Snake River Currents

Volume 1, Issue 11

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Current Events—Mediation

After a transition period with new administration officials, SRBA negotiations recently have returned to an attempt to clarify the key terms of what could become a frameworkfor agreement between the parties. Protecting and augmenting flows in the mainstem Snake River, as well as the Salmon and Clearwater Basins, is the primary focus of theparties. Discussions are also beginning to focus on what role Idaho Power Company will or can play in augmenting Snake River flows.

Anne Klee Visits Lapwai

Anne Klee is a newly appointed counsel to the Secretary of the Interior, and head of the SRBA federal negotiating team. She has served as legal counsel to the U.S. Senate Energy Committee, and is a former staff person to Governor Dirk Kempthorne. She was picked to head the Department of Interior transition team before she was selected as counsel to the Secretary.

Ms. Klee visited Lapwai on May 1, 2001 to meet tribal leaders and see the Nez Perce Tribe reservation. She was accompanied by other members of the federal negotiating team from the Department of Justice, the Portland area office of the BIA, the Solicitor’s Office, the Bureau of Reclamation, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

The visit began with a morning flight tour of the reservation and ceded territory with Jaime Pinkham, Manager of the Tribe’s Department of Fisheries Resource Management (DFRM). The flight was followed by a catered lunch in the NPTEC Chambers. Chairman Penney officially welcomed Ms. Klee, and spoke of the Tribe’s interest in a negotiated settlement in the SRBA. To acquaint Ms. Klee with some tribal history, a video produced by the Tribe’s Environmental Restoration and Waste Management Division was shown.

In the afternoon, DFRM staff accompanied Ms. Klee and the other members of the federal negotiating team on a tour of tribal fish hatcheries.

The power crisis in California, combined with low water supplies as a result of the region’s second worst drought in 70 years, have combined to make water for salmon a low priority for the Northwest Power Planning Council (NWPPC) and the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA), the federal entities that oversee hydropower operations in the Columbia River system.

With the agreement of the NWPPC, the BPA is making the hydrosystem's ability to generate power in the region through the summer, fall and winter a priority. Thus, it is considering foregoing spill for fish at several dams. Water voluntarily spilled to pass fish is then not available for power generation, and so can impact revenue-making for the BPA.

Instead, the BPA proposes to maximize barge transportation as a means of getting migrating salmon past dams. But there is conflicting evidence about the effectiveness of barging. The lethal effect on salmon smolts migrating to the ocean may be high. Also, barging does not help adult salmon to pass the dams on their return to their spawning grounds.

The Northwest Tribes and some of the states have commented that the needs of fish and Treaty obligations were not included in BPA decisions. There are legal obligations under the Endangered Species Act, the Northwest Power Act and the Clean Water Act to protect fish. There are also federal treaty and trust responsibilities to the sovereign Indian tribes of the Pacific Northwest which must be met.

Language in the Northwest Power Act directs the BPA administrator and other federal operating agencies to provide "equitable treatment for such fish and wildlife with the other purposes for which such system and facilities are managed and operated." Power emergency declarations, however, spawned by the water shortage and super-inflated energy market have resulted in a dominant focus on preserving the reliability of the electrical power supply.

The Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission has written a critique of the draft river operating plan released by federal agency executives. In that critique, they said the operating plan provides for power production, but pushes salmon through "lethal federal hydrosystem routes," and that will delay or prevent recovery. They predict that most of the juvenile and a significant percentage of adult salmon will be lost.

Plenty of Water in Idaho Reservoirs—But not for Salmon

In this year of low water supplies, many reservoirs in the Upper Snake River Basin are full or almost so. Although this water could help both power supplies and salmon, it is unlikely that water will be drawn from these sources.

Despite requests from state and tribal fish managers for water from Idaho Power’s Brownlee Dam, the water will probably go to irrigation in Southern Idaho.

The state of Idaho allows water to be sent downriver for fish, but the irrigators are entitled to their full allotment of water before any water is used to enhance flows for fish. The irrigators want their full allotment to grow more crops. In this low water year, there will not be any excess.

