6 



Senator Kempthorne. Thank you very much. I appreciate your 

 testimony. 

 I'd like to now call on Mr. Gerald Bouck. Welcome. 



STATEMENT OF GERALD BOUCK, BIOLOGIST, PORTLAND, OR 



Mr. BouCK. Thank you, sir. 



First, I'd like to mention that my comments are critical of some 

 processes, but I don't direct those at any of the people. 



Senator Kempthorne. I understand that and I appreciate that. 

 We're just trying to figure out the best process and the science that 

 is there. 



Mr. Bouck. I guess the bottom line question here is: is spill help- 

 ing the salmon? For me, this is deja vu all over again. We went 

 through this in the 1960's and 1970's and I thought the gas 

 supersaturation problem was over; now we're back at it again with 

 the spill and the gas supersaturation problems still on the Colum- 

 bia River. 



Is the spill helping the salmon? I don't think so. I agree with the 

 Snake River Salmon Recovery Team that the spill is probably hurt- 

 ing more than it helps. It's critical to appreciate that the basic ben- 

 efit of spill is really quite small, so it's very easy to negate it. This 

 benefit critically assumes that there is reailv no problem from gas 

 bubble disease. A lot of that assumption is based on the idea that 

 fish will dive and thus avoid the supersaturation problem. In fact, 

 it has been shown that avoidance by fish does occur sometimes in 

 the laboratory but there's no evidence that it actually works in the 

 wild. Conversely, there are numerous reports in the literature that 

 show supersaturation fish after fish kill in lakes, rivers, streams 

 and estuaries where the fish had plenty of depth that thev could 

 dive to safety but for one reason or another, did not. So I have to 

 say at the least, avoidance behavior is very unreliable and probably 

 unsafe. 



You might ask why don't we see dying fish in the river if we real- 

 ly have a gas problem? Well, we have a lot of predators there. If 

 you're going to see dying fish in the river, first you have to fill up 

 all those predators and they have a lot of consumptive capacity. If 

 you want to see dead fish, you've got to keep the predators out of 

 the picture by putting the test fish in a cage, and when you do 

 that, you find dead fish in supersaturated river water. 



At any rate, the next thing I would address is how are NMFS 

 and the National Biological Service performing in this issue? Larry 

 has already pointed out that the reported incidence of gas bubble 

 disease is down this year but I'm very concerned that this reflects 

 a change in investigative procedures, besides, they are only looking 

 at the survivors and once a fish is eaten and digested, it is no 

 longer in the population anymore. 



I think that a problem exists with the way NMFS and NBS are 

 doing things. I gave NMFS some constructive recommendations 

 and not long thereafter was told I wasn't welcome on the National 

 Marine Fisheries Service boats. The National Biological Service ba- 

 sically followed suit and thereafter declined to collaborate or co- 

 operate with us. At present, NMFS and NBS have kind of an iron 

 curtain around them. Their refusal to cooperate or collaborate with 

 the private sector, I think, is extremely unfortunate because it is 



