A6
NORTHWEST
Wallowa County Chieftain
Wednesday, July 31, 2019
Chinook salmon returns better than expected Costs of removing
Snake River dams
‘extremely uncertain’
Fishing season
for Chinook
remains closed
Ellen Morris Bishop
Wallowa County Chieftain
Matthew Weaver
Capital Press
This year, returns of Chi-
nook salmon into their natal
Northwest streams have
been dismally low. The
Oregon Department of Fish
and Wildlife canceled rec-
reational and commercial
fi shing in the lower Colum-
bia River, many coastal
streams, and in virtually all
of the Snake River and east-
ern Oregon.
But although the return
outlook remains guarded,
and the season is still
closed, more Chinook than
expected have returned to
the Lostine and Wallowa
Rivers, said Nez Perce
Fisheries biologist Ryan
Rumelhart. Along with Nez
Perce Fisheries technician
Dominic Higheagle, he has
been tagging the big fi sh
and tracking their migra-
tion up the Lostine to locate
their redds.
“There are about 300 fi sh
in the Wallowa and Lostine
Rivers now,” Rumelhart
said. “Not many are wild
fi sh. But overall the returns
here are good—better than
we expected. And the fi sh
are in good condition.
Because the fi shing sea-
son was closed downriver,
they did not have to endure
getting caught and injured,
or dealing with nets.” So
far, the Chinook have not
started to spawn. And that
has seen no pre-spawning
mortality.
The infl ux of late snow
melt also means that local
streams are running higher
SPOKANE — More
work needs to be done to
determine the cost and
impact on the region’s
power grid in the next 30
to 50 years if four dams
on the Snake River are
removed, experts say.
The Washington State
Democrats Ag and Rural
Caucus held a forum July
26 in Spokane about the
effects of possible removal
of the Ice Harbor, Lower
Monumental, Little Goose
and Lower Granite dams
on the regional power grid.
Environmental groups
have for years called for
removal of the dams, citing
their impacts on federally
protected salmon. Lately
orcas have been added to
list of impacted species.
Agriculture groups say
removing the dams won’t
have the positive effects
on fi sh the groups seek but
will hurt the power grid
and river transportation.
Ben Kujala, power plan-
ning division director for
the Northwest Power and
Conservation Council, said
he has not seen a com-
pelling study that looks
far enough into the future
at the “extremely uncer-
tain” costs of removing or
replacing the four dams.
“A lot of people point
to studies about the Lower
Snakes that are 10 years
old,” he said. “There’s no
way those studies have any
relevance to what we’re
looking at today.”
Even the value of the
dams last year doesn’t
determine what their value
will be in the next 20 years,
Ellen M Bishop
Nez Perce Tribal Fisheries technician Dominic Higheagle (right) and fi sheries biologist Ryan
Rumelhart wade down the Lostine River with radio gear in search of chinook salmon that
they tagged at the Nez Perce weir a day earlier.
and cooler than in the
last few years, Rumelhart
noted. That has also helped
the fi sh migrate more easily
and stay healthy.
Wallowa
County’s
returning Chinook salmon
usually appear in two dis-
tinct groups—one in late
July to early August and
another in late August.
Rumelhart is concerned
that this year the second
wave may not be coming.
“The fi sh just appeared sud-
denly, and the run is not
tapering off like it usually
does,” he said. “It seems as
though everybody is com-
ing upstream while condi-
tions are good, instead of
holding lower down.”
Chinook numbers in the
Lostine River had been in
a precipitous decline. In
1974, more than 140 redds
were counted in the Los-
tine. In 1995 there were
only 11. With the help of
the Nez Perce’s Chinook
supplementation program
at Looking Glass Hatchery,
which releases its smolts
into the Lostine River,
about 500 Chinook returned
to the Lostine in 2009, and
an estimated 3,000 Chinook
made it back in 2010. Last
year’s returns were some-
what lower, according to
Rumelhart.
Ocean conditions are a
major reason for last year
and this year’s region-wide
low returns of Chinook.
