L.A. Times - An upstream battle over chinook salmon

The Los Angeles Times Editorial Board calls on Obama for a strong salmon plan, including the option to remove the four lower Snake River dams.



"The federal government has spent $8 billion trying to restore salmon populations without fish ladders and hatcheries. It hasn't worked. Meanwhile, the Obama administration has been trying to get federal courts to approve a plan, barely improved on since the court-rejected plan of the George W. Bush years, that would keep the fish on the edge of endangerment instead of bringing back a flourishing fishery.

A better solution for all of these creatures would be a strong plan from the Obama administration on recovery for the Columbia River salmon, including the possibility of breaching one or more dams along the lower Snake River."

Read more of the L.A. Times editorial.

Dam Buster Yvon Chouinard: Taking Down A Dam Is a "Concrete Victory"

"When you take out a dam, that's a real victory. A concrete victory so to speak." — Yvon Chouinard, founder of Patagonia clothing company.

Obama Team Ignores Orca Population Crisis

While Top Fisheries Scientists Find Obama Salmon Plan Insufficient to Protect Salmon, It Doesn’t Even Consider Endangered Orcas Jeopardized by Salmon Shortages

Contact: Ken Balcomb, Center for Whale Research
orcasurv@rockisland.com, (360) 378-5835

This can also be found at the Seattle PI's Blog - "City Brights" - hosted by Candace Calloway Whiting



Friday Harbor, WA — The Western Division of the American Fisheries Society (WDAFS) this week released a scientific review of the Obama Administration’s proposed additions to the federal salmon plan for the Columbia-Snake River Basin. Even though the WDAFS report is sharply critical of the Obama team’s salmon science, it does not comment on one of the most glaring errors in the salmon plan: Its complete failure to consider the effects of salmon declines on endangered Southern Resident orcas.

The society’s assessment concludes that the Obama addendum, issued by NOAA Fisheries last September and known as the Adaptive Management Implementation Plan or AMIP, is not aggressive, rigorous, or specific enough to help bolster imperiled runs of wild salmon and steelhead. The American Fisheries Society is the world’s largest and oldest organization of fisheries professionals; its 3,500-member Western Division covers the 13 western states and British Columbia, including the entire Columbia Basin.

The WDAFS review looked at what the Obama team had itself analyzed and included in the AMIP. For that reason, the review – like the Obama plan itself – does not even include the words “orca” or “killer whale,” much less examine how the salmon crisis is driving orcas closer to extinction.

Federal law required the Bush Administration’s 2008 salmon plan to include an assessment of whether the hydropower operations in the Columbia Basin might jeopardize the endangered Puget Sound orcas (also known as killer whales). Those giant marine mammals eat predominantly chinook salmon, and have had difficulty finding enough to stay healthy. The 2008 salmon plan briefly dismissed any risk to the orcas from the dam-related salmon mortality.

The Obama team’s review of the Bush plan did not reconsider that finding.



In its review, AFS’s Western Division stated that while the AMIP includes some measures that are helpful to salmon, those actions are still “inadequate for ensuring the protection of threatened and endangered salmon and steelhead in the Columbia River Basin.” Further, the review concludes that the AMIP “does not always use the ‘best scientific information,’” while its Rapid Response Actions – a central feature of the government’s salmon plan postscript – are neither rapid nor particularly responsive.

Kenneth C. Balcomb, Principal Investigator of the Center for Whale Research, has been tracking, researching and publishing research on Southern Residents since 1976. He said:

“As bad as the AMIP is with respect to salmon – and the AFS review makes plain that it is very bad – it is even worse with respect to Puget Sound’s resident orca population. First, every one of the shortcomings with respect to salmon reflects a shortcoming with respect to the primary prey of these orcas. Second, the Obama team simply ignored the proven relationship between salmon mortality and orca population declines. Had it been concerned about a thorough backstopping of the 2008 Bush BiOp, the Obama team would have given at least a passing glance to the other Pacific Northwest icon, the orca.” The current depleted Southern Resident population consumes about 820,000 chinook salmon each year.

Balcomb also noted that while NOAA was reviewing the Bush-era plan for the Columbia and Snake Rivers, it released a salmon plan for the Sacramento River, in which it emphatically recognized that Southern Residents will not survive if water operations keep killing chinook salmon. “And in the Sacramento River plan, NOAA stated clearly that mortality to wild salmon jeopardizes orcas, regardless of the hatchery fish produced as mitigation. Why that finding should be different on the Columbia is a mystery.”

