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terest groups is more water flows. These groups assume that fish 

 move at the same speed as water and move faster than fish will 

 survive. There is no scientific information to support these prem- 

 ises." What is your reaction to that? Is there any scientific informa- 

 tion to support those premises? 



Mr. Smith. We are comfortable that the biological basis that we 

 are using to establish flow targets in the system are based on the 

 best scientific information available, and we have proceeded with 

 that. 



Mr. LaRocco. Does that mean that there is scientific information 

 to support those premises? 



Mr. Smith. We are in the process now, as you may be aware. 

 There are new studies that are being started that have been fo- 

 cused, that will begin the second year here shortly, that will give 

 us some additional information. There has been a long period, 10 

 years or better, where there has not been any substantially new in- 

 formation in the process. And this will help us a lot. 



At this point, using the best available information, we are very 

 comfortable for the biological basis that we have estabhshed the 

 flow targets. 



Mr. LaRocco. Okay. Could we talk about harvest for a minute? 

 A lot of people focus on harvest and they think that is the culprit. 

 It does not have anything to do with juvenile flows and moving. Do 

 you have any thoughts on harvest? There is criticism in testimony 

 to come up that with the decreasing nimibers of returning spawn- 

 ers and fish, that harvest levels are going up and they are saying 

 that is ridiculous. 



Mr, Smith. I think to the contrary, harvest levels have been sub- 

 stantially reduced in the last few years, certainly well below any 

 level recognized by the Council in tiieir plan. The river fisheries in 

 particular have experienced reductions in harvest levels from pre- 

 vious levels. We tend to focus on harvest. Harvest is something 

 that is directly controllable — ^you can coimt the number of fish that 

 you take from it. But I think the dichotomy in judging it with what 

 happens in the juvenile passage and juvenile survival is that har- 

 vest is managing the numbers that are available, and juvenile pas- 

 sage deals with the survival of those nimibers that are in the sys- 

 tem. So you are trying to improve survival to generate the kind of 

 numbers that you would manage in some way, whether they be to 

 return fish to the spawning ground or whether they be fish for 

 commercial, recreational or tribal use. It is sort of loolang at it with 

 a different perspective — one of dealing with numbers; the other 

 dealing with survival rates and trying to improve survival rates. 



Mr. LaRocco. Mr, Van Pelt, do you have any comments about 

 harvest — ^you know, there is a lot thrown at the tribes and Native 

 Americans with regard to harvest. People just sort of focus on that 

 and say that this is the bottom line, this is the bumper sticker, you 

 know, solution to this problem. Do you have any comments on 

 that? 



Mr. Van Pelt. Representative LaRocco, the tribes, as I stated in 

 the testimony, we have given up spring and summer chinook fish- 

 ing because we are trying to rebuild those stocks, so our fishermen 

 do not fish it, but also for our tribes we have not allowed any Sun- 

 day fishing because of religious practices, we do not fish on Sun- 



