A draft Northwest Power Planning Council program amendment pays too
little attention to looming Endangered Species Act mandates and aims to
delve inappropriately into state and local watershed and land use
arenas, according to comments submitted last week by Washington state
agencies.
Three days of hearings before two Senate subcommittees this week
provided the first public forum for a direct exchange of views on the
Clinton administration's salmon recovery plan between top federal
officials and their strongest critics in the Northwest congressional
delegation.
Idaho Gov. Dirk Kempthorne and representatives of other Northwest
governors and the Northwest Power Council this week went to Washington,
D.C., to seek a greater role for states in salmon recovery.
They testified at a Senate hearing, and Kempthorne met with two Cabinet
members about the issue -- Secretary of Commerce Norman Mineta and
Secretary of Interior Bruce Babbitt. Kempthorne was accompanied by Idaho
Attorney General Al Lance.
The federal government's top regional salmon recovery official has opted
for the private life, leaving his job little more than a month after his
and other federal agencies unveiled their sweeping plan for restoring 12
Columbia Basin salmon and steelhead runs listed under the Endangered
Species Act.
A summer-long battle by tribes and a local citizens group to find a home
for surplus hatchery spring chinook salmon and their progeny entered a
new phase this week with Washington Sen. Slade Gorton promising funds to
avert "destruction" of those fishes' eggs and challenging ESA guardians
to rethink genetic rules.
Conservation groups and individuals on Wednesday asked the Northwest
Power Planning Council to take up the pro-dam breaching cause as part of
its amended Columbia Basin fish and wildlife program.
Breaching of four Lower Snake River hydroelectric dams "is the most
viable solution" to give impetus to salmon recovery efforts, Karie
Korporaal said during a public hearing on the Council's draft amendment
to its fish and wildlife program. "You need to take a stand."
Federal agencies intend to keep a closer eye on how available Columbia
Basin fish and wildlife funds are spent to ensure decisions are made
with Endangered Species Act recovery goals in mind.
A proposal to ban road building, but not logging, on 43 million acres of
National Forest System land is a step is a step in the right direction,
but does not go quite far enough, according to the agency burdened with
the task of recovering Columbia Basin salmon and steelhead stocks.
The Northwest Power Planning Council approved for public comment
Thursday a draft regional fish and wildlife program that aims to use
habitat restoration and protection as a first tool for undergirding the
Columbia Basin's fish and wildlife populations.
Preliminary counts indicate that naturally spawned Stanley Basin sockeye
are out-returning their hatchery-reared brood mates as unprecedented
numbers of the endangered fish make a late-summer return through the
9-year old Redfish Lake captive broodstock program.
Recent research on the effects of toxic substances on salmon suggests
that even low levels of toxins impair salmon survival instincts.
The study by the National Marine Fisheries Service Science Center in
Seattle, Wash., will be published in the Canadian Journal of Fisheries
and Aquatic Sciences in September. It says that contaminants can cause
impaired growth, suppression of the immune system and increased
mortality in salmon following exposure.
State and federal officials expected to share in implementation duties
were briefed Thursday on a federal plan intended to ward off extinction,
and foment recovery, of listed salmon and steelhead species through a
combination of goals-oriented hydrosystem improvements and "off site"
mitigation actions.
Funding and the need for coordination of federal and regional salmon
recovery efforts surfaced as key issues for Northwest governors
following cursory reviews of a just-released federal draft hydrosystem
biological opinion and companion conceptual recovery strategy.
A hatchery system "overhaul" and short-term habitat improvement actions
aimed at reaping quick salmon survival benefits are key to a Columbia
Basin salmon recovery strategy outlined in draft form Thursday by
federal officials.
The draft plan, which a top White House officials says will "clearly
cost hundreds of millions" more to implement than is currently being
spent on recovery efforts, does not include dam breaching ...
A Thursday morning session with a top Administration official produced
little satisfaction for Columbia Basin tribes who insist federal salmon
recovery plans miss a major mark by forestalling a decision to breach
four hydroelectric projects on the Lower Snake River.
"Today I was obliged to deliver the message to Mr. George Frampton,
representing the White House, that the federal decision not to breach
the lower Snake River dams is a purposeful and conscious decision to ...
A new biological opinion for the Columbia River Basin federal hydropower
system calls for increased flows to get more water into rivers, improved
spill and passage for juvenile salmon as they travel through the dams
and more work at the dams to improve fish passage.
It also addresses improved management of flow, spill and operations of
the Columbia River hydro system ...
Northwest members of Congress attacked, defended or expressed skepticism
about federal agencies' new Columbia Basin salmon recovery plan.
Washington state Republicans strongly criticized the Clinton
administration for leaving the door open to breaching the four lower
Snake River dams, while deferring a decision on that option for another
five to 10 years ...
The four Northwest governors revealed their strategy for salmon recovery
this week, which focuses on those areas where they agree and leaves dam
breaching to another forum.
By releasing the plan now, the governors say they hope to begin moving
the region toward recovery of salmon and steelhead listed under the
Endangered Species Act ...
Clinton administration officials this week said they will not seek
removal of four lower Snake River federal dams to restore endangered
salmon but will continue to study and plan for the option for the next
10 years in case it proves to be necessary to avoid extinction.
The administration's alternative to dam breaching will be ...
State and tribal negotiators reached agreement Thursday on a sharing of
the upcoming upriver fall chinook harvest, providing a going-away
present of sorts for the U.S. District Court judge who has guided such
discussions for the past 13 years.
Negotiations on a management agreement for this year's upper Columbia
River fall chinook, steelhead and coho runs had reached a dead-end in
recent weeks ...
Federal fish and wildlife officials, and those from Washington state,
agreed in principle this week to put surplus Carson stock spring chinook
into what is "essentially an empty system" in the Okanogan Basin.
But a continued reluctance to employ the stock in a Methow River salmon
restoration effort has angered Columbia River treaty tribes ...
A five-fold increase in sockeye salmon run expectations has enabled
non-Indian commercial fishers their first sockeye salmon fishing
opportunity since 1989 below the Columbia River's Bonneville Dam.
Frustrated with a shrinking share of fishing opportunities, the states
of Oregon and Washington filed suit this week in U.S. District Court in
an attempt to prevent the federal government from using Endangered
Species Act provisions as the means of allocating harvest between tribal
and non-tribal fishers.
The planned release of the National Marine Fisheries Service's
biological opinion regarding federal hydrosystem impacts on listed
Columbia Basin salmon species has been pushed back from late June to
late July as federal agencies continue to wrangle over the final details
of the document.
Long-awaited "4(d)" rules that prohibit harming 14 populations of West
Coast endangered salmon and steelhead and generally describe how local
governments can gain exemptions were released this week by the National
Marine Fisheries Service.
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