Testimony of Ric Ilgenfritz, Columbia Basin Coordinator
National Marine Fisheries Service – Northwest Region
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
U.S. Department of Commerce
before the
Committee on Energy and Natural Resources
Subcommittee on Water and Power
U.S. Senate
at
Bonneville Dam, Oregon
April 18, 2000

Introduction
Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman and members of the Subcommittee. I appreciate the opportunity to be here today, and I commend the Subcommittee for taking the time to examine the critical and complex choices facing the Northwest region regarding salmon recovery in the Columbia Basin.

The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) is engaged in two efforts at present to address salmon recovery policy as it applies for the Federal Columbia River Power System (FCRPS). One is a new biological opinion (BO) covering operations and configuration of the system under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). The other is the All-H Paper, an elective effort by the Federal agencies to engage the people of the region in a discussion over long-term choices for recovering salmon Basin-wide.

I will first give the Subcommittee an update on the status of our work to complete a new BO for the FCRPS, and then I will describe the All-H Paper, and how the two efforts complement each other.

The Biological Opinion
Section 7 of the Endangered Species Act requires Federal agencies to consult with the Secretary of Commerce to ensure that their actions are not likely to jeopardize the continued existence of threatened or endangered salmon and steelhead, or their habitats. To inform this consultation, the so-called "action" agencies must conduct a biological assessment (BA) of their prospective actions to determine the likely impact of such actions on listed species. The BA forms the basis of inter-agency consultation under the ESA and the subsequent BO rendered by NMFS.

On December 21, 1999, NMFS received a BA from Bonneville Power Administration, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps), and the Bureau of Reclamation outlining proposed operation and configuration of the FCRPS and assessing the likely impacts on listed salmon and other fish and wildlife species. We are now developing a new BO for the system to replace the one completed in 1995.

The scope of the new BO covers the entire FCRPS and all 12 Evolutionarily Significant Units (ESUs) within the Columbia Basin. It will address operation of the system, including flow and spill. It will address system configuration, including a dam breaching decision, passage improvements at each project, and operation of the transportation system. It will establish performance standards for the hydro system based upon productivity improvements needed by each listed ESU to avoid extinction and achieve a recovery trajectory. A decision has not yet been made on the duration of the BO; it could be anywhere from two to ten years.

Our jeopardy standard will be the same as it was in 1995 but will be applied to additional at risk populations. That is, we must make a determination that proposed agency actions, or reasonable and prudent alternatives to such actions, provide a high likelihood of survival and a moderate to high likelihood of recovery.

NMFS and the Action Agencies have been working in an inter-agency group since Fall 1999. That group is composed of senior staff from each agency to begin consultation under ESA. In addition, on January 26, 2000, NMFS sent a letter to each of the five Northwest states and thirteen Native American Tribes inviting them to participate in the consultation process. Since then, the work group has been meeting regularly, both by itself and with the states and tribes, to lay the ground work for, and develop the key elements of, a new BO covering future operations of the FCRPS. Draft materials developed through the Federal work group process were recently shared with same states and tribes, including hydrologic and biological analyses of the effects of certain flow and spill alternatives, an analysis of the potential effects of those same operations on the transmission system, and an initial description of the information being developed to support the establishment and use of performance standards (mailings on 3/20/00 and 3/24/00).

There have been numerous work group meetings for interagency consultation, and there have also been a number of meetings between the work group and the affected states and tribes. These are the meetings during which the key technical elements of the biological opinion are being developed, analyzed, discussed, and refined. In short, this is where the real work is done. We have endeavored to make this process as open as possible by making technical documents and schedule information widely available, and by inviting state and tribal governments to participate.

Our current schedule for finalizing the BO is as follows: NMFS expects to submit the draft BO for technical review and comment to the states and tribes by May 22. This is not a formal public review process. The point of the review by states and tribes with technical expertise in this area is to ensure that NMFS is including and appropriately applying the best available scientific information. The BO will be revised and finalized by mid-July.

We had hoped to release the BO sooner, in advance of the spring migration of juvenile salmon. There are several reasons for the delay. First and foremost, we want to be certain our analysis is complete. The biology is a major factor informing our decision, and we want to make sure it withstands independent review. Secondly, we are applying a new tool in our efforts to re-build salmon and steelhead populations: performance standards. We think it is critical that we have an effective tool for setting goals and measuring progress. Performance standards have tremendous promise in this regard, but the technical challenge in applying them to the salmon life cycle is extremely rigorous and time consuming. Finally, the logistical demands of conducting public hearings on the All-H Paper and consulting with 13 tribes are considerable. We want to make sure we complete these consultations prior to entering a final decision-making mode. Until the BO is finalized, we will continue to operate the system pursuant to the 1995 BO.

