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Issue Brief: Summary of the 2003 Mainstem Amendments to the Columbia River
Basin Fish and Wildlife Program Relating to Columbia and Snake River Dam
Operations
April 2003 | also see PDF
version (320k)
Contents
In its 2000 Columbia River Basin Fish and Wildlife Program, the first
revision of the program since 1995, the Council committed to revise the
1995 program's recommendations regarding mainstem Columbia and Snake
river dam operations in a separate rulemaking. That rulemaking
commenced in 2001. On April 8, 2003, the Council adopted the new
mainstem amendments.
The amendments adopt the biological objectives of the 2000 Biological
Opinions on Operations of the Federal Columbia River Power System issued
by NOAA Fisheries and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The
Council proposes additional strategies for dam operations, as outlined
below. The strategies are consistent with measures in the
biological opinions.
The amendments are directed primarily at federal agencies with
responsibilities for the Federal Columbia River Power System, but the
Council also recommends collaborative actions that involve other
entities including state fish and wildlife agencies, Indian tribes and
non-federal dam operators. Four federal agencies implement the
Council's fish and wildlife program. The U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers owns and operates nine mainstem hydroelectric dams on the
Columbia and Snake rivers, as well as two large storage reservoirs,
Dworshak and Libby. The Bureau of Reclamation owns and operates
Hungry Horse and Grand Coulee dams, and water storage reservoirs in the
Snake River Basin above Hells Canyon. The Bonneville Power
Administration sells the electricity generated by the federal power
system. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission licenses non-federal
dams. The activities of two other federal agencies influence dam
operations. These are NOAA Fisheries, which implements the
Endangered Species Act for salmon and steelhead, and the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service, which implements the Endangered Species Act for
Kootenai River white sturgeon and bull trout.
Collectively, these federal agencies will accomplish many of the
objectives and measures in the Council's mainstem program, including
water management, spill, juvenile fish transportation, adult fish
passage, reservoir elevations and operations relating to resident fish
and wildlife, water quality, mainstem habitat, and research.
Many of the provisions in the program call for tests of dam
operations. The primary purposes for these tests are:
- To
determine the operation at each facility that provides the best benefits
for fish populations over the long term.
- To better quantify the
benefits of the operations so that choices can be made to assure that
the same survival benefits are achieved through the lowest-cost
operations (e.g., spill tests).
- There are some operations where
the benefits of operations need to be more clearly demonstrated (e.g.,
flow augmentation).
The following are some of the major provisions and tests in the
mainstem program:
Consistency with the 2000 Biological Opinions
- One of the overarching objectives for the
program is to recover ESA-listed anadromous and resident fish.
Thus, a key biological objective of the program is to achieve the
biological performance standards for listed species stated in the 2000
biological opinions.
- The program adopts the biological objective
measures of the biological opinions as part of the fish and wildlife
program for the near term. However, based on the results of future
monitoring and evaluation, the Council may recommend different
operations if they would achieve the same or greater benefits at a lower
cost.
- Certain assumptions and uncertainties in the
biological opinions relating to spill, flow augmentation, reservoir
drafting, predator control and harvest should be tested, and the Council
calls on NOAA Fisheries and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to
exercise flexibility within the biological opinions to implement the
tests.
- Bonneville, in coordination with the federal
and state fish and wildlife agencies and Indian tribes, should define
ESA harvest and recovery objectives for anadromous fish in the mainstem
and tributaries.
General provisions relating to juvenile and
adult fish passage
- Strategies should protect biological diversity
by benefiting the broad range of species, not just ESA-listed species.
- Actions to improve fish passage should
emphasize adult survival.
- The Corps should report to the Council annually
on how decisions on passage improvements take into account the
strategies in the Council's program.
- The Corps should apply Value Engineering to all
projects exceeding $10 million.
Juvenile fish transportation
The amendments incorporate juvenile fish
transportation measures in the NOAA Fisheries biological opinion.
Priorities for transportation studies are:
- Evaluate
whether the survival benefits of transport from McNary Dam are
sufficiently greater than inriver passage to justify continuing to
transport from that dam.
- Conduct a
transportation study that targets Snake River fall chinook.
- More clearly determine what delayed survival
effects, if any, occur due to transport.
- Conduct
annual evaluations of transportation effectiveness and report the
results to the Council and the Independent Scientific Advisory Board.
