Strategy: Assure that hydroelectric 

 relicensing and future development 

 provides protection for tish and 

 wildlife. 



• H\(.lr()clcctric Development and 

 Licensing 



The Council has adopted a 

 set of standards for tiie Federal 

 Energy Regulatory Commission 

 and others to apply to the devel- 

 opment and licensing of hydro- 

 electric facilities in the Colum- 

 bia River Basin. This includes 

 designating certain river reaches 

 in the basin as "protected areas," 

 where the Council believes that 

 hydroelectric development 

 would have unacceptable risks 

 of loss to fish and wildlife spe- 

 cies of concern, their productive 

 capacity, or their habitat. The 

 standards, the river reaches to 

 be protected, and the conditions 

 relating to that protection, are 

 identified in the Future Hydro- 

 electric Development section of 

 the Appendix to this program. 



7. NMIdlite 



Primary strategy; Complete the 

 current mitigation program for 

 construction and inundation losses 

 and include wildlife mitigation for 

 all operational losses as an inte- 

 grated part of habitat protection 

 ^ and restoration. | 



Some previous versions of this 

 fish and wildlife program have 

 treated wildlife mitigation measures 

 as separate from fish mitigation mea- 

 sures. In this program, the Council 

 has revised its approach, treating a 

 given habitat as an ecosystem that 

 includes both fish and wildlife. 



Table 1 1-4 of the Council's 

 1994-1995 Fish and Wildlife Pro- 

 gram, which is included on pages 

 C-4 thru C-7 of the Appendi.x to this 

 program, estimated wildlife losses 

 due to hydropower construction. 

 The 1994-1995 Program called upon 

 the fish and wildlife managers and 

 Bonneville to use this table as the 

 starting point for wildlife mitigation 

 measures and short- and lona-temi 





mitigation agreements. The pro- 

 gram also called upon these parties 

 to reach agreement on how wildlife 

 mitigation projects and fish miti- 

 gation projects should be credited 

 toward identified losses. 



A portion of the habitat units 

 identified in Table 1 1-4 have been 

 acquired in the wildlife mitigation 

 projects to date, and some mitigation 

 project agreements establish the basis 

 on which the project will be credited 

 toward these losses. However, no 

 agreement has been reached on the 

 full extent of wildlife losses due to 

 the operations of the hydrosystem, 

 nor has there been agreement on how 

 to credit wildlife benefits resulting 

 from riparian habitat improvements 

 undertaken to benefit fish. 



The extent of the wildlife mit- 

 igation is of particular importance 

 to agencies and tribes in the so- 

 called "blocked" areas, where anad- 

 romous fish runs once existed but 

 were blocked by development of the 

 hydrosystem. While there are lim- 

 ited opportunities for improv ing res- 

 ident fish in those areas, resident fish 

 substitution alone seldom is an ade- 

 quate mitigation 



Given the vision of this program, 

 the strong scientific case for a 

 more comprehensive, ecosystem- 

 based approach, and the shift to 

 implementation of this program 

 through provincial and subbasin plans, 

 the Council believes that the v\ ildlife 

 mitigation projects should be inte- 

 grated with the fish mitigation proj- 

 ects. Therefore the Council adopts the 

 following wildlife strategies: 



Completion of Current Mitigation 

 Program 



To prov ide an orderly transition 

 between the pa.st fish and wildlife 

 program and this program, Bonne- 

 ville and the fish and wildlife man- 

 agers should complete mitigation 

 agreements for the remaining habitat 

 units. These agreements should 

 equal 200 percent of the habitat 

 units (2:1 ratio) identified as unan- 

 nuali/ed losses of v\ ildlife habitat 

 from construction and mundalion of 



30 



LUMBIA RIVER BASIN FiSH AND WILDLIFE PROGRAM 



