good morning everyone the legislative hearing by the subcommittee of fisheries wildlife and oceans will now come to order this morning i have some very special guests in the audience i would like to  introduce them and it was a coincidence that we would have this hearing in the fisheries committee that has to do with salmon because these people are from yakutat alaska along the southern shore mr frank reiman and romney is from guam but she's lived thirty three years you know alaska so when she went from the tropics to the snow land i would like to ask everyone standing there that you can take the chairs up around here please if you would like to this is going to be a pretty long hearing and i'm sure that please just feel free to be seated right this subcommittee is meeting today to hear testimony on the management of west coast salmon fisheries and before we commence with opening statements i'd like to ask unanimous consent that the following members be allowed to join the subcommittee members on the di and participate with the subcommittee for the hearing mr miller the gentleman from california mr mcdermott from state of washington to sam far from the state of california and mr costa from california hearing no objection so ordered first win to committee rules for g the chairman and the ranking minority member will make opening statements and if any other subcommittee members have statements i will offer them the opportunity to speak and other members are invited to submit any statement that they may have for the record on fisheries wildlife and oceans meets this morning to hear testimony regarding the national marine fisheries services failed leadership in the management and conservation of west coast salmon fisheries sadly this is not a failure that can be made up in summer school like calculus class instead it is one that could take years if not decades to overcome and one that will have profound impact for communities up and down the coast salmon stocks listed on the endangered species list and the shutdown of fishing seasons have become all too common place last fall it was klamat year it's the sacramento ball run new salmon is the backbone of the ocean fishery commercial and recreational fishermen equipment supplies in restaurant years all depend on these fish for their livelihoods last month when the pacific consul voted to close the two thousand salmon fishing season the closure was on precedented in its magnitude fishing businesses all along the west coast are shut down the states of california oregon and washington requested two hundred and seventy four million dollars in disaster assistance and secretary good terrorists declared a commercial fishery failure many fear that the season will need to be closed for at least two more years agency scientists to pointed to unfavorable ocean conditions in two thousand and five as a determining factor while this may be ocean conditions are largely beyond our control and salmon stocks have been declining for years due to many human impacts it is no official rees responsibility to address these human caused impacts and ensure that salmon stocks are healthy and resilient enough to sustain the natural disturbances  inevitably encounter yet in the case of salmon stocks that are in the greatest need of protection those listed under the e s a a no of fisheries seems unable to produce a scientifically based legally defensible biological opinion in the sacramento the klamath or the columbia the three major salmon producing rivers of the west time and again across these rivers the courts have consistently found that no  fisheries has developed biological opinions that fail to use the best available science are based on conclusions that do not match their scientific findings and fail to account for the changes in the environment that the agency knows are coming why has this agency failed to issue by a larger well opinions that will protect endangered salmon stocks and will bolster other declining stocks in the process i'm sure this is a question that many coastal communities have asked themselves repeatedly over the past several years and i'm not sure there is a good answer to the credit of the fishing community many supported this year's closure at their own expense for the sake of the resource know what fisheries owes them an answer it also needs to demonstrate the leadership needed to improve salmon management and conservation up and down the coast and rebuild healthy salmon stocks that will sustain the occasional changes in ocean conditions as well as the long term changes in the climate that are both inevitable so i look forward this morning to hearing from our witnesses the first panel on how biological opinions can be strengthened and how we can move toward eco system management of all the salmon stocks the stories we will hear from the witnesses on the second panel should not be repeated knowledge u s school slam into this hearing so expect to learn a good bit here today that as our witnesses testify today and other members who will be joining us later their statements we will try to talk about ways that congress can provide guidance and assistance i thi i thank the ranking member the gentleman from south carolina mr brown for his opening statements and now i ask unanimous consent that mr issue and mrs  allowed to join the subcommittee on the diocese to participate in the hearing hearing no objection so ordered today to discuss the status of west coast salmon fisheries for those of us from the pacific northwest this hearing is a continuation of decades of debate everyone agrees that we need to protect salmon populations and how are the salmon doing this year fis fish managers have predicted that the spring salmon run will exceed two hundred sixty nine thousand the third highest run since before fish were listed under the endangered species act already this year more salmon have passed through the bonneville dam than any other year since two thousand and four a record year the answers to protecting salmon populations can be complex costly and have unintended impacts despite the old title of this hearing i'm sure that we'll find the answers will still be elusive and that there isn't a magic wand to resolve this immediately and my region of the pacific northwest this issue has been on the front page for some time it's been contentious and lawsuit dominated as a federal judge has become the de facto river master in addition almost a third thirty percent of our electricity rates are related to endangered salmon recovery and the costs are passed directly on to all consumers of income and size billions of dollars have been dedicated to salmon survival most of it coming from the pockets of ratepayers in the past we've held a hearing in this committee on legislation that i've introduced that i think is important to providing transparency on how we are spending salmon recovery efforts and the dollars our nation has understandably made salmon survival a priority and we should remember that there's other impacts farm families electric ratepayers fishermen whose livelihoods and way of life depend on salmon all need certainty there are many competing needs an interest in this debate it's important we have a fair open and honest debate everything is on the table including habitat hatchery harvest and even renewable energy missions free hydropower we should look at other federal laws such as the marine mammal protection act to resolve conflicts between species like salmon and sea lions and as a relates to the california based delta we should also examine whether the striped bass ports fisheries having serious impacts on salmon populations the water and power subcommittee of which i'm the ranking member has dealt extensively with these issues we've held hearings in clarkston and pascoe washington to lay hold california we've had numerous hearings inside the beltway on california baby delta issues as well as le legislation regarding endangered species act cost and this hearing today focuses on water and power infrastructure which does come under the jurisdiction of the water and power subcommittee and for this reason i am i had asked for this to be a joint hearing and i'm disappointed that the request was denied i have a letter that is stating that request that i'd like to be a part of the hearing record hearing no objection so ordered we do have two excellent witnesses mr jim light field representing the northwest river partners and jason jason peltier representing family farmers in the central valley of california and i appreciate them being here and for the invitation be expelled being extended to them to join us on this hearing madam chair woman i hope that this hearing will be a productive one the only way we're going to resolve this is through cooperation and collaboration instead of  engaging in finger pointing and in singing the same bitter tune against agriculture and energy i really hope witnesses and this subcommittee will use this opportunity to work together we owe it to the american people and we owe it to the environment i thank gentle lady for her opening remarks to recognize mr sally also a member of the subcommittee for any opening remarks he may have madam chair we found out last night about ten o'clock that we were going to be able to have an opening statement this morning and so i didn't mcinnes the southwest regional administrator of noah fisheries mr mike rowe the former california fish and game fisheries biologist and environmental scientist dr jack williams a senior scientist trout unlimited mr jim litchfield field consulting i want to thank all the witnesses for being here today and i would like to welcome the witnesses to this hearing and to note that there are timing lights on the table and it will indicate when your time has concluded and we would appreciate your cooperation in complying with the limits that have been set as we have many witness just to hear from today and be assured that your full written statement will be submitted for the hearing and the time limit is five minutes so you see the light right there i ask before we start with our first witness i ask unanimous consent that mr baird be allowed to join the subcommittee on the diocese and participate in the hearing today hearing no objection so ordered fisheries southwest region thank you for the opportunity to testify today in allowing me to highlight a few of the points from my written statement wesco salmon fishery is regulated according to provisions of a fishery management plan which calls for fishing seasons and quotas to be set annually based on the availability of salmon for harvest the abundance for chaos for two thousand eight were generally very low along the entire west coast the most pessimistic forecast was for the central valley california because of the low abundance of the fault in the great dependence of the ocean fisheries off california and oregon on this run implemented a complete closure of the commercial salmon fishery and a nearly complete closure of the recreational fishery on may one the secretary of commerce declared a disaster this it is after at the same at the same time scientists conducted a preliminary inquiry into the potential causes of the sudden low populations in the central valley fall showed up they found that the ocean conditions from two thousand and three through two thousand and five were most likely the immediate cause of the rapid decline in abundance the salmon that would have supported this year's fisheries emerged into an ocean without abundant prey and likely had a low survival rate as a result scientists are now leading a more in depth study of the factors  internal reviewing clearance procedures for biological opinions and has adopted a practice of using independent scientific reviews is part of the development of some of the complex and controversial biological sacramento and columbia rivers are among the most complex and far reaching is addressed in each case is used the scientific information the best scientific information available at the time of the consultation to determine the in each case the federal court a federal court has found that the biological opinion did not fully meet the requirements of the law or regulations committed is committed to expanding the body of science related to salmon and has more broadly used independent scientists at various stages and consultations the independent reviews have been helpful and many of the recommendations have been adopted immediately using the authority under  required many protective protective actions for listed salmon in the central valley the timing of the temperature timing and of water temperature releases flows from just a dam have the opening of the red bluff diversion dam proved screening on major diversions and removal of multiple migration barriers on tributaries have substantially improve the conditions for winter should not and for and favorable ocean conditions contributed to the reversal of the declines that motivated the e s a listings for salmon population is not listed under e s a never has authority under the magnus and stevens act to define essential fish habitats for those fish reviews federal projects for likely impact on the essential fish habitat of salmon and recommend measures that would be that would provide the needed protection magn stevens act recommendations for protection of essential fish habitat are not binding for federal agencies but the agencies are required to respond within thirty days as to whether they accept recommendations  a to ensure that salmon are protected on a project by project basis more comprehensive approach is needed to reach the most effective and enduring solutions to often complex needs of people the needs of people and fish finding long term solutions to these vexing problems will require a shared vision among parties with differing views for example the klamath restoration agreement and continued investment in habitat restoration a long term conservation plan a such is going on now with the baby delta habitat conservation planning and other conservation programs thank you again for this opportunity to views on these matters and i would be pleased to answer any questions from you or other members of the committee thank you thank you very much mr mcinnes and now mr wrote it is a pleasure to welcome you before the maybe and i want to mention here your service to the california department of fish and game for over twenty five years as a fishery biologist and environmental scientist in the klamath region could be commended so you are now recognized to testify for five minutes thank you madam chair and subcommittee members for providing me the opportunity to testify the day my name is michael road before retiring from the california department of fish and game i was the lead scientist to review the bureau of reclamation climate project operations on threaten klamath river coho salmon my intent is to concentrate on the next two thousand and constitutes single species management that does not consider chinook salmon flows were predicted by the b o to be increased in three phases without reach levels that would avoid jeopardy until two thousand and ten and below are assumed responsibility for only fifty existing flows downstream from our gate dam probably would benefit fish populations through improved physical habitat associated with more water through reduced water temperatures september two thousand and two less than four months after the two thousand and two b l was released at least thirty three thousand as many as seventy thousand adults some of those died in the lower reaches of climate or over the report stated the fishing again two thousand and two report stated flow as the only controllable factor in tool available in the