In a report released Tuesday, the Biden administration said that federal dams in the Columbia River Basin had inflicted damage on local communities, and committed to restoring native fish to the ecosystem.

By Livia Albeck-Ripka
June 18, 2024

The federal government has released a report that for the first time acknowledges the harms that dams in the Pacific Northwest have “inflicted and continue to inflict” on Native American tribes, it said.

The report, released on Tuesday by the Interior Department, details the “historic, ongoing, and cumulative damage and injustices that the federal dams on the Columbia River have caused and continue to cause to Tribal Nations,” the Biden administration said in a statement. It is also starting a task force to pursue restoring wild salmon and other native fish to the river’s basin, and to expand tribally sponsored clean energy production, it said.

Large hydroelectric dams were built throughout the basin at the beginning of the 20th century, and, according to the report, flooded thousands of acres, sacred sites and ancestral burial grounds. They also transformed the ecosystem, including by blocking fish from migrating. As a result, many tribal communities have been unable to fish, changing traditional diets and cultural practices.

“Our older commitments to the land itself, and to the inhabitants that were here before us, doesn’t happen,” Shannon F. Wheeler, chairman for the Nez Perce Tribe, one of those considered by the report, said by phone on Tuesday. In the past, a large part of the tribe’s diet was salmon, he added, but that has drastically declined.

Mr. Wheeler described the report and task force as a step toward reaffirming the partnership between the tribe and the federal government, which in December committed to restoring salmon populations; expanding tribally sponsored clean energy production; and providing stability for communities that depend on the river for agriculture, energy, recreation and transportation. Together with leaders of four Columbia River Basin tribes and the governors of Oregon and Washington, the Biden administration formally announced the $1 billion plan in February.

The report acknowledged that federal dams and reservoirs in the Columbia River Basin — which covers nearly 260,000 miles across seven states — had affected all local tribes but focused on the repercussions of 11 dams for tribes it described as the “most immediately affected.”

The Yakama Nation, which was listed as one of those tribes, said in a news release that the report was “an important cabinet-level acknowledgment of the many decades of undelivered promises.”

Several tribes could not be immediately reached for comment on Tuesday evening.
Brenda Mallory, the chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, said the task force would work to develop affordable, reliable and clean energy for the region, while addressing the “grave harms” inflicted by the federal government on the local Native American communities.

“President Biden recognizes that to confront injustice, we must be honest about history — even when doing so is difficult,” she said, describing the report as a step toward overcoming the past.

The New York Times: 'Federal Dams Harm Native American Communities, U.S. Acknowledges' article link

Researchers spotted the killer whale they call J35 alongside her “robust and lively” new calf on Saturday — a ray of hope for the endangered Southern Resident population off the Pacific Northwest.

September 6, 2020
By Mike Baker

An orca that once spent 17 days carrying her dead calf — a dramatic saga of apparent mourning — has become a mother once again.

The orca, identified by researchers as J35 and also known as Tahlequah, became a symbol in 2018 of the plight of the Southern Resident whales, which were 88 in number when they were listed as endangered in 2005 and have dwindled further since then. The birth of the new orca, which was seen for the first time by researchers on Saturday, brings the population to 73.

“It’s a bit of a nail-biter right now,” said Dr. Deborah Giles, a whale researcher at the University of Washington’s Center for Conservation Biology. “I can’t help but be thrilled that she had this baby and this baby didn’t die right away. Everybody is worried and on pins and needles, wondering if this calf is going to make it.”

The Southern Resident population of orcas, which are also known as killer whales, includes three pods that largely stay near Washington State and British Columbia. The whales have been struggling to endure a variety of troubles — a scarcity of high-quality prey to eat, noise pollution from ships and boats in their habitat, and toxic pollutants that make their way up the food chain to them. Many of the population’s pregnancies fail, and about 40 percent of the calves who are born die in their first year.

J35 had a calf in 2018 that died shortly after birth off the coast of Victoria, British Columbia. The mother continued to carry the calf, pushing it through the water and repeatedly diving deep to retrieve it when it fell away. Orcas sometimes do that for a little while, but J35’s journey of apparent grief lasted 17 days and covered about 1,000 miles, attracting wide attention at a moment when government agencies were grappling with how to alter the population’s downward trajectory.

Ken Balcomb, founding director of the Center for Whale Research, documented the newest calf, listed now as J57, in the Strait of Juan de Fuca, which separates the Olympic Peninsula of Washington from Vancouver Island.

“The baby looked very robust and lively, so I have good expectations for this one surviving,” Mr. Balcomb said.

He added that he was hopeful that recent efforts could bring back more robust runs of chinook salmon, the primary food source for the Southern Resident orcas. He pointed to the removal of a dam on the Elwha River, which empties into the strait, as a possible turning point.

Two other whales in the pods also are pregnant, Mr. Balcomb said. Researchers watch each of them closely, he said, because the pods now have only a half-dozen families that have been really successful at producing calves. J35 had a calf in 2010 that is still alive.

Photos taken by researchers on Saturday show the new calf, J57, poking its head out of the water and swimming alongside its sibling and its mother.

Mr. Balcomb said the three pods that make up the Southern Resident population had all gathered in the same spot, in an area where salmon were running. He said it looked like a party, with a lot of breaching and communication among the whales.

“It was like a big picnic,” Mr. Balcomb said.

The Biden administration is in talks with tribes, environmental groups and others fighting for dams to be removed from the lower Snake River in the Pacific Northwest.

By Mark Walker and Chris Cameron 

Aug. 15, 2022

WASHINGTON — After decades of legal fighting over hydroelectric dams that have contributed to the depletion of salmon populations in the Pacific Northwest, the Biden administration is extending settlement talks with plaintiffs who hope the resolution they are seeking — removal of the dams — is near.

The federal government has been sued five times over its failed attempts to save salmon in the Columbia River basin, and for violating longstanding treaties with the Nez Perce, Yakama and Umatilla tribes. But now the Biden administration and others say that restoring the salmon population is an issue of tribal justice, as well as the only real solution.

Last month, the administration released a report on the feasibility of removing four dams on the lower Snake River to aid salmon recovery, and another on how the energy they produce could be replaced. The first report, conducted by scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and released in draft form, found that sweeping changes are needed to restore salmon to fishable levels, including removing at least one and potentially all four dams on the lower Snake and reintroducing salmon to areas entirely blocked by the dams.

The Biden administration stopped short of endorsing the findings but said it was reviewing all of the information to determine long-term goals for the Columbia River basin. And earlier this month, the administration and plaintiffs in a related court case agreed to pause the litigation for a second year to continue working on “durable solutions” for restoring salmon runs while also tending to economic, energy and tribal needs.

Senator Patty Murray, Democrat of Washington, who long resisted any salmon recovery plan that included removing the four dams, joined Gov. Jay Inslee of Washington, a fellow Democrat, in commissioning a separate study released this summer. That study found removing the four dams was the most promising approach to salmon recovery.

Ms. Murray and Mr. Inslee have not yet taken a position on whether the hydropower dams should be removed, but the report concluded that it would require spending between $10.3 billion and $27.2 billion to replace the electricity generated by the dams, and to find other ways to ship grain from the region and provide irrigation water.

Ms. Murray is the most powerful Northwestern senator in Congress. But she will need the rest of the Democratic delegation to join her in support of salmon recovery efforts to turn the tide. The report states that removing dams would require congressional authorization, a funding strategy and a concrete timeline.

“What’s clear is that we need to support salmon recovery from every angle possible,” Ms. Murray said in a statement.

Before the dams were built, the Snake River ran wild through parts of Washington State, Oregon, Idaho and Wyoming, with nothing impeding adult salmon from swimming upstream to their spawning grounds or the young ones from making it to the Pacific Ocean.

The dams were built between 1957 and 1975 and now provide energy to millions of people in the Pacific Northwest. But they have shrunk the Chinook salmon population in the Columbia River basin of the Pacific Northwest, since the fish struggle to migrate and therefore reproduce.

In all, there are eight dams the salmon have to pass through during their migration. Each time, their chance of survival is reduced by 10 percent, according to Tucker Jones, the program manager for Ocean Salmon and Columbia River Fisheries at the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife.

“The Snake River dams provide a very small portion of the power generated by the hydroelectric power system,” Mr. Jones said, “and have a disproportionate impact on the salmon population based on the energy you get back.”

Before the dams were built, about 50,000 Chinook salmon spawned during the spring and summer. The numbers have since drastically fallen, putting fishermen and tribes at risk of losing an important economic, nutritional and cultural resource.

Kat Brigham, the chairwoman of the board of trustees for the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, said that all the stakeholders need to come together and find a long-term solution to the problem instead of continuing to throw billions at fixes that have not worked.

“Getting together and rebuilding our salmon for our children’s children is something that we need to do because salmon recovery is important to the survival of the Columbia River basin as a whole,” she said.

Thirteen species of salmon and steelhead trout are listed as threatened or endangered in the Columbia River basin, an area that includes parts of Idaho, Oregon, Washington, Montana and British Columbia.

The salmon are critical to the ecosystem of the river basin, serving as a food source for animals as large as bears and as small as insects. They contribute to the survival of endangered orcas, which depend on eating Chinook in the winter and spring.

The Snake River dams are federally owned. They are managed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which denied tribes’ request to remove the dams in 2020. Federal courts have been critical of the corps and other federal agencies responsible for protecting the Chinook since 2001.

In 2016, Michael H. Simon, a federal judge in Oregon, ordered that a new plan be created to restore the species. He said previous conservation efforts by federal agencies had violated laws meant to protect the environment, endangered species and tribal sovereignty. He cited the Army Corps of Engineers’ refusal to even consider the tribes’ request to remove the dams from the lower Snake River.

Congress is likely the only other entity that can remove the hydroelectric dams.

Tribes and other salmon defenders have not given up their fight. They say the dams can be replaced with other energy sources, including wind power.

Fifteen tribes from the Columbia River basin entered into legally binding treaties with the United States in the mid-19th century. Those treaties reserved sovereign and inherent rights, including the right to fish at traditional locations, on and off reservation lands, and to protect fish at those locations.

The tribes have long called for the federal government and political leaders to honor their treaty rights by removing the four lower Snake River dams.

Instead, the government responded with multiple committees, bills and programs aimed at mitigating the dams’ impact on fish and the environment. But each attempt at a solution has failed to protect the salmon.

The salmon in the Pacific Northwest play a vital role in tourist and fishing economies, are a food source for many species of wildlife, and support thousands of commercial and fishing jobs.

“Unless swift, leading actions are taken, a lot of these fish are doomed for extinction,” said Samuel Penney, the chairman of the Nez Perce.

The lower Snake River dams do more than just generate energy; they also provide a significant economic benefit. Boats carry an average of 10 million tons of cargo valued at over $3 billion through the dam system each year. Forty percent of the nation’s wheat is transported through it.

American Rivers, a nonprofit focused on keeping river health, lists the Snake River as one of the country’s most endangered. Climate change and the dams are raising the temperature of the river, which can be deadly to fish, said Amy Souers Kober, a spokeswoman for the group.

“We really are at the moment where it’s decision time,” Ms. Kober said.

The Army Corps of Engineers acknowledged in 2020 that removing the dams would “provide a long-term benefit to species that spawn or rear in the main stream Snake River habitats.”

But it also said that “short-term adverse impacts to fish, riparian and wetland habitat in the Snake River and confluence of the Columbia River would occur,” due to the changes in the river’s depth and flow after removal.

The corps has said removing the dams, a clean energy source, would increase energy costs for nearby residents and increase greenhouse gas emissions from other power sources. It has also said it would be difficult to replace the dams quickly with other sources of green energy.

Representative Dan Newhouse, a Republican from Washington State, said removing the dams would affect his constituents economically more than any others living around the Columbia River basin.

“The bottom line is this: Breaching these dams will not help our salmon population improve and will only hurt the communities in Central Washington and the Pacific Northwest who rely upon them,” he said. “I truly think that there’s some disinformation and some misleading information happening here by focusing on the dams as being the root of the problem.”

But not every Republican in the region continues to oppose removing the dams. In May, Representative Mike Simpson of Idaho beat his primary opponent in a landslide after introducing a plan to remove the four dams and replace the services they provide to save salmon, at a cost of $34 billion.

His opponent favored keeping the dams.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/15/us/politics/salmon-dams-washington.html

By News Tribune Staff
March 27, 2022

Activists rallied Saturday in Tacoma on behalf of Northwest salmon runs, calling for removal of four dams on the lower Snake River, and seeking attention from state and federal elected officials.

The “Stop Salmon Extinction — Free the Snake River” event started at the University of Washington Tacoma. Activists then marched to the local federal offices of U.S. Rep. Derek Kilmer and U.S. Sens Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray. Featured speakers included Puyallup Tribal Council member Annette Bryan and Port of Tacoma Commissioner Kristin Ang.

Following the downtown procession, rally participants shifted to Swan Creek Park on the city’s east side for a celebration and park cleanup effort, sponsored by the Puyallup Tribe and Tacoma Ocean Fest.

Activists plan to follow Saturday’s event with an April 2 rally and “human orca mural” in Olympia. Activities start at 9 a.m. at the Olympia Ballroom, 116 Legion Way SE, Olympia.

By Tony Overman
April 2, 2022

Salmon supporters gathered for speakers, a march and the formation of a human orca mural on the Capitol Campus in Olympia, Washington, calling for the removal of Snake River dams to aid in salmon recovery and survival.

Read more at: https://www.theolympian.com/news/local/article260053550.html#storylink=cpy

September 29, 2013

A hard thing to do got done in recent weeks as federal regulators proposed revisions to a treaty between Canada and the United States over use and management of the Columbia River. The treaty now in force was signed in 1964, when the Columbia was viewed mainly for hydroelectric production and feared for its capacity to flood and kill people, as it did in Portland back in 1948.

In the years since, however, the Columbia Basin -- a web of river drainages spread across an area the size of France -- has become the battleground of other issues, among them expensive salmon restoration efforts driven by a sweeping U.S. Endangered Species Act and federal obligations to Northwest tribes. Now a United States team led by the Bonneville Power Administration and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is saying the treaty needs revision to more fairly broker present and future concerns, and pitched voices are emerging.

Paul Lumley, a citizen of the Yakama Nation and director of the Portland-based Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, recently told The Associated Press that a new treaty elevating ecological concerns alongside flood control and hydropower was so promising as to make the proposed new treaty a model of international water management. But central Washington Rep. Doc Hastings emerged from a recent meeting with federal authors and said emphasizing ecosystem management along the Columbia would "only serve to distract from the essential task of working with Canada on... the need to rebalance power benefits and to address longterm flood control needs."

Canada is not yet in the conversation. The treaty in place has no expiration date, but changes to it can be made beginning in 2024 as long as either nation gives 10 years' notice. That means the U.S. team must make its recommendations to the State Department by December so that international negotiations can begin.

The Northwest region does, in fact, need a new treaty. Canada increasingly enjoys a lopsided benefit of power generated on the U.S. portion of the river system; federal documents show a so-called Canadian Entitlement as "outdated and no longer equitable, resulting in unnecessarily excessive cost to regional utility ratepayers."

But a reality that cannot be bleached away from any new treaty is that the Columbia River and its tributaries are a testing ground for the largest and most expensive wildlife stewardship in the history of the United States. Indeed, the Columbia's hydroelectric dams already are calibrated to support the effort to save migratory runs of fish that, incidentally, spend a fair amount of time in waters off Canada. Any new treaty must reflect that and anticipate costly challenges to the system brought about not only by wildlife management but, the federal authors note, potential rising temperatures from climate change.

The timing now is critical. Public hearings on the treaty's proposed revisions start in Spokane on Wednesday but end in Portland Oct. 16. Anyone can weigh in -- a good thing if the costs and strategies for safeguarding the Northwest's greatest asset and its people are to be shouldered fairly.

http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2013/09/the_northwest_needs_an_overhau.html
© 2013 OregonLive.com. All rights reserved.

By Bill Bradbury

April 20, 2013

You don't have to leave western Oregon to witness the escalating impacts of climate change.

On Mount Hood, river-feeding glaciers thousands of years old have shrunk by as much as 60 percent in the past 100 years.

In the often water-starved Klamath Basin, average summer temperatures are projected to increase by more than 10 degrees by 2075, with surrounding snowpack levels expected to decrease by as much as 90 percent.

In the Columbia River, average August and September water temperatures are already pushing levels that disrupt salmon migration, and they're projected to rise another 4 degrees by midcentury.

Given those pressing realities, I read with great interest the plan just released by the Obama administration to help America's wildlife adapt to the rapid habitat changes caused by global warming. Much of the plan's focus is on plants and animals protected under the Endangered Species Act. The act, which turns 40 this year, is not without its critics, and I can be frustrated by how long it can take to get protection for critically imperiled species and, once they're listed, how long it can take to get a recovery plan in place.

Yet, when we use it as intended, the law can have a tremendous impact. More than 90 percent of the species it protects have been saved from extinction, and hundreds are on the road to recovery. Here in Oregon, some of our most cherished species -- from coho salmon to gray whales and bald eagles -- owe their existence to the Endangered Species Act.

But as we move through the climate-fueled challenges of the 21st century, we're entering uncharted waters in the battle to preserve the broad diversity of life critical to our planet's future.

The Obama administration's new plan includes a series of mitigation measures for wildlife, including protecting corridors that allow animals to move to more suitable habitat as climate change alters ecosystems. It's an intriguing idea, but will it be enough? Or is it simply an incremental step in a much longer journey we've yet to commit to?

We're entering uncharted waters in the battle to preserve the broad diversity of life critical to our planet's future.

What "corridor," for example, can help coho salmon escape the ever more heated Columbia River? And consider the plight of Oregon's fast-disappearing wolverines. Scientists have known for some time now that wolverines require at least 5 feet of spring snowpack in the high- mountain terrain where they dig protective dens.

So it was hardly surprising that when proposing Endangered Species Act protections for wolverines earlier this year, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service scientists cited climate change as the greatest threat to the 300 or so of the solitary predators that remain from Oregon and Washington to the northern Rockies. Unchecked, temperature increases could very likely wipe out wolverines in the Lower 48 before the end of this century.

Yet, just as was the case when polar bears were listed as "threatened" in 2008, federal wildlife managers declared that any protections extended to the wolverine would not include regulation of greenhouse gas pollution -- the leading driver of rising global temperatures that are threatening wolverines and degrading the planet we all share. That troubling dichotomy reflects the need for a dramatic change in our current political climate, one in which elected officials can be far too quick to trade critically important long-term conservation and economic benefits for the exaggerated benefits of short-term economic gain.

Whenever we're ready, even the most challenging policy solutions are within reach. We need only glance back at the confident steps taken to preserve the national bird we now routinely see soaring above the Willamette River for a model of how to move forward. We not only used the Endangered Species Act to protect bald eagles from being killed and captured -- much as we're proposing to do with the wolverine -- but we also banned pesticides such as DDT. In the process of protecting the eagle's habitat, as required by the Endangered Species Act, we cleaned up the waterways critical to our own health and economic stability.

The sooner we realize that protecting our environment and our economy is not an "either-or" proposition, the more quickly we can get down to the work of building a sustainable bridge to the future that's anchored in the reality of our times.

Only then will we have a real shot at protecting Oregon's irreplaceable ecosystems, from the high-mountain home of wolverines and our winter sports industries to the rivers critical to the future of our salmon runs, as well as our commercial and recreational fishing interests.

Bill Bradbury, former Oregon secretary of state, is a member of the Northwest Power and Conservation Council and is on the board of the Oregon Environmental Council.

http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2013/04/a_21st-century_blueprint_for_s.html

September 12, 2019

By The Associated Press

Huge barges carrying wheat, wood and other goods will remain at a standstill for the rest of the month while workers repair a critical navigation lock at the Bonneville Dam on the Columbia River.

The locks will reopen Sept. 30, officials with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Portland said Wednesday. The navigation lock was closed Sept. 5 after operators detected problems and further investigation revealed cracked concrete.

The closure comes at the peak of wheat harvest and could be devastating for farmers who ship to Asia via barges that fill up at more than two dozen grain elevators along the river network as far inland as Lewiston, Idaho.

"It's important to recognize the patience from our Columbia River users, who depend on this critical piece of infrastructure to run their businesses," Portland District Commander Col. Aaron Dorf said. "It is not lost on anyone in the Portland District that this outage has tremendous impacts to Columbia River users. Between now and Sept. 30, our teams will be working around the clock to construct the new sill to restore Columbia River traffic."

The crack in the concrete sill was discovered after the lock was drained of water over the weekend. On Monday, emergency repair crews were working to demolish the faulty concrete section so repairs could begin, according to Chris Gaylord, a spokesman for the Army Corps of Engineers. Work on the lock also will include drilling holes for rebar, forming the new sill structure and allowing time for the concrete to cure.

It's not known what caused the damage. According to the Portland District engineering team, the damage they observed was unusual, and the annual inspections of the dam, last performed in January 2017, did not reveal any abnormalities.

The tugboat sank just downstream of the Bonneville Dam after an engine fire in October 2017.

The closure means that barges headed upstream can't travel the Columbia River past the Bonneville Dam and those headed downriver toward the Pacific Ocean are stuck behind the Bonneville — effectively halting all river commerce in a vast swath of the Pacific Northwest from eastern Oregon and Washington to Idaho.

The Bonneville Dam is the first in a series of eight dams on the Columbia and Snake Rivers, which together make up a watery highway for goods flowing into and out of the region from the Pacific Rim.

Kristin Meira, executive director of the Pacific Northwest Waterways Association, said in an email Wednesday that the river system is one of the region's and nation's chief cargo transportation arteries, and the failure of any one lock can have a huge and potentially catastrophic impact on the economy of the Pacific Northwest and a number of sectors throughout the nation.

"Our two largest barge lines on the Columbia Snake River System report over 100,000 tons of stranded product above Bonneville Dam," she said. "This incident also shows the critical need to fund a comprehensive maintenance and rehabilitation program for the eight locks."

Eight million tons of cargo move on the Columbia and Snake rivers each year, and 53% of U.S. wheat exports were transported on the Columbia River in 2017, the latest year for which statistics are available, Meira said.

About $2 billion in commercial cargo travels the entire system annually, according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and it's the No. 1 export gate in the U.S. for wheat and barley and the No. 2 export gate for corn.

Navigation locks allow the large barges to pass through the massive concrete dams that were built across the Columbia and Snake rivers decades ago to generate hydroelectricity for the U.S. West.

A boat enters a sealed chamber filled with water — essentially like a giant concrete bathtub — and then the water level is lowered or raised to match the level of the river on the other side of the dam. Then the lock opens on the other side and the boat exits.

The concrete sill that is cracked in the Bonneville Dam is similar to a rubber threshold on the bottom of a door. Just as that rubber strip creates a seal to keep cold air and moisture from leaking in under the door, the concrete sill meets up with the lock’s gate and creates a seal to keep water in the lock.

By Dawn Stover
Jan 12, 2021

The Brigham Fish Market was bustling on a Monday afternoon in November. Two women shared a meal over beers at an outdoor table overlooking the Columbia River in Cascade Locks. In front of the entrance to the market, a couple dined at a streetside table behind a fish-patterned metal railing. Inside, an older couple pointed out a fresh Chinook salmon fillet in the glass-fronted display, and several people waited for takeout orders in an attractive space decorated with Native American art, blanket samples, and historical fishing photos.

In the kitchen, Terrie Brigham, a Umatilla tribal member who manages the market, was preparing a smoked-salmon quesadilla and Cajun-seasoned halibut and chips. Brigham’s sister owns the business, which specializes in fresh and smoked fish from the Columbia River, mostly caught by family members.

Brigham says she is “one of the lucky ones.” The market has stayed open throughout the COVID-19 pandemic by relying on takeout orders, outdoor seating, and federal relief funding that helped keep employees on the payroll. A second location, called Brigham Fish ‘n Chips and located in the new food court of the Wildhorse Casino & Resort outside Pendleton, opened in late September.

The Brigham market is surviving, but the pandemic has been hard on many Native Americans who make their living selling fish from the Columbia. COVID-19 has devastated the restaurant industry, causing a major downturn in the market for salmon. Meanwhile, the living conditions at tribal fishing sites and villages—long neglected by the federal government—have made it difficult for fishers to practice social distancing and other measures to prevent the spread of the virus.

One of the lessons learned from the pandemic is that Native American fishers camping or living year-round on the river need better access to health care and other services. With 2020′s relatively long fall season behind them, officials are planning for the possibility that COVID-19 will still be a threat when seasonal fishers return to the Columbia in the spring.

On the 147-mile stretch of the Columbia from Bonneville Dam to McNary Dam, the only commercial fishing allowed is by the four Columbia Plateau tribes that signed treaties with the federal government in 1855. The treaties ensure the fishing rights of the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation, the Nez Perce Tribe, the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, and the Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs Reservation of Oregon. Despite those treaties, dwindling salmon runs have forced the tribes to strike a delicate balance between their rights to the salmon, other commercial and recreational fishers, and protecting the environment.

COVID-19 has made salmon fishing, culturally and economically important for the people on this stretch of the Columbia, even more difficult. The outbreak has had a disproportionate impact on tribes. In Oregon, Washington, and a dozen other states, American Indian and Alaska Native people have died at nearly twice the rate of white people.

COVID-19 took from the Yakama Nation two leaders who had long helped protect salmon and fishing rights. In April, tribes mourned the loss of Bobby Begay, a leader at Celilo Village who died at age 51 from complications of the coronavirus. In July, the Yakama Nation mourned for Johnny Jackson, chief of the Cascade Band of the Yakama, an elder who lived on the bank of the White Salmon River near Underwood, Washington, and was a passionate advocate for the River People of the Columbia Gorge and their abiding connection to salmon. Jackson died after being hospitalized with COVID-19.

Other Native people who fish the Columbia continue to be at risk of contracting the coronavirus. They live and work in conditions that can be crowded at times, and their work brings them into contact with people from around the region. But those challenges did not prevent fishers from participating in the 2020 harvest. The annual return of salmon to the river not only connects the four treaty tribes to a way of living that predates their loss of land to white settlers, but also is the primary source of income for many tribal members.

During the fall commercial gillnet fishing season, which ended on Oct. 7, Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission staff found itself in pandemic-response mode.

The commission provides technical assistance to the four Columbia Plateau treaty tribes. This year, fish commission employees tasked with helping fishers in business development and regulatory compliance also delivered supplies from the Yakama Nation to fishers camped at access sites on the Columbia River. The food, water, toilet paper, and cleaning and school supplies from the Washington-based tribal government was distributed to people along the river to cope with COVID-19.

“When the pandemic hit, people living year-round on the river didn’t have easy access to the health care [available] back on the reservation,” says commission Executive Director Jaime Pinkham, who is Nez Perce. “They were falling through the cracks.”

The tribes partnered with One Community Health, which operates clinics on both sides of the Columbia River Gorge, to connect fishers with local health care services. Also, says Pinkham, the fish commission and its partners and funders “worked hard to get a medical vehicle to do testing.” That van will now be used to do vaccinations on the river.

Treaty-tribe fishers got the go-ahead to fish with gill nets during a three-day summer season that began in late June, and again during the much longer fall season that began in August and ended in early October. The tribes closed the gillnet season after steelheads, an oceangoing form of rainbow trout, came back in greater-than-expected numbers, resulting in a large catch that was approaching the harvest limit. The 2020 runs for Chinook salmon, however, were significantly lower than the 10-year average, although more adult spring and summer Chinook salmon passed through Bonneville Dam this year than in 2019.

Fishers who use traditional platforms and dip nets, or conventional hook-and-line gear, were allowed to continue fishing through the end of the year, for both subsistence and commercial sales. Brigham, whose grandfather fished at Celilo Falls, will continue to sell fish that is caught by family members from scaffolds in Cascade Locks.

Overall, the fishing in 2020 was “not super amazing,” she says. “But it could have been worse.”

Each year, biologists from the four tribes that have traditionally fished in the Columbia River meet with their counterparts from state and federal agencies. Together, they analyze fish counts and use computer models to make their best guess as to how many fish can be sustainably harvested. After accounting for fish that are needed as hatchery broodstock, or that will be allowed to escape upriver to produce a new generation of wild salmon, they determine how many are available for harvesting.

The individual tribes decide the fishing seasons and regulations for their members. Tribes divide their allocated salmon harvest among three categories: ceremonial use, subsistence, and commercial fishing. Fishers exercising their treaty rights are legally entitled to half the yearly harvest of Columbia River salmon.

Although Native fishers work outdoors, some of their working and living conditions put them at increased risk of contracting the coronavirus. A typical fishing boat used for gillnet fishing is about 20 feet long and has a crew of four people who may or may not be members of the same household. Fishers are elbow-to-elbow while pulling in nets, which makes it impossible to maintain social distance.

While the gillnetting season was open, Brigham limited the size of her crew to reduce the chances of exposure to the coronavirus and to protect her father, who fishes with her. She fished with only her core crew, rather than hiring additional help.

But boats are not the only place where fishers come into close contact.

When the salmon are running, people from across the Pacific Northwest, many of them living on reservations in Washington, Idaho, and Oregon, come to the Columbia to fish. Tribal governments urged fishers to start social distancing even before heading to the river, to minimize their contacts with people outside their own households, and to get tested for COVID-19 through tribal clinics.

“People tend to travel from village to village, especially during fishing season,” says Lana Jack, who identifies as Celilo Wyam. Jack lives in Celilo Village and made regular deliveries this year of face masks, hand sanitizer, and other supplies to people at smaller villages along the Columbia.

Some Native American fishers live year-round at 31 fishing sites along the Columbia that are reserved for their use; many others join them seasonally. Many people at these sites are living in conditions that are unsafe and unsanitary. Legislation enacted in December 2019 authorized the Secretary of the Interior to assess and improve facilities at fishing sites, but that process is still in the assessment phase. The omnibus spending bill Congress passed shortly before the end of the year set aside $1.5 million for the treaty sites in 2021.

Tribal governments brought in wash stations and additional portable toilets, and they increased janitorial services. But even at the best-equipped sites, fishers must share facilities such as showers and fish-cleaning stations. They have to crowd around processing tables that are not much bigger than a dining table. The least-developed sites have only pit toilets and no running water. In the fall, the busiest season, hundreds of people fish on the river, and 2020 was no different.

The pandemic also brought new procedures for mask wearing and physical distancing at wholesale and over-the-bank sales stations. At the wholesale stations, “fishermen couldn’t get out of their vehicles,” says Brigham. But at over-the-bank stations, where fishers sell their catch directly to customers, not all of the customers took care to wear masks.

The federal government has broken its promises to construct permanent housing for Native American families whose homes along the Columbia were inundated by dam construction. Celilo Village, which is visible from Interstate 84, is the only site where the government has constructed replacement houses for Native Americans since dam construction began in the 1930s.

Broken promises

Four tribes that had fishing villages wiped out in the last century are left waiting for the federal government to keep a promise of better housing.

At sites such as Lone Pine in The Dalles, residents still lack access to basic amenities, including running water, electrical connections, and a sewer system.

It’s not just about building houses, Pinkham says. River communities also need adequate health care and social services, a year-round economy, and schools for their children. “Covid has taught us a lot about the infrastructure for a long-term sustainable community on the river,” he says.

Living conditions at camps and villages weren’t the only challenges for fishers coping with COVID-19. Because of the virus, the fall commercial fishing season took place in a radically altered economic environment. In the U.S., about 70% of all seafood is consumed in restaurants, so restaurant closures and restrictions necessitated by the pandemic have had a major impact on the salmon business.

There are two types of customers for Columbia River salmon caught by Native fishers: The majority of the catch is purchased by wholesalers, who in turn sell the fish to higher-end restaurants and grocery stores. The rest is sold “over the bank” directly to the public, either at businesses like the Brigham Fish Market or at small stands near the river in Cascade Locks and other locations along the Columbia River Gorge.

Tribal fishing villages

The Office of Management and Budget has decided not to grant a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers request for almost $1.6 million to finish planning a village near The Dalles for tribal members whose villages were flooded when the dam was built. Members of Warm Springs, Yakama, Umatilla and Nez Perce tribes lived along the river for centuries and lost their homes as well as a center of social and economic life when dams were built, starting in the 1930s.

Roughly 75% to 80% of tribal fishers on the Columbia sell to wholesalers. This year, not as many wholesalers showed up to buy fish. Fishers can still sell directly to customers or to small markets like Brigham’s, but that doesn’t make up for the loss of their biggest market.

Additionally, fishers couldn’t apply for coronavirus assistance funding provided by the CARES Act until the commercial fishing season was underway, months after the pandemic began, because applicants were required to provide extensive documentation of their receipts and expenditures—paperwork that many fishers didn’t have.

Sales both to wholesalers and to the public have traditionally been cash transactions, and fishers have paid their crew members in cash. Many of them haven’t kept good records, and this traditional way of doing business has proved to be a problem in the time of COVID-19. Organizations like CRITFC and the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission have tried to help fishers quantify the economic impacts of the pandemic on their livelihoods, but the process has been frustrating for those who rely on the informal economy.

Many of these health and economic challenges are continuing into 2021. They come on top of climate forecasts that predict a continued decline in salmon runs.

That won’t stop fishing on the Columbia. As COVID-19 vaccines begin to roll out, people who fish the river eagerly await the arrival of the first spring Chinook salmon, which usually happens in early April.

“It’s part of our identity to fish and to eat fish,” says Jeremy FiveCrows, who is Nez Perce and works as a public affairs specialist at CRITFC. “For tribal people, there’s no way to keep them away from the river.”

‍Underscore is a nonprofit collaborative reporting team in Portland focused on investigative reporting and Indian Country coverage. We are supported by foundations, corporate sponsors and donor contributions. Follow Underscore on Facebook and Twitter.

Dec. 27, 2023
By Karina Brown, Underscore News

A historic federal plan that paves the way for the breaching of the four dams on the Lower Snake River came about because of planning and work led by the four Columbia River treaty tribes: Yakama Nation, Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs, Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation and the Nez Perce Tribe.

In a series of commitments announced last week, the federal government agreed to fund green energy projects led by four Columbia River Native nations intended to replace the energy generated by the four dams in the Lower Snake River. The plan sets the stage for the breaching of the dams in the next decade: the timespan of about two generations of salmon. It’s the latest development in a long-running lawsuit filed more than two decades ago over government operations of federal dams, which have pushed salmon and steelhead to the brink of extinction.

“It definitely gives us a pathway forward and really that’s what we’re looking for,” said Nez Perce Chairman Shannon F. Wheeler. “The path we’re on is going to bring the Pacific Northwest to a new era. And at the same time that the Pacific Northwest transforms into a much greater place, that we’re also able to restore and recover salmon to levels we haven’t seen for decades.”

Dams are the main problem preventing recovery for 10 of the 16 salmon and steelhead populations in the Columbia River Basin, according to a 2022 report by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

This year, the four Columbia River treaty tribes — Yakama, Umatilla, Warm Springs and Nez Perce — developed the Columbia Basin Restoration Initiative. It was a response to a long slog through mediation, where online meetings often included more than 200 representatives with dramatically differing views, struggling to make progress toward a viable plan. Then the tribes took the lead on inviting federal involvement in the plan they had created.

The tribes’ restoration initiative, and the federal response to it, became the U.S. Government Commitments document filed in the case on Dec. 14.

If approved by the court, the plan outlined in that document would build on recommendations from Washington Gov. Jay Inslee and Sen. Patty Murray, calling for the breaching of the dams as a crucial part of salmon recovery. In their recommendations, Inslee and Murray noted that the energy generated by the dams, along with other services they provide, would need to be replaced before the breaching could actually occur. A viable plan to replace what the dams provide is also key to persuading Congress to approve breaching.

The Dec. 14 court filings provide just such a plan.

For the four Columbia River treaty tribes, the agreement has additional meaning.

“It honors the federal government’s promise to us in the treaty of 1855,” said Corinne Sams, an elected member of the board of trustees for the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation and chair of the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission. “It allows our people to continue our way of life and we are salmon people.”

‍The six sovereigns

Originally filed in 2001 by the National Wildlife Federation and an assortment of other environmental groups, the four Columbia River treaty tribes joined the lawsuit that same year. The plaintiffs in the case argued that the federal government was violating the Endangered Species Act by allowing federal dams on the Columbia and Snake rivers to decimate threatened and endangered salmon and steelhead populations.

Over 22 years of litigation, a succession of judges assigned to the case have tossed out four of the government’s biological opinions — essentially permits allowing the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to operate federal dams on the Columbia and Lower Snake Rivers — finding that the plans violated the Endangered Species Act.

The latest round of activity in the case began when the Trump administration issued a biological opinion in 2020. Along with an accompanying government study required under the National Environmental Policy Act, the opinion was so flawed and rushed that the tribes, states and environmental groups involved leapt back into action. The active plaintiffs at the time — the state of Oregon, the National Wildlife Federation and the Nez Perce as amici, or friends of the court — each filed new complaints.

The Umatilla and Warm Springs nations also resumed activity in the case, after standing down their claims in 2008. That was the year they negotiated the Columbia River Fish Accords, which essentially doubled funding for fish habitat restoration and other dam mitigation efforts. But because of the 2020 biological opinion, both nations negotiated an amendment to the agreements surrounding the fish accords, saying they had no obligation to support the government’s new plan.

When President Joe Biden took office in 2021, his administration took a new approach, expressing a desire to find a more realistic and permanent solution to transforming the federal hydrosystem into a green energy system that supports fish. Since then, the parties have spent two years in confidential mediation, trying to hammer out an agreement that might finally protect salmon.

Progress was slow, according to people involved. Enormous and unwieldy mediation meetings were held online — some with upwards of 200 participants representing parties with opposing views. In January, the four Columbia River treaty tribes decided to formulate their own strategy for comprehensive salmon and steelhead recovery. They aimed to develop a plan that accounted for everyone who currently benefits from the dams: people living in the Northwest who depend on the energy the dams generate, farmers who use irrigation from the reservoirs behind the dams and ship their crops via barges in the river, and small town economies that revolve around the recreation the dams provide.

“We did not want to make this a dams versus salmon approach,” said Jeremy Takala, member of the Yakama Nation tribal council and vice chair of Inter-Tribal Fish Commission.

In just five months, the tribes developed the Columbia Basin Restoration Initiative. After the tribes started working on the plan, the states of Oregon and Washington joined them. Together, they formed a block now known as “the six sovereigns.”

In March, the chairs of the four treaty tribes met in Washington D.C. with John Podesta, President Biden’s senior advisor for clean energy innovation and implementation, according to people with knowledge of the events. They asked for his help and invited him to visit the Columbia River Basin. When he arrived in June, tribal leaders shared a traditional meal with Podesta and Department of Energy Deputy Secretary David Turk at the Yakama Nation longhouse.

And they presented him with their Columbia Basin Restoration Initiative.

A visit from a government official of Podesta’s stature was “unprecedented,” according to Sams, the Umatilla board member and Inter-Tribal Fish Commission chair.

“For us to be able to take him along to our village sites that were flooded by the dams, to take him to our fishing sites so he could see our continued connection to ceremony and to culture and salmon was really beneficial,” Sams said. “Because we can say it a thousand times, but you really have to see how we pair our traditional ecological knowledge with Western knowledge to restore and to really maintain a healthy ecosystem for our salmon that are traveling to and from the ocean.”

After over a year of mediation, the meeting with Podesta kicked off talks between the tribes, the states and the Biden administration. The result was a historic court filing last Thursday that paves the way for the breaching of the four dams in the Lower Snake River.

For Nez Perce Chairman Wheeler, the most important accomplishment of over 20 years of litigation is the way this case has forced the U.S. government to treat the tribes of the Columbia River Basin as sovereign nations.

“When an agreement was made in 1855 with the tribe, it was made under mutual agreement, for mutual benefit,” Wheeler said. “These talks are just a continuation of that.”

Although the case was filed and argued based on alleged violations of the Endangered Species Act, the involvement of tribes with treaty rights in the Columbia River Basin added an element of additional government responsibility to the claims.

“The leadership of the Columbia River treaty tribes really did impact the outcome Thursday,” said Jonathan W. Smith Sr., chairman of the tribal council for the Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs. “The treaty tribes have unique legal tools based on their treaty rights. Those treaty rights and the legal obligations the federal government has to honor — those rights can only be brought to the table by the four treaty tribes, not by the environmental plaintiffs or the states.”

‍'Crying out for a major overhaul'

The National Marine Fisheries Service — the defendant in the lawsuit — found in the mid-1990s that salmon were unlikely to escape extinction, without “major modifications to the Snake and Columbia River dams.”

Two decades later, U.S. District Judge Michael H. Simon admonished the government for not yet taking that action, in a 2016 ruling rejecting NMFS’ plan to operate the dams while preventing salmon extinction.

“More than 20 years ago, Judge Marsh admonished that the Federal Columbia River Power System ‘cries out for a major overhaul,’” Simon wrote. “Judge Redden, both formally in opinions and informally in letters to the parties, urged the relevant consulting and action agencies to consider breaching one or more of the four dams on the Lower Snake River…. The Federal Columbia River Power System remains a system that ‘cries out’ for a new approach and for new thinking if wild Pacific salmon and steelhead, which have been in these waters since well before the arrival of homo sapiens, are to have any reasonable chance of surviving their encounter with modern man.”

And government scientists reached a similar conclusion in 2022, when the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) found that dams are the main problem preventing recovery of salmon and steelhead populations in the Columbia River Basin.

According to the U.S. government commitments document filed last week: “The NOAA report clarified the urgency of the situation, stating that, given the current status of salmon populations, the science robustly supports riverscape‐scale process‐based stream habitat restoration, dam removal (breaching), and ecosystem‐based management and overwhelmingly supports acting and acting now.”

Simon will decide whether to approve the plan early in 2024, after hearing arguments in opposition. Four parties have not yet filed motions and may oppose the agreement: the State of Montana, State of Idaho, The Public Power Council and Inland Ports and Navigation Group.

Earlier this year, efforts in the same case by three Upper Columbia River tribes — the Coeur d’Alene Tribe, the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation and the Spokane Tribe of Indians — resulted in government commitments to fund the tribes’ salmon restoration efforts above the Chief Joseph and Grand Coulee dams. As a result, Judge Simon granted the three tribes’ motions to stay their complaints in intervention in September.

If Judge Simon approves the agreement filed last week, the tribes and environmental groups that initially filed the lawsuit in 2001 would agree to pause litigation for five years, and for an additional five after that, as long as the agreement is still in operation.

“The overarching goal when we approached this is, as long as we can fulfill the obligations we have when it comes to the big law — the unwritten law that says we have to take care of our food and it takes care of us — as long as we can make sure this agreement does that, we’d like to see it continue,” Warm Springs Chairman Smith said.

‍'The fish have given everything’

The plan details federally funded actions that would restore native fish and lead the way to the breaching of the four dams in the Lower Snake River. The agreement also includes plans for a U.S. Department of the Interior analysis of the historic, cumulative and ongoing impacts of federal dams on tribes in the Columbia River Basin that will inform future mitigation actions.

That is intended to make up for the harm caused by the government’s 2020 environmental impact statement (EIS), analyzing the dams’ impacts on Native nations. Despite Native nations contributing an enormous volume of information on that subject, the information in the EIS was scant. For the tribes, an accurate analysis of the dams’ impact on their cultures, food systems and treaty rights was “one of the absolute must haves” to approach settling the lawsuit, according to Sams.

“The overarching idea is, they don’t always really include the tribes’ perspective,” Smith said. “They kind of leave us out of the loop.”

A U.S. Department of Energy analysis will help revamp the ways regional energy needs are met, while specifically identifying as “necessary” the breaching of the Lower Snake River dams. Federal grants and forgivable loans will be directed to tribally owned clean energy projects that aim to produce “at least one to three gigawatts” of clean energy over the next decade.

“It provides for a regional energy needs study to help us chart a course for the future, and then provides focused efforts to help the region meet those needs and includes tribes in that effort,” Smith said.

The plan also sets out U.S. Department of Transportation projects in partnership with tribes to upgrade roads, railways and culverts. And it will update aging hatchery facilities and pay for long-needed repairs.

“Staff have worked day and night to upgrade infrastructure and keep them running,” Takala said of Yakama Nation Fisheries’ over 250-member staff.

Nez Perce Chairman Wheeler said the agreement represents a “great opportunity” to move toward breaching the Snake River dams. But he also lamented some aspects of the plan that he said would harm fish, such as reductions in the amount of water the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will spill over the dams during the dry summer months to help fish migrate.

“It’s a bittersweet pill,” Wheeler said. “The fish have given everything and when we take things from them that help them, they’re giving even more. The fish are the ones paying the ultimate price.”

‍Additional reporting contributed by Nika Bartoo-Smith. 

The Oregonian 'Efforts of tribes pay off in historic agreement on Snake River dam removals' article link

March 22, 2017

When it comes to shoring up critical roads, bridges and water systems, the United States has plenty of work to do. Last week, the American Society of Civil Engineers released its 2017 Infrastructure Report Card, which gave the country an overall grade of D+.

The report card, which is issued every four years, breaks down what needs to be done state by state, taking a deep look at everything from dams to drinking water.

The report follows a recent survey by U.S. News and World Report, which ranked Oregon and Washington as the top two states when it comes to infrastructure, with California lagging in the lower middle of the rankings.

That doesn’t mean that Oregon and Washington can slack off, since there are still critical areas that need to be addressed, according the society of engineers. In Oregon, for example, there are 77 dams that have a high-hazard risk – something to think about when you hear the latest reports about the threat of Cascadia earthquakes. And in Washington, an estimated 31 percent of public roads are in desperate need of repair.

Here’s a closer look at how Oregon, Washington and California rank in 10 critical areas of the civil engineers’ report card:

Aviation  
Oregon: There are 57 public-use airports in Oregon, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation. The largest is Portland International Airport, which served more than 18 million passengers in 2016, accounting for 90 percent of passenger travel in the state. Congestion at PDX and other airports is reaching a tipping point; it is expected that 24 of the top 30 U.S. airports may soon experience Thanksgiving-like volume at least one day every week.

Washington: There are 64 public-use airports in Washington. The largest is Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, which served more than 45 million passengers in 2016, and serves as a hub for Alaska, Delta and Horizon airlines.

California: There are 190 public-use airports in California. The largest is Los Angeles International Airport, which served just over 80 million passengers in 2016, and ranks as the seventh busiest airport in the world.
 
Bridges  
Oregon: 429 bridges (5.3 percent) out of 8,118 are structurally deficient. In 2013, Oregon spent more than $216 million on bridge capital projects, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation and the Federal Highway Administration.

Washington: 392 bridges (4.8 percent) out of 8,178 are structurally deficient. More than 36 percent of Washington bridges are more than 50 years old, putting them towards the end of their design life.

California: 1,388 bridges (5.5 percent) out of 25,431 are structurally deficient. In 2013, California spent almost $26 million on bridge capital projects.

Dams 
Oregon: There are 77 high-hazard potential dams in Oregon, and 70 percent of the state’s regulated dams have an emergency action plan, according to the Association of State Dam Safety Officials. The plan identifies potential emergency conditions and steps needed to prevent loss of life and minimize property damage.

Washington: There are 1,174 dams in Washington, and nearly 40 percent are considered high-hazard potential.

