I have had a bellyful of Ed Marston's sappy romanticizing about the
Western Ranch HCN 12 /26/94. I'm from a ranching family, my
great-grandmother came out west in a covered wagon in 1846, and my
grandfather homesteaded a ranch in Arizona in 1913 and the way you
Easterners buy into this "rugged individual" cowboy nonsense really tees
me off. The west will continue to grow until we have achieved zero
population growth.. There is no way of stopping the influx of newcomers:
its only a matter of whether newcomers and old time residents alike live
in a healthy ecosystem that can sustain life, or in a cow beaten
wasteland.. If you check the historical accounts of how this land looked
150 years ago, you will find that we're a long way down the road toward
desertification., and for the most part ranching has taken us there.
Our public lands, on which by far most grazing occurs, will never
be developed by yuppies for condos. But our public lands, our national
forests and our wilderness The truth is Western ranching today excludes sustainable growth, as it
robs our water, ruins our streams and makes the land less productive.
Framing the issue as ranching vs ski resorts is silly, the two are totally
unrelated. (Just how many newcomers do you think ranching would employ? )
We need sustainable development throughout the West, but ranching
isn't sustainable.Unfortunately, there's nothing else to do in many of
these rural communities because ranchers,sitting pretty on a sweet
courtesy of the hard working American taxpayer have had no incentive to
diversify. They need to get off their duffs and find sustainable ways to
live along with the rest of us.
Today's ranchers and yesterday's ranchers, were just businessmen it is
their "custom and culture" to buy out their fellow ranchers as they go
bust, and to expand their spreads, not because they're bad, but because
that’s business. Face the facts, The first ranchers were just a bunch of
Eastern speculators out to make a quick buck on free land, and Eastern
Greenhorns who had worn out their farms, heading out West to repeat the
mistakes in a fragile, arid ecosystem they knew nothing about, with an
exotic, water dependant bovine that had no business being there. To
establish themselves, they squashed the "custom and culture" of the former
inhabitants without a second thought to theirs. It was the custom
and culture of forcible takeover and change, of exploitation for profit.
Finally, a word about environmentalists. We aren't all
cappuccino-sipping yuppies. Most of us are working class people who just want a fair shake for our kids
if you want to renew your spirit get out of the espresso shops
of the "culture and the leisure colony" get down on the ground with grass
roots environmentalists those of us who live and work and connect in the
small communities of the West. We are a fair minded people trying to keep
the elitist welfare cowboys from hazing our public lands to dust and
sucking them dry. We want the West to be a place fit for people to
live. A Few months ago HCN ran a pictorial featuring beat-up old
ranchers under the banner " The quiet pride of the West" How about a
spread titled " the Struggling Hope of the West" featuring grass roots
environmentalists (not yuppie career enviros) who have sacrificed income
and careers to save the land we love?
Susan Schock Directors note: This column "Letters to the
Editors" is for all Westerners , Easterners, Southerners and Northerners
to read, and is for their use to present ideas. Up to now there
hasnt been a forum that has addressed the problem of sustainablity in
the West or the East for that matter.
The same sort of ideas really need to be heard if all our
land is to be saved from over
use. Ranchers, farmers , miners and lumber people are invited to write
Letters to the Editor as well as students and anyone who wants to solve
land use problems for people. We will not play nursemaid to the fish." That was the official response
of the US Army Corps of Engineers when the public [year?] first suggested
that it install fish ladders at the Bonneville Dam, lowermost impediment
to salmon and steelhead migration on the Columbia River. Little did
the engineers realize how much nursemaiding they would ultimately
be forced to do. And little did the public realize how inept engineers
are as nursemaids.
By Susan Schock,
Silver City, New Mexico
Susan is executive Director of Gila Watch
will be developed by public lands ranchers
if we don’t stop them., because the only way they can make a buck is by
dipping deeper and deeper into federal subsidies for range projects to
prop up their cattle numbers as the ecosystem they are beating to death
becomes less and less productive. And who pays the exorbitant cost of the
developments? The workers in the test and trailer cities you bemoan. it's
the ranchers, not the newcomers, who comprise the west's elite.
Silver City, New Mexico
Upstream and downstream fish passage was provided at Bonneville and
other Corps dams, but as the dams proliferated the fish disappeared.
This is because salmon and steelhead do not fit neatly into the world
as it is envisioned, designed and reconstructed by engineers. These
fish evolved in natural, free-flowing rivers, rivers that inhale in
spring and exhale in summer, that take on oxygen as they tumble over
ledges, that shed heat as they curl through forests and desert canyons,
that collect and spread gravel dropped by glaciers. When these rivers
are choked with dams and converted to chains of slack, tepid, silt-laden,
nitrogen-saturated, predator-infested impoundments, salmon and steelhead
populations fail even when adults and smolts are transported over,
around and through dams. It has been ever thus. The process has happened
hundreds of times on hundreds of rivers. All you have to do is watch
and count up the missing fish, but in 1999 this reality is lost upon
the Corps and a large element of Congress.
When Lewis and Clark negotiated the Snake River watershed, combined
runs of all salmonids are thought to have approached eight million.
Now the figure is something like 14,000. The Snake produced almost
half the chinooks spawned in the Columbia system. Even at mid-20th
Century-before the four lower dams went in-the chinook run averaged
60,000 spring/summers and 20,000 falls, and the steelhead run averaged
60,000. Now spring/summer chinooks are down to about 4,500, falls
to less than 1,000 and steelhead to 7,000. Before Congress turned
the Corps loose about 3.5 percent of the spring/summer chinook smolts
and three to seven percent of the steelhead smolts made it back to
the Snake as adults; now, on good years, the figures are about .5
percent and one percent. Now Snake River cohos are extinct and sockeyes
nearly so (one wild fish returned last year). In 1991 the Snake River
sockeye was listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act;
in 1992 fall and spring/summer chinooks were listed as threatened.
In 1997 the Snake River steelhead was listed as threatened. You didn't
have to be a fisheries scientist to figure out that whatever was being
done wasn't working.
What the Corps, native-American tribes and states were doing-with
funds from the Bonneville Power Authority (BPA) and direction from
the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS)-was pumping the system
full of make-believe fish. By the mid 1980s, more than half of all
salmon and steelhead returning to the Columbia and Snake had been
reared on pellets in a hatchery raceway. Then, when the smolts would
start going through the dams, the Corps would suck them into barges
and trucks, haul them downstream and dump them into the river below
Bonneville. By 1990 the Corps had a fleet of six barges transporting
21 million smolts a year.
"We can work wonders with this transportation system; we can establish
runs of both steelhead trout and salmon in far greater numbers than
existed before," proclaimed NMFS in 1975, after the Corps finished
work on the last of its four lower Snake River dams. But again, the
fish wouldn't fit into the engineered design. After nearly a quarter
century of barging and trucking and dwindling runs you'd think the
feds would have begun to get the picture. But in 1993 NMFS hatched
a biological opinion that said dams don't "jeopardize" salmonids and
approved continued barging as the main strategy for recovery. With
that, Idaho and Oregon sued the agency, correctly observing that its
decision was arbitrary, capricious and utterly bereft of meaningful
action for recovery. The court agreed and in March 1994 ordered NMFS
to get to work on another, more thoughtful biological opinion. The
following year NMFS opined that the dams do jeopardize fish but prescribed
"further study"-the universal euphemism for torpor. In March 1998
NMFS came out with yet another biological opinion inspired by the
1997 listing of the upper Columbia River and Snake River steelhead.
Even this opinion calls for barging. The agency is under court orders
to release its final decision by December 31, 1999.
The options getting the most serious consideration are these: 1) status
quo-that is, continued barging of smolts and tweaking of dams and
flows at an annual cost of up to $721 million (the cap for the Columbia
basin just authorized by Congress). Since 1980 BPA has spent more
than $1 billion on failed Snake and Columbia fish mitigation, mostly
for transportation of smolts and construction of techno fixes at the
dams designed to keep smolts out of turbines; 2) augmented status
quo-barge more, release more water and install more techno fixes;
3) Remove the four dams (actually just the earthen portions that stick
out into the river past the concrete power buildings), thereby taking
full advantage of prime spawning habitat in 140 miles of the Snake
and 3,700 miles of tributaries, including much of the Clearwater system
and 450 miles of the undammed mainstem Salmon River.
Last March, 206 fisheries
scientists sent a letter to President Clinton, informing him of the
biological realities of salmonid recovery: "The weight of scientific
evidence clearly shows that wild Snake River salmon and steelhead runs
cannot be recovered under existing river conditions. Enough time remains
to restore them, but only if the failed practices of the past are
abandoned and we move quickly to restore the normative river conditions
under which these fish evolved." Among the signers were Dr. Robert Behnke
of Colorado State Univ., arguably the world's leading authority on
salmonids, and the Univ. of Idaho's Dr. Richard Williams, chair of the
independent scientific study group that had been hired by Oregon,
Washington, Idaho, Montana and NMFS, and which had dismissed barging as a
farce.