climate basin manager skagen future of some major adult fish tales increase lows when adult salmon are enduring the klamath river particularly during a loaf lawyers of just two thousand and two can improve warm temperatures increase water volume increase water velocities improve this passage provide another serious problem we have on the river a juvenile fish kills toiling hundreds of thousands of fish each summer and nymphs is aware that and about the threat that this has  the b o r released an interim two thousand a climate project operations plan in april three two thousand and eight indicating that operate the project consistent with the flow requirements of phase three of the b however b r r is also proposing something far less protective of coho salmon by implications for next salmon in october two thousand and two two thousand and seven letter that accompanied the two thousand and eight to be aid to be ours proposing operate the climate project for the next ten years under dry year that's ninety percent exceeding drought conditions both of the standards were part of the two thousand and two be safe three r p m therefore the b o r proposal falls far short of the requirements of the armstrong decision recommendations that are hardy final phase two report successful funding and implementation of data improvements recommended by two thousand and seven r c report are also needed thank you for taking my testimony i'll be glad to answer questions thank you mr road for your insights on the need for better biological opinion now dr williams i would like to commend you for your many years of work in various federal agencies from the fish and wildlife service as an endangered species team leader to a senior colleague just at the bureau of land management to a forest supervisor in the forest service hundreds of publications are impressive and i'm looking forward to getting a better understanding of the complexity of salmon management from you so please begin thank you madam chairman chairman and members of the committee i appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today to provide my view a senior scientist for trodden limited i think we all share a strong concern for the health of salmon populations which form an interval part of the ecological social and economic fabric of california in the pacific northwest unlimited is the nation's largest cold water fisheries conservation group dedicated to the protection restoration of our nation's trout and salmon resources in the watershed that sustain them my name is jack williams i service in your scientist for that organization in my testimony today i would like to make four primary point first the long term survival of salmon and steelhead depends upon the conservation of the genetic and ecological diversity of remaining stocks in the habitat support them second climate change will pose significant new challenges to conservation of salmon and steelhead in both freshwater in marine environment but our only near term opportunities to improve habitat conditions occur in fresh waters third we cannot solve the problems of salmon through reliance on artificial measures that not only fail to address the root causes of declines but create a new suite of problems in and of themselves we need science based solutions and finally we need bold actions and commitment to save our salmon we must think bigger and involve more partners in solutions than we have before now i'd like to return to the topic of diversity diversity is the key to long term survival in any species the only way we can maintain the fitness and evolutionary potential of salmon is to protect the individual stocks and habitats to support those life histories a very comprehensive review of stock status was published just last year in two thousand and seven and that review found that four hundred six populations of salmon are already extinct within this region that's twenty nine percent of all famine populations that's a lot of diversity that we have lost already now it's tempting to believe that improved technologies in the form of new had trees or transportation devices or other such artificial means will enable salmon to survive and prosper into the future unfortunately this is not the case there are no silver bullets regarding climate change salmon are especially vulnerable to climate change or global warming because they are dependent on an abundance of clear cold water unfortunately for salmon the rate of environmental change is growing rapidly the impacts of climate change already are evident in fresh water and ocean environments over the next two to three decades we have little opportunity to change ocean conditions in fact they're likely to get worse if both freshwater and ocean habitats continually decline we have created an extinction vortex from which salmon cannot escape with ocean didn't conditions beyond our control at least in the near term we still have the ability to change and better manage freshwater habitat ok so what are we to do about all of this to help the salmon survive the effects of rapid climate change there needs to be an active and integrated effort to protect the best remaining populations and their habitats to reconnect headwater streams with main stem rivers by removing and stream barriers and providing normal flow regimes and to restore vital mainstream river and repairing habitats and for these efforts to be sustainable they must be founded in the best available science specifically on the snake river it's been a longstanding consensus within the scientific community to breach the lower four snake river dams as a single most important step needed to restore snake and salmon river populations in one nine hundred ninety nine i attended a meeting of the american fishery society the idaho chapter in which more than ninety percent of those present found the dam breaching was the single most important action needed to save snake river salmon and st a year later in two thousand one hundred percent of the scientists and attended of the oregon chapter american fisheries society meeting felt the same way in summary however something more is needed it starts with employing sound science for management decisions but it goes farther bold action is needed building broad alliances and unique coalitions of unlikely partners for salmon and steelhead restoration must become the norm we must focus on supporting remaining healthy pacific salmon ecosystems such as through the north american salmon stronghold partnership we must think bigger about salmon steelhead restoration and protection than we have before like on the klamath river where a collection of disparate voices and interests are proposing a brighter future based on restoration and we must pursue landscape changing events like removal of the lower four snake river dams today salmon crisis is a shared crisis now we need shared solutions on behalf of trout unlimited i would like to thank you for the invitation to submit to money and participate in days hearings i'd be glad to answer any questions thank you very much mr williams for your very helpful comments and now mr litchfield we welcome you before the subcommittee thank you madam chair members of the  subcommittee it's a pleasure to be here today my name is james lets field i'm a consultant working in portland oregon i'm here today representing northwest river partners group of utilities industries agricultural interests that are working on trying to implement sound science in the efforts to recover in the most cost effective and most efficient way possible for the last two and a half years or so i have been participating in noah's efforts to develop a new recovery a new biological opinion for the columbia and snake river systems that effort was an unprecedented effort it involves a collaboration between all of the sovereign parties that have involved in penn involved in the just trying to get my head tension and so it was a collaborative effort among all of the sovereign parties in the pacific northwest that were involved in the litigation surrounding the no of biological opinion on the columbia and snake rivers the parties involved all four northwest states seven tribes and about five federal agencies there were over two hundred meetings over to about two plus years you can imagine the disparate interests that were involved in this process yet the collaboration i think was quite effective in bringing the best available science from a lot of different perspectives to the table there was a lot of effort to try to distill that information and put it into a useful biological opinion last week no it released for public review and review by two two federal courts in oregon three biological opinions one dealing with a federal columbia river power system another dealing with the upper snake irrigation projects operated by the bureau of records reclamation and the third biological opinion addresses the harvest a listed fish in the columbia and snake rivers those opinions will go for go on through formal court review but as of now they are the new biological opinions guiding operation of the federal columbia river power system most significantly they adopted a new approach the approach was one of implementing performance standards instead of what i would call prescriptive standards in the past no one has defined specific flow  spell levels as the best operation for fish however conditions change in research changes over time and so as we have learned more and more about what effects fish we have found that some of those prescriptive standards are not the best way to optimize survival so the new biological opinion adopts a performance standard where ninety six percent of fish passing the federal dams have to survive ninety percent or greater in the spring and ninety three percent or greater in the summer these are very high performance  standards they may not be achievable but a lot of effort is being put into them what what i will tell you is that as we have gotten higher and higher survival as date as fish pass dams we are meeting reaching the point of diminishing returns spending and far more money to get ever smaller returns so it's not going to be possible to get one hundred percent survival and at some point we need to or to turn our attention elsewhere the biological opinions have done that in several ways one  have focused an incredible amount of effort on rip on improving habitat in the pacific northwest the council recently evaluated the investment that we have made in fish and wildlife since the since the northwest power and conservation council was formed by an act of congress more is needed in the habitat improvement areas above the hydro projects recently bonneville power negotiated with four tribes and two states a memorandum of agreement where an additional nine hundred million dollars approximately will be spent over the next ten years by those parties to try to improve habitat and hatchery practices in the pacific northwest in addition to that a significant amount of resources are devoted to fish and wildlife recovery the northwest through the council's fish and wil program in as an approximate estimate these numbers will be released later this month i would expect that over the next ten years the region will invest at least another two billion dollars and fish and wildlife recovery yet all of this money has been supported generally through the pacific northwest ratepayers because they believe that through a cost effective efficient fishing while the real fish and wildlife recovery effort we can recover these fish and we are still confident that we can achieve that you will hear and you already have heard the dam removal is the way to save salmon and i'd like to point out several facts that are really important in the dam removal debate first of all the four snake river dams that are the target of this discussion affect only four of the thirteen listed species in the columbia river they would the removal of those dam was would cost in addition to in excess of a billion dollars the effort has been studied in detail by the u s army corps of engineers during the late one nine hundred ninety s and it's likely to remove over a thousand megawatts of renewable energy that would have to be replaced by coal fired power by a gas fired power plants in the pacific northwest thank you ordered we will begin with the questions from the subcommittee members first and then we will go to our other colleagues that are here yes i have two questions for mr rod mcginnis how much time has no is spent writing and rewriting biological opinions what guides the river operations why the biological opinions are being redrafted and how is salmon recovery impacted when you do not have an approved biological  d be given instructions generally to to continue to implement the biological opinion in some modified way until until we have a new opinion in place the efforts that we've go through to improve our biological opinions through the external independent scientific review have added to the to the period that we have to work on these things they've improved i think the strength of the biological opinions that are coming out now thank you for your answer i just wonder how much longer we're going to be waiting this second question has no a defined adverse modification of critical habitat sam and yet and how can you know if an action is causing jeopardy to critical  individually as we can to ensure that we are taking into consideration all of the facts to do the critical habitat thank you very much i think i have time here for one more question  williams how can know it develop biopsied design management plans that adequately protect salmon at all life stages and how can adaptive management play a role well first i think no  has excellent staff people they have some very good scientists that work for their organization but i do think the biological opinions must be based on that science and i think they have to address the main problem straight on and i don't believe that they always have in the past so i think it's just it's very critical that they get their scientific opinions that they focus on the problems at hand rather than artificial solutions and then all this money that we're investing is invested towards sound that opportunity and i wanted to take a moment and recognize one of my constituents here in the audience today travis brock he's with the united power trades organization all the way from colfax washington he does a lot of work on the dam so he can he could shed some light on some of the realities with the day first question to you mr mayor mcginnis i understand that two hundred thirty million has either been funded or proposed for west coast salmon disaster assistance over the past three years has no devoted any resources to determine the actual commercial value for the west coast salmon fishery particularly the columbia and snake river stocks that may be listed under the endangered species act analysis specific to the losses in the ocean fishery and we do have that information that could be provided with respect to the overall long term value of fisherman in river and in the ocean never being considered we have not we have not considered that as an option at this at this juncture the number of commercial fisherm thank you mr let's build some witnesses will talk about how the dams kill the vast majority of salmon yet your testimony indicates that ninety six percent of juvenile salmon survived the migration downstream can you tell us why more fish are surviving well a great deal of that investment i testified to has been made in improving dam survival there's a number of mechanisms that have been put in at the dams the most successful and the latest has been what are called remove