This article I found while lookin for some research for a project its the debate over the salmon or the dams

Copyright Columbian Publishing Company Mar 31, 2001

PORTLAND -- Tribal representatives Friday pleaded with federal executives to protect salmon in the face of one of the worst droughts on record.

Federal officials did, in fact, cut fish some slack.

The government will continue to release enough water from the massive reservoir behind Eastern Washington's Grand Coulee Dam to moisten redds, or egg clusters, of fall chinook salmon that spawned in the Hanford Reach. As the last free-flowing section of the Columbia, the reach is home to the healthiest salmon run left in the Columbia.

Tribal groups called it the "backbone" of tribal treaty rights, and dewatering redds should be ruled out.

Federal officials will revisit the issue next week, after reviewing the most up-to-date forecast for rainfall and snowmelt above the Hanford Reach.

At that point, they will decide whether to reduce the flow out of nearby Priest Rapids Dam from 65,000 cubic feet per second to 55,000 cfs. Doing so would kill as much as 25 percent of the fall chinook redds in the Hanford Reach.

"We're talking about thousands of redds and millions of fry," said Bob Heinith, hydrosystem program manager for the Columbia River Inter- Tribal Fish Commission. "It just doesn't make any sense to be killing that many fish."

The Grand Coulee water that helps fish also enables the BPA to generate "surplus" power above that which is needed to keep the lights on in the Northwest. Over the past five weeks, Bonneville has sold $130 million worth of surplus power to energy-starved California.

Others pointed out that fall chinook in the Hanford Reach may be one of the few stocks capable of enduring a loss of 25 percent of its offspring.

"This is the strongest population of fish in the basin," said Jim Litchfield, a Portland-based consultant who represents Montana. "It's not going to wink out on us."

The region would be better off holding that water to help more endangered runs later, the thinking goes. But Steve Wright, BPA's acting administrator, could not guarantee the water would be used to help spring and summer juvenile salmon migrate to the ocean. That water may be needed to produce energy.

"I can't guarantee that water would go to fish flows," Wright said.

With the Columbia River basin's major water storage reservoirs dwindling to critically low levels, and runoff in the river barely half of normal for this time of year, each drop of water is precious.

Managers of the highly engineered environment of the Columbia River have a series of difficult options for what to do with that water.

They could run it through dam turbines, thus keeping the Northwest's lights on without having to buy power on the hyperinflated open market. They could spill it around turbines, thus helping 12 species of salmon that have already dwindled nearly to the point of extinction. Or they could store as much as possible, as a hedge against the possibility of the drought continuing into the next year.

Low reservoirs next fall and winter raise the possibility of California-style blackouts rolling through the Northwest.

"We're into a situation that hasn't occurred in this region in 25 years," Wright said.

Jody Callica, chief operating officer of the Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs, implored Wright and other federal executives to protect salmon -- a social, spiritual and economic lifeline to American Indians in the region.

"You're asking me to sell my soul. For what?" he said. "You're asking me to sell that out so California can develop newer, faster, sexier toys, so someone can get their e-mail faster."

A biologist with one federal agency warned executives to think hard about abandoning the spill and flow targets outlined in the National Marine Fisheries Service's biological opinion of December.

Keith Hatch, a fisheries biologist with the Bureau of Indian Affairs, said giving up on the spill targets this year sets a precedent the next time demand for energy outstrips supply.

"I think you either build these things in and take the pain that comes with them, or you're making a very big decision with future ramifications," he said.

Tribal and conservation groups have urged BPA to push for a deferral on its payment to the U.S. Treasury, money spent to build the network of federal hydroelectric dams in the first place.

At Last!!! I 've finally found some common ground with the tribes! Killing Native salmon and steelhead in the name of power production is the only thing worse than killing native salmon and steelhead in the name of treaty rights.

I have to agree with you 'Zo. Particularly when it comes to less necessary electrical usage. There has not been proper power conservation efforts that should have begun weeks or months ago in the NW and California! Why do they wait until it's too late for the outmigrating salmon and steelhead to impliment stronger power conservation efforts region wide? And why hasn't the BPA come up with better smolt collecting and transfer technology yet?!? Anybody have some answers?

RT

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 . 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 ]

I think Lex Luther had it right in the first Superman movie, place a nuclear bomb in the San Andreas fault and let California slid into the pacific!!!!
I understand that the Dams were funded by the Feds, but why should we and the fish pay for their (Californians) poor utility management...