Idaho chinook remain in peril

Idaho salmon are indisputably in decline. All of Idaho’s wild salmon species are either on the endangered species list or extinct.

But Idaho’s political leaders and the department charged with preserving, protecting and perpetuating the state’s wildlife have recently been quiet about wild salmon recovery.

The salmon debate can be confusing and seemingly contradictory. For example, wild spring/summer chinook are listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, but Idaho anglers have been able to fish for their hatchery-bred cousins for the past eight years, which is the longest consecutive streak of seasons in 33 years.

The spring/summer chinook run is at less than 5 percent of its level before Lewis and Clark arrived, and wild spring/summer chinook have been listed for 15 years.

Scientists estimate 1.5 million spring/summer chinook returned to the Snake River system in the late 1800s. By the late 1960s, they had dwindled to about 100,000 per year.

About 61,000 spring/summer chinook have crossed Lower Granite Dam annually in the past 10 years.

Idaho’s wild coho have gone extinct, and its sockeye run has shrunk to a total of 349 fish returning since 1997.

Idaho’s strongest run, the spring/summer chinook, is a combination of hatchery and wild salmon. Although they appear nearly identical, live in the same rivers and migrate back and forth from the ocean together, each serves a different role.

Hatchery salmon are bolstered by millions of dollars in annual subsidies from federal and private dam operators. Hatcheries pour millions of young salmon into Idaho rivers every year in hopes that one in 100 will return as an adult.

Wild salmon must produce the next generation in an environment that is severely altered by humans, from dams on the Lower Snake that block or slow their migration, to irrigators in Idaho’s interior who drain headwater rivers nearly dry every summer.

Three years after spring/summer chinook were listed under the Endangered Species Act, Idaho had a record-low return of about 1,800 fish in 1995. Although they have since rebounded, their numbers are still well below recovery goals.

So what’s being done about it?

Here are excerpts of responses from politicians and a tribal leader on what they’re doing to help Idaho’s salmon recover:

Sen. Mike Crapo

Currently, the region is working according to an “aggressive non-breach” policy that is focused on doing everything possible to recover our fish short of breaching the four lower Snake dams.

These actions include: dam modifications such as removable spillway weirs, managed spill, corner collectors, and more. Predator control, habitat restoration, hatchery reform, and harvest controls are all under way.

Taken together, these measures show promise, and I support this effort and encourage it to be truly aggressive.

Sen. Larry Craig

Salmon and dams can coexist. I continue to work as an appropriator to ensure federal tax dollars are allocated to programs like the Pacific Coast Salmon Recovery Fund and other habitat improving programs.

I continue to support science that looks outside of the box that environmentalists continue to paint us in, and I continue to work with the science community and support mitigation tools like removable spillway weirs. Furthermore, I work with NOAA, BPA, Army Corps of Engineers, and Idaho Tribes to ensure that the appropriate level of appropriations are spent in the Northwest to improve fish passage and salmon survival without burdening our taxpayers and rate payers with unreasonable solutions.

None of these are silver bullets for salmon recovery and neither is dam removal.

Gov. Butch Otter

In short, we support a balanced approach, utilizing the best available science in all areas of concern – habitat, hydro, hatcheries and harvest – while continuing to keep human considerations in mind.

Habitat: Our goal is to rebuild naturally spawning populations by enhancing habitat and creating improved fish access to Idaho’s key salmon and steelhead producing tributaries and streams. Hydropower: Now is not the time to begin breaching our system of hydroelectric dams. This region is going to need more power, not less. The dams provide a clean, renewable, low-cost source of electricity.

That electricity could only be replaced by a combination of resources that would have to include new coal-fired or gas-fired generating plants in our region – each with greenhouse gas and other secondary implications.

Hatcheries: We can and will do more in the areas of hatchery improvements and expanded hatchery production in Idaho. In the past 20 years, partnerships between federal, tribal and state agencies aimed at production of genetically appropriate salmon in our hatcheries have resulted in major gains in knowledge.

Harvest: Harvest decisions made both in the ocean and rivers reduce the number of fish returning to Idaho. Harvest that adjusts according to fish abundance and that is sensitive to weaker nontarget species or populations is a sensible policy.

Samuel N. Penney, chairman, Nez Perce Tribal Executive Committee

Our technical staff advises us that the single-most important action we can take to aid in restoring these runs is to breach the lower Snake River dams. As a result of considerable study and debate, we have adopted that stance as our policy position, along with the mandate that the impacts caused to local communities should be mitigated in full. However, the issues that face Snake River spring and summer Chinook salmon are greater than just the lower Snake River dams. Once past those dams, the juvenile salmon face four additional dams and reservoirs on the Columbia River.

Habitat: A large focus is to alleviate or prevent sediment deposition in spawning streams by obliterating or stabilizing unneeded roads.

Many of these roads were built during the ‘50s, ‘60s and ‘70s to access timber on National Forest lands. The roads typically run sediment into the streams and can cause landslides when their side slopes or culverts fail.

Hatcheries: The Tribe’s approach to hatchery programs is to focus on restoring and bolstering abundance of listed fish in a manner that can also support some level of harvest. With respect to listed spring and summer Chinook, the Tribe is attempting to complete construction of a new hatchery in the Grande Ronde and Imnaha Rivers of Northeast Oregon, and currently operates a program for fish in Johnson Creek.

Hydropower: Changes that the Tribe has suggested in hydropower operations – providing flows and spill in a manner and time that benefit in-river migrants, reducing reservoir volume to enhance the effects of spill and flow, and managing water temperatures in the reservoirs to make those areas more hospitable to fish passing through – are consistent with providing fish-friendly operations.

Harvest: The Tribe has constrained its harvest, voluntarily and involuntarily, for many years. When Lewiston Dam was built in 1927, it completely eradicated tribal harvest for spring Chinook harvest from the Clearwater River. When the Dalles Dam flooded Celilo Falls, the tribal fishery at that age old site on the Columbia River was eliminated.

The Tribe closed commercial harvest of summer Chinook in the Columbia River for three decades, maintaining only minimal subsistence fisheries during that time. And because the fish are no longer there, the Tribe has no harvest in the Tucannon, Asotin, Minam, Wenaha, Lookingglass Creek, Secesh, Lake Creek, and the many tributaries of the Middle Fork Salmon River.