Throughout the Pacific Northwest, salmon and steelhead have been listed under the Endangered Species Act because their existence is either threatened or endangered. The Upper Willamette River Basin s spring Chinook salmon and steelhead populations are among those listed fish populations. This presentation provides the background to better understand the recovery process for these species and why it is important to the citizens of Oregon.
The Willamette River Basin is truly The Land at Eden s Gate, home to most Oregonians and diverse fish and wildlife. Salmon and steelhead are icons of our natural heritage, symbolizing the health of this special place we live in. Yet today spring Chinook salmon and winter steelhead are at risk of extinction in the Willamette Basin. The questions facing all of us are: What needs to be done if we want to assure that our children share this legacy? What can each one of us do today to save this special heritage?
The State of Oregon, working together with dozens of engaged citizens like you, is attempting to answer these critical questions. The State has written a plan laying out what we need to know, and what we need to do to recover salmon and steelhead in the Willamette Basin. What is the problem? Several questions need to be answered: Why are Chinook salmon and steelhead at risk of extinction? What does recovery mean? Why is it important? What is a recovery plan? Who will implement the plan and what actions will they take? Perhaps the most important question is, How does recovery planning affect me? What can I do to help? How can I get involved? Because ultimately, unless each one of us decides that saving salmon in the Willamette is important to us, these remarkable creatures will not be a part of our future. This presentation answers these questions and puts salmon recovery in the context of the larger challenges we face in preserving and restoring the natural and cultural legacy of the Willamette.
Recovery planning is one part of a larger restoration strategy for the Willamette Basin and Lower Columbia River a continuation of the hard work begun under Governor Tom McCall. Oregonians got the major polluters out of the river and established the Greenway in the 1970s. But by 2050, another nearly 2 million people are expected to live here equivalent to adding three more cities the size of Portland. How will we accommodate these new people while sustaining and improving this place we love?
The Willamette / Lower Columbia domain encompasses two states (Washington and Oregon) and includes 6 listed species 4 in the Lower Columbia River sub-domain and 2 in the Upper Willamette River sub-domain. All are listed as threatened under the federal Endangered Species Act (ESA). The four in the Lower Columbia River subdomain are the Lower Columbia River (Spring, Fall) Chinook, Coho and Chum Evolutionary Significant Units (ESUs) and the Lower Columbia River Steelhead Distinct Population Segment (DPS). The two in the Upper Willamette sub-domain are the Upper Willamette River (Spring) Chinook ESU and the Upper Willamette River (Winter) Steelhead DPS. Recovery plans were developed separately for the two sub-domains - the Lower Columbia River sub-domain from the Columbia River estuary up to Willamette Falls on the Willamette River; and the Upper Willamette River sub-domain from Willamette Falls (including the Clackamas River) to the headwaters of the Willamette.
Spring Chinook salmon in the Upper Willamette River Basin populate a number of rivers, including the Clackamas, Mollala, North Santiam, South Santiam, Calapooia, McKenzie and Middle Fork Willamette rivers. These populations historically migrated to the upper reaches of these rivers to spawn. These reaches are now blocked by dams.
Winter steelhead populations in the Upper Willamette River Basin are located in the Mollala, North Santiam, South Santiam, and Calapoois river basins. These fish tend to spawn in lower river reaches, thus are not affected as much by blocked habitat. But they are affected by the changes in habitat below the dams, including temperature, flow, and water quality.
We are particularly concerned about Upper Willamette Spring Chinook. This map shows their risk of extinction in the various river subbasins where Spring Chinook exist. As you can see, out of 7 subbasins, 5 are at very high risk of extinction. The Spring Chinook ESU is in the most dire condition with the largest gaps between current status and desired status - a condition that would be required to consider the ESU viable.
Only modest improvement would suffice to meet the basic requirement of viability for the steelhead ESU.
So, why are spring Chinook salmon and winter steelhead on the brink of extinction in the Upper Willamette River Basin? Decades of human activities and environmental changes have adversely affected these fish. Biologists call these changes and activities threats. The physical, biological or chemical conditions and associated processes from these threats that fish experience during their life cycles and that influence the viability of any fish population, are called limiting factors. Limiting factors act on salmon throughout their life cycle and a life cycle approach is essential to figure out how to assure the fish survive. The 4 H s are the big problems for these fish: habitat, harvest, hydro, hatcheries, but ecological factors, like climate change, disease, and predation also play a role. We have changed the timing and magnitude of streamflows, reduced water quality, blocked access to spawning and rearing habitat, degraded essential aquatic habitat, overharvested, and introduced exotic species that eat young salmon, and introduced hatchery fish that compete with them. All of these add up over decades to bring us to the point we are at today with spring Chinook and steelhead at risk of extinction. While all of these factors have hurt our salmon, three key threats in the Upper Willamette are: (1) hydropower and flood control management; (2) historical and current land use management and (3) hatchery management. These threats and associated limiting factors have resulted in declines in abundance, spatial distribution, diversity (mainly genetic), and productivity of the salmon and steelhead populations in the Upper Willamette River.