Picking up where
Williams' group had left off was a team of state and tribal fisheries
biologists assembled by NMFS to determine the most efficient strategy for
recovery. Their report, published last December, also trashed barging and
concluded that dam removal was the way to get salmonids back in the river.
Within 24 years of dam breaching, it stated, there is an 80-percent
probability of recovering spring/summer chinooks and a 99-percent
probability of recovering fall chinooks.
Even the engineers predict that restoration of the
Snake's natural flow along the 140-mile stretch from Lewiston, Idaho to
Pasco, Washington would boost annual recreation income from $62 million to
$129 million. The one-time cost of dam removal, at least according to the
Corps, will be $500 to $816 million, but BPA spends $200 to $300 million
each year on useless or counterproductive fish mitigation, an expenditure
that would cease with restoration of the natural river. Moreover, dam
removal would save $200 million a year now spent on dam repairs. Upstream
farmers rail against dam removal, but under the current system the
Endangered Species Act requires them to release their stored irrigation
water to help flush smolts over the dams. Maintenance of the status quo
will dry up their crops. And income from generated electricity is
sacrificed with every water release for salmon.
Last May the Emerald
People's Utility District of Oregon, which buys 75 percent of its
electricity from BPA, became the first utility to support dam removal,
arguing that doing nothing would cost "millions" more. "Restoring salmon
is the right thing to do," submitted Emerald general manager Jeff Shields,
"and the bottom line is that we really can't afford not to save the
salmon." Even the conservative Boise Idaho Statesman called the dams "a
burden on Idaho and the Northwest." This after it had commissioned a study
that tallied income from a natural river (such as enhanced recreation and
fisheries) and expenses of restoration (such as lost power generation,
lost navigation and cost of dam removal) and determined a net income to
the Northwest of $183 million a year. "The region won't be set free,"
editorialized the newspaper, "until the salmon and steelhead these dams
kill are recovered and balance is restored to our economy, environment and
culture." By preventing the recovery of Snake River salmonids to
harvestable levels, the dams have abrogated the Stevens Indian Treaties of
1855. Failure to restore the natural flow could cost taxpayers $6 to $12
billion in damages. The dams have also abrogated the Pacific Salmon Treaty
that the United States signed with Canada in 1985. Other federal laws
being violated are the Northwest Power Act of 1980, the Lower Snake
Compensation Act of 1976, the Endangered Species Act of 1973 and the Clean
Water Act of 1972. In 1997 EPA and the Oregon and Washington water quality
agencies put the Corps on notice that, because of its Snake River dams, it
is out of compliance with temperature and dissolved nitrogen standards.
And on March 31, 1999 the National Wildlife Federation and seven other
conservation groups filed a lawsuit against the Corps for these
Clean-Water-Act violations.
Even with the overwhelming case for dam removal there
is tremendous resistance to the concept. Basically, this is because it has
never been done on so grand a scale. Unfortunately, few elected officials
have risen to the challenge of leading and educating the public. Most play
to the paranoia and superstitions of their constituents:
o Rep. Helen Chenoweth
(R-ID). When the congressman, as she insists on being called, dropped in
at an "endangered salmon bake" she told the press that the Snake River
sockeye wasn't endangered because "you can buy a can of salmon off the
shelf in Albertson's," a comment that inspired the famous campaign bumper
sticker: "Can Helen, not salmon." Advancing a hitherto unheard theory, she
reveals that the current plight of the Snake River sockeye is attributable
to mismanagement of "the parent stock, which is the kokanee."
o Sen. Larry Craig (R-ID)
blames the idea of "destroying" the dams on "the robust and apparently
lucrative 'cottage industry' of salmon-saving organizations that has
sprung up in our region." At this writing that "cottage industry" is
comprised of more than 300 thoroughly non-profit regional and national
groups. "Eliminating the four lower Snake River dams is not the answer,"
Craig avers. "These dams provide irrigation, flood control, navigation and
help in providing the lowest electricity rates in the country." But,
because of their design, the dams cannot provide irrigation or flood
control. They are run-of-the-river structures that don't store water.
While 13 farmers draw water from behind one of them, they could also draw
it from the free-flowing river by merely extending their intake pipes. The
dams do allow barge traffic, but farmers could transport their produce by
rail almost as cheaply. And of the $13 it costs to barge one ton of grain
down the Snake, U.S. taxpayers contribute $11.70. If the river were
restored to natural flow, reports The Idaho Statesman, taxpayers would
save $98 million a year in navigation subsidies alone. Finally, while the
dams do produce "cheap" energy (if you don't count costs in salmon and
steelhead), they supply only four percent of the Northwest's power. "Who
knows?" chirps Craig. "As the facts underlying this debate unfold, the
citizens of the Northwest may find that they are in the unique position of
being able to have it all-a way of life that has the best of both worlds:
unparalleled aesthetic beauty and a strong economy." "The alleged perfect
world is his own-the blind faith that it is possible to have it all,
including the fish," comments The Lewiston Tribune.
o Sen. Slade Gorton (R-WA)
has held up dam removal by introducing legislation to block an entirely
unrelated project-removing the two dams on the Elwha River (an Olympic
Peninsula stream that once produced chinooks of 125 pounds)-if Snake River
dam removal were even studied. As The Seattle Post-Intelligencer put it,
"If that's not a transparent attempt to let politics rule over science,
it's hard to know what it is." While Gorton recently withdrew this
legislation, he attached a rider to the energy and water appropriations
bill to preclude BPA from saving money to pay for dam breaching.
o Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA)
has cosponsored legislation that would designate the 51-mile-long undammed
Hanford Reach of the Columbia as a Recreational River under the National
Wild and Scenic Rivers Act. But, ignoring the lesson of the reach, which
produces the only decent fall chinook fishing in the watershed, she says
she can't see herself supporting dam removal.
o Sen. Gordon Smith (R-OR) recently whipped up
anti-restoration fervor at a "Save-the-Dams" rally in Umatilla, Oregon.
o Rep. George Miller
(D-CA) and Rep. Thomas Petri (R-WI) are speaking out for the fish. On June
21, 1999 they sent a letter to the President and their fellow congressmen
urging them to resist riders that would stifle debate on dam removal.
o Rep. Doc Hastings (R-WA),
pandering to property-rights fanatics, has introduced failed legislation
to turn Hanford Reach and surrounding lands over to local counties for
development. And he recently got stuffed by his colleagues-once when he
introduced an amendment to ban discussion of Snake River restoration on
the House floor and once when he tried to get a non-binding resolution
expressing Congress's disapproval of dam removal.
o Oregon governor John
Kitzhaber called dam removal "a scientific no-brainer." "If we choose not
to follow the recommendations of science," he said, "we have to be
prepared to look in the mirror every morning and accept the consequences
of the decision: that we chose not to save the Snake River salmon." Since
he uttered those brave words, however, he's been silent on the issue.
o Washington governor Gary
Locke (D) says: "I can't imagine any argument leading me to support these
dams coming down." In a speech last February Locke said the economic
analysis is incomplete and that "the benefits [of dam removal] clearly do
not outweigh the costs." If his first statement is true, his second can't
be.
o Idaho governor
Dirk Kempthorne, who as a US senator worked tirelessly to gut the
Endangered Species Act, has been attempting to wrest management authority
from his Fish and Game Dept. He says the dams should stay and that
controlling Caspian terns and sea lions and installing "fish-friendly
turbines" is the way to restore salmon.
o Alaska governor Tony Knowles, worried about further
curtailment of commercial salmon fishing in his state's waters, supports
dam removal and has asked the Corps to come to Alaska and hold hearings on
it.
o Former Senator
James McClure (R-ID), who was once awarded "Anadromous Friend of the Year"
by Idaho Steelhead and Salmon Unlimited, has formed a new group whose
mission he says is to save Idaho's endangered salmon. He calls his outfit
"Idaho United for Fish and Water." But it turns that McClure is running a
scam and that his group is a front for those who think they can profit
from a dam-choked river. Members: Idaho Farm Bureau, Idaho Wheat
Commission, Idaho Grain Products, Lewiston Chamber of Commerce, Idaho
Consumer Owned Utilities Association and Idaho Association of Counties.
o The Idaho legislature
went after the state fish and game department with a vengeance when
biologists got the commission to come out for dam removal in May 1998. It
tried to take authority for salmon away from the department and fire the
head of the salmonid program and the chief of fisheries. State fisheries
professionals stood tall, albeit without their then boss. In mid-January
Fish and Game director Stephen Mealey, seeking to ingratiate himself with
Governor Kempthorne, issued a gag order that forbade department personnel
from talking publicly about Snake River salmon recovery (whereupon a
person or persons within the department stuffed toilet paper into the
mouths of every mounted fish on display at the Boise headquarters). The
previous August he had announced that any Fish and Game employee who
supports federal protection of state wildlife should "find a different
place to work." Last March, after the commission fired him, the
legislature took hostage a desperately needed license-fee hike, agreeing
to pass it only if the commission says salmon and dams can exist together
after all. Declares Sam Mace, program coordinator for the Washington and
Idaho Wildlife Federations: "It has been heartening to see the bravery and
solidarity of the IDFG fisheries scientists. They have shown the power
agency personnel can have when they stand together."
