Ken Balcomb explains the critical relationship between orcas and salmon.
As you all know by now, the death of J28 Polaris has been announced by the Center for Whale Research and the probable death of J54 Dipper is nearly certain. For such a solemn announcement, it was important to have a large number of press to understand the starvation situation facing the Southern Residents and to get the word out that dam breaching must happen now. The turnout was really fantastic. TV news crews from KOMO4, KING5, KIRO7 and Q13 aired stories on their stations yesterday and today. Many reporters wrote and distributed stories in print paper and online. This is an important step in helping provide critical visibility that the 4 lower Snake Rivers dams should not be included in the years-long NEPA process just beginning, and that the 2002 EIS should be utilized to begin breaching by December 2016. Here is more information on the vital connection between endangered orcas and the lower Snake River dams.
Given last night’s election results many of you may have laid down arms and think it is all over for getting these dams down. Trump as president was not an unforeseen obstacle although it certainly makes it tougher. But let’s keep our eyes on the goal during the last two minutes of the Obama Administration. We are a movement based on the facts, and those facts say that endangered salmon and orcas are almost out of time, only breaching the lower Snake Dams gives them any chance and only if breaching begins in the next few months or at the latest drawdown of Lower Granite Dam in July followed by breaching in December of 2017. The best chance we have is for Obama to direct or order Sec Darcy and the Chief of Engineers to do so. If he does not do this within the next 10-15 days it seems unlikely that the Corps can begin drawdown in December of this year, unless they have been working this scenario in secret. Who knows, but one has to wonder at the complete lack of mention of dam breaching in the materials presented at the public meetings for the new Environmental Impact Statement ordered by the courts, who made a point of indicating that dam breaching must be considered. Is the omission part of the white washing of the issue or is there a plan B by the DC leadership at work here (we offered a two tier EIS approach to them)? In either case we continue to make the point that this new EIS process should not include dam breaching because there is the existing EIS for the Lower Snake Dams and it has dam breaching as the most viable and only untried alternative now available.
If Obama issues an order in the last few days of his term it will be on paper and could be revoked by Trump. But, that would still be movement forward since no President has done that before. How we deal with that is for latter consideration, since such an action would draw a lot of attention in the region. For now, the right thing to do, indeed our moral obligation is to keep pushing on Inslee, Murray, Cantwell, the Corps HQ and ASACW, and the White House. All the phone calls, emails, letters, and petitions have paved the way with solid arguments on the need, the timing, passionate advocacy and the ability of our leaders to take action. Nearly all of these officials, elected, appointed or career, feared taking any overt or public action before the election. Since we have been making it painfully clear that at least their legacy will be tarnished, if not their legal record for willfully causing an extinction in violation of the Endangered Species Act, among other laws, they now are in a difficult position. However, they should also see that Obama must realize the disaster about to be unleashed on environmental gains and ought to be more inclined than ever to do whatever he can in the next 70 days.
So, the way I see it, we are down by seven, the two-minute clock is running on the Obama Administration, we have long yardage, and no time outs left. So what are we waiting for? Lets hustle like we never have before with the calls and attempts at influencing the various players that can make this happen.
Thanks for your great effort and let’s keep doing the right thing no matter the odds!
Jim Waddell
Civil Engineer, PE, USACE Retired (just the paid bit of my career)
In 1999, Snake River salmon extinction was predicted in 2017.
