Fisheries Agency Outlines Plan For Saving Snake River Salmon

The National Marine Fisheries Service on Monday held the first of eight public hearings in the region on its proposed recovery plan for endangered Snake River salmon.

The agency has proposed saving salmon by making changes in hydroelectric dams, hatcheries, harvest and habitat.

Snake River sockeye salmon were listed as endangered species in 1991 and the spring-summer and fall runs of chinook salmon were listed as threatened in 1992 under the Endangered Species Act.

The plan outlines numerous, complex recommendations for resolving problems related to dams, habitat, hatcheries and harvest.

The most wide-ranging effects on Inland Northwest communities will come from hydroelectric and habitat measures.

Much of the debate stems from proposals to draw down reservoirs behind the four Lower Snake dams in Washington state to more closely duplicate natural river flows to help fish migrate downstream.

The fisheries service wants to study drawdowns and make a preliminary decision on their effectiveness next year, with a final decision by 1991.

Alternatives include building new equipment to steer young salmon away from dam turbine intakes, and making improvements in the way fish are barged around dams.

Another controversial recommendation is a “fish flush,” using water from the Dworshak and Upper Snake dams in Idaho to speed up the flows.

It would be supplemented by spills of additional water over Columbia and Snake river dams.

The plan calls for the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management to more tightly regulate how logging, mining and grazing affect streams. That would affect millions of acres of federal lands in the Pacific Northwest.

Other habitat measures include continuing a temporary ban on new water rights in the Columbia and Snake river basins.

The plan would tighten regulations on fishermen, from commercial ocean trawlers to non-tribal Columbia River gillnetters. The proposal would cut the troll fleet in half by 2002 and eventually eliminate gill nets entirely on the Columbia River.

The plan also calls for finding ways to prevent hatchery-raised fish from mingling with wild stocks, and capping hatchery releases of young salmon and steelhead.

Hearings at other sites, scheduled to run from 7-9 p.m., include:

May 17, Interagency Fire Center Auditorium, Boise.

May 18, Stanley, Idaho, Community Center.

May 23, Eastern Oregon State College, La Grande, Ore.

May 24, Federal Building, Richland, Wash.

May 31, Federal Complex Auditorium, Portland.

June 1, Columbia River Maritime Museum, Astoria, Ore.

June 6, National Marine Fisheries Service Northwest Fisheries Science Center, Seattle.