Corps’ Controversial Barging Of Salmon, Steelhead Returns

Young fish are once again making their way from the Columbia River basin to the Pacific Ocean, but many are riding in barges above the spring freshet.

After a weeklong transportation moratorium, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has begun collecting young migrating salmon and steelhead behind Snake River dams and barging them down river for release below Bonneville Dam on the Columbia.

In early May, fish agencies from Washington, Oregon and Idaho asked for a week without barging in an attempt to let the fish navigate the river on their own.

Despite high levels of potentially lethal dissolved gases in the churning water below dam spillways, the agencies wanted to take their chances in favor of “a more natural way” to get fish downstream, said Keith Wolf of the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife.

Washington and Oregon Indian tribes also prefer natural migration and have disputed claims that barging promotes fish survival.

So far this spring, nearly 5 million of the 8 million young salmon collected by the corps have been barged.

The moratorium represents another round in the scientific tug-of-war being waged by fishery managers over the best way to get fish past dams.

“This whole issue of transport versus non-transport has probably been the most studied on the river,” said Bruce Lovelin, executive director of Columbia River Alliance, a coalition of industries and river use groups in Portland.

The National Marine Fisheries Service, which has authority over fish species that are threatened with extinction, recommends that 50 percent of migrating juveniles be barged and 50 percent should swim.

When Snake River barging was stopped May 8 at Lower Monumental and Little Goose dams, more than 60 percent of spring chinook salmon and steelhead had been barged, said Dave Hurson, a corps fishery biologist.

Because of a large spring runoff, fish swimming over spillways or making their way through dam diversion devices had to battle dangerously high concentrations of dissolved gases. That unnecessarily endangered too many young fish, Lovelin said.

“When you have high dissolved gas levels, you want to take every fish out,” Lovelin said.

The corps concurs with Lovelin.

“We would have preferred to have transported because we think that is better,” Hurson said. “You end up with a lot higher percentage of fish getting down the river.”

With about 200,000 cubic feet per second of water flowing down the Snake, survival should be good for migrating fish, Wolf said.

xxxx