186 



TESTIMONY BY PETER BERGMAN BEFORE THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON 

 ENVIRONMENT AND NATURAL RESOURCES OF THE COMMITTEE ON MERCHANT 

 MARINE AND HSHERIES. 



I am aware of the experts who will provide testimony to you and I will not dwell on topics I'm 

 sure they will discuss in detail. Briefly, hatcheries used properly are useful or essential for the 

 recovery of many natural salmon stocks. An extreme example is the use of hatcheries for the 

 several remaining Redfish Lake sockeye in Idaho; retaining these fish in hatcheries initially for 

 their full life cycle appears to be their only hope for survival. 



There are enough examples of hatcheries like Spring Creek in the Columbia River or Minter 

 Creek or Green River in Puget Sound to show that hatcheries used for production of cultivated 

 salmon stocks can be very successful. Using hatcheries for rearing salmon to increase natural 

 runs - i.e. fish that spend their entire lives in nature - is less well understood, but in various 

 modes I have little doubt they can play a beneficial role. An important discussion of hatcheries 

 and the protection of natural populations is the recently completed NMFS paper "Pacific Salmon 

 and Artificial Propagation Under the Endangered Species Act". 



I would like to focus my testimony on the decision-making process which involves anadromous 

 fish hatcheries in the Pacific Northwest. Making hatcheries successful for any purpose requires 

 a logical management system, and the process used in the past will require major revisions to 

 allow hatcheries to achieve their potential. The following remarks are specifically about the 

 Columbia Basin, because I have recently examined it and because of its regional importance, but 

 the issues are widespread. 



A key point to put my comments in perspective is that hatchery production in the Columbia has 

 increased enormously over recent decades but adult production has not increased and has 

 probably decreased. I believe the primary reason for this is an irrational decision-making 

 process. 



The first management problem I would like to describe is jurisdictional. The Columbia contains 

 about 100 anadromous fish hatcheries. They are operated or affected by a multitude of 

 jurisdictions— at least three federal agencies, three states, several Indian tribes, several 

 coordinating bodies, and a number of electric utilities. Certainly most of the important 

 management decisions are systemic, involving groups of hatcheries, sub-basins, or the entire 

 basin. But there is no directed authority or accountability for successful management. No one 

 is in charge. 



There have been some recent, major efforts to coordinate these hatcheries. However, the 

 system-wide decision making process is fundamentally based on consensus. Opinions on any 

 given issue are ordinarily diverse, due to varying jurisdictional goals and a paucity of scientific 

 information. Thus obtaining consensus is extremely difficult, and if obtained rarely rq>resents 

 significant progress. 



