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Wild Salmon & Steelhead News
Mid-May 2010
 Much is afoot in the world of salmon and steelhead. A courtroom update, an exciting project launch, a great essay, and a beautiful river shot. Please take a look at the highlights below and happy reading!
Will the Obama administration follow the science now?
New coalition seeks broad involvement, political leadership in Washington State.
"The sin lies not in the wilderness, but in the dammed." Patagonia taps author Steven Hawley to share his thoughts on the Snake River Basin.
The results are in for the Mountain Khakis / Save Our Wild Salmon "We Love Rivers!" Photo Contest
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- an essay by Steven Hawley for Patagonia
As part of Patagonia's Freedom to Roam Campaign, author Steven Hawley was asked to give his thoughts on the one-of-a-kind salmon of the Snake River, and the potential to return them to the best habitat in the lower 48 states. This essay appears in Patagonia's Summer 2010 catalog and is also available here.
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Dear Senators Murray and Cantwell:
Inland Northwest business and community leaders want your leadership on the Columbia salmon crisis
Open letter asks Senators to bring together stakeholders to craft a long-term solution for salmon and the region's economy
Spokane, Wash. - More than 50 business owners and community leaders in eastern Washington and bordering Idaho towns wrote to U.S. Senators Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell on Tuesday urging their leadership in solving the Columbia salmon crisis. The open letter appears as a full-page ad in yesterday's Spokane-based Pacific Northwest Inlander.
The business owners and community leaders want the senators to bring together all interests - farmers, fishermen, energy users, business owners and local leaders-to craft a long term science -based and economically viable salmon restoration plan. They acknowledge the historic political tensions surrounding the salmon issue, but note the enormous economic opportunity for the region in forging a long-term solution.
"Healthy rivers, fisheries and outdoor recreation opportunities are key to Mountain Gear's bottom line," said Mountain Gear CEO Paul Fish. "And not just in terms of creating a market for the outdoor products we sell. Spokane's proximity to hiking, fishing, and outdoor recreation opportunities gives our city a competitive edge when it comes to recruiting talented people to work for our company, and is an incentive for our kids to want to return home after college. At the very least we need to have an informed discussion on how restoring our rivers and fisheries can economically benefit the region."
"I look forward to working with our senators to begin an open and informed discussion on what a real salmon restoration plan could bring to the Inland Northwest," said Chris Kopczynski, owner of Kop Construction, a Spokane-based construction company. "It's not just about the economic benefits of recovering the Snake River basin's wild salmon or the moral imperative we have to save this one-of-a-kind species. The discussion needs to look at the transportation and energy infrastructure that will make the Inland Northwest economically competitive in the coming decades. Will that be barge traffic on the lower Snake or a modern rail system? A bigger reliance on clean energy sources? We have an opportunity to build a plan that solves more than just the salmon problem."
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Feds vs. fish: crying over spilled water
by Daniel Jack Chasan, April 26th, 2010
As in George W. Bush's time, the Obama administration still seems to be telling the courts to just trust their work on protecting Columbia River salmon runs. What's a judge to do but listen, instead, to the science?
The federal agencies that operate dams and sell power on the Columbia River will keep spilling water over the Lower Snake River dams next month to float young salmon downstream. They didn't want to. But with the weight of scientific opinion clearly against them, they decided to make the best of a bad thing.
The Bonneville Power Administration, the Bureau of Reclamation, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and the Northwest office of NOAA had asked the federal district court to let them follow a 2010 Spring Fish Operation Plan under which they'd stop spilling water over the lower Snake River dams by May 1.
On April 19, they told the court never mind.
Given all the scientific opinion to the contrary — everyone but NOAA thought that stopping spill was a bad idea — their chance of convincing the court seemed slim.
Those agencies are, of course, the defendants in the long-running suit over the Biological Opinion issued by the Bush administration in 2008, tweaked but basically defended by the Obama Administration last year, and scheduled to make another appearance in U.S. District Judge James Redden's court next month.
Federal courts have been hammering them over biological opinions for nearly 20 years. Redden, who tossed the Bush administration's first attempt at a BiOp, has expressed strong skepticism about this one, too.