Fisheries science, like
medicine, has improved over the past 100 years. Throughout much of the
19th Century a physician would apply leeches to patients in failing
health. As their conditions worsened, he would apply more leeches. When
there still was no improvement he would open a vein and slap on a suction
cup. When a patient died it was always "in spite of medical attention." As
a prescription for salmonid restoration, barging smolts and tweaking flows
and dams is an exact analogue of blood letting.
Now President Clinton has an
opportunity to set a national precedent for admitting and correcting
environmental blunders by dismissing the quack cures of the engineers and
disabusing America of the dangerous superstition that we can redesign
nature. Tell the President and Vice-President how you feel. Their phone
number is 202-456-1414. President Clinton's e-mail address is president@whitehouse.gov;
Vice-President Gore's is vice.president@whitehouse.gov
. Ask them to give you back your river and your fish. What better parting
present from the administration to the people of America?
Copyright Rod and Reel
Magazine
|
Endangered Salmon, Everywhere
Copyright 1998 Cascadia Times. All Rights Reserved
Dear Editor,
Last month, a headline in the
Portland Oregonian shouted, "There's no salmon shortage for Puget Sound
anglers." The newspaper quoted Tony Floor, a Washington Department of Fish
and Wildlife official, "Tell them to come on up. We have salmon
everywhere." Tony Floor was only partly right. There is no shortage of endangered salmon runs. They are, seemingly, everywhere. On February 26, the National Marine Fisheries Service took the first step toward designating 13 major groups of wild Chinook from California's Central Valley to the U.S.-Canada border as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. The designation includes all Puget Sound Chinook. A final decision will come in a year. In theory, the listings mean the U.S. will put a top priority on restoring the damaged salmon runs. But ESA listings on the Columbia River have failed, as recovery efforts have been ensnared in politics. Hydroelectric, irrigation and navigation interests have successfully resisted changes in river operations that, while costly to them, are likely to bring results. If the government lacks the resolve necessary to restore the salmon, perhaps that's because historically it has always put development first. Cascadia Times recently came across a 1947 statement from the U.S. Department of the Interior, an agency that is supposed to protect wildlife. But not at that crucial point in the early history of hydro development, as noted in the July 25, 1947, issue of BPA Currents, an inhouse newsletter for Bonneville Power Administration employees: "The (Interior) Department agrees that the interests of the Columbia River fisheries should not be allowed to indefinitely retard full development of the other resources of the river. It concludes moreover that the overall benefits to the Pacific Northwest from a thorough going development of the Snake and the Columbia are such that the present salmon run must, if necessary, be sacrificed. "This means to the Department that the government's efforts should be directed toward ameliorating the impact of an ultimate, and inevitably full development of the river's resources upon the immediately injured interests and not toward a vain attempt to hold still the hands of the clock. " The article indicated that the BPA saw the statement as a signal that one new dam on the Columbia and four new ones on the Lower Snake "must be forthcoming." As predicted, those dams have proven to be a major factor in the salmon's demise. We now know that sacrificing the salmon has been standard operating procedure on Columbia Basin for a long time. And, apparently, in Puget Sound and everywhere else. |
|
Western
Center for Environmental Information
P.O. Box 1778 Sun Valley Idaho 83353. tel. 208 726 1407 Fax 208 726 7032 Santa Cruz Sentinel: July 5,
1998
Dear Editorial Board,
I must take issue with the effect of
Bob Berlage's editorial in the Sunday Sentinel July 5th.
If it is true that Neighbors for
Responsible Logging padded their petitions with 80 some signatures, Mr.
Berlage shouldn't dismiss the entire environmental community out of hand.
He left the impression that the local media does a terrible job of
checking their facts while favoring environmental arguments put forth to
inform the public.
Mr. Berlage well knows that
California like every other western state has been controlled and
subsequently trashed by the ranching, logging , farming, and mining
community since the days of the early pioneers and frontiersmen. Because
of their focus and bringing methods from Europe which has destroyed or
polluted much of the west it will probably take generations to correct
this mess. Your city and County are facing problems that could have been
avoided or foreseen.
The Western Center for Environmental
Information located in Sun Valley Idaho is documenting all the polluted
streams of the United States. We do this by publishing the 303d streams
list that is provided by the state Department of Environmental Quality and
is required to be updated every 2 years by the Clean Water Act. We also
publish, graphs, tables, GIS maps. geophysical satellite maps of each
state. See ( www.ecoguild.com ). We are adding Colorado and Alaska to this
web site soon. APSRS works with the schools and universities as well as
other government and environmental groups as well. We are a non profit
organization dedicated to informing the public of the magnitude of the
problem with factual information. California alone has over 500 names on
its stream list and several members of its salmon species listed as well.
Many experts in the field believe
that the stream list could be twice as high. Mr. Berlage shouldn't rush in
to publishing such a misleading article without "checking the facts."
Max Caebeau
Director APSRS
Sun Valley Idaho
P.S. The San Lorenzo River daily has
brought the Santa Cruz City and County a black eye because of the
inability to correct the septic tank problems "upstream"(ask any surfer).
While the city may be aware of this kind of environmental problem, this
does mean that the big polluters can get off the hook by "educating" the
public by killing the message in stead of the messenger!!! |
|
Counting
the Salmon that Count
Editorial by Scott Bosse, Idaho Rivers United
Conservation Scientist
June 1, 2000 Counting the Salmon that Count
Dear Editor,
In a recent opinion piece that appeared in several Idaho newspapers, Sen. Larry Craig treaded onto some very thin ice by declaring victory in the battle to restore Idaho’s salmon runs based on improved salmon returns to the lower Columbia River this spring. In so doing, Sen. Craig ignored some of his own sage advise - "It is important not to lose sight of the big picture." Sen. Craig crows that salmon numbers
in the Columbia River are up considerably over last year and the number of
fish crossing over Bonneville Dam is three times the 10-year average.
While that may sound impressive, the proverbial devil is in the
details.
First off, Sen. Craig cited the
return of salmon to the Columbia River, not to upriver tributaries in
Idaho. That’s like a Micron engineer in Boise telling an unemployed logger
in Bonner’s Ferry how great the economy is. It’s not entirely
relevant.
Secondly, why is Sen. Craig citing
returns of hatchery-raised salmon, when it is wild salmon that must be
recovered in order to revitalize Idaho’s sport fishery and comply with
federal laws such as the Endangered Species Act as well as legally-binding
Indian treaties?
As long as wild salmon runs continue
to blink out in places like Marsh Creek in the Stanley basin and Herd
Creek on the East Fork of the Salmon River, there is little reason to
celebrate a victory over extinction.
The fact is that about 4,300 wild
spring and summer chinook salmon are projected to pass over Lower Granite
Dam this year, which would make it the fifth worst return in Idaho’s
history. While that’s an improvement over last year’s dismal return, it’s
still well below the 10-year average. And bear in mind that when Lewis and
Clark passed through, an estimated 1.5 million spring and summer chinook
salmon returned to Idaho each year.
On a more optimistic note, the return
rate for juvenile salmon that migrated to the ocean in 1997 will likely
top two percent this year. That’s an important milestone because that’s
the return rate needed to maintain existing salmon populations. Return
rates in recent years have been one-fourth that, despite the expenditure
of $3 billion on things like hatcheries, bypass systems at the dams, and
the Army Corps of Engineers much-ridiculed juvenile fish barging
program.
So why are return rates so much
higher this year? Sen. Craig would have us believe that it comes as a
direct result of improvements in the Corps’ fish barging program. The
problem with that explanation is the Corps has been barging and trucking
young salmon for over three decades without ever producing sustainable
returns of adult fish. The theory that salmon are suddenly adapting to
life in barges and trucks doesn’t hold much water in the scientific
community.
A better explanation is that river
flows in 1997 and 1998, when most of this year’s returning adult salmon
migrated to the sea as smolts, were exceptionally high due to unusually
deep winter snowpacks. In addition, ocean conditions, which have a
significant bearing on salmon survival, were extremely favorable for
Pacific Northwest salmon during this same period. Under the same set of
near-perfect circumstances without the lower Snake River dams in place,
our wild chinook should be returning at two to three times their current
rate.
