Is There aFuture for Salmon?

Is There a Future for Salmon?

by Jonathan Duncan

utofablurofrushing water, my eyes meetthe disOorientedstareofasalmonpulledinthecurrent.The river makes a low rumbling as it pours out ofthe large concrete conduit. Through a glass partition the river waters are illuminated with a green glow. Occasionally the silhouette ofa fish sweeps by.

From inside the cold observationbooth attached to the fish ladder at Wells Dam, I feel the chilling reality facing salmonon the Columbia River today.

Forthepast month I havebeen traveling downthe Columbia, working withUniversityofOregon ProfessorDennisTodd, who iswritingabode abouttheriver. WellsDamis tered Grand Coulee Dam in Central Washington. The fish wereable toclimbthelong, stair-likefish laddersthatother damsontheColumbiaprovided,butthesheersize ofGrand Coulee madeafish-ladder impossible. Forweeks, thethousandsofmigratingfishmilledaround in the tailrace at the base ofthe new dam. Eventually they spawnedrightthere, one atop another. A decade later, the “June Hogs” ofthe Colmnbia River wereextinct. Change came quickly to the river. A single generation watchedtheengineersandpoliticianstransformthewildand turbulentriverintoaseriesofcomputercontrolledplacidres

thesixth damwe have encoimtered; anothereightawaitus.

You attain a certain familiarity with a river when you travelwithitfiom its ervoirs. Today, 14 damsblockthe river’sflow. Salmonhave accessto lessthanhalfoftheirhistoric range.

origia

We began high in the rocl^ mountain trench of Canada. Along the marshy southern banks of Lake Columbia, modest bubbles of spring water rise to the surface, and the river is bom.

For the first 100 miles,the riverflows north through a mgged landscape of towering peaks and vastwetlands.

As I paddled my canoe through the densereeds, achorus of birds surrounded me. Baldeagleswere Headwaters ofthe Columbis River, Lake Columbia, B.C.

abundant, as were osprey, herons and kingfishers.

Butthehumanalterationsintheriverfarthersouthhave madeagreat impact. Acycle hasbeenbroken. The salmon have stopped coming.

Manyelders rememberthelegendary“June Hogs” (upper Columbia Coho) that once migrated all the way to the headwaters to q>awn.

Thismightysalmoncouldweighup to 125 poundsand grow up to five feet long. Every spring these massive fish wouldfighttheirwayupwater&llsandplungepools,through wetlands and up into the gravely streams that pour down fi~om thehighpeaks.

This lossofhabitat, combined withoverfishing, hasresulted ina 95 to 98percentdeclineinwildsalmon runs.

Foryears, commercialandNativeAmericanfisherswere hesitantto petitionthe listing ofsalmonunderthe ESA for fear they would lose access tothe fish.

Butin 1991 the Shoshone-Barmocktribe ofIdahopetitioned the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), the agencyresponsibleforsalmon, tolistthe uiqrer SnakeRiver Sockeye as endangered.

Petitioning NMFS to list the salmon was particularly symbolic for the Shoshone; it was the tribe of Sacajawea, who ledLewisand Clarktothe ColumbiaRiverin 1805.

voirlevels inthe springtoincrease riverflow. The proposal also recommends opening thedam’s spillways sothefishdonotgothrough theelectricity-generatingturbines. Duringalow- water year, the turbines can kill 98 percent of

The end ofthe linefor salmon. Grand Coulee Dam, Central Wash. tribal lands of the Shoshone-Bannock in any appreciable number for many years. Idaho has not had a state-wide salmon season since 1977.

Thecurrentskeptrolling, andin 1992 theNMFS listed the upper Snake River Sockeye as endangered. That same year, a single sockeye salmonreachedthe historic spawmng grounds atRedFish Lake.

Listingcertain stocksofsalmonasendangeredrequires theNMFS toproposeaplantostabilizetheruns. Threeyears havepassed sincethelisting, andnoplanisyetinplace. The problem is revitalizing a species whose habitat hasbeen so dramaticallyaltered. Local politicians and industryleadersfavoraprogramofhatcheriesandbarging juvenile salmon down river.

Rep. Jack Metcalf (RWash.) told me, “The greatest idea in the world would be to take 20 or 100 of the endangered salmon, spawn them in hatcheries, then barge them down to the ocean. There would be no netlossofgeneticmaterial.”

During the 1980s and 1990s, public utilitydistricts onthe ColumbiaRiverspent anestimated $1.3 billionon hatcheries and lost revenue attenq>tingtodoubleexisting salmonruns.

Theirefforts&iled. Wild populations must now compete with thousands of hatcheryfishfor the limited foodandspawninggrounds.

A second proposal, endorsed by Save Our Wild

Salmonand26 otherfishing andconservationgroups, inthefishtryingto passthrough the dam. In response to this proposal. Sen. MarkHatfield (R-Ore.) and Sen. Slade Gorton (R-Wash.) introduced abill into Congress that wouldlimittheamountofmoneytheBormeville PowerAdministration (BPA) spendsonsalmon rehabiUtation. Ifthisbillpasses,BPAcouldclaim that using spillways is too costly and continue to send theyoimg fish throughthe turbines.

Some politicians do not agree that we should save the salmon. Rep. Helen Chenoweth (R-Idaho) said in a campaign speech, “Salmon istheonlyendangered speciesIcan buy onthe shelfinthe supermarket.”

Thisunwilhngnesstoacknowledgethe negative impact the loss ofsalmon would have on the region’s people and economy is frustrating for those fighting to save the wild runs.

Long-timesalmonactivistEdChaneysaid, “We areup againstamindless ideologicalresistancetoreality.”

No one can say for certain what the future will hold for salmon onthe ColumbiaRiver. Biologists studying theriversaythatifwedo not focus energy on rehabilitating lost salmon habitat, then the future willcertainlybegrim. One evening on the riverbankI askedProfessor Todd how we would go about managing salmoninariverthathas been so altered. He responded, “Ifwe don’t adopt an ecosystem approach, one that conserves habitat for spawning and enables the fish to pass through the dams and reservoirs, then we will always be one stepbehind—engineering temporary solutions to a problem so complex that we will never completelyunder^ standit.”

volves drawing down reser A small boat descends the locks at The Dalles Dam.