106 



In addition, a host of Federal agencies have responsibilities for river operations, 

 aquatic and watershed resource management, water quality, and dozens ot other ac- 

 tivities in the basin. All of these governments and entities must have a role in the 

 many decisions that affect the health of the basin and its economic uses. There is 

 presently no one organizational body that includes all of the various government en- 

 tities with some interest or role in the Columbia Basin, and any single fonun that 

 tried to include every affected entity would collapse under its own weight. 



NMFS, in its Proposed Recovery Plan, has recommended to the sovereigns of the 

 region that they work with NMFS through a regional forum designed to bring to- 

 gether the state, tribal and Federal entities on those issues that are most conten- 

 tious or have the greatest impact on the health of the basin and its resources. This 

 forum is not intended to replace existing coordinating bodies, such as the Power 

 Planning Council. Rather, it is intended to create a more open process in which all 

 governments in the Basin can coordinate their activities, nave input into Federal 

 decisionmaking and ensure that entities with decisionmaking authority are account- 

 able for their decisions. Ultimately, the goal is to ensure that decisions are based 

 on the best available scientific information. To that end, NMFS has recommended 

 that a Scientific Advisory Panel be esteblished as part of that forum. 



Prepared Statement of Dr. Philup R. Mundy, Fisheries and Aquatic 

 Sciences, Lake Oswego, OR 



Thank you for the opportunity to present this testimony. For the record, I am an 

 independent fisheries scientist currently serving on the Independent Scientific 

 Group, the scientific peer review body for the Northwest Power Planning Council 

 (NPPC), Portland, Oregon. I also serve as a peer reviewer for the fisheries research 

 program of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council, Anchorage, Alaska. My spe- 

 cialties are the application of mathematical and statistical methods to the study of 

 salmon biology, fisheries management, and the design of fishing regulations. 



I will answer the questions posed to me in your letter of invitation of June 15 

 in the order they were presented, and then I will offer some comments on the how 

 the nature of the institutional structure of salmon recovery research in the Colum- 

 bia River basin may be modified to improve the decision making process. 



1. Are the benefits of using spill as a fish passage mechanism established, espe- 

 cially in relation to other fish passage mechanisms ? Please comment on the scientific 

 validity of the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) policy. 



The benefits of using spUl as a juvenile fish passage mechanism are established 

 for a broad varietv of localities, however each hydroelectric dam is different, so the 

 actual benefits achieved will depend on the design of the hydroelectric facility, the 

 species, the life history type, and junbient physical conditions, among other factors. 

 The benefits of spill are established in relation to the passage mechanisms of tur- 

 bines and bjrpass in some localities for some species and life history types, however 

 the same limitations of time and place apply to these comparisons as described 

 above for the overall benefits of spill as a passage mechanism. As described below, 

 the NMFS has recently completed data collection in its first attempt to compare the 

 benefits of spill to those of transportation. 



It should oe noted that comparing the benefits of spill and transportetion may be 

 misleading. I do not view spill ana transportetion as comparable mitigative meas- 

 ures they are fundamentally different actions in terms of their effect on the juve- 

 niles. Although transportetion of juvenile salmon in btu^es and trucks is often cited 

 as a short term alternative to spill, I believe that transportetion is at best a stop 

 gap mitigation measure, and I note that the ability of transportetion for returning 

 adulte to the spawning grounds is unknown, as a matter of science. Transportetion 

 is not acceptable as a long term recovery measure because collection of salmon for 

 transportetion inflicte bypass and handling mortalities which are not factored into 

 the transport-to-control ratios which have oeen used to justify the use of transpor- 

 tation. Transportetion is antithetical to the preservation of genetic and life history 

 diversity of salmonids, since mechanical bypass collection methods discriminate 

 against certain species and life history types which are among the endangered spe- 

 cies. 



Correcting the problems in the transportetion program may come too late to help 

 endangered salmon. It takes many years to engineer and implement changes in the 

 bypass systems which serve to collect juveniles for transport, and time is running 

 out for the Snake River salmon. The bypasses themselves may be little better than 

 turbines as passage mechanisms; very few evaluations have been conducted to com- 

 pare the benefite of spill, turbines, and bypass at the same time with the same spe- 

 cies. In so far as the benefite of turbines and bypasses have been simulteneously 



