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The Skeena River system is among thePacific Northwest’s best wild steelheadstreams. Unfortunately, it has sufferedthe ill side effects of the commercialsalmon fishing industry. In this issue’scover story, writer Rob Brown providesan update on the Skeena and its wildfish.

Rob Brown makes his home inTerrace B.C., the epicenter of steelheadand salmon fishing on the Canadiannorth coast. He has spent the last 30years teaching school, campaigning onthe behalf of salmon and angling foranadromous fish. These days, he divideshis time between teaching classical gui-tar, collecting a paltry pension, writinghis weekly column, “The SkeenaAngler” for the Terrace Standard, and -— you guessed it — angling for anadro-mous fish. He may be reached at [email protected].

Workers are tearing theface off the disheveledtwo-story buildingacross from the TerraceCo-op. A lanky young

man pries at a lath over the doorway.It’s dark in the stairwell. At the topthere’s the acrid smell of cigarettesmoke. Natural light mixes with unnat-ural light and lights up walls covered

with posters of wild places and wildcreatures in wild places. A back dooropens into vacant gray office spacewhere an electrician pulls at somewires.

Another door leads to the mainoffice of the Terrace office of theCanadian Parks and Wilderness Society.It’s a small purposeful room, cluttered

with boxes and paper piles. The wallsare covered with maps and satelliteimagery. It seems more like a war roomthan an office. "Hey," shouts Bruce Hill,pushes away from his desk and rocksback in his amply cushioned swivelchair.

The latest news of the latest battlein the war to prevent the Stikine frombeing turned into an industrial park isgood, he tells me. The Tahltan eldershave repudiated their leader; a mannamed Asp, for betraying their trustand entering into agreements withmultinationals, and have ordered themultinational’s minions off their tribalterritory.

This bit of good news from thefront is welcome, a little relief fromwhat seems an endless struggle to savethe Northern wilderness from corpo-rate plans: an incursion into SpatsiziPark; a planned haul road that wouldcross dozens of salmon streams andexpose vast tracts of pristine forests toplunder; plans for dam construction inthe far north, plans to suck coal bed

THE OSPREYA Newsletter Published by the Steelhead Committee

Federation of Fly Fishers

Dedicated to the Preservation of Wild Steelhead • Issue No. 51 • MAY 2005

IN THISISSUE:

COLUMBIA RIVERKELTS

— PAGE 8 —

GOODBYE CATCH & KILL— PAGE 11 —

SALMON 1, FEDS 0

— PAGE 12 —

DAMS BEGONE

— PAGE 14 —

Continued on Page 4

SSkkeeeennaa RRiivveerr SStteeeellhheeaadd aatt tthhee SSttaarrtt ooff tthhee 2211sstt CCeennttuurryy

by Rob Brown— Terrace, British Columbia —

If they’d kept doingbusiness as usual,

there would be a lotfewer steelhead and

coho there today.

THE OSPREY

Contributing EditorsJohn Sager • Pete SoverelBill Redman • Stan Young

Terry Davis

ContributorsRob Brown • Bill RedmanBill Bakke • Mark Freeman

Jim Yuskavitch

LayoutJ. Yuskavitch Resources

Letters To The EditorThe Osprey welcomes submissions

and letters to the editor. All submissions can be

made either electronically or by mail.

The OspreyP.O. Box 1228

Sisters, OR [email protected]

(541) 549-8914

The Osprey is a publication of TheFederation of Fly Fishers and is pub-lished three times a year. All materialsare copy protected and require permis-sion prior to reprinting or other use.

The Osprey © 2005

THE OSPREY IS PRINTED ON RECYCLED PAPERUSING SOY INK

The Federation of Fly Fishers is aunique non-profit organization con-

cerned with sport fishing and fisheriesThe Federation of Fly Fishers (FFF) supports con-

servation of all fish in all waters.FFF has a long standing commit-ment to solving fisheries problems atthe grass roots. By charter and inclina-tion, FFF is organized from the bottomup; each of its 360+ clubs, all overNorth America and the world, is aunique and self-directed group. Thegrass roots focus reflects the realitythat most fisheries solutions must comeat that local level.

ChairmanBill Redman

EditorJim Yuskavitch

FROM THE PERCH — EDITOR’S MESSAGE

2 MAY 2005 THE OSPREY • ISSUE NO. 51

The Columbia River Salmon Saga Continuesby Jim Yuskavitch

Letters to the Editor

As this issue of The Osprey went to press, the big news was federal courtJudge James Redden’s decision that the federal government’s latestrecovery plan for wild Columbia River basin salmon and steelhead was-n’t going to cut the legal mustard. While the policy analysts and attorneysrepresenting the wild fish advocates had many problems with the plan,

two fundamental issues were its designation of the existing dams on the Columbiaand Snake rivers as the ‘natural condition,’ rather than one of the primary sources ofthe fishes’ troubles. The other was that the plan only promised to maintain the basin’sanadromous fish populations, not recover them, as clearly required by theEndangered Species Act. Read more about this issue beginning on page 12.

We have been through this before. The latest, now rejected, recovery plan wasintended to replace a previously rejected plan that relied too much on speculativehabitat restoration projects, just as this one relies too much on technological fixes.

One has to wonder why the federal government continues to come up with recov-ery plans that include everything but what is widely believed to be the most effectivestrategy — more spill and a serious look at removing the four lower Snake Riverdams.

As the federal government goes back to the drawing board to develop a plan thatsatisfies the ESA’s legal requirements, let’s hope that the third time is the charm.

Pardon Us!In each January issue of TheOsprey, we publish the names of allwho generously donated funds tokeep us afloat and working for thebenefit of wild steelhead and salmon.This year, we inadvertently left outtwo 2004 donors from that list. Theyare:

Bill Redman $100.00

Alice Elliott $50.00

Gary Byrnes $25.00

Our apologies for misplacing yournames, and a big thanks to you andour many other supporters.

Keep it Up

Dear Editor:

I’ve been receiving The Osprey for anumber of years now and I have to com-pliment you guys for keeping me up todate on the love of my life (steelhead). Nowife anymore, thank God.

Keep up the good work.

Mike Oglevia e-mail

Best Issue Ever

Dear Editor:

I just wanted to tell you that the January2005 issue of The Osprey is the best edi-tion I have read, and I think I’ve readthem all (and edited a few). Each piece iswell written, informative, easy to readand most of all, eye opening.

Bravo.

Jack de Yongevia e-mail

Editor’s Note: Jack de Yonge is a formereditor of The Osprey.

Dear Editor:

Suffice it to say that the Washington FlyFishing Club places a high value on thecontributions of The Osprey to the educa-tion of our fly fishing and general popula-tion. In that regard, the January 2005issue was truly superlative.

Douglas SchaadCo-Chair Conservation CommitteeWashington Fly Fishing Club

Now and then, an importantevent slips by withoutmuch public or medianotice. This happened tothe report made by the

Salmon Recovery Science Review Panelon its meeting with staff of NOAAFisheries and other agencies at theNorthwest Fisheries Science CenterAugust 30th to September 2nd, 2004.When I read the report several monthsafter the meeting, my immediateresponse was that readers of TheOsprey would want to know about it.

The panel was convened by NOAAFisheries and "consists of seven highlyqualified and independent scientists"who provide scientific counsel to NOAA.All are associated with major universi-ties and hold doctorates in various fish-eries related disciplines. They meet twoor three times per year on pertinentsalmon science issues and receive andcomment on presentations from federaland state agency, tribal and other scien-tists.

The introduction to this report bythe Panel begins: "One of the major fac-tors affecting the status of listed Pacificsalmon is the potential negative effectthat hatchery fish exert on populationsof wild fish. Ironically, while manyhatchery programs were designed toaccelerate population recovery of wildfish and stabilize their numbers, there isevidence that many supplementationprograms have the opposite effect. …the bulk of the evidence indicates that,on the whole, hatchery fish are notequivalent to wild fish, genetically orphenotypically."

It continues on by identifying thefocus of the meeting: "The RSRP is con-cerned that including hatchery fish inlisting decisions could greatly jeopar-dize the mandate of long-term recoveryof natural, self-sustaining populations.This concern led us to focus our meet-ing … on an examination of the interac-tions between hatchery and wild fish,how hatchery fish may be affecting thepopulations of wild fish, the scientificissues surrounding efforts at habitatcompensation and restoration that

involve hatchery fish, and the scientificinconsistencies created by the proposedhatchery policy. … we address the over-arching issues raised by hatchery fishand the burgeoning conflict between thescientific evidence about hatchery fishand the proposed method of addressinghatchery fish in listing policies."

Part One of the report reviews thepresentations made at the meeting, pro-vides critical assessments of hatcherysupplementation experiments, and sug-gests programs for the analysis of sup-plementation efforts. The report makesa number of illuminating comments

about supplementation experiments,including the following brief sampling.

