Photo from BPA.
An independent science panel has looked at the Obama Administration’s plans to barge salmon around dams on the Snake and Columbia rivers this spring.
The conclusion? Not a good idea.
Photo from BPA.
An independent science panel has looked at the Obama Administration’s plans to barge salmon around dams on the Snake and Columbia rivers this spring.
The conclusion? Not a good idea.
Fishing and conservation groups want the Washington Department of Ecology to loosen up some regulations and allow more water to be spilled over dams on the Columbia and Snake rivers.
If the timing is done right, spilling more water over dams helps young salmon migrate down river to the ocean. Conservationists compare it to the ride salmon used to get when they went over free flowing waterfalls. It speeds them along during a crucial phase of life, increases their survivability, and is a heckuva lot safer that being flushed through turbines.
Yes and no, according to Rocky Barker in the Idaho Statesman.
The paper has a copy of a memo written after a group of independent scientists looked at the 2008 Biological Opinion, or BiOp. The BiOp is a ten year plan to help salmon and steelhead recover in the Columbia and Snake Rivers.
According to Barker, the independent team praises the BiOp for doing a great job with the scientific analysis of the plan. But it also questions how much good the BiOp will do for endangered fish because there’s not enough data to draw conclusions. The independent team also agrees with the Obama Administration that breaching dams on the Lower Snake River should only be done as a last resort.
See Story: Memo shows scientists raised doubts actions to save salmon will do as much as advertised.
The ideas look promising, but the Obama Administration’s update on the Columbia Basin salmon plan may not be legal.
A fish ladder at one of the dams on the Columbia River. Courtesy BPA.
That’s the essence of a new letter from U.S. District Judge James Redden. Redden is overseeing the court battle over what the federal government needs to do to make sure dams on the Columbia and Snake rivers don’t kill too many salmon and steelhead.
As first reported by Rocky Barker of the Idaho Statesman, Redden is raising questions over how the Obama update was put together.
What’s at stake here is the 2008 Biological Opinion. Drawn up during the Bush years, it’s a ten-year plan showing what the federal government will do to help salmon and steelhead recover in the Columbia Basin.
Redden has long hinted that the 2008 BiOp isn’t good enough. Back in May, he asked the new Obama team consult with the groups opposed to the plan and work together on a new BiOp. The opponents include the State of Oregon as well as several environmental and fishing organizations.
But very little consultation actually took place. And instead of a new BiOp, the feds produced something called an Adaptive Management Implementation Plan (AMIP). As I reported in September, this was mostly a defense of the 2008 BiOp. But for the first time, it raised the possibility of removing dams from the Snake River.
So What’s The Problem Here?
It’s that failure to consult with opponents that’s putting the AMIP on shaky legal ground, according to Redden. He says the “unilateral” way it was put together may have violated the law that governs how federal agencies write up such things.
“Despite the AMIP’s positive attributes,” writes Redden, ” I have serious concerns about whether is is properly before the court. Federal Defendants need to persuade me that it is, or take the steps necessary to include it in the BiOp.”
All of this is supposed to be hashed out when the parties meet in court on Monday, November 23. This hearing was originally scheduled for today, but was delayed so that NOAA Administrator Janet Lubchenco could attend.
As the AP’s Environmental Reporter Jeff Barnard writes, this may very well be the last hearing before Redden finally makes a ruling.
News that the Obama Administration has more time to look over the 2008 Salmon plan for the Columbia and Snake Rivers has environmentalists very, very worried.
As we reported last night, the Administration asked U.S. District Court Judge James Redden for another month to review the plan. The judge agreed to a new deadline of September 15.
A fish ladder at one of the dams on the Columbia River. Courtesy BPA.
But on Tuesday, a coalition of groups led by Save Our Wild Salmon released a statement saying the Administration appears to be headed towards adopting the plan, which was released during the last year of the Bush presidency. It accuses the Obama team of ignoring the concerns of environmentalists, the State Of Oregon, the Nez Perce tribe, and others who oppose the plan. It goes on to say that the Administration is abandoning Obama’s pledge to have science determine policy instead of politics.
“We’re skeptical about their path,” says Nicole Cordan of the Save Our Wild Salmon coalition. “Unfortunately, nothing that we’ve heard or seen to date indicates that we’re likely to see anything more than the same general Bush administration salmon plan 30 days from now.”
“It appears that the Obama administration has allowed politics, not science or the law, to guide its salmon decision-making,” adds Steve Mashuda, attorney with Earthjustice. “Unfortunately, it looks like the same decision-making model the Bush administration used — an insular process that tries a few more bells and whistles, but doesn’t result in any real change for fish or the people who depend upon them.”
The coalition, along with Oregon and the Nez Perce, are asking Judge Redden for a status conference on their concerns. In the filing, they accuse Obama officials of failing to carry out the judge’s order to consult with them, saying there have only been three meetings with the groups opposed to the 2008 Salmon plan.
At the same time, they released documents showing the Administration has met on several occasions with officials from the Bonneville Power Administration, the Army Corps of Engineers, and NOAA. These agencies wrote the 2008 plan. The filing before Redden accuses the agencies of giving the Obama team “one-sided” information and playing down the controversy that surrounds the plan.
Critics of the Salmon recovery effort, officially known as the 2008 Federal Columbia River Power System Biological Opinion, say it relies too much on habitat and hatcheries improvements and doesn’t do enough to reduce the harmful impacts of hydropower dams on salmon, steelhead and other endangered species. Even Judge Redden has suggested the plan needs to be open to the idea of removing dams on the Snake River if other efforts to help salmon don’t work.
Here’s good tip from the Oregonian, which is getting the news from an online publication called the NW Fishletter.
The Fishletter reports that District Court Judge James Redden is still concerned about the long term survival of salmon on the Snake River, specifically that they could be extinct by 2017. The Fishletter speculates on how Redden may have picked that date. But the big point here is that, according to the article, Redden told federal regulators their plan for salmon recovery in the Columbia River and Snake River basins should include an option for breaching the Snake River dams.
Redden is expected to issue a ruling soon on the latest federal salmon recovery plan, also known as a Biological Opinion. He’s rejected two earlier versions.
