Wild salmon win respite in US court

Federal judges threaten to breach dams if the government has no recovery plan.

from the April 17, 2007 edition

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"This decision should compel the federal agencies to look at all recovery options – including removing the four lower Snake River dams, and develop a solution that works for people and fish," said Steve Mashuda of Earthjustice, the nonprofit law firm representing a coalition of fishing business and conservation groups in the case.

Salmon need the right amount of water at the proper temperature to spawn upstream, after which their offspring head out to the Pacific Ocean before returning to the place of their birth several years later to repeat the cycle. Dams, irrigation diversions, logging, mining, and urban development have made the river trips to and from the ocean increasingly difficult.

Before the eight dams were built on the Columbia and Snake rivers, some 16 million salmon a year filled annual fish runs. Today, that number is down to about 1 million fish, and 12 species of salmon are listed under the Endangered Species Act.

Meanwhile, the challenge of reversing the steady decline in salmon populations across an area the size of central Europe is becoming increasingly difficult because of growing commercial and residential development.

Now, say scientists, global warming is making the problem more difficult.

Earlier this month, research scientists from NOAA and the University of Washington in Seattle reported that climate change is likely to cause warmer water temperatures, lower spawning flows, and increased winter water flows – all of which could raise salmon mortality.

"Under assumptions of warming temperatures and shifts in local precipitation, these stream habitat attributes will change for the worse as far as salmon are concerned," said Mary Ruckelshaus, a NOAA fisheries scientist and coauthor of the study, which was published by the National Academy of Sciences.

An earlier University of Washington report found that climate change in the Puget Sound area has been taking place relatively rapidly.

Another relatively recent threat to salmon are the California sea lions that have been gobbling up salmon at the fish ladders designed to help adult salmon over the dams on the way upstream to spawn. Officials have tried scaring off the sea lions with firecrackers and rubber bullets, but it hasn't worked. Sea lions themselves are protected under the 1972 Marine Mammal Protection Act. Congress is now considering a bill that would allow Oregon, Washington, and Columbia River Indian tribes to kill a limited number of sea lions.

In the end, it is likely to be the dams that will have to be addressed if salmon are to survive.

The National Marine Fisheries Service and other federal agencies are expected to present a new strategy for the Columbia River basin next month. Under the Endangered Species Act, such plans must lead to the recovery of species headed toward extinction.

• Associated Press material was used in this report.

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