The chinook salmon has great cultural significance to the Nez Perce Tribe. To assist in recovery and maintain habitat for the chinook and other salmon species, as well as resident fish, the Tribe has entered claims for instream flows on approximately 1100 stream reaches in the Clearwater, Salmon, Weiser, Payette, and lower Snake River Basins.

The instream flow claims were designed to assist the fish at important parts of their life cycle when they are more vulnerable to mortality. An instream flow claim has the goal of assuring that the quantity of water necessary to provide fish habitat remains in the stream, and is not removed for consumptive use.

Chinook salmon move inland from the ocean to spawn during fall and winter runs. It is remarkable that these fish travel to their home stream. The fish entering the river first usually spawn the farthest upstream. Chinooks favor spawning areas near riffles in rivers. They also prefer larger gravel and deeper water for spawning than any other species of salmon.

In the home stream, the female will make a redd by lying on her side in the spawning gravel and beating her tail vigorously up and down. This action attracts the male who follows the female, fertilizing the eggs after they are laid. The female will then loosen the gravel on the upstream side of the redd, and the eggs become covered. A female may spawn in more than one redd. The female will guard the redds until she dies. All adult salmon die after they spawn, but it can vary from a few days up to two weeks.

The eggs hatch the following spring. Some of the fry (young salmon) will head for the sea immediately. Others, however, stay in fresh water for one to two years. The fry grow into smolts during their stay in freshwater and begin to show schooling and territorial behavior. They remain in the area of the gravel spawning grounds. The smolts feed on terrestrial and aquatic insects for food. They must compete with other salmon and trout for food.

The instream flows claimed by the Tribe could assist the young salmon during this critical part of their development. Many streams become very warm during the low flow period in the summer. This kills many young salmon smolts. Water from the instream flow claims will be left in the stream to help maintain cooler water temperatures.

The smolts leaving the Clearwater River Basin face a complicated journey to the Pacific Ocean. First, they must pass the four dams on the lower Snake River—Lower Granite, Little Goose, Lower Monument, and Ice Harbor. They then face McNary, John Day, The Dalles, and Bonneville Dams on the Columbia River.

This is a very vulnerable point in their life cycle. The pools behind the dams disorient the young salmon because of the slow moving water. Many smolts fall victim to predation from smallmouth bass and northern pikeminnow in the slow moving water. Many more perish in the hydroelectric turbines in the dams, the highest cause of mortality for young salmon.

Water from the Tribe’s instream flow claims could provide additional flow during the critical spring migration period The additional flow increases the velocity of the river, and so helps carry the smolts more quickly downstream and past the dams.

In most years, water is also spilled during the spring migration by the Army Corps of Engineers, which operates the dams on the Columbia and Snake Rivers under the direction of the BPA. This flushes many more smolts through the dam system and decreases mortality. The other method used to move smolts past the dams is barges to carry them around the dams.

The chinooks that reach the Pacific will stay there for 3 or 4 years. While in the ocean, chinooks may attain weights of 30 to 40 pounds. Then the cycle will begin again, and large schools of fish will move inland. They will cross the 8 dams and move up the Columbia and Snake Rivers and their tributaries to spawn.

Dudley Reiser is a consultant retained by the United States to help develop the Tribe’s instream flow claims. He is a fisheries scientist with more than 20 years experience in fisheries management, aquatic ecology, surface water studies, and instream flow assessments. His many areas of expertise include endangered species evaluations, habitat modeling, instream flow and flushing flow determinations, assessments of the effect of flow regulation on salmonid populations and habitats, fisheries habitat enhancement, and hydraulic modeling.

Dr. Reiser received an M.S. in water resources from the University of Wyoming, and a Ph.D. in fisheries resources from the University of Idaho. He has worked with federal and state agencies, as well as in the private sector. He is currently president of R2 Resource Consultants, Inc. in Redmond, Washington.

Reminder: SRBA Court Proceedings Lewiston, October 16, 2001 Nez Perce County Courthouse 10:00 a.m. IDWR information meeting; 1:30 p.m. status conference