Unfortunately, we humans have little
power to provide consistently above-average river flows or favorable ocean
conditions. Any credible fisheries scientist will tell you it is foolhardy
to rely on such unpredictable factors to manage salmon runs. Instead, we
must manage what is within our control – dams, fishing, freshwater habitat
and the like.
The real question we must ask
ourselves is this: What will happen the next time we find ourselves in a
drought with poor ocean conditions for Pacific Northwest salmon? What will
happen when just one of these conditions arises again? The answer, sadly,
is that Idaho’s salmon will very likely resume their plunge towards
extinction. Only next time, they probably won’t be able to pull out of
their tailspin.
If that happens, we’ll look back at
this moment in history and ask ourselves why we didn’t take the dams out
when we had the very best chance to restore our salmon runs. -- Scott Bosse Conservation Scientist Idaho Rivers United (208) 343-7481 p (208) 343-9376 f mailto:sbosse@idahorivers.org http://www.idahorivers.org |
|
THE WORLD OF THE WILD
SOCKEYE SALMON
Dear Editor,
The sockeye salmon is one of the world's most amazing
creatures. It is born with built-in memory and instincts. Like its
ancestors, the Salmo which relate all the way back to the ice age, the
Salmon will always hatch in fresh waters and then at some point swim to
the sea to mature. They are anadromous, which means they are creatures
that migrate from salt water to fresh water to spawn.
The predominate view, though not the only theory
being discussed, suggests that the separation of the salmonids into the
Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans occurred millions of years before the
Pleistocene. Scientists believe that the Atlantic fish wandered into the
Pacific by either a fresh or salt water route when there was no Bering
land bridge between North America and Asia. (Mark Moulton, Biologist)
While the Atlantic salmon return year after year to
spawn, the Pacific salmon make one journey. They go through only one
reproductive cycle. They seem to be born only to make one predestined
journey. They have only one function, for which they are biologically
programmed; and that is reproduction--the survival of the species. The
female sockeye salmon lay approximately 3600 eggs each, which are
immediately fertilized. Of these, only two will survive to maturity. The
rest will perish sometime during the life cycle. Of the two that survive,
each will lay or fertilize 3600 eggs in exactly the same place where they
were born. (Mark Moulton, Fish and Game Biologist)
From birth to maturity the salmon will travel
thousands of miles and face countless dangers. They will adapt to both
fresh water and salt water, and go from stream to lake, to ocean, and
eventually back to stream. They have a genetic legacy and know of the
stream's particular predators. Some of the salmon whose home streams run
through bear country are said to be able to smell a beards paw in the
water.
As an alevin, the sockeye hatches from the egg with a
yolk sac attached to its underside. A month after it has been deposited in
the gravel as an egg, an eye has begun to show. Life is very fragile at
this point. The water temperature, flow, and chemistry has to remain in
critical bounds. The salmon lies hidden in the gravel bed while absorbing
a chemical memory. As the alevin grows, its sex is differentiated. As the
baby salmon grows, its yolk sac is diminished. m e sac contained a
perfectly balanced diet of proteins, carbohydrates, minerals, and
vitamins. A large blood vessel runs through the center of the yolk sac and
it is through it that the alevin obtains its oxygen.
The transition from egg to alevin requires an
incredibly exquisite blend of nature's conditions. There must be enough
gravel for the alevin to hover and absorb that which was hatched as a part
of itself. Water has to reach the alevin and flow over and around it,
imprinting it with a kind of chemical memory that will guide its recall
from the sea at maturity. There is near total protection at this point,
with the exception of bears or other animals crashing into the stream and
upsetting the gravel bed. If this happens, the tiny alevin are cast out
into the stream and into the flow of water. Unable to counter, they
immediately die. Incredibly, most of the alevin survive. (Howard Hudak,
Fish and Game Biologist) The transition from egg to alevin occurs sometime
in February. In May or June the young alevin become fry. In small eddies
the fry begin to emerge from the gravel. They enter the stream as both
prey and predator. They hunt, seeking plankton and small insects. Many
kinds of fish and other water predators seek the fry and many of the fry
die. Free swimming and filled with an incredible will to survive, the fry
learn to dodge, avoid, and escape. They do not linger long in the stream,
but go directly for the lake where they can seek cover. In the lake there
is a dynamic community of fish. In the food grazing chain in the limnetic
and littorial layers of the lake there are some dangerous neighbors to the
little fish. No fish in the lake is capable of mercy or regard. Each baby
sockeye enters the lake as a living protein and is fair game. In the world
of eaters and eaten there are no rules except to manage the one and avoid
the other.
The sockeye stay in the lake for two years and
instinctively concentrate on eating. The lake explodes into food
manufacturing in early spring. The minute crustacea expand geometrically,
and the plankton population increases dramatically. The little fish have
all the food they need, plankton being their favorite at this time, and
they grow rapidly. The bigger they manage to get, the less chance they
have of being eaten.
No one has ever figured out how the sockeye salmon
know that a saline sea lies beyond the lake that has been their home for
two years. It is hard to believe that there is any trace of salt water
coming upstream, but there is no other logical explanation. The fry at
this time have increased glandular activity that predisposes them to seek
the sea. Changes occur in their basic chemistry. In the lake the fish need
never drink. In the sea, this will not be so, for the balance of salts in
their own body will not match the one that surrounds them.
Suddenly in the spring of the second year, salmon
smolts by the thousands head out of the lake, into the outlet streams.
They travel in masses and the ones in the middle seem to survive best as
the predators play along the edges. The instinct to go to the sea is all
powerful and the salmon may die enroute, but they never turn
back.
It is not known how long the salmon stay in the
estuaries before entering the ocean, but there are profound changes that
must be made before they can survive in salt water. Under normal
conditions the salt concentrates in the bodies of the fish are greater
than the water around them, which is why they do not need to drink water.
There is a natural tendency for the water to flow into the tissues of the
fish through osmosis, for that is the direction in which water naturally
flows--toward the salt concentration. The salmon lose chlorides through
their kidneys and feces, but they have chloride secreting cells to make up
for the loss. The new chloride cells are distributed throughout the bodies
of the fish by their blood. In the ocean the salt concentration outside
the bodies of the fish is much higher and the flow of water will be away
from their tissue. Unless the fish compensate for that fact, they could
dry out in the middle of the sea. In the ocean they have to take water in,
drink, and rid themselves of excess salt through secreting cells in their
gills. Water passing through is robbed of oxygen and enriched in
chlorides. This change makes salmon a fish of two worlds. (Roger Caras,
Sockeye Salmon, Dial, 1975, pp. 49.
No one has ever traced the course of a sockeye salmon
at sea. It is likely that no two salmon ever travel the same exact path.
Tagging studies have found where the salmon can be found at certain times
of the year, but some of the time they just disappear. They have been
found 4,000 miles away from their home streams and are thought to have
made several circuits along northern thermoclines before returning home to
spawn. m eir mission seems to be to mature, grow, and return to make their
deposit on the future and then to die. m ey escape hazard every hour they
live. The salmon is the athlete among fish.
Muscle bundles lay along the bodies of the salmon
from head to tail for the purpose of propulsion. They flex sideways much
easier than they do up and down. Their streamlined shape allows the water
to slip easily to the side. m eir tails are formed like a fan blade and
are made of thin bone rods covered by a stretched membrane attached to
their bodies with exquisitely formed muscles and ligaments. m ey can move
with sudden bursts of speed from side to side and forward, evading
predators. (Atsushim Sakurai, Salmon, Random
House, 1984.)
there is a rule of thumb man has used about the
relative speed of a fish. It is that a fish's sustainable speed is about
seven miles an hour for every foot of body length. Like all such unproven
rules there are many exceptions. In the salmon it is not far from true. m
ere is another rule as well. A fish should be able to add fifty percent
again as much in a burst of speed. A one-foot fish should then be able to
cruise at six to eight miles an hour and explode away from danger or come
down on prey at about nine to twelve miles per hour. A salmon can easily
do this long before they reach one foot in length. e salmon are again
called upon to make constant changes in their own chemistry. When they
swim at a normal easy course without urgency, the metabolic wastes they
build are removed by their bloodstream and passed normally as waste.
However, sudden bursts of speed in;an escape tactic or during a hunt for
food builds up a deadly poison,lactic acid, in their tissues. After
exertion they rest and allow thelactic acid to bleed away from their
muscles and be carried off.m roughout their lives they balance exertion
with rest, and they quiet their chemistry before exerting again. (Ann
Keyser, Fish Biologist.)