"It will be very difficult to make fishemerge from hatchery environmentswith the same potential for future lifehistories as those expressed in wild fish.… We believe that loss of fitness in thewild is an inevitable consequence ofadaptation to hatcheries and evidencesuggests that this loss can occur in theinitial generations of breeding stock."

"Rigorous experimental evaluationsof the effects of hatchery augmentationare critical because they offer thestrongest evidence for testing the longheld assumption that hatchery augmen-tation is effective and beneficial for wildpopulations. This assumption remainsuntested because, despite widespreadhatchery augmentation, there havebeen few attempts to exploit hatcheryreleases in an experimental fashion –meaning treatment and control – toevaluate the effects of augmentation."

"We emphasize the critical impor-tance of the planned termination of …

juvenile releases for the proper testingof impacts of hatchery augmentation."

But it is PART TWO of the report,THE ESU CONCEPT, HATCHERIES,LISTING , AND RECOVERY, whichoffers the sharpest condemnation ofhatchery supplementation and the newNOAA Hatchery Policy.

On the loss of fitness in hatcheryfish: "We examined all of the studies ofsalmonids in which hatchery fish camefrom the same or nearby rivers to thewild fish and did not examine any studyin which hatchery fish came from otherregions of the species’ range. It is wellknown that the fitness of hatchery fishderived from other regions is almostalways well below the fitness of wildfish. … Relative fitness of hatchery fish(in the studies examined) declines regu-larly with the number of generations inculture. An exponential curve fit to thedata indicates that fitness is lost inexcess of 20 percent per generation. …Despite recent improvements in thepractices of some hatcheries … hatch-eries will never produce salmonids withthe same evolutionary potential as thosereared in the wild."

On scientific inconsistencies creat-ed by the proposed Hatchery Policy, thereport states the following: "Althoughmost attention focused on the ESA hasbeen on its goal of preventing extinc-tion, the Act has a second mandate: toachieve sufficient self-sustaining wildpopulations of listed species to ensuretheir survival in nature. … The purpos-es of this Act are to provide a meanswhereby the ecosystems upon whichendangered species and threatenedspecies may be conserved … Congressclearly intended recovery in nature tobe the goal of the ESA … We remainextremely concerned about scientificimplications of the proposed hatcherypolicy (NMFS 2004), which dictates thatwhen hatchery fish are sufficiently sim-ilar to wild fish they should be includedin the same ESU as wild fish."

"Even when substantial data exist tosupport similarity with respect to quasi-

THE OSPREY • ISSUE NO. 51 MAY 2005 3

Pitfall of Using Hatchery Fish for Wild Fish Recovery by Bill Redman

— Steelhead Committee —

Continued on page 19

CHAIR’S CORNER

We remain extremelyconcerned about thescientific implications

of NMFS’s 2004hatchery policy.

methane from land in the headwaters ofthe Skeena.

The multinationals have staunchallies in a Liberal government of BritishColumbia that is about as far removedfrom the principles of liberalism as apolitical party can be. A coalition of pro-development right-wing zealots thatadheres to the neo-conservative ethicthat was first inflicted on theBritish in the reign ofMaggy Thatcher, then wastried in the United States inthe Reagan Era, and has nowreached its most extremeexpression under the cur-rent Bush administration,the B.C. Liberals underPremier Gordon Campbellare so wedded to the arcaneeconomic theories of Hyekand Friedman that they tripover themselves in theirhaste to privatize theprovince. B.C., they declare,is open for business. Most ofprovince’s unexploited rawresources are in the north-ern part of the province,which is why Bruce Hillworks long hours, sevendays a week these days andexplains why he’s oftenexhausted.

Bruce is in his latefifties. He’s a big man wholooks out of place leaningover desk tapping at a key-board with hands that lookmore suited to packing achainsaw or pulling on awrench. He’s done both,working as a millwright in anAlaskan pulp mill beforemoving to the Lakes Districtin central B.C., where he worked as log-ger and ran a small sawmill. Tired of thegrunt labour and insecurity and stressof eking a living out of an unstable for-est industry increasingly dominated byforest mining multinationals, Hill tookup salmon guiding.

Guiding put Bruce in touch withfish, pulled him closer to their problemsat a time when it was common to have asmany as 750 boats fishing sockeye in theapproach waters to the Skeena Riverevery summer. The sockeye run over-

lapped the returning summer steelhead,as well as early part of the coho run.Where the sockeye were enhanced as aresult of the construction of spawningchannels in Fulton River and PinkutCreek, steelhead and coho were not andhad also to deal with additional pres-sures associated with habitat loss.

The problems accompanying mixedstock interception were understood andaccepted by fisheries scientists and fish-

eries managers, but they persisted forsocial and political reasons, exacerbat-ed by structural problems in the manag-ing agencies. Though the FederalDepartment of Fisheries and Oceans isentrusted with the stewardship of allCanada’s fish, it delegates much of themanagement of freshwater fish to theprovincial governments. In B.C. themanagement of steelhead comes underthe aegis of fish and wildlife branch ofthe Ministry of the Environment,renamed the Ministry of Water, Landand Air Protection by the Liberals.

Over time the principled mandatesof management agencies were attenuat-ed as their staff came to realize that thesize of their institution, the size of itsbudgets, the difficulty of their jobs andthe security of those jobs is related tothe service they provide to what theyperceive to be their client group.

Nowhere in Canada is there a moreegregious example of this phenomenonthan the Department of Fisheries and

Oceans (DFO), whose allegiance to thefishing industry, fishermen and theircommunities on the east coast precipi-tated the collapse of the cod stocks andwhat was once the greatest pelagic fish-ery on the planet.

On the west coast DFO manage-ment was also driven by the needs of thecommercial fishing industry. As formerfederal fisheries Minister Siddon oncesaid, "My staff and commercial fisher-men are friends, and you don’t like tohurt your friends."


SSkkeeeennaa RRiivveerr,, CCoonnttiinnuueedd ffrroomm ppaaggee 11

Continued on next page

Wild Skeena River steelhead have suffered mightily from the impacts of the commercial salmonfishing industry. Photograph by Fred Seilert.

The Provincial Fish and WildlifeBranch of the Ministry of theEnvironment, the body responsible forthe welfare of steelhead, saw sportsmenas its client group, but because of theprogressive attitude of its senior staffand its small size, the organization did-n’t lose sight of the fact that the healthof the fish under its care was central toits mandate. In the case of steelhead thisattitude translated into reduced bag lim-its, the promotion of catch and releaseregulations and an emphasis on wildfish.

Where the welfare of steelhead wascompromised by mixed stock salmonfisheries, the Fish and Wildlife Branchhad to go cap in hand with their con-cerns to the Department of Fisheriesand Oceans. Some small concessionswere made over the years but, for themost part, these concerns were nevertranslated into meaningful actions.

The problem was particularly acuteon the Skeena River where the size ofthe commercial fleet at the mouth of theriver had grown so large that its netswere an all but impenetrable wall formigratory fish. The net result of thisindiscriminate netting was that summersteelhead were being gilled and killed atthe same rate as the much more abun-dant sockeye. By the late eighties thenumber of summer steelhead returningto their natal streams was so low the his-toric and world-renowned sports fisheryfor them was in throes of extinction, andthere was justifiable concern that thefish would soon be too.

"It was Hooton who started it all,"says Bruce Hill in answer to my ques-tion. "It was after a meeting in Terrace –in the Skeena Hotel – some fisheriesthing, maybe the SFAB. We were in thebar after the meeting, crying in ourbeer about the low steelhead runs. Bobwas frustrated – we all were. He wasdoing his part, for sure. He challengedus to do ours."

Bob Hooton, the regional biologistfor Skeena at that time, was pugnaciousand outspoken. The right man for thatjob at that time, but he and his staffcouldn’t break through the wall of DFOintransigence by themselves.

"Myron [Myron Kozak, a B.C. envi-ronmentalist who was tragically killedin an airplane crash while photograph-ing damaging logging activities onVancouver Island] and I talked about

what we could do and we came up withthe idea of the Wild SteelheadCampaign. Dave Watts and Jim Millerfrom Smithers joined us, along with BobClay from Kispiox, after we met withthe Smithers Branch of the SteelheadSociety. There was a branch of theSteelhead Society in Houston in thosedays. John Lyotier was its chairman, aswell as president of the parent body.John had a lot to do with setting up theWild Steelhead Campaign and all thethings that happened as result of it.When John persuaded the SteelheadSociety to back the campaign, thingsstarted to roll."

Hill and Kozak’s idea was timelyand compelling. Its execution was often

audacious; ultimately its reach wasglobal. The internal pressure exerted bythe Fish and Wildlife Branch and sym-pathetic staffers within DFO and theexternal pressure from letters andmedia coverage led finally to a sympo-sium in 1991 in Smithers.