Recovery, in the context of the federal ESA, is the process by which listed species and their ecosystems are restored and their future is safeguarded to the point that protections under the ESA are no longer needed. Recovery in the ESA context involves achieving goals related to a species biological status as well as to the threats facing the species. Recovery goals in the ESA context are also referred to as de-listing criteria. ESA recovery does not require restoring historical (circa 1800) species status, but does require the species to be at low risk of extinction in the next 100 years. Locally developed recovery plans may incorporate recovery goals at a level above the biological status required for ESA de-listing. These goals, generally referred to as broad sense recovery goals, are consistent with ESA de-listing but are designed to improve species status to levels above those required for de-listing to achieve other legislative mandates and a variety of economic, social, and cultural values. The State will achieve recovery goals by improving management and watershed conditions that sustain salmon and steelhead throughout the Pacific Northwest. Recovery is important for many reasons ranging from the fundamental spiritual value of salmon and steelhead to Native Americans, to a shared desire to continue to have native salmon and steelhead as a part of our lives and these ecosystems, to simply reducing the regulatory constraints imposed by the Endangered Species Act on myriad activities such as sewage treatment plant operation, timber harvesting, water diversion, farming and recreational fishing.
The Endangered Species Act requires that a federal recovery plan be developed and implemented for species listed as endangered or threatened under the statute. These recovery plans explain where we are now (the current status of the salmon and steelhead), where we want to be (the recovery goals and delisting criteria) and, most importantly, how we are going to reach the goals (the specific strategies and actions we plan to take to address the threats to the fish). Recovery plans also include on-going monitoring and evaluation programs so that we can know when the goals are reached and can adapt our management and approaches along the way. The National Marine Fisheries Service is the federal agency responsible for preparing recovery plans. In Oregon, the state has decided to take the lead on developing these plans to ensure they are supported by stakeholders and consistent with state interests and objectives as well as with the ESA. Conservation plans to improve the status of listed and at-risk fish species are also required under Oregon law by the Oregon Endangered Species Act and Native Fish Conservation Policy. The Upper Willamette River Recovery Plan also serves as a Conservation Plan for the State of Oregon. But legal requirements are only part of the reason we believe it is important to prepare recovery plans. Too often under the Endangered Species Act or even under the Oregon Plan for Salmon and Watersheds, we fail to focus our restoration actions on the things that are critical to long term viability of the fish. We succumb to random acts of kindness with no strategic focus. Recovery actions get dispersed across issues that have relatively little positive affect on improving viability and resiliency of the listed species. With these new recovery plans, we hope to overcome this problem and use them as a central organizing tool. We need to join together and focus all of our collective attention, passion, effort, political capital and financial investment in the actions that really will make a difference.
There is a formal legal process for preparing recovery plans and we are following it. However, Oregon and NMFS both believe that it is critically important to ground the recovery planning process in the many state, regional, tribal, local, and private conservation efforts already underway throughout the region. Our recovery planning process is designed to maximize local involvement and capitalize on existing ongoing efforts. Recovery plans will be most successful where they have the strong support of those who will be involved in plan implementation, so recovery plans are being developed with the participation and contributions of a wide group of government and private entities and sovereigns (Tribes) with the potential to contribute to recovery to actually take the critical actions needed to recover the fish. Work started on the Upper Willamette River Recovery Plan in 2006 with federal and state scientists doing detailed technical analysis of population status, limiting factors, threats and priority areas for recovery actions. Viability criteria were developed for both species and the viability of each population was assessed against these criteria. Gap analysis was done to figure out how much improvement would be needed to move from the current situation to recovery to reduce the extinction risk to the point that it is low. This work was done for spring Chinook and winter steelhead by subbasin. Expert panels and technical teams prepared detailed analyzes of the limiting factors that affect the listed species throughout their life cycles. A planning team with representatives of all major federal and state agencies reviewed all of the existing programs to assess what they would do to assist in recovery. The planning team then developed potential actions focused on the key limiting factors and threats to the fish. Planning also included modeling the results of various alternative recovery scenarios, meaning certain populations would be targeted for recovery more than others to better achieve full ESU recovery. So what does all this analysis show us? What will we need to do?
