.

“It’s too easy to oversimplify the issues, it’s too easy to try to take on the matter through lawsuits and angry dialogue. The more we can work together and recognize the challenge we face, the better off we are,” he said.

David Johnson, manager of the Nez Perce Tribe Fisheries Department, said a lot of good work has been done to improve imperiled habitat and to raise and release hatchery fish. But he also noted there are wilderness areas that hold pristine spawning habitat that is under used by the fish. He noted that tribal members have sacrificed more than other regional players who are now being asked to compromise.

“Some livelihoods have been held as sacrosanct while others have not been,” he said.

Barker may be contacted at ebarker@lmtribune.com or at (208) 848-2273. Follow him on Twitter @ezebarker.

July 15, 2016

By Eric Barker

Drawing down Lower Granite Reservoir during summer heat waves could be an effective tool to help sockeye salmon and other protected fish by mitigating high water temperatures, according to an analysis performed by the Portland-based Fish Passage Center.

But just as it did in a 1992 experiment, drawdown would also disrupt barge transportation on the lower Snake River, leave some recreational facilities high and dry, and cause some riverside highways and railroad beds to sag and crack.

At the request of the Nez Perce Tribe and the state of Oregon, the center that is funded by Pacific Northwest ratepayers analyzed the feasibility of lowering the lower Snake River behind Lower Granite Dam from its present elevation of about 733 feet above sea level to as low as 690 feet. Doing so would reduce the surface area exposed to solar radiation, speed the pace of the river and increase the effectiveness of cold water releases from Dworshak Reservoir.

Eric VanDyke, an analyst for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife working on salmon and steelhead passage issues, said last summer's high water temperatures that wiped out more than 90 percent of the adult Snake River sockeye, an endangered species, are leading salmon managers to seek new tools to help the fish. He said 2014 and 2013 also saw elevated water temperatures that caused problems for sockeye.

"Those problems kind of put us in the space where we are thinking about alternatives and trying to explore reasoned ideas for addressing elevated water temperatures in general and prompted a request to actually analyze what might happen - what-if type scenarios - if we were to try to lower the reservoir at Granite," he said.

Temperatures in the Snake River have been moderate this year, thanks in part to last week's rain and unseasonably cool weather. On Thursday, the Snake River below Lower Granite Dam was 65 degrees. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers attempts to keep the river at or below 68 degrees. To do that, it sends cold water from Dworshak Reservoir downstream, where it mixes with the warmer water in the Snake River. Flows leaving Dworshak Dam were reduced over the past several days because of the recent cool weather.

"This is a good temperature year; nobody is sweating it," said Paul Wagner with the National Marine Fisheries Service at Portland. "The past few weeks have been cooler, with the result being the temperatures in all of the rivers are substantially cooler."

Even so, salmon managers expect summer water temperatures in the 70s to be more common as climate change leads to reduced mountain snowpacks, earlier spring runoff and hotter summer days. David Johnson, director of Nez Perce Tribal Fisheries, said there are no immediate plans to request a drawdown. But knowing modeling shows a drawdown would work has value given that climate scientists predict an upward trend of hot and dry summers.

"If we are starting to see more of those kinds of summers, then I think we are really going to have to rummage around to see what tools we have to ensure those fish can still handle that," he said. "Knowing that the modeling indicates what it does, is a good thing to have."

The Fish Passage Center also looked at the possibility of drawing down Dworshak Reservoir farther than the customary 80 feet it is lowered each summer. That would allow more water to be released in July to help sockeye without jeopardizing later releases in September. The study showed lowering the reservoir an additional 5 to 20 feet would slightly reduce the chance of refilling the following spring.

Reducing either reservoir could expose American Indian artifacts that have long been buried. Margaret Filardo, supervisory fisheries biologist at the Fish Passage Center, said the benefits to sockeye have to be weighed against the costs.

"There are ways to address concerns about cultural resources, there are ways to transport commodities and there are ways to extend beaches and boat ramps," she said. "It all costs money, so it's a matter of how important meeting a water quality criteria for listed and endangered species is."

Bruce Henrickson, a spokesman for the corps' Walla Walla District, said corps officials are aware of the analysis done by the Fish Passage Center but noted it was not addressed or requested by the agency.

Sam Mace of the Save Our Wild Salmon Coalition said if dams are not breached, as her group advocates, reservoir drawdown and similar measures will need to be taken.

"Down the road it's very likely to be on the table," Mace said, "which again begs the question - wouldn't the region and Clarkston and Lewiston be better served with taking Lower Granite out and being able to utilize that waterfront and be able to restore it and get the best use out of it rather than having seasonal drawdown?"

Representatives from the river shipping system could not be reached for comment.

President Biden commits $200 million to reintroducing salmon, steelhead between Chief Joseph and Grand Coulee dams

By Eric Barker Of the Tribune
Sep 22, 2023

The Biden administration committed the federal government to backing a decadeslong, tribal-led effort aimed at undoing the extinction of salmon and steelhead in the upper Columbia River.
The $200-million, 20-year deal announced Tuesday will facilitate the reintroduction of the anadromous fish upstream of Chief Joseph and Grand Coulee dams. It is the first substantive agreement to emerge from mediated talks between the administration and a coalition of Columbia River tribes and fishing and conservation groups that are suing the federal government over the damage its dams have wrought on salmon and steelhead.

The deal with the Coeur d’Alene Tribe, the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation and the Spokane Tribe of Indians is specific to the upper Columbia River and has no bearing on talks over the Snake River and its threatened and endangered salmon and steelhead runs. Those discussions, which include proposals to breach one or more of the lower Snake River dams, are scheduled to sunset at the end of next month.

The Grand Coulee and Chief Joseph dams, built between the 1930s and 1950s, are the workhorses of the Columbia River Hydropower System. But they were erected without fish ladders and wiped out salmon and steelhead runs that spawned from Hangman Creek, a tributary of the Spokane River, all the way into British Columbia, Canada. The loss of those runs deprived inland rivers of marine-derived nutrients and left a painful hole in tribal cultures and economies. Hemene James, vice-chairperson of the Coeur d’Alene Tribe, spoke of the decades-old loss during a signing ceremony in Washington, D.C. Not only did the tribes miss the fish for the sustenance they provided but also for the way they brought people together when the salmon returned.

“We gathered with our different clans,” he said. “We gathered with our neighboring tribes. It was a joyous occasion. Marriages were made. You (saw) family you didn’t get to see. Political deals were done. The plan for the next year was set in motion. All of that and much more was taken away when those fish were impeded from coming upriver.”

According to terms of the deal, the federal government will fund and help facilitate Phase 2 of the tribal effort with $200 million that will come largely from the Bonneville Power Administration, the federal agency that markets power produced at the dams. During Phase 1, the tribes studied the quality of habitat upstream of the dams and found it can support tens of thousands of adult chinook and sockeye salmon. Phase 2, already underway, has included test releases of juvenile salmon in places like the Spokane River that have shown promising results. A small percentage of those fish have survived the downstream journey through Grand Coulee, Chief Joseph and eight other dams on the Columbia River. A few of them have even returned upriver and made it as far as Chief Joseph Dam.

“I often say there is much to be gained when we respect and integrate Indigenous knowledge into our initiatives, and this celebration is no exception,” said Interior Secretary Deb Haaland at the signing ceremony. “Today’s agreement marks the beginning of a new kind of partnership that will lay the groundwork for healthy and abundant salmon populations throughout the upper Columbia basin.”

Shannon Wheeler was not at the ceremony but the chairperson of the Nez Perce Tribe said the deal makes him happy. Wheeler has been one of the most high profile leaders in the effort to restore the lower Snake River through dam breaching.

“It’s a great step in the right direction for our brothers and sisters up there up in the upper Columbia River who have been without salmon for at least 80 years or so,” he said. “Getting that reintroduction past Joe and Coulee is definitely a big win for the environment, the system and the tribes that will be doing that work.”

Wheeler said he and others are still pushing to reach an agreement of similar or greater magnitude on the Snake River where wild fish are struggling but can still access their spawning habitat. The mediated talks have been going on for about two years and put a temporary halt to the latest iteration of a lawsuit challenging the federal government’s attempt to balance operation of the hydrosystem with efforts to recover the threatened and endangered fish.

“We are still in good conversations that are meaningful,” he said. “We are just looking for what’s next — preventing the extinction of salmon in the lower Snake River being a priority of the administration as well.”

https://www.lmtribune.com/northwest/feds-back-tribal-led-salmon-campaign/article_7c7fd5f0-3f92-5b22-a210-a9777d5bcb0c.html

Two letters implore political leaders to find solutions for declining salmon and steelhead populations on Columbia and Snake rivers

By ERIC BARKER, of the Tribune
Feb 25, 2020 

Two uncoordinated but synchronous letters written by residents of the Pacific Northwest were sent to various political leaders in the region Monday imploring them to play a role in fostering holistic solutions to declining salmon and steelhead populations on the Columbia and Snake rivers, as well as related challenges to power production and commodity transportation.

The first, directed to the governors of Idaho, Washington, Oregon and Montana, was written by a coalition of conservation groups, utility companies and Port of Lewiston manager David Doeringsfeld. It asked the governors to use the imminent release of a draft environmental impact statement on dams on the Snake and Columbia rivers to develop a “strategic plan that will identify investments needed to recover and conserve salmon, steelhead and other fish and wildlife populations, ensure tribal needs are honored and sustained, and strengthen the electricity and agricultural services that communities depend on from the river.”

The second was written by leaders of small communities up and down the Clearwater and Salmon rivers that depend on salmon and steelhead fishing to fuel their economies. Directed at Idaho Gov. Brad Little and all four members of the Idaho Congressional delegation, it pleaded for the leaders to “stop the downward trend of Idaho’s salmon and steelhead toward extinction.” The letter was coordinated by the Idaho Wildlife Federation.

Both communications come on the heels of other efforts to build coalitions and partnerships between one-time combatants in the 30-year-old salmon-and-dams conflict, with the notion that working together can be more productive than fighting. Last year, Idaho Gov. Brad Little convened his Salmon Workgroup, a collection of diverse interests tasked with developing policy recommendations to save the fish. The workgroup was announced last April at a salmon recovery conference in which Idaho Rep. Mike Simpson announced his intention to craft legislation to help salmon and steelhead and rescue the Bonneville Power Administration from financial challenges.

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee convened an Orca Task Force and asked the diverse group to find ways to save the iconic marine mammals that depend on abundant chinook runs up and down the West Coast.

The Columbia Basin Partnership Task Force was convened in 2017 by NOAA Fisheries to develop “shared goals and a comprehensive vision for the future of Columbia Basin salmon and steelhead.” The diverse group issued a report that set high standards for fish recovery.

The letter to Northwest governors was signed by leaders of 17 entities and organizations, such as K. David Hagen, general manager of Clearwater Power Co.; Doeringsfeld of the Port of Lewiston; Joseph Bogaard, executive director of Save Our Wild Salmon Coalition; Bear Prairie, general manager of Idaho Falls Power; and Rob Masonis, vice president for western conservation for Trout Unlimited.

While they don’t offer prescriptions for saving the fish, they said any solution must include shared goals such as abundant and harvestable numbers of fish; enhancement to farming, transportation and fishing economies; viable ports; reliable, affordable and clean power; and honoring the culture and treaties of Columbia River Native American tribes.

“Signatories of this letter represent a broad alliance of river interests committed to restoring abundant salmon and steelhead runs. We are hopeful that diverse interests throughout the Pacific Northwest will unite around meaningful recovery efforts,” said Doeringsfeld in a news release accompanying the letter’s release.

“The issues before us are complex but our mutual interests as a region are much greater than the issues that divide us,” said Chad Jensen, CEO of Inland Power and Light. “The time is now for us all to come together as a region to work collaboratively to restore fish, meet our energy needs and move progressively forward.”

Agreeing to work together is a big step. Bigger is coming up with solutions that satisfy the diverse interests of the signatories. Bogaard said it’s going to take a willingness of all involved to engage in uncomfortable discussions. For power and port officials, that could mean talking about the possibility of dam breaching. For fishing and conservation groups, it could mean talking about harvest and predator management.

The letter from leaders of communities along the Clearwater and Salmon rivers similarly asked Idaho’s governor and congressional delegation to accept hard truths. It asks for an acknowledgement that the fish are at risk of extinction and that previous efforts to save them have failed. The writers want Idaho leaders to pursue solutions that not only save the fish but also benefit power production, agriculture and rural communities, and to work with other leaders of the Northwest to do so.

“Idahoans demand action for our fish now, before it’s too late,” they wrote. “As drastic as the implications are for the loss of our salmon and steelhead, we fully expect of our leaders who represent our values, to uphold our ideals to restore Idaho salmon and steelhead with determination equal to the emergency facing our fishery.”

Brian Brooks, director of the Idaho Wildlife Federation, said those who wrote and signed the letter want help.

“In one unified voice, all these people who usually don’t talk to each other are screaming,” he said. “Their towns are dying and this is a primary resource that is contributing to that and they are asking for leadership. They don’t have their hands on the levers of power to make those decisions and they are trying to reach out to the people who do.”

Barker may be contacted at ebarker@lmtribune.com or at (208) 848-2273. Follow him on Twitter @ezebarker.

Officials from Riggins, Salmon, Kamiah and Stanley say EIS ignores sport fishing economy

By Eric Barker
April 11, 2020

Business leaders from some of Idaho’s smallest towns located along some of its best salmon and steelhead rivers are telling the federal government that angling is vital to their economies and steps must be taken to preserve the hard-fighting fish.
Chambers of commerce from Riggins, Salmon, Kamiah and Stanley sent comments to the Army Corps of Engineers and its sister agencies, panning the nearly 8,000-page Columbia River System Operation Draft Environmental Impact Statement. They said the federal officials ignored the sport fishing economy that is vital to their towns and endorsed a salmon recovery strategy that doesn’t recover the fish.

“It was just left off the radar; we felt pretty offended,” said Roy Akins of the lack of economic analysis on sport fishing. “We realize it’s been dubbed an invisible economy, but to have it thrown in our faces like that was pretty harsh.”

Akins is a fishing outfitter, has a seat on the Riggins City Council and is a member of the Salmon River Chamber of Commerce.

In their comments, the chambers noted there are lots of economic studies the agencies could have tapped.

“It is unacceptable that the draft EIS did not include publicly-available data sources to quantify both the economic potential of abundant fish returns, as well as the devastating financial impacts of declining salmon and steelhead populations on rural communities in Idaho and throughout the Pacific Northwest,” they wrote.

Dawnmarie Johnson, vice president of the Kamiah Chamber of Commerce, said fishing is one of the few economic engines along the Clearwater River.

“Fishing and hunting brings a lot of money into our area, and timber and the timber market is nothing right now,” she said. “It’s amazing how many fishermen we have in this area that come in and frequent our restaurants, and grocery stores and gas stations.”

The public comment period on the draft EIS comes to an end Monday. The study looked at a range of alternatives to balance the needs of threatened and endangered salmon and steelhead with operation of the federal hydropower system on the Snake and Columbia rivers.

It examined, but dismissed, breaching the four lower Snake River dams. The agencies found restoring the lower Snake to a free-flowing river would give the fish the best chances of recovering. But they said breaching — which would end barge transportation on the river and reduce generation of hydropower — would be too costly. Instead, the agencies chose to continue a strategy centered on spilling water at the dams to help get juvenile fish safely downstream.

In their comments, the chambers noted that the strategy backed by the federal government falls well short of recovering the fish.

“The plan they like has virtually no benefit to our fisheries in Idaho and maintains us on a course to eventual extinction,” Akins said.

The comments from the small towns are in contrast to those made by the Lewis Clark Valley Chamber of Commerce of Lewiston and Clarkston, which backed the federal government’s approach.

Barker may be contacted at ebarker@lmtribune.com or at (208) 848-2273. Follow him on Twitter @ezebarker.

Deal between federal government and those opposed to four dams on lower Snake River will include $1 billion in federal funds and a hold on lawsuits for at least five years

By Eric Barker Of the Tribune
Dec 15, 2023

The Biden administration announced today it has reached an agreement with the Nez Perce Tribe, Oregon and other plaintiffs challenging the operation of dams that harm wild salmon on the lower Snake and Columbia rivers.

The deal expected to bring more than $1 billion in federal investments to help recover wild fish in the two rivers is not a settlement of the case. Rather, it puts the lawsuit on ice for five to 10 years.

“Today’s agreement was not an easy one to reach for anyone here today, but it was and is a critical and historical step towards restoring the Columbia River Basin,” said John Podesta, a senior adviser to President Joe Biden, during an online news conference. “One that honors our obligations to tribal nations to protect salmon of other native fish as the lifeblood of the Pacific Northwest and recognizes the important benefits the Columbia River system provides to communities and businesses throughout the region.”

Snake River salmon and steelhead returns once numbered in the millions. But the runs declined dramatically following construction of eight dams between Lewiston and the Pacific Ocean. Most returning adult fish are now from hatcheries and wild spring chinook, steelhead, sockeye and fall chinook are all protected by the Endangered Species Act.

Scientists have long identified the dams, which have fish ladders and sophisticated fish bypass systems, as a significant source of mortality. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration went on record last year saying dam breaching is required to restore the runs to abundance.

In exchange for pausing their litigation, the Nez Perce and other tribes that have treaty fishing rights on the two rivers will receive financial and technical assistance developing methods for producing as much as 3,000 megawatts of renewable energy sources, reforms to the way the river and fish and wildlife programs are operated, and continuing financial support for fish restoration projects in the Columbia River Basin. The Biden administration has also pledged to fund dam removal studies.

Shannon Wheeler, chairperson of the Nez Perce Tribe, called the agreement a pathway to future dam removal.

“We know that salmon, steelhead, lamprey, orca, all of those species will be in a better place when this is completed,” he said.

The tribe has supported dam breaching since 1996 and believes it is necessary to recover Snake River salmon and for the federal government to live up to promises it made in its Treaty of 1855 with the Nez Perce.

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, who participated in the news conference, didn’t commit his support for dam breaching but said this agreement will help answer important questions while advancing the development of clean energy.

“I don’t think this agreement makes anything inevitable but it does make it much more likely we will have the information we need to make a good decision, and I don’t know who would be against that,” he said.

Brenda Mallory, chairperson of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, said dam operation changes in the agreement will deliver a net benefit for some fish while also benefiting power production.

Under the agreement, the tribes will be able to count the new energy development as replacement for hydroelectric power generated at the dams if a future Congress authorizes breaching. That would neutralize one powerful argument against dam breaching. The handful of Northwest politicians who have signaled some level of support for dam removal have insisted the power generation, irrigation and navigation services provided by the dams be replaced or mitigated prior to breaching.

In 2021, Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, proposed a $33 billion plan that would breach the dams and mitigate affected communities and industries. Last year, Inslee and Sen. Patty Murray, both Washington Democrats, said Snake River salmon must be saved but the services provided by the dams have to be replaced before breaching.

Wheeler said the tribes are betting the energy development and dam removal studies will pay future dividends.

“I think we as tribes are rolling the dice here, that all of these services are able to advance to a point to where congressional leaders can consider that and the administration can consider that and take the necessary actions to get to breach,” he said.

Some Republicans in Congress opposed the measures. On Tuesday, a House subcommittee headed by Cliff Bentz of Oregon held a hearing focusing on a leaked draft of the agreement.

“This is in my view another attempt by the current administration to promote an unreasonable and irrational agenda for their energy policy,” said Russ Fulcher of Idaho. “The problem with this one is it would gut the Pacific Northwestern economy as we know it.”

Along with conservation groups and Oregon, the tribes sued the federal government, claiming its 2020 plan to operate the dams in a way that doesn’t further harm wild salmon and steelhead violates the Endangered Species Act. The plaintiffs have challenged successive dam operation plans over the past 25 years. In October 2021, the two sides agreed to pause the case and discuss a potential settlement. Today’s agreement is a product of those talks.

Under its terms, the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) will spend $300 million over the next decade to help restore imperiled salmon and steelhead runs. Of that, the Nez Perce, Yakama, Umatilla and Warm Springs tribes, along with Oregon and Washington, will get $100 million. The remaining $200 million will be devoted to updating salmon and steelhead hatcheries in the Columbia River Basin.

Groups that represent public utilities that purchase power from the BPA and those representing farmers who use the river to get their crops to downriver ports bitterly opposed the agreement. They contend it threatens agriculture in the region and will lead to substantially higher electricity costs. Kurt Miller, executive director of the Northwest Public Power Association, said the Biden administration did not appear to listen to any of the concerns voiced by opponents and said the suggestion that the agreement enjoys broad support among parties to the lawsuit is not accurate.

“The entire public power community is united in thinking this is a bad settlement for the public power customers they serve,” he said.

Conservation groups largely praised the deal. Trout Unlimited President Chris Wood called it another brick in the road to salmon recovery.

“It all leads to a place where the region decides if they want wild salmon in the Snake River or not, I don’t doing think it’s any more complicated than that,” he said.

Brian Brooks, executive director of the Idaho Wildlife Federation, said salmon recovery efforts over the past three decades have failed and dealing with the dams is the key to saving Idaho’s fish.

“The dams are the largest human-caused contribution to fish mortality and it has been the most expensive species recovery effort in history — $26 billion to no avail,” he said. “We can’t keep doing this. It’s a ridiculous amount of money for no improvement. The bottom line is if we want fish and we want to stop bleeding money, we need to address the dam problem.”

Lewiston Tribune: "It’s official: Dam agreement announced" article link

Biden, Congressional delegation asked to take steps to save salmon, steelhead

By Eric Barker
March 26, 2021

A group of tribal leaders from the Pacific Northwest is calling on the region’s congressional delegation and President Joe Biden to breach the four lower Snake River dams.

In a letter to Biden and members of Congress from Idaho, Washington and Oregon, the 11 leaders, under the umbrella of the Northwest Tribal Salmon Alliance, say breaching the dams is needed to avoid extinction of Snake River salmon and steelhead and to honor treaties between tribes and the federal government.

“Congress and the president must act boldly and urgently to remove the lower Snake River dams and put into place a permanent solution to fix this crisis before it passes a point of no return,” they wrote.

The letter was signed by members of the Yakama and Lummi nations, Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Reservation and the Tulalip, Swinomish and Makah tribes. The signers do not necessarily represent the official position of their tribal governments.

Absent from the list were representatives from the Nez Perce and Shoshone-Bannock tribes of Idaho that have treaty rights on the Snake River and its tributaries. Both tribes have endorsed Idaho Rep. Mike Simpson’s proposal to breach the four lower Snake River dams, and the Nez Perce have long been involved in a legal battle over the dams and their effect on salmon and steelhead. The letter also lacked representation from the Warm Springs Tribe of Oregon.

The dams produce hydropower and allow tug-and-barge transportation between Lewiston and the Tri-Cities. But the concrete, steel and earthen structures also harm juvenile fish on their downstream journey to the Pacific Ocean, despite including fish ladders. They are blamed as one of the top causes of Snake River salmon and steelhead landing on the Endangered Species Act.

Many of the tribes in the Columbia Basin and elsewhere in the Pacific Northwest signed treaties with the federal government that reserved their rights to fish in “usual and accustomed” places. If salmon and steelhead are allowed to go extinct, the federal government will not be meeting the terms of the treaties, they argue.

“Salmon are inseparable from who we are. We exist because salmon exist. They are our food, ceremony, our culture and the very heart of our economy and lifeway,” the letter to Biden and Congress states. “Even as our ancestors’ lives and homeland were threatened, they made sure to protect within the treaties our ancestral salmon lifeway. Those treaties were promises made by the United States government. Those promises must be kept.”

They said they can’t tolerate more delays from the federal government, and while they appreciate a collaborative process being led by the governors of Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Montana aimed at finding solutions to declining salmon runs, “the time for talk has long passed.”

The letter doesn’t mention the recent $33 billion proposal from Simpson that would breach the dams and mitigate affected communities and industries. Simpson’s effort is mentioned in an accompanying news release. The alliance was formed to advocate for the importance of restoration of the lower Snake River and salmon recovery in the Pacific Northwest.

“The Northwest delegation must engage now to ensure a future where salmon are once again abundant,” said Don Sampson of the Northwest Tribal Salmon Alliance in the news release. “What we cannot do is wait. Waiting is death. It is our sacred obligation to preserve these salmon and our ways of life.”

Barker may be contacted at ebarker@lmtribune.com or at (208) 848-2273. Follow him on Twitter @ezebarker.

Corps proposes to fill cove on the Clarkston side of the Snake to increase user access, reduce need to dredge

By ERIC BARKER, June 15 2018

Officials from the Army Corps of Engineers are looking to add a new beach at Swallows Park near Clarkston and convert the long-abandoned swimming area there to native vegetation.

The plans are included in the agency's draft update of its 1974 Lower Granite Master Plan. The document spells out how the Corps' land-based resources, including high-density recreation areas and wildlife habitat that are part of the Lower Granite Dam project, will be managed.

The dam is on the Snake River, about 35 miles downriver from the Lewiston-Clarkston Valley. But the project includes things like the levee system that keeps Lewiston and Clarkston from flooding, as well as undeveloped land such as the Hells Gate and Chief Timothy habitat management units that are dedicated to mitigating for habitat that was inundated when the dam backed up the Snake River. The levee system includes developed recreation such as the walking and biking paths that sit on top of it and adjacent parks like Swallows, south of Clarkston.

A swimming beach there was essentially abandoned years ago after the agency could no longer afford to dredge sediment from the area. It's in a small cove off the main river, just north of the boat ramp at the park that sits in a separate and larger lagoon. Today, the crescent-shaped cove consists of a shallow backwater area with a river inlet on its south end and a marshy low-lying area on the north end with an island-like area between the two. Agency officials plan to fill in the cove, plant native vegetation and establish a new beach along the shore of the river on the north end of the island.
The federal agency must obtain a clean water permit from the Washington Department of Ecology before the plan is finalized.
"Instead of dredging it out, it will be easier to fill it in and establish a beach in a new area that won't require as much dredging or maintenance costs," said Chris Alford, senior natural resources specialist for the Corps at Walla Walla.

He said the new beach would be similar in size and look to Chestnut Beach in Clarkston. Alford hopes the project can begin by the end of summer.
Elsewhere in the document, agency officials detail aspirations to better connect the levee trail system with the downtowns of Lewiston and Clarkston. However, specific funding and plans are not yet in place. It also reclassified several parcels of wildlife land to mitigation land, a technical change with no real difference in how the land will be managed said Karen Zelch, project manager for the effort to update the document.

The plan includes concerns from some users at the Hells Gate Management Unit that hunting there may be a safety hazard for people who use the land for hiking, horse riding and biking. The area is mitigation land with a stated purpose of providing both wildlife habitat and hunting access. The plan's authors don't propose changing use in the area but speak of working with user groups to make sure hunting and other uses can coexist.

"We are trying to balance those uses between it being more of a recreation area in a lot of people's eyes but still one of those mitigation areas we manage for wildlife, including hunting," Alford said.

The draft plan is available on the Corps' website at https://bit.ly/2kXfVjL and available for public comment through June 26. Written comments may be submitted via email at LowerGraniteMP@usace.army.mil, by using the online comment form on the master plan webpage or by post to USACE-Walla Walla District.

http://lmtribune.com/outdoors/new-life-for-an-old-beach/article_589d4aad-c2af-5bff-ad38-00f6d67cad0c.html

Eric Barker
May 27, 2021

The Nez Perce and other tribes of the Pacific Northwest continued to press reluctant politicians Wednesday to join an effort to save salmon by breaching Snake River dams.

Samuel N. Penney, chairman of the Nez Perce Tribal Executive Committee, said his and other tribes continue to back Rep. Mike Simpson’s dam removal concept and won’t allow other politicians to drive a wedge in their unified front.

“Any efforts to divide the indigenous peoples of this region by suggesting that the Puget Sound Tribes don’t have the same interests as the Northwest inland tribes have been soundly rejected by tribal leaders,” Penney said in a news release. “The salmon are a life source that we all depend on, in more ways than one. We will continue to fight for their survival together because just as we are united with each other, we are also united with the salmon; we are all salmon people. We are here speaking for the salmon and upholding our commitment to them as they have done, and continue to try to do, for us.”

In February, Simpson unveiled his $33 billion concept to save threatened and endangered Snake River salmon and steelhead by breaching the four lower Snake River dams in eastern Washington and investing in new sources of power, transportation alternatives for farmers and support for port communities like Lewiston and the Tri-Cities. His plan, dubbed the Columbia River Initiative, is also centered on shoring up the Bonneville Power Administration, an agency that markets power produced at federal dams in the Columbia River Basin. The agency faces an uncertain financial future because of a shifting electricity market.

But Simpson’s plan has fallen flat with many of his fellow members of the Northwest congressional delegation. Republicans and strong dam supporters like Reps. Cathy McMorris Rodgers and Dan Newhouse of Washington have attacked Simpson and his concept. Democrats like Sens. Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray and Gov. Jay Inslee, all of Washington, have brushed him off.

Last week, Inslee and Murray said Simpson’s plan shouldn’t be funded in infrastructure legislation taking shape in Congress. Instead they called for collaborative regional talks and emphasized those discussions should honor tribal treaty rights.

Cantwell also dismissed Simpson’s proposal, but she said funding for projects like replacing culverts that block access to salmon spawning streams and other salmon habitat projects could be included in the infrastructure bill. Her focus appears to be on fish in the Puget Sound area, what she calls the “salmon production powerhouse.” Culverts that pass water under the highly developed region’s many roads, highways and interstates are deemed a major threat to salmon.

When asked about Simpson’s plan at a recent virtual town hall meeting, Cantwell talked about the need to diversify power production in the Northwest so it isn’t as reliant on hydropower, an element of the Simpson plan, then pivoted and spoke about the need to replace culverts in the Puget Sound.

She suggested Simpson’s plan is not realistic.

“We need to focus on what we can get, so I’m going to try to get that energy diversification in the bill,” she said. “I’m going to try to get salmon habitat recovery in the bill. I’m going to try to get money to take care of those culverts.”

“The sacred and life-sustaining issues of water and salmon, and this unprecedented moment offering a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to make real progress in saving this once bountiful fish for our children and grandchildren, has given us in Indian Country cause to set aside any past differences,” he said. “We call upon the many other regional interests, parties and stakeholders in this decades-long stalemate to do the same and to agree to a meaningful plan that restores the rivers of the Columbia Basin and the salmon runs to their former strength and health. For us, we believe the answers can be found in Rep. Simpson’s proposed framework.”

Penny’s news release included statements of support from Mel Sheldon, former chairman of the Tulalip Tribes in western Washington and Delano Saluskin, chairman of the Yakama Nation Tribal Council in central Washington.

Sheldon said funding for culvert replacement shouldn’t come at the expense of help for Snake River fish.

“We are all fishing people and have been for generations. Such an appropriation may be of benefit to the Puget Sound Tribes and our salmon here. But it does not help the Idaho salmon and steelhead whose continued existence remains threatened by the four Lower Snake dams,” he said. “This fateful moment requires more from everyone — bigger thinking, bold action, and a willingness to do what’s right and what’s needed — for the rivers, the fish and the tribal peoples who have always depended on both.”

Yakama chairman Saluskin said Simpson’s plan can help recover salmon and address a number of other difficult problems.

“Today — in the face of aging energy infrastructure, depressed local economies, climate change, and ever-declining fish runs — we must do something different to preserve our way of life in the Pacific Northwest. 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 for the benefit of all.”

Penney said Shannon Wheeler, vice chairman of the Nez Perce executive committee, introduced a resolution expressing support for Simpson’s concept at a convention of the Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians. A vote on the resolution is expected today.

Barker may be contacted at ebarker@lmtribune.com or at (208) 848-2273. Follow him on Twitter @ezebarker.

 Op-ed in Orofino newspaper implores congressmen to get engaged in efforts to restore iconic fish runs

By Eric Barker
July 24, 2020

A small group of fishing outfitters and guides is calling on three-quarters of the Idaho congressional delegation to become more engaged in efforts to recover the iconic fish that return to the Snake River and its tributaries.

The group asked Sens. Jim Risch and Mike Crapo and Rep. Russ Fulcher to join Rep. Mike Simpson’s effort to come up with a new salmon recovery strategy that also reforms the financially struggling Bonneville Power Administration.

Outfitters Toby Wyatt, Jason Schultz, Kyle Jones and Adam Hocking, along with guides Travis Wendt and Tom Bullock, signed the piece.

They write that fish recovery efforts over the past two decades have failed and a new plan expected to be finalized next week appears to be following the same unsuccessful blueprint.

“It has never been clearer that federal agencies like the Bonneville Power Administration and Army Corps of Engineers can’t prevent the extinction of our fish, and our industry along with it. We need a bigger solution, which will only happen with leadership from those privileged enough to be our elected representatives. They cannot continue to sit by quietly as we lose our clients and consider closing our businesses,” they wrote.

All of them work on the Clearwater, Snake and Salmon rivers and have watched salmon and steelhead runs that have been federally protected for decades tank over the last few years. Last fall, the return of B-run steelhead was so low that fishing was shut down on the Clearwater River. Recent spring chinook seasons have been shuttered early on the Clearwater and other rivers as well. Steelhead returns are expected to improve slightly this fall but still lag far behind 10-year averages.

The outfitters have had to shift their focus to other species like bass, sturgeon and walleye to make ends meet. They wrote that a draft of the Corps’s environmental impact statement looking at balancing operation of dams on the Snake and Columbia rivers with fish all but ignores the economic contribution of their industry.

It does, however, say that removing the four lower Snake River dams would be the best way to recover the fish listed as threatened and endangered under the Endangered Species Act. But the government chose to focus on a plan that leaves the dams in place and instead calls for spilling water over them to help speed juvenile fish downstream.

Simpson, who hasn’t formally endorsed breaching, has played footsie with it for more than a year. The Republican representing Idaho’s Second Congressional District shocked many political observers last year when he declared his commitment to see Idaho’s fish runs recovered and framed possible solutions around a future with a free-flowing Snake River. He roughly outlined his idea for a grand plan that would reorganize the Bonneville Power Administration and also include mitigation to help farmers harmed by breaching and ways to shore up power supplies.

Since then, Simpson and his chief of staff, Lindsay Slater, have been working behind the scenes on the plan and talking to stakeholders. They haven’t publicly outlined the details of their idea.

The rest of the Congressional delegation seems content to talk about the importance of salmon and steelhead but does little to forge a new path. In a statement sent to the Tribune, Risch’s spokeswoman Marty Cozza said the Senator supports “collaborative action at the state and federal level to resolve these challenges so long as potential solutions do not include dam breaching.”

Crapo’s spokesman Lindsay Nothern said his boss also supports collaboration and consensus. Rep. Russ Fulcher said he frequently communicates with other members of the delegation about salmon recovery.

“I appreciate the need for a stronger salmon and steelhead fishery in Idaho, and believe this can be accomplished without sacrificing the carbon-free hydroelectric power system that makes up the largest source of electrical generation in our state and region,” he said.

Both Fulcher and Risch are up for reelection this fall and face opponents who say they are eager to see more dramatic actions taken.

Democrat Paulette Jordan is vying to take Risch’s Senate seat. She faulted him for staying the course on failed fish recovery strategies and said restoring the runs would bring economic opportunity to the state, open the door to more alternative energy development and honor tribal treaty rights.

“Even the most conservative estimates tell us that restoring salmon and steelhead runs could provide hundreds of millions of dollars of annual economic benefit across Idaho. As they stand, the four dams on the lower Snake River put valuable fish — and the jobs and communities that depend on them — at risk.”

Rudy Soto, a Democrat from Nampa challenging Fulcher, said he supports Simpson’s efforts but would be even more aggressive if elected.