Mainstem habitat
The amendments adopt measures similar to those
in the NOAA Fisheries biological opinion to 1) sample mainstem habitat,
2) develop habitat improvement plans in all mainstem river reaches, and
3) initiate improvements in three specific reaches. The amendments
emphasize that the measures should benefit all species that utilize the
mainstem as habitat and not just ESA-listed species.
Spill
- When making spill decisions, priority should be
given to: 1) minimizing impacts on returning adults, and 2)
optimizing passage survival for fish that are important to the
biological objectives of the Council's program, and that cannot be
transported, or effectively transported (e.g., fish entering the
Columbia River from tributaries above Bonneville Dam but below McNary
Dam, Hanford Reach fall chinook and Snake River chinook).
- NOAA Fisheries and the Corps should consult
with other federal and state agencies and tribes to determine an optimal
passage strategy at each dam and for each passage route.
- Spill should be managed according to the most
biologically effective level at each project. While spill is an
effective passage method, the Council is concerned with the following
aspects relating to spill:
- Spilling to 120 percent gas supersaturation
levels at some projects may increase mortality.
- Spillway
passage can also be the passage method most costly to the power system,
especially in the summer.
- The difference between spillway passage and other
passage methods may be minimal, in some cases.
- The maximum level of survival at each project may
not be correlated with spill.
- Spill may have negative effects on returning
adults.
- The Council recommends the following studies:
- Dam-specific estimates of smolt passage survival
by species through spillways
- Additional
research on the biological impact of extended exposure to high levels of
gas supersaturation.
- More research on the interaction among spill,
dissolved gas levels, adult passage, and adult survival.
- The Corps and other agencies should immediately
implement tests to examine the benefits of summer spill on juvenile fall
chinook.
- The Corps should continue testing removable
spillway weirs (RSWs).
Juvenile bypass systems
- Continue testing and developing surface bypass
systems, taking into account the widest range of biological diversity,
and using an expedited approach to prototype development.
- Relocate bypass outfalls where there is
predation or problems with injury or mortality.
- Modify turbines to improve juvenile survival.
- Conduct research on fish diseases at fish
passage facilities.
Adult passage
- The Corps should improve the overall
effectiveness of the adult fish passage program. This includes
expediting schedules to design and install improvements to fish passage
facilities.
- Where it is beneficial, cool water releases
from reservoirs should continue to be used to facilitate adult
migration.
- The Corps should treat adult migration as a
priority and report annually to the Council on its progress to correct
existing problems.
- PIT-tag detectors should be installed at
projects that don't have them.
- Fish counting accuracy should be improved.
- Research should be conducted on fish diseases
at passage facilities.
Mainstem water management strategies to
benefit all fish and wildlife
- The general guidelines in the Council's
program include:
- Manage water
through the hydrosystem to more closely approximate the natural
hydrograph.
- Allow for seasonal fluctuations in flow.
Reduce large and rapid short-term fluctuations.
- Increase the
correspondence between water temperatures and naturally occurring
temperatures throughout the Basin. Use stored water to manage
water temperatures below storage reservoirs.
- NOAA Fisheries and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service should identify potential conflicts and seek recommendations on
how best to balance different needs prior to implementation of flow
actions. The amendments also call on the federal agencies to
report annually on flow augmentation, its benefits and the attributes
that make it beneficial.
- The Council recognizes the continuing
controversy over the flow-survival relationship, and will work with
others in the region to:
- Evaluate the
validity of flow targets and flow augmentation actions in the 2000
Biological Opinion.
- Evaluate how
often, and for what duration, river flows meet the spring and summer
flow targets in the Biological Opinion.
- Quantify the
volume and shape of water that has been, and is being, provided as flow
augmentation.
- The 2000 NOAA Fisheries and USFWS biological
opinion operations may not be optimal when the needs of fish and
wildlife other than listed species are taken into account. Based
on the vision, biological objectives and overarching strategies stated
earlier, the Council adopted water management and other specific
strategies to benefit all fish and wildlife affected by the hydrosystem,
not just listed species. Where the strategies intended to benefit
non-listed species appear to conflict with the biological opinions, the
Council does not mean that the federal operating agencies should act
contrary to the biological opinions in order to implement strategies in
the program. The Council intends instead that the federal
operating agencies make every effort practicable to use the operational
flexibility in the biological opinions to meet the biological opinion
requirements and implement the other strategies in the Council's
program. The Council believes the agencies have sufficient
operational flexibility in most cases to implement these additional
strategies, which include the following provisions:
- Spring and summer operations at Libby and
Hungry Horse dams
- Continue to
implement the VARQ flood control operations and implement Integrated
Rule Curve operations as recommended by Montana Fish, Wildlife &
Parks.
