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PANEL CONSISTING OF RANDALL W. HARDY, ADMINISTRATOR, 

 BONNEVILLE POWER ADMINISTRATION, AND STAN GRACE, 

 CHAIRMAN, NORTHWEST POWER PLANNING COUNCIL, AC- 

 COMPANIED BY JAY WEBB, IDAHO COUNCIL MEMBER 



Mr. DeFazio. We will now move on to panel two; Mr. Randy 

 Hardy, Administrator, Bonneville Power Administration; and Mr. 

 Stan Grace, Chairman, Northwest Power Planning Coxincil. 



I would invite Jay Webb, who is one of the Idaho CouncU mem- 

 bers, to sit with Mr. Grace and be available to answer questions 

 if they are directed to him. So with that, I would first recognize Mr. 

 Hardy. 



STATEMENT OF RANDALL W. HARDY 



Mr. Hardy. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for this opportunity to 

 testify today in the third of the series of hearings that you are 

 holding on Bonneville oversight, 



I would like to describe our perspective on the salmon issue — 

 what we are trying to do, what some of the successes have been, 

 and some of the failures or frustrations we have had. 



I direct the task force members' attention to the two charts on 

 the left. This offers some perspective of what our expenditures have 

 been for salmon over the last few years. The Attorney General re- 

 ferred to smoke rather than substance. We are spending $300 mil- 

 lion a year on salmon, that has doubled in the last 2 years, up from 

 $150 million in 1991. As a result of Endangered Species Act meas- 

 ures, we have gone from $150 million of annual expenditures to 

 $300 miUion. That may or may not be enough, but I do not think 

 it is smoke. It is a substantial expenditure of money, it is 12 per- 

 cent of our entire budget, and the frustration we have is that it is 

 not yet clear whether it is producing any results. 



This year we have also provided, pursuant to the Endangered 

 Species Act and consultations with National Marine Fisheries Serv- 

 ice, some 10 million acre-feet of water in the form of flows, both 

 in the Snake River and in the Columbia. That is about 10 percent 

 of the annu£il runoff of the entire Columbia system which is being 

 used to flush juvenile salmon downstreeun so that they get to the 

 ocean more quickly and assist in their genetic maturation process. 



The way this has evolved over the last few years is like this: 

 Since the early 1980s, we have had the Northwest Power Planning 

 CoimciFs water budget and various Council fish program activities 

 directed primarily towards a goal of doubling overall run size. Until 

 1991, our annual investment including expenditures we made for 

 hatcheries to the Corps and the Bureau and for other operations 

 and maintenance expenses for the Corps and the Bureau relative 

 to fish, was about $150 milUon. In the last 2 years, we have had 

 the Council's first phase, phase two and then phase three plans, 

 along with additional requirements in 1992 and 1993 specifically 

 for flows and spill that we implemented as a result of ongoing con- 

 sultations with the National Marine Fisheries Service. That is 

 what gets you to the $300 million. The chart on the right shows 

 a more detailed breakdown of how that occurs. 



In addition to those programs, we have laimched a squawfish 

 management program to reduce predation in the Columbia, and a 

 number of activities in the research area and in other areas, all ad- 