“The four Lower Snake River Dams are wreaking havoc on our salmon and steelhead trout. These vital marine species are the cornerstones of our environment, indigenous and local communities, and our economy. We need leadership in Congress who will take a stand for all Idahoans by creating solutions to protect our heritage, livelihoods and precious natural resources. I fully support the coalition of anglers and business owners fighting for our fish and our rivers.”

The op-ed authors didn’t endorse breaching. In interviews, they said members of Congress simply need to do more to help save the fish.

Jason Schultz, owner of Hells Canyon Sport Fishing and vice president of the Clearwater Chapter of the Idaho River Community Alliance, traveled to Washington, D.C., this spring to advocate for the fish and said a new approach is desperately needed.

“If you keep doing the same thing over and over again, and nothing is getting better, eventually someone is going to have to come up with some outside-the-box thinking and try some new stuff,” he said.

Kyle Jones, of Jones Sport Fishing, at Lewiston, said dam breaching needs to be discussed openly as a possible solution.

“I just want to be able to have those conversations with people: ‘If dams were to come out, what would you guys need for your operations to remain whole?’,” he said.

The op-ed can be viewed at https://bit.ly/3eTGyzw.

Barker may be contacted at ebarker@lmtribune.com or at (208) 848-2273. Follow him on Twitter @ezebarker.

Sides in salmon and steelhead issue ask judge for more time to hammer out a solution

Sep 1, 2023
By Eric Barker Of the Tribune

Settlement talks that include breaching one or more Snake River dams as a possible action to recover threatened and endangered salmon and steelhead might be extended.

Parties to a decades-old lawsuit challenging operation of federal dams on the Snake and Columbia rivers over their detrimental effect on wild salmon and steelhead asked Thursday for more time to hammer out a solution.

The legal timeout began in 2021 when the Biden administration agreed to engage in mediated talks with the Nez Perce and other Native American tribes, Oregon and fishing and environmental groups. The stay, which was set to expire at the end of the day, halted proceedings in the latest round of the lawsuit in which the plaintiffs challenged the federal government’s 2020 plan that seeks to balance dam operations with needs of the fish. Courts have declared several earlier versions of the plan to be illegal.

If Judge Michael Simon grants the request, the talks seeking a “durable long-term strategy to restore salmon and other native fish populations to healthy and abundant levels” would continue for another 60 days.

“Salmon are in crisis, and we owe it to them to focus on durable solutions — including restoring the Lower Snake River — that work for the fish, honor our Treaty, and build a stronger, more resilient Northwest,” said Shannon Wheeler, chairperson of the Nez Perce Tribe, in a news release.

Amanda Goodwin, an attorney from the environmental law firm EarthJustice, told the Tribune her clients continue to seek a solution to the decades-long decline of salmon and steelhead that has left some runs on the brink of extinction.

“I think it is true, remains true and has been true for quite some time that my clients are pushing for a comprehensive solution to restoring salmon in the Columbia River basin,” Goodwin said, “and we see restoring the Snake River as an absolutely critical component of that.”

Goodwin said her clients believe replacing the services the dams provide is an essential part of any plan to restore the river.

Kurt Miller, executive director of Northwest River Partners, said the extension is likely bad news for public power customers and those in agriculture who depend on the dams to ship and irrigate their crops. Although those groups are intervenors in the case, Miller said they have been kept in the dark.

“The process has excluded us so far and it doesn’t bode well for what is going on,” he said. “I think it’s because the things they are negotiating will be bad for public power customers and agricultural interests.”

The federal government operates 14 dams on the two rivers. Dams on the Snake River have been shown to negatively affect survival rates for spring chinook, fall chinook, sockeye and steelhead, all of which are protected by the Endangered Species Act. On the Columbia River in central Washington, Chief Joseph and Grand Coulee dams have no fish passage mechanisms and the fish runs above them have long been extinct.

But the hydropower system also provides a significant portion of the electricity consumed by residents of the Pacific Northwest and beyond, and on the Snake River the dams make it possible to ship commodities like wheat between Lewiston and downriver ports.

The Nez Perce along with Oregon and fishing and environmental groups have advocated breaching the dams for more than two decades. That idea has gathered momentum of late. It started with Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, releasing his plan two years ago that would spend $33.5 billion to breach the dams and compensate affected communities and industries. Last year, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee and Sen. Patty Murray, both Democrats, said breaching the dams is the surest way to recover the fish but that the action will not be feasible until there are replacements for services provided by the dams. Inslee’s administration is studying how those services might be replaced.

Last year, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said for the first time the Snake River dams must be breached if wild salmon and steelhead that return to the river are to be restored to fishable numbers.

The request filed Thursday afternoon includes a footnote indicating the state of Idaho does not oppose the stay but thinks two months is not enough time. The document also indicates that the Coeur d’Alene Tribe, Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation and the Spokane Tribe are close to reaching an agreement with the administration. In previous court filings, the tribes have asked for an environmental impact statement looking at the impacts of Grand Coulee and Chief Joseph dams on salmon runs that once returned to the upper Columbia River and for a 2020 EIS to be thrown out for its failure to do so. The upper Columbia River tribes have begun efforts to restore salmon above the dams.

https://www.lmtribune.com/northwest/parties-seek-extension-in-dams-debate/article_e16ada21-e5d8-5344-806a-8576e3419a2d.html

By Eric Barker/Lewiston Tribune
Mar 21, 2023

President Joe Biden pledged today to work with Rep. Mike Simpson of Idaho and Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell of Washington to restore Snake and Columbia river salmon runs.

Biden was speaking at a White House Conservation in Action Summit attended by leaders of the Nez Perce Tribe in which he announced several high-level conservation initiatives including his use of the Antiquities Act to establish national monuments in Nevada and Texas and an ocean preserve near Hawaii.

When talking about salmon and steelhead, the president misspoke and accidently referenced the Colorado instead of the Columbia River.

“And I'm also committed to working with the tribal leaders here, as well as Senator Patty Murray, Maria Cantwell and Representative Mike Simpson to bring healthy and abundant salmon runs back to the Colorado River system,” Biden said.

The president didn’t provide specifics on how he hopes to help recovery of the runs.

Salmon fishing is central to the culture and economy of the tribe. Its 1855 treaty with the U.S. government reserves the right of its members to fish for salmon in “usual and accustomed places." But wild Snake River salmon and steelhead are protected under the Endangered Species Act. For more than two decades the tribe has advocated breaching the four lower Snake River dams that impede the migration of juvenile and adult salmon and steelhead as they move between spawning grounds in Idaho, Washington and Oregon and the Pacific Ocean.

The tribe has also been a key player in a long-running court case pitting it, Oregon and fishing and conservation groups against the federal government over its efforts to balance the needs of the fish with operation of dams on the Snake and Columbia rivers.

For more than a year, the parties to that litigation have participated in closed-door mediation in an attempt to forge a durable solution to the problems facing salmon and steelhead. The Biden administration has not backed dam breaching, but under its leadership, the federal government has been more open to the idea that was once ridiculed. Breaching would help the fish but it would end tug-and-barge transportation of crops like wheat between Lewiston and downriver ports and eliminate hydroelectric generation at the dams, complicating the region’s effort to decarbonize its energy system.

Two years ago, Rep. Simpson, of Idaho’s 2nd Congressional District, released a $33.5 billion plan that would breach the dams and invest in affected communities and industries across the Northwest. The concept, that is not legislation, has not gained traction with other members of Congress and some, like Reps. Russ Fulcher of Idaho and Cathy McMorris Rodgers of eastern Washington are bitterly opposed to the idea. But it was endorsed by the Nez Perce and other tribes, who continued to lobby for it.

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee and Sen. Patty Murray spent more than a year studying breaching before saying it would help the fish but is not feasible until services provided by the dams — transportation and hydroelectric power generation — are replaced.

Last year, a draft report from NOAA Fisheries said wild Snake River salmon and steelhead cannot be recovered to harvestable levels without dam breaching.

Biden highlighted several conservation initiatives at the summit, including those aimed at fighting climate change, protecting wildlife migration corridors and modernizing public land management.

“This matters because when we conserve our country's natural gifts, we're not just protecting the livelihoods of people who depend on them, like the family farms, outdoor recreation businesses and rural communities welcoming visitors from all across the country and around the world for that matter. We're protecting the heart and the soul of our national pride. We are protecting pieces of history, telling our story that will be told for generations upon generations to come.”

https://www.lmtribune.com/president-biden-pledges-support-for-efforts-to-restore-salmon-runs-on-the-snake-and-columbia/article_9ac6bfdd-5be0-512f-9735-4838b5578b71.html 

Survival rates expected to dip as much as 80 percent as water temperatures rise

By Eric Barker
Oct 2, 2020

New research indicates already struggling and highly imperiled Snake River sockeye salmon face grim prospects in a future with higher water temperatures and lower stream flows.

An article published Wednesday in the scientific journal PLOS One
predicts sockeye survival could decline by 80 percent as the effects of climate change alter inland habitat.

Snake River sockeye that return to Redfish Lake in the shadow of the Sawtooth mountains are federally protected as an endangered species. They were so close to blinking out in the early 1990s that the few returning adults were put in a captive breeding program to ensure survival of the species.

The conservation hatchery program gave enough of a boost to sockeye numbers to allow the species to take a step back from the brink of extinction. A small number of Snake River sockeye spawn and spend their entire lives in the wild. But most continue to be bred in either the emergency captive breeding program or a new hatchery in southeastern Idaho.

The goal of the new hatchery is to release 1 million smolts per year and dramatically increase adult returns. Idaho Fish and Game officials are still working out the kinks of the new facility, and while sockeye returns increased this year, they have yet to meet expectations.

But long-term survival of the species will require it to be able to adapt to a changing and warming climate. For example, there is evidence that upper Columbia River sockeye have started to return earlier in the spring, which would help them avoid some of the more dangerous water temperatures.

“If they can reestablish a wild population, I think that is their best hope,” said Lisa Crozier, lead author of “Snake River sockeye and Chinook salmon in a changing climate: Implications for upstream
migration survival during recent extreme and future climates.”

The article by Crozier, a researcher at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries’ Northwest Science Center at Seattle and her colleagues, says Snake River spring and summer chinook appear to be much more resilient to climate change, but even so, survival of the popular angling target could drop 4 percent to 15 percent.

 The researchers, Jared E. Siegel, Lauren E. Wiesebron, Elene M. Trujillo, Brian J. Burke, Benjamin P. Sandford and Daniel L. Widener, tracked historic returns of both species under a range of climatic conditions. They then modeled future returns, also on a wide range of conditions, only this time influenced by a warming climate that is expected to increase water temperature and reduce summertime stream flows. In 2015, a year marked by extremely low winter snowfall and spring runoff that was followed by an early arrival of hot summer temperatures, most of the returning adult sockeye perished in the Columbia and Snake rivers.

Crozier and colleagues said those kinds of conditions will be more common in the future. 

The researchers noted the Snake River sockeye are less resilient than sockeye that return to the upper Columbia River. That is likely because they have lost some of their previous life history diversity because of their dependence on hatchery production. Crozier said in general hatchery fish are less hardy than wild fish. 

“They just don’t survive as well as wild fish all across the board,” she said. “This is a population that has been in captive broodstock since the 1990s.”

Chinook at risk, too

While the perils of climate change will not alter adult migration conditions as much for spring and summer chinook, Crozier said those fish will be challenged by warmer water and lower flows in tributary streams before spawning. Spring and summer chinook return from about April through June but don’t spawn until about August. In between, they must survive in the small streams where they ultimately spawn. That may be one area where humans can help both species. There are ongoing efforts to improve inland spawning and rearing habitat. That work often includes efforts like restoring floodplains and riparian vegetation, and the creation of deeper pools. That can help provide pockets of cooler water and increase stream flows that are important for both adult fish and their offspring.

“What we need is a real quantitative analysis of where would (habitat restoration) be most beneficial. We already know a few obvious ones. We really need a basinwide — like a whole Salmon River basinwide — perspective of where can we get the most benefit for the effort and the cost. And it needs to be very climate change focused, because this is a very real change that is happening very rapidly, and we don’t have time to waste.”

September 9, 2017

By ERIC BARKER of the Tribune

SILCOTT ISLAND - Hundreds of salmon advocates launched dozens of boats on the Snake River here Saturday in what has become an annual event to show support for breaching the four lower Snake River Dams.

Participants and organizers of the "Free the Snake Flotilla" pointed to this year's dismal steelhead run and the curtailment of the annual harvest season on the sea-run trout as evidence a new and bold approach to salmon recovery is needed. Just more than 1,000 steelhead have been counted at Lower Granite Dam this summer, compared to a 10-year average of nearly 21,000.

The run has been pummeled by poor conditions in the Pacific Ocean for the past two years that also have wreaked havoc on sockeye salmon and, to a lesser degree, spring chinook. Wild Snake River chinook and steelhead are listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, and Snake River sockeye are endangered.

Breaching advocates say the $15 billion spent over the past two decades to restore spawning habitat, reform hatchery and harvest practices and to make it easier for juvenile and adult fish to pass the dams have made little difference in the face of warm sea surface temperatures.

"This river is bankrupt," said Brett Haverstick of the Friends of the Clearwater environmental group during a short presentation before the flotilla slipped into the river for a short round-trip paddle. "There is a crisis going on here and we lack the political will to do the right thing."

The colorful fleet included sleek flat-water kayaks, multi-person canoes, whitewater rafts, dories and a few power boats. Some were adorned with banners advocating dam removal. One sported a replica southern resident killer whale that salmon advocates claim are in danger of going extinct in part because too few salmon are produced by the Columbia River to support their winter feeding forays along the coasts of Oregon and Washington. Another featured a giant sockeye salmon, the Snake River's most imperiled anadromous fish.

Removing the dams and restoring the lower Snake to a free-flowing river would tip the scales in favor of both salmon and orcas, according to the participants. The rally is intended to demonstrate the level of support for such action.

"We have a lot of people here that are coming together in support of removal of the dams," said Elliott Moffett of the Nez Perce Tribe and the environmental group Nimiipuu Protecting the Environment. "It's becoming very evident that the dams are part of the problem - or the problem - and they need to be removed for recovery of the species."

The Rev. Thomas Soeldner of Valley Ford, Wash. - a board member of Earth Ministry, a faith-based environmental group - said dam removal could transform the Snake and Columbia basin into "the largest salmon fishery in the United States."

The retired Lutheran pastor said the planet is telling us a new environmental approach is needed.
"As long as anyone can remember we have been trying to control nature. It's time for us to learn to live with nature and find our place in it rather than try to overcome it or manage it," he said. "We are finding, in very difficult ways today, that it doesn't work. There's got to be a new way or the Earth will find a new way for us."

By Eric Barker Of the Tribune
Dec 14, 2023

The Biden administration announced today that it has reached an agreement with the Nez Perce Tribe, Oregon and other plaintiffs challenging the operation of dams that harm wild salmon on the lower Snake and Columbia rivers.

The deal expected to bring more than $1 billion in federal investments to help recover wild fish in the two rivers is not a settlement of the case. Rather, it puts the lawsuit on ice for five to 10 years.

“Today's agreement was not an easy one to reach for anyone here today, but it was and is a critical and historical step towards restoring the Columbia River Basin,” said John Podesta, a senior adviser to President Joe Biden, during an online news conference. “One that honors our obligations to tribal nations to protect salmon of other native fish as the lifeblood of the Pacific Northwest and recognizes the important benefits the Columbia River system provides to communities and businesses throughout the region.”

In exchange for pausing their litigation, the Nez Perce and other tribes that have treaty fishing rights on the two rivers will receive financial and technical assistance developing methods for producing as much as 3,000 megawatts of renewable energy sources, reforms to the way the river and fish and wildlife programs are operated, and continuing financial support for fish restoration projects in the Columbia River Basin. The Biden administration has also pledged to fund dam removal studies.

Shannon Wheeler, chairperson of the Nez Perce Tribe, called the agreement a pathway to future dam removal.

“We know that salmon, steelhead, lamprey, orca, all of those species will be in a better place when this is completed,” he said.

The tribe has supported dam breaching since 1996 and believes it is necessary to recover Snake River salmon protected by the Endangered Species Act and for the federal government to live up to promises it made in the Treaty of 1855.

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, who participated in the news conference, didn’t commit his support for dam breaching but said this agreement will help answer important questions while advancing the development of clean energy.

“I don't think this agreement makes anything inevitable but it does make it much more likely we will have the information we need to make a good decision, and I don't know who would be against that,” he said.

Brenda Mallory, chairperson of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, said dam operation changes in the agreement will deliver a net benefit for some fish while also benefiting power production.

Under the agreement, the tribes will be able to count the new energy development as replacement for hydroelectric power generated at the dams if a future Congress authorizes breaching. That would neutralize one powerful argument against dam breaching. The handful of Northwest politicians who have signaled some level of support for dam removal have insisted the power generation, irrigation and navigation services provided by the dams be replaced or mitigated prior to breaching.

In 2021, Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, proposed a $33 billion plan that would breach the dams and mitigate affected communities and industries. Last year, Inslee and Sen. Patty Murray, both Washington Democrats, said Snake River salmon must be saved but the services provided by the dams have to be replaced before breaching.

Wheeler said the tribes are betting the energy development and dam removal studies will pay future dividends.

“I think we as tribes are rolling the dice here, that all of these services are able to advance to a point to where congressional leaders can consider that and the administration can consider that and take the necessary actions to get to breach,” he said.

Along with conservation groups and Oregon, the tribes sued the federal government, claiming its 2020 plan to operate the dams in a way that doesn’t further harm wild salmon and steelhead violates the Endangered Species Act. The plaintiffs have challenged successive dam operation plans over the past 25 years. In October 2021, the two sides agreed to pause the case and discuss a potential settlement. Today’s agreement is a product of those talks.

Under its terms, the Bonneville Power Administration will spend $300 million over the next decade to help restore imperiled salmon and steelhead runs. Of that, the Nez Perce, Yakama, Umatilla and Warm Springs tribes, along with Oregon and Washington, will get $100 million. The remaining $200 million will be devoted to updating salmon and steelhead hatcheries in the Columbia River Basin.

Groups that represent public utilities that purchase power from BPA and those representing farmers who use the river to get their crops to downriver ports bitterly opposed the agreement. They contend it threatens agriculture in the region and will lead to substantially higher electricity costs.

Lewiston Tribune: "Salmon and dam agreement formally announced, features $1 billion in federal funds and pause on lawsuits" article link

Federal agencies will accept input through Aug. 15

May 2, 2025
By Eric Barker

Federal agencies have extended a public comment period on their effort to take a new look at the effect Snake and Columbia River dams have on salmon and steelhead.

The Army Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation will now accept comments through Aug. 15 in advance of their work to update the 2020 environmental impact statement on the dams.

The update, known as a supplemental environmental impact statement, is a product of the agreement between the Biden administration and Native American tribes like the Nez Perce and other plaintiffs in a decades-long lawsuit over the harm dams cause to the fish.

Specifically, the agencies plan to consider new information including a tribal circumstances report released last year that said development of the dams caused substantial and ongoing harm to tribes with treaty fishing rights in the Snake and Columbia river basins and a 2022 National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries report that said wild Snake River salmon can’t be recovered to healthy and harvestable levels without dam breaching.

Public meetings related to the work were to be held this spring but were canceled last month, causing some to speculate that the Trump administration may be mulling its support of the agreement struck by his predecessor. According to a news release announcing the extended deadline for public comments, those meetings will now be held virtually over the summer months. However, dates have yet to be announced.

The agreement led to a pause in the litigation expected to last up to 10 years. In exchange for the tribes shelving their lawsuit, the Biden administration pledged to make significant investments in salmon recovery and to study how to replace the services of the four lower Snake River dams if they are ever breached.

More information on the environmental impact statement process and ways to comment on it are available at www.nwd.usace.army.mil/columbiariver/. 

Lewiston Tribune: Salmon and dams comment period extended

Read more news

December 19^th, 2018

By Eric Barker

A short-term agreement over fish passage operations at Snake and Columbia river dams could help researchers determine whether spilling more water there can significantly boost survival of juvenile salmon and steelhead and ultimately lead to more fish returning to Idaho, Oregon and Washington.

On Tuesday, the federal agencies that manage the dams announced a three-year agreement with Oregon, Washington and the Nez Perce Tribe that will lead to more water being spilled at the dams. The agreement is designed to stave off additional litigation as the federal government finishes a court-ordered review and environmental impact statement on the degree to which the dams threaten salmon and steelhead under the protection of the Endangered Species Act, and what steps should be taken to recover the iconic fish.

The agreement is related to a long-running lawsuit over dam operations and fish recovery. In 2016, U.S. District Judge Michael Simon of Portland rejected the federal government’s plan to operate the dams and protect 13 species of salmon and steelhead in the Columbia and Snake rivers. He also ordered the Army Corps of Engineers, Bonneville Power Administration and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation to subject the operation of the hydropower system on the Snake and Columbia rivers to an environmental impact study under the National Environmental Policy Act and to consider breaching one or more dams on the Snake River.

That process is expected to wrap up in 2021. In the meantime, Simon ordered additional water to be spilled at the dams to help juvenile salmon and steelhead make their way past the impoundments and to shorten their travel time to the Pacific Ocean.However, that order was limited by water quality standards of Oregon and Washington that limit the amount of dissolved gas. Gas levels rise as water plunges over the dams.According to the terms of the agreement, both states will make changes that will allow more water to be spilled this spring.

 Additional changes will allow the dissolved gas standard near the dams to rise even higher in 2020 and 2021, thus allowing more water to be spilled.Spilled water bypasses hydroelectric turbines at the dams and reduces power production. That harms the bottom line of BPA, which sells energy not only to its regional customers but ships surplus energy to places like California. The agency has fallen on hard financial times as changes in the electricity market have eroded wholesale energy prices. The agreement counter acts that to a degree by giving dam managers like the corps and the BPA flexibility to reduce spill and increase power production in times of peak energy demand and high prices — largely during daylight hours.

The agreement was hailed by some, including Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, who described it as “landmark.” It was downplayed by those who support removing the four lower Snake River dams a necessary step to recover the fish, and it was dismissed outright by U.S. Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash. who called it “worse than useless.”

A joint statement released by signatories to the agreement said “Working together, the region’s states, tribes and federal agencies have developed an approach that demonstrates environmental stewardship and affordable sustainable energy are not mutually exclusive.”

Inslee, a Democrat who hasn’t ruled out running for president in 2020, included increased spill at the dams as one of many measures he supports to help endangered southern resident orcas in the Puget Sound. The animals feed on a number of chinook salmon runs, including some that return to the Snake River.

Environmental groups who participated in the litigation that led to Simon’s 2016 ruling said increased spill will help the fish but they called it an interim measure.

“It is not, however, the kind of major overhaul of dam operations that the imperiled salmon — and critically endangered southern resident orcas — so urgently need if they are going to be part of our region’s future,” said Todd True, Earthjustice attorney at Seattle. “We should ultimately be working toward restoring a free-flowing lower Snake River by removing the four lower Snake River dams.”

Shannon F. Wheeler, chairwoman of the Nez Perce Tribal Executive Committee, praised the agreement but also said dam breaching should remain a focus.

“The Nez Perce Tribe is pleased that this collaboration resulted in spill operations that are designed to benefit juvenile salmon passage in the interim, as the tribe continues working to address the significant fish mortality from the dams and ensure a full analysis of lower Snake River dam breaching,” she said.

McMorris Rodgers, who ushered a bill through the U.S. House of Representatives this year that would have prevented increased spill, said the agreement may hurt fish and cost ratepayers money.

“According to information BPA has shared with our offices, federal scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have not identified any benefit of increased spill to salmon, and increasing spill to this unprecedented new level may actually threaten young fish with ‘the bends’ due to the effect of increasing dissolved gasses.”

That notion is disputed in a 2017 study by the Fish Passage Center at Portland that indicated spilling water at the levels called for in the agreement could lead to a two-fold increase or more in returns of Snake River salmon and steelhead. The hypothesis has never been tested, but if the agreement is carried out, scientists will have at least a short-term experiment to measure its effectiveness.

“The data we have indicates that spill at 125 (percent of the gas cap) is safe for fish and also gives us the highest survival and (smolt-to-adult return rates). If we have the opportunity to test this out at 125, that is a significant advancement of what we will learn,” Fish Passage Director Michelle DeHart said.

The same Fish Passage Center study said breaching the Snake River dams could lead to a four-fold increase in adult salmon and steelhead returns.

Worst-ever start to season as low flows, "the blob," voracious sea lions take toll. Steelhead are setting a record at Lower Granite Dam and it's not a good one.

August 11, 2017

By Eric Barker

The run's performance is so poor that fisheries managers are considering restrictions to upcoming seasons.

The dam about 30 miles west of Clarkston on the Snake River has never seen a worse start to the steelhead run. Between June 1 and Wednesday, only 393 steelhead have been counted climbing the dam's fish ladder. For comparison, the 10-year average is more than 5,100. Last year, when the A run of steelhead collapsed, more than 3,400 steelhead had been counted there in the same time frame.

You have to go back decades to find anything comparable. In 1990, the count through Aug. 7 was 623.

It's not much better at Bonneville Dam on the Columbia River. There, about 30,000 steelhead have been counted. Only 1943 and 1938, the dam's first year of operation, were worse. It was similarly bad in 1941, 1942 and 1944.

"Things are looking really bad," said Alan Byrne, an Idaho Department of Fish and Game biologist at Boise. "So far the run is not coming in as expected, and our forecast was low to begin with. It's likely that if these trends continue we are not going to meet our preseason forecast."
Fisheries managers are poring over the numbers and looking at updated projections for each hatchery in the basin to determine if enough steelhead will return to meet spawning targets. Joe DuPont, regional fisheries manager for the Idaho Department of Fish and Game at Lewiston, said any changes to fishing seasons that begin Sept. 1 will be announced the week of Aug. 21. For now, "everything is on the table," he said.

DuPont and Chris Donley, regional fisheries manager for the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife at Spokane, are communicating to make sure any conservation measures taken related to fishing seasons are enforced in both states. Donley said they don't want to have to make changes after the season opens.

"Limits are likely to be affected and, gosh, who knows what else," Donley said. "We are open to any kind of conservation and we are talking to anybody we can about it. We want to put the decision (out there) once and put the right set of rules out there."

Idaho has never closed a steelhead season. In 1995, the B run was so poor that the state implemented catch-and-release-only regulations on the Clearwater River during the fall but allowed some harvest in the spring of 1996.

In 2013, the state shut down harvest on Clearwater River B-run steelhead that were 28 inches or larger but allowed anglers to keep smaller fish.

But the more plentiful A-run supported fishing during those years. Fisheries managers knew this year's A-run fish - those that spend just one-year on average in the ocean - would be poor. But they thought it would be better than last year, when low river flows and high temperatures in 2015 hammered out migrating juveniles. The juveniles that survived the river hit the ocean to find it occupied by "the blob," a massive area of warm water with depleted levels of the tiny creatures young fish feed on.

The results were an almost complete collapse of the 2016 one-ocean component of the run. Because of the poor performance, fisheries managers braced themselves for the effects of the low flows and the blob to take their toll on this year's B run. They predicted a return of only about 7,300, including just 1,100 wild steelhead.

But they expected the A run to start to rebound. The preseason forecast called for a return of 112,100 A-run steelhead to Bonneville Dam, including 33,000 wild fish and 79,100 hatchery fish. Typically about 50 percent of the A run counted at Bonneville head up the Snake River.

As Byrne said, the run to date is not on a trajectory to match the forecast. Protecting wild fish and making sure hatcheries take in enough adults to meet spawning needs will dominate any decision to alter fishing seasons.

"Do we have enough fish to meet broodstock? If that is in question, then you don't want to allow any fishing mortality," Byrne said.

Fisheries managers will give themselves ample time to make that decision. Steelhead season doesn't open on the Snake, Salmon and Grande Ronde rivers until Sept. 1, and fishing often doesn't heat up until later that month. Donley said he is confident measures in place now are protecting the fish as they migrate upriver.

Anglers are talking about the poor run numbers, and many likely will choose to target other species. Idaho will open fall chinook fishing next Friday and Washington is poised to move up its fall chinook opener to match Idaho's.

Fisheries managers are expecting a return of about 27,000 fall chinook to the Snake River.
As in past years, DuPont said, only a fraction of the fish will be available for harvest. He said about 8,000 of the chinook will have their adipose fins clipped, signaling they can be kept by anglers.

But this year, anglers will be allowed to keep jack chinook - those under 24 inches in length - even if the adipose fin isn't clipped. There will be no daily limit on jacks. Anglers will be allowed to keep up to six adipose fin-clipped adults per day.

In past years, the fall chinook season has opened Sept. 1. DuPont said the season is being moved forward on the calendar because the fish will be present by the middle of the month, and the quality of the meat is better in the early part of the season.

Randy Krall, owner of the Lewiston tackle shop Camp, Cabin and Home, said aside from fall chinook many anglers likely will concentrate on species like bass and walleye because of the poor shape of the steelhead runs.

"I think the biggest thing is the interest in walleye," he said. "There is a lot of people interested in walleye and wanting to learn. It's fun how things are shifting gears."

Photo Credit:  Josh Mills

Idaho congressman says federal government’s draft EIS doesn’t do enough for salmon and steelhead

By Eric Barker
March 11, 2020

Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, made provocative statements about salmon recovery and the future of Snake River dams during an exchange with Rep. Dan Newhouse, R-Wash.

Simpson also signaled what he thinks of the federal government’s draft environmental impact statement on the operation of the Columbia and Snake rivers hydropower system and its impacts on threatened and endangered salmon and steelhead. That study, which was released late last month, looked at, but dismissed, dam breaching as a salmon recovery measure. Instead, it backed a regime of spilling water over the dams combined with other actions as its preferred alternative.

The two Republicans squared off at an Army Corps of Engineers and U.S. Bureau of Reclamation budget request hearing before the House subcommittee on Energy and Water Development, and Related Agencies on Tuesday in Washington, D.C. Simpson is the ranking member of the committee.Newhouse spent several minutes engaging with leaders of the Corps and bureau, praising their efforts to prepare the draft EIS and pushing regular citizens to comment on it. Newhouse, a farmer from Sunnyside, Wash., who represents Washington’s 4th Congressional District, is known as a staunch dam defender.

Lt. Gen. Todd Semonite, chief of the Corps, said the draft EIS and its effort to balance the hydropower system with the environment is a “very complicated situation. There is a lot of different variables and they all compete against each other.”

Without prompting, Semonite said the agencies were not likely to extend the 45-day comment period on the nearly 8,000-page draft EIS as some environmental groups have asked.

“At the end of the day, it’s about how do we balance the environment with all the other needs like navigation, hydropower and irrigation.”

Responding to Newhouse and the agency heads, Simpson said, “I noticed you all mentioned hydropower, irrigation and transportation and how important those are. Nobody mentioned fish. Nobody mentioned salmon that come back to Idaho, that in the next 15 years, if something isn’t done, they will be extinct. There is no doubt about that, they will be extinct.”

Last April, Simpson made waves at an Andrus Center Conference on salmon recovery at Boise State University when he announced his commitment to saving Idaho’s salmon and steelhead, and framed possible solutions around a future with a free-flowing Snake River. There, he talked about mitigation that would need to happen to help farmers harmed by breaching and ways to shore up power supplies.

Since then, he and his chief of staff, Lindsay Slater, have been quietly meeting with stakeholders as they seek to craft a plan to save the fish and the cash-strapped Bonneville Power Administration. The BPA markets hydropower produced at federal dams on both rivers.

At the congressional hearing, Simpson intimated he doesn’t think highly of the draft environmental impact statement.

“Any plan we come up with, any EIS, had better recover salmon. Now we’ve got a new plan out there, I can’t remember, the flexible spill thing. The one thing it will not do is speed up the migration of salmon to the Pacific Ocean, which is now about twice as long as it used to be.”

Just as he did in Boise, Simpson said Tuesday he wants people to look far into the future and envision what they want from the river system.

“We are trying to preserve what exists instead of saying, ‘What do we want to do for the next 20 or 40 years? What do we want this to look like in 20 or 40 years?’ ” he said.

When Newhouse was again up to speak, he declared he too wanted to save the fish, but in a way that also preserves the Snake River dams. Then he said salmon were once not welcome in Idaho, apparently referencing an Idaho Department of Fish and Game effort in the mid-20th century to construct migration barriers on some creeks in the Stanley Basin, and even poison some lakes to drive out the few remaining sockeye salmon and other fish in favor of planted trout.

“So when they get through all the dams in the Columbia and Snake rivers in Washington, guess what, through much of the system they run into concrete barriers because spawning salmon just don’t want to take a hook, and they (Fish and Game) wanted trout, so decisions were made way back in history,” Newhouse said.

When it was Simpson’s time to speak, he mentioned that he and Newhouse are friends, but they don’t always see eye to eye.

“We do have some differences on a couple of issues and, you know, discussing the 60-to-70-year-old history of what the Idaho Department of Fish and Game did doesn’t really help us recover salmon today.”

Simpson then said the region has several options to replace the benefits of the dams, but the fish have only one option.

“Those dams produce 3,000 megawatts of power. You can put small modular reactors or other things in there. You can produce (power) differently. Everything we do, we can do differently. Salmon need one thing — they need a river.”

The two-hour hearing can be viewed at http://bit.ly/39KMicW.

Barker may be contacted at ebarker@lmtribune.com or at (208) 848-2273. Follow him on Twitter @ezebarker.

Involved parties hope to ‘identify and review alternative solutions’

By Eric Barker Of the Tribune
Oct 22, 2021

The Biden Administration agreed today with the Nez Perce Tribe, Oregon, and fishing and conservation groups to call a timeout to long-running salmon-and-dams litigation and seek a lasting fish recovery solution in the Columbia River basin.

The parties to the legal wrangling, which has spanned several administrations, submitted a proposed stay that includes an agreement outlining spill and reservoir levels at the dams next spring and summer. But the bigger development is the stated willingness of the parties to “identify and review alternative and durable solutions.”

“This agreement opens an opportunity for states, tribes, federal agencies, Congress and all stakeholders to work together to forge enduring solutions that are so badly needed,” said White House Council on Environmental Quality Chairwoman 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.”

The negotiations are certain to include a push from the plaintiffs for the four dams on the lower Snake River to be breached, an action they have sought for more than two decades. That idea, once ridiculed as crazy and radical, has slowly gained momentum.

Earlier this year, Rep. Mike Simpson, of Idaho, unveiled his $33 billion concept to breach the dams and mitigate affected communities and industries. Last week, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee said he and Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., would seek ways to replace the services provided by the dams.

Breaching would speed the river’s flow and shorten the time it takes juvenile fish to reach the ocean. It would also eliminate the injuries smolts suffer while passing the dams. Fisheries scientists say those injuries result in lower survival for Snake River fish compared to those from other Columbia River tributaries.

But breaching the dams would do away with carbon free hydropower generation and eliminate tug-and-barge transportation that many farmers rely on to get their crops to market. The federal government has long resisted the idea.

Samuel N. Penney, chairman of the Nez Perce Tribe, said Snake River salmon and steelhead remain at risk of extinction and the agreement may prove a turning point.

“Visionary action to save our salmon and honor our treaties is urgently needed. We need the United States government to comprehend the situation and act,” he said. “The science is clear: salmon and steelhead need a free-flowing, climate-resilient lower Snake River, not a series of slow, easily-warmed reservoirs. The Nez Perce Tribe and its people intend to ensure that salmon do not go extinct on our watch.”

The tribe’s 1855 Treaty with the federal government reserves the rights of Nez Perce people to fish for salmon and steelhead in the Snake and Columbia rivers.

Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, the first native American to serve in the post, said the stay would afford an opportunity to seek creative solutions to the litigation and those most affected by fish declines.

“While it is important to balance the region’s economy and power generation, it is also time to improve conditions for tribes that have relied on these important species since time immemorial.”

