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Snake River Salmon Recovery Team - Revan Plan 



The CRA has prepared a summary of the Recovery Team plan (Bevan plan) 

 along with our position on its elements (attachment 3). In the Bevan plan's two year 

 development, CRA members were active by providing scientific information to the 

 Team. Slate. Tribal, and the public had equal opportunity to participate. 



In general, the Bevan plan has three elements that make it the best blueprint for 

 salmon recovery. The plan is scientifically founded, comprehensive, covering each 

 stage of the salmon's life cycle and, it was created through an open regional process, 

 allowing technical peer review and comments. 



The plan calls for measures including reform of hatchery practices that currently 

 allow state fisheries agencies to produce and release large numbers of hatchery bred 

 salmon that are often genetically inferior to wild strains. It recommends the end of the 

 non-selective commercial harvest method of gill net fi.shing in the Columbia River, and 

 the adoption of more selective fishing techniques that would decrease the chances of 

 catching threatened wild salmon. 



The plan recommends habitat enhancement using protection standards developed 

 by PACFISH, FEMAT, and the Eastside Forests Scientific Society Panel. (The CRA 

 disagrees with this approach and will discuss later) 



The mainstem Columbia and Snake River system also will be impacted by the 

 plan. It recommends, as a short term, immediate recovery measure, the region should 

 rely on the transportation system that barges juvenile salmon around the dams and 

 releases them closer to the ocean. A longer term measure may be varying the method 

 used to collect and transport these smolts. It recommends adoption of the Northwest 

 Power Council flow program and, on an experimental basis, the flows prescribed in the 

 I994-I99X Biological Opinion. Additional scientific research would determine future 

 river flow operations. 



But the plan cautioned against controversial reservoir drawdowns. A John Day 

 reservoir drawdown was "considered and rejected as a significant recovery action" by 

 the team. Other drawdown options were not seriously considered effective. The report 

 said "In considering such an option, there should be reasonable evidence that smolt 

 survival rates are significantly higher when the Snake River reservoirs are drawn down 

 to river level than they are with other options." Current research has not shown that 

 survival increases under a drawdown scenario. 



