New era promised in salmon recovery

LITTLE WASHOUGAL RIVER — On a feeder stream, young coho salmon swim through a fish-friendly road culvert and then up a wooden fish ladder to reach the quiet rearing grounds of a beaver pond.

Federal officials yesterday showcased this restored waterway in Clark County as an example of the grass-roots action that will underpin a new Southwest Washington plan for recovering wild salmon in the Lower Columbia River as well as the broader effort that in the decades ahead will unfold across the Northwest.

The Bush administration envisions that effort to include hundreds of small-scale projects to improve stream spawning and rearing grounds but has opposed the removal of Snake River hydroelectric dams that rank as a major obstacle to fish survival.

"This is the face of the salmon recovery in the Pacific Northwest," said Bob Lohn, regional administrator for NOAA Fisheries, or the National Marine Fisheries Service, as he watched a college student dip-net young coho and steelhead out of a small fish trap to count them and measure the project's success.

Wild salmon runs have staged a modest rebound in recent years, in part due to improved ocean conditions. But this year's run of endangered spring chinook, so far, has largely not shown up at Bonneville Dam's counting station, sparking concerns of a major run failure.

The spring chinook is one of 25 West Coast salmon runs listed under the federal Endangered Species Act, including 12 in the Columbia Basin. The Southwest Washington plan for Lower Columbia River fish is the first of more than a half-dozen regional recovery plans that collectively will guide the federal effort in the Pacific Northwest.

These recovery plans are mandated by the Endangered Species Act. In the past, they have generally been crafted by federal biologists, who made politically tough calls about what restrictions are needed to enable a species to recover.

NOAA Fisheries officials, however, champion a new approach that allows community groups to work together to develop their own plan and submit it to federal officials for approval. Lohn called this a "radically different" approach that rejects "top-down" planning.

Washington's Lower Columbia plan was developed by a 15-member fish-recovery board that includes county, city, tribes, property owners, environmentalists, hydropower operators and other interests.

The draft document, which will circulate during the next 60 days for public comment, includes an extensive evaluation of degraded streams, which are obstacles to recovery, and of actions to improve streams and monitor their health.

The plan also defines the recovery as "healthy, harvestable levels" of wild salmon that will support commercial, sport and tribal fisheries.

The plan is being announced as the federal government faces legal challenges over operations of hydroelectric projects on the Columbia and Snake rivers, major killers of fish.

Lohn, the regional administrator for NOAA Fisheries, said that plenty of efforts are under way to make the major dams more fish-friendly and that the big gains in salmon recovery depend on improving the rearing and spawning grounds of smaller tributaries.

But environmentalists and tribes take issues with that.

"That's wishful thinking on Mr. Lohn's part," said Charles Hudson, a spokesman for the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission.

"The existence of the dams continues to be the single biggest cause of mortality in the system, and to say the hard work is done is just misleading."

Tribes, environmental groups and Oregon are pressing in federal court for changes to the operation of the Columbia Basin's hydroelectric system.

One of their goals is to ease the downstream passage of young fish by spilling more water over the dams rather than sending it through power-generating turbines.

Information from The Associated Press is included in this report. Hal Bernton: 206-464-2581 or hbernton@seattletimes.com