New NW salmon recovery plans released

MomSeattle · DadSeattle · SPI · MySeattlePix · My account

Local

US/World

Sports

Business

A&E

Life

Comics

Photos

Opinion

Blogs

Buy Ads

NWsource

« Are Seattle, King County biofuels green? | Main | Sea lions not shot, cause of death unknown »

New NW salmon recovery plans released

Fishermen bellow the Bonneville Dam. Jeff Larsen/P-I

Salmon fishing on Washington's coast was dramatically cut for this summer and state officials are trapping (and killing?) sea lions preying on the fish -- so what's the overarching goal for salmon recovery?

Monday the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the federal agency responsible for marine life, released three updated plans (called biological opinions or biops) and one study regarding saving salmon:

A revised 2005 Federal Columbia River Power System biop for 14 Columbia/lower Snake river dams

A revised 2005 Upper Snake river biop for 12 projects in eastern Oregon and southern Idaho

A biop for managing salmon harvests for Indian tribes in Washington, Idaho, and Oregon

A study on the effects of Snake River dams on the fish

Bob Lohn, regional administrator for NOAA Fisheries hoped the new strategies would put an end to lawsuits:

It is my deepest hope that those who have traditionally continued to litigate might be willing to look beyond litigation and support a 10 year effort to support the fish.

Based on the response from environmental and conservation groups, that ain't likely.

From American Rivers:

This latest salmon plan calls for less protective operation of federal dams on the Columbia and Snake rivers than have been ordered in recent years by a federal court. The plan also gives only superficial treatment to the impact global warming will have on endangered salmon runs both in rivers and in the ocean, and it fails to analyze the salmon survival gains that would come from removing the four high cost, low value dams on the lower Snake River.

Pacific Northwest Waterways Association, a business and trade group, came out in support of the plans.

The Columbia Basin Bulletin, a nonprofit fish group, does a nice imitation of a wire story explaining this thing and getting various comments in this post. (CORRECTION: CBB is not nonprofit, and offers subscriptions for its newsletter.)

Posted by at May 6, 2008 3:40 p.m.
Categories: Endangered species, Fisheries, Marine mammals, Salmon

Comments

#126103

Posted by Joel Kawahara at 5/7/08 10:40 a.m.

It is consistently infuriating that NMFS can write a biological opinion on the dams that does nothing about the effect of main stem dams on the environment that salmon have to navigate to and from their spawning grounds. Furthermore, it is heartbreaking to re-read that as many as 450,000 Snake River Fall chinook once migrated to the upper Snake, far into Idaho, and that they are forever blocked by the Hell's Canyon complex of dams owned and operated by Idaho Power. For NMFS to state that mainstem Snake dams have extripated chinook above Hell's Canyon and yet not analyse what the effect of removing the four lower Snake River Dams is beyond belief. What more does NMFS want those salmon to go through? The main solution to down stream migration is barging of smolts. Well geeze, a week or more in a dark barge in no way replicates a natural migration, and the effects on baby salmon are supposed to be beneficial?

It is possible to go on, but there is nothing to be proud of in this biop. And there is nothing that points to numbers of natural Snake Fall Chinook beyond 3,000, hence no recovery of the valuable salmon resource. I find it extremely unjust that the electricity created and water used in Idaho can inpoverish the entire coast of Washington, British Columbia, and Alaska. This biop fails the coast and fails salmon.

Report violation

! Login below to post a comment.