these are replacement structures a go in spillway basin they allow us to pass over the top of the dam instead of through spill bays that opened fifty feet down so those are the ways fish have been spilled in the past was really  fairly traumatic for fish now they can gradually pass over a water slide down the dam these are being shown to be very effective at improving fish survival the ninety six and ninety three percent that i testified to is survival at each dam if you look at the cumulative survival from the upper dam lower granite down on the snake down through the columbia the lowest dam being bonneville dam there are eight dams that they need to pass and cumulatively fish pass away there's mortality in each of the projects from a variety of sources probably the most significant being predation both by birds and other fish when you look at the cumulative survival the latest no research is showing that for spring survival through that through those eight dams is approaching sixty percent fifty percent range that's a that's a very high survival rate in fact it is fairly well correlates with the survival you see above the hydro projects for fish migrating damp naturally flowing rivers down to the first dam and it roughly correlates to the survival you see below bonneville dam in the free flowing stretch out to the ocean so these fish there's a natural mortality rate it seems to be highly correlated with distance as much as it is with a number of dams fast would you speak a little bit in the pacific northwest we've had a spills mandated at various times and you just speak a little bit to means and and also what does that do as far as our carbon footprint you know i'm quite proud of the fact washington state has the second lowest carbon footprint per capita in the country largely because of our hydro yes we hydropower a renewable resource for the pacific northwest provides approximately fifty percent of the electric power generation beginning with the first biological pena's in fact even before them spills have been used as a way to help fish migrate past dams there are essentially three passage routes that each dam that a fish can take depending on where it is in the water column one is through the power generation turbans in front of those turbans though we have installed screens that deflect some of the fish away from the turbans and through what's called the bypass system and the third way is over the through the spillways and as i said the spillways are generally about fifty feet down they open a water passage that's fifty feet down fish migrate tend to migrate in the upper part of the water column of the top five to ten feet so official approaching a dam and beings pass via spill would be drawn down to about fifty feet of pressure and then exit the dam under a high pressure ridge the jet of water that would slide down the dam and dissipate below the dam spills of course forego electric power generation so there's a significant impact on electric power output northwest power and conservation council about a year ago did an analysis of what spill meant means to the pacific northwest in terms of carbon generation and what they found is that because of the reduced power generation from spilling water in the summer months during july and august when snake revulsion occur passing the projects there's about a five point six million tonne increase in c o two production throughout the western united states in fact it has a fairly high impact on c o two production in california because the power that are being that is being generated by the snake river dams in the summer is oftentimes sold in california electric power transmission and reduces the use of thermal power plants in california so now that we're spilling water those power plants in california are running more i think the again a lady from washington and now i recognize the gentleman member of the  of some with views that are being opportunistic opportunistic instead of being realistic and those with this view are apparently trying to take advantage of a crisis situation so they can capitalize on the misfortunes of others the pacific salmon fishery closure is a tragedy it's a tragedy that will affect fishermen families residents constituents and small businesses across america there's no one here that can tell us why this stock has declined we can get theories and estimates but at the end of the day no one here really knows why there is a decline there are people who tell us that it's ocean warming and global warming that could cause if there were some who will say who have said that is the dams that have caused at least in part then there's always fishery management that could have caused this decline fisheries management occurred a number of times on the atlantic coast and mismanagement occurred a number of times along the atlantic today the closing of the pacific fisheries being used to further an agenda from the very first hearing i attended after being sworn in and one of the oversight and government reform committee i've heard allegations of politicizing science w always been convinced that the issues that were presented in the various hearings were politicizing science what we have before us today is blatant sation of the science that the searing is and i quote an oversight hearing on the west coast salmon closure entitled a perfect storm how faulty science river mismanagement and ocean conditions are impacting west coast salmon fisheries where in the testimony discussion before this committee of the pacific salmon pacific fishery salmon closure the columbia and snake river systems have come into this discussion but pacific fishery management council closed the chinook salmon fishing season along the coast of oregon to california due to the collapse of the sacramento stock no must answer a simple but essentially question this is a stock that has nothing to do with the columbia and snake river systems is that correct or not correct i look forward to your answer when i'm done with my comments there are restrictions on the fishery north of cape falcon oregon that relate to the columbia and snake river  salmon but let's be clear those runs for the most part do not even enter the colombian snake river hydro system the dams that are being discussed here that should be removed they don't go that far up the river am growing so weary of every excuse being used by some to try to advance an extreme agenda of breaching dams on the columbia river reaching the dams would be bad for the environment it would do serious to the northwest capacity to export including export of crops at a time when one billion people worldwide are malnourished or starving it would dramatically increase north west power rates and i might add to the comment from the good lady from washington idaho has the smallest footprint carbon footprint of any state in this nation because of those dams the discussion here today is turn to politics and not science the proposition that the dams be removed has been studied over and over again at taxpayer expense both under democrat and republican administration and the result was always the same it has never been recommended that the dams be removed what part of that do those advancing dam breaching today not understand from where i sit some of the testimony presented here today appears to be one more attempt to reenergize this long running damn political debate now part of the date debate presented here today by some of our witnesses have been given in the name of science but the corps of engineers as late latest estimate is that an average of ninety one to ninety eight percent of the juvenile fish survive passage of the dams  that have been suggested must be removed let's talk about the environmental issues not only have the taxpayer funded studies not supported it breaching the dams to increase salmon runs in the columbia river but in fact there are significant environmental impacts if the dams were breached significant in environmental impacts of which my constituents will bear the brunt i consider this that if those dams are breached alternative transportation would be needed to haul freight today one research services estimated that moving barge freight to truck would increase carbon emissions by sixty five thousand metric tons per year that is the science that does not factor in the safety and economy concerns about the amount of five point six million metric tons of carbon that's released just by reducing the flows over the dams today if the energy source is replaced by coal fired power plants we would essentially be trading carbon free power that makes idaho have the smallest footprint of any of the states in the nation with power coal fired power plants that would emit approximately nine million metric tons of c ask the questions first i'm now going to recognize the gentle lady from california mrs caps and then we will go back and forth and i'm also going to call on them in the order that they arrived and then we will go back to the subcommittee as well for a second round of questions i recognize mrs capps madam chairman if i may inquire so are you going to go back and forth from democrat to republican to ask questions well we have done our first round of questions with the subcommittee members so now we'd like to extend our courtesies to the guests here and they will have just the first round of questions if i were to leave the room and come back then exactly what i and i believe the definition of yes is someone who is not on either the full committee not on the committee at all normal procedure at least in my other committees is you first go to members of the subcommittee then you go to members of the full committee then you go to members who do not sit on the committee well madam chairman if i might just explain there have been mixed messages sent to this side of the aisle as far as this hearing is concerned i am the ranking member of the water and power subcommittee and i had asked for this to be a joint hearing and we were told that was not was rejected that request members on our side have received mixed signals as to whether or not they would be allowed to participate in today's hearing and it appears that members on one side of the aisle were given a clear message and members on the other side of the aisle were not given a clear message and so that is that is the basis of the basis of my concern this morning if i could answer your question everybody is welcome to the subcommittee meetings you know including the subcommittee members of course members of the overall committee and also committees and so i don't know  why you received signalized i don't know but every one of our colleagues are welcome to any of these subcommittee hearings i now recognize the gentle lady from california thank you madam chairwoman i recently met with several of my constituents who are commercial fishers out of moral we discussed long term conference of plans to help recover these three major west coast river systems and when i said we needed to do this so their kids could face the same waters off our coast they told me they don't want their kids going into this industry they said it's too hard to uncertain i couldn't believe what i was hearing because so many of them had learned how to fish from their parents it's an industry that's been passed down as you know from generation to generation instead they want to send their kids to college so they could go into a different line of business to me this is very sad because of the recent shutdown they can't afford to send their kids to college and that's why this hearing is so necessary we need to understand why these stocks are plummeting and what the impact is to our communities let me start with my first question mr mcginnis and i would like to ask it and then save some time for one if i don't want to use more than my time but i want to have a follow up question with d boyd mr mcguinness it seems to me that we are spending an awful lot of federal funds to resource them and populations but the actions by the federal government over the past decade have failed to stop or reverse that a client of listed stocks to put a finer point on it why are we spending so much on recovery and getting so little in return thank you for that question madam congresswoman be we have had some successes in restoring  these these are some progresses we are learning as we go in some of these actions one of the things that's happening right now is that we are conducting our our recovery planning exercises for listed salmon species  down the coast and a major portion of that effort is threats analysis to show what are the biggest threats to these listed species and to help us to identify which things we should be tackling first thank you and i'm sure the presence of my colleagues here who have similar communities to mine would indicate that this should have been started a long time ago and that we should be bearing some results by now for the salmon and dr williams would you care to comment are there new salmon recovery measures we should be implying that differ that exist already that differ from the previous failed action or are there projects we should plan to continue funding despite the fact that questionable result was a very good question because we are spending a lot of money on salmon recovery i believe there are areas where we need to change our methods change our approach particularly in the main stem river systems and we're looking at passage around dams and diversions essentially from streams those areas are are ones that i don't believe we have done as much as we could to recover the fish we have some very good tried and true restoration conservation organization you must have something to share with us on how we can build better and broader alliances and coalitions to aid in recovery and restoration effort that's going to take all of the partners working together is and that's exactly right and i think there are some very good examples i believe the klamath group that's now working very very mixed group of water users agricultural community conservation community fishers of various sorts those are the kinds of things that we need a north american salmon stronghold partnership that's being formed to focus on protecting the best remaining populations so i think we have a few good examples may need to move forward with those thank you very much i thank the general a d from california and now i will begin with first the that you're going to recapture know as scientific independence and integrity in this process we've seen that drawn into question now several times by the courts you congressman for the question the answer that i can give you is that we are in the process of producing our first biological opinions coming through the new  process of internal clearance or review and also the the x terminal scientific independent reviews we will have those products on the table within the next few months the columbia river  agement that will provide for the conservation of the of the species because what that group is doing is deciding how much water they can take out of out of the delta but at some point who check to decide whether that's consistent or inconsistent with the recovery of the species which is not standard that would be part of our biological opinion for the operations of the central valley project but at what point i mean sort of have people moving along deciding given what the courts have done now how can they take as much water as possible and not run afoul of the court which is going to rely on your standards so are you developing  that's different than the independent scientific analysis of what the system can stand and manage and provide for the recovery you're under you're under a mandate to provide