Fighting the Odds, Fishing on the Columbia River

by Carilynn Rummell

In an ongoing debate, that has swiftly become a source of aggravation to all, the fisheries argue regarding dispersing the allotted amount of salmon. Sports fishermen accuse the commercial fishermen of taking too much of the shrinking resource and the commercial fishermen accuse the sports fishermen of getting away with too much of the catch in an argument that has lasted for the past half century. Both groups blame the Indians for taking an unfair advantage of the fishing, which they say has added to the decline in species. These clashes have often gone beyond words to outright altercations on the river.

In a closer look at the state of salmon and sturgeon runs, one would think that cooperation between the groups would be the most beneficial route to take. As a force, together, the need for change on the river could become eminent. Yet, group after group claiming to speak for all falls far short of solving problems between the two main groups and when the local tribes are thrown in no one voice fairly represents anyone’s best interest.

It is hard for many to understand where or why the animosity developed between the groups and who is interested in actively keeping the division. Why are the fish in such short supply? Who is making the most money from the industry? Who stands to lose the most from an united fishery? The questions and answers surrounding this industry are complex and changing, depending on the viewpoint.

According to environmental historian Joseph Taylor, every group involved in the salmon issue has a “primary target” on which to blame fish declines. “Indians have always been a primary target,” he said, along with logging, overfishing and other traditional bad guys. He urged a mostly academic lunchtime audience at the University of Washington to appreciate the complicated history of fish decline in the Northwest and cautioned that achieving recovery will not be simple—even though that’s what politicians are looking for. “Simplicity is rewarded politically,” said Taylor, who was making the rounds with his new book,_ Making Salmon_. He chided the state’s senior US Senator, Republican Slade Gorton, for not being interested in solving the problem. “Follow the money,” said Taylor “There’s no reward for Gorton to take out the dams” (??NW Fishletter, 22 MAR 2000??).

Frustrated, Taylor commented that Sen. Gorton and user groups like the Columbia River Alliance frame the debate in ways similar to the arguments over the spotted owl. Taylor noted that all economic users are subsidized to some extent by the federal government and gave examples such as farmers depending on cheap water and transportation like barging which leads to barge operators depending on the federally funded system of locks; and then the region as a whole depends on cheap power. Taylor went on to suggest that there were alternatives to such an arrangement whereby economic concerns could be mitigated, along with improving fish runs. “There’s more than one way to skin a fish,” he said.

Environmentalists are brutally taken to task in his book as well. “In decrying the excesses of other resource users and management agencies,” Taylor writes, “environmentalists have artfully converted self-interest into principle. Their demonization of rivals has conveniently obscured their own material interests in nature as consumed experience, yet those interests are no less tangible and no less biased by class, race, and location” (??NW Fishletter, 22 MAR 2000??).

Fishing on the Columbia has long been a mainstay of economy for the communities along the both sides and especially at the mouth of the river where many towns lived and died according to the tides and the fish that navigated them. Soon enough the fish began to disappear. Over fishing was the usual scapegoat and a fish policing agency was added to the state departments of both Oregon and Washington state administrations.

What was quietly ignored was the fact that in a span of 30 short years 14 dams assaulted the once unfettered waters of the great Columbia River, where salmon once swam from the Pacific Ocean to the Columbian Lake in the Canadian Rockies. The Columbia River has over forty tributaries flowing into it, each with additional dams bringing the total to 400. All these multitudes of dams each have diminished native stock using its riverbeds as final resting places after spawning the next generation of salmon. Now, many of these tributaries lie barren, bereft of the silvers and pinks that used to teem their shores.

It is estimated that the Columbia River represents 1/5 of the total hydroelectric capacity on Earth with the river’s extreme elevation drop over a relatively short distance (2700 feet in 1250 miles) giving it such tremendous potential for hydroelectricity generation, dropping over two feet per mile. In comparison, the Mississippi lackadaisically winds down to the Gulf of Mexico, dropping less than eight inches per mile.

Now, the Columbia River Basin is the most hydroelectrically developed river system in the world with more than 400dams , 14 run-of-the-river dams on the mainstem, eleven in the USA and three in Canada. Hundreds of major and modest structures on tributaries block river flows and tap a large portion of the Columbia’s generating capacity: more than 21 million kilowatts. The Columbia River flows 1,243 miles. The largest section without a dam is from Bonneville Dam, located at river mile 146.1 to the Pacific Ocean.

