398 



at the dams for adult passage up- 

 stream, but no accommodation 

 was made for smolts going down- 

 stream. According to the Oregon 

 Department of Fish and Wildlife, 

 more than 95% of man-caused 

 mortalities of the threatened and 

 endangered salmon in the Snake 



River Basin are due to this block- 

 age by these dams. 



Dams slow the river 

 to a deadly crawl 



THE DAMS on the Columbia and 

 Snake Rivers have effectively 



Action Agenda 



FOR COLUMBIA AND SNAKE RIVER WILD SALMON 



KEEP THE nSH IN THE WATER!— We must get juvenile 

 salmon past the dams, power turbines, and slackwater 

 reservoirs safely— without barging or trucking them down 

 to the sea. Sending fingerling salmon downstream by 

 loading them onto boats is outrageous, and besides, it 

 doesn't work. 



I RUN THE RIVER MORE LIKE A RIVER— At peak spring 

 migration times we must manage the dams and reservoirs 

 80 that young salmon are carried quickly to the sea. This 

 means temporarily drawing down the Lower Snake River 

 reservoirs and sending more water downstream through 

 the Columbia in order to achieve biologically necessary 

 smolt travel time. Increasing water speed during juvenile 

 migration will greatly reduce the death toll on fingerlings 

 that now drift slowly in the slack water of the reservoirs, 

 falling victim to predators, disease, and disorientation. 



I SMART ENERGY AND WATER USE PLANNING ARE BEST 

 BUYS — Lowering the Snake River reservoirs during the 

 peak juvenile migration and sending more water down the 

 Columbia will require some modifications from business- 

 as-usual. But there are workable, cost-effective ways to 

 accomplish these vitally necessary changes. Energy effi- 

 ciency, fuel switching, seasonal exchanges on the regional 

 power grid, and improved water conservation for irrigators 

 are all smart investments and will help bring back once 

 teeming numbers of wild salmon. 



■ SAVE OUR WILD SALMON!— Hatchery fish are no substi- 

 tute for wild salmon. Healthy populations of wild salmon 

 are essential to maintain the genetic diversity and survival 

 instincts that will assure long-term success of salmon in 

 the Northwest. Maintaining and restoring fish habitat 

 and watersheds are clearly essential. 



turned the rushing waters of 

 once-mighty rivers into a string of 

 slack lakes. This has greatly 

 lengthened the time it takes juve- 

 nile salmon to migrate to the sea. 

 Before the dams were built, juve- 

 nile fish from central Idaho, for 

 example, were flushed to the 

 ocean in a week or less. Now it 

 takes forty days - or even longer 

 in drought years. 



Increased travel time harms 

 migrating smolts in multiple 

 ways. First, they are undergoing 

 the biological changes that trans- 

 form them from freshwater to 

 saltwater fish. Once these 

 changes begin, there is only so 

 long that the smolts can be in the 

 river before their changing physi- 

 ology becomes a death trap rather 

 than a survival mechanism. 



Second, slow travel time in- 

 creases juvenile fish mortality be- 

 cause it makes them more vulner- 

 able to disease and predators, es- 

 pecially squawfish, which thrive 

 in the still waters of the reser- 

 voirs. Because of the dams, there 

 are more predators than ever be- 

 fore, and it is easier for them to 

 prey on slowly drifting smolts. 



Using barges to ship 

 smaU salmon out to sea 

 has only served to delay 

 real solutions 



THE CORPS OF ENGINEERS and 

 other federal agencies have en- 

 gaged for the last 15 years in a 

 massive program to capture 

 smolts at upstream dams and 

 transport them by barge and 

 truck to the sea. Collecting the 

 small fish inflicts injuries and se- 

 vere physical stress that leads to 

 high mortality when combined 

 with crowded, unnatural, disease- 

 breeding conditions in the barges 

 and tank trucks. 



Furthermore, fish taken out of 

 the river do not experience the 

 same "imprinting" process that 



