[env-trinity] CBB: Celebration of Columbia River basin salmon returns, recovery efforts

Fri Oct 3 16:07:49 PDT 2014

THE COLUMBIA BASIN BULLETIN: Weekly Fish and Wildlife News

www.cbbulletin.com

October 3, 2014                Issue No. 722

Officials, Others Gather At Bonneville Dam To Celebrate, Discuss Recent
Salmon Returns, Recovery Efforts

Endangered Species Act "recovery" of beleaguered Columbia River basin salmon
stocks is in sight, say federal, state and tribal officials, as the result
of past and ongoing collaborative efforts.

Fish recovery agency officials gathered Tuesday at Bonneville Dam with
invited media representatives to celebrate upward trending fish returns to
the region.

"The extraordinary has become the ordinary," Northwest Power and
Conservation Council Chairman Bill Bradbury, Oregon, said of salmon returns
to the Columbia River basin that have repeatedly set records in recent years
after falling to depths in the 1980s and early 1990s that required ESA
listing of 13 Columbia-Snake-Willamette salmon and steelhead stocks.

"We know that salmon are really making a recovery," Bradbury said, even
taking into account that recent favorable Pacific Ocean conditions helped
nurture stocks, and will inevitably, as is the cycle, turn bad.

Building peaks, and reducing valleys, has been made possible through
collaborative efforts to improve tributary habitat and up and downstream
passage conditions, ease harvest stresses, and reduce hatchery impacts -
indeed benefiting wild fish production - on listed fish, the celebrants
said.

"These returns are the result of everyone's commitment to rebuild stronger
salmon populations and provide a glimpse into what the region can accomplish
when we work together," said Paul Lumley, executive director of the Columbia
River Inter-tribal Fish Commission. CRITFC represents the Nez Perce,
Umatilla, Warm Springs and Yakama tribes. 

"We can safely say we have reversed the decline," Lumley said. "They should
also remind us of the work that remains and give us renewed hope and purpose
to fight for those populations that continue to struggle."

This year's run of about 2.3 million salmon and steelhead exceeds the
previous modern-day (since the first hydro project was built on the lower
Columbia in 1938) record of 2.1 million set in 2011. This year also brought
a new single-day record, when 67,521 adult fall chinook passed by Bonneville
Dam on September 8, 2014 - the highest one-day total in more than seven
decades.

The work done in the Columbia to improve fish survival, and in tributaries,
should help buffer populations that have historically, even before human
encroachment, had to deal with the ups and downs of nature in freshwater and
the ocean, according to Barry Thom, deputy administrator for NOAA Fisheries
West Coast Region. NOAA Fisheries is charged with both evaluating what fish
populations might need ESA protections, and guiding efforts to recover
listed species.

That work starts at the dams, but extends to tributary habitat, improved
harvest strategies and hatchery management, and takes into account Mother
Nature's manipulations of Pacific Ocean conditions and the freshwater
environment.

"The fish are resilient," Thom said of recent signs that, if given a boost
in freshwater, salmon populations can survive, if not thrive "even when
conditions aren't so favorable."

"Salmon runs are cyclical and their success or failure depends on so many
factors, every single year," Bradbury said. "Some of those factors, like
ocean conditions, are beyond our control. 

"But many are not, and they are critically important to salmon survival.
Through our Columbia River Basin Fish and Wildlife Program, we are working
to improve conditions for salmon in the places we can impact - connecting
areas of good habitat, removing fish-passage barriers, improving water
quality, and carefully using hatcheries with our tribal and state partners
to boost depleted stocks and, over time, rebuild naturally spawning runs,"
Bradbury said. 

"In short, we are working to provide a welcoming place for the salmon to
come home to." The NPCC's fish and wildlife program is funded by the
Bonneville Power Administration, which is obligated to mitigate for
Columbia-Snake hydro system impacts on fish and wildlife. BPA markets power
generated in the Federal Columbia River Power System. BPA has estimated that
overall costs to the system in recent years have exceeded $700 million
annually.

The building Snake River sockeye runs, boosted through the NPCC program and
BPA funding for a crucial Idaho Department of Fish and Game hatchery
broodstock program, "demonstrate the incredible resiliency of salmon,"
Bradbury said Tuesday.

"With a little help. they will find their way home."

Thom echoed that sentiment.

"The salmon are showing us that when the region works together and
conditions cooperate, we have all the right ingredients for them to
flourish."

