Dam Stupid

Despite the biggest bounty program in history, the squawfish "resource," as participants might call it, appears healthy and eminently sustainable: In 2000 bounties were paid on 187,596 squawfish; six years later the figure was 231,842.

But then there are those pesky Caspian terns that proliferate in the manipulated lower Columbia, snatching wild and domestic smolts. Drawn to the basin by giant bird feeders in the form of hatcheries, they took up residence on a Corps of Engineers dredge-spoil dump called Rice Island. By 1998 there were 18,000 birds, the world's biggest nesting colony. The Corps might have applied to the Fish and Wildlife Service for a permit to kill some of them, but there was no way the National Audubon Society would have let that happen.

So, assisted by biologists from the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, biologists and students from Oregon State University and even the U.S. Marines, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, NMFS and the Corps set about moving the colony. The expeditionary force (armed with tractors and grain drills) conducted simultaneous landings on Rice Island and another spoil dump closer to the Pacific called East Sand Island. On the former, workers removed eggs and destroyed tern habitat by planting winter wheat and building fences; on the latter, they lured birds with electronic calls and decoys and created habitat by removing vegetation. At enormous expense, they eventually succeeded in relocating the colony to East Sand Island.

Lo, the birds continued to proliferate and continued to eat smolts, including wild Snake River fish. So now the feds plan to eliminate about 75 percent of the habitat on East Sand Island and move the terns yet again, this time to six new locations, including an island the Corps will build for them on an inland reservoir. Projected cost for the first year: $2,422,093.

And then there are those pesky sea lions. Salmon and steelhead are not their natural prey because sea lions have trouble chasing them down in the open ocean. But sea lions are intelligent, adaptable and quick to take advantage of unnatural situations such as manmade impediments to fish migration. So they've learned to swim 140 miles up the Columbia and chow down on adult salmon and steelhead as they mill around the base of the Bonneville dam.

Boat crews, working seven days a week, haze the animals with firecrackers and rubber bullets, but the sea lions understand they're in no danger. By the time you read this, NMFS will probably have granted a permit to Oregon, Washington and Idaho to kill 30 a year. On January 17, 2008, it announced that this sounded like a good idea but that it wouldn't issue a decision until it had considered public testimony. Meanwhile, Rep. Brian Baird (D-WA) and Rep. Doc Hastings (R-WA) have introduced legislation to legalize lethal control.

Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that we significantly reduce squawfish and sea lions, and we trick terns into eating fish other than salmonids. Are we then going to control the cormorants, which are proliferating faster and eating more smolts than the terns? What about the orcas of Puget Sound that, unlike sea lions, are obligate salmonid predators? Do we kill them off, too? (Probably not, because the dams are doing it for us. "Restoring Columbia River Chinook salmon is the single most important thing we can do to ensure the future survival of the Southern Resident Community of killer whales," declares Dr. Rich Osborne, research associate with The Whale Museum in Friday Harbor, Washington.)

Are coastal cutthroats next? Do we then move on to smallmouth bass and walleyes? One gets the impression that if erosion threatened the integrity of a dam, our federal government would try to stop the wind and the rain.

What are the real chances that we will breach the four lower Snake River dams in time to save the fishery's vanishing salmon and steelhead? Not great, given the reluctance of Congress to even discuss the subject; but it's far from hopeless.

For one thing, the best friend obsolete dams ever had is about to vacate the White House. For another, the best friend the Snake River dams has ever had, Sen. Larry Craig (R-ID), got himself politically emasculated with his men's-room game of footsy with an undercover cop. In June 2007, the Senate Appropriations Committee approved a Craig stealth rider to negate Redden's 2006 ruling that the Snake River salmon and steelhead plan was illegal.