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Power Supplies Expected to Last Through Summer by Mike Lee, Herald staff writer Tri-City Herald, May 25, 2001

Power officials Thursday prepared to announce renewed confidence in the Northwest hydropower system's ability to meet demands this summer -- but fish and farms already are falling victim to one of the driest years on record.

And it's not even Memorial Day yet.

Conservation measures and aluminum company buyouts mean Northwest power supplies should be sufficient for the summer, giving the region breathing room and creating the possibility for renewed fish protection efforts.

"This shouldn't be a signal for everybody to relax and leave on all their computers," said Dulcy Mahar, spokeswoman for the Bonneville Power Administration. "This (power shortage) is going to be a problem for the next 18 months or two years."

Mahar said a Northwest Power Planning Council study to be released today shows the power system is more reliable than feared because power use in the region is down 10 percent over last year after accounting for weather differences.

"The summer is looking better, but we still have a lot of concern about the fall and winter," said John Harrison, power council spokesman.

American Indian tribes immediately called for some of the "surplus" water in the Columbia River to be used to flush salmon to the ocean, given substantial drought-related damage done to the fish runs this spring.

Nearly 700,000 juvenile salmon, which were stranded on the shore by water level fluctuations caused by power operations, died on the Hanford Reach before the start of May, according to the Fish Passage Center.

"Hydrosystem operations ... have had specific and quantifiable deleterious effects" on chinook and steelhead, said the center, which tracks fish for several agencies.

The early-season Reach kill was more than 10 times the 1999-2000 average, according to a Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife study.

Paul Hoffarth, state biologist in Kennewick, said fish mortality appears to be so high because water fluctuations uncover more ground, stranding young fish in pools that dry up, when the Columbia is at low flows than when it is running high.

Hoffarth said this year's count of salmon fry in the Reach was 29 million, up as much as 7 million from last year and enough to give the population a buffer against high mortality.

Tribes, however, reacted with outrage to the death toll. "Barring a change in the federal lockdown of the river, the migration will be a crime scene," said Randy Settler, fish and wildlife committee chairman of the Yakama Nation.

Spring Columbia River flows in the Mid-Columbia have dipped as low as 26,000 cubic feet per second, about 15 percent of normal.

That's caused a substantial slowdown of the annual fish migration and raised the potential for disaster, said Bob Heinith, hydro program coordinator for the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission.

"We're simply not seeing enough flow to get those fish moving," he said. "Unless we get some Mid-Columbia flows here in the next two or three weeks, we are ... going to lose most of the upper Columbia River run, and it's going to have some real impact on the Hanford Reach as well."

Grant Public Utility District officials expect Memorial Day weekend flows to be about 60,000 cfs, well above where they were just a few weeks ago. "The situation looks good for (fish) movement through the Hanford Reach," said PUD spokesman Gary Garnant.

Mahar said it's wrong to attribute all fish deaths to power operations when Mother Nature has provided only half the normal snowpack.

"Ninety percent of the impact this year is going to be from the drought," she said. "It's really fish and power vs. the drought. They are both heavily affected by the drought and they are both suffering because of it."