When last seen, the BiOp would have made this year's proposed spring fish operation plan the new norm: federal agencies could spill or not spill at their own discretion. The fish operation plan was basically an effort to jump the gun.
Nineteen years after Columbia and Snake River salmon populations were first listed as threatened or endangered, we're still arguing about how to get them down the river.
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A good day, and a good decision, for Idaho fish
Editorial, April 21st, 2010
Give the feds credit for spreading the risk - and for finally listening to the experts. The federal government will use some of the Northwest's limited water to "spill" some young salmon over dams and push them toward the Pacific Ocean.
This should give fish - especially Idaho's endangered sockeye salmon - their best chance at surviving a low- water year.
That's why scientists joined salmon advocates in urging the feds to continue the spill past May 1 and during the critical migration season for sockeye and other runs.
For young salmon, navigating past the eight dams in the lower Snake and Columbia rivers constitutes a severe risk. (That's why we have advocated breaching the four lower Snake dams, a position shared by many scientists.)
In the meantime, though, there are two ways to mitigate the risk.
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Science panel opposes Obama plan for Snake/Columbia salmon
by Scott Learn, April 12, 2010
An independent science panel has weighed in against the Obama Administration's plans to curtail spills over Snake River dams come May 1, setting up a showdown between the administration and salmon advocates in federal Judge James Redden's courtroom.
The Independent Scientific Advisory Panel issued its report late Friday on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's plans to increase barging of young fish headed for the ocean around three Snake River dams while ending May spills at those dams designed to aid fish migration.
Higher spill reduces power generation from the hydroelectric dams and could increase electricity rates. Redden, the U.S. District Court judge overseeing a lawsuit on management of salmon in the Columbia and Snake system, has favored spring spill since 2007.
River flows are projected to be very low this year, and NOAA says more barging of young salmon and steelhead from the Snake River dams to below Bonneville Dam in May -- allowing them to avoid a huge stretch of the Snake and Columbia rivers -- will increase ultimate fish survival in those conditions.
River temperatures are higher in low-flow years, the agency and groups such as Northwest River Partners say, a drawback for the cold-water fish. Consumption of young salmon by predators, both other fish and birds, also rises in low water conditions.
But the advisory panel, which studied the issue at NOAA's request, sided with a mixed regimen of spill and transport similar to what Redden has favored in the past.
That squares with the position taken by salmon advocacy groups such as Save Our Wild Salmon, who say interest groups and politicians in Washington, Idaho and Montana are pressuring the administration to cut spills and keep electricity rates lower.
"Spill should be viewed as a default condition," the panel's report said, adding that spill "more closely mimics natural situations and ecological processes." A strategy similar to that ordered by Redden in the past, the report said, is "most in accord with available scientific information."
-- Scott Learn, The Oregonian
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Independent Scientific Advisory Board Tells Obama
Administration: Continue Spill to Save Salmon
"Spill baby, spill," say salmon advocates
April 10, 2010 - The Independent Scientific Advisory Board (ISAB) of the Northwest Power and Conservation Council offered some advice today to federal bureaucrats - keep spilling water over dams on the Snake River to give young salmon and steelhead a fighting chance of safely reaching the Pacific Ocean.
The Obama administration's National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) has proposed to eliminate key portions of the spring spill program for young salmon, and instead remove the fish from the river, put them in barges, and ship them downstream to the ocean. Spill is a salmon protection measure that sends water over the dams on the Columbia and Snake rivers in order to help young salmon migrate through the federal hydrosystem. It is widely regarded as the safest and most effective means of helping these fish reach the Pacific Ocean, as long as the dams remain in place.
"We applaud the ISAB for recommending that spill be retained this spring, and we hope the Obama administration listens carefully. Leaving salmon without an effective way to get past the dams by cutting spill, as the administration has proposed, would be a direct impact to endangered salmon, fishing communities and sound science," said Douglas DeHart, fisheries scientist and former chief of fisheries of the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. "Studies have consistently shown that young salmon which are allowed to migrate in-river with adequate flows and spill return as adults at much higher rates than those transported downstream via barge and truck."