you're there because of the second section seven conflict this is a threat an endangered species been listed  so it has been not the full run but the the other shoot up runs in the in the sacramento there would seem to me that there would be a development of independent scientific standards as was originally done and then overruled by the by the political operations organisation and then the question of whether or not that the desires to transport additional water are consistent with that or not not whether or not the standard is consistent with the desire to export the water section seven is a reactionary provision we are given a proposal by a federal agency that says this is the action we propose to take it is our responsibility to determine whether that action will jeopardize to continue to have a job where the fish is included in that process in the conservation plan process i'm sorry i didn't hear aren't sufficient desire to exploit water from the day we develop in full knowledge of what what's happening in our society and we will good answer i'm asking you whether or not you develop that absent demands that person we will recognize is another member of the full committee the gentleman from california mr costa thank you very much madam chairwoman for holding this hearing i think it's appropriate and timely  believe there are multiple factors impacting the salmon on the west coast and frankly it's an opportunity here to try to focus on the combination of factors that are in fact impacting the decline of colleague mr miller exportation of water certainly one but janice how about the factors of invasive species how about the factors and the diversions within the delta one thousand six hundred that are on screen how about the factors of urbanization growth patterns over the last two decades that has quadrupled in the sacramento kings delta area that has run off fertilizer road runoff when you compare those other factors when you look at the north coast streams that have declined as well as the napa river which has declined as well that aren't impacted by exports of of water in the sacramento kings system how do we evaluate the levels of impacts on on the river systems all of these things will be considered in that recovery plan well but we're trying to offer remedies and we're we're we're in a significant decline we've banned all fishing on the west coast  and it seems to me that as we look at interim steps and long term steps it's akin to trying to fly an airplane in terms of offering solutions in that we're only going to use one instrument on our control panel and that's the altitude of the airplane and we're going to try to fly it off the corrections without addressing the elements that i think can impact the salmon fisheries just as much i mean how do you criteria for how much an bases species is impacting the fishery how do you establish a criteria for how much the sixteen hundred diversions within the delta that have no screens that are sucking up fish are impacting the salmon  how bot the impacts of the urbanization that puts fertilizer and all sorts of things that run off into the delta what's the science that you're using to measure these things by the we are as i said we're conducting the threat assessment the science is from multiple sources it's not just not just well let me ask a question in a different way how are you working with the different agencies to develop a timeline to determine which of these biological studies will give as an indication as policymakers and we were provided one hundred seventy million dollars in relief has been noted in this package farm package yesterday but that's that's that's right to deal with the immediate impacts but we've got to look at the interim and long term solutions how as we said policymakers what are we to get this other information this other information will be before you within within this year within the share because as you know there's other impacts litigation that's being pursued and there's court decisions that are being made and the courts what this decision i think the legislature in california as well as the members of congress that are looking at this need that information as well we can't make good decisions without good scientific science i mean mr miller and i may disagree on certain aspects but i think we both agree objection so ordered now the key committee chair recognizes the next member of the full committee and that is mrs an apology from state of california thank you madam chair and  begin in september zero six due to the delays and increased cost restoration is seeking additional funding and i'd like to know if you know what does or does not support this thank you the lady has run out of time and she has asked for a written answer to that question the chair now recognizes the gentleman from oregon mr de fazio who's a member of the full committee i thank the chair for the courtesy you know i thought most immediately we were coming given the extraordinary closure to discuss sacramento stocks and their collapse and i guess we have one witness who can address that to some extent and then mention was made of the closure most almost total closure two years ago which was due to the climate stocks and we have one witness who's addressing that and you know but i came in during mr williams testimony and up first direct question to mr litchfield i am always curious why people focus on the for public to the best of my knowledge the prime spawning habitat was furthe snake and in fact is behind of the dams that don't have any fish passage the high dam so that correct that is correct this snake river politian the habitat was the interior part of the snake river basin above what's called the hells canyon complex  complex of dams operated by a dope hour so mike my question would be as i understand those dams are up for a licensing they are you aware of anyone who is contest of those licenses to try and remove the private dams that are blocking the prime spawning habitat why is all the focus on the lower dams the public dams which aren't blocking prime habitat and in fact have that passage well there is a lot of but i'm unaware of anyone who is advocating for removal of the health canyon complex i suspect it's it's it's a interesting correlation that may be spurious the salmon runs in the columbia river happen to reach a fairly rapid state of decline in the late one nine hundred sixty s and a decline through the one nine hundred seventy s that now is core highly correlated with a change in ocean conditions during that time period it happens to be also the time period where the snake river dams became operational the upper private know the lower the lower public dams the corps of engineers dams and so a lot of folks have looked at that correlation of dams went in and runs went down and said they think that's the problem when in fact as i said the indications are that it's probably much more attuned to a change in ocean survival during that period more recently know as research has evaluated the survival through the eight dams that for lower public dams for lower public dams in the columbia so the lower snake and lower columbia dams and the survival through that reach now is nearly the same maybe a little higher in some years than it was before the snake river dams were completed to the witness and you know the last previous disaster was the klamath and we have missed road your testimony addresses that issue does it not and ok so what would you think it since it's been a couple of years i don't know that we know yet what or we'll never know what happened to sacramento what did you feel was the critical factor the issue is we've done a lot of habitat work on the klamath river you probably recall that congress passed the climate fact back in the mid one nine hundred eighty s a twenty year program to restore the fisheries of the cl basin federal government spent twenty one million dollars an equal amount was contributed by the states there's been a whole host of other programs trying to improve the habitat but the one common denominator that's been lacking in all those efforts has been the fact that we haven't been able to do anything about the inadequate flows and the you know had a good flows as i understand it come for two reasons one is upstream impoundment that's diverted irrigation but also understand isn't some of the critical coldest so combined that's been the limiting biological bottleneck hard to address that water coming from the upper basin in limited supply and that's been over allocate about i think the chair i think the gentleman and i would like to make an announcement here at this point i think we have time for just a couple of quick questions we have votes we have i understand five votes on the floor probably be about an hour so we're going to have to recess the hearing but we will come back with the panel one again and i right now i'd like to recognize mr mcdermott if he has a couple of quick questions that he'd like to get in before going out to vote to congratulate commend the chairman for having this hearing this bill has been in my bill has been in for a study for four sessions of congress so this is not some gratuitous thing that we dropped in at the last minute i want to talk to dr williams and i would like the clerk to put up on the screen the slide that i put up there you said that we had a consensus in the community and i read litchfield testimony and he says that it's salmon harvest that is really the problem but if you look at this slide you can see that the first column is the column of those killed by the salmon coming into the dam the second one is the column of those going down the dam the third one is the salmon that are caught in the in river harvest and then the fourth column almost nonexistent in all these  studies is what's caught in the ocean the same pattern the only one that makes any sense at all is the middle one which is the snake river that's the only one where there's any fishing done out in the ocean that's the only place where salmon are ar and so what i what i under what i can understand is why when was the last good study done by a nine involved group what was the national academy of sciences or the g a o or somebody who didn't have a stake in this business when if we had a study like that i honestly don't know when the last independent i guess we could define independent different ways but i'm not sure when the last independent analysis was done how did those at those meetings that you described where there was ninety percent and then one hundred percent for dan rule and by the way the spokesman review has called for a study that's this paper in spokane and the idaho statesman is called for dam removal in idaho so there must be some consensus out there that's developed but it's somehow ignored by the marine fisheries or no or somebody what explain to me what's happening here ok you hit the nail right on the head relative at least to the lower snake system and there is a strong consensus i believe scientifically for the breaching of those lower four snake river dams in terms of the biggest mortality factors and the one factor that frankly we haven't adequately addressed the ocean conditions we know that they do oscillate and we know that they can be bad at times but that's the reason why we have to focus on the major mortality factors i think this whole question of the scientific complexity salmon are very fine very complex species to manage and it's so it's i employ the best available science in these biological opinions and our other management programs and that we focus on the big problems and that we put our money where it needs to go the judge has rolled out the no  opsy three times he's now got another one on his desk since may fifth what was the matter with the previous one what is it that no is not looking at that the judge is saying hey you guys you're not paying attention here i still think that the big thing in the big problem and i've got two big stacks of that may fifth biological ping on my desk i'm kind of sorting through right now but has been this this inability to really adequately address the mortality at the dams particularly the down river down river migrant a delayed mortality that occurs with some of the passage the the degree to which predators can kind of focus in on fish going over the dams or through sluice ways there's a variety of law to put that into the buy up or is it that it is so difficult or why why are they not looking at i mean it's in seattle we've always got people who want to shoot sea lions down by the locks because it's the sea lions that are causing all the problems well i mean so i would like to the wife from noah's standpoint have they not done that part of the study is it just simply avoiding the law of course i can't speak for know that but i know there are no us scientists have participated in these meetings such as i cited the idaho chapter american fisheries society essentially the biggest recognised group of fisheries professionals and during those meetings  know i said it's either been ninety to one hundred percent consensus that those dams are there are the huge problems in the one we've been avoiding how did salmon get considered incidental damage in this look and understand whether something is is jeopardizing or not and then still once they've provided a reasonable and prudent alternative oid jeopardy they still have to deal with some level of incidental taking their biological had in it if the science was correct then there would be an authorization to take the dams the bill that's before the congress in this session does not have an authorization to take the dams out it seems to me madam chair that there is no reason that can be put forward why there should not be a study if there is a if anybody on the committee can see give us a reason why and g a o should not do a study the lower snake dams i would like to hear it with the gentleman i would like to hear from the panel mr leach field may have an answer for that so what do remind the gentleman that the time is up the clock was running for about a minute and a i think i think the question was to me it's to both you and mr williams but ok so my response congressman is that millions of dollars have been spent studying dam removal on the snake river dollars were the project was managed by the us army corps of engineers and involved a great deal of public participation input from outside parties there there were detailed designs done and developed by engineers of how the projects were being moved there were economic studies conducted of what the value might be of a free flowing river in terms of recreation and boating and rafting so there was a lot of effort put into this and this was to see the one that you say is done recently i'll be happy to give you references all right i thank the gentleman again and the subcommittee stands recessed until after the vote and that should be about anywhere from forty five minutes to an hour and i had to ask the witnesses to please stay and also panel to thank you good afternoon we will now resume the hearing on the subcommittee of fisheries wildlife and oceans before we ask the questions this morning we left off with a panel one and we still had a number of members and also guests members here that would like to ask questions but first i'd like to ask unanimous consent that mr inslee the state of washington be allowed to sit with us on the diocese and participate in the hearing hearing no objection so ordered those of us that are not members of either the full committee or the subcommittee we appreciate it i want to thank the witnesses for their testimony so far today and i want to make a couple of observations first and that is that i find stunning that that