The recent election has emboldened many who believe in big dam thinking, continuance of fossil fuel and dirty energy source exploitation. Visible push back from some elected officials, some press and some editorials in dam country is emerging with a vengeance. That makes public pressure to breach the lower Snake River dams during the upcoming water work window between December 2016 and March 2017 more urgent, more difficult and more important than before. That’s why everyone who believes in restoring the river and allowing wild salmon to recover before they’re all gone must ramp up efforts to shine a light on this time-critical work. Please reach out to your family, your friends, and your broader network and help them understand what is at stake if these 4 dams are left in place for the next 5-10-20 years, while federal agencies continue a process that basically amounts to another do-over. And, ask them to do what you’ve been doing: contact the White House and elected officials. The EIS Scoping process on the federal hydrosystem that is currently garnering so much media attention, is not likely going to result in a breach decision. After a study that may cost $100 million or more and may take more than 10 years, the federal agencies will refuse to breach the dams. That decision will be challenged in court, and a federal judge most likely will throw out their salmon recovery plan, then allow several more years to develop another plan, followed by yet another future timeline. Even if successful this time, it will come too late for Snake River wild salmon and endangered orcas. This is why it is so important for the public to hammer elected officials with requests to support executive action and compel them to ACT while President Obama is still in office.
Container shipments at the Port of Lewiston have declined for the past decade. This is not an image of prosperity.
Opinion piece in the Moscow/Pullman Daily News
His View: The ‘prosperity’ from Lower Snake River dams
By Linwood Laughy
Nov 7, 2016
In 1973 residents of Idaho’s Clearwater Valley were told their prospects for prosperity rose with each foot of slackwater filling the reservoir behind the Lower Granite Dam. Waterborne commerce would flourish, and Idaho’s only “seaport” would become the economic engine of the Clearwater Valley.
The Idaho Department of Labor generates economic data on Idaho’s six geographic regions. How does north central Idaho, which includes Moscow and Lewiston, compare with the other regions and the state as a whole 1994-2014?
Job growth: The number of jobs across the state during this period grew 39.8 percent. In the southwest region – call it Boise, the growth rate was 50.6 percent; in the northern region or Coeur d’Alene, 44.8 percent. South central or Twin Falls was 39.2 percent; Eastern or Idaho Falls was 37.7 percent. Southeast or Pocatello trailed at 18.8 percent, Job growth in north central Idaho – Lewiston and Moscow – was just 6.1 percent.
Labor force: Idaho’s labor force grew 37.4 percent. Boise edged Idaho Falls 53.4 percent to 49.5 percent. Coeur d’Alene posted growth of 33.3 percent. Pocatello and Twin Falls hovered around 20 percent. Lewiston/Moscow came in a distant last at 1.1 percent.
Private sector employers: Idaho increased by 42.1 percent. Idaho Falls at 58.9 percent topped Boise at 54 percent growth. The growth in Coeur d’Alene, Twin Falls and Pocatello ranged from 30.9 percent to 35.4 percent. Lewiston/Moscow grew just 4.2 percent.
Leisure and hospitality: Growth in this major industry was 40 percent to 69 percent in three regions. One region experienced a 25 percent gain, one only 13 percent. Lewiston/Moscow came in last with 7 percent growth.
Manufacturing: Lewiston/Moscow’s manufacturing jobs declined steadily from 1994 to 2004 (-21 percent), climbed slightly to -17 percent by 2008, and by 2014 had returned to nearly the same level as existed in 1994.
Population growth: According to U.S. Census data, from 1993 to 2013 Idaho’s population grew by 45.5 percent. Lewiston’s population grew just 8.5 percent and Moscow’s 28.7 percent.
So, what role is waterborne commerce playing in the regional economy?
In its 2002 Lower Snake River Juvenile Salmon Migration Feasibility Study, the Army Corps of Engineers claimed that shipping volume on the lower Snake River would increase in all five freight categories. The Corps’ projections have proven highly exaggerated in every category at every benchmark year. The Corps now categorizes the lower Snake as a waterway of “negligible use.”
Total freight volume on the lower Snake’s reservoirs over the past 15 years has dropped by nearly half. Container shipping has declined 99 percent, with much of that decline occurring well before container shippers abandoned the Port of Portland in 2015. Barges no longer ship lumber or paper, and little if any pulse crops. Even grain volume, nearly the only commodity still shipped on the Snake, has declined by 45 percent since 2000. None of the major employers in the region ship any product by barge, and most major imports, such as chemicals for making paper and fertilizer, arrive by rail.
