Salmon recovery

NWU Radio Script

4-23-01

We have reported several times on this program about salmon recovery efforts in the Northwestern United States, especially along the reaches and tributaries to the Columbia River. We've also pointed out that millions of dollars have been spent and billions of gallons flushed down the river with minimal gains in species numbers.

          Even though American Farm Bureau Federation vice president and Washington Farm Bureau president Steve Appel as a dry land wheat farmer is no expert on fish, he noted in the April 16 issue of Farm Bureau News he does know when something begins to smell. And there's a real stench right now coming from some of the state and federal agencies involved in salmon recovery.

          Appel notes in the article that one weekend last month the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) opened the floodgates at Bonneville Dam and spilled 6.5 billion cubic feet of water to flush about 5 million hatchery salmon downriver.

          BPA estimates the water - about 6,000 gallons for every man, woman and child in Washington - cost the Northwest about $2.1 million in lost generating capacity.

          In return, according to fishery agency estimates, 40 to 60 more adult salmon will return to the Columbia River than if the water was used to generate electricity and the fish went through the dam's turbines.

          This math works out, at best, to about $35,000 per fish. Even more ridiculous, notesAppel, is that the fish on which billions of gallons of water were wasted to help on their way to the ocean are hatchery fish.

          Remember hatchery fish? They aren't threatened with extinction, they aren't protected by the Endangered Species Act and according to some government policy-makers they are genetically inferior. Because we have too many of them, the official government policy is to beat them to death with baseball bats instead of letting them spawn.

          Those are the fish that we just wasted $2.1 million to send downriver to become food for the terns.

          Meanwhile, our electrical rates are going up because there's not enough water to turn the turbines, irrigators in the Columbia River Basin are being told there won't be enough water to grow their crops, and the state Office of Financial Management says the energy crisis could push Washington into a recession.

          As ridiculous as this is, Appel notes it could have been worse.

          The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the state wildlife departments in Washington and Oregon originally asked BPA to spill 50,000 cubic feet of water per second over the Bonneville Dam for 10 days. The fisheries biologists called the 10-day period "critical," even though hatchery managers have apparently known for years that almost all the salmon released by the Spring Creek Hatchery reach the dam within 24 hours.

          BPA scaled back the request to 36 hours of spill, but even that "made no sense" to Montana's representatives on the Northwest Power Planning Council, the only ones to object to the waste of water.

          Appel notes one hope remains to rectify this smelly situation. The Bush Administration will soon appoint a new NMFS regional director. "We hope that person brings a more balanced approach to the process," Appel said.

          The new director's first task, according to Appel, should be to launch a full-scale review of the government's approach to salmon recovery to protect the rights of people whose lives and livelihoods are increasingly endangered by bureaucratic nonsense.

          It makes no sense to deny farmers in Okanogan (pronounced O-kah-no-gahn) County access to water because a few juvenile salmon out of thousands may die in irrigation ditches, only to allow commercial fishermen to catch 20 percent of those same salmon when they return to spawn.

          It makes no sense to spend $2 million and waste billions of gallons of water to only marginally benefit hatchery salmon that are clubbed to death when they return to spawn.

          Do farmers and ranchers support improving habitat and restoring salmon runs?

          "Yes," says Appel, "but it's time to return some common sense to government and some sanity to the process."

                                                          -30-