Salmon are equipped in yet another way for a highly
active life. m ey have a swim bladder they can inflate or deplete to
control their buoyancy. While most fish have a swim bladder, they are
located at their precise center of gravity. This provides them with the
easiest means of trim and the least amount of work needed to remain level
in the water. The salmon, however, have sacrificed that ease for a
tactical advantage found in only the most active fish. The swim bladder of
the salmon is located below the center of gravity and while hovering they
tend to be rolled up sideways. But they are muscular enough to make up for
that. m e off center placement of this buoyancy compensator gives them
great advantage. m ey can turn faster and harder than other fish. On a
bank, the position of the sac tends to roll them on their side and without
extra effort they can use this forward motion to carry them around a curve
be it horizontally or vertically oriented. If they break to the surface,
they can make an effortless 90 degree roll onto their sides and in a
single slashing motion, go first up and then down. m e arcs they perform
in the sea and later on when encountering river currents are things of
swift beauty. It is a look into the awesome purity of a life perfected by
time. m ere are times when they seem to do maneuvers that have no real
purpose. You might wonder if they are playing and if they can create
pleasure, or is this luxury afforded a salmon? m e mysteries of this
complex creature haven't yet been unraveled by
man.
If the salmon survive to maturity they will be
slightly over two feet long. A number of factors can influence the rate of
growth and the maximum size. The amount of food consumed and the
temperature of the water are both factors believed to be primary in the
salmon's size. The year in which they are born seems to be a factor even
though they come from the same gravelbed; which is another mystery of the
salmon. Maturity is also a mystery of salmon life. Heredity may be a
factor in determining when maturity comes, or rate of growth, or perhaps
cosmic happenings; no one knows. What is known is that the salmon seem to
have a preordained task to complete the cycle from birth in the stream, to
the ocean, and back again to spawn and die. It seems to be their reason to
be on earth.
It defies logical thinking, but there are salmon
somewhere between Asia and North America with tens of thousands of streams
available to them, yet they will go through an incredible maze back to the
very natal read in which they were born. They now race a clock and are in
a universal cycle. m ey will travel as much as 30 miles a day on their
homeward migration and maintain speeds of between three and four miles an
hour despite any currents they might encounter. The chemical changes in
their bodies now dictate what they must do and where they must be at the
end of the change. In the male the testes begin to ripen. m e tubules
inside grow thick and fill out the interstitial space that exists between
them. Soon the tubules will be full enough to discharge large individual
cells and these in turn will begin a series of divisions that will
culminate in active sperm. By the time this process is finished, the
salmon must be back at the streams where they were born. m eir bodies will
have changed substantially. Their jaws elongate and become fierce looking.
m eir snouts become hooked and their teeth become far larger. m ey develop
a hump under the dorsal fin and their silver bodies will become bright red
with olive green heads and tails. m e reasons for all these changes are
yet another mystery. Perhaps it is to attract females and repel enemies.
Their elongated jaws and teeth may be for fighting among males; it is not
known. The change in color may have another function. As the salmon are
returning from the sea and are reascending into water with less oxygen
content, there will be reduced gill respiration. Oxygen must be taken
in in some other way in order for them to withstand the final exertions
and fulfill their goals. In the open sea they opened their mouths forty
times every minute and each time they completed a breathing cycle. The
color changes could mean an increase in carotenoid and lipoid pigments in
their muscle and skin tissues. m ese pigments are efficient carriers of
oxygen and are also efficient catalysts in the process of oxidation
reduction.
The females undergo the same sexual maturity. TWeir
gonads ripen and eggs swell. Their bodies do not become as bright as the
males', but become a bright reddish olive with their heads and tails a
rich olive. m eir snouts do not undergo the change, but their tails are
completely gone by the time they spawn. (Roger Caras, Sockeye, Dial, 1975, pp. 102
When the salmon begin their spawning run, they are at
sea and begin swimming toward the inlet from whence they came three or
four years ago. They feed as they begin the run and stay for a few days in
the inlet feeding and adjusting to the pure unsalted water. Only the
strongest will finish the trip. They have been built and developed by the
sea and have survived by chance alone. No salmon species can tolerate
anything but the best there is at the end of the sea journey. Everything a
salmon has done in their life is designed to protect those last few
minutes from anything but perfection. Of about 3600 eggs, 106 smolt
survive and reach the sea. Approximately 10 reach the mouth of the river.
Of these, 8 will die on the swim upstream. The 2 who make it will have to
be perfect in every way. If they had remained unaffected by man, 2 would
have been the perfect number for salmon survival. m e salmon's environment
would not be strained.
Once they leave the inlet and head upstream, they
will never eat again. They are fat and full of strength for the 900 mile
trip they have ahead of them.m e timing of the salmon run has long been
known. Men in boats sit waiting at the inlet. Sea sharks come in hoards
and prowl at the inlet. Osprey and eagles fly overhead and hold in tight
ascending circles. m e salmon stay deep and continue to push upstream.
Legend says that you could hear the roar as the salmon in huge numbers
push for their home streams up the river. They begin to lose weight now
and their strength is depleted by the hour. When they reach the upper ends
of the lakes near their natal stream, the males become more aggressive. m
ey are extremely hostile to other males.Once on the spawning grounds
water, the females choose the perfect place to dig their reads. The water
will be about 12 inches deep and the surface current about 18 inches per
second. That is the maximum that the females will accept so that their
eggs will not be washed away. In the bottom of the stream in the gravel
beds, the females turn on their sides about 45 degrees to the current
heading upstream and begin to dig the reads where they will lay their
eggs. They violently flex their tails and scoop out the gravel, stones,
and silt which the current carries downstream. Testing the depth of the
read with their dorsal fins from time to time, they continue to work for
as much as three days and nights until there is a hollow place about ten
inches deep and twice their length. As they dig, the females visibly lose
vitality, although they will dig at least two or three reads before they
are done. They will require a different male or cock fish to service each
redd. Rae male salmon will only spawn once before they die. The
depressions in the bottom of the streams are contoured so the flowing
water tends to lift up over the nurseries rather than through.
As the moment of spawning approaches, the females or hen fish will move three or four large rocks with their tails and nudge them into place at the bottom of the read so their eggs have maximum shelter and protection. When the females are finally ready, they lower themselves into one of the reads they have dug. m e males have stood guard as the females have dug and they wear many battle scars by now. m ey watch the females closely and soon the males approach. m is instinct, to know when to approach, was coded in their genetic memory when they were hatched. Mouths open, the fish often touch??males prodding females with their snouts or positions reversed with the females hovering above the males, caressing their flanks. As the moment of spawning arrives, the females lower themselves into the deepest depression of the redd. me males move in and lay alongside. Visibly quivering and with their mouths open, the females release the first frods of pink eggs. The frods are about three?tenths of an inch long and the eggs are about the size of .00 buckshot. m e females shake as the egg masses undulate in the currents and sink to the very bottom. The males tremble and their milt inundate the eggs, flooding the redd. The sperm is viable for a very short period of time. eggs will last this way for just a little more than a minute. After the eggs have been in the water between three and four minutes, it is all but impossible for the sperm to enter the tiny pores called the micropyles. The females then cover their eggs with gravel, using what is left of their tails. Then they move to another read they have dug and repeat the spawning act with other males. (Hatchery, Stanley, Idaho) Me males stand guard while the females cover their eggs. It is the last act of the males. m ey begin to float and drift downstream. m e exquisite control they have had over their swim bladders now fails and their bellies float upward. They roll into rocks. On their backs, they lay there flopping until the noise either attracts a predator or they die and decompose, leaving all the nutrients they have gathered from the sea there to fertilize the stream bank. For early civilization the drama of the salmon's return, spawning, and death were too much for the primitive people to be ascribed to natural forces. It is nature drama at perfection. The primitive people used to watch anxiously for the first fish; and the watchers could not comprehend the return of the creature who they had seen die the year before. Me spectacle of the fish mortality contrasted with the vitality of its return, was a mystery, a matter of life and death for man as well as the fish that sustained many coastal populations. When the first fish arrived, it was more than a cyclical signal; it was an event to be celebrated with prayers, feasting, and thanksgiving to the salmon gods. No mere creature could return after death unless it was a deity. Man's Impact, from Dams to Fishing and Pollution, on the Wild Salmon Until the turn of the century, the return of the wild salmon from the sea and their migratory life seemed to be a process that would be eternal. But now the wild salmon are diminished. Their numbers are so depleted that fishery analysts in Washington and Oregon have set the dates when the last of the wild coho will return. In the 1940s fishermen in Alaska were landing half a billion pounds of salmon annually. By the mid sixties, the number of fishermen had more than doubled, the number and length of their nets had tripled, but their total annual catch had dropped to less than half of what it had been 20 years before. The decline persisted. Fishing pressures from England to Norway, from Gourcester to Tacoma, and from Canada to the USSR increased with new markets for the growing demand. War?born technologies for fish hunting and catching included synthetic fiber for nets, electronic gear that probed the depths, and larger ships that transported entire canneries to sea where netted salmon could be gutted, scaled, weighed, and packed within hours after their capture. So fierce is the wild salmon's will to live and so prolific its intricate spawning, that the salmon might have survived and replenished its stocks to meet the loss to the trollers and netters, factory ships and floating canneries. But now we have denied the fish its spawning grounds by dams without fishways. Home streams are defiled by careless farming and lumbering. Nurseries are buried in silt from hillsides stripped of their trees, and holding pools are poisoned by toxic runoff. The Impact of the Dams m e lower Snake and Columbia Rivers are like the neck of a funnel which channels water draining from the Columbia Basin into the Pacific Ocean. Dams and other water development projects benefit the public by providing hydroelectric power, flood control, recreational lakes, and improved navigation of inland waters.