CFM,

I’ll answer what I can.

1) NMFS requires effective upstream and downstream passage for both Mayfield and Mossyrock Dams. Volitional passage isn’t a requirement of the law. Given the physical attributes of the hydroelectric complex on the Cowlitz River, the only volitional fish passage alternative that would be effective is the dam decommissioning and removal option. None of the fisheries agencies have the authority to impose that option.

2) The state Supreme Court is irrelevant in a federal dam licensing decision. Conditions in the old license expire with the old license. Blocking fish access to the upper river is a major project impact, and that is why effective fish passage is required in the prospective new license. It doesn’t have to be the alternative you prefer in order to comply with the law. It has to meet certain criteria established by fisheries agencies.

3) Past damages are not part of a relicense with agencies. That may not seem fair, but that’s the way it is. You’re entitled to try to change it. Downstream effects are addressed with instream flow requirements, ramping rates, and other restrictions. No one that I’m aware of has been able to separate the impacts on the downstream fish population of the lower Cowlitz from Tacoma’s project effects and the effects of WDFW harvest management, although there are undoubtably in my mind effects from both. The flow regime doesn’t have to be natural in order to be highly productive for fisheries. I’d refer you to the Skagit, which has a flow agreement in its license, and where chinook, chum, and pink salmon are doing much better in the project-affected river reach than they are in the remainder of the river basin.

4) No estimate of fish production in the lower Cowlitz is necessary. The relicensing intent is to establish aquatic habitat conditions that are as productive as the without project alternative.

5) Yes, I’ve forgotten about that meeting and hundreds of others I attend on a regular basis. I don’t recall WDFW’s numbers, except that they were probably double or more than the pre-project numbers indicated. And I don’t recall anyone jumping, but that could be old timer’s disease. The mitigation numbers were established by averaging however many years of population enumerations or estimates there were and setting them as benchmark values that Tacoma is responsible for. This is pretty common practice for establishing value and compensation. Just because one or more partys to a proceeding introduces higher values doesn’t establish any legal right to obtain them. Tacoma knew its liability and wasn’t willing to move much above it, although they did give some.

6) First, there may be 240 miles of habitat in the upper Cowlitz (about half that potentially accessible to anadromous fish if I recall), but it’s anything but virgin. The vast majority is just like the rest of the rivers in Washington State. Developed with towns, roads, farms, and extensive clear-cut logging. The river and tributaries are in comparable shape to other river basins that have been severely compromised in terms of potential productivity and capacity to produce anadromous fish. However, I have no direct issue with that; I just want the BB to have another perception of this virgin habitat.

Again, NMFS job in this relicensing is to secure mitigation for project impacts and impose license conditions that aid the recovery of ESA listed species. Most agencies don’t get to decide what to do. The law tells them what they must do. Like it or not, Chambers Creek and Skamania hatchery steelhead are not ESA listed, and their production in the upper watershed can only be allowed to occur to the extent that it does not interfere with the recovery of listed Cowlitz steelhead. Now I will agree with you that it might seem crazy that late winter steelhead from the Cowlitz hatchery, of apparent native strain, can be stocked in the upper river, and when they return and spawn and create naturally produced, now wild steelhead, then those descendents of hatchery steelhead become native, wild, Cowlitz steelhead, listed as part of the threatened Lower Columbia River Evolutionarily Significant Unit under the ESA. CFM, it’s the law. No biologist at NMFS, USFWS, WDFW, or any agency has any choice but to work with it. You’ve heard it before: don’t like the law? Change it. You know that I can’t.

The reason fish are being listed is because populations of genetically distinct wild salmon and steelhead have become so low that they are threatened with extinction, and many populations are already extinct. Fish are not being listed because abundant hatchery fish are being prohibited from passage into a river basin.

