99 



Prepared Statement of William Stelle, Jr., Director, Northwest Region, 

 National Marine Fisheries Service 



Good morning Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee. My name is Will 

 Stelle and I am Director, Northwest Region of the National Marine Fisheries Serv- 

 ice. I am pleased to be here this morning to discuss water flows and salmon on the 

 lower Snake and Columbia Rivers. 



Background 



For many people, salmon are one of the most profound and enduring symbols of 

 the Pacific Northwest. Salmon have been the economic mainstay of many commu- 

 nities and Native American tribes and are representative of the wild character so 

 cherished by the people of Idaho, Washington, and Oregon. Unfortunately, the salm- 

 on populations are now a small fraction of their former abundance. Where millions 

 of salmon once returned to spawn, hundreds are expected in 1995. 



After listing three stocks Snake River salmon as threatened or endangered, 

 NMFS initiated an ambitious effort to develop a recovery plan for these stocks in 

 January of 1993 by appointing an independent recovery team. Their final rec- 

 ommendations to NMFS comprised many of the major elements of NMFS' recently 

 published Proposed Recovery Plan for Snake River Salmon. The Proposed Recovery 

 Plan addresses all of the causes for the decline of salmon, including dams, harvest, 

 habitat alteration, water withdrawals, the effects of hatchery fish on the survival 

 and genetics of wild fish, and predation. While no single factor is responsible for 

 the full extent of the decline of salmon populations in the Snake River, it is widely 

 believed that hydroelectric dams have been the dominant reason for declines. 



For this reason, the Proposed Recovery Plan contains critical measvu^s designed 

 to reduce the loss of juvenile fish caused by mainstem dams. NMFS is pursuing an 

 adaptive management approach to increasing survival and, therefore, the prob- 

 ability of recovering the listed salmon. The agency is working through the Corps of 

 Engineers (Corps) and Bureau of Reclamation to adapt or improve the operation of 

 the power system while evaluating the efiects of the modifications on fish survival. 

 One part of this program is an evaluation of the merits of in-river migration 

 (through the hydropower system) under the best conditions achievable compared 

 with transportation (barging around the hydropower system) under the best condi- 

 tions achievable. This evaluation relies upon augmenting flows and spilling at 

 mainstem dams during both the spring and summer migration periods. 



The Spill Program 

 history and rationale 



Spill is not new. "Involuntary" spill occurs in the Snake and Columbia Rivers in 

 most average and above average water years because river flows exceed hydraulic 

 capacity at the dams (water that cannot oe handled by the turbines must be passed 

 over the spillways). "Voluntary" or controlled spill has been used since the 1970*8 

 to pass juvenile salmon around the dams on the lower Snake and Columbia Rivers. 

 Spill has also been included in the Northwest Power Planning Council (NPPC) Co- 

 lumbia River Basin Rsh and Wildlife Program since 1982. The first formal agree- 

 ment specifying an amount of spill at the Corps' dams was a 1989 Regional Spill 

 Agreement signed by the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) and tne region's 

 fish and wildlife agencies and Native American tribes. This agreement was later in- 

 corporated as part of the NPPC's Columbia River Basin Fish and Wildlife Program. 



Spill has also been a primary means of moving juvenile fish past the five mid- 

 Columbia Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) licensed projects since 

 1979, when the Commission curected the three public utility districts (PUDs), who 

 operate these five projects, to commence fish spill programs and develop bypass sys- 

 tems. Subsequently, through a continuing series of short-term stipulations and two 

 long-term mitigation agreements (1979-1995), the FERC, the PUUs, and the Fish- 

 ery Parties (including NMFS) continue to recognize spill as a cornerstone of fish 

 passage protection at these Columbia River hydropower projects. 



More recentiy, as upriver salmon runs continued to decline at an alarming rate, 

 it became obvious that business as usual" wasn't working. NMFS concluded in its 

 Proposed Recovery Plan and in its Biological Opinion on the Federal Columbia River 

 Power System (FCRPS) that spill is the only available method for providing an im- 

 mediate increase in project survival of in-river migrants. (All other methods are 

 longer-term solutions that require lengthy design, engineering, and construction.) As 

 a result, the Proposed Recovery Plan calls for spill to meet an 80 percent fish pas- 