(Bonneville Power Administration) m e construction of dams, however, have created serious problems for anadromous fish by disrupting age old migration patterns and by flooding some natural spawning grounds. Reservoirs created by dams eliminate natural spawning grounds and natural rearing habitats, thereby decreasing the supply of eggs and young. Dams are a major obstacle to upstream migration. Water spilled over the dams is supersaturated with gases??primarily nitrogen. m is condition causes "gas bubble disease' which is similar to "bends" experienced by divers. This condition can cause injury or death to fish. Downstream migrants may be killed or stunned while passing through underwater turbines. (Fish Hatchery, Eagle, Idaho) m e fish losses have been primarily attributed to the construction and operation of four locks and dams on the lower Snake River in Idaho and Washington. While beneficial to man by generating power and providing slackwater navigation from the Pacific to Lewiston, Idaho, they have proved to be an insurmountable barrier to the fish migration. When the salmon are delayed in their journey, they consume the energy they have stored for their migration. Repeated tests in Pacific coast estuaries have shown that fish will die in as little as seven days when manmade barriers block them from their predetermined migratory schedule. Experts agree that the most serious threat to sockeye is the eight Columbia and Snake River dams on their migration path. m e vast majority of sockeye, an estimated 90 to 95 percent are killed in these dams during their downstream migration. When sockeye smolt and other salmon stocks encounter the slack water behind the Columbia and Snake River dams, they become disoriented and die. (Governor Cecil Andrus, Strategy for Recovery of the Snake River Salmon) Man's Attempt to Save the Salmon The only remaining sockeye salmon in the Snake River Basin are the ones that have migrated to the streams above Redfish Lake. m e number of sockeye returning to Redfish Lake have declined from a high of 4,100 recorded fish to zero in 1990 and 4 in 1991. In April, 1991, the National Marine Fisheries, in response to the Shoshone Bannock Indians, proposed that the Redfish Sockeye be listed as an endangered species. In response to that proposal the department, in cooperation with the tribes, began actions to protect the few remaining sockeye. The program is funded by the Bonneville Power Administration because of their hydroelectric dams that have caused poor smolt survival. During May and June of 1991, Fish and Game Department personnel trapped young sockeye smolt that were leaving Redfish Lake for the ocean. Biologists implanted about 40 smolts with computer tags so the fish could be tracked during their downstream migration. Another 770 sockeye smelts were moved to the Eagle fish facility where they will be raised to adulthood. Their offspring will be available for recovery of the species. Of the 3,700 smolts that were not trapped, only ~ in 500, (or a total of 7) are expected to return to Redfish Lake as spawning adults. Many of the smolts that do reach the ocean arrive too late to convert to salt water living and die. Rearing the Redfish Lake salmon at Eagle give them a better chance to live to adulthood. (Fisheries, Volume 16, #2, 1991) The four returning adult sockeye that arrived at Redfish Lake were trapped and taken to the Sawtooth Hatchery. The plan was to partially hand spawn the fish and then release them into the lake so they could finish their natural spawning upstream. The female died after the hand spawning, however, the males lived. Part of their sperm was used to fertilize the female's eggs in three individual batches. The three male salmon were being kept alive for a week so that the rest of their milt could be taken and frozen. If another female should make it back, there would be sperm available to fertilize her eggs. The eggs will be hatched and reared to aid the recovery. Fish and game biologists hope the emergency trapping procedures will help sockeye salmon runs recover. Protection cannot be continued indefinitely without causing genetic damage. Protecting salmon young until they leave Redfish Lake solves a symptom and not the disease according to conservationists. Hydroelectric changes and successful migration conditions must be provided while recovery is still possible. Most hopes for the sockeye are pined on the endangered species listing. It can force dam operators, such as the Army Corps of Engineers and the Bonneville Power Administration, to take action that they have long avoided for cost and political reasons. m ere is a proposed five?year anadromous fish plan available, but biologists feel it will be very challenging. Without changes being made immediately, biologists do not believe they can rebuild Idaho's wild or natural fish population in the next five years. Improved fish survival conditions along the migration route are needed before natural populations can be enhanced (Governor Cecil Andrus, strategies for Recovery of Snake River Salmon) Long Range Goals of the five?year plan: 1. Make changes to the hydroelectric system. Rebuild wild (native) fish and natural (non?native fish that have bred with non?native or hatchery fish) to optimal levels. Restore traditional sport and treaty fisheries for salmon and steelhead. 4. Mitigate anadromous fish losses caused by hydroelectric dams through improved fish production and survival. Fish and Game biologists would try to improve critical fish migration habitat conditions in the Snake and Columbia Rivers and fish production in Idaho fish habitat streams. Because Idaho fish habitat is on federal land, biologists would support and encourage federal land managers to improve their habitat quality. (Governor Cecil B. Andrus, Strategies for Recovery of Snake River Salmon) Summary and Conclusions I Have Reached We have one female sockeye that has returned??the only hope to continue the species. She was captured and held at the hatchery in Eagle. Her eggs have been taken by hand spawning and fertilized. It had been hoped she could be partially spawned and then sent into the lake to go upstream and finish spawning naturally. She is dead. She has been called Eve. One female. One species. One chance. Unless downstream conditions change, protecting her progeny will prove to be an exercise in futility. It is time for hard ball. The Bonneville Power Administration is doing the usual politically popular thing for issues without answers. m ey are forming committees to give opinions. It is either doomsday or creation day. m ere is a true crisis in leadership. The odds are in favor of ending the species. It will take courage to make the change. We must implement a series of actions: 1. m e US Marine Fisheries Agency must declare the sockeye endangered. 2. m e summer and spring salmon runs must be considered separate species and listed as at least threatened species for the present. The dams on the Snake and Columbia Rivers must be modified to allow free fish passage, even if it means jerry?rigging them until a permanent solution is applied. 4. Reservoirs on the lower Snake River must be drawn down during the spring migration and flows increased on the Columbia so salmon can achieve a travel of 16 days from Idaho to the Pacific (a goal set by the region's fish and wildlife agencies.) 5. m e Northwest Power Planning Council should set the 16 day travel time not as a goal, but as a requirement. All the continuing political defensive rhetoric substitutes for leadership and vision must be stopped and government must grab the leadership. The proposed fish recovery program will not save Idaho salmon. It is a half?measure and half?hearted approach that has characterized the government's foot dragging in dealing with this clear cut emergency. Idaho Power Company irrigators and Governor Cecil Andrus have recognized the need for bold action. We have benefited all these years from nationally subsidized power rates while destroying the beautiful wild salmon to the brink of extinction. Saving the salmon has its costs, but the benefits far outweigh them. A small sacrifice on each of our parts can do it. Governor Andrus has shown that power rates from a salmon recovery will not reach the gloom and doom levels predicted a year ago. Restoring the upstream sports fishery and the downstream commercial fishery take will mean millions of restored dollars to the region's economy. If we cannot control our destiny by immediate action, then let's urge the endangered species act to be enacted and let them force the Pacific Northwest Power Planning Council to make the changes. BIBLIOGRAPlIY Port Authorities at Lewiston, Idaho. Bonneville Power Administration at Portland, Oregon. Ann Keyser, Fish and Game Biologist at the United States Forest Service office at Lowman. Art Selin, United States Forest Service ranger at the Sawtooth National Recreation Area, Ketchum, Idaho. Gary Gudua, United States Department of Fish and Game, Lower Stanley, Idaho. Howard Hudak, United States Department of Fish and Game biologist, Ketchum, Idaho. Fish Hatchery at Stanley, Idaho. Caras, Roger, Sockeye Salmon, Dial, 1975. Sakurai, Atsushim, Salmon, Random House, 1984. Mark Moulton, hydrologist/fish biologist, Sawtooth National Recreation Area. Fisheries, Volume 16, #2. Andrus, Cecil D., Strategies For Recovery of Snake River Salmon.