Really, I’m not too worried about the restriction on which steelhead are allowed in the upper river. The environment there will do all that is necessary to select what run timing is most successful in that environment under present conditions. Historic timing isn’t that significant since we don’t have a historic watershed up there anymore. When late-timed steelhead runs have been allowed to recover in other river basins, one of the first effects is an expansion of run timing, especially on the early side. BTW, it was WDFW who selected the late timed Cowlitz steelhead for reintroduction, not NMFS. Call me for additional details if you need them.

I assume you use “stupidly” in association with NMFS because you don’t understand what NMFS or other agencies are required by law to do. Strange as it may seem, agencies are not required to do it your way. Agencies are responsible to a vast public constituency, including those who do not even fish, or even live in Washington State. The law influences regulations which influence policy. Last I heard NMFS fishery priorities in this region are: 1) recovery of ESA listed species; 2) treaty right fisheries; 3) recreational and commercial fisheries under the Magnuson/Stevens Act.

7) No apology forthcoming. You said Tacoma spent over $12KK to delay installing fish ladders. That’s nonsense; not a fact. That’s what Tacoma spent on the entire relicensing proceeding, which mostly included stuff unrelated to delaying the installation of a fish ladder. Heck, most all that money was long spent before the subject of fish ladder delay ever came up.

8) No. I haven’t read the HGMP. That is the jurisdiction of others, and I have no role in it.

What’s to eat. I indicated above that NMFS didn’t specify the steelhead broodstock. Just because the HGMP says NMFS identified them as appropriate for recovery doesn’t mean that NMFS decided that late winters, and only late winters could be used. Also, you know better than to believe everything you read. And you already know how believeable you’ve decided I am.

9) C shasta is a significant concern. This is why I’ve stressed that the Cowlitz upstream of the dams is likely the only habitat capable of recovering wild steelhead and chinook (ESA listed or not) in the basin. Late winters are vulnerable in the hatchery environment, but those stocked to the upper river basin seem to be doing quite well. For the umpteenth time, NMFS accepted WDFW’s decision to use late winter for the reintroduction. I did speak up about allowing unmarked summer runs. WDFW said no. Just as not everything goes your way; not everything goes my way, either. There are other influences in this world.

10) I’m not going to debate you here because it takes up too much time, and I’m assigned to do other work, and fun as this is, I’m only going to spend a limited amount of my personal time trying to inform people about this and other fish topics I’m familiar with. As far as influencing the outcome, we’ve already been influencial, but our debate here isn’t likely to change the final outcome. What I can do to have a real influence is to work with engineers and help design better fish passage systems.

11) I don’t know why Tacoma is making these monthly reports. Who cares? I care about when the license is final and they begin making major investments in improving fish passage systems and rebuilding the salmon hatchery and the things that make a real difference to the fishery. I couldn’t care less about useless monthly reports of inactivity. When the stay expires, and FERC gives the license the final stamp of approval AND Tacoma accepts it, then the clock starts running and they have to begin complying with the terms and conditions of the new license.

12) Regarding fish passage designs and excluding chinook, I honestly don’t know what you’re talking about. We ought to get together over a beer and sort through some details. The connection between chinook passage at Cowlitz Falls and a ladder at Mayfield is that if juvenile chinook are not collected at Cowlitz Falls or Riffe, then there will be no adult chinook available to use a ladder at Mayfield. In my opinion, the Mayfield ladder is irrelevant to chinook passage. The only need (not preference) I see for a Mayfield ladder is so that returning adults can self-select whether they want to go to Mayfield or Riffe, thereby eliminating the need to mark all the smolts collected at the Mayfield fish counting house to tell them apart from those that need to go upstream of Cowlitz Falls.

13) We agree that there is no remaining native, wild, Cowlitz steelhead population, excepting some relics here and there in the basin. Major tributaries may still have some, however. Yet ther can again be wild (as in naturally produced instead of hatchery produced), native (contain Cowlitz genes, and possibly a few others picked up along the way) steelhead returning to the upper Cowlitz River. There have been 2 or 3 hundred or so each of the last couple seasons. When some serious money gets spent on fish passage, I’m confident those numbers will increase significantly.

And this was a lot to reply to, as well.

Sincerely,

Salmo g.