Washougal’s elected officials and school district leaders are presenting a united front against the increase of crude oil train traffic through the small city.
This week, both the city council and the school board adopted resolutions expressing grave concerns about the potential for spills, explosions and other major threats to safety through the Columbia River Gorge. The statements come the month before the state Department of Ecology is set to finish a study on whether crude oil can be safely transferred by rail throughout Washington.
The oil-by-rail facility proposed for the Port of Vancouver would be the largest oil terminal in the country, handling a daily average of 360,000 barrels of crude oil, the equivalent of four trains. Few sites throughout the state act as stopping points for oil trains, and Vancouver Energy, a partnership between Tesoro Corp. and Savage Companies, is behind the plan. The site would serve as a transloading terminal to move crude oil from the railway to the ships in the Columbia River.
The proposal remains under review from the state’s Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council. After Vancouver, Washougal becomes the second city in Clark County to take an official stance against the terminal. Washougal also became the first local school district to do the same.
Washougal has already experienced an influx of oil train traffic as oil-by-rail shipping has significantly picked up in recent years.
Ultimately, the Washougal City Council’s resolution gives the go-ahead for the city’s attorney to intervene in the state’s site evaluation process for the proposed terminal. It also states a number of concerns about traffic impact mitigation, and the need for an incident response plan and greater training and equipment for oil train emergencies.
The council’s resolution passed with unanimous support at a sparsely attended meeting. Mayor Sean Guard and councilors Joyce Lindsay and Connie Jo Freeman were absent. Jennifer McDaniel excused herself out of concern for a potential conflict of interest, considering that her husband has ties to the railroad.
Meanwhile, the Washougal School District urged Gov. Jay Inslee to stop oil-by-rail traffic throughout the state until the Department of Ecology has finished its safety study. The district also asked Congress and the Legislature to establish regulations that would provide more transparency for the contents of oil trains and the frequency and duration of their trips through the area.
SOURCE USDA – Natural Resources Conservation Service
DAVIS, Calif., Feb. 12, 2015 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — The USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) in California is again partnering with California’s tribal nations to make financial assistance available to help tribal farmers, ranchers and non-industrial private forest operators put additional conservation on the ground.
The Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) Tribal Initiative provides financial and technical assistance to Tribes and tribal producers who voluntarily agree to NRCS guidelines for installation of approved conservation practices that address program priorities related to addressing soil, water, air quality, domestic livestock, wildlife habitat, surface and groundwater conservation, energy conservation, and related natural resource concerns.
While applications are taken continuously throughout the year, eligible farmers and ranchers are encouraged to submit their applications as soon as possible. Applications will be screened and ranked in four batching periods (February 20, April 17, June 19 and July 17).
Eligible applications will be considered based on the following priorities:
Five landscape resource priorities are aimed at improving and managing forest health and reducing wildfire threats, as well as rangeland health and water quality. The five priorities areas are:
Northern Coastal Tribal Forestland in Del Norte, Humboldt, Lake, Mendocino, western Shasta, western Siskiyou, Sonoma and Trinity
Northern Coastal Tribal Rangeland in Alameda, Contra Costa, Del Norte, Humboldt, Lake, Marin, Mendocino, Monterey, Napa, San Benito, San Luis Obispo, San Mateo, Santa Barbara, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, western Shasta, western Siskiyou, Solano, Sonoma and Trinity counties
Inter Mountain/Central Sierra Forestland in Amador, Butte, Calaveras, El Dorado, Fresno, Lassen, Madera, Mariposa, Modoc, Nevada, Placer, Plumas, eastern Shasta, Sierra, eastern Siskiyou, Tulare and Tuolumne Counties.
Inter Mountain/Central Sierra Rangeland in Amador, Butte, Calaveras, El Dorado, Fresno, Kings, Lassen, Madera, Mariposa, Modoc, Nevada, Placer, Plumas, eastern Shasta, Sierra, eastern Siskiyou, Tulare and Tuolumne Counties.