the agency that is charged with carrying out the protections and really being proactive so that we don't face the crises that we have now or deal with the crises that do happen what have their their biopsied rejected by the court when i first came to congress  jan was sworn in in january ninety three i was on what was then the merchant marine and fisheries committee and no it was a blue chip agency really a blue chip agency and i i i  can't tell you what how i think that this is along with the fishing failure that there's a failure of an agency and that there are contributing factors obviously to that i don't know if the science is being twisted around or that you're not allowed to do the proper science or that political science may be brought to it but to have a court reject not one but several i think is extraordinarily instructive i represent a district that has a magnificent part of the california coast and we have many that are engaged in a  robust fishing industry there are many businesses that are attached to this certainly boats and restaurants and tourism in short it represents the livelihood of people and so what this closure this unprecedented and historic closure represents is real devastation for a lot of people and i think that you know that but i think it's worth  restating i'd like to ask mr mcguinness you stated in your testimony that the loss of all the juvenile salmon at the delta pumps was below average in two thousand and four two thousand and five and that you can't verify th degree the delta pumping rates played in the decline of the salmon in the central valley are you suggesting that the pumps and out of delta transfers are the primary reason for the in river salmon the decline in the have so many other other factors including the loss of centrally ninety to ninety five percent of the natural habitat more for central valley salmon well i just want to make a made it down the sacramento through the delta to the golden gate bridge so and there is a poster of that study here that really highlights the collapse and i think says that this is not just ocean conditions which i think i heard you it seemed to me that's what you were pointing to in your testimony and some of your perhaps some of your answers to members do a great do you disagree do you want to comment on this i  i know where i want to land i think you know where we need to land and that is you know what is contributing to all the factors that have brought about this up now and the one that you did before i mean do we have any can you give us some confidence that this is this is not going to be shot down by a court so that we can move on we will do our best  to make sure that robust for litigation as far as the science goes we have improved the amount of existing science is available and we've taken steps to correct a couple of deficiencies were many of the deficiencies were pointed out in the review that we had done reviews that we had done on the previous biological opinion including including analysis of climate change impacts and  acting ranking member mr sallie gentleman from idaho first of all i referred earlier to a report that i had the congressional research service do on the generation  want to thank you for the work that you have done to try and sort out what is a very difficult situation along the corps of engineers i guess we all have opinions my opinion is that the troubles we've had at least on the colombian the snake result  more from an activist judge who's trying to reach a certain result than it does from the work that you have done and the quality of that work and i want to publicly thank you folks for the great effort that you've put to try and get  nothing to do with the columbia and snake river systems is that correct columbia river and the columbia river stocks are generally north of that so the discussion about breaching dams on the clammy columbia and salmon river snake rivers have nothing at all to do with the closure oregon are primarily driven by the stocks that are that are that are north of the central valley those those those closures that were acquired this year were primarily driven by limits on  no project the ninety six percent of the juveniles will survive passage of those four dams on the larsen correct that's correct ninety six percent will survive and ninety eight percent of the adult salmon survive passage going back upstream to spawn correct or higher in most cases although you know it recently found that there are a number of missing adults in the area between bonnabel and mcnairy dam that we don't really understand where they're going the in past years they have been surviving that reach very well but in the last couple of years there's been some significant numbers of missing adults for the stocks which are within the restrictions are in four dams on the lower snake is that correct is that a question to me yes or so you're talking about which stock of the stocks which are north of cape falcon yes those those for the most part those stocks don't guess the final question then is really then for the species in the west coast salmon fisheries that have been closed or restricted for harvest really removal of the four lower snake dams would have no impact on those stocks is that correct that is correct and i want to ask another question that the pin appeared just seals and sea lions am i correct that they generally are responsible for about a seven percent of the pad impacts below bonneville dam are actually observed impacts the real impact is obviously much higher because we can see about one hundred fifty miles of river but they're also working and there the columbia merge there are some islands where there are large populations of caspian turns thank you man i thank the gentleman from idaho mr sallie and now mr miller from california question the science it was the use of the science or the misuse of the science the science either people put conclusions on the science or were opposed to the underlying science and found the conclusions miss mcdonald or somebody else any participation from our headquarters i guess it's quite conceivable that when we look at the system mr costas pointed out and others have a lot of previous discussions we've had that we have it we have a seriously stressed impacts and then try to develop a plan in the science that would mitigate those impacts so we can provide for the recovery of the species that's that's what you try to do that now that interest in this is seriously stressed in the size that the delta impact through the golden gate to the fisheries that's going to require some some level of sort of multitasking the solution over a period of years and that that because there aren't nobody's going to get a free pass here because it is about the recovery of the species in terms of your mission that correct and that's why you're there and under the consultation and you've been brought into this because the endangered species act and that's that's the process consultations are a creature that is project oriented recovery planning is more broad than that gives us gives us the opportunity to apply to to look at all those projects in those decision about the operation of those various parts have to be consistent with with with the science and the recovery as a dictate what your best judgment is at that time for recovery that's correct because that constitute the best information we have available for those consultations if i may answer a question that you haven't been asked regarding the timing on this we will have a public review draft of our of our that there's full participation by all stakeholders and that my concern is in the conservation plan that doesn't appear to be true it has not been true up to this point the work that we've done so far is done with the  agency scientists and university scientists did it to outline the biological portion of this now we're moving into the what do we take on first and how do we pay for it and we are inviting the that's what the public i thank the gentleman from california mr miller and now the gentleman from california as well mr costin thank you i'm sure will and i want to get back to mr mcginnis in terms  of points on the on the line of questioning that mr miller was pursuing why don't they have a conservation plan and what is required under that under the law to ensure that all the parties interested parties have an opportunity  to participate in the end but to i also want to talk about you didn't really talk in great length about the collaboration with regards to the state state department official game state water quality control board state department of water resources so hold that thought for a moment but the other three gentlemen i want to ask you this is like a private investigation going on there are a public investigation to what's causing the decline dramatic decline of salmon fisheries on the west coast and certainly every river system whether be the columbia the klamath or the sacramento kings have circumstances that are unique to those river systems having said that it just seems to me and i'd like you gentlemen to answer concisely what other factors are out there that there is a common common situation that is causing all three would add there's a fifth which is really humans so human impacts are fairly broad across the landscape and even in the ocean and when you look at common factors that are affecting these fish it varies by tributary and by stock i can give you an example this year  the columbia another doing quite well in the columbia this year while laminate rivers are doing quite poorly they're more like the sacramento ship and we don't really understand why they enter the ocean at different times they go to different places they may have encountered a group of protesters we just really don't understand yes thank you certainly this is science it is different these are all very complex questions which which just points to the fact of the importance of science in these debates climate changes it is certainly affecting all of these systems do snowpack earlier timing of runoff lower babies or that or things but it's often that you know another thing they have in common frankly is that the main stem river systems are not as well addressed not as in this good what about the i don't have to the headwaters and what about the un well in a fact that i talk about that they talk about in terms of the nutrients available up there in the ocean for the juvenile salmon that's something that you know the ocean conditions do oscillate in terms of their productivity based on upwelling in these sorts of things from north to south think that's a factor on the west coast sure i think it is a factor and i think one of the lessons we we've learned from watching the ocean conditions is the value of maintaining high a nation so the tributary conditions are quite pristine yet we see these fish continuing the to decline because they have to enter the klamath river the mainstay could you do a follow up on the written thing because my time is getting close to expire and i'd like  when we do get to the point of having a permit application submitted there will be permits for fish and wildlife service for national marine fisheries service and through the state process is well under our requirements we have to we have to before we issue a permit we will have to look at it under the national environmental policy act as well as the endangered species act and there will be public broader public participation those are state and and  part of an effort to working with my colleagues here i was in the state legislature of time there were hundreds of millions of dollars provided on the federal level and then we passed two bond measures you may be remembered in california in one thousand nine hundred six and in two thousand that i authored that it provided hundreds of millions of dollars for fishery restoration why do you believe after those efforts that took place within the last ten years to provide significant state and federal dollars we were unsuccessful  i thank the gentleman from california now i recognize mr inslee state of washington thank you i want to ask some questions about the impact of climate change on habitat are you going to read a quote and i'm actually not sure who the quote is from but i want to ask if everyone if anyone disagrees with that first exam of climate change will result in warmer waters reduce snowpack earlier spring runoff reduce summer flows more floods out and more wildfires in their watershed changes in wind patterns will ensure an impact oceanic currents and offshore conditions does anyone on the panel disagree with that statement no one's indicating they disagree with that statement so that's a remarkable degree of scientific consensus the reason i ask you that but that is  despite that fact we have this scientific consensus the two thousand and eight cumbia snake river by assumes that climate conditions in the northwest will get no worse than those experienced in the past three decades and i'm just wondering how we can base a bio on a scientific assumption that nobody here agrees with namely like it's not going to change all of the science indicates it's going to change most of it that i'm aware of suggested a negative standpoint as far as water temperatures nutrient levels caused by different upwelling patterns different reduced summer flows more floods more drought more wildfires how can we have a bio based on such a grossly false assumption does anyone want to suggest how we can have a bias like that congressman i think it's a matter of time for  the first statement i think i recognize it i think it's in an independent science advisory board review of climate change it's a very important document it came out this year and but the time frames they're talking about are fifty to one hundred  now the biological opinion that noah just adopted and provided to the courts as a ten year timeframe goes from now to two thousand and eighteen there will then be a need for a new biological opinion assuming that this one meets  so the time frame of ten years none of the scientists that i'm aware of are predicting that there will be that rapid change in snow pack runoff water temperatures in the northwest to have a significant change from what we've already seen and if you go back to the historical record we saw a very low protein productivity period from the eighty's into the mid ninety's i think that is totally ignoring what i'm experiencing in living in the state of washington you know i just can't see how you conclude other than we're not already experiencing with a high degree of probability some changes in our climactic systems including upwelling systems associated with wind and maybe you can't say it beyond a reasonable doubt but it's entirely consistent with what the models predict i've just lived through the rain incidents it reminded me of bali or something or indonesia compared to seattle seattle it you know it only rains once which is all winter and  but in the last two years we've had rain storms that are entirely consistent with the models they closed mount rainier national park for the first time and i don't know a hundred twenty years it was closed it was wiped out by these horrendous rain storms i can tell you are experiencing this change humans are and of humans are a bit you salmon are too and i just think it's remarkable that we haven't built that in to some degree in the buyout but all as i understand the bio basically just goes off on this assumption there will be any changes in the next ten years and they're already here i mean does anybody disagree that we're we're already seeing changes that have been observed that are consistent with what the models predict does anybody disagree with