Lower Snake River Juvenile Salmon Migration Feasibility Study
Questions and Answers
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Feature Question:
Q. If the Federal agencies working towards salmon recovery estimate the cost of their recovery plan over six years at $5.3 billion, why isn't breaching, at a cost of $1 billion, a cost-effective alternative?
A. NMFS has said that breaching by itself would not recover the listed stocks. It was not determined necessary at this time by the NMFS 2000 BiOp. Also, it is important to note that $1 billion is an implementation cost of breaching. There would also be a loss of benefits from power, transportation and navigation. More details are provided in the report.
Q. What alternative has the Corps chosen in the LSR FR/EIS?
A. The Walla Walla District has selected Alternative 3- Major System Improvements, also known as the adaptive migration alternative, as the recommended plan (preferred alternative). The Corps announced the selection of this alternative in December 2001 when the report was sent to Federal agencies for review.
Q. Why is this alternative now known as adaptive migration alternative?
A. The purpose of the LSR FR/EIS is to examine ways of improving the LSR projects for juvenile fish passage. The new term is meant to give a better sense of what this alternative entails: adapting the projects for various river conditions, with operational changes and structures for improving fish passage.
Q. Who reviewed the Feasibility Report/Environmental Impact Statement (FR/EIS)?
A. There has been an extensive agency, peer and public review process of the feasibility report/environmental impact statement. In addition to Corps review, the FR/EIS was reviewed by the cooperating agencies (Bonneville Power Administration, U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency) and other federal agencies, including U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, National Marine Fisheries Service, U.S. Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Indian Affairs and the National Park Service, were involved in the review process. A detailed technical review of the economic and social effects was conducted by the Independent Economic Analysis Board (IEAB) of the Northwest Power Planning Council. Drawdown engineering and major systems improvements engineering both received independent technical review. The entire FR/EIS was evaluated and reviewed through an independent technical review conducted by Corps specialists outside the Walla Walla District.
Q. How did the more than 230,000 public comments the Corps received affect the selection of this alternative?
A. All comments were equally valuable and no weighting system was developed. All citizens were encouraged to participate and comment on proposed changes in operation. All comments are important and all issues raised have been reviewed and considered.
Q. What are the next steps? Will the Corps hold public meetings?
A. There has been extensive involvement of the public, agencies and other organizations in the process over a five-year-period. Numerous public meetings were held during that time. There is no remaining need to hold public meetings as the study has been completed. A Record of Decision will be prepared and is expected to be signed by the Corps’ Northwestern Division Commander later this year.
Q. If the Federal agencies working towards salmon recovery estimate the cost of their recovery plan over six years at $5.3 billion, why isn't breaching, at a cost of $1 billion, a cost-effective alternative?
A. NMFS has said that breaching by itself would not recover the listed stocks. It was not determined necessary at this time by the NMFS 2000 BiOp. Also, it is important to note that $1 billion is an implementation cost of breaching. There would also be a loss of benefits from power, transportation and navigation. More details are provided in the report.
Q. How did the Corps accomplish the economic analysis for the Final Lower Snake River Juvenile Salmon Migration Feasibility Report/Environmental Impact Statement (FFR/EIS)?
A. The Drawdown Regional Economic Workgroup (DREW) was established to develop a comprehensive social and economic analysis (which includes recreation and tourism) for the Lower Snake River Juvenile Salmon Migration Feasibility Study. The DREW included economists from Federal agencies, the Northwest Power Planning Council, states, tribes, contractors, environmental conservation groups and other regional stakeholders. The DREW helped shape the elements, assumptions and methodologies for these analyses. The Final Lower Snake River Juvenile Salmon Migration Feasibility Report/Environmental Impact Statement (FFR/EIS) will reflect the best economic information available at the time of development.
Q. How is the Corps reviewing the economic information for the draft and final reports on this study?
A. An independent technical review was conducted by the Independent Economic Analysis Board (IEAB) of the Northwest Power Planning Council. The IEAB is a group of economists drawn from academia and private industry. The final report includes revisions based on comments received from the IEAB, as well as comments received from the public and government reviewers.
Q. Why did the Corps use 100 years in their assessment of economic impacts?
A. The Drawdown Regional Economic Workgroup (DREW) determined that a 100-year period of analysis would be used to assess all project impacts. The DREW felt this long-term perspective reduces the likelihood that the comparison of alternatives will be influenced by short-term fluctuations in trends or market conditions. However, it is reasonable to assume that considerable uncertainty surrounds any attempt to forecast results 100 years into the future.