South Coast and Desert Tribal Forests and Rangeland in Imperial, Inyo, Kern, Mono, Riverside, San Bernardino and San Diego counties.
Two statewide resource priorities are aimed at reducing soil erosion, improving irrigation water efficiency, water quality, restoring and managing native plants for traditional Native American food and fiber production. The two statewide priorities are:
Statewide Tribal Poly-farms: small, biologically diverse farms and medium size agricultural operations for subsistence, intra-tribal and external commerce.
Native Plants Restoration: culturally important tribal plants for food and fiber.
There are 109 federally recognized American Indian tribes in California. There are at least 69 non-federally recognized tribes in California petitioning for federal recognition. The federally recognized tribes have jurisdiction over 635,739 acres of Tribal trust land in California.
NRCS has provided leadership in a partnership effort to help America’s private land owners and managers conserve their soil, water and other natural resources since 1935. For more information on NRCS, visit www.nrcs.usda.gov.
Treaty Indian Tribes in western Washington released more than 40 million hatchery salmon in 2014 according to recently compiled statistics.
Of the 40 million salmon released, 13.7 million were chinook. Significant numbers of chum (16.9 million) and coho (8.6 million) were also released in addition to 658,00 steelhead and 456,000 sockeye. Some of the salmon released by the tribes were produced in cooperation with the state Department of Fish and Wildlife, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, state regional enhancement groups, or other sport or community groups.
Nearly all of the chinook and coho salmon produced at tribal hatcheries were “mass marked” by removal of the adipose fin — a fleshy extremity just behind the dorsal fin on the fish’s back. Clipping the fin makes for easy identification when the hatchery fish return as adults and are harvested. Many of the fish also received a tiny coded wire tag that identifies their hatchery of origin and is used to determine migration patterns, contribution rates to various fisheries and other information important to fisheries management.
You can view the data behind these salmon releases in the map below. By clicking on each circle, you can view more detailed release data:
SEATTLE (AP) — A lawsuit that accuses the federal Environmental Protection Agency from failing to protect Washington and Oregon oysters from ocean acidification is scheduled for a hearing Thursday in Seattle.
The agency is being sued by the Center for Biological Diversity, a nonprofit organization that works to protect endangered species and habitat.
The center is challenging an EPA decision three years ago that said Washington and Oregon sea water meets water-quality standards meant to protect marine life.
A Quinault Indian Nation fishing boat comes in to unload its catch in Grays Harbor, not far from the locations of three proposed oil train-to-ship facilities. Ashley Ahearn/KUOW
HOQUIAM, Wash. — Grays Harbor, with its deep-water berths and fast access to Pacific Ocean shipping routes, has all the ingredients to be a world-class port.
In some respects, it already is. The Port of Grays Harbor once bustled with shipments of lumber from nearby forests. Next came cars, grains and biofuel. Now, local leaders are warming up to the idea of adding crude oil to the mix.
Roughly 3 billion gallons of crude move from the Bakken oil fields of North Dakota into Washington state by rail each year. As oil companies look for the fastest and most cost-effective way to get their product to West Coast refineries, proposals for new oil facilities are popping up around the region.
Washington has five refineries. Four are already receiving oil by rail and the fifth is seeking a permit to do so as well. There are six proposed train-to-ship oil facilities in Washington and two operating on the Oregon side of the Columbia River.
Three of those facilities could be built in Grays Harbor. That could mean more than 700 ships and barges arriving and departing each year and eight oil trains, empty and full, traveling through Grays Harbor County each day.
The proposed facilities present the community with some hard questions about economic growth, environmental risk and quality of life.
Oil On The Move
Forty-five permanent jobs would be created at the proposed Imperium and Westway terminals, with 103 estimated jobs in rail and marine operations, according to a report from the terminal companies. Information on the potential job creation for the third, and largest, of the proposed terminals is not yet available. That terminal is backed by US Development Group. It is in the discussion phase, according to the State Department of Ecology.