The purpose of the symposium wasto have Neil Sterrit, representing theFirst Nations, DFO District Manager AlLill, representing the federal govern-ment, and Dr. David Narver, director offisheries for the province, join RayTravers, a forest specialist, and JimWalker, the assistant deputy minister ofthe environment, to discuss the issuessurrounding steelhead.

During his presentation, DFO repAl Lill took everyone by surprise whenhe announced that the Department ofFisheries would reduce the incidentalharvest of steelhead by 50 percent to anaudience that included commercial fish-ers, First Nations, tourist operators andfishing guides, as well as sportsmen.

In Hill’s estimation this signaled a

dramatic shift in attitude by DFO. "Ifthey’d kept doing business as usual," heargues, "there would be a lot less steel-head and coho than there are today.Some races would be extinct."

Just how Fed Fish was going toachieve this reduction was unclear.What was clear was that the mechanicsof the operation and its implementation,since it demanded the cooperation ofFirst Nations, the fishing industry, andsports fishers, was sure to be surround-ed by rancor and acrimony.

The government set up a represen-tative committee, hired GlennSigurdsson, a highly-respected facilita-tor and mediator to chair it, assignedscientists and managerial representa-tives to it, invited representation fromits provincial counterpart and the usergroups, then charged them with thedaunting task of coming up with a wayto reduce the steelhead by-catch by halfwithin the framework of a workablefishing plan acceptable to all the parties.

The key variables in the construc-tion of such a plan involved the manipu-lation of fishing times, controlling thenumber of boats, determining theplaces the boats fish and, to a lesserdegree, the type of fishing gear the fish-ers would use.

Ultimately, a plan was conceivedthat involved moving gillnetters out ofareas where steelhead interceptionswere most likely at the peak migrationtimes for those fish. It was agreed, forexample, that the most critical area inthis regard was the area known to thecommercial fishery and DFO as the"River/Gap/Slough section of AreaFour,” a spot where fish passage is thenarrowest and the concentration ofsalmon (including steelhead) the great-est.

The centrepiece of the commercialfishing industry’s argument was that thesport fish interception issue was one ofallocation, not conservation. In retro-spect, we can now see that it was anissue of conservation and allocation.The lion’s share of the salmon resourcehad always gone to the industry, and itsneeds had driven the management ofthe resource.

A new management regime sensi-tive to the biological requirements ofthe stocks, the legitimate demands ofgrowing sport fishing industry anddemands of First Nations, whose consti-


Continued from previous page


The commercial fleetat the Skeena’s mouthhad grown so large itsnets formed a nearlyimpenetrable barrier

to the fish.

tutional right of harvest had at that timerecently been reaffirmed by theSupreme Court of Canada, and whowere actively engaged in the negotia-tion of treaties that included fisheriesagreements at the same time, meant ahuge shift in reallocation under a newregime in which the commercial fisher-men would have to accept less.

"The fishermen’s union thought theycould enhance their way out of the prob-lem," Hill points out. "But, there was noway that the rest of the committee wasbuying that, especially considering thatthe Babine enhancement project got usinto trouble in the first place."

The other sector representatives tothe Watershed Committee were notintractable when it came to the subjectof coho and steelhead enhancement.Hill recalls flying to Alaska with othercommittee members to witness theAmericans’ ocean ranching projects, inthe hope that similar endeavour inKitimat or somewhere off the mouth ofthe Skeena might alleviate fishing pres-sure on Skeena coho and steelhead.

Said Hill, "The Alaskans pump bil-lions of smolts into the sea. I’m not surewhat effect that has on oceanic pas-tures, but from what we saw it was asuccessful enterprise that was worthexploring. But, the union wasn’t havingany of it. They saw ocean ranching asprivatizing the resource."

Ultimately, the difference of opin-ion surrounding the enhancement issue,in Hill’s words, "blew up the committee,"but not before precipitating a significantchange in DFO’s management para-digm, as well as a widespread recogni-tion of the problems attending mixedstock fisheries and a heightened aware-ness of the importance of Skeena Riversport fish.

As best as the scientists coulddetermine, August was the peak monthfor steelhead migration. In recognitionof that fact, DFO closed the criticalapproaches to the Skeena to the gillnetfleet, a practice they held to until the lat-ter part of the 1990s.

After the millennium, however,DFO began to grant August opportuni-ties to the gill net fleet once again. In2001, just over 100 gillnetters fished oneday. In 2002 the fishery was opened forabout 210 boats. On August fourth andfifth 2003 about 200 boats set their nets.And last year DFO provided two more

openings to a fleet of 200 gillnet boats. These openings have been driven

by an urgent need to protect Skeenacoho stocks. The Department ofFisheries believes that the impact oncoho is greater outside of theriver/gap/slough area, so by moving thefleet into the steelhead sensitive areasthey will reduce coho exploitation. Butin so doing they are increasing steel-head interception and ignoring the pro-hibition on August fishing agreed to bythe Skeena Watershed Committee.

As Bruce Hill is quick to point out,these incursions into August would nothave occurred had the WatershedCommittee morphed into a nonprofitsociety and continued to sit. The dis-banding of the Northwest Branch of theSteelhead Society, a small resolute polit-

ical arm of angling activism in theNorthwest, also removed considerablepolitical pressure from DFO.

The transfer of Bob Hooton toVancouver Island and years of cutbacksin staff and resources to what hadalways been an under funded and inade-quately resourced provincial fisheriesstaff has also removed pressure fromthe managers at federal fisheries. Evenmore importantly, the current ministerof fisheries appears to have little knowl-edge or appreciation of the complexitiesof the Skeena fishery and its importanceto the people of the province and its sta-tus as an international treasure.

Years ago the Pacific StockAssessment and Review Committee, afederal body consisting of scientists andresearchers who examine everythingfrom the life style of geoducks to thegirth of whales to fulfill their mandateand provide scientifically defensibleestimates of fish stock abundance in thehope that those stocks can be preserved

and managed in a sustainable way,determined that a minimum escape-ment of 23,000 steelhead was necessaryto ensure the survival of Skeena steel-head.

When they advanced this estimate,the committee conceded that since itrequired a sex ratio of one to one, a per-fect distribution of a stock within adrainage and a perfect escapement toevery tributary, the figure was unrealis-tic. To offset this the PSARC scientistsfactored in an additional 9,000 fish, forsomething they called "the distributioneffect," bringing the target figure to amore defensible 32,000 steelhead.

The number was arrived at with fig-ures generated from the data obtainedfrom the study of Keogh River steel-head, the only study site of steelheadsmolt to adult survival. The fact that theKeogh steelhead are winter run fish,while the largest component of theSkeena runs is made up of summersteelhead, and the fact that the Keogh islocated on Vancouver Island, needs tobe taken into account when judging theprecision of this determination as wellas the PSARC estimation of the carryingcapacity of Skeena, which, extrapolat-ing from an estimate of 40 fish per kilo-metre squared, the committee deter-mined to be somewhere in the area of80,000 fish.

Historic data, like that which showsthat some 27,000 Skeena summer steel-head were canned during the fishingseason of 1927, suggest that the figuresput forward by PSARC are preposter-ously low. As critics of these estimateshave pointed out, the immense size ofthe Skeena watershed and amount ofproductive, underutilized habitat andthe productivity of individual streamsunaffected by net fisheries strongly sug-gest that Skeena’s steelhead returnsnumbered in the hundreds of thousands.

"How many years in the last twodecades have the minimum escapementtargets been met?" Bruce Hill asksrhetorically.

Not many, it turns out. Of thoseyears, 1998 is notable. In that year,David Anderson, the first FederalFisheries minister in decades who actu-ally knew and appreciated the problemsattending the west coast fishery, exam-ined the evidence, concluded there wasa coho crisis and shut down the SkeenaRiver fishery. Predictably, the steelhead



At the end of the day,and the end of the century, we need to

hope for a new era offisheries management.


escapement was estimated to beapproximately 80,000 fish, the returns toall the major tributaries in the drainagewere good and even some streams thatwere thought to have no fish left hadsome return.

All of this points to the fact thatthere is a real data problem when itcomes to the Skeena fishery that contin-ues to cripple attempts at an effectivemanagement regime. To start with,there is no credible baseline data onsteelhead, since the collection of datadidn’t begin in earnest until 75 yearsafter the advent of the fishery.Commercial fishers are required by lawto report steelhead catches. These dataare called "hail figures" and are collect-ed by fisheries officers who boatamongst the fleet and call out to fisher-men to report their catches. Since itobviously is not in a commercial fisher’sbest interest to report high rates ofsteelhead interception, critics contendthere is a high likelihood of underre-porting. This contention is given someweight by comparisons made betweencatch ratios of different species report-ed by the fleet and those obtained withthe same methodology in the test fisherya short distance upstream.

