Plans For Budget Cut Threaten Salmon Research

Research needed to guide Northwest salmon recovery efforts could suffer because of a budget cut being considered in Congress.

A 10 percent decrease in this year’s National Biological Service budget is among cutbacks that the House of Representatives is expected to vote on March 15. It was approved last week by the House Appropriations Committee.

The biological service does plant and animal research for the Interior Department. Agency officials said the proposed cutback could force the closure of all or most of four major research centers in Anchorage, Alaska; Seattle; Ann Arbor, Mich.; and Lafayette, La.

Salmon are a big priority at the Seattle facility. The center’s research is important to the federal Snake River salmon recovery plan that is to be released this month, said Gary Smith of the National Marine Fisheries Service.

“It’s supposed to be science-based and get away from a lot of the past differences and uncertainty,” said Smith, deputy regional director. “We’re in short supply of scientific expertise. … I’m going to be watching this.”

Scientists at the Northwest Biological Science Center are studying such things as movement of young salmon through reservoirs, the gas-bubble disease in fish caused by sending water over spillways and the behavior of predators such as squawfish.

Much of the work is being paid for by the Bonneville Power Administration and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. But without the science center - which hires the scientists and produces the studies - it’s uncertain how the work would continue, said center spokesman Al Marmelstein.

The cuts certainly could end Interior Department studies of diseases and of the relationship between wild and hatchery fish, Marmelstein said.

“A highly virulent disease may spread through West Coast salmon and devastate what’s left, … and there will be no laboratory to respond to it.”

“Good science” has been a rallying cry for both industry and environmentalists who are at war over the best way to revive wild salmon. Recovery planners are calling for more research to guide their multimillion-dollar decisions.

The most expensive part of the federal recovery plan, the hydropower component, was announced Wednesday. The Clinton administration has agreed to help BPA customers pay for that.