Salmon Projects Weather Critics Budget Includes $140 Million, But Lack Of Results Draws Increasing Scrutiny

The federal government will spend more than $140 million on Northwest salmon recovery during the new fiscal year.

But the decision came only after budgetary wrangling and some grousing about the effectiveness of previous efforts to help the fish.

The money is just a fraction of the billions of dollars that Congress has spent on salmon recovery efforts over the years.

“It’s a black hole for money,” said a staff member in the House Energy Appropriations office who asked not to be identified. “Nobody is happy with the fish mitigation program.”

The earliest efforts to save the salmon started in the 1950s. Since the mid-1980s, federal money has been going to the Army Corps of Engineers’ salmon recovery efforts, but wild salmon runs have continued to shrink. Now, some lawmakers are starting to demand results.

“For all (the Army Corps of Engineers’) reliance on technological fixes and fish barging, there is no clear evidence that the salmon recovery options in the Pacific Northwest are, or will become, successful,” states the Energy appropriations bill that passed the House.

The latest $140 million-plus appropriated is for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1 and ends next Sept. 30.

When the corps asked for $117 million earlier this year, the House offered it $7.7 million. That sum would have brought most of the corps’ Columbia River fish mitigation projects to a standstill. Negotiations with the Senate resulted in an increase to $60 million.

But when the congressional budgeting process bogged down this fall, the corps got a windfall. Another $35 million for the corps’ fish mitigation efforts was included in the emergency supplemental section of the omnibus appropriations bill.

That money was added by President Clinton’s Council on Environmental Quality because salmon recovery is a long-term challenge that could be set back by a cut in funding, said Elliot Diringer, a spokesman for the CEQ.

That’s a sentiment shared by Sen. Slade Gorton.

“This is one part of a much larger effort to protect salmon runs on the Columbia and Snake rivers,” the Washington Republican said. But there is also a sense around Capitol Hill that the money is not buying results.

Recent studies by the corps have found that several of the ways salmon get around the dams are less effective than originally thought.

In this fiscal year, the corps will spend $4.15 million to continue research at The Dalles Dam on the Columbia regarding how juvenile fish use the dam’s turbines, spillway and sluiceway to get past the structure.

The studies have so far indicated that mortality rates in the turbines, which can slice the young fish passing through them, can reach 15 percent. Spillways were previously thought to be relatively safe, with mortality estimated at 2 percent. But now studies are indicating that up to 12 percent of salmon die trying to get past the dam in the spillway.

And the sluiceway, a route past trash and ice, has been deemed unacceptable by the corps because of the hydraulic conditions in the waterway and the number of predator fish at the outlet.

The Dalles is just one of eight dams that salmon on the Columbia and Snake rivers must pass to get out to the ocean.

The corps’ projects, ongoing and planned, depend on new congressional funding every year. If the additional $35 million had not come in the omnibus appropriations bill, many of the current projects would have stopped.

One of those is a study on the effect of water temperature in fish ladders on salmon survival rates. The corps will use $60,000 of the additional $35 million to finish the study this year.

When a final report is issued, at a total cost of $291,000, it is expected to conclude water temperature in fish ladders had no effect on salmon survival.

But these studies are not solutions.

“Everything on this list is promising, but some of them don’t necessarily bear fruit,” said Witt Anderson, program manager for the corps.

“Everyone is saying that we need a big plan, not just looking at one species,” said Danny Consenstien, Columbia Basin coordinator for the National Marine Fisheries Service. “The fact there are salmon species listed as endangered indicates that there is something wrong with the whole system.”

“It’s going to take something big, but we don’t know what it is.”

Just 2.5 million Northwest salmon returned to inland waters to spawn in 1996 and only 500,000 were wild salmon. About 150 years ago, it is estimated that 16 million wild salmon returned to spawn every year.

For the 1998-99 fiscal year, $11.4 million will be spent to operate hatcheries and $2.2 million to mark hatchery fish so fisherman can tell them apart from wild salmon. Fishermen must release wild salmon unharmed but are allowed to keep hatchery salmon.

Another $600,000 is being spent to develop a machine to automatically mark all hatchery salmon.

Besides the corps, one of the largest recipients of federal money next year will be Washington Gov. Gary Locke’s Salmon Recovery Office. It received $20 million that will be divided and distributed to eight regions along the Columbia and Snake rivers.

Those regions all had programs designed to use the money, but the office received less than requested and does not know which programs will be fully funded.

“With $2 million less, we don’t know how it will shake out,” said Sandi Snell in the Salmon Recovery Office.

The federal Department of Agriculture recently entered into an agreement with Washington state. The USDA will spend about $10 million a year for the next 20 years to rent farmland along streams and rivers traversed by salmon.

The program will pay farmers more than normal land rental rates if, in exchange, they plant trees and bushes along the banks in an effort to rebuild polluted salmon habitat.

A similar project, for $10 million, is being planned by the Department of Interior. It will protect 130 miles of land and water along Interstate 90 for salmon spawning.

SALMON DOLLARS Federal funding for salmon, 1998-99 $20 million for Puget Sound salmon recovery efforts. $1.050 million for Washington State Regional Fisheries Enhancement Groups. $600,000 to design an automatic hatchery salmon fish-marking machine. $10 million to preserve the land around the Mountains to Sound Greenway. $375,000 to restore Ravenna Creek. $11.4 million for running hatcheries. $2.2 million for massive hatchery fish marking. $2 million for supporting ESA compliance among local governments and tribes. $95 million for the Army Corps of Engineers. Total: $142,625,000

Money to be spread over the coming years $200 million for farmland rental and restoration along salmon streams - approximately $10 million a year for the next 20 years.