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Replacing Salmon

Columbia River Indian Fishing Rights and the Geography of Fisheries Mitigation

Cain Allen

A significant shift has occurred in the geography of Columbia River Basin salmon production in the past 150 years. By one estimate, 88 percent of adult salmon returning to the Columbia River prior to the 1850s originated above Bonneville Dam. By the 1980s, however, only 44 percent of adult returns to the Columbia come from in this portion of the basin ( figure 1 ). 1 Many factors have led to this striking change in the biogeography of the Pacific Northwest's signature species, but federal river development and fisheries mitigation programs are undoubtedly two of the most important. Though upper river salmon populations experienced the most serious impacts from federal river development relative to other salmon populations, state and federal fishery agencies concentrated mitigation resources on the lower river. This spatial discontinuity between impact and mitigation had important implications for Columbia River Indians. 1
      The geographical focus of this study is the mid–Columbia River, the stretch of the Columbia from the mouth of the Snake River to Bonneville Dam. The term upper river refers to the Columbia River Basin above the confluence with the Snake (including the Snake River Basin), while lower river refers to the basin below Bonneville. The dam was completed in 1938, the year Congress passed the first major fisheries mitigation legislation. In 1980, Congress passed the Northwest Power Planning Act, which together with the Endangered Species Act, would produce complex changes to the regulatory landscape. Those forty-two years would see a massive expansion in the artificial production of salmon in the Columbia River Basin, the result of programs meant to mitigate the impact of federal dam construction on fisheries. This expanded hatchery production was not distributed evenly across the basin, however. As we will see, artificial production efforts were focused in the lower river, a spatial bias that contributed to a serious minimization of the fishing rights held by Columbia River Indians. 2


 
Picture 1
    This location on the Deschutes River, below Warm Springs and near Sherars Bridge, is still an active dip-net fishery.

    Robert L. Hacker, photographer, OHS neg., OrHi 1354
 


 
      In 1855, the Nez Perce, Umatilla, Warm Springs, and Yakama tribes signed treaties with the U.S. government in which they reserved the right to fish at their "usual and accustomed" fishing sites, the great majority of which are on the Columbia River and on tributaries upriver from Bonneville Dam. The location of their fisheries on the middle and upper river have made Indian fishers vulnerable to the demands placed on fish runs by lower river and ocean fisheries, which intercept the fish before they have a chance to reach Indian nets. For decades, the tribes struggled to create an equitable harvest allocation system, finally winning a major victory in 1969 with the landmark U.S. v. Oregon decision. In that case, U.S. District Court Judge Robert Belloni ruled that the tribes were legally entitled to an "equal share" of the river's fish, later defined as 50 percent of the harvestable run. He also made it clear that the tribes were entitled to take their share of the harvest at their traditional fishing sites, which put a stop to state efforts to permanently shut down Indian fisheries above Bonneville Dam. While U.S. v. Oregon was a clear legal victory for Columbia River Indians, the long-term shift of salmon production from the upper to the lower river was less amenable to court-ordered change.2 3


 
Figure 1
    Figure 1: Changes in the distribution of salmon production in the Columbia River Basin (Northwest Power Planning Council, Columbia River Basin Fish and Wildlife Program, Portland, Ore., 1987, app. E, table 6)
 


 


 
Figure 2
    Figure 2: Indian landings of chinook, sockeye, and steelhead at Celilo Falls, 1938–1956, and above Bonneville Dam1, 1957–1980 (in pounds), in relation to Indian share of total in-river commercial harvest of chinook, sockeye, and steelhead (Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife and Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, Status Report, Columbia River Fish Runs and Commercial Fisheries, 1938–1997, June 1998, tables 3, 18; Stober, Columbia River Irrigation Withdrawal, table 11)
 


 


 
Map 1
    Map 1: Ceded lands and reservations of treaty tribes in relation to fisheries mitigation for mid–Columbia River dams, 1946–1980
 


 
      The shift of production to the lower river was the result of many factors, though by far the single largest was dam construction. Between the 1930s and 1970s, the federal government built more than two dozen large dams on the Columbia and its tributaries, including four large multiple-purpose dams on the mid-Columbia: Bonneville (1938), The Dalles (1957), John Day (1968), and McNary (1953).3 The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, in cooperation with state and federal fish agencies, conducted two separate programs to mitigate for the negative impacts of the four projects on anadromous fish. The mitigation programs — the Columbia River Fisheries Development Program and John Day Fishery Mitigation — are important but often overlooked factors in the shift of production to the lower river and the resultant minimization of Indian fishing rights. This decline in fishing opportunities, which stemmed from decreasing returns to tribal fisheries, was a function of two factors. The first concerned the further exacerbated by the damming of the Deschutes River and the decision to build the John Day Dam below the John Day River (map 1). The second factor was the effect of hatcheries on harvest management, which took advantage of the relative abundance of hatchery fish with little regard for naturally propagating stocks. Both of these factors contributed to the overall decline in returns to Indian fishing sites. 4
      Indian landings of chinook, steelhead, and sockeye declined steadily from 1938 until the late 1950s to the early 1960s, when harvests bottomed out as a result of the destruction of the dipnet fishery in The Dalles–Celilo area and the states' closure of the commercial fishery above Bonneville Dam (figure 2). Indians landed more of these fish from the mid-1960s until the mid-1970s, but an increasing percentage of the total in-river catch accounts for the expanded harvest, not an increase in the numbers of anadromous fish returning to Indian fishing sites. By the mid-1970s, even though Indians were taking a far greater percentage of the total in-river commercial harvest than they were before the construction of The Dalles Dam, their catch was not appreciably greater. In the 1990s, the in-river fishery would be further reduced to protect stocks listed under the Endangered Species Act.4 One recent federal report put the situation succinctly: "Total harvest in recent years has declined due to both reduced harvest rates and decreases in total numbers of fish.... Nowhere is this more evident than in Columbia River fisheries, particularly Indian fisheries in the upper river."5 Federal fisheries mitigation programs were important factors in the decline of the Indian fishery, none more so than the Columbia River Fisheries Development Program. 5
   

The Columbia River Fisheries Development Program

 
In 1946, Congress authorized the Lower Columbia River Fisheries Development Program (CRFDP), a hatchery construction and habitat improvement program designed to mitigate the environmental impact of federal water control projects in the lower Columbia River Basin, particularly Bonneville, The Dalles, and McNary dams.6 In 1956, the word "lower" was dropped from the name, but the program still retained its emphasis on the lower river basin.7 6


 
Map 2
    Map 2: Hatcheries built or expanded as mitigation for mid–Columbia River dams, 1949–1980. Current managers shown (ODFW = Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife; WDFW = Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife; USFWS = U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)
 