California: There are 678 high-hazard potential dams in California, and 68 percent of the state’s regulated dams have an emergency action plan. A good example of how such an emergency plan is enacted happened earlier this winter when the Oroville Dam’s cracked spillway <http://www.sacbee.com/news/state/california/water-and-drought/article139117943.html>  needed to be shored up to prevent catastrophic failure.
 
Drinking water 
Oregon: There will need to be $5.6 billion in drinking water infrastructure work during the next 20 years, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. That includes replacing lead pipes in older plumbing systems -- something students of Portland Public Schools know all too well <http://www.oregonlive.com/education/index.ssf/2017/02/after_lead_scandal_portland_sc.html> .

Washington: There will need to be $9.5 billion in drinking water infrastructure work during the next 20 years.

California: There will need to be $44.5 billion in drinking water infrastructure work during the next 20 years.

Public parks
Oregon: There are $5.31 million in unmet needs for Oregon’s public park systems, according to the U.S. National Park Service and the Land and Water Conservation Fund State Assistance Program.

Washington: There are $241.2 million in unmet needs for Washington’s public park systems, the highest per-capita need on the West Coast.

California: There are $4.85 billion in unmet needs for California’s public park systems.

Rail
Oregon: There are 2,396 miles of freight rail across Oregon, ranking it 25th in the nation, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation.

Washington: There are 3,192 miles of freight rail across Washington, ranking it 22nd in the nation.

California: There are 5,295 miles of freight rail across California, ranking it 3rd in the nation.

Roads
Oregon: 11 percent of public roads in Oregon are in poor condition, making it the best on the West Coast, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation and the Federal Highway Administration.

Washington: 31 percent of public roads in Washington are in poor condition.

California: A staggering 50 percent public roads in California are in poor condition, making it among the worst in the nation. Only the tiny states of Connecticut and Rhode Island have a higher percentage of roads in need of repair.

Schools
Oregon: There is an estimated $457 million gap in school capital expenditures in Oregon according to the 21st Century School Fund, Inc., U.S. Green Building Council, Inc., and the National Council on School Facilities.

Washington: There is an estimated $556 million gap in school capital expenditures in Oregon.

California: There is an estimated $3.2 billion gap in school capital expenditures in California.

Transit
Oregon: Annually, there are almost 130 million unlinked passenger trips in Oregon using public transportation systems, including bus, transit and commuter trains, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation.

Washington: Annually, there are almost 257 million unlinked passenger trips in Washington.

California: Annually, there are more than $1.4 billion unlinked passenger trips in California.

Wastewater
Oregon: Over the next 20 years, Oregon faces $3.89 billion in wastewater infrastructure needs, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Washington: Over the next 20 years, Washington faces $4.07 billion in wastewater infrastructure needs.

California: Over the next 20 years, California faces $26.2 billion in wastewater infrastructure needs.

-- Grant Butler

http://www.oregonlive.com/trending/2017/03/how_oregon_compares_to_the_wes.html

by Joseph Bogaard

The Pacific Northwest’s epic battle to balance competing natural resources — federal dams and endangered wild salmon and steelhead in the Columbia and Snake rivers — faces a critical juncture in the first half of 2011. At risk is nothing less than the heart and soul, the identity and culture, of the Pacific Northwest and its people. While big dams on the Elwha, White Salmon, and Rogue rivers have come out — or will soon — ongoing efforts to restore  140 miles of free-flowing water in the lower Snake River remain contentious, but very much in play. In what could be the most significant round of litigation for Columbia/Snake River salmon and the people and communities that rely on them, United States District Court Judge James Redden is expected to rule this spring about whether the federal government’s latest salmon plan for the Columbia and Snake Rivers passes legal muster. Like the timber industry and spotted owl, this is a classic natural resource battle between powerful entrenched interests resisting changes to a technology and culture — in this case hydroelectric dams that were constructed in last century. While the first Columbia River basin dams were built way back in the 19th century, it was not until the Great Depression and FDR’s New Deal that the federal government really teamed up with industrial interests to transform the free-flowing, salmon-rich Columbia and Snake rivers into a series of slackwater reservoirs and dams to electrify a Northwest that was at the time still largely in the dark. The creation of abundant power has drawn people and businesses to the region ever since. In hindsight, it is easy to see how industrial momentum leads to overreach, especially when the largesse of federal taxpayers makes it all so simple. Consider the timber industry. With its infrastructure designed for the biggest trees, a mindset to maximize profit, and cozy political relations, the timber barons saw no reason why they shouldn’t have access to every last ancient tree they could get their chainsaws on — people, owls, and ecology be damned. Similarly, once they got started, Northwest dam boosters saw no reason why there shouldn’t be dams on every river, regardless of rapidly disappearing salmon, among other things. Our collective sense of a balance in the Columbia basin became distorted and lost during the last century and led inevitably to poor decision-making. The four lower Snake River dams is a case in point. They were the last federal dams constructed in the Columbia basin. For several decades, even the US Army Corps of Engineers resisted building them because they didn’t pencil out economically. It took a stiff congressional kick in the pants - not a change in the underlying costs and benefits — that finally forced them to act. The dams were, in fact, very controversial in their day. Similar projects that were slated for construction immediately after their completion, like Asotin Dam upstream from Lewiston, Idaho, never got off the ground. After our nation’s 200-plus year spasm of dam building, people began to say “enough.” Today, it is certain that these high-cost, low-value salmon-killing dams would never be built. The limited benefits that they do provide would be met — and still can be met — with efficient and effective alternatives. A scarcity has increased the value of salmon and fish and wildlife and free-flowing rivers, and societal priorities have changed. But these four dams are here now, and our nation faces a critical decision about whether they stay. It’s not too late to correct this costly mistake.

A Seattle Times feature by reporter Lynda Mapes.

Snake River sockeye are rebounding, but the extraordinary effort comes at a cost to the public - nearly $9,000 per fish.

After 20 years and more than $40 million spent, the new direction for Snake River sockeye focuses on rebuilding population rather than just preventing extinction. But will it work?

http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2019705443_captivefish18m.html

By Lynda V. Mapes
Seattle Times staff reporter

REDFISH LAKE CREEK, Idaho —

A vermilion slash in clear, cold water, the Snake River sockeye in this mountain stream is one of nature's long-distance athletes, traveling at least 900 miles to get here.

That this fish can make such a journey — the longest of any sockeye in the world — is remarkable. But it's more incredible that this fish is still around at all.

Down to just one known fish — dubbed Lonesome Larry — in 1992, state, tribal and federal fish managers have painstakingly preserved the species in captivity ever since.

Twenty years and $40 million later, they have a new goal. Not just mere survival for Snake River sockeye, but rebuilding the run to at least 2,500 wild fish, free of any hatchery influence, making the epic journey all the way from the Pacific across a time zone to the high mountain lakes of Idaho.

To appreciate how big a step that is, consider this: It's taken fish managers in six federal, state and tribal agencies to get this far. They oversee the lives of these fish, plotting their genetics on spreadsheets, mixing their gametes in plastic bags, and whisking them in various life stages around the Pacific Northwest in plastic shipping tubes, barges, trucks and planes, using five different facilities in three states to hatch, incubate and rear them, in both fresh water and salt.

By now, Bonneville Power Administration ratepayers have spent nearly $9,000 for every sockeye that's made it back to Idaho since this all started in 1991.

The sockeye rescue is part of a much larger Columbia River Basin Fish and Wildlife program — believed to be the largest of its kind in the world — that has cost Bonneville ratepayers more than $12 billion since 1978, depending on how you count it.

While Elwha Dam removal cost U.S. taxpayers $325 million, BPA ratepayers spend more than $200 million each year — including $311 million budgeted this year alone — on programs intended to restore fish, wildlife and habitat harmed by the Columbia and Lower Snake River dams. It adds up: The program's cost accounts for one-third of the wholesale rate Bonneville charges utilities that use its power, including Seattle City Light, which buys 41 percent of its power from BPA.

A recent jump in sockeye returns, including more than 1,000 fish in both 2010 and 2011, encouraged managers to expand the program and break ground on a new, $14 million hatchery this year. The goal now is way beyond just saving sockeye from extinction, and on to building a wild, self-sustaining population.

It's quite a comeback. The captive brood program was nearly canceled in 2006, because so few sockeye were making it back to Idaho. "We thought it was a little bit of a moonshot," said Rick Williams, a member of a scientific panel that recommended against continuing to fund the program.

The Northwest Power and Conservation Council, appointed by governors from four Western states, voted to keep it going anyway, after Idaho's governor asked members to vote with their hearts, not their heads. Then came a couple of good years of sockeye returns. Last summer, the council doubled down, voting to expand the program and build the hatchery.

Lorri Bodi, BPA's vice president for environment, fish and wildlife, said she was glad nobody pulled the plug on Snake River sockeye. She has a photo in her office of herself releasing one of the fish back to Redfish Lake to spawn a few years ago, a feel-good moment that still gives her hope. "We went from zero to four fish coming back every year. They were functionally extinct. Now, in good years, we have more than 1,000. We are going to take it to the next level.... This is a testament to optimism.

"Our goal is to have a few thousand sockeye again, just as we did in the 1950s, before human impacts were so severe. It's a pretty cool thing to do."

The issue of dams

But where some see cause for optimism, others see denial. Idaho, Oregon and Washington are replete with hatcheries, but 16 runs of salmon and steelhead in the Columbia Basin are still listed for protection under the Endangered Species Act. And despite a few good years of returns, Snake River sockeye remain endangered. Just 243 sockeye made it back to Idaho this year.

With eight dams between their spawning grounds and the Pacific, hatchery production alone won't be enough to rebuild healthy, naturally spawning populations of Snake River sockeye and other Columbia Basin salmon and steelhead, said Joseph Bogaard, outreach director in the Seattle office of the Save Our Wild Salmon Coalition, a nonprofit that advocates for dam removal on the Lower Snake River.

"There was a lot of opposition to this emergency-room life support and a sense that it would not work, and that if it did, it would become a replacement for dealing with the deeper, more difficult issues," Bogaard said. "We were thankfully wrong on the first issue; it has provided a new opportunity for sockeye. But it has also been so politically easier to find the money to do this than deal with the real issues.

"It's more of the same, kicking the can down the road, and it's certainly not working for us," Bogaard said of the new sockeye hatchery.

Jim Lichatowich, author of "Salmon Without Rivers," sees agencies protecting their comfort zone, instead of salmon. "Building a large hatchery infrastructure to try to compensate for the dams is the status quo; it is the comfort zone for the management agencies," Lichatowich said. "Agencies get big budgets to run them, and politicians get credit for solving the problem. But the fact is... hatcheries haven't been measuring up, otherwise we wouldn't have so many salmon in the Columbia Snake Basin that are listed."

Jeff Heindel, deputy director of hatchery programs for Idaho, says he knows he faces skepticism, as Northwest ratepayers pour even more money into Snake River sockeye.

"Even my own mother thinks it's crazy," Heindel said. "If I can't sell it to her, I'm not sure I can sell it to the average Joe."

Larry's descendants

The extraordinary effort that has gone into preserving Snake River sockeye is not unusual. There are dozens of publicly funded efforts, most of them run by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, under way around the country to bank the genes of devastated populations of animals, from red wolves to black-footed ferrets. By definition, the programs require extreme measures to sustain small populations of animals in totally artificial settings.

In a building outside Boise, sockeye kept in the captive brood program circle in fiberglass pools. Fed on the hour, they are grown to adult size, graduating to ever-larger tubs. Exercise is provided by a jet of water sputtering in the tubs, against which the fish steadily swim.

They live somewhere between captive rearing and extinction; no longer wild animals, but not gone from the Earth, either.

"Slimy little suckers," says a technician as a fish he lifts to check for weight and length slides from his hands and hits the deck. Quickly picking it up and blotting its abundant slime with a paper towel, he measures the fish and puts it back, unharmed, in its tank. Fish techs dubbed the food that fattens these fish "beefcake." But while they will bulk up, captive-reared sockeye are slimier, dimmer in color and less fecund than the wild fish from which they descend.

Go back to the beginning, and you'll meet Lonesome Larry, so-called because he was the only sockeye to return to Redfish Lake in 1992. With no mate with which to spawn, Larry was injected with hormones to pump up his milt production; stripped of his gametes, killed, stuffed and mounted in a nearby nature center. His milt was stored in liquid nitrogen, to dribble out year by year.

Descended from Lonesome Larry and other founders of the captive brood, some of these fish in the baby pools every year are allowed conjugal visits to Redfish Lake to reproduce on their own, along with some fish returned to the lake after capture.

Amazingly, Heindel says, the fish reared in captivity still understand their primal task, and head to the southeast end of Redfish Lake, as their wild forebears did, to successfully spawn.

Today, every sockeye returning to the Stanley Basin of Idaho is trapped by the state's department of fish and game at its Sawtooth Hatchery and at Redfish Lake Creek. From there, they are driven two and a half hours to a hatchery complex outside Boise, where the captive brood program is located.

Driving six sockeye to Eagle one day last August, Dan Baker, manager of the Eagle hatchery, kept an eye on a dashboard light glowing green to assure him oxygen was still bubbling in the chilled water in the box in the back of the pickup.

He stopped at a gas station mid-journey, and popped the top to check on the fish, as a fluffy dog came tail-wagging over. One fish tipped its nose out of the water, making for the edge, but Baker was too quick for it, and thunked down the lid. "Haven't lost one yet," he said, climbing back into the truck.

A battery of technicians was waiting when he arrived, to work up the new fish. In less time than it takes to make a sandwich, they cataloged each fish, then scanned it for tags, measured it, weighed it, yanked off a scale with forceps to confirm the sockeye's age, clipped off a hunk of fin for DNA analysis, crunched a hole in its dorsal fin with a hole punch to snug on a zip-tie tag, and injected the fish with a hypodermic full of antibiotics plunged in its side.

A technician dropped the last, limp fish in a holding tank full of water dosed with disinfectant. From here, some of the fish would be trucked back to Stanley, and returned to spawn in Redfish Lake.

But for the rest, this was the end of the road: new genes for the captive brood.

Lynda V. Mapes: 206-464-2736 or lmapes@seattletimes.com. On Twitter @lyndavmapes.

1859 Editor, Kevin Max, caught up with David James Duncan, the author of The River Why, to explore a raft of ideas related to water. In the fall issue, now at retailers, Duncan tackles the notion of Water as Soul. That piece alone is a wonderful journey across the world, back through time and finally into the flesh of Duncan's mind. In this interview, he wades deeper into political, environmental and the film based on his novel.

1859:

By Lynda V. Mapes
March 2, 2022

A new calf was born to J pod of the southern resident orcas, Center for Whale Research director Ken Balcomb confirmed Tuesday morning.

But the birth to orca mother J37 is tempered with news of the loss of two other pregnancies in southern resident families. The endangered whales’ population is now 74.

Scientists John Durban and Holly Fearnbach, of the marine mammal research and rescue nonprofit SR3, reported that routine, noninvasive monitoring of the orcas by drone photography determined two of the three expecting orcas had lost their calves.

J19 and J36 appearing to have decreased significantly in body width, and neither had calves with them, the scientists reported.

“A calving rate of 1/3 of the documented pregnancies will, unfortunately, be consistent with the high rate of reproductive loss that has been documented in recent years by our drone studies and by hormone research conducted by the University of Washington,” the scientists stated.

“Unfortunately, reproductive loss has become normal for this population.”

The southern residents face at least three main threats to their survival: Underwater noise, pollutants, and lack of adequate Chinook salmon, their primary food source.

Lynda V. Mapes: 206-464-2515 or lmapes@seattletimes.com; on Twitter: @LyndaVMapes. Lynda specializes in coverage of the environment, natural history, and Native American tribes.

The southern resident killer whales have struggled to reproduce over the past several years, and lost three members just this year.

By Lynda V. Mapes
Seattle Times environment reporter

Another orca is ailing in the critically endangered family of southern resident killer whales.

K25, a 27-year-old male, documented in aerial photographs since 2008, is thinner right now than in previous years, scientists who regularly track the whales with drone photography have reported.

The trouble for K25 likely started with the loss of his mother, K13, in 2017, said John Durban, biologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Southwest Fisheries Science Center in a news release.

K25’s mother, like all matriarchs in the southern resident pods, helped K25 in capturing and sharing prey. Males rely on help from their mothers, and other family members, to meet their larger energy demands, Durban said. Long-term demographic monitoring has shown that adult males have an increased mortality risk following their mother’s death, highlighting K25’s vulnerability.

Durban said in an interview he had noticed while observing K25 in the field that the orca was lagging behind the rest of his pod. Swimming lethargically, he also was not surfacing with much energy. When he put up the drone, “We got those images and could see immediately that he had lost a lot of body condition compared to the previous year,” Durban said. “I see it as cause for concern. There has been a significant amount of decline, it is worth considering what actions can be taken.”

K25 is eating, Durban said. “He is certainly able to chase fish and forage, I think there is some hope,” Durban said. “I just hope he is able to find enough.”

The southern resident pod of killer whales has already suffered three losses this year, and is down to only 74 animals.

On a more hopeful note for the southern residents, aerial images collected this week also show K27, K25’s sister, to be heavily pregnant, along with a number of other females in J, K and L pods, which make up the southern residents. Whales carry their baby weight below the rib cage, just like humans, Durban said, enabling later-term pregnancies to be reliably documented from aerial images of body shape.

But no one should get their hopes up just yet. The southern residents are enduring a high rate of reproductive failure, and K27 has been documented to have aborted a fetus in recent years. Unsuccessful orca pregnancies and dead infant orcas are sadnesses all too familiar to people who watched Tahlequah, or J35, carry her dead calf for more than 1,000 miles and 17 days last July.

NOAA is asking whale watchers to keep an extra distance from the southern residents now with so many vulnerable whales. Orcas find their food by echolocation, and vessel disturbance hurts their ability to find food. The Pacific Whale Watch Association, the trade association of whale watch companies, as well as Soundwatch, a boater education nonprofit, have joined the call for boaters to keep further back.

Orca whales need about 385 pounds of fish — preferably chinook — every single day to thrive, and pregnant mothers need even more. Of the multiple problems driving the southern residents to extinction, lack of food is the biggest threat to their survival. They need all the help they can get right now to get enough food. Normal distance required by law is at least 200 yards, and 400 yards if your boat is in the path of traveling whales. Boaters are requested stay back further now, and to go slower to reduce underwater engine noise. If other vessels are already in the presence of the southern residents, wait your turn and stay away, to limit the number of vessels already around the whales.

“This is one action we all can take to be sure that these whales can forage peacefully at a critical time for them,” said Jeff Friedman, president of Pacific Whale Watch Association.

Lynne Barre, head of killer whale recovery for NOAA, said in a press release the photos of K25 are an early warning of the whale’s distress. No intervention is contemplated for the whale at this time, but the agency has a watch on his condition. K25 is not as bad off as J50, the severely malnourished 3-year-old orca that just died. Veterinarians never were able to determine exactly what was ailing her.

K25’s thinner body condition “is a warning signal,” she said.

Meanwhile, fish remained scarce for people, too.

Federal officials determined that commercial fisheries for salmon failed this year in Washington, Oregon and California, making those fisheries eligible for federal disaster assistance.

The governors from those three states and multiple Native American tribes had requested the determinations between July 2016 and March 2018. Their requests noted unusually warm and poor ocean conditions that affected fish.

The disaster determinations make salmon and sardine fisheries eligible for some portion of $20 million in NOAA Fisheries fishery disaster assistance. The Commerce Department is figuring out how to allocate that money to eligible fisheries.

Material from the Associated Press was used in this story.

Lynda V. Mapes: 206-464-2515 or lmapes@seattletimes.com; on Twitter: @LyndaVMapes. Lynda specializes in coverage of the environment, natural history, and Native American tribes.

March 5, 2025
By Lynda Mapes

Heat domes. Cold snaps. Winter storms — even as far away as Texas: extreme weather events are roiling power markets and spiking power prices for energy providers and their customers.

This increasing volatility — and mandates to decarbonize energy supplies, introducing more variable energy sources, such as wind and solar power — is driving big changes for regional utilities, including how they buy and sell power.

In play right now is a new alignment of Northwest utilities into centralized, organized energy markets.

Two power market operators are contending for their business: the Southwest Power Pool’s Markets+, based in Arkansas, and the California Independent System Operator. Both operators are seeking commitments from Northwest utilities.

This is a complex topic, so let’s step back to see what’s new.

Around the region, utilities buy and sell energy to meet customers’ needs, moving power around a connected power grid. That is not new.

What is changing is creation of these larger, centralized pools of utilities over a bigger geographic footprint, with an operator that optimizes trades not just minute to minute but for a whole day. That is intended to help utilities smooth challenges of variability in both weather and energy sources.

As these new market pools shape up, all eyes are on the Bonneville Power Administration.

A nonprofit federal administration, the BPA is self-funded by revenues from selling power and transmission services across 15,000 miles of high-voltage power lines. The juice comes from 31 federal dams and one nuclear plant, which produce about 32% of the power generated in the Northwest, sold wholesale to 142 retail customers — utilities large and small across 300,000 square miles in eight states.

Some get all their energy from BPA. Others, such as Seattle City Light, supplement their own generation with purchases from BPA. Typically, Seattle City Light gets 40% of its customers’ power from BPA — even more in low-water years, such as last year.

BPA has held multiple briefings, and workshops to help lead the process as the region remakes its energy market. BPA staff in a white paper last year recommended BPA jump in the pool operated by Markets+.

But with the players in the two power pools still shaping up, some powerful policymakers are urging BPA to pump the brakes.

Aligning with energy partners in the Southwest Power Pool’s Markets+ initiative is projected to be, under some scenarios, $79 to $129 million more costly in 2026 for Bonneville — and its ratepayers — compared to business as usual, according to a study commissioned by BPA. U.S. senators for the Northwest wrote in a letter to BPA Dec. 13 that there is no scenario evaluated in the study that demonstrated financial benefits in choosing the Markets+ alternative.

BPA counters that while initial costs in the first few years of Markets+ participation are more costly, those costs level out and BPA contends the long-term picture eventually is financially beneficial for customers.

But why eat extra cost? And why the hurry, the senators asked, and urged BPA to do nothing for now, and wait out changes expected in California law this session, that could put to rest concerns about governance of that market pool.

PacifiCorp, PGE, Seattle City Light and three major electrical worker unions in Portland, Tacoma and Seattle also urged BPA to change nothing for now a letter sent to BPA this week, urging BPA to avoid additional costs for customers already facing rate increases.

Heavy hitter customers that guzzle power, including Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Rivian, also in a public comment sent to BPA’s administrator stated Bonneville has not sufficiently taken into consideration the impact to ratepayers and any decision now is premature. A host of environmental groups and green energy advocates have also urged BPA to give this decision more time to more fully consider both economic and environmental impacts before making its move.

But with some area utilities already declaring their market preferences, BPA must make a decision, or will find itself isolated, with limited options, said Rachel Dibble, vice president for bulk power marketing at BPA. “We have to make a choice,” Dibble said. “Or everything will change around us and our options will be limited. Not to make a choice is a choice.”

Chelan, Grant County and Snohomish County PUDs and Tacoma Power have each already indicated a preference for Markets+. For Tacoma Power, the decision came down to reliability and independent governance, said Chris Robinson, general manager and chief operating officer for the utility.

Being hosted by a market run by a California entity didn’t seem like a good deal, Robinson said, and he didn’t want to wait on legislation in California to sort that out, either. “We have this opportunity right in front of us; we think it is important to move forward,” Robinson said.

But Dawn Lindell, general manager for Seattle City Light, isn’t feeling the Markets+ love. She said she is concerned about reliability and affordability for the utility’s customers.

“I want to know, do I have paths by which I can get the energy and send the energy, and is it what makes economic sense?” said Lindell. “We have 113,000 customers at or below 60% of average income, it matters a lot what we charge … I am looking for the least cost, most effective option.”

Weather events of the last four years compared with the previous 20 have gotten the utility’s attention, Lindell said, offering a graph that shows spikes in power prices on the market as jagged as the extreme temperatures that necessitated the power purchases.

“You can see climate change in the graph, it is very impactful over the last four years and every time we have a high (temperature) day or a low day, we have to go on the market and it is very expensive,” Lindell said.

“These weather events are driving the need for a very good and cost effective way of buying and selling energy.”

The larger storms wrought by climate change also make creation of a larger market into which to sell and from which to buy sensible — to escape weather patterns that spike prices. “Storms are stronger, last longer, and affect a much bigger land mass,” Lindell added.

“We need trading markets where the weather is different … I would love a ginormous footprint that covers a lot of ground, north and south, and we want as non-carbon emitting sources as we can find.”

BPA has announced it will make a preliminary decision on market choice March 6 and a final decision in May.

Seattle Times: Climate, energy upheavals roil Northwest power market

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Tahlequah, J35, carries her dead calf off Point Robinson, Vashon Island. The birth was confirmed on Christmas Eve, and the baby was confirmed dead on New Year’s Eve. She has been carrying the calf at least 11 days (Courtesy of Audrey Gao)Jan. 27, 2025
By Lynda V. Mapes

The stories of salmon and orcas in the Pacific Northwest are linked. Their paths intermingle in a vast web of ecosystems and coevolved species.

Salmon are struggling to survive. So are the families of endangered southern resident orcas, with a population of just 73, not improved in years. Their plight has been on full display, capturing worldwide attention yet again as mother orca Tahlequah this winter has carried her dead calf that lived only about a week.

She did the same thing in 2018, carrying another baby calf that lived only a half-hour, for 17 days and over 1,000 miles. Both lost calves were females, devastating for a population needing to rebuild.

The web of influences that impact orcas, especially the lack of salmon, reveals a stark lesson about climate change. It is a wrecker of the balance of life on which the natural world, which makes the Northwest so special, depends.

Widespread declines of wild Chinook salmon have hurt fisheries, tribal cultures and ecosystems that depend on the fish, especially the southern residents. They eat other fish but preferentially target Chinook, the biggest, fattiest salmon in the sea.

A key to orca survival is for more of the runs they depend on to improve, so they get enough food. Lack of regularly available, quality food is one of the biggest threats to their survival.

What salmon are hurting the most?

All three southern resident pods, or families, take fish from the Columbia and Snake rivers. Snake River spring/summer Chinook are of particular importance for their size and high fat content; they are crucial food in a lean season.

Declines in wild Snake River spring/summer Chinook over the past century were driven by overfishing and migration barriers, including dams, water diversions for irrigation, salmon farms and hatcheries. The species was federally listed as threatened in 1992 and has continued to dwindle toward extinction.

Now research shows salmon will be hammered by climate change in both their freshwater and ocean life stages. In streams, lethal conditions for salmon are predicted across the state. Interior Columbia Basin populations of salmon face the largest percentage loss of snow-dominated habitat, as temperatures warm, causing summer droughts and scouring winter floods.

In the ocean, rising surface temperatures also pose an overriding threat to salmon, upending ocean food webs and predator communities, scientists predicted in a 2021 paper.

What is Tahlequah telling us?

Scientists know this much for certain: Climate change is a killer even for the most productive Chinook spawning grounds in the Columbia Basin, threatening a life source for the southern resident orcas. The Chinook that orcas depend on for survival are under unprecedented threat due to warming sea surface temperatures and streams.

When they modeled predictions of climate change on the life cycle of the salmon, even the largest spring/summer Chinook populations today in the basin of the Salmon River crashed to near-extinction levels by 2060, with fewer than 50 adult fish returning to their spawning beds, the scientists found.

Negative effects from rising sea surface temperatures will drive most populations to extinction within this century, the scientists concluded.

Salmon are geniuses at adaptation. But even by running out to sea earlier, or shifting their run time back to the river by multiple days, they could not overcome the lethal effect of warming sea surface temperatures enough to beat extinction in a warming world, the scientists predicted.

What have been some salmon bright spots?

The good news is that where humans have made big changes for wild salmon recovery, salmon are responding.

On the Elwha, where two dams were taken down to recover the river’s legendary salmon runs, and habitat work continues, steelhead, coho and Chinook are coming back.

On the Upper Columbia, better water management has boosted sockeye to record runs in modern times, delighting sport fishermen and bringing precious food home to Upper Columbia tribes — even after crossing nine dams to get to spawning streams in British Columbia. The Okanagan Nation Alliance tribal communities got the breakthrough going, with an invitation to Canadian fisheries officials to work together with them and dam managers to help the run.

Meanwhile, work by the Nez Perce Tribe, in collaboration with other partners, has brought back the run of fall Chinook in the Snake River from near extinction to the most successful Chinook run on the river, benefiting sport and commercial fishermen, as well as tribal fishers.

And from the eastern side of Vancouver Island to Hood Canal, chum numbers saw a boost last fall, returning home in runs bigger than had been seen in decades. The chum boom follows decades of habitat work. Independent researcher Alexandra Morton also noted in a recent study that getting most of the Atlantic salmon fish farms out of a crucial migratory corridor for baby salmon east of Vancouver Island greatly reduced pathogens they encounter, including sea lice.

Three years after the fish pens came out, the 2024 chum runs kaboomed from Alert Bay in the Broughton Archipelago all the way to Puget Sound, with adult returns in this region increasing 10 to 20 times their usual numbers in one generation, Morton noted.

“The overarching feeling is incredible respect for these fish; chum were doing so poorly, it was theorized it was over for them,” Morton said. “Yet when we gave them something they need, they showed remarkable resilience; it was extraordinary.

When the fish came back, so did the orcas. Week after week last fall during the chum run, Morton listened to the sounds of the northern resident orcas — who like the southern residents primarily eat salmon — swimming past underwater microphones, their voices broadcast on speakers filling her home. The southern residents also visited central Puget Sound waters day after day last fall, chasing chum.

With climate change, what’s the outlook?

Perhaps an ecological surprise will occur, said Brian Burke, a supervisory biologist at the Northwest Fisheries Science Center in Seattle. What the future ocean will be like is not known. “How are those dynamics going to change?” Burke said.

But this much is certain: There is no easy way to fix declines in marine survival, he noted, and there certainly is no one silver bullet to recover Snake River Basin salmon runs, not even dam removal.

NOAA in a September 2022 report stated returning Columbia Basin salmon will require multiple fixes across all life stages of salmon, including dam removal on the Lower Snake River. Meanwhile, hunger stalks the southern residents.

Once producing 1.5 million Snake River spring/summer Chinook a year, today runs are 10% of that in a good conditions. “It would be like going to the grocery store and there is no food available,” said Rick Williams, co-author of the book “Managed Extinction” and fish biologist based in Eagle River, Idaho, about the decline of wild salmon in the Pacific Northwest.

Poor ocean conditions make it even more important to improve the freshwater habitat, Williams said.

“The ocean is going to be really hard to control and manage; the flip side of that is it makes it imperative that we do what we can in the freshwater environments,” Williams said. People can count on nature, though, he added. Given a chance, species of salmon in multiple Northwest rivers have shown they will rebound.

“The fish have the capacity to come back,” Williams said, “if we give them the opportunity.”

The Seattle Times: How Tahlequah, her dead calf tell the story of climate change

By Lynda V. Mapes
August 18, 2021

Skinny southern resident killer whales are two to three times more likely to die in the next year than whales in a healthy condition, new research shows.

In a paper titled, “Survival of the Fattest,” scientists used drone images taken between 2008 and 2019 of the J, K and L pods of endangered southern resident killer whales to explore the link between food and survival.

They found a clear connection: poor body condition in living whales is a good predictor of dead ones.

Published Wednesday in the scientific journal Ecosphere, the paper also documented that the Fraser River in B.C. and Puget Sound salmon runs are very important to J pod. In years when those river systems were producing Chinook — the orcas’ preferred food, especially in summer — J pod whales looked better. Surprisingly, L pod whales also had better body condition when Puget Sound rivers were pumping out fish.

That was not expected because L pod is rarely seen in Puget Sound. But L pod orcas clearly have learned to target fish homing to Puget Sound rivers while those adult Chinook are shimmering out at sea.

The paper vindicated the work of scientists who have been pioneering drone imagery as a noninvasive method to gather body-condition data, said John Durban, senior scientist with Southhall Environmental Associates.

He and Holly Fearnbach, of the nonprofit SR3, who led the image analysis for the paper, want to grow the data by imaging the whales during the rest of the year, to learn which rivers are sustaining them during the rest of their seasonal round.

The research definitively shows that imaging can detect relatively subtle conditions in body condition and link that directly to increased chance of mortality. “It’s an early warning system,” Durban said. “If we see early on we have large numbers of animals in poor condition, hopefully that could trigger a management response.

“Body condition relates to mortality and condition relates to Chinook salmon. We needed to establish that link in order to support a management response.”

The team did not draw any conclusions about K pod and river systems from this round of data.

The data also shows the orcas can’t be considered as one entity, Durban said; the J, K and L pods have their particular foraging patterns, and they change. Like any skilled fisherman, the southern residents know where, and when, the fishing is good — cultural knowledge passed on generation to generation and season to season.

The southern residents have long used the San Juan Islands as a primary summer foraging ground, but in recent years poor Fraser River runs have changed that. The orcas have barely been in the islands this summer.

For the southern residents, both salmon abundance and access to hunt them matter.

Orcas use sound to hunt and especially when fish are scarce, providing quieter water could be a near-term quick assist. Area closures to fishing and other uses could help the whales forage without disturbance by vessels and boats.

The data also could help managers change fishing regulations to respond if the orcas are in urgent need.

“The new research findings may also help fisheries managers find ways to increase the availability and accessibility of Chinook salmon,” said Lynne Barre, director of killer whale recovery for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA. “The goal is to increase availability in places and at times of the year when the whales most need them, while still providing fishing opportunity.” She said the research provides “a level of detail we did not have before.”

Abundance is also pivotal for orca survival.

That takes improvement in salmon habitat, from the rivers where salmon spawn and rear to the estuaries and the ocean where they put on nearly all of their body size and weight. Water temperature increases in the sea surface and in the rivers to which salmon return are threatening their survival. For some highly imperiled salmon, such as spring summer Chinook in the Snake River, scientists say urgent action is needed across all life stages to prevent extinction.

NOAA, in cooperation with states and tribes, also is increasing hatchery production by tens of millions of fish in what may be the world’s largest-ever attempted wildlife feeding effort. How many of those young fish ever return as adults and wind up as live orca chow is yet to be seen.

But with only 74 southern resident orcas left, knowledge is power to make a difference, said Joshua Stewart, lead author on the paper and a postdoctoral researcher at NOAA’s Southwest Fisheries Science Center.

“The thing we didn’t know was just how big of a deal it was if a whale was skinny,” Stewart said. “The thing we now know is just how big a deal it is, understanding that when you pass that critical risk tolerance threshold that something has to be done.”

Lynda V. Mapes: 206-464-2515 or lmapes@seattletimes.com; on Twitter: @LyndaVMapes. Lynda specializes in coverage of the environment, natural history, and Native American tribes.

Feb. 24, 2025 
By Lynda V. Mapes

Baby orca J62 is a female, scientists have confirmed, and looking great so far in her first month of life.

The birth of a healthy female calf is crucial for the southern resident orca families. With just 73 members, the pods need every female they can get to rebuild their numbers, noted Michael Weiss, research director for the Center for Whale Research.

“It’s especially great that we have a little female calf that appears to be healthy and normal. She appears to be filling out; we have no concerns about her,” Weiss said. In recent encounters, the baby was lively and social, “healthy and normal.”

For this population of whales, that is news. The southern residents have struggled to successfully reproduce, with the mothers losing as many as two-thirds of their calves. Scientists have linked the high rate of pregnancy failures to lack of adequate, quality food, especially Chinook salmon.

Mother orca Tahlequah, orca J35, shocked the world back in August 2018 by carrying her dead calf, which lived only 30 minutes, for 17 days and 1,000 miles. This Christmas, the region was delighted that Tahlequah gave birth again, only to be saddened by her once again carrying a calf that didn’t live to New Year’s.

It is not known how long Tahlequah carried the baby this time; she had been carrying the calf for at least 11 days when she and her family were seen in Haro Strait on Jan. 10 before heading out to sea. The southern residents in winter frequently travel the outer coast in search of food. J35 and her family were not seen again by scientists for weeks at a time. However on Feb. 8, she and her family returned to local waters, and she by then did not have the calf.

“That is to be expected,” Weiss said, as the carcass could not hold up that long no matter her efforts. J35 looked fine, he said. “She seemed to be doing well; she seemed herself. Her back looked nice and straight.”

She has two sons she continues to care for.

The southern residents are the only population of marine mammals in the Salish Sea struggling to survive. All the great whales — humpbacks and grays and the other populations of orcas are doing well, with their numbers increasing. The northern resident orcas, which like the southern residents are fish-eaters, also are growing in population.

But the southern residents are the most urban of the orcas and are plagued by at least three threats: lack of food, noisy waters that make it harder for them to hunt and contaminants in their food.

The Seattle Times: This baby orca is healthy and it’s a girl

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‘Every fraction of a degree matters,’ UW scientist says

By Evan Bush
August 10, 2021

SEATTLE — In the Pacific Northwest, shrinking glaciers, extreme heat waves, worsening droughts and acidifying oceans are all symptoms of climate change, which is affecting every corner of the globe and intensifying as emissions rise.

That’s according to a blunt assessment of our warming world, which says that it is “unequivocal” that humans are heating up the planet and doing so at a rate not seen in at least 2,000 years.

Many of the stark takeaways in this report — the sixth time researchers have assessed the physical science of climate change for the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change — are now familiar. But the numbers are more specific, the scientists are more confident, and the warnings are even more direct.

The last decade’s global temperatures were likely the hottest it’s been on Earth in 125,000 years. Carbon dioxide emissions were higher in 2019 than at any time in at least 2 million years, the report says.

“Climate change is really widespread and intensifying, and many of the changes are unprecedented in thousands of years,” said Kyle Armour, an associate professor and climate scientist at the University of Washington, who served as a lead author on the report. He added that climate change was affecting every region on Earth.

“Humans are responsible for all the warming we’ve seen in the last 100 years,” Armour said.

Some of climate change’s impacts — such as ocean acidification and surface temperatures — could be blunted or gradually reversed if humanity removes carbon from the atmosphere, the report says, but others, such as rising sea levels, will continue for centuries even if we draw net greenhouse-gas emissions down to zero, it says.

“There’s so much we are committing to over centuries and millenia that can’t simply be undone, and that’s the grim reality,” said Kim Cobb, the director of the global change program at Georgia Tech and a lead author of the report.

The world already has warmed by more than a degree Celsius since the 19th century. In each of the emissions scenarios the scientists considered, global temperatures reached at least 1.5 degrees Celsius higher than in preindustrial times, with some projections sending them far higher.

The report is broad, with little analysis specifically tailored to the Pacific Northwest. Still, its implications for the Pacific Northwest are myriad, and they foretell a landscape and ecology forever shifted.

Karin Bumbaco, the assistant state climatologist for Washington, said it was “sobering” to read that heat waves once expected every 50 years were projected to be 14 times more likely if the world warms by 2 degrees Celsius over preindustrial times.

At least 129 Washingtonians suffered heat-related deaths this summer, most of them in the wake of a record-breaking heat wave in late June.

“Heat is still on my mind,” said Bumbaco, who was not part of the IPCC report process.

Bumbaco noted also that the IPCC report authors — with high confidence — projected that marine heat waves, such as the 2015 “blob” that upended marine ecosystems and killed millions of marine animals, would become more frequent.

Fire weather is becoming more frequent in many regions of the world, including across the Western United States.

“The fire season is hotter, and it’s also lasting longer,” said Paola Andrea Arias Gómez, an IPCC author and associate professor at the School of the Environment at the University of Antioquia in Colombia.

Even if emissions are rapidly reduced, Washington’s shrinking glaciers will show climate change’s effects for decades.

“Even though we could potentially stabilize global climate by reducing emissions rapidly, there are some things in the climate system that are particularly slow to respond,” Armour said. “The glaciers would continue to melt for decades.”

Global seas are projected to rise for centuries, giving coastal communities, including those in Washington, headaches.

“Regardless of how quickly we get our emissions down, we’re likely looking at … about 6 to 12 inches of global average sea-level rise through the middle of the century,” said Bob Kopp, a lead author of the report and a climate scientist at Rutgers University. “But beyond 2050, sea-level projections become increasingly sensitive to the emission choices we are making today.”

For those bracing against climate shifts in their communities, the report felt heavy.

“Seeing it in print kind of changes the urgency,” said Alana Quintasket, a Swinomish Indian Tribal Community senator. The Swinomish reservation sits on Fidalgo Island and along Skagit Bay.

Quintasket worries about climate change’s effects on declining salmon essential to tribal life, impacts to an ancient clam garden that tribal members are reviving and changes to the reservation’s coastline.

“It’s daunting. I think about it every day. I experience it every day,” Quintasket said. “We have an enormous fight ahead of us.”

With aggressive action, surface temperatures could rebound faster, though the science suggests it could take decades.

“If we could magically turn off greenhouse-gas emissions tomorrow, we wouldn’t see temperatures fall the next day,” said Guillaume Mauger of UW’s Climate Impacts Group, adding that the report is clear about saying it could take 20 to 30 years to see temperatures fall. “We’re going to have to plan for changes.”

Armour said the world should understand by now what must be done: Emissions of heat-trapping gases like carbon dioxide and methane must drop rapidly.

“Every fraction of a degree matters. … Our future is up to us,” he said.

Scientists have identified man-made reservoirs as a huge source of heat-trapping methane. Will it be the last straw for Washington’s controversial dams?

Brett Cihon
Wed Oct 5th, 2016

http://www.seattleweekly.com/news/washingtons-big-dam-climate-nightmare/

In late August, Washington State University professor John Harrison boarded a plane at Portland International Airport. The scientist found his seat and took some time to dig through his briefcase and order his papers before takeoff.

Harrison slept a bit during the 10-hour flight to Amsterdam, the first leg toward his final destination of Minsk, Belarus. But the man with thinning brown hair and a permanent smile took much of the flight to examine data on ebullition rates, CO2 fluxes, and other complex sciences. He also took the chance to read over the statements he was slated to give at the international conference of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in Minsk.

Harrison was so engrossed in his preparations for the conference that he likely missed the chance to look out the window as the plane flew east toward the Atlantic. Had he looked out, though, he could have spotted the Bonneville, The Dalles, the John Day, or any of the other 60-odd hydroelectric dams in the Columbia River watershed area. Expansive walls of concrete, churning turbines, and the placid waterways behind them that provide irrigation for crops, water supplies for towns, recreation for boaters, and renewable sources of energy for just about everyone in Washington.

Renewable, yes. But clean? Not as such.

Much of the reason Harrison was flying to speak at the IPCC was to discuss findings from a synthesis study he co-authored, released in the Oct. 5 issue of the journal BioScience. The study calls into question hydroelectricity’s reputation as a climate-friendly source of energy. According to the study, reservoirs from around the world are an “important source of greenhouse gases (GHGs) to the atmosphere.” The study suggests Washington’s dams—from the expansive Grand Coulee down to the littlest blockade on a spring in King County—and the reservoirs behind them all pump out methane, a compound up to 85 times more potent a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.

The study also shows some of Washington’s reservoirs may produce more of the powerful greenhouse gas than most, as agricultural lands around the waterways feed the methane-producing organisms with the material they crave. And with more than 90 percent of Seattle’s energy coming from hydroelectric power, the study calls into question City Light’s claim of having a zero carbon footprint.

“Reservoirs and dams are not greenhouse-neutral,” Harrison says today.

Harrison may have missed looking out the window on his flight to Amsterdam. But his mind was certainly on dams and reservoirs—and how he could convince the IPCC and others to accept the latest numbers, and the stark conclusion he drew from them: “Through the construction of dams, people are changing the world we live in on a geologic scale.”

Looking at placid, serene reservoirs like Lake Sacajawea behind the Ice Harbor Dam on the Snake River, it’s easy to miss them as major carbon emitters. Gray smoke doesn’t billow from the surface of their waters; black soot doesn’t line their shores.

But, according to the 16-page Bioscience report, “Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Reservoir Water Surfaces: A New Global Synthesis,” and other recent studies, some reservoirs emit more greenhouse gases than fossil-fuel-based energy providers, such as natural-gas power plants.

Artificial reservoirs produce methane—a carbon atom bonded with four hydrogen atoms—in three key ways. First, the flooding of previously dry areas fuels a process called microbial decomposition. Put simply, microbial decomposition occurs when organic matter dies underwater, breaks down, and emits gas. Second, reservoirs often experience greater changes in water levels than natural lakes. During frequent water drawdowns, methane is released through increased ebullition—aka bubbling—rates, meaning that methane trapped in the reservoir is released more often.
 
The final way dams produce methane is by collecting organic materials that run into their reservoirs and decompose. The closer big reservoirs are to human activities like agriculture, the more methane they produce as organic materials like fertilizer wash into the reservoirs and then decompose. This is because, by their nature, reservoirs are typically oxygen-starved environments. When organic material decays in such environments, the gas produced is methane, whereas under normal circumstances it would emit more benign gases. This method is particularly pertinent in Washington’s reservoirs: As farmers fertilize the hops, wheat, grapes, and other crops crowding the Columbia River Basin, for example, those organic materials get washed away, end up in reservoirs, and slowly break down in the oxygen-starved environment best suited for methane production.

Until recently, the study’s authors say, only reservoirs in tropical areas were thought to be potent sources of methane. But after gathering data from all parts of the world, their study shows almost no difference in the amount of powerful greenhouse gases emitted from tropical vs. temperate reservoirs. “Temperate reservoirs were surprisingly more active than previously thought,” Harrison says. “New studies in places like Oregon and Washington have shown reservoirs can be very active in [releasing] methane to the atmosphere.” The study shows the amount of gas released was greatly underestimated: “Acre-to-acre methane production is about 25 percent higher than previously suggested,” Harrison says.

And pound for pound, methane is a much stronger greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide in the short term. For example, if one molecule of methane and CO2 are each released on the same day, 10 years later the molecule of CH4 will have about 85 times more radiating force—the force that traps heat—than CO2. After 20 years, methane’s power depletes and has only about 70 times the radiating force; after 100 years, about 34 times the force; and so on until the gas breaks down entirely. So methane’s radiating force is able to heat the atmosphere much quicker than CO2, explains Abby Swann, an assistant professor with the UW Department of Atmospheric Sciences. “The methane is going to be a really, really good trapper,” she says. “With CO2, you’re guaranteeing that trapping of heat for a really, really long time.”

The BioScience authors estimate that the world’s reservoirs produce 1.3 percent of all human-caused GHG emissions on a 100-year timescale. That’s comparable to the amount of GHGs coming from rice patties or biomass burning, the authors say, and roughly equivalent to Canada’s total production of human-caused GHG. And that number is doubled—if not more—in the short term because of methane’s radiating properties, Harrison says. While that percentage will decrease as the methane weakens, it’s the short term that could be more important for the climate, says Rebecca Neumann, a UW professor of civil and environmental engineering. As the world’s global average temperature speeds toward the important benchmark of 2 degrees Celsius higher than pre-industrial levels, eliminating methane could more quickly curb temperature increases. “If we’re trying to mitigate near-term climate change, methane would be one place to put some effort,” Neumann says. “It can have some impact on a short time scale.”

