BPA Kills Fishing
This is the time left to get BPA to change their decision. We need to save this fishery.
COUNTDOWN TO CLOSURE
What's Happening?
The Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) intends to cut funding for the Columbia River Select Area Fisheries (SAFE) salmon hatchery program which has raised and released fish for 30+ years.
What is the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) supposed to be doing? BPA is supposed to make up for the ongoing negative effects of the hydropower system on fish populations throughout the Columbia Basin. They should be following the recommendations of the Northwest Power and Conservation Council and must treat the entire Columbia River as a system. This obligation pre-dates any Columbia River fish being added to the Endangered Species Act (ESA). BPA pays fish and wildlife co-managers in the basin to operate programs that seek to meet their obligation. For more than 30 years, BPA has paid for fish hatchery production in the lower Columbia (known as the SAFE program) that produces fish intended to be caught in commercial and recreational fisheries in terminal fisheries.
What isn’t BPA doing? BPA has unilaterally and unexpectedly decided to stop paying for this fish production – notifying ODFW (who operates the program with WDFW and Clatsop County) with less than 3 months of notice. ODFW already has 7+ million fish in the hatcheries for next year’s production. If this decision is not overturned by Sept 30, those fish will be released prematurely, Gnat Creek hatchery will close, and millions of future fishing opportunities will be gone.
Why does BPA think they don’t have to? BPA’s reasons for this decision have varied – in their first letter notifying us of the termination, they indicated that the goal of the program was to protect ESA-listed runs and that BPA has not seen evidence that this goal is being met (ODFW disagrees on both fronts – it is primarily a program to make up for lost fishing opportunity because of the dams, but it does have benefits for ESA-listed runs). In a subsequent meeting, BPA told ODFW that it does not believe that they are obligated to mitigate for harvest – this flies in the face of their 30-year history of supporting the program and a plain reading of the Northwest Power Act. •The Bonneville Power Administration intends to cut funding for the Columbia River Select Area Fisheries (SAFE) salmon hatchery program which has raised and released fish for 30+ years. oProgram started in 1993 and has raised and released ~ 260 million salmon. •9+ million salmon are released annually by ODFW, WDFW, and Clatsop County Fisheries through the SAFE program.
How it Hurts Anglers & Communities
What is the impact of the SAFE program ending?
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Millions of young salmon (spring Chinook and coho) already in hatchery production are in limbo.
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Sport anglers will lose out on an estimated 34,000 SAFE-produced salmon they catch every year. Sport anglers catch more than a third of SAFE produced salmon.
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Gnat Creek Hatchery near Astoria, funded by the SAFE program, would close, reducing overall hatchery capacity and removing the ~1,000,000 fish it releases from the system.
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The loss of the SAFE program will cause ripple effects on the local economy.
“This may sound like one more fight over a government program with a long name. But for people who live and work on the lower Columbia, this is about whether there are fish to catch, jobs to work, and paychecks to bring home.”
– Rep. Javadi (North Coast)
Take Action Now
Contact BPA and tell them to reverse their decision and save the SAFE Program. Every action, every message, every second counts. The clock is ticking.
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“This may sound like one more fight over a government program with a long name. But for people who live and work on the lower Columbia, this is about whether there are fish to catch, jobs to work, and paychecks to bring home.”
– Rep. Javadi (North Coast)
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