The processing plants also have alegal obligation to report steelhead land-ings that are supposed to show up onsales slips. The sales slips from theseplants show little or no steelhead, yetcontractors hired by provincial fisherieshave observed and reported tote loadsof summer steelhead inside the process-ing facilities.

The North Coast salmon fishery isan old-fashioned industrial "derby" fish-ery. It requires giant subsidies to keepfishing. It’s overcapitalized to the extentthat a commercial fisherman muststrive for larger and larger catches tostay afloat. It’s a dwindling fleet fishingmixed stocks of dwindling, and in somecases endangered, fish.

"We have some idea and can exertsome control over the Areas 3, 4 and 5fisheries," says Hill, referring to theapproach water fisheries, "but whatabout further out, in Areas 6 and 7. And,what about the Alaskans? I rememberwhen we wrote a letter to Fran Ulmerabout Alaskan interceptions, and shesent back a letter pointing out that wehad 1500 or so gillnets, all of them 1200feet long, in the mouth of the Skeena,

and we were the problem. Still, we knowthey catch lots of steelhead."

Alaska it is at the top of the funnelwhen it comes to salmon stocks. Whyshould Alaskan reduce their harvest ofpink and sockeye salmon (many ofwhich are bound for Canadian rivers) toreduce steelhead interceptions whenmany of those fish will ultimatelybecome tangled in Canadian nets any-way?

At the end of the day, at the end ofthe century, we need to hope for a newera in fisheries management: one thatembraces selective harvesting methodsin addition to the holding boxes requiredof gillnetters presently; one that encour-ages selective in-river harvest technolo-gy, like the beach seine initiatives andfish wheels that have been employedperiodically by First Nations inland; onethat puts fish first and is sensitive to thesalvation of chum, coho and lesser sock-eye stocks as well as to the demands ofsteelhead conservation.

Against this complex, and in somany ways unsatisfactory backdrop,Skeena steelhead have been holding

their own, thanks to a number of factorsincluding ocean survival, less commer-cial fishing pressure, and less anglingpressure and no kill angling regulations.Though they give the appearance ofabundance compared to the depletedand extinct steelhead stocks elsewhere,the Skeena summer runs are a shadowof what they once were and could beagain.

"Do we have a chance to bring themback?" I ask Bruce Hill.

"I think so," says Bruce, "But it’sgoing to be a lot harder. Before, we justhad to worry about returning adults. Ifthey put those damn fish farms at themouth, we’re gonna have to worry aboutthe migrant juveniles too."

The carpenters, electricians,painters and the plumbers are throughfor the day. The decaying building thathouses Bruce’s office looks a bit betteras I leave it than it did when I arrived.The facade is new and white; the wallfacing the parking lot sports a new coatof deep green paint. There may be hopefor the place.



An angler and guide pursue wild steelhead on British Columbia’s famed SkeenaRiver. Photograph by Fred Seilert.

On the Columbia River, steelhead keltsare the "forgotten life history" saysresearcher Allen Evans. He and BobWertheimer of the U.S. Army Corps ofEngineers presented information tomembers and guests of the Native FishSociety at their March 2005 School ofFish lecture series.

In the following article, Bill Bakke,executive director of the Native FishSociety, gives an account of theresearchers findings. Kelt is a term forspawned-out steelhead with the capaci-ty to spawn multiple times over theirlives.

Says Bakke, “It’s an interestingissue that is largely being ignored by fishmanagement agencies, but I hope to adda little heat.”

Bill Bakke may be reached at [email protected].

In 1994, NFS asked the NOAAFisheries to improve protectionfor steelhead kelts at the dams onthe mainstem Columbia andSnake rivers. The 2000

Biological Opinion directed the COE tostudy kelt survival. The limited workthat has been done was prompted by arequest by the Native Fish Society.

The fish agencies have concentrat-ed on smolt passage at the dams, notkelts. The juvenile by-pass structureswere not built to pass these big fish, andkelts get damaged and killed as they tryto go through them. Like smolts, thebest path for kelts is over the spillway ateach of the dams.

Both Evans and Wertheimerbecame interested in doing research onsteelhead kelts because they saw somany of them. Thousands of keltsappeared in the spring at Lower GraniteDam on the Snake. Not much wasknown about them, about how theymigrated past the dams, the timing ofthe migration, survival rates, and justwhat did a kelt look like. It was

assumed that kelts were the dark, beat-up fish seen at the dams. Evans hadworked out an ultra-sound technique todetermine if the fish had eggs or spermin the body cavity. What they discov-ered is that the bright, fine looking fishwere the kelts and the dark ones werethe maiden fish on their way upstreamto spawn.

Kelts are moving downstream inMarch to June, which is the same timethat smolts are moving downriver, butthe kelt migration lasts longer. The

maiden fish are the ones that have over-wintered in the river and begin to moveupstream once the water temperaturesbegin to warm in March. Because ofthis, the hold-over maiden fish are dark,while the kelts brighten up as they movedownstream, looking like very largesmolts. The ultra-sound investigationscleared up that confusion.

Evans and Wertheimer’s researchhas determined the survival rate forkelts to repeat spawner from LowerGranite Dam on the Snake to belowBonneville Dam. That rate is then com-pared to survival from lower Columbiatributaries. The more dams steelheadkelts have to pass, the lower their sur-vival. The survival from kelt to repeatspawner from the Kalama River, whichis 118 miles from the ocean — with nodams — in the way is 17 percent. Hood

River is 273 miles from the ocean andthe kelts have to pass Bonneville Dam,with a survival of 10 percent. TheYakama River is 539 miles from theocean and above four dams; it has a sur-vival rate of 2 percent. Kelts from theSalmon and Clearwater rivers in Idahoand the Grande Ronde and Imnaharivers in Oregon are as far as 1,500miles from the ocean, with eight damsfor the fish to pass. They have a survivalrate of less than 1 percent.

Snake River two-time spawnershave to pass dams 32 times in their lifehistory. They pass eight dams as juve-niles, when they first go to the ocean,then as returning adults for their maid-en spawning migration. Then they mustpass the same eight dams again as keltsthen again as repeat spawners. A fishthat makes it is both very lucky andvery strong. Along the way, of course, itmust avoid nets and anglers. Since keltsare hungry they are easy to catch, soone that makes it back to spawn again isindeed lucky.

The paths available for kelts to passdams downstream are through naviga-tion locks, down fishways, ice and trashsluice ways, or over the spillway. Indrought years, the safest path, over thespillways, is not always available.

Wertheimer evaluated the survivalrate using barge transport around thedams. Comparing it to in-river passage,the barged fish survived at 2.5 percentcompared to less than one percent forin-river passage. At some dams, such asLower Granite Dam, the removablespillway weir is being tested, butWertheimer believes kelt passage willprobably not increase for Snake Riversteelhead. So are there other options bywhich to increase the contribution of thesteelhead return spawner?

Reconditioning is one alternativethat is being tested. The Yakama IndianNation is exploring kelt reconditioning,an experiment that NFS supported for



Steelhead Kelts, the Columbia River System’s Forgotten Fish

by Bill Bakke— Native Fish Society —

Two-time spawnerspass over the dams 32

times in their life history. A fish thatcan do that is very

lucky and very strong.

BPA funding. It works thisway: Spawned-out steelheadare captured at dams in theYakima River and taken to ahatchery, then fed for a yearuntil they re-mature, thenreleased to the river to spawnagain.

When the Yakima biolo-gists tried this in 2000 theygot an 18 percent survivalrate but only 12 percent of thekelts re-matured. The prob-lem they faced initially wassimply to get the kelts to starteating again. At first they fedthem fish pellets, but the keltsignored them. Being wildsteelhead kelts they hadnever seen a food pellet anddid not associate them withfood. The biologists thentried krill, a natural food fromthe ocean that is orange incolor. When krill were addedto the kelt ponds, the fishresponded enthusiastically.But since krill are expensive,the next step was to find a lessexpensive food the keltswould eat, so they dyed thefish pellets orange and itworked, the kelts ate them.Once they began to eat again,it was easy for them to contin-ue as long as the food was theright color.

Kelt survival increasedwith the new food trickery,and in 2003 the kelt survivalincreased to 62 percent andre-maturation increased to 57percent.

Increasing the number ofrepeat spawners above thedams is an important goal forEvans and Wertheimerbecause it is aimed at the lifehistory diversity of steelhead.Most of the repeat spawnersare females (80 percent) andwhen they return they arelarger and carry more eggs. As impor-tant, these repeat spawners increase theresilience of steelhead populations byincreasing the number of generations inthe spawning population. Wertheimersays, "These are the steelhead that havesurvived; they are the most fit for sur-vival." Compared to smolts with an aver-

age smolt to adult survival rate of 2-4percent, the kelt survival of 10 percentis an important trait to maintain. Theirresearch also shows individual steel-head returning to spawn as many asfour times.

