Bonneville Power Administration customers will have to cut energy use by
5 percent to 10 percent and aluminum smelters will have to shut down for
up to two years if the federal power marketing agency is to avoid a 250
percent to 300 percent rate increase in October.
Even at that, prices could rise as much as 100 percent, acting BPA
Administrator Steve Wright said Monday at a press conference.
The intent is to save power without savaging the agricultural industry,
but irrigation load buyback programs launched this late winter and
spring by numerous electric entities could have the trickle down effect
of providing additional in-stream flows for fish.
Though clouds again linger over much of the Columbia Basin and
Northwest, most participants in a Tuesday drought workshop agreed that
the region will have to play with the hand dealt by Mother Nature during
a dry fall and winter of 2000-2001.
It would take 225 percent of normal precipitation between now and July
to get the region back on track toward a “normal” water year, according
to Harold Opitz, hydrologist in charge of the Northwest River Forecast
Center.
Northwest House members have come to the defense of an expected $500
million-plus fish credit for the Bonneville Power Administration this
year.
“We believe that the law, sound policy and simple fairness dictate that
Northwest ratepayers are entitled to commensurate reimbursement for
paying fish and wildlife mitigation costs throughout the fiscal year,”
16 members from Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana said in a letter
to Bush administration officials on Monday.
Although record numbers of spring chinook adults are passing Bonneville
Dam, many native American fisherman who are fishing the spring treaty
fishery for the first time in years, are not catching enough fish.
The Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission asked this week for
biological opinion-level spill hoping that some salmon would be drawn
towards the river’s edge so that platform fishermen could catch them.
Continued drought-like weather, near record low river flows and the West
Coast power shortage aligned this week, causing the Bonneville Power
Administration to conclude that the impact on the power system of
spilling water through dam spillways to aid fish passage would be too
negative.
Therefore, BPA instead declared a power system emergency and announced
it would not spill at dams at least beyond next week.
A Northwest Power Planning Council biological analysis released this
week suggests that in 2001 — with Columbia and Snake river flows
predicted at near-record lows — barging most juvenile salmon and
steelhead through the federal hydrosystem will result in survival as
high or higher than if the fish were left in the river to migrate.
With all signs pointing to a reduction in the amount of water normally
spilled at Columbia Basin hydroelectric projects to help migrating
juvenile salmon, a panel of scientists is suggesting that decision
makers utilize spill methods which use less of the precious liquid.
The National Marine Fisheries Service is completing a biological opinion
that would allow collection and transportation of juvenile salmon smolts
at McNary Dam. Although federal executives have not made a decision to
begin barging at the dam, NMFS said that having the BiOp in hand gives
them the flexibility to begin when the decision is made.
Two Eastern congressmen have agreed to meet with Northwest House members
before opposing the Bonneville Power Administration’s plan to take a
credit from the U.S. Treasury for power costs related to Columbia Basin
salmon recovery.
A 2001 Columbia Basin upriver spring chinook salmon run expected to set
a modern day record is, indeed, passing Bonneville Dam counters at an
unprecedented pace.
“All of the counts so far are much higher than anything in our data
sets,” said Mike Matylewich of the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish
Commission …
More than 200 people turned out in Wenatchee, Wash., Tuesday night to
hear a scientific debate over a key question: Can hatchery stocks be
used successfully to revive naturally spawning Columbia Basin salmon and steelhead populations?
The forum, and one held Wednesday in Winthrop, were intended to air two disparate positions on the issue.
The Oregon Legislature is attempting to define what constitutes a wild
fish in a variety of bills now before the House Committee on Stream
Restoration and Species Recovery.
The most far reaching of the proposed laws blurs the distinction between
wild and hatchery fish, while others simply define the relationship
between fish produced by hatcheries and those that spawn and rear in
streams.
Columbia River treaty-fishing tribes this week have asked U.S. Sen.
Gordon Smith, R-Ore., to hold field hearings to change the federal
government’s endangered species and artificial propagation policies.
In a March 20 letter, tribal leaders asked Smith to help protect
thousands of hatchery-reared adult salmon that would be destroyed under
policies implemented by the National Marine Fisheries Service.
An attempt by federal fish management agencies to document good habitat
works in the interior Columbia River Basin has been withdrawn, drawing
fire from some who say the action is another example of the Bush
Administration’s studied erosion of environmental protections.
Federal officials this morning decided to make no changes in this
weekend’s operation that tribal officials feared would reduce flows in
the Hanford Reach and destroy hundreds of redds in the Vernita Bar.
Despite growing political demand for federal price caps on Western
electricity to alleviate economic and environmental damage, Bush
administration officials this week continued to strongly oppose such
action by federal regulators or Congress.
Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham restated the administration’s
opposition on Thursday at a Senate committee hearing on proposed
legislation to ease the region’s California-spawned energy crisis.
Washington Gov. Gary Locke on Wednesday authorized the Department of
Ecology to declare a statewide drought emergency.
Locke noted that the state’s snowpack is at just 50 to 60 percent of
average for this time of year, which will sharply reduce the amount of
runoff into streams this summer. In fact, the flow in the Columbia River
for April through September is expected to be less than 57 percent of
average.
The federal executives met today with state and tribal officials to get
their ideas on how the federal hydropower system can be operated with
some sensitivity to endangered and threatened species in a year when
water is scarce and the hydroelectric system has little flexibility.
The multi-agency Implementation Team and Technical Management Team
provided federal executives this week with their ideas about how the
federal hydropower system should be operated in low water conditions.
Federal agencies this year have taken over operations of the Columbia
and Snake river hydroelectric system due to persistent energy
emergencies.
The multi-agency Implementation Team and Technical Management Team
provided federal executives this week with their ideas about how the
federal hydropower system should be operated in low water conditions.
Federal agencies this year have taken over operations of the Columbia
and Snake river hydroelectric system due to persistent energy
emergencies.
Fisheries agencies agreed this week to end higher flows that keep chum
redds watered downstream from Bonneville Dam. It could prove to be only
the first of many hard biological decisions both fisheries managers and
dam operators will have to make this year due to record low water and
electricity deficits.
The Bonneville Power Administration agreed during a Technical Management
Team conference call last Friday (March 9) to spill 50,000 cubic feet
per second (50 kcfs) of water for three days, 12 hours each evening, at
Bonneville Dam to help Spring Creek Hatchery tule chinook juveniles move
down river.
The Bonneville Power Administration in two forums this week described a
water supply situation that barely supports the federal power system and
has little if any water left to aid endangered salmon this spring and
summer.
“We are now hitting close to rock bottom,” BPA Administrator Steve
Wright told the Northwest Power Planning Council Wednesday …
Two preliminary Northwest Power Planning Council studies that look at
the power situation and its effects on endangered salmon found that the
cost to the region of spilling water to pass migrating salmon this year
would be high, but the benefits would be low.
An Earthwise Knowledge Initiative Publication