The Columbia has ten major tributaries: the Kootenay, Okanagan, Wenatchee, Spokane, Yakima, Snake, Deschutes, Willamette, Cowlitz, and Lewis rivers. Its most important tributary, the Snake, flows across a semi-arid plain and runs through the deepest gorge in North America, Hell’s Canyon, 7,900 feet deep. The Deschutes and Willamette rivers drain basins south of the Columbia, while the Yakima, Lewis, and Cowlitz rivers drain areas on the north side of the river.

According to Bill Lang, Professor of History Portland State University, dams on the Columbia and its tributaries have contributed significantly to steep declines in historically strong anadromous fish runs. Between the 1860s and 1960s, commercial fisheries annually harvested millions of pounds of fish, especially five species of salmonids. The largest catch came from the estuary and lower river, where fishers used seines and gillnets. On the middle river, native fishers have used dipnets, hooks, and setnets. Since the 1950s, the combined consequences of dams, increased ocean fishing, deterioration of stream and river habitats, and changing river conditions have made the Columbia less and less habitable for anadromous fish. Twentieth-century alterations on the Columbia River dwarfed the early dredging and canal building. In 1932, private power companies completed Rock Island Dam on the middle river. In 1933, the federal government began work on Bonneville Dam on the lower river and Grand Coulee Dam on the upper river. By 1975, eleven dams stood on the mainstem in the United States, with many additional dams on major tributaries. The hydroelectric resources contributed directly to waging World War II. Electricity from the Columbia River powered aluminum plants, shipyards, and the development of the plutonium atomic bomb at Hanford Engineering Works near Richland, Washington. The hydroelectricity generated on the Columbia has stimulated significant industrial growth in the Pacific Northwest since World War II.

While arguing that the dams provide many more advantages than disadvantages the strongest power advocate, Bonneville Power Administration, has made concessions to the possibility that the dams have disrupted the salmon process of spawning. The BPA is a federal agency established in 1937, under the U.S. Department of Energy. BPA serves the Pacific Northwest and aims to be a national leader in providing high reliability, low rates consistent with sound business principles, responsible environmental stewardship and accountability to the region. The problem, according to many fishermen, is that there is no one watching the BPA. This agency was created when all the dams were being built and oversees the operation of 31 dams, all of the major dams on the Columbia River, and controls the publicity for the dams and their salmon recovery programs. It is not until a complaint reaches the stage of lawsuits that any higher jurisdiction is invoked over a ruling of BPA. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has exclusive jurisdiction to review challenges to final actions of the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA).

In a 1996 Oregon Sea Grant survey Washington’s Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) was strongly criticized by many Washington gillnetters who claimed that it was poorly managed and biased towards sports fishing. One fisherman commented, _“The commercial fleet in Washington has been decimated to a point that it is without resources to even present their case. The few individuals left, with the mental stamina to try to protect the industry, are doing so at enormous costs to themselves, both financially and psychologically, with less opportunity to make a living in the industry than ever before.” _ When asked about what could be improved to help fishermen, especially during the time the area was declared a disaster relief designee, another fisherman asserted, “Evenhandedness in allocation of resource; an appearance of effort on the part of WDFW to use in season management rather than relying on faulty predictions. The psychological battering from biased department officials is as painful as the financial deprivation” (??Adapting to Change: Fishing Families, Businesses, Communities, and Regions, OSG??).

BPA operates as a not for profit federal agency and is funded not by tax dollars but by the power and transmission services it sells to Northwest utilities. Northwest citizens pay for BPA programs through their electricity bills. The 1980 Northwest Power Act increased BPA’s role in protecting and enhancing the environment while still providing power at cost. BPA sees its job as providing an environmentally sustainable engine of the Northwest’s economic prosperity. Under this mandate BPA has: Invested more than $8 billion to protect fish and wildlife affected by the hydro system or transmission grid, now funding more than 350 fish and wildlife projects each year.

Following the Fish Money, the next article will explore who and what the $8 billion, provided by Bonneville Power Administration to protect the fish and wildlife, goes to.

Related articles: Fighting the Odds: Fishing on the Columbia River
Following the Money – Hard Work Tracking Down Huge Amounts of Money
$8 Billion for Fish, Fishing or the agencies monitering it all?

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