577 



Recommendations: The idea of moderating revenue swings through a 

 fund for fish and wildlife warrants consideration. Bonneville 

 should incorporate a sensitive automatic adjustment mechanism 

 into its rates during the next rate case. The agency should 

 eliminate duplication of the salmon planning responsibilities of 

 the Council and fishery agencies. 



4. What can be done to facilitate water conservation and other 

 changes in regional water management to provide increased flows 

 for power production and salmon recovery? 



Water now under the control of irrigators represents the largest 

 untapped source of additional flow to improve migration 

 conditions for listed Snake River Salmon stocks." Increased 

 flows in the Snake play an important role in the Strategy for 

 Salmon. They can improve passage for summer salmon migrants not 

 aided by a spring drawdown. They can help refill downstream 

 reservoirs lowered for migration purposes. They can also help 

 mitigate the energy costs of drawdown, helping avoid electricity 

 rate increases. But flow releases from the Upper Snake should 

 supplement, not replace, drawdown of Lower Snake reservoirs. A 

 study for NMFS recently confirmed that even an aggressive program 

 of water conservation and transfer measures produced less flow 

 velocity through Lower Granite Reservoir than the deep drawdown 

 of a single Lower Snake reservoir.^ 



Experts have estimated the technical water conservation potential 

 (the amount that can be saved through improved equipment, canal 

 lining and water management) in the Upper Snake Basin at 1 

 million acre f eet° to over 3 million acre feet annually.^ A 

 significant but unknown amount of water thus conserved currently 

 returns to the stream as return flows, so the net conservation 



^ This response therefore focuses on the Snake Basin, but its 

 conclusions apply to other Columbia River tributaries too. 



^Hydrosphere. Snake River Water Routing Study . Volume I, 

 National Marine Fisheries Service, Sept, 1992, p. iv. 



° Hydrosphere. Water Supplies to Promote Juvenile Anadromous 

 Fish Migration in the Snake River Basin . National Marine 

 Fisheries Service, 1991, p. 6-10. Hydrosphere estimates annual 

 conservation potential at 0.6 to 1.2 MAF. 



^ Soil Conservation Service, Snake River Basin Irrigation Water 

 Distribution and Use . 1978, p. 44. The study projects a 

 potential reduction in diversions of 4.4 MAF annually by 2020 

 from canal lining and improvements in irrigation management and 

 equipment. I adjusted this projection by 0.8 MAF, the amount by 

 which diversions have been reduced since the study was performed. 



