they impinge on fish passage and habitat. However, the treaty litigation did not develop 

 processes for river and dam operations. 



By 1980, it was fair to say that Columbia River fish and wildlife policy was in 

 large part federal. Although not necessarily a coordinated policy, it was driven by 

 federal decisions on dam construction and operations, harvest management, and 

 mitigation policy. Crucial decisions, and especially decisions involving the Columbia 

 River hydropower system, were made by Congress, federal agencies and the federal 

 courts, each acting from different sources of policy and power. States and tribes played 

 key roles, certainly in harvest and hatchery management and in managing tributary water, 

 but the dominant processes were federal. 



Greater regional participation. In the late 1970s, Snake River anadromous fish 

 had declined to the point that Endangered Species Act petitions were filed. The Act was 

 passed in 1973 in response to national concems about declines in species. Several new 

 fish and wildlife protection statutes were also passed, including the 1980 Northwest 

 Power Act and the Salmon and Steelhead Conservation Act. Together with ocean 

 harvest reforms adopted in the Magnuson Fishery Conservation and Management Act 

 and the U.S.-Canada Pacific Salmon treaty, and in-river harvest settlements in the Indian 

 treaty fishing litigation, these laws created a promising but diverse set of tools with 

 which to protect and enhance fish and wildlife, particularly Columbia River saknon. 



With the passage of the Northwest Power Act in 1980, the states and the 13 

 Indian tribes in the region took greater responsibility for decisions on the Columbia River 

 beyond harvest management. For the first time, a nonfederal entity had authority to plan 

 for the region's electric power system, and, as an element of that plan, a program to 

 mitigate the effects of the Columbia Basin dams on fish and wildlife. The region's four 

 states, through their membership on the Council, thus acquired a significant voice in 

 management of the Columbia River hydropower system and in fish and wildlife 

 restoration, while the tribes gained another avenue of influence through their 

 recommendations for the Council's program. The Northwest Power Act requires the 

 Council, in carrying out the Act's planning provisions, to consider anadromous fish, 

 resident fish, wildlife and energy needs in a systemwide setting that includes the 

 Columbia River ecosystem and its uses, especially power production. 



The Act commits revenues from the Columbia River hydropower projects to pay 

 the full cost of producing electric energy, including the cost of fish and wildlife 

 rehabilitation. It is clear that the Act's commitment of hydropower revenues has played 

 an important role in financing fish and wildlife mitigation activifies. 



The Act requires the Bonneville Power Administration to use its fund and other 

 authorities "in a manner consistent with" the Council's fish and wildlife program. It also 

 requires all federal agencies that manage, operate or regulate hydroelectric facilities on 

 the river, which includes at least the Corps of Engineers, the Bureau of Reclamation, 

 Bonneville and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, to take the program into 

 account "at every stage of decision making to the fullest extent practicable." These 