"Kelts are like giant smolts" saysEvans, and at Lower Granite Dam, they

estimate the number of kelts to be15,000, but due to poor survival, thesefish are removed through mortalityfrom the annual pool of availablespawners in the Snake Basin.

The only way the kelts can bepassed over the dams is by spill. If there

THE OSPREY • ISSUE NO. 51 MAYY 2005 9



Columbia River steelhead kelts were mistakenly taken for maiden fish until researchers, using anew ultra sound technique, discovered their true identity. Top photo by Allen Evans, bottom photoby Robert Wertheimer.

is no spill, they are stuck above thedams. Passage through the turbines islethal, and attempted passage throughthe fish by-pass facilities causes dam-age and death. These by-pass facilitiesare designed to pass smolts, not adults.Also, the slack water in the reservoirsdoes not promote kelt survival and it isbelieved they die due to extended expo-sure to warm water and disease.Consequently, the repeat spawner suc-cess is less than 1 percent for SnakeRiver steelhead, whereas survivalbelow Bonneville Dam is from 10 to 17percent.

"These fish have the right stuff,"Evans told the audience, "and we shouldnot give up on them."

Jim Muck, District Fish Biologistfor the Umpqua River in Oregon, (per-sonal communication) said the kelt sur-vival rate to repeat spawner was 30 per-cent of the winter steelhead run on theSmith River in 2001, 18.6 percent in2002, and 11.4 percent in 2003. Oceansurvival is a critical factor, because

repeat spawner abundance is influencedby ocean conditions that support keltsurvival. Evans and Wertheimer alsonoted this relationship in their work onthe Columbia and Snake Rivers.

Researcher Hendry (2002) lookedat repeat spawner abundance on theDean River in British Columbia. Hefound that 13.8 percent of the steelheadrun on the Dean were repeat spawnersbetween 1973 and 1976. But theydeclined between 1977 and 1982 to 8.3percent of the run and in 1996 theymade up only 6 percent of the run. Henoted that this was the lowest in elevenyears and lower than other B.C. popula-tions. There is as yet no explanation.

Researcher Leider (1985) deter-mined from work on the Kalama Riverin Washington that winter and summersteelhead repeat spawners generallyreturned at the same time that theywere tagged, showing that repeatspawners return at the same time oftheir initial migrations. He suggestedthat the need for steelhead to migrate to

natal spawning areas upon reachingsexual maturity may impose relativelyrigid migration schedules.

By making improvements for wildsteelhead kelt downstream passage atColumbia River dams, steelhead life his-tory can be fully expressed, and theruns will be more resilient and healthi-er. These wild steelhead are also pro-tected under the ESA, and the massivekill of kelts as they migrate down riverthrough the reservoirs and past dams isa “take” under the ESA. Funding forthis research and developing of meth-ods to improve kelt survival are critical;however, in the last few years this fund-ing has dried up, and information thatcould help solve the problem is beinglost.



Multiple trips through the gauntlet of the Columbia River hydro system makes for a serious survival challenge to wild steelheadkelts. Photograph by Jim Yuskavitch.

More Steelhead Anglers Are SayingGoodbye to the Catch-and-Kill Ethic

By Mark Freeman— Medford (Ore.) Mail Tribune —

This story on catch-and-release steel-head fishing on Oregon’s Umpqua River,where new harvest rules allow anglersto kill one wild steelhead per day and upto five per year, first appeared in theFebruary 17, 2005 issue of the MedfordMail Tribune. It is reprinted with per-mission.

Mark Freeman may be contacted [email protected].

Standing on the banks of theUmpqua River on Feb. 8, RobGinno stared with disbelief atwhat he saw in the net. Thissteelhead seemed as round as

a soccer ball and as long as a 2-by-4, andit had Ginno’s hook imbedded in itsmouth.

Guide Jim Dunlevy hoisted the wildwinter steelhead still wrapped in themesh net. The digital scale barked anumber not seen from an Oregoncoastal steelhead in many years

"When I talk big, I’m talking 20-pounders," says Ginno, 48, a Chico,Calif., resident. "I never imagined everseeing something that large, let alonecatching it."

The men met eyes, then workedquickly to preserve history. Ginno tookout the measuring tape — 43 incheslong, 22 inches around in front of thedorsal fin and 19 inches behind it. Thenthe flash of a digital camera.

If mounted, this male steelheadwould glisten in Ginno’s general con-tracting office for years.

"I just said, ‘Let him go,’" Ginnosays. "So we let him go."

The big one didn’t get away thatday, but he swam away nonetheless.

Ginno could have kept that massivesteelhead under the Umpqua’s new har-vest rules that allow anglers to keep onewild steelhead a day and up to five ayear. "But I don’t kill wild fish," he says."I just don’t."

Instead, Ginno’s caught-and-released story is one that wild-fish advo-

cates say is an extreme version of agrowing trend among all forms ofanglers who believe the region’s beststeelhead are better spawned thanstuffed.

Throughout the Northwest, salmonand steelhead anglers are eschewingthe old mantra of "Kill them all, largeand small, eat the best and smoke therest."

More anglers now prefer that thewild steelhead they catch have a chanceto pass on their genes.

"I think it’s become a big part of theethic for fishermen, no matter what typeof gear they use," says Bill Bakke,founder of the Native Fish Society and acatch-and-release preacher for decades.

"A story like that travels around,and I’m sure it’ll raise some eyebrows,"says Bakke, of Portland. "But more andmore anglers are making a statementwith catch and release. "They’re seeingthe value in these fish, and they’re tak-ing care of their fisheries."

It’s easy for anglers to claim to becatch-and-release fishermen when look-ing at an 8-pound, cookie-cutter steel-head. But Ginno’s fish is the largestsince Medford resident Don Hawkcaught and killed a 28-pound ChetcoRiver winter steelhead in 1973.

The state record is a 35-pound steel-head caught in the Columbia River in1970.

In both cases, the big fish becamethat way because of a variety of factors,ranging from ocean conditions to num-bers of spawning runs to predatorescapement and genetics.

Anglers realize more than ever nowthat size does matter. Big steelheadbeget big steelhead.

"I encourage all my customers torelease wild steelhead," says Dunlevy,who guides out of Medford. "These arebeautiful fish. If everyone who caughtthem killed them, we won’t have fishlike this to catch in the future."

This beautiful fish came to Dunlevyand Ginno on the last cast of a good dayon the main-stem Umpqua.

Ginno and fishing partner JohnMaddrill of Chico already had hookedsix wild fish and one hatchery fish out ofDunlevy’s driftboat downstream fromthe Umpqua ramp.

"It was a really light bite," Ginnosays. "I set the hook and the fireworkswent off." After a few minutes of thrash-ing, the steelhead screamed more than100 yards upstream.

Dunlevy and Maddrill started teas-ing Ginno, imploring him to tighten hisdrag and stop pampering the fish. Ginnoconvinced Dunlevy to start his motor,and they chased upstream after thesteelhead. When they got close, the fishswirled in view.

"Everyone was joking around,"Dunlevy says. "Then we saw the thingand everyone got real tense. It was, OKeverybody, be careful."

Within 15 minutes, Dunlevy cau-tiously slipped the net under the steel-head, which barely flopped in.

Dunlevy kept the fish in the water,holding it up only for a few pictures, themeasurements. They weighed the fish inthe net with a digital scale.

"Later, we weighed the net and itwas less than a half a pound," Dunlevysays. "So we’re saying it was 28 pounds."

Dunlevy hoisted the fish so

He could have keptthat massive wild

steelhead under theUmpqua’s new harvestrules. But he doesn’t

kill wild fish.


Continued on page 18


On May 26 of this year, a federal judgeruled that the federal government’s mostrecent salmon plan for the ColumbiaRiver basin was illegal. It was opposedby fish advocates, because, among otherthings, it considered the dams on theColumbia and Snake rivers to be part ofthe natural condition of the river, andbecause the plan only offered to main-tain populations of ESA-listed salmonand steelhead, not recover them.

The following report on the decisionwas provided by the coalition of conser-avation groups involved in the lawsuitbrought against the federal governmenton behalf of the fish.

On May 26, 2005, FederalCourt Judge James Reddenruled that the federalsalmon plan for theColumbia and Snake rivers

is legally flawed in four differentrespects. First, Judge Redden tookissue with the federal agencies' asser-tions that the dams were part of theimmutable landscape. Second, he statesthat NOAA's approach in this biologicalopinion "stands in sharp contrastto...prior biological opinions" and is"insufficiently comprehensive to insure”the protection of salmon. Third, NOAAdid not properly analyze critical habitatfor salmon. And fourth, "NOAA's jeop-ardy analysis is contrary to the lawbecause it does not address theprospects for recovery of the listedspecies."

