Steelheaders’ Oldest Campaign is in Transition

Long before just about any of us had joined the Steelheaders (back in 1970) Steelheaders sued the US government, attempting to prevent the Lower Granite dam on the Snake River.  Even back then the science was clear that the Snake River dams would put steelhead and salmon on the path to extinction. We have been a leader in the Save Our wild Salmon coalition since it started.

Coalition partners have supported the decades old Columbia BiOp Litigation that forced Bonneville Power Administration to spill and other action in support of fish survival.  But the court could not force BPA to remove the dams.  That requires congressional action and funding.

Thanks to a litigation “stay” agreement by the sovereign (Oregon & Washington state governments and tribe's vs the Federal Government) the effort is changing from supporting the litigation to asking our federal legislators to support funding to help replace dam services and dam breaching.  That’s where all of us come in and why we all need to know the facts about the Snake River Dams – particularly with all the false statements made by dam proponents.

“We will suffer power shortages without these dams.” False - These dams are run of the river, producing most of their power in the spring when the Northwest has its lowest power demand.

“These dams provide flood control.” False – “Run of the river” means they were designed without holding capacity.  They are incapable of being used to control flooding.

“Power would need to be replaced with coal or petroleum powered generators.” False – The study done by Washington State proves the power can be replaced with renewable generation.

“Family Farms would lose irrigation water." False – Almost all the irrigation from the river goes to 9 corporate farms pumping up to 300 feet from the reservoir.  They will just need to draw from another 100 ft using much of the existing facilities.

“Barging is needed for wheat farms to be competitive.” False – Barging of grain has declined continuously being replaced by rail.  Rail is actually much cheaper than barging if you remove the tax payer subsidy of over $40K per barge through the Lower Granite Dam.  That’s not a typo.  You are subsidizing each barge with over $40,000 of your tax money!

Coalition partner, Idaho Wildlife Federation put together a great presentation of the facts showing why all of us should support breaching the lower Snake River dams to save our salmon and steelhead.  We thank their Executive Director, Brian Brooks for providing this. See it at Free the Snake.

- Norm Ritchie, Co-President of the Board

Updates from the Capitol

By Bob Oleson, Co-President and volunteer Policy Advocate

In many cases, this month’s legislative work on bill concepts will serve as a rehearsal for the 2025 long session, and will give legislators a chance to begin refining the rough drafts of their bills, etc. The current agenda also seems to be limited due to the tensions between the two political parties, and the fact a number of leading politicians are running for higher office and will want to quickly be out on the campaign trail.

As we learned in school, primary functions of the legislature include giving high level public policy direction and overseeing the work of agencies. As one good example of this, senate leaders Golden and Girod are introducing a bill, soon to have a senate number, which is intended to lead to eliminating or greatly reducing the number of gillnets on the Columbia River. The bill will direct ODFW to report to the legislature in September, initiating the establishment of a gillnet vessel permit buyback program. This is good news, but of course the yet to be developed details will be all important. The same can be said about some expected fish and wildlife proposals involving climate resilience and ones further protecting our public water resources.

One of the omnibus bills of interest to us this session is HB 4148, introduced by representative Helm. This wildlife package would do such things as strengthen the states response to invasive species, promote coexistence with wildlife, and add more wildlife crossing features to our highways. It is tentatively scheduled for a first house hearing on February 6 at 3 PM in his Ag, water and natural resources committee. Updates about such bills and meetings are available on the internet via the Oregon legislature’s information system (OLIS). You are encouraged to communicate with your legislators regarding your thoughts about such bills and to find out what additional information they can provide to you. Those of us who are officers on the ANWS board would appreciate being kept in the loop. Working together we can keep improving fishing and fishing places.

Supporting the Magnuson-Stevens Act

By Morgan Parks, National Wildlife Federation Regional Education Manager 

The 2023-2024 Fish Eggs to Fry season was one for the books with record participation of 162 and 71 classrooms this fall and winter! In January, the Northwest Steelheaders in partnership with Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife (ODFW) and the National Wildlife Federation, assisted with rainbow trout egg delivery for nearly 60 classrooms across the greater Portland-Metro region participating in Fish Eggs to Fry. Reaching this large geographic area – from Banks on the westside all the way to Welches in the east and from Rainer in the north all the way south to Gervais – wouldn’t be possible without numerous volunteers donating their time and expertise. Many volunteers speak to classes about where the trout eggs came from (Roaring River Hatchery in Albany), salmon lifecycle and biology facts, fishing information, and more, while giving students a chance to connect with the volunteers and ask questions. Classrooms foster the rainbow trout usually until mid-March and release their trout before spring break. Then it’s goodbye fry and good luck!

Thank you to the 22 volunteers from the Tualatin Valley Chapter, Sandy River Chapter, Trout Unlimited, ODFW Angler Educators, and others that assisted with egg delivery on January 24th and 25th.

Things Are Happening on the Willamette River

By Mark Hutchinson

After years of dwindling salmon and steelhead returns the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers (USACE) takes drastic steps to flush spring salmon smolts through the dams, it may be too little too late, but time will tell.

