Obama science goes schizophrenic on salmon restoration
A Biological Opinion factors in the effect of climate change on California salmon runs and the orcas that depend on them. So why is the recent BiOp by NOAA on the Columbia and Snake so oblivious?
Has the Obama administration gone schizophrenic on salmon? Wild-salmon advocates who were disappointed when the Obama administration defended the last Bush Biological Opinion on Columbia River dam operations say that the government not only could have done better, it did better, just a few months back. They point to the government's recent Biological Opinion on operation of the Central Valley Project and California State Water Project as examples of what NOAA should have done here.
The California opinion looks at impacts on salmon and other fish in the Sacramento and San Joaquin river systems, and on the Southern Resident Killer Whales (aka Puget Sound orcas) that eat some of those salmon. It is “better and I would say significantly better” than what the government has done on the Columbia, says Earthjustice attorney Steve Mashuda. It's “not necessarily a road map” for dealing with all the Columbia's particular problems, but it does address some crucial issues “probably in the best way we know how.” You can expect salmon advocates to use some of the approaches and some of the science that NOAA employed in California to attack what NOAA has done — or failed to do — in the Northwest.
Arguably, nothing much has changed scientifically or politically since the first Snake River salmon populaton was listed in 1991, except that there have been more listings, fewer salmon, and some shuffling of the political deck chairs. But there are two major new considerations: the acceptance of climate change coupled with the recognition that many spawning streams may become too warm for salmon; and the listing of Southern Resident Killer Whales (SRKWs) coupled with a recognition that their survival is tied closely to that of chinook salmon, the whales' favorite food. The Central Valley BiOp prepared by the Obama administration takes both of those factors prominently into account. The Columbia River BiOp defended by the Obama administration does not.
The government's proposals for recovering salmon in California “stand out in stark contrast” to its proposals for the Columbia, says Mashuda. He finds the difference “most perplexing.”
On June 4, NOAA announced that it had “released its final biological opinion . . . that finds the water pumping operations in California’s Central Valley by the federal Bureau of Reclamation jeopardize the continued existence of several threatened and endangered species. . . . Federal biologists and hydrologists concluded that current water pumping operations . . . should be changed to ensure survival of winter and spring-run Chinook salmon, Central Valley steelhead, the southern population of North American green sturgeon, and Southern Resident killer whales, which rely on Chinook salmon runs for food.” The agency was not recommending a cost-free approach, or one that had any chance of avoiding litigation. It observed that “changing water operations will impact an estimated 5 to 7 percent of the available annual water on average moved by the federal and state pumps.”
In the weeks before NOAA Fisheries formally embraced the Bush BiOp on the Columbia, groups of scientists wrote to NOAA chief Jane Lubchenko and Commerce Secretary Gary Locke urging a different approach — an approach much like the one they had already taken farther south.
A group of orca scientists including Kenneth Balcomb executive director of the Center for Whale Research at Friday Harbor, and Samuel Wasser, director, of the U.W.'s Center for Conservation Biology, focused on climate change and killer whales. Climate change models suggest that within a few decades, Northwestern and California weather will make some spawning streams too warm for anadromous fish. In general, higher places stay cooler, so habitat at the highest elevations will probably have the coolest water. As a long-term strategy for California, NOAA Fisheries told the federal Bureau of Reclamation to come up with ways to get fish into the habitat above Shasta and Folsom dams.
By contrast, the orca scientists wrote, the Columbia River BiOp, “fails to account for the impacts of climate change on Columbia Basin salmon and steelhead. While the BiOp generally concedes that climate change will likely affect Columbia Basin salmon, it also assumes that the Pacific Northwest’s climate conditions will be no worse than conditions experienced in a “base period” of 1980 to 2001. As you know, this assumption runs counter to the conclusions of scientific bodies ranging from the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to the Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s Independent Scientific Advisory Board. . . . It also contrasts sharply with NOAA’s approach in the 2009 [Central Valley] BiOp. In fact, the 2009 BiOp employed detailed Snake River [emphasis added] climate scenarios to illustrate the range of potential consequences of climate change on California salmonids.”
In the Columbia River basin, a lot of high-elevation habitat lies in Idaho wilderness above the lower Snake River dams. Salmon advocates suggest that this strengthens the case for breaching those dams. Government spokespeople — and Governor Chris Gregoire — say that the administration has just put dam breaching back on the table. Maybe it has — the judge made it clear that he wanted breaching included, just in case — but at best, the option lies so far back on the table that no one can reach it in a hurry. “I don't think it's really putting dam breaching back on the table,” Mashuda says. The government won't have a breaching strategy ready to go. All the government promises, he suggests, is that “'if fish populations crash, we'll make a plan to do a study.'”
