APPENDIX 



September 24, 1993 



Additional Material Submitted for the Hearing Record 



SHOSHONE-BANNOCK TRIBES TESTIMONY TO THE 



U.S. House of Representatives 



Committee on Natural Resources 



Bonneville Power Administration Task Force Field Hearing 



State House Gold Room, Boise, Idaho 



8:00 A.M. September 24, 1993 



Herein are views of the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes concerning the protection, mitigation, and 

 enhancement of the Salmon affected by the federal hydroelectric facilities on the Columbia River 

 and Snake River. Lionel Q. Boyer, the Fisheries Policy Representative of the Shoshone- 

 Bannock Tribes, will present this written testimony to the Boise Field Hearing on September 24, 

 1993. 



The following questions were posed by Representative Peter A. DeFazio, Chairman of the BPA 

 Task Force. The Shoshone-Bannock Tribes' responses to the specific questions are given here. 

 You may consider the perspectives of this presentation as being "Headaches from the 

 Headwaters." We can't do any management without being completely absorbed by the federal 

 Endangered Species Act, no fish, and no recognition. We are not represented by the "Inter- 

 tribal Fish Commission" as are the lower river tribes. We represent and manage our fishery 

 through our Treaty Priority Right, in conjunction with our efforts to become a part of the 

 Columbia River Fish Management Plan through our intervention in US v Oregon. 



Question 1 : Is the NPPC's Strategy for Salmon an appropriate and sufficient framework for 

 salmon recovery efforts in the Columbia Basin? What are the strengths and 

 weaknesses of the Strategy for Salmon? 



Response : 



The Northwest Power Planning Council (NPPC) Strategy for Salmon (Strategy) is a 

 comprehensive planning document that covers the major areas that need emphasized for recovery 

 of the Salmon. The document was developed with much public involvement. These are the 

 major strengths of the document. However, the Strategy (along with the NPPC and BPA) 

 attempts to both mitigate losses due to the development and operation of the federal hydroelectric 

 facilities under the Power Planning Act, and recover endangered populations under the federal 

 Endangered Species Act (ESA). The extinct, threatened and endangered Snake River salmon 

 populations are heavily impacted by the federal hydroelectric system, and as the listings indicate, 

 mitigation under the Power Act has not occurred. We are now in a major recovery struggle. 

 "Recovery" is a horrible place to be, and the Power Act and its "Planning Council" could have 

 prevented the listings. The Snake River coho salmon went extinct since the Power Act went into 

 effect. The ESA listings plainly reveal that most of the "planning" done since the Power Act 

 has failed. 



The natural resource managers (the tribes and the tribes' Trustees, including the NPPC) have 

 failed to successfully practice resource sustainability, which inevitably forced the situation where 

 we had no other mechanism other than the ESA to prevent extinction. By petitioning under the 



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