453 



3 million acre-feet committed for fish to 10 million acre-feet com- 

 mitted for fish, which by the way, is 10 percent of the Columbia 

 River runoff, but it is also 50 percent of the U.S. storage in 1993 

 was committed exclusively for fish. 



We have spent bilUons of dollars; we have diminished our gen- 

 eration capability by thousands of megawatts. Those are bold ac- 

 tions, that is not status quo. 



And in light of that, I guess I would like to, as Mr. Chaney said, 

 since I am well beyond the half of my third decade in my business 

 with the Columbia River water management issues and fish and 

 power generation, it is both poUtically attractive and I think so- 

 cially attractive to chase the Holy Grail and the silver bullet and 

 we have a long history on the Columbia of doing that. Hatcheries 

 was the first one, which has not worked out too well. We said what 

 we really need is to return closer to natxire, so we developed 

 spawning channels which failed, and lie in the Columbia River now 

 dormant. We said nitrogen supersaturation is obviously the prob- 

 lem, so bUp, blip and slotted gates are the issue and we cannot 

 wait to prove whether they work or not. We have got to put them 

 in because the fish cannot wait. We did, they did not. And now 

 they he in the Columbia. 



We said we have got a real problem with turbine-related mortal- 

 ity. We cannot prove out the science because the fish cannot wait, 

 we have got to get screens in. We are now on at least our third 

 generation of screen design because we did not design them prop- 

 erly. We have spent hundreds upon hundreds of millions of dollars 

 on that issue and I hear next month we are going to get a new spill 

 proposal because, again, people do not beUeve the third generation 

 of screens are workmg. 



And of course we have the flow issue, which I have said, we have 

 gone from 3 million to 10 million acre-feet and we have basically 

 no time to test out whether or not those work because the fish can- 

 not wait. So we just continue to increase that. We went to 10 mil- 

 hon acre-feet in 1993 with zero commitment that anybody would 

 show us accountability of its results, with zero commitment that it 

 was producing more fish in 1993. The only commitment we got is 

 we are going to ask for more in 1994. 



And I guess I put forth that that is kind of a reckless approach 

 to problems — just to say we do not know what we are doing, so we 

 have to go do more of it. We have lost sight of our objectives so we 

 must redouble our efforts, is not going to save the fish. 



I beheve that if you are going to avoid the train wreck, people 

 have to turn their attention to the issue here. The issue is not 

 money, and the issue is not energy, the issue is not water. I have 

 heard lots of talk about water particle travel time. I have heard 

 lots of talk about velocity. We do not have a water particle prob- 

 lem. The water particles are coming back every year. The problem 

 is fish survival. And we do not know, as we move water particles 

 faster and faster and faster, whether or not we are improving fish 

 survival. We did know at one time 13 years ago that if you slow 

 water particle travel time down enough, you can create a survival 

 problem. And we all agreed to that and it was proven in the 1977 

 drought. But that is all punch c£ird computer technology today and 

 we are still hving with it. We do not know now that we eire moving 