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Protect fish to protect fisheries
Management plan, spills necessary to sustain runs, family-wage jobs
Op-Ed by Dan Grogan, April 11th, 2010
Here in the Northwest, salmon fishermen are used to uncertainty. Climate change, cyclical ocean conditions and low rainfall years such as the one we're in now make it more challenging than ever to accurately predict how weak or strong salmon returns will be. This uncertainty directly impacts the sportfishing industry. But for all the ocean and atmospheric variables beyond our control, we have an opportunity - and a responsibility - to fix a broken system that has pummeled our fishing economy and presented us with a false choice between abundant fish and cheap energy.
For the past four years, U.S. District Judge James Redden in Portland has ordered the Bonneville Power Administration to spill more water over dams on the Columbia and Snake rivers rather than through turbines to help juvenile salmon migrate safely to the ocean. The benefits of increased spill to salmon are well documented. Federal agencies, however, have fiercely opposed the court's increased spill requirements in the last four years, favoring hydropower production at the expense of fish.
The Obama Administration is still clinging to the legally and scientifically flawed 2008 federal salmon plan, which is in the midst of a court-ordered rewrite. Now, federal scientists also are proposing to dramatically roll back spill needed for the salmon migration this spring and summer. Such a move lacks the support of by the region's top independent salmon biologists and should be rejected.
Providing a permanent spill program for the juvenile fish is the first priority of what we need to bring the salmon back and stem the loss of fishing jobs.
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The Obama administration is being told by federal fish biologists and fishing groups to keep spilling water over dams in the Columbia and Snake river basins. Heed the advice.
Stick with what has been successful since 2006, when federal District Judge James Redden ordered the spills kept in place, even through a low-flow water year.
Science supports spilling water to help move juvenile salmon quickly and safely toward the Pacific Ocean. Better-than-expected returns have reinforced the decision to expedite fish passage at the dams.
The administration served notice it wants to eliminate spills next month, opting to transport young salmon and steelhead in barges and trucks past the dams. A recommendation is expected soon from the Independent Science Advisory Board of the Northwest Power and Conservation Council.
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Salmon advocates ask judge to reject spill curtailment
Change in successful program will harm wild salmon, reduce fishing jobs
For Immediate Release - April 7, 2010
PORTLAND, Ore. - A coalition of fishing businesses, conservation groups and clean energy advocates filed papers in federal district court here today, warning that the Obama administration's proposal to eliminate key in-river salmon protections this year will reduce salmon returns and harm fishing opportunities for years ahead.
The administration wants to eliminate the highly successful program of spilling water over Snake and Columbia river dams during most of this spring's migration of young salmon. Spilling water over the dams is widely recognized as the safest way to get young salmon past the federal dams and out to the ocean, even when river flows are low.
According to the fishing and conservation groups' filing, avoiding "a situation in which federal defendants terminate spring spill on May 1, 2010, with little or no notice and against the best available scientific evidence, the Court should modify federal defendants' proposed order to roll over the existing injunction and require them to obtain leave of Court before terminating spring spill."
Earthjustice attorney Todd True, the plaintiffs' lead attorney, said the administration's proposal risks undermining the benefits spill has provided over the past several years and could hurt salmon communities throughout the Columbia River basin and up and down the Pacific coast.
"It's really too bad - but not too surprising unfortunately - that the administration is trying to roll back court-ordered salmon protections in order to protect the federal hydrosystem and make more money," True said. "While the proposal is presented as a way to help steelhead survival, that rhetoric simply doesn't match the facts."
Since 2006, and over strong objections from federal agencies, U.S. District Court Judge James Redden has ordered spill to help young salmon's seaward migration. As a result, the region has experienced the highest in-river salmon survival rates recorded since the dams were built. While other Pacific salmon stocks have tumbled, the Columbia and Snake rivers have kept fishing businesses operating. "Judge Redden's river has proved what scientists have said and fishermen have known for years - SPILL, BABY, SPILL," said Liz Hamilton, Executive Director of the Northwest Sportfishing Industry Association. "That's what our salmon need, and that's what our businesses need to stay afloat."
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