 
      Between 1946 and 1980, the Columbia River Fisheries Development Program (CRFDP) funded the construction and expansion of twenty-six hatcheries to mitigate for mid–Columbia River dams, twenty-four of them below The Dalles (map 2).8 The program funded habitat enhancement projects, including stream clearances, fishway construction, and irrigation intake screening. The projects, like hatchery facilities, were sited primarily in the lower river basin. This spatial bias, while not explicitly designed to deprive Indians of fish or to contribute to a basin-wide decline in salmon production, nevertheless had those effects. River managers rejected in-place mitigation of upriver stocks in favor of a program that would, in theory, create a superabundance of marketable stocks in the lower river to serve non-Indian fisheries.9 This program, in turn, allowed development interests to argue that the region could have both dams and fish, diminishing the objections that fishery interests had to fish-killing dams. 7
      The construction of Rock Island, Bonneville, and Grand Coulee dams and the Corps of Engineers' plans to fully impound the rest of the mainstem Columbia and Snake rivers put state and federal fishery agencies in a bind in the mid-1930s. Charged with ensuring the perpetuity of the river's fish runs and the industries that depend on them, they considered the Corps' river development scheme — known as the main control plan — a death knell for upriver runs. State and federal fishery agencies proposed their own development plan, which was shuttled through Congress in 1938 as an emergency measure because of concerns about the fish ladders at Bonneville Dam. This legislation, generally referred to as the Mitchell Act, would be the single most important element in determining the type and location of hatcheries in the Columbia River Basin after World War II. By 1999, Mitchell Act facilities accounted for 42 percent of the 142.5 million juveniles produced in the Columbia River Basin, down from approximately 75 percent in the 1950s and 1960s.10 8
      The Mitchell Act authorized the Department of the Interior to "establish one or more salmon-cultural stations in the Columbia River Basin in each of the States of Oregon, Washington, and Idaho," to conduct surveys "to facilitate conservation of the fishery resources of the Columbia River and its tributaries," and to improve stream habitat. The act was followed by a $500,000 appropriation, funds that came from the lease of seining grounds on Sand Island and Peacock Spit at the mouth of the Columbia. That appropriation — the last until 1948 — paid only for a survey of the Columbia's tributaries. For four years, workers compiled data on anadromous fish populations as well as unscreened diversions, impassable natural and manmade obstructions, and sources of water pollution.11 9
      World War II interfered with both dam-building and salmon science, but interest in the Mitchell Act was renewed after the authorization of McNary and the four lower Snake River dams in 1945 and the apparently successful implementation of an elaborate fishery mitigation program for Grand Coulee, a program that resulted in the construction of several upriver hatcheries.12 In July 1945, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service submitted a memorandum to the Water Resources Committee of the Department of the Interior urging that lower-river fisheries be developed to the fullest extent possible. Funding for fisheries development, however, was both insufficient and unpredictable. J.T. Barnaby, a Fish and Wildlife Service official, testified at a congressional hearing in 1946 that his agency lacked the resources to ensure the perpetuity of salmon runs under the threat posed by the main control plan. "We are operating at the present time," he reported, "in part on funds of the Fish and Wildlife Service and in part on funds transferred to the Service by the Army engineers and the Bureau of Reclamation. We feel that a satisfactory program cannot be planned and carried on under such circumstances because of the uncertainty as to the amount of funds we are to receive."13 10


 
Picture 2
    The hatchery at Bonneville Dam serves as a site for the John Day Fishery Mitigation plan.

    Courtesy Portland District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
 


 
      Congress addressed Barnaby's concerns a month later when it amended the Mitchell Act, removing the $500,000 appropriation limitation and authorizing expanded cooperation between the states and the federal government. The complex system of ownership, funding, and operation of the Mitchell Act hatcheries today stems from those two changes. The state fishery agencies and the Fish and Wildlife Service would operate the hatcheries with funds distributed by the Interior Department's Bureau of Commercial Fisheries (now the National Marine Fisheries Service under the Commerce Department) based on budget estimates prepared by Fish and Wildlife in cooperation with the states. Funding for the hatcheries, however, would originate from appropriations for the Corps of Engineers under the Fish and Wildlife Coordination Act, which became law one week after the Mitchell Act did. The act required that federal agencies include in their budgets for water-control projects the funds to promote the planning, development, and coordination of fish and wildlife conservation. Samuel J. Hutchinson, regional director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, wrote that the 1946 amendment to the Mitchell Act "was an outstanding step forward in the history of salmon conservation, because it permits closer co-operation between the states and the Federal government and allows for the transfer of moneys to the states for specific contractual work to be undertaken which previously had not been possible."14 11


 
Picture 3
    The fish ladders at Bonneville Dam, located 146 miles from the mouth of the Columbia, were designed so that adult salmon and steelhead could migrate past the dam to their spawning grounds.

    OHS neg., CN 010651
 


 
      The Fish and Wildlife Service estimated that the lower-river fisheries development program would take ten years to implement at a cost of $20 million, but three years lapsed between the authorization of the program and its first appropriations.15 In the meantime, fishing interests worked to obtain a ten-year moratorium on dam construction to buy time to get the lower-river program up and running and, they hoped, to find a solution to the passage problem. The effort to obtain a moratorium was a reflection of the contested geography of the river after World War II. Open-river organizations, barge companies, growers' associations, and most large cities saw the Columbia as an industrial workhorse that could meet the region's power, transportation, and agricultural needs if fully harnessed from source to mouth. Fishing interests were willing to concede the upper basin to multiple-purpose water development but were desperate to set aside the lower river for the commercial fishery. The moratorium debate illustrates historian Richard White's conclusion that "in treating the Columbia as a machine we have literally and conceptually disassembled the river. It has become to its users a set of separate spaces and parts." Though mutually exclusive, both sides put forth a vision of a segmented industrial river, with separate spaces devoted to the efficient production of different commodities.16 12
      While recommending that upstream dams on the Columbia and Snake rivers — if they were authorized before 1958 — be built before The Dalles, John Day, or Arlington dams, the federal committee charged with making a determination on the moratorium question concluded in the fall of 1947 that a rescheduling of already authorized dams would not be in the public's best interest. Instead of a moratorium, the committee offered the already authorized Columbia River Fisheries Development Program and compensation for affected Indian tribes:
The Committee urges the support of all feasible measures for improving fish conservation and development and recommends immediate initiation of the lower river fishery program as proposed by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service and the States of Oregon and Washington. It recognizes that the rights of the Indians at certain points on the river should be compensated for when those rights are adversely affected by any of the proposed projects.17
 The moratorium was rejected, and plans to fully rationalize the river continued unabated. Congress finally appropriated funds to begin implementing the CRFDP the following year.18 The contest over the geography of the industrial river in the late 1940s gave the final impetus needed to begin a massive effort to shift salmon production to the lower river.		 13
      The most striking feature of the CRFDP — and the most important for tribal fishers — is its geographical focus on the lower river basin. Prior to white resettlement, the stretch of the river from Bonneville Dam to the mouth of the Snake, now a continuous series of slackwater reservoirs, was spawning habitat for an estimated 340,000 chinook, coho, and steelhead.19 Moreover, stocks that originate farther upriver are also negatively affected by mid–Columbia dams since the fish have to pass them as juveniles and again as adults. The concentration of resources in the lower river had serious consequences for the Indian fishery, which lost fish to the dams but got precious few back from the mitigation. Two questions about the CRFDP emerge: Why hatcheries, and why in the lower river? 14
      Hatcheries are the classic techno-fix, solutions based on the premise that the problems of industrial technology can be solved by industrial technology. Other examples of this strategy abound in the history of the Columbia River salmon crisis, from failed mechanical "skimmer" devices, meant to shepherd juvenile fish around high dams, to fish trucks that carry juvenile salmon down Interstate 84 as barges loaded with wheat and timber products take the river route. The mitigation hatcheries built in the post-World War II period can be interpreted as yet another example of the naïve technological optimism that has long permeated fishery management and the larger scientific culture of which it was a part.20 15
      The CRFDP is also indicative, at least in part, of what might be termed "techno-pessimism." Despite the assurances of engineers, many fishery managers suspected that fish-passage devices might not work over the long run, especially when they considered the cumulative effect of a string of large mainstem dams. To salvage as much of the salmon fishery as they could, they enhanced the runs below the major fish-killing dams. Granted, they did so primarily through artificial production, but many managers also admitted that hatcheries would only mitigate for, not completely replace, naturally spawning stocks. Dam proponents certainly viewed artificial production optimistically, arguing that the region could have both fish and dams, but state and federal salmon managers were, for the most part, just trying to salvage what they could of a declining salmon industry. The CRFDP was largely a pragmatic response to a dismal situation.21 16
      The concern about the destruction of upriver stocks by mainstem dams also explains why fishery managers concentrated mitigation efforts in the lower river. While passage technology might work for one dam, managers argued that the series of dams slated for the Columbia would have a cumulative effect that would devastate upriver runs. In 1945, when planning for the CRFDP was still in the preliminary stages, the Oregon Fish Commission reported that, because "of the great dams already constructed in the Columbia River or its tributaries and the very large number of proposed dams in the Columbia and its tributaries, it is generally agreed by scientists and all others concerned that the hope of maintaining and supporting the salmon runs in the Columbia River Basin will rest largely upon artificial means of production." The commission was especially concerned about McNary Dam.
Upon the construction of Umatilla [McNary] dam, which according to present plans will be much higher than the Bonneville dam and will constitute an almost insurmountable barrier so far as salmon migration is concerned, it is felt that the salmon-producing streams in the area above this barrier will be lost for all time. Therefore, it has been decided to develop for salmon production to their fullest extent all the streams tributary to the Columbia River below the site of the proposed Umatilla dam.22
 		17
      In a report to Congress the following year, the commission predicted that "the loss of adult fish at each successive dam will probably increase in geometric proportion and, if the proposed dams at the Dalles and Umatilla in addition to the several on the Snake River are constructed, the runs of salmon normally migrating to the upper Columbia River and its tributaries will not survive at least in commercial abundance." They recommended that, should passage problems remain unsolved, "means of artificial propagation below these barriers must be developed to perpetuate these runs." They recognized, however, that maximizing production in the lower river was no replacement for the loss of naturally propagating upriver stocks.
Although at some distant time the problems of maintaining commercial runs of salmon solely from artificial propagation may be solved, at the present time there is no data available to indicate that hatcheries located below the series of dams on the main Columbia could possibly supplant the hundreds of miles of natural spawning area of the main river and its tributaries.23
 		18
      The Fish and Wildlife Service concurred with the Oregon Fish Commission's assessment:
When the individual dams are considered separately it appears in many cases that the problems of fish protection could be solved with reasonable anticipation of not more than minor loss of fish. A succession of dams between the ocean and a great part of the more important spawning grounds presents a combination of problems that cannot be looked upon so optimistically, in fact it appears that the losses incurred during the passage of fish upstream and downstream over the dams, plus the reduction of spawning and rearing areas and a general change in environmental conditions would be so serious as to make continued propagation in the headwater tributaries virtually impossible.... The Service believes that every effort should be made to implement the development of the fisheries in the lower Columbia River.... It is believed that such a program is not only warranted because of its inherent value but also because it is in the nature of insurance to protect the fishery resource of the river if, at some unpredictable time, fish-protective devices fail of their purpose.24
 		19