"Today's decision is a victoryfor everyone living in Oregon,Washington and Idaho," said Todd True,Earthjustice's lead attorney on the case."Both sides had their day in court andthe Judge ruled that the federal govern-ment has shirked its responsibilities tothis region and cannot legally manipu-late the Columbia and Snake rivers inways that will drive our salmon toextinction."

This year's low return of spring chi-nook has been devastating forNorthwest people and communities.

Tribal, sport and commercial fisherieshave been shut down or drastically cur-tailed. In many places, fishing wasclosed almost as soon as it opened.Boats are in dock, guides are idle andmillions of dollars destined for rivercommunities now and in coming monthswon't be realized this year. While fed-eral officials have repeatedly stated thattheir plan is "on track," this year'sreturns indicate just the opposite.

"The judge affirmed today what thelow returns of spring chinook have beentelling us all for weeks - this plan doesnot work and it is hurting the tens of

thousands of people we employ in theNorthwest," said Liz Hamilton,Northwest Sportfishing IndustryAssociation. "Our businesses andregion have suffered long enough. It istime for real salmon recovery - recov-ery that increases the number of jobs,the strength of our communities andmeets our responsibilities to restore abalance to the Northwest."

Today's decision marks the federalgovernment's second unsuccessfulattempt at crafting a viable salmon plan.In May of 2003, Judge Redden ruled thatan earlier plan also was illegal andordered it replaced within the year. Inresponse the federal government issueda new plan in late 2004. Now that thejudge has ruled the 2004 plan illegal, hewill be considering a request fromplaintiffs to establish specific protec-

tions for salmon migrating through theColumbia and Snake rivers this sum-mer.

"What's at stake here is nothing lessthan the Northwest way of life: abun-dant salmon, stable jobs and reliableenergy," said Jan Hasselman, NationalWildlife Federation. "Our vision is foran economically and ecologically recov-ered Columbia basin. However, thisadministration's vision for the PacificNorthwest is to spend $6 billion manag-ing the path of salmon towards extinc-tion."

Recent studies have shown thatrestoring healthy runs of wild salmonwould greatly benefit the regional econ-omy. With a restored salmon fishery,Idaho alone would see almost half a bil-lion in economic benefit from sportfish-ing. Similarly restored fisheries inWashington and Oregon would raise thetotal to almost six billion dollars in eco-nomic benefit to the region. In addition,the Pacific Coast Federation ofFishermen's Associations estimates thatrestoration of Columbia and Snake riversalmon, would net the region an addi-tional $500 million per year in commer-cial fishing revenue and as many as25,000 new family wage jobs.

"The federal government hasallowed the four lower Snake Riverdams to threaten our jobs and way oflife for far too long," said Glen Spain,Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen'sAssociations. "Our Northwest leadershave the power to put this region on theright path, a path that leads to stablejobs, good fishing, abundant salmon andplaces in the outdoors for our families toenjoy. Anything short of that only leadsto extinction for salmon and the peoplethat depend upon them for jobs."

Scientists have told us that theColumbia and Snake river hydroelectricdams are by far the leading killers ofsalmon and steelhead. NOAAFisheries' own documents state that thedams are allowed to kill as many as 86percent of out-migrating juvenilesalmon. Yet the federal government

Judge Rules that Government’sSalmon Plan is Illegal ... Again


What’s at stake isnothing less than theNorthwest way of life:

Abundant salmon,stable jobs and reliable

energy.


continues to disregard the value ofthese fish and the health of the rivers topeople of the Northwest by not evenconsidering the removal of the fourobsolete dams on the lower Snake River- which scientists deem the best andsurest way to salmon and steelheadrecovery.

"We can have both clean, affordableenergy and abundant, wild salmon," saidSara Patton, NW Energy Coalition. "Allthat stand in the way are four dams out

of the more than 400 dams in theColumbia-Snake system. These fourout-dated dams produce relatively littleelectricity, and the power they do pro-duce can be easily replaced with cheapenergy efficiency and cost-competitiverenewable energy facilities that, in turn,will create hundreds of permanent,local family-wage jobs and new farmincome."

"This decision affirms the fact thatall salmon recovery options need to beon the table, including removing the

four lower Snake River dams, which aredraining our region's resources," saidMichael Garrity, American Rivers. "Wecan replace the benefits provided bythese four dams, and in doing so wecan create jobs, revitalize localeconomies, create great fishing andrecreational opportunities and preserveour Northwest way of life."

"The Bush administration and thefederal agencies have failed the people,communities, salmon and salmon-dependent businesses of the Northwestfor far too long," said Kathleen Casey,Sierra Club. "The Judge has stoppedthe charade of salmon recovery andnow insisted that a real plan that accom-plishes real recovery be put into place.The people and communities of theNorthwest know that salmon and steel-head are part of our quality of life, sup-port sustainable businesses and areimportant for our families and ourfuture."

"It's a shame when we have to relyon the courts to affirm and uphold someof nature's basic truths, but thankfullytoday Judge Redden has done that," saidJeff Curtis, Trout Unlimited. "The take-home message here should be that if wewant more fish in the river, we need toprovide more of a river for fish."

Barging smolts downriver and through the dams has been one of the federal govern-ment’s long-time salmon restoration strategies. Photograph by Jim Yuskavitch.

Steelhead

Upper Columbia River Evolutionarily Significant Unit (ESU) Endangered

Snake River Basin ESU Threatened

Lower Columbia River ESU Threatened

Upper Willamette River ESU Threatened

Middle Columbia River ESU Threatened

Sockeye Salmon

Snake River ESU Endangered

Coho Salmon


Chinook Salmon

Upper Columbia River Spring Run ESU Endangered

Snake River Spring/Summer Run ESU Threatened

Snake River Fall Run ESU Threatened


Upper Willamette River ESU Threatened

Chum Salmon

Columbia River ESU Threatened

Note: An Evolutionarily Significant Unit is a distinctive group of Pacificsalmon or steelhead.

Source: NOAA Fisheries

Current Endangered Species Act Listings for Columbia River Basin Steelhead and Salmon



Although wild fish advocates have beenconsistently frustrated in their quest tobreach the Snake River dams, a numberof salmon and steelhead killing dams inthe Pacific Northwest are slated forremoval over the next several years.

In this article, Jim Yuskavitch, edi-tor of The Osprey, examines several ofthose projects.

Yuskavitch may be reached [email protected].

The negative impact thatdams have on salmon andsteelhead populations is nosecret to fish advocates, fish-ery managers and even the

owners and operators of the dams.Unfortunately, it has taken us a verylong time to learn that reality and moveto do something about it — nearly 400years, in fact.

When the first New England farmerbuilt the first dam to harness the powerof water to turn the grindstone thattransformed his wheat into flour, thefate of dams and fish were intertwined.Those New England dams that poweredthe miller’s mill and later the factoriesof the Industrial Revolution were thebeginning of the end for the Northeast’sfamed Atlantic salmon runs.

Here in steelhead and Pacificsalmon country, we fared a little better,but only because the dam builders got alate start. Dam construction in thePacific Northwest began at the turn ofthe last century and continued for thenext 100 years for the purposes of pro-viding irrigation, flood control, trans-portation, flatwater recreation andhydroelectric power. The impacts onfish runs were the same as they were acentury earlier in New England.

These dams were often built withlittle or no consideration given to theneeds of anadromous fish. Many had nofish passage facilities. And if fish lad-ders were included, they often did not

work very well. Few, if any, accommo-dations were made for downstreammigrants.

But a light at the end of the darktunnel down which salmon and steel-head have been swimming appeared inrecent years when the operating licens-es for many dams were nearing theirexpiration date. These licenses wereissued by the Federal EnergyRegulatory Commission, typically for30 to 70 years. Dam owners wererequired to apply for a new license if

they wanted to continue operating theirprojects beyond the original licenseperiod.

This time around the dams’ effectson fish and other natural resources hadto be taken into consideration and miti-gated, if those impacts were seriousenough. This has given fish advocates anopportunity to make dams more "fishfriendly" by requiring better passagefacilities, more responsive water flowmanagement and other dam operationimprovements.

Some dams, however, are not eco-nomically viable operations if theyrequire retrofitting to accommodate fishpassage, and this opened the window forfish advocates to push for removingdams whose liabilities outweighed theirbenefits.

In other cases, such as dams intend-ed to provide for irrigation needs, betteralternatives for delivering water weredeveloped.

While there are a number of damsslated for removal or potential removal,this article profiles four high profilePacific Northwest dams that will beremoved within the next several years.These four dams, the Elwha, GlinesCanyon and Condit dams in WashingtonState and Oregon’s Savage Rapids Dam,have blocked runs of salmon and steel-head to varying degrees and have beentargeted for removal by conservation-ists for many years.

