Council in Northwest Approves Plan to Save Salmon

Setting the stage for a drastic shift in Northwest water policy, an influential planning council Wednesday approved a $177-million plan to help migrating salmon in the Columbia and Snake rivers on their way to the Pacific Ocean.

Starting next spring, federal river managers will “draw down” the volume of certain reservoirs to unprecedented levels in hopes of speeding young salmon downstream and out to sea. Water would also be spilled over the top to lure the fish away from the deadly churning turbines at some dams. The draw-downs would be phased in over several years.

Under court order to devise a strategy to save the region’s salmon from extinction, the Portland-based Northwest Power Planning Council--with two representatives each from Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Washington--voted, 6 to 2, on proposals to help replenish the once-bountiful salmon runs.

Benefits to the fish, as yet unproven, could come at the expense of the system’s other water users--industry, agriculture, recreation, navigation and hydroelectric rate-payers. The program would cost the Bonneville Power Administration $177 million a year--$57 million in lost hydropower revenues.

“But we are already incurring costs for not taking action,” said council chairman Angus Duncan. He pointed to the collapse of the West Coast salmon fishery, which was closed this year off Washington and restricted off Oregon and Northern California.