The salmon are "back in numbers that are unheard of" in recent times, said
Greg Delwiche, BPA deputy administrator.

He said in the past few decades, the collaborative efforts of federal
agencies, states and tribes have helped reverse the impacts to salmon of
more than 150 years of human development.

"It's a real success story," he said. He noted that in the 1980s fish were
so few that tribal fishing seasons were limited to only five days in some
years. In 2014, the four lower Columbia treaty tribes have fished for the
most part from April through September.

Total salmon and steelhead returns this year to the mouth of the Columbia
have totaled more than 2 million.

".not too long ago that was considered a pipe dream," Delwiche said.

Hydro system operations have also played a role.

"The Corps of Engineers and action agencies, working with regional
sovereigns, are developing a new generation of advanced hydroelectric
turbines for lower Snake and lower Columbia dams to provide safer passage
for fish," said Brig. Gen. John Kem, commander of the Corps of Engineers
Northwestern Division.

"Many fish now pass the dams through spill and surface passage where they
naturally migrate, decreasing fish travel time through the system with fewer
than 10 percent passing through the turbines."

N. Kathryn "Kat" Brigham said Tuesday that collaboration has been the key. 

With the signing of so-called "fish accords" in 2008 by the Columbia River
Inter-Tribal Fish Commission and three of its member tribes, the Colville
Tribes and the states of Idaho and Montana with BPA, the Corps and the
Bureau of Reclamation, the parties decided to "work on things we agree on,
and disagree respectfully on things we don't," said Brigham, who has served
on the Commission since its inception in 1977. She also serves on the
Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation's Board of Trustees
and is the chairwoman of her tribe's Fish & Wildlife Committee, regularly
fishes on the Columbia River mainstem with her family. The Corps and Bureau
operate the eight lower Columbia-Snake river mainstem hydro projects, as
well other dams in the Columbia, Snake and Willamette river basins.

Like others participating in Tuesday's salmon "celebration," Brigham said
"there's still a lot of work to do."

Representatives of BPA customers, who ultimately pay most of the salmon
recovery bills, too say that collaboration is the key to recovering salmon
and steelhead populations.

"As we celebrate the salmon's incredible return home, it reminds us that
these fish, our rivers and the dams can coexist, with the benefits flowing
to all of our homes: the power that gives us light and creates jobs, the
water for farmers to feed us and the world, and the cleanest renewable
energy system in the nation that keeps our skies clear," said Terry Flores,
executive director of Northwest RiverPartners, an alliance of farmers,
utilities, ports, businesses and other river users.

"We who enjoy the benefits of the largest hydropower system in the nation
responsibly pay to mitigate the damage it does to fish and wildlife through
the Council's fish and wildlife program, the largest of its kind in the
nation," Bradbury said. "The impressive 2014 runs demonstrate the incredible
resiliency of salmon and give us hope that our collaborative efforts to
improve salmon habitat and build up salmon runs will be successful in the
long run."

Tuesday's gathering at Bonneville Dam was intended to celebrate recent
year's abundance of salmon. 

Notably, tribal biologists are excited about the increasing number of
natural origin fall chinook returning to spawning grounds throughout the
Columbia River Basin. For Snake River fall chinook specifically, returns of
natural origin fish are setting modern-day records -- returning in recent
years in the highest numbers since Snake River dam construction began in the
1960s. This year's fall chinook run should be close to last year's record
return.

Invited guests included congressional staff, decision-makers, biologists and
others deeply involved in salmon restoration efforts. During brief remarks,
agency and tribal leaders and other river users explained how working
together for salmon, along with favorable ocean conditions, improved
passage, successful hatchery programs, and a number of other factors are
contributing to this year's abundant returns.

Guests toured two areas that normally are closed to the public: the Adult
Fish Sampling Facility, where tribal fish technicians identify, measure and
tag returning salmon, and the juncture at which Tanner Creek meets the
Bonneville Fish Hatchery, where salmon swim from the creek into the
hatchery.

The total 2014 fish counts include chinook, sockeye, steelhead and coho
salmon, although chinook and sockeye account for the majority of the
returns. Individual runs of Columbia and Snake River sockeye also set new
records, returning in the highest numbers since fish counting 

NOTE: Video and still photography from high-count days in September, showing
abundant salmon as they swim and jump from Tanner Creek into the hatchery
and as they pass by Bonneville Dam, is available at http://bit.ly/1pCVHnz

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