Coalition for Smart Salmon Recovery Urges Northwest Governors to Support Alternatives to 'Summer Spill' as Northwest Power and Conservation Council Meets in Boise.

News Editors

PORTLAND, Ore.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 19, 2004

Recent Studies Confirm Better Ways to Increase Salmon and Jobs

A group of agriculture-employers, utility customers, and businesses have formed a coalition to improve salmon restoration efforts.

"Some of the things being done to help salmon are working, and some are not," said fisheries biologist Shane Scott, a Coalition member. "We need to focus on what works."

For example, Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) expects to spend $77 million this year on so-called "summer spill" -- with very little to show for it. The Coalition supports alternatives to spill developed by federal, state, and tribal representatives that could increase salmon populations by more than 50,000 adults per year while saving ratepayers $75 million dollars a year.

Spill was started in the mid 1990's with the intent of getting fish past dams without going through the dam's turbines. In some cases it has not proven as effective as first hoped. And while the name "summer spill" sounds benign, the experience is not. Operators open an underwater "gate" in the dam, pulling fish 30 to 50 feet down through the opening, and propelling them into the turbulent water another 20 to 50 feet below. Many fish end up disoriented, making them vulnerable to predators.

The survival rate for salmon that go through dam turbines is similar to the survival rate of fish that are "spilled." But because spill redirects water that could have been used to produce electricity, the practice is extraordinarily costly -- and recent federal studies show summer spill produces limited benefit, saving only about 24 adult endangered fish a year.

"We're spending $77 million a year to save 24 endangered fish. That's more than $3 million a fish," noted Glenn Vanselow, Executive Director of the Pacific Northwest Waterways Association and a Coalition member.

Spill also benefits 19,000 non-listed fish (5% of last year's 384,000 returning adults). "The non-listed fish are harvested by commercial fishermen," said Vanselow. "Spending $77 million to benefit 5 percent of those supermarket fish is like paying $4,000 for a $40 fish. "Either way you look at it, we can do better than that."

As a part of their studies to determine the effectiveness of "summer spill" (http://www.nwd-wc.usace.army.mil/tmt/agendas/2004/0204-mod.ppt), federal agencies developed a series of alternatives.

The Coalition supports implementing two of those alternatives that could increase adult salmon populations by more than 50,000 fish annually for between $1-2 million a year:

(a) Expand a successful program that pays anglers to catch the Northern Pikeminnow, a predator that feeds on small salmon. The program could save up to 8,000 adult chinook salmon in its first year.

(b) Extend and expand a successful program in the Hanford Reach of the Columbia River that protects juvenile salmon from becoming stranded in low water; estimated to save 50,000 adult salmon a year.

"By focusing on these better alternatives, we can increase salmon runs and reduce the cost of electricity for homes and businesses in the Pacific Northwest," said Dave Zepponi, President of Northwest Food Processors Association and a Coalition member. "That will help our struggling economy and could save thousands of jobs. More salmon and more jobs -- it's a win-win situation."

In a letter sent to the Governors of Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Montana today, the Coalition is urging the Governors to support these alternatives to "summer spill" as a better way to restore the Northwest's salmon runs. "If we delay," says Coalition member Ken Canon, Executive Director of Industrial Customers of Northwest Utilities, an association of major employers in the region, "we waste an opportunity to put more salmon back in our rivers and more people back to work."