381 



Now Mr. Lovelin and Mr. Wright here argue that the salmon 

 really do not need these faster river speeds. They have testified in 

 other forums that flows of 85,000 cubic feet per second in the lower 

 Snake are adequate for juvenile salmon survival. In that case, we 

 need not debate biology any further today. The Corps of Engineers 

 has calculated that flow augmentation can attain their target of 

 much lower water speeds in only half of recorded water years. 

 Whereas the reservoir drawdowns could meet a much higher water 

 speed target in 96 percent of recorded water years. Not only far 

 less reliable, flow augmentation requires BPA to pay out in lost 

 power revenues and in water purchases every year, year after year. 

 Meanwhile the drawdowns emphasize one-time capital investments 

 to modify the dams and mitigate collateral impacts. 



For this reason alone, Bonneville should embrace these proposed 

 reservoir drawdowns for salmon recovery, not oppose them. To do 

 our part in averting a public policy train wreck, salmon advocates 

 propose as a good faith, first step toward implementing the Coun- 

 cil's Recovery Plan, that the Corps immediately proceed with the 

 lowering of John Day Reservoir and modify the Lower Granite Dam 

 in order to test reservoir drawdown operation. 



Our proposed has received support from the Governors of Idaho, 

 Oregon and Washington, and from the Regional Directors of the 

 National Marine Fisheries Service and the U.S. Fish & Wildlife 

 Service. In response, BPA along with the Corps has demanded not 

 less than 6 years of additional study and testing which, combined 

 with the Corps' glacial pace to install dam modifications and im- 

 pact mitigations, would delay this key recovery measure beyond 

 the year 2013. By that time, extinction of the Snake Basin sockeye, 

 if not the chinook, seems a dead certainty. This paralysis by analy- 

 sis can only yield the best-documented extinctions in history. 



Mr. Chairman, the Bonneville Power Administration is not only 

 failing to carry out its proper responsibilities to implement salmon 

 recovery in the Columbia basin, the agency is arrogating decision- 

 making power unto itself from the duly established fisheries agen- 

 cies, from the sovereign Native American tribes and from the 

 Northwest Power Planning Council. 



Under the Northwest Power Planning Act, BPA's job is to imple- 

 ment the Columbia basin fish and wildlife program "to the maxi- 

 mum extent practicable," period, stop. The Northwest Power Plan- 

 ning Council s Strategy for Salmon candidly has flaws and weak- 

 nesses. The Council, for example, has not set escapement goals or 

 rebuilding schedules. 



But it is inappropriate for Bonneville to sit in judgment of the 

 plan's adequacy or to demand its own standards and tests of bio- 

 logical certainty before proceeding with its statutory duty to imple- 

 ment the Council's plan. And it is just plain dangerous for Bonne- 

 ville to pick and choose among measures in the Council's plan, can- 

 celing some actions such as reservoir drawdowns by refusing to 

 provide funds — dangerous because the agency undermines the le- 

 gally established proceedings by which the Congress and the region 

 have tried to avert a public policy train wreck over salmon recov- 

 ery. 



To seize control of policjnnaking, Bonneville carries a large and 

 expensive staff. Now I personally know many BPA staffers who are 



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