Recently news broke in Grist of an agreement brokered by the Bush administration and several Northwest tribes affecting endangered salmon, litigation, and dam operations on the Columbia and Snake Rivers. Now that the dust has settled, here is one view of this deal's details and implications.
First, it is worth highlighting that this deal came during the same week that a government council decided on unprecedented closures for salmon fishing on the West Coast in response to another precipitous drop in salmon stocks, this time on the Sacramento River.
Salmon populations and coastal communities have suffered under the current administration's science-free salmon policy. This year's declines on the Sacramento, like recent declines on the other big salmon rivers -- the Klamath and Columbia-Snake -- can be traced to harmful dams, habitat destruction, and politically driven management decisions and illegal plans by our federal government.
So, what will this agreement mean for Columbia Basin populations and the decades-long courtroom battles?
Like most deals, this one delivers things to both parties. For the tribes, it means $1 billion over 10 years for habitat and hatchery projects. The list suggests a series of laudable projects that will have positive impacts on habitat -- mainly for healthy salmon populations, with about 25 percent of the funds to go toward imperiled species. In addition, some funding will go toward studying lamprey restoration (which is extremely important to tribal communities) in the Columbia Basin.
And what does the administration get? In exchange for this funding, the feds acquire a very new alliance in the courtroom: the tribes agree to not litigate the administration's latest salmon plan any further, and to join the administration to "affirmatively support" the current dam operations. This includes submitting official documents supporting the salmon plan. (In January of this year, these same tribes delivered 140 pages of public comment strenuously opposing this administration's plan for dam operations and its harmful impact on endangered stocks.) With 13 ESA-listed stocks spiraling toward extinction, after more than $8 billion in federal monies and nearly 20 years of litigation, the feds' approach to salmon protection has proven both very expensive and deeply flawed.
For the next 10 years, the tribes also agree to not advocate for removing the four costly, outdated lower Snake River dams -- the one measure that most scientists insist is needed to protect salmon from extinction. For example, up to 92 percent of juvenile Snake River salmon are killed by federal dams before they ever reach the ocean.
The agreement is unlikely to end the litigation over the operation and existence of certain dams in the Snake River. While it changes the mix of the litigants and ensures that the tribes will not publicly advocate for their previously long-held, science-based recovery measures, the deal does not protect our most endangered wild salmon in the Snake and Columbia rivers. With less than 25 percent of the funding going toward those stocks, it is clear that this deal wasn't intended to address the actual ESA issues facing the Northwest. With this deal, the administration shows it is more focused on solving their courtroom crisis than solving the real, on-the-ground crises facing endangered salmon and endangered fishing communities.
It doesn't have to be this way. Solutions exist that are based both in good science and responsible fiscal policy. In order to get there, however, it looks like we are depending on leadership from Congress starting today and a new administration in 2009.
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Comments View as Flat
CM521 Posted 9:05 am
23 Apr 2008
Can't ignore the complexity
I'm a bit concerned that the guest author has taken a very disjointed view of the Columbia River Basin and a functioning ecosystem. No one knows about the intimate and complex relationships that exist within an ecosystem more than tribes. It's these relationships that have, and continue to sustain the tribal communities that call the Columbia Basin home.
Your comment "With less than 25 percent of the funding going toward those stocks, it is clear that this deal wasn't intended to address the actual ESA issues facing the Northwest," is troubling to me because it treats salmon as an independent component rather than a part of the entire system. Logic tells me that if you do something to help the ecosystem for non-listed salmon, lamprey, sturgeon, trout and the many other species this MOA benefits-you will also benefit ESA-listed salmon. They all require the same quality habitat, clean water and cool temperatures. It seems terribly ignorant to think salmon exist in a vacuum and independent of anything else. Ecosystems are a series of complex relationships. One can not look to a single species and a single solution. Doing so misses the big picture.
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phyzzi Posted 12:00 pm
23 Apr 2008
Slamon and the Ecosystem
The guest author did not put forward a disjointed view of the Columbia River Basin ecosystem. On the contrary, the guest author was describing a Band Aid deal that will continue Columbia ecosystem fragmentation by leaving the dams in place. Salmon are a keystone species that represent other species in the shared ecosystem by proxy. Salmon are the focus of the Snake River Dam debate because of their importance economically, culturally and environmentally. They are the charismatic megafauna that symbolize the entire ecosystem. Salmon provide a rallying point show in vivid detail how dams kill fish.
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JMG Posted 1:34 pm
23 Apr 2008
An avid fisherman comments
A friend is an avid, long-time fisherman throughout the Northwest, ocean, river, stream, creek -- heck, for all I know he fishes in his bathtub too. He had these comments on the deal in response to my asking him what it meant that the tribes were taking the deal to support all dam operations:
Save your community: Cut greenhouse gas emissions 5% per year.
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caniscandida Posted 8:08 pm
24 Apr 2008
the Native American problem
It should be noted that CM521's assertion, "No one knows about intimate and complex relationships within an ecosystem more than tribes," is hard to reconcile with Joseph Bogaard's point, that the crucial problem of the four dams on the lower Snake is now by agreement going to be neglected.
Or at least those four (allegedly all-wise) tribes who agreed to this decision are now partners in making the neglect institutional. The Nez Perce, up the Snake in Idaho, rejected the agreement. That the tribes cannot find a common position on this huge issue suggests that their decision-making is not necessarily any wiser or better than anyone else's.
Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.
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caniscandida Posted 8:28 pm
24 Apr 2008
JMG's friend
(For the benefit of us interlopers from the outside, BPA is the Bonneville Power Administration, presumably a powerful party with a strong interest in keeping the dams going. Speculation about what Judge Redden -- whoever that is -- does or does not intend is way over this outsider's head.)
I do not know enough to say that JMG's friend's second point is likely to be right. But I am prepared to be cynical and accept the third point.
Here is a somewhat more detailed report by an AP writer, essentially agreeing with Bogaard, with comments on the relative needs of different species of salmon, and of lampreys, and how much money each of the four tribes is getting:
http://www.wtop.com/?nid=116&sid=1382432
Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.
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