Learn To Live With Salmon Strategy, Utilities Told

Mike Kreidler didn’t vote for Snake River drawdowns. He wasn’t on the Northwest Power Planning Council when it approved a salmon recovery strategy that includes dropping reservoirs and making other costly changes in river operations.

But the new council member from Washington said Wednesday that utility companies and others unhappy with such changes should learn to accept them.

“They’re in denial,” Kreidler said on a visit to Spokane.

He compared the battle over Columbia River basin salmon with fights over Indian fishing rights, spotted owl recovery and protection of Puget Sound shellfish. In each case, he said, industries would have been wise to have accepted compromises before courts intervened and ruled against them.

“Everybody looks back and says, ‘By gosh, why didn’t we take that deal that was on the table?”’ Kreidler said.

The “deal” that six out of eight council members approved in December is a strategy to bring back populations of ocean-going fish throughout the river basin. It calls for phased-in reservoir drawdowns, as well as releases of water stored upstream, to flush young fish to the ocean.

Utilities, barge operators, irrigators and aluminum companies have decried the plan. They say it focuses too heavily on dam operations and too lightly on other causes of salmon decline: harvest, hatchery operations, spawning habitat.

“It’s costly. But worse, it’s counterproductive,” said David Clinton, chairman of the industry coalition called the Columbia River Alliance. “It’s highly likely it won’t help the salmon.”

The alliance has offered its own strategy. It would rely on improved barging to get young salmon around reservoirs and hydropower turbines. The council strategy calls for only limited barging.

On Wednesday, environmentalists unveiled their own recovery plan. Called “Wild Salmon Forever,” it calls for drawdowns but wouldn’t put a single salmon in a barge.

Kreidler was a Democratic congressman from Western Washington before being defeated in November. He was planning to return to his work as an optometrist when Gov. Mike Lowry approached him about taking the council job.

“I’d been eagerly looking forward to that kind of tranquillity in my life. But I probably would have been somewhat bored.”

Boredom should not be a problem on the council, where from day to day the politics and even the membership seem to change.

Ken Casavant, Washington’s other council member, joined Kreidler for a Wednesday meeting with Spokesman-Review editors and reporters. Among their comments:

Kreidler predicted that Congress won’t make radical changes in the Endangered Species Act.

Costs of salmon recovery won’t bankrupt the Bonneville Power Administration, according to Casavant: “I don’t think the harbingers of doom are being realistic.” But Kreidler doesn’t expect Congress to come through with tax money to help Northwest power users pay for recovery efforts.

Contrary to industry claims, Casavant believes the council took significant steps to deal with other causes of salmon decline, especially hatchery management and spawning habitat.