I will now turn to the All-H Paper.

The All-H Paper: Context and Purpose
The purpose of the Federal caucus and the All-H Paper is to bring all Federal agencies with legal responsibility for salmon under one roof, look at the whole salmon life cycle, and present conceptual recovery strategies based on actions within each life stage. In doing so, we have engaged the public on the key choices facing the region.

I want to emphasize the importance we have placed on public involvement. I have attached to my statement a preliminary report summarizing our efforts over the past year to engage the region in dialogue, but I want to summarize the high points here.

During February and March, the Federal caucus held 15 public meetings throughout the region to give the public an opportunity to comment on, and participate in, Federal policy development on salmon recovery. Nearly 10,000 people attended the hearings, and we took an estimated 1500 oral comments. We also have received an estimated 60,000 written comments.

Prior to the public hearings, our staff engaged in dozens of stakeholder meetings with groups, individuals, and government, ranging the spectrum of economic and social interests of the region. In addition, the Northwest Fisheries Science Center has conducted seven open workshops on the Cumulative Risk Initiative (CRI), beginning with the earliest development of its application to salmon, and concluding just last week with a meeting of scientists from the states. This science has been developed out in the open, for all to see.

We contacted nearly every daily newspaper in the region last fall prior to release of the All-H Paper, and then again during the public hearings. We also conducted a one-day public information meeting in Spokane to disseminate information about both the paper itself and the public hearings to follow.

We have been criticized for years for conducting Section 7 consultations behind closed doors; it is true that Section 7 does not require a public involvement process as traditionally set forth in the Administrative Procedure Act. Given the magnitude of the issues we are considering, we felt it was very important to develop a means of engaging the public as we formulate the BO. Our hope is that through the All-H process, we can formulate approaches in collaboration with the region that are scientifically credible, legally defensible, implementable and acceptable to those affected. With that in mind, I will turn now to the basic content and findings of the draft All-H Paper.

Goals and Objectives
The All-H Paper contains five basic goals:
1) conserve species by avoiding extinction and fostering recovery of ESA-listed fish and wildlife;
2) conserve ecosystems on which salmon and steelhead depend;
3) assure tribal fishing rights consistent with United States' treaty and trust obligations;
4) balance the needs of other species; and
5) minimize adverse effects on humans.

In order to be sure we are making progress toward these goals, the agencies are committed to developing workable performance standards and measures. Such measures will enable us to monitor progress, adapt our approaches when necessary, and capitalize on success. They should also provide the public with a useful means of tracking results.

The Science
The most up-to-date scientific tool used by the agencies in this paper is the CRI. NMFS also used the Plan for Analyzing and Testing Hypotheses, or PATH.

PATH was the primary tool NMFS used for its first draft biological appendix to the Corps' EIS. NMFS received substantial comment on its summary of PATH. NMFS heard concerns from the Independent Science Advisory Board that the PATH analyses were overly optimistic because they failed to take extinction risks into account, and that the PATH analyses focused on the hydropower system to the exclusion of other Hs. In response to these concerns, NMFS used CRI to analyze the risk of extinction and to provide a broader analysis of salmon life stages for the final appendix.

The CRI has three main components: it analyzes extinction risks for each ESU; it provides a sensitivity analysis to determine which salmon life stages are the best candidates for improvement; and it will provide a feasibility analysis for achieving survival improvements in the areas identified in the sensitivity analysis.

The draft paper, which we released last December 17th, contains findings for the Snake River salmon; we recently completed analyses for 11 of the 12 listed populations in the Columbia Basin. (The 12th has a population size too small to be analyzed.) The results are very helpful to our understanding of the status of these ESUs. In general, the analyses show that Upper Columbia ESUs and steelhead throughout its range are in the worst shape, but all the ESUs need action now to correct the trends.

We found extinction risks for all 12 Columbia Basin listed ESUs to be very high. On average, for Snake River spring/summer chinook salmon stocks, there is a 67 percent risk of extinction in 100 years. For fall chinook, the risk is 56 percent in 100 years. For steelhead, the risk is 100 percent in 100 years. For Upper Columbia chinook and steelhead, the risks are 90 percent and 100 percent, respectively. The extinction threshold used for these figures is absolute extinction, which is a total of one fish returning within one generation. These numbers are alarming and tell us that the status quo will lead to extinction for all upper river salmon and steelhead populations.

