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Sign Today: Petition to restore native fish in the Columbia Basin and hold BPA accountable!
Background: In 1980 Congress passed and President Carter signed legislation known as the Northwest Power Act. The Act gave the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) new authorities and new responsibilities. The agency, already marketing power from 31 federal dams, was given the authority to acquire new power resources to meet forecast increase in demand from their power customers. They were also given a new responsibility: to “protect, mitigate, and enhance” fish and wildlife populations impacted by dams in the Columbia River Basin.
But Congress also wanted to assure that BPA would carry out the new responsibilities in a manner that met the needs of the region it served. To accomplish that end, Congress authorized the four NW states – Idaho, Montana, Oregon, and Washington – to create the Northwest Power and Conservation Council. The council consists of eight members, two appointed by each of the region’s governors. The Council was responsible to:
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Craft and regularly update a twenty-year Regional Energy Plan. Any resource acquisitions by BPA were to be consistent with that plan.
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Develop and regularly update a Fish and Wildlife Program to “protect, mitigate, and enhance” fish and wildlife populations in the Columbia Basin impacted by dams. BPA’s fish and wildlife actions and investments were to be consistent with the program.
Right now, the Council is working on amendments to update its fish and wildlife program and is in the early stages of updating the energy plan. As an initial step in the fish and wildlife program, the Council solicited recommendations from state, federal and tribal fisheries managers, and others. BPA’s recommendations were shockingly obtuse and retrograde. Bonneville told the Council it should abandon its long-held goal of seeing 5 million adult salmon and steelhead returning annually to the Columbia Basin to spawn. BPA further called on the Council to affirm that BPA was under no legal obligation to meet whatever numerical goal the Council might set.
Friends of salmon, steelhead, and salmon-dependent Southern Resident orcas need to encourage the Council to reassert its intended leadership role in undoing the vast damage hydropower development has done to fish and wildlife throughout the region. Please consider adding your name to the message to the Council, calling on them to represent the region and its interest – economic, cultural, and spiritual – in the recovery of healthy and abundant populations of these iconic Northwest creatures.
Petition to the Northwest Power and Conservation Council
I join with many others in encouraging the Council to use the opportunity of amendments to the Fish and Wildlife program to speak strongly on behalf of the Northwest, on what is required to restore healthy and abundant populations of fish and wildlife gravely harmed by hydropower development in the Columbia Basin. Specifically, I trust the Council will:
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Reaffirm and maintain the “interim goal” of seeing 5 million adult salmon and steelhead return annually to the Columbia Basin
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Analyze and prioritize changes in hydropower operations to speed smolt travel time from natal rivers to the ocean, as well as other recommendations from State and Tribal fisheries managers that would benefit impacted native fish and wildlife
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Affirm that it was the expectation of Congress in the Northwest Power Act that BPA actions and investments to “protect, mitigate, and enhance” impacted populations must be “consistent with” the Council’s Fish and Wildlife Program
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In developing the next regional energy plan, modeling should assume implementation of all relevant measures in the Fish and Wildlife Program
Congress intended that the Council speak for the Northwest. The current update of the Fish and Wildlife Program is a critical opportunity to do exactly that.
Sign the petition to the Council below!
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Artwork by Northwest Artist Against Extinction collaborating artist, Rachel Teannalach.