Bill Would Cap Spending On Fish, Wildlife Slim Results With Salmon Recovery Cited By Northwest Senators

Seldom has anyone admitted spending so much to accomplish so little.

But last month, the Northwest’s eight senators wrote the governors of Idaho, Washington, Oregon and Montana to say that despite escalating costs to save salmon, “there are no results to show for these efforts.”

So, the senators announced, Congress is on a fast track to limit salmon spending.

Sen. Slade Gorton, R-Wash., drafted legislation that would cap fish recovery costs by the Bonneville Power Administration at about $400 million a year.

Other public utilities also would cap their costs, at about $100 million.

The $500-million-a-year total would include spending for all types of fish and wildlife, not just salmon, throughout the four Northwestern states.

Gorton also would create a regional fish and wildlife council to take the reins on salmon recovery from a plethora of federal agencies now in charge.

The salmon recovery plan hatched by the new regional council would be deemed sufficient by Gorton’s bill to satisfy all environmental laws, including the Endangered Species Act.

The bill, which may be introduced as soon as this month, would allow policy-makers to let some salmon runs go extinct.

At least two other proposals already have been introduced to limit fish costs. One bill, put together by Sen. Mark Hatfield, R-Ore., would tie spending for fish recovery to BPA’s annual revenues, to provide some certainty on fish costs.

But Gorton’s salmon plan is the most detailed and far-reaching.

Federal agencies, including the Northwest Power Planning Council, also are pursuing a cap, but an agreement hasn’t been reached.

Limits on spending are needed to bring sanity to salmon recovery, said Heidi Kelly, Gorton spokeswoman.

Money is being thrown at the problem without a coordinated, regional plan, Kelly said.

Gorton’s bill would let people in the region decide whether to rebuild “relic runs” - or let them die off and put money into other efforts, said Tony Williams, Gorton’s chief of staff.

But Ken Casavant of the Northwest Power Planning Council, which guides policy for the hydropower system, said money spent to save even endangered runs is not wasted.

“The sockeye may be gone, no matter what we do. But anything we do for endangered runs improves river conditions that will benefit all runs,” Casavant said.

Besides, giving up on fish runs may violate treaty rights held by Native American tribes and Canada, he said.

Without the cap, Bonneville estimates its fish recovery costs will increase to nearly $600 million a year by 1996. “We can’t be competitive with our rates if we can’t control our costs,” said Dulcy Mahar, a spokeswoman for Bonneville.

Conservation groups say BPA is cooking the numbers.

BPA has a $2.2 billion annual budget, and spent just under $80 million on fish and wildlife recovery in 1994, including capital costs, according to BPA.

The overall total spent for fish was $325 million, the BPA said. But that includes $174 million in power purchases and potential revenue lost because of water spilled to flush fish to the sea, instead of run through turbines to generate electricity. Millions more are spent on administration and other costs.

The proposed caps on spending also would include that lost potential revenue, Williams said.

Conservationists said counting that lost revenue inflates fish recovery costs. The utility does not count water diverted from turbines for irrigation or navigation as a cost in its annual budget.

That’s because the utility has long counted navigation and irrigation among its responsibilities, while fish restoration is a new mission, said Roy Fox, head of federal hydropower projects for the BPA.

“We’d like them to get used to fish,” said Karen Garrison, a conservationist with the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Critics said the cap, pushed by Gorton as a way to rejuvenate both fish and the BPA, will do neither.

“It’s a recipe for extinction that won’t address BPA’s real problems,” said Jim DiPeso of the Northwest Conservation Act Coalition in Seattle, a citizens group that works on energy issues.

“It’s like spraying air freshener when there’s a dead elephant in the living room.”

BPA’s biggest problem isn’t fish recovery costs, but a staggering $520 million a year annual debt payment for WPPSS, the region’s failed nuclear power system, conservationists said.

The $7.3 billion debt and stiff competition in a deregulated energy market have BPA on the ropes, DiPeso said.

“BPA has everyone buffaloed into believing all their problems are because of the fish,” said Jeff Stier, aide to Congressman Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., who has criticized the cap. “That’s not really true.”

Bonneville supports a fish spending cap to spur policy-makers to set priorities for fish recovery and use of the river.

“Without any limit on costs, there is no reason to set priorities, and no one has,” said Perry Gruber, a spokesman for the BPA. “The costs just keep going up.”

Conservationists said a fish cap will doom fragile salmon runs.

Charles Ray of Idaho Rivers United predicted the limited budget will force fisheries managers to decide which runs to restore and which to let die.

Because Gorton’s bill declares fish restoration efforts under the fish cap “legally sufficient” to meet all environmental laws, there would be no recourse for people who think those efforts are inadequate.

That “gets the federal government and the courts out of the picture,” and keeps money and decisionmaking for fish recovery in the region, said Williams, Gorton’s staff director.

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