NOAA Fisheries data indi-
cate that deep water tem-
peratures as well as food
resources have led to poor
survival rates for juvenile
fi sh. Low stream fl ows and
high temperatures exacer-
bated these problems last
year, and in many locations
this season. Chinook num-
bers have been in precipi-
tous decline since a spike in
their numbers in 2012.
The 2019 returns may
temporarily reverse this
trend. Although the fi rst
Chinook to appear this sea-
son were relatively small –
less than 700mm or a little
more than 2 feet long—
now larger fi sh, up to 3
feet in length, are migrat-
ing upstream. But don’t get
your fi shing pole out. The
Chinook season in the Los-
tine river and elsewhere is
closed. “We actually had
a season that allowed for
catch of either three hatch-
ery fi sh or just one wild
fi sh,” Rumelhart said. “A
couple of days into the sea-
son, that one wild fi sh was
caught. And so we just shut
down fi shing right then and
there.”
T HE B OOKLOFT
AND
Skylight Gallery
Finding books is our specialty
541.426.3351 • 107 E. Main • Enterprise • www.bookloftoregon.com
Church
Directory
Church of Christ
Grace Lutheran
Church
502 W. 2nd Street • Wallowa
541-398-2509
409 West Main -Enterprise
SUNDAY WORSHIP at 9am
Worship at 11 a.m.
Mid-week
Bible Study 7 p.m.
St. Katherine’s
Catholic Church
Fr. Thomas Puduppulliparamban
301 E. Garfield Enterprise
Mass Schedule
Sundays:
St. Pius X, Wallowa - 8:00 am
St. Katherine of Siena, Enterprise 10:30am
Saturdays:
St Katherine of Siena, Enterprise 5:30pm
Weekday:
St. Katherine of Siena, Enterprise – 8:00am
(Monday – Thursday and First Friday)
Mission Project:
“Bag It for School”
School clothes for Foster Children
phone (message): 541-426-4633
web: gracelutheranenterprise.com
St. Patrick’s
Episcopal Church
100 NE 3rd St, Enterprise
NE 3rd & Main St
541-426-3439
Worship Service
Sunday 9:30am
All are welcome
CLUES ACROSS
1. “My ____ 1.Commands to
Trigger
5. Play section
8. Urge on
12. Doorway out
13. “Isn’t ____ Lovely?”
14. Fad
15. List of choices
16. Key lime ____
17. Blunders
18. Fire starter
20. Hide-and-____
21. Casual shoe
24. Derby or cap
26. Hole punch
27. Tire input
29. Plunders
33. Faced
34. Growl
36. ____ you kidding?
37. Love deeply
39. Sunday seat
40. Small number
41. Provoke
43. Diminish
45. Paper holder
48. Vexed
50. Circle
51. Hint
52. Tennis shots
56. Poker term
57. Tee preceder
58. Meadow bird
59. Interpret writing
60. Envision
61. Command to a dog
CLUES DOWN
1. Dress bottom
2. Lumberjack’s implement
3. Come in first
4. Cram
5. Pain reliever
6. Lower jaw
7. Molars, e.g.
8. Immediately
9. Not fully cooked
10. Folklore giant
11. Roll-top, for one
19. Renter
21. Tibetan holy man
22. Had obligations to
23. Female voice
25. Wrong
28. Hip-hopper’s music
30. Dunces
31. Maple or cedar
32. Machine-stitched
35. Fall back
38. Tore
42. Wind toys
44. Retails
45. Blacken
46. The ____ Ranger
47. Little bit
49. Stand up
53. Cereal type
54. Swimsuit piece
55. Cloud’s locale
Joseph United
Methodist Church
Summit Church
3rd & Lake St. • Joseph
Pastor Cherie Dearth
Phone: 541-432-3102
Sunday Worship Service
10:00 am
Gospel Centered Community
Service time: 10:30 am
Cloverleaf Hall in Enterprise
541-426-2150
Interim Pastor: Rich Hagenbaugh
included in a draft envi-
ronmental impact state-
ment, slated to be released
in February, said Rob
Petty, power forecast-
ing and planning manager
at the Bonneville Power
Administration. Costs will
become clearer then, he
said.
