Steelhead run bottoms out at Lower Granite

Steelhead are setting a record at Lower Granite Dam and it’s not a good one.

The run’s performance is so poor that fisheries managers are considering restrictions to upcoming seasons.

The dam about 30 miles west of Clarkston on the Snake River has never seen a worse start to the steelhead run. Between June 1 and last week, only 393 steelhead had been counted climbing the dam’s fish ladder.

For comparison, the 10-year average is more than 5,100. Last year, when the A run of steelhead collapsed, more than 3,400 steelhead had been counted there in the same time frame.

You have to go back decades to find anything comparable. In 1990, the count through Aug. 7 was 623.

It’s not much better at Bonneville Dam on the Columbia River, but at least it’s not unprecedented. There, about 30,000 steelhead had been counted last week. Only 1943 and 1938, the dam’s first year of operation, were worse. It was similarly bad in 1941, 1942 and 1944.

“Things are looking really bad,” said Alan Byrne, an Idaho Department of Fish and Game biologist at Boise.