White House Proposes $10 Million More to Save Salmon

PORTLAND, Oregon, January 28, 2004 (ENS) - Touting the success of federal efforts to save and restore Pacific salmon, Bush administration officials announced a proposal Monday to increase funding for salmon habitat restoration by $10 million.

Increasing salmon returns show that the fish can coexist with hydroelectric dams and that the administration's conservation policies are working, according to James Connaughton, chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality.

Connaughton told an audience at Oregon's Bonneville Dam Tuesday that the $10 million proposal is an example of President George W. Bush's commitment to conservation. "This substantial funding increase will be a huge boost to existing cooperative state, tribal and federal salmon restoration efforts."

The additional $10 million would boost annual funding to $100 million for the Pacific Coast Salmon Recovery Fund, which was established in 2000 to provide federal grants to state, local and tribal governments in Alaska, California, Oregon, and Washington to assist salmon conservation efforts.

Wild salmon are considered by many to be an irreplaceable icon of the Pacific Northwest. (Photo courtesy Columbia & Snake Rivers Campaign)

The administration also said it will extend grants from the fund to state, local and tribal governments in Idaho - a move hailed by Idaho Republican Senator Mike Crapo.

"Money from this fund has improved habitat in the lower Columbia River, but ignored the headwaters in Idaho where about one half of all spawning and rearing occurs," Crapo said. "Now we have fixed that oversight and I welcome today's vote of confidence from the Bush administration. "

Lautenbacher, who joined Connaughton during a tour of a salmon restoration project and fish passage improvements at Bonneville Dam, said the program is in part responsible for increasing salmon returns in the Columbia River Basin.

"We have witnessed impressive salmon returns in many areas over the past few years, and with the President's announcement … we expect further successes as more prioritized salmon projects are completed," Lautenbacher said.

The high returns of hatchery salmon over the past three years are not the product of the Bush administration policies, according to the Sierra Club's Carl Pope.

"The Bush administration cannot declare victory here," Pope said. "Higher salmon returns in the Pacific Northwest are due to natural causes - not manmade ones."

In August President George W. Bush told an audience at Washington's Ice Harbor Dam that the disappearance of salmon from the Columbia and Snake Rivers would be "a huge loss." (Photo by Paul Morse courtesy White House)

"From failing to address low flows and poor water quality in the Klamath and Snake rivers to allowing abusive logging practices near sensitive salmon streams, the Bush administration seems to take two steps back for every step forward," said Rebecca Wodder, president of American Rivers.

The Pacific Coastal Salmon Recovery Fund is funded separately from the massive federal plan to restore Columbia and Snake River salmon and steelhead - a plan conservationists say is floundering.

The federal salmon plan, which includes a host of federal agencies, lays out 199 specific measures to be implemented over 10 years to protect salmon and steelhead from the adverse impacts of the federal dam system.

The administration has doled out less than half of the funding required by the plan and accomplished less than 30 percent of the work, environmentalists say.

The estimated cost of full implementation is some $900 million annually for 10 years.

In May of last year, a federal judge ruled that the plan for the Snake and Columbia rivers violated the Endangered Species Act and ordered the Bush administration to rewrite it by June 2004.

Conservationists hoped the court ruling might convince the administration to abandon the plan's core premise, which is to restore and protect salmon without advocating for the removal of four federal dams on the lower Snake River in eastern Washington.

It is widely accepted that removing the four dams is the best way to restore salmon in the Columbia River Basin, but the affected states and the Bush administration say the option is not on the table.

There is skepticism of the Bush administration's proposals to rework the salmon plan - in particular one to eliminate "summer spill." The policy requires water be spilled over federal dams to help young salmon migrate to the sea in the summer.

The provision is considered by many to be an integral part of the federal salmon plan, but dam operators say the practice wastes money and does little to help the fish.

Columbia and Snake River salmon and steelhead must survive up to eight dams in order to spawn. (Photo courtesy Save Our Wild Salmon)

Critics also take issue with the Bush administration for not addressing Clean Water Act temperature violations in the Snake River and for a proposal to relax regulation of water quality standards on Oregon rivers with federal dams.

The proposed rule by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, announced last October, is a "virtual exemption" for Oregon dams from water temperature standards that protect salmon from lethally hot temperatures, environmentalists say.

Dams cause large areas of water behind them to pool and heat up - these lack the cold, clean water flushing that was present before the dams were built and cause disease, reproductive failure and death in salmon.

"The Bush administration's repeated visits to the region show that it recognizes the importance of salmon in the Pacific Northwest," said Oregon Congressman Earl Blumenauer, a Democrat. "I agree and appreciate that recognition. The problem is that at the same time the administration is saying it will ask for more salmon money, it is making policy decisions that are devastating our salmon."