williams looks like you have a comment i don't disagree at all but i do have a comment i think you're exactly right i think we see a numerous places both in the freshwater rain and in the oceans climate change is already occurring we have a dead zone that's been forming off the oregon coast for the past several years years because of changes in ocean currents has nothing to do with pollution this is sort of a new phenomena of dead zones it seems to be consistent with what scientists predict on climate change  i was reading somewhere just the other day showing insects in streams that all insects emerging much earlier which is part of the change in timing from reduced snow pack earlier runoff so we're seeing these things  fact they've been occurring i think for you know for several years and the indications are they're going to get much worse so i agree completely trying to ignore or minimize these changes is going to have critical consequences for salmon  so i'd like to add i don't disagree with any of that but there's huge variability in the natural environment that affects these fish for example this year as you know in the pacific northwest we're experiencing what is predicted to be an average water year we have tremendous snow pack in the cascades so for this particular year it looks like we're going to get nearly average flows and i would expect average temperatures in the main stem columbia rivers this year so it's it's the problem is yes i think changes are occurring but how they will express themselves in the river environment where noise biological opinion applies is really the major uncertainty well i just think this is one of those pieces of the huge jigsaw puzzle of lost opportunities during the last eight years to save the planet in america from a very dangerous change i think it's very sad and as a person who has grown up with salmon as part of our culture and legacy in the pacific northwest i did this very very sad thank you i thank the gentleman from washington and i wish to thank all of the other members that were here earlier for their questions and the witnesses  the first panel for their testimony we greatly appreciated the chairwoman now would like to recognize our second panel of witnesses  and i do wish to thank the first panel for being so patient waiting for the voting to take place and so forth so thank you again very much on behalf of all of us as they are seated i will introduce them the witnesses on the second panel include miss laura anderson the local ocean seafoods mr roger thomas golden gate fishermen's association harra the commercial salmon troll fisherman mr richard poole the proles troll fishing products and mr jason peltier representing them lewis delta mendota water but i guess one thing for sure during this second panel you'll only have to face me for now i don't know maybe a little bit later thursday ladies and gentlemen is a very busy day in congress so we're going to try to have our subcommittee meetings earlier in the week from this time forward i now recognize miss anderson to testify for five minutes and i will note again i am i do watch the time you have five minutes and the read timing light will turn on and it will indicate the light in the middle is meeting you have one minute left the seafood seafood restaurant and fish market formally a wholesale fish dealer in newport oregon my business serves about ten thousand customers each month we gross about one point five million in sales last year off of local seafood i'm also the daughter of a commercial salmon fisherman i started salmon fishing with my dad when i was fourteen years old he fished with his father starting when he was eleven years old i started local ocean seafoods in two thousand two i was only thirty one years old i am what the media likes to call a new generation of entrepreneurs natural capitalist socially responsible business for those of us and thousands like a salmon means business family wage jobs cultural heritage and pride for our coastal communities as well as a delicious and healthy sustainable food source for our nation my business demonstrates this reality and there are many other examples like it along the pacific coast  throughout the nation although the restaurant just started in two thousand and five we actually started out in two thousand and two buying and selling wholesale salmon my very first year i started with a mere one hundred little over one hundred thousand dollars in sales but it was obvious that the demand was there and by the second you're my sales have grown by three hundred fifty percent by the end of my third year i was selling almost a million dollars in salmon wholesale so what started out as me driving a flatbed pickup with a few hundred pounds of fish up to seattle quickly became sourcing five eight thousand pounds a week in mainline trucking it for customers that were buried whole foods market nationwide  the world famous pike place market it had about thirty chefs in portland oregon that i was servicing as well it's just not an option to be in the wholesale business particularly in the last three years once the restaurant opened in two thousand and five it was everything we could do just to source enough fish to keep our fish market and restaurant supplied with salmon we actually captured about fifteen percent of the local harvest last year and that was just enough to keep our fish market and restaurant going so a little bit about my current business in terms of impacts to communities like mine out of my sale salmon account for a pretty large part of it about thirty seven percent of our high end dinner entrees eighteen percent of our sandwiches twenty two percent of our fish market zero percent of all our wholesale now went to consumer spends a dollar in my restaurant about a third of it goes to pay staff  employees we provide good family wage jobs and health insurance for for about thirty five people in our community we also spend about a third of that dollar pain the fishermen for the product that they brought in and of course they in turn spend these dollars our community even further what happens at the end of the day as i'm lucky if i have about six cents of that dollar left as profit that i need to expand to buy new equipment and to continue to innovate in what is a very risky business i'm concerned that salmon represent a big chunk of that six percent that i'm counting on for this year i do want to say that the losses don't stop at the bank preserving and protecting salmon for human consumption is a lot more than just the economy and it's a lot more than just a wistful environmental play or some kind of a rant romantic notion we have a valuable food economy culture and tradition in my family that spans three generations and i speak i want you to know that i speak only for myself my employees and the hundred thousand customers that we serve every year there were two hundred professionals that signed onto a letter to congress last year pleading for improved management of salmon those restaurants are all the way from here in washington d c all the way to hagan in portland oregon if you multiply the impact of my business by  just two hundred restaurant businesses that are also affected we're talking about tens of thousands of jobs and millions of consumers in addition to the fisherman that are affected by this crisis i do want to say that  in the end i think that congress should recognize that the failure to act is a huge economic and social injustice the fishermen in the coastal communities and the consumers are bearing the brunt of what my mind seems to be bargains in deals that have been made for limited water resources and we can expect that the future of the nature of water shortages in the west is going to get worse are we simply going to allow our rivers to dry up and watch our natural resources go with them i certainly hope not thank you thank you very much mr anderson in remember the full text of your statement will be entered into the record our each port and i surveyed this last week and actually talking to my members we covered the ten ports i previously mentioned and the total economic impact for the forty nine vessels is five million four hundred thirty two thousand morrow and crescent city i was unable to contact them california department of fish and game licensees record indicate their eighty five commercial passenger vessels who are properly licensed cells or want to participate in the recreational salmon fishery the percentage of lost by these vessels i'm a close range from fifty to one hundred percent of their total income this is variable due to seasons weather and assess ability to other fisheries income losses to these vessels have a dramatic effect on local economies most vessel operators have laid off their full time crew and utilize part time al many businesses located in a sport such as bait and tackle and booking jobs field locks are also greatly impacted some years our fleet carries over two hundred anglers yearly for salmon fishing the loss of these fishers will have a direct effect on all local businesses restaurant motels and so on and so forth this loss is very difficult to measure but will have loss is four hundred fifteen thousand nine hundred seventy dollars and you can see this letter tach and i would make the assumption that that figure applies to most of the other ports i was able to contact margaret becker owner of the as a part time job to help supplement her husband's income but she closes her shop because there's a lack of business when she gets that opportunity to come in my particular case personally based on two four income besides a loss of personal gross income the value of my vessel which i always considered a major part of my retirement has decreased to the salmon closure if i could even sell it this is the worst crisis a salmon fisher ever faced that is dams have been on fish the droughts of the seventy's and early ninety's the el nino of eighty two eighty three or the fish kills in recent years this is the first told a closure of seven fisheries and california and oregon history in response to all those events that were actions taken by the pacific fishery management console where fishermen gave up parts of their seasons toll road closures limit sizes a whole bunch of other things remembering that all this was caused by nature and the fisherman paid the price and have listed a whole bunch of things which you can read and i'm not going to go over as recommendations but one paragraph i really want to get in there is some  fisherman blame the problems in the delta not the ocean not the environment because throughout all these other environmental things i mentioned the fish you have survived thank you for the opportunity  thank you very much mr thomas for your testimony and now we'll go to mr jolles kalahari thank you cherilyn board all members of the subcommittee on fisheries for the opportunity to provide this testimony today on how federal management of our rivers and ocean conditions are impacting wesco salmon fisheries for the record my name is joe call arra i'm a commercial salmon trout from quill scene washington i hold salmon trolling permits from four states officials to issue and implement effective legal and scientifically sound biological opinions and recovery plans for salmon in the columbia snake climate and sacramento rivers of negativity negatively affected salmon fishermen along the west coast starting in the north the southeast alaska twelve fishery harvests you know originating alaska canada washington idaho and oregon as the blue chart over there shows salmon from the colombian  serious implications for alaskan fishermen the pacific salmon treaty harvest levels for southeast alaska are specifically regulated to meet conservation goals for endangered species act listed columbia and snake river falls  primarily snake river falls into the pacific salmon treaty in one thousand nine hundred five promised a southeast alaska troll harvest of four hundred fifty thousand chinook on an annual basis but the two thousand and eight allowable harvest six there's a one thousand million dollar loss based on nine hundred seventy six levels with this year the reason we're not harvesting one thousand million dollars worth of salmon is because somebody other than the fishermen screwed up the total lost in northwest economies from decline in the colombian snake basin has been at least fifty one point seven million dollars annually for the rest of the west coast oregon and california of course you know it's a hundred percent losses year nobody's going to go fishing down there commercially as you are aware the closure will result in two hundred ninety million dollars of economic impact loss and an estimated four thousand two hundred total jobs let me summarize a very grim picture from my industry we've lost ninety five to ninety nine percent of our industry because successive administrations have been unwilling to follow the science and the law and care about the people affected by their negligence these are staggering and sobering numbers over a commercial fisherman if you will coast wide the economic loss is estimated three hundred forty two million dollars the coast wide salmon crisis is not the mystery the administration officials claim it's not because some big monster in the ocean rose up out of the depths and eight the fish cyclic ocean conditions certainly significantly affect these fish over the years but the catastrophe i'm addressing is largely a consequence of human management primarily by federal agencies of the rivers from which the salmon come management which is the north and even suppressed science and thereby sacrificing the long term wellbeing of wild salmon fishing families and fishing communities up and down the west coast federal judges are now involved in managing the climate climates in sacramento river because the federal government which operates dams and water diversions and all three rivers has repeatedly produced illegal biological opinions that have cost nine billion dollars we've heard earlier to generate the ninety five ninety nine percent last i just summarized this performance occurred in the private sector the company responsible would have been liquidated in marriages fired a long time ago in fact this was a corporation in seattle the c e o would be asking the board if we could acquire yahoo and save the company the fishermen's of the workers in this company the american people the shareholders the natural resources of this nation are held in trust by the government for the beneficial uses of its citizens the c e o is the executive branch of the federal government including or fisheries the board the body responsible for reversing and repairing failed management when it occurs is a us congress and his executive committee on fisheries this use is this committee i speak as a show testimony and now i recognize mr richard poole thank you madam chairman my name is richard pool i'm the principal owner of pro troll fishing products we are a specialized salmon equipment manufacturer we've been in thirty in a business thirty years i'm also here representing the american sport fishing association which is the trade association of the fishing tackle industry i'm speaking today i'd like to speak for fisherman and the fishing industry i like to make some brief comments on the current salmon situation the economic impact the actions of fishermen and fishing industry are taking and then what we need to have from the first of all the california disaster we rank as one of the largest manmade economic disasters in this country it certainly ranks we rank it right alongside disasters manmade such as the exxon valdez the new england cod collapse and the l n h striped bass collapse the economic