“These are projects that will provide jobs and economic development and tax revenue for Grays Harbor,” said Paul Queary, spokesman for Westway and Imperium. “They will help support the existing refinery jobs elsewhere in Washington and they will bring domestically produced oil to U.S. refineries and help maintain and increase U.S. energy independence.”
Imperium and Westway plan to move North Dakota crude on to refineries on the West Coast. U.S. law prohibits the export of domestically-produced crude oil. However, there’s no such restriction on exporting crude brought in from Canada. Canadian crude is already moving through the region and more could travel through new terminals in the future.
Canadian oil producers are eager to find ways to ship their product beyond North America, suggests Tom Kluza, global head of energy analysis for Oil Price Information Service.
“Really the biggest losers in the oil price slide have been the Canadians,” he said. “They are compromised by their inability to move that to any customers beyond the U.S.”
Despite the recent drop in oil prices, Kluza said the development of infrastructure needed to serve the oil boom in the North American interior — ports, rail capacity and pipelines — is lagging behind the rate of oil production. Canadian and U.S. oil producers need access to refineries and terminals in the Northwest, and the regional refineries need access to their product, particularly as output from Alaskan oil fields continues to decline.
“Whether [the Northwest is] the most hospitable is going to depend on the way the local communities and regulators look at the environmental consequences,” he said.
‘What’s a culture worth?’
Thousands of Dungeness crabs rustle and clack as they’re unloaded from the holds of fishing vessels at the Quinault Indian Nation’s docks in Westport, at the mouth of Grays Harbor.
Dungeness crab being unloaded at the Quinault Indian Nation docks in Westport, Washington. Almost a quarter of the tribe is employed in the fishing industry. Ashley Ahearn/KUOW
The Quinault reservation lies just north of Grays Harbor. Tribal members harvest crab and razor clams along the coast and catch salmon in the ocean and the Chehalis and Humptulips rivers. The tribe opposes the oil terminals. It says an oil spill from a ship or train could close shellfish beds or decimate fish populations. Almost a quarter of the tribe’s 2,900 members are employed in the fishing industry. Ed Johnstone, fishery policy spokesman for the tribe, says the value of that fishery to the Quinault is impossible to quantify.
“What’s a culture worth? What’s a history and tradition worth?” he asked. “You can’t put a number on it.”
The Quinault tribe says its treaty-protected fishing rights are threatened by the risk of an oil spill. Its leaders say they’ll take legal action if necessary to protect the tribe’s fishery.
Fawn Sharp, president of the Quinault Indian Nation, says her tribe’s opposition isn’t just about the threat of an oil spill. The global burning of fossil fuels threatens the Quinault’s way of life, she said. Rising sea levels have forced the tribe to move part of its community inland. Last year the ocean broke through and flooded the lower village. The Olympic Mountain’ Anderson Glacier, which feeds the Quinault River, has almost disappeared.
A 1936 photo of Anderson Glacier, which feeds the Quinault River. Asahel Curtis
Anderson glacier in 2004. “Our glacier’s gone,” said Fawn Sharp, president of Quinault Nation. Matt Hoffman / Portland State University
“Each area and each region has, I believe, a sacred trust and a sacred duty,” Sharp said, standing beside tribal crabbers as they unloaded their catch. “When you are an elected official you need to make decisions that are based not only on the economics of a decision but the science, the culture, the history.”
Fawn Sharp, president of the Quinault Indian Nation, stands on the docks as tribal crabbers unload their catch. The tribe has vowed to fight the oil train-to-ship terminals proposed for Grays Harbor. Ashley Ahearn/KUOW
The Quinault and other area tribes have often been at odds with non-tribal fishermen. But the non-tribal fishing industry, which employs more than 1,000 people in the area, has joined the tribes in opposing the oil terminals.