Q. How did the Corps accommodate uncertainty in the economic analysis?
A. Due to the uncertainty associated with projecting socioeconomic parameters for 100 years, projections of certain parameters, such as population, income, fuel prices, power loads, and commodities that would be transported on the lower Snake River are limited to a 20-year period from 1998 though 2018. From that point on, constant levels are assumed to the end of the 100-year period of analysis.
Q. The Draft Lower Snake River Juvenile Salmon Migration Feasibility Report/EIS (DFR/EIS) released in December 1999 said that the annual recreation benefits were $82 million. Do you expect this figure to change in the final report?
A. Yes. Dr. John Loomis, professor of Agricultural and Resource Economics at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Colo., provided his revised recreation chapter for the Economic Appendix to the Corps in February 2001.This report included revisions from the DFR/EIS based on comments received from the independent technical review conducted by the Independent Economic Analysis Board (IEAB) of the Northwest Power Planning Council, as well as comments received from the public and government reviewers. Annual recreation benefits in the revised recreation chapter will be $71 million. Reasons for the change in recreation benefits between the draft and the final Lower Snake River Juvenile Salmon Migration Feasibility Report/Environmental Impact Statement (FFR/EIS) include the following:
Q. What are passive use values?
A. Passive use values may be defined as the value an individual (or society) places on the knowledge that a resource exists in a certain state. The Corps conducted a limited passive use analysis for the Draft Lower Snake River Juvenile Salmon Migration Feasibility Report/Environmental Impact Statement. The only resources evaluated were a free flowing natural river and Endangered Species Act listed Snake River salmon and steelhead stocks.
Q. Why didn't the Corps incorporate passive use values (PUV) into the National Economic Development (NED) account?
A. The Corps’ policy, which is applied nationally, does not support inclusion of passive use values into the NED account. However, these values have been included in the economic analysis as additional information available to decision-makers. This determination was supported by the Independent Economic Analysis Board (IEAB) of the Northwest Power Planning Council, who indicated "The IEAB sees passive use values as an attempted measurement in dollars terms of a social value. As such, it reflects a public interest that has already been recognized and acted on in the National Marine Fisheries Service implementation measures related to the Endangered Species Act. These survival and recovery standards are used as the effectiveness criteria. The PUV measures public support for a successful recovery program, and does not belong in a cost effectiveness analysis. In the future, after techniques have been refined, it may be an important component of a benefit-cost analysis for endangered and threatened species protection. We recommend separation of the estimated PUVs from other economic costs and values in this report due to the distinct conceptual problems that PUVs raise and due, as well, to what we judge to be significant problems with the estimation of these specific PUVs with the 'benefits transfer' approach."
Q. Why did the Corps decide to drop passive use values (PUVs) from the household survey?
Incorporating passive use values (non-use values) has been used in many Federal benefit-cost analyses for critical habitat designations of endangered species. The Drawdown Regional Economic Review (DREW) Recreation Team reached consensus in May 1998 that the recreation analysis would incorporate passive use values in the recreation survey. There was concern expressed by a local congressional and the Corps that the PUVs the DREW chose to include were inclusive of only natural river recreation and salmon and did not include, for example, the PUVs of dams and reservoir recreation. It was determined by the Corps that there wasn’t enough time to incorporate all the passive use values in the recreation survey and meet the schedule for the feasibility report. Therefore, technical parties to DREW assisted the Corps through the Recreation Workgroup with the recreation use and contingent use survey so that data would be available in a timely manner. The DREW assisted the Corps in developing transfer values with respect to passive use (existence) for the Final Lower Snake River Juvenile Salmon Migration Feasibility Report/Environmental Impact Statement.
Q. Is the Corps going to include in the FFR/EIS the potential cost of future actions regarding water quality, if the dams remain?
A. The costs of concept designs have been carried through the sensitivity discussion in the risk and uncertainty analyses. For example, the average annual costs associated with actions or structural modifications relating to total dissolved gas can range from $1 to $55 million. These added costs would only be attributable to the non-breach alternatives (Alternatives 1 through 3). The costs included in the FFR/EIS are for structural modifications related to improving water quality during voluntary spill conditions and when river flows exceed the hydraulic capacity of the powerhouse (approximately 125,000 cubic feet per second). Costs associated with possible future actions regarding water quality are extremely speculative and controversial, and have not been included in either implementation costs or avoided costs. However, the Corps recognizes that these costs are an issue and believes it is important to disclose to the public. Until the Corps works through the process of developing a water quality plan and the States complete their total maximum daily load (TMDL) process, it is premature to include costs in the National Economic Development analysis relating to this issue.
