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Fish Story Idaho Power brochure Fish Conservation Program, December 1997

Water.

For more than 80 years, it's provided Idaho Power's customers with low-cost, clean hydroelectric energy. And for longer than that, it's provided them with some of the best natural sport fishing in the country. Some people, though, wonder if the two uses can live together. Idaho Power through its fish conservation program is proving they can.

In 1955 . . .

Idaho Power began construction of the most ambitious engineering effort in its history, the three-dam Hells Canyon hydroelectric complex on the Snake River. Included in the federal license for the project was a mandate to preserve the anadromous fish runs on that stretch of the river. At the direction of federal and state agencies, the company launched an experimental program using traps and trucks to ferry the fish around the dams. The scheme had the cooperation of everyone involved except one very important group -- the fish. Fingerlings, on their way downriver from their spawning beds, could not or would not swim through Brownlee Reservoir to the trap above Brownlee Dam. The slack water was like a wall, and the tiny salmon refused to climb it.

So the company and federal and state fishery official agreed upon a simple, yet revolutionary idea -- transfer the Snake River's natural salmon and steelhead runs to the undammed Salmon river, the Snake's largest tributary. Here, using a natural homing instinct which takes them to the sea and then returns them to the same stream where they spawned, the fish, it was hoped, would be spared the trauma of traps, nets, transportation and manhandling, thus increasing the chances of surviving the already brutal journey.

The government agencies approved the plan. Papers were signed, hands were shaken and a project matching the Hells Canyon dams in ambition was born.

Hatcheries

The new program required the construction of four fish hatcheries. Fully funded by Idaho Power, they're operated and staffed by the Idaho Department of Fish and Game. It's a huge investment for the company but results in the release of millions of salmon and steelhead juveniles into the Snake, Salmon and their tributaries each year.

The hatcheries are the cornerstone of our program.

Oxbow

Located downstream from the Oxbow Dam powerhouse at the mouth of Pine Creek, the Oxbow Hatchery is a holding and spawning facility for adult steelhead migrating up the Snake River above its confluence with the Salmon. Collected in a trap at Hells Canyon Dam, the steelhead are held to maturity at Oxbow then stripped of their eggs. The eggs are fertilized and go through their first stages of development here. They then are taken to the Niagara Springs Hatchery where they are hatched and raised for release in the Snake below Hells Canyon Dam.

Spring chinook salmon that return to Hells Canyon are also held at Oxbow for a short time but then are transferred to the company's Rapid River Hatchery for spawning.

Rapid River

Tucked beside a tributary of the main Salmon River near Riggins, Idaho, the Rapid River hatchery is the largest collection, spawning and rearing facility of spring chinook salmon in Idaho.

Juvenile spring chinook spend almost two years here. They grow to a length of four to six inches and are then released in March of April for their 45- to 60-day journey to the ocean. One to three years later, as adults, they return to the hatchery, ready to spawn. While they' re gone, they grow two to three feet longer and 15 to 20 pounds heavier.

As the returning adults fight their way up the Rapid River, they're stopped at a man-made falls near the hatchery and collected. They are then transferred to a holding pond until it's time to gather and fertilize the eggs. In about two years, long after these adults have died, the cycle begins again with the release of as many as three million of their offspring into Rapid River and the Snake River below Hells Canyon Dam. Of those released, about one-tenth of one percent can be expected to make it back to Idaho.

Pahsimeroi

The Pahsimeroi River slides through a peaceful valley near the east central Idaho town of Challis. The hatchery here once specialized in steelhead only. But in 1981, raceways and ponds were built for raising chinook salmon, and now one million young salmon can be released into the Pahsimeroi each year.

For steelhead, the Pahsimeroi is not so much a rearing facility as a maternity ward. Eggs are collected, fertilized, developed to the point at which they can be handled safely and then transferred to the Niagara Springs Hatchery where they are raised to the release stage (six to ten inches). They are then returned to the Pahsimeroi for release.

Niagara Springs

One of America's largest privately owned steelhead rearing facilities, the Niagara Springs Hatchery is located in the Hagerman Valley of southern Idaho near the Thousand Springs area. Named after the spring that feeds it, the hatchery's water is cleaner, clearer, and most importantly for the fish, warmer than that in which naturally spawned steelhead grow up. This ideal environment allows the fish to achieve two years growth in just one.

Conditions at Niagara Springs are strictly controlled. When eggs arrive from the Oxbow or Pahsimeroi hatcheries, they are placed in incubators and remain there until they have developed to the fry stage (when the young trout are approximately one inch long). They are then transferred to small fiberglass troughs and later to large, concrete raceways. As the fish grow and develop, they are fed a special, high nutrient diet, bacterial and viral levels are carefully monitored and strict standards of cleanliness are maintained.

When they reach release size, the fish are placed in steel tank trucks. The water temperature in the tanks is lowered to partially tranquilize the fish and allow them to be transported with minimal stress. They then are taken back to their original hatcheries and released. The Niagara Springs Hatchery has proven to be a tremendous asset in the rearing of steelhead juveniles. In the wild, less than 10 percent of the eggs ever get out of the gravel spawning beds. At Niagara, less than 10 percent are lost.

Is the Idaho Power fish conservation program a success?

Idaho Power's hatchery program has contributed significantly to the popularity and growth of steelhead fishing in Idaho. The Idaho Department of Fish and Game estimates that more than 40,000 anglers test their skill at catching one of these powerful fish each year. Chinook fishing, although it occurs on a much more limited basis, is also a very popular sport thanks to our hatchery program.

Excess eggs from Idaho Power's hatcheries, when available, have been donated to state and federal agencies to help initiate new fishery programs, to plant salmon and steelhead in streams from which they have disappeared and to maintain existing projects through the Northwest.

The program isn't perfect. There are complex problems involving downstream and ocean harvest of salmon and steelhead, water quality, and how to help the fish get through the federal dams that block both their downstream and upstream migrations. These problems receive constant attention from federal and state agencies as well as the general public. Each, however, is complex and has no easy answer. Nevertheless, we believe solutions can be found. Our success depends, however, on healthy annual runs of adult salmon and steelhead. Runs that, in turn depend largely upon the policies of downstream interests.

Until issues are resolved, Idaho Power's fish conservation program will protect and enhance this valuable resource, not only in our own service area, but throughout the Pacific Northwest.