‘If I hear one more time that this place has great potential, I’m going to puke’
The population of Grays Harbor County hovers around 70,000. Its working-class economy was built on the timber and fishing industries. But today the unemployment rate is higher than the national average. The percentage of residents with a college education lags below the state average.
More than 200 people lost their jobs when Harbor Paper in Hoquiam, Washington shut down in 2014. Ashley Ahearn / KUOW
Al Carter has spent his entire life in Grays Harbor, working in the timber and manufacturing industries and serving as a county commissioner for eight years. He calls himself “an infrastructure guy” – always pushing for the things that make a community appealing to business development and economic growth.
“Sewer, water, roads, bridges, railroads, public safety, public transportation,” Carter counts out on his fingers. “Those are the things that make a community grow and if you build those things, then people will come to those places.”
Carter says it’s been a bumpy ride since the timber and paper industry here crashed. A few years ago the Port of Grays Harbor was courted by the coal industry to build an export terminal.
“If I hear one more time that this place has great potential, I’m going to puke,” Carter said, chuckling. “A new group of people come to town every year with a good idea, like, ‘Here’s what we should do!’ and my eyes roll back in my head. It’s like, ‘yeah, OK. Here’s your bucket and your shovel.’”
Carter’s not anti-oil or fossil fuels. He’s concerned about what hundreds of oil trains and ships each year will do to the identity of his community and its potential for future development.
“That much oil, all we’re going to be is an oil terminal. They’re going to dominate our landscape,” Carter said. “Nothing else is going to come here. Nobody else is going to want to come here. There won’t be any room for anything else.”
OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA — On Saturday, February 7, eight thousand Californians marched in the largest anti-fracking demonstration in US history. The “March for Real Climate Leadership” was held in downtown Oakland, Gov. Jerry Brown’s home city, in order to focus on the need for Brown to end fracking.”We’re here, marching in Jerry Brown’s hometown, to let him know climate leaders don’t frack,” said Linda Caputo, fracking coordinator for 350.org, an international organization that fights climate change.
The marchers assembled in front of City Hall in downtown Oakland, then traveled nearly two miles to the Lake Merritt Amphitheater where a rally was held. Various marchers held signs proclaiming “Idle No More,” “Our Oceans Are Rising, so we Rise Up,” ” No Keystone Pipeline,” “Save the Delta,” “Save Mother Earth,” among many others.
DESPITE RAIN AND WIND, THE MARCH WOUND ITS WAY THROUGH DOWNTOWN OAKLAND WHILE NATIVE WOMEN SANG THE “WOMEN’S WARRIOR SONG.”
Pacific Islanders sang traditional songs, along with many marchers drumming, singing, and sending a peaceful yet powerful message to Gov. Jerry Brown.
The march was organized by a large coalition of environmental organizations composed of the Indigenous Block to end fracking that included SF Idle No More, led by Pennie Opal Plant, Marshall Islanders, various California tribes, including Ohlone leader, Corrina Gould, Los Angeles Chapter of AIM, AIM West of Northern California, and many Native Americans from the Bay Area and other parts of California. The Indigenous Block led the march. Other organizations included labor unions, local environment justice groups such as 350.org ,Food and Water Watch, national NGO’s, various health activists, community activists, students, and those committed to protecting water and air for generations to come.
“Fracking is hurting our communities. It is sucking our drought ridden state of precious water resources, contaminating our groundwater in a region where 25% of the nation’s food is grown, and contributing to the impending climate crisis. Oil companies have made Californians feel powerless and silenced, because our governor is only listening to their money,” UC Berkeley student Eva Malis said.
Photo Credit: Charles Lopez
Contingents of marchers traveled from San Diego, Los Angeles, Fresno, and the central coast of California. The rally at Lake Merritt amphitheater began with a traditional Pacific Island chant, then a prayer by Bay area Marshall Island community leader Abon-Burch. Fuifuilupe Niumeitolu then introduced a group of Marshall Island youth who sang traditional songs about water and love for their Moana. Dianne Thomas, a community organizer from Carson, California reported that in 2011 Occidental Oil Company wanted to re-open old oil wells and build 200 new wells over a period of ten years.
