113 



More importantly, the damage can be predicted to worsen. 

 The attached graphic depicts the pace of population loss during 

 the last fifteen years and predicts additional populations that 

 will be lost if we do not begin a comprehensive restoration 

 program immediately. (Attachment 3 - Predicted population 

 losses) . 



The diminished status of Columbia Basin stocks was 

 recognized by the Power Council during discussion of its Fish and 

 Wildlife Program during the 1980 's. The Council wisely embarked 

 upon a recovery planning effort in 19 87 with the adoption of its 

 doubling goal and subbasin planning. However, following the 

 completion of subbasin recovery plans for the thirty-one 

 subbasins of the Columbia and the expenditure of $5 million, the 

 Council set the plans aside in 1990 and turned its attention 

 primarily to the listed stocks of the Snake River basin. The 

 Council ' s Strategy for Salmon provides general guidance for 

 basin-wide recovery, but it did not provide the action plans for 

 individual subbasins that were intended by the 1987 Fish and 

 Wildlife Program. 



We know that salmon recovery works if our governments have 

 the will to support and implement it at both regional and 

 watershed levels. In the Umatilla Basin, the Confederated Tribes 

 of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, local irrigation districts, 

 and the state and the federal government teamed up in the early 

 1980' s to restore chinook runs that had been lost for seventy 

 years because of an irrigation dam. The parties fixed degraded 

 stream segments, improved flows, removed obstructions, maintained 

 wilderness spawning and rearing areas, and outplanted appropriate 

 stocks to the basin. Over the past five years, we have had 

 dramatic increases in both chinook and coho populations as the 

 outplanted populations began to naturalize in the Umatilla 

 system. (Attachment 4 - Salmon and steelhead returns to the 

 Umatilla Basin) . 



Restoration, though, is not limited to one tributary of the 

 Columbia. Priest Rapids fall chinook, Wenatchee sockeye , - Xmnaha 

 spring chinook are all populations that have benefitted from 

 watershed approaches that combine habitat protection and 

 enhancement with scientifically based propagation and 

 transplanting techniques. 



But these projects can not succeed without gravel-to-gravel 

 management where we as societies are concerned about the salmon 

 at every stage of their life cycle. At the basin- wide level, 

 salmon need flows between, and safe passage at the hydro 

 projects. There is no question that our salmon were depleted as 

 each federal mainstem dam was completed. (Attachment 6 - Salmon 

 vs. Dams graphic) . I hope you found it a little odd that the 

 hydro operators and industries were accusing the White House and 

 the fishery agencies and tribes of wanting to kill salmon because 