To reverse these trends and bring extinction risks to less than 5 percent over a 100 year period, we need to see, on average, a 9 percent improvement in population growth rate for Snake River spring/summer chinook; a 6 percent improvement in population growth rate for fall chinook; and approximately 10 percent improvement for steelhead. In the Upper Columbia, we need to see a 10 percent improvement for steelhead and a 16 percent improvement for spring chinook. These are very ambitious objectives.

The sensitivity analyses indicate where reducing mortality may be able to contribute to these improvements. For spring/summer chinook, major improvements in population growth rate may be possible in the first year of life, during freshwater rearing, and during the estuary and early ocean phase, because these are the two life stages where the species undergoes the greatest amount of mortality. This points to improving the quality of spawning and rearing habitat in the upper tributaries, where they spend the first year before entering the hydro system, as well as improving water quality and restoring productivity in the estuary. Dam breaching is likely to benefit this ESU, but as a single action, is unlikely to be sufficient to achieve recovery. There is little to be gained by restriction of harvest on these fish, which already experience a very low exploitation rate. The last commercial harvest on these fish was in the late 1960s.

For fall chinook, the same basic dynamic holds: the first year of life offers the greatest potential for improving population growth rates. In this case, the hydro system is a bigger factor. Fall chinook spawn in the main stem, enter the system almost right away, and then rear in the estuary before entering the ocean.

Dam breaching is likely to result in the needed improvements for fall chinook, because it would improve the quality of the migration corridor and likely open additional spawning habitat. Harvest constraints could have measurable benefits for these fish, because over 50 percent of them are harvested in the ocean and in the river. While harvest is not permitted directly on Snake River fall chinook, the species intermingles with the healthy population of Hanford Reach chinook, which can withstand higher harvest rates.

Finally, the analysis for steelhead shows that major benefits to population growth are likely to be achieved by improving downstream survival of smolts, and upriver survival of adults. These findings point toward first year survivals, dam breaching and harvest constraints, respectively.

For Snake River stocks, the bottom lines appear to be that breaching by itself may not be sufficient to recover all the stocks, but neither is it clear we can achieve recovery by relying entirely on other measures.

The Options by "H"
The All-H Paper shows three options within each of the so-called "Hs," hydro, habitat, harvest, and hatcheries. For each H, the first option represents what might be considered the "status quo." Even these options represent an improvement over conditions in the recent past. That is because there have been significant improvements recently in all of the Hs. The other two options represent even greater improvements; the differences range in degree from moderate to aggressive improvements over the recent past.

Within habitat, the options are expressed as procedural approaches, because the nature and extent of habitat projects must be determined through a rigorous watershed assessment and prioritization effort. The first option, therefore, is premised upon a greater level of Federal coordination. This means coordinating the budgets and priorities of all the Federal agencies that conduct habitat-related programs in the region, in effect, getting the Federal house in order.
The second option is taking the same basic approach, but bringing state and local habitat managers into the coordination and prioritization process on a collaborative basis. Third would be an aggressive regulatory approach spearheaded at the Federal, level relying primarily on enforcement authority provided in the Endangered Species Act and Clean Water Act.

For harvest, the options are presented as management actions. Option one is to keep commercial fisheries at their currently reduced levels, but allow them to increase over time as salmon runs improve (assuming they do). This approach would use an abundance-based management regime, with harvest rates increasing as runs increase. Option two is to fix fishery levels at their currently reduced rates for a period of years while populations rebuild. Option three is to reduce or eliminate fisheries altogether, a so-called "conservation fishery" level for a period of years until populations rebound.

In the hatchery area, the options are complementary toward the harvest options. Option one is to proceed with currently planned, incremental reforms to the hatchery system. These reforms are contemplated in a document recently produced by the Northwest Power Planning Council entitled "Artificial Production Review" and in NMFS Biological Opinions. Option two would apply conservation hatchery operations more aggressive to at-risk salmon populations, in effect putting even more listed populations on life support. Option three would increase the use of conservation hatcheries while simultaneously reducing the use of traditional production hatcheries built in years past to "mitigate" for the hydro system.

Finally, for the hydro system, the options are as follows. The first option is called the current program. This option represents ongoing incremental improvements to the system in its current configuration, both in terms of capital improvements at the dams and operations. The second option is referred to as the aggressive program. This option essentially means speeding up the timetable for capital improvements at the dams and taking a more aggressive approach on operations, including more flow augmentation and spill over the dams. The third option is breaching the four Lower Snake River dams. In this option, the earthen portion of each lower Snake dam would be removed over a period of 7-8 years as described by the Corps.