impact of this total failure of salmon in california is staggering i'll refer to some charge to that if you have the charts i'd like to talk from the charts and i'd like to start with a chart on on page ten if you have my testimony please proceed the chart on page ten starts in one thousand nine hundred and shows the total returns of salmon for and for almost a twenty year period and you can see an ascending period there in one thousand nine hundred the winter run fish declared endangered and through good management good plans good implementation by no and the fishery agencies the good project implementation you see that in two thousand and two we had an modern record of returning salmon of seven hundred eighty thousand fish to the upper sacramento river almost a parallel of that you see immediately collapse and down to almost no fish in two thousand and seven and projected none in our very few in two thousand and eight the impact of that the good news is the ascent famine fishermen were cheering the bad news the descent parallels the problems of the delta and we certainly  rank the excess pumping from the delta as there's a number of causes but in our mind that excess pumping which the court has also agreed with as the primary cause and you can see that the cause drop significantly before the two thousand and five and two thousand and six ocean disaster now if you would flip to page thirteen where i like to touch on some economics of sport fishing in california economics of sports fishing are staggering there's two point four million fisherman you can see the annual equipment spend this year's sport fisherman are two point seven billion dollars four point eight billion dollars economic impact and so on california most of the figures on this page in both boating and fishing california is the second state in the nation as far as the magnitude of these  numbers in boating in marine the impact of the fishing closure not only affects fishing and fishing equipment is having a staggering impact on the boating community there are eight hundred ninety four thousand register boats in california seventy percent of them are used for fishing that's a huge number you see the one point two billion in marine sales in two thousand and two sixteen point five billion in economic impact and three hundred thousand jobs touched by the boating and marine industry my message here is that there's huge economic we're already seeing tremendous losses i know of six tackle manufacturers that are out of business already i know of two major boat dealers out of business already boat sales from some of the major builders have dropped in half so the impact the economic impact is already taking place if you could go to chart twelve what are fishermen trying to do about this we're trying to do two things first the fishing industry in working with the agencies is trying to scope some projects and i'd say we have some scope that can bring a recovery there's no season in two thousand and eight we think it's highly improbable there will be a season in two thousand and nine there just no fish in the ocean our target is getting a season back  thousand and ten we've had some very cooperative programs with the agencies in trucking so three salmon around the delta so there won't be a lot and we're hoping to have that season from a fisherman standpoint about a year and a half ago we organized what we call water for fish or it's a website where fishermen can go and register their concern about water policies fishermen had no voice and at this point in time it's a grassroots political action you've all been receiving letters e mail letters from these you can see down at the bottom so far we have fifty six thousand people that have gone on this web site and sent letters to the california delegation the congressional allegation and so on i'm holding a book here of eight hundred pages of double sided small print fifty percent of the people that have gone on requesting action by committees like the state and everyone  talk about farmers and fishermen in conflict i should say that roger roger thomas and pool are people that we share an awful lot with and have worked with over the years and there's no question about their heartfelt sincerity and desire to be constructive in addressing and resolving problems that's where we find a lot of common ground with the fishing community because for the for beneficiaries of water projects beneficiaries the dams and the canals and the pumping plants to take and put that water to good use to grow food and serve our communities healthy fishery is also a part of our critical path unhealthy fishery leads to big problems for us and that leads to economic dislocation and so we we do have a very solid basis of common interest we have some points of disagreement also i would briefly i would just like to say i've included a national marine fisheries service scientific paper as an attachment to my testimony which identifies primarily ocean conditions as cause  here and certainly we recognize that the large pumping plants in the delta are a factor there's no question directly and indirectly in the way they change patterns of flow in the delta they are factor  we would have never seen a credible statistical analysis that says that shows us what is lost at the pumps and how that how significant of a population level effect that is in fact i have i think the important thing not to lose sight of as you heard on the columbia there's also been a tremendous tremendous amount of change in the last six fifteen years in central valley of california investment in the order of  a billion dollars plus an ecosystem improvement primarily aimed at salmon stressors two hundred million dollars easy spent on science research monitoring trying to understand how these this  last fifteen years have been reserved prioritized for fishery purposes everything from direct curtailment of pumping plants to increase flows in rivers to minimum pools and reservoirs to maintain temperatures  and about a half a billion dollars by the customers of the federal central valley project have been spent to return to improve fisheries and unfortunately we like many are disappointed in the results the delta as you've heard is undergoing many significant changes a lot of planning process because there's common recognition that the delta where the san joaquin and sacramento rivers come together before going to the ocean is under stress from a variety of factors and is not sustainable i would like to say in commenting on a couple of things that mr miller said i heard him say that the water users take as much water as they can or as possible that is true but what is possible is severely regulated by the national marine fisheries service and u s fish and wildlife service so we've got biological opinions that control i thought i thought i heard him say that permitted to take two percent of those at the export farms and recognize that the vast vast majority of them are or are lost before they even make a maturity in the ocean i would also like to comment on the  importance and need to engage the fishing community in the development of the delta conservation plan this is an open process they are quite welcome there are a lot of environmentalists that are at the table and engaged so to the extent that the fishing listening to you and i know that the members know some of them are back and they would like to be allowed to ask a few questions but first i ask unanimous consent that mr wu david will be allowed to join the subcommittee on the diocese and participate in the hearing fishers and those related to the fishing industry for your eloquent testimony today and want to ask three of you for your response one a fisherman small business owner and laura regarding the restaurant want your answers to be brief enough that we can cover all three areas everyone is affected by this commercial fisheries as as i hear you say are struggling to stay afloat some shift to other fisheries like in my area crabbing but many will have to survive on disaster aid checks in hope that the next season will be better it's difficult to shift gears as you know and have said new licenses your types and boats are needed so mr kalahari how will the salmon closure affect other fisheries what impacts  affect expect on the fishing industry as a whole madam chairwoman and congresswoman cabs i think guys will go into other fisheries most likely they will impact others if fisherman there's more competition and there's less to go around him and i hearing you say that that's correct the pacific fisheries management council is currently struggling with completing the f m p on albacore and right now we don't have an overfishing so this disaster with salmon affects every aspect of the fishing industry that's correct there's displacement into other industries thank you very much and now mr poole as you know and as  fishers aren't the only one struggling with because of the of the decimation of the salmon it has a ripple effect throughout the whole economy of the areas that have affected broke boat crews suppliers and others are hurting too and they're not getting as much attention you folks because well what little attention there is is being paid to the fishermen which i know you would have us do but let us know the ways that we could provide and should be providing relief participate in the emergency funding certainly my own business we're thirty years i have never seen more red ink than i have looked at in the last year to it we make salmon equipment if there are no salmon there's no sales so our situation a lot of other guys charter operators yep they are all terribly impacted up the sacramento river there's all of the guides that are no longer have anything to employ them so if that money can be spread somewhat that would be very helpful so the economy of the whole region the west coast region is impacted hearing you say harbors down the waivers and all along the shore and really a lot of the seas into tourism too doesn't it actually starting all the way from your area up through four but the cultural communities and the river communities and the delta communities are the ones we're going to hit the hardest along with industries like the boat industries that  all of those communities right thank you that's eloquent i want to now turn to laura richardson i was engaged by your eloquent testimony you know i have to focus on morro bay in my just because that's the most poignant for me small can fishing community i talked about earlier and one of the things that people like the best about moral being they come from far and wide is that you can still eat the catch of the day at some of the restaurants right on the waterfront it is fabulous but as much as we like to eat the fish right off the boat the opportunities for that aren't as frequent as they once were how can we continue to ensure that restaurants like yours can provide local high quality fish to cause customers reason i ask you this as well as mr poole is because we need to ensure that all stakeholders are at the table when decisions that impact stocks are made i'm sure the fishers would agree with this thank you thank you for the question certainly will be pushing marketing efforts toward under utilized species black caught i think will be a major contributor to our coastal economy this year and it's going to take some work to get consumers used to eating that in substitute for salmon in that same vein i know some restaurant tours will be sourcing salmon from alaska and from other places there's a lot of businesses like mine that that's simply not an option most high minded restaurant seafood restaurant tours wouldn't be caught with a day where the farm family and their us thought at all it would be a terrible thing but for me even buying alaskan salmon is really a challenge the name of my business is local ocean unique experience that's just irreplaceable sammon is integral to that and it's something that we will not be able to recreate without having the fishery thank you very much it was beautifully said and you have to know that you have some allies here this is a part of the american life that we are determined to see preserved thank you thank you madam i think the gentle lady from california now i recognize  guess the point of my question or statement is really directed at the former panel and i wish they were still here but some of them are in the room but members of the current panel  may have opinions on this also what i have observed during my nine or ten years now in the u s congress is a changing cavalcade of crises rotating between the major river basins the west coast the sacramento san joaquin system the climate system the columbia river system and  the explanations that we've been given just don't seem to make sense or at the explanations of fisheries policy and the closures and the water management in the river systems just don't seem to make sense when you try to focus on the data and it occurred to me as i was trying to make sense of this that what locks it into place is if you stop trying to make scientific sense of this and then just kind of realize that there is a political layer between the scientists and the regulators and that these decisions are really politicly driven and that they are driven to help those which those folks who have been helpful to the administration and hurt those folks who have not been helpful to the administration and once you look at the changing cavalcade of regulatory approaches all of a sudden then the picture kind of snaps into focus and it makes sense at least that's the way it seems to me and i would love to hear from the members of the prior panel about the intervening layer how much input the scientists have as opposed to the folks who are in the political layer  but perhaps some members of this panel have some opinions on that topic also and perhaps we could hear from some of the fishing folks before we hear from some of the agricultural folks i think when we started this and then gulfport i think the gentlemen the middle had a hand up first thank you congressman concerning high level political interference in the fisheries management west coast in two thousand and six i believe it was when the pacific fisheries management council was considering a emergency rule to provide for a fishery on robust sacramento socks and almost nonexistent climate stocks the emergency rule would have required us violating our finding us gaming goal for the klamath by five thousand fish  i witnessed the director of national arts was running around the halls with his staff complaining that the white house council on environmental quality was constantly emailing him on what topic i don't really know however it doesn't seem to me that the decision was being made locally having overheard that thank you for that very interesting point yes sir yes richard  i think you're exactly right and our conclusion a couple of years ago is that fishermen have traditionally been terribly unorganized they are organized at all and if we're going to have the political process is against us our adversaries have plenty of money they have a lot of lawyers they have a lot of lobbyists and they're after your attention daily that's why we organize this water for fish political campaign and fisherman now can go on a website they can register and we've got their e mail we can communicate with them we now have the biggest database in california of fisherman and their matter than hell and that and we've finally given them some place to go to organize politically so that we can let you folks know and hopefully make it illegal possible politically possible to move some decisions our direction thank you very much yes or i would disagree with you on both counts  