Yankee Fork reconstruction channel.
By ROSELYNN YAZZIE
Sho-Ban News
FORT HALL — The Columbia Basin Fish Accords have been extended for up to four more years with the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA), Shoshone-Bannock Tribes, Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation, the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation, the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs Reservation of Oregon, the states of Idaho and Montana, and Corps of Reclamation.
The agreement means states, tribes, and federal agencies will continue working side by side for the good of endangered salmon and steelhead.
The original 2008 agreement was for a 10-year term and a commitment of $61 million funding for the tribes to fund Fish & Wildlife projects. In return the tribes under the agreement would commit to an adaptive management program, an agreement that they would do a bunch of adaptive management projects at dams to improve fish survival. It was supposed to end on September 30, but it will now end in 2022 and set aside a total of $400 million for fish and wildlife mitigation and protection.
The Shoshone-Bannock Tribes BPA funded projects under the agreement were the Southern Idaho Wildlife Mitigation, Snake River Sockeye Research, Crystal Springs Hatchery, Fort Hall Stream Restoration, Administration Program, Tribal Supplementation, Salmon River Habitat Enhancement, Yankee Fork Floodplain Restoration, Nutrient Enhancement, ESA Habitat, Survival and Migration of Natural Origin Chinook and the Idaho Supplementation Project.
Chinook Salmon swimming.
Fish & Wildlife Director, Chad Colter, said most of these are ongoing projects because they’ve been involved with BPA since the mid 80s.
Over the next five years they will probably continue to work on another five or six projects identified under the tributary assessment.
“We’re mitigating for fish & wildlife from impacts caused by the federal Columbia River power system, by those eight dams; four on the Snake and four on the Columbia,” said Colter.
He said what the extension will do is ensure that they continue to have the funding they need to continue their projects on their 11 BPA funded projects including the Crystal Springs hatchery on the north end of the American Falls Reservoir.
They are not only funded under the BPA, but also the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, NOAA Fisheries, BIA, General Fund, Bureau of Land Management, Revenues, Bureau of Reclamation, Forest Service, Department of Energy and USDA.
According to a press release by BPA, “Since 2008, Accord dollars have: protected more than 36,000 acres of riparian habitat and improved nearly 7,000 acres; protected nearly 100,000 acre-feet of water; restored nearly 600 miles of streams and tributaries; opened access to nearly 2,000 miles of blocked fish habitat; and improved Pacific lamprey passage at dams operated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The agreements also committed funding for hatcheries.”