The parties are requesting a stay from Judge Michael Simon that would last through July 31. The Nez Perce, Oregon, and the fishing and conservation groups previously asked the judge to implement 24-hour spill at Snake and Columbia River dams and to lower reservoir levels to help the imperiled fish while their suit challenging the federal government’s latest plan seeking to balance the needs of fish with dam operations is heard.

The Trump Administration approved that plan in 2020. A related environmental impact statement identified dam removal as providing the best survival benefit to Snake River salmon and steelhead. But it also said the costs would be too high and the strategy they adopted — spilling water at the dams most of the day but cutting back during times of high energy demand and prices — would also help the fish.

All of the government’s previous plans have been overturned by federal judges in the litigation that dates back to the 1990s.

Kurt Miller, executive director of Columbia River Partners, an industry group representing publicly owned electric utilities, said the agreement is a positive turn because it blocks the prospect of Simon ordering 24-hour spill. But he believes climate change instead of dams is the chief cause of fish declines. Since dams produce carbon free power, he said they should be retained. Miller also said he worries his organization, a defendant intervenor in the litigation, might not be privy to the negotiations.

“That is not a positive sign for this bigger comprehensive solution,” he said. “We represent communities that service over 3 million electric customers across the region and those customers deserve a seat at the table.”

Justin Hayes, executive director of the Idaho Conservation League said the fish need urgent action. Earlier this year, the Nez Perce Tribe released an analysis of wild fish runs that showed 42 percent of Snake River spring Chinook salmon populations are dangerously close to extinction. Hayes said information like that is resonating with leaders and citizens of the Northwest.

“I think change is coming in the region and these dams will be coming down for salmon, for orca, for tribal justice. and anyone who doesn’t think this is happening is not paying attention to what the fish need and what the people of the Northwest need.”

Barker may be contacted at ebarker@lmtribune.com or at (208) 848-2273. Follow him on Twitter @ezebarker.

Strong early numbers at Bonneville Dam haven’t led to a lot of fish making it to Lower Granite Dam

By Eric Barker
Aug 4, 2023

The promising start to the Snake River sockeye run appears to have melted away as the adult fish progressed upstream.

Sockeye that return to Redfish, Pettit and Alturas lakes in the shadow of Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains are the most imperiled salmon run in the Columbia River basin and listed as endangered by the federal government. But in mid-July, fisheries managers at the Idaho Department of Fish and Game were hopeful at the number of Idaho-bound sockeye detected at Bonneville Dam, the first in a series of dams salmon and steelhead from the Columbia and Snake rivers must pass on their way home. They estimated 4,351 had navigated past the dam, a number that would be the most since 2012.

Even so, there already were signs that those fish faced tough conditions. Flows in the Columbia and Snake were dropping and water temperatures were already above seasonal norms at federal dams on the two rivers.

On average, 40% to 70% of adult Snake River sockeye counted at Bonneville Dam make it to Lower Granite Dam on the Snake River. Known as conversion, the rate varies based on river conditions.

In mid-July, Eric Johnson, a sockeye specialist with the Idaho Department of Fish and Game, predicted survival would be in the 40% range this year. Fast forward two weeks and the Bonneville-to-Granite conversion rate is only at 20%. That compares to a conversion rate of 66% in 2022.

“It’s definitely lower than average and lower than we would have hoped for,” Johnson said. “We are not completely through the run. I expect that it will probably improve a little bit but I’m not expecting it’s going to improve too much.”

He said a climb as much as 25% is possible but would be surprised to see it go any higher. Lower Granite Dam marks about the halfway point for sockeye. They still have to swim up the Snake River to the mouth of the Salmon and then follow it nearly to its headwaters in the Sawtooth Basin.

Johnson said while the Snake River above Lower Granite and the lower Salmon River can see high temperatures, conditions are looking OK for now.

“I think fish are going to have it a little easier once they get above Granite; it’s looking a bit more average."

The Snake River was 73.9 degrees this week at the U.S. Geological Survey gauge at Anatone. That is above the 70-degree threshold where salmon begin to suffer. Johnson said there are places fish can find cooler water.

“The Snake in that stretch is really big and there are some 100-feet-deep pockets that people sturgeon fish. The upper Salmon still seems to have a lot of water. The water is still high up there, higher than normal for this time of year. It tends not to heat up as fast when you have some decent flows.”

Last week, four conservation groups announced they intend to sue the Army Corps of Engineers and ask a judge to order dams on the lower Snake River to As of Tuesday, eight adult sockeye had been trapped in the Sawtooth Basin. Johnson said about 15% of the sockeye counted at Bonneville Dam missed the turn into the Snake River and continued up the Columbia. He said those fish may have opted to stay in the Columbia where the water is two to three degrees cooler, or they may have simply followed the more than 200,000 sockeye bound for the mid-Columbia River be breached as a necessary step to prevent the extinction of sockeye. The salmon advocates claim the four dams, by impounding the river, cause it to overheat just as adult sockeye salmon are migrating upstream.

Tom Conning, a spokesperson for the Corps at Portland, Ore., said the agency is reviewing a 60-day notice of intent to sue issued by Columbia River Keeper, Idaho Rivers United, Idaho Conservation League and the Northwest Sport Fishing Alliance. He said in an emailed statement the Corps and other federal agencies are committed to developing “a durable long-term strategy to restore salmon and other native fish populations to healthy and abundant levels, while honoring Federal commitments to Tribal Nations, delivering affordable and reliable clean power, and meeting the many resilience needs of stakeholders across the region through a whole-of-government approach.”

The Corps, Bonneville Power Administration, Bureau of Reclamation and other federal agencies are in mediated talks with litigants that include a coalition of environmental and fishing groups, Oregon and the Nez Perce Tribe. Those talks are related to a long-running lawsuit over harm to salmon and steelhead caused by federal dams on the Snake and Columbia rivers and are set to conclude at the end of this month.

https://www.lmtribune.com/outdoors/snake-river-sockeye-run-sputters/article_89399ba0-6e43-552b-8586-21a1764c1fe5.html

Salmon species off to good start but will be challenged by low flows and high temperatures

Eric Barker | Lewiston Tribune
Jul 22, 2023

Snake River sockeye salmon are making a good showing at Bonneville Dam, but the endangered fish must contend with rising water temperatures to complete their daunting 900-mile journey back to Idaho.

Sockeye spawn in the large lakes of the Sawtooth Basin and are critically endangered. While a small number of individuals still spawn in the wild, the fish survive largely because of a three-decade-old captive brood program that kept them from blinking out.

Only 23 sockeye returned to the Stanley Basin in the 1990s, which included two years when no fish made the journey. They were listed as endangered in 1991. The next year, only a single male adult sockeye returned to Idaho. He was given the name Lonesome Larry and became part of a desperate effort to save the fish.

Idaho, the Shoshone-Bannock Tribe and the federal government had started a hatchery brood program. Sockeye that made the trip were captured and spawned in a hatchery. Most of their offspring spent their entire lives in captivity. Slowly, as numbers built in the captive brood program, more and more juvenile sockeye were released and allowed to migrate to the ocean. Eventually, some adults were allowed to spawn in Redfish, Pettit and Alturas lakes — cold, clear water catchments at the base of Idaho’s famed Sawtooth Mountain Range.

In 2013, the state opened the Springfield Hatchery that now raises and releases 1 million sockeye smolts annually. Its promise of boosting annual sockeye numbers has yet to be realized. But there have been some rays of hope. Last year, 774 adult sockeye returned to the Sawtooth Basin, the most since the hatchery reached full production. Returns this year could be similar despite the fast start.

As of last week, more than 226 Snake River sockeye implanted with tracking tags had been detected at Bonneville Dam on the Columbia River. Because only a percentage of hatchery and wild sockeye are tagged, Eric Johnson, a sockeye biologist for the Idaho Department of Fish and Game said that expands to an estimate of 4,450 passing the dam. That is the best showing since 2012.

With average survival rates, about a quarter of those would be expected to reach central Idaho. However, Johnson said the fish don’t appear to be achieving average survival this year. He is predicting about 700 fish will return to the basin.

Sockeye enter freshwater just as spring is merging into summer and temperatures are rising. That makes them especially vulnerable to climate change. Hot weather this summer, combined with below-average flows on the Columbia and Snake rivers has resulted in elevated water temperatures that can be harmful to salmon.

“I think temperatures are significant this year,” Johnson said, noting they are above average but not as high as they were in 2015 when hot water killed thousands of sockeye.

He said at least one adult sockeye salmon has been detected in the Salmon River, about 60 miles downstream of where the fish are trapped and collected for hatchery spawning.

“This week or this weekend, I expect to get a fish in the trap,” he said.

https://www.lmtribune.com/outdoors/sockeye-begin-epic-northwest-journey/article_67e0a44b-8468-5d12-95cc-9fffafcec73b.html

By ERIC BARKER

Tuesday, July 28, 2015

Warm water in the Snake and Columbia rivers is walloping endangered Snake River sockeye, but Idaho Fish and Game officials are hopeful at least some of the salmon will rest in pockets of cold water and resume their migration when temperatures moderate.

There is some evidence that is happening below Lyons Ferry Hatchery, and the state and Nez Perce Tribe are considering options to trap the fish and truck them to hatcheries or lakes in the Stanley Basin.

According to the National Marine Fisheries Service, the above-average temperatures in the two rivers may eventually kill half of the 500,000 unprotected sockeye bound for the upper Columbia River and most of the listed sockeye headed for the Snake River.

"We think probably 80 to 90 percent of the adult (Snake River) sockeye are going to be lost this year," said Michael Milstein, a spokesman for the federal fisheries agency at Portland, Ore.

Pete Hassemer, salmon and steelhead fisheries manager for the Idaho Department of Fish and Game at Boise, said it was too early to make such a dire prediction.

"It's bad, but it's still early enough in the season, if the temperatures cool and if we stimulate some movement, we can trap them and truck them up to Eagle Fish Hatchery so we can get fish for brood (stock) and release them into the Redfish Lake."

More than 4,000 Snake River sockeye salmon have passed Bonneville Dam on the Columbia River, but only about 350 of those have been counted at Lower Granite Dam on the Snake River. Idaho recently began an emergency effort to intercept sockeye at Lower Granite and truck them to the Eagle Fish Hatchery near Boise. As of Monday, 37 sockeye had been trapped there and loaded on trucks.

That emergency operation could expand to Lyons Ferry Hatchery on the Snake River near Starbuck. The hatchery uses cold spring water to raise steelhead and fall chinook. Hatchery employees have noticed sockeye salmon stacking up in the hatchery's effluent. In a cooperative effort, the trap at Lyons Ferry was opened Monday in hopes sockeye will follow the cold water into the hatchery.

But as of Monday afternoon, no sockeye had entered the trap. If the fish continue to be reluctant to enter the hatchery, seine nets could be used to capture them.

"We told (Idaho officials) we would send down some boats. We have a lot of seine nets we use to sample fall chinook," said Becky Johnson, production manager for Nez Perce Tribal Fisheries Program. "The Nez Perce Tribe would be available to help with a collection effort if there are some adults holding out there in the effluent but not converting into the trap."

Sockeye are Idaho's most endangered salmon species. They teetered on the brink of extinction in the 1990s and the first decade of the 21st century.

But a captive breeding program, where the fish were spawned in a hatchery and some of their offspring were kept there for their entire life cycles and spawned again, eventually boosted the number of sockeye returning from the ocean from the single digits to more than 1,500. Two years ago, Idaho constructed a sockeye hatchery that will eventually produce more than 1 million juvenile fish per year.

While still critically endangered, the species appeared to back away from the brink of extinction this decade and state and federal fisheries officials were hopeful they could continue to build on their success.

This year could be a set back. But even if the adult run turns out to be disastrously low, Mike Peterson, an Idaho sockeye biologist, said the hatchery program would continue at full speed using fish from the still active captive breeding program.

"The fact that we still have the captive brood stock program in place, even though migration conditions are not real good this year in terms of warm water, we are going to be able to make our egg take with the fish we have on hand."

When possible, he said the goal of the sockeye program is to use fish that have migrated to and from the ocean for both hatchery breeding and for wild spawning. However, the hatchery spawning needs can be backfilled with the captive sockeye.

So far, none of the sockeye counted at Lower Granite Dam have arrived at traps in the Stanley Basin of central Idaho. Peterson said he expects that to happen any day. But those fish faced higher-than-average temperatures in the Salmon River.

The heat wave in late June and early July sent river temperatures as high as 78 degrees near White Bird. Temperatures above 72 degrees can be lethal for salmon.

Peterson said he hopes to learn something from the 4,000 or so adult sockeye missing between Bonneville and Lower Granite dams.

"I think mortality is going to be an issue," he said. "What I'm kind of hoping to learn from these fish is whether they will pull into some sort of thermal refuge and, once conditions cool off, whether or not we will see those fish start moving again."

"I kind of think these fish might be holding on and we might see a push later on over Lower Granite Dam. But I don't know if I would expect any of those fish to make it back to the (Stanley) Basin."

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January 18, 2018

Eric Barker Executive director of Pacific Northwest Waterways Association tells Lewiston audience salmon survival rates are good Kristin Meira of the Pacific Northwest Waterways Association talks Thursday at the Red Lion Hotel in Lewiston about the value of the four lower Snake River dams in terms of fish, power and water. Kristin Meira advocated for the Snake and Columbia hydropower system Thursday and said breaching Ice Harbor, Lower Monumental, Little Goose and Lower Granite dams on the Snake River is not the cure-all some claim for imperiled salmon and steelhead or Puget Sound orcas. The executive director of the Pacific Northwest Waterways Association spoke to a packed house and largely friendly audience during a luncheon at Lewiston’s Red Lion Hotel organized by the Lewis-Clark Chamber of Commerce, Valley Vision, Southeast Washington Economic Development Association and the ports of Lewiston, Clarkston and Whitman counties. Meira’s presentation was set against a backdrop of growing concern for orcas, also known as southern resident killer whales, and recent downturns in Snake River salmon and steelhead runs. The orcas and wild salmon and  steelhead are protected by the Endangered Species Act. In recent years, fish advocates have joined forces with those seeking to save the whales that serve as one of the iconic wildlife symbols of the Pacific Northwest. Both groups argue that breaching four lower Snake River dams would give a dramatic boost to Snake River chinook and thereby provide more food for orcas. However, breaching would also end barge transportation on the lower Snake River and reduce the amount of hydropower marketed by the Bonneville Power Administration. Meira called the system of dams, navigation locks and ports on the two rivers an export gateway. She said more than 50 percent of exported wheat in the country leaves through Snake and Columbia river ports, and wheat that is barged on the Snake River alone accounts for 10 percent of U.S. wheat exports. “We are moving things that Americans are growing and making and want to move overseas,” she said. If barge transportation were eliminated on the Snake River, Meira said it would take 43,000 rail cars or 167,000 trucks to move the same volume of wheat. Hydropower produced at the dams is carbon free and helps back up other renewable energy sources like wind and solar farms. “It’s power you can count on that is there day to day,” she said. “You need firm power sources to be able to integrate renewable sources.” When it comes to salmon and orcas, Meira said all residents of the Northwest want to save both species, and she acknowledged breaching advocates have successfully wed the two issues. “That link is being made very effectively,” she said. But Meira countered that scientists at National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries don’t believe breaching is needed to save orcas and point to other problems faced by the whales. Those problems include the accumulation of toxins in their blubber from pollution that has traveled up the food chain, noise from vessels that interferes with orca feeding and the depressed nature of other chinook runs such as those in the Puget Sound region. She said when hatchery fish are taken into account, there are more Snake and Columbia river chinook available to orcas today than decades ago when the whales were doing much better. “Snake River chinook are important to orcas, nobody should deny that,” she said. “But there are also lots of other chinook runs that are important for these orcas at other times of year.” Removing the Snake River dams is incorrectly being advocated as a silver bullet, she said. “That is not going to be the answer for these orcas,” she said. “They eat salmon all up and down the West Coast.” At one point, Meira claimed NOAA scientists have said that breaching the dams would harm orcas because the release of sediment behind the dams would have a negative effect on chinook runs. She referenced a recent fact sheet put out by NOAA as evidence. However, that document does not say breaching dams would harm orcas or chinook. Meira also said Snake River chinook numbers are trending upward and that studies have shown as many as 97 percent of juvenile salmon survive downstream passage at each individual Snake River dam. “We are now seeing survival numbers for juvenile fish that rival and sometimes exceed what you see on undammed rivers,” she said. The per-dam survival rate is a controversial topic in the salmon and dams debate. It indicates that juvenile salmon that arrived at a particular dam survived passing from one side to the other, what many call concrete-to-concrete survival. However, it doesn’t take into account how many salmon perish as they travel through reservoirs on either side of the dams or how many succumb to cumulative dam-passage trauma once they reach the Columbia River estuary and ocean. Steve Pettit, a retired fisheries biologist who took in the talk said afterward that the number cited by Meira comes from “flawed research.” For example, last year NOAA found that survival of juvenile chinook salmon from the Snake River basin to the downstream side of Bonneville Dam was just 38 percent, and the long-term survival average is less than 48 percent. Juvenile chinook survival through the all four Snake River dams averages about 75 to 80 percent, according to the NOAA fact sheet Meira cited. Pettit also said recent trends show fish numbers on the decline. “Why did we have this giant controversy over steelhead (fishing) last fall if the runs are trending upwards? It’s just the opposite.” Meira told the audience they can learn more about all of the issues surrounding the dams at snakeriverdams.com, a website maintained by her organization.

By Eric Barker
Aug 24, 2021

This year’s summer steelhead run into Idaho is shaping up to be one of the worst on record.

It’s early, but fisheries managers are concerned.

The 2021 summer steelhead run on the Columbia and Snake rivers started July 1 and thus far is one of the worst on record. Through Monday, 21,892 steelhead had been counted at Bonneville Dam on the Columbia River and just 494 at Lower Granite Dam on the Snake River.

The count on the Columbia is second worst only to 1943 when 20,293 had been recorded passing the dam as of Aug. 16.

“Back then they harvested a large percentage of the steelhead before they hit the dams. One could argue at least for this date, this is the worst steelhead run past the Bonneville area ever,” said Joe DuPont, regional fisheries manager for the Idaho Department of Fish and Game at Lewiston.

DuPont said the agency is continuing to monitor counts but not yet ready to change regulations in response to the low numbers. He noted there have been years such as 2017 when the department reacted to low numbers with regulation changes only to have numbers rise within a matter of days.

“I don’t want to repeat that,” he said. “Likely we will make a decision in mid-August, and the (Idaho Fish and Game) Commission has a meeting in September, and we will present the run data to them.”

The number of steelhead over Lower Granite Dam is so low that making a change to open catch-and-release or harvest seasons now would have little effect. DuPont said, if necessary, Idaho Fish and Game Director Ed Schriever can issue emergency closures before the September meeting.

According to a fact sheet published by fisheries managers from Oregon, Washington and Columbia River Indian tribes, the steelhead run at Bonneville Dam through Aug. 10 was just 19 percent of the 10-year average for that date.

“That is low, and I think it’s fairly safe to say it’s not going to be good,” said DuPont. “We are just hoping it’s good enough to provide a fishery and maintain the wild runs.”

Anglers are allowed to catch and keep hatchery steelhead during open harvest seasons. Wild Snake River steelhead are protected as threatened under the Endangered Species Act and can not be harvested.

Typically, 43 percent of the steelhead run, as measured from July 1 to Oct. 31, passes Bonneville Dam by Aug. 10. DuPont said he hopes this run is late and not just low.

“Things are so hot. We have that in the back of our mind — maybe these fish can sense that and are holding back,” he said.

The Snake, Salmon and Clearwater rivers are open to catch-and-release fishing. A short section of the Clearwater, from its mouth to Memorial Bridge at Lewiston opened to hatchery steelhead harvest on Aug. 1.

The Snake and Salmon rivers open to harvest on Sept. 1. The Clearwater River upstream of Memorial Bridge opens to harvest on Oct. 15.

The preseason steelhead forecast called for a return of about 96,800 steelhead to Bonneville Dam, including 89,200 A-run and 7,600 B-run fish. The A-run is forecast to include about 27,500 wild fish and the B-run is predicted to include only about 1,000 wild fish.

In 2020, 75,392 A-run, and 32,199 B-run steelhead returned at least as far as a Bonneville Dam on the Columbia River. The return was 112 percent of the preseason forecast and 49 percent of the 10-year average. Last year, 59,126 steelhead were counted at Lower Granite Dam on the Snake River. That included 20,453 B-run fish and 38,673 A-run fish.

By ERIC BARKER of the Tribune

Lewiston is bordered by two powerful and productive rivers, and water has played a pivotal role in its development.

But that fact could be lost on visitors as they stroll along Main Street. Gazing west or north, they may see people walking, biking and jogging on elevated pathways, but they won't see the flowing waters of the Snake or Clearwater rivers.

"Lewiston is a city on the river, but to me it doesn't feel like it's on the river," said Blake Brooks, a landscape architecture student at Washington State University. "You can be 50 feet from the river standing in downtown with this monolithic levee, and the water is so slow you can't hear it, you can't see it. It's a really interesting disconnect in my opinion."

Brooks is one of 10 WSU architecture students tasked with reinventing Lewiston's waterfront for a class centered on the four lower Snake River dams, efforts to recover salmon and steelhead, and how that might affect the city.

The levees arrived in the mid-1970s with the completion of Lower Granite Dam, which brought slackwater to Lewiston. The dams made the town into a seaport and increased the amount of hydroelectric power generated in the region. But they also hammered native salmon and steelhead runs, many of which are now protected under the Endangered Species Act.

For more than 20 years, the region has been embroiled in a debate about the dams and how best to save the fish. The federal government is in the midst of a multi-year study looking for the best way to proceed. Federal District Court Judge Michael Simon of Portland has dictated that dam breaching must be among the alternatives analyzed.

The semester-long course, taught by associate professor Jolie B. Kaytes, began with an overview of the issues surrounding dams and fish. The students studied salmon ecology, navigation and regional economics. They visited lower Granite Dam, the Port of Wilma and the Lewiston Levee Pathway. They ventured up river to view a free-flowing section of the Snake near Buffalo Eddy. They met with farmers and members of the Nez Perce Tribe.

Kaytes then asked them to redesign Lewiston's waterfront, with or without the dams in place.

"This is a fantastic challenge for landscape architecture students, figuring out a way to make a vital waterfront," she said.

Most, if not all, chose a future without dams, but some created designs that could be implemented with either free-flowing or slack water. A common takeaway for the students was breaching would allow the city to regain its connection to its waterfront. Their work was concentrated between the Southway Bridge and the confluence of the two rivers.

"With the dams removed, it really gives you an opportunity to reconnect the entire community with the natural processes of the river," student Ian Conrardy said.

Many of the designs focus on retaining and expanding community green space along Snake River Avenue in the form of parks and plazas. Students looked dimly on the industrial zoning there and instead chose a mixed-use zone which would allow for pedestrian-friendly boutiques, eateries and recreation-oriented small businesses like kayak and stand-up paddleboard rentals.

One student envisioned repurposing barges into floating green spaces. Another pictured an elevated boardwalk above the river near the confluence. Several of the students removed the levees or reduced their size to make beaches, expected to emerge after the dams are breached, more accessible.

Some of the designs replaced the levees with lower versions. Others punched passageways through them and included emergency gates that could be closed during flood events. One student would use riprap from the levees to build rapids and a whitewater park. Other designs included piers, docks or sky bridges.

The students will present their designs at 5:30 p.m. Friday at the Lewiston City Library, and their work will stay there through June.

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Barker may be contacted at ebarker@lmtribune.com or at (208) 848-2273. Follow him on Twitter @ezebarker.

State of Washington report, released
Friday, gathered opinions about the
effects of keeping or removing four
dams on the lower part of river

By Eric Barker

December 21, 2019

A report summarizing the views of Washington residents about the fate of the four lower Snake River dams was released Friday.

The report that grew out of Washington Gov. Jay Inslee’s Orca Task Force does not make a recommendation about whether the dams should stay in place or be removed to help restore Snake River salmon and steelhead and provide more prey for the whales. Instead, it lays out a wide variety of perspectives on a host of issues related to the dams, fish and whales, and also
highlights key uncertainties that need to be resolved.

“I thank all the stakeholders from all over the state for weighing in on this crucial issue,” Inslee said in a news release. “I encourage Washingtonians to get engaged in the public comment period over the next month and share their input on what should be done. We need to hear from a variety of people from different regions and perspectives.”

Last spring, the Washington Legislature approved a $750,000 request from the task force to take an in-depth look at Ice Harbor, Lower Monumental, Little Goose and Lower Granite dams
in eastern Washington. The dams provide hydroelectric power generation, inland barge transportation and a small amount of irrigation. But they also harm threatened and endangered
salmon and steelhead that, among other things, provide a critical food source to southern resident killer whales.

For decades, salmon advocates have pushed for the lower Snake River to be restored to its former free-flowing state by breaching the dams. They say that would reduce mortality of both juvenile and adult salmon during their migration to and from the ocean and help recover the fish protected by the Endangered Species Act. But the dams enjoy broad regional support because of the role they play in providing carbon-free energy, making it possible for barge transportation used by wheat growers to get their crops to coastal ports for shipment to overseas market and the irrigation water they supply to farmers near the Tri-Cities. Three federal agencies — the Army Corps of Engineers, Bonneville Power Administration and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation — are writing an environmental and economic review of all eight dams between Lewiston and Portland and are expected to release their findings early next year. Inslee intends to use the report released Friday to help shape his comments on 
the federal process.

The report was written by consultants led by Jim Kramer of Kramer Consulting. They interviewed about 100 people with an interest in the dams. They also summarized existing 
environmental and economic studies on the issue.

In the report, those supportive of keeping the dams tend to see the two-decade-plus, $17 billion effort to recover the fish as more successful than those who favor breaching the dams. Dam supporters also see the fish-saving efficacy of breaching as uncertain at best and potentially harmful. They say breaching the dams would hurt farmers by making it more expensive to get their crops to market, leave them captive to price hikes from railroads and reduce irrigation near the Tri-Cities. They are skeptical that federal and state governments would be able to mitigate those negative effects that include more truck traffic on highways and an increase in vehicle-related carbon releases.

Dam supporters say keeping the dams would preserve an important carbon-free energy source that increases the reliability of the Pacific Northwest power supply. They also say that breaching would increase the likelihood of future blackouts and harm Washington’s effort to move to a carbon-free energy supply. They are skeptical that energy such as wind, solar and 
conservation can make up for the power and services provided by the Snake River dams.

People who would like to see the four lower Snake River dams breached say it is likely the only way to save both salmon and steelhead in the Snake River and Puget Sound orcas, and view 
the on-going efforts to save the fish as largely unsuccessful. Theybelieve the federal government would save money by breaching the dams and diverting money that would have been spent to maintain and upgrade the structures to developing additional rail capacity and other alternative ways for farmers to get their crops to market. They also believe energy produced at the dams could be replaced largely by carbon-free sources.

The report also touches on the views people hold on recreation with and without the dams and their feelings about the overall economic impact of life with or without the dams. The economic section serves as sort of a summary of all of the perceived impacts of the different topics — salmon and orcas, energy, agriculture, transportation, recreation and economics.

The report does not judge the views of various stakeholders or attempt to discern which views may hold more waters than others. Because it doesn’t reveal much new information and
instead serves as a collection of public opinion, some say it is a waste of time and money.

“What this report tells us is Governor Inslee spent three-quarters of a million dollars and a year’s time to conclude ‘there are differing perspectives’ and ‘more information needed’ on this
issue,” said Reps. Dan Newhouse and Kathy McMorris Rodgers in a joint news release. “We had no idea a year ago when we said this study would be a wasteful use of taxpayer dollars just how accurate we’d be — imagine how far $750,000 could have gone to directly support salmon recovery efforts. Every taxpayer in our state should be outraged.”

Some stakeholders do see the report as useful and say it could spur more regional cooperation around the complex issues of salmon, dams, energy and transportation.

“My hope is that this is a first step to Gov. Inslee supporting a more robust conversation about what it’s going to take to recover salmon and steelhead and save orcas and support healthy communities on the west side of the state and rural farming communities and places like Lewiston on the east side,” said Sam Mace of the Save Our Wild Salmon Coalition at ​Spokane. “That is new from the state of Washington and Gov. Inslee and I find that encouraging.”

Mace, who backs breaching, was one of the stakeholders interviewed by consultants hired to compile the report. Others interviewed said they were happy to be able to give their perspectives. Brian Shinn, chairman of the Asotin County Board of Commissioners and a member of the Snake River Salmon Recovery Board, felt he and other commissioners in southeastern Washington were able ensure their perspectives were considered.

For example, he was pleased the report included information on the increase in truck traffic and resulting vehicle emissions that would occur if barge transportation were eliminated.

“The result is massive air pollution and a great increase in cost,” he said.

Kurt Miller, executive director of the Northwest River Partners, said the consultants picked up his view that dam removal would threaten the reliability of the region’s power system and make it more difficult to reach goals to make Washington a carbon-free energy state. His organization represents community-owned utilities, ports and businesses, and supports keeping the dams.

“The thing that really shines through in the report is this is a complex issue,” Miller said. “A lot of people have said taking out the dams is a simple solution but you get a sense from reading
the report there aren’t simple solutions to the challenges we face to getting to our desired clean-energy future and it’s going to take some considerably thoughtful work to get there in a way ​that doesn’t create hardships for vulnerable communities and doesn’t come with the risk of blackouts.”

Kramer identifies key questions that need to be answered to advance understanding. For example, in the section about salmon and orcas, he said more needs to be know about how the river might respond to breaching, the theory of latent dam-related mortality of juvenile salmon once they reach the ocean, and the feeding patterns of orcas. In the transportation section, he said more information is needed about the costs associated with upgrading rail lines and highways if the dams were breached and where funding would come from to help farmers, ports and shippers.

“I think it provides a good set of things that need to be explored for people to better understand and hopefully come to some conclusions about moving forward,” Kramer said.

The report is available for review and comment through Jan. 24 at http://lsrdstakeholderprocess.org/ . A meeting on the report will be held from 6-9 p.m. Jan. 7 at Clarkston’s Quality Inn. A final report is expected to be issued in March.

ERIC BARKER of the Tribune

Mar 18, 2017

Julian Matthews believes that when diverse groups of people unite over a common cause, their voices can be amplified and their power magnified.

The Pullman man - also a Nez Perce tribal member and board member of Nimiipuu Protecting the Environment - pointed to the fight against megaloads on U.S. Highway 12 and the more recent battle to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline as examples. In each case, tribal members worked side by side with nontribal conservationists to stop powerful corporate interests, and the treaties between tribes and the U.S. government proved to be powerful tools.

But Matthews said that doesn't mean they always understand each other, including the significance of tribal treaty rights. In an effort to increase understanding and to inspire more environmental activism by native and non-native people, his group organized a two-day conference, "Treaty Rights in a Changing Environment," at the Red Lion Hotel in Lewiston. The conference started Friday and continues today."We wanted to work on building networks and relationships with other people and groups so they understand where we are coming from and we understand where they are coming from," he said.

Michael Preston of the Winnemem Wintu Tribe near the Shasta Dam and Redding, Calif., said the environment is a common cause in which all people have a vested interest.

"We all live in the same ecosystem," he said. "It's very important to take care of that ecosystem."

Mary Jane Miles, chairwoman of the Nez Perce Tribal Executive Committee, said different tribes working with each other and tribes joining forces with conservation groups brings more firepower to environmental causes.

"In unity we have power, and our voices are heard and heard well, and we are respected in a way that we will not budge," she said.

Conference attendees spoke about efforts to breach the four lower Snake River dams during an afternoon session. Traditional conservation groups and the Nez Perce Tribe for years have coordinated legal strategies and efforts aimed advancing dam breaching and forcing federal agencies to live up to their obligations to protect threatened and endangered salmon and steelhead under the Endangered Species Act.

Sam Mace of the Save our Wild Salmon Coalition said meeting face to face at the conference will help in future efforts.
 
"I think it's really great to bring nontribal conservationists together with tribal members to do some cross education," she said. "I think it's a very powerful alliance."

The conference continues today at 9 a.m. with a panel discussion on the fight by the Standing Rock Sioux to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline.

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Barker may be contacted at ebarker@lmtribune.com or at (208) 848-2273. Follow him on Twitter @ezebarker.

Chinook, steelhead populations in Snake River Basin are nearing critical threshold, according to Nez Perce report

By Eric Barker
Apr 30, 2021

Nearly half of the wild spring chinook populations in the Snake River Basin have crossed a critical threshold, signaling they are nearing extinction and without intervention may not persist, according to analysis by the Nez Perce Tribe.

The river’s steelhead populations, while doing better, also face alarming threats to their existence, according to the work.

Modeling conducted by fisheries scientists at the tribe and shared with other state, federal and tribal fisheries managers in the Columbia Basin indicates if current trends continue, 77 percent of Snake River spring chinook populations and 44 percent of steelhead populations will be in a similar position within four years.

Tribal fisheries officials say a wide array of short- and long-term actions, such as new conservation hatcheries, predator control, increased spill at Snake and Columbia river dams, and adoption of Rep. Mike Simpson’s plan to breach the four lower Snake River dams, are urgently needed. Fisheries officials in Oregon and Washington agree dam removal should be considered and other actions above and beyond current salmon and steelhead recovery efforts should be pursued.

The tribe found 42 percent of Snake River spring chinook and 19 percent of steelhead have reached the quasi-extinction threshold — an analytical tool used by the federal government to assess the risk of extinction or measure the viability of fish populations. The threshold is tripped when a natural origin population of fish has 50 or fewer spawners return to natal streams for four consecutive years. “It’s a return, a series of returns, that demonstrates you better do something or you are going to lose your ability to do much of anything,” said David Johnson, director of the Nez Perce Tribe’s Department of Fisheries Resources Management.

Further modeling by the tribe shows Snake River spring chinook populations that are protected as threatened under the Endangered Species Act declined at a rate of 19 percent over the past 10 years and steelhead fell at an 18 percent clip during the same time period.

Jay Hesse, director of biological services for Nez Perce Tribal Fisheries, examined data from 31 of the basin’s 32 native spring chinook populations that return to places like the Middle Fork of the Salmon River, Loon Creek, the Grande Ronde River and the Imnaha River. Of those, 13 already meet the threshold and more will soon follow, according to the analysis.

“If you take that 19 percent rate of decline and say going forward, where does that put us, and project out for five years, you end up with 24 of the 31 populations being below 50 natural origin spawners by 2025,” he said.

Hesse analyzed 16 of the basin’s wild steelhead populations. The sea-run rainbow trout also listed as threatened under the ESA are doing better than chinook, but have declined rapidly during the past five years or so because of poor ocean conditions. The fish have posted a 10-year downward trend of 18 percent, nearly identical to the nosedive by spring and summer chinook.

That trend projected forward puts seven of the 16 native steelhead populations analyzed by the tribe, or 44 percent, below the quasi-extinction threshold by 2025. The slide for the big B-run steelhead cherished by anglers is steeper — more like 23 percent.

“Look at the population names at the very bottom,” Hesse said pointing to a graph charting the projected decline of steelhead. “The South Fork Salmon, South Fork Clearwater, Lolo Creek, Secesh River — those are all populations that are the B-run life history.”

Representatives from other agencies that manage salmon and steelhead in the basin praised the tribe’s work and said it signals the need for more conservation measures.

“If this isn’t a wake-up call, I’m not sure what folks would be looking for,” said Tucker Jones, ocean and salmon program manager for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife.

“We think their analysis is cause for concern,” said Bill Tweit, special assistant in the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife’s Fish Program.

“Anytime you have a total spawner abundance less than 50 fish, that really puts you in a bad spot,” said Lance Hebdon, anadromous fish manager for the Idaho Department of Fish and Game.