“As a community, we continued to organize and fight Occidental Oil, even though we only had the support of one council member in our favor. The draft EIR report never got out of the response phase, and eventually Occidental Oil pulled out of Carson. When we all work together, we can prevail,” said Thomas.
On Monday, February 8, organizers of the anti-fracking march and rally will present Gov. Jerry Brown with 200,000 signatures demanding an end to fracking throughout California.
It’s the end of an era for Upper Skagit tribal fishermen as the last full return of hatchery steelhead arrives in the Skagit River this winter.
“Our ancestors gave up everything so that we could continue to fish in our traditional areas,” said Scott Schuyler, natural resources director for the Upper Skagit Tribe. “Without hatchery production, we can’t have a meaningful fishery.”
The last full steelhead fishery is especially bittersweet for Schuyler, whose 14-year-old daughter just received her first tribal fishing card. “Maybe she’ll be able to have one day of fishing a year,” he said. “That’s not a meaningful fishery.”
Steelhead are a culturally important species that the Upper Skagit Tribe harvests for commercial, ceremonial and subsistence purposes. Historically, steelhead were available during the long winter months when other species were not available to feed tribal families.
Hatchery programs have been a part of fisheries management in Washington for more than 100 years, making up for lost natural production as a result of degraded and destroyed habitat. Guided by science, hatchery management in western Washington is carefully managed to protect the genetic health of wild fish. In the Skagit River, hatchery programs also provide mitigation for the ongoing effects of hydroelectric plants.
Last spring, the Wild Fish Conservancy sued the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) over hatchery winter steelhead programs that used Chambers Creek broodstock.
“Hatcheries are under attack,” Schuyler said. “Taking away hatchery programs leaves tribes under certain circumstances with a severely diminished or no opportunity.”
The Upper Skagit Tribe, along with the Lummi Nation and Tulalip and Stillaguamish tribes, released a statement at the time of the lawsuit saying that the Wild Fish Conservancy “erroneously concluded that hatchery production, rather than the loss of habitat, is responsible for the depressed state of the Puget Sound Steelhead populations.”
However, WDFW settled the lawsuit, agreeing to halt the release of Chambers Creek hatchery steelhead in all Puget Sound rivers but one, until the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration approves each program. The settlement also put a 12-year moratorium of steelhead hatchery releases in the Skagit River.
This year will be the Upper Skagit Tribe’s last full season fishing for hatchery steelhead, with returns reduced starting next year, and gone by 2017.
Members of the Lummi Nation protested the proposed coal export terminal at Cherry Point on Sept. 21, 2012, by burning a large check stamped “Non-Negotiable.” On Tuesday, Feb. 3, 2015, Lummi Chairman Tim Ballew reiterated that stance, saying the tribe’s treaty rights were “not for sale” and the tribe would not negotiate with the company proposing the terminal. PHILIP A. DWYER — THE BELLINGHAM HERALD
Lummi Nation sent another clear message about a proposed coal terminal on Tuesday, Feb. 3: Under no terms will it accept Gateway Pacific Terminal at Cherry Point, an area near the Lummi Reservation with cultural and economic value to the tribe.
“I can assure you that we have carefully considered the impacts associated with this project and have concluded that these impacts simply cannot be avoided, minimized, or mitigated,” Ballew wrote in his response to Skip Sahlin, vice president of project development for Pacific International Terminals, an SSA Marine subsidiary created to develop Gateway Pacific Terminal.
“While we appreciate your desire to engage on these issues, we remain steadfastly opposed to this project and do not see the utility in pursuing any further discussion,” Ballew added.
Officials at SSA Marine had no comment.