Like what you just read? Support high quality local journalism by becoming a member of Crosscut.com today!
Comments:
Posted Wed, Sep 23, 10:21 a.m. inappropriate
Perceptive article. It's hard not to conclude that given a choice between dams and Puget Sound killer whales, dams are more important to Patty Murray, Maria Cantwell, Chris Gregoire, Jane Lubchenco, and Gary Locke. More annoying that their preference for the dams, though, is their joint refusal to be open about what they are doing. When did you last hear any of those people say, "We can't afford to do it all, so we're giving up on orcas (and salmon, by the way)"? They take actions virtually guaranteed to extirpate Puget Sound's keystone predator, but don't have the courage to explain their decision.
Thanks for shining a light on these faux-greens.
Posted Fri, Sep 25, 10:35 a.m. inappropriate
As an advocacy article, I understand Mr. Chasan's comment that
"Arguably, nothing much has changed scientifically or politically since the first Snake River salmon populaton was listed in 1991, except that there have been more listings, fewer salmon, and some shuffling of the political deck chairs."
However, a careful reading of the current and past Biological Opinions demonstrates this is a false statement as concerns science. And salmon runs, while variable, are significantly increased, a fact probably as much attributable to ocean conditions as Biological Opinion "action plans" and new science.
Dam removal has been studied and restudied and if, hypothetically, the dams were removed and the power lost it would be replaced by thermal power plants that produce C02 and lead to the very climate change about which the author is concerned. In this sense, dams are good for orcas! While dams have drawbacks, they reduce climate change impacts.
Finally, as to "shuffling the political deck chairs."
Our Congressional delegations have been instrumental in assuring BPA ratepayer funding for the "Biological Opinion" actions which, together with the Council's Program for Fish Recovery, have cost billions. Many billions. This is admittedly a fish issue, not a money issue, but it is worth reflecting that, for whatever reason, many fish runs have increased.
It is also worth asking what some of those billions of BPA ratepayer dollars could have done to curb global warming by weatherizing homes, jump starting research in the solar industry, and otherwise supporting alternative energy.
The bottom line is if you really want to recover Columbia and Snake River ESA listed fish you will take one additional bold step: Stop fishing,or at the least use proven selective harvest techniques that will allow escapement of ESA listed fish. But that bold step seems too much to ask for in a Biological Opinion or anywhere else it matters.
Posted Fri, Sep 25, 10:12 p.m. inappropriate
How can you have a discussion about Pacific Ocean salmon and their importance to the orcas without mention of the Klamath? The Klamath salmon run was once the second or third most important on the West Coast. It's now pitiful. Most of the water is taken for agriculture and much of what's left is put behind dams to warm and grow toxic algae. Where once the fish were so abundant you could "walk across the river on the backs of the salmon," you can walk across the Scott on the dry riverbed. Too bad, orcas. Too bad, Indians. Too bad, fisherfolk. We'd rather have potatoes and alfalfa and the pitiful amount of electricity produced by the dams.
I wonder which fish runs have increased. We down here get occasional "good" years (better than last year), but I don't remember hearing of any long term upward trends in any but non-native predatory trash fish.
Hydro power is not the answer to global warming. It's probably not even an answer. The methane produced as submerged vegetation rots more than makes up for the CO2 that would have been produced by coal fired power plants. The ONLY way we can reduce greenhouse gas production is to use less power.
It's true that climate change is the real problem we have to deal with, but whatever we come up with for that will take years to have any effect. The
salmon (and all who depend on them) are at a bottle neck right now. We have to give priority to keeping that system alive, so they'll still be around when we figure out how to live within our means.
Posted Sun, Sep 27, 3:48 p.m. inappropriate
Fishing takes a minute percentage of the salmon compared to hydro. For nearly all runs, it's less than 10 percent, including ocean fishing, tribal and non-tribal river fishing. That's by NOAA's own figures. Hydro ops take upwards of 90 percent - at least, that's how much NOAA has given BPA the authority to "incidentally" take. Moreover, the fishermen's take has gotten smaller, and smaller, and smaller, and smaller over the years, but the take from the dams has hardly changed at all.
As for replacing the dams' relatively small power contribution, see www.lightintheriver.org/reports and read "Bright Future," for a wonky analysis showing precisely how we can meet our needs - including new load growth and removing these 4 dams - without adding to our CO2 emissions.
Posted Sun, Sep 27, 9 p.m. inappropriate
So is it the orca that maybe endangers the salmon as much as climate change?
From today's Oregonian
Killer whales love to dine on chinook salmon, which could further endanger their future
By Joe Rojas-Burke, The Oregonian
September 27, 2009, 4:25PM
Elaine Thompson, Associated PressTurns out the killer whales off the San Juan Islands are picky eaters. They prefer a meal of chinook salmon to anything else — and it could further endanger them. They compete with sport and commercial fishermen, and tribes for the prized fish, whose numbers have steeply declined.
