| Subject: BPA raping the river |
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native spawn
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Date Posted: 09/14/06 4:43pm
In reply to:
Grossman
's message, "Cenci of Washington Dept of Fish and Wildlife needs to be fired" on 08/26/06 7:29pm
Fish caught in NW power struggle
Preservation projects compete for limited dollars
By CASSANDRA PROFITA
The Daily Astorian
Oregon and Washington tribes say the Bonneville Power Authority is skimping on fish and wildlife projects for the entire Columbia River.
Lower Columbia fish experts say BPA is neglecting the estuary.
Commercial fishermen worry they will one day lose the funds for salmon-rearing fisheries such as the North Coast's net-pen project.
And state Sen. Betsy Johnson says fishery programs vital to the region's culture and economy should not have to worry about losing their funding from year to year.
As the Northwest Power and Conservation Council rolled out its BPA funding recommendations in Astoria Wednesday, regional interests lined up to share their views on how money should be spent on the Columbia River.
BPA has a $450 million budget for the next three years to correct for the negative impacts of hydroelectric dams in Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Montana.
But with funding requests reaching $1 billion, a lot of fish and wildlife projects did not make the cut.
The North Coast's net-pen fish-rearing project, called Select Area Fisheries Enhancement or SAFE, could have been one of them, and supporters are worried the funding will be threatened once again in three years.
SAFE rears and releases chinook and coho salmon at Youngs Bay, Blind Slough, Tongue Point and Deep River sites for harvest by commercial and recreational fishers.
It is one of five estuary projects in line for BPA dollars and one of two that has full funding support.
Local fishermen with Salmon For All, Johnson and Sen. Mark Doumit of Washington told the council the benefits to fishermen make SAFE paramount to the region's economy.
Doumit said funding for the net pens should be as permanent as the dams themselves, given the project's role in mitigating the dam's effects. Johnson thanked the key council members for prioritizing the fishery, but earlier said she thought the project deserved permanent funding.
"This is the second time I've been pressed into finding funding for the Youngs Bay fishery," she said in an interview Wednesday. "We need funding permanently, not funding year to year. You can't have a program without certainty for the future."
Some last-minute shuffling by council members Joan Dukes of Oregon and Larry Cassidy of Washington put SAFE on the priority list.
But to make it work, they had to take funds from other estuary projects, and fishermen worry three years from now it will be the SAFE project getting cut, as pending litigation threatens to shift the focus of BPA funding toward protecting endangered species of salmon and away from hatchery mitigation programs.
This year, the council had to bump an estuary study of juvenile salmon off its funding list and cut money from three Lower Columbia River Estuary Partnership salmon and habitat monitoring and restoration programs to keep the $1.8 million in annual funding for SAFE in its $3.6 million budget. Six other estuary projects were eliminated from consideration earlier in the process.
Dukes, vice chairwoman for the council, is a resident of Svensen who served in the Oregon State Senate from 1987 to 2004. She said there was no doubt in her mind the SAFE program was worth the cost to the others, but estuary projects overall deserve a bigger slice of BPA fish and wildlife mitigation funds.
"I fought to have (the juvenile salmon study) put in the mainstem funding because they had room for it there, but Washington wouldn't do it," she said. "We're hoping BPA decides to fund it on its own."
Cathy Tortorici, a fisheries expert with National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said the estuary has been neglected. Her juvenile salmon study, which examines the ties between fish mortality and estuary conditions, was cut from the funding list before she presented her preliminary findings to the council Wednesday.
"The focus should be on the entire system, and that includes the estuary," she said. "So much attention is given to the mainstem, but our point is they all work together in one ecosystem."
Cassidy, who fought Dukes when she tried to save the NOAA project by putting it into the mainstem budget, said he was fighting for fiscal discipline.
"I don't think funding it out of a different budget is fiscally responsible," he said. "If you want the estuary projects, you've got to discipline yourself somehow by reducing other projects in that budget."
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