Salmon deal not what groups hoped for

WASHINGTON – A deal unveiled this week commits federal agencies to spend $900 million to help imperiled Northwest salmon – but just $540 million would go to new projects.

The Bonneville Power Administration said Monday four Indian tribes would get the $900 million for salmon restoration in return for dropping out of a lawsuit challenging operations of hydroelectric dams.

At least 40 percent of the money – about $360 million – would go to existing programs over the next 10 years that don’t have dedicated funding sources, said BPA spokesman Scott Simms.

Sara Patton, executive director of the Northwest Energy Coalition, a Seattle-based group that is part of the federal lawsuit, said she was disappointed that only 60 percent of the larger amount being spent by the BPA and other federal agencies would go to new projects.

But Patton said a bigger problem is that much of the money apparently will not go to help endangered salmon, as the lawsuit intends. Instead the money appears targeted for lamprey, an eel-like fish, as well as other salmon runs that are not listed as endangered.

“We’re suing because Joe Salmon is endangered, and they are doing something for Charlie Salmon and Jack Lamprey. That is good for those fish, but it doesn’t help our salmon,” she said.

BPA Administrator Steve Wright said Patton and other critics were missing a key point. The BPA and the tribes want to collaborate on a comprehensive approach to boost salmon and steelhead in the Columbia River Basin, he said.

The BPA, a regional power agency based in Portland, says the agreement should raise wholesale electricity rates by 2 percent to 4 percent.

The deal would end years of legal battles between the Bush administration and the four Northwest tribes. However, it would not affect a fifth tribe that is party to a lawsuit nor environmental groups that vowed to press on in their efforts to breach four dams on the Lower Snake River in Eastern Washington.

Federal officials call the agreement a landmark in the long-running dispute over balancing tribal and commercial fishing rights, protection for threatened salmon and power demands from the region’s network of hydroelectric dams.

Environmentalists say the agreement falls far short of what’s needed to save endangered fish stocks.