Killer whales attack prey as large as gray whales and as small as herring. But the killer whales of the San Juan Islands prefer to eat chinook salmon -- and that could be their ruin.
Researchers tracking the whales found their numbers fell sharply during the chinook salmon decline in the 1990s. Even though seals, sea lions and even other kinds of salmon and fish remained relatively abundant, the San Juan whales died at unusually high rates, probably from malnutrition.
The new findings highlight how animal behavioral traditions, passed from adults to offspring, can be more powerful than genetics. The study also shows the whales depend on chinoook salmon more than wildlife managers recognize.
And the findings, researchers say, may strengthen the case for imposing additional limits on salmon fishing to sustain the whales, protected under the Endangered Species Act.
"It's going to be important to work with the salmon managers to make sure there are enough chinook for the whales," says study co-author John Ford, a whale research scientist with Fisheries and Oceans Canada in British Columbia.
The deep, saltwater straits dividing Vancouver Island and the San Juans are home to two endangered groups of killer whales, or orcas: the northern and southern residents.
Whale numbers sank to critical lows in the 1970s, after years of human abuse. Dozens of calves were captured for display at private marine parks from 1964 until 1976. Pollutants dumped in the Puget Sound and other waterways probably increased deaths and reduced fertility (the southern whales are among the most PCB-contaminated marine mammals in the world). And a century of declining salmon runs drastically reduced their preferred food.
Researchers counted 85 southern resident killer whales in the most recent census, down from nearly 100 in the mid-1990s. The northern resident population, at about 250, remains more stable.
Killer whales form tight-knit societies. Among the resident killer whales, even adult males stick with their mothers for life. Within clans, individuals call to each other in local dialects.
Clans also develop specialized hunting. The northern and southern residents hunt salmon and other fish but no marine mammals. A separate clan, ransient killer whales that spend time in the same waters, hunt seals and sea lions but not fish.
"As a species, the animal can take virtually anything it wants in the ocean, from the largest whales to the smallest schooling fish," Ford says. "But these animals are creatures of tradition. They learn as a calf what constitutes food and how to catch it."
And chinook salmon compose more than two-thirds of the diet of resident killer whales, according to previous studies. But researchers didn't know if the whales would switch to other prey in times of shortage.
In the new study, Ford and colleagues looked at records on whale death rates and population swings over the past 25 years. Whale numbers increased until 1995, then crashed. Over the next six years, the southern resident population plunged 17 percent, and the northern residents fell 8 percent.
Rising death rates coincided with steep declines in chinook salmon off Oregon and Washington, where in lean winter months the resident whales travel widely in search of prey.
Killer whales survival abruptly improved after a climate shift set the stage for stronger chinook salmon returns in 2002. Both the southern and northern resident killer whale populations are now growing again. Ford, with Kenneth Balcomb from the Center for Whale Research in Friday Harbor, Wash., and two other colleagues reported the findings this month in the online edition of the journal Biology Letters.
While biologists have watched the killer whales hunt other fish when chinook aren't available, researchers say the whales fail to get enough nutrients and energy from smaller, less oil-rich, or harder-to-catch fish. Malnutrition, combined with the immune-suppressing effects of PCBs and related pollutants, could have boosted death rates, the researchers say.
Some people who fish salmon for a living aren't convinced they need to share more fish with whales. They've already endured severe limits on commercial salmon trolling off Oregon in recent years to relieve pressure on endangered salmon stocks.
Darus Peake, a fisherman in Garibaldi and chairman of the Oregon Salmon Commission, says bans on fishing are politically easy, but less effective than removing dams, cleaning up decades of pollution and stopping logging and development along rivers.
"While I feel for the plight of the orcas, we're both in this together," Peake says. "Until we as a society go back and fix these rivers where the problem starts, we're all in trouble."
Fishery managers say figuring out how to allocate salmon to the killer whales would be enormously complicated. Because the whales prey on chinook that spawn in rivers from California to British Columbia, decisions would have to include two countries, numerous tribes with treaty rights to the salmon, as well as commercial and sport fishermen.
Gary Wiles, a wildlife biologist with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, says Ford's study provides strong evidence that the survival of the killer whales depends largely on restoring chinook salmon runs.
"The case they make here is quite compelling," says Wiles, co-author of the federal recovery plan for the endangered southern resident whales. But he says figuring out a way to divide up the fish among so many interests won't be easy.
"With the overall decline of chinook stocks," he says. "it really becomes a problematic thing to throw into the mix."
Joe Rojas-Burke: ...