The National Marine Fisheries Service, also known as NOAA Fisheries, is in the midst of five-year, Endangered Species Act-mandated status reviews for spring chinook and steelhead. Chris Jordan, a scientist with the agency’s Northwest Fisheries Science Center, said the tribe’s work largely mirrors a viability assessment his shop is working on. While it’s not uncommon for populations to fluctuate, he said the latest downturn is worrying.

“What becomes more and more concerning as time goes on is if these populations don’t rebound from changes in the ocean.”

Michael Tehann, assistant regional administrator for NOAA fisheries, said while the data is concerning, the fish have displayed remarkable ability to bounce back from previous low abundance. He also said the agency is looking for additional measures to help the fish.

Earlier this year, scientists with the agency’s Northwest Fisheries Science Center published a paper projecting that climate change could cause already low survival rates for Snake River spring chinook to plummet by 90 percent and the fish could face extinction by 2060. The study, led by Lisa Crozier, said urgent actions are needed to counteract the fish-killing effects of warming oceans and reduced river flows brought on by climate change.

The tribe’s analysis included a chart of the downward trend predicted by the federal scientists with the addition of actual spring chinook returns from 2019 for reference. “So as grim as her (Crozier’s) projections look, we are saying we are already starting that decline and we are already there at the quasi-extinction threshold,” Hesse said. “I think it adds urgency that this is going to continue.”

Johnson and Hesse believe the same types of emergency actions deployed when Snake River spring chinook and steelhead were first listed under the Endangered Species Act in the 1990s should be activated and be centered around maximizing fresh water survival and increasing genetic diversity. Actions that provide benefits to multiple populations, such as increasing spill at Snake and Columbia river dams, should be prioritized, and some that may not have proven benefits, such as reducing predatory birds or fish numbers, should be taken now rather than after years of study.

“We think it’s a call to alarm, that things aren’t normal and we better do some things that are different and, importantly, we better do some things in addition to what we are doing right now,” Johnson said. Some things the tribe is suggesting include establishing conservation hatchery programs below Bonneville Dam for some populations of chinook that return to the Middle Fork of the Salmon River and the Tucannon River. The mission of a conservation hatchery is to preserve imperiled fish rather than produce fish for harvest. In this case, chinook would be raised at the hatchery with the intent they would go to the ocean and return to the hatchery so their genetics would be preserved.

Other suggested actions include habitat work, such as removing boulders from a section of the South Fork of the Clearwater River that at high flows create a “velocity barrier” that keeps steelhead from reaching spawning streams.

Johnson said the tribe would be recommending such actions even if Simpson, a Republican Idaho congressman, was not proposing breaching the four lower Snake River dams. But dam removal is needed, Johnson said, given the dire prospects and that Idaho’s high-elevation spawning habitat is expected to remain viable even as temperatures rise.

“All of that country in the Salmon (River) and Clearwater (River basins) — that habitat there, that is the freaking future under a changing climate,” he said. “To address one of the issues of climate change, you would want to do something like breaching dams to at least have access to those areas.” Jones and Tweit also pointed to Simpson’s proposal as an important long-term potential mitigating action.

“Oregon has been pretty supportive of the concepts Congressman Simpson rolled out in February, if you are looking at long-term solutions,” Jones said.

“As we think about the Simpson proposal, I think it’s useful to have (the tribe’s) information at hand,” Tweit said.

In the near term, Jones said more water should be spilled at the dams, an action the tribe supports as well. Studies show spilling high volumes of water at the dams, 24 hours a day while juvenile fish are migrating seaward, can boost survival of the young fish. But spilling water means there is less available to generate electricity. The latest federal plan designed to mitigate harm caused by the Snake and Columbia rivers’ hydro system calls for water to be spilled 18 hours a day but to stop during times when energy demands are higher.

The tribe plans to present the analysis at the Northwest Power and Conservation Council on Wednesday, where it will solicit other ideas for mitigating actions.

“We do need to do something right away and we need to do some major things,” Johnson said.

January 10, 2019

By Eric Barker

President orders federal agencies to complete environmental impact statement, dam strategy a year earlier than expected

The federal agencies producing an environmental impact statement and overall strategy on how to manage dams on the Snake and Columbia rivers, while also protecting salmon and steelhead, will complete the process one year earlier than expected. According to a spokesman for the Army Corps of Engineers, the shortened schedule is likely to be met by giving the public the minimum amount of time — 45 days — to comment on a draft of the document. The corps announced Wednesday that it will complete the Columbia River Systems Operation Review in September of 2020 to comply with an executive order from President Donald Trump. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and the Bonneville Power Administration are assisting. All three agencies are unaffected by the ongoing partial government shutdown. In October, Trump issued an executive order to expedite permitting and other required documentation of water infrastructure projects in the Western United States, with an aim toward minimizing regulations and maximizing efficiencies. Included in that order was a demand to complete the court-ordered EIS on salmon and dams on the Columbia and Snake rivers by 2020. The study will include an alternative that looks at breaching one or more of the four lower Snake River dams. The review and EIS were ordered by U.S. District Court Judge Michael Simon of Portland in a 2016 ruling that struck down the federal government’s latest attempt to balance dam operations with efforts to save and recover 13 stocks of endangered and threatened salmon and steelhead. A corps spokesman said officials of all three agencies are confident they can meet the new schedule while producing a quality document. “We are still going to do the analysis we identified as being necessary for the project. We are looking for opportunities to save a day here and save a day there. We want to preserve the integrity of the analysis,” said Matt Rabe, a spokesman for the corps’ Northwest division at Portland. “The biggest savings will come in the comment period after the draft (EIS) is provided in February of 2020. We are looking at a 45-day comment period for the draft EIS. We don’t anticipate we will be able to provide additional time for public review.” In a 2016 court declaration, David J. Ponganis, director of programs for the corps’ Northwest division, said it was expected to take the agency a minimum of five years to complete the review. That schedule included a full year to collect public comments and then to analyze those comments and incorporate any changes to the document that might be warranted. Ponganis said he also anticipated the public would ask for more than 45 days to comment. He said past documents of similar complexity and breadth, such as the 1999 Lower Snake River Juvenile Salmon Migration Feasibility Study that also looked at a breaching alternative, resulted in documents in excess of 5,000 pages. He said the agencies expect to “receive an enormous amount of public comments on the draft EIS.” Under the new schedule, the agencies will hold a 45-day public comment period and then analyze those comments and make any needed changes to the draft EIS in just five months. Rabe said to meet the shortened deadline, the agencies will strive to effectively communicate to the public what is in the lengthy document. “Our goal is to ensure we have a robust analysis in the EIS and that we provide that EIS to the public in a clear manner so that they can look at it and easily identify any concerns they might have so when they provide us their substantive comments — and that is what we are really driving for is substantive comments during the comment period — we can very efficiently review those and address those in that period leading up to the final (EIS).” Todd True, one of the lead attorneys for the plaintiffs in the 2016 court ruling, said the abbreviated schedule is likely to short-change the public. He said he also doubts the agencies will have enough time to thoroughly consider public comments and incorporate any alterations to the draft EIS. True, of the environmental law firm EarthJustice at Seattle, said his clients originally asked Judge Simon to require the agencies to complete the review in a shorter time period. “They will not have time to consider seriously public comment on their draft EIS,” True said. “And of course the public will not have adequate time to review and comment on what promises to be a complex — by Mr. Ponganis’ own account — EIS. This will disserve the agencies, the public and the region. It will disserve the effort to protect salmon and orcas even more. We need a truly thoughtful — not a quick-and-dirty, hasty — process in order to have the best chance of addressing and resolving these issues.” Rabe said he didn’t know how many public meetings the agency might hold once the draft is released. Although the corps and the Bureau of Reclamation are funded through 2019, and thus not affected by the partial government shutdown, and the BPA is a self-funded agency also not caught up in the shutdown, some sister agencies that are participating in the review, such as NOAA Fisheries and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, are currently curtailed. Trump has said the shutdown could go on for months or even years. Rabe said it’s too early to tell if the shutdown would affect the new schedule. “At this point, we are conducting our analysis, and hopefully the shutdown won’t have any significant impact on those processes.”

By Eric Barker
April 26, 2021

LEWISTON – The Army Corps of Engineers is operating the lower Snake River at a water elevation that decreases survival of protected salmon and steelhead but provides safer navigation conditions for tug and barge operators.

Fish managers have protested the move intended to increase the depth of the navigation channel near Lewiston and argued the needs of the fish should take precedence over transportation of grain and other products. For example, the Nez Perce Tribe suggested that river transportation be temporarily halted or the location of the shipping channel shifted to deeper areas of the reservoir as alternatives to raising the elevation.

“The point of our concern really kind of boils down to, yes, (navigation) is one of the many purposes the Corps of Engineers has for the system, but we are also dealing with fish listed under the Endangered Species Act here,” said David Johnson, director of the Nez Perce Tribe’s Department of Fisheries Resources Management. “In our mind, especially with as low as these (salmon and steelhead) returns have been the last several years, the Corps and (Bonneville Power Administration) could be giving a lot more consideration to how they are operating these dams.

“In times of healthy returns, (a trade-off like raising the river) is something that should be considered, but a trade-off in times of horrible returns shouldn’t be balanced on the backs of the fish.”

Dredging of the navigation channel last occurred in 2015. Since then, sediment at and near the confluence of the Snake and Clearwater rivers has accumulated to the point that, in some places, the channel no longer maintains its federally prescribed minimum depth of 14 feet, raising the risk of barges running aground.

Port of Lewiston Manager David Doeringsfeld said the turning basin in front of the port is also becoming shallow, but the berthing areas are sufficiently deep.

In response to the sedimentation, the Corps opted to raise the river above the elevation prescribed by the latest biological opinion – a federal document that spells out measures designed to ensure salmon and steelhead protected under the Endangered Species Act aren’t pushed further toward extinction.

The agency intends to keep the river 3 feet above that level, known as minimum operating pool, when flows are less than 50,000 cubic feet per second, 2 feet higher when flows are between 50,000 and 79,000 cfs, 1 foot higher between 80,000 and 119,000 cfs, and at the prescribed minimum operating pool when flows are 120,000 cfs or higher. At each of the levels, the agency is permitted 1½ feet of flexibility, meaning the elevation could be even higher at times.

“(The Corps) will operate Lower Granite Dam to temporarily hold water to a higher level when flows are low to maintain the federal navigation channel, until sediment can be removed,” agency spokesman Matt Rabe at Portland said via a prepared statement. “The District continues to develop plans to perform work to remove sediments which are impacting the federally authorized navigation channel.”

Juvenile salmon and steelhead depend on river current to flush them downstream. The biological opinion calls for a lower elevation from April 1 to Aug. 14 because it helps the reservoir to behave more like a free-flowing river.

“When the pool is lower, at minimum operating pool, that allows the fastest water velocity through the reservoir, which then results in faster fish travel time, which then results in higher survival,” said Jay Hesse, director of biological services for Tribe’s Department of Fisheries Resources Management. “As the pool elevation rises, the water velocity slows down and the fish travel time slows down and the survival decreases.”

Hesse said the Corps has agreed to try to shrink its 1½-foot operational flexibility down to 1 foot.

When the river hits the reservoir and its current slows, the sediment carried by the water drops out and accumulates on the bed. The agency typically dredges every seven to 10 years to clear the channel.

“Based on existing conditions and anticipated sedimentation, a dredging action to address immediate navigation needs is expected to be required to maintain safe navigation conditions while the other efforts are underway,” Corps spokesman Joseph Saxon at Walla Walla said. “In the meantime, the (Corps) will operate Lower Granite Dam to temporarily hold water to a higher level when flows are low to maintain the federal navigation channel, until sediment can be removed.”

Dredging is controversial. It adds to the cost of operating the federal hydropower system and some argue the in-water disposal of spoils in deeper areas of the reservoir downstream of Lewiston can harm protected fish as well as unlisted juvenile Pacific lamprey that live in the sediment. Fish advocates, including the Nez Perce Tribe, have gone to court in the past to stop dredging.

Group says breaching dams would provide more food for threatened Puget Sound orcas

February 23, 2015

By ERIC BARKER
Another group is taking aim at the lower Snake River dams, this time as a vehicle to recover southern resident killer whales that spend much of the year in Washington's Puget Sound.

Members of the Southern Resident Killer Whale Chinook Salmon Initiative are pushing a petition that calls for breaching the dams, something that salmon advocates have long desired.

According to the petition posted on change.org, "chinook salmon runs originating in the Columbia/Snake River watershed are the singular most important food source for the killer whales' survival."

Most fisheries scientists agree breaching the dams would greatly benefit threatened and endangered Snake River salmon and steelhead. But the federal government chose instead to invest in fish passage improvements at the dams and a mix of habitat restoration, hatchery reform and tighter management of sport and commercial fishing.

The Puget Sound population of killer whales, also known as orcas, face three distinct threats: a shortage of prey, the accumulation of toxic chemicals in their bodies and interference from boat traffic and noise. All of the threats are intertwined, said Lynne Barre, a marine biologist with the protective resources division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries in Seattle.

When whales don't have enough to eat, they rely on the fat reserves in their blubber. But that is the same place toxic chemicals are stored like the now banned insecticide DDT, PCBs found in industrial coolants and lubricants and PBDEs found in flame retardants. Whales acquire the toxins as they eat fish, that in turn acquire the chemicals when they feed on other fish and organisms lower in the food chain.
When those fat reserves are tapped because of food shortages, the chemicals enter the blood stream of the whales and can make them ill. Whales that are suffering from toxins have a more difficult time feeding.

Noise and interference from recreational, commercial and military crafts can also change the feeding behavior of the whales and make them malnourished.

"The three main threats are probably working together to cause the problem," Barre said.
Those pushing the breaching initiative say removing the dams would dramatically boost Snake River spring chinook and doing that would provide more food for killer whales, which would go a long way to addressing all three threats.

"The southern resident killer whales are starving," said Sharon Grace of Friday Harbor and coordinator for the Southern Killer Whale Chinook Salmon Initiative.

Scientists have established the whales are often in poor shape from lack of food. During the summer months when they frequent the Puget Sound area and seas around the San Juan Islands and Vancouver Island, they feed primarily on chinook from the Fraser River in Canada.
During the winter months, they travel up and down the West Coast between British Columbia and

California where scientists believe they also feed on chinook. But they don't have good information on which stocks of chinook the whales target or how important fish from the Snake and Columbia rivers are to the whales.

Brad Hanson, a marine biologist with NOAA Fisheries, is working to learn more about the diet of killer whales when they spend time off the West Coast, or what he calls the outer coast. He is currently on a research ship following the whales off the coast of Oregon and Washington and picking up both remnants of salmon the whales feed on and fecal samples. By analyzing the DNA from the samples, the research team can determine the origin of the salmon.

Earlier this week the whales were near the mouth of the Columbia and Hanson responded to questions via email from his ship.

"Based on information about where portions of the population spend their time on the outer coast, limited prey sampling, and the relatively high abundance of Columbia River chinook salmon, it is likely that the Columbia River salmon are an important food source for the southern resident killer whales. Exactly how important, however, is not yet known."

Increasing chinook abundance off the coast is likely to benefit the whales. But scientists, Hanson said, don't yet know the degree to which rising salmon numbers will benefit whales. That is because many other predators like seals and sea lions also feed on chinook.

"The benefits from increases in salmon may therefore be distributed across many other salmon predators, with only marginal specific returns to the southern resident population," he said. "Investigating which salmon recovery actions will have the greatest specific benefit to southern resident killer whales is a high priority area for future research."

Deborah A. Giles, science adviser for the Southern Resident Killer Whale Chinook Salmon Initiative, is certain whales would have no trouble exploiting an increase in Snake River chinook abundance that would follow dam breaching.

"They are highly efficient predators," she said. "The fact that there is more fish out there means there is more fish for the whales. They can fend for themselves. They are apex predators."
Giles is also confident that the work Hanson and others are doing will close the data gaps regarding the importance of Snake River salmon to orcas.

"I think ultimately that is exactly what the data is going to show, there is no doubt in my mind," she said. "I don't think there is doubt in anybody's mind. It's clear to everyone who researches these guys that the Columbia River chinook are very, very important and knowing what the runs in the Snake River used to be, it's almost by default that it has to be an important river."

Grace said the group has collected about 10,500 signatures on the petition and plans on collecting many more before presenting it to members of Congress and President Barack Obama.

# # #

Dam breaching proponents addressed salmon’s role in tribal history and culture

'All Our Relations' Courtesy of Se'Si'Le and photos by Megan Mack

By Kathy Hedberg

Oct 1, 2023

It was a spirit-filled gathering under a pavilion at Hells Gate State Park in the drizzling rain Saturday morning to focus energy toward breaching the lower Snake River dams and restoring the fish.

“This is a big critical issue with our people,” said Julian Matthews, one of the organizers of Saturday’s event.

“We have a treaty right. The 1855 treaty was signed by the U.S. government and is still in place. … We have the right to take salmon from there. We’re not doing it for commercial fisheries; we’re not doing it to make money. It’s about being part of our culture; our history.”

The gathering was the next-to-the-last stop for the Native Organizers Alliance, an environmental justice grassroots group from throughout the Northwest that began its campaign Monday to demonstrate the broad support for the removal of the dams and restoration of a free-flowing lower Snake River. The campaign included stops across the Pacific Northwest and featured an 8-foot steel sculpture by Lummi Nation member A. Cyaltsa Finkbonner.

About 80 people milled around the pavilion, sipping hot coffee and eating muffins before the ceremony began, many carrying signs urging the immediate removal of the dams.

After the Nez Perce elders were seated, Lucy Simpson lit a smudge pot and moved about the circle, whisking light smoke over the onlookers. Then David Scott offered a prayer to “Creator, Grandfather,” accompanied by his brother, A.K. Scott on an elk skin drum and chanting quietly.

“We come today thinking not of ourselves,” David Scott prayed, “but the restoration of terrible events that happened long ago. We come here to honor, Grandfather, the salmon and all living species.”

Dorothy Wheeler and her husband, Francis Sherwood, also offered a prayerful song and then a family of totem carvers from the Lummi Nation, including two little boys, sprinkled tobacco on the ground as an offering for the salmon.

“They’ve gone many miles for us,” Wheeler said of the totem carvers. “These are very special people — they’re very spiritual people. They’re helping us with the things that we’re doing. We need to keep teaching our families the ways.”

Passing on these ancient traditions to younger generations, in fact, seemed to be the main point of Saturday’s gathering. Matthews pointed out a dugout canoe a group of fourth and fifth graders have been working on and noted that it’s the first dugout canoe made on the Nez Perce reservation in more than 100 years.

“We’re trying to figure out what happened,” Matthews said. “Why did they quit carving canoes? … I think the thing that we’re really doing, what we’re talking about, is revitalizing this part of our culture.

“These issues are really critical. We have to keep pushing. Like with the kids, we’re teaching them stuff; how to carve canoes, how to carve paddles. We’re trying to bring back this part of our culture.

“The dams have affected our livelihood … and that’s one reason, the main reason I’m doing this now. I don’t want those youngsters we work with not to be able to take salmon from this river at all 20 years from now.

“I don’t want money, I want fish,” Matthews said. “I want salmon.”

https://www.lmtribune.com/northwest/demonstrators-gather-for-a-free-flowing-snake-river/article_7a77472e-081a-5ab7-9e56-4120ee0c50e6.html

Save Our wild Salmon Coalition’s climate program in 2013

Salmon, the light in our rivers, are also a beacon to help lead us through climate change.  What these adaptive masters need most to make it through climate change is connectivity – diversely linked and scaled chains of habitats.  Connectivities – ecological, social, institutional – are also what people need both to stabilize climate change and to weather it.  Salmon can show us such ways if we let them survive to do so.
 
Our program seeks both to stem climate change, and help salmon, waters and people weather its effects.  We must meet these challenges in tandem; with recognition that climate change dissolves boundaries between issues, laws, and people; and with urgency that is also yoked to the long haul.  Our program tackles immediate challenges, and sets foundations for the work of years that climate change in the Columbia and Snake Rivers will demand.
 
Our Light in the River program in 2013 is:
 
1.  In March, re-issue our 2010 Light in the River reports:  A Great Wave Rising, by Patty Glick and Jim Martin, which documents climate change’s effects on salmon and describes a science framework and actions to respond; and Bright Future, by the NW Energy Coalition, which shows the Northwest can meet its future electricity needs, electrify cars and trucks, wean itself from coal power, adjust hydropower to restore wild salmon, create jobs and keep electric bills low – all through expanded energy efficiency and new renewable energy.
 
2.  Highlight climate effects and seek climate action in each part of our salmon work.  This includes our participation in NOAA’s Columbia-Snake stakeholder talks, our work to finally secure a legal Columbia-Snake Biological Opinion for endangered salmon, our challenge to the Army Corps of Engineers’ fruitless dredging of the lower Snake, and our promotion and touring late this year with DamNation, the new film on American river restorations.
 
3.  Explore with Northwest leaders ways and means to create fruitful collaboration on how to weather climate disruptions for the Columbia-Snake and its users.  We are talking to leaders of NOAA Northwest, Bonneville Power Administration, and the Northwest Power and Conservation Council; Northwest governors, members of Congress, and Indian Tribes; and users of both rivers. 
 
4.  In July and August, when water temperatures are at their highest, elevate in Northwest media and to its leaders the threat of hot water to the Columbia and Snake.  Both are getting hotter, hot rivers are sick rivers, and the illness affects every river use and user.  We are partnering with other organizations on this public awareness project.
 
5.  Build public and political support for the Columbia Basin Tribal initiative to make “ecosystem function” a co-equal purpose (with power and flood control) in the Columbia River Treaty being re-negotiated by the U.S. and Canada.  The new treaty must put stemming and adapting to climate change at its core; the Tribes’ initiative is the way to do that.
 
6.  Help cut carbon emissions.  We have joined work led by others to keep the Northwest from becoming a coal export corridor, and the Lewis & Clark/Nez Perce Trail from becoming a transport corridor to the tar sands; and to support the Northwest wind industry against Bonneville Power’s unneeded curtailments.  We will keep partnering with NW Energy Coalition to expand the job-creating engines of Northwest energy: energy efficiency and renewable energy.  

Light in the River reports

In 2009-10, the NW Energy Coalition, Sierra Club and Save Our wild Salmon Coalition published two reports to help the Northwest combat climate change and weather its effects:*

• A Great Wave Rising: solutions for Columbia and Snake River salmon in the era of global warming by climate specialist Patty Glick and fisheries biologist Jim Martin, documents how climate change is harming salmon, and recommends science-based actions to lessen or help salmon adapt to its effects.

• Bright Future: how to keep the Northwest’s lights on, jobs growing, goods moving, and salmon swimming in the era of climate change by NW Energy Coalition staff, shows that the Northwest can meet future electricity needs, electrify cars and trucks, wean itself from dirty coal power, adjust hydropower production enough to restore wild salmon, create jobs and keep electric bills low – all through expanded energy efficiency and new renewable energy.

We meant the two reports to be read and used in tandem, by people, businesses and governments, to fashion strategies to stem global warming and help salmon and rivers survive unavoidable changes. In fact, Bright Future significantly influenced regional energy policy and continues to do so, while A Great Wave Rising received less attention from policymakers, media and people than it deserves.

At that time, most Northwest policymakers (with exceptions such as then-congressman and now Washington Governor Jay Inslee) saw climate change more as a future threat than a clear and present danger. Today, most Northwest elected leaders, agencies and people realize that climate change is harming our air, waters, lands, forests, farms, animals, people, cities and economies right now … with worse on its way.

Today, coal plants are closing. Citizens in every Northwest state are passionately debating whether our region should be a coal transport corridor to China, and whether to continue growing wind and other forms of renewable energy. Each of us has one eye on our changing weather and water, and the other on our children.

In 2013, the Northwest has two new governors, several new members of Congress, many new state legislators and agency leaders. The Bonneville Power Administration has a new chief as that powerful agency enters its second 75 years. The Northwest Power and Conservation Council is revising its regional plans for both salmon and energy. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has launched a new Columbia-Snake stakeholder process, while at the same time re-writing, with Bonneville Power and the Army Corps of Engineers, its illegal salmon plan for a fourth time.

So it is timely for Save Our wild Salmon to re-issue, in tandem, the two reports, and re-send them to policymakers, writers and reporters, and other interested people. We have not updated them; events since 2009-10 have largely confirmed their conclusions and recommendations, though we welcome debate and discussion of that assessment.

We hope A Great Wave Rising and Bright Future will help people, businesses, agencies and leaders tackle our common climate challenge. A 4-page summary of A Bright Future is also available for download.

*We thank the Hewlett Foundation for special support that allowed us to commission both reports.

By Eric Barker
May 17, 2017

A new forecast that slashed the expected return of spring chinook to the Columbia River and its tributaries led Washington to close salmon fishing on the Snake River on Tuesday and cast uncertainty on the future of other seasons in the basin.

State, tribal and federal fisheries managers from around the Columbia River basin now expect only about 75,000 spring chinook to make it to Bonneville Dam, about half of the preseason forecast. If the prediction holds true, it could alter or upend future and present fishing seasons.

Fisheries managers had already closed fishing on the Columbia upstream of the dam, and the closure of the modest fishery on the Snake River is the second casualty of the poorly preforming run. Idaho Fish and Game officials are taking a wait-and-see approach before making any decisions about ongoing fishing seasons on the Clearwater, Salmon, Little Salmon and Snake rivers.

Brett Bowersox, a biologist with the department at Lewiston, said agency officials are concerned and will monitor the run based on counts at Columbia and Snake River dams and the detection of tracking tags many of the fish carry. He said no change will be adopted until after this weekend.

"We are going to operate on the reality of what our fish coming over Bonneville tell us," he said. "We still have Idaho-bound pit tags crossing Bonneville that is increasing the run, but we are operating at a much later run timing than we have ever seen before so it's much harder to predict what is going to happen."

Flows on the Columbia River at The Dalles, Ore., continue to be extraordinarily high, and the number of chinook passing Bonneville Dam is well below the long-term average. Monday's count of about 2,200 chinook brought the season total at the dam to 33,798. The 10-year average is 124,728. Only 234 chinook have been counted passing Lower Granite Dam on the Snake River. The 10-year average is more than 25,000.

Becky Johnson, production manager for the Nez Perce Tribes Fisheries Division, said she and other managers are monitoring the run with an eye toward ensuring enough adult fish will return to meet spawning needs at various hatcheries. She said only one adult chinook has been captured at Rapid River Hatchery near Riggins this spring.

"Typically this time of year we are trapping broodstock," she said.

Despite the extreme tardiness of the run and the downgraded forecast, some salmon managers still believe large numbers of fish are stalled in the lower Columbia River and could save the run with an upriver surge as soon as flows drop. Ron Roler of the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife said there is ample evidence to back that theory.

"The recreational fishery, the test fisheries, all the indices say there is fish down there except for (fish counts at) Bonneville. Until the Bonneville counts come up it's a disastrous run."

For example, Roler said, most of the 6,900 adult chinook caught by anglers below Bonneville Dam were harvested in the last few days of the season there. The fishing conditions were poor at the time but harvest was distributed over more than 100 miles of river.
"So in order for them to catch lots of fish, there had to be lots of fish," he said.

If the run doesn't outperform the latest update, Oregon and Washington will have exceeded their shares of the available harvest even though the states implemented a 30 percent harvest buffer to guard against overfishing when runs don't live up to preseason forecasts.

Stuart Ellis of the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission said there is precedence for an extremely tardy run. For example, in 1952 the peak of the run didn't hit Bonneville Dam until May 27, and in 1948 it peaked May 12.

"They do kind of point out it is possible for these runs to have some strength in the tails. I hope we get lucky and this run has some strength to it."

The Snake River fishery in Washington was open for just two days a week, with angling allowed near Clarkston and Little Goose Dam on Sundays and Mondays and at Ice Harbor Dam on Thursdays and Saturdays. Roler said anglers caught 65 fish during the three weekends the season was open. Most of that harvest was near Ice Harbor Dam, and none of it happened in the Clarkston stretch.

As of Monday, Idaho Fish and Game officials had not detected any chinook harvest on the Clearwater River.

Period for public to comment on recent Columbia River Hydropower System
statement scheduled to last 45 days

By Eric Barker
March 7, 2020

A little more than a week after the federal government unvieled its
massive draft environmental impact statement on the Columbia River Hydropower System and its effects on salmon and steelhead, some interest groups are asking for more time to formulate their public comments and questioning if public hearings should be delayed because of the coronavirus outbreak.

Others are asking that public hearings be added in communities like
Boise and Salmon.

The draft document, which is more than 7,500 pages long, recommends against breaching the four lower Snake River dams as a measure to help the fish, and instead focuses largely on spilling more water over dams to help juvenile fish reach the ocean more quickly and safely.

The Army Corps of Engineers, Bureau of Reclamation and the  Bonneville Power Administration are giving people 45 days to comment and digest the highly technical tome. The comment deadline is April 13, and a series of public hearings on the draft document are set to kick off March 17 in Lewiston.

One of the public meetings is scheduled for Seattle, which is the national epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak and where many large businesses and public institutions have taken steps to reduce unnecessary social contact. For example, the University of Washington has moved to online classes only through March 20. Some large tech companies like Microsoft and Amazon are directing many of their employees in the Seattle area to work from home. And the Emerald City Comic Con set to begin Thursday has been postponed.

Joseph Bogaard, executive director of the Seattle-based Save Our Wild Salmon Coalition, said attendance at the Seattle meeting and perhaps others is likely to suffer because people are avoiding large public gatherings.

“There has been a lot of interest over time to participate in the hearings and show up and speak up,” he said. “Under the circumstances, I think that enthusiasm has cooled quite a bit. At this point, unless something changes for the better, I think it’s going to be hard for folks to ask their members to come out and be part of a big public crowd.”

Matt Rabe, a spokesman for the Army Corps of Engineers, said the agency is monitoring the coronavirus situation in Seattle and other cities and considering adjustments.

“We will likely reach out to the county public health agencies and seek their input about if and where and how we hold public comment meetings,” he said. “We will probably have to make some decisions next week, since the meetings are the following week.”

Bogaard’s organization is part of a coalition of environmental and fishing groups that wrote a letter to executives of the three federal
agencies, asking them to extend the public comment period to 120 days or more, regardless of coronavirus concerns. They say the document is simply too long for such a short public comment period.

“Forty-five days just seems terribly inadequate for such an important set of issues that concern and affects so many people across our region,” Bogaard said.

In the letter, the groups noted that the federal government asked federal Judge Michael Simon in 2016 to give them five years to prepare the environmental impact statement and that it cited a similar EIS that wrapped up in 2002, which included a five-month public comment period. That study, while large, covered only the lower Snake River. This one covers both the Snake and Columbia rivers.

In addition, the corps told Simon in 2016 it would need a year to analyze the public comments and incorporate them into the final version. Now, the federal agencies intend to analyze the public comments by the end of June and finish the document by September.

Simon granted the federal agencies the five years they requested back in 2016. But in October 2018, President Donald Trump issued an executive order to expedite permitting and other required documentation for water projects in the West. Included in that order was a demand to complete the court-ordered EIS on Snake and Columbia rivers by 2020.

“The truncated schedule is at odds with your agencies’ sworn statement to the court, with the public interest in this issue, and the health and well-being of our salmon, steelhead, orcas, farming and fishing communities, tribes and Northwest energy system,” the groups wrote in their letter.

Five former Idaho Fish and Game commissioners also want the public comment period extended, and for more public hearings on the EIS to be held in Idaho. Fred Trevey, Keith Carlson, Keith Stonebraker and Will Godfrey, of Lewiston, and Gary Powers, of Salmon, sent a letter to Idaho Gov. Brad Little on Friday asking him to petition the federal government for an additional 45 days of public comment. They also want Little to advocate for public hearings to be held at Boise and Salmon.

“Travel time and expense makes it impractical for citizens from either of these locations to access the Lewiston-Clarkston meeting,” they wrote.

Rabe, the spokesman for the corps, said the agencies would evaluate any requests for additional meetings and meeting locations.

The draft EIS is available for review at www.nwd.usace.army.mil/CRSO/. The public meeting in Lewiston will be held from 4-8 p.m. March 17.

January 1. 2016

By ERIC BARKER

LEWISTON, Idaho. Idaho's vertical geography may give salmon, steelhead and other native fish a fighting chance as climate change continues to alter their habitat for the worse.

Scientists say resident fish such as cutthroat trout and to a lesser degree bull trout will still have plenty of clean, cool water in the Gem State. The mountain spawning grounds of anadromous fish like salmon and steelhead will still be productive. But the powerful sea-run fish will face uncertain conditions in the ocean and find it even more difficult to negotiate the heavily altered habitat in the Snake and Columbia rivers.

Most climate models show future Idaho receiving about the same or slightly more precipitation than it does now. With rising air temperatures, modeling predicts more of that moisture will fall as rain instead of snow. Spring floods that flush juvenile salmon and steelhead to the ocean and help them pass dams on the Snake and Columbia rivers will likely arrive earlier and be shorter in duration and volume.

Mountain streams that depend on melting snow to feed them throughout the summer will see lower flows and higher temperatures. That effect will cascade downstream where mainstem rivers will also see lower flows and higher temperatures.

Climate scientists are less certain about what will happen in the ocean. But they say there could be less of the upwelling that helps seed the upper layers with nutrients that feed the base of the food chain. The ocean also is expected to become more acidic, a problem for many lower-food-chain species.

To get an idea of what the climate might be like for salmon, steelhead and trout, look no further than last summer. The entire Pacific Northwest saw meager snowfall, much-reduced runoff and high summer stream temperatures. Sockeye salmon were hit the hardest. Returning adults faced unprecedented high water temperatures and the run melted away as the fish stalled or perished in the Snake and Columbia rivers.

"Redfish Lake sockeye are probably the most at risk," said Lisa Crozier, a research ecologist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Northwest Science Center in Seattle. "They are in the river at the worst time of year."

Ocean conditions were poor, which led to weak returns of fish like coho salmon.

"I think this summer in many ways was a climate change stress test on Northwest salmon habitat," said Nate Mantua, climate and fisheries scientist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Santa Cruz, Calif. "You could see which runs were especially vulnerable to a situation with much higher temperatures, much reduced snow pack in our mountains and about average precipitation for Northwest watersheds."

But Dan Isaak, a U.S. Forest Service fisheries biologist at Boise, said Idaho's salmon and trout may be better off than those in other Northwest states. Because Idaho is steep, ranging in elevation from 750 feet at the mouth of the Clearwater River in Lewiston to more that 12,600 feet at the top of Mount Borah in the Lost River Range, there is great hope that even if climate change shrinks the range of some native fish that enough cold water habitat will remain for the species to be viable.

"We are a really steep state, which creates a strong temperature gradient," he said. "So as things warm up the temperature isotherm doesn't shift nearly as far as it does in a flat place. That has a really dominating effect on how much the thermal habitat is going to shift."

In many cases, Isaak said cold water fish species may be able to simply move upstream, sometimes as little as a few kilometers. Fish that live in places where the habitat is on the verge of being too warm will be in trouble. But high mountain streams that are too cold today to promote adequate fish growth might become ideal in the future. For example, there are places where it is simply too frigid for cutthroat trout to thrive.

"They are going to gain (habitat) at about the same rate on the top end as they are going to lose it at the bottom end."

Bull trout also will likely find enough cold water to persist in Idaho, Isaak said. But they are likely to suffer more than cutthroat. The trout that is actually a char occur at low densities and need large expanses of cold water. They are not limited by frigid temperatures at the highest elevations. So as streams warm from the bottom up, bull trout habitat will be squeezed.

"Wherever it's warming up, they are gradually losing habitat," Isaak said.

The big problem for salmon and steelhead won't be the habitat where the adults spawn and the juveniles hatch and rear before going to the ocean. The pinch point will likely be the migration corridor when adults and juveniles will be forced to deal with less and warmer water in the dam-altered Snake and Columbia rivers.

