Reducing spill—the amount of water diverted from power-generating hydroelectric dam turbines to go over the dam spillways--imperils juvenile salmon as they migrate to the sea, further reducing the chances of survival for endangered salmon stocks.

"Slashing summer spill spurns the unanimous scientific advice of Northwest fishery agencies and Indian tribes. This continues a three-year pattern of failure of this administration to implement its own salmon plan," says Pat Ford, executive director of Portland, Oregon-based Save Our Wild Salmon.

"This is a scientifically irresponsible and indefensible decision," says Jim Martin, former chief of fisheries with Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, now on the National Wildlife Federation's board of directors. "...BPA continues to disregard the hugely positive economic impact spill has on fishing communities, and takes the politically expedient route to pad the agencies' bottom line."

The BPA claims that "offsets" will make up for the harm caused by the reduced spill, but fish biologists across the Northwest disagree. There is scientific evidence that one such measure, removing Snake River chinook from the river to barge and truck them around dam turbines, ultimately increases the mortality rate of juvenile salmon. Also, BPA has "double-counted" by including the Hanford Reach Protection Program, a Columbia River salmon preservation plan, as an offset to the eliminated summer spill. The Hanford program is already required as an offset under a different agreement. [1]

"Our overall assessment is that the analyses of biological impacts [by BPA] are fundamentally flawed, and available scientific data collected in the Columbia Basin do not support the Federal Agencies' findings," the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife wrote in a comment to the BPA in February.

The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife wrote that it was "extremely concerned that the recently developed [Hanford Reach] agreement is being proposed as an offset measure...Mitigation simply cannot be double counted." A joint team of state, federal and tribal agencies noted that "[T]he offset analysis and predicted benefits from the proposed offsets are highly speculative...the agencies and tribes do not believe that there is adequate technical basis to support the projected benefits of the BPA proposed offsets." [2]

The BPA claims that the reduced spill will mean lower power generation costs, which will be passed on to Northwest residents as savings on electricity bills. However, the BPA included projected earnings from selling electricity to California when it estimated power costs with the full summer spill. While the BPA may earn $26 million more this summer under the reduced spill plan, Northwest ratepayers would likely see extremely minor savings on their electric bills--as little as $0.08 to $0.36 per month. [3]

This is not the first time the Bush administration has ignored science in decisions affecting endangered Northwest salmon. As reported by BushGreenwatch on May 27, a controversial fish counting method supported by the administration threatened to remove federal protection from 15 of 26 salmon stocks listed under the Endangered Species Act. The administration also proposed cutting the budget for wild salmon restoration by 40% in the 2005 budget. [4]

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TAKE ACTION
Visit Save Our Wild Salmon to learn more about the BPA's summer spill plan, and how to submit comments on the plan.

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SOURCES:
[1] Save Our Wild Salmon press release, Jun. 8, 2004.
[2] "What Scientists Say about Cutting Summer Spill," Save Our Wild Salmon.
[3] "Putting the Power System Benefits of Reduced Summer Spill into Perspective," NW Energy Coalition and Save Our Wild Salmon, Jun. 8, 2004.
[4] BushGreenwatch, Feb. 11, 2004.