I don't think anyone knows those answers and I'm not sure technology can improve things. I personally scratch my head at the low survival of barged smolts confused. Monitoring shows pretty reasonable survival when they finally let 'em go below Bonneville. Maybe the dredge spoil islands colonized by terns are taking a toll. Survival rates on lower Columbia tribs (Cowlitz, Lewis) haven't been all that great either. But things seem to be going OK on the Willamette.

All I know is that exceptional survival rates in the Columbia appear to hinge on one variable--exceptionally high snow pack and spring runoffs. So we know that improved runs are possible, but we have no control over the weather and there is no way to dump those high levels of water over the dams during normal or low water years.

I'm wondering if we are managing some of the more vulnerable runs on the Columbia into extinction. By "managing" I don't mean the oft cited problems with the tribes, WDFW, and NMFS; but a larger fundemental problem: that this basin has been so modified for power, navigation, and irrigation that no amount of techno fixes are going to help with the basin in its present state. If we have several more winters like this past winter in a row, no amount of barging, brood stock programs, or fishing restrictions is going to prevent some of these runs from going functionally extinct.

We'll always have some level of runs because of the many sub-basins in the Columbia, but the vulnerable ones will be gone.

[ 04-30-2001: Message edited by: obsessed ]