270 



Species Act should be the court of last resort for salmon restora- 

 tion. 



Stable funding for the Council's program is critical to the success 

 of the program and essential for securing the commitment of the 

 regional partners for accomplishing priority salmon rebuilding 

 tasks in a timely way. This is particularly crucial if the overall 

 Council strategy to protect and rebuild the basin's fish and wildlife 

 populations to a level that will preclude any further Hstings. 



We are very pleased to learn of BPA's willingness to invest in the 

 resource agencies to achieve the biological objectives and priorities 

 for the restoration process. 



NMFS believes that adequate flows and improvements in fish 

 passage are vital to the survival of Columbia Basin salmon and 

 steelhead. We beheve the conflict between the timing of power 

 needs and those for migrating salmon must be resolved by adjust- 

 ments in the hydropower operations. Certainly the natural run 

 time for salmon cannot be modified. 



NMFS is also committed to working with the Corps of Engineers 

 toward the earliest feasible implementation of biological testing of 

 drawdown for Snake River reservoirs. Drawdown remains an alter- 

 native for improving in-stream passage conditions that must be de- 

 veloped and evaluated to determine its feasibility. 



Water management coordination throughout the Columbia Basin 

 is fi*agmented imder different state and federal authorities. NMFS 

 appreciates the efforts of the Council to increase the amount of 

 water available to fish and wildUfe in the region and its efforts to 

 oversee through the Fish Operations Executive Committee, the co- 

 ordination of available water. This task, however, requires a 

 longer-term solution. Water demands for proposed and listed spe- 

 cies, such as salmon, snails, eagles, bull trout, sturgeon and other 

 resident fish and wildlife, and the competing demands for transpor- 

 tation, irrigation, recreation and power in the basin strain the al- 

 ready over-allocated water resources of the region. 



The region needs a coordinated process to ensure the entire river 

 system is operated to meet the needs of both the ecosystem as well 

 as the river users while working within water availability boxmd- 

 aries established by variable run-off conditions. 



Early implementation, such as the alternatives considered in the 

 Systems Operation Review that addressed the ecosystem needs of 

 all species and the needs of river users, provides a unique oppor- 

 tunity to implement a comprehensive and coordinated water man- 

 agement regime for the region. 



NMFS believes that incorporating salmon recovery measures in 

 the Pacific Northwest Coordinating Agreement, called PNCA, is an 

 extremely important issue, because development and operation of 

 storage and run-off^ run-of-the river projects, which is planned 

 through the PNCA is a most significant factor affecting salmon 

 populations in the Columbia basin. Incorporating fishery flow re- 

 quirements in the planning process would improve the system's 

 ability to consistently meet flow requirements. We fiiUy support the 

 inclusion of flow and other fish requirements in the PNCA process. 



Finally, your letter requested that we address the differences be- 

 tween NMFS and the tribes over artificial propagation. There has 

 been much confusion over the role of hatcheries under the ESA. 