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Dear Editor, Senator Crapo announced earlier this last week that
he would fight the
new EPA's TMDL requirements. (Total Maximum Daily Loads) This euphemism is used to describe the amount of pollution that is allowed by the EPA . The Senator is well meaning, but what isn't known by
99% of the public
is that there are 21,309 streams and segments that the fish cant breed in and/ or you shouldn't swim in, in the 50 states. These streams are in a mess because of chemical, nutrient, sediment, or pesticides or a host of other reasons. (cattle and other animals destroying the purity. roadbuilding, mining projects, irrigation projects etc. This enormous number could be compounded by the
fact that many states
under report their "TMDL's" by as much as 100% (APSRS has this information documented). APSRS (The Western Center for Environmental
Information) applauds the
EPA for raising the standards and hopefully will reverse the trend now seen on the threatened and endangered species lists generated by the US Fish and Wildlife. APSRS is documenting all the polluted streams (TMDL's)
in the United
States see <www.apsrs.org>. It is hoped that more states will cooperate with the EPA rather than fight about how much more polluting they can do. The state of Idaho needs to lead the way toward clean streams which mean clean water for everyone. Senator Crapo must have misread what the the new EPA
requirement
is , and what they ( the EPA) want Idaho to do. Sincerely
Max Casebeau
APSRS Director. Sun Valley, Idaho |
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Watershed Restoration and Salmon Recovery Does Idaho Have What It Takes? Marti Bridges, Conservation Director, Idaho Rivers United Dear Editor, The State of Idaho over the past decade has shown
that it has neither the political will, nor the political leadership to
protect its watersheds or recover Idaho’s wild salmon, steelhead and
native resident fish species. While fed bashing and chest pounding
play well on Tom Brokaw, C-Span and in the halls of the Idaho legislature,
Idaho’s politicians and politically appointed agency directors have failed
to move us closer to preserving and protecting the biological diversity of
our state or that of the Pacific Northwest. In a nutshell, we simply don’t have
“The Right Stuff!” To date we have no salmon recovery plan, we have the
“Bookends” Plan. That plan is predicated on the concept
that one “bookend” will consist of no flow augmentation, a proven
conservation tool for fall chinook salmon recovery. The other
“bookend” is the “no dam breaching” parable. Governor Kempthorne was
expected to issue his own “salmon plan” sometime soon. However, now
that NFMS is poised to issue the “non-aggressive, no breach” biological
opinion which will govern recovery efforts with more of the same for
another five years, they may be less incentive for the Governor to issue
his own plan.
Noteworthy of the proposed Kempthorne plan is the conspicuous
absence of scientific input by Idaho’s own Fish and Game Department. The plan was
being drafted by an attorney and a former director of the Idaho Farm
Bureau. Idaho has over 900 streams that are so polluted they
are listed on the Clean Water Act 303 (d) list and due for cleanup plans
to be written within the next five years. Already we are behind and will likely
fail to meet the court approved eight-year timetable for water quality
plans to be in place. Senator Michael Crapo- (R) Idaho, has introduced
a water quality bill in Congress that would further weaken environmental
protections and recovery measures under the Clean Water Act by postponing
implementation of the EPA’s new water quality rules. Idaho doesn’t have a single water body designated as
an Outstanding Resource Water (ORW) despite the fact we are home to eight
federally recognized Wild and Scenic Rivers which include the pristine
Middle Fork Salmon, Selway, and Lochsa Rivers. Idahoans have
gone before the Idaho legislature at least three times in the past ten
years to gain such protections. We will go forth again this year. The Idaho Water Resource Board, a constitutionally
authorized board, has made a mockery of the state minimum streamflow
program with only 400 miles protected since 1978. The
IWRB often fails to implement its own policy and guidelines on Idaho's
2000 miles of state protected rivers. The Idaho Department of Water
Resources has approved illegal water right diversions and issues
questionable stream channel alteration permits on several rivers. The Governor’s office, Idaho Department of Water
Quality and Idaho Department of Fish and Game has failed to implement the
state’s bull trout recovery plan. We’ve done absolutely nothing to
protect habitat and water quality to prevent future listings of
Yellowstone cutthroat or protect Westslope cutthroat. Why? Because the
Idaho legislature and Governor fail to fund these much needed protection
and recovery measures. Agency directors are skewered by the
legislature if they ask for additional funding to implement preventive and
protective measures. Does Idaho have what it takes? I see little
evidence that Idaho has what it takes. Idaho’s political leaders, much as the
rest of the Northwest’s leaders with the notable exception of Governor
Kitzhaber have failed miserably to offer vision and leadership. The recent
Corps hearings proved there is overwhelming support by the public for
breaching the four lower Snake River dams to recover Idaho’s wild salmon
and steelhead.
80 percent of Idahoans supported dam removal in oral testimony at
Idaho’s public hearings. It’s a shame Will Stelle and the
National Marine Fisheries Service think more of the same will recover
salmon and protect watersheds. Idaho’s politicians continue with the same rhetoric
and offer the same meaningless recovery measures. States rights
are a hollow cry. The reality is that Idaho has failed to
step up to the plate. Without profound federal intervention,
neither Idaho nor the Pacific Northwest seems capable of crafting real
solutions that protect watersheds or recover wild salmon. And that is
the legacy of shame we will carry to our graves if nothing is
done. |
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July 21, 2000- GUEST OPINION-The Idaho Statesman GOP Tries End Run on River Cleanup Dear Editor, While most Idahoans were busy preparing for friends, family and to celebrate our nations independence, our congressional delegation was busy assaulting rules and regulations destined to better protect and restore Idaho1s and the nations water quality. Senior congressional Republicans slid a provision into a military appropriation bill on June 28 that would block implementation of proposed water quality regulations under the Clean Water Act. Congress, including Idaho1s congressional delegation, seemed to think this deplorable end run around public scrutiny would force the Clinton Administration to abandon the rules. They hope the President will be boxed into a corner so he can1t veto the emergency appropriations bill which provides much needed money for aid to Columbia, our military operations in Kosovo, and a backlog of domestic disaster relief. Protecting our nations water quality has been an admirable goal for over 25 years. And Total Maximum Daily Loads (TMDL1s) are a key element to ensuring our rivers really are fishable and swimmable. This legislative maneuver without public debate would be a major step backwards to cleaning up Idaho1s rivers and streams, not to mention an insult to the democratic process. To date most of the water quality success stories nationwide under the Clean Water Act have been cleanup of rivers polluted by point sources like sewage treatment plants and factories. Idaho industry has done much of the lion1s share of pollution cleanup under discharge permits over the years and many Idaho industries are cleaner and saving money because of source reduction efforts. TMDL1s target pollution coming from more diffuse non-point sources like farms, urban runoff from our streets and lawns, and logging or grazing practices. The TMDL1s set allocations of who and how much pollution is allowed before it impairs water quality. Non-point source pollution accounts for the majority of remaining pollution nationwide and in Idaho. While Idaho still has many rivers blessed with outstanding water quality, over 900 Idaho rivers are so polluted they are under a court ordered cleanup. These rivers have excess sediment, nutrients, high water temperatures, heavy metals and even manure in them. We all need to support TMDL1s because sustainable practices in agriculture, silviculture, and urban development are doable and profitable over the long haul while many current practices are not. Let Idaho1s congressional delegation know you don1t like it when they hide their lawmaking from the light of day. Tell Senators Crapo and Craig you support clean water, not back door legislative riders that undermine efforts to clean up the pollution in our rivers and streams. Your family, friends, children and Idaho1s fish and wildlife will thank you. Idaho Rivers United is an Idaho based non-profit member conservation organization dedicated to preserving, protecting and enhancing Idaho1s rivers and native fish and the communities that depend on them. So if you love a river Marti L.Bridges "If you love a
river..." |
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Telling the truth is hard but necessary Bob Dopplet Pacific Rivers Council HCN March 20th 1995 Dear HCN, The February high Country News article about Idaho Salmon lawsuit painted a misleading picture. The issues are not about minor legal technicalities, nor gaps between urban and rural folks. The courts slam-dunk decision was the result of the continued failure of the forest service To follow the law and to protect dwindling habitat for endangered salmon in Idaho. The agency had failed to consult with the National Marine Fisheries Service on both individual projects and the forest it failed to stop activities that damage salmon habitat. This is not about dotting the i's and crossing the t's. The science is clear that degradations of stream's ecosystems is caused by the accumulation of small wounds from multiple projects throughout a watershed. The only way to access and minimize cumulative impacts is to look comprehensively at all of the ongoing and proposed projects, which means assessing the entire forest plan and then at how individual projects fit into the big picture. This principle is fundamental to sound ecosystem and watershed management . It is also vital to saving endangered salmon habitat. The Forest Service is being hypocritical if it claims to want to implement ecosystem management, while trying to deny its obligation to consult on forest plans. We originally thought this case would be cleared up years ago. The case started in 1992 when the Pacific Rivers Council joined a raft of other environmental groups to sue the two nearby national forests across the Snake River in Oregon. Even then we filed suit when all other remedies were exhausted. Because the salmon are protected under the Endangered Species Act in the upper