Another Flawed Columbia Salmon Recovery Plan Filed by Feds: Salmon Advocates Sneer

It’s not as if we expected more. The administration’s last three Coumbia Basin salmon recovery plans have been found so wanting by a federal judge that he ordered the administration back to try again.

After all, these are the same Feds who wanted tried to escape a workable salmon recovery plan by suggesting the dams are part of the natural landscape, or that the law only required they have a plan — not necessarily one that would recover salmon.

With that kind of mindset driving the creation of some seriously flawed salmon recovery plans, yesterday’s announcement doesn’t exactly come as a surprise — nor the reaction to it.

The Bush administration Monday issued its final court-ordered plans for making Columbia Basin hydroelectric dams and irrigation projects safe for endangered salmon.

The proposed changes in operations would cost hundreds of millions of dollars but no dam removals.

Once an expected challenge is filed, it will be up to U.S. District Judge James Redden to decide whether the plans — known as biological opinions — meet the demands of the Endangered Species Act to put salmon on the road to recovery.

Last year he warned the original proposal was seriously flawed, and that he would turn the job over to an independent panel of experts if the government fails again.

Salmon advocates blasted them as a step backward. They say the plans depend too much on restoring habitat in tributaries to boost fish numbers and not enough on reducing the high numbers of young salmon killed by 14 federal hydroelectric dams on the Columbia and Snake Rivers on their way to the sea.

The plan would set aside money for habitat improvement, but actually allocates less water for flows and to spill over the dams — factors critical to the survival of juvenile salmon headed for the sea.

With billions already spent — and salmon populations continuing their downward spiral — it’s time for the Feds to man up and take out the four lower Snake dams. Or at the very least, to quit screwing around with make-believe salmon recovery plans.

UPDATE: This from an editorial written by the Governor of Oregon:

Instead of improving river conditions for migrating fish, the plan reduces flow, which will result in slower movement of fish through the river system, which reduces their survival. The plan also reduces spill, which will increase mortality rates by sending more young fish through the dams’ turbines, and it will increase the artificial transport of fish around dams, relying more on barges and trucks. Last, the plan diverts attention from necessary changes in the operation of the dams by focusing on hatcheries and tributary habitat improvements that are inadequate to recovering Oregon’s native fish. Any dam improvements proposed in the plan are clouded by a failure to test benefits to fish prior to maximizing power production. This new plan is not a credible approach to the recovery of wild salmon and steelhead.

Oregon’s assessment of the plan is based on solid science. Our science is supported with technical evaluations from state, federal and tribal salmon managers from the Columbia Basin, including fish and wildlife agencies from Oregon, Washington and Idaho.