11 



It is important to measure what happens by the return of the 

 adults two years after they go to sea but when those fish come back 

 the measure of what has happened to those fish is confounded by 

 half a hundred different treatments that they have received includ- 

 ing recently very large changes in the climate of the ocean. 



You can't separate out what is the result and what were the ben- 

 efits of the techniques that you tried to apply if you wait for fish 

 to come back although that is the final measure of the total of all 

 of your recovery actions. 



We have got to begin recovery and develop science, better 

 science, as we go along. There are 12 chapters in our document and 

 my mathematics tells me that is about one minute for every hun- 

 dred pages so I won't try to summarize the document but I would 

 like to talk a little bit and it is maybe out of place for me as a sci- 

 entist to talk about public policy and politics and institutions. 



But it is the Salmon Team's view that our Chapter 3 on institu- 

 tional changes is an absolute essential if we are going to recover 

 these animals. There are institutional changes recommended. We 

 feel that someone has to be in charge. We recommend the National 

 Marine Fisheries Service, mainly because they have the power of 

 the Endangered Species Act. 



We find down the river there is no priority for investment deci- 

 sions. The regional, State and tribal plans present a vast array of 

 different proposals, some of them in conflict with the others and be- 

 cause of this complexity quite often we see the lowest common de- 

 nominator is what we try to use for consensus and quite often we 

 can't reach consensus. 



We have to have a mechanism in place to move ahead if we don't 

 have consensus. Consensus is fine. It is to be achieved if we can 

 but we can't stop everything because we can't achieve it. We rec- 

 ommend as a very essential part of NMFS being in charge an inde- 

 pendent salmon oversight committee, people of science that can 

 give NMFS advice and try to sort through the conflicting views 

 that we have on the river today. 



We think that public policy decisions should be made in public. 

 We think that NMFS should establish a data base of the important 

 data that we are using to make decisions. That is not the case on 

 the river today. It is very difficult even for the Salmon Recovery 

 Team to get certain data and some of what we thought was essen- 

 tial information simply doesn't exist. 



Finally, I would like to say that the Team thinks it is terribly 

 important to consider all of these recommendations as a whole. We 

 shouldn't divide up recovery among institutions. Thank you, Mr. 

 Chairman, I will be happy to answer any questions that you may 

 have. 



[Statement of Donald Bevan can be found at the end of the hear- 

 ing. 



Ms. Unsoeld. Thank you very much, Don. Mr. Holt, vice-chair- 

 man of the Inter-Tribal Fish Commission. 



STATEMENT OF LEVI HOLT, VICE-CHAIRMAN, COLUMBIA 

 RIVER INTER-TRIBAL FISH COMMISSION 



Mr. Holt. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you members 

 for this honor and the opportunity on behalf of the Columbia River 