Elwha and Glines Canyon Dams,Washington

Between 1910 and 1927, two largedams were constructed on the ElwhaRiver. The 108-foot-high Elwha Damwas completed in 1913 at river mile 4.9.Fourteen years later the 210-foot-highGlines Canyon Dam was completed 8.5miles upstream of the Elhwa Dam. Builtby Northwestern Power & LightCompany to supply electricity to millsat Port Angeles, ownership was trans-ferred to the Washington Pulp & PaperCorporation in 1934. The Elwha Damformed a 267-acre impoundment knownas Lake Aldwell and the Glines CanyonDam created 415-acre Lake Mills. Bothdams were constructed without fish lad-ders.

The Elwha River rises in theOlympic Mountains on the peninsula ofthe same name, flowing about 75 milesto the Strait of Juan de Fuca, a few mileswest of the city of Port Angeles.Historically it harbored runs of all theNorth American species of salmon —Chinook, coho, chum, pink and sockeye— as well as steelhead, cutthroat troutand bull trout. It is estimated that thisriver system produced about 380,000

Four Pacific Northwest DamsWhose Days are Numbered

By Jim Yuskavitch— Editor, The Osprey —


A light at the end ofthe dark tunnel down

which salmon hadbeen swimming

appeared in the formof FERC relicensing.


salmon and steelhead annually.The construction of the Elwha Dam

without fish passage facilities changedall that, cutting the runs off from theupper 70 miles of river, which constitut-ed 93 percent of available habitat. Withthe dams in place, run numbers droppedto a few thousand fish, which are forcedto spawn in the 4.9 miles of poor-qualityhabitat below the Elwha Dam. The lossof the salmon runs also affected upriverwildlife and ecosystems, denying themthe benefit of nutrient exchange provid-ed by the decaying carcasses ofspawned-out salmon. The reservoirsformed by the dams also floodedwildlife habitat, along with the river’sformer pink salmon spawning grounds,now at the bottom of Lake Mills.

When Olympic National Park was

expanded two yearsafter its creation in1938, Glines CanyonDam was includedwithin its newboundaries.

In 1968,Crown-Zellerbach,which took overownership of thedams in 1937, filedwith the FederalEnergy RegulatoryCommission torenew its operatinglicense for theElwha Dam, thenfollowed with a re-licensing applica-tion for the GlinesCanyon project in1973.

This was theopportunity that fish

conservationists had been waiting for. Anumber of organizations fought thelicense renewal and pressed for remov-ing both dams to restore the runs ofanadromous fish.

By the late 1980s, the dams hadchanged ownership a couple of moretimes. Now in the hands of DaishowaAmerica, the company was becomingconcerned — in the face of opposition toits re-license applications by the SeattleAudubon Society, Friends of the Earth,Sierra Club and others — that continuedoperations would become too expensive.The company began searching for away out.

Over the nextfew years, legalintervention andlobbying by a grow-ing list of conserva-tion organizationsand the LowerElwha Klallamtribe, which has suf-fered from the lossof salmon runs andalso wanted thedams removed,intensified. As aresult, Congresspassed the ElwhaRiver Ecosystemsand FisheriesRestoration Act in1992.

The Act direct-

ed the Secretary of the Interior to studyways to restore the Elwha’s fisheriesand ecosystem. Finding that removingthe dams was the best course of action,the federal government purchased bothdams in February 2000 for $29.5 millionas the first step in their eventual demise.

"We provided most of the fundingfor the research that we used to pass thelegislation and put in a lot of lobbying inWashington, D.C.," recalls RobertEllofson, who is the Lower ElwhaKlallam tribe’s Elwha River restorationdirector. "It passed on the last day of thesession."

The benefits of taking out the damsare many. It will open the upper 70 milesof river to anadromous fish runs forspawning and rearing habitat, as well aspermit free upriver and down rivermovement of resident salmonids. Sincemost of the river is in Olympic NationalPark, the habitat is pristine.

"It will open up the river for morethan habitat," says the National ParkService’s Elwha Project manager BrianWinter. "It will also restore the river’snatural sediment regime and nutrientcycle."

There are economic benefits aswell. The 1996 Final EnvironmentalImpact Statement reported thatincreased sport and commercial fishingand other recreational and tourismactivities are worth $164 million overthe 100 years following the dams’removal.

The process of removing the dams

Completed in 1913, the Elwha Dam blocked access to 70 milesof spawning habitat. Photograph courtesy of the National ParkService.

The Glines Canyon Dam was completed in 1927. Photographcourtesy of the National Park Service.

The Elwha River heads in the pristinemountain country of Olympic NationalPark. Photograph courtesy of theNational Park Service.



is scheduled to begin in 2008, with com-pletion probably in 2010 or 2011.Currently, engineers are finishing upthe design for several water qualitytreatment facilities designed to dealwith the temporary increased sedimentload the river will carry once the damsare gone. This includes a water treat-ment plant for the city of Port Angeles,a second for the Daishowa America milland two fish hatcheries, and a third totreat a surface water intake.

The Lower Elwha Klallam tribe isalso preparing to deal with water-relat-ed issues including water quality onreservation lands, some potential flood-ing due to an estimated two-foot aver-age increase in the river level, and sep-tic considerations, since the groundwa-ter level is expected to rise.

The removal plan calls for takingout the Elwha Dam in its entirety butleaving the Glines Canyon Dam’s pow-erhouse and spillway as national parkhistorical exhibits. The dam removalprocess would be completed over a two-year period.

The question of what will happen toall the sediment that has built up in thereservoirs behind the dams is anothermajor issue. It is estimated that com-bined, the reservoirs contain 8.5 millioncubic yards of coarse sediment and 9.2million cubic yards of silt and clay.

Dam removal planners believe thatless than half of the sediment and silt inthe reservoirs will be eroded down-stream. The rest will be deposited in theriver’s floodplain. The drained reser-voirs will be restored by a combinationof planting native species and naturalre-vegetation.

Power lost by the removal of thedams will bereplaced by pur-chasing electricityfrom theBonneville PowerAdministration.The DaishowaAmerica mill inPort Angeles is theonly user of thepower generatedby the two dams.

There are twoparts to the salmonand steelheadrestoration plan.The first is a five-year moratoriumon harvest by thestate and tribe,with a decision onwhen and howmuch to harvestbased on how wellthe runs rebound.

The second part is ‘outplanting’ ofhatchery-raised fish with the goal ofrebuilding a naturally reproducing pop-ulation. The tribe is raising springChinook, coho and steelhead for out-planting. The Washington Departmentof Fish and Wildlife is raising fallChinook. The river’s sockeye run isexpected to repopulate itself naturally.

"The tribes couldn’t prevent thedams from being put in and we feel badabout them being there," says tribal-member Elofson. "But we will be veryhappy when they are removed."

Condit Dam, Washington

Constructed in 1913, three miles upthe White Salmon River from its mouth,the 125-foot-high Condit Dam is ownedby the utility company PacifiCorp andgenerates 14 megawatts of power.

The White Salmon River flows intothe Columbia River about 60 miles eastof Portland. It was once an importantsalmon stream, but the dam, which wasbuilt without fish passage, ended thatstatus.

In 1989, PacifiCorp began theprocess of obtaining a new FERC 30-year operating license. When FERCissued its final environmental impactstatement in October 1996, it required$30 million in project improvements asa condition for relicensing — mainly for




This view shows the Elwha River immediately above Elwha Dam. Photograph cour-tesy of the National Park Service.

Condit Dam, on Washington’s White Salmon River, is owned byPacifiCorp. Photograph courtesy of PacifiCorp.

fish passage and screening facilities.After two years of negotiations withstate and federal agencies, the YakamaIndian Nation and a coalition of environ-mental organizations, the companyagreed, in September 1999, to removethe dam.

"What happened was the FERCrequired conditions and terms for a newlicense that would render the projectuneconomic," says PacifiCorpspokesman Dave Kvamme. "That woulddrive the cost of the project to a placethat was not good for our customers."

Kvamme pointed out that when util-ities determine the economic viabilityof relicensing projects, they are lookingat a variety of factors including currentand future operating costs, infrastruc-ture costs and future energy costs. "Itisn’t just looking at fish ladders andscreens," he says.

When PacifiCorp weighed all thosevariables, it came to the conclusion thatthe river was better suited for fish thanhydropower generation.

The arrangement calls forPacifiCorp to continue to operate theproject on a temporary license withoutthe fish passage requirements while itbuilds a fund from the dam’s revenuesto finance its removal. The original costestimate for removal was $17.6 million,but is now about $20 million. Included inthose costs are $1 million to the YakamaNation for fish restoration projects onthe White Salmon and $500,000 toenhance a traditional tribal fishing siteat its mouth.