If the unprecedented conditions of last summer become more common by the middle of the century, Mantua said some species of salmon and steelhead will be hard-pressed to adjust.

"Some salmon have evolved a calendar that has worked for many centuries. But if the climate changes the way models suggest it will in the next 50, 60, 70 years, that life history becomes difficult and maybe untenable."

Mantua said salmon have displayed great adaptive capacity over thousands of years, and given a chance that ability will help them deal with climate change.

"If we can build what people talk about — resilience — just by providing more and more options for them on the fresh water and estuary side, I think that gives them a lot of hope for dealing with a future with a lot of change because that is what they have always done."

Abysmal run of fish to Clearwater River prompts use of nets and elite anglers to gather broodstock for hatcheries

By ERIC BARKER, July 27. 2017

Idaho Fish and Game officials are taking some extraordinary measures to help ensure hatcheries on the Clearwater River aren't short of adult spring chinook.

Regional Fisheries Manager Joe DuPont said the hatcheries collectively are about 1,500 fish short of the goals for adult returns, known as broodstock. To help close the gap, department employees will use nets to try to capture spring chinook that return to the South Fork of the Clearwater River. They have also recruited help from anglers on the Clearwater's North Fork to assist with the effort.

This year's spring chinook run fell well short of preseason predictions. Returns to the Clearwater River and its tributaries were so low that biologists feared hatcheries might not make their spawning goals, and the fishing season was closed early. Although there is still time for hatchery chinook to return to hatcheries, those fears are starting to play out.

Adult hatchery chinook returning to Red River, a tributary of the South Fork, are collected at a trap on the river and later trucked to hatcheries. It is common for many of the fish to stop short of the trap and instead spend time in deep pools.

"They have done a lot of habitat work with log jams and the fish just kind of hang in there, and a lot of the hatchery fish never go up (to the trap)," DuPont said.

He said department employees used nets in those pools this week with the goal of capturing about 150 chinook. They caught 99 and will return next week for another round of captures.

On the North Fork, the department has recruited a small group of elite anglers to catch adult spring chinook. Those that are caught will be moved to Dworshak National Fish Hatchery at Ahsahka.

DuPont said it's still possible the hatcheries will meet spawning goals despite the present shortfall. Adult chinook will continue to be trapped at Dworshak Hatchery. Rapid River Hatchery near Riggins has surpassed its return goal, so some of those fish can be moved to hatcheries on the Clearwater.

DuPont said the department also is likely to trap more summer chinook on the Lochsa River than is needed for spawning. Summer chinook in the Lochsa return about a month later than spring chinook but spawn about the same time, in late August and early September. The extra Lochsa fish can take up any hatchery space left vacant by the low return of spring chinook. However, the summer chinook would not be spawned with the springers. Instead, they would be segregated within hatcheries.

"Hopefully we don't need to do that, but it's an option," DuPont said. "We'd rather have the hatchery full of something rather than nothing."

February  26, 2019

By Elaine Williams Water transportation has been temporarily halted between Lewiston and Portland, Ore., forcing shippers to shuffle their schedules. The navigation lock at Ice Harbor Dam closed Saturday when mechanical alignment issues surfaced on its downstream gate hoist machinery, according to a news release from the Walla Walla District of the Army Corps of Engineers. Ice Harbor is one of eight dams on the Snake and Columbia rivers between Lewiston and Portland. The problem was discovered when crews had difficulty opening the gate while they were preparing for the arrival of a vessel. On Monday, the corps sent personnel to the site to evaluate options. “They have to come up with a path forward,” corps spokeswoman Gina Baltrusch said. No date has been set for the lock to reopen. The closure stranded one vessel from Tidewater Barge Lines behind Ice Harbor Dam near the Tri-Cities. A Shaver Transportation grain barge was just below Ice Harbor Dam and couldn’t reach Almota in Whitman County, where it was supposed to be loaded. Operators of the Lewis-Clark Terminal in Lewiston are waiting for more information before deciding what to do. The terminal, which belongs to CHS Primeland, Pacific Northwest Farmers Co-op and Uniontown Co-op, was supposed to load grain barges Monday through Wednesday this week, general manager Scott Zuger said. “The system is moving, and when it comes to a sudden stop, it’s just like any other roadblock,” Zuger said. “You have to wait for it to be cleared.” One sawdust shipment bound for a Clearwater Paper facility at the Port of Lewiston was delivered to an alternate location, company spokeswoman Shannon Myers said. The raw materials unloaded at the site feed Clearwater Paper’s Lewiston plant. The overnight passenger cruise boats that call on Clarkston and other towns along the Snake and Columbia rivers weren’t affected. They ran until early November last year and are scheduled to resume at the end of March. The temporary outage at Ice Harbor precedes a previously planned annual maintenance at all eight dams. That work starts Saturday and is expected close river transportation between Lewiston and Portland until March 24.

Scientists say removing Snake River dams ‘is necessary’ to restore salmon population

By Eric Barker
Feb 23, 2021

Another set of scientists, this one more than five-dozen deep, is sounding the alarm over Snake River salmon and steelhead, saying if the imperiled fish are to be saved, the four lower Snake River dams must go.

On Monday, 68 fisheries researchers from the Pacific Northwest released a letter penned to the region’s congressional delegation, governors and fisheries policymakers methodically making the case for
breaching the dams.

“This scientific recommendation wasn’t taken lightly. This is relying on a review of a large preponderance of information that a bunch of us analyzed over and over again over the years,” said Howard Schaller, a retired fisheries research biologist who worked for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

They compared the lifecycle survival, known as smolt-to-adult survival rates, of Snake River salmon and steelhead, and note the runs which must pass eight dams as they migrate to and from the ocean have lower survival rates than similar stocks in the Columbia Basin that only have to make it past four or fewer dams.

For example, wild steelhead from the John Day River in Oregon have an average smolt-to-adult return rate of 5 percent and wild chinook from the same river have a survival rate of 3.6 percent. The Northwest
Power and Conservation Council has set a survival goal of 2 percent to 6 percent for anadromous fish runs from the Snake and Columbia rivers. At 2 percent, the runs replace themselves. At an average of 4 percent,
they grow.

But the smolt-to-adult return rate for wild Snake River steelhead is 1.4 percent, below replacement level, and for wild spring and summer chinook, it is just 0.7 percent.

The difference, they say, is caused by the number of dams and reservoirs each run encounters during juvenile outmigration. For the fish from the John Day River, it’s three dams. Snake River fish must pass eight dams. At each one, they face hardships, including delays caused by slowed water velocity, predation, injury and stress. The scientists point to research that indicates many of the young fish that make it past each of the eight dams succumb from delayed mortality, the result of accumulated stress and injuries incurred along the way.

“When all of the existing credible scientific evidence is taken into account, it is clear that removing the four lower Snake River dams, with adequate spill at the remaining lower Columbia River dams, is necessary to restore Snake River salmon populations,” they write.

The work they cite was looked at during last year’s Columbia River Systems Operation Environmental Impact Statement, authored by the Army Corps of Engineers, Bureau of Reclamation and Bonneville Power Administration. The federal agencies concluded removing the four lower Snake River dams would produce the highest likelihood of saving the fish. But the agencies instead chose a plan that calls for water to be
spilled at each of the dams during the juvenile outmigration period.

“They basically came to the conclusion themselves that breaching was the action that had the highest benefit,” Schaller said.

Terry Holubutz, a retired fisheries researcher and manager who spent most of his career with the Idaho Department of Fish and Game, said dam breaching would allow more wild salmon and steelhead to survive
and return to Idaho’s mostly pristine spawning habitat. That is critical, he said, now that ocean conditions are poor and expected to be influenced by climate change.

“I think anyone that goes through the data that has been developed over the years would say that survival of downstream migrants is the key factor for the Snake River stocks, and if we (breach the dams) that our fish would be in a better position to handle the ocean conditions right now. So our group feels strongly this is something we have to do.”

Last week, a study by federal fisheries scientists said Snake River chinook face grim odds which will grow substantially worse with climate change. Some of those who worked on the study said dam breaching should be considered while others said measures to improve conditions in the ocean are more important.

Earlier this month, Idaho Congressman Mike Simpson released a $33 billion concept that calls for breaching the four lower Snake River dams and mitigating affected communities and industries. The plan has been endorsed by many conservation organizations but criticized by some local government officials, farmers and shippers.

Holubutz said Simpson’s blueprint is a promising development that the region should look at and help shape so that it accomplishes its goal of saving the fish and offsetting the negative impacts of breaching.

“It’s a start, and that is what we need — a start.”

Fish counts at Bonneville Dam below that of 2016

By ERIC BARKER
July 14, 2017

By all accounts, 2017 was never supposed to be a banner year for steelhead.

The A-run is forecast to be a little better than last year's dismal return - which some biologists called a complete year-class collapse - but still well below average. The B-run is expected to be terrible.

It's too early to freak out, but counts of steelhead passing Bonneville Dam already are lagging behind those of 2016. Steelhead from the A-run, those that tend to spend just one year in the ocean, are arriving now and will be followed by the B-run in late August and September.

From June 1 through Tuesday, just shy of 4,000 steelhead had passed the dam. Last year, one of the worst on record for the A-run, more than 20,000 steelhead passed the dam in the same time period.

"If the counts don't improve and we go along for three more weeks like we have been, then it's time to start telling people this year is bad and it might be worse than we forecast, but we are nowhere near there yet," said Alan Byrne, an Idaho Department of Fish and Game fisheries biologist at Boise. "The counts could still improve. The facts of the matter are the Bonneville counts are way below what our average counts are this time of year. But we are only a couple of weeks into the run. We won't know the strength of the run until the first week of August."

The preseason forecast calls for a return of 112,100 A-run steelhead to Bonneville Dam, including 33,000 wild fish and 79,100 hatchery fish. Those steelhead will be bound for various parts of the Columbia Basin, and about 50 percent of them are expected to head up the Snake River and pass over Lower Granite Dam.

Fisheries managers are expecting only 7,300 B-run steelhead to pass Bonneville Dam, including just 1,100 wild fish. About 70 percent of them are expected to return to the Snake River, which works out to about 4,340 hatchery and 770 wild Bs at Lower Granite Dam.

"We were fully expecting a very down B-run and not that great of an A-run, but better than last year," said Joe DuPont, regional fisheries manager for the Idaho Department of Fish and Game. "Now it makes me a little uneasy."

While the numbers of A-run steelhead counted at Bonneville are depressing, DuPont said there may be a glimmer of hope when you single out Idaho-bound hatchery fish. The numbers show the early part of the run is about average compared to those since 2010. But he cautioned the math is based on just two hatchery fish implanted with PIT tags that have passed Bonneville.

"What bothers me more is the big picture, when it's more than just Idaho fish, when you are looking at all steelhead, counts over Bonneville are way down," DuPont said.

It's so low that you have to retreat to 1950 to find a year with a lower to-date steelhead count. Washington has implemented special rules in the Columbia River and many of its tributaries designed to protect B-run fish returning later this year, as well as A-run steelhead destined for the upper Columbia River. Idaho is monitoring the run and is prepared to implement restrictions designed to protect B-run steelhead in both the Clearwater and Salmon rivers.

Ron Roler said the low steelhead numbers mimic other data from this year's salmon and steelhead runs. The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife biologist at Olympia said spring chinook numbers were down, the Columbia River sockeye count is well below forecast and ocean fishing indicates a poor run of coho can be expected. A-run steelhead, coho and sockeye tend to spend just one year in the ocean before returning to fresh water to spawn. Last year, the poor ocean conditions and warm water blob of 2015 were blamed for the low returns. The ocean conditions have improved some, but Roler said it appears the change wasn't fast enough to help fish returning this year.

Ocean anglers are catching good numbers of fall chinook, which Roler said may offer another glimmer of hope for fall fisheries.

By CHELSEA EMBREE

Thursday, April 7, 2016

The dams on the Columbia-Snake River system aren't going away anytime soon.
With government-funded projects on the horizon - including repairs to locks scheduled for this winter - and a number already completed, Kristin Meira argued Wednesday that the government is putting in decades-long investments into the dams.

Meira, executive director of the Pacific Northwest Waterways Association, addressed a crowd of more than 60 community members at a luncheon Wednesday at Clarkston's Quality Inn. She discussed projects on the river system and addressed criticism of the four lower Snake River dams.

The latest batch of criticism of the dams, Meira said, ties the Snake River dams to the fate of orcas that live in Puget Sound.

"Those orca populations are steadily trending upward, as we see more fish being provided out of the river system out into the ocean for the orcas to eat," she said.

She said the survival rate of juvenile fish traversing the dams has reached 97 percent, and adult fish returning to spawn have a dam passage rate of nearly 100 percent.

Some groups have also lumped the Snake River dams in with the Elwha and Glines Canyon dams on the Elwha River, and the Condit Dam on the White Salmon River in Washington, Meira said. Those three dams, all of which have been removed, had no fish passage, no navigation and no flood control benefits.

"It is in no way fair to have a comparison of these projects with the Snake River dams, which are considered state of the art," she said.

Another point of contention, Meira said, has been dredging projects in which the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers scoops or suctions up sand that builds up in navigation channels. Dredging projects locally have mostly been confined to the confluence of the Clearwater and Snake rivers, she said, and are "very small" projects.

She also brought up a January 2015 ruling by a U.S. District Court judge in Seattle that allowed dredging to continue last winter. That ruling was upheld in February when the same judge said the corps violated no environmental laws and was not required to complete a cost-benefit analysis.

It was a "historic" ruling that people will refer to for years to come, Meira said.

"It was a very strong endorsement of the navigation, the need to do maintenance dredging once in a while, and what the corps does," she said. "We are extremely pleased."

More support is coming for the Columbia-Snake River system in mid-December, Meira said, when four dams and locks are set to undergo repairs. The Little Goose Dam, second closest to Lewiston, is one of the four included in the project.

"This is good news," Meira said. "This means that this administration and this Congress and the last few congresses have said, 'What does it take to make sure that these locks are in tip-top shape?' "

The inland river system will be taken offline for 14 weeks for the repairs. Meira said that length of time is needed because some of the locks are in places that are difficult to access.

"It takes a lot to make sure that they're in good working order out here," she said.

The corps of engineers last closed the river system in 2010, when three locks got new gates and three more underwent major repairs.

Projects like the repairs ensure the "long-term viability" of the river system, Meira said.

"These components that they're putting in, they have design lives of 30 to 50 years," she said. "No one is making plans for those locks or those dams to go away."

Rocky Barker
Aug 29, 2020

SAWTOOTH NATIONAL FOREST — The return this month of nine endangered Snake River sockeye salmon that spawned in Pettit Lake in the Sawtooth Valley underscores the critical role the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes have played in lifting the fish from the brink of extinction.

The salmon, along with three Pettit Lake sockeye that returned in 2019, expands the genetic diversity of a species that once spawned in lakes throughout the Snake River Basin. Even though returns of the endangered Idaho salmon remain low, the Pettit Lake success is a bright spot in an otherwise dark story.

“It is important to remember that we are here today because the tribes refused to let this iconic fish go extinct,” said Ladd Edmo, a member of the Fort Hall Business Council.

So much of the story about sockeye has revolved around the Department of Fish and Game’s phenomenal captive breeding program and its most famous donor, Lonesome Larry. In 1992, he and 15 other sockeye that returned the year before, and in the next two years, were captured as they returned to Redfish Lake Creek. Their valuable genetic code of the southern-most sockeye population, which is able to travel more than 800 miles and climb to 6,500 feet above sea level, was collected and raised in the Eagle Fish Hatchery.

This team effort by federal, state and tribal biologists preserved the stock and prevented extinction by 2012. But none of the recovery program would have happened if the Sho-Bans had not petitioned the federal government in 1990 to list the sockeye under the federal Endangered Species Act.

Their petition came after decades of neglect by state and federal officials.

In the 1950s and 1960s, Fish and Game poisoned sockeye nursery areas near Stanley, in Hell Roaring, Yellowbelly and Pettit lakes and installed barriers to keep the still returning sockeye from using them again. The lakes remained toxic for as long as two years before they were stocked with rainbow and cutthroat trout that Fish and Game felt were of more interest to anglers.

Idaho’s Fish and Game Commission voted in 1975 to try to restore the sockeye run in the Sawtooth Valley. Fish and Game working with the National Marine Fisheries Service planted hundreds of thousands of Canadian sockeye fingerlings in Alturas and Stanley lakes from 1980 to 1983.

The program was a complete failure. The Fisheries Service regional chief wrote that Fish and Game was the problem.

“This program has obviously been given a fairly high public profile in Idaho,” he wrote. “But it does not seem to be getting the kind of support from the state fisheries agency that is necessary to make sure it has some reasonable chance to succeed.”

On April 2, 1990, the Sho-Bans filed the petition demanding action.

Even after the Sho-Bans had filed their petition, Fish and Game biologists poisoned Yellowbelly Lake in the summer of 1990. The poison flowed downstream into the Pettit Lake outlet stream, killing returning Chinook salmon.

Once Snake River sockeye were listed as endangered in 1991, the situation changed and Idaho joined the tribes and the federal agencies in a co-management arrangement. The Sho-Bans took the lead on restoring sockeye to Pettit and Alturas lakes.

In 1995, tribal biologists removed the barrier that kept sockeye from leaving and entering Pettit Lake, said Kurt Tardy, a biologist for the tribe. The tribe also placed fertilized eggs raised in the captive breeding program in broodstock boxes that allowed them to hatch in the lake, adding to the existing residual sockeye that were separate from kokanee but did not migrate to the Pacific.

“The tribes placed a priority on preserving the genetic legacy of this unique fish,” Edmo said in an email.

Historically, the building of the Sunbeam Dam on the Salmon River cut off all or most of the migration of salmon to the Sawtooth Valley from 1910 to 1931. That’s when a group of sportsmen dynamited the dam built to produce power to nearby mines. By the 1950s, more than 4,000 sockeye returned and part of the reason they made the comeback was because of the residual sockeye, also living in Redfish.

The building of four dams on the lower Snake River and a fourth dam on the Columbia below nearly wiped out the species until they were listed.

In 2014, biologists began placing pairs of captively bred sockeye from the Redfish Lake stock into Pettit. Three returned to the valley in 2019. Biologists had placed a computer tag in some of the smolts as they left in 2018.

One of those was detected as it migrated through the eight dams on the Columbia and Snake rivers, Tardy said. The last time it was seen, it was swimming over an array designed to read its signal in the Salmon River upstream of Salmon more than a week ago.

But it had not arrived at the weir at the Sawtooth Hatchery as of Friday, said John Powell, a biologist for Fish and Game. But biologists had captured 15 sockeye below the Sawtooth Hatchery in an effort to get the remaining Chinook staging below its trap.

They used DNA tests to determine that nine were from Pettit Lake, Tardy said. Three of them were from the captive-bred pairs placed in the lake in 2016. One came from one captive-bred parent and a residual parent and five came from both residual parents, Tardy said.

The other seven caught were tested with another method and could not be confirmed nor denied as Pettit Lake fish, Powell said. But Tardy was confident some of them came from Pettit.

The fish were taken to Eagle Fish Hatchery where they were tested, measured and cataloged. In September, they will be placed in Pettit along with 50 pairs of captive-bred sockeye.

The Sho-Ban Tribes broke ground earlier this month on a new weir at Pettit in a ceremony celebrating its 30-year effort to save sockeye.

“We are investing in a new future for sockeye salmon and honoring the people who helped preserve this special fish,” Edmo said.

Fish returns at Redfish, Sawtooth hatchery
As of last week, 36 wild fish and three hatchery sockeye have returned to Redfish Lake Creek.

At the Sawtooth Fish Hatchery, 21 wild sockeye have returned, along with five hatchery fish, so far.

From the desk of Linwood Laughy
Kooskia, ID
January 2017
 
During the January 2013 U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ open house in Lewiston (ID) on the draft Lower Granite Dam Programmatic Sediment Management Plan, long-time dam opponent Bill Chetwood posed a hypothetical question. “Suppose,” he asked a panel of Corps staff, “that one day not a single barge was traveling on the Lower Granite pool. Would you still dredge the navigation channel here?”  “Yes,” came a Corps staffer’s reply. “We are authorized to do so.”

In 1995, 1,225 barges transported a multitude of products on the Lower Snake waterway.  In 2015 that number was 358. That 71 per cent decline has been steady and well documented. The lower Snake River waterway today no longer transports lumber, logs, paper, pulp, or pulse (garbanzos, dry peas and lentils). Wheat is nearly the only commodity still barged, though wheat volumes have declined through the years as well. A principal reason for these shipping declines is the growing efficiency of rail transportation and an expanded rail network resulting from a series of public/private partnerships and investments.

Meanwhile the costs of operation and maintenance of the river navigation system continues to climb, exceeding $10 million annually. This amount does not include expenditures like major periodic dredging. Since 2005 the Corps has spent $33 million just on “sediment management” on the Lower Granite reservoir, an estimated 80% of which was required to maintain a shipping channel to the Port of Lewiston and enable a single private corporation to ship grain from its own property over its own docks. The Port of Lewiston no longer ships any freight over its only dock, extended in 2013 at a taxpayer cost of $2.8 million following a 12 year, 70% downward plunge in container volume.

Taxpayers will drop at least another $33 million for lock repairs on the Columbia and Snake navigation system over the 14-week river closure that began December 12th, 2016.  This follows a similar major shutdown with costly repairs just a few short years ago—in 2010-2011.

Below find a simple graph showing the decline in barges on the Lower Granite pool. Data on the entire Snake River Project would show similar results.

The Corps of Engineers categorizes waterways according to the number of ton-miles of freight shipped. A ton-mile represents the transport of one ton of freight over a distance of one mile. The lower Snake falls into the Corps’ category of a waterway of “negligible use.” If the volume of freight doubled, the lower Snake River would remain in this category.
 
Two reminders: the recent claims by the dams’ defenders that freight volume on the LSR project has increased over the last four years is false. This reported increase results from a large increase in petroleum products shipped to the Port of Pasco’s tank farm located two miles up the Snake from its confluence with the Columbia River in south-central Washington State. This location is 7 miles below Ice Harbor Dam—the most downstream dam on the lower Snake River. The volume of petroleum passing through Ice Harbor lock is typically zero. This traffic from the Columbia River upstream to the Port of Pasco tank farm could continue after the lower Snake River dams are removed. Claiming that this freight is part of the volume shipped through the locks and on the reservoirs of the four LSR dams is extraordinarily misleading to Northwest residents, elected officials and American taxpayers.

Secondly, whenever supporters of the lower Snake River dams speak of “the Columbia-Snake River System,” be prepared to be misinformed.  This is the same trick the agencies and special interest lobbying groups use with respect to hydropower.  The LSR dams produce less than 4% of the power in the Pacific Northwest power grid and only 6.5% of the Northwest’s hydropower. Wind energy alone now produces annually three times the energy produced by all four LSR dams. Likewise, the lower Snake River transports just 5% of the freight that travels on the Columbia-Snake River System.

Any claim or implication that the lower Snake River is a major contributor to northwest freight transportation or energy production is at best misleading. The very modest, costly services these dams provide can be replaced by salmon-friendly, taxpayer-friendly alternatives such as expanded rail and continued investments in wind and solar energy.

Removing dams, Rewilding salmon, Revitalizing communities.

The story of the Snake River, its salmon, and its people raises the fundamental questions of who should exercise control over natural resources and which interests should receive highest priority. It also offers surprising counterpoints to the notion of hydropower as a cheap, green, and reliable source of energy, and challenges the wisdom of heavily subsidized water and electricity.

On May 4th, the long-awaited verdict from U.S. District Court in Portland (OR) was issued. Judge Michael Simon soundly rejected the federal agencies’ 2014 Columbia Basin Salmon Plan. While this is the 5th federal plan since 2000 to meet this fate, last month’s ruling was significantly different.

Here are a series of links to the ruling, SOS factsheets, and media coverage.

I. U.S. DISTRICT COURT RULING (May 4, 2016):

NWF et al v. NMFS et al

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

II. SOS FACTSHEETS(May 2016):

#1: Opinion Backgrounder: What did the court do? Why it's different? What's next?

#2: Highlighted Quotations from the May 4, 2016 U.S. District Court Verdict 

#3: Climate Change, Cost, and the Lower Snake River Dams

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

III. A PARTIAL LIST OF MEDIA CLIPS: editorials, articles and guest opinions (May/June 2016):

Idaho Mountain Express Editorial: Stop the Dance of Death(6.2.2016)

East Oregonian Editorial: Feds are running out of half measures(5.10.2016)

Seattle Times Op-Ed: Federal court decision is a critical opportunity for salmon, energy and communities(5.14.2016)

Crosscut.com: Judge: Failed salmon restoration has cost billions(5.17.2016)

Idaho Statesman Guest Opinion: Dams are damning wild salmon and steelhead in Idaho and the Northwest(5.22.2016)

Idaho Mountain Express: Middle Fork could regain role as salmon nursery. But biologist says out-of-basin factors remain obstacles(5.27.2016)

Green Acre Radio: The Great Salish Sea: Double Jeopardy - Endangered Orcas and Endangered Salmon (6.15.2016)

By Michael Doyle
mdoyle@mcclatchydc.com Washington D.C. Three Northern California dams and one in Oregon would eventually fall, under a proposal floated Friday to a federal agency.

Facing resistance from Republican lawmakers, dam-removal proponents now hope to outflank Congress at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Advocates say removing the dams would help restore the Klamath River.

“This is great news and there’s no time to waste,” said Joshua Saxon, a councilman for the Karuk Tribe. “We are suffering from one of the worst salmon runs in history this year.”

To ultimately accomplish what advocates call “the largest dam removal in U.S. history,” the so-called “surrender” application filed Friday would allow transfer of the four dams from the current corporate owner, PacificCorp, to a newly formed non-profit called the Klamath River Renewal Corp.

Dam removal is a huge leap forward, but we still need to resolve water disputes between river communities and farm communities. Joshua Saxon, Karuk Tribe councilman
If federal regulators approve, the non-profit would then proceed with decommissioning and removing the dams from a 373-mile reach of the Klamath River, starting in 2020.

“The deplorable water quality, back-to-back disease outbreaks and bottomed-out fish runs have taken a tremendous toll on our people,” Thomas P. O’Rourke Sr., chairman of the Yurok Tribe, said in a statement.

The fishing-dependent Klamath Basin tribes anticipate removal of the dams will boost salmon and steelhead spawning habitat, improve water quality and ease anadromous fish access to upper reaches of the river. The dams’ owner would otherwise have to build fish ladders and other improvements for relicensing.

Congressional skeptics, though, remain opposed to removing the four dams that were built between 1911 and 1962, and their ongoing objections could complicate the proposal that’s already generated plenty of heat.

“I’m committed to addressing the water supply challenges of the region, yet local residents have been forgotten by those who are focused on dam removal to the exclusion of all else,” Rep. Doug LaMalfa, R-Calif., said Friday, adding that “too many questions remain unanswered for this project to move forward.”

LaMalfa cited, as examples, the need for “explaining the level of federal involvement (and) developing a real plan to deal with the millions of cubic yards of sediment” that will result.
LaMalfa’s congressional district includes Siskiyou County, home to three of the four hydroelectric dams in question. In 2010, 78.8 percent of the rural county’s voters approved a ballot measure opposing dam removal.

The fourth dam is located in southern Oregon, in a district represented by Republican Rep. Greg Walden.

In the face of GOP resistance, Congress last year did not approve time-sensitive legislation authorizing a package known as the Klamath agreement. A central part of this agreement was a deal to remove the four Klamath River dams.

With congressional inaction, the painstakingly negotiated Klamath agreement first signed in 2010 expired Jan. 1.

In its place, the Obama administration joined with the states of Oregon and California, as well as others, in announcing the alternative approach last April that’s supposed to do away with the need for congressional approval.

Once all hurdles are cleared, the non-profit Klamath River Renewal Corp. would pay for the dam removals with $200 million obtained from a surcharge on PacifiCorp’s utility customers in California and Oregon and $250 million from Proposition 1, a California water bond approved in November 2014.

Until the dams are down, the Portland-based PacifiCorp would continue to operate them, providing hydroelectric power to its customers.

“Removing the four dams on the Klamath River, an effort which is backed by so many of my constituents, is a vital step towards restoring the iconic river and rebuilding its salmon runs,” Rep. Jared Huffman, D-Calif., said in a statement.
Michael Doyle: 202-383-6153, @MichaelDoyle10

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/article103765951.html?utm_source=Sightline%20Institute&utm_medium=web-email&utm_campaign=Sightline%20News%20Selections#storylink=cpy

June 14, 2019

By Ben Long

An idea once considered radical—removing dams on rivers to restore fisheries—is becoming mainstream as scores of conservation efforts are paying off with restored river habitats and rejuvenated fisheries across North America. In 1981, when the environmental group Earth First! wanted a publicity stunt to show how radical they were, they unfurled a giant black “crack” on the face of Arizona’s Glen Canyon Dam. Times have changed. Recently, a conservative Idaho Republican Congressman suggested he would seriously consider removing four dams on the Lower Snake River. “I want the salmon back,” Rep. Mike Simpson said. “These are the most incredible creatures, I think, that God has created. It’s a cycle that God created.” Why has dam removal gained popularity? Because it works. Decades of success removing old, obsolete dams and watching Mother Nature do the rest, have restored runs that were lost or suppressed for centuries. New England states along the Delaware River system have been building dams since the 1700s. Those barriers created power and water for some of the earliest industries in the colonial Americas, providing slack water for shipping and turning water wheels for millstones in the days of George Washington. But those dams also blocked migratory fish. Across the Eastern seaboard, sea-run fish like shad and Atlantic salmon disappeared. Removal, however, didn’t start as a conservation effort. As dams aged and industry changed, many fell into disrepair and became financial and safety liabilities. One unintended but significant side effect of their removal has been the impact on migratory fish. Shad runs in particular have bounced back. “The responses from the fish are almost immediate. It’s awesome to watch. It’s happening all across the country,” said Chris Wood, president of Trout Unlimited. “I’m encouraged.” According to the conservation group American Rivers, roughly 1,500 dams have been taken down in the past 100 years. At least 80 dams were breached in 2018 alone. Those Eastern rivers are difficult to compare to the massive Columbia River Basin of the Pacific Northwest, historically one of the greatest producers of salmon and steelhead on Earth. The Columbia system has scores of dams, large and small. Salmon and steelhead runs have been declining steadily since the first barriers were built in the 1920s. The reasons are complex, but the dams play an outsized role. At a conference in Boise this spring, Rep. Simpson noted that some $16 billion dollars have been spent trying to restore salmon and steelhead in the Columbia River Basin. Yet despite all that spending, the iconic fish continue to spiral toward extinction. Last fall in Idaho, anglers, guides and rural river communities exploded in outrage when an  lawsuit from environmental groups. Again in May, the Idaho Department of Fish & Game closed fishing in the entire Clearwater River Drainage, because of equally terrible Chinook salmon runs in that river system. That dispute is a paperwork squabble compared to the root of the problem: four federal dams on the Lower Snake River that interfere with salmon runs both upstream and down. The stagnant reservoirs created by those dams create perfect habitat for juvenile salmon predators like smallmouth bass and northern pikeminnow, as well as warming the water to unsafe levels for returning adults—not to mention the thousands of fish killed in the turbines. Those four dams contribute almost nothing to the electrical grid and provide irrigation to only a handful of farmers. Their primary function is to allow shipping barges with agricultural produce to travel all the way from Lewiston, Idaho to the Pacific Ocean—a task that could be accomplished much more efficiently by rail. “You cannot address the salmon issue without addressing dams. They are interwoven,” Rep. Simpson said. In 2019, the Washington State Legislature passed a measure to study the impacts—both positive and negative—of removing the Lower Snake Dams. Olympic National Park helped set the precedent for dam removal in Washington State. Starting in 2011, the National Park Service oversaw the removal of two dams on the Elwha River, the 105-foot Elwha Dam and the 200-foot Glines Canyon Dam. Biologists have already documented dramatic increases in Chinook salmon, sea-run bull trout and steelhead returns. Hundreds of tons of sediment trapped behind the dams for a century flushed downstream and rejuvenated the river delta. “The Elwha looks more like an undammed river than a river choked with sediment,” said Andy Ritchie of the U.S. Geological Survey. “Even without exceptional flows, a river can recover very rapidly after removing a dam or two.” The Rogue River in Oregon has seen eight obsolete dams removed or modified over the past 10 years and some observers have noted a surge in salmon numbers due to the restoration of 150 miles of river habitat. On the Oregon-California border, momentum is building to remove four hydroelectric dams on the giant Klamath River. Should those dams go, they would liberate some 400 miles of salmon and steelhead streams. The Klamath project still has to be approved by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, and several other regulatory hurdles remain before that project can take place. Under President Obama, the Department of the Interior actively supported removing the dams. Under President Trump, the DOI pulled its formal support and adopted a neutral stance. Officials removed the 100-foot San Clemente Dam from the Carmel River near Big Sur, California in 2016, which had blocked that river since 1921. It’s said to be the largest dam removal in California history. One year after the deconstruction, seven steelhead returned to spawn in the Carmel. The next year, 29. So far this year, more than 130 steelhead have been documented. “We don’t want to do the touchdown dance yet, but so far things are looking good,” Tommy Williams, a biologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, told the local newspaper. “It’s just amazing how fast these systems come back. Everything is playing out like we thought.” For many of these rivers, it’s too early to gauge the impact of dam removal. Salmon have long life cycles—living and growing in oceans for several years before returning upstream, so assessing population trends can take decades. In addition, salmon face multiple threats—from pollution to warming oceans to degraded river habitat to skewed numbers of predators, both marine mammals and piscivorous fish. While improved access to spawning habitat is important, it’s not a silver bullet for all that ails salmon and steelhead. The waters of central Idaho offer vast spawning habitat, and fish advocates see significant potential for restoring Idaho’s salmon and steelhead. These fish swim as far as to 900 miles and climb some 7,000 vertical feet from the ocean to spawn in central Idaho. The Salmon and Clearwater rivers and their major forks and tributaries are in near-pristine condition, much of it protected as wilderness. Scientists say these waters will be increasingly important as the climate warms. The mountain snowpack in Idaho is reliable, and the high-elevation waters remain cold where other lower, more southernly rivers may grow too warm and dry for salmonids. This is not to say that dams are always bad for native fish. In some places, such as Montana’s Flathead River system, the Hungry Horse Dam is the only thing that keeps unwelcome exotic species away from the protected, wilderness populations of bull trout and westslope cutthroat trout in the Bob Marshall Wilderness. Many other dams in the interior West provide cold, consistent water for trout populations that would otherwise not exist, like Wyoming’s North Platte or New Mexico’s San Juan. Americans built dams for a lot of valid reasons. Dams control floods, provide reliability for irrigation and drinking water, allow barge traffic and generate electricity. The Lower Snake River dams in Idaho, for example, are popular with wheat farmers who use barges to ship their grain to ports downstream. Rep. Simpson acknowledged that dam removal isn’t simple and that many legitimate concerns have to be addressed and balanced. TU’s Chris Wood agreed: “Some dams provide a lot of social uses and we will need to keep them,” he said. “But there are a lot of places where we can be asking the question. Are they worth it anymore?”

Tuesday, March 7, 2017

Rebecca Bowe | rbowe@earthjustice.org | 415-217-2093

Court to Consider Immediate Measures to Bolster Salmon Survival
Plaintiffs seek increase in spill and a halt to spending on dam infrastructure that may soon be retired
 
The U.S. District Court in Portland, Ore. will hear arguments on March 9 concerning Earthjustice’s motion for injunction seeking short-term measures to improve salmon survival rates. The requested actions will better provide safe passage for juvenile salmon navigating the heavily dammed Columbia River Basin during the spring migration season, and help ensure a level playing field as federal dam operators consider the possibility of dam removal on the lower Snake River.

