573 



clear focus on the central issue for Columbia Basin salmon — the 

 need to create safe mainstem passage by changing the operation of 

 the dams — and the expansion of the scope of salmon efforts to 

 include water management improvements and other measures. The 

 Strategy also incorporates performance standards for some 

 measures and stepped up efforts to track implementation and 

 program results. 



Extensive evidence reveals that the major decline of Columbia 

 Basin salmon runs coincided with the construction and operation 

 of big federal dams, which block and delay migration through the 

 mainstem.^ The Power Council's 1990 Salmon Strategy broke new 

 ground by calling for a combination of flow and reservoir 

 drawdown measures to provide sufficient migration flow or ■ 

 velocity, consistent with the Power Act. Unfortunately, the 

 federal operating agencies have treated the strategy like a menu, 

 from which they can deselect measures they do not support (more 

 on this problems below) . That approach undermines both the 

 Strategy and the Power Act itself. 



The Strategy's greatest weakness may be its failure to anchor 

 salmon measures to firm flow or travel-time objectives for salmon 

 migration in the Columbia and Snake Rivers. Without these 

 crucial objectives, the plan lacks teeth. 



Other problems include the stalled development of a framework of 

 rebuilding schedules for salmon stocks, objectives for smolt 

 survival, and performance standards to guide the restoration 

 process; the lack of an implementation schedule with milestones 

 to ensure steady progress on the Strategy; and continued emphasis 

 on barging fish around dams (although the strategy endorses 

 deference to the fish agencies and tribes on barging decisions, a 

 provision the Army Corps ignored this year) . 



The history of efforts to establish flow objectives illustrates 

 their importance. The Council bowed to pressure from the 

 hydropower industry when it originally adopted the water budget 

 (a block of water designated for fishery use) as an alternative 

 to firm flow targets. By 1986, the water budget's failure had 

 become obvious. Even if optimistic assumptions had been 

 realized, the original budget could have provided less total 

 migration flow than the lowest minimums recommended by the fish 

 agencies and tribes for dry years. Meeting even those deficient 

 flow levels assumed that the budget would supplement a certain 

 amount of base flow, but the base flows declined from projected 

 levels once the budget was initiated. Furthermore, Bonneville 

 provided the required Columbia River spring flows at the expense 



^Northwest Power Planning Council, Columbia River Basin Fish and 

 Wildlife Program, 1987, p. 3. 



75-542 - 94 - 19 