Originally scheduled for removal in2006, it is now planned for October 2008.The dam will be leveled with a combina-tion of explosives and cutting out somestructures in sections. Once the dam isbreached, about 2.2 million cubic yardsof sediment and 240 cubic yards of con-crete will be flushed down the river,according to a study by the U.S. ArmyCorps of Engineers.

"The short-term impact of that sed-imentation on the three-mile stretch willbe tremendous," says Carl Dugger,WDFW regional habitat program man-ager and its lead negotiator for theCondit Dam removal project. "It willwipe out everything. But over the longterm it will not be a problem. It will benothing compared to what Mount St.Helens did [on the Toutle River]."

With the dam gone, 26 miles of habi-

tat will become available, althoughmigrating fish will eventually bestopped by Big Brother Falls, a naturalbarrier.

Habitat on the mainstem and tribu-taries is, for the most part, pretty good.The White Salmon is a deep canyon withhealthy riparian vegetation. BuckCreek, and Rattlesnake Creek, bothmajor tributaries of the White Salmon,are in generally good shape, but mayneed a little habitat work as well as fix-ing some potential barriers to fish pas-sage. Buck Creek, for example, has anirrigation dam on it that may require afish ladder, and Mill Creek, another trib-utary, has a number of culverts thatmay need to be replaced.

WDFW has identified fall Chinooksalmon as the White Salmon’s primarynative stock, as far as they can tell. Thedepartment plans to capture brood-stock, incubate them at its Spring Creekhatchery, then acclimate and release thejuvenile fish into the White Salmon. Thegoal is to restock the river to create aself-sustaining, naturally reproducingpopulation. Over time, straying cohoand steelhead from the mainstemColumbia River will likely colonize theWhite Salmon as well.

Savage Rapids Dam, Oregon

An irrigation dam built in 1921 atriver mile 107 on the Rogue River fivemiles east of Grants Pass, the SavageRapids Dam is owned by the GrantsPass Irrigation District. The irrigationdistrict was formed in 1917 with an18,400 acre feet water right, althoughthey typically use about half that.

The dam was initially constructedwithout any fish passage. In 1921 the

State of Oregon and private citizensbuilt a fish ladder on the dam’s northside. A south side fish ladder was con-structed in 1934. The dam also has rotat-ing fish screens intended to keepmigrating fish out of the irrigationdiversion.

Unfortunately, neither the screensnor the ladders worked very well, evenwith some improvements made in thelate 1970s. While the dam did pass fish,it gained a reputation as a fish killer,especially for downstream-migratingsmolts. In one well-known incident inSeptember 1991, a seal on a diversionscreen failed, killing 100,000 springChinook smolts that wandered off intothe canal. Those kinds of system fail-ures are a constant threat to the river’sruns of spring and fall Chinook, summerand winter steelhead, and coho.

A study done by the federal govern-ment in the 1970s showed that 45 per-cent of the river’s total spawning popu-lation of salmon and steelhead spawnedabove the dam. This included 100 per-cent of the spring Chinook run. Thestudy also estimated that removing thedam would increase the upriver spawn-ing population of anadromous fish by 22percent.

"The Savage Rapids Dam has been avery contentious issue for years and hasbeen through a number of litigations,"explains Bob Hunter, staff attorney forWaterWatch of Oregon, a group that hasbeen involved in the issue since 1988.

In 1995, an Environmental ImpactStatement addressing fish passageimprovements at the dam was pub-lished. But the Bureau of Reclamation,which oversees the project, refused toimplement the course of action recom-mended in the EIS — removing the damand installing pumps to deliver water toirrigators — because of a lack of publicsupport.

The same year the BuRecannounced it would not replace the damwith pumps, 1997, NOAA Fisheries list-ed Southern Oregon-NorthernCalifornia coho salmon as threatenedunder the Endangered Species Act.

Even though the plan to replace thedam with pumps was clearly the bestsolution for fish and irrigators alike, itmet with a great deal of opposition inthis conservative, rural area. "The mainproblem is that there is ideologicalresistance to dam removal in the local




The Tribe couldn’tprevent the Elwhaand Glines Canyon

dams from being built.But they will be veryhappy when they are

removed.

Maddrill could snap the photos.Cradling the fish in his right hand

and holding the tail in his left, Dunlevythen held the fish in the Umpqua cur-rent.He needed no reviving "Threeswipes of the tail, and he was gone,"Dunlevy says.

A decade ago, most steelheaderswould have said Ginno was crazy torelease the fish of a lifetime that he couldhave kept legally.

But more and more anglers are real-izing that taxidermists don’t turn wildfish into trophies. Rivers do.

"I have four brothers and we all fisha lot," Ginno says. "Two of my brothersthink I’m nuts. I don’t think I’m nuts.

"I’ve got some pictures and he’s inmy heart," he says. "That’s cool

CCaattcchh && KKiillll,, CCoonnttiinnuueedd ffrroomm ppaaggee 1111


community," says Hunter. One state sen-ator even made ‘saving’ the SavageRapids Dam his top priority for a time.

The situation was exacerbated bythe fact that the irrigation district’sboard of directors flip-flopped on theissue over the years. As new board

members were elected, the issue wouldbe revisited, and whether the board sup-ported dam removal or opposed itdepended on its makeup at any giventime.

In August 2001, a lawsuit that wasbrought against the irrigation districtunder the Endangered Species Act and awater right cancellation case that waspending in the Oregon Supreme Courtwere settled. The settlement requiredthe irrigation district to seek funding toimplement the dam removal-pumpingplan as identified in the 1995 EIS. Theirrigation district was given untilNovember 1, 2006 to complete thatobjective, when it would have to ceaseoperating the dam.

As it stands now, $6 million is need-ed to remove the dam and $15 million toput in the pumps. They have secured $3million so far.

"The basic plan," says Hunter, "is toget the funds to have the pumpsinstalled by the end of 2006, so we can

remove the dam in 2007 and 2008."As far as the salmon and steelhead

go, little needs to be done in the way ofrecovery and restoration efforts. Withthe dam gone the fish will be able tomove freely upstream and down andruns are expected to increase on theirown.

"It’s been contested for a long time,"continues Hunter. "What we have now isthe sport and commercial fishing com-munity working cooperatively with theirrigation district. It’s a win-win situa-tion for everyone."


Despite current regulations on Oregon’sUmpqua River allowing limited kill ofwild steelhead, more and more anglersare choosing catch-and-release.Photograph by Jim Yuskavitch

The fish ladder at Savage Rapids Dam, Rogue River, Oregon. Photograph by JimYuskavitch.

neutral molecular genetic markers, inthe absence of information on morphol-ogy, behavior, and life history, it is notvalid to conclude that there are no adap-tive differences between hatchery andwild fish. … The wisdom of a precau-tionary approach is suggested by well-known behavioral differences, e.g. infeeding and predator avoidance, therecent finding of greatly diminishedbrain size in hatchery fish, and by sev-eral reports of substantially reduced fit-ness in hatchery fish … Yet in all caseswith extant wild population(s), eventhose with no data on either quasi-neu-tral molecular markers or potentiallyadaptive traits or fitness, a determina-tion of the degree of similarity wasmade. This does not appear to be justi-fied to us; we believe that in the majori-ty of cases there is insufficient evidenceon which to make a reliable assessmentof similarity … The scientific justifica-tion for including hatchery fish in anESU in such cases is extremely weak."

"In the context of restoring wildself-sustaining populations of salmon,placing increased emphasis on thefuture adaptation and continued persis-tence of an ESU in a changing environ-ment would justify the categoricalexclusion of hatchery fish from mostESUs."

"To the panel it appears that the pro-posed hatchery policy directly violatesthe thinking of leading NMFS scien-tists."

How could the scientific messagebe more clear, and how could the pro-posed Hatchery Policy diverge so farfrom the science to the great detrimentof the fish?

Consider this. In February of thisyear, the results of a survey sent by theUnion of Concerned Scientists andPublic Employees for EnvironmentalResponsibility to the 1,400 scientificemployees of the U. S. Fish and WildlifeService was released. It received a 30percent response rate, unusually highfor a survey. Over 20 percent of respon-ders said they had been "directed toinappropriately exclude or alter techni-cal information," and over half ofresponders said they had been orderedto alter findings to lessens species pro-tection. Could NOAA Fisheries scien-tists be on the receiving end of the sametype of political pressure as the Fish and

Wildlife Service people? The answerseems obvious.

CChhaaiirr’’ss CCoorrnneerr,, CCoonnttiinnuueedd ffrroomm ppaaggee 33

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The scientific literature increasingly argues against using hatchery fish as part ofefforts to recover wild fish. Photograph by Jim Yuskavitch.

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