Q. Did the Corps base its hydropower analysis on obsolete 1995 data to make the study favor keeping the dams?
A. No. The biological opinion--in effect at the beginning of this study was the National Marine Fisheries Service 1995 Biological Opinion, and it was proper to use the 1995 data from that biological opinion as the baseline for this analysis. Based on current information, the 1995 data shows a slightly overstated amount of energy generated by the four lower Snake River dams. Conditions have changed as a result of the 2000 Biological Opinion, but not significantly. The comparison of the average annual generation with the 1995 Biological Opinion and the 2000 Biological Opinion showed that annual generation from the four Snake River Dams is about 6 percent lower with the 2000 Biological Opinion operation than with the 1995 Biological Opinion operation. The majority of the generation reduction occurs in the months of April, May, and June. This is the time period when hydropower generation in the Pacific Northwest has the lowest economic value. So, the impact on power benefits from the Snake River Dams would be considerably lower than the 6 percent reduction in annual generation with the 2000 Biological Opinion. For this reason, it was judged that the relatively small change was not significant enough to warrant a re-analysis of the economic impacts associated with reduction in hydropower with dam removal. The Corps has incorporated into the Final Lower Snake River Juvenile Salmon Migration Feasibility Report/Environmental Impact Statement the best information available at the time.
Q. Did the hydropower analysis account for the recent energy and capacity shortages? That is, did the analysis foresee the shortages, or is the analysis underestimated?
A. The Drawdown Regional Economic Workgroup (DREW) Hydropower Impact Team (HIT) analysis fully recognized the need for additional generating resources to be built in the region regardless of whether the lower Snake River dams are breached. The current shortages in the system can be attributed to the fact that few new resources have been added to the system in recent years. Other factors such as bad weather, unplanned plant outages, low water conditions, and market adjustments associated with the shift to an unregulated electricity market in California have compounded the problem. The HIT analysis did not project the current crisis, but rather assumed that over time, the market would adjust to power needs and adequate resources would be built within each of the alternatives.
Currently, there are a number of new generating plants being planned in the Pacific Northwest that will help meet the need for new resources. The long run assumption of the HIT may yet occur, albeit not on the exact timeline estimated in the analysis. The key point to note is that the short term shortages and surpluses in supply are normal market conditions, and the long run assumptions of the HIT analysis were intended to capture these fluctuations on an average basis. Hence, there is no need to adjust the HIT analysis based on the current supply issues.
Q. How do the natural gas prices used in the DREW Hydropower Impact Team (HIT) analysis compare to the recent high spot market prices for natural gas?
A. The spot market prices for natural gas experienced since the summer of 2000 have on occasion, been several times the prices used in the HIT analysis. Volatile swings in market prices often occur in commodity markets. Even though the current price spikes are particularly high, many analysts expect that natural gas will return to much lower prices as the market adjusts for supply and demand. In preparation for the Final Lower Snake River Juvenile Salmon Migration Feasibility Report/Environmental Impact Statement (FFR/EIS), natural gas prices used in the HIT analysis for the medium (most likely) and high scenarios were compared with the long term projected natural gas prices published by the Energy Information Administration (EIA) in its report, "The Annual Energy Outlook 2001" (Report # DOE/EIA 0383 (2001), December 22, 2000). The EIA projects that natural gas prices will return to within the range of medium and high projections used in the HIT analysis in approximately year 2004. The breaching of dams would not occur until after 2005. So, it is expected that natural gas prices will return to the range used in the HIT analysis, but based on the EIA forecast, would be higher than the medium forecast used to represent the most likely future. If the HIT analyses were redone with this slightly higher price condition for natural gas, the hydropower net economic effects would be higher than the $251 to $291 million range of annual costs presented in this report. The economic costs would probably be closer to the annual impacts based on the "high" scenario presented in the HIT analysis, which was an annual cost range of $359 to $389 million.
Q. The Drawdown Regional Economic Workgroup (DREW) Hydropower Impact Team (HIT) analysis assumed that all new thermal resources to be built through year 2017 would be natural gas fired combined cycle combustion turbine (CC) plants. Could conservation and renewable resources be used to replace the hydropower generation from the four lower Snake River dams?