Since methane is a much more powerful gas, reservoirs don’t need to release epic loads of it to put them on the same level as some carbon-based power plants. A 2013 study in Environmental Science and Technology estimates that about 10 percent of hydroelectric reservoirs produce more greenhouse gases per unit energy generation than CO2 emissions from natural gas combined-cycle plants. In other words, though natural-gas energy releases many more molecules of CO2 than reservoirs release CH4, some reservoirs are bigger GHG producers because of methane’s potency. And, with the recent BioScience paper asserting previous CH4 production rates were underestimated, it’s possible that a lot more than 10 percent of reservoirs are worse GHG producers than natural-gas power plants.

The world—and certainly Washington—loves hydroelectric power. More than a million dams are in existence around the globe, a 2011 study shows. And many more are on the way as countries turn to renewable sources for their energy consumption.

The problem, Harrison says, is that governments are jumping to hydroelectric without recognizing the costs. Thus his trip to Belarus, urging the multination IPCC to include methane emissions from reservoirs into countries’ allotted GHG budget. As of right now, they’re not; they’re slipping through the cracks as countries try to reach their emission goals. “The problem is people aren’t considering it,” Harrison says.

Washington certainly doesn’t appear to be considering it, either. In a state with more than 1,000 dams—a few with reservoirs stretching over 50 miles long—concern about CH4 production seems nonexistent. Seventy percent of the state’s energy comes from hydroelectricity, with most of that coming from eight of the state’s 10 largest power plants on the Columbia and Snake rivers. The city of Seattle receives more than 90 percent of its energy from hydroelectric plants, and touts the figures. A page from the city’s website reads: “With more than 90 percent of Seattle’s electricity generated from clean, hydroelectric power, it means something. It means we all enjoy low rates, and we can hold our chins high knowing that our electricity is 100 percent carbon-neutral.”

Lynn Best, environmental officer at Seattle City Light, says the methane issue is not new. Other science on the subject shows that Seattle City Light’s major dams—Ross, Diablo, Gorge, and Boundary—don’t produce any more methane than a forest floor, she says.

Citing a 2004 study, Best says methane production at the four dams is almost nonexistent because of the prevalence of oxygen and their low intake of organic material. The city has even hired an independent evaluator with the Climate Registry to look into the dams’ methane emissions, she says. No methane emissions were included in the evaluator’s report of possible GHGs from Seattle City Light. “I think I want to be very clear,” Best says. “We really don’t see any evidence of methane or any measurable quantities of methane coming out. The fact that it’s oxygen-rich makes it highly unlikely that there’s any meaningful production of methane.”
 
Best did emphasize, however, that she has not seen the latest study in BioScience. She said the city will certainly take a look at it and consider its implications for a grid with a vast majority of its power coming from hydroelectric. “Our idea of good inventory is to be as accurate as we possibly can,” Best says. “It sounds like they’ve done an extensive study.”
 
Harrison, for his part, says that out of the 75 reservoirs measured in the BioScience study, all were shown to release methane. That includes four reservoirs from Washington—Cle Elum, Keechelus, Kachess, and Lacamas—which have fairly similar base characteristics to the Seattle City Light dams. “All of the reservoirs we studied were net sources of methane to the atmosphere,” Harrison said when asked if it’s possible a reservoir could have no emissions. “From what we studied, it can’t be true.”

The study has implications in other places in the state, too. Earlier this year, a federal judge urged consideration of the removal of four dams on the Lower Snake River—Ice Harbor Dam, Lower Monumental Dam, Little Goose Dam, and Lower Granite Dam—in an effort to save salmon runs, which are seriously imperiled by the concrete obstructions. The dams’ removal would be a massive undertaking, and is often lobbied against with the argument that the four decades-old dams provide clean sources of energy. Joseph Bogaard, executive director at Save Our Wild Salmon and proponent of the Lower Snake River dam removal, believes some hydroelectric power can never be considered clean, even if reservoirs didn’t produce a single bubble of methane. “It can’t possibly be called clean because it’s sending salmon into extinction,” Bogaard said.

The cost and benefits of the dams on the Lower Snake need to be constantly re-evaluated, Bogaard says, especially as new studies are released. If the reservoirs produce a sizable amount of CH4, this needs to be factored into a cost-benefit analysis. He says that with clean energy as the only ace dam proponents have left up their sleeve, they’re increasingly left without an argument. As dams continue to damage salmon runs and are shown to produce GHGs, it’s time to move to newer energy sources that are more in line with the state’s goals, he says.

“We have options here,” Bogaard says. “We can stick with old, harmful technologies, or we can seize opportunities to innovate and look forward to the future.”

Of course, Bogaard, Harrison, and others are not suggesting the state tear out every dam from Diablo down to The Dalles. The state has vast energy needs that must be met. Besides, dams and their reservoirs have functions other than power production—irrigation and flood control, for example.
 
And, Harrison and co-author Bridget Deemer argue, steps can easily be taken to help mitigate reservoirs’ methane production. With nutrient inflows a huge factor in the amount of CH4 reservoirs produce, imagine gutters along the sides of dams, filtering out some organic material before it reaches the reservoir. Or simply siting new dams upstream of farmlands. “Nutrient controls could be an important piece of planning,” Deemer says.

Deemer and Harrison also hope to see more reservoir-specific studies. For Washington and Seattle to get a better handle on how much CH4 is let into the atmosphere, more precise measurements at area dams need to be made. “You can always guess to how the world is working,” Harrison says. “But until you measure it and know for sure, you don’t know.”

But the first step is accepting the reality that reservoirs produce methane in the first place. Harrison says his talk in front of the IPCC was well-received, and the body appears to be moving to a place where they mandate that countries monitor GHG emissions from reservoirs. His hope is that by 2019, reservoirs will be included in national inventories of GHG emitters.

Once these facts are accepted and added to the complex narrative of how best to curb climate change, then other decisions can be made, Deemer says. The goal is to dispel the myth of hydroelectric as a completely clean source of energy, while not damning it entirely.

“Any form of alternative energy has its cost,” Deemer says. “There are costs, and we have to look at these. It’s just one piece of the puzzle that needs to be factored in.”

news@seattleweekly.com

Dave Nichols
August 24, 2020

The Columbia and Snake rivers have been providing sustenance throughout the northwest since man first inhabited the region – first directly via the salmon that swim through their waters, then through irrigation and power generated by those waters.

Over the generations, the methods used to harness the power of those mighty rivers have taken their toll. When combined with the larger-scale plight of the planet, the cumulative effect is deadly to the original harvest and throughout the food chain.

While government agencies and conservation groups wrestle with how best to protect the native salmon that live and spawn in the waters of the Columbia and Snake, the bottom line is that due directly to human-generated factors, those waters themselves are becoming incapable of sustaining their inhabitants.

Last week, the National Marine Fisheries Service approved an application allowing the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife and partners to expand a program to lethally remove sea lions preying on threatened and endangered salmon and steelhead in the Columbia River basin.

But sea lions aren’t the greatest enemy of salmon – science and research has determined that to be climate change and hydroelectric dams.

Robb Krehbiel, northwest representative of the Defenders of Wildlife, described the problem.

“The EPA recently did an analysis of the Snake and Columbia river dams, because the state of Washington has told the federal government ‘Hey these dams are in violation of our Clean Water Act standards,’ which says that you have to keep your water below 68 degrees in salmon-bearing rivers. So the EPA did analysis to try to figure out where (the temperature rise) is coming from and they concluded that the majority of that heat is created because of the presence of those dams.”

Despite acknowledging the science, federal agencies have defended keeping dams on the lower Snake River.

On July 31, federal agencies, including the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, released their final environmental impact statement for 14 federal dams in the Columbia River basin, which decided that the dams should stand.

Most environmentalists, and even the Corps as far back as the 2002 EIS, have acknowledged that removing these dams are the best chance to save endangered salmon, along with the Southern Resident killer whales in the Puget Sound that rely on them for food.

“The federal failure to remove the dams despite clear supporting science is a disaster for our endangered salmon and orcas,” said Sophia Ressler, Washington wildlife advocate at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Dam removal is the only solution that protects these iconic animals. By neglecting this option, these agencies have let down our region and our wildlife.”

Krehbiel said a 2019 WDFW study concluded the drastic measure of killing sea lions likely wouldn’t be successful.

“We could kill a lot of seals and not get a ton of salmon back and we’re probably going to make a lot of people upset in the process.”

Habitat restoration and dam removal have consistently yielded higher salmon runs.

“People need to think critically about this issue and question what they are hearing from pro-dam supporters,” said Jim Waddell, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (retired) and founder of the nonprofit Dam Sense, in a statement. “The EIS is certainly not the final word. The Corps can still respond to political and public pressure by placing the dams in non-operational status and starting to breach them this year.”

According to reports, currently only 72 Southern Resident orcas remain. These orcas, which are based in the Puget Sound but migrate along the West Coast, are starving to death as their primary food source, chinook salmon, continue to face significant declines in the region.

As the region continues to suffer the hottest temperatures of the summer, salmon in the Snake and Columbia rivers are likely to be severely impacted.

Most people think of the dams as impediments to recreational fishing, or impediments to salmon being able to navigate the rivers to spawning grounds – both accurate statements.

But Krehbiel says those issues aren’t the main problem.

“I think that is one of the biggest issues with the dams, especially on the lower Snake River but also on the Lower Columbia River – fish passage is sure still an issue for both adults and juveniles, and that’s what a lot of people think about when they think about these dams and the impact that they have to the fish. But really one of the more concerning issues is the temperature that they are creating.”

Dams create stagnant pools that allow the sun to heat the water to lethal levels, literally cooking the fish alive. Water above 68 degrees is bad for salmon and steelhead – it makes them more susceptible to disease and predation. As water gets hotter, salmon start to die off.

As the daytime highs across the state linger in the upper 80s and 90s, the water temperature rises with them.

“Every single reservoir behind the four lower Snake and four lower Columbia dams are all over 68 degrees,” said Krehbiel. “So it’s a big concern that the water has been this hot for so long in both of these rivers, and with climate change it’s only going to get worse.”

Current temperature projections list August as the second-hottest month of the year in Washington so far.

Computer and climate models from the EPA and independent researchers have shown that the four lower Snake River dams are a major cause of this hot water and removing them would keep water temperatures on the lower Snake and lower Columbia well below the 68-degree threshold. To survive, salmon need access to the climate-resilient spawning habitat found in the Northwest.

Krehbiel acknowledges that it’s a multilayered problem. But he also thinks there’s reason for hope.

“For a long time, folks were kind of hesitant to talk about the Snake River dams because they do provide a lot of services to people, and taking them down would require a lot of investments to be made to offset those services.”

Some of those investments, suggested Krehbiel, would be to extend rail infrastructure throughout the state, modernize and extend irrigation systems and invest in renewable energy sources to supplement and eventually replace the carbon-free electricity produced by the dams.

“I don’t think that these are all things that are out of the question,” he said. “It just takes a lot of work and it takes a lot of people coming together to have those difficult conversations.

“We really need our elected officials to weigh in and sort of bring folks together to create that sort of holistic solution.”

Krehbiel was encouraged by statements made by lawmakers following the EIS, stating that Govs. Jay Inslee, Kate Brown and Brad Little all recognize the issues and the need to find appropriate solutions.

“There’s a lot of conversations happening, there’s a lot of new moral leadership emerging amongst our elected officials,” Krehbiel said. “I just hope that we collectively act with the sense of urgency that’s needed, given how dire the situation is for salmon on the river and our Southern Resident orcas, who are highly endangered and starving to death.”

It’s also important to remember that the lack of salmon is significantly impacting Native American tribes throughout the Columbia Basin.

“Virtually every single tribe that commented on this process said that removing the four lower Snake River dams was what they wanted to see happen,” Krehbiel said.

The impact salmon have on tribal culture, religion and ceremony is far-reaching. It’s also a food justice and food security issue.

“This is not just an issue about wildlife in the environment,” Krehbiel said. “I think it is just as much an issue about people and social justice.”

So while some folks consider salmon a recreation opportunity or a choice for dinner, for others throughout the Pacific Northwest ecosystem it’s the identity of the region.

“It’s so much more than just the fish and I hope that more people see that and recognize that because salmon are just an amazing animal,” Krehbiel said.

“It would just be devastating if this generation or the next generation is the one that lets them go extinct.”

July 26, 2019

By Eric Barker, The Lewiston Tribune

Steelhead anglers and fans of the fish hoping for better returns this year, especially for the large B-run fish, may want to lower their expectations. Fisheries managers for the Idaho Department of Fish and Game are expecting another poor return to the Snake River and its tributaries and a devastatingly low number of B-run steelhead bound for the Clearwater River. Alan Byrne, an Idaho Fish and Game biologist at Boise, said the state expects about 60,700 steelhead to return at least as far as Lower Granite Dam this fall. That includes 55,100 A-run steelhead that tend to spend one year in the ocean, and 5,600 B-run steelhead that usually spend two years at sea. Byrne said the A-run will include about 35,950 hatchery fish that have had their adipose fins clipped, making them available for harvest, and another 2,250 unclipped hatchery fish. Wild A-run steelhead will number about 16,950. The B-run is looking much worse. Of the 5,600 fish expected to return, just 4,130 are forecast to be clipped hatchery fish. Another 770 unclipped hatchery fish are expected to return, and just 665 wild fish are expected. He said the B-run is likely to be similar to returns in 2017, when the agency implemented rules restricting the harvest of bigger steelhead. He also noted that if the modest prediction for the A-run return proves overly optimistic, it will be a tough year for anglers. Last year, about 94,700 steelhead were counted at Bonneville Dam on the Columbia River. This year, regional fisheries managers are expecting about 118,000 to return at least as far as Bonneville. “It’s not very good compared to the last 10 to 20 years, but better than our actual run last year,” Byrne said. “But if the one-ocean component (A-run steelhead) is a no show, that forecast at Bonneville is likely optimistic.” The run, measured at Bonneville Dam, is tracking behind last year’s. “We are behind last year and if you remember last year’s run it was one of the lowest we have had since the mid-1970s,” Byrne said. “I’m not going to get too overly concerned yet. If this continues into the first week of August, then it is starting to get worrisome.”

January 29, 2019 By Jim Camden OLYMPIA – Just as salmon and orcas are tied together in the Northwest ecosystem, they are being constantly linked in legislative discussions this year. Proposals for new water projects, to fight climate change and possibly even test a new system to shoot fish over river-blocking dams in plastic tubes, emphasize the positive effects on salmon, which in turn could help keep the southern resident orca pod from going extinct. “The orcas are going to need us to do a lot of big things and a lot of little things,” Leonard Forsman, of the Suquamish Tribe, told the House Rural Development, Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee The link is obvious: Salmon, particularly the chinook variety, are the orcas’ favorite meal; low numbers of the former generally coincide with declining numbers of the latter. On Tuesday, Forsman and other members of the Southern Resident Killer Whale Task Force urged the committee to approve a long list of changes to state law aimed at helping salmon. Among the recommendations are giving the Department of Fish and Wildlife more enforcement authority over certain water projects, which would require plans “for the proper protection of fish life.” The department would offer technical assistance to correct violations and to issue stop-work orders, and civil penalties for those who don’t comply. It would also remove bass, channel catfish and walleye – which can prey on young migrating salmon – from the list of game fish that require a fishing license. “This is not trumped up,” said Jay Manning of the Puget Sound Partnership Leadership Council. “Without salmon recovery, orca recovery is unlikely.” Also on Tuesday, Gov. Jay Inslee announced the state Department of Ecology is proposing increases in the amount of water that will be spilled over eight dams – four on the Lower Snake River and four on the Columbia – this spring and the next two as a way of determining whether it will help more young salmon survive the trip to the ocean. The goal is to spill more water without reducing the amount of power generated by the dams. The Bonneville Power Administration, which manages the dams, has negotiated an agreement to allow more spills, and the Ecology Department has authority over the amount of dissolved oxygen and nitrogen that can be in that water. “This is an important short-term action we can take to help inform our decisions about what will work over the long term,” Inslee said in announcing the proposal. Later Tuesday, the Senate Agriculture Water, Natural Resources and Parks Committee considered a proposal to sell about $5 billion in bonds, and spend $500 million every two years, to improve systems that store water, reduce flooding and stormwater pollution, and remove barriers that keep salmon and steelhead from getting upstream to spawn or downstream on their journey to the ocean. The state faces a court order to remove inadequate culverts and other infrastructure that blocks streams. The committee also heard a pitch from a company that says it has a better and cheaper way than fish ladders to get adult salmon over the dams and juvenile salmon downstream. Whooshh Innovations displayed a system that sprays salmon with water as it pushes them with air pressure through large plastic tubes. Vince Bryan, chief executive officer of Whooshh, said fish that are transported with that system end up farther upstream than those that climb a fish ladder, and “are not damaged and stressed out.” The system also scans each fish so it can separate and cull out invasive species from the salmon. The company is asking for state support and $2.1 million to test the system this year, with a scanner at Bonneville Dam, the first one on the Columbia-Snake system, to get data on every fish that goes upriver and a transport system at Chief Joseph Dam, the last dam, during the summer chinook season. Sen. Kevin Van de Wege, D-Sequim, said committee members seem interested in the system, and would be willing to send letters of support to Congress and federal agencies, but made no promises about financialsupport. “Hopefully, you’ll show up in our capital budget and operating budget,” Van de Wege said.

September 26, 2013

Becky Kramer 

Salmon runs to the Upper Columbia River and its tributaries went extinct in the 1930s when Grand Coulee Dam was built without fish ladders. Now it’s time to investigate salmon passage over the 550-foot-high dam, including the possibility of restoring runs up the 1,200-mile river system and into British Columbia, according to a draft recommendation from federal agencies, Northwest states and 16 Indian tribes.

The draft recommendation is part of a regional review of the 1964 Columbia River Treaty, which is up for renegotiation beginning next year. Located 90 miles west of Spokane, Grand Coulee was built to provide cheap power and irrigation during the Great Depression. The reservoir behind the dam flooded Kettle Falls, eliminating what was once one of the nation’s most prolific salmon fisheries.

For decades, Northwest tribes, First Nations in Canada and even sport fishing groups have dreamed of restoring salmon runs above Grand Coulee. “That’s been a goal ever since the dam was built,” said Michael Finley, chairman of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation, whose ancestors fished at Kettle Falls. “My grandparents and my parents have talked about it as long as I can remember.”

During the 1930s, engineers considered building a flume and an elevator to collect salmon and transport them over the Grand Coulee, but they determined that the dam was too tall. Trapping adults below the dam and hauling them upstream was rejected as too costly. Hatcheries eventually were built to help compensate for the loss of the runs.

With the Columbia River Treaty up for review, the opportunity for a serious re-examination of fish passage over Grand Coulee emerged. Written before most federal environmental laws took effect, the U.S.-Canadian treaty is narrowly focused on hydropower and flood control. Federal agencies, the tribes and Northwest states favor amending the treaty to address ecosystem functions, such as salmon and climate change, in addition to electric generation, water storage, transportation and recreation.

The United States and Canada should share the cost of engineering studies to evaluate and possibly construct fish ladders over Grand Coulee and Chief Joseph Dam, a downstream dam that also blocks fish passage, according to the draft recommendation released last week.

If fish passage can be achieved, both nations should also share the cost of re-establishing salmon runs above the dams, the recommendation said. Public comment on the draft recommendation will be accepted through Oct. 25, said Mike Hansen, a spokesman for the Bonneville Power Administration. In mid-December, the treaty recommendation will be sent to the U.S. State Department, which will decide whether renegotiating the treaty is in the national interest.

Re-establishing salmon runs above Grand Coulee Dam would benefit the entire Northwest, not just the tribes, said Liz Hamilton, executive director for the Northwest Sportfishing Industry Association in Portland.

She represents charter boats, fishing guides and others in the region’s $3 billion sport fishing industry.
The summer chinook runs that once migrated through Washington en route to British Columbia were the stuff of legend. Called “June hogs,” they weighed as much as 80 pounds, said Hamilton, who keeps a picture of a man standing next to a summer chinook in her office.

She said the Northwest can be proud of its hydropower system while acknowledging that mistakes made during its development need to be fixed. The destroyed salmon fishery at Kettle Falls was “like Wall Street” in terms of its economic importance to American Indians, said Hamilton.

Sunday, August 9, 2015

By Becky Kramer

NAKUSP, British Columba – Crystal and Janet Spicer grew up in a white-frame farmhouse on 60 fertile acres along the Columbia River in Canada. Their dad was a local legend for the asparagus and other row crops he produced from the rich, loamy soil.

After surviving the aerial gunfights of World War II, Christopher Spicer – a veteran of Britian’s Royal Air Force – immigrated to British Columbia in search of a quiet life on a farm. At Nakusp, he found land he liked, along with a woman who shared his love for growing things. They settled down to raise twin girls.

But bigger forces were at work, which would disrupt the Spicers and hundreds of other Canadian families living along the river.

Chris Spicer’s farm was flooded by Hugh Keenleyside Dam, one of three massive storage reservoirs built in Canada as a result of the 1964 Columbia River Treaty. Half a century later, the dams still incite resentment in some B.C. residents, who felt their government sold out to downstream U.S. interests in Washington and Oregon. As the two nations prepare to renegotiate the treaty, they want changes in how the dams operate.

Most Northwest residents have never heard of the treaty dams, but they benefit daily from their presence.

The reservoirs behind Hugh Keenleyside, Duncan and Mica dams store 15.5 million acre feet of water, enough to refill Lake Coeur d’Alene seven times.

During drought years – like this one – Canada releases water from the reservoirs to help keep turbines turning at U.S. dams downstream and to provide river flows for migrating salmon and steelhead.

When Northwest electricity use shoots up during the winter months, water from Canada boosts hydropower generation in the U.S. When Portland and other cities are threatened by flooding, Canada holds back water behind the dams.

Both countries have benefited from the treaty, which coordinates flows along the 1,270-mile river.

Building reservoirs in Canada increased downstream electric generation by about 1,000 megawatts, nearly enough to power a city the size of Seattle. Canada gets an annual payment of about $250 million for that electricity.

But residents of Nakusp and other B.C. communities have never forgotten they were part of a “sacrifice zone,” with their lands flooded to provide benefits to faraway urban areas, mostly in the U.S.

The dams were built over the span of a decade in the 1960s and ’70s, creating social upheaval still felt today, said Eileen Delehanty Pearkes, a Nelson, B.C., resident and author of a forthcoming book, “A River Captured,” about the Columbia River Treaty.

“I don’t think Americans have any idea what the cost was to this region. Many Canadians have no idea, either,” Pearkes said. “It happened so fast that it left a deep scar.”

Nakusp, a picturesque town about five hours north of Spokane, is located on the 150-mile long reservoir behind Hugh Keenleyside Dam.

At the edge of town, the Columbia rises and falls as much as 70 feet – about the height of a nine-story building. In early spring, the river is drawn down to make room for later runoff, exposing mudflats that dry out and blanket the town with choking dust storms.

The city’s swimming beach is high and dry this summer because of water releases to augment flows on the Lower Columbia. The reservoir is 20 feet lower than normal for this time of year, and it’s scheduled to drop another 15 feet in August.

“It’s major for us. We’re living with the impacts every day,” said Karen Hamling, Nakusp’s mayor.

She and others are pushing for less extreme fluctuations in water levels.

The B.C. government has commissioned a study on operating Canadian reservoirs at more stable levels, which will be out later this year. If Canada moves that direction, there would be downstream effects.

Big fluctuations in water levels behind B.C. dams allow U.S. reservoirs to operate at more constant levels, Pearkes said. One example is Lake Roosevelt, the reservoir behind Grand Coulee Dam. Despite the drought, water levels are within three feet of full pool this summer.

For Crystal and Janet Spicer, the reservoir issue is deeply personal. Hugh Keenleyside Dam was named for a Canadian diplomat who became a co-chairman of BC Hydro, the government corporation that built and operates the treaty dams.

The sisters remember the day Keenleyside stood in their yard, shouting at their dad. Chris Spicer had organized a group of farmers opposed to the dam’s construction. Two proud, unyielding men faced off that day.

“Hugh Keenleyside said Dad should be grateful to BC Hydro for taking his family away from this decrepit farmhouse,” Crystal Spicer said.

Shortly afterward, Chris Spicer had the first of two major heart attacks. His family attributed them to stress.

“It truly touched his soul,” Janet Spicer said. “When you’re a farmer, you live the land in every way. Then you see the water coming in and covering everything you love.

A dam-builder’s dream

The Columbia River gets its start in British Columbia’s snowy interior. Canada’s portion of the watershed is a dam-builder’s dream, with narrow valleys bordered by steep mountains.

When U.S. engineers started looking for places to build additional storage reservoirs in the 1940s, they quickly realized the best spots were north of the border. British Columbia was an eager ally in the effort.

Both governments had their eye on the kilowatts to be gained from damming the river in Canada and strategically running that water through downstream hydropower plants. Preventing floods was also a consideration.

In 1948, the Columbia experienced its second-highest flows on record, with a million cubic feet of water roaring down the river. The floods caused millions of dollars in damage from Trail, B.C., to Portland. More than 50 people were killed, and 30,000 lost their homes. The city of Vanport, Oregon, an African-American community north of downtown Portland, was destroyed when a dike broke and the Columbia flooded the low-lying city.

For the Spicer family, 1948 was a landmark year as well. Chris Spicer and his wife, Jean, bought an old dairy farm in Nakusp. They set out to make it an agricultural showpiece.

In Jean, Spicer had found his soulmate – she’d graduated from the University of British Columbia with a botany degree. While he cultivated fields, she planted flower bulbs along the irrigation ditches for beauty.

Spicer embraced a vegetarian diet and tilled his farm by hand. Photographs depict a wiry man with prominent cheekbones: He topped 6 feet but seldom weighed more than 130 pounds. From watermelons to peanuts to zucchini, the Spicer farm grew a variety of fruits and vegetables. The produce was shipped to market by truck and boat.

“It fed from here to Nelson,” Crystal Spicer said of the farm. “We didn’t need California. People ate what Dad grew.”

Chris Spicer’s dream of the perfect farm lasted about a dozen years, his daughters said. The U.S. ratified the Columbia River Treaty in 1961, and Canada’s approval came three years later. The construction of Hugh Keenleyside Dam started soon afterwards.

When the reservoir filled in 1969, it flooded the farm’s best fields. Additional acreage was condemned for a highway relocation. After five years of arbitration, Spicer accepted a settlement. He and Jean were allowed to stay in their farmhouse, but it was to be burned when he died.

About 2,300 Canadians were displaced by the construction of the three treaty dams and Libby Dam in Montana, which was also built as the result of the treaty. It’s reservoir extends 42 miles into Canada.

The treaty wasn’t a shoo-in in Canada, said Pearkes, the author. Opponents questioned whether the Canadian government bargained hard enough on payments for flood control and electricity. Families living on the river lobbied against it.

Maxfield

On a crisp day in March, Charlie Maxfield walked the along the mudflats south of Nakusp, remembering places that were flooded when the reservoir behind Hugh Keenleyside Dam filled.

Maxfield’s dad was a country doctor who made house calls in the communities up and down the river. As a youngster, Maxfield often accompanied him to the small farms, orchards and woodlots. Through the 1960s, it wasn’t unusual to see a bunch of barefoot kids scamper out of the house, the girls in flour-sack dresses.

“Doc, I can’t pay you, but I just butchered a cow,” Maxfield recalls farmers telling his dad. “When we unpacked the trunk, there would be half a sack of potatoes, a box of apples, and maybe a fish or two wrapped up in oil cloth.”

It galls him to see sterile mudflats in place of productive land.

“The Americans have access to a lot of the downstream benefits from the Canadian dams,” he said. “We’re basically holding tanks.”

“Federal bureaucrats went into high gear,” Pearkes said. Part of their strategy was to portray local residents as backwoods hicks.

“People here were compared to people in Appalachia or the Ozarks,” said Charlie Maxfield, 71, a retired logging contractor who grew up in Nakusp. “They realized it wouldn’t be a big deal to move people, to take their properties. There weren’t a lot of people here to bitch about what they were doing.”

While some families were glad to accept buyouts, others remain bitter about how the B.C. government treated them. Payments for the condemned land were low and government negotiators were high-handed.

The people most affected by the dams’ construction weren’t consulted, said Kathy Eichenberger, executive director for B.C.’s treaty review team. But that wasn’t unusual for the 1950s and ’60s, when governments were pushing for rapid industrialization and modernization.

“It was a different era,” Eichenberger said. “It wasn’t the norm to consult communities. Had this vision been developed today, the process would be much different.”

The treaty transformed the province. It kicked off a period of rapid dam-building in British Columbia, which gets about 90 percent of its electricity from hydropower.

Gadbois

Brian Gadbois, 63, grew up at Revelstoke, a Columbia River town north of Nakusp. When part of his family’s 10 acres was condemned, his parents received $20 per acre. “My dad went with the flow. We didn’t have a lot of money to hire lawyers to negotiate a better deal,” Gadbois said.Some of their neighbors were Ukrainian immigrants. They were devastated.

“People had heart attacks. The men just couldn’t cope,” Gadbois said. “Ten acres was security. It meant you could grow enough food to feed your family.”

Gadbois later went to work for BC Hydro as a biologist. With a scientist’s trained eye, he assess changes to the upper Columbia River – the loss of productive wildlife habitat in valley bottoms, and the creeks that no longer provide spawning for fish because water levels are too high at the wrong times. But Gadbois can’t imagine a different outcome.

“We have steep mountains, big snowpacks and lots of runoff. It’s idea for power production,” Gadbois said. “If it didn’t happen, where would we get our electricity? We’d be running huge coal plants.”

A renewal of the river

Two years ago, the B.C. government held meetings about the future Columbia River Treaty. About 1,200 people attended the meetings.

“This time, people managed to get their two bits in,” said Hamling, the Nakusp mayor.

Surveys indicate that the majority of B.C. residents want the treaty to continue. But there’s the push from communities along the river for more stable reservoir levels. Most of the focus has been on the Arrow reservoir behind Hugh Keenleyside Dam.

A consultant is modeling scenarios for keeping water levels in the reservoir more constant, while accommodating high spring flows and providing for some flood control. Depending on the modeling results, reservoir levels could become an issue for negotiation with the U.S., Eichenberger said.

“It’s not as straightforward as people think,” cautioned Eichenberger, who is a hydraulic engineer. “You’re not looking at a single reservoir; you’re looking at an entire system. We have to study the upstream and downstream impacts.

But, “we’ve heard from residents and First Nations that the benefits are certainly worthy of investigation,” she said.

Crystal and Janet Spicer are advocates. A more natural-flowing Columbia would be the best possible way to honor their dad, the sisters said.

Before he died in 1998, Chris Spicer was able to overturn the burn order on the farmhouse. Janet Spicer, an organic farmer, grows some of her crops on the remnant of the Spicer farm.

A fishing lure, snagged on a tree limb near the farmhouse, is a reminder that the Columbia rises and falls based on Americans’ needs.

“What we’d like to see in our lifetime is a moderation of the draft,” Crystal Spicer said. “We’d like to see a renewal of the river.”

This story was updated to correct the spelling of Brian Gadbois’ name.

# # #

Dec. 13, 2023

By Emry Dinman

The U.S. and Canada need to prioritize swiftly modernizing the nearly 60-year treaty governing the management of the Columbia River between the two countries, wrote U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell and Idaho Sen. James Risch in a Wednesday letter to President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

“A modernized treaty regime will benefit both of our countries by strengthening flood response and creating opportunities for better management of our shared water resources to overcome new challenges,” the senators wrote.

Cantwell, a Democrat, and Risch, a Republican, lead the Pacific Northwest delegation in negotiations. They argue a new treaty could spur grid modernization, improve access to U.S. markets for Canadian electricity and lead to more efficient systems governing the flow of water through the series of dams along the major waterway. Unless an agreement is reached by September, some provisions of the treaty, which has dramatically shaped the Columbia River since the 1960s, will lapse.

“The United States and Canada have long benefited from our close and extraordinarily positive relationship,” the senators wrote. “We should avoid the uncertainty and potential disputes that could come from any further delays in concluding negotiations over modernization of the Columbia River Treaty.”

The United States began building dams along the Columbia River 90 years ago, first with the Rock Island Dam in 1932 and later the Bonneville, Grand Coulee and others, providing cheap electricity that would attract military industries, but governed by seasonal water flow and without sufficient reservoir storage to mitigate flooding.

In 1948, a flood devastated communities along the river from southeastern British Columbia to the Pacific Ocean, destroying the Vanport community near Portland, which was the second-largest city in Oregon at the time, causing over $100 million in damages and killing at least 16. A joint commission of the United States and Canada that had formed four years earlier to explore bilateral improvements along the Columbia River gained a new sense of urgency in the wake of the Vanport Flood.

The Columbia River Treaty was signed in 1961 and went into effect in 1964, which led to the construction of new dams and major reservoirs on the Canadian side of the border, causing the displacement of those who lived in areas that are today underwater. With that additional storage capacity, water could be reliably directed downriver to American dams, generating power to meet demand or held back in Canadian reservoirs to prevent flooding.

The treaty gives the U.S. significant control over the release of that water in Canadian reservoirs. In exchange, the U.S. agreed to give Canada half of the estimated increased power generated by the downriver dams in what is called the Canadian Entitlement, much of which is sold back to the U.S. Today, the Canadian Entitlement is worth approximately $120 million to $335 million annually, with Canadian and U.S. government officials varying wildly in their estimates.

The treaty has come under fire from a number of directions in the interceding decades, including environmental groups worried about habitat displaced by reservoirs and the impact of dams on the migration of salmon and other fish. Tribal governments were left out of negotiations. Recent drought also has exposed fault lines in the deal, with communities along the Canadian reservoirs worried that their government has insufficient flexibility to hold back flows as local water levels recede, the CBC reported in October.

Most provisions of the Columbia River Treaty do not need to be renewed, though either country could initiate a termination of the treaty starting in 2024, though only after a 10-year notice. The Assured Annual Flood Control provision of the treaty, however, expires automatically on Sept. 16.

In addition to sharing electricity generated, the U.S. paid $65 million in compensation for the flood control benefits of the deal, a 60-year provision set to expire next year. In exchange, Canada agreed to reserve a certain amount of storage in its reservoirs every year that can be used to slow flows downriver and prevent floods.

While neither country has signaled a desire to terminate the treaty, the need to renew the flood control provisions have animated efforts to renegotiate other terms at the same time.

Canadian authorities have argued that their government needs more control over their reservoirs and additional compensation through the Canadian Entitlement. U.S. negotiators have countered that entitlement payments are larger than they should be.

“The current Canadian entitlement is not acceptable to us and to many other members of the U.S. Congress,” Cantwell and Risch wrote in their Wednesday letter. “Any compensation must be reasonable and defensible for funding to be approved by the U.S. Congress.”

U.S. authorities have also argued environmental responsibility should become an agreed-upon priority, in addition to power generation and flood control. In order to move the smolt of fish such as salmon downriver to the ocean, the U.S. frequently spills water over its dams without generating power, but still compensates the Canadian government as though power was generated, payments that U.S. negotiators have argued should be ended or reduced.

Cantwell alluded to these negotiations in a 2016 letter to Trudeau.

“Given the growing impact to our climate, natural environment and economy, I believe we must find a mutually beneficial path forward to modernize the treaty in a way that balances flood control, ecosystem-based function, and hydropower generation,” Cantwell wrote.

If the Assured Annual Flood Control provision is allowed to expire, the U.S. would have to request and compensate Canada for flood control on an ad hoc basis. Already, during periods of very high flows on the river, the U.S. can call upon Canada to provide additional reservoir storage over and above the annual guarantee, but only after proving the U.S. has effectively tried to use its own reservoirs, and then at a price.

How exactly that would work is unclear; the Columbia River Treaty does not describe how this ad hoc system would operate, nor the costs that would be borne by the U.S., according to the Congressional Research Service.

https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2023/dec/13/cantwell-risch-urge-biden-trudeau-to-prioritize-ne/

By Orion Donovan-Smith
October 14, 2021

WASHINGTON – Gov. Jay Inslee and Sen. Patty Murray are exploring options to breach the lower Snake River dams and replace the benefits they provide, Inslee told a virtual gathering of Washington environmentalists Thursday.

Northwest tribes and conservation groups have ramped up efforts in recent months to have earthen berms removed from the four dams between Lewiston and the Tri-Cities in an effort to restore dwindling salmon runs, but the dams provide benefits to the region in the form of hydropower, barge transportation and irrigation.

In a virtual fundraiser organized by Washington Conservation Voters, the governor said he and Murray, his fellow Washington Democrat, are working on “a rigorous, robust and fast assessment of how to replace those services if we breach those dams.”

“The next step is for us to define how to replace the services of the Snake River dams if they are breached,” Inslee said. “We know that they are a salmon impediment, we know that the salmon are on the verge of extinction, and we also know that they do provide services upon which a lot of folks and our economy depends.”

The governor emphasized that the dams aren’t the only factor contributing to declining salmon runs, linking the problem with climate change and ocean acidification, which he called “the evil twin of global warming.”

Inslee offered no details, but the approach he outlined seems similar to that taken by Rep. Mike Simpson, an Idaho Republican who turned up the heat on the region’s long-simmering “salmon wars” when he unveiled a proposal in February to breach the dams and invest $33.5 billion to replace their benefits and reshape the economies of Lewiston and the Tri-Cities.

Simpson sought to include his proposal in the infrastructure package the Senate approved in August, but that effort fell flat amid strong opposition from his fellow Northwest Republicans and a lukewarm reception from most of the region’s Democrats, including Inslee and Murray.

Speaking with Washington Conservation Voters CEO Alyssa Macy alongside Shannon Wheeler, vice chairman of the Nez Perce Tribal Council and a prominent backer of Simpson’s plan, Inslee said the “main reason” for opposition to breaching the dams is “fear that all these services will all be disappeared, and nothing will replace them.”

“We ought to come up with a way of how to replace that relatively carbon-free electricity,” he said, as well as the irrigation and transportation the dams provide. “So I’m really happy to report that Sen. Murray and I are working on a process to do that.”

Simpson released his proposal after years of meetings with stakeholders throughout the Columbia Basin, but most of that work took place behind the scenes, and his recommendation to breach the dams was met with fierce opposition once he made it public.

Inslee signaled that he and Murray will gather input in the open. He added that a contractor will help lead the effort and produce a report by next summer.

“I’m not announcing a breaching decision today,” Inslee said, adding that Murray “will make some announcements in the next couple of weeks” about the next step in the process.

“I don’t want to prejudge that next step,” Inslee said, “but I do know what this state and country needs: We need an answer to those questions.”

Orion Donovan-Smith's reporting for The Spokesman-Review is funded in part by Report for America and by members of the Spokane community. This story can be republished by other organizations for free under a Creative Commons license. For more information on this, please contact our newspaper’s managing editor.

Almost eight decades after Grand Coulee Dam cut off salmon runs, tribes look to treaty to restore central pillar of their culture and diet

Becky Kramer, July 27, 2014 Tribal fishermen work along the Columbia River near Kettle Falls in this photo taken about 1900. Salmon have long been part of the culture, spirituality and diet for tribes along the river.
 
 KETTLE FALLS, Washington – Richard Armstrong knelt on the Columbia River’s rocky shoreline, a feather in his hand, a prayer for salmon in his heart.

For thousands of years, his ancestors fished at this site. Perched on platforms above the thundering cascades at Kettle Falls, they took hundreds – sometimes thousands – of fish daily from the river: blueback sockeye salmon, silvery steelhead, 40- to 60-pound spring chinooks called “June hogs” and eel-like lampreys.

Kettle Falls was one of North America’s premier fishing spots, drawing aboriginal people from across Eastern Washington, southern British Columbia, parts of Idaho and Western Montana.

When Grand Coulee Dam was built in the 1930s without fish ladders, the last of the once-storied salmon runs that extended into Canada ceased. But U.S. tribes and Canada’s First Nations never gave up their dream of getting the salmon back to the Columbia River’s headwaters, a 1,200-mile journey from the ocean.

Now, those dreams are taking focus. With the 50-year-old Columbia River Treaty up for review, tribes and First Nations are pushing for salmon restoration above Grand Coulee. The 1964 treaty governs U.S.-Canadian operation of the river for flood control and power generation.

In a recommendation to the U.S. State Department last December, the Bonneville Power Administration and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers suggested that the two countries share the cost of investigating what it would take to get salmon back to Canadian spawning grounds.

Tribes and First Nations hope to see the design work for pilot studies begin as early as next year.

“There really is no need to wait,” said Stephen Smith, an Oregon fisheries consultant for the Upper Columbia United Tribes, which represents the Colville, Spokane, Coeur d’Alene, Kalispel and Kootenai tribes. “The technology is there; the interest and demand is there; and the legal arguments are there.”

Two or three generations have passed since tribal members caught and speared salmon at Kettle Falls. “These are people who’ve been blocked from salmon all their lives,” Smith said. “Their culture is slipping away. There’s an urgency to get the salmon back.”

In addition to restoring the identity of the tribes and First Nations as “Salmon People,” getting fish to Canada would help preserve a Northwest icon.

Reconnecting salmon to cold-water habitat in the Columbia’s upper reaches will help the species’ survival as the climate warms, scientists say. Salmon evolved with spring snowmelt, and in the Northwest, only British Columbia’s mountains will reliably provide those snowpacks within 60 years, according to modeling by the University of Washington’s Climate Impacts Group.

Amid the policy and political discussions, Armstrong, a 68-year-old elder from Penticton, British Columbia, and others recently offered prayers for the salmon’s return.

About 90 people gathered on the riverbank at Kettle Falls on a June morning, where Armstrong led a “calling the salmon back” ceremony. Behind him, the river was a vast slack water, the falls – known as “noisy waters” to local tribes – submerged by Grand Coulee Dam’s reservoir.

As part of the ritual, Armstrong told people to pick up two polished river rocks, clacking them together to replicate the tumbling of rocks on the river’s bottom.

“That’s the sound the salmon hears,” said Armstrong, a member of Canada’s Okanagan Nation Alliance and a descendant of one of the last salmon chiefs at Kettle Falls. The chiefs oversaw the harvest, including the distribution of fish.

At the end of the ceremony, the rocks were flung into the river, carrying prayers for the salmon. Armstrong later repeated the ceremony at three former fishing spots in British Columbia.

 “There’s hope all the time that the salmon will be back,” said Armstrong’s sister, Jeannette Armstrong. “That’s what we’re praying for.”
 
‘Our ancestors depended on salmon’
 Grand Coulee Dam rises fortress-like from the Columbia River about 90 miles northwest of Spokane, an engineering marvel of the Great Depression.

Lake Roosevelt, the reservoir behind the 550-foot-tall dam, provides irrigation water for Eastern Washington farms and helps protect Portland from flooding. Grand Coulee Dam is also the largest hydroelectric power producer in the United States. It was finished just in time to support World War II efforts, supplying electricity for Northwest factories and plutonium production at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation.

But the story of how Grand Coulee was built without fish ladders remains a source of bitterness for tribes and First Nations. As the dam’s original design grew taller, engineers realized it would be difficult to incorporate the flume and elevator they had devised for fish passage. Plans for the structures were scrapped.

Tribes weren’t consulted about the loss of the 10,000-year-old fishery at Kettle Falls, said John Sirois, a council member for the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation.

“Our ancestors depended on salmon for so long. That right was taken away from them because of a national security need without consultation and without their consent,” Sirois said.

 In 1934, in response to a formal U.S. inquiry, Canada’s Department of Fisheries expressed a similar indifference to the effect of the salmon’s loss on First Nations.

“The assumption that there is no commercial salmon fishery on the Columbia River in Canada is correct, and hence Canadian interests in that respect will not be affected if the dam at Grand Coulee is not equipped with fishway facilities,” the department’s deputy minister wrote at that time.

“We simply didn’t have a voice when all the decision-making was occurring,” said Kathryn Teneese, chairwoman for the 2,000-member Ktunaxa Nation in British Columbia, whose ancestral fishing grounds extended to the river’s headwaters at Columbia Lake. “The position of the Canadian government was that nobody would be affected. That speaks volumes to us: Does it mean we are nobody?”

For Columbia River tribes, salmon were part of culture, spirituality and diet. Native people prized the fish long before studies touted the heart-healthy properties of omega-3 fatty acids, said the Colville Tribe’s Sirois.

In stories from the tribes, the Creator asked the animals what they could do to help the people. The salmon stepped forward and said, “The people can eat my body.” Each spring, First Salmon ceremonies celebrated the return of the runs.

 “We’re the caretakers of those songs that welcome the salmon back up the river,” Sirois said.

Journals of trappers, explorers and missionaries describe salmon returns of astounding abundance. On some days, the catch at Kettle Falls exceeded 1,000 fish, and on the lower Spokane River, thousands of salmon were laid out on drying racks, according to the accounts.

Artist Paul Kane visited Kettle Falls in 1847, sketching Indian fishermen at work. He wrote about the 2-month-long salmon migration: “… there is a continuous wave of them, more resembling a flock of birds than anything else in their extraordinary leap up the falls.”

Up to 50 percent of the calories in local tribes’ diets came from fresh, smoked and dried salmon, said Al Scholz, an Eastern Washington University professor who has researched historical accounts of the salmon fisheries.

By the time Grand Coulee Dam was built, salmon returns to the Upper Columbia were a fraction of their historic levels, diminished by over-harvest on the lower river and irrigation diversion dams. But salmon remained an important part of subsistence diets until 1938, when they no longer showed up at the face of Grand Coulee Dam, searching for upstream passage.

After Grand Coulee’s construction, hatcheries were built to stock nonmigratory kokanee and rainbow trout in the new reservoir and augment salmon runs on the remaining, unblocked tributaries. But those efforts never matched the wild runs for abundance.

 In 1994, the Colvilles reached a settlement with the U.S. government over the dam’s use of submerged tribal land for power generation. However, the settlement didn’t address the loss of the salmon, said Chaitna Sinha, a staff attorney for the tribe.

The Spokane Tribe has yet to reach a settlement with the government, and Canada’s First Nations have not been able to sue for damages caused by Grand Coulee because they lack legal standing in the U.S. court system.

By restoring those runs, “future generations would be made whole again,” Teneese said.
 
‘Gulpers’ a breakthrough
What would it take to get salmon back above Grand Coulee? Scientists on both sides of the border have looked into that question.

Canada represents about 20 percent of the Columbia River watershed, with more than 1,100 miles of potential spawning habitat in the river’s main stem and its tributaries. But Grand Coulee is no longer the only dam blocking access to that habitat.

Chief Joseph Dam, about 50 miles downstream of Grand Coulee, was built in the 1950s without fish passage. And upstream of Grand Coulee, Canada has its own dam network, some of which were built as the result of the 1964 Columbia River Treaty.

Using fish ladders to get adult salmon over Grand Coulee and other high dams remains an engineering challenge – fish would need “rest stops” to successfully ascend the structure, said a 2007 report by the Canadian Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fisheries Commission, which represents First Nations’ interests.

Advances in trapping and hauling, however, could get salmon around the dams without building costly fish passage structures.

“Gulpers,” also known as floating surface collectors, are one of the breakthroughs of the past decade, said Smith, the Oregon fisheries consultant. Powerful pumps in the collectors create a flow that attracts fish. They’ve been successful at gathering up young salmon in reservoirs so they can be trucked around the dams and released downriver.

