ciate the opportunity to testify and give the remarks that I give 

 from the perspective of one from Idaho. 



I also would recognize that there are many experts here and I 

 hope that they are going to be able to shed some light on the kinds 

 of solutions that we need because it truly is time that we move 

 from the discussion of the issue to a determination of hard solu- 

 tions and specific decisions about what needs to be done. 



Last year and this year I have been focusing on wilderness issues 

 in Idaho among many other issues, but one of the things that has 

 come out in those hearings, whether they be town meetings or 

 other meetings that I have held on the wilderness issue, is that the 

 people in Idaho also want to restore the rich heritage that we have 

 in our salmon. 



As I held those town meetings, people from almost everywhere 

 agreed that we must take the steps necessary to restore the salm- 

 on. It was interesting to me that in the town of Salmon, Idaho, 

 which was named after these great runs of the salmon who made 

 it back up into that habitat, there were those who had spent their 

 lives for generations of families logging, working in the grazing in- 

 dustry, working in the mining industry and so forth who could re- 

 member the great, rich heritage of the salmon runs and wished 

 that they could have them back. 



People from every perspective recognize that there is the need 

 and they state their willingness to do their part. Their concern, 

 however, is that politics may play more a role in the solution than 

 science and it is our concern to make sure that this Committee, 

 that those who work on this issue focus on what will work rather 

 than what is politically expedient. 



One of the things that I want to talk about today is the issue of 

 water. There are some who had suggested that the way to solve the 

 problem is to simply flush the river with water from Idaho. Let me 

 tell you a little bit about the water. 



The Salmon Recovery Plan issued by the National Marine and 

 Fisheries Service is based on the 1994-1998 Biological Opinion 

 which was issued. That opinion calls for 85,000 cubic feet per sec- 

 ond (cfs) at Lower Granite Dam from April 20 through June 20; 

 55,000 cfs at Lower Granite Dam from June 21 through July 30; 

 and 50,000 cfs at Lower Granite from July 31 through August 10. 



The Opinion also calls for 427,000 acre-feet to be released from 

 the Brownlee Reservoir and 1.5 million acre-feet from the 

 Dworshak Reservoir. The opinion requests that Federal agencies 

 take an additional 400,000 acre-feet above Hell's Canyon by 1999. 



In addition, a study being funded by the Bonneville Power Ad- 

 ministration is looking at nonstructural means to deliver 1 million 

 acre-feet below Lower Granite Dam for salmon. This all depends 

 heavily on water, much of it Idaho water. And yet, in our current 

 situation the water is not available. 



We are currently in our seventh out of approximately eight years 

 of drought and even if you look at the projections for the flows 

 meeting if all the water were taken it would be difficult to meet 

 these projections and that assumes that you could simply ignore 

 the needs of the people in agriculture or in other industry or simply 

 the needs of people who live in the Snake River plain. 



