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STATEMENT OF ANTHONY VAN PELT 



Mr. Van Pelt. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, members of the 

 task force. Thank you for the opportunity to testify. I am Anthony 

 Van Pelt. I am a member of the Umatilla Tribe's Fish and Wildhfe 

 Committee and a member of the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish 

 Commission. In 1977, the UmatiUa, Warm Springs, Yakima and 

 Nez Perce Tribes formed the Commission. The Commission assists 

 its member tribes with their gravel-to-gravel fisheries manage- 

 ment. 



Your hearing comes at a critical time in the history of the basin's 

 salmon runs. At least nine lawsuits have been filed in the last 2 

 years challenging actions affecting the basin's salmon. At no time 

 have the courts been faced with more complex issues regarding 

 salmon management. Unfortunately, the lawsuits reflect the ba- 

 sin's failure to come to grips with basic resource management 

 choices affecting salmon. 



The task force has asked a series of detailed questions, to which 

 I can only respond broadly today. In general, existing institutions 

 are not adequately responding to the biological needs of salmon. 

 Too much emphasis is placed on planning and pohtical sensitivity. 

 Too Uttle emphasis is placed on getting the job done, which puts 

 the salmon and those that depend on the salmon at risk. 



The tribes have borne the burden of conserving the salmon re- 

 sources by closing their fisheries. The tribes have not had commer- 

 cial fisheries on spring chinook since 1977 and on summer chinook 

 since 1964. The tribal fishery closures were not sufficient to stem 

 the decline of spring and summer chinook. Since 1964, Lower 

 Granite, Little Goose, Lower Monumental and John Day dams, to 

 name only a few, were constructed and now impede salmon re- 

 building. Yet it is all too easy to solely blame the dams for the 

 salmon^ decline. Poorly designed hatehery mitigation and bad land 

 practices must be recognized for the enormous impacts they 

 brought forth. 



You have asked. Is the Power Council's Strategy for Salmon ade- 

 quate? I answer "no." Only the week before last, the Yakima Na- 

 tion asked the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to set aside the 

 Coimcil's Strategy for Salmon for violating the Northwest Power 

 Act. Among other things, the Council wrongly rejected rec- 

 ommendations fi*om the fishery managers for flows for fall chinook. 

 Fundamentally, poUtics, not science, drove the Council's decision 

 process. This is extremely frustrating for the tribes because both 

 science and the letter of the law should be sufficient for recovery, 

 whereas the Strategy for Salmon is not. 



Even if the Strategy for Salmon were adequate, BPA's ability and 

 willingness to implement these measures is in doubt. It is one 

 thing to say that BPA has funded a project to address a Council 

 measure. It is wholly different to say that such a project has been 

 included and is producing salmon. For example, the Nez Perce and 

 Yakima tribal hatcheries have been on BPA's drawing boards for 

 more than a decade following the Coimcil's 1982 fish program. 

 They are still only plans. Nor has the BPA shown support for tribal 

 cultural priorities, such as lamprey protection. 



Thus, the Commission recently suggested that the Administrator 

 eliminate BPA's fish and wildlife division and transfer its respon- 



