240 



negative impact instead of a positive one: 



"However, wider passage conditions associated with higher nver flows than those of 1973 

 and 1977, the responses of relative survivals of spring summer chinook to transportation 

 may be equivocal, and possibly negative, with overall higher survivals for both transported 

 and untransported salmon. 



"[Without better information} the utility of transportation for recovery ofESA listed can not 

 be objectively judged While juvenile salmon transportation may not be discounted as a 

 recovery measure, the factual basis is now insufficient to determine the relative efficacy of 

 transportation as a mitigative measure for recovery of salmon populations listed as 

 threateded and endangered in the Snake River Basin. When the transportation option is 

 exercised, it must be recognized as an experimental measure... 



"Stock-specific assessments of survivals of transported salmon relative to survival of 

 untransported salmon are not possible from the studies so far conducted "* 



Put bluntly, barging and other artificial transportation methods have for many years been little more 



than a smokescreen for doing nothing of any real substance to change a fatally flawed hydropower 



system Programs like this should be seen in their true light - as little more than shots in the dark 



with very little scientific justification In feet the Mundy Report itself states: 



"Available evidence is not sufficient to identify transportation as either a primary or 

 supporting method of choice for salmon recovery in the Snake River Basin " ' 



In light of the Mundy Report, it is appalling that the Bevan Committee relied so heavily on barging 

 and other transportation boondoggles as the primary recovery strategy. 



The only fish that have ever been shown to benefit from barging are steelhead, not salmon Any 

 fisherman can tell you that chinook salmon, in particular, are fer more delicate than steelhead The 

 Bevan Report terms the Columbia River a "migration corridor " The term is indicative of the 

 mentality of Dr Bevan and his cohorts who drafted the report, and who called for the creation of a 

 Sahnon Oversi^t Committee staflfed by themselves and other "prestigious" academics In fact, the 

 care and detail Dr Bevan and company devoted to deliberations of the makeup of this new layer of 



"8. P. R. Mundy. et. al.. Transportation of Juvenile Sabnomds from Hydroelectric Project! in the Columbia 

 River Basin: An Independent Peer Review (NUy. 1994) Quotes from Coochiskns, pp. 116 & 118. 



9 Mondv Repott ibid.. Execntive Summary (pg riii) 



10 