 
Figure 3
    Figure 3: Distribution of production of migrant-size juvenile chinook, coho, and steelhead at hatcheries built or expanded as mitigation for mid–Columbia River dams, 1959–1971 (Source: Roy J. Wahle et al., Releases of Anadromous Salmon and Trout from Pacific Coast Rearing Facilities, 1960 to 1973 [Seattle, Wash.: National Marine Fisheries Service, April 1975])
 


 
      Klickitat Hatchery, the first hatchery built under the CRFDP, began production in 1950. By 1980, the program had funded the construction or expansion of twenty-six hatcheries as mitigation for mid–Columbia River dams. Seventeen of the facilities are below Bonneville Dam, and seven are located in the portion of the Columbia River Basin that drains into Bonneville Pool. Only two facilities, the Ringold Salmon and Ringold Trout rearing ponds, are above The Dalles Dam (map 2). From 1959 to 1971, production at Mitchell Act hatcheries was overwhelmingly concentrated below The Dalles Dam (figure 3). Of the more than one billion migrant-size juveniles released from 1959 to 1970 into the Columbia River Basin from hatcheries built or expanded as mitigation for mid–Columbia River dams, 50.1 percent were produced below Bonneville, 48.9 percent were produced in the area draining into Bonneville Pool, and the rest, fewer than 1 percent of the juveniles released, were produced above The Dalles Dam.25 20
      Hatchery production was not the only aspect of the program that focused on the lower river. Stream-enhancement projects were also concentrated below The Dalles Dam, with twenty-two formal fishways built below Bonneville, ten built in tributary streams that drain into Bonneville Pool, and thirteen built above The Dalles. Below Bonneville, $4,984,600 was allotted for formal fishways, while only $1,539,400 was made available to build or improve such facilities above The Dalles Dam.26 Stream clearance work — the removal of large woody debris, logjams, splash dams, and other obstructions — was focused in the tributaries below McNary Dam until the late 1950s, when it was expanded to include upper tributaries. In many cases, however, stream clearance actually contributed to the decline of salmon habitat through the removal of large woody debris, an essential component of freshwater ecosystems.27 Overall, however, hatcheries consumed the lion's share of mitigation funding. By 1951, hatcheries had received 49 percent of the program's funds, while habitat work got only 5 percent. In 1980, more than 72 percent of funding under the program went to hatchery operations and maintenance; the rest went to pollution abatement, quality control, stream improvement, administration, river operations, and research fish facilities.28

Distribution of funding for formal fishways built for the Columbia River Fisheries Development Program, 1951–1973
Oregon Washington Idaho Total
Above The Dalles Dam $258,100 $92,100 $1,189,200 $1,539,400
Bonneville Pool $75,800 $1,061,900 — $1,137,700
Below Bonneville Dam $4,435,700 $548,900 — $4,984,600
Source: Michael R. Delarm, Einar Wold, and Robert Z. Smith, Columbia River Fisheries Development Program Fishways and Stream Improvement Projects, USDC, NOAA, NMFS, February 1989, 18, 42, 54.

21
      While the CRFDP focused on the lower river, it is important to recognize that state and federal fishery agencies did not intend for the program to be concentrated below Bonneville Dam. They considered the entire basin below McNary Dam to be within the purview of the program, but a number of political and technical challenges would eliminate from the program two important Oregon rivers, the Deschutes and the John Day. State and federal fishery agencies considered both rivers to be prime candidates for enhancement under the CRFDP, which might have helped to mitigate for the decline of some of the fish runs on which the tribes relied. 22
   