Federal judges have repeatedly found the lower Snake dams are being operated in violation of federal law, and threatened and endangered wild salmon and steelhead remain in peril. Over $600 million spent “fixing” the dams has not improved juvenile fish survival. Fish mitigation costs on the Columbia and Snake Rivers have exceeded $14 billion with no species recovery in sight. The four lower Snake River dams now produce only 3 percent of the Pacific Northwest’s electrical energy and only 6.5 percent of the Northwest’s hydropower.
Economic, biological, legal and climate realities cry for a change in the status quo. Citizens and politicians can embrace such change – turning the restoration of the lower Snake River into a major economic and ecological benefit – or continue down a path of high taxpayer and ratepayer costs, the likely extinction of Idaho’s sockeye salmon, continued economic uncertainty and stagnant economic growth.
Linwood Laughy, activist, author, outfitter and former educator, lives near Kooskia beside the Middlefork of the Clearwater River.
In 2002, after conducting a seven year, $33 million dollar comprehensive study, the Army Corps of Engineers found that breaching the four lower Snake River dams had the highest probability of meeting the government’s salmon survival and recovery criteria. In contrast, the Corps found that transporting fish around the dams and constructing expensive hardware improvements to the dams would be more harmful to salmon, than doing nothing. Nonetheless, the Corps chose these latter two options. The results have been predictable. The government has wasted $$billions of our money, while salmon and steelhead are further from recovery than they were 15 years ago. This unacceptable, expensive and harmful government conduct must change.
Perhaps the new administration will be better at ferreting out the waste and expense caused by the dams and stop propping up these wasteful dams that have devastated the local economy for decades.
Reasons to breach the four lower Snake River dams:
End government waste trying to maintain these pork barrel dams — for every dollar the government spends for the dams, 85¢ is wasted — the nation receives just 15¢ in economic benefit,
Save $100’s of millions for taxpayers & ratepayers,
Bring new money into the region that will support 2,500-4000 new full and part-time jobs,
Increase recreation spending in the region by at least $400M per year,
Reclaim valuable land and convey it to the State of Washington where proceeds from sale or lease could go into state school budgets,
Honor tribal rights granted in the 1855 Stevens Treaties and avoid expensive damages awards,
Recover endangered and threatened salmon so they can sustain $500 million fishing industry,
Recover endangered orcas so they can sustain $100 million whale watching ecotourism industry, and
Make room for renewable solar and wind energy waiting to be integrated into the transmission grid.
There has been a huge ground swell of public support for breaching, yet neither the Obama administration nor elected officials have acted to promote dam breaching. And, the deadline for an emergency response action in December 2016 has passed.
Is it too late? NO Is there still hope? YES! The next best option for salmon and steelhead recovery is to begin drawdown in July 2017 followed by breaching Lower Granite dam in December 2017. Hopefully, this summer’s weather will not be so warm that it causes mass fish die offs in the Columbia/Snake system as happened in June & July 2015.
2017’s strategies will include, but not be limited to the following;
Continue to submit comments into the CRSO / NEPA public scoping process through February 7th, 2017,
Continue to submit comments and exert public pressure on representatives and legislators in Washington, Idaho and Oregon,
Increase public pressure on Corps Headquarters in Washington DC, and
Forge new relationships with federal and regional officials and provide the facts supporting the irrefutable case for dam breaching.
Please check in frequently to see the latest action requests. Thanks for all you do and for staying involved. We are in this fight together.
Barging emissions exceed rail and truck transportation when reservoir emissions are included.