Because they float on the surface, the collectors are compatible with changing river elevations, and they don’t interfere with power generation or flood control operations, Smith said.

The technology breakthroughs are driven by policy changes. As U.S. dams come up for relicensing, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has begun requiring fish passage where it was blocked in past decades. Canada is experiencing similar policy shifts. When new powerhouses were added to three Canadian dams, the dam operators agreed to provide future fish passage should the salmon ever be reintroduced above Grand Coulee.

With that work quietly happening in the background, U.S. tribes and First Nations have seized on renegotiation of the Columbia River Treaty to push for salmon restoration in the upper watershed.

Northwest tribes worked on a regional recommendation for modernizing the treaty with the BPA, the Army Corps of Engineers and state and federal agencies. The recommendation included investigating the return of salmon to Canada.

Now, the region is awaiting a response from the U.S. State Department, which will make the ultimate decision on whether to renegotiate the treaty and what issues to address.

In the Northwest, however, funding for studies already is starting to take shape. Pilot studies on the cost and feasibility of fish passage above Grand Coulee were included in the Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s draft 2015 fish and wildlife plan. The plan guides how the BPA spends mitigation money for rebuilding fish and wildlife populations affected by dams.
 
Sockeye run a model
This year’s record sockeye run on the Columbia River demonstrates what restored access to habitat above Grand Coulee could bring, supporters of the effort said.

More than 574,000 sockeye returned to the Columbia River this summer, the highest number since record-keeping began at Bonneville Dam in 1938.

Most of those sockeye spawned in southern British Columbia in the Okanagan River’s watershed, passing over nine dams to get to and from the ocean. Efforts to rebuild that run involved the Colville Tribes, Okanagan Nation Alliance and dam operators.

“It’s a model of what can be done,” said Randy Friedlander, the Colville Tribe’s fish and wildlife director.

By restoring salmon above Grand Coulee, “we think that we’ll be able to produce a lot of salmon to go up and down the Columbia for the benefit of all communities,” said Smith, the Oregon fisheries consultant.

In the decades to come, most of Oregon, Washington and Idaho’s Snake River Basin will lose snowpacks as a result of climate change, putting salmon at risk from warmer water and lower flows, Smith said. That increases the importance of getting the fish back to snowier British Columbia.

“We have to provide a future for salmon in the Columbia Basin. It may be that the upper reaches of the Columbia could provide that stronghold,” said Bill Green, director of the Canadian Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fisheries Commission.

At Kettle Falls, the “calling the salmon back” ceremony concluded with a community meal featuring barbecued salmon from a hatchery three hours away.

But someday, the salmon could be from Kettle Falls, revitalizing a fishery that now exists only in historic photographs.

“I can actually see it on the horizon,” said Allen Hammond, 57, who grew up listening to his grandparents tell stories about fishing at Kettle Falls. “The fish are coming. It may not be in my lifetime, but it’s coming.”

http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2014/jul/27/spawning-hope/

By Eli Francovich and Orion Donovan-Smith
May 9, 2021

LEWISTON – In a cavernous warehouse above the Clearwater River east of Lewiston, 1.14 million spring chinook swam, swirling together into evanescent balls of silver, breaking into smaller configurations and then returning. It’s a hypnotic dance under harsh industrial lights and spread among 38 large green tubs, each holding more than 30,000 of the small fish.

It’s just another Monday for the Nez Perce Tribe’s fisheries program.

A sprawling operation that employs upward of 180 people depending on the season, it runs projects in Idaho, Montana and Oregon. The tribe grows 10 million fish a year and spends around $22 million yearly trying to preserve ocean-going species like salmon and steelhead.

That investment is essential for a people – the Nimiipúu – for whom fish, particularly chinook salmon, have played a keystone spiritual, cultural and economic role for more than 16,000 years. For generations, the Nez Perce lived throughout central Idaho, parts of southeast Washington and northeast Oregon. They traveled extensively, hunting bison in Montana and fishing for salmon on the main stem of the Columbia River.

“There is an ancient covenant there that is between the salmon, the animals and us, as humans,” said tribal chairman Shannon Wheeler.

Now, that covenant is imperiled. Since the construction of more than 400 barriers up and down the Columbia River basin, populations of chinook salmon, steelhead and lamprey have plummeted – particularly after four dams were built on the Lower Snake River in the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s.

Throughout that decadeslong decline, the Nez Perce Tribe has continued to pour money, time and hope into restoring habitat and increasing survival for the migratory fish.

And yet a Nez Perce tribal study published this month found that wild spring and summer chinook populations are declining by 19% per year. If trends continue, by 2025 77% of the Snake River basin spring and summer chinook populations will be perilously close to extinction. Famous spawning habitat like the Middle Fork Salmon River will see fewer than 50 spawners return each year, if tribal modeling is accurate. The picture is only slightly less grim for steelhead populations.

“We’re at that critical juncture in time,” Wheeler said. “With the Northwest delegation (in Congress), with energy, with transportation – and especially, especially with salmon and the crisis they’re in.”

Spurred by that sense of urgency, the tribe has thrown its support behind a proposal by Rep. Mike Simpson, an Idaho Republican, to save salmon and transform the economy of the Columbia Basin by breaching the four dams on the lower Snake River and replacing their benefits with $33.5 billion of investment in power generation, transportation, agriculture and more.

To the Nez Perce Tribe, it was a long-awaited show of support – launched at an auspicious time – from a federal government that has reneged, time and again, on promises and assurances made to the Nimiipúu.

Wheeler turned to a powerful quartet of Northwest Democrats in the Senate for support – Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell of Washington, and Oregon’s Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley – asking them in a letter to come to the table in a “collaborative spirit,” as he said, and at least consider Simpson’s proposal.

“We’re trying to do all the right things here,” Wheeler said. “We need help with that.”

Fishing rights through a new lens?
Northwest elected officials have preferred a slow, careful approach to resolving the region’s long-running “salmon wars,” most recently backing an agreement last October between the governors of Washington, Idaho, Oregon and Montana to work to rebuild fish stocks in the Columbia Basin.

When Simpson unveiled his proposal in February, Murray, Cantwell, Wyden and Merkley issued a noncommittal joint statement calling for “all communities in the Columbia River Basin and beyond (to) be heard in efforts to recover the Northwest’s iconic salmon runs while ensuring economic vitality of the region.”

Meanwhile, in the nation’s capital, President Joe Biden and his Democratic allies in Congress have embraced an agenda of unprecedented federal spending aimed in part at righting past wrongs. While the Biden administration has woven racial justice considerations into its American Jobs Plan and American Families Plan – which propose spending a combined $4 trillion over a decade – Northwest tribes are still pushing lawmakers to make the fishing rights guaranteed by treaties a priority at the federal level.

A spokesman for Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, the first Native American to lead a cabinet-level agency, declined to comment on Simpson’s proposal or how the federal government should balance tribal fishing rights against the benefits dams provide. The Interior Department includes both the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Bureau of Reclamation, which oversees hydroelectric dams.

With relative silence from Democrats, Simpson has emerged as one of the most vocal proponents of treaty rights in Congress.

“If you look throughout history,” Simpson said in March, “the United States has not always kept its treaty obligations with tribes. In fact, you could say we rarely have kept our treaty obligations. One of the treaty obligations we have with tribes is to maintain the fishing rights that they have. You can’t do that if you don’t have fish.”

“I’ve been encouraged that the conversation about salmon restoration has finally been tied to social justice and human rights,” said Sam Mace, Inland Northwest director for the conservation group Save Our Wild Salmon. “Certainly the tribes have been talking about it in those terms for a long time, but I don’t think that our society or our elected leaders have been viewing the issue through that lens.”

Sophia Ressler, Washington wildlife attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity, an environmentalist group that opposes Simpson’s plan but supports dam breaching, blamed the four Democratic senators from Oregon and Washington for leaving an opening for the Republican’s proposal.

“Legislators in both states have wasted years allowing federal agencies to play kick the can with dam removal and salmon recovery in the Columbia River basin,” Ressler said in a statement. “Now they seem content to let a Republican from eastern Idaho set the course for the entire region in closed-door meetings. It’s absurd, and the residents of Washington and Oregon should demand better from their elected officials.”

Simpson, who sits on the influential House Appropriations Committee and is known as a wily legislator, has said he hopes to include funding for his proposal in the infrastructure package now in the works, even if legislation detailing the plan takes longer to craft.

“I’d like to see the money put aside first, so that we know that it’s going to be there, so that when we come to this compromise, when we come to this solution, we have the resources to implement it,” Simpson said in a virtual event Tuesday.

Murray, the third-ranking Democrat in the Senate, said on a call with reporters April 27 there was likely not enough time to resolve the many disagreements over Simpson’s proposal and include it in the infrastructure package.

“The issue of salmon and our dams has been one of controversy for as long as I can remember, and we’ve been in court battles forever. So I commend (Simpson) for putting the proposal out, but it needs a lot of work yet,” Murray said. “We need to make sure that everybody has a voice at the table and has a look at that, and this infrastructure package that we are moving right now is moving fairly quickly. So it would be a huge challenge to get all those people at the table at this time to try and do something on that.”

In a statement Friday, Murray said she is “committed to making sure the federal government is doing its part to recover our iconic salmon runs.”

“I’ve fought hard to protect and strengthen federal investments in salmon recovery and research efforts, and honoring Tribal treaties and the priorities of our Tribes has long been a key consideration for me in all policymaking,” she said. “I’ll continue listening to local Tribes, advocates, and all stakeholders as we work to restore this critical part of our state’s environment, heritage, and future.”

While the Nez Perce stand to benefit clearly from increased salmon runs on the Snake River, other Northwest tribes have also backed Simpson’s plan, which includes provisions to help restore salmon, steelhead and lamprey in other parts of the Columbia Basin. Delano Saluskin, chairman of the Yakama Nation’s tribal council, brought the issue up when Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff visited Yakima County on April 6.

“We are fish people,” Saluskin said to Emhoff, husband of Vice President Kamala Harris. “We live off fish. We honor the fish in our first foods ceremony. And if we don’t do something now, we are all going to be competing to catch that last salmon.”

The Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians, a nonprofit that represents 57 tribal governments in the region, has not taken a position on Simpson’s proposal but adopted a resolution in 2019 supporting the consideration of breaching the lower Snake River dams. Leonard Forsman, ATNI president and chairman of the Suquamish Tribe, said in an email the group has long advocated for salmon recovery “via litigation, government-to-government consultations, and in other ways.”

Rep. Earl Blumenauer, a Portland Democrat, voiced support for tribal rights in a joint event with Simpson on Tuesday. While Blumenauer expressed some reservations, the virtual event represented the closest thing yet to a Democratic endorsement of the Idaho Republican’s proposal.

“The Columbia River Basin sort of defines who we are, our history,” Blumenauer said. “But it’s not just us recent arrivals, white settlers and whatnot, but Indigenous people who were here thousands of years, and the basin helped define who they were, their religion, the way in which they traveled and worked together.”

‘Usual and accustomed’
To understand the salmon issue, and by extension the dams, it’s vital to consider the history. When white people first encountered the Nez Perce, they came across “the largest, most powerful and influential nation of Indians in the northwest area of the Rocky Mountains,” according to the Indians Claims Commission, a federal arbitration commission formed in 1946.

That history goes back much further, though. In 2019, archaeologists made headlines when they carbon-dated charcoal and bone left at Cooper’s Ferry on the Salmon River. Those artifacts are more than 16,000 years old, according to the research published in Science, and 7,000 years older than Kennewick Man, whose skeletal remains were found along the Columbia in 1996.

That’s a fact Wheeler emphasized several times, always quick to add that this is the oldest “documented” proof. In other words, the Nez Perce were not surprised by the study’s findings.

“Our stories already tell us how long we’ve been here. … This (study) only reaffirms that,” Nakia Williamson, the tribe’s director of cultural resources, told Science in 2019.

Indeed, tribal biologists consider tribal lore when conducting fisheries work. Stories passed down from generation to generation aren’t just myths and legends: they’re relaying important ecological information, a fact laid out in the tribe’s fisheries management plans.

“Oral traditions are stories that teach many of the central concepts used in contemporary natural resource management,” the plan states, adding later “animals and humans are fully integrated and connected with the ecosystem; humans do not exist independent of the world and animals around them.”

This interconnection proved fruitful for the Nez Perce. It’s estimated that tribal people ate 300 pounds of fish per year. When in 1805 the Nez Perce people saved Lewis and Clark from starvation, they fed the explorers dried salmon. The tribe’s welcome was so warm it prompted Clark to write that it exceeded even the hospitality from “our own countrymen.” Lewis and Clark later gave the Nez Perce a peace medal.

The peace did not last.

By 1850, more white people moved into the area, leading to greater conflict. That led to the 1855 Treaty of Walla Walla. Unlike many other tribes, the Nez Perce retained nearly 60% of their native land – roughly 8 million acres.

In exchange for ceding their land, the federal government guaranteed the Nimiipúu “the exclusive right of taking fish in the streams running through and bordering” the Nez Perce Reservation “and at all other usual and accustomed stations.”

And, fatefully, the tribe retained expansive off-reservation hunting and fishing rights throughout current day Idaho, Montana, Washington and Oregon, the so-called “usual and accustomed” places.

This state of affairs lasted less than a decade. By 1860, gold had been discovered in the North Fork of the Clearwater River and white people were flooding into Nez Perce lands. Whole towns, including Orofino and Lewiston, were built in violation of the treaty.

In response, the U.S. government shredded the 1855 treaty and shrank the Nez Perce lands to just 770,000 acres. The 1863 treaty, known as the “great steal” by the Nimiipúu, led to a brutal war in 1877 that sent Nimiipúu children and women fleeing to Canada, chased by U.S. soldiers.

Despite that, one thing didn’t change: The Nez Perce retained the legal right to fish and hunt off the reservation.

‘We’re not pretending here’
This is the history that must be understood when discussing dams or the commitment the tribe has to salmon – and the commitment the United States has to the tribe.

Since its founding in 1981, the Nez Perce fisheries department has tried to make the fisheries whole. They’ve improved wild spawning habitat up and down the Snake River basin, worked with state and federal managers to reduce predation on salmon, improve survival over the dams and invested millions into hatchery programs.

All that work has helped, but it’s not been enough, said David Johnson, director of the Tribe’s Department of Fisheries Management.

Chinook and steelhead numbers have continued to drop, most precipitously since the construction of the four Lower Snake River dams between 1962 and 1975. Even the protection and billions of dollars provided by the 1991 Endangered Species Act listing of sockeye salmon has failed to stem the hemorrhaging.

“The hydro system is really the big one,” Johnson said. “It kills close to 50% of the fish as they leave from here and go down to the ocean. So that is a huge source of mortality.”

The most recent study, published this month, only further highlights the bleak reality, and points again to the impacts the dams are having on wild fish.

“The analysis … really slapped us in the face,” he said of the study. “We’re not pretending here. These numbers are really troubling.”

And those troubling numbers are the responsibility of the federal government, argues Elliott Moffett, the president of the nonprofit Nimiipuu Protecting the Environment. Simpson’s plan, which the congressman often says aims to make all the region’s stakeholders whole, is the “closest we’ve been to recognizing and acknowledging treaty rights,” he said.

“We’re really talking about mismanagement of our treaty and our treaty resources,” Moffett said. “It’s kind of ironic that everyone is asking to be made whole. When do the tribes get to be made whole?”

Orion Donovan-Smith's reporting for The Spokesman-Review is funded in part by Report for America and by members of the Spokane community. This story can be republished by other organizations for free under a Creative Commons license. For more information on this, please contact our newspaper’s managing editor.

by Katie Herzog • Aug 22, 2018 at 1:55 pm

The Seattle Times published a heart-warming/heart-breaking story Wednesday about chef Renee Erickson, who recently announced that she will be yanking Chinook salmon from her restaurant menus in response to Tahlequah, aka J35, the Salish Sea orca who became an international cause célèbre after carrying her dead baby for 17 days.

“It’s sad," Erickson told the Times. "I love eating [chinook], and I grew up catching it." But, she added, “The biggest gut wrench is that we have starving orcas. We are eating the salmon they need to eat.”

The Salish Sea's resident orca population has declined from 98 in 1995 to just 76 today members today, in large part because of chinook shortages. Taking chinook off restaurant menus (and your own shopping list) is a commendable action. But, unfortunately, it won't save the whales. It's kind of like every other environmental crisis: You can stop driving your car/running your AC/using straws/etc, but actually solving climate change and cleaning up the oceans will take a hell of a lot more than individual do-gooding.

Instead, we need big changes, and that means repairing and restoring watersheds and rivers like the lower Salmon in the Columbia Basin. "The Columbia Basin is a historic source of big, fatty chinook for orca," says Joseph Bogaard, the executive director of Save Our Salmon, a coalition of conservationists and fishers. "The basin is large, with low population density and with large remaining areas of high quality, protected habitat. In certain key areas, habitat restoration isn’t needed so much as restoring connectivity this habitat."

And the way to restore connectivity to this habitat is to tear down the dams that prevent salmon from reaching the Pacific. There are, however, some powerful entities working against that. Federal agencies like the Bonneville Power Administration and the Army Corps of Engineers—not to mention utilities—have "led the charge to protect status quo dam operations in the Columbia Basin for decades," Bogaard says. "This pattern must change. The steep losses of chinook salmon in the Columbia/Snake Basin primarily caused by the federal dams are a major reason why orcas are teetering on the brink of extinction."

Those in favor of maintaining dams argue that the region's ample hydroelectric resources are a big part of why the Pacific Northwest has some of the best air quality on the continent (current smoke storm notwithstanding). And that is undoubtedly true. So will removing dams on the lower Snake mean dirty air, service interruptions, higher power bills, and greater reliance on fossil fuels, as some conservatives and special interest groups have argued?

Well, no, actually. According to a study conducted by the NW Energy Coalition, increasing efficiency and renewable energy sources like solar and wind will make up for energy lost by tearing down dams on the Lower Snake—and at an estimated cost of just one extra dollar a month for consumers. As NW Energy Coalition's Nancy Hirsh wrote in the Tri-City Herald, "The power replacement study—the most extensive yet undertaken on the subject—shows that power from the four lower Snake River dams can be affordably replaced by a mix of energy efficiency measures and renewable energy resources without any loss of electric-system reliability and with little or no increase in greenhouse gas emissions. In fact, electric system adequacy, reliability and flexibility would actually improve. These findings put to rest the decades-old myth that we have to choose between clean, affordable, and reliable energy on the one hand, and the recovery of salmon populations on the other."

Now, it's possible we'll someday have the political will to remove dams on the lower Snake River—in March, Gov. Inslee convened an orca recovery task force that will supposedly explore all options, including dam removal—but tearing down dams and restoring the ecosystem will take several years to achieve. In the meantime, Bogaard says, "A highly effective near-term measure to rebuild chinook populations in what was once the planet’s most productive salmon landscape is to increase ‘spill’ at the federal dams on the lower Snake and Columbia Rivers. Spill sends water (and out-migrating juvenile salmon) over the tops of dams. They arrive at the Pacific Ocean more quickly and safely and survive at a much higher rate than fish that are barged or go through turbines." The Bonneville Power Administration and utilities, however, don't want to do this, because increasing spill (and tearing down dams) costs them money.

In the meantime, forgoing chinook may be all most of us can do. But if the chinook—and the orcas who depend on them—are ever going to recover, it's going to take a lot more than choosing something else for dinner.

March 22, 2017

Christopher Frizzelle   

In September of 2016, the oldest living orca known to science, J2, was photographed near San Juan Island from a drone. Matriarch of the southern residents, a population of killer whales that lives in Puget Sound and is unique on the planet, J2 got her name because she was the second orca to be positively identified by scientists at the Center for Whale Research on San Juan Island during the first census of southern resident killer whales, conducted in 1976. The Center for Whale Research also assigns nicknames, and because J2 was so old when scientists first identified her, the nickname she got was "Granny."
   
"We do not know her precise age because she was born long before our study began," Ken Balcomb, the marine mammal biologist who founded the Center for Whale Research, explained. "In 1987, we estimated that she was at least 45 years old and was more likely to have been 76 years old." By 2016, she was estimated to be somewhere from 74 to 105 years old.

When she was seen near San Juan Island in September, she did not look good. Researchers from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Southwest Fisheries Science Center and Vancouver Aquarium noted J2's "thin body shape" and "relatively poor" condition. One thing that distinguishes southern residents from other kinds of killer whales is that southern residents eat only salmon. In fact, 80 percent of the southern resident diet is specifically Chinook salmon—and just like the southern residents themselves, Chinook salmon is on the endangered species list. There used to be plentiful Chinook salmon in local waters, especially where the Columbia River meets the Pacific Ocean and where the Fraser River meets the Salish Sea, but now wild Chinook is scarce. Dr. Deborah Giles, research director for the Center for Whale Research, said Granny was in an "emaciated state" in the photos NOAA's drone took. And yet, even though Granny was herself clearly hungry, the documentation showed her hunting for food for a relative. "She was seen foraging for, pushing, basically corralling a fish toward her family member," said Dr. Giles, whose specialty is behavior. "It's incredible. The females really are the matriarchs of these family groups, and they do whatever they can [for others in their families] to the detriment of themselves. These whales cooperatively hunt. They forage and find fish and share fish with each other. That's just remarkable." The drone photography showed J2 and her relative J45 swimming side by side, a salmon swimming between them. "Ultimately, J2 captured the salmon and presented it to J45," according to NOAA.

J45's mother had just died, which explains why J2 was helping her find food. Southern resident offspring stay with their mothers their entire lives—another characteristic that sets them apart from other killer whales—so an orphan like J45 would be adrift without mom around. "They are incredibly bonded animals. They don't disperse," Dr. Giles said. "It's not like elephants, for example, where the males disperse from mom, and even females sometimes disperse from mom. With the southern resident clan, it's not that way. They all stay with their families their entire life." J45's mom was among the seven southern resident deaths recorded in 2016, a disturbing setback after the minor baby boom of 2015. According to Howard Garrett, director of the advocacy group Orca Network, those births in 2015 were "all very encouraging, but then these mortalities have more than erased that gain." There are now 78 southern resident orcas left on the planet.

Granny was seen again in mid-October. Then in late October, scientists saw something they weren't used to seeing: Granny's relatives swimming around without her. This was highly unusual. "J2 was often the animal that was in the lead," said Dr. Giles, who has seen her in the wild "hundreds" of times. "And there were multiple, multiple times—it's been documented—where J2 would decide to go up a particular passage, and maybe some of the other whales were meandering a different way, and she would just stop in the water and start slamming her tail on the water. It's called tail slapping... When she was around, if she wanted something to happen, she would make it happen."
 
Because Granny had an easily identifiable crescent-moon-shaped scar on the trailing edge of her dorsal fin, her presence was easy for scientists to track. So it was disconcerting for researchers who've been seeing her since 1976 not to see her with her pod.
    
The Center for Whale Research marked J2 down as missing. "The general rule is, there are three encounters where they should be there and they're not," said Garrett. "The center tries to be very conservative about it and not set off any alarms until they're absolutely sure." In November, there was another encounter with J2's family, and J2 was still missing. In December, there was another encounter—and again, no J2.
    
"That was enough," Garrett said. "We knew she was gone.

The oldest living orca on record, an icon of her species, was dead. The news devastated activists and animal lovers, and it underscored a bigger environmental problem that political leaders don't seem eager to address—a problem affecting all southern residents and their prospects for future survival.

"When you think back eighty to a hundred years and everything she would have seen in her lifetime, everything from massive shipping in the area to the damming of the Elwha River, she was there when that was happening," Dr. Giles reflected.

She also would have witnessed the traumatic orca captures in the 1960s and '70s in Puget Sound, when fishermen hunted southern residents with explosives to sell to companies like SeaWorld. The original Shamu was an orphaned southern resident who watched her mother die after being harpooned from a helicopter near the Tacoma Narrows Bridge. In response to public outcry, orca captures were outlawed in Washington State in 1976.

Another change Granny would have witnessed over time was "the decimation of fish in the region," said Dr. Giles. "When she was young, there would have been fish that were 120-plus pounds—fish that were massive. That's what these whales evolved to eat. You think of a massive carnivore like a killer whale, and you think: Gosh, how can it be that they eat just fish? When we think of fish these days, we think of a 30-pound Chinook salmon as massive, and those are teeny, those are itty-bitty compared to what these whales evolved to eat. But that's still what they're looking for." Chinook is the biggest of the salmon species and the richest in fat content.

When southern residents were officially added to the endangered species list in 2005, federal dollars were allocated to studying them and planning a survival strategy. They are the only endangered orcas in US waters, and NOAA has been analyzing several factors that may be contributing to their demise, including pollution, vessel noise, and salmon scarcity.

But for Dr. Giles, it's a no-brainer. She points out that there are other populations of orcas seen in Puget Sound—for instance the mammal-eating transient orcas that like to eat seals (by skinning them alive)—and those orcas are thriving, in spite of pollution and vessel noise, unlike the southern residents, whose population is "not increasing." Southern residents "are losing a tremendous number of their young, before they're even born." The difference? "The southern residents don't have food."

More Salmon Needed
In a recovery plan for southern residents that NOAA completed in 2008, the federal agency acknowledged "the single greatest change in food availability for resident killer whales since the late 1800s has been the decline of salmon from the Columbia River basin." One of the rivers that feeds into the Columbia River is the Snake River, which is dammed in four places as it travels through the southeast corner of Washington State.

"The Columbia River basin—and the Snake River watershed in particular—holds the greatest promise for restoring significant numbers of Chinook in the near term," according to Save Our Wild Salmon, a coalition of advocacy groups. "For this reason, orca scientists and advocates increasingly support calls to remove the four costly lower Snake River dams."

For decades, those four dams—Ice Harbor, Lower Monumental, Little Goose, and Lower Granite—have generated cheap hydroelectric energy for the Bonneville Power Administration. The power created by Bonneville's dams was credited by President Harry Truman as being essential in the allied victory in World War II. Back then, cheap power "was instrumental in the ramp up of the Northwest aluminum industry," Bonneville's website states, which in turn allowed Boeing to manufacture "over 10,000 combat airplanes."

But some activists say those dams are no longer essential and cause more environmental problems than they solve. The dams are operated by the US Army Corps of Engineers, and James M. Waddell, who worked for the corps for 35 years, told me, "Historically, in the Columbia–Snake River system, there were somewhere between  15 million and 30 million fish a year... Today, we get less than 3 percent of those runs, and a lot of those are hatchery fish. The original wild fish that were in that river have been almost completely decimated." He believes that if the dams aren't breached soon, "it will be nearly impossible to recover" wild salmon runs, "and they might likely go extinct. And by extension, the southern resident killer whales will also likely go extinct."

Twenty years ago, a coalition of parties including environmental groups, fishing businesses, and indigenous tribes sued the federal agencies that operate and market the energy produced by the Columbia River hydropower system. Last May, US District Court judge Michael Simon in Oregon "invalidated" the US government's most recent biological opinion for restoring the salmon runs in the Columbia basin, the Seattle Times reported. In other words, the judge sided with the environmental groups, writing that the dam system "cries out for a major overhaul" and that "for more than 20 years... federal agencies ignored the admonishments and continued to focus essentially on the same approach" and the agencies' efforts "have already cost billions of dollars, yet they are failing. Many populations of the listed species continue to be in a perilous state."

It wasn't the first time the courts came down hard on the federal agencies. "It's the fifth time a biological opinion written by the agencies permitting operation of the dams has been struck down by the courts," the Times explained.

Joseph Bogaard, the executive director of Save Our Wild Salmon, told me, "The politics on this issue is truly shifting." As he put it, federal agencies have "run up a huge bill, they haven't restored our fish, and they've had five consecutive illegal plans" tossed out by the courts. "The political leadership is starting to scratch their heads and say: Okay, we get it, we're going to have to fix this."

Waddell, who now runs an organization called Dam Sense, says that if you breached the four Snake River dams, "right off the bat, you would eliminate half the mortality" of migrating salmon. But, he said, political leaders are "so afraid to touch this issue."

He said that Dam Sense has been "trying for well over two years to set up a meeting with Governor Jay Inslee to brief him on this, but they keep turning us down."

Tara Lee, a spokesperson for Governor Inslee, told The Stranger that "the governor's staff has been working closely with respected stakeholders on this issue for some time." She indicated that Governor Inslee believes more studies need to be done, weighing the "biological and socioeconomic costs and benefits" of four approaches: (1) "status quo," (2) "aggressive non-dam-removal restoration strategy including additional spill over the dams to improve the survival of out-migrating juvenile salmon and steelhead," (3) "lower Snake River dam removal," and (4) "lower Snake River dam removal plus elements of the aggressive non-dam-removal strategy."

In other words, the governor is keeping all options open. "We will push the federal agencies to consider the impacts of all of these alternatives on southern resident orcas," the spokesperson said.

Lee added that the state "is supporting the near-term development of a carefully designed experiment to test the benefits of additional spill at both the Snake and Columbia River dams for out-migrating salmon and steelhead."

Though Bogaard, of Save Our Wild Salmon, believes the politics of this issue are starting to shift, he acknowledged: "There remains a decided lack of urgency on the part of many political leaders." That is, he said, "disappointing and worrisome," and added that Inslee's explanation of his position to The Stranger is in keeping with that lack of urgency.

As for the question of what the Pacific Northwest would do without the hydroelectric power the dams produce, Bogaard said, "There's a growing recognition of opportunities and flexibilities within the region today with regards to taking the energy from those four dams offline. Seattle City Light and other energy experts in the region have indicated if the dams were to be removed, it's possible we don't need to immediately replace that energy." He mentioned plummeting costs of alternative technologies, including wind and solar.

Bogaard added that Columbia basin restoration would not be a panacea for the southern residents, but it would be "an essential component to providing the significant numbers of fish that these southern residents need to survive."

The Stranger reached out to the offices of Senator Patty Murray and Senator Maria Cantwell for comment, but neither of the senators replied.

When asked what people can do to help the southern residents, Howard Garrett, of the Orca Network, said, "Our real push is the Snake River dams. On social media, we're calling on people to call Inslee, Murray, and Cantwell's offices. The word we have is that they are the holdouts." He added, "The state political backwater of resistance—pun intended—just don't want to see those dams come out. They're just married to them as monuments to our greatness, or whatever it is. The rationales for keeping the dams are riddled with falsehoods."

In a 2015 report to Congress, NOAA listed southern resident orcas as one of eight endangered species that are "most at risk of extinction."

"There's no other population on the planet like southern residents," said Dr. Giles, of the Center for Whale Research. "I understand there's politics involved. But if something massive doesn't happen very, very soon, it's going to be too late."

The conversation turned back to Granny and her clan. Dr. Giles pointed out, "It was through her that we really started to understand the social dynamics and the close bonds that these animals have for one another, by studying her, because she was so recognizable." She added, "We really have lost the wise elder of the southern resident clan."

http://www.thestranger.com/features/2017/03/22/25031016/is-anyone-going-to-save-the-endangered-killer-whales-in-puget-sound-before-its-too-late

April 17, 2019

Gregory Scruggs

Bridgeport, Washington - Rodney Cawston's father and grandfather passed down stories of such abundant salmon fishing in the U.S. Northwest's Columbia River that the banks were a feast of red flesh.

But Cawston, chair of the U.S. Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation, has never seen fish harvests like those.

He was born after the United States and Canada began construction in the 1930s of a series of more than 450 dams along the Columbia basin, which drains a watershed the size of France across seven U.S. states and one Canadian province.

While the project was praised for generating electricity for the area and irrigating farmland, indigenous tribes mourned the loss of traditional fishing grounds but hope negotiations over a 1964 treaty governing the river could resolve this.

The river and its tributaries border three sides of the Colville Reservation, a Native American reservation in the U.S. state of Washington.

As the United States and Canada conducted a fresh round of negotiations this month in Victoria, British Columbia, to update the 1964 treaty - which can be terminated in 2024 - Cawston and fellow tribal leaders want to be formally represented in talks.

"We have no representation even though our people have lived for thousands of years in this region," Cawston said, adding that the river's 15 U.S. tribes had seen their requests for formal representation at the negotiations rebuffed.

A State Department spokeswoman said by email that "the best way to balance the United States' objectives and conclude a successful agreement with Canada in a timely manner is to limit the negotiating team to federal agencies."

Three Canadian tribes have also "requested direct participation in the negotiations but to date have not reached agreement with Canada on that issue", said a spokeswoman for Grand Chief Stewart Phillip, chair of the Okanagan Nation Alliance.

Canada meets with the three Canadian tribes before each round of talks and debriefs them afterwards, said a spokeswoman for the British Columbia Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum, which serves on the Canadian negotiating team.

A SALMON PEOPLE

The dams built along the Columbia River helped make Washington into a leader in apple production and were viewed as an important way to sustain agriculture in the area.

Apples are the state's top agricultural crop, representing some $2 billion to $2.5 billion in sales each year, according to the Washington Apple Commission.

But Cawston said the upstream movement of fish was blocked by two dams along the river, Chief Joseph and Grand Coulee, the latter of which folk singer Woody Guthrie called "the mightiest thing ever built by a man" in his song "Roll On, Columbia".

"Salmon was up to 70 percent of our diet," Cawston told the Thomson Reuters Foundation from the tribe's fish hatchery in the reservation, 128 miles (206km) northeast of Seattle.

"We are a salmon people. That way of life was completely lost with the construction of the dams on the Columbia River."

To mitigate for the loss of endangered salmon along the Columbia, federal agencies maintain and fund fish hatcheries, restore habitat and cull invasive predators.

For example, one quarter of the reservoir of the Grand Coulee Dam has been set aside for local tribes to fish and hunt.

And the tide is turning for fish losses this year thanks to favourable ocean conditions, with 1.3 million salmon and steelhead expected to enter the Columbia River in 2019 - according to the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife - compared to 665,000 in 2018.

U.S. Chief Negotiator Jill Smail and other federal representatives from the Columbia River Treaty negotiating team listen to the public at a town hall meeting in Portland, Oregon on September 6, 2018. Thomson Reuters Foundation/Gregory Scruggs

TRADEOFFS

The 1964 treaty sets a protocol for managing how much water Canada will release annually from the river's headwaters and how much the United States will pay in return.

Tribes hope the revised agreement will prioritise fishing by adding a third pillar alongside hydropower and flood control, the so-called "ecosystem-based function".

This would "provide the right quantity of water at the right time to help fish migration and improve river conditions," said Greg Haller, executive director of environmental group Pacific Rivers.

He cited the abnormally hot summer of 2015 when more than 250,000 Columbia River sockeye salmon died, an event scientists fear may become more common due to climate change.

Environmentalists said there was a tradeoff in managing the river between interests like flood control and better conditions for fish, but argue they can coexist.

"By optimising the river for flood risk and hydropower, we automatically impact salmon," Pacific Rivers' Haller said. "In order to change that, we need to produce less hydropower."

Demand for hydropower has decreased in recent years as California, once its biggest customer, adopts more solar and wind power, according to the Bonneville Power Administration, the federal agency that administers Columbia River hydropower.

A 2017 study by environmental consultancy Earth Economics estimated improved management of the Columbia River could produce economic gains of $1.5 billion annually.

As for flood risk, Haller said, "we are able to bump up flows in the river without threatening property or life."

Neither the U.S. nor Canadian negotiating teams would comment on river management in the revised treaty with talks ongoing.

Despite the lack of formal participation, Cawston remains cautiously optimistic he might one day experience what his forefathers did.

"With the renegotiation of this treaty, I really look forward to seeing salmon passage behind Chief Joseph Dam and Grand Coulee Dam," he said.

(Reporting by Gregory Scruggs, Editing by Astrid Zweynert and Zoe Tabary. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women's and LGBT+ rights, human trafficking, property rights, and climate change. Visit http://news.trust.org)

The fight to save the Pacific Northwest salmon has landed in Washington

By Brian Bennett
October 2021

When you get high enough into the mountains of Idaho, the fish are in the trees.

For the past million years or so, sockeye and Chinook salmon have migrated 840 miles upstream from the Pacific Ocean, climbing 6,400 ft. into the Rockies and burning calories in their ruddy flesh from the ocean plankton they have eaten, depositing their eggs in the cool, rocky streams and, when they die, leaving behind nutrients to be absorbed into the Lodgepole pines and Western red cedars. The ancestors of the Nez Perce, the Shoshone-Bannock, the Coeur d’Alene and other Native American tribes built robust societies within that ecosystem. When Meriwether Lewis and William Clark were lost and starving in these mountains in 1805, Nez Perce found them and fed them salmon.

The current headquarters of the Nez Perce tribe is across the road from Lapwai Creek, a narrow, pebbly rivulet near the head of a major river system where wild salmon have always laid their eggs. Sitting in the air-conditioned prefab offices of the tribe, Shannon Wheeler, a Nez Perce leader, recalls hearing stories growing up about when the wild salmon swam up these waters in pods so dense, the creeks looked black. The salmon runs he watched as a kid were shadows of what his mother saw, but even so, Wheeler remembers fishing with his extended family on the south fork of the Salmon River each summer in the early ’70s, hooking wild Chinook for weeks. It’s where he learned to cover the thick, muscular fish in wet fir boughs to keep them cool and to leave a couple of fish down a trail to distract the bears that would come, and where he first heard the prayers and traditional songs that the elders sing when the salmon arrive.

That was before. Today, the salmon in the waters around Lapwai are endangered. A network of hydropower dams built with federal funds between 1934 and 1984, coupled with warming temperatures and changing ocean chemistry, are sending Idaho’s wild salmon rapidly toward extinction. Only 20% of the salmon that swim above the dams are wild—fish that reproduce in cool mountain streambeds and not in the concrete tanks of a hatchery—and there is growing concern among fish biologists that they will be gone in a decade. As the dams have gone up, tribes have demanded protections for fish. In the creation story passed down from generation to generation among the Nez Perce, the salmon in these waters used to speak, but they gave their voices to humans. “Now,” says Wheeler, the tribe’s vice chairman, “we need to speak for the fish.”

Nearly 2,500 miles east, an unlikely coalition has come together in Washington, D.C., to do exactly that. The Nez Perce and 14 other Pacific Northwest tribal nations have joined forces with U.S. Congressman Mike Simpson (R., Idaho), the National Congress of American Indians, sports-fishing enthusiasts and river conservationists in a long-shot bid to convince President Joe Biden and lawmakers to step in and breach four hydropower dams on the Snake River, easing the path for wild salmon to make the 1,600-mile round trip from Idaho’s glacier-fed mountain streams to the Pacific Ocean and back. Simpson has been shopping around a $33 billion plan to remove part of the dams and invest in transportation, water and energy alternatives for the farmers and businesses that rely on them, trying to get the proposal tucked into Biden’s sweeping infrastructure agenda that is being negotiated on Capitol Hill.

For a new Administration that has publicly prioritized both climate change and protecting Indigenous rights, it’s a complicated ask. Removing the dams would help the salmon migration, protect the central role the fish have in Pacific Northwest Indigenous communities and shore up fishing tourism in the small towns that dot the river system. But it would also mean losing the flexible, low-carbon energy source the dams provide just as the President seeks to kick-start the nation’s green economy and re-establish America as a global leader in reducing carbon emissions. “Two of Biden’s top issues right now—climate change and equity—are wrapped up in this, inextricably,” says David Moryc, director of public policy for the advocacy group American Rivers, which is in favor of removing the dams.

Out west, Simpson’s $33 billion proposal has met fierce resistance from Idaho’s farmers and businesses, despite being designed to appease them. Farmers shipping grain on barges through the dam system’s locks and reservoirs to the Pacific don’t want to lose their cheap, reliable route to markets in Asia. Businesses rely on the energy the hydropower dams produce. Republican lawmakers have largely slammed the idea of breaking open working dams. “I remain unconvinced that breaching the dams is a silver bullet for salmon recovery,” Idaho Governor Brad Little, who is also a Republican, said in a statement to TIME. “Breaching the dams would have devastating impacts on Idahoans and vital segments of Idaho’s economy.”

But it is ultimately Democrats who appear to have scuttled the plan’s inclusion in the $1 trillion infrastructure bill that they hope will shore up America’s roads, bridges and public transit networks. Simpson tried to get colleagues across the aisle to embrace a Republican-led conservation effort, but few Pacific Northwest Democrats took the bait. Washington State’s Governor Jay Inslee and Senator Patty Murray said in May they want to launch their own solution to the salmon’s precipitous decline. Others don’t think there are enough green alternatives to hydropower dams, and helped block Simpson’s efforts, say two lobbyists who were part of Simpson’s coalition. When that group brought the plan to the White House in hopes that Biden might step in, the President didn’t act. “The message we got back was the Pacific Northwest Democrats didn’t think it was enough of a priority for the Administration to advance it at that time,” says Justin Hayes, the executive director of Idaho Conservation League, who was briefed on the White House meeting.

The infrastructure bill does earmark millions of dollars to improve river-basin ecosystems and help fish get around man-made barriers across the country. The push to breach the dams is part of a larger trend across the country of removing dams to save endangered fish. Dams in the Klamath River basin that borders Oregon and California, and in Washington State’s Olympic Peninsula, have been removed to help fish populations. When dams came out on the Penobscot River in Maine, fish populations in tributaries and the ocean outlets rebounded. But none of the funding in the bipartisan infrastructure bill is targeted at removing the four Snake River dams.

That leaves the Nez Perce and other tribes with an urgent problem, and no immediate help from a President who campaigned to restore tribal lands and uphold the country’s responsibility to tribal nations. In July, 15 tribal nations came together on the Squaxin Island reservation in Washington State to discuss how they can help the Pacific Northwest wild salmon and the orca that rely on it to survive. Hemene James, a Coeur d’Alene tribal leader from the northern tip of Idaho, stood during the summit to describe his tribe’s experience of living on ancestral rivers where the fish have been completely blocked by dams. Now, the Coeur d’Alene eat salmon that comes in shipments from other parts of the country. “We get our salmon out of the back of a truck,” James said. “You don’t want to end up like us.”

Tramping along the edge of Marsh Creek, a winding stream fed by glacial runoff from the jagged Sawtooth Mountains, Russ Thurow scans the shallows for Chinook parr, as baby salmon are called. “There!” says Thurow, a fish biologist with the U.S. Forest Service, pointing out 2-in.-long spotted fish that could grow into powerful 40-lb. salmon. It darts under the grassy overhang of an eddy. Thirty years ago, when Thurow would lie on his belly with a snorkel and mask in this stream, he would count 200 or 300 Chinook parr in the same conditions.

There is no better place than the high mountain streams of Idaho for Chinook to spawn. The water is cool, with the rocky bottoms that the salmon need to burrow in with their bodies to create gravel nests for depositing their eggs. Juveniles, when they’re large enough, will swim downstream hundreds of miles to the Pacific Ocean. But a trip that took three days before the dams were built now takes two weeks. Along the way, the young Chinook must make it through 140 miles of warm, slow-moving waters, which takes more energy and extends the time they are vulnerable to predators like smallmouth bass and great blue herons.

The ones that make it to the ocean fatten up on plankton and then head back upriver to spawn in the same creek where they were born. They navigate eight man-made dams, four on the Snake and four lower down on the Columbia River, and eight deep reservoirs baked in the sun. The last dam before the high mountain spawning grounds is the 3,200-ft.-long Lower Granite Dam, set in a deep depression between two hilltop prairies planted with wheat and barley.

One morning in July, anglers in a few small fishing boats cast into the dam’s tailwaters for smallmouth bass and walleye. The deep, low rumble of thousands of pounds of tumbling water thunders from the dam, and the industrial smell of water hitting concrete hangs in the warm air. The last power turbine in the Lower Granite Dam was completed by the Army Corps of Engineers and switched on in 1979, capping four decades of dam construction across the Pacific Northwest that turned dozens of free-flowing rivers into highly regulated engineering systems.

Hydropower advocates say the dam system is an integral part of the region’s power mix at a moment when the nation needs clean energy. The four hydropower dams on the Snake River produce about 5% of the energy used in the Pacific Northwest. Like solar and wind energy, hydropower doesn’t require burning carbon to create electricity, and is less weather-dependent. In crises when the entire grid goes out, hydropower is quickly accessible to start up coal or natural gas plants, says Kurt Miller, executive director of the not-for-profit Northwest RiverPartners, an association that represents dozens of utilities using hydroelectric power in the Pacific Northwest. “We should maintain all productive hydroelectric dams,” Miller says. “We think that’s a fair place to land because of the severe threat of climate change.”

The Snake River dams are embedded in Idaho’s agricultural economy. The dams were designed with locks to carry barge traffic, and are used nearly every day to move wheat and other grains from Idaho’s fields to the ports on the Pacific. Joseph Anderson was a teenager in the 1970s when the reservoir behind the Lower Granite Dam first reached Lewiston, Idaho, about 40 miles upstream, allowing barges to be loaded with grain for the first time and then floated down the federally funded network of dams. Before that, farms in the area loaded their grain on rail cars that were often backed up and subject to unpredictable price fluctuations, Anderson recalls.

Now 63, Anderson farms wheat, pulse and oil seed on about 4,400 acres of the rolling folds of the Palouse prairie surrounding Lewiston. He and other farmers in the area truck their grain to barges on the reservoirs behind the lower Snake River dams, then send it down the network of pools and locks to be loaded onto container ships in Portland, Ore., and shipped to wholesale buyers in Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. The barges have “really changed the industry and agriculture” in western Idaho and eastern Washington State, Anderson says.

The dams have also changed the ecosystem. Within a decade of completing the Snake River hydropower projects, lawsuits and court judgments forced the Army Corps, which operates the dams, and U.S. Bonneville Power Administration (BPA), which sells their power, to invest millions of dollars in helping fish get around them. In the intervening years, an entire industry of human intervention has sprung up. Most adult wild salmon moving through the system are tagged with a tracking device and logged by Idaho Fish and Game. For fish swimming upstream, fish ladders on the side of the dams have been repeatedly improved to allow salmon migrating from the ocean to propel themselves from concrete eddy to concrete eddy upstream. Some sockeye are carried to hatcheries as far as Boise, 300 miles away, to help raise generations of captive fish to stock rivers where wild salmon have died out. On the trip downstream, young salmon are poured into trucks and driven around the dams, or motored on barges through reservoirs that have little current. Biologists have cryogenically frozen wild sockeye eggs to preserve the wild salmon gene stock. The system has its defenders. “Fish and dams can co-exist,” insists Lieut. Colonel Rick T. Childers, the Walla Walla district commander for the Army Corps of Engineers that oversees the four lower Snake River dams.

But despite all the costly, court-ordered innovation, scientists say not enough wild fish are returning to spawn. Fewer than 1% of wild Chinook from high mountain breeding grounds are able to make it back from the Pacific, Thurow and other scientists have found, far below the replacement rate needed for the species to avoid extirpation. Mountain streams like Marsh Creek, with its high elevation and cool water, are the most climate-resilient places on the planet to preserve the genetics of wild salmon in the face of dwindling habitats, Thurow says. “If the fish can get here,” he says, “They’ll do their thing.”

Tough Trek
Only 1% of wild salmon survive the 1,600-mile round trip from Idaho’s mountain streams past several hydropower dams to the Pacific and back

There's a stuffed salmon on the wall of Mike Simpson’s office in Washington, D.C. In the next room, his chief of staff Lindsay Slater’s office is wallpapered with diagrams of the salmon streams of Idaho, shipping and rail routes, and the location of the hydropower dams in the basin. Charts show agricultural output, energy sources for the Pacific Northwest, and the scientific evidence of declining fish populations.

