Environmentalists Find Something Fishy in Salmon-Barging Program

Gray clouds hug the Cascade Mountains along the Columbia River as a barge called the Chinook chugs into the Bonneville Dam lock with its cargo.

Northwesterners ship millions of dollars in products such as wheat and lumber down the Columbia each year, but this barge carries something more precious to people of the region--live salmon.

There are more than 200,000 of them on this barge alone. For more than two decades, the federal government has been shipping young fish downstream past eight federal dams, hoping the fish will swim upstream on their own to spawn.

Salmon-barging has become as much of a tradition here as the famous fish themselves, but so far the fish are losing the battle.

As few as 1% or less of the salmon on this barge will make it back to spawn. Fifteen stocks of salmon in the Columbia Basin have been put on the threatened or endangered species list since 1991.

Sharp Opinions on Both Sides

Depending on whom you talk to, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ salmon-barging program is a vital crutch for the fish or a sure path to their greater doom.

“Barging just doesn’t work,” said Justin Hayes of the environmental group American Rivers. “As long as they keep flushing money and fish into the barge system, they’re going to fail.”

To the contrary, said Bruce Lovelin of the Columbia River Alliance, an industry group. Barging has “kept the salmon on life support. . . . We’d define it as the best that the corps has going right now.”

On the deck of the Chinook, there are no political debates, just a stiff wind from the west.

Ruthanne Watkinson is all business. Her crew mates sometimes call her “the fish lady.”

For nearly two straight months it is her job to ride the barge up and down the Columbia, making sure that young salmon captured behind the dams are loaded safely aboard, and are safely let loose at the end of their journey.

During the night she emerges every two hours from a makeshift trailer on the Chinook’s deck, where she sleeps, and makes sure the fish are doing OK in their six 150,000-gallon tanks.

“The longer I’ve been in this boat I’m wondering if there is a glamorous part of this job,” Watkinson said as she used a net to scoop out a few dead salmon.

Still, the 22-year-old wildlife management graduate from New York state feels a sense of importance about her job.

“I’m their lifeline,” Watkinson said.

An hour downstream from the Bonneville lock, the crew opens portals in the bottom of the tanks.

With a giant whooshing sound, the 4-to-6-inch baby salmon are flushed into the river, where they are to begin their dangerous journey out to sea.

A bald eagle swoops in from the Washington side of the river and plucks one of the fish from the water. It is as if the bird was awaiting the delivery.

“Awesome,” Watkinson said, taking a moment to marvel at the eagle.

The Chinook makes a long, slow turn in the Columbia, heading back to the first of the eight dams, located on a Columbia tributary in Washington state on the Snake River.

There will be more young salmon there waiting for a ride.

The corps will spend about $3.4 million this year to ship more than 20 million salmon down the river.

For many in the region, especially those whose jobs depend on the river economy, the money is well spent.

The fish-barging helps ensure that the dams keep operating, not only for the shipping industry, but for flood control, irrigation and especially hydropower. Electricity from the dams powers huge companies like Boeing and Intel and helps keep residents’ power bills among the cheapest in the nation.

Barging-program backers point to studies showing that two of every three adult salmon that survive the inland migration through the eight dams were barged fish.

“By barging fish . . . they’re getting downstream quicker,” said David Hurson, who runs the program for the corps.

But environmentalists cite another study showing that just a quarter of 1% of barged fish make it back upstream to spawn.

That means of the 20 million salmon the corps will ship downstream this year, just 50,000 will return to spawn.

“If we keep going at this rate, the fish will go extinct,” said Jim Baker of the Sierra Club.

Lovelin, from the industry group, doesn’t dispute the return figures of well under 1%. But he said that ocean conditions, predators and other problems bring about the low counts, and that barging is keeping a bad situation from becoming worse.

Even the healthiest salmon runs have only a 3% to 7% return rate for spawning salmon, he said.

The debate is starting to reach a climax.

The corps this fall will complete the draft of a study examining whether to remove a portion of four of the eight dams--the ones on the Snake River.

The move, intensely sought by environmentalists, would boost salmon survival but would render the dams useless.

The corps study is also looking at other options to help the fish, including a continuation or an increase in barging.

The decision will ultimately go to Congress. In the near term, Congress shows no desire to cut back or cancel the long-running barging program.

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said that although there may be some role for barging in the future, he has concluded that the program isn’t the answer for restoring fish runs.

“The idea that barging the salmon is going to be a snap-your-fingers plan to bring back the salmon runs is not borne out by the record,” he said.

But Sen. Slade Gorton (R-Wash.), who chairs the interior subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee, remains a defender of barging.

Recent federal studies show that barging salmon is helping the fish, according to Gorton’s spokeswoman, Cynthia Bergman.

“Gorton can’t understand why there is such a rush to dam removal,” she said.