Columbia River Basin and the dams as a whole 

 system. The Act also directs the Council to ask 

 for recommendations from all directly-affected 

 groups: the fish and wildlife agencies, Indian 

 tribes, Bonneville, dam operators and utilities. 



The Council designates responsibility for the 

 projects that are part of its Program, but does 

 not carry them out. The Council's scope is 

 limited to projects that address the impacts the 

 Columbia River's hydro dams have had on fish 

 and wildlife. 



And its Program must be developed "while 

 assuring the Pacific Northwest an adequate, 

 efficient, economical and reliable power 

 supply." 



The Council issued its first Program in 1982. 

 The Program has since been amended, in 1984 

 and in 1987. 



Bonneville and the Ratepayers 



Bonneville was created to sell power from 

 the Columbia's federal hydroelectric dams. 

 The dams now have a capacity of some 20,000 

 megawatts. They can supply enough energy to 

 power 20 cities the size of Seattle. Bonneville 

 built over 14,000 miles of transmission lines to 

 transmit that power. 



The Act gave Bonneville additional respon- 

 sibilities. Bonneville must fund efforts to pro- 

 tect, mitigate and enhance fish and wildlife to 

 the extent they were affected by federal hydro- 

 electric dams and in a manner consistent with 

 the Council's Program. 



Bonneville moves Program measures from 

 ideas to reality, asking the utilities, tribes, and 

 fish and wildlife agencies to help flesh out the 

 ideas. Once a project has been created, Bon- 

 neville pays others — agencies, tribes, universi- 

 ties and private business — to do the actual 

 project work. 



Bonneville is wholly financed by Pacific 

 Northwest ratepayers. It receives no appropria- 

 tions — tax dollars — from Congress. Bonne- 

 ville has no income other than what it gains 

 from marketing electricity. Thus, Bonneville 

 customers — mostly public and private utilities 

 and aluminum companies — and their custo- 

 mers — ratepayers — fund the protection and 

 improvement of fish and wildlife. 



Responsibility for using hard-headed cost 

 analyses and emphasizing "high-payoff" pro- 

 jects rests on all the groups involved in the 

 effort. Ratepayers want assurance that their 

 money is being spent wisely and well. Bonne- 

 ville, as the steward of that money, has the 

 legal responsibility to provide that assurance. 



Their dollars repay the federal Treasury for 

 many of the large hatcheries and fish ladders 



that have been built on the Columbia River 

 over the years. As funders, in large part, of the 

 overall Program, ratepayers play an important 

 role in the public review process that is built 

 into the Program 



Fish and Wildlife Agencies 



Fish and wildlife agencies in the states of 

 Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Montana, 

 along with two federal agencies, the Fish and 

 Wildlife Service and the National Marine 

 Fisheries Service manage fish and wildlife 

 resources. They also police commercial and 

 sport fish harvest. 



Pacific Northwest fish and wildlife agencies 

 are central players in the Program. They 

 recommend new ideas and provide technical 

 advice on the feasibility of each other's ideas. 

 Fish and wildlife agencies carry out most of the 

 work on Bonneville-funded fish projects. 



Indian Tribes 



The Council's Program must be consistent 

 with the legal rights of Indian tribes in the 

 Columbia River Basin. Several tribes have been 

 very active in offering recommendations for 

 the Program. In many cases, the tribes have 

 been on the contracting end of the process, 

 too, using ratepayer dollars to build hatcheries, 

 conduct research and improve fish habitat. The 

 tribes are also responsible for managing fish 

 and wildlife and setting fishing limits and sea- 

 sons in areas under their control. 



Federal Dam Operators 



The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, responsi- 

 ble for building and operating most of the 

 Columbia's federal dams has another duty: to 

 help fish migrate past the dams. 



The Corps had already built fish ladders for 

 upstream passage of adult fish. Under the Pro- 

 gram, the Corps is building screens and bypass 

 systems as well to guide young salmon and 

 steelhead away from turbines as they migrate 

 downstream. The Corps must consider the 

 Program whenever it makes decisions that 

 affect fish. Eventually, ratepayers repay the 

 federal Treasury for dollars borrowed to make 

 any major fish expenditures by the Corps. 



The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation also builds 

 and operates federal dams. It was created 

 primarily to irrigate land and make it arable for 

 people. Now it must be concerned as well with 

 fish. Dams, canals and ditches that have made 

 valleys bloom have had a disastrous effect on 

 migrating fish. 



Backgrounder 