The agencies today are
not necessarily studying
the dams’ impacts on the
rest of the western power
grid, Kujala said.
Five states, including
California and Washing-
ton, are moving into 100%
“clean” energy, not using
natural gas.
California is slated to
remove 45% of its natu-
ral gas power generation
by 2045, Kujala said. Bon-
neville Power Adminis-
tration buys power from
California.
“They don’t know if
they’re going to pay $10
or $1,500 for that power,”
he said. “That’s a really
big range of ‘What does it
cost to replace something
like the lower Snake River
dams?’”
Removing the dams
would require more gener-
ation elsewhere on the grid.
“That replacement is
more than likely going to
come from thermal plants,
unless you do something
very intentional to make
sure it’s not,” he said.
“That means you’re going
to have more greenhouse
gas emissions in the West-
ern grid from removal.”
It’s possible to remove
the dams and reduce green-
house
gas
emissions,
Kujala said, but it would
require a different approach
and be more expensive.
“I think this would be
a discouraging conversa-
tion to anyone who says,
‘We’ve got to take the
dams out,’” said caucus
chairman Don Schwerin.
The caucus is willing to
consider dam removal for
political, biological or eco-
nomic reasons, but wants
to be sure mitigations are
in place before it happens,
Schwerin said.
Schwerin said some
advocates of keeping the
dams have protested even
discussing their removal.
“It’s irresponsible for
this region not to talk about
this, it’s irresponsible to
assume that we have some
political super-armor that’s
going to insulate us,” he
said. “We have to look at
these questions and try to
anticipate what would hap-
pen and get that resolved.”
The caucus previously
discussed the impact of
dam removal on fi sh pas-
sage in April.
The caucus will next
discuss the impacts of
removing the dams on
barge and rail transporta-
tion. The meeting has not
been scheduled. Schwerin
said he hopes to hold it in
the Colfax, Wash., area.
JosephUMC.org
www.summitchurchoregon.org
Time for a Computer Tuneup?
Enterprise
Christian Church
Christ Covenant
Church
Spyware Removal • 541-426-0108
113 E. Main St., Enterprise
85035 Joseph Hwy • (541) 426-3449
Pastor Terry Tollefson
Church Office: 541-263-0505
Worship at 9 a.m.
Sunday School at 10:30 a.m.
Evening Worship at 6 p.m.
(nursery at A.M. services)
Family Prayer: 9:30 am
Worship Service: 10:00 am
“Loving God & One Another”
David Bruce, Sr. - Minister
723 College Street
Lostine
Lostine
Presbyterian Church
Enterprise Community
Congregational Church
Discussion Group 9:30 AM
Worship Service 11:00 AM
The Big Brown Church
Childrens program during service
Blog: dancingforth.blogspot.com
541.398.0597
Hwy 82, Lostine
Stephen Kliewer, Minister
Wallowa
Assembly
of God
702 West Hwy 82
Wallowa, Oregon
541-886-8445
Sunday School • 9:am
Worship Service • 10:am
Pastor Tim Barton
Visit Us on
with an open door
Pastor Archie Hook
Sunday Worship 11am
Bible Study 9:30am
Ark Angels Children’s Program
Ages 4-6th grade, 11am
Nursery for children 3 & under
301 NE First St. • Enterprise, OR
Summer
Clearance!
25% OFF
Select
Summer
Clothing,
Shoes &
Accessories!
Find us on Facebook! 541.426.3044
Seventh-Day Adventist
Church & School
Stop by today
305 Wagner (near the Cemetery)
P.O. Box N. Enterprise, OR 97828
541-426-3751 Church
541-426-8339 School
Worship Services
Sabbath School 9:30 - 10:45 a.m.
Worship Hour 11:00 a.m. - Noon
Pastor Jonathan DeWeber
Uptown Clothing & Accessories
in Downtown Joseph
12 S. Main St. • 541-432-9653