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Agencies
Outline Salmon Recovery Costs Past and Future
Efforts to improve the
lot of
Based on the federal
agencies "salmon cross-cut budget," salmon-related
expenditures by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers have gone from $102.7
million per year in 2001 to $115.6 million in 2006.
Bureau of Reclamation
costs have risen from $20.5 million per year in 2001 to $40.5 million in
2006 and the Bonneville Power Administration's expenditures have jumped
from $183.5 million per year in 2001 to $238 million in 2006, including
Columbia River Basin Fish and Wildlife Program funding.
Most of the expenditures
are directly and indirectly paid by the region's electric ratepayers.
BPA, which markets power generated in the federal system, includes fish
and wildlife costs in calculating rates it must charge wholesale power
customers.
The new "proposed
action" released Thursday "reflects further funding increases
across all four Hs, predation management and RM&E over the 2007-2017
time period, but with an increased emphasis on demonstrating biological
benefits, on the ground results and accountability for the funding
spent," the overview says. Those four H's include the hydro system,
habitat, hatcheries and harvest.
Among the action agencies
commitments for 2007-2017 are:
-- $70-80 million per
year from the Corps'
-- $45 million per year
commitment from BPA for tributary and estuary habitat; $450 million over
10 years, with additional funds from the Corps and the Reclamation. BPA
annual funding commitments for habitat projects averaged about $21
million between 2000 and 2006 with an increase to approximately $37
million for 2007 to 2009.
-- Almost $35 million
over the BiOp period to fund new hatchery facilities and another $5
million per year to fund new hatchery facility related expenses,
reconditioning of Upper Columbia steelhead kelt and assessment of
habitat potential for chum reintroduction below Bonneville Dam. This is
in addition to current expenditures of approximately $11 million per
year for operations and maintenance of safety-net and conservation
hatcheries and $35 million per year for other FCRPS mitigation hatchery
programs.
-- An increase from $3
million to $3.7 million per year to expand the Northern Pikeminnow
Management program and reduce predation on juvenile salmon.
-- $75 million per year
for RM&E at the outset, with a goal to move some of this to "on
the ground" actions over time.
In addition to these
expenditures by the action agencies, other federal funding programs are
contributing to salmon and steelhead improvements. Since 2000, NMFS'
Pacific Coast Salmon Recovery Fund (PCRSF) has granted $355.8 million to
Northwest states and tribes to undertake salmon restoration and
conservation activities.
Based on the "salmon
cross-cut budget," other federal agencies – including the
departments of Agriculture and the Interior as well as the Environmental
Protection Agency -- have invested over $950 million since 2000 in a
recovery program that benefits Northwest salmon and steelhead.
States and others have
contributed to the habitat restoration effort, and are expected to
continue to do so.
In
Under the Snake River
Basin Adjudication Settlement Agreement, approximately $60 million of
Several private and
public utilities are committed to major expenditures as well for habitat
and passage improvements as part of ESA and licensing agreements for
their dams, the overview says.
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Source:
http://www.cbbulletin.com/Free/236157.aspx