Proposal A One-Year Plan

Idaho members of the Northwest Power Planning Council have engineered a one-year proposal to boost salmon survival and accommodate industry.

The draft plan announced Friday by council members Mike Field and Todd Maddock is intended to aid the “Class of ‘95” spring-summer chinook on their way to the ocean.

This year’s out-migration is substantial, and viewed by conservationists as perhaps the last hope for the endangered Snake River runs.

“We emphasize that this is a plan for 1995 only,” Field and Maddock wrote in a letter to state and federal officials. “It’s designed to take advantage of the fact that we have adequate volumes of water this year, and a relatively high number of migrant spring-summer chinook.”

River operations ultimately will be determined by the National Marine Fisheries Service.

Among the Idahoans’ suggestions is holding the lower Snake River reservoirs at minimum operating pool, which allows for river transportation and marinas.

They would attempt to get 80 percent of the fish safely past lower Snake dams by “spreading the risk” between barging and spillway passage.

Target flows of 100,000 cubic feet per second at Lower Granite Dam would be conducted from April 20 to May 31. That would require 690,000 acre-feet from Dworshak Reservoir on the North Fork of the Clearwater River.

The plan would keep the Dworshak pool constant at about 40 feet below full pool until after Labor Day and allow for recreation. Orofino-area residents were angered last year when the level dropped far lower, harming their recreation economy.

About 427,000 acre-feet would still be sought for release from reservoirs on the upper Snake River. That is water under the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation’s control or storage water purchased from willing sellers, about the same amount Reclamation released in 1994, they said.

The council members requested comments by April 15. Their mailing address is P.O. Box 83720, Boise, ID 83720-0062. Phone: (208) 334-2956. Fax: (208) 334-2112.

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