Northwest Tribes Want Share Of Fisheries Funds Indians See Discrimination In How Panel Distributes Money For Fish Recovery Projects
With federal dollars flowing but fish disappearing from the Northwest’s greatest river system, Indian tribes and Columbia River fish managers Tuesday squared off over the reasons and what to do about it.
At issue was 1996 legislation sponsored by Sen. Slade Gorton, R-Wash., that created an independent scientific panel that reviews proposals for fisheries work to be paid for by the Bonneville Power Association. The BPA sells electricity produced by dams on the Columbia.
Fully 84 percent of projects that did not get funded were Indian-sponsored hatcheries and watershed restoration plans, Ted Strong, executive director of the Columbia River Intertribal Fisheries Commission, said at a Senate hearing chaired by Gorton here.
“When we see what’s happening here, Slade Gorton, we can only see it as a very discriminatory act against tribes putting fish back in the rivers,” Strong said.
Brian Allee, executive director of the Columbia Basin Fish and Wildlife Authority, said: “The process was blind to such considerations.” He decried the tribes’ charges as “unfair” and “impugning the integrity” of fisheries scientists.
Gorton said he is satisfied with the fairness of the process and that many of the Indians’ fisheries programs eventually will be funded. “Quite a number of the projects that were held up will be approved,” he said.
The creation of an independent scientific review panel was “a major, not a modest contribution to salmon recovery,” said Bill Bakke, director of the Native Fish Society, which is trying to save imperiled wild salmon runs of the Columbia River system.
The hearing was an opportunity to evaluate salmon recovery efforts since Congress passed the 1980 Northwest Power Act, which created the Northwest Power Planning Council. The council set a goal of doubling the Columbia River system’s salmon runs from 2.5 million to 5 million fish. But fish populations have continued to decline. Multiple causes were discussed at the hearing.
“Throughout the world, regardless of whether or not fish are affected by hydro systems, fisheries stocks are plummeting,” said Jack Robertson, BPA acting administrator. He blamed “the lack of a coordinated management that focuses on returning adequate numbers of adult fish to the spawning grounds.”
Allee decried “the representation in the media and other forums that the Columbia River restoration is a failure. This judgment is apparently based on a superficial review of the last 15 years and the fact that salmon recovery has not been achieved in this time frame.”
Tribal leaders argued that one cause stands above all others: Dams are killing young salmon before they can reach the Pacific Ocean to grow to adulthood.
En route to sea, salmon must run a gantlet of four Army Corps of Engineers dams on the lower Snake River, and four more Columbia River dams.
“Less than 150 years ago, the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes harvested tens of thousands of salmon,” said Lionel Boyer, fish and wildlife director for the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes said. “Now we harvest generally less than 100 a year. The dams and the slow, warm water reservoir habitat typically kills up to 90percent of the fish runs a year.”
Millions of dollars of the BPA’s income from power sales have gone to fish and wildlife programs in recent years. Its fish and wildlife budget holds $127 million for the current fiscal year, while state, federal and tribal fish and wildlife managers proposed programs totaling about $145 million. After getting recommendations from the independent scientific panel, the Northwest Power Planning Council recommended only $88.5million in projects be funded immediately.
Winning approval were most of the fisheries projects requested by federal, state, local and private agencies. But out of $94.8 million in tribal and tribal co-managed fisheries projects, only $46million won approval.