Contact:  Brian Gorman             FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
                                    5/17/96

AGENCIES AND INDIAN TRIBES MAKING PROGRESS PROTECTING MIGRATING JUVENILE SALMON AND STEELHEAD

By implementing dam modifications called for in a National Marine Fisheries Service plan for salmon recovery, federal and state agencies and Northwest Indian tribes are making substantial progress in helping dwindling stocks of young salmon and steelhead in their annual migration down the Columbia and Snake rivers to the ocean.

The progress stems mostly from significant modifications to Ice Harbor and Lower Granite dams, both on the Snake River, and reflects improvements called for in the fisheries service's proposed recovery plan for Snake River salmon listed under the Endangered Species Act. The plan was issued in March 1995.

Juvenile fish are now being diverted away from the six electricity-producing turbines at Ice Harbor Dam, where the Snake River enters the Columbia in southeast Washington. The young fish travel through a bypass system that returns them to the river downstream to continue their migration. Fisheries service biologists estimate that up to three percent of juvenile salmon are killed in bypass systems compared to as many as 19 percent that pass through the turbines at the federally operated hydroelectric dams on the Columbia/Snake River system.

Seven of the eight dams Snake River salmon and steelhead must pass now have bypass systems for fish.

At Lower Granite Dam, the first dam encountered by juvenile Snake River salmon and steelhead traveling to the ocean, larger underwater screens have been installed to guide more fish away from the lethal turbines. In addition, a prototype device designed to provide safer passage for juvenile salmon and steelhead is now in place.

The prototype device, called a surface bypass, is nearly 400 feet long and 60 feet deep and is attached to the top of the dam. Most young salmon and steelhead swim downstream close to the water surface and the surface bypass is designed to more efficiently divert them over the spillway, the safest way past the dams.

The prototype at Lower Granite is similar to a structure at Wells Dam in the Columbia River near Wenatchee, Wash. That system diverts up to 95 percent of juvenile fish away from the turbines.

The fisheries service said it will continue to carry out studies to find out how effective the Lower Granite prototype is. If these results are promising, it is expected that similar structures could be constructed at other Columbia and Snake river dams in the future.

Design, construction, and testing of these changes to mainstem dams has been undertaken by the Corps of Engineers, working with federal and state fisheries agencies and Columbia River Indian tribes, and are part of a continuing program to restore Columbia basin salmon and steelhead.

      

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