Salmon-saving operations are getting more expensive every year. The BPA spent $259 million in 2018 to limit the ecological damage of hydropower, up 73% from 2008. That spike got Simpson’s attention. A former dentist from Blackfoot, Idaho, elected to Congress in 1998, he wanted to save the salmon and cut costs for power and agricultural businesses in the state. Along the way he found allies. For Nez Perce vice chairman Wheeler, the U.S. is treaty-bound to support saving the salmon, thanks to the 1855 agreement guaranteeing the tribes the right to fish the rivers. “They’re actually trying to save a heritage, a culture, a religion, a way of life,” says Simpson.

Simpson’s proposal to remove the earthen portion of four of the dams on the lower Snake River would allow the river and its salmon to run freely. The $33 billion plan includes building train lines to replace the barges moving Idaho grain to Pacific shipping ports, and creating solar- and wind-energy production to offset the loss in hydropower capacity. It would also provide guarantees that environmental groups wouldn’t sue over other dams in the system for 35 years.

The proposal was embraced by tribes and sports-fishing organizations. But large business owners and farmers in Idaho, despite their relatively recent claims to the land’s resources compared with their tribal neighbors, said breaching the dams would irreparably alter the Idaho economy. “I could only guess that our transportation costs would double,” says Anderson, the wheat farmer. In D.C., when allied lobbyists met over Zoom with David Hayes, Biden’s special assistant for climate policy at the White House and an expert in environmental law, he was positive about the plan, but punted: “Great work,” Hayes said, encouraging them to work with Congress to find a way forward. Privately, an official in charge of funds to protect fish populations says the Biden Administration wants to do more: “When these dams were built, the tribes’ interests were not at the forefront. What are we going to do to make it right?”

For now, the answer appears to be: nothing. Without Biden’s support, Democrats balked at Simpson’s plan. Washington Governor Inslee deferred to GOP governors in the region. Senator Ron Wyden (D., Oregon) failed to endorse it. But the place it really died was in the office of Representative Peter DeFazio, the powerful Oregon Democrat who chairs the House Transportation Committee and has long opposed dam removal, say the two lobbyists who brought him the proposal. It was DeFazio’s call whether to include it in the infrastructure bill, but he didn’t, and Biden’s team didn’t feel like going to bat for it if the Democrats in the region weren’t clamoring for the proposal, the lobbyists said. DeFazio found that Simpson’s effort was a “broad conceptual plan” not under his purview, said King Green, DeFazio’s spokesperson.

Simpson and his backers hope some money in the infrastructure bill could help, including $172 million for broad Pacific salmon recovery efforts by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and an additional $400 million for improving ways for fish to get around dams. The bill also provides $200 million for the national fish passage program run by the Department of Interior’s U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

But if the history of U.S. government action in the west shows anything, it is that nothing is guaranteed, including the treaties ensuring Native American fishing rights. Those treaties are “the supreme law of the land,” says Lytle Denny, a fish biologist for the Shoshone-Bannock tribe. Denny worries a way of life may be disappearing forever. His great-grandfather would drive to Hells Canyon to catch, preserve and load up a wagon with salmon to bring back and distribute to fellow tribe members. Denny now takes his own children up into the high mountain streams to fish the salmon runs; they feel lucky if they find one or two. This year, Denny speared one of the tribe’s three allotted wild Chinook for the season in a stream running through the Sawtooth range. His great-grandfather, who fished salmon his whole life, often told Denny’s father, “‘Don’t lose this way. You need to keep this way alive,’” Denny says.

But every year, that way of life, like the salmon it is built around, looks increasingly threatened. Shoshone-Bannock leaders drive hours into Washington State to find salmon caught downstream to hand out to the tribe. In the Clearwater River and Lapwai Creek streams around the Nez Perce reservation, the tribe’s catch has been so abysmal that during its traditional first foods ceremony in May, elders had to use salmon caught more than a hundred miles downstream, and in July, the tribe distributed salmon to its members from the back of a truck.

—With reporting by MARIAH ESPADA and NIK POPLI/WASHINGTON

September 28, 2013

By MARK HUME AND JUSTINE HUNTER

In the five decades since signing of agreement governing the usage of the river, Mark Hume and Justine Hunter report, the values and priorities have changed significantly – namely, a focus on the environment.

On an overcast day in early August, a flotilla of five canoes pushed away from a jetty in Astoria, Ore., near where the Pacific breaks on Desolation Point, at the mouth of the Columbia River.

Eight weeks later, the Sea to the Source expedition is approaching the last leg of a 2,000-kilometre trip that is taking the paddlers across dramatic landscapes and past more than 14 hydro dams to the river's headwaters in British Columbia.

The expedition was planned not to promote tourism or retrace the routes of explorers, but to focus attention on the environmental health of the largest river in the Pacific Northwest – and on an international water treaty that is set to expire. With 10 years' advance notice, either Canada or the United States can terminate the Columbia River Treaty in 2024, which means the deadline to renegotiate or abandon one of the most important water agreements in North America is fast approaching. And debate on it is heating up on both sides of the border.

Fifty years ago, the linked waterways that rise in the Rocky Mountains, near Invermere, B.C., were viewed as forces to be controlled, commodities to be developed. But as B.C. gets a second chance to negotiate the future of a crucial water resource, the values today are more complex: This time around, interested parties are talking about navigation, recreation, agriculture, fisheries, First Nations rights and climate change – the latter a preoccupation of the politically attuned paddlers.

Aligned against a powerful array of U.S. stakeholders, B.C. is seeking to defend a dominant source of the province's energy supply, as well as the dividends that have delivered billions of dollars to government coffers.
Premier Christy Clark will be talking about the treaty when she is in Washington, D.C., next week, as will a delegation from 15 tribes in the Pacific Northwest on hand to lobby the U.S. Congress.

"I'm pretty confident we'll be able to get a good deal for British Columbia," said Ms. Clark, who believes B.C. has a strong case. "Because here is the thing: 'No deal' is terrible for the United States.... Yes, there is a lot of financial interest in it for us, but if there is no deal for the United States, it will be an environmental and economic mess south of the border. So we have every interest in working together."

While officials are talking in Washington, Adam Wicks-Arshack and his four colleagues on the Sea to the Source expedition are working the grassroots, drumming up interest on the banks of the Columbia. "We've talked to thousands of people," he said.

The expedition, which wants environmental issues included in any treaty talks, launched on Aug. 2 and will end sometime next month in Canal Flats, B.C., where the great river begins. Along the way, the canoeists will have retraced the route that migrating salmon once took up the Columbia – until they were stopped by a series of impassable hydro dams.

"Near the ocean, salmon are present the whole time. Just constantly along the banks there are people fishing, native people netting as we were going by, so we were with salmon and the salmon culture the whole way," Mr. Wicks-Arshack said. But about 800 kilometres upstream from Astoria, the salmon disappear from the river, blocked by Chief Joseph Dam in central Washington State.
"You could feel it change," he said of the river above the dam. "Suddenly there just aren't any salmon."
When the treaty was ratified, environmental matters were an afterthought. The driving interests for governments were flood control, power generation and profit sharing. As part of the deal, BC Hydro built a series of dams to hold back water that is released to facilitate power generation in the U.S.

At a Vancouver signing ceremony in 1964, then-U.S. president Lyndon Johnson had a full honour guard as his treasury advanced the first cheque to B.C. – $253,929,534.25 to cover the initial 30 years of the agreement. "You Canadians went for that last 25 cents," he said, joking about the hard bargain Canadians drove.

B.C. premier W.A.C. Bennett would later call the signing the happiest day of his career. Since then, the treaty has delivered billions of dollars in revenue through annual payments that range from $120-million to $300-million, reflecting a yearly share of the additional downstream power that is generated in the U.S.

The deal was seen as a good one at the time, but both sides appear to be heading toward a modified, modernized treaty.

With its concentration on developing liquefied natural gas projects in B.C., the Clark government has not made the treaty a major talking point. But that is changing. The file now sits on the desk of Energy Minister Bill Bennett, whose Kootenay East riding lies in the Columbia River Basin, where constituents still recall the good land and small communities that disappeared when reservoirs filled. Across the border he faces an array of four states, 11 federal agencies and representatives for 15 tribal governments. And the U.S. interests are expected to push hard to reduce the annual power payments to B.C. by more than half – with some parties saying B.C.'s entitlement should be slashed by 90 per cent.

Mr. Bennett is dismissive of that position: "They can't substantiate that." But he also knows he is in for some tough negotiating. "Sure we have differences of opinion. There are folks that wish they didn't have to pay as much to B.C. for benefits. They are tough, they are smart – but there is goodwill on both sides."

Nancy Stephan is the program manager for the treaty review at the Bonneville Power Administration, which together with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, operates the system south of the border.

"In 1964, it was a win-win for both countries," she said in an interview. But the concepts that guided it are now out of date and "we really think it is important to modernize it."

The idea of forecasting has changed much in 50 years, too. While the signatories in 1964 had confidence about how to promote development, today there is less certainty about what the future holds. With climate change promising more unreliable weather patterns, and a recognition that a nation's water supply is a more complex and fragile resource, Ms. Stephan suggested there is little appetite for another treaty that would lock the two countries in for half a century or more.

"The treaty has given us a lot of experience, and we've learned that sometimes our [energy] forecasts are not that great," she said.

In B.C., the Columbia Basin Trust has consulted with some 2,500 residents in 22 information sessions and has drafted a report summarizing issues of concern. The report notes people identified "managing eco-systems... in a comprehensive manner across the border" as a key area of interest.

Last week, the Army Corps of Engineers and the Bonneville Power Authority released draft recommendations that call for "ecosystem function" to be added to the treaty as a key, third component along with flood control and power generation.
Pat Ford, special adviser on Columbia River Treaty to Save Our Wild Salmon, a U.S. group that has been lobbying to have the agreement renegotiated, said the environment just wasn't on the agenda when the deal was first done.
"I think it came near the end of a period where [ignoring environmental issues] was acceptable behaviour," Mr. Ford said. "It would not have happened in the 1970s, but in 1964 it did."

Mr. Ford said dams were built without fish ladders, destroying salmon runs, and water was released in ways that dramatically changed the natural flow of the river.

"The overwhelming impact... has been a tremendous deterioration, destruction of what used to be the largest and most productive salmon watershed in the world," said Mr. Ford, part of a delegation that recently met with Matthew Rooney, deputy secretary of the U.S. State Department. "We made plain in our presentation that in the Pacific Northwest, ecosystem function is economic function. If you don't have a healthy river, you are hurting all the users."

Link: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/debating-the-future-of-the-columbia-river/article14584669/

Luke Nelson and Ty Draney in the Snake River Basin © Matt Irving

TrailRunner Magazine recently published a great feature article from endurance runner Luke Nelson, telling the story of his truly epic journey, along with fellow ultrarunner Ty Draney, through some of the best salmon habitat left in the world: the Snake River Basin.  How epic?We're talking about a "two-day run of well over 120 miles of rugged terrain with a total elevation gain of about 20,000 feet" kind of epic. Here's the intro: The cold penetrates to my core. I am lying underneath my giant Forest Service map as a rogue thunderstorm bathes the canyon, an intense deluge that lasts about 30 minutes. Ty Draney, my good friend and ultrarunner extraordinaire, who is under the other map that we brought, sounds like he is getting some rest. I am incredibly envious that he is able to doze off, as I am shivering far too hard to coax my body into even a light sleep. The rain quickly passes, and I endure the shivering for another 10 to 15 minutes. Then I crack. I wake Ty and again we force our depleted bodies to move. Several years before I found myself sleeping under an oversize map, I worked on the Middle Fork of the Salmon River as a raft guide. That summer I often pondered what it would be like to travel through the heart of the Frank Church Wilderness along the river on the trail. I didn't run at the time, and it seemed impossible—80 miles of travel along the river followed by another 40 or so to get back to civilization. Yet the seed had been planted.

Read on over at TrailRunner

By Annette Cary, February 22, 2018

Key federal lawmakers representing the Tri-Cities are on opposite sides of a bill intended to help save the lower Snake River dams.

Rep. Dan Newhouse, R-Wash., is one of the bipartisan Northwest sponsors of a House bill that would keep the status quo — no breaching, no extra spilling of water — at the four lower Snake River Dams at least until 2022.

But Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., wants an environmental study to proceed that will look at different alternatives for salmon recovery, including breaching or removing one or more of the four dams.

She sent a letter on Tuesday to Senate and House leadership criticizing Newhouse’s bill.

“The legislation would undermine an important, ongoing process by forcing a one-size-fits-all approach for the many critical uses of the Columbia and Snake rivers, which is deeply concerning,” said Kerry Arndt, Murray’s press secretary.

“What’s more, it circumvents the courts and ignores bedrock environmental laws,” Arndt said.

In May 2016, U.S. Judge Michael Simon ordered the new environmental review and a new Federal Columbia River Biological Opinion, or BiOp.

The current BiOp — a plan created by a collaboration of federal agencies, states and tribes to protect salmon while operating Snake and Columbia river dams — does not do enough to rebuild endangered salmon and steelhead populations, he found.

Newhouse distributed Murray’s letter to news media on Thursday.

“It’s unthinkable that Seattle Democrats are putting politics over science when it comes to improving fish recovery efforts,” said Newhouse in a joint statement with fellow Washington Republican Reps. Cathy McMorris Rodgers and Jaime Herrera Beutler.

Murray’s letter — which also was signed by Reps. Adam Smith and Pramila Jayapal, both D-Wash. — said that Newhouse’s legislation would circumvent a process to consider all uses of the Columbia River power system.

Management of the river must consider fish and wildlife manage, salmon recovery, irrigation, navigation, power generation, flood protection and recreation, Murray’s letter said.

The environmental study process already has begun with 18 public meetings through the Pacific Northwest and more than 400,000 public comments made. The study is intended to evaluate the costs and benefits of multiple alternatives and possibly find a way to move listed species out of peril, Murray’s letter pointed out.

Newhouse’s bill would prevent an open and transparent process on its environmental study and new BiOp, according to Murray’s letter.

Murray would make Washington state ratepayers pick up the tab, Newhouse said.

Simon has ordered more water to be spilled over dams starting this spring in the hopes of delivering out-migrating juvenile salmon more quickly and safely to the ocean. Some critics of the decision say the spill would do little to help fish and could create high gas levels in the water that can harm juvenile fish.

The spilled water would otherwise be used for power production, and will cost Washington residents $40 million in higher electric rates this year, Newhouse said.

“They (Murray, Smith and Jayapal) claim to support clean renewable energy, while simultaneously working to destroy hydropower, Washington state’s largest source of carbon-neutral, clean energy,” Newhouse said.

“Breaching the dams, which provide critical benefits for communities in our state, should not even be an option,” he said.

The current BiOp was the result of years of work between the Obama administration, Pacific Northwest states, Northwest tribes and local people with direct knowledge and expertise in salmon recovery, Newhouse said.

“Rejecting the BiOp only hurts the people of Washington state and sets us back decades in our fight to protect fish and support clean energy,” he said.

Murray’s letter was sent to House speaker Paul Ryan, Senate leader Mitch McConnell, Senate Democratic leader Charles Schumer and House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi.

Newhouse’s bill was introduced by Newhouse; McMorris Rodgers; Herrera Beutler; Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., and Rep. Kurt Schrader, D-Ore.

http://www.tri-cityherald.com/news/local/article201669989.html

Brett VandenHuevel and Julian Matthews
May 2020

Several federal agencies just released a massive court-ordered federal study (called an Environmental Impact Statement, or EIS) about the Snake and Columbia river dams.

If you had other things on your mind last month, that’s more than understandable. Also, you didn’t miss much: the EIS is just another federal study aimed at propping up the status quo—while Northwest salmon and fisheries slide toward oblivion, and cheap solar and wind make Bonneville Power Administration’s hydropower less and less competitive.

We believe that Northwest-elected leaders should develop a solution that saves salmon by removing the Lower Snake River dams and reinvests in agriculture, transportation and river communities.

Effective leaders will make this happen—not a bloated government study short on solutions.

The EIS is so inadequate, in fact, that it appears to have cemented the belief among Northwest leaders that the federal agencies are not capable of providing solutions.

Oregon Gov. Kate Brown has taken a strong stand.

She calls for Lower Snake River dam removal and “propos(es) a path forward that can lead the region to an achievable and workable solution for future operation of the Columbia System, one that protects salmon and steelhead while assuring sustained economic growth for the region.” Washington Gov. Jay Inslee’s response is less robust, but strikes a similar chord.

Keeping Lower Snake River dam removal on the table, Gov. Inslee explained that he is “heartened by recent calls for, and steps toward, a regional collaboration about how to do more for salmon in a manner consistent with the energy, transportation, and irrigation … ”

We agree the Northwest needs a new path forward.

Despite past rhetoric on both sides, this issue is more complex than removing four dams on the Lower Snake to save salmon and orcas.

The system of dams on the Snake and Columbia rivers touches many aspects of life in the Northwest, from agriculture to electricity to fisheries. The hydrosystem was imagined nearly 100 years ago and largely constructed during the middle of the last century.

We are not trying to destroy that system; we are trying to improve it. For everyone.

In truth, the system is not working for many people.

Snake River salmon and steelhead runs are collapsing; tribal, commercial and sport fisheries are being decimated; and electrical utilities are wondering if they can keep paying for BPA’s costly hydropower.

As these problems intensify, they threaten the reliability of the remaining benefits of the Lower Snake River dams, namely transportation and agriculture.

Instead of continuing to fight each other, people and interests throughout the Northwest should come together and decide on a new path forward. Otherwise, the fate of our region, its resources, and its cultures will be decided by default, litigation, or chance.

We need to move beyond east-versus-west and liberal-versus-conservative narratives.

Those labels are too simplistic and don’t track reality.

For instance, U.S. Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, has shown the most appetite among Northwest leaders for exploring Lower Snake River dam removal.

And many “east-side” tribes and fishing guides want dam removal, while some “west-side” electrical utilities would rather keep the dams in place. On this issue, east-west divisions are an illusion. In the Northwest, we are all part of the same watershed, transportation system, electrical grid and ecosystem.

We are all in this together. We need to find solutions that work pretty well for everyone.

Let’s talk about agriculture.

Farmers in Eastern Washington need water for crops and reliable ways to get those crops to market.

Removing the four Lower Snake dams would not reduce the amount of irrigation water. And farmers who improve their irrigation intakes to accommodate changing water levels should not have to foot the bill.

Also, some wheat growers still ship their product on barges down the Lower Snake.

Dam removal would make this impossible, but dam removal advocates are also pushing for much-needed investments in rail and other transportation infrastructure. This is not about leaving people, especially farmers, behind.

It’s time to envision the Northwest in 20, 50 or 100 years. We all want our children to be able to catch and eat salmon. We all want them to inherit modern transportation infrastructure and a truly clean, cheap, and reliable energy system. It’s time to come together around common causes.

The federal agencies that run the Lower Snake River dams are clearly not interested in changing the status quo, even though it’s not working for many people in the Northwest.

Despite—and perhaps even because of —the EIS’ shortcomings, conversations are happening across the Northwest that might lead to real progress.

It won’t be easy or simple. The ecosystem and the economy of the Northwest are deeply entwined with the Columbia and Snake rivers. The regional politics also are complex, and the issues don’t fit neatly into westside-vs-eastside or red-vs-blue narratives.

But we must succeed. The future of salmon, sustainable fisheries, affordable power and agriculture in the Northwest all depend on our ability to come together and solve these challenges before it’s too late.

Brett VandenHuevel is the executive director of Columbia Riverkeeper, and Julian Matthews is a board member of Nimiipuu Protecting the Environment.

By Cameron Probert, cprobert@tricityherald.com


In April, three Idaho women set out from Astoria, Ore., with seven horses — on a mission to save threatened salmon.

Katelyn Spradley, Kat Cannell and MJ Wright trotted into Kennewick this weekend, a month into their 1,000-mile journey.

“We’re following the salmon home,” Cannell said. “We started from where the Columbia meets the ocean and we’re going all the way to Stanley, Idaho, which is the farthest inland that any of these fish go.”

The women, ages 23 to 27 from Central Idaho, started out at the ocean on April 18, spending most of their days on horseback following the course of the river.

We started from where the Columbia meets the ocean and we’re going all the way to Stanley, Idaho, which is the farthest inland that any of these fish go.

Their days start at 5 a.m. and end at 8 p.m., and at a speed of roughly 3 mph, they cover about 20 miles each day.

The slow pace presents challenges. If they end up going the wrong direction, the women could lose an entire day backtracking.

“You’re constantly thinking about your route and not taking a wrong turn,” Cannell said. “You’re always thinking about the condition of the horses.... When was the last time they drank. Are we making ample time to make sure we get to camp early to make sure they get ample rest.”

The women, all experienced long-distance riders, spent months plotting their course, arranging for supplies to meet them and conditioning their horses.

“We’re already calling forward to the next place because we’re going to have other horses that will need farrier attention,” Spradley said.

Their stop in Kennewick was their first resupply stop since Hood River, Ore., seven days earlier. Their next stop is Lewiston, where the Snake and Clearwater rivers meet.

They are pretty exquisite fish. Their numbers are down and they continue to go down. And if we don’t make a difference and try to find a solution, they’re going to go away completely.

And, all the while, they are acting as ambassadors for the two species of Idaho’s threatened and endangered salmon — fall and spring chinook and sockeye salmon. They aren’t promoting any specific resolution for helping the fish that travel 900 miles upstream and about 6,000 feet in elevation to spawning grounds.

“There is some serious polarization happening on the sides for how to save the salmon,” Cannell said.

“Nobody is getting anywhere because of it.”

They thought they might be a good bridge to bring people together.

“They are pretty exquisite fish,” Spradley said. “Their numbers are down and they continue to go down. And if we don’t make a difference and try to find a solution, they’re going to go away completely.”
Cameron Probert: 509-582-1402, @cameroncprobert

Read more here: http://www.tri-cityherald.com/news/local/article149418059.html#storylink=cpy

December 28, 2016

A guest opinion recently challenged the notion that starving orcas would benefit from dam removal, which scientists say will bolster dwindling salmon populations. Pasco City Planner Dave McDonald writes, “The Columbia/Snake River system is not connected to that habitat favored by the orcas.”

That’s just not true, but then again Mr. McDonald isn’t an expert on orcas. Instead let’s look to Dr. Samuel Wasser, director of the Center for Conservation Biology at the University of Washington, for a fact-based explanation. Dr. Wasser has conducted internationally respected research on orcas for years.

In a recent press statement he said, “Early spring Columbia River Chinook are vital to the reproductive health and population growth of southern resident killer whales. They replenish the whale’s reserves after the harsh winter and sustain them until the Fraser River Chinook run peaks in late summer. Low abundance of the Columbia River run increases rates of spontaneous abortions among pregnant whales of that year.”

Historically, half the Columbia Basin’s spring Chinook were produced in habitat located above the lower Snake River dams. Removing dams would re-open access. That’s why scientists view it as the most promising tool for salmon (and orca) recovery.

Steve Hawley, Hood River, Ore.

December 18, 2018

By Cameron Probert

Kennewick, WA - A new agreement aims to boost salmon populations and preserve inexpensive power in hopes of ending a decades-long legal battle over the future of the four lower Snake River dams.

Three federal agencies, including the Bonneville Power Administration, joined Oregon and Washington officials and the Nez Perce Tribe in signing off on a three-year plan filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Portland.

The move creates more flexibility for the federal agency running the dams, allowing them to focus on producing power for the eight hours in the day when it’s most needed, and increase the amount of water heading over the dam during the rest of the day.

The changes will only affect the dam’s operations between April and mid-June when spring Chinook are heading to the ocean.

This comes on the heels of a court-ordered spill last spring and while the 2019 spill levels will stay the same, the agreement calls for sending more water over the dam in 2020 and 2021.

The agreement aims to help young salmon heading to the ocean while allowing federal officials the ability to be flexible with power production, the administration said.

Collaboration is the key to the managing the Columbia River system, federal and state officials said in a joint news release.

“Working together, the region’s states, tribes and federal agencies have developed an approach that demonstrates environmental stewardship and affordable sustainable energy are not mutually exclusive,” they said.

Alongside the agreement, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and U.S. Fish and Wildlife are studying the impact the change will make on the environment.

The federal lawsuit will be paused until those studies are finished.

Environmental groups leading the charge in court, represented by Earthjustice, called the agreement a step forward in the continuing battle over the dams, but not the solution for salmon.

“It is a stop-gap measure to help struggling salmon populations for the next three years,” said Todd True, an Earthjustice attorney. “We should ultimately be working toward restoring a free-flowing lower Snake River by removing the four lower Snake River dams.”

The move is not what Reps. Dan Newhouse, R-Sunnyside, and Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Spokane, were looking for either.

In a joint statement, they called the costly plan “worse than useless.”

They pointed out federal scientists haven’t determined whether increasing the amount spilled would help salmon, and in the meantime, it could cost the administration up to $38 million.

“Increasing spill to this unprecedented new level may actually threaten young fish with ‘the bends’ due to the effect of increasing dissolved gasses,” the representatives said in a joint statement. “The purpose of this agreement was to end litigation, but there is no indication that it will even do that.”

Northwest RiverPartners also questioned whether the agreement would really solve the problems faced by salmon in the area. The alliance of farmers, utilities, ports and businesses issued a statement Tuesday.

“We are encouraged that this agreement intends to put a temporary halt to the the ongoing litigation that for so long has ill-served our region,” the organization said. “At the same time, we are concerned about the unprecedented and scientifically unproven levels of new spill being contemplated by the agreement.”

The organization’s leaders are calling on the state to study what the effect of the spill will be before signing off on any changes to existing water quality standards. The standards were put in place to protect salmon and other species, and this could invite more lawsuits if it hurts fish.

Whether this change will actually make a difference in the amount of salmon heading to the ocean depends on which scientific study is used. The competing models show drastically different results from sending more water over the dams.

Without more information about whether this will actually benefit the salmon, increasing the amount of water and dissolved gas in the river is a problem, Northwest RiverPartners said.

By Wendy Culverwell
December 14, 2023 

The Biden Administration announced an agreement to pause a lawsuit over Columbia River salmon for up to 10 years and spells out steps for tearing down the four Lower Snake River dams.

The Columbia Basin Restoration Initiative was hailed as a “historic” step toward ending the status quo and making real progress on restoring dwindling salmon populations in the Northwest.

The agreement announced Thursday provides $1 billion in new federal funding to shore up fish habitat and calls for more research on what it will take to replace the benefits of the four hydropower dams should Congress move to breach them in the future.

The agreement was greeted by some as a welcome “roadmap” to tearing down the dams and by others as a betrayal that will only hurt the region’s future.

The administration announced the agreement between the so-called “six sovereigns” one day before Friday’s deadline for parties in a long-running federal dispute to mediate an agreement.

Terms were leaked last week, leading to widespread coverage and even a Congressional hearing.

The agreement was filed in U.S. District Court for Oregon. It stays the lawsuit that pressed to breach the four dams for five years, with a five-year extension possible.

It stops short of calling for the four dams to be breached. However, it spells out the need to create a plan to replace the energy, transportation, irrigation, recreation and other benefits they provide.

Earthjustice, which brought the case on behalf of tribal and other clients, called it a “roadmap” to removing the Ice Harbor, Lower Monumental, Little Goose and Lower Granite dams, strung along the Snake River between the Tri-Cities in Eastern Washington and Lewiston, Idaho.

The agreement provides new funding for hatcheries, fish passage and other projects and creates a new tribal energy program to pursue clean energy. It also spells out how water is spilled over dams to benefit fish while ensuring reliable energy production.

EXTINCTION NOT AN OPTION

Tribal leaders echoed the “roadmap” message in a press briefing organized by the White House.

The Thursday Zoom call also featured federal officials and Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, who is about to start his final year in office.

Shannon Wheeler, chair of the Nez Perce Tribe, said dwindling stocks of salmon and other species must dictate the timeline. The agreement brings litigants together to build a better Northwest.

Salmon, steelhead, lamprey and orca will all be in a better place, he said.

Jonathan Smith, chair of Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs in Oregon, said human activity on the Columbia System deprived members of their 1855 treaty rights to fish in their usual and accustomed places.

“There have not been enough fish to feed our people and conduct our ceremonies,” he said. “Breaching the four Lower Snake River dams will help the fish.”

Gerald Lewis, chair of the Yakama Nation, said the agreement ensures future energy projects will respect tribal rights and puts dam removal on the table as soon as practicable.

Corinne Sams, trustee for the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, noted that salmon stocks are dwindling.

“Extinction cannot be an option.”

BREACHING ‘OFF THE TABLE’

But a key intervenor in the case takes a different message from the commitment agreement.

It is inconceivable that Congress would act to breach the dams in the next five to 10 years, said Darryll Olsen, board representative for the Columbia-Snake River Irrigators Association.

Olsen said the irrigators’ group explicitly supports the agreement because it makes dam breaching less likely, not more.

“The CSRIA supports this action, because dam breaching is effectively ‘off the table’ for any conceivable future,” it said in a statement released in advance of the official announcement. “The centerpiece for the agreement is that the tribes are trading dam breaching for new power resource dollars.”

Inslee, speaking during the press briefing, said the agreement directs how the region will answer difficult questions posed by dam breaching.

Asked if the agreement makes dam breaching “inevitable,” he said: “I don’t think this agreement makes anything inevitable.”

REACTION MIXED

Northwest River Partners said it was shut out of the mediation discussions, which it characterized as “secret.” “While the lack of transparency and fairness are egregious enough the settlement takes a challenging situation and makes it worse,” it said.

Save Our Wild Salmon Coalition called the commitment agreement an important step to restoring fish populations and honoring treaty obligations. It challenged Northwest leaders to “seize this historic opportunity, end the harmful status quo, and move toward a comprehensive plan and investments.”

Idaho Conservation League committed to ensuring the federal government carries out its commitments. “The initiative contains key actions, including breach of the four lower Snake River dams, that are essential not just for salmon recovery, but for unwinding a decades-long trail of broken promises,” it said in a statement attributed to Mitch Cutter, its salmon and steelhead associate.

National Wildlife Federation said the initiative sets a new course toward the ‘right side of history.” “(W)e have specific agreed upon actions that move the Northwest region one step closer to saving Columbia River salmon and steelhead runs,” it said in a statement attributed to Collin O’Mara, president and CEO.

Public Power Council said the agreement “steamrolls” the Northwest and sets the stage for higher power rates and reduced grid reliability. “The US Government started this process with a gathering of certain interests that predominantly supported a dam breaching agenda and has now fully shown its cards,” it said in a statement attributed to Scott Simms, CEO & executive director.

Trout Unlimited called the agreement a step toward salmon recovery and upholding treaty obligations. “We must urgently instead of standing idly by while our wild salmon slip into extinction.”

Tri-City Herald: "‘Historic’ Columbia River agreement called ‘roadmap’ to breaching Snake River dams" article link

August 10, 2022

Tribal leaders gathered at the Snake River to celebrate the role of salmon in the Northwest on Tuesday and advocate for the future of endangered fish. The Yakama Nation and the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation called for immediate action on a comprehensive strategy to ensure that endangered salmon do not become extinct.

The strategy must include breaching the four lower Snake River dams in Eastern Washington to avoid extinction of endangered salmon and bring populations back to harvestable levels, said a message from the chiefs of the Jamestown S’Klallam and the Suquamish tribes read at the gathering at Fishhook Park downriver from Prescott.

“It’s not only achievable, but affordable compared to what we’ve paid on previous failed efforts to help the fish,” the two chiefs said.

The solution should also take into consideration farmers and the energy needs of families across the region, they said.

The dams, from Ice Harbor Dam near the Tri-Cities upriver to Lower Granite Dam near Lewiston, Idaho, allow barging of wheat and other agriculture products and produce low-cost electricity.

The tribes regularly work with non-Native communities to find collaborative solutions to challenges in the Northwest, and they can do it again to save the salmon, said speakers at the celebration.

“Salmon are sacred to us. Stand with our tribes. Save our salmon,” said Yakama Nation Councilmember Jeremy Takala. “Through collaboration and community we can protect our guaranteed treaty rights.”

It is the obligation of the Native American community to ensure salmon swim the Snake River for generations to come, said Corinne Sams, board member for the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation.

“The reality is, our salmon are deteriorating and for far too long our salmon and treaty rights have been threatened,” she said. “This is unacceptable. Who are we without salmon?”

DAMS FLOOD GRAVESITES

Salmon are not the only reason for breaching the dams, according to the Yakama, Nez Perce, Umatilla and Warm Springs tribes.

“These federal dams have been built and operated on our tribes’ homelands, waters and fisheries,” they said in an ad in the Tri-City Herald Tuesday morning.

“They flooded our sacred places, including our ancestors’ gravesites,” said the ad. “This is not a ‘past’ injustice. It is occurring today and every day.”

A draft study commissioned by Gov. Jay Inslee and Washington U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, both Democrats, that was released in June, points the way toward dam breaching, they said.

The draft study concluded that it would be costly — perhaps requiring more than $27 billion — but the dams could be breached and their benefits replaced.

It would be the action most likely to restore endangered salmon runs and benefit tribes, the draft study said.

The draft study was condemned by supporters keeping the four dams, who said other factors, such as ocean conditions and predators, affect salmon populations and that Snake River salmon returns are in line with returns at undammed rivers in the Northwest.

December 9, 2013 

By Geoff Folsom

Pasco — Competing visions of the Columbia River and its future were on display Monday in the council chambers at Pasco City Hall.

The topic was the Columbia River Treaty between the United States and Canada, which could be terminated in 2024 if either side gives notice by next year.
No one at Monday’s hearing of the Natural Resources Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives said they want the treaty canceled. But several expressed a desire to see it improved and modernized.

Gregory Haller, conservation director for the Portland-based Pacific Rivers Council, said preserving the ecosystem should be a primary function of a modernized treaty.

Much work needs to be done to improve the river’s flow and water temperatures, reconnect flood plains and improve salmon passage, Haller said.

“As a result of dam building throughout the basin, the Columbia River is now a highly fragmented and mechanized system, with degraded habitat, poor water quality and numerous (Endangered Species Act) listed salmon and steelhead runs,” he said.

Haller suggested that an ecosystem expert be added to the U.S. negotiating team, which now includes the Bonneville Power Administration and Army Corps of Engineers. Such an expert could come from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Environmental Protection Agency, National Marine Fisheries Service or the 15 Columbia Basin tribes, he said.

U.S. Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Pasco, who led the hearing, disagreed.

An endangered species program for Columbia River salmon already addresses ecological concerns and has resulted in near-record returns, Hastings said.

Hastings was concerned that a revised treaty would include ecological impact as a core provision, he said, but feels more comfortable with revisions that have yet to be publicly released.

“This year, for example, nearly one million fall Chinook salmon returned,” Hastings told the audience of about 60. “Ultimately, a collective biological opinion process — rather than ongoing litigation — is the appropriate way to address many of the ecosystem issues being proposed by some in the treaty context.”

The current treaty, signed in 1964, focuses on flood control and hydropower. It was prompted in part by a 1948 flood that destroyed Vanport — Oregon’s second largest city — because dams on the river had too little storage capacity. The treaty dams doubled that storage.

Scott Corwin, executive director of the Public Power Council, a Portland group that represents consumer-owned utilities in the Pacific Northwest, argued that reducing the “Canadian entitlement” should be the top priority in renegotiations.

Corwin was referring to the $250 million to $350 million worth of electric power the U.S. sends Canada each year as part of the treaty, according to Bonneville Power Administration estimates. Canadian officials say that amount is much less.

“If this inequity is not addressed, it will be an enormous lost opportunity and disservice to the citizens of the Northwest United States,” Corwin said. “We share the goal of building the broadest agreement possible to build a base of better engagement with Canada next year.”

Kathy Eichenberger of the British Columbia Ministry of Energy and Mines testified that the advantages of the treaty go beyond power costs.

The U.S. saved $2 billion in potential damages because of coordinated flood control in 2011 alone, Eichenberger said.

“Since the treaty storage became operational, there has never been a flood causing major damage along the Columbia River,” she said.

British Columbia expects to make its draft recommendation this month, Eichenberger said.

U.S. officials expect to submit their treaty recommendations to the State Department by Friday, BPA acting administrator Elliot Mainzer said.

After the two-hour hearing, Hastings said the differences on the entitlement still have to be negotiated. Adjusting the entitlement could save Northwest ratepayers millions.

“Clearly, the Canadians have a different view than we do,” he said. “At some point, they’ll have to sit down with numbers and say, ‘OK, these are our numbers, those are your numbers, let’s figure out where the commonality is.’ ”

Hastings was joined at the hearing by Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., the natural resources committee’s ranking Democrat.

“The worst result is if we end up deferring to Washington, D.C., on the shape of the treaty and the changes to it,” DeFazio told the Herald.

“We’ve got some difficult issues and differences to work through, but I think we saw today that they’re not that great. I think we will continue to try to address everyone’s concerns, not completely, because the river is ultimately a limited resource.”

Geoff Folsom: 509-582-1543; gfolsom@tricityherald.com; Twitter: @GeoffFolsom

February 28, 2016

By Wendy Culverhill

A big, red Pasco landmark could soon become a victim of falling demand for container barging on the Columbia River.

The Port of Pasco is poised to sell a crane that it hasn’t used in five years, acknowledging its container barge business is all but dead and unlikely to return. Randy Hayden, the port’s executive director, reluctantly recommended Thursday that the port sell its Manitowoc 4100. The port commission discussed the state of marine affairs but made no decisions.

The crane has stood sentry at the marine terminal in Big Pasco Industrial Center, north of the cable bridge, since 2000. The port bought it from a Houston broker for $800,000, then invested another $500,000 to replace critical parts and restore its original red color.

It was previously painted purple and stationed in Pakistan by its original owner, American President Lines.

Fifteen years ago, the investment made perfect sense. The then-busy marine terminal needed a modern crane to replace a failing 1942 model it bought decades earlier from the Port of Portland for $1.

Operators called the old crane BOB for Big Orange B****, and complained it was underpowered, unstable in wind and unheated. They used space heaters in the cab to keep windows from freezing in the winter.

The Manitowoc is a tread-mounted, 45-ton crane. In its heyday, it was used to load containers filled with hay, hides, popcorn and other agriculture products onto barges headed to Portland for transfer onto Asia-bound ships.

That business is gone and unlikely to return.

$1.3 million Cost to install, upgrade Manitowoc crane
Container shipping has almost disappeared at the Port of Portland.

Pasco’s nearest competitor, the Port of Morrow, has superior rail connections to the Ports of Seattle and Tacoma thanks to its vendor, Northwest Container Service.

Pasco has tried to negotiate a shuttle deal with its railroad, BNSF, but without success. With no connection to Seattle and Tacoma, Pasco depends on connections in Portland.

But container volumes evaporated in 2015 when Hanjin Shipping Co. of South Korea stopped calling on Portland. Between 2012 and 2015, Portland container processing fell 85 percent, according to figures released in January.

Container volumes did not return after the International Longshore Workers Union and port managers resolved the West Coast slowdown last spring. Portland container processing dropped to just a few 100 units per month.

Randy Hayden, Pasco’s executive director, said the outlook for container shipping on the Columbia River is poor. The bar crossing at the mouth of the Columbia is among the most difficult in the world and the Columbia itself won’t accommodate the massive new vessels coming online.

“It’s a changing dynamic that doesn’t bode well for Portland,” Hayden said.
It’s a changing dynamic that doesn’t bode well for Portland.

Hayden reluctantly recommended the port sell the idled crane. It could fetch from $500,000 to $700,000 in the used equipment market. The move will save the port about $22,000 in annual maintenance costs and $700 in annual certification costs.

The Manitowoc is so rarely used that port officials confess they don’t renew the certification every year. The port does not employ an operator.

Representatives from Zen-Noh Hay encouraged the port to keep the crane to keep Pasco in the container handling business, but offered no clear evidence that container demand will revive.

Commissioners seemed resigned to selling the crane.

“We could get $500,000 out of it. There’s things we could do,” said Commissioner Ron Reimann.

The marine terminal’s 800-foot dock has a capacity of 770 pounds per square foot and offers on-dock rail service courtesy BNSF. The port still owns a Hyster 40-ton stacker to aid with loading barges.

Read more here.

After complaints and demands by Republican leaders, the Tri-Cities will get its own workshop on a state study on the impacts of breaching the lower Snake River dams.

By Annette Cary
October 29

At the start of Tuesday, hearings were planned in Vancouver, Wash., to provide information to the west side of the state and in Clarkston, Wash., for the east side of the state.

Late in the morning Senate Republicans posted a tweet quoting state Sen. Mark Schoesler, R-Ritzville, asking, “Why is Gov. Inslee’s Snake River Dam study group holding public hearings in Clarkston and far-way Vancouver, but not Tri-Cities, the largest populated area near the dams?”

Schoesler represents the 9th District, which includes part of Pasco.

Later in the day U.S. Rep. Dan Newhouse, R-Wash., weighed in.

“The state is turning its back on the people of Tri-Cities by avoiding their opinions and concerns,” he said. “I demand that Gov. Inslee’s Snake River Dam study group hold an additional public hearing in Tri-Cites so our region’s voices can be heard.

“It is the least the state can do to uphold any semblance of a legitimate process,” he said. “One has to ask: What are they afraid of?”

By 4 p.m., consultants working on the project got permission from the governor’s office to add a third public hearing.

It will be held in the Tri-Cities in January, said Jim Kramer, of Kramer Consulting in Seattle, a subcontractor on the study.

TRI-CITIES OPPOSITION

The Legislature, at the request of Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee, included $750,000 in the state’s budget to contract with a neutral third party to investigate the  impacts of removing or breaching the four Snake River dams in Eastern Washington.

The removal of the dams has been proposed as a way to increase the chinook salmon population that make up the majority of the diet of the declining Southern Resident orca population off the Pacific Coast.

The study had strong opposition in Eastern Washington, with some residents questioning if the region’s concerns and conflicting scientific opinions would be heard over the emotional pleas to save the region’s iconic killer whales.

Water spills at Lower Granite Dam, one of the four dams on the lower Snake River in Eastern Washington. An environmental review ordered by a federal judge concerned about salmon runs is looking at the impacts of tearing down the dam.  IDAHO STATESMAN FILE
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries earlier concluded that one narrow approach to fish recovery, such as breaching dams on the Snake River, would not have a measurable improvement on orca survival.

Newhouse and Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., released a joint statement in May asking Inslee to veto the $750,000 line item in the budget.

“Instead of  studying the removal of our federal dams, these state dollars could have been used to fund salmon recovery programs that directly aid endangered salmon species,” they said.

The study also was opposed by 31 agencies, including the Public Utility Association, the Washington Public Ports Association, the Association of Washington Business, the Northwest Marine Trade Association, the Washington Farm Bureau, the Columbia-Snake Irrigators Association and such Tri-City area groups as the Pasco Chamber of Commerce, Benton REA, Tri-Cities Grain and Port of Benton.

TRI-CITIES INITIALLY CONSIDERED

When the governor’s office announced plans for the study in August it said that two public hearings likely would be held, possibly in Vancouver and the Tri-Cities.

But then requests were received for the Eastern Washington workshop to be held in Clarkston, Kramer said.

Clarkston relies on the river cruise industry that the Snake River dams make possible.

Tri-City area supporters of the dams point to benefits, such as low-cost hydropower and support for agriculture through irrigation and transportation.

The Columbia River is the third-largest grain-export gateway in the world, with barging keeping thousands of semi-trucks off Mid-Columbia highways.

On the hottest days of the year, Ice Harbor Dam on the Snake River supplies as much as 30 percent of the electricity used in Pasco and Richland, according to local officials.

Rep. Dan Newhouse is shown on a tour Ice Harbor Dam near Burbank, one of the dams being considered for removal. Andrew Jansen 

TRI-CITY HERALD

The state study has been contracted to Ross Strategic of Seattle, which has hired subcontractors Kramer Consulting, Anchor QEA of Seattle and  White Bluffs Consulting, a two-person Kennewick company.

The consultant will not be able to interview everyone with an interest in the issues, according to information posted on the governor’s website.

“The goal is that all interested parties have confidence their perspective is considered and represented, whether they were interviewed or not,” it said.

Kramer said that almost 50 interviews have been conducted so far, the majority of them in Eastern Washington, and including farmers and representatives of ports and utilities.

STUDY TO BE DONE IN MARCH

Although information is not being released yet, he said “consistent concerns” about the dams were being raised in those interviews.

Next week an online questionnaire will be posted to allow responses from more people, he said. Details have yet to be announced.

The schedule for the study calls for the contractor to gather information and interview people through late November and then release a draft report in mid December for public comment.

The public workshops will be in early January, with comments accepted until late in the month. In early March the final report is expected to be submitted to the governor and Legislature.

The three public workshops will be a chance for people to learn what is in the draft report, Kramer said.

There are not a public hearing where people will be allowed to comment.

Schoesler questioned that. He was quoted in the Republicans’ Twitter post asking why the public can’t speak at the workshop.

“The entire process has been a sham,” Newhouse said Tuesday. “The federal government has jurisdiction over these facilities, so — as I’ve said all along — spending $750,000 on a state-funded dam breaching study is a complete waste of Washingtonian’s taxpayer dollars.”

Newhouse and McMorris Rodgers say that only Congress has the authority to breach or tear down federal dams.

The results of the state study will be used to help inform the  state of Washington’s position on a federal study being done on the Columbia River Power System, which includes the option of removing the dams, according to the governor’s office.

The federal study, to be completed in June 2020, was ordered by U.S. Judge Micheal Simon in Portland. He has questioned whether enough is being done to improve Northwest salmon runs.

The Army Corps, the Bureau of Reclamation and the Bonneville Power Administration are  leading the federal study.

https://www.tri-cityherald.com/news/local/article236793168.html

November 16, 2018

By Annette Cary

A state task force stopped short of calling for tearing down the four Lower Snake River dams in its final report on how to help critically endangered Northwest orcas.

The Southern Resident Orca Task Force, created by Gov. Jay Inslee in March, made three dozen recommendations on Friday to save the dwindling species off the coast of Washington.

The recommendations include increasing the amount of water spilled over Snake and Columbia river dams, rather than using the water for hydropower, in hopes of increasing salmon survival.

It also calls for hiring a neutral third party to establish a collaborative process — working with tribal, federal, state and local leadership — to address issues tied to possible removal of the Snake River dams.

The killer whales depend on chinook salmon for food, and the report included recommendations to increase chinook numbers that have been declining because of dams, habitat loss and overfishing.

But it also addressed other factors harming Pacific Northwest orcas, including pollution and boat noise.

It called for suspending three to five years of whale-watching boat tours focused on orcas in the Puget Sound. Boat trips for viewing other types of whales would be allowed to continue.

Reducing stormwater runoff and cleaning up PCBs also would benefit the killer whale population, it said. PCBs are a toxic compound once widely used in manufacturing.

This year the population of southern resident orcas dropped to just 74, with the deaths of three of the killer whales.

The world watched this summer as one whale, Tahlequah swam for 17 days with her dead calf.