Ballew sent a letter Jan. 5 on behalf of the Lummi Indian Business Council to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, asking the agency to immediately reject a permit for the coal terminal because it would interfere with the tribe’s fishing grounds. The tribe has a right granted by an 1855 treaty to fish in its customary areas, which include Cherry Point and the shipping lanes that would see more traffic with the opening of Gateway Pacific Terminal.
Plans indicate the terminal could open as early as 2019 and would export up to 48 million metric tons of coal a year overseas.
Corps spokeswoman Patricia Graesser said the agency would give an initial response to the Lummis’ request on Wednesday, Feb. 4, but it wouldn’t be a decision on whether to reject the permit.
As determined in past court cases about disruptions to tribal fishing areas, the Corps needs to decide whether Gateway Pacific Terminal would have impacts that were more than negligible. Lummi Nation in its request to the Corps cites a vessel traffic study, which concluded that the traffic added by the terminal’s operation would increase by 73 percent the disruption of Lummi fishing by vessels.
In reaching out to the Lummis on Friday, Jan. 30, Sahlin mentioned the politics around the coal terminal decision, “and the pressure from many divergent interests to sway decision making.”
SSA Marine officials have accused terminal opponents of getting the facts wrong. Sahlin said in his letter that more productive discussions would result if SSA Marine and Lummi Nation met face to face, as they have previously.
“We would welcome the opportunity to a return to such a fact-based interaction,” Sahlin wrote.
“Negotiation between Lummi and Pacific International Terminals is not an option,” Ballew said in a prepared statement. “Our treaty rights are non-negotiable and not for sale.”
In an interview, Ballew said the Corps in consultations with the tribe could reach a decision on the Lummi request in months rather than years. Graesser said in an email to The Bellingham Herald the Corps’ decision does not have a deadline.
The Corps will continue to draft an environmental impact statement for the terminal, a step that comes before permit approvals.
“I’m of the opinion that this government-to-government consultation (between the Corps and the tribe) puts the EIS process on the back burner,” Ballew said, “and their attention now should be on … making a decision based on the information that we’ve given them.”
Read more here: http://www.bellinghamherald.com/2015/02/03/4113940_lummi-nation-rejects-coal-terminal.html?rh=1#storylink=cpy
Washington state biologists interested in tribal experiment with electronic technology
Pete Wilson, Quinault Indian Nation fisherman, demonstrates how crab pots are scanned using a sensor embedded in the pot float. DEBORAH L. PRESTON PHOTO
OLYMPIC PENINSULA — Many eyes have been on the Quinault Indian Nation as it tests technology that could help dramatically improve rule enforcement in Washington’s $62 million commercial crab fishery.
Three Quinault fishermen have been using an electronic crab pot monitoring system to track gear use. This entails placing quarter-coin-sized radio frequency tags in their crab pot buoys over the summer and since November. As the pots were pulled aboard, they scanned the buoys in front of a sensor: “Basically like you’re scanning groceries at the store,” said Quinault fisherman Pete Wilson, who was one of the three participants in the pilot program. The sensor transmitted the identification number and the GPS location to a computer.
With every pot registered to only one owner, fishery managers hope this will be a simple way to track boat activity and gear use.
“It would solve some pretty significant issues we face in the crab fishery,” said Dan Ayres, coastal shellfish lead biologist with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife.
As things stand currently, both tribal and non-tribal commercial crab fishermen looking to cheat the system and steal gear and crab can, for the most part, get away with it. Fishermen work at night and “guys that have no scruples come along and fish other guys’ gear,” Ayres said. “Unless someone is right there in the middle of the night and knows what’s going on, it’s almost impossible for us to make a case. …Because fishermen know we can’t do anything about it, they don’t necessarily report [incidents] to us.”
WDFW enforcement officers will hear about stolen gear from time to time, but the traps are in the ocean and the ocean is never still. Besides, whales tangle in pots, debris snags them, storms move them.