Plaintiffs seek an increase in water releases over spillways at the four lower Snake River and four lower Columbia River dams, to improve survival rates for endangered juvenile salmon bound for the ocean. They also request a moratorium on tens of millions in capital spending on projects that would extend the life of dams on the lower Snake River that may soon be retired. Federal agencies are currently in the process of conducting a NEPA/EIS Review in the wake of a May 2016 ruling that rejected a previous salmon protection plan as illegal under NEPA and the Endangered Species Act. Agencies must consider lower Snake River dam removal as an alternative under that analysis.

WHO
Earthjustice, together with the State of Oregon and with support from the Nez Perce Tribe, is representing a host of fishing groups and conservation organizations including the National Wildlife Federation, Save Our Wild Salmon, Pacific Coast Federation of Fisheries Associations, Northwest Sportfishing Industry Association, Idaho Rivers United, and more. WHAT:
U.S. District Court of Portland hears motion for injunction. WHEN:
Thursday, March 9, 2017. 10 a.m. WHERE:
Mark O. Hatfield United States Courthouse, Room 1327
1000 Southwest Third Avenue
Portland, Oregon 97204-2944 REPORTER RESOURCES:

• Background on fight to save wild salmon
• Reply memo in support of Motion for Injunction
• Declaration of Kevin Lewis, executive director of Idaho Rivers United

First, thanks to everybody who was able to make a gift in support of last week’s conservation/fishing/faith delegation to Washington DC. This support made our very successful trip possible - and we are very grateful. Joseph Bogaard and Susan Holmes, SOS’ D.C. Representative were joined by Greg Haller of Pacific Rivers Council, John DeVoe of WaterWatch of Oregon, and former Lutheran Pastor Tom Soeldner of Earth Ministry to spend the week on Capitol Hill advocating to modernize the 50-year-old U.S. – Canada Columbia River Treaty. Our excellent team of expert-advocates had a very busy and productive week - meeting with officials in the Obama Administration including: ·     U. S. State Department - the U.S. Treaty lead in Washington D.C.
·     Department of the Interior
·     U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
·     Environmental Protection Agency
·     Army Corps of Engineers
·     National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and
·     President’s Council on Environmental Quality

We also met with Congressional offices including Senate staff for Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell (WA), Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley (OR), and John Tester (MT), and we stopped by a number of Northwest House offices over the course of the week as well. Overall, we received a warm reception – members of Congress and agency officials appreciated our visit and hearing our perspective and concerns as the State Department considers a recommendation to the White House about if and how to begin negotiations with our neighbor to the north. For the most part, Administration officials were engaged and up-to-speed on the Treaty process - asking questions, providing perspective, and offering advice. All the Senate offices were likewise attentive, receptive, and supportive. It was clear that other more well-resourced stakeholders from the region (such as the utilities/dam operators) have been frequent visitors to “the Hill” in recent months. As best as we could tell, there is strong support in the Administration and in Congress for the Regional Recommendation – the consensus document delivered last December by the Northwest to the State Department. Since that time, State has assembled an inter-agency committee to review the Recommendation before it suggests any next steps to the White House. This is good news. Our team delivered the following messages to officials and decision-makers in D.C.:

1.   Modernize the Treaty! and

2.   Add “Ecosystem Function” (health of the river) as a new 3rd Treaty purpose – to join flood management and power production. And in the meantime, as the State Department considers the Recommendation, we urged members of Congress and the Administration to move forward on a number of important and related issues now:

A.   Initiate a comprehensive flood policy review to explore opportunities and challenges facing flood management for Columbia River Basin communities, and to identify needs and new ways that we can co-optimize power, flood management, and ecosystem health.

B.   Add a new 3rd member to the U.S. Entity to represent ecosystem function or health (the Entity today has just two representatives – Bonneville Power Administration (for power interests) and Army Corps of Engineers (for flood management). C.    Begin a long-term initiative to restore salmon and other anadromous fish above now impassable dams, beginning with the main-stem Columbia, as proposed by the 15 Columbia River Basin Tribes. We also delivered a sign-on letter co-organized by SOS, addressed to the Northwest members of Congress and CC’ed to many Obama Administration officials, signed by 34 Northwest conservation/fishing organizations and business associations representing hundreds of thousands of Northwest citizens that (1) expressed our appreciation for their support to modernize the Treaty and to begin negotiations with Canada, and (2) then delivered the messages in italics above.

We also delivered a heads-up to everyone in D.C. about a soon-to-be-released Declaration: Ethics & the Columbia River Treaty from Tribal and religious leaders in the Northwest and British Columbia. It is a broadly supported and powerful statement highlighting the ethical and justice dimensions of modernizing the Treaty. The letter is now out - released earlier this week. Read the Cover Letter signed by 21 Tribal and Religious Leaders and the Declaration here.
 
We left D.C. slightly exhausted on Friday, but confident that we had delivered clear messages to Congress and the Administration reflecting strong popular support for modernizing the Treaty so that it rights historic wrongs, becomes an agent for protecting and restoring endangered fish and wildlife, and is able to meet the challenges of the 21st Century – not the least of which will be the warming waters and changing hydrographs caused by climate change.

Joseph

September 23, 2019 

By Eric Barker

A bad year for anglers got even worse Friday, when the Idaho Fish and Game Commission voted to close steelhead fishing in the Clearwater River basin and on a short section of the Snake River near Lewiston.

In a unanimous vote, commissioners approved a proposal by the Idaho Department of Fish and Game designed to ensure as many B-run steelhead as possible reach the hatcheries they are bound for on the Clearwater River. Even with the closure, fisheries managers estimate they will fall well short of hatchery spawning goals, perhaps by as much as 50 percent.

“That is the concern,” said Lance Hebdon, anadromous fish manager for the department.

The closure of the Clearwater River and its North, South and Middle forks and the Snake River from the Idaho/Washington state line at Lewiston to the Couse Creek boat ramp south of Asotin will take effect at midnight Sept. 29, at which time anglers won’t be allowed to target steelhead, even on a catch-and-release basis.

The unprecedented move is sending shock waves through the angling community that was already stung by this year’s terrible spring chinook run and an awful return of A-run steelhead bound for the Snake, Salmon and Grande Ronde rivers. It’s the third disappointing year in a row for the return of both salmon and steelhead to the Snake River basin.

During a public comment period of a meeting of Gov. Brad Little’s Salmon Working Group on Friday, fishing guide Jason Schultz said those who make their living off of the fish are worried. He implored the group to do whatever it can to help the fish.

“We are all scared, we don’t know which direction this is going to take us,” Schultz said. “Those of us who rely on income from Idaho salmon and steelhead are absolutely screwed. We don’t know what to do.”

Many guides and anglers will flock to rivers in Idaho, Washington and Oregon that remain open to steelhead fishing. But those places are likely to be crowded.

“Take a number,” said Will Godfrey, an avid steelhead angler from Lewiston, speculating on the conditions on the Grande Ronde River.

Steve Pettit, another avid angler and a retired Idaho Fish and Game biologist, wondered if the Salmon and Snake rivers should be closed as well, because of the poor showing of the A-run.

“I look at the dam counts and it’s frightening,” he said. “There is no fish.”

In one bright spot, commissioners approved a coho salmon fishing season on the Clearwater.

About 10,000 coho are expected to return past Lower Granite Dam on the Snake River this year. That is enough to offer the first fishing season in two years on the salmon reintroduced by the Nez Perce Tribe. The river is now open for coho harvest from its mouth to Memorial Bridge at Lewiston seven days a week, and from the bridge to the confluence of the Middle and South forks of the Clearwater at Kooskia. The bag limit is two coho per day. The season is expected to last until Oct. 13, unless harvest rates necessitate an early closure.

Conservation League director says four Lower Snake River dams need to be breached

By Garrett Cabeza

North Idaho Director of the Idaho Conservation League Brad Smith had a simple message Tuesday night during a discussion at the 1912 Center in Moscow — Snake River basin salmon and steelhead are in serious decline and heading toward potential extinction.

The solutions are not so simple.

A huge cause of the decline, Smith told the roughly 40 people in attendance, are the eight dams the fish have to pass through to and from the Pacific Ocean, including the four Lower Snake River dams.

“We are truly at a crossroads where we are either going to make the decision in society to save these fish or we’re going to lose them potentially forever,” Smith said.

He said wild fish runs started declining as dams were installed in the 1960s and ’70s.

Smith said 76 percent of juvenile salmon that pass through the Columbia River dams on their way to the ocean die from injury or stress incurred from the dams.

“The story of sockeye is perhaps the saddest of them all,” Smith said.

He said 150,000 sockeye salmon once returned annually to the Snake River basin. Now, less than 20 return.

Before the Lower Columbia River and Lower Snake River dams were built, Smith said 1.5 million spring/summer chinook salmon would return to the Snake River basin. Last year, about 5,800 returned to the area.

Smith said smolt-to-adult ratios are critical measuring sticks of fish recovery. The ratio in this case is the percentage of smolt, or young fish ready to migrate to the ocean, that survive the journey from the Snake River basin to the Pacific Ocean and back.

He said recovery plans call for SARs of 2 percent to 6 percent. Two percent maintains the existing population.

However, the SAR for wild steelhead trout from 2006-15 in the Snake River basin was 1.84 percent, which signals a declining population, Smith said.

Meanwhile, Yakima River basin (Washington) steelhead, which navigate four dams, showed a 4.58 percent SAR; the John Day River basin (Oregon) steelhead, which naviagate three dams, had a 6.06 percent SAR; and the Deschutes River basin (Oregon) steelhead, which navigate two dams, showed a 5.94 percent SAR.

“The fish that go over fewer dams are doing better than the fish that go over eight dams,” Smith said.

Breaching the four Lower Snake River dams is part of the solution to increase fish populations in the region, Smith said.

He said the four dams were primarily installed to create seaports in Lewiston and Clarkston. But the use of the ports has dropped significantly in recent years. The Port of Lewiston recorded a net loss of $1.9 million from 2013-18, Smith said.

He said the first step is to create awareness of the dire situation. Smith said there was a large effort in the 1990s to generate awareness about the declining fish populations and to convince government officials to authorize breaching the dams. Now, fish are in a “perilous state,” Smith said.

“So it’s time to re-inform the public where everything stands,” he said, “and seek action from our elected officials.”

Senior members of Biden administration, six Columbia Basin Tribes met last week for a ‘nation-to-nation’ talk on protected fish

By Eric Barker
March 29, 2022

The Biden administration reiterated Monday its determination to change course on the decadeslong, $17 billion effort to recover wild salmon in the Snake and Columbia rivers and to uphold the treaty rights of the Nez Perce and other tribes of the basin.

But it did not say how it hopes to improve those efforts, which have yet to prove successful.

Four runs of Snake River salmon and steelhead and nine others in the Columbia River basin are protected under the Endangered Species Act. Several tribes in the basin signed treaties in the mid 1800s that ceded millions of acres of land to the federal government but reserved, among other things, their rights to hunt and fish in “usual and accustomed places.”

Senior members of the administration including Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, Energy Secretary Jennifer M. Granholm and Council on Environmental Quality Chairwoman Brenda Mallory, held “nation-to-nation” remote meetings with Columbia Basin tribes last week. Representatives from six of the tribes gathered at the Clearwater River Casino on the Nez Perce Reservation for the talks.

A four-page statement released as a Council on Environmental Quality blog summarized the discussion. It recognized federal dams as a significant source of salmon mortality and tribal injustice, while also noting the positive attributes dams provide to citizens across the Pacific Northwest.

The statement said the administration was asked by tribal governments such as the Nez Perce to breach the four lower Snake River dams. Many scientists say the dams must be removed if wild fish are to be recovered. The statement acknowledged Idaho Congressman Mike Simpson’s dam removal and economic mitigation plan, and that Washington Gov. Jay Inslee and Sen. Patty Murray are studying the issue.

Administration officials said they were asked by the tribes to better fund salmon recovery; to give tribes and states a larger role in the effort; and to expand anadromous fish recovery to the upper Columbia and Snake rivers, where large hydroelectric dams drove fish to extinction in the mid 1900s.

“As we reflect on what we heard, we know that any long-term solution must account for the varied and crucial services provided by the dams, as well as the people, communities, and industries who rely upon them,” the administration officials wrote. “We cannot continue business as usual. Doing the right thing for salmon, Tribal Nations, and communities can bring us together. It is time for effective, creative solutions.”

Nez Perce Tribal Chairman Samuel N. Penney described the meeting as positive and said he sought to convey the urgency required to recover salmon, steelhead and pacific lamprey. Last year, analysis by the tribe’s Department of Fisheries Resources Management found 42% of wild Snake River spring chinook populations and 19% of wild steelhead are tipping toward extinction.

“We are at a crisis state with salmon recovery,” Penney said, “and we expect the federal government to uphold their (treaty) trust responsibilities and that there is still tribal injustice to this day that needs to be addressed.”

The tribe has sued the federal government over several iterations of its plan that aims to balance the needs of protected fish with operation of the Columbia River Hydropower System. Last fall, the Biden administration announced the long-running litigation — which includes the state of Oregon and a coalition of environmental and fishing groups as plaintiffs — would be paused while the two sides seek long-term solutions. That process is expected to wrap up at the end of July. Inslee and Murray are expected to release a draft of their Snake River salmon recovery plan next month and make a final decision on breaching by July 31.

The statement that was signed by Haaland, Granholm, Mallory, assistant secretary of the Army for Civil Works Michael Connor, and administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Richard W. Spinrad said the government has also been talking with other stakeholders in the region and formed an interagency group to “identify a durable path forward that ensures a clean energy future, supports local and regional economies, and restores ecosystem function, while honoring longstanding commitments to Tribal Nations.”

Kurt Miller, executive director of Northwest River Partners, said he has twice met with federal officials about the government’s intention on changing course. He said his group is supportive of salmon recovery efforts but said Monday’s statement put too much emphasis on dams as a source of salmon mortality and ignored other factors such as ocean conditions, predators and climate change. He said his and other groups stressed that salmon survival has declined up and down the West Coast.

“We think there are ways to help salmon that don’t involve getting rid of those four lower Snake River dams,” Miller said. “We wish they had expanded the discussion to those things.”

Justin Hayes of the Idaho Conservation League at Boise, said he is happy the administration recognizes a new strategy is needed.

“They are saying we cannot continue business as usual,” Hayes said. “That is something many people in the region have been saying — tribes, conservation groups, fishing groups and even industry groups — that the status quo is not working and it’s time to do something very different.”

Barker may be contacted at ebarker@lmtribune.com or at (208) 848-2273. Follow him on Twitter @ezebarker.

By Lee Rozen, for the editorial board

May 26, 2017

Debate has been flowing back and forth for decades whether the four dams along the Lower Snake River produce more value in facilitating navigation and producing electricity than they cost in maintenance expenses and dead fish, especially wild salmon.

Fleets of experts on both sides argue their case articulately and passionately.

We - and the courts - have tended to look with greater skepticism at the arguments of dam proponents as barge traffic dwindles on the Snake, other sources of electricity come online and dam maintenance costs rise sharply. And the fish continue to die. skepticism finds some fishy arguments in another case that involves salmon, but no dams.

A panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that Washington state - to comply with its treaty obligations on Indian fishing rights - must fix or replace hundreds of big concrete or steel pipes that carry streams under highways, but do so in such a way that they block migrating salmon.

The state says this could cost $2 billion, some of the culverts won't ever see a fish, treaties with Indians don't require this and precedents could be set affecting many other states. As a result, it wants a rehearing before more of the 9th Circuit court.

It seems the arguments against helping the salmon here are much weaker than those over the Snake River dams. Culverts produce nothing. They just get water from one side of a road to another so the road doesn't dam up a stream or wash out in a rainstorm.

If in the process they stop salmon from migrating upstream or down, that seems like a solvable problem.

In 2013, a trial judge gave the state until 2030 to fix the problem - 17 years. If the $2 billion cost estimate isn't inflated, that's $118 million a year. The state Department of Transportation is already spending roughly $215 million a year on highway construction and maintenance. Obviously, there's not $118 million in there just to fix culverts.

The state and tribes would be better off - as would the salmon - if they were trying together to create more financially reasonable solutions one highway, one river system at a time, rather than spending another day in court.

May 31, 2025
Eric Barker

Wild spring chinook and steelhead from the Snake River continue to struggle while fall chinook are one of the bright spots in a biennial report from Washington’s Salmon Recovery Office.

The report concentrates on salmon and steelhead that spawn in the Evergreen State and says Snake River spring chinook are in crisis. There are only three populations of Snake River spring chinook that spawn in Washington. The Asotin Creek population is functionally extinct, and the Tucannon population is dangerously close.

Last year, 250 spring chinook returned to the Tucannon River that spills out of the Blue Mountains and joins the Snake River near Starbuck. Only 67 of them were wild. While those numbers are poor, they are an improvement over other recent years. In 2023, 30 chinook including nine wild fish returned to the Tucannon. In 2019, 22 fish returned with just eight of them being wild, according to the report.

The Nez Perce Tribe and Washington Department of Fish and Game have taken desperate measures to save the fish, including releasing 50,000 smolts raised at the Tucannon Hatchery below Bonneville Dam on the Columbia River. They hope bypassing the need for the juvenile fish to pass through the Snake and Columbia River dams and reservoirs will result in higher survival. Any adults that return to the release point will be trapped and trucked back to the Tucannon Hatchery.

“When you start seeing fish and wildlife agencies doing crazy stuff like that, you know a population is in trouble,” said Chris Donley, fish program manager for the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife at Spokane.

He noted this year’s run might be slightly larger.

“We’ve got about 300 fish in the system which is double what we have seen in the last five years in any given year,” he said. “But the vast majority of those are of hatch origin.”

The third Snake River spring chinook population that spawns in Washington does so in Butte Creek, a tributary of Oregon’s Wenaha River in the Wenaha-Tucannon Wilderness Area. The report did not include spawning information on the population.

Wild Snake River spring chinook are protected as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. The bulk of the Snake River population spawn in Idaho and 42% of the Snake River populations had crossed the quasi-extinction threshold — defined as having 50 or fewer spawners for three consecutive years — according to a 2021 analysis by the Nez Perce Tribe.

The same 2021 modeling by the tribe showed 19% of wild Snake River steelhead had 50 or fewer spawners for three consecutive years. The recently released Washington report listed Snake River steelhead, a threatened species, as “not keeping pace.” In Washington they return to the Tucannon River, Asotin Creek, Joseph Creek and the lower Grande Ronde River.

Donley said fisheries managers are bracing for a poor return this year.

“In years we have a lot of pink salmon it appears steelhead are not doing as well,” he said.

Snake River steelhead tend to return in lower numbers and at smaller sizes during odd years. It is an inverse relationship to pink salmon salmon runs that boom in odd years. Scientists speculate that the super abundance of pink salmon every other year stunts the growth of steelhead, also in an every-other-year pattern, as the two species compete for limited resources in the Pacific Ocean.

Snake River fall chinook were listed as “approaching goal” in the report. The fish that return in August and spawn in October and November have benefited from hatchery programs by the Nez Perce Tribe and Washington. They have exceeded abundance goals for several years and have been considered for removal from ESA-protection as a threatened species. However, in 2016, the federal government rejected a delisting petition, saying wild fish numbers appear to be dependent on yearly supplementation from the hatchery program. They also suggested the fish could be delisted if a population were to be established upstream of the Hells Canyon complex of dams on the Snake River. Those dams, constructed in 1950s and 1960s, cut off fall chinook from a majority of their habitat.

Overall the report said eight of the 14 ESA-protected salmon and steelhead runs in Washington are struggling or in crisis and six are improving.

“Salmon are critical to our economy and way of life,” said Megan Duffy, director of the Washington State Recreation and Conservation Office in a news release. “They support our commercial and recreational fishing industry. They are food for other animals including endangered Southern Resident orcas. They are key to Tribal culture and treaty rights and they support many tourist communities. It is encouraging to see there is progress but the number of salmon populations still struggling reminds us that now is not the time to let up. We must continue investing in saving salmon so we all may benefit.”

The report is available at stateofsalmon.wa.gov.

Moscow-Pullman Daily News: Report says Snake River chinook and steelhead still in peril

Columbia River tribes, Oregon, Washington and conservationists ask judge to lift litigation stay following Trump admin decision to kill agreement

Credit: Ecoflight

By Eric Barker | Outdoor and Environmental Editor
September 12, 2025

Columbia River tribes along with the states of Oregon and Washington asked a federal judge Thursday to lift a stay blocking further litigation over harm caused to salmon and steelhead by federal dams on the Snake and Columbia rivers.

The expected move was spurred by President Donald Trump’s executive order in June that torpedoed an agreement the plaintiffs had made with the Biden Administration to study dam removal on the Snake River while funding salmon recovery and tribal renewable energy projects.

According to documents filed Thursday in Oregon District Court, attorneys for plaintiffs and the federal government have agreed to a schedule that would resume legal filings in the case as soon as Oct. 8.

Shannon Wheeler, chairperson of the Nez Perce Tribal Executive Committee, said salmon remain in danger of extinction and the status quo is neither alleviating that risk nor moving them toward recovery.

“If this wasn’t the answer to solving the problem, then what is,” he said. “We have to try to do whatever we can for the species.”

The 2023 agreement that was signed by the Nez Perce and other tribes in the basin was seen by salmon advocates as a breakthrough in their decades-long effort to recover wild salmon and steelhead that are protected by the Endangered Species Act. While it did not authorize dam breaching, it did call for studies focused on how to replace barging, power generation and irrigation made possible the dams. It also pledged $1 billion in spending on salmon recovery and renewable energy development. In exchange, the plaintiffs agreed to pause litigation in a three-decades-old case for at least five years.

The agreement was decried by agricultural groups, power interests and others who said they would be harmed by dam breaching and were not included in the talks that led to it.

In June, Trump directed members of his cabinet to withdraw from the agreement, calling it part of a “radical green agenda.”

In their motion Thursday, attorneys for the plaintiffs noted that when federal Judge Michael Simon at Portland approved the stay, he wrote it would serve the “orderly course of justice” as both sides seek remedies outside of the courtroom. With the Trump administration killing the agreement, they argued the stay no longer meets that standard.

“The Trump administration’s recent actions leave us with no choice but to return to court,” Earthjustice Attorney Amanda Goodin said in a news release. “Since this administration has reneged on this carefully negotiated agreement — with no alternative plan to restore our imperiled salmon and steelhead — we find ourselves once again on a course towards extinction of these critically important species. Earthjustice and our plaintiffs, alongside state and tribal partners, have spent decades protecting Pacific Northwest salmon and steelhead — and we won’t back down now.”

The legal fight over how much blame for dwindling wild salmon and steelhead runs should be placed on dams has been going on for more than 30 years. Salmon advocates have successfully challenged multiple iterations of the federal government’s plan to operate the dams while also trying to reduce the harm they cause to fish. Simon and his predecessor Judge James Redden have ruled the government’s plans that have dismissed dam breaching in favor actions like restoration of spawning habitat and spill water at the dams have not met the standards of the Endangered Species Act.

The latest version of that plan was written during Trump’s first term and prior to the agreement struck by the Biden administration, was being challenged by the tribes, conservation and fishing groups and the state of Oregon.

Moscow-Pullman: Tribes, states push to revive Snake and Columbia River salmon lawsuit after Trump order

May 30, 2019

By Tom France

Despite $16 billion in spending on salmon recovery over the past 30 years, wild stocks of salmon and steelhead in the Columbia-Snake River drainage continue to collapse. An ecosystem that not only sustains other species — like the southern resident orca — but people as well is quickly unraveling.  

At a recent conference in Boise, U.S. Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, accurately summarized the growing peril facing salmon and steelhead runs, as well as the financial challenges confronting the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA), the region’s principal electricity provider.

“There is a looming problem, and it is approaching quicker than anyone might think,” he said. “It is kind of like the side-view mirror on your car: Objects may be closer than they appear.”  He’s right about Bonneville. The agency faces unprecedented pressure from a rapidly changing energy market. As a result, BPA has gone from selling the region’s cheapest electricity to its most expensive. This inversion could very well cause an exodus of customers when their contracts expire in the 2020s. If this occurs, Bonneville’s ability to maintain and modernize the dams and power lines it owns throughout the Northwest will be compromised. Simpson is equally right about the region’s salmon and steelhead. The crushing impact of the Lower Snake River dams on wild salmon and steelhead has been evident since the last of the four dams was completed in 1975. Over the past 40 years, runs of tens of thousands of wild fish have declined to thousands and then hundreds and now dozens. Simpson is the first political leader in years — Republican or Democratic — to recognize that dramatic changes need to occur if the extinction of many runs is to be avoided.

The seriousness of Simpson’s observations is underscored by his political record. He is a conservative Republican representing one of the nation’s most conservative states, yet the plight of the Snake River’s salmon and BPA’s finances have moved him to action.  While Simpson made clear he is still researching the best solutions, he also told his Boise audience that time is short for both wild salmon and BPA. In fact, he emphasized that restoring Bonneville to financial health and restoring salmon to healthy populations must go hand in hand. 

While specifics await the introduction of a bill, it seems likely that his legislation will seek to relieve Bonneville of some of its financial burdens and consider the option that has long paralyzed Northwest politicians — restoring the Lower Snake River by removing four dams that have severed Idaho’s pristine spawning habitat from wild fish. If removing dams is part of the Simpson prescription, so too will be transition funds to aid those who have made good faith investments in the current system, primarily farmers and shippers, and the communities that support them. 

The question now is whether Simpson’s leadership will help restore other endangered commodities — bipartisanship and a regional commitment to wild salmon recovery. Moving forward will require much the same cross-aisle collaboration from Northwest Republicans and Democrats that secured the congressional appropriations to build the dams in the first place.

That we can save salmon — and orca — has never been clearer, and Simpson has set the proposition on the table for governors, House members and senators of both parties to consider. As wind and solar generation has grown, the relative importance of the energy produced by the Northwest’s dams has diminished.  As energy conservation has taken hold, the energy demands of the region are static even as electric-generating capacity has grown. 

These are the factors that have destabilized BPA, but they can be addressed even while taking the worst dams — the four Lower Snake dams — off line and restoring wild salmon to the Columbia River basin and the lower Snake River. Restoring wild salmon and low-cost, clean energy: These are goals that vast majorities of citizens in Washington, Oregon and Idaho want achieved. Working together, across party lines and through the governors’ offices and the region’s congressional delegations, the Northwest can ensure that wild salmon once again are found from the mouth of the Columbia to the cold mountain rivers of Idaho and where low-cost, clean electricity power a dynamic economy.   

"But as we wait to hear what the judge has to say, we know this is not just up to the court and our fight doesn’t stop today. This is up to the American people. We have the opportunity to save these one-of-a-kind fish. I don't want to tell future generations that we had the opportunity to save wild salmon and we did nothing. I want to tell them that we fought to save them. That we fought to save the jobs and the communities that depend upon them. That we fought to ensure transparency in our federal decisions."

- from Nicole Cordan, Policy & Legal Director for the coalition.

Read more on the SOS blog.

August 5, 2014

Salmon Chief sculpture at Spokane Falls. Artist Smoker Marchand.

Photo by Luke Wiley Photography, http://law.aminus3.com/

Not just sockeye, but wild sockeye, are returning to the Washington and British Columbia Okanogan country in record-breaking numbers, right now.  Lynda Mapes tells the wonderful story in yesterday’s Seattle Times, “On Columbia, ‘just add water’ seems to be working.”

Water flows are critical to salmon’s ability to get up the river, around the dams, and home to natal spawning grounds.  For Okanogan sockeye, the water spills at Columbia River dams ordered by Judge Redden, as part of the epic Columbia hydropower system Endangered Species Act lawsuits, are proving their merit this year with sockeye’s return.  And just as critical, the Native Nations of the Okanogan Nation Alliance have been the leaders in calling the salmon home — through hard work, collaboration, negotiation, and faith.

When will salmon — in this case Chinook and steelhead — return to the Spokane River?  The “calling home” has begun, with official discussions of fish passage at Grand Coulee and Chief Joseph dams, with the Spokane City Council’s endorsement of the NW Power Council’s proposal for return of salmon to the Upper Columbia, and even with the Salmon Chief sculpture installed at the base of the Spokane Falls in May.

And maybe, just maybe, the Washington Department of Ecology will come to understand its role to ensure enough water in a critical spawning and rearing area for our future salmon, when it adopts an instream flow for the Spokane River later this year.   So far, Ecology has not seen its place in this calling of the salmon home.

But it’s not too late.

Salmon will return to the Spokane.

Posted by Carl Safina, The Safina Center, June 15, 2015

By Kenneth Balcomb, guest essayist

Note: In this guest essay, long-time killer whale researcher Ken Balcomb shows how obsolete but still salmon-killing dams are helping cause the decline of killer whales due to food shortage in the Northwest. The dams do feed us one thing: propaganda. As Ken wrote to me, “I was flabbergasted that the dams are closed to photography, and that their wasteful secret is downplayed in the mainstream propaganda fed to the public.” For more on the dams, see my book Song for the Blue Ocean. For more on Ken and the whales he has spent his life loving and studying, see my soon-to-be-released book Beyond Words; What Animals Think and Feel, which will hit bookstores on July 14. — Carl Safina

I have studied the majestic southern resident killer whales of the Pacific Northwest for forty years (approximately one productive lifespan – whale or human), during which time much has been learned and shared with the world about this iconic endangered population. They are now arguably the best known whales in the world! But, that was not always the case. The common response in the 1960‘s and 1970‘s to my announcement that I was studying whales was, “Why?” “What good are they?”

My best response was to point out that as top marine predators whales are indicators of the health of that environment in which they live – the ocean – and that is also an environment upon which humans depend. Now, with growing numbers of people appreciating the whales’ natural role in the marine environment, and better understanding their ecological requirement for specific food—Chinook salmon in this case—to survive, the conversation has moved toward a strategy of how best to provide that food. There is currently an active discussion about removal of the Snake River dams to save fish, or whales. The issue of whether dams should be breached to provide this food for the whales has now arrived. Would that be reasonable? Are we sure that will work?

I don’t consider this lightly. I tend to consider the status quo of institutions and structures to be enduring and worthy of protection, even if only as displays of the truly amazing feats our species has achieved in the course of human evolution and ingenuity. Not all of our feats have been without unforeseen consequence, however; and, most tend to crumble over time anyway. Dams require maintenance, and they eventually fill with sediment.

Until recently, dam removal was against my conservative nature. And it still seems to be counter to our government’s intent. This is in spite of clear evidence that the salmon-eating population of “killer” whales that I am studying is on a path to extinction along with significant populations of their main food resource—Chinook salmon—huge numbers of which formerly spawned and returned to the Snake River, and fed whales in the Pacific Ocean and humans, before the dams were built.

I had to see for myself what was going on in the Snake River watershed currently. So last week my brother and I drove up the highway to visit the dams on the Columbia River and upstream, sightseeing and taking photos and videos along the way and learning about the current passage of remnant populations of salmon.

But when we got to the McNary and Ice Harbor dams just below the Snake River and on it, it seemed as if an iron curtain had come down and we were prevented from taking any photographs, or even carrying cameras and cell phones behind the fences surrounding the dam structures. It was as if something was being hidden from view. And, it was. There was no point in our continuing upstream to Lower Monumental, Little Goose and Lower Granite dams to take photographs and videos of fish passage, because that was not allowed.

In truth, already well known to others but not to me, these four Snake River dams are obsolete for their intended purposes and are being maintained at huge taxpayer expense for the benefit of a very few users. Plus, they are salmon-killers in a former river (now a series of lakes) that historically provided spawning and rearing habitat for millions of Chinook salmon. And, they now doom all technological attempts to bolster these salmon populations to expensive failure.

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, and it will also benefit other salmon populations.

You and I are paying for this economic and ecological blemish with our tax dollars spent to maintain structures and negative return on investment in power generation, “barge” transportation, and recreation. The question I would now ask is “Why?” and “What good are they?”

Removal can be done inexpensively and doing so makes perfect ecological sense. The technological fixes for the dams have not improved wild salmon runs, and there is nothing left to try. There are no fixes for the deadly lakes behind the dams. As a nation, we are dangerously close to managing the beloved southern resident killer whale population to quasi-extinction (less than 30 breeding animals) as a result of diminishing populations of Chinook salmon upon which they depend. There are only about eighty of these whales now remaining (including juveniles and post-reproductive animals), down from nearly 100 two decades ago and down from 87 when they were listed as “Endangered” in 2005.

If you really want to have healthy ecosystems with salmon and whales in the Pacific Northwest future, and save tax/rate payer money at the same time, please contact or mail your thoughts to your elected representatives in support of a Presidential mandate to begin the return of the Snake River ecosystem to natural or normative conditions by the end of the current presidential administration. The time is now!

When they are gone it will be forever. Returning the Snake River to natural condition will help salmon and whales, and save money. Please do not wait until all are gone. Call or write your representatives today!

Ken Balcomb, 11 June 2015
Senior Scientist, Center for Whale Research
Friday Harbor, WA 98250

http://voices.nationalgeographic.com/2015/06/15/breach-the-snake-river-dams/

May 8, 2019

By Stefan Lovgen

Only about one-third of the world’s longest rivers remain free-flowing, meaning they have not been dammed or disrupted in man-made ways, reports a new landmark study. While there are a few exceptions, like Asia’s 1,700-mile long Salween River, most of the remaining free-flowing rivers longer than about 600 miles are now restricted to remote regions of the Arctic and to the Amazon and Congo Basins.

Scientists warn that such fragmentation of the world’s major rivers, caused mainly by dams, threatens the ecosystem services that both people and wildlife depend on for their survival. Free-flowing rivers, they say, provide food for hundreds of millions of people, deliver sediments crucial to agriculture, mitigate the impact of floods and droughts, and underpin a wealth of biodiversity.

“This is the most comprehensive assessment of river connectivity that’s ever been done, and it shows we are losing our longest, free-flowing rivers,” says Michele Thieme, lead freshwater scientist at the World Wildlife Fund, which spearheaded the mapping project together with McGill University in Quebec, Canada.

The researchers found that the longer the river is, the greater the likelihood of it being impeded. While 97 percent of the world’s shortest rivers (those no longer than 62 miles) still remain free-flowing, only very few rivers longer than 310 miles remain that way in the United States, China, western Europe, and other parts of the world.

Dams and reservoirs are by far the main disruptors, the study found, though activities such as water extraction and sediment trapping also hinder flow in many rivers around the world. According to the analysis, there are today 60,000 large dams worldwide, with more than 3,700 currently planned or under construction, though the latter figure may actually be far higher.

There are, for example, 3,000 hydropower plants in the pipeline in just the Balkan region of eastern Europe, according to a report from the Save the Blue Heart of Europe campaign group.

Most of the long, free-flowing rivers are found in remote and inaccessible regions where hydropower development may not have been feasible in the past. As engineering technology improves, however, this is now changing. In the world’s largest river basin, the Amazon in South America, there are plans for up to 500 dams to be built across the region. “This would completely change the ecology of the system,” says Perry, who has worked extensively in the Amazon.

In Africa, many countries are turning to hydropower to meet growing energy needs. But critics warn that some of the planned projects are ill-advised. For example, there are concerns that a proposed dam on Zambia’s Luangwa River, one of the longest free-flowing rivers in southern Africa, would have trouble operating because of seasonal fluctuations in the river.

“It makes no sense to build the dam there,” says Thieme, adding that the dam would flood large areas, displacing thousands of people and destroying pristine habitat for lions, elephants, and other wildlife.

One hotspot for hydroelectric development is Southeast Asia, where Laos alone plans to build more than 50 dams along the Mekong River and its tributaries.