Three things I would like to point out:

1. Spring Chinook and Winter Steelhead on the Willamette are in trouble, and something needs to be done.
2. The Army Corp was told to do something in 2008 by NOAA and didn’t do anything until they were sued. Leaving little time
3. The Association of Northwest Steel headers should participate in the discussion of restoring salmon and steelhead on the Willamette and carefully watch efforts by groups who would eliminate hatcheries or advocate for the status quo do nothing approach.

The Willamette is Oregon’s largest river 187 miles long with 13 major tributaries flowing within 20 miles of 70% of Oregon’s population, delivering spring salmon, and steelhead. Things changed for salmon and steelhead in the Willamette River in 1941 when the USACE began the Willamette project. An aggressive program building 13 flood control dams on the Willamette River. By 1968 the last dams were Green Peter and Foster Dam. Back then fish ladders were an option not a necessity and fish hatcheries were used to make up for the lack of fish ladders or dam caused fish mortality. 

By 1999 Spring Chinook numbers dwindled and were listed as “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act. Nine years later in 2008 the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) National Marine Fisheries Service made recommendations to the USACE to prevent the salmon and steelhead on the Willamette from becoming extinct. Although this raised attention to the issue nothing was changed in how the dams were operated, no fish ladders were added.  

Nine years later in 2017 Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) warned that if nothing was done steelhead on the Willamette and its tributaries would go extinct. By 2017 steelhead run plummeted from 20,000 in the 1970’s to only 512 at Willamette falls. Spring chinook number above Green Peter Reservoir had plummeted from 70,000 to 5,000 passing through the dam. 

Still nothing was done, no action by the USACE or funding from congress to make changes. Then in 2019 the USACE was sued after 11 years of ignoring the NOAA recommendations to recover the Salmon and Steelhead Runs. USACE lost the lawsuit in 2021 and was ordered by the judge to make 13 specific changes to the dams. 

In 2023 the USACE chose to use an experimental technique to flush salmon smolts downstream by lower Green Peter reservoir by nearly 100 feet. This solution provided two benefits. First it helped the little fish navigate the two large lakes Foster and Green Peter flushing the fish downstream. The second benefit was to get the water level down low enough for the surface swimming smolts to reach the hole in the dam for the salmon smolt to swim through, the 100-foot drop still was 20 feet above the passageway. This was necessary because Green Peter Dam has no fish ladder.

The Northwest Steelheaders in Salem, Albany, and Eugene had a front row seat to watch the demise of the Willamette River salmon and steelhead and fishing in its tributaries the Santiam, McKenzie, and Middle Fork of the Willamette. These communities also had front row seats to the surprise draw down of Green Peter reservoir leaving boat ramps inaccessible, dirty drinking water at Sweet Home and kokanee fish flopping in the shallow water. 

The rumors flew that lowering Green Peter was the result of a lawsuits by several environmental groups and ordered by Judge Hernadez in September of 2021, which is only partially true. What wasn’t brought up is that Spring Salmon and winter Steelhead runs on the Willamette are going extinct, and that since 1999 the Army Corp and our congressman were notified that something needed to be done, congress didn’t fund it and the Army Corp ignored it.  Come 2019 the Army Corp was sued and lost mainly because they had not done anything even though directed to by NOAA. Leaving little time and no money budgeted, the Army Corp looked to what was being done on the Snake River with drawdowns and the resulting increasing salmon returns. USACE chose a solution that required little study or cost with a history of success elsewhere. Why they waited who knows. Why didn’t they predict the muddy water or impacts on the Kokanee Fishery?

As a Northwest Steelheaders why should you participate in the discussion and be part of the solution? For one the groups that sued the Army Corp are at times anti-hatchery. An even stronger reason is only the USACE and these groups are at the table making decisions and controlling the media. The groups names should be familiar to you:  Northwest Environmental Defense Fund, Native Fish Society, and Wild Earth Guardians.

It’s important for Northwest Steelheaders to be knowledgeable and involved in the solutions. We represent interest in strong returns of native and hatchery fish in the Willamette River. We know that the do-nothing approach does not preserve our fish runs.

Time will tell if this latest action by the USACE will result in increased survival of salmon and steelhead migration to the ocean and then coming back in 3 years, or if kokanee fishing is impacted, or if the muddy water returns with next year’s draw down.

Chapter Meetings

A few chapters have resumed Monthly Chapter Meetings in-person, and we hope to get everyone meeting as soon as possible! To get more detailed meeting information please visit our  Events Calendar. If you're having trouble finding a meeting you can attend, please reach out to us at office@anws.org and we'll help you out. As always, Chapter Meetings are free and open to the public. If you're new to Northwest Steelheaders, attending a meeting is a great first step to getting more involved with your local fishing community. 

Upcoming Meetings

•  Mid-Valley Chapter - Wednesday, February 7 @ 6 pm

•  Tualatin Valley Chapter - Thursday, February 8 @ 7 pm

•  Columbia River Chapter - Tuesday, February 13 @ 6:30 pm

•  McLoughlin Chapter - Tuesday, February 13 @ 7 pm

•  Salem Chapter - Tuesday, February 20 @ 7 pm

•  Emerald Empire Chapter - Tuesday, February 27 @ 6:30 pm

•  Sandy River Chapter - Thursday, March 7 @ 7 pm

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