Columbia Basin., not just the Oregon side of the snake, and because the Forest Service was avoiding the consultation process everywhere, we filed a similar suit in April 1994. The Forest Service could have avoided these legal challenges by promptly consulting in good faith after the Chinook salmon were protected under the act in 1992. The land management changes required could have been phased in, thus softening whatever economic impacts may exist. Yet the cases bumped along in the courts for years while the Forest Service repeated the same pattern of delay and denial that created the Spotted Owl fiasco. They clearly should have resolved it in July of 1994, when the Oregon case was decided In the first slam-dunk decision in our favor. Many high-level people within the Forest Service and other federal agencies have told us that the old guard in the agency is using this case to sandbag the Endangered Species Act. The Idaho situation shone some light on issues boiling behind the scenes for years. The controversy exposed the differences between some forest-protection groups concerned with hammered watersheds and land management, and some fish conservationists focused on fixing main-stem Columbia River Dams. While a few fish advocates seem unhappy with the lawsuit, an equal number of forest activists screamed at us for agreeing to the 45 day stay. In fact , many forest activists attacked us for not going far enough to protect salmon habitat and watersheds (HCN, 3/6/95). The forest activists are probably right. The Snake River Salmon Recovery Team Report ( the Bevan Plan) to the National Marine Fisheries Service called for a moratorium on all projects that could damage salmon habitat on public or private lands in the upper Columbia Basin, a proposal that goes far beyond what our lawsuits sought. These recommendations indicate the seriousness of the stream habitat problems in Idaho. Ironically, all eight Northwest senators endorsed the Bevan Plan in a letter to President Clinton on Dec. 20, 1994. This exposed a corollary issue: The debate about whether it is primarily the main-stem Columbia River Dams, or a combination of stream habitat loss, dams, and other factors that have put anadromous salmon at risk of extinction. Scientific data indicate that habitat loss and degradation maybe equal to the impacts of the main-stem dams on the salmon few in Idaho want to acknowledge. Both issues must be addressed. Endangered Salmon are the "canary in the coal mine," indicative of a much larger ecological crisis. Despite public denials from some of the state agencies, the dirty little secret in Idaho is that almost all the native fish and aquatic organisms are endangered or declining, not just anadromous salmon. In fact these problems are found through the upper Columbia Basin and the Northern Rockies. Native resident fish which do not run the Columbia river hydro gauntlet, such as bull trout, westslope cutthroat trout and others, are endangered region-wide. The dominant reason is habitat loss which indicates that stream ecosystems are in crisis almost everywhere. Many of the resident fish have overlapping habitats with anadromous salmon. Two major environmental impact statements are under way that may set the direction For federal land management in the upper Columbia basin in years to come. How can we avoid addressing the stream habitat problems in Idaho? Ironically, much of your Feb. 20 issue was devoted to Idaho's "Obvious exhausted rivers" The ecological crisis gets directly to the economic issues. Growing evidence indicates that continuing to allocate forest resources to activities that degrade salmon habitat may be generating some jobs and incomes in the traditional timber logging and ranching sectors, but at the expense of jobs, incomes and economic health elsewhere in the state, regional and national economy. This isn't about rural verses urban- its about economic equity. A recent analysis completed for Pacific Rivers Council by a private economics firm confirms this and came to four major conclusions regarding the economic consequences Of protecting salmon habitat in the six Idaho forests. The primary issue is jobs Vs jobs Not jobs vs. salmon.. That is we
are losing or depressing jobs in other sectors of the economy , and we are
forcing others at the state, regional, and national levels to bear
explicit and implicit costs by continuing logging, grazing and mining jobs
that degrade Salmon habitat. Habitat protection would likely strengthen, not weaken economics : curtailing damaging activities will have minimal adverse consequences for Idaho's economy: and acting now will accelerate economic transitions that would have occurred eventually anyway. Then pressures for change come primarily from powerful economic forces that will not dissipate even if laws such as the Endangered Species Act are changed or pressure from environmental groups end. Which leads to the last issue. Since the origins of the environmental movement, one of the most important roles has been to expose environmental problems, to flush out government actions, and to hold government accountable. Salmon loss and stream degradation in Idaho especially on public lands are primarily caused by the failure of the government to follow the law. If the environmental community does not tell the public about these issues and hold the government accountable who will? Should we deny or try to sweep these problems under the rug simply because we are concerned about public reaction, or want the public to focus on other issues. Should Rachel Carson have refrained from publishing Silent Spring for fear of reaction from the chemical industry? Should environmentalists have refrained from protecting the Spotted Owl ( itself the "canary in the cold mine" about old growth forest health) for fear that it would upset the timber industry? Telling the truth is hard but necessary Bob Doppelt Eugene, Oregon |
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Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland,
I would like to extend the courtesy of a link to your web site a
particularly any hard hitting pages I am greatly encouraged by your stand against smoking and support
your position.. Please be advised that APSRS I cannot tell you how much I have anguished over the fact that our
state governments made open "deals" with the tobacco industry To cap it off ,the federal government has blessed the exporting of
tobacco by subsidizing it, to all countries thereby being in Thank you again for leading the charge ! Max Casebeau Max Casebeau |
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Dick Dahlgren letter to editor Wood River Journal 9/15/2000 |
Idaho Watersheds Project wrote: IWP's Online Messenger #91 In an exclusive front page article in its Sunday October 8th edition the Twin Falls, Idaho Times News covered the following news release On Tuesday, October 3, 2000, Two Idaho conservation groups mailed over 50 notification letters of the groups' intention to sue under Section 9 of the Endangered Species Act to ranchers and farmers as well as state and federal agencies to legally force the restoration of stream flows and fish habitat in the Upper Salmon River watershed. Idaho Watersheds Project, based in Hailey, and the Committee for Idaho's High Desert of Boise announced that 60 day notice letters are going to ranchers and agencies that divert water and dry up streams in watersheds ranging from the Saw tooth Valley to the Lemhi River. The targeted streams also include the Pahsimeroi River, East Fork Salmon River, and many smaller tributaries to the Upper Salmon River which are critical habitat for salmon, steelhead and bull trout. Most of the notice letters name ranchers who use diversions on public lands to water their cattle, or divert water to private lands to grow livestock forage. Jon Marvel, executive director of Idaho Watersheds Project, stated: "Today we are bringing the Endangered Species Act home to central Idaho. For too long, our salmon and steelhead spawning streams have been de-watered and destroyed by livestock. For these fish to survive, they must have flowing streams and good quality habitat in the Upper Salmon River watershed, and we intend to ensure that happens. From this day forward, ranchers or farmers who dry up streams and kill fish in central Idaho will be held responsible for their actions under the ESA." Snake River salmon were listed as threatened species under the Endangered Species Act in the early 1990s, and steeled and bull trout-- two other native fishes -- were listed more recently. The Upper Salmon River and its many tributary streams have been designated as "critical habitat" under the ESA for salmon and steelhead spawning. In July, the National Marine Fisheries Services also announced new rules under Section 4(d) of the Endangered Species Act, which establish that de-watering streams which are habitat for the se fish can result in liability for "take" of the species in violation of the Act. "Our litigation is focused on abuses that have violated laws in this hidden landscape for a hundred years," said Pamela Marcum, head of the Committee for Idaho's High Desert. "In the past, enforcement priorities on these public and private lands have hit a political brick wall. Illegal practices continue to eliminate habitat, kill imperiled fish, and de-water our streams. It is time for the irresponsible to do the right thing. " "The ESA is very clear that nobody -- including private property owners, as well as the State of Idaho or federal agencies -- can continue land management activities that harm endangered species," said Laird J. Lucas, an attorney for the groups who sent the notice letters. "Federal agencies are complicit in the killing of these fish through stream diversions and de-watering across the state on lands they manage, so it is up to us to initiate corrective action as required by law." Marvel added: "Our biologists have found threatened and endangered fish caught in ditches and canals throughout the Upper Salmon basin, doomed to die. It's shocking to realize that with all the talk about protecting these fish, practices like bulldozing gravel diversions in streams and rivers to divert their water are still going on. We are putting people on notice that the wanton destruction of our rivers and fish will not be tolerated any longer."Several notice letters name Governor Kempthorne and other State Land Board officials for tacitly allowing state lands to be used for diversions without fish screens or water measuring devices, in violation of state law as well as the ESA. "The Idaho Code for years has required that adequate fish screens be installed on all diversions to prevent killing fish, but even the Land Board is not actively following the law in this regard," said Lucas. "The state seems to think it is immune from the Endangered Species Act, and we hope this acts as a wake up call to encourage them to get serio us about protecting Idaho's endangered fish." Please note that anyone receiving this message who would prefer to have their email address removed from the Idaho Watersheds Project email newslist should email a message |