157 



HABITAT - The tribes have had to carry the habitat protection and restoration effort mainly by 

 themselves. There is no overall strategy for habitat restoration. Fishery agencies will take 

 money to improve habitat, but will do little to prevent its destruction in the first place. 

 Moreover, site-specific habitat improvement projects favored by federal land managers have been 

 found to be ineffective - primarily because surrounding poor land management practices continue 

 unabated. State and federal laws and regulations have proven to be ineffective at protecting 

 and/or restoring habitat because they are not being implemented. The U.S. Forest Service has 

 trumpeted its adoption of the Anadromous Fish Policy Implementation Guide as being its 

 approach for rebuilding the runs. However, aside from token actions, the Policy Implementation 

 Guide has yet to be implemented on the ground. Attempts to coordinate restoration efforts have 

 had very limited success. The Upper Grande Ronde River Anadromous Fish Habitat Protection, 

 Restoration and Monitoring Plan was developed by an inter-agency technical team chaired by 

 the Forest Service (this plan was developed in part as a response to the tribes' appeals of timber 

 sales in the upper Grande Ronde). The purpose of the plan is to restore heavily degraded spring 

 Chinook habitat in a watershed that has since been designated as critical habitat for listed Snake 

 River chinook. However, the Forest Service continues to propose timber salvage sales 

 inconsistent with this plan. Through the Section 7 consultation process, NMFS has conditioned 

 its approval of these salvage sales on compliance with the Upper Grande Ronde Plan. It is our 

 understanding that the Forest Service is continuing to resist this. If the Forest Service is truly 

 committed to coordinated restoration efforts, then it can promise this Committee, today, that it 

 will conform its actions in the Upper Grande Ronde watershed with the provisions of the inter- 

 agency technical consensus embodied in the Upper Grande Ronde Plan. 



HYDROPOWER AND WATER RESOURCES DEVELOP MENT PROJECTS - The tribes and 

 the state fishery agencies have worked closely in this arena. The United States Fish and Wildlife 

 Service is also working closely with the states and tribes in attempting to modify the operations 

 of the projects. The National Marine Fisheries Service appears has a significant conflict of 

 interest in securing funding for its research programs from the hydropower interests that limits 

 its efforts in restoring the resource. The long term strategy for the operation of water resources 

 projects is to provide passage and flows as necessary for the protection of the resource. Because 

 of the various options available and the apparent sellout by NMFS, it has been impossible to 

 develop an overall strategy for restoration that all fishery entities can adopt. 



3. What progress, if any, has been made toward restoration and recovery? 



If you had asked this question ten years ago, the tribes would have responded: 



We are struggling to get a handle on the ocean fisheries and to that end we put our treaty rights 

 on the line in an effort to get NMFS and the states (including Alaska) to adopt meaningful 

 controls for ocean fisheries. Although we are still forced to constantly defend our treaty rights 

 in federal court, we are hopeful that the Northwest Power Act and the Salmon and Steelhead 

 Conservation Act will be catalysts for salmon restoration that will benefit everyone in the region 

 and we are dedicated to making these processes work. We have presented detailed 

 recommendations for recovery measures under these statutes, including changes to federal and 

 state water and land management activities and salmon production programs. 



73-212 - 93 - 6 



