Salmon Win on Columbia River Dam Plan

Salmon Win on Columbia River Dam Plan



   
April 2007 -   The Ninth 
Circuit Court of Appeals Monday rejected the Bush 
administration's salmon plan for dam operations on the 
Columbia and lower Snake rivers. The appellate court upheld a 
lower court ruling that the plan was illegal because it failed 
to comply with the Endangered Species Act, ESA. 
Writing that "ESA compliance is not optional," Judge Sidney 
Thomas ruled that "agencies may not disregard their ESA 
duties. ... Rather, they have an affirmative duty to satisfy 
the ESA's requirements, as a first priority." 
Attorney Steve Mashuda of Earthjustice, representing the 
plaintiff fishing business and conservation groups, applauded 
the court's ruling. "This decision should compel the federal 
agencies to look at all recovery options - including removing 
the four lower Snake River dams, and develop a solution that 
works for people and fish." 
Returns of wild Snake River spring/summer chinook once 
exceeded 1.5 million fish annually, accounting for more than 
half of the entire Columbia Basin's spring/summer chinook run.
 The plaintiff environmental groups have long held that each of 
four federal dams on the lower Snake River should be partially 
removed so that salmon restoration can be effective. 
Lower Granite Dam forms Lake Bryan, which extends up the Snake 
River about 39 miles to Lewiston, Idaho. 
Conservationists say the Lower Granite Dam, the Little Goose 
Dam, the Lower Monumental Dam and the Ice Harbor Dam kill more 
salmon than fishermen do - as many as 92 percent of the salmon 
headed out to sea, and up to another 25 percent on their way 
back upstream to spawn. 
Prior to the completion of the lower Snake River dams in the 
1960s and '70s, spring/summer chinook returns often topped 
60,000 per year. 
Every year salmon and steelhead travel up and down the 
Columbia River and its tributaries such as the Snake River, 
hatching in fresh water, migrating downstream to the sea to 
grow to adulthood, and then returning upstream to spawn. 
Last year, only about 17,000 total fish returned past Lower 
Granite Dam on the lower Snake River, a number that represents 
little improvement from 1992, when Snake River spring/summer 
chinook were first protected by the Endangered Species Act. 
Writing for the three judge appeals court panel, Judge Thomas 
ruled, "The district court correctly held that NMFS [National 
Marine Fisheries Service] inappropriately evaluated recovery 
impacts without knowing the inriver survival levels necessary 
to support recovery. It is only logical to require that the 
agency know roughly at what point survival and recovery will 
be placed at risk before it may conclude that no harm will 
result from 'significant' impairments to habitat that is 
already severely degraded." Judge Sidney Thomas testifies
 before a House subcommittee on 
the composition of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. August 
2002. 
"With today's decision, it should be clear that the law, the 
science, and the economics are in agreement," said Dan 
Ritzman, Northwest regional director for the Sierra Club, one 
of the plaintiff groups. 
"It is time for this administration to follow the law and 
follow the science to develop a legal plan to restore Columbia 
and Snake River salmon," Ritzman said. "Our region needs a 
scientifically sound, economically viable solution, and that 
solution includes removing the four dams on the lower Snake 
River." 
In May 2005, U.S. District Court Judge James Redden rejected 
the 2004 Federal Columbia River Power System plan governing 
federal dam operations on the Columbia and lower Snake rivers, 
citing the plan's failure to adequately address restoration of 
ESA-listed wild Snake River salmon and steelhead. 
Judge Redden termed the plan's Biological Opinion by the 
National Marine Fisheries Service, which treated dams as an 
immutable part of the natural environment that could not be 
changed, "arbitrary, capricious and contrary to law." As a 
result, the plan was remanded by the judge and is currently 
being redrafted. 
The federal agencies responsible for the illegal plan, 
including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 
NOAA, the National Marine Fisheries Service, now known as NOAA 
Fisheries, the U.S. Army Corps Of Engineers, and the U.S. 
Bureau of Reclamation, filed an appeal in federal court late 
last year. 
The state of Oregon filed documents before the appeals court 
in support of the conservation groups, while the state of 
Idaho filed documents in support of the federal agencies who 
wrote the 2004 plan. 
Sockeye salmon in the Columbia River Basin 
In its ruling, the appeals court called the invalidated 2004 
plan "little more than an analytical slight of hand, 
manipulating the variables to achieve a 'no jeopardy' 
finding." Under this approach, the court determined, "a listed 