Damming the Deschutes

 
In January 1949, the Northwest Power Supply Company, a consortium of private power companies led by Portland General Electric (PGE), applied to the Oregon Hydroelectric Commission for a license to build a high dam on the Deschutes River. The commission forwarded the application to the Oregon Fish Commission, which, after ten months, thoroughly rejected it. As historian Craig Wollner notes, the Fish Commission's decision should not have been a surprise. That same year, the commission had lobbied for the passage of two bills that would have designated the Deschutes and Metolius rivers as fish refuges, thus prohibiting hydroelectric development on them. Samuel Hutchinson and other fish managers believed that "the establishment as fish refuges of the tributary stream below McNary Dam that remain open to salmon is extremely essential if this program [CRFDP] is to succeed." The Washington state legislature had already declared its tributaries below McNary to be fish refuges, with the exceptions of the North Fork of the Lewis River and the Big White Salmon River (a declaration that was later overturned by the state supreme court). While Oregon had set aside some refuges in the lower basin as early as 1915, the legislature rejected the 1949 bills that would have protected the Deschutes and Metolius.29 23
      Without official refuge designation, the fish runs of the Deschutes were vulnerable to development. Still, PGE, the only utility left in the consortium after the initial application was rejected in 1950, could not build a dam on the river without the Oregon Fish Commission's approval. The result was a stalemate between those who wanted to dam the Deschutes and those who wanted to protect it for fish. The Federal Power Commission (FPC) broke the stalemate in 1951 when it granted PGE a license to build Pelton Dam at a site near Madras. Because the Deschutes River lies entirely within Oregon, state officials were outraged that a federal agency had overruled their rejection of PGE's permit. The following year, the fish and game commissions of Oregon appealed to the Ninth Circuit Court in San Francisco in an effort to void the FPC license. In February 1954, the court ruled in favor of the state, arguing that the FPC license did not negate the requirement to obtain a state license. The FPC appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which, in a landmark decision, reversed the lower court. Oregon had argued that regulating the non-navigable waters of the Deschutes was one of the state's sovereign powers and that ownership of the dam site did not empower the federal government to use the waters in a way contrary to state laws. The Supreme Court rejected the state's argument, noting that the site straddled federal lands on the east bank of the Deschutes and the lands of the Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs Indian Reservation on the west bank. The Court also pointed out that the tribes had already given the company permission to build the dam.30 24
      PGE began negotiations with the Warm Springs Tribal Council in 1951 and came to an agreement with them four years later. The council submitted the contract to a popular vote in December 1955. Tribal members overwhelmingly approved it, judging the project to be a steady source of much-needed income. The tribes, who were dependent on timber and fishing revenues, were facing the loss of Celilo Falls, the treaty tribes' principal commercial fishing site, when the Corps finished The Dalles Dam in 1957. This may help explain the Warm Springs tribes' overwhelming support for the Pelton Dam.31 PGE agreed to pay the tribes $4,320 a month as well as $500 a month for an easement and right-of-way for a transmission line across the reservation.32 Linton Winishut defended the tribes' actions and criticized those who sought to derail the project. He argued that opponents had not taken
into consideration the rights and interests of the Warm Springs Indians in the Deschutes river. In fact the interests of the Indians in these projects are never even mentioned, and it would appear that [critics of the projects] either are ignorant of the existence and terms of the treaty of June 25, 1855, between the Confederated Bands and Tribes of Middle Oregon and the United States, or for reasons known to themselves, find it convenient to ignore its existence.... They completely ignore the fact that the Warm Springs Indians have a very valid interest in this river, and that its hydroelectric potential is one of their most valuable resources.33
 		25


 
Picture 4
    Pelton Dam, built on the Deschutes River between Warm Springs and Madras, began producing power in 1958.

    Western Ways, Inc, photographer, OHS neg., OrHi 95700
 


 


 
Picture 5
    The Pelton Dam Project included 3-mile-long fish ladders for adult salmon to make their way upriver past the 204-foot-high dam.

    Oregon Journal collection, OHS neg., CN 000626
 


 
      Nevertheless, some Indians expressed their disappointment with the Warm Springs tribes' decision to sacrifice the fish runs in the upper Deschutes River. J. Grant Elliott, chairman of the Chinook Indian Nation, wrote an open letter to the Warm Springs tribes in 1956:
It is our opinion that the Portland General Electric company of Portland has misled the Warm Springs Indians into accepting an amount for a dam site on their land that is equivalent to about one fortieth of the annual value of the salmon and steelhead runs that spawn in the Deschutes river system.... Many members of the Chinook Indian Nation have made their livelihood from fishing in the Columbia river and its tributaries for centuries and still do.... The Chinook Indian Nation wishes to make it understood that all tribes of Indians living in the Columbia River watershed have a right to partake in its fishery and we believe the Warm Springs made a sad mistake in selling out to the PGE. We do not condemn them for this as we believe that they have been misled and so we beg of them to reconsider and deny the PGE the right to build a dam on the Deschutes.34
 		26
      PGE had promised to provide fish passage, but those concerned with the salmon fishery were not optimistic about the chances of successful passage over the 204-foot-high dam. The project, which began producing power in 1958, included three-mile-long fish ladders for adult passage; but the primary problem was juvenile passage, which had never been successfully accomplished at such a high dam. PGE installed an experimental, state-of-the-art "skimmer" device, designed to collect juveniles for transport around the dam, but it turned out to be a complete failure. Anadromous fish can no longer be found in the Metolius, in the Crooked River, or in the Deschutes above the Pelton Project. PGE built Round Butte Hatchery to mitigate for the lost production above the Pelton Project, although — as with most hatcheries built to mitigate for dams — it did not begin producing until many years after the dam was built. Round Butte Hatchery, located at Round Butte Dam, began producing spring chinook and summer steelhead in 1974; the Fish and Wildlife Service's Warm Springs National Fish Hatchery, located on the Warm Springs River, began producing in 1978.35 Still, no amount of artificial production below the dams could match the production of salmon and steelhead that would have been possible if the Deschutes-Metolius watershed had been protected as a fish refuge. 27


 
Picture 6
    John Day Dam, located just below the mouth of the John Day River, was completed in 1971 with a navigation lock, spillway, powerhouse, and fish-passage facilities on both the Oregon and Washington shores.

    Jim Vincent, photographer, Oregonian, OHS neg., OrHi 104451
 


 
   