Inland barging, like that which takes place on the Columbia and lower Snake Rivers, has been advertised as the greenest form of transportation of goods from inland ports. Comparisons with rail and truck show less fossil fuel consumption by barges and thus less greenhouse gas emissions. But new scientific evidence is showing that a key component of barging, the flat water reservoirs that they depend upon, actually emit significant amounts of greenhouse gases like methane and carbon dioxide. When reservoir emissions are added to the barge emissions from burning fossil fuels, barging no longer looks so green. Rail becomes the true green choice.
More information can be found in the following reports.
A dangerous Senate Joint Memorial (SJM 8004) has been introduced and passed by the Washington state senate in 2017. It has not been passed by the house, where it will hopefully die. The Memorial seeks to have certain federal officials prevent the breaching of any dam in the Columbia River system, including the 4 lower Snake River dams. Here are excerpts from the Memorial:
SJM 8004
“NOW THEREFORE, Your Memorialists respectfully pray that you take any and all action within your authority to prevent the breaching of any dam in the Columbia River system.”
“BE IT RESOLVED, That copies of this Memorial be immediately transmitted to the Honorable Donald Trump, President of the United States, the Honorable Mike Pence, Vice President of the United States, the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, each member of Congress representing the State of Washington or a congressional district therein, the United States Army Corps of Engineers Commanding General and Chief of Engineers, the United States Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner, and the Bonneville Power Administration Administrator.”
To put an end to this, we need Washington residents to contact their elected representatives and ask them to block passage of this dangerous bill. Residents can look up their representatives contact information here.
“Alternative Facts” and the Lower Snake River Dams
Propaganda—information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view
New Oxford American Dictionary
The Corps of Engineers and special interest lobbying groups are duping the public through a major misinformation campaign about the Lower Snake River (LSR) dams. Ports, public utility districts, state-sponsored commissions and private corporations serve as echo chambers for this effort.
A recent presentation to a chapter of the League of Women Voters presented by the manager of the Port of Lewiston and recorded by a local radio station serves as an example. Because the speaker heads a government agency, the audience had reason to expect truthful information regarding relevant topics such as hydropower generation, marine freight transportation and salmon recovery. In the account below, the manager’s claims made during this presentation appear in italics, followed by facts. Information sources for those facts include the Northwest Power and Conservation Council (NWPC), the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Waterborne Commerce of the United States Statistical Data Center (WCUS), the Port of Lewiston (POL) website, and the Fish Passage Center (FPC).
LOWER SNAKE RIVER DAMS: HYDROPOWER
Claim: Northwest hydropower provides 60% of the power in the Pacific Northwest grid.
This statement conveniently camouflages the fact the combined four LSR dams produce only 6.5% of Pacific Northwest hydropower, and less than 4% of the energy in the PNW grid.
Claim:Wind and solar cannot replace the electricity produced by the LSR dams.
PNW wind turbines now produce nearly three times more energy than is produced by the combined four LSR dams. Thus in the Pacific Northwest, wind has already replaced the energy produced by these dams, with more wind energy coming on line every year. Further, while the LSR dams produce less than 4% of PNW power, the region currently has an energy surplus of 15%, which the NWPC estimates will be the case for at least the next 20 years. Finally, solar energy’s cost is declining rapidly, and we can expect more solar energy to be fed into the PNW grid in the near future.
Claim:The Snake River dams produce enough energy to light up the city of Seattle.
This statement misleads by counting on your confusing the “city of Seattle” with what you likely think of as “Seattle,” that is, the city proper plus its numerous contiguous cities recognized as the Seattle Metropolitan Area. Further, this statement counts on your thinking “all year.” LSR power production fluctuates greatly by month. The four LSR dams produce enough power for just the actual City of Seattle (population 685,000) and for only about four months per year. The implication that Seattle metropolitan area residents need the power produced by the four LSR dams to make toast for breakfast is ludicrous.
