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Judge Redden, Secretary Gates and 1,800 More Groundhog Days for Salmon by Charles Pace The Oregonian, May 8, 2011

Judge Redden has posed six issues/questions for oral argument tomorrow. Five are nothing new, but the last one suggests that, rather than the long-awaited day of reckoning, the region will get another five years of reconnoitering.

He is more likely than not to opt for 1,800-plus more "ground hog days" and postpone the tough decisions required for hydro operations until 2016.

Meanwhile BPA will draw down and divert the Bonneville Fund to pay hush money to a handful of tribes for a laundry basket full of habitat projects signed off on by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council.

Thus, NMFS' jeopardy standard--teetering on the brink while trending toward recovery-- may not have to pass the straight face test.

But that is just the start.

His Honor also has to look the other way on federal defendants' consistent refusal to address operation of the hydro system for power peaking, load following, out-of-region sales and now integration of wind generating assets.

All of these reduce the likelihood of survival and recovery in the wild, as well as adversely modify and destroy critical habitat upstream and downstream from the projects, particularly for populations at risk in the upper Columbia River.

Then there's the issue of securing additional water--between 487,000 and 1.5 million acre-feet of it--from federal reservoirs in the upper Snake River.

His Honor can't just wink and blink on that one. He will have to close his eyes and hold his nose. That's because NMFS' 2008 BiOp relies on voluntary transactions to secure upper Snake River water for flow augmentation below Hells Canyon.

And, given the "mediator's terms" in the 2005 Nez Perce/Idaho water rights agreement, and the 2009 modifications of the Swan Falls Agreement by the Idaho Legislature--neither one addressed in the BiOp--the likelihood of that happening during, say, the next 25 years is virtually nil once His Honor attaches judicial imprimatur to NMFS' latest opinion.

Now, if that's the best he can do, it would (arguably) be better for Secretary Gates, on his way out the door, to exercise his discretion under 16 U.S.C. 1536(j).