Saturday, Sep. 27, 2008

More river water may help recover steelhead

By David Lester, Yakima-Herald Republic

On a day when a federal fishery agency issued a lengthy proposed plan for restoring threatened steelhead in the Middle Columbia River -- including the Yakima River -- a renowned expert on fish and their habitats offered his own solution.

While the NOAA Fisheries recovery plan released for public comment outlined nearly 100 steps to a healthy run of steelhead, Jack Stanford, a Montana river ecologist, offered one primary move to a small crowd at J.M. Perry Institute: Water from the Columbia River.

It is an argument that Stanford has made before, one he believes could see 1 million migratory fish in the Yakima River.

"It is possible to approach 1 million fish. Restored habitat from augmentation is on par with rivers we are studying that have those numbers," he said. "It is so much different than the status quo. There aren't hardly any fish in this river and there should be."

The Yakima Basin Storage Alliance, a local group that favors the 1.6 million acre-foot Black Rock reservoir east of Yakima, paid his plane fare. But Stanford is not connected with the alliance and has doubts about the scope embodied in Black Rock.

Stanford has been a consultant to the federal government on the best places along the Yakima River to restore habitat.

The federal Bureau of Reclamation will issue a final environmental impact statement on the huge project around the end of the year. Then, the alliance faces the task of obtaining congressional approval for the project. Black Rock could cost $6.7 billion, a figure that includes construction, interest costs, contingencies, and a century of operation and maintenance.

Stanford said the Yakima River was once the primary producer of wild fish in the Columbia River Basin and could be again with additional water.

He said in addition to water, the river system needs more river side channels and a bigger flood plain, a diversity of fish stocks, and a way to reduce the impacts of commercial fishing in the ocean.

Some of those approaches are addressed in the NOAA plan issued for public comment Wednesday.

The goal of the plan is to recover steelhead to a sustainable level that the species could be removed from the endangered species list. Steelhead, an ocean-going trout species, was listed in 1999. Returning adults over the past 20 years have averaged about 1,800 adults.

The plan covers that portion of the Columbia River system from the Touchet River, east of Walla Walla, to the White Salmon River, west of Goldendale, an area of approximately 35,000 square miles.

Four distinct regions within that area each has developed its own plan. The Yakima plan came from the Yakima Basin Fish and Wildlife Recovery Board, which includes the Yakama Nation, three counties and several cities.

Alex Conley of Yakima, executive director for the board, said Wednesday the plan is drawn from existing activities on improving habitat and removing barriers by a number of agencies.

Cost of the program is estimated at about $200 million.

Conley said the plan is but one step in a plan to restore steelhead.

"This is a big step. It is the first time NOAA has turned to a bunch of local entities and rolled their plans into one plan," he said.

Brian Gorman, NOAA spokesman in Seattle, said the agency didn't want to reinvent the wheel in the recovery plan.

"We don't want to ignore things that are being done for the benefit of fish. We want to build on existing budget structures and organizations," he said. "But clearly, those existing efforts have not been enough. If they were, we wouldn't have listed fish."

Public comment on the proposed plan can be made through Dec. 23 to NOAA Fisheries at 304 S. Water St., Suite 201, Ellensburg, 98926.

Comments also can be submitted by e-mail to: MiddleColumbiaPlan.nwr@noaa.gov.

For more on the steelhead recovery plan, visit: http://www.nwr.noaa.gov/