The task force received so many comments on hydropower and the killer whales after releasing its draft recommendations that it reviewed only 800 randomly selected comments of the 8,687 submitted.

More than 99 percent were one of two comments that were repeated verbatim.

Both of the two boiler plate messages said, “The lower Snake River Dams must go to restore chinook salmon” and also called for changing state standards to allow more water spilling over the dams.

The final report recommended that the state’s standard for dissolved gases be increased to allow more spilling over the dams, but to maintain rigorous monitoring of the impacts to fish.

More water spilling can help juvenile salmon safely move past dams on their way to the ocean, but too much can saturate water with oxygen and nitrogen that can build up in fish and kill them.

The report’s proposed discussion of breaching or removing the lower Snake River dams would include a look at the economic impacts, impacts to communities and costs to mitigate negative affects. The dams play a role in barging, irrigation and recreation.

The discussion also would consider whether removing dams would help the killer whales.

“Clearly task force members were not persuaded by the faulty arguments and emotional appeals made by anti-dam activists,” Northwest RiverPartners — an alliance of farmers, utilities, ports and businesses — said in a statement.

Other proposals in the report to make more chinook available for killer whales include restoring salmon habitat, in and around Puget Sound and elsewhere; increasing hatchery salmon production; allowing anglers to catch more predatory fish, such as walleye and bass; and supporting actions to manage sea lions that feast on salmon.

Inslee said he will review the report’s proposals before finalizing his state budget and police priorities next month. The state Legislature convenes in January.

Call Governor Inslee today. Ask him to move forward quickly to increase spill, to convene a lower Snake River dam removal planning forum, and fund and implement the Task Force recommendations. Click hereto find out how.

January 30, 2019

By The Tri-City Herald Editorial Board Saying we don’t need the four lower Snake River dams because they generate just a small percentage of the region’s electricity is a bit like saying the Seattle Mariners don’t need relief pitchers who are in the game for only an inning or two. The dams, like a closing pitcher, are needed for their reliability and to fill in during critical times. As lawmakers consider Gov. Jay Inslee’s proposal to make Washington 100 percent carbon free, we hope they grasp the role hydropower plays in providing clean, renewable, low-cost power to the region. We also hope they come to understand the essential role the Snake River dams play in the power-generating system. On Tuesday, Sen. Sharon Brown, R-Kennewick, tried to protect the Snake River dams in the Senate Energy, Environment and Technology Committee, but her attempt was instantly shot down. The committee was discussing Senate Bill 5116, the clean energy bill Inslee is pushing, and Brown tried to attach an amendment that opposed breaching or removing any dam on the Columbia and Snake rivers. Her proposed language said the dams are of “paramount importance” for the “security and prosperity of the state,” and acknowledged their necessity to hydroelectric power generation. But few supported Brown’s effort. The committee ended up approving the measure along party lines and it now moves to the Senate Ways and Means Committee. Brown was among the Republicans who opposed it. She told the Herald she believes in an “all of the above” approach to attaining 100 percent clean energy, and that means including hydropower and nuclear power in the mix. Brown said SB 5116 is “fuzzy” on nuclear power and that it does not go far enough to protect the hydropower system. Anti-dam activists want the Snake River dams gone in order to improve salmon runs, and their message is gaining momentum on the west side of the state. We also want to see fish runs improve, but taking out the dams is an extreme position. Others, however, don’t agree. One of their main arguments is that the power generated by the four dams could easily be replaced by wind and solar energy. That claim is not true, according to several people who understand how the region’s power system works. Representatives from the Benton and Franklin PUDs, the Tri-City Development Council and the Port of Pasco recently met with the Tri-City Herald editorial board to stress that the Snake River dams are primarily needed for reserve power. And that’s crucial when there are long stretches of extreme temperatures in the region. Chad Bartram, Benton PUD general manager, said the wind tends not to blow when it is really cold and when it is really hot – just when you need power the most. But a switch can be flipped and the region can get the extra electricity it needs thanks to the hydropower system and the Snake River dams. Backing up this assertion is the Public Generating Pool, which just released a study showing it would be too expensive and impractical to replace reliable power sources with solar and wind. The PGP is an association composed of consumer-owned electric utilities from Washington and Oregon who work together on common issues. In preparation for the push for 100 percent clean energy, the group wanted to find out how power can be served to the Northwest under a carbon-reduction scenario in 2030 and 2050. The study found that 3 million to 14 million acres — or 100 times the land mass of Portland and Seattle combined — would be needed to support the wind and solar production required. It is unclear whether there are even enough sites suitable for that level of development, the study said. And that doesn’t include the extra miles of transmission lines that would be needed. Energy storage also is an issue with wind and solar because the technology is still limited. Batteries last 4 to 10 hours and then need to be recharged. If the weather does not cooperate for several days, that’s a problem. Wind and solar energy are important pieces to attaining more clean energy in the state, but they can’t replace the reliability of hydroelectricity. Brown’s push to make sure all carbon-free power sources are included in Inslee’s plan is spot on, and we hope more of her fellow legislators will come to understand that.

***Note from Save Our wild Salmon***: follow this link to an alert to contact your Member of Congress and urge them to vote "no" when anti-salmon legislation HR 3144 comes up for a vote on the floor of the House of Representatives. Thank you.

By Annette Cary

April 11, 2018

Legislation to preserve operation of the lower Snake River dams passed out of a U.S. House committee on Wednesday, but not without opposition. The vote of the House Natural Resources Committee was 23-17 on a bill that would prevent breaching the dams until at least 2022 and override a decision that the dams must spill more water. The legislation is expected to be voted on by the full House in the coming weeks, but then also will need Senate approval.

“The bill is a troubling attack on legal action,” said Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz. “If we enact the bill, it would overturn lawfully rendered court decisions simply because bill sponsors don’t like them.” But Rep. Doug Lamborn, R-Colo., said the Columbia and Snake River power system “has been mired in third-party litigation, questionable judicial edicts and onerous federal regulation for decades.”

The dams on the Snake River are operated under a plan called the Federal Columbia River Biological Opinion, or BiOp. It was created by collaboration of federal agencies, states and tribes during the administration of President Obama to protect salmon while operating hydropower dams.

But U.S. District Judge Michael Simon in Portland has twice issued rulings that override the BiOp, finding it does not do enough to protect salmon. He has ordered a new environmental study to look at options, including the pros and cons of breaching or tearing down the Snake River dams from Ice Harbor Dam near Burbank upriver to Lower Granite Dam. He also ordered that more water be spilled over the Snake River dams than the amount established by the BiOp to see if it would help young salmon migrating to the ocean. Water that is spilled cannot be used to produce electricity. Northwest residents can expect to pay $40 million more for electricity because of the increased spill on Snake and Columbia River dams this month through mid-June, and for each spring the increased spill continues.

“Without Snake and Columbia River dams and the many benefits they provide, life in Central Washington as we know it would be unrecognizable,” said Rep. Dan Newhouse, R-Wash., after the committee hearing. He is a sponsor of the bipartisan bill, which was authored by Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash. “I represent communities that actually live with the consequences of forced increased spill or potentially breaching dams, whether through higher electricity rates, higher transportation costs, reduced access to irrigation water, reduced flood control and more,” Newhouse said. There has been a collaborative process, with all voices heard, to develop a plan based on science, said Rep. Greg Gianforte, R-Mont., during the hearing. He called the bill a “common sense piece of legislation.” Grijalva said the bill is an attack on the Endangered Species Act and would double down on the status quo of modest hydropower mitigation efforts. They have cost billions of dollars without recovering any of the 13 populations of fish at risk, he said. Grijalva proposed an amendment to the bill that would require tribal resources be protected and require meaningful consultation by federal agencies with the tribes. But Raul Labrador, R-Idaho, said there was extensive tribal consultation during the development of the BiOp. The amendment would provide more grounds on which to litigate against the BiOp, he said. “The point is to take a timeout on litigation,” he said. The amendment failed 23-17, a tally identical to the final vote in favor of the bill. Among those opposing the amendment was Rep. Jim Costa, D-Calif., who said the BiOp has resulted in improved salmon survival at the dams due to changes in operations and new fish passage technologies.

By Rocky Barker Idaho Statesman special correspondent
February 06, 2021

Dismantle Snake River dams to help salmon? Here's the $33 billion plan for it.

An Idaho Republican congressman wants to end the salmon wars by removing select hydroelectric dams, replacing the electricity lost, paying communities and businesses, and giving American Indian tribes more power.

A $33 billion Pacific Northwest energy and infrastructure proposal would end litigation over endangered salmon and authorize the removal of four dams on the Snake River in Washington beginning in 2030. U.S. Rep. Mike Simpson of East Idaho released the plan after asking more than 300 groups what they would need if the dams came out.

Power marketed by the Bonneville Power Administration from the four controversial dams would be replaced. Shippers and farmers would get funds for alternatives to the barge shipping on the Snake and compensation for closed barge facilities. Lewiston in Idaho and the Tri-Cities in Washington would get billions for economic development.

Farmers across the Pacific Northwest, including those in Idaho’s Magic Valley, would get billions of dollars in incentives for water-quality projects. Farmers in Washington that now pump out of the reservoirs behind the Snake dams would get millions in compensation that they could use for altering their diversions.

The plan would be funded by a federal infrastructure bill.

“If we give the farmers, bargers, ports, the BPA and communities the necessary resources, each sector can develop a certainty and security putting the Northwest and Idaho salmon on a path to sustained viability,” Simpson said in a video news release released Saturday night.

Simpson says his “concept” would ban litigation over the four Columbia River dams for 35 years and increase salmon funding for states and tribes, which would co-manage salmon restoration.

The newly free-flowing river would be protected in a proposed Lower Snake River National Recreation Area.

Read the full story here.

August 8, 2019

By Wendy Culverwell

Up to 300 gallons of oil may have leaked into the Snake River from a power-generating turbine at Lower Monumental Dam.

The Army Corps of Engineers reported the suspected spill this week, but it’s unclear when it possibly happened.

The Army Corps disclosed the incident to regulators and the environmental group Columbia Riverkeeper under the terms of a 2014 settlement agreement.

Columbia Riverkeeper had sued to stop oil releases from the eight dams on the lower Snake and Columbia rivers.

The group issued a statement Thursday calling the most recent disclosure the latest in a series of spills that highlight the threat posed by the four aging Snake River dams.

The Corps reported that 200 to 300 gallons of unspecified “turbine oil” may have leaked from a turbine shaft at Lower Monumental, about 40 miles northeast of the Tri-Cities.

No Sheen Reported on Rivers

The Washington Department of Ecology confirmed it was also notified of the potential spill, which will be confirmed once the Army Corps takes an inventory of oil in the turbine.

A state spokesman said the agency has received no reports of a sheen appearing on the river.

The Columbia Riverkeeper issued a statement about its continuing concerns about the dams.

“Oil pollution from Lower Monumental Dam is just one more reason to remove the four obsolete, aging dams on the lower Snake River,” Miles Johnson, senior attorney for the riverkeeper group, said in a news release.

A series of 2017 spills released more than 1,600 gallons of oil into the Snake River at Lower Monumental.

According to Monday’s disclosure of the latest spill, the Army Corps can’t say if or when oil was released. Missing oil may have leaked through failed seals associated with the dam’s second turbine unit.

It deployed oil absorbents and other steps to collect residual oil.

Hydroelectric Power

The unit remains out of service pending an investigation. The investigation includes taking an inventory of oil used to lubricate the turbine to determine what is missing.

The Corps released a statement that it is working to improve its record on oil spills, including the potential of using nontoxic lubricants.

“We’ve improved our oil accountability program over time and while our systems aren’t perfect, the lessons learned have greatly improved our overall ability to track and contain oil,” it said. “We’ll continue refining these procedures because our goal is not to spill any oil.”

A spokesman said that other turbines in the Columbia-Snake system will compensate for the loss of power from Unit 2.

Each of the six units at the dam is able to produce up to 135 megawatts.

Lower Monumental Lock and Dam near Kahlotus was built in 1961 and provides power, navigation locks, fish ladders and irrigation.

May 20, 2019

By Annette Cary

Make sure to check out the video of Governor Inslee's Response here.

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee is being urged to veto spending $750,000 for a state study on breaching the four lower Snake River hydropower dams.

He is scheduled to sign the $52.4 billion operating budget bill for the next two years on Tuesday.

It includes $375,000 in the next fiscal year and $375,000 for fiscal 2021 to look at the issues associated with the possible breaching or removal of the lower Snake River dams to help salmon and the orca off the Pacific Coast.

The bill calls for a neutral third party to establish a process that would allow a range of parties to address issues related to breaching or removal of the four dams

The proposal has had strong opposition in Eastern Washington, particularly from electric utilities, ports and organizations representing agriculture and economic development.

Washington governor questioned about the need for Snake River dams

Congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers grills Gov. Inslee about the push to remove the lower Snake River dams.

Late Monday afternoon, Reps. Dan Newhouse and Cathy McMorris Rodgers, both R-Wash., released a joint statement asking Inslee to veto the $750,000 line item in the budget.

“Instead of studying the removal of our federal dams, these state dollars could have been used to fund salmon recovery programs that directly aid endangered salmon species,” they said in a statement.

The four lower Snake River dams from Ice Harbor near Burbank upriver to Lower Granite provide essential benefits to the Pacific Northwest way of life, from powering nearly 2 million homes with low cost and renewable electricity to shipping farm and other goods, they said.

CONTROVERSIAL AND DIVISIVE

Their call on Monday for a veto echoed their statement when the proposed state budget was released in late 2018.

Earlier this month a group of 31 agencies also asked Inslee to remove the $750,000 for the study from the operating budget.

“The issue remains profoundly controversial and divisive,” the letter said.

They pointed out that a comprehensive study already is underway, as ordered by a federal judge, to consider the impacts of removing the dams.

A federal decision on operating the Columbia River Power System, which includes the lower Snake Dam, is planned for September 2020.

“Extreme measures such as dam breaching have been studied and rejected many times over the years,” the letter said. “Instead of pursuing this divisive path, we need to renew our investments in fish passage, habitat and other river improvements.”

Earlier in the year, the Tri-City Development Council led a local effort, joined by ports, chambers of commerce, cities, counties, PUDs and others, to urge state legislators not to spend money on the study as they considered the proposed budget.

STUDY CALLED WASTED MONEY

“It is safe to say that all Washingtonians care about the health and future of the unique and iconic southern resident whale population,” said the letter signed by TRIDEC and others. “No one disagrees that this group of orcas is in trouble.”

But the state study would not be as comprehensive as the federal effort and would not produce a document that decision-makers would rely on or that would be used to inform science-based species recovery activities, the letter said.

 “Simply put, this study would not be the best use of limited taxpayer resources,” the TRIDEC letter said.

Groups that have long sought to remove the lower Snake River dams are using the orcas to play on the public’s sympathies to promote their goal of dam removal, the letter said.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries has concluded that one narrow approach to fish recovery, such as breaching dams on the Snake River, will not have a measurable improvement on orca survival, it said.

The local groups also have pointed out that the four lower Snake River dams provide a significant contribution to transmission grid reliability. They balance electric generation and demand on the grid and help support intermittent wind energy.

Inslee is schedule to sign the operating budget and other bills at 9:30 a.m.

BY SAM MACE, BUCK RYAN AND BRETT VANDENHEUVEL

August 23, 2018 04:09 PM

The mighty Columbia and Snake rivers are synonymous with salmon. As many as 16 million once returned to these rivers each year.

Despite significant declines, our salmon runs still hold tremendous cultural and economic value for Northwest tribes and river and coastal communities. So an Aug. 12 opinion piece seriously missed the mark by calling four obsolete lower Snake River dams “our most important regional asset.”

That piece ignored a rising threat to Snake River salmon: warm water. Average summer water temperatures have steadily increased over the past 60 years. Warm water encourages disease, delays salmon migration, and depletes salmon’s energy reserves. Salmon that stop or slow their migration, and languish in warm water, begin dying from stress and disease.

What does warm water have to do with dams?

The lower Snake dams create large, shallow reservoirs that trap the sun’s heat and warm the river until it becomes uninhabitable for salmon during much of the summer. Computer modeling shows that removing the lower four Snake dams could solve the hot water crisis in the lower Snake — even in very hot years.

The pro-dam opinion piece misleadingly claimed that lower Snake River dams and Snake River salmon can co-exist. It’s a comforting story, but study after study shows it’s not true. For example, a 2017 study by the Fish Passage Center — the federal scientific agency created to study dams’ impact on salmon — found that removing the lower Snake dams would allow threatened Snake River spring Chinook to recover. Keeping the dams would not.

The pro-dam article also failed to mention that 96 percent of the “record” 2015 Snake River sockeye run died because of hot water. Those endangered sockeye never made it past the four lower Snake dams. This year is hardly better; about 657 endangered sockeye returned to the Snake, but nearly two-thirds died (or will soon die) without making it past Little Goose Dam in eastern Washington.

It’s increasingly obvious that we must choose Snake River salmon — and the jobs, cultures, and ecosystems they support — or the four lower Snake dams. We can choose free-flowing rivers, teeming with fish. We can choose vibrant commercial, subsistence, and recreational fisheries from Southeast Alaska to Astoria, Oregon, to central Idaho. We can choose to protect and restore salmon, the emblem of the Northwest.

But we must choose.

If we needed these four dams, the choice might be tougher. Fortunately, the lower Snake dams only make about 4 percent of the Northwest’s electricity, and our region already produces more power than we use. What’s more, regional power planning models show that we could replace the lower Snake dams’ electricity without burning fossil fuels or breaking the bank — while improving the reliability of our electrical grid.

To be part of the growing movement fighting for our iconic salmon, join tribal leaders, salmon advocates, and keynote speaker Winona LaDuke at the fourth annual “Free the Snake Flotilla” near Lewiston, Idaho, on September 8.

Sam Mace is the Inland Northwest Director of Save Our Wild Salmon; Buck Ryan is Executive Director of Snake River Waterkeeper and Brett VandenHeuvel is Executive Director of Columbia Riverkeeper.

April 14, 2019

By Annette Cray

Criticism of speeding up a study looking at removing the Lower Snake River dams smells like an attempt to undermine the study’s validity, says Tri-Cities Congressman Dan Newhouse.

In October 2018 President Trump required that a new environmental study on management of the Columbia and Snake rivers hydro system be completed a year sooner than previously planned.

The study now is scheduled to be completed in September 2020, before Trump’s current term of office ends. A decision on how to best operate the hydro system is expected to be made based on the study .

Trump ordered the shortened schedule as part of an initiative to streamline regulatory processes for water projects in the West.

In 2016, a federal judge in Portland overturned a 2014 management plan for the dams, finding it did too little to protect salmon runs, and ordered a new management plan, called a biological opinion, or BiOp, be adopted by September 2021.

The environmental study being done for the new BiOp includes the option of tearing down Ice Harbor, Lower Monumental, Little Goose and Lower Granite dams in Eastern Washington.

MURRRAY, CANTWELL OPPOSE SCHEDULE

Ten Democratic senators and representatives representing Washington state and Oregon sent a letter last month to the Council on Environmental Quality outlining their concerns with the shortened scheduled.

The council oversees compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act, including the environmental study underway.

The signers included Washington Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell.

“The ongoing regulatory process of information gathering, public comment, modeling and science-based analysis risks being short circuited by the imposition of the seemingly arbitrary date of completion dictated by the president’s executive action,” said the letter, dated March 13.

The new timeline has significantly shortened the time frame for public comment and reduced the time allotted for consideration of the public feedback, the letter said.

The schedule, announced in January, has the potential to undermine the study and the new BiOp, “which would threaten the imperative to establish a viable long-term Columbia River System management plan,” the letter said.

It is important that a new BiOp be driven by data and science, have public confidence and be in place as soon as is practical and not on a timeline that places undue limitations on the work, the letter said.

The three agencies leading the environmental study — the Army Corps, the Bureau of Reclamation and the Bonneville Power Administration — said in January that they had a schedule that would meet Trump’s order and legal requirements under the national Environmental Policy Act.

NEWHOUSE SUPPORTS SCHEDULE

The agencies said they can meet the legal requirement for a 45-day public comment period after a draft of the environmental study is released in February 2020 on the revised schedule.

But the amount of time spent processing the comments received would be shortened.

“It is disappointing to see my colleagues politicizing this process by questioning the ability of the federal agencies to conduct a thorough environmental review,” Newhouse, R-Wash., said recently after learning of the letter.

Expediting work on a new BiOp for government operations of dams will allow river users to have more certainty and allow implementation of measures benefiting fish a year sooner, he said.

“The people and communities whose livelihoods depend on the operations of the Lower Snake dams deserve certainty on management of the river system sooner rather than later,” he said.

By Dahr Jamail

Wednesday, 30 November 2016

No one is certain of the total number of orcas (otherwise known as "killer whales") that exist in the wild. However, estimates are now around 100,000, and populations are dwindling. In Washington State's Puget Sound and San Juan Islands, the once-large population of orcas has declined to around 80 whales, and the Puget Sound orcas are on the US government's endangered species list.

Why are the orcas disappearing? A variety of factors are in play: Loss of food supply (such as salmon), warming waters, habitat loss, pollution, Naval sonar and war gaming, and ocean acidification are some of the many factors now constellating to make life much more challenging for these iconic whales.

Some reports warn that it could already be too late to save wild orcas.

Experts Truthout spoke with on the matter warned that, without significant intervention to address these and other issues, the orcas' days may well be numbered.

A Dwindling Food Supply

Dr. Paul Spong, a scientist who has been interested in orcas for more than four decades, founded OrcaLab, a land-based whale research station on Hanson Island off the northern coast of Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada.

OrcaLab operates on the philosophy that it is possible to study the wild without interfering with the lives or habitat of the wildlife being studied. The scientists work via a network of hydrophones they position around the orcas' "core habitat," a method that allows them to monitor the whales' movements year round, 24 hours a day, over an area of 50 square kilometers.

OrcaLab, in its own words, aims to work towards the "preservation of orca habitat; release and rehabilitation of captive cetaceans … and bringing to an end the dismal era of commercial whaling."

Truthout asked Spong about some of the primary changes in recent years.

"One major change is, their numbers are reducing," he said. "They arrive later, leave earlier, and fewer groups [are] coming."

In the area where OrcaLab functions, the numbers of whales are particularly low. According to Spong, the small population is due to ship and boat noise, seismic exploration, military sonar (which Spong describes as "very disruptive"), and a dramatic increase in large vessel traffic in the area.

But the biggest issue is food.

"They are very specific in the kinds of food they eat," Spong explained. "Orca prefer Chinook salmon and chum, and these are declining in recent decades, and this is directly impacting the whales."

Howard Garrett is the board president of Orca Network, a nonprofit organization that is, according to its website, "dedicated to raising awareness about the whales of the Pacific Northwest, and the importance of providing them healthy and safe habitats."

Along with the factors Spong mentioned that are negatively impacting the local orca population in the Pacific Northwest, Garrett cited the US Navy.

"Naval training exercises likely negatively impact orcas, and ship noises may mask their echolocation and communication, impairing their ability to find and catch salmon, and possibly reducing their ability to maintain acoustic social relationships," Garrett told Truthout.

He estimates there to be 82 orcas in the local population, with "little or no increase" since the end of the "capture era" in 1976.

"Given the prey base 100 to 150 years ago, and the size of most other orca communities worldwide, it's likely there were about 200 [local] orcas before the losses from random attacks from fishermen and military, prey depletion due to habitat destruction, capture for the display industry, dams, and overfishing," Garrett added.

Climate Disruption and the Whales

Of course, another giant factor threatens whale populations: anthropogenic climate disruption (ACD). The impact of ACD on the Puget Sound region of Washington is well known, as studies have shown.

Like Spong, Garrett sees one of the primary issues facing orcas in the Pacific Northwest as that of food distribution and abundance, or lack thereof, and sees that as being directly related to ACD.

"Warmer water reduces salmon survival, as demonstrated during the extreme El Niño of 1995-96 that correlated with a 20 percent drop in the Southern Resident [orcas that live in the Pacific Northwest] population between 1996 and 2001," Garrett explained.

Spong emphasizes the issue of food access, and ties it directly to ACD.

"The principle problem for orcas is climate change," Spong said. "Ocean temperature changes impact food supply."

Salmon, the orcas' primary food source, live and thrive in a relatively small temperature range in both the oceans and rivers, so when water temperatures are increased, orcas' food supplies diminish rapidly.

"If you look ahead to a century from now, I'm quite fearful that there may not be a food supply for the orcas because of this," Spong said.

Can the Orcas Survive?

Given that there is no immediate solution to ACD, there is obviously no simple fix for the endangerment of orcas. However, there are some things that can be done to mitigate the problems the whales now face.

Garrett said it is important for people to become informed about orcas' struggles, particularly around finding food. He also sees addressing the dams that thwart salmon spawning as a viable action goal.

"Contact President Obama to issue an executive order to remove the four lower Snake River dams to open up 5,500 miles of spawning habitat, historically the greatest source of food for the orcas," Garrett suggested. "A simple memo from Obama to the Army Corps to remove the dams would get the job done, but still needed are approvals from Washington Gov. Inslee and Senators Cantwell and Murray, so please call them too."

Spong echoed the sentiment, emphasizing dismantling dams would be a key first step.

"If there is any hope in recovering these orca populations, there must be an effort to boost their food supply by working towards taking down dams in rivers where salmon spawn," he said. "Restricting commercial fisheries from taking so many Chinook and chum salmon, as well as imposing more restrictions on the sport fishers who are doing the same also can be addressed, because these are literally taking the food away from the orcas."

The jury is out as to whether the orca can survive the impacts of ACD. But for now, there are some concrete actions that can be taken to, at the very least, buy them some time.

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/38543-without-major-interventions-the-orca-s-days-are-numbered

Dahr Jamail, a Truthout staff reporter, is the author of The Will to Resist: Soldiers Who Refuse to Fight in Iraq and Afghanistan (Haymarket Books, 2009), and Beyond the Green Zone: Dispatches From an Unembedded Journalist in Occupied Iraq (Haymarket Books, 2007). Jamail reported from Iraq for more than a year, as well as from Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Turkey over the last 10 years, and has won the Martha Gellhorn Award for Investigative Journalism, among other awards.

His third book, The Mass Destruction of Iraq: Why It Is Happening, and Who Is Responsible, co-written with William Rivers Pitt, is available now on Amazon.

Dahr Jamail is the author of the book, The End of Ice, forthcoming from The New Press. He lives and works in Washington State.

Thanks to you, the U.S. Government’s Columbia River Treaty “Working Draft” recommendation has come under fire during summer comment period.

From the desk of Joseph Bogaard

August 20, 2013

The U.S.-Canada Columbia River Treaty was first negotiated in the middle of the last century; hydropower operations and flood control were its sole purposes. Neither fish and wildlife nor the health of the ecosystem were considered. Columbia Basin treaty tribes were not even consulted at the time nor was there any consideration of the interests of other communities who depend on the benefits of a healthy watershed.
 
The Treaty is now up for re-negotiation, and the two federal agencies – Bonneville Power Administration (representing hydroelectricity) and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (representing flood control) - are leading efforts to develop the government’s position before the U.S. State Dept. heads into negotiations with Canada.

This impending re-negotiation presents a huge opportunity to assure that a renewed Treaty reflects 21st century values, knowledge and economies. "Ecosystem function" can and should join power and flood control as a third Treaty purpose - to use as a tool to rebuild endangered salmon and steelhead populations, restore watersheds damaged by dams, and respond effectively to the intensifying impacts of climate change.
 
The public comment period for the 'June 27 Working Draft' just closed; thousands of people registered their strong opposition to the Working Draft’s current language (a HUGE THANKS to all of you who weighed in!!!).

We expect one final updated Draft from the government to be released for public comment in September. So we may ask you for your help one more time to help improve the United States' starting position for negotiations and the prospects for a modernized Treaty. SOS and allies have been meeting with members of Congress and other elected officials this month to communicate our serious concerns with the Working Draft. You can view a copy of the letter that SOS and the NW Energy Coalition submitted jointly as our official public comment on August 14.
 

SOS and allies will continue reaching out directly to decision-makers in the Northwest and Washington DC; and it is essential that your voices - thousands of people supporting ecosystem function in a modern Treaty - also continue to be heard. Thanks again!
 


Finally, here’s an article from north of the border about the Treaty and its potential to bring salmon back to ancestral spawning beds in British Columbia. Before the construction of Grand Coulee Dam on the Columbia River in the 1930s, Chinook and other salmon returned in huge numbers to British Columbia. No longer. But a truly modernized treaty could help change that.

With the number of endangered Puget Sound orcas at a 30-year low, state lawmakers are proposing a number of measures to save the fish-eating killer whales that spend time in the inland waters of the Salish Sea.

Phuong Le, The Associated Press, Feb. 2, 2018

SEATTLE (AP) — With the number of endangered Puget Sound orcas at a 30-year low, state lawmakers want to protect the fish-eating killer whales that spend time in the inland waters of the Salish Sea.

The measures range from boosting hatchery salmon production to increasing marine patrols so that boats keep their distance from the whales.

Many have been sounding the alarm about the orcas' plight since the September death of a juvenile brought the population to 76. Orcas face threats from lack of food, pollution and noise from vessels.

A baby orca has not been born in the last few years. Half of the calves born during a celebrated baby boom have since died. Female orcas are also having pregnancy problems linked to nutritional stress brought on by a low supply of chinook salmon, the whales' preferred food, a recent study found.

"We haven't seen any viable calves born here in the last few years and that is disconcerting," said Brad Hanson, wildlife biologist with the NOAA's Northwest Fisheries Science Center.

Last year, the orcas spent the fewest number of days in the central Salish Sea in four decades, mostly because there wasn't enough salmon for them to eat, said Ken Balcomb, senior scientist with the Center for Whale Research.

One House bill sets aside $1.5 million to produce 10 million more hatchery chinook salmon — a roughly 20 percent boost — so orcas will have more to eat.

"Using smart hatchery production we can still support rebuilding wild fish runs and have hatchery production," said Rep. Brian Blake, D-Aberdeen, prime sponsor of House Bill 2417 which unanimously cleared a policy committee and awaits action in a fiscal committee.

Blake and other says there's growing awareness that the fates of two Northwest iconic species — salmon and orcas — are intertwined, and that efforts to save one endangered species could help another.

"The idea is that, overall, you have more fish out there that are available to killer whales," said Penny Becker, wildlife diversity division manager with the state Department of Fish and Wildlife.

She said the agency is committed to ramping up state hatchery production — which has been declining over the past decade — though it would still need to determine where and how best to do that.

Putting more fish in the waters won't necessarily mean whales will get them all. A recent study found that other marine mammals such as sea lions, seals and other killer whales were also feasting on the salmon that Puget Sound orcas prize.

Recreational and commercial fishermen groups told lawmakers that increasing supply would benefit fishermen and orcas.

But some skeptics think it should only be a short-term strategy and that efforts should focus on restoring salmon habitat or removing fish barriers including dams.

"We can't stop there. We've got to have a more comprehensive approach that restores ecosystem health," said Joseph Bogaard, executive director with Save Our Wild Salmon, a coalition that is pushing to remove four Snake River dams.

Kurt Beardslee, executive director of the Wild Fish Conservancy, said officials should be looking to limit salmon harvest so orcas can have their share rather than increasing production that could potentially harm wild salmon.

Meanwhile, state Sen. Kevin Ranker, D-Orcas Island, has proposed a package of bills aimed at protecting orcas and the waters they swim in.

Senate Bill 6268 would essentially double to 100 the number of days state wildlife officers are on the water to keep boats a safe distance from orcas.

Orcas use clicks, calls and other sounds to navigate, communicate and forage mainly for salmon. Noise from vessels can interfere with that that.

"We need to continue working on toxins and salmon, but there are issues that we can take on right now," Ranker said.

His bill would also convene a meeting between experts in British Columbia and Washington to discuss strategies to help the orcas.

Gov. Jay Inslee's proposed supplemental budget devotes $3 million to helping the whales by increasing enforcement of boat regulations, increasing production of chinook salmon at hatcheries and improving habitat. Inslee is also expected to create a killer whale task force.

By Terry Otto, Columbian staff writer
Published: May 16, 2018, 9:22 PM

The United States Congress is currently considering legislation that could affect the management of fisheries in the Northwest and directly impact local fishing.

One of the bills being considered addresses the issue of sea lion predation on endangered stocks of salmo

n and steelhead. Another would effectively reverse a recent judge’s decision to increase spill at Columbia River and Snake River dams to improve downstream migration.

There are also two bills that would amend the Magnuson-Stevens act, which regulates ocean fisheries.

H.R. 2083 Sponsored by U.S. Congresswomen Jaime Herrera Beutler, R-Battle Ground, the Endangered Salmon and Fisheries Predation Prevention Act, or H.R. 2083, would amend the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972. It would authorize the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to issue one-year permits allowing Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and a broad coalition of tribal entities to kill sea lions in a portion of the Columbia River or certain tributaries in order to protect fish from sea lion predation. Sea lions in the Columbia River and its tributaries consume thousands of salmon and steelhead every year. This bill specifically targets those marine mammals that set up at “pinch points” where the salmon funnel through tight areas, such as fish ladders. Heath Heikkila of the Coastal Conservation Association thinks the marine mammal problems need to be addressed, and soon. “We badly need a solution to the predation by sea lions,” he said. “They have tried hazing and moving the animals, but it hasn’t worked.”

Herrera Beutler proposed the legislation after hearing the concerns and frustrations of many of her constituents. She said that she understands the importance of salmon to our region and worries about the damage sea lions can cause. “There is a 90-percent chance of Willamette steelhead going extinct (because of sea lions)” she said. “Forty-five percent of our spring Chinook disappear between the mouth of the Columbia and Bonneville Dam.” She is aware that critics of the bill denounce the killing of sea lions. “This is not an anti-sea lion bill,” Herrera Beutler said. “It’s a balanced approach that protects our salmon. It has the support of fish
and wildlife managers, as well as the tribes, and the governors of Washington, Oregon, and Idaho.” The bill currently is awaiting a floor vote in the house, and its future in the Senate is as yet unknown. However, Herrera Beutler is hopeful. “This is the best chance we have had yet,” she said. “But it’s not a sure thing.”

H.R. 3144 H.R. 3144 is to “provide for operations of the Federal Columbia River Power System pursuant to a certain operation plan for a specified period of time, and for other purposes.” This bill, sponsored by U.S. Congresswomen Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R- Spokane, would effectively reverse the recent decision by U.S. District Judge Michael Simon that ordered more springtime spill over dams along the Columbia and Snake Rivers. H.R. 3144 would order the Army Corps of Engineers and the Bonneville Power Administration to adhere to the 2014 Obama-era plan for operation of the dams, which pre-dates the judge’s order.
Advocates say spill allows juvenile salmon to safely pass over dams, rather than sending them through the structures, which kill a percentage of the juvenile salmon as they head to sea. Spilling water instead of running it through the generators reduces the money earned from the dams. Also, some advocates of the bill say dissolved gasses caused by spill pose a risk to juvenile fish. Congresswoman Herrera Buetler supports the bill. She said the 2014 salmon plan is a “comprehensive plan”

 that was designed by scientists of federal agencies during the Obama Administration. She said the legislation is not about blocking spill. “It’s not an issue of whether or not to spill, it’s about the best way to do it,” she said. “This is about how to mitigate the effects of the dams in the best possible way.” “We don’t want to breach the dams and wreck the economy,” she adds.

Liz Hamilton, the executive director of the Northwest Sportfishing Industry Association minces no words when she condemns this bill. “This bill stinks,” said Hamilton. “The judges decision allows spill up to the gas cap, and it is the number one thing they can do to restore salmon populations” The gas cap is the limit on dissolved gasses in the river. Hamilton and the NSIA have been actively involved in the legal wrangling over operation of hydro dams in t

he Columbia Basin. The dams are already ordered to spill during the summer months when fall salmon are migrating out to sea, but the new ruling means the power agencies will now have to spill water in the spring as well. Spill has been widely lauded for increasing returning adult fall salmon in the Columbia River. Long-time fishing guide Jack Glass of Team Hook-Up Guide Service has fished the Columbia and its t

ributaries for decades. He is pleased with the results of the summer time spill. “I’m very much in favor of the spill, and we need to maintain that,” he said. “Given the poor ocean conditions we had, if we had not had that spill we would not have any fish coming back this fall at all.” The bill has passed the House and awaits action by the Senate. H.R. 2023, H.R. 200 These two bills are designed to amend the Magnuson-Stevens Act, which was passed in 1976, and reauthorized as recently as 2006. The act provides a structure for ocean fisheries but was designed for commercial fishing. The new bills give state managers more flexibility when setting recreational ocean fishing seasons. Sport anglers have often criticized the act because its structure does not lend itself well to recreational anglers. The bills also allow for a number of exemptions that foes say can be used by state fishery managers to get around annual catch limits set by federal fish managers for ocean fish stocks.
These bills get mixed reviews from sport anglers. Most believe the Magnuson-Stevens act needs to be revised to reflect the rise in
popularity of recreational ocean angling, but many are not happy with the provisions concerning annual catch limits. Bob Rees, an Oregon fishing guide and director of the Northwest Steelheaders, worries about possible reductions in ocean fish stocks if the bill becomes law. “It is a Gulf Coast initiative, bit it is changing federal law,” he warns. “Many of our ocean species could be affected, including
groundfish.” The Magnuson-Stevens act is credited with recovering 40 overfished populations since 2000, including populations of lingcod along the West Coast
.

April 13, 2019

Vaughn Palmer

Victoria, B.C. — The B.C. government put out another deliberately bland statement this week after negotiators, meeting in the provincial capital, wrapped up the sixth round of talks on the future of the Columbia River Treaty.

Canada and the U.S. have been talking for the past year on ways to modernize the 55-year old treaty governing flood control and electric power generation on the Columbia.

“Negotiators had an honest exchange of views and perspectives as they worked to find common ground on flood-risk management and hydro power co-ordination,” said Katrine Conroy, the B.C. cabinet minister responsible for monitoring the talks.

“Canada also raised the topics of other treaty benefits,” she continued. “The negotiating teams have decided to conduct technical work between rounds, to support the progress of the discussions.”

The seventh round is scheduled for late June in Washington, D.C. Doubtless, Conroy will issue a similar statement at that time.

The low-key tone comes in direct proportion to the high stakes nature of the talks for B.C.

A key goal on the American side is to claw back the treaty benefit that comes to B.C. via a share of the electricity generated on the United States side.

Katrine Conroy, the B.C. cabinet minister responsible for monitoring the Columbia River Treaty talks had this to say this week: “Negotiators had an honest exchange of views and perspectives as they worked to find common ground on flood-risk management and hydro power co-ordination.” 

The Canadian Entitlement, as it is known, was intended to compensate B.C. for the impact of three large storage dams constructed on this side of the border, calculated as a 50 per cent share of the additional power generated by evening out the river flow throughout the year.

But the “Canadian Non-entitlement,” would be a better description of the current U.S. view.

“It’s one of those aspects of the treaty that really calls out for modernization,” Scott Corwin from the Portland, Oregon public power council told the Lewiston (Idaho) Tribune newspaper recently.

“The assumptions that went into the formula that created the downstream power-benefit sharing have become outdated over time. … It’s a lot of value to ratepayers of the U.S. that we think should accrue to (our) citizens.”

The view came to the forefront again last month at a public meeting in Kalispell, Montana, presided over by Jill Smail, lead treaty negotiator for the U.S.

Among those seeking redress was Josh Letcher, an elected commissioner in Lincoln county where major dislocation resulted from construction of the Libby Dam, the only treaty dam on the U.S. side.

“Some people were uprooted, some moved several miles, some moved hundreds of miles, some were so upset they left the country,” he complained. “You know, Canada receives $250 million to $350 million a year. Lincoln County doesn’t receive anything.”

Those U.S. dollar figures are exaggerated. B.C. Hydro, which markets the Canadian entitlement through its Powerex subsidiary, has delivered an average $130 million to the provincial treasury for each of the past five years — not quite US$100 million at the current exchange rate.

In any event, Conroy emphasizes that Canada is negotiating to ensure the electricity entitlement continues to flow to B.C. in exchange for us storing water and managing the flow to the U.S.

“They call on us to hold back the water,” Conroy said in an interview Friday. “They need it more than we do (and) if you need flood control, you have to pay for it.”

The province and B.C. Hydro are continuing research into other ways the treaty has benefited the Americans. Lately, SFU resource economist Mark Jaccard has been commissioned to document increased agricultural production.

Another emerging challenge is a call for the treaty mandate to be expanded beyond flood control and power generation to include environmental concerns and restoration of the salmon fishery.

Salmon runs on the upper Columbia were wiped out by construction of the Grand Coulee Dam in Washington state, which predates the treaty by 20 years. But restoration is being pressed by First Nations in B.C.

Conroy agrees it should be part of the talks. But she doesn’t make light of the challenge of getting the fish past the 168-metre high Grand Coulee, never mind the 172-metre Revelstoke and 240-metre Mica Dams on the Canadian side.

The environmental objectives have been cast in doubt by the recent selection of Idaho Republican Jim Risch as chair of the foreign relations committee in the U.S. Senate.

Any revised treaty would be subject to approval by the powerful committee. And Chairman Risch has already made it clear that “it’s going to be a good deal for Idaho, or it’s going to be no deal at all.”

For him, that means sticking to the original goals of flood control and power generation. No adding ecosystem protection as a third objective.

“It’s not going to happen,” he told reporter Eric Barker of the Tribune. “The third one (ecosystem function) is not in there now, and it’s not going to be added. The reason I say that is I believe we would — I think almost certainly — end up on the short end of the stick.”

All of which adds another complication to talks already top heavy with challenges.

But as Conroy said to me Friday, there’s no deadline in the talks and the key flood control benefits in the treaty don’t come due for another five years.

“We are not going to be rushed on this,” said Conroy. “There is no urgency on our part.”

Given the current bumpy state of relations between the two countries, B.C.’s best hope is probably for the negotiating rounds to continue past the next round of elections in the U.S.

"I would say that when it was negotiated in 1961 and entered into force in 1964, it probably was one of the most important — if not the most important — water treaties in the world," said Nigel Bankes

Oct. 25, 2023

Victoria Youmans says she hasn’t seen Arrow Lakes Reservoir looking so low in more than 20 years.

The resident of Nakusp on the shores of the reservoir in British Columbia’s southern Interior says she’s seen thousands of dead fish on the shore, and the receding waterline means boat access has been cut to waterfront properties. Instead of lapping waters, some homes now face an expanse of sucking mud.

Drought is part of reason. But so too is the Columbia River Treaty with the United States that obligates B.C. to direct water from the reservoir across the border at American behest.

The grim scenes described by Youmans illustrate the stakes in talks between Canadian and U.S. negotiators to modernize the 62-year-old treaty, as the increased risk of extreme weather weighs on both sides. Part of the treaty that gives the United States direct control over a portion of the water in Arrow Lakes Reservoir and two other B.C. dams is set to expire in September 2024.

“I would say that when it was negotiated in 1961 and entered into force in 1964, it probably was one of the most important — if not the most important — water treaties in the world,” said Nigel Bankes, professor emeritus at the University of Calgary’s faculty of law, whose expertise includes the Columbia River Treaty.

“Its significance was really that it provided for the co-operative development of the Columbia River — the co-operative development of storage for flood control and power purposes, and for a sharing of the benefits associated with those developments.”

The treaty was forged after catastrophic flooding of the Columbia River in 1948 destroyed the city of Vanport, Ore., near Portland.

It led to the creation of three dams in B.C. and a fourth in Montana in the Columbia’s drainage basin, serving both flood control and hydropower generation.

But recent extreme weather — such as this year’s severe drought in B.C. — has exposed problems in the agreement that residents of the Columbia River Basin say need to be urgently addressed.

The 230-kilometre-long Arrow Lakes Reservoir — made up of Upper Arrow Lake and Lower Arrow Lake — was created when the Hugh Keenleyside Dam was built in 1968 under the treaty.

The reservoir’s water level had fallen to 423.7 metres above sea level on Tuesday — a low not reached in more than two decades.

Nakusp resident Youmans said what’s even more concerning is that it’s only October, and the lakes usually don’t reach their lowest annual levels until late winter or early spring.

“I personally have never seen it this low, and I’ve lived here for over 20 years,” said Youmans, who is among 3,900 members of a Facebook group that wants to “slow the flow of Arrow Lakes” to the United States.

She says the low water levels are hampering tourism and recreation on the lake, located about 600 km east of Vancouver.

There are other commercial concerns. Nakusp Mayor Tom Zeleznik said low water levels had rendered parts of the reservoir unnavigable for vessels carrying logs, resulting in the closure of some businesses, and forcing reliance on costlier land transport.

Katrine Conroy, the provincial minister on the Columbia River Treaty talks and the MLA representing Kootenay West, said the province is legally obligated by the treaty to direct water to the United States “for flood protection, power-generation purposes, as well as for fish.”

“It’s really frustrating to be faced with a situation that feels like there’s very little that you can do to fix it,” Conroy said in an information session held for West Kootenay residents on Oct. 18, saying her position as the minister responsible for the treaty does not give her a seat at the negotiating table.

The latest round of negotiations, which were the 19th since talks began in 2018, concluded in Portland on Oct. 13.

My “position doesn’t give me a magic wand,” Conroy said. “I can’t cancel a treaty or change its terms or requirements … Often as a government minister, I’m confronted by problems and issues that are hundreds of kilometres away, but for me, this one hits very, very close to home. It’s in my backyard.”

Conroy is also B.C.’s minister of finance.

Federal, provincial and First Nations delegates are represented at the talks with U.S. authorities.

If a new flood-control agreement isn’t reached by September next year, the treaty currently calls for a shift to an “ad hoc” regime, with U.S. authorities having to rely on their own dams’ capacity for flood control before being able to call upon Canadian dams to hold back water as necessary.

The concern, Bankes said, is that nobody knows exactly what an ad hoc regime will look like because it has never been done before.

“Currently, as I understand it, the dam operators start thinking about flood control operations in February,” Bankes said. “So, you need long lead-ups to be able to achieve target flows down in Washington and Oregon. ”That, I think, is the biggest issue, and obviously it should be a huge driver for the United States. What amazes me is that they haven’t got it figured out now, because 11 months is not a long time.“

The U.S. army Corps of Engineers, which built and operates the American treaty dam in Montana as well as a number of dams downriver in the Columbia River Basin such as the Bonneville Dam, warned Oregon and Washington residents in a September information session that waterflow may become “unpredictable” if Canada moves to an ad hoc regime.

Development has proliferated on historical Columbia River flood plains in the United States since the treaty came into effect, and the Corps of Engineers said an ad hoc regime could lead to flooding and disruptions to transport corridors including the I-5 bridge linking Oregon and Washington.

“At this point, we just simply don’t know the actual changes in reservoir operations or potential changes in flooding, because we don’t know how Canada will be operating their system,” Geoff Van Epps, Commander of the U.S. army Corps of Engineers’ Northwest Division, told the information session.

Speaking to West Kootenay residents with Conroy, Canadian treaty negotiator Stephen Gluck said while an ad hoc regime will give Canada more control over waterflow “in theory,” it also introduces uncertainty.

“I will say that even though we continue to negotiate, there is an emerging acceptance that a modernized (treaty) must include Canadian flexibility,” Gluck said.

