CFM,

Reasonable people may disagree. Furthermore, I don't think a debate of the Cowlitz agreement merits the considerable space it would consume on this bulletin board. I'll respond to a few questions however.

Yes, any party, including Tacoma, may withdraw from the agreement. But Tacoma may not (legally) operate the project without a license. FERC licenses contain terms and conditions. The fish and wildlife agencies have authority to recommend and mandate terms and conditions. So even if Tacoma were to withdraw, I believe it would still end up with a license with roughly the same terms and conditions. That belief is based on the legal administrative record that has been developed and submitted to FERC that supports these terms and conditions.

Enforcement? Well, that has become a wing and a prayer. The appeals court has ruled that FERC has complete descretion to enforce license terms and conditions. It would probably take a major egregious case to overturn that ruling, one making a strong showing that FERC's failure to enforce severely damages the public interest. It may happen, but I won't hold my breath.

No single agreement article stipulates what I said regarding Tacoma's obligation to provide as many, or more, fish for the period of the license as there would be if the hydro project didn't exist. In a multi-party negotiated settlement it is usually difficult to impossible to get terms spelled out as clearly as that. In negotiations you seldom get it "your way." So the reasonable approach is to get it another way. I think that is the case with the Cowlitz settlement. It's in there, but it's all mixed up like spaghetti sauce.

Pay attention to the appendices, particularly the Cramer report. A benchmark number of chinook, coho, and steelhead are specified as the pre-dam average returns to the Cowlitz at Mayfield. Then escapement rates are estimated from total recruitment, based on the fish statistics from those years and the period immediately following. Ranges of marine surivival were calculated, and values closer to the upper end of the range were assigned to the benchmark runsizes. Tacoma's mitigation obligation is derived from a not-too-complex equation that uses 5 year rolling averages (if I recall correctly) and the latest data for chinook and coho marine survival rates.

So yes, hatchery production by Tacoma may decrease as natural production increases. Without that condition there would be no incentive for Tacoma to restore natural salmon and steelhead production in the upper river basin. But the combined total of natural and hatchery production must equal or exceed the benchmark values, that is as many chinook, coho, and steelhead as would exist if the project were not there. What more could anyone justifiably ask of Tacoma?

We might want Tacoma to provide more fish for our particular self-interest reasons (i.e. I like to fish for summer steelhead, for instance), and the Federal Power Act allows for fishery enhancement, but it doesn't require it. The weird thing in this instance is that the ESA has become a limiting factor in hatchery fishery enhancement in the Columbia River system, including the Cowlitz, because hatchery fish adversely affect wild fish production. I can accept that because I'd like to see native chinook and steelhead, along with the coho, restored to the upper Cowlitz River basin.

Sincerely,

Salmo g.

P.S: I won't count on receiving your vote for anything tho.