John Day Dam and Fishery Mitigation

 
Fishery managers' efforts under the Columbia River Fisheries Development Program to protect and enhance Oregon runs above Bonneville Dam were further hampered by the Army Corps of Engineers' 1956 decision to build a dam at the Schofield Rapids site, located below the John Day River. Both fishery interests and the Corps made compromises on John Day Dam, the third largest dam in the United States, but the very presence of this massive concrete structure on the Columbia is ample evidence of which interests prevailed. John Day Dam is a prime example of how the Corps' proposed standards of "conservation of salmon and other migratory fish to the maximum practicable extent" and "minimum interference with ... fish and wildlife habitat," as outlined in their 1948 review of the main control plan, fell far short of their potential.36 28
      In their 1948 review, the Corps recommended the John Day Dam as an essential component of the comprehensive development of the Columbia River Basin. Congress authorized the multiple-purpose structure two years later. The dam was originally designed to utilize 2 million acre-feet of surcharge flood-control storage above the normal pool elevation of 255 feet. A dam that size would have completely blocked fish runs and would have taken much more land from local communities than a dam without flood-control capacity.37 29
      At a hearing on the proposal for a high John Day Dam in September 1953, representatives of tribes with treaty-reserved fishing rights on the mid–Columbia, together with state fishery agencies, voiced their opposition to the dam, whether high or low. William Minthorn, a delegate from the Umatilla Tribes, reported that his people recognized the benefits the dam would bring:
this dam will do a lot of people some good in this community — however, our primary concern has always been fishing, that is the Indians' concern has been fishing and ancient fishing sites. Therefore, we oppose the construction of the John Day Dam. For these reasons, the main reason is that it will flood out the last remaining fishing sites that was guaranteed us by our treaty of June 9, 1855. Already through the other constructions of the developments to date, we have lost some of our best fishing sites, such as Celilo Falls. Practically the last remaining fishing sites that we have left is between the mouth of the John Day River and the McNary Dam; so by building the John Day Dam, these last remaining sites will be flooded.38
 		30
      Minthorn also expressed concern that the dam would affect the tribes' plans to restore the salmon runs of the Umatilla River. "Our people are planning on a program which will partially restore the salmon run on the Umatilla River ... but putting another obstruction on the Columbia River ... will make this venture impossible." He put his support behind the proposal to build dams in the Canadian portion of the basin. He concluded: "... we feel ... those developments that would be made on the upper streams ... would not interfere with the salmon run on the lower part of the Columbia River."39 31
      In his written testimony, Eagle Seelatsee, chairman of the Yakama Tribal Council, argued that the dams represented a direct violation of his tribe's treaty rights, a violation in accord with the general trend in Indian-white relations in the region.
The Yakima Indians insist that the construction of these power dams on the Columbia river which will enundate [sic] their usual and accustomed fishing locations and eventually destroy the salmon runs in the river is a direct violation of their sacred Treaty of June 9, 1855. It was, and always has been the understanding of the Yakima Indians, that under their Treaty of 1855 the United States Government guaranteed and promised to protect forever the usual and accustomed fishing locations on the Columbia River. The United States Government violated these treaty rights of the Yakima Indians in the construction of the Bonneville, McNary and Dalles Dams. The construction of the John Day dam will be another example of the lack of sincerity on the part of the United States Government to keep its sacred treaty with the Yakima Indians that was made on June 9, 1855. The Yakima Indians would like to call attention to the fact that their lands were taken away from them by force, and their fisheries are now being destroyed by the activities of whitemen who in so doing have enjoyed the protection of the United States Government rather than its censorship.40
 		32
      Because there was little support for a high dam at the John Day site and there was a host of alternative sites for storage dams, the Corps recommended that the surcharge flood-control storage be eliminated from the project. It was an easy compromise. The Corps readily admitted that the surcharge flood-control storage was hastily added to the project in the aftermath of the devastating 1948 flood, and it was quite clear that there was little local or state support for it. A multitude of alternative storage sites made the decision even easier, as did the improved benefit-cost ratio for the modified project (1.48 to 1 with the surcharge flood-control storage, 1.53 to 1 without it).41 Ignoring the protestations of Indian tribes and state fishery agencies, however, the Corps still recommended the construction of John Day. While willing to compromise on the question of a high flood-control dam, the agency would not further compromise its vision of a fully industrialized river. 33
      In April 1956, the Corps released a report outlining five possible sites for the dam. In terms of economics and biology, two stood out from the others: the Schofield Rapids site, located at river mile 215.3, and the Indian Rapids site, located at river mile 220.2, where there was a small dipnet fishery. The two sites had the same benefit-cost ratio, 1.87 to 1, as compared to 1.82 to 1 for the other sites, and geological factors were similar. The Indian Rapids site, however, cost less than Schofield Rapids and the estimated length of construction was two years less. In addition, fewer miles of roads and railroads would have to be relocated for the upper site.42 34
      Two key differences existed between the two sites. One was navigation, the costs of which would be greatly increased by the upriver site. The other concerned anadromous fish. Once it became clear that the Corps was going to build the dam despite the objections of fishery interests, the Oregon Fish Commission, the Oregon Game Commission, the Washington Department of Fisheries, the Washington Department of Game, and the Izaak Walton League lobbied in support of the Indian Rapids site. The Corps concluded that, for Schofield Rapids, "spillway releases will have adverse effect on the P.H. [powerhouse] fish collection system" and the "fishladder exit between P.H. & Spillway [is] not satisfactory in this layout." Fish facilities for the Indian Rapids site were "satisfactorily located."43 More important for fish managers, however, was the location of the Indian Rapids site above the John Day River, while all other possible sites were below. P.W. Schneider, director of the Oregon Game Commission, warned that
substantial runs of fish essential to the maintenance of future Columbia River runs would be further jeopardized if the John Day Dam were located below the mouth of the John Day River.... If they are lost through such development, another large segment of the federally sponsored and financed Lower Columbia River Development Program will be sacrificed.
 He noted the biological and hydrologic impacts on the lower John Day River:
The lower nine miles of the John Day River would be impounded. This would cause the flooding of numerous resting holes for summer-run steelhead trout and probably spring chinook salmon, as well as several popular sport fishing areas. We anticipate this would reduce overall production of the stream as well as further restricting available angling area and impose a major alteration in the basic character of the stream. 44
The Corps' April 1956 report announced that the siting decision would involve a choice between fish and navigation.		 35
      The Corps chose navigation, even though it accounted for only about 8 percent of the project's costs.45 The agency concluded that the Schofield Rapids site would "best serve navigation interests because of lower downstream velocities, lesser stage fluctuations and the longer slack-water pool." It would also "develop the maximum feasible power head of the Columbia River between McNary and The Dalles projects and would develop the power potential of John Day River." Contrary to the assertions of the state's fishery agencies, the Corps claimed that there was "no conclusive evidence available to indicate that the John Day River fish population will be materially affected by construction of the dam at the Schofield Rapids site." They then asserted that the "fractional loss which may be experienced, however, would be more than offset by increased navigation, flood control and power benefits at the downstream location."46 The logic of the decision was based on a primitive economic calculation whereby all factors — whether fish, barges, or power — are assumed to be fundamentally equivalent because all can be reduced to a dollar figure. 36
      The Oregon Fish Commission estimated that about twenty-six thousand salmonids — the great majority of them steelhead — entered the John Day River every year and made it clear to the Corps that "the John Day River has a potential for considerably greater production." Mining and agricultural development had already seriously reduced the river's fish runs. Irrigation withdrawals had altered the flow regime and temperature of the river so much that late summer and fall chinook populations had been decimated by the early twentieth century. The Oregon Fish Commission wrote in 1955 that "steps are presently being taken as part of the Lower River Rehabilitation Program to build up the stocks of anadromous fish in this system. A large screening project is presently under way and consideration is being given to locating a salmon hatchery on this stream."47 Such a hatchery, assuming that it did not interfere with remaining wild populations and did not increase fishing pressures in non-Indian fisheries, might have benefited Indian fishers, whose commercial fishery was legally limited to the area between Bonneville and John Day dams in the early 1970s. No hatchery, however, has ever been built in the John Day basin. 37
      For John Day Dam, as with the CRFDP, hatcheries were the preferred method of mitigating for fish losses. Like the CRFDP, John Day Fishery Mitigation exhibited a definite spatial discontinuity between impact and mitigation, with all of the proposed hatchery sites located well below the dam; that is, mitigation was conducted at a location other than where the impact occurred. The Corps' Walla Walla District surveyed sixteen potential hatchery sites in the summer of 1966 and recommended three for further study. One was between Bonneville Dam and The Dalles Dam; the other two were below Bonneville.48 The goal was a return of thirty thousand adult fall chinook to the hatcheries.49 Steelhead and other fish affected by the John Day project — such as spring and summer chinook, sturgeon, coho, sockeye, and lamprey — were not part of the plan, nor did the Corps provide any compensation for the more than twenty thousand adult spring chinook that were killed in 1968 when John Day went into service.50 Only fall chinook, whose spawning grounds were inundated by the John Day reservoir, were produced as compensation for the project's destruction of salmon habitat. While fall chinook are a staple of the tribal fishery, the hatchery siting decisions of the 1960s would ensure that very few of the fish produced as mitigation for John Day Dam would be accessible to tribal fishers.51 38


 
Picture 7
    This aerial photograph of the John Day Dam shows the navigation lock, center, and fish ladder, left.

    Dale Swanson, photographer, Oregonian, OHS neg., OrHi 104450
 


 
      Early in the siting process, state and federal fish agencies had considered a hatchery site on the Deschutes River, an area open to Indian fishers; but in 1966 they decided on two sites below Bonneville Dam, one on the Lewis River in Washington and one on the North Santiam in Oregon. Tribal representatives were not invited to be part of the committee that made this decision.52 A year later, the committee decided that neither site was adequate from a biological standpoint and determined that "a better approach would be to expand the Ox Bow Hatchery, Cascade Locks, Oregon ... and the Spring Creek National Fish Hatchery, Underwood, Washington."53 Committee members later ruled Oxbow Hatchery out because of the changes in hydrosystem operations triggered by recently constructed storage dams in Canada. The increased storage those dams provided, as well as the heightened power demands created by the Pacific Northwest–Pacific Southwest Intertie — a massive transmission system built in the mid–1960s — meant that the hydrosystem could be operated to provide more peak power. The Corps wrote that re-regulation of "the peaking discharges from The Dalles and John Day dams will require greater fluctuations of Bonneville lake, which will adversely affect the fish collection facilities at Oxbow and Cascade hatcheries." The John Day Fishery Mitigation plan included mitigation for the adverse effects that "peaking" would have on these hatcheries.54 39
      The fishery agencies chose Spring Creek National Fish Hatchery and Bonneville Hatchery as the final sites for John Day Fishery Mitigation.55 The expansions were not completed until several years after the dam was finished, and they provided for an additional rearing capacity of less than 18 million rather than the 30 million juvenile fall chinook that the agencies originally estimated would be needed.56 Spring Creek National Fish Hatchery, expanded in 1972, is located about halfway between the Bonneville and The Dalles dams and provides some benefit to Indian fishers since some adults return to the mid–Columbia. Bonneville Hatchery, however — which was expanded in 1975 — is located immediately below Bonneville Dam, making the returning adults largely inaccessible to Indian commercial fishers. In other words, fish that had been returning to the Indians' usual and accustomed fishing places for generations were destroyed by the dam, but only a fraction of those fish that were produced as mitigation returned to an area where Indians are allowed to fish commercially. 40
   