“The fear is that the Mekong River will gradually become so fragmented that it will lose function and no longer be able to support the huge diversity of wildlife and the millions of people who depend on it,” says Zeb Hogan, a study co-author and fish biologist at the University of Nevada, Reno, who leads a USAID-funded research project called Wonders of the Mekong (Hogan is also a National Geographic Explorer and TV host and his project has received support from the National Geographic Society).

Plummeting fish stocks

Because hydropower is a renewable energy source, its proponents often portray it as a green alternative that should be pursued to combat climate change. However, many scientists, especially those working on fish-related issues, push back on that notion.

“Hydropower might be renewable, but it’s not green,” says Herman Wanningen, an aquatic ecologist and creative director of the World Fish Migration Foundation in Groningen, Holland. “When a dam is put in, the free-flowing river suddenly becomes a stagnant reservoir, the natural habitat disappears, and with it the fish.”

Even worse, says Wanningen, the water in reservoirs created by dams is actually made warmer because it is not flowing as freely, exacerbating the problem.

Dams are most troublesome to migrating fish, which may not be able to reach crucial spawning grounds. Rivers like the Columbia in the western United States, which was once home to the largest salmon runs in the world, saw fish stocks completely crash after they were dammed.

In China, the installation of giant hydroelectric plants, such as the Ghezouba and Three Gorges Dams on the Yangtze River, has led to the likely extinction of the Chinese paddlefish, one of the world’s largest freshwater fish species.

Meanwhile, on the world’s driest non-polar continent, Australia, most rivers have had their water diverted for irrigation purposes, with fish often channeled into new, inferior habitats. Earlier this year, poor river flow in the Murray-Darling river basin, caused in part by excessive water extraction, contributed to a massive die-off of up to one million fish, including Murray cod, which can grow almost six feet long and is listed as critically endangered on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.

Lee Baumgartner, a freshwater fish ecologist at Charles Sturt University in Sydney, says overall fish populations in Australia are at an estimated 10 percent of what they were before industrialization, when the country’s rivers began to be modified.

Turning the tide

While hydropower development is continuing unabated in some parts of the world, there are signs that it is slowing down in others. China, which has far more dams than any other country, has scrapped many new domestic hydropower projects, including a cascade of dams on the upper Salween River, though Chinese companies are still involved in the building of many dams outside of China.

In parts of the Balkan region, which has by far the highest concentration of free-flowing rivers in Europe, plans to build a myriad of dams, many of them inside national parks and other protected areas, are increasingly being challenged by activists, and with some success. Earlier this year, large demonstrations against a series of proposed hydropower plants in Kosovo led to the government there ordering a moratorium on new dam construction in the country.

That is welcome news, says John Zablocki, a biodiversity expert with the Nature Conservancy, who has worked extensively on fish recovery issues in the Balkans. He cautions, however, that activists must be pragmatic in their approach. “A country like Albania gets close to 100 percent of its energy from hydropower,” he says. “Taking hydro away completely is not feasible. What we want to do is look at alternatives.”

The United States, which has more than 80,000 dams of all sizes, gets 7 percent of its energy from hydropower. There are no plans to build any more hydropower plants in the country.

Instead, the U.S. has embarked on a large-scale effort over the last several decades to take down dams and restore rivers. So far, nearly 1,500 dams have been removed throughout the country. Two of those, the Elwha and Glines Canyon Dams on the Elwha River in the Pacific Northwest, were removed in 2012 and 2014, respectively. Since then, several species of adult fish, including sockeye salmon and bull trout, have returned to the Elwha.

Similar dam removal projects are underway in western Europe, with France, for example, planning to soon remove two large dams from the Selune River in Normandy. Meanwhile, a project called Dam Removal Europe is focusing on clearing European rivers of the 30,000 old or obsolete dams that still exist. “This would open up thousands of kilometers of new river habitat,” says Wanningen, the Dutch ecologist, who is involved with the project.

Christer Nilsson, a landscape ecologist at Umeå University in Sweden and a co-author on the Nature paper, says having the baseline data on global river connectivity will hopefully help governments and other actors to plan their management of rivers more sustainably.

“We know so much more now than we used to about the ecological, economic, and social value of rivers, and that installing dams in them comes at a cost,” says Nilsson. “It’s just sad that we have destroyed so much before realizing that maybe [building all of them] wasn’t such a good idea.”

By Kirk Siegler
January 22, 2020

This past fall, Idaho officials took the extraordinary step of closing the Clearwater River to salmon and steelhead trout fishing, leaving guides like Jeremy Sabus scrambling to find other work.

"It's six weeks of my favorite time of the year, you get to shake hands with 3-foot trout," Sabus says.

Billed as one of the top destinations for salmon fishing in the United States, the Clearwater cuts through steep gorges in northern Idaho before dumping into the Snake and eventually, Columbia rivers. Every year, salmon and steelhead make an epic 500-mile or longer journey upstream from the ocean to spawn.

But this winter their runs are among the lowest they've been in a century.

It's never been easy for the famed fish. They have to navigate a series of dams that support the region's hydropower grid and irrigation and barges for agriculture. These slow down river flows in places, warm the water and make the trout more vulnerable to predators.

But the situation is now being exacerbated by climate change, which is warming the Pacific Ocean and increasing acidity levels. One federal scientist recently estimated that if nothing more is done to save the salmon and steelhead across the Columbia River basin, some of the species will go extinct within 20 years.

This has added urgency in long-running efforts to save the salmon. It's also reopened a bitter, 30-year legal battle over the fish and the rivers it depends on.

"The problem is that now we're fighting an issue that we don't have much control over, the changing climate," says Lizzy McKeag, a field organizer with the Idaho Wildlife Federation.

On the Clearwater, the fishing closure was lifted a couple weeks ago, partly due to improved hatchery numbers, but most of the outfitters' clients had already canceled.

"I was just purely sad," Sabus says, referring to both the environmental and economic fallouts.

Standing on a concrete boat ramp near the town of Orofino, Sabus is washing off his fiberglass drift boat after a morning on the river. He's cobbled together a few guided trips here or there, but mostly it feels eerily empty here.

"Driving all the way from Lowell, Idaho, to Lewiston and not seeing any boats, in the 23 years I've been fishing I haven't ever seen that," Sabus says.

That's about a 70-mile stretch of famed trout stream on U.S. Highway 12, which meanders through old growth fir and pine forests and steep grassy gorges following the old Lewis and Clark Trail. Hotel bookings in the area have cratered, restaurants are unusually quiet. A study by Clearwater County estimated the economic hit of the closure at around $8 million a month.

That's huge for this rural, sparsely populated area, home to small, struggling river towns that used to depend on timber and now lean heavily on fishing, hunting and boating dollars especially in winter. But folks here also rely on the relatively cheap power thanks to the dams, in particular four of them on the Lower Snake River that conservationists and Native American tribes want removed.

"The most amazing thing about these fish is how resilient they are," conservationist Lizzy McKeag says. "If we just give them half a chance they're going to take advantage of that."

McKeag, who lives in the farming hub of Grangeville, sees the recent fishing closure as a possible tipping point that breaks a 30-year legal stalemate. The fight has pitted people against one another in towns that depend on the salmon, cheap power and a water system that allows farmers to easily grow and export wheat.

"I think the beauty and struggle of the salmon and steelhead issue is that all of those economies are now interconnected, especially in these small towns," McKeag says.

And for the first time in years, interests long diametrically opposed to one another are at least getting together and talking. The governors of Idaho and Washington have convened task forces to find legislative fixes. And conservationists are appearing alongside farmers and energy industry officials at public meetings in the region.

There's a sense that people are tired of the lawsuits.

"We consider ourselves salmon advocates," says Kieran Connolly, a vice president at the Bonneville Power Administration.

BPA is the federal agency that markets and sells hydropower from the dams. Connolly is not committing to removing the four dams in question on the Snake River (below the Clearwater in Washington state). But that question is at the heart of the latest court-ordered federal environmental review that's expected to be released in draft next month.

"We're really trying to listen to our critics and say, how can we get together around a table and incorporate your ideas to make things better for the fish," Connolly says. "That's what we're trying to do."

These 13 species of salmon and steelhead were first listed as threatened on the Endangered Species Act after a lawsuit from Native American tribes in the 1990s, and since then BPA and other agencies have spent tens of millions of dollars on mitigation.

The money goes to everything from habitat restoration, fish ladders to get around the dams hatcheries. Today an estimated 80% of the fish on the system stem from hatcheries.

And yet the salmon continue to decline, from historical numbers of 18 million in the 1800s to barely 2 million today.

For tribes, this represents another broken promise with the U.S. government. McCoy Oatman, a tribal councilman for the Nez Perce, says his people depended on the fish for nutrition and survival before being forced onto a reservation that today only includes a stretch of the Clearwater River.

"We want to be healthy individuals like our ancestors," Oatman says. "When our bodies are not able to consume our natural foods that has an impact on us as a people."

Diseases such as diabetes are disproportionately high on the reservation. But he sees hope in the fact that some dams are being removed in other parts of the Northwest right now.

"You know, I'm hoping that in my daughters' lifetime, they'll be able to see a free flowing Snake River, much like we have on the Salmon River," Oatman says.

A free flowing Snake River, he says, would be a step toward restoring some ancestral fishing grounds for the of the tribe, not to mention the local economy that's come to depend heavily on the salmon and steelhead.

January 22,  2019

By Jacqueline Koch

Let’s commit to save a living national treasure from starvation

Whoop whoop! It’s a headline we’ve all been hoping for: New calf spotted among Puget Sound’s critically endangered killer whales. Along with the story is the photo of our unexpected newborn. It’s surfacing, swimming through the waves and bouncing with life.

This newsbreak is a bright spot in a series of heartbreaking dispatches chronicling the heartbreaking struggle of the Southern Resident orca. The news story peaked last summer and fall with the death of two whales, a newborn calf among them. It marked a critical loss to an endangered group that was once 200 strong. Now, if this calf survives, there will be just 75 left.

Why? These killer whales are trapped at the deadly intersection of pollution, noisy boat traffic and—most importantly—lack of food. The once robust spring Chinook salmon runs from the Columbia River basin, on which these orca thrive, are also critically endangered.

Last August, we bore witness to an unprecedented event. Having lost her newborn, a clearly mourning mother orca—J-35, aka Tahlequah—carried her lifeless calf in a watery “tour of grief” through the Salish Sea for 17 days. We followed her journey as helpless observers, transfixed and stunned, all told, for a distance of more than 1000 miles.

The scale of this tragedy didn’t escape The New York Times end-of-year recap, “The Lives They Lived.” Among the world’s notable thinkers, artists, writers, etc. who passed in 2018, we learned of the very short life of a nameless, newborn female orca.

The essay poignantly captured the miracle of a marine mammal’s birth in exacting detail: a tiny whale, whooshing its way into a watery world, tail first, pushing to the surface, to the sky, for air. The female calf brought with it great hope for a population rebound, which would only deepened our collective sense of loss when it quickly lost its fight for life.

Yet perhaps the most important point this essay captured is the meaning these creatures hold for us. They are the iconic wildlife of our Northwest coastal communities, but they represent more than a local or regional interest. They are a living national treasure. And their possible extinction, in tandem with the food they need to survive, puts the fragility of our planet, and our existence on it, into finer focus.

Now, with this new baby orca in our waters, we urgently need to put our heads together. Because to thrive, both mother and baby need nourishment. They need to eat! The solution to more food, while complicated, is possible. However it must be prioritized, for this new calf arrives against a drumbeat of bad news for the Southern Residents. Tahlequah is not expected to survive to summer, along with another podmate.

From the mountains, to the rivers to Puget Sound and the Salish Sea, we too, like this newborn orca, depend on a healthy ecosystem. We are interconnected. So let’s connect the dots. We can no longer just bear witness. We must pay attention and take action. This baby whale, which offers us hope, demands we do more. It’s hungry.

October 25, 2019

Portland, OR – What was once an endless supply in the Pacific Northwest is now endangered. Millions of Chinook salmon are not surviving migration. Now, the shortage is causing officials to make some difficult decisions.

As much as air or water, so much life in the Pacific Northwest depends on salmon. Over 130 species rely on nature’s original food delivery but fewer salmon are surviving the heroic swim from the open ocean to spawning streams hundreds of miles inland.

And that means trouble for two creatures that really, really love the king of fish. Killer whales and us.

In your grandparent’s day, the Columbia Basin seemed to produce a never-ending supply and salmon the size of people. But those big “June hog” Chinooks are extinct now and this year numbers were so low, the fall fishing season was canceled.

Columbia Riverkeeper Brett Vandenheuvel said, “The estimates are about 17 million salmon would return to the Columbia every year. It was the greatest salmon fishery in the world. And now it’s about a million fish return.”

And most of those are hatchery fish with weaker genes and less fat than their wild cousins. So the southern resident killer whales that live on Chinook are starving. There are only 73 of this kind of orca left on the planet and after a grieving orca mom pushed her dead calf around Puget Sound for weeks last summer, it rekindled a decades-old debate: salmon vs. dams.

Tim Dykstra is a fish biologist with the Army Corps of Engineers. He explained, “I’d say, for the Army Corps of Engineers, we’re looking to do the right thing. We’re looking to operate the dams that are here while we’re taking a close look at what the future of these dams are in the region.”

To find their birth stream, many Chinook coming out of the Pacific must navigate at least eight dams; four on the Columbia and four on the lower snake. These are the four that would likely come down first. But removing a dam takes an act of Congress and meet stiff resistance from special interests like wheat farmers who need dams and locks to float their crop to market.

And since the Bonneville Dam alone can power a city the size of Seattle carbon-free, the debate divides lovers of wildlife on all sides.

Bonneville Power Administration Fish Operations Manager Jason Sweet said, “I think we’re trying to do our best to improve conditions through the migration channel, through the river for the salmon, trying to make sure that power and fish can coexist here in the Columbia Basin.”

But 13 species of fish remain threatened or endangered, even though the federal government has spent over $16 billion trying to make dammed rivers more fish-friendly.

“Yes, the salmon can cross the fish ladders, but the river, the Columbia River is too hot. The reservoirs behind the dams have caused this hot water problem because they’re stagnant, absorbing a lot of solar radiation,” Vandenheuvel said. “And then couple that with climate change and climate changes, pushing that over the edge to make the river too warm for salmon to survive.”

And it’s not just the rivers. Scientists are worried that the infamous “blob” of warm water off the Washington/Oregon coast is back.

Nick Bond, a climate scientist with the University of Washington and NOAA, said, “And so we’re kind of wondering, ‘Wow, is this happening again?’ And it’s kind of alarming because it’s so close on the heels of that past event.”

Dams have long been concrete symbols of human ingenuity but with entire ecosystems in hot water, how much longer can they stand?

Eight American organizations are praising Canadian efforts

By John Boivin, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Valley Voice
Jul. 30, 2021

The way Canada has engaged with its public on the Columbia River Treaty is getting high praise from a group of American-based environmental and citizen groups.

Eight U.S. non-governmental organizations have written a letter extending their thanks to the federal, provincial and First Nations governments for their engagement with Basin citizens on the modernization of the Columbia River Treaty.

“By making your citizens and communities real partners in the Canadian side of the negotiation, you are helping bring forth a better Treaty for our shared watershed,” the public letter states. “And it appears to us you have maintained effective citizen engagement through the pandemic – a real feat.”

In the letter, they cite as important accomplishments the regular public meetings, B.C.’s comprehensive Columbia River Treaty website, newsletters and media articles, willingness to respond to public inquires outside the regular engagement process, funding research in public interest issues, and the commitment to not sign the final document without public consultation.

The authors include the Sierra Club, Centre for Environmental Law and Policy, American Rivers, Earth Ministry, and the League of Women Voters. They say their interest in the treaty is seeing that negotiators add ecosystem function as a Treaty purpose, and adding an expert voice for ecosystem health to the U.S. Treaty Entity.

The groups say they have been frustrated by their own government’s lack of public inclusion efforts.
“We have regularly urged our Department of State, and the two agencies that currently comprise the U.S. Treaty Entity, to establish regular, transparent, two-way engagement with citizens in the U.S. part of the Columbia Basin,” they state. “However, since no such engagement has occurred since formal negotiations began in May 2018, we learn most of what we know about the process by following your extensive communications about it with Canadians.”

The group also praised the partnership between the Ktunaxa, Secwépemc, and Syilx Okanagan nations, and Canada and British Columbia, as governments with shared sovereignty, to work together on the Treaty and related issues.

“The U.S. Government has so far fallen short of such partnership with Indigenous Columbia Basin nations (tribes) on this side of the border,” they write. “Thank you for demonstrating with your actions how Indigenous rights and expertise can be better incorporated into the Treaty negotiations process.”
“Thank you for your leadership to equip us, and for setting an example,” they conclude.

Canada and the U.S. signed the Columbia River Treaty in 1964. The treaty has no end date, but either country can unilaterally terminate it from September 2024 onwards provided that at least 10 years notice is given. Also starting in 2024, “assured flood control” changes to “called-upon flood control.”

The ability to terminate the Treaty, and changing flood-control provisions prompted both countries to undertake a review of the treaty to determine its future.

April 12, 2019

The B.C’s minister responsible for the Columbia River Treaty says Canadian and American negotiators exchanged ideas on flood risk and hydropower during this week’s meetings in Victoria.

Kootenay West MLA Katrine Conroy said, in a statement Friday, that both sides met for two days to continue talks that began in May 2018.

“Negotiators had an honest exchange of views and perspectives, as they worked to find common ground on flood-risk management and hydropower co-ordination,” said Conroy.

“Canada also raised the topics of other treaty benefits and adaptive management.”

Conroy said further technical work will be completed ahead of the next round of talks scheduled for June 19 and 20 in Washington, D.C. The treaty is set to expire in 2024.

Conroy also said Indigenous stakeholders are being consulted with, although her statement did not specify which First Nations the government is working with. The Ktunaxa Nation Council, Okanagan Nation Alliance and Shuswap Nation Council have previously expressed disappointment in being denied a seat at the negotiating table.

The Columbia River Treaty, which went into effect in 1964, led to three hydroelectric dams built in Canada and another in the U.S. In exchange for Canadian flood control and power generation, the U.S. paid $64 million over 60 years.

Canada also receives approximately $120 million annually, or half the value of power generated north of the border. Conroy has previously said that value has fallen over time.

The treaty, which did not include First Nations consultation when it was first drafted, led to the displacement of more than 2,000 residents, forced the flooding of 12 communities, destroyed agricultural land and blocked salmon from entering the Columbia River system.

From the desk of Joseph Bogaard 
February 2, 2014 

A recently-published study from the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America makes new findings that connect endangered Southern Resident Killer Whales (SRKWs) with threatened and endangered salmon of the Columbia and Snake Rivers. NOAA-Fisheries, the federal agency charged with protecting has previously identified the historic predation by these orcas on Columbia Basin chinook salmon and have previously described the decline of salmon in the Columbia River basin as “[p]erhaps the single greatest change in food availability for resident killer whales since the late 1800s...”

Today, there is strong evidence that the SRKWs are often suffering from severe nutritional stress (starving). The lack of available prey has been documented as a key source of mortality and low reproductive success in recent years. This new study confirms the recent presence of SRKWs at or near the mouth of the Columbia River in March/April and speculates that they are drawn there to feed on oily, energy-rich spring chinook that also gather at the river’s mouth in March before beginning their upriver migration.

Needless to say, a Columbia Basin that produces many more chinook salmon would be a very good thing for SRKWs and help address what scientist consider orca’s biggest threat: lack of a sufficient prey base to support their survival and recovery.

The study’s abstract below nicely summarizes the study’s findings, followed by a link to the full study.

Assessing the coastal occurrence of endangered killer whales using autonomous passive acoustic recorders.
By M. Bradley Hanson, Candice K. Emmons, and Eric J. Ward
Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, November 2013.

Abstract:
Using moored autonomous acoustic recorders to detect and record the vocalizations of social odonotocetes to determine their occurrence patterns is a non-invasive tool in the study of these species in remote locations. Acoustic recorders were deployed in seven locations on the continental shelf of the U.S. west coast from Cape Flattery, WA to Pt. Reyes, CA to detect and record endangered southern resident killer whales between January and June of 2006–2011. Detection rates of these whales were greater in 2009 and 2011 than in 2006–2008, were most common in the month of March, and occurred with the greatest frequency off the Columbia River and Westport, which was likely related to the presence of their most commonly consumed prey, Chinook salmon. The observed patterns of annual and monthly killer whale occurrence may be related to run strength and run timing, respectively, for spring Chinook returning to the Columbia River, the largest run in this region at this time of year. Acoustic recorders provided a unique, long-term, dataset that will be important to inform future consideration of Critical Habitat designation for this U.S. Endangered Species Act listed species.

You can read the full study here.

By Mark Walker
Aug. 31, 2022

WASHINGTON — Two top Democrats in Washington State have come out in favor of eventually breaching four hydroelectric dams in the lower Snake River to try to save endangered salmon runs, a contentious option that environmentalists, tribes and business groups in the region have argued over for decades.

In recommendations issued on Thursday, Senator Patty Murray and Gov. Jay Inslee provided their most definitive stance in the fight to save salmon in the Columbia River basin and honor longstanding treaties with tribal nations in the Pacific Northwest.

A draft version of a study that Ms. Murray and Mr. Inslee commissioned found this summer that removing the four dams was the most promising approach to salmon recovery. The report said it would cost $10.3 billion to $27.2 billion to replace the electricity generated by the dams, find other ways to ship grain from the region and provide irrigation water. But the draft stopped short of taking a position on removing the dams.

In the recommendations, the governor and the senator said that breaching the dams “must be an option we strive to make viable.”

Ms. Murray said in a statement that salmon runs were clearly struggling, and that extinction of the region’s salmon was not an option. But because breaching the dams would need congressional authorization and bipartisan support, she said, there had to be credible possibilities for replacing renewable energy sources, keeping shipping costs down and countering the effects of climate change.

“It’s clear that breach is not an option right now,” Ms. Murray said. “While many mitigation measures exist, many require further analysis or are not possible to implement in the near term.”

Washington State relies heavily on hydroelectric power generated through dams. But the structures have contributed to the depletion of the salmon population, which is critical to the river basin’s ecosystem. In 2019, state lawmakers passed some of the country’s strongest clean energy legislation, committing to cut coal power by 2025 and transition the state to 100 percent clean and renewable electricity by 2045. Removing the dams would make it more challenging to meet those goals.

Senator Jim Risch, Republican of Idaho, said that Ms. Murray and Mr. Inslee’s report was always going to reach the conclusion that breaching the dams was the best option for salmon recovery. The report was full of “biased information” and “cherry-picked data,” he said.

“Even so, those who commissioned the report eventually had to face up to the facts: First, the benefits provided by the four dams on the lower Snake River far outweigh calls for their removal,” Mr. Risch said. “Second, Congress — and only Congress — can authorize the removal of these dams, and there is no feasible or bipartisan pathway for congressional authorization of dam breaching.”

Mr. Risch said he was open to discussions on other options to increase salmon populations.

The recommendations from Mr. Inslee and Ms. Murray came a month after the Biden administration released a report on the feasibility of removing the four dams to aid salmon recovery, and another on how the energy they produce could be replaced. The dams, the last of which was built in 1975, provide energy to millions of people in the Pacific Northwest.

Mr. Inslee said there were no workable solutions other than replacing the existing infrastructure and breaching the dams.

“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,” he said in a statement.

The report commissioned by Mr. Inslee and Ms. Murray stated that while there had been strong feelings and disagreements about how to save the salmon, there were also “clear areas of common agreement.”

The government has been in litigation for more than three decades for failing to develop an adequate federal recovery plan after Snake River fish started being listed as endangered species.

In 2016, the courts again rejected a proposal by the federal government to recover the salmon population, urging it to consider a plan that included the removal of the four dams.

Bill Arthur, the chairman of the Sierra Club’s Snake/Columbia River Salmon Campaign, said the question was never whether the dams should be replaced but how quickly it needed to be done. The report from Mr. Inslee and Ms. Murray put the Northwest on a presumptive path to breaching the dams, he said. If Congress moved with a sense of urgency, he added, the dams could be removed by the end of the decade.

“There is no reason, that we can see, that you can’t get the energy replacement in place and appropriate mitigation needed within six years,” Mr. Arthur said. “And then it will take three years to remove the dams.”

Collin O’Mara, the president and chief executive of the National Wildlife Federation, said time was not on the government’s side as salmon runs continue to decrease each year. Using resources and funding from the infrastructure law and the Inflation Reduction Act could allow the state and federal governments to develop a comprehensive plan, he said.

“It’s a matter of putting pieces together and making sure no one is left behind,” Mr. O’Mara said. “Unfortunately, there is a track record in this country where the promises are made, but the investment is never followed through.”

Jeremy Takala, the chairman of the Fish and Wildlife Committee of the Yakama Nation, said the region’s tribal nations were not responsible for the decision-making process that led to hydroelectric dams being put in place. The communities have been disproportionately affected since they were installed; members who live along the river have been displaced by flooding.

“We have to make sure when doing this that we don’t repeat history, so we need to have a voice at the table,” Mr. Takala said of breaching the dams. “We know that it can work; we know there are possibilities. But when we talk about the federal hydroelectric system, we want to make sure the tribes are there, the tribes have input, the science is there, and work from our fisheries are there.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/31/us/politics/salmon-dams.html

May 13, 2007

Dams allies have a change of heart

By KIRK JOHNSON

DEC. 11, 2015

PORTLAND, Ore. — When Lewis and Clark first encountered the Columbia River in 1805, they wrote about nearby streams so thick with salmon that you could all but walk across on their backs.

Last summer, those streams looked very different. As a torrid heat wave settled over the Pacific Northwest, the salmon heading up the Columbia River from the ocean in their ancient reproduction ritual started dying en masse, cooked in place by freakishly hot water that killed them or made them vulnerable to predators. Sockeye died by the hundreds of thousands.

“It was a peek at the future,” said Jim Martin, a former chief of fisheries for Oregon, who now works on conservation issues for a fishing tackle company, Pure Fishing. “This is exactly what is predicted by climate-change models.”

Other salmon experts, though, said the future was not that clear. Even as the sockeye here were dying, they said, pink salmon were exploding in number, especially in the Puget Sound area around Seattle. Alaska, which actually supplies most of the wild-caught salmon eaten in Portland, Seattle and other coastal cities that have their identities tied to fish, had its own good-news story this year, with a near-record harvest.

The message — with huge implications for a region where salmon have been worshiped, eaten and fought over for millenniums — is that neither the fate of the fish nor the trajectory of climate change will be linear or neat. Threats to salmon abound and concern runs deep on all sides, but the pattern of 2015 suggests more than ever that location matters, with salmon doing better in some waterways than in others, and certain types of salmon thriving the most. Human intervention may help, wildlife experts say, but they are still not entirely sure what measures will work best, particularly as microclimate conditions differ so greatly.

“Hedge your bets, spread your bets,” said William Stelle, the West Coast regional administrator at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s fisheries department, summing up the new philosophy. If it looks as if the water in certain parts of the salmon’s range is going to be too hot for them to withstand, Mr. Stelle said, then the new approach is to find or restore places with cooler water. “You have to bring it down to the local conditions — what can you do in that place?”

The Environmental Protection Agency and the State of Oregon recently announced a three-year plan to map such “cold water refugia” in the Columbia and Willamette River systems. The United States Forest Service has developed a database of stream temperatures in the Northwest with plans to roll out similar models for other regions around the country looking to map their coolest streams.

The new thinking also points the spotlight on Portland and other places that have pioneered or advanced the idea, and where fishery managers say that cold-water refuges are showing signs of early — if tentative — success. Last fall, for example, scientists documented salmon spawning in Crystal Springs Creek, five miles from the downtown high-rises of Portland, Oregon’s largest city, for the first time in a half-century.

The 2.7-mile-long creek starts from a spring on the campus of Reed College. School officials worked with the city for more than decade to tear out culverts and other blockades that had kept the fish from the watershed, known as Reed Canyon.

“It got suddenly real,” said Zac Perry, the Reed Canyon restoration manager at the college, as he pointed to the place near a bridge where the first of a dozen or so coho salmon pairs were spotted.

A couple dozen fish are by no means a major salmon recovery — and at a cost of about $15 million, some people might question the cost-benefit ratio as
well. But in salmon micromanagement circles, fishery experts said, small successes can resonate: More federally protected fish species transit through Portland, or spend a portion of their lives there, than through any other major metropolitan area in the nation, according to the Center for Biological Diversity, a conservation group. And because Crystal Springs Creek connects through another stream with the Willamette River, its cold- water refuge can make an important difference as part of a 300-mile salmon habitat.

Even though much of the salmon in American supermarkets and restaurants is farmed or caught elsewhere, the industry is still vital to the Pacific Northwest economy, injecting billions of dollars through sport fishing, tourism and the Alaskan fishing fleet, much of which is based in Washington and Oregon.

“What happens in Portland matters for salmon,” said Noah Greenwald, the endangered-species director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “If there are places the salmon can hold out, then identifying those areas and making sure they’re protected is certainly going to be important.”

The new approach to salmon conservation may also influence land-use decisions. Once cold-water hiding places are mapped, experts say, legal obligations could swing into place to protect those places under the federal Endangered Species Act, which lists four of the six Pacific species as threatened or endangered.

Critics of the cold-water refuge effort said that although it might help in the short term, it sidestepped bigger and vastly more expensive problems. A reliance on hatcheries, which began early in the 20th century after salmon were almost fished to extinction, has made the fish more genetically uniform and less adaptable to a changing climate, they said. Dams on the Columbia and Snake Rivers raised water temperatures by making the rivers slacker and slower moving, long before climate change emerged as an important factor.

“We’re doing a lot of the easy things, and they’re great, but they’re not enough,” said Guido Rahr, the president and chief executive of the Wild Salmon Center, a Portland-based conservation group. As the climate continues to change, Mr. Rahr said, salmon will need every bit of their ancient, wild genetic diversity because evolution will select the traits best suited to survival.

What traits might be needed, exactly, is anybody’s guess. The coho run that came in Portland last year with those pioneering pairs on Crystal Springs, for example, did not materialize this fall, with only a few return sightings. No one knows exactly why, though coho numbers did plummet last summer in the Pacific.

“What scares me is that we do not have control over what happens in the ocean,” said Kaitlin Lovell, the manager of the Science, Fish and Wildlife Division for the City of Portland. “Projects like Crystal Springs buy you time to make the bigger decisions you have to make.”

And those decisions do not get easier. “In an urban environment, can we do enough to overcome or stay ahead of climate change?” Ms. Lovell said on the stream’s bank on a recent afternoon. “How far can you go?”

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/12/us/finding-refuge-for-salmon-cold-water-preferred.html

By JACQUES LESLIEAUG. 22, 2014

THAYER SCUDDER, the world’s leading authority on the impact of dams on poor people, has changed his mind about dams.

A frequent consultant on large dam projects, Mr. Scudder held out hope through most of his 58-year career that the poverty relief delivered by a properly constructed and managed dam would outweigh the social and environmental damage it caused. Now, at age 84, he has concluded that large dams not only aren’t worth their cost, but that many currently under construction “will have disastrous environmental and socio-economic consequences,” as he wrote in a recent email.

Mr. Scudder, an emeritus anthropology professor at the California Institute of Technology, describes his disillusionment with dams as gradual. He was a dam proponent when he began his first research project in 1956, documenting the impact of forced resettlement on 57,000 Tonga people in the Gwembe Valley of present-day Zambia and Zimbabwe. Construction of the Kariba Dam, which relied on what was then the largest loan in the World Bank’s history, required the Tonga to move from their ancestral homes along the Zambezi River to infertile land downstream. Mr. Scudder has been tracking their disintegration ever since.

Once cohesive and self-sufficient, the Tonga are troubled by intermittent hunger, rampant alcoholism and astronomical unemployment. Desperate for income, some have resorted to illegal drug cultivation and smuggling, elephant poaching, pimping and prostitution. Villagers still lack electricity.

Mr. Scudder’s most recent stint as a consultant, on the Nam Theun 2 Dam in Laos, delivered his final disappointment. He and two fellow advisers supported the project because it required the dam’s funders to carry out programs that would leave people displaced by the dam in better shape than before the project started. But the dam was finished in 2010, and the programs’ goals remain unmet. Meanwhile, the dam’s three owners are considering turning over all responsibilities to the Laotian government — “too soon,” Mr. Scudder said in an interview. “The government wants to build 60 dams over the next 20 or 30 years, and at the moment it doesn’t have the capacity to deal with environmental and social impacts for any single one of them.

“Nam Theun 2 confirmed my longstanding suspicion that the task of building a large dam is just too complex and too damaging to priceless natural resources,” he said. He now thinks his most significant accomplishment was not improving a dam, but stopping one: He led a 1992 study that helped prevent construction of a dam that would have harmed Botswana’s Okavango Delta, one of the world’s last great wetlands.

Part of what moved Mr. Scudder to go public with his revised assessment was the corroboration he found in a stunning Oxford University study published in March in Energy Policy. The study, by Atif Ansar, Bent Flyvbjerg, Alexander Budzier and Daniel Lunn, draws upon cost statistics for 245 large dams built between 1934 and 2007. Without even taking into account social and environmental impacts, which are almost invariably negative and frequently vast, the study finds that “the actual construction costs of large dams are too high to yield a positive return.”
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Continue reading the main story

The study’s authors — three management scholars and a statistician — say planners are systematically biased toward excessive optimism, which dam promoters exploit with deception or blatant corruption. The study finds that actual dam expenses on average were nearly double pre-building estimates, and several times greater than overruns of other kinds of infrastructure construction, including roads, railroads, bridges and tunnels. On average, dam construction took 8.6 years, 44 percent longer than predicted — so much time, the authors say, that large dams are “ineffective in resolving urgent energy crises.”

DAMS typically consume large chunks of developing countries’ financial resources, as dam planners underestimate the impact of inflation and currency depreciation. Many of the funds that support large dams arrive as loans to the host countries, and must eventually be paid off in hard currency. But most dam revenue comes from electricity sales in local currencies. When local currencies fall against the dollar, as often happens, the burden of those loans grows.

One reason this dynamic has been overlooked is that earlier studies evaluated dams’ economic performance by considering whether international lenders like the World Bank recovered their loans — and in most cases, they did. But the economic impact on host countries was often debilitating. Dam projects are so huge that beginning in the 1980s, dam overruns became major components of debt crises in Turkey, Brazil, Mexico and the former Yugoslavia. “For many countries, the national economy is so fragile that the debt from just one mega-dam can completely negatively affect the national economy,” Mr. Flyvbjerg, the study’s lead investigator, told me.

To underline its point, the study singles out the massive Diamer-Bhasha Dam, now under construction in Pakistan across the Indus River. It is projected to cost $12.7 billion (in 2008 dollars) and finish construction by 2021. But the study suggests that it won’t be completed until 2027, by which time it could cost $35 billion (again, in 2008 dollars) — a quarter of Pakistan’s gross domestic product that year.

Using the study’s criteria, most of the world’s planned mega-dams would be deemed cost-ineffective. That’s unquestionably true of the gargantuan Inga complex of eight dams intended to span the Congo River — its first two projects have produced huge cost overruns — and Brazil’s purported $14 billion Belo Monte Dam, which will replace a swath of Amazonian rain forest with the world’s third-largest hydroelectric dam.

Instead of building enormous, one-of-a-kind edifices like large dams, the study’s authors recommend “agile energy alternatives” like wind, solar and mini-hydropower facilities. “We’re stuck in a 1950s mode where everything was done in a very bespoke, manual way,” Mr. Ansar said over the phone. “We need things that are more easily standardized, things that fit inside a container and can be easily transported.”

All this runs directly contrary to the current international dam-building boom. Chinese, Brazilian and Indian construction companies are building hundreds of dams around the world, and the World Bank announced a year ago that it was reviving a moribund strategy to fund mega-dams. The biggest ones look so seductive, so dazzling, that it has taken us generations to notice: They’re brute-force, Industrial Age artifacts that rarely deliver what they promise.

