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Bonneville's recent rate increase should help alleviate this problem. The establishment of 

 additional mitigation trust funds would help stabilize funding of specific fish and wildlife 

 program activities. For the near term, the Fish and Wildlife Service believes that Bonneville 

 should budget sufficient funds to implement the Council's program. 



4) What can be done to facilitate water conservation and other change s in regional water 

 management to provide increased flows, for power produc tion and salmon recovery? 



We support the measures in the Council's Strategy for Salmon that call for evaluating 

 potential water conservation and water efficiency improvements, potential new storage, 

 storing water above power rule curves, and other changes in operation of the hydrosystem to 

 increase flows for salmon. 



NMFS has indicated its intent to have an updated biological opinion for the operation of the 

 Federal Columbia River Power System completed by the end of January 1994. Having the 

 opinion in place prior to the 1994 Pacific Northwest Coordination Agreement data submittal 

 will ensure that hydrosystem operations do not reduce the ability of the system to provide 

 flows for salmon. 



5) Are existing institutions and institutional arrangements of the state and federal level 

 adequate to implement salmon recovery plans? What improv ements should be made 

 to ensure better regional coordination among the many federal, st ate, tribal and 

 private entities that must work together to achieve salmon restoration? In particular, 

 the following alternatives have been suggested for better implementing salmon 

 restoration plans. Please comment on each: 



We need an anticipatory approach to recovering salmon, as opposed to the current species- 

 by-species approach that threatens to overwhelm State, Tribal, and Federal natural resource 

 agencies. Most efforts to better organize governments involved in salmon management have 

 not been broad enough or have lacked adequate accountability to ensure that all Federal 

 agencies pursued coordinated policies in working with State and Tribal governments to 

 restore salmon coastwide. 