on the first that nothing has happened when i look at the i didn't i didn't say nothing is happening i didn't know that cavalcade of disasters and and that there's been a set of politically driven decisions that's what i said forty percent cut backs on a pretty regular basis this year we have a fifty five percent cut back the state water project which serves southern california has a sixty five percent cutback fish driven so we have we have seen dramatic changes in addition to the billion dollars that has been spent on ecosystem improvement in the science so there have been dramatic changes on the science question i have a very different perspective  cases having been a political appointee in this administration i was amazed at the lack of political engagement on issues excuse me on the political involvement with scientific issues there was a diversion and fear in the distance and you heard mr mcguinness talk about the biological opinions were done at the field level exactly the case our frustration is not political meddling our frustration is in the system where a mid level biologist working with very uncertain information with wide degrees of opinion in the scientific community can land in a place and say this is  any questioning of that is oh you're tampering with science there's uncertainty is so dominant that we really have to live with that i think the arm waving about bending the science is ignores the fact that the uncertainty in the variability of scientific opinion is enormous well is it true that no request to the u s fish and wildlife staff be excluded from commenting on the found what they thought were problems and directed and suggested the agency take a new approach developing biological opinions one of those i think is going to be horribly destructive to the whole process and that is this notion that outside trying to trying to deal with fixing the doubt the but the court looked at it and you know you look at the language of the court and you look at the underlying actions that were taken and it's a scandal and so now we're back all over his credibility right out on the on the on the table here mr miller i would unless it was informally over a beer or something i don't think i would ever take you on on on trying to argue this issue because you are you're well prepared however i have a very different perception and perspective on this on what the public record and i agree that i have a different view of the public record what public record says and what well that's that's fine and ok that's but that's a different asset you gave deal with the changing climate change and those are things that are being remedied in the realm of new biological vein and very importantly though he let's stay on a very important part of that biological opinion which was the adapt i'm trying to run a business for the most part the organization i know we had some very minor interactions mr peltier and i have known each other for some time and we talk from time to time but deeply involved in the federal and the pacific fishery management console and now that i'm out of business this year i'll have some time to devote to this and if my association or myself was asked we would do i am deeply involved in the development of the habitat conservation plan and the fishermen would certainly be welcome we have a steering committee that is made up of water users  environmental s agencies farm bureau that meets every other friday from nine to noon about there's about eighty people in the room and that's the kind of the main body that drives the development of habitat conservation plans and we would we have a biological working group and various working groups that could benefit from the engagement of the fishing community there's no doubt about why would i would hope th peaks in the valleys it almost looks like the housing crisis and country over the last twenty years but nine hundred ninety two was really kind of the end of the drought that we had in california if you remember correctly it was a six year drought and you cited in your testimony the recovery that took place and i'll assume that your numbers are the right numbers up until ninety seven that recovery continued and then there were obviously some kind of something happening for a time period for a year and after two years where there was another decline in the rise in the fall of central valley salmon returns and then it began and some time  d ninety eight late ninety eight to increase again in terms of the returns and it continued at a rather actually a very impressive when you look at the entirety of the schedule increase that went  all the way until an extent of two thousand and two for a period of five years approximately what do you attribute that to there are several things as you can see on the chart well the declaration of the winter run as being in on the endangered list in one thousand nine hundred triggered a number of actions we give names and the fisheries a lot of credit for identifying the right projects getting infirm permits in the right places they did a good job and then there's four major projects that total accounting for about a billion dollars of temperature curtain at shasta the glenn close of fish screens the iron mountain superfund which was poisoning the upper river and the red opening the red blood stamps for major major projects along with some of that money that we provided at the state level with propositions ninety six and two generally favorable favorable in this period of time so a number of things and it kind of proved to us you get conditions right and particularly the fresh water side of things and hammond salmon can respond and will respond at the same with some changes remained relatively the same and i'm sure mr bell today will show you his chart if you're interested in looking at that if you haven't seen it it just seems to me that there are a number of contributing factors and i don't i think we need to figure out and i would urge you to participate in a habitat conservation plan my two fishermen friends friends from california because i think that would be helpful in th i don't think it does any good as blaming each other for the problems i mean we can play that game and we some of my colleagues we have played that game i try not to play that game you can blame me you can blame them you can blame the other guy but at the end of the day we're all in this together and it's seems to me that we all have interests that are compatible at the end of the day i mean i i don't want to put to deprive fishermen of the the same time i think you folks like to eat and so having a viable agricultural economy and california i think is as important let me ask mr pelz do you have any opinion on the specific fisheries this is hearing strikes me as the curious aspect of this hearing is we're not really talking about so what should we do very much and and that's why mr thomas is list of eighteen specific items is is is helpful and it is worth looking at and i and i was going to say eighteen specific actions that he suggests i'm probably there on fifteen of them three of them i have a problem or concern with or question how well it would work given the cost but i think you know this so let's repeat that for the record of the eighteen suggestions that mr thomas suggested you think that fifteen of you could agree on and implement exactly yeah well that's the kind of i wish to thank the gentleman from california there's an awful lot going on here so please excuse me i'd like now to recognize the gentle lady from california mrs kept for further questions thank you madam chairwoman and for allowing us second round of questions to be asked i want to focus my question to mr thomas you are part of the pacific fishery management council isn't it true that this council has made numerous recommendations to and to the six in my thirty years on advisory panels and thirteen and a half years as a voting consul member from california through our habitat committee we had many recommendations on the environmental issues water and all those things that affect our valuable salmon resource and we did make many recommendations and different agents on the problems that we saw  during the past few years just as you were leaving or maybe you've kept in touch with some of the preceding since you were no longer an active member does the council believe that the concerns that the council raised were adequately addressed and incorporate into biological opinions that were developed in other words do you feel like you were really a partner at any level with the decisions that were made for representing the community well i can't speak for the entire console but as a very active you were left with no recourse on the let me get specific because you have we have on the record a summary of some of the council recommendations for example the council recommending to reinstate section seven listing came about it was acted on and we had close close seasons and lots of restrictions that came out of it but they were basically all on a fisherman except what was done at the pump top of my head for this year's return but it was somewhere in a four thousand level and was just a little bit higher prior to that let me let you may have done has been successful for the want to run when they did when they invoked section seven it was successful yes let me mention about four more and then either you or mr poole might want to respond i want to find out if the council recommendations were taken seriously if they were acted upon if you felt like you were being listened timely fashion and finally to provide the council opportunity to comment on the yes for the long term operations plan these were some of the recommendations i have on record here that were made by the council to the various agencies and what i want to get from you who are on the scene on the ground in the water or involved it was there did you feel like you were being listened to was there response that you that you felt was listen to console level with their representatives  anyone else on the panel wish to do that you all right no one else all right thank you i was trying to get at the purpose of the council which is to be is to be the stakeholders making a difference and one of the reaction to see if comment stakeholder group or fisherman myself as well as all the commercial fishermen the stuff is that if the decision is going to be made locally with or in the region without any political influence coming from  someplace it seems to work very well but some of the things get changed when they get back to this venue back congress but i hear you a national level thank you thank you very much i think the young lady from california not like to recognize mr costa again for the questions thank you very much madam chairwoman i once again want to thank you as we drawled this i think the series coming to a close your time and your efforts and patients and committee staff for the hard work both minority and  majority staff and what i think as i said on the outset is timely and an important hearing i have some additional questions that i want to raise but i will submit them for the record with the ten day time period for the  on the first panel and the second panel but i do have a concluding statement and it is this and i'm going to once again refer to mr thomas's chart here on page ten this is yours  and that is that what it what this chart tells me is that we can still export water south of the delta and provide water for other important purposes in the state of california as we talk about the crisis really at the end of the question i asked you were instructing for all of us this subcommittee and i thank you for allowing me to sit in on the subcommittee that deals with fisheries and another subcommittee that i am a member of the subcommittee on water resources frankly i'd look at holding some joint hearings out in the affected areas we ought to look at coming together and figuring out how we can together look at solutions that involve the multiple factors that are impacting the decline of the fisheries on the west coast and get beyond get beyond and get over it this this sort of political realm that we're just accustomed to doing because that's the way we do things of blaming other constituencies that may not be our constituencies frankly it does no good and it doesn't solve the problems that we can solve if we sit down together like i hope our fishermen friends will take advantage  and become a part of this habitat commerce a conservation plan and meet every other friday in sacramento with the other group or wherever you're meeting to work on that i don't know and i don't pretend to have the expertise on the areas of the klamath than the columbia obviously there are there is a an effort to bring together a settlement agreement on the klamath to make up for the mistakes that were made there and i think we should acknowledge that settlement agreement just as we've done on the same working river we had a lawsuit for eighteen years on the san joaquin river and we're in the process we moved legislation last week through the u s senate senator feinstein happily build a bill out of this committee  that the entire committee last october that i carried but we've got a viable commonsense cost effective solutions that take into account all the multiple factors and all the interest groups that are a part of this we can put our heads together and maybe do something out on the west coast and continue the dialogue but do it on a constructive basis do it where we were asking folks not to point fingers at the past but how we can move forward ahead on constructive solutions that we can all agree upon will make will restore the fisheries and at the same time not put various groups at odds with one another thank you i thank the gentleman from california mr costa and i think the gentleman has made some very good points i think i truly believe in sight hearing so i think this is one way you can really learn and i also think the gentle lady from california also for being with us here today to me it's it's been a very i believe insight hearings by the way and i think  possibly taking it on with another committee overseeing would be good joint hearings these are good so i'm going to look very carefully at this and i want to see chairman of the subcommittee it's been a very informative hearing today and i thank all of you as participants i've only been the chair of this committee since january of this year so i must say after listening to all of this it really makes me wonder why it is taken so many many years and so much money has been spent on both management and science and we still seem to be in the same situation  solve these challenges it seems to me that rebuilding salmon stocks is going to require all sides to take a hit and hard decisions will have to be made decisions that i'm not sure no i has the political backing to be able to make it's going to be incumbent upon this committee to continue oversight on the issue and to continue pressing noah to lead the way in rebuilding and protecting our salmon before i close i want to say salmon happens to be my favorite food and i want to thank you all again for participating and the members of the subcommittee that may have some additional questions for the witnesses we will ask you to respond to these in writing the hearing record will be held open for ten days for these responses yes this is for the members and it's been asked that the members have an ability to submit other materials in statements for the record no objection so ordered on this and there's no further business before the subcommittee the chairwoman again thanks to members of the subcommittee and our witnesses and the subcommittee stands adjour