- With regard to operations to benefit Kootenai
River white sturgeon, the Council recommends a refinement to operations
in the biological opinion that specify a ?tiered? strategy for flow
augmentation from Libby Dam to simulate a natural spring freshet.
- Refill should be a high priority for spring
operations so that the reservoirs have the maximum amount of water
available during the summer.
- Implement an
experiment to evaluate the following interim summer operation:
- Summer drafting limits at Libby and Hungry
Horse should be 10 feet from full pool by the end of September in all
years except during droughts when the draft could be increased to 20
feet.
- Draft each reservoir in a stable or ?flat?
weekly average outflows from July through September. This will
result in reduced drafting compared to the biological opinion.
- The focus of the experiment should be on 1)
ascertaining the nature, extent of and reasons for a flow-survival
relationship through the lower Columbia system; 2) determining whether
flow augmentation from the upper Columbia storage projects has any
effect on levels of survival, and 3) determining the benefits to
resident fish.
- Spring, summer and fall operations at Grand
Coulee Dam
- Operate Grand
Coulee Dam in the winter and spring (from January through June)
consistent with biological opinion operations and ordinary hydrosystem
operations. The amendments recommend minimum monthly elevation
targets in Lake Roosevelt and minimum monthly mean water retention times
with a goal of refilling by the end of June.
- Draft evenly from Lake Roosevelt to the target
elevation by the end of August. As much as possible, manage the
reservoir and dam discharges to minimize fluctuations and ramping rates
and produce steady flows across each season and each day to minimize
reservoir fluctuations and ramping rates. Attempt to draft no
lower than 1,283 feet by the end of August.
- From September through December, attempt to
maintain a minimum elevation of 1,283 feet to maximize water retention
times and protect kokanee access and spawning. Federal operators,
fish and wildlife managers, and others should consult with the Council
to determine how to provide the biological benefits of a 1283 operation
while meeting biological opinion requirements, including chum flows and
operating to protect flows for the Hanford Reach.
- Attempt to
maximize water retention times from June to December of 40 to 60 days,
or the maximum historically achievable for each month.
- Two high priorities for Grand Coulee through the
year should be to contribute to the establishment and protection of the
necessary conditions for fall chinook salmon in the Hanford Reach and to
refill by the end of June. Summer and fall operations should be
consistent with these priorities.
- Spring and summer water management in the Snake
River should be consistent with NOAA Fisheries? 2000 Biological
Opinion, with the following additional observations:
- If water is provided from the Hells Canyon
projects or from storage reservoirs in the upper Snake River basin, the
releases must be consistent with state and federal law.
- The Council encourages the Bonneville Power
Administration, Idaho Power Company, and the Bureau of Reclamation to
execute a water shaping agreement to ensure that flows from Brownlee
Reservoir will occur to assist juvenile and adult migration when most
needed, at the call of the Technical Management Team (TMT).
- Because flow targets often are unattainable,
it is ineffective and uneconomical to strive to meet them regardless of
the degree of biological benefit obtained.
- Summer operations at Dworshak Dam
- Operate
Dworshak Dam consistent with the provisions of the 2000 Biological
Opinion as implemented through the Corps acting as a member of, and in
coordination with, the Technical Management Team.
- The ISAB and the IEAB shall review the operation
of Dworshak to assess the adverse impacts of those operations on
resident fish and wildlife and adverse impacts on the economy of
Clearwater County.
- Hanford Reach/mainstem and estuary spawning,
rearing, and resting habitat
- The Council recommends managing flows to protect,
improve, and expand spawning, rearing, and resting habitat in the
mainstem and estuary. This means the Bureau of Reclamation, as the
operator of Grand Coulee Dam, and the operators of the mid-Columbia dams
will have to take steps, separately and together, to further reduce flow
fluctuations through the Reach that affect spawning and rearing.
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