In recent comments to the federal partners who manage Columbia and Snake River dam operations as part of the NEPA analysis ordered by Judge Simon on May 4, 2016, Seattle City Light stated its support for “a comprehensive examination of a full range of alternatives, including scenarios that remove one or more of the dams on the Snake River…” City Light’s recommendations continued: “The analysis should assume that any generating capability lost as a consequence of implementing an alternative is not immediately replaced, but rather replaced when needed as a result of regional load growth. Furthermore, the analysis should prioritize replacement of energy output and peaking capabilities with a combination of energy conservation, renewable resources and demand response.” (Italics added for emphasis)
FREIGHT TRANSPORTATION ON THE LOWER SNAKE RIVER
Claim: In 2014, 4.4 million tons of freight were barged on the lower Snake River.
Here is another frequently cited “fact” propagandized to hide the truth. Nearly all freight transported on the reservoirs and through the locks of the four lower Snake River dams is downriver bound. In 2014, down bound freight totaled 2.75 million tons, 2.56 million tons of which was “Food and Farm,” almost exclusively grain. Total unbound freight on the river was 1.61 million tons, with 1.48 million tons consisting of petroleum and petroleum products. However, WCUS records show clearly that none of that petroleum passed through Ice Harbor dam, located 9 miles upstream from the Snake River’s mouth. All of the petroleum was apparently delivered to the petroleum storage tanks at the Port of Pasco, located just 2 miles up the Snake from its mouth. Thus the shipping volume in 2014 that would be impacted by LSR dam removal was only 63% of the claimed volume of 4.4 million tons. Total volume of freight passing through the LSR dams in 2015 was only 1.44 million tons, just 33% of what the port manager (and his cohorts) claim.
Port of Lewiston container shipment decline.
Claim: The Corp of Engineers has no “negligible use” category to describe the value of a waterway, and the Columbia-Snake is a “medium use” river.
This statement correctly indicates that the Corps does categorize rivers according to the volume of freight transported and that the Columbia-Snake falls into the medium use category. However, the above “Columbia-Snake” statement camouflages the Corps’ category for the Snake River itself. In a 2014 written and oral report to the Inland Waterways User Board meeting in Walla Walla (“Total Risk Exposure – Update and Discussion), the U.S. Corps of Engineers’ Chief of Operations and Regulatory outlined three categories of waterway use: High Use, Moderate Use and Low Use. The Low Use category was further divided into Low Use and Negligible Use. Negligible use waterways transport less than 500 million ton-miles of freight annually (a ton-mile is defined as moving one ton of freight one mile). The Corps’ Waterborne Commerce of the United States Statistical Data Center lists the lower Snake at 300 million ton-miles, in other words, in the negligible use category.
Here are facts about freight transportation through the LSR dams that were NOT mentioned by the port manager:
a) In 2000, the Port of Lewiston (the only container shipping port on the LSR) shipped 17,590 TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent units) of containers. By 2005 that volume had declined to 5,735 TEUS, and in 2016 to 101 TEUs, half of which were hauled not by barge but by truck. The current level of container shipping is zero. Any return of container shipping to the LSR is highly unlikely for multiple reasons.
b) Total freight volume through the LSR dams has declined steadily over the past 20 years and shows no sign of recovery. Ice Harbor lock (the Snake’s most downriver lock) is considered the most accurate indicator of freight volume since little freight is shipped intra-waterway. Freight volume through Ice Harbor lock in 1995 was 4,581 thousand tons. By 2014 that volume had declined to 2,871 thousand tons, and in 2015, just 2,297 thousand tons.
c) Shippers of almost all products other than grain have abandoned the waterway, belying the general claim that barge transportation is the most efficient and cost-effective way to ship freight. Even grain volumes on the LSR have declined by over 40% during the past 20 years, with Food and Farm volume on the Lower Granite reservoir (most upriver reservoir) down 50% over the same period (1995-2014).
d) Finally, during the past 15 years taxpayers have spent over $30 million just on sediment management in the Lower Granite reservoir, including the costs of planning and sediment removal. Most of that $30+ million was spent to maintain the navigation channel through the confluence of the Snake and Clearwater Rivers and up the Clearwater to the Port of Lewiston, where over 95% of the freight is shipped by a private corporation from its own property over its own docks, not by the public entity Port of Lewiston.