Hatcheries and Harvest

 
The siting of hatcheries was not the only factor in the federal government's mitigation efforts that contributed to a decline in upriver wild stocks and tribal fishing opportunities. In 1996, an independent board of fisheries scientists convened by the Northwest Power Planning Council to review salmon recovery efforts concluded that the most important legacy of the hatchery program "has been its influence on management, rather than any direct contribution to the various fisheries. Belief in the success of artificial propagation, which was largely unsubstantiated prior to 1960, made compromise leading to habitat destruction and over-harvest easier to accept."57 41
      The implementation of artificial fish production programs in the late 1940s and 1950s was contemporaneous with an expansion of the ocean fishery. Between 1930 and 1960, the number of ocean fishing vessels from Oregon, Washington, British Columbia, and Alaska doubled (figure 4). In the early 1970s, the Oregon Fish Commission found that fall chinook returns from 1938 to 1959 had been significantly influenced by the increase in ocean fishing. The commission concluded: "the decreased numbers of fish entering the river was caused by an increased ocean harvest. This constituted a shift in catch, but the reproductive potential of the run was not reduced since the river fishery was curtailed to maintain adequate escapement."58 That is, because harvest allocation is a zero-sum game, the Indian fishery lost fish to the intensive ocean fishery. 42
      Columbia River salmon range as far north as Alaska and as far south as northern California, and migration routes differ among species and stocks. For example, one study in the early 1960s found that fall chinook from the Kalama Hatchery migrated farther north than those from Spring Creek Hatchery, which rarely ventured north of Vancouver Island.59 In their migrations, Columbia River salmon mix with a variety of other stocks, some more productive than others. The relative abundance of hatchery fish during the period in question combined with the mixed-stock nature of the ocean fishery led managers to base their harvest decisions on the strongest stocks, not realizing that this would eventually result in the decline or outright elimination of weaker stocks. Biologist Carl Walters writes:
Mixed fishing effects offer the simplest explanation for the general trade-off that has occurred in the Pacific Northwest between natural and hatchery production. The scenario is that (1) successful hatchery production significantly increased the total abundance of fish at sea; (2) sport and troll effort increased in response; and (3) higher exploitation rates then caused natural escapements ... to decline.60
 		43


 
Figure 4
    Figure 4: Number of boats in commercial salmon-troll fisheries north of the Columbia River, 1929–1961 (Frederick C. Cleaver, "Effects of Ocean Fishing on 1961-Brood Fall Chinook Salmon from Columbia River Hatcheries," Research Reports of the Fish Commission of Oregon, November 1969, table 2, p. 9)
 


 
      Mixed-stock fisheries are notoriously difficult to manage, with fisheries managers hampered by the difficulty of monitoring the status of every stock. Mixing hatchery and wild fish further complicates matters since hatchery fish can sustain higher rates of harvest than wild fish can.61 In the Columbia River Basin, massive hatchery production created a misleadingly productive mix of stocks that led to the overfishing of weaker, mostly naturally producing populations, many from the upper river. Biologist Gary Meffe writes that "successful hatchery production seems to provide a psychological license to increase harvest rates, which reduces wild stocks, thus defeating the initial purpose of hatcheries."62 44
      Although there are no data on the ocean harvest of upriver wild salmon for the years from 1938 to 1980, measuring the harvest pressures on hatchery fish can shed some light on the effect the ocean fishery has on naturally propagating upriver fish. A study of fall chinook bred in 1961 at the Kalama and Spring Creek hatcheries, for example, found that ocean fishing reduced the number of hatchery returns by more than half. Another study found that ocean fishing reduced returns of the 1962 brood of fall chinook from the Kalama Hatchery by about 70 percent.63 In 1966, approximately one in every five of the fish landed off the west coast of Vancouver Island and one in three landed off the coast of Washington was a product of a Columbia River hatchery. That year, the ocean fishery took about 274,000 Columbia River hatchery fall chinook, 87 percent of the total harvest. By the 1980s, ocean fisheries off the coast of British Columbia and Alaska accounted for more than 80 percent of the harvest of Columbia River hatchery chinook.64 In short, the harvest pressure on upriver wild fish was enormous. 45
      In addition to the pressure exerted on weak stocks by intensive mixed-stock fisheries, hatchery-centered management has had other negative effects on naturally spawning, or wild, populations. Hatchery production has contributed to the decline of wild stocks through the harvest of broodstock, juvenile competition, and disease transmission and by attracting and increasing the abundance of predators. Moreover, genetic "pollution" can occur when hatchery and wild fish breed, reducing the fitness of locally adapted stocks. The result is a loss of genetic diversity. Variations in life history resulting from genetic diversity serve as buffers against environmental changes, and a decline in that diversity makes anadromous fish more vulnerable to habitat disturbances and changes in ocean conditions.65 46
 
  
At least sixty-five native anadromous fish stocks have gone extinct in the Columbia River Basin since non-Indian resettlement of the region began, and about 60 percent of the remaining stocks are listed as depressed, threatened, or endangered. Coho and chum are considered extinct in the upper Columbia and Snake River drainages. Sockeye, which once ran as strong as three million a year in the basin, have been greatly reduced, with current runs in the tens of thousands. The National Marine Fisheries Service has listed all five evolutionarily significant "units" of steelhead as threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act. Upper Columbia River spring chinook are considered endangered, while Snake River spring and fall chinook are listed as threatened. Though in-river commercial fishing pressure on upriver spring chinook ceased in 1977, when the tribes and the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife agreed to shut down the spring fishery, the run met escapement goals only twice between 1978 and 1997. 66 Due to the decline of upriver stocks, the tribes have often been forced to rely on handouts of surplus hatchery fish to meet their subsistence and ceremonial needs. 47
      The Columbia River Fisheries Development Program and John Day Fishery Mitigation were important contributors to this sad state of affairs. The use of hatcheries in the post–World War II period to mitigate for stocks decimated by dams helped justify the radical transformation of the Columbia River from a complex riverine ecosystem well suited to the production of anadromous fish to a spatially segmented power and navigation canal in the service of an industrial society. The federal government's mitigation strategy contributed to the shift of salmon production from the upper to the lower river, with profound effects on both the fishery and the Native peoples who have long depended on it for sustenance.67 48


Notes

1.  These numbers include chinook, coho, steelhead, and sockeye, but not chum. Northwest Power Planning Council, Columbia River Basin Fish and Wildlife Program (Portland, Ore.: The Council, 1987), app. E, table 6. Also see Kai N. Lee, "Rebuilding Confidence: Salmon, Science, and Law in the Columbia Basin," Environmental Law 21:3, Part I (1991): 753–7.

2.  See Fay G. Cohen, Treaties on Trial: The Continuing Controversy over Northwest Indian Fishing Rights (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1986); Roberta Ulrich, Empty Nets: Indians, Dams, and the Columbia River (Corvallis: Oregon State University Press, 1999), 126–58.

