260 



The recovery recommendations are too narrow in scope, only addressing the Snake 

 River Basin, when basm-wide management would benefit all Columbia River Salmon. 

 For healthy fish populations, an ecosystem approach will need to be implemented 

 Operating John Day Reservoir at minimum pool is not endorsed Most noteworthy, the 

 Plan rejects input of state and tribal aoencies. a practice which has already landed 

 Nt\/IFS in court, and should not be continued Judge Marsh set aside the old Jeopardy 

 standard We are discussing a plan that will likely be inadequate to meet a revised 

 standard 



NSIA and many scientists have serious doubts in regard to the barging programs In 

 reversing the precipitous declines, the 18-year barging expenment has worked about 

 as well as a Band-Aid would for a cancer As the current fish numbers indicate, 

 barging has proven to be a failed experiment Each year the number of barged fish 

 has increased and each year the number of adult returns has decreased The ONLY 

 years that produced higher adult returns were the years when high flows and the 

 resulting spill, transported the juveniles in-nver 



Fish were never meant to travel in barges or down freeways to the ocean Barging has 

 been an excuse to deny what fish really need — flowing water and clear passage to 

 the ocean Fish traveling in-nver and spilled over the dams suffer a less than 2% 

 mortality Fish traveling through the turbines have been shown to die at the rate of 10- 

 30 percent at each facility 



Central to the health of our salmon populations on the Columbia, and our businesses 

 from Northern California to Alaska is the requirement of the migrants , both juvenile and 

 adult, for adequate flows to facilitate in-stream migration With our salmon 



populations crashing and at "condition red," further studies on a salmon's absolute 

 need for increased flows cannot be interpreted other than as a death sentence for 

 these populations. 



Such dire circumstances, brought on by existing hydro-practices, demand immediate 

 and bold actions on the part of the Corps of Engineers and the National Marine 

 Fisheries Service It is mandated that the NPPC identify measures by which to protect 

 salmon runs from being destroyed by the Snake and Columbia Dams and to "provide 

 flows of sufficient quality and quantity... to improve production, migration and survival." 



These flows need to be hard constraints , and incorporated into power planninq in order 

 to ensure that fish flow velocities will actually be met Even though a critical range of 

 flows to help migrants successfully survive has been identified with the best technical 

 advice from regional agencies and tribes, these "targets" have not been met 

 historically. The result of inaction is before us now. 



Increased flow produces a multitude of benefits to migrating fish including; 