Jacques Leslie is the author, most recently, of “Deep Water: The Epic Struggle Over Dams, Displaced People, and the Environment.”

By Marie Fazio
Jan. 20, 2021

A Washington State report put it bluntly: Because of the devastating effects of climate change and deteriorating habitats, several species of salmon in the Pacific Northwest are “on the brink of extinction.”

Of the 14 species of salmon and steelhead trout in Washington State that have been deemed endangered and are protected under the Endangered Species Act, 10 are lagging recovery goals and five of those are considered “in crisis,” according to the 2020 State of Salmon in Watersheds report, which was released last week.

“Time is running out,” said the report, which is produced every other year by the Washington State Recreation and Conservation Office. “The climate is changing, rivers are warming, habitat is diminishing, and the natural systems that support salmon in the Pacific Northwest need help now more than ever.”

Researchers say recovery efforts — involving state and federal agencies, Native American tribes, local conservation groups and others — have helped slow the decline of some salmon populations. The report found that two species — the Hood Canal summer chum and Snake River fall chinook — were approaching their recovery goals. It also noted that no new salmon species had been added to the endangered list since
2007.

“We are at least treading water,” said Kaleen Cottingham, director of the Washington State Recreation and Conservation Office. “We have not, however, seen the kind of progress that we had hoped for.”

With the effects of climate change expected to accelerate, researchers said that more must be done to prevent further population decline and the possible extinction of some species.

“We’re at a crossroads,” said Erik Neatherlin, the executive coordinator of the Governor’s Salmon Recovery Office in Washington. “There is a lot at stake. If we continue doing the things the way we’ve always done them, we’ll just continue to see a slow decline. Or we can think about where we’re going and change course.”

Salmon play a vital role in the environment, economy and culture of the Pacific Northwest. At least 138 species, from insects to orcas, depend on salmon for their food in some way. Salmon support an estimated 16,000 jobs in the commercial and recreational fishing industry, and they are a draw for tourists.

In the 1850s, Native American tribes in the Pacific Northwest signed treaties with the United States that relinquished their land but allowed them to retain the right to salmon fishing and other resources.

Salmon begin their lives in freshwater, migrate downstream to estuaries and, eventually, the ocean, where they live for a while before returning to their natal streams to spawn. (It is estimated that less than 1 percent of salmon survive long enough to return.)

Before the 20th century, an estimated 10 million to 16 million adult salmon and steelhead trout returned annually to the Columbia River system. The current return of wild fish is 2 percent of that, by some estimates.

One of the largest factors inhibiting salmon recovery is habitat loss, Mr. Neatherlin said. A growing human population has led to development along the shoreline, and the addition of bulkheads, or sea walls, that encroach on beaches where salmon generally find insects and other food. More pavement and hard surfaces have contributed to an increase in toxic storm water runoff that pollutes Puget Sound.

More than 20,000 barriers — including dams, roads and water storage structures — block salmon migration paths in Washington alone, according to the state’s Department of Fish and Wildlife.

The waters they swim in are warming — in 2015, unusually warm water killed an estimated 250,000 sockeye salmon — and there is less cold water to feed streams in the summer, the report said, because slowly rising temperatures have accelerated the melting of glaciers.

Loss of habitat compounded by climate change has created a dire situation for salmon, Mr. Neatherlin said.

“Salmon have demonstrated during the past 10,000 years that they can adapt to a changing environment,” the report said. But “climate change has exacerbated these problems. When combined with fewer natural buffers, degraded habitats, and lost genetic diversity within the salmon themselves, salmon are challenged to change quickly enough and their survival is at stake.”

Other factors, including predation from animals that eat salmon, also play a role in the decline of salmon populations, Mr. Neatherlin said.

The struggle to preserve salmon populations is felt across the Pacific Northwest, said Sam Mace, the Inland Northwest director of Save Our Wild Salmon, a coalition of groups committed to preserving salmon in the Columbia-Snake River Basin. She has witnessed a slow decline of salmon over the past 20 years.

In addition to issues outlined in the report, Ms. Mace said Save Our Wild Salmon has advocated the removal of four huge dams on the Snake River.

Last year, thousands of steelhead trout were expected to run in a main tributary of the Snake River but there were barely 300 of them, she said. In Idaho, where communities rely on the sport fishing season, the loss of tourists when fish don’t arrive can be devastating.

“I mean, the hotels were empty, everything was empty because there were no fish to catch,” she said. “It’s not just a biological crisis we’re having out here. It’s economic.”

By Jim Robbins
July 9, 2018


SEATTLE — For the last three years, not one calf has been born to the dwindling pods of black-and-white killer whales spouting geysers of mist off the coast in the Pacific Northwest.

Normally four or five calves would be born each year among this fairly unique urban population of whales — pods named J, K and L. But most recently, the number of orcas here has dwindled to just 75, a 30-year-low in what seems to be an inexorable, perplexing decline.

Listed as endangered since 2005, the orcas are essentially starving, as their primary prey, the Chinook, or king salmon, are dying off. Just last month, another one of the Southern Resident killer whales — one nicknamed “Crewser” that hadn’t been seen since last November — was presumed dead by the Center for Whale Research.

In March, Gov. Jay Inslee issued an executive order directing state agencies to do more to protect the whales, and in May he convened the Southern Resident Orca Task Force, a group of state, tribal, provincial and federal officials, to devise ways to stem the loss of the beloved regional creature. “I believe we have orcas in our soul in this state,” he said. At another point, he wrote of the whales and Chinook salmon that “the impacts of letting these two species disappear would be felt for generations.”

The orcas are also facing a new threat. The recent agreement between the Canadian government and Kinder Morgan to expand the Trans Mountain Pipeline would multiply oil tanker traffic through the orcas’ habitat by seven times, according to some estimates, and expose them to excessive noise and potential spills. Construction is set to begin in August, despite opposition from Governor Inslee and many environmentalists.

In the late 1990s, there were nearly 100 of these giant whales in the population. Following the salmon, they migrate in the Salish Sea to the northern coast of British Columbia and often surface in the south at Puget Sound within sight of downtown Seattle, especially during the spring and summer months. The males, which can weigh up to 22,000 pounds, typically live about 30 years, and females, up to 16,000 pounds, survive longer — up to 50 or 60 years, although one J-pod member, Granny, lived to be 105 years old.
Not only are there fewer calves in recent years, but signs of inbreeding also point to a weakening population. In the 1970s and 80s, theme parks like Sea World captured nearly 4 dozen orcas from the region, possibly shrinking the pods’ gene pool. In the last three decades, just two males fathered half the calves in the last three decades, and only a third of the females are breeding, just once every decade instead of every five years. Researchers worry that reproducing females are aging out of the population, and won’t be replaced.

Some conservationists are concerned that the orcas’ decline is another sign of a marine ecosystem in collapse. Beginning in 2013, something known as “The Blob” — a gigantic mass of nutrient poor, extremely warm water — warmed the Pacific from Mexico to Alaska, as much as six degrees above normal. Several years ago, starfish succumbed to a wasting disease and vanished from tide pools.

Much is still unknown about the plight of these orcas, but biologists and conservation managers have zeroed in on several main factors — and they are all connected.

The biggest contributing factor may be the disappearance of big king salmon — fish more than 40 inches long. “They are Chinook salmon specialists,” said Brad Hanson, team leader for recovery efforts for the Northwest Fisheries Science Center here, part of NOAA. “If they could, they would eat Chinook salmon 24/7.” Orcas gobble 30 a day. Hunting enough smaller prey requires a lot more energy.

The underwater world in the region is also getting noisier, especially an area between the San Juan Islands and Vancouver Island called Haro Strait. It is one of the orcas’ favorite foraging grounds in the summer.
“It’s also essentially a big rock ditch where sound bounces off. When you add in commercial vessel traffic going to Vancouver, recreational boaters and whale watching operations, it’s a pretty noisy place,” Mr. Hanson said.
Researchers are studying noise there now. They believe the cacophony of ship traffic interferes with echolocation and makes it harder for the whales to locate their prey and to communicate prey location among themselves. It can also cause hearing loss.

In recent years, officials have expanded the distance which vessels, including whale watching boats and kayaks, must keep from the whales. And there is a voluntary no-go zone near the San Juan Islands.

“Just the presence of boats can cause the whales to spend less time feeding,” said Lynne Barre, of NOAA Fisheries, recovery coordinator for the orcas. “And it’s harder to communicate. They have to call longer and louder when boats are nearby.”

Another factor is the pollution in Puget Sound. Whales that live off the coast of Seattle, Tacoma and other cities are effectively urban whales buffeted by municipal and industrial waste, and the occasional spillage from wastewater treatment plants into the ocean. Killer whales carry some of the highest levels of pollution of any marine animal.

Of most concern are the lingering effects of chemicals and pesticides, including the now banned DDT, as well as PCBs and PPDE, widely used in flame retardants and found through the world. The pollutants accumulate in salmon as they feed, and when the whales eat salmon they also ingest PCBs at even higher levels.

“It’s very lipophilic, which means it stays in the fat, and the females transfer a huge proportion of the contaminant burden to their offspring,” Dr. Hanson said. “About 85 percent gets transferred to calves through lactation.”
And while much of the pollution is from the region’s industrial past, Boeing disclosed this spring that over the past five years it had discharged highly toxic PCBs into the Duwamish River, which flows into Puget Sound, thousands of times over the legal limit.

These toxins suppress the whales’ immune systems, making them more susceptible to disease. They can also impede reproduction. That may be why tests show a high number of females who have become pregnant have failed to calve.

However, the decline of the whales can’t be pegged, experts say, to contaminants alone. A separate population of transient whales near here eat mammals that eat fish, and so consume concentrate contaminants at even higher levels — many times as high as the resident pods. Yet they are thriving, which has left scientists scratching their heads. Global populations are robust as well.

One possible scenario is that the dearth of salmon coupled with the interference of engine noise, which can affect their immune system, too, deprives the orcas of a sufficient diet. Their bodies then draw on fat reserves, which are laced with chemicals that suppress their immune system and reduce fecundity.

But experts aren’t sure what is raising their mortality rate. Often, when a whale dies, their carcasses sink or wash up onto remote beaches and are hard to find and test.

In recent years, researchers have been focusing on anthroponeses, diseases that humans may be passing to wildlife. Scientists have sailed out among the pods with a petri dish at the end of a 25-foot long pole to pass through the mist that whales exhale and see what they carry in their lungs. They found a range of pathogens that could be from humans, including antibiotic resistant bacteria and staphylococcus, which can cause pneumonia.

“It doesn’t mean they are sick, we don’t have evidence for that,” said Linda D. Rhodes, a research biologist expert in marine microbes and toxins and part of the study. “It means they are being exposed. Whether or not the whales get sick is a product of how much of it is present in the environment and how well is the whale able to defend itself.”

There is deep concern that a fatal human or animal disease has, or will, cross the species barrier and find its way into these immuno-compromised killer whales. “I’ve had dreams about it at night,” said Joseph K. Gaydos, a veterinarian with the SeaDoc Society in Eastsound, Washington in the San Juan Islands, who studies the southern residents. “Disease smolders in the environment but can break out. If there were a highly virulent virus to come through here it would take out a large part of the population and totally stop recovery efforts.”

Disease threats are myriad. A young killer whale died from a fungal infection last year. Toxoplasmosis is a disease spread by parasites in the feces of cats. It is one of the top threats to the Hawaiian monk seal, killing eight of the remaining 1,400 since 2001. It’s not known, though, to affect whales.

Canine distemper from dogs is also a concern. It’s a morbillivirus, which is an RNA rather than a DNA virus. Some 1,500 dolphins were killed by a single outbreak of morbilliviruses on the East Coast several years ago.
“RNA viruses can mutate rapidly and cross species lines,” Dr. Gaydos said.
Steps are being planned to help the whales persevere. More Chinook salmon are being reared in hatcheries as whale food, but that is far from a certain fix.
In the end trying to maintain a population of whales in the shadow of one of the fastest growing cities in the country may not be possible.
“It’s an ecosystem-wide problem,” Dr. Hanson said. “Things are out of whack and we have to get them back to where we can sustain killer whales. And the clock is ticking.”

Losing the charismatic, intelligent animals with the distinctive black-and-white “paint job” and permanent smile would be a blow to the area.
“There would be a great sense of loss,” Dr. Rhodes said. “They are such a part of our identity here. It would be a real sense of failure.”

Algae in Iron Gate Reservoir © EcoFlight

By K.C. Mehaffey
Sep 8, 2025

Water temperatures in the Klamath River are responding to last year’s removal of four hydroelectric dams in ways that scientists say are beneficial to salmon, steelhead and other aquatic life.

Researchers and salmon managers are also seeing a lower prevalence of Ceratonova shasta (C. shasta), a parasite that has plagued juvenile salmon downstream of the stretch of river where the dams were removed (Clearing Up No. 2006).

Outbreaks of harmful algal blooms that prompted public health advisories are smaller and less frequent.

“If the dams remained in place, in the face of climate change all of those water quality impairments would have gotten worse,” said Crystal Robinson, Klamath Watershed program manager for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.

“We’re just opening up that river to be free-flowing, and basically just allowing it to do its normal hydrological things: scour the river, help with fish disease, help with the temperature aspect and get rid of blue-green algae,” she told Clearing Up.

The four dams—Iron Gate, Copco 1, Copco 2 and J.C. Boyle—were in a 38-mile stretch of the Klamath River, and their reservoirs covered about 2,200 acres of land.

In November 2023, the Klamath River Renewal Corporation took over the license of the dams [P-14803] from PacifiCorp after the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approved the license surrenders and plans for the dams’ removals.

Last year, KRRC began drawing down the reservoirs in January. They were drained in time for spring runoff.

The removal work was completed in September 2024, and a contractor—Resource Environmental Solutions (RES)—oversees the multiyear restoration.

In its first year as a free-flowing river, scientists are already seeing dramatic changes in average daily water temperatures in the stretch of river. In general, the river warms up sooner in the spring, cools off sooner in the fall, and has much greater fluctuations between daytime and nighttime temperatures throughout the year.

Average daily Klamath River temperatures at the Iron Gate gauge. Resource Environmental Solutions

Caitlin Boise, the Klamath project’s water quality technical lead for RES, and Dan Chase, director of fisheries, aquatics and design for RES’ Western Region, teamed up to answer Clearing Up’s questions about the importance of the temperature changes in the Klamath River, and what they mean to salmonids and other aquatic life.

“Temperature influences nearly all chemical, physical, and biological processes in rivers,” the RES team told Clearing Up in an email. “These can include everything from the amount of oxygen the water can hold, to the rate of chemical reactions like decomposition of organic material, to the habitat that is actually available to fish and other aquatic species, to the speed at which fish and other aquatic organisms grow.”

In 2024 and 2025, temperatures at the former Iron Gate Dam reached 50 degrees Fahrenheit about one month earlier compared to 2023—the year prior to the drawdowns and dam removals.

Warmer spring water temperature can boost growth for emerging salmonids rearing in the river, according to a KRRC newsletter.

Robinson noted that means these young fish are ready to migrate downstream sooner, diminishing their chances of interacting with the C. shasta parasite.

She said the prevalence of C. shasta in juvenile salmon was lower this year compared to previous years.

Robinson said in the summer, the slow-moving reservoirs created an environment that allowed blue-green algae to thrive. For several years, parts of the Klamath River have been posted with public health warnings for people and pets to stay away from the toxic algal blooms.

“We’ve eliminated that public health threat,” she said, adding that fish exposed to the algal blooms can also have high levels of toxins.

Conditions are also better for fish in the fall.

In 2024, the water at the Iron Gate gauge cooled about a month earlier compared to 2023, reducing the potential for disease and thermal stress. Cooler water can also be a cue for migration and spawning, the newsletter noted.

“Basically, the reservoirs were creating conditions for fish where the temperatures were inhospitable during migration,” Robinson said.

She said this year, during the first week of September, a heat wave prompted salmon and steelhead migrating up the Klamath River to hold in place at the mouth of the Salmon River, where colder water was coming out of that tributary.

But as air temperatures cool back down, the river upstream will respond quickly, convincing the fish to continue their migration, she noted.

“That’s one of the things that we can see from the data that’s changed,” Robinson said.

Another benefit to fish is the daily fluctuations in temperature throughout the year.

In 2024, the average daily fluctuations at Iron Gate increased to about 5 F, compared to 1.75 F in 2023, and similar results are expected once the full dataset is available this year.

These fluctuations are important to native fish and salmonids because it gives them options, the RES team said.

“Cooler temperatures at night in a healthy river allow fish to more freely and easily move around the system. This increases the area they have access to forage as they are no longer restricted to small pockets of temperature refugia that remain isolated through the night. This also allows fish to redistribute and can help with density-related pressures like food availability and disease burden,” the team said.

The RES team said that Iron Gate is the point of comparison because it was the compliance dam for the Lower Klamath Project and has a long-term record. It was also “the end of the road for fish and now it’s the open gate.”

However, the team is seeing similar changes in temperatures downstream of the Copco 1 location, with temperatures warming up to a month in the spring, and cooling up to a month earlier in the fall, and daily fluctuations of about 4.8 F.

“The reach downstream of J.C. Boyle is unique in that there are a series of naturally occurring cold-water springs that make this one of the coldest stretches of river,” they noted, adding, “This is a crucial benefit of the project: fish again have access to this cool, high-quality habitat for the first time in over one hundred years.”

It’s not too soon to compare temperatures from before and after the dam removal, they said. And—with the massive restoration work to replant native grasses, trees and other plants, they’re expecting to see these temperature changes improve as the vegetation matures.

And while temperatures have improved in the stretch of river where the dams were removed, warm water is still coming downstream from Keno Dam. However, cold-water contributions below Keno dam—like J.C. Boyle Springs and Fall Creek—are no longer being lost and warmed in the reservoirs, the team said.

Along with passage—which did not exist while the dams were in place—the improved temperature regime and other environmental changes are expected to help salmon, steelhead and other native fish recolonize the upper Klamath River now, and in the years to come.

“We’re only 11 months past the completion of dam removal, and only several months since the first cohort of fish spawned in the newly reconnected habitat,” the RES team noted.

These salmonids now have hundreds of miles of habitat for adults to spawn, and for juveniles to feed and grow. And with the removal of reservoirs that provided habitat for nonnative fish, removing the dams also prevents some of their competitors and predators from continuing to thrive, they said.

News Data: Klamath River Water Temperatures Responding to Dam Removal

by K.C. Mehaffey
Mar 18, 2025

This month, salmon managers are releasing roughly 48,000 spring Chinook smolts from the Tucannon River—a tributary of the Snake River—in the far-flung Kalama River, more than 300 road-miles away.

The release marks the first year of a 14-year effort dubbed the Safety-Net Offsite Strategy to help preserve the genetic diversity of this dwindling population of Snake River salmon.

Despite their best efforts, salmon managers say they’re losing the battle to restore spring Chinook in the tributary, which flows into the Snake River between Little Goose and Lower Monumental dams.

And it’s not the only Snake River stock in trouble.

“I think that the Tucannon is the canary in the coal mine,” Dave Johnson, manager of the Nez Perce Tribe Department of Fisheries Resource Management, told a committee of the Northwest Power and Conservation Council March 10.

Johnson was joined by Chris Donley, Region 1 fish program manager for the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, and Jerimiah Bonifer, fisheries program manager for the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation.

The trio came to the Council’s Fish and Wildlife Committee seeking its support for the offsite program, which Donley described as “a fairly extreme action.”

The plan includes moving a portion of Tucannon River smolts from the Tucannon Fish Hatchery to the Kalama Falls Fish Hatchery each year for about six months before releasing them in the spring. Some of the smolts would also be moved to the nearby Lyons Ferry Fish Hatchery to be released in the Snake River.

Donley said the release of about 50,000 smolts into the Kalama River would result in roughly 250 adult fish coming back to the Kalama hatchery. Those fish would be trucked to the Lyons Ferry hatchery to be spawned. Chinook not needed for broodstock would be released into the Tucannon River to spawn.

Donley said efforts to restore the Tucannon River stock started with a supplemental hatchery program in 1985, using natural-origin fish from the basin. The stock did well until flood damage in 1996 and 1997 took out most of its spawning habitat, and production has been limited since.

Using scientific studies and adaptive management, fish managers have responded to every challenge, he said, adding, “We’re hanging onto these fish, but it’s not working.”

Donley noted, “One of the things that is puzzling to us as fish managers is there’s been a lot of work done here. Freshwater habitat looks pretty good in a lot of places.”

The Tucannon River flows out of the wilderness, and most of the spawning habitat is on public land. Habitat projects totaling between $25 million and $30 million have also been completed in the Tucannon River over the last 20 years.

Donley said it should be highly productive habitat, yet it’s not.

He said populations of spring Chinook upstream of Lower Granite Dam have survival rates that are double or triple the survival rate of Tucannon River spring Chinook, even though they are farther from the Pacific Ocean and have more dams to pass.

Scientists have identified some of the main problems.

One is that the Tucannon River is often warmer than the Snake River when adults are returning, causing a thermal barrier that prevents some Chinook from entering the Tucannon River. It also causes between 10 and 20 percent of the population to “overshoot,” or swim past the Tucannon River and continue upstream.

Predators pose another major problem for Tucannon spring Chinook.

Donley said birds and fish that eat salmon smolts have both increased in the Snake River basin. Last year, WDFW started analyzing the diet of walleye, a nonnative fish that is a popular sports fishing species.

The analysis found that walleye eat different things depending on the season. But at the peak of juvenile salmon migration, walleye bellies are filled with 100 percent salmonids, he said.

Tucannon spring Chinook are affected more because they are among the first species to begin the downstream migration to the ocean each spring. “They’re the only game in town for predators, and so they get picked off readily,” Donley said.

He said almost half of the smolts released from the Tucannon hatchery never make it to the Snake River. By the time the same batch of released smolts get to Lower Monumental Dam—the first dam they reach in their migration—more than 60 percent are gone. “That’s basically only 62 miles away from the release point,” he said.

Johnson said that Tucannon River spring Chinook have reached a quasi-extinction threshold, defined by 50 or fewer spawners on the spawning grounds for four consecutive years.

“We need to speed passage down to the ocean. We need to remove the injury and stress caused by physical structures—the dams themselves. We need to alleviate the artificial temperatures that are in the reservoirs, and we need to reduce the predation” that is unnaturally high because of the reservoirs, he told the Council.

Johnson urged the Council to consider funding safety-net programs in the Snake River as part of its Fish and Wildlife Program to help prevent the extinction of specific stocks, like the Tucannon River spring Chinook.

“The Tucannon [stock] is something that we all need to be concerned about. I hope that you as the power council take that as your real challenge going forth in the next 20 years,” he said.

News Data: Salmon Managers Begin Safety-Net Strategy for Tucannon Spring Chinook

By Mark Weiser

Eight obsolete dams have been removed or modified on the Rogue River over the past decade. Now its salmon help sustain commercial fishing, despite recent droughts that have devastated fish in other rivers.

AFTER CHASING SALMON along the southern Oregon coast for 48 years, commercial fisher Duncan MacLean has developed a strong sense of who’s who at the end of his hook. This year, he says, most of the Chinook salmon he’s catching are likely from the Rogue River, where the state of Oregon and conservation groups have worked for years on one of the nation’s largest dam removal programs.

“From everything we normally see, I would think that they are Rogue fish,” MacLean said. “If you were to go back over history and look at the way the fishery resource acts, this is a good time for them to be showing up.”

If he is right, MacLean is seeing the ultimate reward from all that restoration work: Wild salmon surging back in the Rogue.

All the data are not in yet, and may not be for several years. But Daniel Van Dyke, East Rogue District fishery biologist for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, said early indications confirm MacLean’s assessment.

The results may hold important lessons for other Western rivers. That’s particularly true on the Klamath River in California, a hydrologically similar watershed where three dams are targeted for removal.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if commercial fishermen are catching a lot of Rogue Chinook right now,” Van Dyke said. “There are individual signs that are really looking encouraging, and I suspect are tied to the dam removal project.”

Dams started coming down on the Rogue in 2008, and the work continues to this day. In 10 years, eight dams have been removed or modified for fish passage on the Rogue and its tributaries at a cost of about $20 million, said Jim McCarthy, Southern Oregon program manager at WaterWatch of Oregon, an environmental group that has played a large role in the process. The work has restored 157 miles of free-flowing river.

Most of the dams were relatively small barriers built for water diversions and had fallen into disrepair. The most recent, Beeson-Robison Dam, came down in 2017 on Wagner Creek.

Although the dam removals began 10 years ago, the full benefit to salmon populations has only been measurable over the last two years. That’s because salmon have such long life cycles – usually three or four years spent in the ocean before returning to spawn in freshwater. This means the adult salmon being caught in the ocean now are the young of the first adults to spawn successfully in the free-flowing Rogue.

Van Dyke said it may take 20 years of data gathering before the dam removals can be declared a success for fish populations. But already some data paint a promising picture.

For instance, the Rogue’s fall Chinook salmon population has roughly doubled in each of the last three years, according to the Pacific Fishery Management Council, the interstate agency that sets salmon fishing quotas. Even more telling is that this period was a roller-coaster ride in terms of environmental conditions, including one of the most severe droughts in history followed by one of the strongest El Niño weather patterns.

This year, the population of Rogue Chinook in the ocean is estimated at 462,800 fish. That’s only about 20 percent less than the estimate for the Columbia River, a much larger but heavily dammed river.

“The recent returns, in the context of the poor environmental conditions, are signs that restoration is having an impact and is producing more fish on the Rogue,” Van Dyke said. “So that’s really encouraging.”

At least two things make dam removal projects unique in Oregon.

First, the state itself maintains a priority list of dam removal projects. This lends a stamp of legitimacy to dam removal efforts and helps focus money and effort, McCarthy said.

Second, Oregon has unique laws ensuring that water is dedicated to environmental flows. One requires water rights associated with hydropower projects to revert permanently to instream flow if the water goes unused for hydropower generation for five years. This helped in the case of Gold Ray Dam, a defunct hydroelectric dam demolished on the Rogue in 2010.

As a result, dam removal projects in the state often come with dedicated water for fish and other aquatic life. It’s a double bonus for habitat restoration.

“The Rogue is more resilient because of the additional flows and barrier removal,” said McCarthy. “We think it’s the combination. And we hope we can replicate that in other rivers. It’s a formula for resiliency amid climate change that will benefit everyone who depends on healthy rivers.”

MacLean is one of those. He pilots his boat north every year, all the way from his home in Half Moon Bay, California, in hopes of meeting his quota for Chinook salmon, one of the most prized wild-caught fish on the Pacific Coast.

“Oregon fishing has been part of my routine for a long, long time,” he said. “I couldn’t be happier for the Rogue River, and for its inhabitants, to see what’s going on here. And I wish California and Washington would follow Oregon’s lead.”

Conservation and faith groups respond to 7 NW Members of Congress: 
Yes - negotiations need to move forward – but include restoring the Columbia’s health, avoid threatening Canada with treaty termination.  

Greg Haller (Pacific Rivers Council) 503.228.3555 greg@pacificrivers.org
Joseph Bogaard  (Save Our wild Salmon Coalition)  206.300-1003 joseph@wildsalmon.org
The Rev. W. Thomas Soeldner (Earth Ministry)  509.270-6995   waltsoe@gmail.com
John Osborn MD (Ethics & Treaty Project) 509.939-1290  john@waterplanet.ws Portland –  Responding to a letter to President Trump signed by seven Members of Congress (MOCs) from the Northwest, today Northwest conservation and faith groups encouraged the United States to work for restoring the health of the Columbia and avoid threatening Canada with termination of the Columbia River Treaty. The United States currently has the authority to begin negotiations but the federal government in Canada has not finalized its position.  The provincial elections in British Columbia and  efforts to install Provincial leadership in the wake of the tight vote last month have also contributed to the delay in finalizing the Canadian federal government’s position.

“The people of the Columbia River Basin – in both nations - can ‘hang together or hang separately,’” said Joseph Bogaard of Save Our wild Salmon.  “We support moving forward to negotiate a modern Columbia River Treaty.  But terminating the Treaty, or threatening to do so, is counter-productive. Our leaders in both nations need to work together, in good faith, to manage the Columbia River for the Common Good.”

The Columbia River is an international river managed jointly by the United States and Canada using the Columbia River Treaty.  The Canadian portion of the Columbia River Basin is water rich, comprising only about 15 percent of the Basin’s land area, but producing about 40 percent of the River Basin’s water.  Two centuries ago when Lewis & Clark and David Thompson first greeted indigenous people of the river basin, the Columbia was among the richest salmon rivers on earth.  Since then, large dams and reservoirs have transformed the river into an integrated hydropower system.

On June 21, seven members of Congress sent a letter to President Trump, outlining the history of the Columbia River Treaty, encouraging treaty negotiation and threatening treaty termination.  The MOC letter does not include several important historical elements, including that communities in the Columbia Basin, especially tribes and First Nations, were never consulted in writing the international river treaty.  Nor does the MOC letter mention that the benefits of damming the Columbia River for hydropower and flood risk management came with wrenching costs to salmon and people who depend on the river.  

“The United States has come a very long way to try work with Canada to right historic wrongs and support river stewardship,” said John Osborn, a Northwest physician with the Ethics & Treaty Project.  “We continue to encourage the Treaty Power Group and elected officials that the way forward is working in good faith and through respectful dialogue with our neighbors to the north to promote the Common Good -- including river stewardship and passage for salmon now blocked by dams.”

In 2013 following years of discussions and thousands of letters from concerned citizens, federal agencies recommended that the State Department include restoring the river’s health (“Ecosystem Management”) as a primary purpose of an updated treaty, along with hydropower and flood control.  All four Northwest states, 15 Columbia Basin tribes, fishermen and environmentalists support that recommendation.  In 2016 the United States began encouraging Canada to negotiate. 

“Citizens of the Columbia Basin care about power bills but also care about stewardship, social justice, and advancing the Common Good,” said The Rev. W. Thomas Soeldner, a retired Lutheran minister and educator.  “Threatening Canada with treaty termination carries great risks to all life in the Basin now and into the future -- including deep drawdowns of U.S. reservoirs in Idaho and elsewhere in the Basin, which will negatively affect the Columbia River ecosystem and power generation.”

The Treaty Power Group’s, and some congressional members’ willingness to threaten termination is short-sighted and undermines the goodwill and constructive approach that is needed to tackle the full range of issues that must be addressed in a modern river treaty.  If the Treaty is terminated, then the U.S. will be required to shoulder the burden of flood risk management with U.S. dams, with no guarantees of Canada’s help.  This will cost the U.S. billions of dollars in flood protection and recompense from its own dams, undermine power generation, worsen impacts on fish and wildlife, and destroy coordinated and cooperative U.S. and Canada flood risk management that has existed as an international model for more than 50 years.

“Protecting and restoring healthy salmon populations in the Columbia Basin represents an unparalleled opportunity for our region to invest in the economy, create family-wage jobs and improve our quality of life and the health of our environment,” said Greg Haller, Conservation Director for the Pacific Rivers Council.  “Healthy salmon populations deliver valuable and irreplaceable benefits to our region’s economy and ecology including thousands of jobs in guiding, retail sales, manufacturing, tourism, worth hundreds of millions of dollars annually.”

Links –
 
Members of Congress Letter to President Trump regarding importance of renegotiating Treaty, including notice of termination (June 21, 2017)

Oregon Department of Fish and wildlife (www.odfw.com)
 
Contact:
Todd Alsbury, 503-781-8286
Rick Swart, 971-673-6038
 
Thursday, Oct. 19, 2017
 
Ten years after Oregon’s largest dam removal, salmon and steelhead rebounding on the Sandy
 
CLACKAMAS, Ore. – Ten years ago a new era of salmon and steelhead recovery quite literally started out with a bang when Marmot Dam was removed from the Sandy River.
 
More than a ton of high-grade explosives were detonated, taking off the face of the 47-foot high concrete dam.
 
At the time, it was the largest dam breach ever attempted. Portland General Electric, owner of the dam, figured it would be more cost-effective to remove the structure than upgrade it to meet new federal relicensing standards.
 
In July 2007, in a highly publicized event, PGE blew the concrete face off its dam on the Sandy River. For the next three months, large backhoes with pneumatic hammers pulverized, drilled, pulled apart and hauled off the remaining pieces of the dam. On Oct. 19, a rainstorm swept away the backfill that had accumulated behind the dam, making the Sandy totally free-flowing again, from its headwaters on Mt. Hood to its confluence with the Columbia River in Troutdale 56 miles away.
 
Biologists, conservationists, anglers, and others hailed the removal of Marmot Dam as a victory for imperiled native runs of Chinook and coho salmon and steelhead. The hope was that fish would benefit from better flows, better water quality and unrestricted access to prime spawning grounds in the uppermost reaches of the river.
 
So has 10 years of a free-flowing Sandy River been good for fish?
 
The answer is an unqualified ‘yes’, according to Todd Alsbury, ODFW district fish biologist for the Sandy, and one of the partners in the removal of Marmot Dam.
 
Now, for the past three years, when other runs of salmon and steelhead around the region have been down, the Sandy has been seeing increasingly strong returns; in some cases, double what they were a decade ago before Marmot Dam was removed.
 
“While not solely due to dam removal, returns of wild spring Chinook, winter steelhead, and coho have increased significantly as compared to their abundance before the dam was removed,” said Alsbury, who noted that in the 10 years since Marmot Dam was removed ODFW has observed the largest returns for all three species in the 40 years.
 
For example, the number of wild spring Chinook increased from an average of 809 before dam removal to 2,086 afterwards. Similarly, coho increased from 784 returning fish before dam removal to 1,959 afterward, and wild winter steelhead increased from 898 to 2,757.
 
To really gauge how successful removal has been, though, it helps to look at how the fish were doing prior to removal of the dam.
 
Wild spring Chinook were nearly extirpated in the 1950s and ’60s by dam operations, habitat losses, and other human impacts. During this period, fishery managers tried to rebuild the population with hatchery Chinook, which were intercepted in a trap at Marmot Dam and trucked to Sandy Fish Hatchery, where the next generation of fish was spawned and reared.
 
However, fisheries management changed dramatically in 1998 when the fish were listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. This triggered discussions about ways to recover the fish, including by taking out Marmot Dam and reducing releases of hatchery fish so there would be fewer of them to compete with the ESA-listed wild fish. These discussions also led to one of the first integrated brood programs whereby wild spring Chinook were reared at the hatchery, and later cross-bred with hatchery Chinook to create a fish closely resembling the native fish, instead of looking outside the basin for replacement stock with different genetics.
 
When Marmot Dam was removed, ODFW biologists lost a fish trap that gave them the ability to catch and separate wild fish. The fish needed to be separated so the wild ones could go on upstream to spawn while the hatchery fish were captured and taken to the hatchery to spawn. For the first two years after dam removal, ODFW staff netted brood stock out of the river using large seine nets pulled by swimmers in full wetsuits. Later on, biologists installed weirs, or portable traps, in the river for this purpose.
 
To continue providing a recreational fishery, Alsbury and his staff developed an acclimation site to rear and release juvenile fish at a location that is suitable for returning adult fish. They now collect adult fish using temporary weirs near the release location to capture returning adults. Afterwards, the weir can be removed from the river.
 
“Our goal is to first protect native runs of native salmon and steelhead while at the same time providing a robust recreational fishery,” said Alsbury. “Thanks to a lot of hard work on the part of many dedicated individuals and a lot of collaboration we are starting to see some impressive results.”
 
“Habitat is the key,” Alsbury added, noting that the Sandy is one of the few rivers where fish habitat is now being added faster than it is being degraded or lost, and that salmon are now showing up to spawn in habitat that didn’t exist before.
 
 
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