Batt Asked To Back Flushing Of Salmon Conservationists Fear Federal Agencies Will Renege On Promises To Help Runs

Fearing federal officials will renege on their original commitment, conservationists are asking Idaho Gov. Phil Batt to lend the authority of his office to their efforts to let natural river flows flush migrating Idaho salmon to the ocean this spring.

Representatives of six organizations asked Batt on Monday to write letters to President Clinton and Will Stelle, regional director of the National Marine Fisheries Service, urging them to make good on their pledge that barges will not be used to move salmon downstream if flows this spring are at 100,000 cubic feet per second.

They said the good snowpack and spring rains have created a situation where natural flows will hit or exceed that level for the next month or more. But they also maintained downstream interests are trying to manipulate managers of the Snake and Columbia rivers to make sure that threshold will not be met without releasing additional Idaho water - something Batt has strenuously objected to.

“We’re not asking the governor to sacrifice or jeopardize any Idaho water,” Pat Ford of Save Our Salmon said. “We’re just asking him to help get the natural flows through.”

Experts believe the juvenile salmon migrating to the ocean this year represent the last, best chance for recovery of the endangered Northwest runs because of the comparably large number.

It was the second time the groups have complained that Batt has yet to come up with a plan to restore the runs that are a major source of economic activity to a number of small communities on the river system.

They have pressed for years to draw down the reservoirs behind the lower Snake River dams in eastern Washington to speed the flows of water that push the fish to the ocean.

But federal managers, bowing to pressures from downstream interests that would suffer economically from drawdowns, have opted instead to load migrating fish in barges to ship them around the dams. That practice has been in use for the past 18 years as the runs have been reduced to the brink of extinction.

A week ago, Batt’s two appointees to the Northwest Power Planning Council proposed their own river basin operating plan for this year only to see the governor reject it a week later because it called for more Idaho water than he wants to give up.

But Ford and others emphasized that what they are asking requires only pressure on the federal government to make sure it does not manipulate flow calculations or withhold natural flows so the 100,000 cfs threshold is never met and barging can continue unabated.

“This will not take any of Idaho’s water,” Ford said.

A year ago as an alternative to drawdowns, some 2.7 million acrefeet of Idaho water reserves were flushed down the Snake and Columbia rivers in what conservationists claim was a wasted attempt to improve conditions for the fish.