SNAKE RIVER SALMON and STEELHEAD
Claim:Finding genetically pure salmon or steelhead is a pretty tough thing to do.
The port manager here suggested that a salmon is a salmon, i.e., that the distinction between wild fish and hatchery fish is likely not valid. This statement is recognized as contrary to fact by the National Marine Fisheries Service of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the U.S. Corps of Engineers, the Northwest Power and Conservation Council, the Fish Passage Center, and at least three federal judges.
Claim:“Fish abundance” is on the rise.
As proof of this claim, the port manager presented a graph depicting total salmon returns on the Columbia River measured at Bonneville Dam, the dam closest to the ocean. As such, the graph offered little if any information about salmon returns on the Snake River, the principal topic of the evening’s presentation. In 2014 a total of 1,152,643 Chinook salmon crossed Bonneville Dam on the Columbia, but only 158,112 of those fish crossed Ice Harbor, the first dam on the Snake—just 14% of the Chinook counted at Bonneville. For Coho salmon, this percentage was 6%. In 2014 a total of 614,179 adult sockeye crossed Bonneville, with only 2,392 entering the Snake, less than half of one percent of the Columbia River count. For 2015 the respective percentages are Chinook, 15%; Coho, 3.5%; sockeye, 2/10ths of one percent. Claiming that salmon numbers at Bonneville Dam provide meaningful and honest information about fish numbers on the Snake River, let alone about threatened and endangered salmon, is well beyond the pale.
Claim:Dams are not the problem when dealing with the loss of juvenile salmon and steelhead.
The port manager acknowledged that juvenile salmon losses as a result of passing 8 dams is about 28%, but apparently considered the loss of these millions of juveniles not a problem. However, he conveniently failed to note that passage through dams alone ignores the problems created by the reservoirs behind those dams: delayed travel times, greater exposure to predators, higher water temperatures and resulting disease. According to the Fish Passage Center, from 1999-2013 the average survival rate for wild Chinook salmon through Snake and Columbia River dams and reservoirs was 54%. For wild steelhead, the survival rate was 45%. These survival rates decline even further with post-Bonneville Dam avian predation. Finally, delayed mortality—the loss of juvenile fish in the Columbia estuary caused by the rigors of dam and reservoir passage—takes an additional toll. Hatchery fish do even less well. A reasonable estimate for total juvenile fish survival is 35%-40%, not the 72% claimed for dam passage alone.
In 2013, NOAA Fisheries acknowledged that no juvenile fish passage survival improvement had occurred over the previous 13 years—despite the expenditure of over $700 million on just the 4 lower Snake River dams for so-called “fish passage improvements.” Stated NOAA: “Chinook survival through the hydropower system has remained relatively stable since 1999 with the exception of lower estimates in 2001 and 2004”… only “stable.”
The true measure of successful recovery of threatened and endangered fish species is the smolt-to-adult return (SAR) ratio. Mere survival (non-extinction) of wild fish runs requires a minimum 1% SAR, and recovery of Snake River salmon and steelhead requires a 2%-6% SAR. From 1993-2013 the SAR for wild Chinook salmon averaged .89%. The return exceeded the minimum 2% SAR needed for recovery during only 2 of those 20 years. Fall Chinook SARs are lower still. Idaho’s Snake River sockeye are on the brink of extinction. No Snake River threatened and endangered salmon or steelhead species is on a path to recovery.
Snake River Chinook SARs do not show recovery
You can find many other examples of misinformation about the lower Snake River dams—which in the present political milieu might be called “alternative facts”—on Corps of Engineers and port websites, in newspaper Op-Eds prepared by the directors of special interest lobbying associations, and in newsletters sent to customers of electrical coops. Much of this coordinated campaign of deception is paid for with taxpayer and ratepayer dollars. Thus the public is paying to be misinformed and misled.
