To restore fall chinook requires 2,000 wild fish returning for 5 generations. We need to look at other opportunities for recovery because there is not just one limiting factor.
This year we had 3,500 fall chinook over Lower Granite and ½ of them were jacks. We usually have 30,000 wild juveniles but this year we had 150,000 wild juveniles.
The status quo option includes incremental improvements in the system that are being studied now.
We had an extensive discussion of timing based on a question that was asked during the debate between Senator Kempthorne and Bob Huntley. Bob Huntley pointed out that the fish-friendly turbine is just a prototype that is six or seven years away from use. Bob Lohn (BPA) went through the time frames for breaching the dams.
Because of having to meet federal budget years, Congressional procedures, engineering and design requirements, the first dam could not be breached before 2008. Then the system would need 2 to 4 years to clear the silt that results from breaching. So 2012 was the first year you might expect a fish run and then the estimates show 48 years from then before the runs are restored. If everything went exactly according to plan with no hold up in Congress and no litigation. As sometimes happens, Congress could decide to discontinue to project at any stage and refuse funding to finish breaching.
Both the BPA biologists and the gentleman from Morrison Knudsen pointed out that the turbidity produced by breaching would kill almost all the fish in the river until it washes out in 2 to 4 years--including resident fish and steelhead.
Idaho Fish:
In 1977, last dam was finished and runs declined. However, also in 1977, the ocean warmed 2 degrees in one year, plankton decline to 30% of previous levels and the fishery went from one that was based on wild stocks (the best survivors) to one based primarily on hatchery fish. These first hatchery fish had diseases that they spread to wild fish, did not have the best genetics and produced an over harvest of wild fish. We were mining the wild fish as we harvested the hatchery fish.
Hatcheries are not a silver bullet.
Some hatcheries are better than other. The Sawtooth Hatchery had a mortality rate of 80% of smolts from release at the hatchery to the fish trap at the Lower Granite reservoir. Wild fish have a mortality rate of 80-98% before they reach Lower Granite.
Hatchery practices could be changed to be more effective: Determine the best release times for fish. Now they are released when hatcheries run out of food. Segregate the juveniles by size so that smaller fish have a chance for more food.
Spread the release dates to mimic nature.
In 1977 there was 99% mortality through the system--it was a drought year. However, we have to remember that we also lose juveniles on wild rivers.
The American Fisheries Society has studied loss of habitat and the loss of nutrients in the habitat. Pristine streams are not best habitat because they do not contain food. Compare pristine habitat to fertile habitat.
With so few fish returning, there were few carcasses to return nutrients to soil. Juvenile fish get 50-60% of their nutrients from carcasses.
Harvesting:
Historically 16 million fish were estimated to have returned to the Columbia. At that time, it is estimated that Indians may have taken about 25% of the run or 5 million. In 1938, only 471,000 returned over Bonneville.
The returns in the 1950's and 1960's were over-rated. The best returns to the Columbia were in 1985-86.
The current spread the risk policy of some transportation and some in-river results in 75% survival. By maximizing transportation, we can get 90% survival. We could get 98% survival for fish transported from Lower Granite Reservoir but we can't collect them all there. Of the fish that get past Lower Granite, some die at Little Goose, some are collected at Little Goose, and so forth through Lower Monumental, Ice Harbor and McNary.
Ocean conditions have a 10-fold effect on adult returns in one year.
The Snake River would not produce spawning areas if the four dams were breached. Historically, the lower Snake was not good for spawning because the water was too warm. Breaching the dams will not restore spawning grounds on the lower Snake.
PATH:
All of the options that have been modeled by PATH to this point include flow augmentation:
The natural river option PATH is modeling includes flow augmentation of 1 million acre feet from Dworshak and 427,000 acre feet from the upper Snake in Idaho. PATH has not yet modeled the natural river option with no flow augmentation. Bob Lohn called the PATH officials to confirm that for me. The four scientists that reviewed the options reviewed natural river with flow augmentation. Another point is that they are preeminent fish biologists but they do not have any expertise in computer modeling.
Other information about PATH: There is concern about the results because of some arbitrary decisions that have been made. For example, PATH uses a survival rate of 90% on turbine survival studies at Lower Granite when the actual rate is 94%. They use 90% at each dam rather than actual data. They use a survival rate through the existing bypass at Lower Granite of 98% when the actual survival rate is 99.7%. The members of the team decided not to use actual figures because they were better than anticipated. However, that arbitrary decision influences the results.
Other Measures:
Lower Granite as the last dam built has the benefit of experience at the other dams. The bar screens are twice as long as the former traveling screens and in a different location that is more effective. Lower Granite has a proto-type bypass/surface collector system that is in its third year of study.
The bottom line is that with fish passage efficiencies, combined screens, bypass and spill, 93% of the spring/summer chinook smolts survived the dams and 80%of the fall chinook.
Studies at Lower Granite show that the fish delay before going through the turbines which increases time in the river. However, they do not delay entering the surface collector.
This year spring/summer chinook had a survival rate of 97%.
In the 1998 biological opinion, NMFS wants to maximize non-turbine passage. Only 3% of the fish actually go through the turbines now. 94-95% of these survive the trip through the turbine but they still delay for going through.
Costs:
Existing operations with fixes would cost $75 million. Surface bypass system being studied would cost $250-300 million Drawdown to natural river: $1 billion for construction and at least another $1 billion in economic impacts.
Question of delayed mortality caused by barging is being studied. There is no evidence that confirms that barged fish routinely die after leaving the barge. According to the PIT tag studies, barged hatchery fish return at a ratio of 1.9 to 1 over in river hatchery fish. Barged wild fish return at a rate of 2.1 to 1 over in river wild fish.
Survival of smolt in-river is 50%. Survival of smolt who have been transported is 98%.
Question about the reservoirs being a problem.
Radio tagged fish that are barged at Lower Granite to below Bonneville show the same survival rate as those tagged at Bonneville. Oregon State University and University of Idaho are studying fish survival from Bonneville Dam to Astoria. They got 79% of barged fish survive, compared to 78% survival of the fish tagged at Bonneville