202. STATEMENT OF HYDROPOWER RESPONSIBILITY^ 



In 1985-86. the Council conducted an extensive public process on the extent of the 

 responsibility of the hydropower system for the declines in salmon and steelhead runs and 

 habitat. Through the use of issue papers, public comment (oral and written) and hearings, 

 the Council has had the benefit of many thoughtful and constructive suggestions and 

 criticisms. Based on the salmon and steelhead losses data (see Technical Appendix 2). the 

 Council has estimated the responsibility of the hydropower system for losses of salmon and 

 steelhead and their habitat. The Council has not estimated the specific responsibility of 

 each individual hydropower project in that system. 



Any detailed analysis of the hydropower responsibility is necessarily limited by the 

 quality and availability of the data. Recognizing this, the Council developed several 

 methods for estimating hydropower responsibility. These methods result in estimated 

 declines in run size due to hydropower development and operation of 5 to 1 1 million adult 

 fish, compared to a total decline of 7 to 14 million adult fish. The methods used to reach 

 this estimate are explained in Technical Appendix 3. The Council recognizes that other 

 approaches may be suggested. It believes, however, that all reasonable approaches result 

 in a loss estimate in this range. 



The total estimated hydropower responsibility range of about 5 to 1 1 million adult 

 salmon and steelhead compares to present runs of about 2.5 million adult fish. Present 



1 ./ This section is likely to change considerably m light of the system policies issue paper to be 

 released m October See introduction to this document. 