In order to achieve recovery, we have to assure that the risk to the species is Moderate overall. Scientists tell us that this means that at least 2 populations must be at Low or Very Low Risk of extinction and existing conditions cannot deteriorate. This puts the emphasis on core and legacy population targets. Remember the earlier slides showing the current status of our Chinook and steelhead populations? Out of 7 subbasins, 5 are at very high risk of extinction for populations of spring Chinook. Here is an example of what we need to do to achieve recovery for Chinook. We need to move two populations to that very low risk status (e.g., the Clackamas and the McKenzie) and move another 3 from very high risk to something closer to moderate risk (Molalla, N. Santiam and S. Santiam). For Spring Chinook, three actions are vital: restore use of historic habitat temperature control below dams riparian/floodplain function below dams restoring/protecting instream flow
Winter steelhead are in better shape than spring Chinook, but are still suffering. Of the 4 subbasins with native steelhead, three of the four are at moderate risk of extinction. For these fish, we only need to move two populations to low or very low risk of extinction (the North Santiam and the South Santiam). For Steelhead, two important actions are needed: habitat protection and restoration generally especially water quality, lowland riparian area protection/restoration, restoring/protecting instream flow
This chart, specific to spring Chinook, shows the areas we need to focus on if we really are going to try and recover the listed species. The draft recovery plan contains detailed charts like this one that illustrate the key and secondary limiting factors and threats in each subbasin. The black colors on this chart, for example, show that for Chinook, throughout the entire Upper Willamette River Basin, the key threats are: (1) operation of the hydropower dams in the Willamette River Basin; (2) blocked access to habitat above the Corps dams; (3) hatchery fish interbreeding on the spawning grounds; (4) impaired physical habitat from past and present land use practices like removal of large wood, revetments, loss of riparian vegetation, channelization and straightening of river channels; (5) high water temperatures; and (6) reduced peak flows leading to less channel complexity and habitat diversity.
The most significant changes need to be made to the Corps of Engineers Willamette Project. The Corps of Engineers owns and operates 13 hydropower projects in the Willamette Basin, 11 of which significantly impact salmon and steelhead survival and viability. These detrimental effects include impaired spawning and incubation from reduced flows and warm water temperatures, miscued spawn timing from changed river temperatures, delayed upstream and downstream migration due to minimal flow releases, injury and death as fish travel through turbines, smolt disorientation in reservoirs, and gas super-saturation from excessive spill. The 11 projects are located in the North Santiam (Detroit and Big Cliff), South Santiam (Green Peter and Foster), McKenzie (Cougar and Blue River), and the Middle Fork Willamette river basins (Dexter, Fall Creek, Lookout Point, Hills Creek), and Row River (Dorena). The other two projects are Fern Ridge Dam (Long Tom River) and Cottage Grove Dam (Coast Fork Willamette River). 17
Blocked access to historic habitat in the Middle Fork Willamette basin has been acute. Over 70% of the basin is no longer accessible to salmon and steelhead as the dams do not have fish ladders. These habitats historically provided optimal spawning and rearing conditions, particularly for spring Chinook.
In July 2008, the National Marine Fisheries Service completed a consultation with the Army Corps of Engineers, Bonneville Power Administration, and the Bureau of Reclamation on the impact of the Willamette River Basin Project on species listed for protection under the ESA. NMFS found that the Action Agencies Proposed Action alone was not sufficient to avoid jeopardy or adverse modification of critical habitat for the two listed species. As a result, NMFS provided additional measures to mitigate for the projects effects. The resultant Willamette Project Biological Opinion provides for legal operation of the Willamette Project and was prepared in parallel with development of the recovery plan. This Opinion includes comprehensive actions to avoid jeopardy, of which gaining access to habitat upstream of the existing dams is vital. So is modifying the flows from the projects to achieve water quality and quantity objectives. Yet, the focus of this Biological Opinion is on avoiding jeopardy, not recovery. Recovery would require more actions. Assuring that the Corps takes action will require Congressional authorization and appropriations. All of us need to talk to our Senators and Representatives to get them to put modification of the Willamette Projects at the top of their priority lists.]
Inconsistent use of best management practices related to land use actions has caused reductions in water quality and quantity, increased water temperatures, increased sedimentation, loss of streambank protection from riparian vegetative cover, and loss of floodplain connectivity and channel complexity. These land use actions include agriculture, irrigation, forestry, and urban development.
If we are to recover salmon, all of us will need to act to change the ways we have historically interacted with the Willamette and its vast watershed. We will need to change how we run our sewage treatment plants, our drinking water systems and real estate development. We will need to reconnect disconnected, fragmented habitat. We must change our hatchery management and sports fisheries and restore aquatic habitat. Farmers will need to change their farming methods, and forest landowners will need to continue to improve habitat. Many of these actions are already being implemented through existing regulatory and voluntary programs. We are striving to build from existing efforts and ensure that all recovery actions complement and support each other in achieving our goals. Governor Kulongoski s Willamette River Legacy program aims to repair, restore and recreate the river so that all Oregonians can enjoy the river and its many resources. This means REPAIR -- cleaning up the industrial pollutants and toxins that have contaminated the river. It means RESTORE-- returning the river to its natural state, restoring its abundant wildlife and pristine riverbanks. And it means RECREATion - addressing the incredible role that the Willamette River plays in Oregon s quality of life. We have the blueprints to achieve these goals in the many plans that have already been developed. The Willamette River Legacy brings all these efforts together, building a prioritized integrated action strategy to assure these many plans are actually implemented and truly restore and protect the river basin. The draft recovery plan lays out the things we can all do to assure that salmon and steelhead are part of the Willamette Legacy a part of our legacy as Oregonians for future generations. The plan is now available. Please read it. Please let us know what you think about it. Are these the right strategies? The right actions? But more than anything else, please help us save this important legacy.
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