Columbia River Sockeye Salmon Ruled Imperiled

Federal fishery officials on Tuesday invoked the Endangered Species Act on behalf of a dwindling family of sockeye salmon on the Columbia River.

With its decision, the National Marine Fisheries Service brought the West to the brink of a colossal-sized showdown between economics and environmentalism, potentially the biggest and fiercest ever seen.

Compared to endangered-species battles of the past, this one involves not some small, reclusive creature like the spotted owl or the snail darter fish lying in the path of someone’s view of progress. This fish is a sacred icon being crushed underneath the great weight of the region’s economic cornerstone, abundant hydroelectric power that is 40% cheaper than elsewhere.

Some believe that if federal protection of the salmon stands and becomes permanent in one year, dams along the Columbia will be forced to release water at times disadvantageous for power generation, causing electrical rates to soar and placing a drag on the entire Western economy. Others, however, believe the government is acting too timidly in the face of a salmon crisis that virtually no one denies.

All types of stopgap efforts have failed to halt declines in the Columbia’s wild salmon.

In the last dozen years, Congress has passed special laws. Government and private agencies have spent perhaps $1 billion. Hatcheries have worked overtime. But the storied wild fish, which breed in the river and whose young then migrate to the ocean where they mature, continue to succumb, in part due to overfishing and habitat destruction. But the main culprits are the 69 dams that interfere with the sockeyes’ journey on the Columbia system, the most heavily industrialized river in the West.

Perhaps half the wild “runs” of salmon, those that can be divided into biologically distinct stocks, already are extinct. The next in line to pass into history is a springtime run of sockeye salmon. These fish travel from the Columbia River into its principal tributary, the Snake, and then swim high into the mountains of Idaho, where they reproduce.

Or at least they used to.

Fisheries Service Northwest Director Rolland Schmitten acknowledged Tuesday that the last evidence of these fish spawning were two nests, or redds, sighted in 1989. Only one lonely and epic returning sockeye was counted at a midway point on its return trip home in 1990.

In other words, this creature already may be extinct. But until its fate is known for certain, the Fisheries Service said it is recommending undertaking the process to list the fish as “endangered” and to devise a plan to save it.

Tuesday’s decision is considered preliminary under terms of the Endangered Species Act. Next, the Fisheries Service will hold public hearings. A permanent decision will go into force by 1992. At that point, the law requires fishery managers to devise a recovery plan for the fish without regard to economic consequences.

Such a plan would almost have to include a reduction in electrical power generation in order to provide greater river flow for the fish. Also mentioned as likely elements of a salmon recovery plan are modernization of the dams to assist the salmon in their trip to and from spawning beds, new restrictions on fishing, logging, cattle grazing and irrigation.

In other words, virtually the entire way of life in the region could be touched.

Schmitten acknowledged that saving the salmon would cause economic “pain.” But so would their demise.

“These fish are worth saving. They are leading indicators of our environmental and human health,” he said.

Some environmentalists, however, criticized the Fisheries Service for following the government’s standard step-by-step timetable rather than using its emergency powers to decree the fish as nearly extinct right now. The government could then order immediate and dramatic steps to try and save it without a lengthy process of public hearings.

Tuesday’s decision was the first to seek endangered species protection for salmon in the Columbia watershed, although a run of chinook salmon on the Sacramento River in Northern California was listed as endangered in 1990.

By June, the Fisheries Service will have to decide whether to offer similar protections for four other stocks of Columbia River salmon, both coho and chinook. And some experts believe the problem is much vaster still, with more than 200 stocks of salmon endangered from California to Washington state.

Staff writer Rudy Abramson in Washington contributed to this story.

THE ENDANGERED SOCKEYE

Size: The sockeye salmon weighs from 5-7 pounds at maturity; the maximum weight on record is 15 1/2 pounds.

Appearance: Distinguishing characteristics include a small number of gill rakers and minute spots on the back. Mature males often become bright red on the body; females are dirty-olive to light red, and darker on the sides than the male.

Spawning: Thousands used to make the 900-mile trek from the Pacific Ocean back through the Columbia and Snake rivers to the Idaho spawning grounds. They usually enter rivers from March to July, with spawning taking place from August to December.

Source: McClane’s Field Guide to Freshwater Fishes of North America