The key fact remains that taxpayers and ratepayers have spent billions of dollars attempting to put threatened and endangered Snake River salmon and steelhead on a path to recovery—with virtually no success.
The forecast calling for a dismal return of B-run steelhead to Idaho this fall has fisheries managers up and down the Columbia and Snake rivers contemplating regulations designed to protect wild fish and make sure enough hatchery fish return to meet spawning needs.
The small anticipated return leaves little wiggle room for harvest of the hatchery-bred fish and incidental mortality of the wild fish that anglers are not allowed to keep.
Joe DuPont, regional fisheries manager for the Idaho Department of Fish and Game at Lewiston, said restrictions similar to the 2013 regulations that forbid anglers from keeping steelhead longer than 28 inches on the Clearwater River are a possibility next fall. However, he said the department will wait to see what the actual return is before implementing size restrictions or other special rules.
B-run steelhead don’t typically reach the Clearwater River until midfall, and biologists are able to track the run via fish counts at Snake and Columbia river dams.
Chris Donley, regional fisheries manager for the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, said steelhead anglers on the Snake River are likely going to have to release B-run fish and face a lower-than-normal daily bag limit on A-run steelhead. Anglers on the Columbia will also have to contribute to the effort to protect B-run steelhead, he said.
Washington and Oregon are considering measures such as size limits, limiting the hours per day fishing is allowed and maybe closing some of the places B-run steelhead spend time while progressing upriver, such as the mouths of cold water tributaries like the Deschutes and Wind rivers and Drano Lake.
“If we are going to feel the pain up here, they are going to feel it on the lower river, too,” Donley said. “You are not going to see us on this end of the pipe having to carry the whole burden.”
The tribes with fishing rights on Zone 6 of the Columbia River, roughly between Bonneville and McNary dams, will track the run and respond accordingly, said Stuart Ellis, harvest biologist for the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission.
In the past, the tribes have adopted larger net mesh sizes during poor B-run years. The bigger openings allow more steelhead to escape the nets while capturing abundant fall chinook.
Some fishing groups are calling on the states to take bold steps to protect wild B-run steelhead. The Conservation Anglers wrote a letter to Idaho Fish and Game Director Virgil Moore this week asking him to close the ongoing steelhead fishery this spring to ensure all of this year’s wild B-run steelhead survive to spawn.
Regulations already require that anglers release all wild steelhead, but fisheries managers believe that as many as 10 percent of the fish that are caught and released die.
“We are thinking, ‘Let’s put some fish in the bank.’ We are coming up on a very low forecast,” said David Moskowitz of Portland.
Moskowitz said the group is also advocating for protective measures on the Columbia River next summer and fall, and in the lower stretches of its tributaries where B-run steelhead often spend some time on their way to Idaho.
“Anytime you are talking about angler restrictions you get people riled up,” he said. “We are not afraid. We are standing up for wild fish. If that means you can’t go fishing like you always have, that is too bad.”
The counting of returning fish at Lower Granite Dam on the lower Snake River resumed on 3/1/17. Steelhead are the first species to be seen. Here is the tally as of 4/6/17:
Steelhead counted to date in 2017: 6104
Steelhead counted to date in 2016: 4314
Steelhead counted to date, 10 yr avg.: 6174
Wild steelhead returns to date
Wild Steelhead counted to date in 2017: 2357
Wild Steelhead counted to date in 2016: 2269
Wild Steelhead counted to date, 10 yr avg.: 2077
Yearly steelhead returns
Here is a snapshot of what the yearly run looks like. The majority of steelhead return in September and October. Idaho Fish and Game is predicting a dismal return of B-run steelhead into Idaho this fall. More information can be found in this Lewiston Tribune article.
