The treaty tribal commercial fisheries are more than adequate to satisfy the market need for commercial fish product. The LCR non-treaty commercial fishery is an anachronism that needs to end, as has been expressed here numerous times.

Maybe the lower Snake dams will be breached in my lifetime, but the LCR and mid-C dams are never coming out. However, the mid-C non-federal dams are under the gun to achieve significant fish passage performance requirements, and they are making big strides in that direction. The NMFS biological opinion places a similar burden of fish passage improvement on the LCR and Snake federal dams. If the federal dams can achieve the improvements that the PUD dams are, then something that "looks like" recovery is possible. It's a strange world when the federal dams that have spent untold billions on fish passage are "bringing up the rear" in fish passage effectiveness, but that's the difference between performance requirements and quality lip service.

Meanwhile, I think fishery management is in for some trouble with LCR tule chinook. Tules may limit fall fishing opportunity the way wild springers limit spring fishing opportunity. The present tule hypothesis is that if spawning escapements are achieved, the wild stock will recover. I'm skeptical because I think the hypothesis is flawed. LCR tule habitat is severely degraded. I don't think LCR tule tributary habitat is capable of supporting a high enough reproductive effectiveness for those fish to recover. It will take quite a few years to test this hypothesis; and meanwhile the fishing on hatchery tules and hatchery and wild URBs could be severely cut back. I hope we aren't getting into a "can't get there from here" situation.

Sg