3.  The International Commission on Large Dams defines a large dam as one that is over fifteen meters high.

4.  For examples, the tribes' disagreement with the National Marine Fisheries Service's interpretation of the Endangered Species Act, see Oregonian, May 17, 1992; Columbia Basin Bulletin, July 28, 2000; Terry Courtney, commissioner, Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission [hereafter CRITFC], personal communication with author, October 14, 2000.

5.  Federal Caucus, Conservation of Columbia Basin Fish: Building a Conceptual Recovery Plan (Spokane, Wash.: The Caucus, December 1999), 47.

6.  Other major federal projects had separate mitigation programs. For an overview of all of the programs, see Northwest Power Planning Council, "Artificial Production Review: Report and Recommendations of the Northwest Power Planning Council," Council Document 99–15, November 1999, app. 2, www.nwcouncil.org/library/1999/99-15.htm (May 10, 2003).

7.  This number comes from U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Office of the Columbia River Coordinator, Review of the History, Development, and Management of Anadromous Fish Production Facilities in the Columbia River Basin (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Columbia Basin Fish and Wildlife Authority, February 1990). All facilities listed can be considered Mitchell Act hatcheries, except for the three hatcheries that form the Leavenworth complex that were built as mitigation for Grand Coulee Dam.

8.  In-place mitigation refers to mitigation at or close to the site of the impact.

9.  Northwest Power Planning Council, "Artificial Production Review," app. 2.

10.  CRITFC, "The Mitchell Act: An Analysis" (Portland, Ore.: CRITFC, June 1981), 2; U.S. Department of Commerce, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Marine Fisheries Service [hereafter USDC, NOAA, NMFS], Columbia River Fisheries Development Program, Fiscal Year 1980 (Washington, D.C.: GPO, January 1981), 12.

11.  Christine May, "Grand Coulee Fish Maintenance Program," in Grand Coulee Dam and the Columbia Basin Project USA, by Leonard Ortolano et al. (Cape Town, South Africa: World Commission on Dams, 2000), annex 8, available online at www.dams.org/kbase/studies/us/ (May 13, 2003).

12.  House Subcommittee of the Committee on the Merchant Marine and Fisheries, Columbia River Fisheries: Hearings (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1946), 37.

13.  Samuel J. Hutchinson, "The Lower Columbia River Fisheries Program, Its History and Development Features," in Minutes of Executive Session of the Thirty-Third Meeting of the Columbia Basin Inter-Agency Committee (CBIAC), Astoria, Oregon, October 12, 1949, p. 49, meeting minutes, Columbia Basin Inter-Agency Committee, Bonneville Power Administration Library, Portland, Ore. [hereafter, CBIAC Minutes]; CRITFC, "Mitchell Act," 4.

14.  Samuel J. Hutchinson, "Financing and Administering the Lower Columbia River Fishery Program," in CBIAC Minutes, 74; Fred J. Foster, Fish and Wildlife Service, to Chairman, CBIAC, June 23, 1947, in ibid.

15.  CBIAC, Minutes of Tenth Meeting; Richard White, The Organic Machine: The Remaking of the Columbia River (New York: Hill and Wang, 1995), 110.

16.  R.J. Newell, chairman of the CBIAC, to E.H. Wiecking, chairman of the Federal Inter-Agency River Basin Committee, September 22, 1947, in CBIAC, Minutes of Twelfth Meeting.

17.  CRITFC, "Mitchell Act," 3; Jim Lichatowich, Salmon without Rivers: A History of the Pacific Salmon Crisis (Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 1999), 189–90.

18.  U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Office of the Columbia River Coordinator, Review of the History, 15.

19.  Northwest Power Planning Council, Columbia River Basin Fish and Wildlife Program, app. E, table 6

20.  Lichatowich, Salmon without Rivers, 188–9, 194, 206–7.

21.  Ibid. 193–4.

22.  Oregon Fish Commission, Biennial Report (Salem, Ore.: State Printing Department, 1945), 41–2.

23.  House Subcommittee of the Committee on the Merchant Marine and Fisheries, Columbia River Fisheries: Hearings, 79th Cong., 2nd sess., August 14, 1946, 22–3.

24.  Ibid., 35–6.

25.  Roy J. Wahle et al., Releases of Anadromous Salmon and Trout from Pacific Coast Rearing Facilities, 1960 to 1973 (Seattle: National Marine Fisheries Service, April 1975).

26.  A formal fishway is contrasted with the more primitive rock-cut fishway, forty-nine of which were built under the CRFDP.

27.  Michael R. Delarm et al., Columbia River Fisheries Development Program Fishways and Stream Improvement Projects (USDC, NOAA, NMFS, February 1989), 15; USDC, NOAA, NMFS, Columbia River Fisheries Development Program, Fiscal Year 1980, 26; See also Robert L. Beshta, "Debris Removal and Its Effects on Sedimentation in an Oregon Coast Range Stream," Northwest Science 53 (1979): 71–7; Stanley V. Gregory, "Commentary," in Cone and Ridlington, eds., Northwest Salmon Crisis, 154–60; Ray J. White, "Growth and Development of North American Stream Habitat Management for Fish," Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences 53 (1996) (suppl. 1): 342–63.

28.  Independent Scientific Group, Return to the River (Portland, Ore.: Northwest Power online at www.nwcouncil.org/library/return/2000-12.htm (May 13, 2003); USDC, NOAA, NMFS, Columbia River Fisheries Development Program, Fiscal Year 1980, fig. 3.

29.  Craig Wollner, Electrifying Eden: Portland General Electric, 1889–1965 (Portland: Oregon Historical Society Press, 1990), 236; Arthur H. Greisser, History of Portland General Electric Company, 1889–1981 (Portland, Ore.: Portland General Electric, 1982), 125; Hutchinson, "Lower Columbia River Fisheries Program," 49. See also Lichatowich, Salmon without Rivers, 138, 191–2; Pacific Marine Fisheries Commission, Report of the Pacific Marine Fisheries Commission for the Year 1951 (Portland, Ore.: The Commission, 1951), 6–7.

30.  Wollner, Electrifying Eden, 237; Greisser, History of Portland General Electric, 125–6.

31.  See Katrine Barber, "After Celilo Falls: The Dalles Dam, Indian Fishing Rights, and Federal Energy Policy on the Mid-Columbia River" (Ph.D. diss., Washington State University, 1999); Roberta Ulrich, Empty Nets: Indians, Dams, and the Columbia River (Corvallis: Oregon State University Press, 1999), chap. 5; Cain Allen, "'They Called It Progress': Indians, Salmon, and the Industrialization of the Columbia River" (Master's thesis, Portland State University, 2000), chap. 2.

32.  Greisser, History of Portland General Electric, 126. The payment was computed on the basis of four cents per kilowatt of generator nameplate rating plus one-tenth mill per kilowatt-hour produced.

33. Oregonian, March 5, 1956.

34.  Ibid.

35.  Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs Reservation of Oregon, Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Indian Nation, Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, and the Nez Perce Tribe, Wy-Kan-Ush-Mi Wa-Kish-Wit, Spirit of the Salmon: The Columbia River Anadromous Fish Restoration Plan of the Nez Perce, Umatilla, Warm Springs and Yakama Tribes, vol. 2, Subbasin Plans (Portland, Ore.: Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, 1995), 36–7; Portland General Electric, "Fish Runs and the PGE Hydroelectric System" (Portland, Ore.: Portland General Electric, 1997), 43–52.

36.  See "We're from the Government and We're Here to Help," in Cone and Ridlington, eds., Northwest Salmon Crisis, 116–21; Bruce C. Driver, Western Hydropower: Changing Values / New Visions (Boulder, Colo.: Western Water Policy Review Advisory Commission, August 1997).