Kathy Eichenberger, B.C.’s lead negotiator, told residents the province received roughly $420 million last year in the “Canadian entitlement” from power generation at U.S. dams based on waterflows from Canada.

Typically, the province receives about $150 million to $200 million a year, funding that’s directed at regions affected by the dams.

Eichenberger said the dams also helped avert flooding in the B.C. communities of Trail and Castlegar in 2012.

“The key is, Canada and B.C., we entered into this treaty willingly, as partners with the United States,” Eichenberger said. “So, we are committed, as the U.S. is committed, to upholding to treaty requirements.”

For residents such as Youmans, however, it is “beyond frustrating” to see Washington’s Franklin D Roosevelt Lake — downriver from the Canadian dams — operating at normal water levels, while Arrow Lakes Reservoir recedes.

“Unfortunately, there’s nothing we can do with what’s happened now,” Youmans said. “All we can do is move forward and be heard on the upcoming and ongoing negotiations.”

https://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/drought-reveals-cracks-in-canada-u-s-columbia-river-treaty-as-b-c-lake-dries-up

Jon O’Riordan in the Times Colonist 
(British Columbia, Canada)

November 19, 2014 The opportunity for renegotiation of the Columbia River Treaty in 2024 — one of the largest international trans-boundary water treaties in the world — coupled with the prospect of a changing climate, requires Canada to consider the costs and benefits of climate-change adaptation in its forthcoming discussions with the U.S.

Flood control and power generation were joint cornerstones of the treaty when it was signed in 1964. The current flood-control provision will be modified in 2024 unless the parties agree to renegotiate. As well, the U.S. returns to B.C. an average of $150 million a year in incremental potential power benefits, based on increased regulation of storages in the Canadian Columbia necessary to maintain agreed-upon flows.

Some parties in the U.S. argue that these payments are too high, but because of the changing climate in the basin, they might, in fact, be too low.

A recent summary by the Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society of anticipated climate changes in the region shows that, over the next 50 years, average temperatures are expected to increase (between 1.8 and 2.7 C), as are the frequency and duration of extreme hot spells, especially in the U.S. portion, with implications for water shortages and agricultural losses.

Monitoring of glaciers in the Canadian portion of the basin indicates they are shrinking, which will lead to a short-term increase in annual runoff until they finally disappear, with implications for seasonal-flow timing and availability. Warmer air carries more moisture, so the semi-regular high rainfall events associated with El Nino are likely to become more intense and frequent, increasing the prospect of severe flooding.

First Nations and basin residents on both sides of the border are expressing concerns regarding the health of ecosystems. The Adaptation to Climate Change Team at Simon Fraser University’s school of public policy notes that resilience to climate change is improved by protecting and restoring ecosystem diversity and services.

Well-functioning ecosystems reduce flooding, increase retention of water during droughts and temper heat waves through shading. Thriving ecosystems also store more carbon, reducing emissions that are fuelling climate change.

Both the B.C. and U.S. governments have released statements of interest for renegotiating the treaty, supporting increased protection of ecosystem values and taking into account the implications of a changing climate. These actions have the potential to add value to some of the resources under consideration.

For example, the treaty entities estimate that, due to increased storage capacity in Canadian Columbia reservoirs, downstream U.S. flood-control benefits include about $32 billion in reduced damages over the past 50 years — a service for which the U.S. paid just $64 million under the original agreement. The potential for severe flooding due to changing climate conditions will increase Canada’s valuable role in flood control.

The U.S. government has passed legislation since 1964 to protect migrating salmon in the U.S. portion of the Columbia. Studies sponsored by the SFU team assessing ecosystem values associated with salmon indicate that U.S. residents collectively value the presence of salmon from $330 million to more than $1 billion annually. Under a changing climate, flows from regulated

Canadian storages will become increasingly vital to the health of these species and their aquatic ecosystems.

Large areas of the U.S. basin are dependent on Columbia water for irrigation, and might face significantly lower flows during the summer months as climate change advances. Using existing hydrologic models, we can estimate that the cost of maintaining water levels to compensate for this through Canadian storage regulation could top $1 billion under severe drought conditions.

In other words, as the climate changes, water security will become more important than power security throughout the Columbia Basin.

Canada, as the upstream nation, has a responsibility to prioritize these pending changes in hydrology in its approach to the treaty discussions. It should promote the associated increase in commercial and ecological values in Columbia River flows that adaptation to climate and hydrological change will represent to a range of U.S. interests.

Jon O’Riordan is senior policy adviser to SFU’s Adaptation to Climate Change Team and a former B.C. deputy minister of sustainable resource management.

- See more at: http://www.timescolonist.com/opinion/op-ed/comment-columbia-treaty-must-consider-climate-change-1.1592104#sthash.7ZLeaxWm.dpuf

By Ellen Morris Bishop
August 12, 2020

JOSEPH — Allen Pinkham Jr. built a small, dugout canoe in 2018 and launched it in Wallowa Lake.

This year, the greatgreat- great-grandnephew of Chief Joseph is constructing three much larger canoes that may be more than 30-feet long. In fact, they may become part of a flotilla to draw attention to the issues of imperiled salmon and the Lower Snake River dams.

“The canoes are a very important part of our Nez Perce culture, and I want to bring them back,” Pinkham said.

Three huge Ponderosa pine logs, up to 4 feet in diameter and 37 feet long, were donated to the project by JayZee Lumber Co., of Joseph, after they cut them as Forest Service-designated hazard trees. Pinkham and fellow Nimiipuu (Nez Perce) Adam Capetillo are doing the initial work of sculpting the logs into canoes in the JayZee yard.

Pinkham anticipates that more people will work to refine and finish them at the Wallowa Band Nez Perce Homeland Project property (the Tamkaliks grounds) in Wallowa, Pinkham said.

“It’s very generous of JayZee Lumber to donate the logs,” he said.

The idea for a powwow to help fund the canoe work at the Homeland Project grounds occurred to him as he was making plans for canoe work in Wallowa, Pinkham said.

“I thought about bringing maybe two dozen people to the Tamkaliks grounds to finish the canoes,” he said. “Then I thought I could make a mini-social powwow out of this.”

So Pinkham asked Angela Bombaci, executive director of the Homeland Project, if he might organize a small-scale powwow at the Tamkaliks grounds later this fall. No decision has been made.

“It could really help fund the canoe project,” he said.

Pinkham’s powwow would not include the usual dance competitions, but would be a limited gathering focused on the canoes, with perhaps an owl dance and a rabbit dance, which are social dances for couples. It would be organized and run strictly in accord with the Oregon governor’s office and Oregon Health Authority protocols, he said.

“Indians have had some experience with pandemics and disease,” he said. “We want to be very careful.”

Pinkham envisions that his three new dugout canoes will participate in Indian canoe voyages and gatherings that have been appearing on the Snake and Columbia rivers. Those gatherings bring river tribes together, and also draw attention to the issue of the four dams on the Lower Snake River and consequent salmon decline — issues which are very important to Pinkham, he said.

“Having a number of canoes on the river is part of pressing my agenda of salmon recovery and dam removal,” he said. “It would cost $50,000 to $100,000 to keep a couple of canoes and their crews safely on the water. It will start on the water, but it’s probably going to end up in the courthouse.”

He said a major aim is to draw more attention to the salmon issue.

“If more people wanted to join, I could change my little three-canoe flotilla into an armada,” he said. “It’s like the late Rep. John Lewis’ mom said, ‘If you are going to get into trouble, get into good trouble.’”

— Allen Pinkham Jr.

Wallowa Band Nez Perce tribal member Allen Pinkham Jr. stands next to a log that he and other tribal members are making into a traditional dugout canoe. Part of the funding for this and future canoes may be raised by a powwow at theWallowa Band Nez Perce Homeland grounds inWallowa, Pinkham said. (Photo by Ellen Morris Bishop)

Nez Perce tribal member Adam Capetillo removed the outer, weathered wood from a log destined to become a 35-foot-long Nez Perce dugout canoe at JZ Lumber’s log yard on Saturday, Aug. 8. (Photo by Ellen Morris Bishop)

By Matthew Weaver
Sep 12, 2024

"We say, 'As salmon runs go, so go the Salmon People,'" said Joe Oatman, deputy program manager for the Nez Perce Tribe. "If salmon are suffering, we're suffering. If salmon have broken homes, we have broken homes."

Salmon used to be a core part of the tribe's economy, he said.

"We suffer from higher rates of unemployment and poverty. We have the lowest per capita income. We suffer from higher rates of diabetes and inflammatory cardiovascular diseases. We have higher rates of alcoholism, drug use and suicide. Restoring fish and our fishing is a really necessary part of restoring balance back to the lives of our people.

"There's not a single Nez Perce that can make a living off of salmon," he said. "Not just putting those fish on the table to feed themselves, but also to earn some money to acquire all the basic things you need in life.... We want to be able to have livelihoods, safe and healthy communities, being able to carry on all of those things that matter to us. That's what bringing fish back will do."

Austin Smith Jr., general manager of natural resources for the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs. Austin Smith Jr./Contributed Photo

Austin Smith Jr., general manager of natural resources for the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs, points to creation stories in which salmon were the first fish to give themselves to humans as they settled the lands.

Salmon is always on the table in some form, he said. It's used in celebrations and ceremonies.

"We were given the creation story that water, fish, deer, elk, roots, berries and all the other first foods, if we were to take care of those foods, all the cycles would continue and everything would be in sync," he said.

Salmon also play a role in the nutrient cycle, Smith added.

"As resources leave a watershed, resources return with salmon," he said. "Life returns with salmon.... If salmon disappeared in these areas, so would life, so would the balance, so would the cycles."

Wild harvest limits

The tribes estimate about 6,000 wild fish will return to the Snake River and its tributaries this year, Oatman said. Of that, tribes can target 183 from fisheries across the region under abundance-based harvest value scales, from May to August.

"We can take one wild fish in the Tucannon Sub-Basin, and if we have a single tribal member go there and take that one fish, that fishery closes, and that's really the only fishing opportunity we have," he said. The Tucannon River empties into the Snake River between the Little Goose and Lower Monumental dams.

In Northeastern Oregon sub-basins, the tribe might be able to harvest up to 55 wild fish.

In the Salmon River Sub-Basin and its four tributaries, the tribe can harvest 65 wild fish. Half of the entire wild fish harvest comes from one river system, Oatman said.

There might not be enough hatchery fish for a hatchery run on the South Fork Salmon River, which is "a pretty odd circumstance," he said. "Right now we're trying to figure out how to go after 42 wild fish and keep our impacts to hatchery fish as low as we can."

For nine populations in the Middle Fork Salmon River, tribes can only harvest a range of zero to one or two wild fish, up to 37 wild fish all together. For some populations, once one fish is caught, it shuts down the fishery for the year.

"It's a difficult management conundrum to operate," Oatman said.

The Nez Perce Tribe targets 9,000 fish, and had harvested 5,500 in late June. By season's end, it hoped to have 8,700 hatchery and 200 wild salmon, including unlisted natural runs to the Clearwater River. About 90% or more of the harvest will be hatchery fish.

The tribe's Jay Hesse pointed to the 2022 National Marine Fisheries Service report assessing rebuilding salmon and steelhead to abundant levels. No one particular action could be taken to rebuild things, but a suite of actions would be needed, Hesse said.

Multiyear study

Hesse pointed to a "multiyear process" to study replacing the services of the four Snake River dams and expand the energy sector in the Pacific Northwest to meet state and tribes' decarbonization goals.

"It is our expectation that those products will inform and allow Congress to think about authorizing taking those dams out," he said

The region is already in an energy crisis, he said, with unprecedented load growth occurring now that was not modeled even two years ago by the energy sector.

"Without huge increases in clean energy generation in the basin, the lights are going to go out," he said. "What we're simply asking for is, make a small modification in that transformation that has to occur anyway, and do it in a way that works for salmon. That doesn't seem like a huge ask for Congress, once you put it in the context of what people on the whole landscape need for day-to-day lives."

'Changes the fish deserve'

Hesse believes dam advocates "like to point fingers to some other impact and say that's the problem."

Improvements are needed in all sectors, he said.

"But we can't get there if we don't address the hydrosystem," he said. "We've got 50 years-plus of having the Snake River dams here, and tried a whole bunch of things to improve fish survival during that 50 years. Yet we're still on the brink of extinction. I think we've given it a good go of trying everything but hydro. The time is now, and we're running out of time to actually make changes the fish deserve."

That includes addressing dams, predators, agricultural runoff, developments, and working with irrigators, cities and the Environmental Protection Agency, while allowing the tribes to be "part of that voice," Smith said.

"We're going to keep being resilient like the fish," Smith said. "We're going to hold the federal government, any agencies involved in the water systems... we think about those seven generations ahead of us. We can't stop, because I want my grandkids to have fish to fish on, salmon available."

Wallowa County Chieftain: 'First food: What the fish mean for tribes' article link

By Chris Mooney, June 21, 2016

Most people these days know that wind and solar energy are booming. And for the most part, we simply see this as adding two new and cleaner sources of electricity to the mix that we already have.

But really, it is way more complicated than that. These two renewable sources have a tremendous difference from sources such as coal, nuclear and even hydropower that involves not where the energy comes from but, rather, when it comes. You can run a nuclear plant, or a coal plant, all night, steadily. But you cannot do that with a solar plant, except perhaps in the summer in far northern Alaska.

This large “variability” or “intermittency” of renewable energy has been endlessly cited to suggest that sources like wind and solar can only make up in the neighborhood of 15 to 20 percent of all electricity on the grid, notes a recent report by President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers. And yet, the study goes on to say, we are already seeing isolated instances, albeit brief, of renewables doing much more than that in some locations.

“Portugal was run 100 percent on wind, solar, and hydropower for four days straight in May 2016, and Texas hit a record level of 45 percent instantaneous penetration from wind generation during one evening in February of this year,” the report observes.

So can we really attain far higher levels of renewables, and still get everybody power when they want and need it? Without suggesting it will necessarily be easy — or that we can entirely do away with “baseload” power sources like nuclear any time soon — what’s so striking is to find that Obama’s advisers think that, thanks to the burgeoning growth of grid batteries and other technologies that can help integrate variable energy streams, the answer is yes.

In the process, they’re subtly undermining one of the key arguments made by defenders of coal and also sometimes nuclear — that renewables cannot compete with the steady output of baseload electricity from these long established sources.

“What they’re getting at here is that these things are growing rapidly, and there isn’t a hindrance to higher penetration of renewables,” says Matt Roberts, executive director of the Energy Storage Association, an industry group that welcomed a White House rollout of the CEA report, other related battery-focused announcements, and an energy storage summit late last week. “There’s not some artificial cliff that says, ‘Okay, if we hit 30 percent, or whatever other magic number we decide, that renewables are un-viable.”

Through new administration moves and paired announcements by industry and utility companies, the expected upshot of the new initiatives is “at least 1.3 gigawatts of additional storage procurement or deployment in the next five years,” the White House said.

The Council of Economic Advisers report amounts to the intellectual backup for these endeavors. It finds that two key trends — managing the grid’s electricity requirements at a given time through innovations such as “demand response,” and a greater proliferation of batteries and other energy storage technologies — can substantially ameliorate the very real problems caused by the variability of wind and solar and “support further increases” in the deployment of these electricity sources.

Granted, more wind and solar “will require a re-envisioning of the management of the grid,” the report notes. But it argues that this re-envisioning is not only possible, it’s already underway.

The key problem is that with more wind and especially more solar on the grid, you reach a situation where solar can be doing a great deal of work for supplying electricity during the middle of the day, when it’s most plentiful — but also one in which demand for electricity rises steeply, even as solar availability declines, in the evening. This means that other energy sources, such as natural gas, will have to ramp up very rapidly to close the gap, and this is quite expensive — unless, that is, there is a way to mitigate the steepness of this daily rise in demand.

At the same time, there’s another, more general issue. The variability of renewables — epitomized by a cloudy day, or one that isn’t very windy — adds more question marks for those charged with operating the grid on a daily basis. This means that as more wind and solar are added to the grid, there will also be a need for more ways of switching where and when power is used, which comes with a cost.

However, forms of energy storage — for instance, charging up batteries when there is a lot of solar power, and then having that electricity ready to dispatch when it’s needed — could mitigate this problem to a significant extent. Large-scale energy storage today remains expensive to deploy, but the Council of Economic Advisers concludes that that’s going to change, even as more penetration of renewables makes its deployment more valuable because of the need for the additional services it can provide.

And then, there’s “demand response,” getting key users of electricity — either large businesses or aggregated groups of individuals — to use less at key times when the grid faces high levels of demand. This could significantly ease the evening ramp-up of electricity demand, and basically amounts to a technology and coordination problem: You need to be able to alter electricity usage quickly at key moments, and you need to be able to organize and provide compensation to those who are willing to help out the grid by doing so.

But this, too, is becoming more and more possible. The Council of Economic Advisers finds that “continued expansion of smart markets and advanced communications is likely to make demand response all the more valuable going forward.”

The Supreme Court recently resolved a challenge aimed at large-scale demand response — mainly used by big companies that use a lot of electricity, and want to get paid for being selective about when they use it — in its favor. But there are also many smaller scale, individual possibilities with demand response, involving home appliances that can become “grid interactive” and modulate precisely when they are used. Water heaters and electric vehicles, in particular, are promising in this respect, says the Council of Economic Advisers.

The upshot is that while really big changes are clearly coming to the grid — and while nobody is saying that we can suddenly go to 100 percent renewables — there are many reasons to think that new technologies, as they become cheaper, will work hand-in-hand with the growth of wind and solar to make a cleaner grid possible. And if we see these technologies grow, and drop in price, at anything like the rate that wind and solar themselves have, that grid could come sooner than we think.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/06/21/obamas-advisers-just-dismantled-a-key-myth-about-the-future-of-clean-energy/

By Chris Mooney, June 21, 2016

Most people these days know that wind and solar energy are booming. And for the most part, we simply see this as adding two new and cleaner sources of electricity to the mix that we already have.

But really, it is way more complicated than that. These two renewable sources have a tremendous difference from sources such as coal, nuclear and even hydropower that involves not where the energy comes from but, rather, when it comes. You can run a nuclear plant, or a coal plant, all night, steadily. But you cannot do that with a solar plant, except perhaps in the summer in far northern Alaska.

This large “variability” or “intermittency” of renewable energy has been endlessly cited to suggest that sources like wind and solar can only make up in the neighborhood of 15 to 20 percent of all electricity on the grid, notes a recent report by President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers. And yet, the study goes on to say, we are already seeing isolated instances, albeit brief, of renewables doing much more than that in some locations.

“Portugal was run 100 percent on wind, solar, and hydropower for four days straight in May 2016, and Texas hit a record level of 45 percent instantaneous penetration from wind generation during one evening in February of this year,” the report observes.

So can we really attain far higher levels of renewables, and still get everybody power when they want and need it? Without suggesting it will necessarily be easy — or that we can entirely do away with “baseload” power sources like nuclear any time soon — what’s so striking is to find that Obama’s advisers think that, thanks to the burgeoning growth of grid batteries and other technologies that can help integrate variable energy streams, the answer is yes.

In the process, they’re subtly undermining one of the key arguments made by defenders of coal and also sometimes nuclear — that renewables cannot compete with the steady output of baseload electricity from these long established sources.

“What they’re getting at here is that these things are growing rapidly, and there isn’t a hindrance to higher penetration of renewables,” says Matt Roberts, executive director of the Energy Storage Association, an industry group that welcomed a White House rollout of the CEA report, other related battery-focused announcements, and an energy storage summit late last week. “There’s not some artificial cliff that says, ‘Okay, if we hit 30 percent, or whatever other magic number we decide, that renewables are un-viable.”

Through new administration moves and paired announcements by industry and utility companies, the expected upshot of the new initiatives is “at least 1.3 gigawatts of additional storage procurement or deployment in the next five years,” the White House said.

The Council of Economic Advisers report amounts to the intellectual backup for these endeavors. It finds that two key trends — managing the grid’s electricity requirements at a given time through innovations such as “demand response,” and a greater proliferation of batteries and other energy storage technologies — can substantially ameliorate the very real problems caused by the variability of wind and solar and “support further increases” in the deployment of these electricity sources.

Granted, more wind and solar “will require a re-envisioning of the management of the grid,” the report notes. But it argues that this re-envisioning is not only possible, it’s already underway.

The key problem is that with more wind and especially more solar on the grid, you reach a situation where solar can be doing a great deal of work for supplying electricity during the middle of the day, when it’s most plentiful — but also one in which demand for electricity rises steeply, even as solar availability declines, in the evening. This means that other energy sources, such as natural gas, will have to ramp up very rapidly to close the gap, and this is quite expensive — unless, that is, there is a way to mitigate the steepness of this daily rise in demand.

At the same time, there’s another, more general issue. The variability of renewables — epitomized by a cloudy day, or one that isn’t very windy — adds more question marks for those charged with operating the grid on a daily basis. This means that as more wind and solar are added to the grid, there will also be a need for more ways of switching where and when power is used, which comes with a cost.

However, forms of energy storage — for instance, charging up batteries when there is a lot of solar power, and then having that electricity ready to dispatch when it’s needed — could mitigate this problem to a significant extent. Large-scale energy storage today remains expensive to deploy, but the Council of Economic Advisers concludes that that’s going to change, even as more penetration of renewables makes its deployment more valuable because of the need for the additional services it can provide.

And then, there’s “demand response,” getting key users of electricity — either large businesses or aggregated groups of individuals — to use less at key times when the grid faces high levels of demand. This could significantly ease the evening ramp-up of electricity demand, and basically amounts to a technology and coordination problem: You need to be able to alter electricity usage quickly at key moments, and you need to be able to organize and provide compensation to those who are willing to help out the grid by doing so.

But this, too, is becoming more and more possible. The Council of Economic Advisers finds that “continued expansion of smart markets and advanced communications is likely to make demand response all the more valuable going forward.”

The Supreme Court recently resolved a challenge aimed at large-scale demand response — mainly used by big companies that use a lot of electricity, and want to get paid for being selective about when they use it — in its favor. But there are also many smaller scale, individual possibilities with demand response, involving home appliances that can become “grid interactive” and modulate precisely when they are used. Water heaters and electric vehicles, in particular, are promising in this respect, says the Council of Economic Advisers.

The upshot is that while really big changes are clearly coming to the grid — and while nobody is saying that we can suddenly go to 100 percent renewables — there are many reasons to think that new technologies, as they become cheaper, will work hand-in-hand with the growth of wind and solar to make a cleaner grid possible. And if we see these technologies grow, and drop in price, at anything like the rate that wind and solar themselves have, that grid could come sooner than we think.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/06/21/obamas-advisers-just-dismantled-a-key-myth-about-the-future-of-clean-energy/

By William D. Ruckelshaus, Lee M. Thomas and William K. Reilly
May 26, 2017

William D. Ruckelshaus was administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency from 1970 to 1973 and 1983 to 1985. Lee M. Thomas was EPA administrator from 1985 to 1989, and William K. Reilly was EPA administrator from 1989 to 1993.

More than 30 years ago, the world was faced with a serious environmental threat, one that respected no boundaries. A hole in the ozone layer was linked to potential increases in skin cancer and blindness from cataracts. The ozone layer is a thin band of gas in the stratosphere that protects the Earth and humans from dangerous ultraviolet radiation from the sun, and it was slowly being destroyed by chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs, which are man-made gases used as aerosol propellants and in refrigeration and cooling.

Despite early skepticism, the risk of a thinning ozone layer was such that an international U.N. conference was convened in Vienna to address this problem. The participating countries and international bodies, including the United States, the European Union and other major producers and users of CFCs, afterward met in Montreal to negotiate an agreement setting out a specific program to reduce the production and use of CFCs.

The Environmental Protection Agency, with strong support from President Ronald Reagan, led the international effort that resulted in a treaty that contained an aggressive schedule of reductions known as the Montreal Protocol. It remains in effect today and has resulted in significant improvement in the ozone layer and greatly reduced the threat to human health. An element critical to the success of the effort was strong reliance on the shared science of the impact of CFCs and a willingness of the countries of the world to work together. They accepted that the risk of not acting was simply not acceptable.

Today, presented with the undeniable warming of the planet, we are faced with a global environmental threat whose potential harm to people and other living things exceeds any we have seen before. The Paris climate agreement is the international response to that threat.

In his April 22 Earth Day message, President Trump stated, “My administration is committed to advancing scientific research that leads to a better understanding of our environment and of environmental risks.”

Yet when confronted with broad-based evidence of planetary warming and the almost daily emerging evidence of the impacts of climate change, Trump’s March “skinny” budget and this week’s final 2018 budget plan say we should look the other way; he has chosen ignorance over knowledge. The need for extensive and accelerated scientific research about the nature of the problem and its possible policy solutions should be beyond question. Not to get more information is inexcusable.

Trump’s budget proposals have scrubbed every agency and department of expenditures that would provide us with vital information about the pace and impacts of climate change. Among those severely cut or eliminated altogether are programs in the departments of Energy, State, Interior and Homeland Security, and at the National Science Foundation, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NASA, and EPA.

The EPA budget released this week cuts science and technology spending by more than $282 million , almost a 40 percent reduction. The Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program is zeroed out; air and energy research are cut by 66 percent. Programs targeted at specific areas with significant climate vulnerabilities, such as the Chesapeake Bay, the Great Lakes and Puget Sound, have been eliminated.

The destruction of irreplaceable research would be staggering. It would put us and the rest of the world on a dangerous path. If our president is wrong about the reality of climate change, we will have lost vital time to take steps to avoid the worst impacts of a warming planet. If those urging collective worldwide accelerated action are wrong, we will have developed alternative sources of clean energy that will enhance our green energy choices for the foreseeable future.

We can see already, in many places here and around the world, concrete evidence of what climate change means. Sea-level rise along the Eastern Seaboard of the United States has increased, and with it have come significant increases in coastal erosion and flooding. Glacier ice melt in the Antarctic and Greenland is increasing. Arctic sea ice is at its lowest level since measurements began. The past three years have been the hottest on record; the 10 hottest years all occurred since 1998. When Glacier National Park in Montana was established in 1910, it contained 150 active glaciers; today there are 26.

With no seeming clue as to what’s going on, the president seems to have cast our lot with a small coterie of climate skeptics and their industry allies rather than trying to better understand the impact of increased greenhouse-gas emissions into the atmosphere. His policy of willful ignorance is a bet-the-house approach that is destructive of responsible government.

The consequences of the president’s being wrong are hard to imagine. All the more reason to respect science and continue the work that better defines the problem and the diminishing options for coping with it.

Many who touched the pole during its journey 'burst into tears because they could feel the energy’

By Dana Hedgpeth
July 29, 2021

A 25-foot totem pole, intricately hand-carved and painted by Native Americans, arrived in the nation’s capital Wednesday afternoon after a two-week cross-country journey from Washington state, as part of a campaign to protect sacred tribal lands.

Hauled on a flatbed trailer, the roughly 5,000-pound totem pole was brought to the front entrance of the National Museum of the American Indian on the Mall, where a small crowd came to welcome it. Douglas James, a Lummi Nation member who was one of the pole’s carvers and traveled with the group that brought it across the United States, said they met thousands of people along their journey — many of whom became emotional as they touched the pole.

“They’d burst into tears because they could feel the energy,” he said outside the museum just after the arrival of the pole, which was made from a 400-year-old red cedar tree that was cut, carved and painted with images of importance to Native Americans.

“It’s a very historic moment to bring it to D.C.," said Phreddie Lane, a Lummi member who came up with the idea to bring the totem pole to D.C. “And to have it sit among these sacred national monuments, representing Native American peoples, is special.”

The pole will be on display for three days outside the entrance of the National Museum of the American Indian. On Thursday afternoon, tribal leaders, some of the pole’s carvers, and Interior Secretary Deb Haaland — the first Native American Cabinet secretary — along with other dignitaries blessed the pole at a ceremony on the Mall.

Haaland said many of the nation’s policies originally were “intended to exclude” Native Americans.

“We’re working hard to undue so many consequences of those actions," she said Thursday, adding that the country is in a “new era” of “truth, healing and growth.”

The totem pole’s journey, which organizers dubbed the “Red Road to DC,” was led by about a dozen people, many of whom are Native Americans and members of the Lummi Nation, a tribe of about 5,000 members west of Bellingham, Wash. They raised about $500,000 from dozens of nonprofits, sponsors and tribal groups for the cross-country trip.

En route to D.C., the caravan stopped at several spots of importance to Native Americans including Chaco Canyon, a national park in New Mexico; the Standing Rock Indian Reservation in North Dakota; and Bears Ears National Monument in Utah. Each faces threats of development tied to natural resources or pipelines.

Native Americans are transporting a 5,000-pound totem pole to D.C. from the Pacific Northwest

Organizers are now working to find the pole a permanent home in or near the Washington area.

But finding a spot for the enormous totem pole in a city filled with red tape has been tough. It wouldn’t fit inside the National Museum of the American Indian because engineers there said it was too big and too heavy for its floors. Its arrival coincides with an exhibit at the museum that will showcase the Lummi Nation’s history of pole carving.

Another 13-foot totem pole made by the same group — the “House of Tears Carvers” — was placed at Congressional Cemetery in D.C. to honor victims who were at the Pentagon during the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The group has carved and painted more than 110 totem poles in the past three decades for homes for veterans, schools and other groups.

James, the carver, said they want to give the totem pole to the Biden administration and send a message to Washington about the sacred tribal lands: “We want to come together with one heart and one mind to save these sites.”

For many of those on the caravan, presenting the pole in D.C. to Haaland, who is a member of the Pueblo of Laguna, is a meaningful part of the journey.

Crystal Echo Hawk, who is Pawnee and executive director of the nonprofit IllumiNative advocacy group, said showcasing the totem pole in D.C. is meant for “Americans to see that Native peoples are leading the way around issues of protecting lands, waters.”

This land is sacred to the Apache, and they are fighting to save it

Too often, she said, Native Americans haven’t been fully included in major decisions on development in and around their sacred lands.

“Native peoples need to be consulted,” Echo Hawk said. “No one wants a corporation or government to come into your neighborhood and develop something that jeopardizes your drinking water or bulldozes your church. But that’s what essentially happens to Native Americans and our sacred sites.”

Totem pole carving is a tradition for some tribes, mainly in British Columbia and the U.S. Pacific Northwest. The totem poles often are said to be a “spiritual being” and are considered sacred symbols of a tribe, clan or a family tradition.

For the Lummi Nation, totem poles historically are carved with symbols that represent a certain clan of a tribe or show a family or tribe’s lineage. They can have scenes that depict an important tribal leader or might have a panel that shows a tribal battle.

“They represent visions, dreams and stories that are handed down and shaped through each generation,” said James’s brother — Jewell “Praying Wolf” James, who is the master carver of the pole brought to D.C.

Measuring about 43 inches wide, the totem pole was made in roughly three months. The tree was cut, carved and painted with images and symbols that include an eagle, moon, salmon and a man praying.

It contains an image of a woman with a girl kneeling near her, a scene meant to depict grandmothers across the country who are raising and teaching their granddaughters traditional Native American ways, according to Jewell James.

He said seven tears near the image represent seven generations of Native people throughout the world who have been “traumatized by the treatment they received from non-Indians.”

A red hand on the pole represents the hundreds of Indigenous women who are murdered or go missing each year.

The project marks the first time House of Tears Carvers has made and moved such a large totem pole.

Stops on its voyage from the West have drawn thousands of Native Americans and non-Natives, organizers said, who came to offer support and prayers and lay their hands on the pole.

Native American tribes were already being wiped out. Then the 1918 flu hit.

At Snake River — a tributary of the Columbia River that runs through part of Idaho and other states where Native American tribes are worried about the declining population of spawning salmon because of dams — many who came said they felt special to see the pole.

“Carrying a totem pole from Indian Country with a message is an ancient practice and considered a way to raise awareness of what’s important to us,” said Shannon Wheeler, vice chairman of the Nez Perce tribe in Idaho. He said he hopes the message the pole brings to Washington is that Native Americans are “not history.”

“We’re not pre-1900s and we’re not just old black-and-white photos you find on the Internet,” Wheeler said. “We’re still living, breathing and exercising our way of life that we’ve practiced for hundreds of years … We’re still here, and we don’t intend to go anywhere.”

A damaged net pen at Cooke Aquaculture's facility on Cypress Island is shown on Tuesday, August 22, 2017.

• KUOW PHOTO/MEGAN FARMER

By JOHN RYAN 

The Washington House of Representatives has voted to phase out farming of non-native fish in state waters, drawing the end of Atlantic salmon farming in Puget Sound one step closer.

The move comes one week after a similar vote by the state Senate.

Both bills let existing salmon farms keep operating only until their current leases run out, in the next four to seven years.

The House vote also comes six months after a poorly maintained fish farm collapsed near Anacortes, letting an estimated 250,000 Atlantic salmon escape into Puget Sound.

Republicans, including Rep. David Taylor of Moxee, called the move an overreaction to a single accident.

"You have an accident on a farm, we don’t try to eliminate that industry," Taylor said. "But in this case, we are."

But Republican Rep. J.T. Wilcox of Yelm said he would vote in favor of the phase-out, even if it meant some jobs would be lost. Wilcox said the risk to runs of native salmon was too great.

“My sympathies are with the people that depend on these fish runs who are unwilling to take the risk, and I don’t blame them," Wilcox said, "and also on the people that this vote is going to harm.”

He said he’d never felt worse after a vote.

Wilcox called on Washingtonians to take all threats to native salmon more seriously.

Canadian company Cooke Aquaculture raises Atlantic salmon on three continents. It employs about 80 people in Washington.

If the House and Senate can hash out the minor differences between their two bills, either by approving the other chamber’s bill or agreeing on some compromise between them, Governor Jay Inslee is expected to sign a ban on Atlantic salmon farms into law. 

Watch this recording of a virtual conversation on May 4, 2021 between Congressmen Simpson and Blumenauer discussing their ideas around a comprehensive solution for Columbia-Snake River Basin salmon and Northwest communities and infrastructure.

Background: In late April 2021, Congressman Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) announced his intention to work with Congressman Mike Simpson (R-ID) and the people of the Pacific Northwest "to help craft solutions that protect and restore salmon throughout the [Columbia] Basin, ensure environmental protections and help communities thrive."

He recognizes we face an "existential threat to iconic fish species, to indigenous ways of life, and to sustainability and prosperity... and have an opportunity [today] to end the cycle of conflict, degradation and regional uncertainty."

SOS is excited to share this news with you - and we're grateful to Rep. Blumenauer for his commitment to join forces with Rep. Simpson and work urgently toward solutions to help Northwest salmon and orca, fishing, farming and tribal communities, and clean and affordable energy system. This conversation hosted on Congressman Blumenauer's youtube channel was the first public conversation between these two policymakers on this topic.

For further information, follow this link to an April 30 Idaho Statesman article about this emerging partnership between a conservative Republican from Idaho and progressive Democrat from Oregon.

Thank you, as ever, for your support and advocacy for abundant Snake River salmon, healthy Southern Resident orcas and prosperous communities. Please reach to joseph@wildsalmon.org with questions and to get more involved.

April 5th, 2013 by Chris Dunagan

A research project that involved tracking the travels of K pod for more than three months in the Pacific Ocean apparently has ended, as the transmitter seems to have run out of battery power, according to research biologist Brad Hanson.

“This has been a phenomenal deployment,” Brad told me yesterday after it appeared he had logged the final transmission from K-25. “It has been a quantum leap forward for us in terms of understanding what is going on.”

K-25 is a 22-year-old male orca who was implanted with a satellite tag on Dec. 29. The battery was expected to last for 32,000 transmissions, and it actually reached about 35,000, said Hanson of NOAA’s Northwest Fisheries Science Center. No data arrived yesterday during the normal transmission period.

The three months of satellite tracking data will be combined with fecal and prey samples from a 10-day research cruise to serve up a wealth of information about where the Southern Resident killer whales go and what they eat during the early part of the year, Brad said. Until now, this has been a major blank spot in the understanding of these whales, he noted.

The information gathered over the past three months should prove valuable in management efforts to protect and restore these orcas, which are familiar to human residents of the Puget Sound region. After the data are analyzed, federal officials should be able to say whether they have enough information to expand “critical habitat” into coastal areas for the endangered killer whales. If not, we should know what additional information may be required.

Brad says he feels a high level of anticipation from his fellow killer whale experts who are eager to learn of the research findings, especially the results of what the whales are eating.
“We have a tremendous amount of data, and we’re trying to push it through as quickly as we can,” he said.

Brad says he won’t release the findings until the analysis is further along. But he did dangle this intriguing tidbit in front of me: The whales are NOT eating chinook salmon exclusively.
The tracking project has another benefit, Hanson said. It will bring new meaning to more than three years of acoustic data (recorded sounds) picked up by hydrophones dispersed along the Washington Coast. Until now, it was not possible to determine the locations of the whales from their sounds alone, because the sounds could be picked up from many miles away. Now, thanks to tracking data, the intensities of their calls and echolocation clicks can be correlated with distance to a greater extent. Researchers are developing a computer model to identify possible locations from as much as seven years of hydrophone data in some places.

The tracking project began on Dec. 29, when K-25, named Scoter, was darted with a satellite tag near Southworth in Kitsap County. K-25 and presumably the rest of K pod then moved out into the ocean. Check out the tracks on NOAA’s satellite tagging website.

“We were extremely lucky to get that tag at the end of the season,” Hanson said.

It was K pod’s last trip into Puget Sound for several months, he noted, and it is a real challenge to get close enough to dart a killer whale, especially when only certain ones are candidates for the tag.

By Jan. 13, the whales had reached Northern California, where they continued south, then turned around at Point Reyes north of San Francisco Bay. They continued to wander up and down the West Coast, including Northern California, into early March. After that, they began to stay mainly off the Washington Coast with trips into northern Oregon. They seemed to focus much of their attention near the Columbia River, where early runs of salmon may be mingling.

The research cruise, originally scheduled for three weeks, ran from March 1 to March 10, cut short by the federal budget sequestration. By following the whales, researchers were able to collect 24 samples of prey (scales and/or tissues of fish) plus 21 fecal samples from the whales themselves. Shortly before the cruise, K pod met up with L pod, probably off the Washington Coast.

The ability to track the whales and the fortune of decent weather were major factors in the success of the research cruise, Brad said. In contrast, several previous cruises had netted only two prey samples and no fecal samples.

“We are ecstatic about the amount of data we collected in such a short period of time,” Brad told me. “If we would have had 21 days instead of 10, just think what we could have done.”
Tagging the whales with a dart, which penetrates the skin, has been controversial among whale observers. Some contend that we already know that the whales spend time in the Pacific Ocean, and maybe that’s enough.

But Brad says many detailed findings from the past three months were never known before — such as how much time the whales spend off the continental shelf and how much time they spend in and around canyons at the edge of the shelf.

The sampling of fish scales and fish tissues should reveal not only the species of fish, but also specific stocks of salmon as well as their age, Brad said.

“Are they actually targeting the larger and older fish?” he wondered. “Some fish are resident on the continental shelf. Are they targeting those? Are they going after the ones they can easily detect, which means not going after the smaller fish?”

The cruise also collected all kinds of information about the ecosystem, ranging from ocean depths to zooplankton to the kinds of birds seen in the area. All that information will feed into a description of the essential habitat the whales need during their winter travels.

During the cruise, another whale, L-88, a 20-year-old male named Wave Walker, was tagged as an “insurance policy” to allow the whales to be tracked if K-25′s transmitter failed. A shorter dart was used on L-88, and the tag apparently fell off about a week later.

The ocean environment is very different from Puget Sound, where the habits of the whales are well known, Brad explained. In the San Juan Islands, groups of whales are rarely far apart compared to the scale of the ocean, he noted.

In the ocean, the orcas were generally grouped up during resting periods. Sometimes Ks and Ls were together; other times they were apart. When they were foraging, however, the individual animals might be spread out for miles.

Brad said he expects to put the new information into some kind of agency report, probably followed by a peer-reviewed journal article.

“We have put a lot of time and effort to get to this point,” he said, adding that the researchers feel a sense of accomplishment now that the effort has paid off.

Read more: http://pugetsoundblogs.com/waterways/2013/04/05/orca-tagging-project-comes-to-an-end-for-now/#ixzz2Q5IfpQos

By Dr. Deborah Giles, May 16, 2015

Ten years ago, the Southern Resident orca population was officially listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act (ESA).  In the decade since, the Southern Residents have declined in number in the face of numerous threats and a continually diminishing food source.  The survival of this unique orca population is closely linked to the abundance of their preferred prey – Chinook salmon – and WDC is proud to be part of a developing coalition that is working to save both the Southern Residents and the salmon they need to thrive.  These two species, iconic images in their Pacific Northwest home, and recognized and revered worldwide, are vital parts of their ecosystem, and they are in need of recovery efforts on an ecosystem-wide scale to ensure their future. 

This Whale and Dolphin Conservation guest blog is from Dr. Deborah Giles, a research affiliate with UC Davis who has been studying the Southern Resident killer whales for over a decade.  She is a founding member of the Salish Sea Association of Marine Naturalists (SSAMN) and the Southern Resident Killer Whale Chinook Salmon Initiative (SRKW CSI).  As part of the coalition, we are working on restoring rivers in the Pacific Northwest, starting with the Snake River – one of the key components for the survival of Chinook salmon and the Southern Residents.

Learn more about Whale and Dolphin Conservation at their website.

What else do the Southern Residents need to survive?  Read on to find out….

New babies

The recent births of four calves in the federally listed endangered Southern Resident killer whale population are worthy of celebration because this small population of whales has been declining since 2010, and they haven’t had a surviving calf for more than two years.  Also worth noting is that at least one of the new calves – J50, born in December 2014, has been confirmed to be female.  The Southern Resident orca population is in desperate need of more female calves because since 2006, there have been twice as many surviving male calves than females ones.  This skewed ratio of male to female means there will be less genetic diversity in the whale population in the future.  After reaching breeding age, female killer whales only produce a calf every 4-5 years, so there needs to be a lot of females in a population if it is to increase in number; if most of the babies being born now are male, then the population will have even less chance of recovery in the future.

When the Southern Resident killer whales were listed as endangered in 2005, the federal government set a recovery goal of a population increase of 2.3 percent annually for 28 years.  With 88 whales in the population when they were listed, they have not come near this goal, and have in fact declined significantly to a mere 77 individuals as of the end of 2014, according to the Center for Whale Research’s most recent census.  Therefore, while these four calves are certainly excellent news for this struggling population, we must balance those gains against the loss of four other whales in 2014, which leaves the population at 81 individuals, assuming all four of the new calves survive.  The whales need our help to increase the amount of food available to them year-round and throughout their entire known range in order to ensure the survival of whales of all ages, and especially of these new additions. 

More salmon

Research continues to illustrate the importance of Chinook salmon to the fish-eating Southern Residents.  The amount of food required for each whale depends on myriad whale-related variables including age, sex, and reproductive status, as well as fish variables such as species and age.  Pregnant or nursing females require more calories because the mothers are providing all the nutrients for their calves, too.  According to their federal recovery plan, adult Southern Residents need to consume 28-34 adult salmon daily; younger whales need 15-17 to meet their basic energetic requirements.   Therefore, approximately 739,000 salmon are needed annually just to maintain the current population of 81 whales in the Southern Resident population; significantly more would likely be required to increase the population.   Having enough prey available to the whales throughout their entire range and at all times of the year is vitally important for the recovery of this population. 

Typically the Southern Resident killer whales can be found from May – September in the inland waters of the Salish Sea (Puget Sound), designated by the federal government as “core summer critical habitat.” During this time of the year, 80-90% of the whale’s diet would normally consist of Chinook salmon bound for the Fraser River watershed in Canada.  Interestingly, at least five Southern Resident calves, including the four mentioned above, were conceived between June and September 2013, when the whales were remarkably absent from their inland core range. In 2013, the whales were documented on less than half the number of days in this core habitat compared to past years.  Given that 2013 was the second worst (2012 was the worst) year for Chinook returning to the Fraser River, it is reasonable to speculate that the whales were instead foraging on the reportedly high numbers of Chinook salmon (both wild and hatchery) returning to the mouth of the Columbia River during the same time period. 

Columbia River Chinook

Once the biggest wild salmon-producing river system in the world, the Columbia River Basin is thought to have produced between 10 and 16 million wild salmon annually.  Today, the entire Columbia Basin produces a meagre 2.5 million fish per year, and more than two-thirds of those are hatchery salmon.  Wild Chinook are estimated to be less than 2% of their historic numbers. Dams in the Columbia/Snake River system are a major factor in the decimation of the salmon runs. The Southern Resident orca whales, like all other killer whales, are top predators that have evolved over millennia by eating high quality, abundant prey items throughout their natural ranges.  In the past few years, several satellite-tagged Southern Resident killer whales have been documented traveling down the Pacific coast as far as California, and regularly spending significant amounts of time foraging at the mouth of the Columbia River between Oregon and Washington states. 

This population of apex predators likely historically utilized the once abundant and nutritionally rich Chinook salmon of the Columbia Basin.  In the recovery plan for Southern Residents, the federal government stated “Perhaps the single greatest change in food availability for resident killer whales since the late 1800s has been the decline of salmon in the Columbia River basin.” This statement clearly highlights the need to concentrate on increasing the number of wild Chinook salmon from the Columbia Basin. 

Within the Columbia Basin Watershed, the Snake River provides the best potential for recovering healthy and abundant Chinook salmon runs in the Pacific Northwest, given the river’s historic salmon production. Indeed, the Snake River watershed once produced about half of all salmon from the Columbia Basin.  Today however, myriad dams stand between the Pacific Ocean and salmon spawning grounds, resulting in only about 1% of Snake River salmon returning home to spawn.  Fortunately, half of the eight dams that block Snake River salmon from their spawning grounds are prime candidates for breaching. Dam breaching is the act of removing enough “dam” material (often the earthen berms) to allow a now-freed river to resume its natural course and flow.  Breaching is a significantly less expensive and faster way to remove the barriers than removing the structural material of the dams entirely, allowing the river to reconnect the ocean and the wilderness acres that create the best in-stream spawning habitat for salmon.  Breaching the four lower Snake River dams would open the gateway to a vast, 5,500-mile expanse of intact spawning and rearing streams that run through more than 15 million acres of wilderness.  These high-elevation streams are considered to be some of the most climate change-resistant salmon spawning streams in the entire lower 48 states. 

Breaching the lower Snake River dams would greatly increase a critical food source for the Southern Resident orcas, not only in the fall and winter months, but also in years when the Fraser River salmon populations are insufficient throughout the spring and summer months.  Although the whales were “lucky” in 2013 to find Chinook returning to the Columbia River to spawn (thanks to court-mandated increased spill from Columbia River dams starting in 2005 and favorable ocean conditions) we can’t assume that will be the case in the future.  In fact, there is every reason to believe the fish returns throughout the entire Southern Resident range are going to get significantly worse in the near future due changes in ocean variables. Already the 7-degree hotter pool of water known as the “warm blob” located off the west coast of the US between Alaska and Mexico has had a significant impact on the food web and those that rely on the cool coastal waters.

It is probable that breaching the four lower Snake River dams is the single most important measure that we can take in the United States to recover abundant salmon and steelhead in time to permit the Southern Resident orcas to survive. 