Southern Residents are fish-eating orcas that spend much of the year in Puget Sound and the Georgia Straits. They historically had a population of at least 200. Over the last 20 years, the population has varied between 71 and 97 individuals and is currently at 88. At that level, the population cannot survive.

“People who care about Southern Residents should insist that the Obama Administration seize the opportunity to correct the shortcomings of the 2008 salmon plan. Not only does it matter for salmon – it is essential for the survival of Puget Sound’s orcas.”

“Fishery managers throughout the eastern North Pacific would do well to heed the warnings from these mobile top predators,” he added. “If we deplete the Chinook of one river system, they will travel as necessary to the resources of another river system and confound the best efforts of fishery scientists to ‘predict’ returns based upon historical patterns. They must be included in the analyses and the ‘allotments,’ not hated or dismissed as a factor. What has happened here and in the Columbia has affected the Klamath and Sacramento system.”


For more information on the Center for Whale Research and Southern Resident Orcas, see www.whaleresearch.com.

The Western Division of AFS’s review of the Obama Administration’s AMIP is at http://www.wdafs.org/committees/policy_review/WDAFS%20Review%20of%20AMIP.pdf

###

A simple ask

Groups to Washington State: Give Endangered Salmon a Fighting Chance by Changing Water Releases

Petition Urges State Department of Ecology to Follow Oregon and Allow Scientifically Supported Water Releases to Get Baby Salmon Past Big Dams


March 8, 2010
Olympia, WA - Commercial and sport fishing associations, partnering with conservation groups, petitioned the Washington Department of Ecology today to help the downstream migration of endangered salmon by allowing water to be spilled over Columbia and Snake River dams at levels that will improve salmon survival.

Spilling water over the dams-- rather than forcing it through turbines and complex bypass systems-- is critical to aid endangered migrating salmon and steelhead because it is the safest and best way for baby salmon to get to sea. Extensive scientific studies show that fish do much better riding over the tops of the dams-- as they once did over the free-flowing Columbia's waterfalls-- than they do going through the deadly turbines.

"We are filing this petition to the Washington Department of Ecology to give salmon more of what they need to survive," said Glen Spain, Northwest Regional Director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations (PCFFA), a trade organization for West Coast commercial fishing families. "Allowing more water (and fish) to flow over the dams and not go through the turbines will simply help these fish survive, as well as the coastal and inland communities who depend on them for their livelihoods."

Even in low water conditions, spilling water over the dams has helped produce some of the best returns of salmon and steelhead seen in many years. The returning salmon have given a shot-in- the-arm to sport and commercial fisheries in the Columbia River at a time when the rest of the West Coast salmon fishing picture has been a disaster.

"This petition needs to be granted -- and fast-- to help our Northwest salmon economy recover and become strong again," said Liz Hamilton, Executive Director of the Northwest Sportfishing Industry Association. "Spill is a proven, effective action that will help to ensure that there will always be sustainable salmon runs for the people and communities that depend on them."

Read more on the petition to the Washington Department of Ecology

Energy Efficiency Can Replace the Four Lower Snake River Dams

Every five years, the Northwest Power and Conservation Council produces a plan for meeting the next 20 years of electricity needs – a plan that guides the decisions of Bonneville Power Administration and the public utilities that the BPA serves, and sets benchmarks for all of the region's utilities.

Last month, the Council approved it's 6th plan, which says the region can and should meet the majority (85%) of new power needs with energy efficiency costing far less than power from any new generating facility. Almost all the rest will be met with the new renewable energy already required by Northwest states.

From Sara Patton, NW Energy Coalition's Executive Director, in her op-ed to the Oregonian:

Meanwhile, commercial and sports fishermen and other salmon advocates believe successful salmon recovery will require some changes to the hydropower system, possibly including removal of the lower Snake River dams in eastern Washington. If the dams go, the system will have to replace about enough electricity to meet the needs of Seattle as well as some system backup services.

To help inform the region on the coal and salmon issues, the Council studied shutting off enough coal power (40 percent, or about 1,500 average megawatts) by 2020 to meet state requirements while also removing the four Lower Snake River dams. It found that even after meeting growing electric demand, after slashing coal use and after taking measures that may prove necessary for salmon survival, customers' bills still will go down.

How is that possible? It's all the energy efficiency: more efficient TVs, motors, lights, air conditioners, buildings and manufacturing. Saving energy is cheaper than any kind of generation. Council analysis shows that realizing the plan's energy efficiency goals — targets consistent with the recent trend in utility achievement — will reduce average residential electricity about a tenth of a percent a year, even if we replace some of the power from dirty coal plants and the four Snake River dams.