37.  U.S. Senate, John Day Dam, Columbia River, Washington and Oregon: Letter from the Secretary of the Army Transmitting a letter from the Chief of Engineers, Department of the Army, dated June 29, 1956, 85th Cong., 1st sess., 1957, S. Doc. 10, 3–4; U.S. Army, Corps of Engineers, Review Report on John Day Dam, Columbia River, Washington and Oregon: Transcript of a Public Hearing, September 23, 1953 (Portland, Ore.: Office of the District Engineer, 1953).

38.  U.S. Army, Corps of Engineers, Review Report on John Day Dam, 22–3.

39.  Ibid., 23.

40.  Ibid., exhibit K.

41.  Ibid., 2; U.S. Senate, John Day Dam ... Letter from the Secretary, 14.

42.  U.S. Army, Corps of Engineers, Preliminary Data, John Day Site Selection, Columbia River (Walla Walla, Wash.: Corps of Engineers, Walla Walla District, April 1956).

43.  Ibid., chart C, 2 of 5, p. 12.

44.  P.W. Schneider, Director, Oregon Game Commission, to District Engineer, November 9, 1955, in ibid., 35.

45.  Power made up about 90 percent of the project cost as compared to primary functions served; flood control made up the remainder. U.S. Senate, John Day Dam ... Letter from the Secretary, 11.

46.  U.S. Army, Corps of Engineers, Design Memorandum No. 2, Site Selection Report, John Day Lock and Dam, Columbia River, Oregon and Washington (Walla Walla, Wash.: Office of the District Engineer, June 1956), 85–6.

47.  Fish Commission of Oregon to District Engineer, Walla Walla District, November 7, 1955, in U.S. Army, Corps of Engineers, Preliminary Data, John Day Site Selection; Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, Biennial Report on the Status of Wild Fish in Oregon (Portland, Ore.: Department of Fish and Wildlife, December 1995), 52–4.

48.  J.P. Doetsch, Jr., and L.A. Gustafson, Field Survey for John Day Lock and Dam (Walla Walla, Wash.: Corps of Engineers, Walla Walla District, July 1966), 5–1.

49.  L. Edward Perry, Director, Columbia River Fisheries Program, to District Engineer, November 23, 1966, in U.S. Army Engineer District, Walla Walla, Corps of Engineers, Design Memorandum No. 46, Spring Creek National Fish Hatchery, John Day Project, Columbia River, Oregon and Washington (March 1969), exhibit 2.

50.  Oral Bullard, Crisis on the Columbia (Portland, Ore.: Touchstone Press, 1968), 17–19; Keith Petersen, River of Life, Channel of Death: Fish and Dams on the Lower Snake (Lewiston, Idaho: Confluence Press, 1995), 44–5.

51.  Not all fall chinook are the same, however. Prior to the construction of John Day, most of the fall chinook passing through Indian fisheries were brights. During the period in question, however, the fall chinook produced as mitigation for John Day were tules, a variety that spawns earlier than brights, making them less valuable by the time they pass through the mid-Columbia. Wana Chinook Tymoo, nos. 1 and 2 (1993): 19.

52.  Perry to District Engineer, November 23, 1966.

53.  Paul Quick, Regional Director, and Donald R. Johnson, Regional Director, Bureau of Commercial Fisheries, to District Engineer, October 20, 1967, in U.S. Army Engineer District, Walla Walla, Corps of Engineers, Design Memorandum No. 46, Spring Creek National Fish Hatchery.

54.  U.S. Army Engineer District, Walla Walla, Corps of Engineers, Design Memorandum No. 46.1, Bonneville Fish Hatchery, John Day Project, Columbia River, Oregon and Washington (September 8, 1971), 1-3, 9-1.

55.  This program only included mitigation for John Day Dam and the impacts of peak production on Oxbow and Cascade hatcheries. It did not mitigate for The Dalles Dam as is sometimes claimed. The CRFDP was the only fisheries mitigation for The Dalles. U.S. Army Engineer District, Walla Walla, Design Memorandum No. 46, 1–2. It should also be noted that Priest Rapids hatchery now produces 1.7 million juveniles for John Day Fishery Mitigation, a post-Northwest Power Planning Act development.

56.  U.S. Army Engineer District, Walla Walla, Design Memorandum No. 46, 2; U.S. Army Engineer District, Walla Walla, Design Memorandum 46.1, 9–1. Some of this reduction was probably due to advances in hatchery technology and operations that increased survival rates of released juveniles.

57.  Independent Scientific Group, Return to the River, 320.

58.  Jack M. Van Hyning, "Factors Affecting the Abundance of Fall Chinook Salmon in the Columbia River," Research Reports of the Fish Commission of Oregon 4 (March 1973), 77, 81–2. Escapement is defined as the number of fish reaching the spawning grounds.

59.  Frederick C. Cleaver, "Effects of Ocean Fishing on 1961-Brood Fall Chinook Salmon from Columbia River Hatcheries," Research Reports of the Fish Commission of Oregon 1 (November 1969): 63; Robert H. Lander, "Distribution in Marine Fisheries of Marked Chinook Salmon from the Columbia River Hatchery Program, 1963–66," Research Reports of the Fish Commission of Oregon 2 (December 1970): 28–55.

60.  Carl J. Walters, "Mixed-Stock Fisheries and the Sustainability of Enhancement Production for Chinook and Coho Salmon," in Salmon Production, Management, and Allocation: Biological, Economic, and Policy Issues, ed. William J. McNeil (Corvallis: Oregon State University Press, 1988), 113.

61.  Northwest Power Planning Council, Artificial Production Review, 125.

62.  Gary K. Meffe, "Techno-Arrogance and Halfway Technologies: Salmon Hatcheries on the Pacific Coast of North America," Conservation Biology 6 (1992): 352.

63.  Cleaver, "Effects of Ocean Fishing on 1961-Brood," 67; Kenneth A. Henry, "Estimates of Maturation and Ocean Mortality for Columbia River Hatchery Fall Chinook Salmon and the Effect of No Ocean Fishing on Yield," Research Reports of the Fish Commission of Oregon 3 (November 1971): 27.

64.  Earl F. Pulford, "Estimated Contribution of Columbia River Hatchery Fall Chinook Salmon to Sport and Commercial Fisheries in 1966," Research Reports of the Fish Commission of Oregon 2 (December 1970): 5–6; Bonneville Power Administration, Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, Washington Department of Fisheries, Washington Department of Game, and Idaho Department of Fish and Game, Stock Assessment of Columbia River Anadromous Salmonids, vol. 1, Chinook, Coho, Chum and Sockeye Salmon Stock Summaries, Final Report 1984 (September 1985), 410. See Cohen, Treaties on Trial, 127–32.

65.  Independent Scientific Group, Return to the River, 391–5; Robin S. Waples, "Genetic Interactions between Hatchery and Wild Salmonids: Lessons from the Pacific Northwest," Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences 48 (1991): 124–33; Walters, "Mixed-Stock Fisheries," 112; Lichatowich, Salmon without Rivers, 79.

66.  Federal Caucus, Conservation of Columbia Basin Fish, 14–6; Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife and Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, Status Report: Columbia River Fish Runs and Fisheries, 1938-1997, 45. In 2001, the spring tribal commercial fishery was opened for the first time since 1977.

67.  Due to the increasing political influence of Indian tribes since the mid-1970s, the lower river bias of federal mitigation programs has begun to be addressed. Hatchery reprogramming since the 1980 Northwest Power Planning Act has focused in part on restoring upriver production while taking into account the biological requirements of wild stocks. See Northwest Power Planning Council, Artificial Production Review, app. 2.

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