species could be gradually destroyed, so long as each step on 
the path to destruction is sufficiently modest. This type of 
slow slide into oblivion is one of the very ills the ESA seeks 
to prevent." 
"Today's ruling is a victory not just for salmon, but for the 
economy and the people of the Pacific Northwest, and our way 
of life, which includes stable jobs, good fishing, reliable 
energy, and abundant salmon," said James Schroeder, senior 
environmental policy specialist with the National Wildlife 
Federation, the lead plaintiff in the case. 
"This decision from the court clears the way for development 
of real, honest solutions that will benefit the entire region, 
solutions that put neither fishing nor farming communities at 
risk," said Schroeder. "But to get there, we must have real 
leadership and resolve in the region to finally examine what 
it will take to meet our responsibility to restore salmon in 
the Columbia basin." 
Other plaintiffs in the case include Idaho Wildlife 
Federation, Washington Wildlife Foundation, Sierra Club, Trout 
Unlimited, Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's 
Associations, Institute for Fisheries Resources, Idaho Rivers 
United, Idaho Steelhead and Salmon United, Northwest 
Sportfishing Industry Association, Friends of the Earth, 
Salmon for All, Columbia Riverkeepers, Northwest Energy 
Coalition, Federation of Fly Fishers, and American Rivers. 
The ruling comes as poor salmon returns on the Columbia River 
prompted the Pacific Fisheries Management Council last week to 
curtail fishing seasons for commercial trollers in Washington 
for the third consecutive year. 
The catch quota for Washington trollers is down 50 percent 
from what it was last year. The quota for Washington trollers 
for this year's fall chinook season in the Columbia north of 
Cape Falcon is 14,000 to 16,000 salmon, while the expected 
combined troll quota for both commercial and tribal vessels 
for chinook harvest is expected to be below 51,000. 
Commercial salmon troller on the Washington coast 
"This is an incredible blow to fishermen who have to try and 
make a living on a fraction of their salary this year," said 
Joel Kawahara, a member of the board of the Washington 
Trollers Association and a troller based in Quilcene, 
Washington. 
"Washington state fishermen are continuously cutting their 
seasons back to accommodate the shrinking limits because we 
want to keep our jobs and keep fishing in the future," said 
Kawahara. "But our backs are up against the wall for the third 
year in a row." 
Washington trollers, catching their upper limit of 16,000 fish 
will receive roughly $1 million, compared to 27,258 fish 
yielding roughly $1.7 million last year. 
At last week's Pacific Fisheries Management Council meeting, 
trollers, charter fishermen and gillnetters participated in a 
roundtable discussion with representatives from the offices of 
Congressmen Norm Dicks, Jim McDermott, Adam Smith, and Jay 
Inslee, as well as people from the offices of U.S. Senators 
Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray. The fishermen expressed their 
concern for their jobs and the need for leadership to deliver 
real salmon solutions. 
"The federal government has repeatedly failed to deliver an 
effective recovery plan for salmon in the Columbia and Snake 
Rivers, and hard working people in the Northwest are paying 
the price for that failure. We're asking our Northwest leaders 
to fill that void and deliver real solutions," said Steve 
Wilson, a commercial fisherman who lives in Federal Way, 
Washington. 
David Bitts, a salmon troller based in Eureka, California, 
said, "I'm not sure how many years we can be expected to 
bounce back from the loss in revenue. We really appreciate the 
efforts to secure economic aid for our struggling fishermen 
this year, but, in the future we'd rather have real solutions 
and sustainable salmon runs." 
"We have been forced to turn to the courts because the federal 
government has repeatedly failed to deliver an effective 
salmon plan, and our elected leaders have failed to step in to 
fill the void," said Zeke Grader, executive director of the 
Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations, an 
organization of commercial fishing groups throughout 
California, Oregon, Washington, and Alaska. 
"With salmon returns continuing to decline and fishing seasons 
being curtailed again, it is clearer than ever that we must 
change the way we manage water in this basin," Grader said. 
"These court rulings set the table for our region to finally 
examine what is required to meet our responsibility to restore 
salmon in the Columbia Basin, and in the process, protect and 
restore the resources, economies, and way of life of the 
Pacific salmon states." 
Click here to read the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling. 

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