Columbia River Sockeye Salmon. Courtesy WDFW.
In any other part of the country, the idea might sound too crazy to be true.
The feds want changes in how they help young salmon in the Columbia River Basin migrate to the Pacific Ocean this summer. Instead of making sure there’s enough water to help salmon swim past dams, the feds propose rounding them up, putting the fish on barges, and shipping them down river.
Starting in 2006, a federal judge ordered federal officials to increase the amount of water spilled over dams during the summer. Bigger spills help salmon swim past dams and increases their chances of survival. The trade off is less water going through the turbines to generate electricity.
Many environmental groups and fishery officials believe that’s one of the reasons why Columbia River salmon runs have been doing so well recently. This year’s run is predicted to be one of the biggest ever since the dams were put in.
But this year, NOAA Fisheries says there won’t be enough water in the system to operate the dams and help salmon. So it asked the judge for permission to stop spills at four dams on the Lower Snake River by May 1st. Instead of spills, NOAA wants to collect juvenile salmon, put them on barges and transport them past the dams. It claims that’s the best way to help salmon and steelhead during dry years when water flows are low.
Barging fish past dams is nothing new in the Pacific Northwest. But environmentalist say the plans for this year go too far.
“It’s really too bad – but not too surprising unfortunately – that the administration is trying to roll back court-ordered salmon protections in order to protect the federal hydrosystem and make more money,” says Todd True, an attorney for Earthjustice. “While the proposal is presented as a way to help survival, that rhetoric simply doesn’t match the facts.”
The state of Oregon agrees. In court filings it says the data shows that during low water years, increased spills lead to big improvements in salmon survival rates.
NOAA’s plan for barging salmon has been submitted to an Independent Advisory Board which will review the idea and issue a report on April 14.
Why do we always have to change NATURAL?