Ostrich Method Won’T Help Save Endangered Fish

Steve Pettit is an Idaho Fish and Game biologist who has donned snorkel gear and peered eyeball to eyeball with steelhead throughout Idaho’s Clearwater River.

Perhaps no one has a better handle on where steelhead swim and hold in this fabled Idaho stream.

But when asked in February to present a program on steelheading for the Inland Empire Fly Fishing Club, Pettit didn’t come packing slides from the Clearwater.

“I make a fishing trip to British Columbia every year to remind myself what the steelheading used to be like in Idaho,” he said as he began the show.

“It’s a sad chapter in fishing when an Idaho biologist travels 900 miles to catch these wild fish.”

The salmon and steelhead that once ran by the millions up the Columbia and into Idaho’s Snake River are on their last legs.

Pettit no longer immerses himself in rivers for research. He is one of many scientists wallowing in statistics and models looking for a solution to the unconscionable injustice inflicted on fish that sustained human life in this region for 10,000 or more years.

“Time is running out,” Pettit said. “I’m having to learn how to be a politician, as well as a biologist.”

The public is understandably numb from reams of theories. The public is justifiably shocked that the feds have flushed $3 billion down the drain with few solid steps toward reviving Columbia system salmon and steelhead stocks.

But the meat is about to hit the grill.

Idaho joined a 1993 lawsuit that has forced the National Marine Fisheries Service and Army Corps of Engineers to present a plan for salmon and steelhead recovery by April 1999.

Three broad recovery options have emerged:

Continuing with the failing strategy of barging smolts downstream and drawing down Dworshak and Brownlee reservoirs to increase Snake River flows to improve fish passage.

Developing improved smolt barging methods combined with even greater flushes of water from upper Snake River impoundments.

Returning natural flows to the Snake River by dumping water over spillways or removing the earthen portions of four Snake River dams.

The majority of scientists from in and out of the region who have studied the river say breaching the dams is the only option that offers a solid chance of reviving salmon and steelhead runs.

Sounds nasty and politically suicidal.

Pettit and other scientists realize that.

“No one in his right mind would suggest that if it weren’t the best approach,” he said.

Breaching the dams, however, would upset some of the economic systems put into effect since Lower Granite became the last of the Snake River dams to go on line in 1975.

For that reason alone, the Spokane Area Chamber of Commerce has opposed this option for salmon recovery.

On Friday in Spokane, the chamber is holding what it calls a “regional policy summit” on breaching the dams. Although the session runs from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., no one has been invited to speak on the merits of normalizing the river for the benefit of fish.

“We have already taken the position of opposing the breaching of dams, so we’re not apologizing for promoting that position,” said chamber spokesman Dan Kershner.

That’s reasonable.

On the other hand, it’s ludicrous that chamber officials met last spring to take their position on the issue without listening to anyone speak for the merits of breaching the dams.

This controversy is too serious for the classic head-in-sand attitude businesses often take on natural resource issues.

It’s no surprise that Sen. Slade Gorton, R-Wash, will deliver the keynote address at the chamber’s summit. Gorton became the icon of the Ostrich Approach when he invited only industry representatives to help him write his failed proposal to revise the Endangered Species Act.

Science is scary, especially when it tells us things we don’t want to hear.

But you’d think chamber officials would at least want to hear a variety of perspectives from their own ilk.

After a lengthy investigation on the economics of salmon recovery options, the Boise-based Idaho Statesman came down soundly on the side of breaching the dams.

Here’s the financial projection from the report.

Breaching the dams could cost the region $509million a year for the work at the dam sites as well as in losses of water-related income, including power generation and recreation on the four reservoirs.

The annual benefits of breaching the dams could total $692million a year, boosted by industry and recreation associated with the restoration of salmon and steelhead to the levels of the 1960s.

That figure includes major savings from eliminating the $98million in annual subsidies to barge transportation, plus a ton of money spent on fish mitigation and dam maintenance by the Bonneville Power Administration.

The bottom line: Breaching the dams could result in a net annual gain of $183million to taxpayers, electricity rate payers and the region’s economy.

Most people would be happy to simply get the fish runs back.

Maybe Spokane Area Chamber of Commerce members aren’t like most people.

But you’d think they’d at least want to hear about putting money in their pockets.

This sidebar appeared with the story: COMING UP Two programs regarding dams and salmon recovery are scheduled this week. Tonight, 7 p.m., Post Falls City Hall: a panel discussion with opposing views from David Doeringfeld of the Port of Lewiston and Jim Baker, Sierra Club salmon recovery specialist, sponsored by Kootenai Environmental Alliance and the League of Women Voters. Friday, 9 a.m.-4 p.m., Shilo Inn, 923 E. Third Ave. in Spokane, a six-session program in opposition to breaching dams for salmon recovery, with a keynote address by Sen. Slade Gorton. Cost: $20.