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needed so that essential plans can be made at some 

 unspecified time in the futiire. . . . The time to bite the 

 bullet is now! We need decisions now, and while they may 

 not be perfect (hopefully they can be corrected as we go 

 along) , at least that is better than trying to do it when 

 the runs are down to six fish or less. (Peer Review Comments 

 of Dr. Carl B. Schreck) 



Many other reviewers echoed these same concerns. Verbatim 

 excerpts from peer review commenters are appended to the end of 

 my testimony. 



To meet the needs of the salmon and the ESA, a recovery plan 

 must be an action plan — detailed and specific. Under the ESA, 

 a recovery plan must include site-specific management actions for 

 conservation and survival; objective, measurable criteria for 

 recovery and removal from listing; and time and cost estimates 

 for intermediate and final measures. These are not impossible 

 tasks, but they do pose difficult choices, particularly when it 

 comes to changing existing hydropower operations. 



The difficult choices facing the hydropower system continue 

 to thwart a regional solution. Because 90% of the human-caused 

 mortalitv to Snake River salmon is caused bv the dams, we must 

 fix the dams to recover the fish. All the sacrifices made by our 