The Quinault Indian Nation is working with the non-profit EcoTrust Canada to process the data it collected. The pilot program ended in January. No final report or numbers have been made public yet though Joe Schumacker, QIN marine scientist, expects a report in March.
“If it works well, we’re hoping to have it on all fishing boats in the future and would love to see it used by the non-tribal fishermen as well,” Schumacker in an article in the Winter 2014/15 Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission News.
In an phone interview, he said it is something he has been pushing for the last decade. It is something fisheries in British Columbia have utilized and recently the idea seems to be gaining traction in the states, Schumacker said.
“I don’t think it’s all the way there,” Wilson said about the equipment in a phone interview Feb. 3. But he thinks it’s close.
“I’d say 90 percent of our guys are probably going to want this implemented,” he said. “There are one or two who’d probably prefer that it would not, for their own personal reasons.”
But he and the others don’t have anything to hide.
“I think it can only help,” he said.
Cost downside
For fishery managers like WDFW, the technology would mean wading through massive amounts of data, something they don’t currently have the staff for, Ayres said. And there is a daunting cost to fishermen.
“If it wasn’t slightly over $10,000, it would certainly eat up most of it,” Wilson said regarding the expense per boat.
Schumacker didn’t have a cost estimate yet, but said it would have to be well under $10,000 to be affordable to fishermen.
Cost is one reason that WDFW has yet to implement similar monitoring though it has examined the possibility before. With that kind of price tag, it’s a hard sell, Ayres said.
The benefit of the monitoring would primarily go to those in the industry, but since they would also have to bear the bulk of the cost, the technology won’t become mainstream unless the fishermen support it.
Still, Ayres said, “it’s something that’s slowly becoming more common in other situations in other states.”
In theory, as it gains traction elsewhere and becomes standard: “It gets better and slowly gets cheaper.”
But he thinks the department will see more support as younger, more tech-savvy fishermen enter the fleet.
“We’ve got fishermen who still don’t have answering machines and, God forbid, a cell phone or an e-mail address,” he said.
Even now, they are only just beginning to look at requiring an electronic log book instead of paper log books fishermen currently maintain.
Tracking salmon as they move past Columbia River dams just got a little easier. Scientists are using a new tag so small that researchers can inject it with a syringe into the fishes’ bellies.
Researchers at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and the Army Corps of Engineers have been working with tags since 2001. This newest version is the smallest yet, about the size of two grains of rice. The older tags are three times heavier.
The tags track how salmon travel through dams. Researchers hopes that the information they collect can help make dams more fish friendly.
“It really opens the door for letting us understand what these fish are doing and when so that we can make good, sound decisions,” said Brad Eppard, a fishery biologist with the Corps.
Daniel Deng, a scientist a Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, said the new batteries for the tags really helped decrease the overall size.
Each battery is assembled by hand under a microscope. The batteries can now last from the Lower Granite to Bonneville dams — a 300-mile journey that typically takes a salmon two to three weeks to complete.
Before, researchers had to send out several groups of tagged fish to get that much information.
The tags emit high-frequency beeps every three seconds. At 417 kilohertz, the beeps are at such a high frequency that they can’t be heard by humans, marine mammals, or fish. The frequency travels through the water to multiple receivers that allow researchers to see in 3-D the salmon’s location in the river.
Researchers can see how many fish go over dams’ spillways, pass through turbines, and bypass routes.
“This way we can have a better understanding of each passage route, so we can optimize dam operations to guide the fish through different routes,” Deng said.
These new tags are called active tags, which can provide more data than passive tags, also known as pit tags. Deng said the active tags can cover more area at dam sites. He said they help show where fish are injured at dams and how those injuries occur.
In 2013, researchers tested the 700 tags out on juvenile salmon migrating down the Snake River. Dang said initial tests have showed more fish survive with the injectable tags than with the older tags that required a two-minute surgery on the fish.
The Army Corps of Engineers said it would like to start using the tags next year. Researchers are working to design smaller tags that can be used in juvenile lamprey.