The Southern Residents face many threats to their recovery, including prey depletion, pollutants and toxins, and noise.  These threats amplify the effects of the others – when faced with prey shortages, the orcas metabolize their blubber, releasing toxins accumulated there; noisy oceans mean they have to use more energy to communicate and forage, which means they need more food.  Making sure they have enough Chinook to eat helps them with these other stressors, though it certainly doesn’t solve all the issues. WDC is working for ecosystem recovery in the Pacific Northwest to ensure the survival and protection of both salmon and the orcas that depend on them. From our support of Klamath River restoration to our work with the coalition to breach the dams on the Snake River, we want to see salmon bounce back on the west coast and ensure an abundant food source for the Southern Resident orcas.

WDC is grateful to our guest bloggers and value their contributions to whale conservation. The views and opinions expressed by our guest bloggers are those of the author, and do not necessarily represent those of, and should not be attributed to, WDC.

By Christine Pratt, The Wenatchee World
June 4, 2015

WASHINGTON, D.C.- The U.S. State Department will include the region's key recommendations in future negotiations with Canada over how to modernize the Columbia River Treaty.

In a May 20 letter to Sen. Patty Murray, the State Department broke its relative silence on its plans for the landmark, 50-year-old treaty, which governs how the U.S. and Canada work together to manage Columbia River flows for flood control and hydropower generation.

"The Administration recognizes the significant economic and cultural role the Columbia River plays in the lives of your constituents in the Pacific Northwest. We assure you that the future of the Treaty is a priority, and internal deliberations are gaining momentum," Julia Frifield, assistant secretary of legislative affairs, wrote to Murray.

The letter says the feds will include the region's recommendations for flood-risk mitigation, ecosystem-based function and hydropower generation in its draft negotiation position and described discussions with Canada as "soon to begin."

Local and regional stakeholders in the treaty-modernization effort greeted the letter with optimism.
"We're very encouraged," Steve Wright, general manager of the Chelan County PUD, said Wednesday. "This is the first real sign of movement. They say they're 'gaining momentum.' We're very encouraged by that."

D.R. Michel, a regional spokesman for Columbia Basin Indian tribes, agreed. "It's huge for the region to have 'ecosystem function' included in those river operations," he said. "We're hoping the letter is a kick-off to get this process moving. It's been a long time coming."

The State Department letter responds to two letters Northwest lawmakers have sent to President Obama to urge him to embrace the regional recommendation and launch talks with Canada - action the region was hoping would begin last year.

North Central Washington's PUDs and ratepayers have a big stake in treaty modernization.
Under the treaty, U.S. Columbia River power generators, including the PUDs, must send power north when Canada asks for it to compensate the Canadians for the large, treaty-mandated reservoirs they built. This mandate to transfer power is called the "Canadian Entitlement."

The Canadian reservoirs capture snowmelt for release gradually throughout the year to control flooding and boost downriver hydropower generation. Bonneville, the PUDs and other power users say the value of this power transfer, about $400 million annually, is about 10 times greater than it should be.

The Chelan, Douglas and Grant PUDs altogether contribute about 27 percent of the Entitlement, or about $108 million in power deliveries annually. An unbalanced Entitlement, they say, increases power costs for ratepayers all over the Northwest.

Most provisions of the treaty will lapse in 2024, but may be continued or altered if either the U.S. or Canada expresses such interest with 10 years notice. Flood control would continue, but under a different system.

The Bonneville Power Administration and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers led a multi-year study- and consensus-building effort that resulted in a "regional recommendation" they presented to the State Department in December 2013. In it, they urged the feds to launch talks with Canada by mid-April 2014.

Steve Wright led that effort for Bonneville, then retired from the agency and later accepted his current job with the Chelan County PUD.

Christine Pratt, Sept. 17, 2013

The Columbia Basin’s 15 tribal groups are urging Northwest utilities and big power users to back a federal recommendation to add fish-restoration and conservation mandates to a landmark, U.S.-Canada treaty conceived 50 years ago only for flood control and hydropower generation.

“We tried the experiment of hydropower being optimized without regard for ecology, and it failed,” said Paul Lumley, a member of the Yakama Nation and executive director of the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission.

The Portland-based group lobbies to restore and conserve Columbia Basin fish.

The tribes are encouraged by a federal draft recommendation, released June 27, that would add expand the Columbia River Treaty to oblige the U.S. and Canada to manage water-releases through Columbia River dams and reservoirs not only to optimize flood control and hydropower generation, but also to help migratory fish survive and flourish.

The Bonneville Power Administration and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers have received more than 3,000 public comments on their first draft recommendation. The agencies’ next draft is due out Friday.

Both countries get their first chance next year to open the treaty to change.

A group of 70 electricity utilities, including the Chelan, Douglas, Grant and Okanogan County PUDs, and big power users and industry organizations have flatly opposed adding “ecosystem function” as the treaty’s third pillar.

The group represents 6.4 million electric customers. It fears an ecosystem-enhanced treaty proposal would cost millions and reduce power generated, forcing them to raise power rates without any proven benefit.

They say the draft recommendation fails to acknowledge the investment in fish protections already achieved and detracts from what the group says should be the main focus of treaty negotiations — reducing treaty- mandated U.S. power payments to Canada.

These payments are known as the “Canadian Entitlement.” It represents half of the benefit to downriver hydropower generation gained from Canada’s huge treaty-mandated reservoirs, which capture seasonal runoff and release it gradually throughout the year.

Lumley said the tribes are urging power interests to rethink their view and discuss their differences and work toward a consensus the region can present to the U.S. State Department later this year.

Michael Finley, chairman of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation, agrees. “We’re trying to return the river as close as it possibly can to its natural state… This isn’t just going to benefit the tribes. It would benefit the whole region… If we’re not unified on that message, we stand little chance of getting what we want.”

Scott Corwin, executive director of the Portland-based Public Power Council and a spokesman from the Power Group, said group members would be open to discussion after the second draft recommendation is released Friday.

Lumley acknowledges the Power Group’s investment in fish protections, but said it’s not enough.

He pointed to salmon returns that numbered an estimated 17 million before Columbia River dams were built.

This year, he said, even with many federal regulations in place to get fish past the dams, millions in federal and hydropower-sector investments and decades of fish-and-habitat work, an expected record- breaking salmon return would total only 2 million fish this year.

“Huge salmon runs once occurred. They’re gone now. And species are still on the endangered list,” he said. “There’s a long way to go for progress.”

Lumley said raising ecosystem function to treaty level would ensure that the entire Columbia River is managed to benefit fish by keeping more water in the river and preventing extreme reservoir drawdowns.

It could also oblige Canada to give the PUDs and local, state and federal agencies some credit for the habitat work and investment already made, Lumley says, resulting in a reduced Canadian Entitlement power deliveries.

The power group estimates that these power deliveries, valued at $250 million to $350 million annually, are some ten times larger than the actual benefit derived from Canadian water storage. The Chelan, Douglas and Grant PUDs provide 27.5 percent of this power.

Lumley said the tribes are also calling for fish passage at the biggest and most costly roadblocks — Grand Coulee and Chief Joseph dams. They also want a voice in treaty negotiations, if and when they happen.

“I haven’t heard anybody on the U.S. side say we like the treaty the way it is,” Lumley said. “I would be happy to support a substantial reduction of the Canadian Entitlement if they would be willing to embrace ecosystem functions in the next treaty.”

He added, “One thing is clear. We as the Northwest region don’t make the decision to open up a conversation with Canada. The U.S. State Department does. And if we are a region in disarray, a region that has no consensus, that would be the worst possible outcome for the Northwest.”

The Colvilles’ Finley agreed. “We’re stewards of the land,” he said. “There has been so much detriment done to the mainstem Columbia and its tributaries over the years… that people have lost sight of what this river means. It’s incumbent upon us to leave the river in a better state than it was when we inherited it.”

http://www.wenatcheeworld.com/news/2013/sep/17/tribes-urge-consensus-on-ecosystem-protections-for-river-treaty-with-canada/

July 29, 2019

John Boivin

The three-year commitment is being described as ‘historic’

Calling it an “historic” and “unprecedented” day, leaders from three Indigenous groups and the provincial and federal governments have signed an agreement to bring salmon back to the Upper Columbia River.

Representatives from the Syilx Okanagan, Ktunaxa and Secwepemc peoples, British Columbia and Canadian governments signed a letter of agreement in Castlegar on Monday.

“Our fundamental goal is to bring the salmon back to their historic range, the headwaters of Columbia Lake,” said Kathryn Teneese, chair of the Ktunaxa Nation Council. “To be able to enjoy salmon again in our rivers and lakes for food. Thank you again for the representatives of the other governments for joining in this enterprise and committing financial support.”

The three-year commitment between the five governments will see them work together to explore ways to reintroduce salmon to the basin.

A news release said that if successful, the agreement could restore fish stocks to support Indigenous food, social and ceremonial needs and harvest opportunities for all local communities.

The various governments and councils will spend $2.25 million supporting the talks. One-third of the money also comes from the Columbia Basin Trust, whose staff were credited for bringing the disparate parties together to the agreement.

There’s a lot to study and much of the work will be technical in nature. The parties will look at everything from water levels, climate change, to the role of dam operators to provide means for fish to get over their obstructions — various methods have to be explored for their sustainability.

They’ll even study how the reintroduction of salmon could negatively impact the ecosystem.

“We want to study the impacts of reintroducing salmon to the species that are already flourishing in the river,” said Doug Donaldson, the Minister of Forests Lands, Natural Resources Operations and Rural Development for British Columbia. “Some of those species are endangered.

“It’s a massive undertaking, and it’s about time it started, but we have to look at all the different impacts on fish that are already in the system.”

Salmon, once abundant up the entire Columbia River system, have been blocked from their traditional migration routes for 80 years since the introduction of dams to the system downstream in Washington State. The loss of the salmon run devastated Indigenous communities upstream that relied on the fish as a food source and cultural touchstone.

“This was the essence of our culture and life that kept us healthy, not only physically but was the bond of our communities,” said Shuswap Indian Band Chief Barb Cote. “Today we have a duty to make sure the waters are healthy, so when the salmon return they will be able to reproduce and give us the sustenance that is crucial to our future generations.”

Observers to the signing ceremony said it truly was a special accomplishment.

“It’s huge, it’s millennial, this is very, very important,” said Kootenay author Eileen Delehanty Pearkes. “For 77 years there have been no salmon coming up above Grand Coulee Dam from the U.S. to Canada.

“Across the ecosystem, human and non-human, animal, bird, plant, you name it, everyone has suffered in the Upper Columbia from the loss of the salmon.”

“It’s absolutely an historic day,” says Jay Johnson, a negotiator and policy advisor to the Okanagan Nation Alliance. “We’ve been trying to do this in isolation for decades. And we have had success. In the Okanagan tributary, we went from 600 salmon to 500,000 salmon.

“So at a time of global crisis, climate change, and environmental degradation, we now have an international good-news story, bringing salmon back in a sustainable way for food security purposes for generations to come, and we can do that five-fold in the basin here.”

The potential for the recovery of the system is phenomenal. If they succeed in overcoming the hurdles — and the dams — Johnson says up to two-to-three million fish could be coming in and out of the system in the decades to come.

Such a sweeping environmental changes has to be carefully planned.

“That’s why we need the support of all governments to do so,” he says.

Officials said the agreement will be a complement to the current negotiations underway to renew the Columbia River Treaty.

The first meeting of the agreement’s signatories will take place in mid-August.

From the desk of Joseph Bogaard

Note: Save Our wild Salmon Coalition is a 501c3 organization. We are non-partisan. We endorse neither political parties nor candidates. Restoring salmon is not - nor should be - a partisan matter. The SOS coalition has a diverse membership; we work closely with people of different political affiliations. Our work is guided by the belief that meaningful, durable solutions to restore salmon and benefit communities will require bipartisan leadership and committed collaboration by people with different interests and backgrounds.

November 30, 2020

On Wednesday, January 20th, 2021, Joe Biden will be inaugurated as the nation’s 46th President and Senator Kamala Harris will be sworn in as the 49th Vice President – and, notably, the first Black, South Asian woman in the position. At this time, we don’t know what the new administration will mean for endangered wild salmon and steelhead and Southern Resident orcas in the Pacific Northwest. But, based on statements and materials and early developments from the then-candidate and now-President-Elect, there are reasons for cautious optimism and a sense of real opportunity.

I hasten to add, however, that the necessary progress that SOS and many advocates seek – that salmon and orcas urgently need – will only come about as the result of excellent and relentless outreach and organizing by salmon, orca, fishing and clean energy advocates – engaging stakeholders and policymakers alike. Now more than ever, we all need to be talking to our friends and family, calling and writing elected officials, encouraging community leaders, supporting Save Our wild Salmon and allied organizations with your time and dollars.

We live in a democracy and good things rarely happen without people organizing and mobilizing. A Biden Administration represents a new window of opportunity to protect and restore endangered wild Snake River salmon and steelhead and the benefits they bring to the Northwest and the nation. We need to work together with people across the Northwest to seize this opportunity and hold the incoming administration accountable to their promises and commitments.

My cautious optimism today for meaningful progress under a Biden Administration is based on four values or priorities anchored in Mr. Biden’s record of public service and his 2020 campaign platform. These include his commitments to (1) embrace science, (2) honor Native American Tribes, (3) confront climate change, and (4) bring diverse people together around shared solutions.

Science: During his campaign, Biden committed to putting science at the heart of his administration’s policymaking. A return to science-informed decision-making will affect all manner of issues – the pandemic, climate change, health care – as well as the fate of salmon and orca in the Pacific Northwest. Advocates shouldn’t expect scientists to make decisions for the President and his administration. But, based on Mr. Biden’s campaign, we should expect scientists to inform the decisions that are made.

Native American Tribes: The Biden-Harris campaign recognized that, while our nation was founded on the notion of equality for all, “we’ve never fully lived up to it. Throughout our history, this promise has been denied to Native Americans who have lived on this land since time immemorial.” Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have committed to uphold the U.S.’s trust responsibility to tribal nations and strengthen the Nation-to-Nation relationship between the United States and Indian tribes.

The Biden Administration has promised to work with America’s Tribes to “empower tribal nations to govern their own communities and make their own decisions,” including to restore tribal lands and safeguard natural and cultural resources. In the Northwest, salmon and orca play central roles in the culture and economy of many Tribes. Protecting and recovering these and other fish and wildlife populations is certain to be an important priority for many tribal communities on the coast and inland.

Climate Change: Addressing climate change was a pillar of the Biden-Harris campaign. The President-Elect recognizes climate change as an existential threat – and understands the urgent need to address it. Climate change imperils our lands and waters and ecosystems, and also puts at risk our health, communities, food systems and economic well-being. While communities of color and low-income communities are often at higher risk, climate change affects everyone - wreaking havoc today on our towns and cities and ways of life in rural as well as urban centers.

In the Northwest, climate change multiplies the challenges facing already-endangered salmon and orcas today – and increases the urgency to act. Scientists tell us that restoring a resilient, freely flowing lower Snake River through dam removal is essential for protecting its native fish from extinction. Salmon and orca – and the rest of us – need an aggressive set of policies to both dramatically reduce carbon emissions (prevention) and invest in resilience and adaptation (care) to better prepare our ecosystems and communities to withstand intensifying climate impacts. The Biden-Harris campaign in 2020 embraced this two-pronged approach of prevention and care - and advocates must be prepared to both support their leadership and hold them accountable.

Collaborative Solutions: The Biden-Harris campaign regularly highlighted a commitment to collaboration and unity. The President-Elect has a reputation as someone who works well with people regardless of their party affiliation or background.

In order to develop and deliver the comprehensive regional solutions our salmon, orcas and communities need, we’re going to need regional and national leadership. And we’re going to need to work effectively with diverse interests and communities. Salmon, fishing and orca advocates are committed to this type of collaboration and we will call on the incoming Administration to bring its leadership, resources and an inclusive and pragmatic approach to problem-solving.

The Need for Urgent Action: Many advocates in the Northwest are hopeful today that the incoming Administration will support leadership by Northwest policymakers, partner with Native American Tribes and engage stakeholders and citizens. To restore salmon abundance, we need to work together with great urgency to develop a comprehensive package that restores the lower Snake River and invests in our inland and coastal communities.

We have a lot of hard work ahead. Nothing good will occur without relentless public pressure, relentlessly applied. Crucial leadership is emerging today – thanks to years of organizing and advocacy by organizations like Save Our wild Salmon with the support of people like you. Policymakers are responding. We’ve made important progress in 2020, despite a pandemic, cataclysmic forest fires, economic disruption and a contentious election. As I see it, 2021 begins with great urgency and opportunity. As ever, we’re depending upon your support and advocacy.

Thank you for all that you do.

Onward together,

Joseph

Below are links to two recent articles exploring what the new administration may mean for the natural resources, fish and wildlife and the environment in the Pacific Northwest. Notably, both articles specifically highlight the plight of the Snake River and its imperiled salmon and steelhead populations.

Seattle Times: What Biden’s agenda on the environment could mean for the Pacific Northwest

Idaho Statesman: As Biden promises renewed climate change focus, will his policies help or hurt Idaho

By Pat Ford

A previous post explained why Save Our Wild Salmon is working on the Columbia River Treaty. This one describes what we are doing. SOS has three activities underway on the Treaty. All are in service to the four main changes we seek: make ecosystem function a third co-equal Treaty purpose, with power production and flood control; add an expert representative for ecosystem function to the U.S. Entity that implements the Treaty, joining Bonneville Power and the Army Corps of Engineers; assure a phased, science-based program to restore salmon above major salmon-impassable dams; and modernize flood management to both protect against floods and protect ecosystems. Some of these can begin now, others must wait for formal approval by both nations of a new Treaty.

First, we are submitting and organizing public engagement by SOS supporters and member groups with the U.S. Department of State, Bonneville Power and the Army Corps, and the U.S. Department of Interior. Over 1000 SOS supporters submitted comments on the Working Draft recommendation released in July, and thanks to our and others’ efforts the Final Draft recommendation, released September 20, is much improved. We will organize further engagement on this Final Draft this month.

Second, we are in regular contact with agencies and sovereigns involved in the Treaty. These include the Departments of State and Interior, BPA and the Army Corps, the states of Oregon, Washington and Montana, and Columbia Basin Tribes. We are urging the Department of State to begin Treaty talks with Canada in 2014 (a decision whether to do so should occur early in 2014), and learning as much as we can about the how SOS and salmon people can most productively help the negotiation to succeed.

Third, we are helping coordinate organizing, information flow, and agency/elected leader contact by conservation, fishing, and business groups. The Center for Environmental Law and Policy, Pacific Rivers Council, Sierra Club, NW Energy Coalition, American Rivers, Earthjustice, WaterWatch of Oregon, Columbia RiverKeeper, Northwest Sportfishing Industry Association and Idaho Rivers United are the main but not only groups in this emerging network. They all deserve thanks for jumping on this urgent issue despite lack of money or time to do so.

We want to add a fourth action early in 2014: regular coordinated contact with conservation and fishing groups and leaders in British Columbia.

In all this work, a key SOS role is to integrate environmental and economic purposes. Ecosystem function IS economic function in the Columbia Basin and the Northwest. Objectives like “balancing environment and economy” no longer make sense, if they ever did. To weather climate change, both must be optimized in tandem, which can only be done by integrating the two in policy, politics and popular understanding. Because salmon knit economy and environment together, SOS is well placed to pursue this.

Pat Ford is the former Executive Director of Save Our Wild Salmon.

By Pat Ford

Save Our wild Salmon is helping coordinate conservation and fishing organizations to help modernize the U.S.-Canada Columbia River Treaty of 1964 for today’s Northwest. This report will summarize why, and one to follow will summarize how.

Our work on the Treaty has both immediate and long-term payoff. It’s long-term since, under the Treaty’s 50-year-old terms, some changes needed to modernize it will not take legal effect until 2024. But it’s immediate because climate change is not waiting on a 50-year-old schedule to do its damage to Columbia Basin waters, salmon and people, so neither can our two nations and peoples wait. The sooner Canada and the U.S. agree on a new Treaty, ideally 2015, the sooner we can implement vital changes even if implementing others waits till 2024.

Modernizing the Columbia River Treaty for Northwest and British Columbia watersheds and communities now under the gun of climate change primarily means four changes:

•  “ecosystem function” must become a third purpose of the Treaty, joining the current purposes of power production and flood management.
• a representative for ecosystem function must join the agencies that today manage the Treaty for the U.S., the Bonneville Power Administration and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. This could be the Department of Interior, or the 15 Columbia Basin Indian Tribes acting as one. This need not wait till 2024; it can happen now by executive order.
• a U.S.-Canada program to re-establish salmon above now-impassable dams should begin as one step to healthier ecosystem function during climate change. A phased, science-based, affordable program will occur over decades, but planning and some implementation can start now.
• The Army Corps and Northwest must modernize flood management to protect against floods while also protecting ecosystems – for example, by reconnecting floodplains and providing healthier river flows. This will require a regional public process that the Army Corps can start now.

These changes have made sense for years, but now climate change demands them. Our rivers are changing: waters heating, snowpacks thinning, flow patterns shifting, and river uses starting to bend under these pressures. By 2025, the changes will be larger and more intense. Canada and the U.S., British Columbia and the Northwest, need a formal framework to encourage and enable our two nations, regions and peoples to work together now to weather these changes. The sooner we build it the better.

Some (not all) Northwest utilities oppose making ecosystem function a Treaty purpose. We think this overlooks that in today’s Northwest, ecosystem function IS economic function. Our needs for power production and flood management will be improved with ecosystem function as the Treaty’s third leg. So will water supply and all river-based uses, of course including salmon. All economic activities based on or in the Columbia and Snake Rivers are hurt by the hotter and sicker waters climate change is creating, and all will benefit by creative bilateral responses. SOS is focused on the urgent value for salmon, but the urgent value for people who use the Columbia and Snake in any way also matters. A modernized Treaty is good for every use and user of the Columbia and Snake.

Pat Ford stepped down as SOS’ executive director August 31, but remains SOS’ representative for the Columbia River Treaty.

By Nigel Jaquiss

February 24, 2017

Columbia Riverkeeper and other conservation groups today filed a federal lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Seattle against the federal Environmental Protection Agency and its controversial new administrator Scott Pruitt.

Riverkeeper—along with Snake River Waterkeeper, Idaho Rivers United, Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations, and the Institute for Fisheries Resources—filed the suit in an effort to get the EPA to work to cool the waters in the Snake and Columbia Rivers. Doing so would improve the survival chances of salmon and steelhead in both rivers.

Dams in the both rivers slow the flow of water downstream, leading to higher temperatures. Columbia Riverkeeper says that warm water temperatures in 2015 killed 250,000 sockeye salmon in the Columbia.

A previous EPA review of the Columbia Snake system in 2003 found that dams on both rivers were the primary cause of elevated temperatures because the water warms as it stagnates. Spilling more water over the dams or otherwise increasing the flow of the rivers is the logical solution to cooling the rivers but how the agency responds to the lawsuit remains to be seen.

Link to article.

Power utility Puget Sound Energy has now installed 119 turbines out of 149 due to be set up for its Lower Snake River wind farm in western Garfield County, Washington State.

The transportation of big wind turbine components to the site 13 miles west of Pomeroy should come to an end this week.

Nearly 1,200 oversized truck-trailers have already rolled along US 12 on their way to the project’s Phase 1, with daily deliveries carrying components up to 160 feet long and weighing up to 82 tons.

Some of the components for the Siemens wind turbines have been manufactured at the Siemens Energy factories in Iowa and Kansas, arriving into Pasco by train for transfer onto trucks to the wind farm site.

Read more over at Brighter Energy News.

By Pamela Glass on January 19, 2017

More than half of the nation’s 242 inland waterway locks and dams are nearing or have surpassed their 50-year life spans. About a third are more than 70 years old. By 2020, it’s estimated that 78% of these locks and dams will exceed their design life.

Those built in the 1930s are the oldest and in the worst shape. Many of them have concrete that’s crumbling, failing gates, and are plagued by emergency shutdowns that cause operational and financial headaches for barge operators. But even the newest ones, built in the 1970s and ‘80s and already old by construction standards, are too small for modern-day tows and are showing their age.

Many of the oldest locks and dams along the 12,000-mile commercially navigable inland waterways system were built for steam-powered vessels that pushed small tows. Today, tows are bigger — with up to 15 barges carrying large loads of high-value cargo — and are part of a sophisticated, multimodal transportation network that moves commodities like coal, soybeans, cement and energy products for domestic consumption and international trade.

A recent visit to the oldest and newest locks along the Upper Mississippi and Illinois rivers, among the nation’s busiest for barge traffic, provided visible evidence of the serious decline of inland infrastructure, and the challenge to maintain an efficient, reliable and globally competitive waterways system.

Barge companies and the Army Corps of Engineers consider the LaGrange Lock and Dam at Versailles, Ill., one of the worst. Built in 1939, it is the southernmost lock on the Illinois River, located 80 miles upstream from where the Illinois and Mississippi meet. The structure accommodates a steady stream of barge traffic, moving mostly agricultural commodities as well as recreational vessels.

The deterioration of the concrete at the LaGrange lock was evident in August 2016. Waterways Council photo.
The deterioration of the lock concrete was obvious during an August press tour put together by the Waterways Council. Segments of the vertical lock wall concrete have been removed so it won’t fall into the river.

But what can’t be seen is even more troubling. Corps officials said the mechanical and electrical systems are obsolete, and that high usage, frequent flooding and freeze-thaw cycles challenge the lock’s operations and reliability. The other issue is the obsolete lock’s size. The LaGrange lock is 600’×110′, while today’s big tows require 1,200-foot-long chambers. As a result, tows must be broken up and locked through in two stages, which can produce long waits of up to four hours.

The Corps has been able to keep things going with emergency maintenance, but it is getting increasingly hard to find spare parts. Officials expect repairs to take more time, as replacement parts will need to be special ordered.

“This site is our number one priority for major rehabilitation in the nation,” said Thomas Heinold, deputy chief of operations at the Corps of Engineers, Rock Island (Ill.) District, which is responsible for LaGrange. “It’s as if we bought a car in the 1930s and we’re still going with that original car. We have replaced some components and body parts, but what we really need to do is replace the car.”

The funding history of LaGrange is an example of how navigation projects are inconsistently handled by Congress. A major rehabilitation evaluation report on LaGrange in 2005 estimated a major rehab cost at $72.6 million. Between 2005-2010, Congress appropriated money to design the new 1,200-foot lock, but work was suspended in 2011 due to lack of funding. It is hoped that an infusion of funds into the Inland Waterways Trust Fund from an increase in the barge fuel tax will soon help put the project back on track.

For shippers, modernizing the locks at LaGrange is essential to their business, especially this year when the corn harvest has been one of the biggest on record. “We’re 70 cents below on profit on corn, so pennies matter. This is why we need an efficient waterways system that is competitive to rail. We need that competition because rail can’t handle our capacity,” said Rodney Weinzieri, executive director of the Illinois Corn Marketing Board. “Reliability is everything. It will bring our transportation costs down.”
OLD VS. NEW

The Melvin Price Locks and Dam has two lock chambers — 600′ and a 1,200’x110′ main chamber. Pamela Glass photo.
The Melvin Price Locks and Dam on the Mississippi River in Alton, Ill, is one of the newest facilities in the inland system. Located 20 miles above St. Louis, it opened in 1989. It has two lock chambers — a 600-foot lock used for recreational and smaller craft, and a 1,200’×110′ main chamber used for large commercial tows. About 74 million tons of commodities move through the locks annually.

Barge operators who traverse LaGrange and Mel Price say locking through Mel Price is a highlight of their trip, as it usually means a quick and efficient lock-through of only 45 minutes, compared to several hours at LaGrange.

“We get through in less than half the time,” said Jeff Stoneking, captain of the Christopher Myskowski, a 6,140-hp Marquette Transportation Co. towboat that was docked near the Melvin Price locks and welcomed journalists on board. He said towboats must pay close attention when navigating through the smaller chambers. “Those locks are designed for two, four, six barges pushed by steamboat, and we’re now pushing 15. You only get one shot at it.”

At the Melvin Price locks, tows lock through in less than half the time it takes to pass through the LaGrange Lock and Dam. Pamela Glass photo.
Even this newer facility has had its share of breakdowns. Cables for one of Mel Price’s chamber gates failed in 2014, causing an eight-month shutdown of that chamber because materials needed for the repair were not available immediately. Luckily the facility has two chambers, thus avoiding a complete system closure. The incident is an example of another nagging problem for waterways: deferred maintenance. The Corps of Engineers had to defer work on other navigation projects in order to pay the $4 million emergency repairs at Mel Price.

Part of the problem in securing funds for inland infrastructure is that projects are costly and not as visible to the public as other transportation modes, such as road and rail. As a result, Congress has paid scant attention to adequately funding the system. But after years of efforts to educate state and federal lawmakers about the importance of waterways investment, industry officials say prospects for funding have brightened and that many inland locks and dams are finally receiving money for modernization and operations.

Changes are underway in both politics and policy. Corps of Engineers budgets for inland navigation have been the highest ever in recent memory; a much-needed increase in the barge fuel tax is bringing an influx of money to the trust fund that shares the costs of navigation improvements with the federal treasury; Congress has put the Water Resources Development Act (WRDA), which authorizes water projects and sets water policy, back on a two-year authorization cycle; the cost-share arrangement for the over-budget and expensive Olmsted Locks and Dam project in Illinois was changed to allow more Trust Fund money to be used for other projects; and there’s been a growing acknowledgement, and budget support, from states that rivers are important for commercial, not just recreational uses.

Most recently, a commitment from president-elect Donald Trump to boost the nation’s sagging infrastructure, from highways and bridges to waterways, has given the industry hope that this progress has staying power, and that a flurry of nationwide construction projects will bring new business to the waterways.

About the author:    •    
Pamela Glass is the Washington, D.C., correspondent for WorkBoat. She reports on the decisions and deliberations of congressional committees and federal agencies that affect the maritime industry, including the Coast Guard, U.S. Maritime Administration and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Prior to coming to WorkBoat, she covered coastal, oceans and maritime industry news for 15 years for newspapers in coastal areas of Massachusetts and Michigan for Ottaway News Service, a division of the Dow Jones Company. She began her newspaper career at the New Bedford (Mass.) Standard-Times. A native of Massachusetts, she is a 1978 graduate of Wesleyan University (Conn.). She currently resides in Potomac, Md.

https://www.workboat.com/news/coastal-inland-waterways/lockdown-decaying-inland-waterways-infrastructure/

This year regional agencies recorded one of the smallest counts of spring Chinook salmon in a generation in the Snake and Columbia river basin

By Sarah Trent
Aug. 21, 2021

RIGGINS, Idaho—Beneath the vacancy sign at the Salmon River Motel, a black and white placard reads “Salmon Lives Matter, Give a Dam.” For years the motel has been a profitable business in this canyon town of 400 three hours north of Boise, with a mile-long Main Street that swells each summer with visiting sport fishermen.

Now the motel and other businesses here are at risk, as the fish that drive the local economy shrink in both number and size.

This year, regional fish and wildlife agencies recorded one of the smallest counts of adult spring Chinook salmon in a generation in the Snake and Columbia river basin. Last year was worse. A wide body of research connects their decline to rising temperatures and climate change, which have compounded the damage done to fish populations by hydroelectric dams.

The impact of this decline ripples along this species’ entire migratory route, from the tourist economies and tribal communities of the inland Northwest to the $2 billion commercial fishing industry in ocean waters as far as Alaska, where state fisheries report total harvest weight has dropped by half since the 1960s.

Across the inland Pacific Northwest, dwindling salmon runs have emptied motel rooms, tackle shops and restaurants. Business in Riggins this summer beat expectations as pandemic fears eased, but the continuing decline of the sought-after Chinook—the largest of all Pacific salmon—threatens to devastate economies and tribes throughout the Pacific Northwest and Alaska.

If salmon continue to decline, “it will hurt this town,” said Salmon River Motel owner Jerry Walker, whose family of loggers suffered when the town’s sawmill burned down in 1982. Without the fish that helped Riggins rebuild its economy, he said, “there’s nothing else here.”

Outdoor-resource tourism economies like Riggins “are really fragile things,” said Aaron Lieberman, executive director of the Idaho Outfitters and Guides Association. The decline of one resource can cause a cascading effect, he said. “When you don’t have fish runs, you don’t have people coming, the entire economy is crippled.”

Reports by the Idaho Department of Fish & Game show that salmon in the connected Columbia and Snake river basins in Idaho, Washington and Oregon first plummeted after the midcentury construction of eight hydroelectric dams that blocked or slowed migration. Fish must swim hundreds of miles downstream as finger-sized juveniles heading to sea, then return upstream again several years later to spawn.

State, federal and tribal governments developed a national hatchery system to mitigate these losses by releasing tens of millions of juvenile fish each year. By the early 2000s, it seemed those efforts were working: State data showed returning adults peaked around 2001. Riggins locals recall streets lined with RVs and great fishing for weeks on end. A state-commissioned economic analysis showed salmon fishing alone that year brought $10 million to Riggins, accounting for a quarter of the town’s annual revenue.

Since then, research and fisheries data show spring Chinook runs are getting smaller and individual fish weigh less, too. Lower snowpack, warmer nights, and heat waves like those that have blasted this region all summer have caused lower flows and warmer conditions inhospitable to these cold-water fish.

This spring, researchers at the Nez Perce Tribe Department of Fisheries Resources Management said 42% of wild Chinook populations in the Snake River Basin had reached “quasi-extinction levels” and predicted 77% of populations would fall to that level by 2025.

Hatcheries throughout the region still collect enough of their own returning fish to spawn and meet their production mandate, said Ralph Steiner, who manages the Rapid River National Hatchery near Riggins, but there are fewer left in the river for fishing. Because of rising water temperatures and earlier migrations associated with climate change, he said, their operations also face new challenges and increasing costs to replenish the fish vital to commercial, recreational and tribal fisheries.

This May, facing fewer salmon and tighter state restrictions, Riggins outfitter and guide Roy Akins canceled half his salmon bookings, returning a total of $15,000 to 60 fishermen he said were frustrated and disappointed. “Nobody wants to hear that the day they’ve been looking forward to is going to be taken away from them,” Mr. Akins said.

As fishermen rethought travel plans, the Salmon River Motel saw normally booked-solid rooms sit empty, said Sharon Walker, referencing records from before she and her husband bought the property in August. John Belton, owner of Seven Devils Steak House at the center of town, said slow spring salmon years can cut their May and June income in half.

Debbie Swift, who works at liquor and tackle store Hook Line & Sinker, said that tackle sales have decreased over the years, and that slow seasons and cancellations complicate inventory decisions.

The salmon decline also leaves recreational fishermen and tribal communities, which by law split the available harvest, “fighting over scraps,” Mr. Akins said.

Tribal communities say it isn’t just their economic health, but their very existence that is at stake. For these traditionally subsistence communities, salmon are a sacred source of food and connection with the Earth, and are at the root of tribes’ cultures, languages and songs, said Aja DeCoteau, interim director of the Intertribal Fish Commission coordinating management efforts of four tribes in the Columbia Basin.

Ms. DeCoteau, a Yakama Tribe member, said lately there are years when there aren’t enough fish to sell, let alone fill her community’s freezers for the year. “This is just the beginning,” she said. “We have to adapt.”

Her organization has contributed research, a salmon recovery plan, and invested federal grants totaling $27 million toward watershed restoration. Mr. Akins said that without the tribes’ efforts, he believes salmon here would already be extinct.

This year, Mr. Akins, Nez Perce leaders and conservation groups backed a proposal by Rep. Mike Simpson (R., Idaho) calling for redeveloping energy infrastructure and breaching the Snake River dams, citing the increasing threat of climate change and the enormous cost of salmon extinction to his state.

Mr. Akins said he was hopeful, but less so than as a young man advocating for these precious fish. Now, he said, he and his wife, Karen Akins, want to diversify their income. They would like to buy a self-storage facility, Ms. Akins said: It is less risky than fishing.

Michelle Iracheta, December 2, 2016

For the better part of a century the Nelson Dam on the Naches River has hampered salmon trying to migrate upstream, while preventing countless tons of sediment from being carried downstream where it’s needed.

Yakima County is moving closer to getting both fish and sediment to the right places under a plan that creates more wildlife habitat and reduces the danger of floods.

On Tuesday, a national environmental group announced it is donating money to three dam removal projects in Oregon, California and here for the Nelson Dam.

The $75,000 donation will account for only a small portion of the estimated $12 million price tag for the dam removal project that been planned for years by Yakima city and county officials and the Yakama Nation.

But the donations quickly caught the eye of the National Geographic Society’s web page, which noted plans for the Nelson Dam are part of a growing movement to remove aging dams, while benefiting people and wildlife.

Located near U.S. Highway 12’s twin bridges west of Yakima, the dam was first built in the 1920s, and rebuilt in 1985 in order to divert irrigation water into the city of Yakima.

However, there are a number of problems with the dam. At a height of 8 feet, it creates a significant backwash and presents a formidable obstacle to fish trying to migrate upstream.

The dam is also significantly worn, said Joel Freudenthal, Yakima County senior natural resources specialist.

It’s not at a stage where it’s an immediate danger to the community, but come rushing waters from floods, the dam could pose a threat, he said.

By slowing the natural speed of the river, the dam also traps sediment upstream, creating conditions that have led to flooding.

Removing the dam will help with the flood risk, said David Brown, city of Yakima water and irrigation manager. “We want that gravel to roll down the river. Highway 12 is under a flood plain. With the dam gone, it will no longer be in the flood plain.”

Removal will allow more than half of a million cubic yards of gravel be carried downstream to create more spawning habitat in an area that’s been deprived of natural sediment for decades.

Meanwhile, removing the dam won’t curtail that diversion of irrigation water, but merely change the way it’s taken from the river.

The plan is to build a wide, roughened channel that fits into the natural design of the environment and acts like a ramp, Brown said.

The removal of the dam is scheduled to start by fall 2017 if all permits are in place.

Tuesday’s small grant was provided by Open Rivers Fund, a philanthropic fund dedicated to dam removal and river restoration.

The fund also provided money for the removal of the Matilija Dam in California’s Ventura County and the Savage Rapids Dam on Oregon’s Rogue River.

The group noted the Nelson Dam removal plan is broadly supported by irrigation districts, local, state and federal agencies, the Yakama Nation and various environmental groups.

“There are more and more communities grappling with these legacy dams. They break, people’s houses get flooded, or people die. Fixing those old dams can be very expensive,” said Michael Scott, acting program manager with the Hewlett Foundation, which operates the Open Rivers Fund.

“It makes sense for the county,” Brown said. “It’s probably cheaper than putting in a bunch of concrete.”

•Reach Michelle Iracheta at 509-577-7675 or at miracheta@yakimaherald.com. Follow her on Twitter @cephira.

When the Elwha River dams fell, it was the culmination of many decades of successful partnerships to support the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe in righting historic wrongs.

By Lindsay Vansomeren
July 14, 2021

Cameron Macias bent down to examine a small pile of sawdust-filled scat on the floor of the former Lake Mills on the Elwha River in the northwest corner of Washington state in 2016. It was a sign that beavers were moving into the area after a 100+ year absence. “There’s very small dam-building activity in some of the side tributaries,” says Macias, who was working at the time as a wildlife technician for the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe, of which she is a member. “It’s kind of funny and ironic because of the dam removal,” Macias says with a laugh.

The dams she’s referring to—the Elwha and Glines Canyon dams—were removed in 2011 and 2014 respectively, and together they are considered the world’s largest dam removal project to date. Many other tribes have looked to the success of the Elwha River dam removals in bringing down fish-blocking dams in their lands as well, including along the Snake River and the Columbia River in the Pacific Northwest.

Together, the country’s 2 million dams block access to more than 600,000 miles of river for fish. And by 2030, the American Society of Civil Engineers estimates that 80% of those dams will be beyond their 50-year lifespans. Given how obsolete and potentially dangerous this infrastructure will be, not to mention its negative effects on declining fish stocks, the best solution for many aging dams is to simply remove them. But bringing down a dam is a big job.

When the Elwha River dams fell, it was the culmination of many decades of successful partnerships among the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe, the National Park Service, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and dozens of other local and national organizations. Today, those partnerships continue to support the tribe in righting historic wrongs.

Righting Historic Wrongs

The Elwha Dam was built in 1910 to provide electricity to attract new settlers, in flagrant violation of a Washington state law that said dams must allow for fish passage. At the time, no one consulted the Lower Elwha Klallam people, whose culture rests on the salmon that would be blocked by the dams. “We had a few of the elders that even stood in the areas of the lower dam where they were starting to build to protest,” says Frances Charles, the tribal chairwoman for the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe.

But the dam construction proceeded, and afterward, hatcheries were put in as a sort of life support to keep salmon populations afloat. Every year, the fish born in the hatcheries would try to return to the spawning grounds of their ancestors, banging their heads on the dam in a desperate attempt to get upstream.

“We ourselves felt like we were banging our heads against the concrete wall, no different than the salmon,” Charles says.

Things changed in January 1986 when the tribe filed a motion to stop the relicensing of the dams, citing that the dam prevented them from exercising their treaty rights because it blocked fish passage.

“The tribe and [Olympic National] Park and the environmental interests said, ‘You know, if you’re going to license these things, you’re going to provide fish passage,’” says Mike McHenry, the Tribe’s fisheries habitat manager. Studies showed that building fish passages wouldn’t effectively restore the salmon runs, so the decision was made to take down the dams. Still, it took an Act of Congress and $325 million to complete the job.

Congress laid out a monumental goal in the Elwha Act: nothing less than the “full restoration of the Elwha River ecosystem and native anadromous fisheries.” In other words, reverting everything back to the way it would have been without the dams.

To do this restoration work, tribal biologists regularly team up with universities and nongovernmental organizations to apply for grants. For example, Macias—on a grant funded by the nongovernmental organization Panthera—is now working on her Ph.D. at the University of Idaho by studying cougars and bobcats in her tribal homeland. And the tribe counts many other state, federal, and environmental groups as partners in monitoring the restoration of the Elwha.

To Charles, partnering with other groups makes sense in many ways. “[The dams are] not only impacting you as a tribe, it impacts everybody that’s around because they’re a part of that just as much.”

The Power of Treaties

Ultimately, one of the most effective tools in taking down the dams was the Treaty of Point No Point. The ancestors of the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe signed the treaty in 1855, ceding their lands to incoming settlers in return for “the right of taking fish at usual and accustomed grounds.” In a 1974 Federal District Court case, Judge George Boldt ruled that Washington tribes were allowed half of all the harvestable salmon.

“That really empowered the tribes in Washington to become, essentially, a co-manager with the state,” McHenry says. In essence, the ancestors of the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe paid for their descendants to have harvestable fish today by ceding lands to settlers. Because the dams prevented that, the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe had legal standing to bring down the dams.

There are almost 400 treaties between Indigenous tribes and the United States, each with different terms. This highlights a unique point for Indigenous people as land managers: No two tribes are the same. “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had a call where somebody wants the ‘Indigenous perspective.’ It’s not this ‘one thing,’” says Julie Thorstenson, the executive director for the Native American Fish and Wildlife Society. “They’re all different, but the number one thing that they have in common is that they’re all underfunded.”

Indeed, the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe relies on grants for much of its work, both before the dams went down and afterward for things like protecting fish during the dam removals, revegetating the newly drained landscape, and monitoring for signs of plant, animal, and insect recolonization.

The National Park Service alone has provided the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe with nearly $3 million in funding over the past nine years to pay for the restoration work, with funding set to expire in 2022. But full recovery could take far longer, up to 30 years, according to a fish restoration plan developed by NOAA. “It would be really bad if funding just ended in 2023, and we are working to ensure that does not happen,” McHenry wrote in an email.

Thorstenson says, “We hustle. I’m really always amazed at how innovative tribes are.” At the same time, she says, “Grants don’t promote capacity-building, and they don’t promote self-governance, which is what tribes are really striving for.”

Dam Removals Coast to Coast

The Penobscot Nation in what is now the state of Maine faced a similar dilemma starting in the 1880s: Three hydroelectric dams were blocking anadromous fish from getting back up the river.

“[We] had a little informal kind of contest going as to who is going to get their dams out first,” says John Banks, the director of the Department of Natural Resources for Penobscot Nation. “And Elwha beat our tribe by one year because we had a delay,” Banks says, laughing.

When the dam’s owners came to Penobscot Nation in 1999 wanting to know what they’d need to get tribal support during the relicensing process, Banks was ready with an answer.

“Number one, the removal of main stem dams must be on the table for discussion. And number two, we’re gonna bring our friends with us,” he said. “Because we know all about divide and conquer, and it’s not going to happen. We are going to work with these environmental groups.”

Penobscot Nation formed a trust with other NGO partners to bought the dams. They took out two of the dams and preserved a third, around which they were able to build fish passage. The original dam’s owners were able to ramp up production at other sites, and thus it was a win-win: the tribe got the fish back, and the hydroelectric production was maintained.

The Penobscot River Restoration Trust is considered extraordinarily successful, but Banks is also quick to highlight a frustration that many tribes share: Non-Tribal groups often don’t understand issues of Tribal sovereignty, Federal Indian law, or overall tribal interests. “That was challenging from time to time, but we just kept looking for commonalities and not our differences,” Banks says.

The Work of Restoration Continues

In the case of the Elwha, the tribe always had legal standing to challenge the dams. But it wasn’t until the tribe won over the public through outreach and education—such as the annual ceremony of traveling in traditional canoes to visit different Nations around Puget Sound—that they received enough public support to remove the dams and form fruitful new partnerships. “I really feel that a lot of the outreach with Canoe Journeys has been real good medicine to draw in the outside to really witness the cultural values of each Nation,” Charles says.

Despite setbacks, the restoration has made great progress. Macias describes one of the first big changes she noticed on the drained landscape back in 2016: “The entire lake bed at Lake Mills was just covered in lupine, and lupine is so good for so many reasons. It’s just beautiful. And it’s native,” she says. “Now, [in 2021, the landscape] is so incredibly dense with willows and alders. At this point, there are a bunch of conifers growing up among those different trees as well. And so we’re seeing plant succession,” she says, referring to the healthy process of how plant communities change over time after a disturbance.

That recovery applies to the salmon too: According to McHenry, the chinook, steelhead, and bull trout are all recolonizing well. Coho have been a bit slower, and the tribe is still waiting for chum and pink salmon to come back in good numbers. The tribe continues to work to improve the habitat for newly returning fish, such as by placing logs and boulders into the river to create pools where young fish can thrive. Kim Sager-Fradkin, the tribe’s wildlife biologist, has measured how nutrients from the ocean are making their way into birds and river otters further upstream via the migration of salmon, in addition to measuring how wildlife are using the newly available habitat.

Even though full recovery will take decades, Chairwoman Charles of the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe isn’t worried. Her biggest piece of advice to the other tribes working on dam removal and restoration is simple: “Don’t give up.” Administrations, political whims, and partnerships may change, but the people (and hopefully the salmon now, too) will always be there.

“It took 100 years for these dams to be taken out. And we’ve lost so many of our elders through the process,” Charles says. “But we know that they’re looking down upon us and really grinnin’ for the pride that we could feel with everybody that was there from all ethics and all regions and all areas.”