These options are meant to reflect the broad policy choices within each area. They are not meant as specific management actions. How to apply these policies in specific cases and locations will have to be determined over a period of time.

Alternative Recovery Strategies
The alternatives are also intended to give examples of broad strategic choices for mixing and matching the options. The four alternatives in the All-H Paper reflect the fundamental approaches available. However, they are not the only possible combinations, and some raise legal and practical issues. Finally, none of these should be seen as a preferred alternative at this time. The whole purpose of these meetings is to seek public input before making any choices.

Alternative One emphasizes breaching. It would press ahead aggressively with breaching, while continuing with incremental improvements in the other Hs.

Alternative Two emphasizes harvest constraints. It would reduce fishing to conservation levels – which is to say little or no fishing at all – while incrementally improving hydro system survival and habitat programs, and moving ahead with conservation hatcheries for at-risk populations.

Alternative Three is called the "aggressive non-breach" approach. This package emphasizes habitat improvements in combination with fixed harvest rates, more conservation hatcheries, and incremental hydro system improvements.

Alternative Four is called maximum protection. In this scenario, the region would push forward aggressively on all fronts: breaching, harvest constraints, habitat regulation, and conservation hatcheries.

Conclusion
There is no silver bullet. There is no single decision or process that will lead us to recovery overnight. If CRI taught us anything, it is that we must pursue salmon recovery across all life stages, and at each level of government and community in the region.

The government must issue a new biological opinion this year. Its content will reflect the input of states and tribes, and the input received from the public during the hearings.

The All-H Paper will be revised on the same timeframe as the BO. It will summarize the feedback received during the public meetings and the tribal consultations, and it will update our scientific findings. Ultimately, the All-H Paper will provide a recovery template to serve as context for hydro system operations and improvements called for in the upcoming biological opinion. It will also offer guidance to the formal recovery planning process, which is getting underway in the region as we speak.

I cannot emphasize the importance of habitat enough. The CRI points directly at first-year survival improvements in the tributaries and in the estuary as the places with the potential greatest contribution to rebuilding these stocks. This means vigorous improvements in the way we manage tributary habitats, which in turn translates into providing adequate instream flows of adequate water quality and protecting the riparian areas of these same streams. This is no small task, indeed, and should place the challenge of the Snake River dams in a more sober context. Restoring water quality, providing adequate instream flows and rebuilding the productivity of the estuary are very tough challenges indeed. If we have any hope of keeping salmon and dams in the Columbia Basin, we must make significant progress on these water and riparian issues. We recognize that this is not a popular observation, but the science is persuasive. Unless we can weave together an effort to improve dramatically the stewardship of our rivers and streams in the Basin, our chances for recovering the species will be remote. If, however, we can take advantage of the natural productivity of our spawning and rearing areas, we will succeed and pass to our children a rich and durable legacy.

Federal lands management will be determined primarily by the results of the Interior Columbia Basin EIS. Non-federal habitat issues will have to be addressed incrementally, and it will require creativity, patience and backbone. At this juncture, the efforts of the several states, numerous tribal governments, local jurisdictions and private initiatives, as well as the Northwest Power Planning Council, all represent an active laboratory for different habitat-related strategies. The essential ingredients include good science, technical assistance, active incentives — both positive and negative, and funding. While it is certainly too early to gauge the likelihood of success, the basic elements are in play and the level of effort is escalating.

Harvest and hatchery changes are and will be pursued through the U.S. v. Oregon process, and implemented in part through the Northwest Power Planning Council amendments to its fish and wildlife program. We must substantially change the outdated harvest management paradigms of the now expired Columbia River Fish Management Plan and build in a far greater sensitivity to the protection of weak stocks - not just the harvesting of the strong stocks. We have commenced those discussions with the state and tribal fish managers, and we hope for further rapid progress in the coming months.

Predation control can and will be addressed on an inter-agency basis, but we badly need new authorities to address predation issues under the Marine Mammal Protection Act. We asked Congress for that authority in 1997; we still need it, and I would encourage this Subcommittee to work with the other committees of jurisdiction to move on the matter.

Funding will be critical. Federal agency budgets will have to be adequate. BPA will continue to provide substantial contributions. However, they alone cannot bear the entire burden. Each Federal program currently in place to enhance fish and wildlife habitat should be coordinated to ensure the maximum biological benefit to salmon in the Basin. Where matching funds are required, state and local planners will have to show initiative in order to take advantage of Federal resources where they are available.

Mr. Chairman and members of the Subcommittee, thank you once again for the opportunity to be here. I would be happy to answer any questions you may have.