A. Yes. The use of conservation and renewable resources would also result in no net change in air pollution from the existing conditions. The costs would be similar also, but higher than the replacement with natural gas fired combined CC plants. The uncertainty of the costs associated with a conservation/renewable strategy are relatively high because it is not known to what extend conservation measures will be available in the year 2008 time frame, and at what costs. Also, it is not known whether this uncertainty is any greater than gas price predictions that are critical to define the costs of the CC plant replacement strategy.
The implementation of conservation/renewable strategy will require considerable government intervention that must be initiated several years prior to dam breaching. The CC plant replacement strategy will require no government intervention, but will require several years of planning and licensing actions before plants can be built. The implementation of a conservation/renewable strategy will require an earlier implementation plan, possible economic incentives/subsidies from the government, and more government intervention than the CC replacement strategy.
Q. What are the current survival rates for juvenile salmon passing through the four lower Snake River dams?
A. Passage survival rates for both juvenile and adult salmon are quite high at most of the lower Snake River dams and reservoirs. The following table identifies the in-river (without transport) project survival estimates from the National Marine Fisheries Service 2000 Biological Opinion for the Operation of the Federal Columbia River Power System.
| Table 6-2-7 Project Survival (Percent Dam + Pool Reservoir) | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year | LGR | LGO | LMO | IHR | MCN | JDA | TDA | BON |
| Snake River Spring/Summer Chinook Salmon | ||||||||
| 1994 | 93.6 | 83.0 | 84.7 | 89.0 | 85.8 | 77.3 | 84.5 | 82.9 |
| 1995 | 90.6 | 88.2 | 92.5 | 93.6 | 93.6 | 85.2 | 87.2 | 86.9 |
| 1996 | 97.9 | 92.6 | 92.9 | 87.0 | 87.0 | 84.4 | 86.9 | 87.0 |
| 1997 | 91.3 | 94.2 | 89.4 | 89.3 | 89.3 | 83.3 | 86.5 | 86.9 |
| 1998 | 92.4 | 98.5 | 85.3 | 95.7 | 95.7 | 82.2 | 87.7 | 88.0 |
| 1999 | 94.1 | 95.0 | 92.5 | 95.1 | 95.1 | 85.3 | 89.3 | 91.1 |
| 6-Year Average | 93.3 | 91.9 | 89.5 | 91.6 | 91.1 | 82.9 | 87.0 | 87.2 |
| Snake River Fall Chinook Salmon | ||||||||
| 1994 | No data collected in 1994 | |||||||
| 1995 | 66.8 | 89.0 | 79.5 | 87.8 | 82.0 | 73.8 | 81.5 | 80.4 |
| 1996 | 47.9 | 89.8 | 78.2 | 87.3 | 82.8 | 72.7 | 81.1 | 79.1 |
| 1997 | 35.3 | 56.6 | 64.4 | 63.5 | 54.6 | 34.0 | 63.9 | 50.4 |
| 1998 | 55.8 | 77.1 | 92.1 | 87.8 | 83.0 | 73.7 | 81.5 | 80.2 |
| 1999 | 76.6 | 66.5 | 89.0 | 80.4 | 74.3 | 59.5 | 76.2 | 70.3 |
| 5-Year Average | 56.5 | 75.8 | 80.6 | 81.4 | 75.3 | 62.7 | 76.8 | 72.1 |
| Snake River Steelhead | ||||||||
| 1994 | 90.0 | 84.4 | 89.2 | 90.8 | 88.2 | 81.3 | 85.8 | 85.0 |
| 1995 | 94.4 | 88.9 | 95.0 | 92.7 | 92.6 | 88.4 | 88.1 | 88.7 |
| 1996 | 93.4 | 93.8 | 93.7 | 88.9 | 88.9 | 86.0 | 87.3 | 87.8 |
| 1997 | 96.3 | 96.6 | 90.2 | 91.3 | 91.4 | 85.1 | 87.0 | 88.0 |
| 1998 | 92.5 | 93.0 | 88.9 | 89.3 | 89.3 | 83.1 | 89.7 | 91.8 |
| 1999 | 90.8 | 92.6 | 91.5 | 91.3 | 91.3 | 92.0 | 84.0 | 81.2 |
| 6-Year Average | 92.9 | 91.7 | 91.4 | 90.7 | 90.3 | 85.8 | 87.0 | 86.9 |
| Data Source: NMFS 2000 FCRPS
Biological Opinion, Table 6.2-7 *Values shown are estimates, based on juvenile survival studies rather than adult returns, and representing the expected performance of mixed (wild + hatchery) runs. Spring/summer and steelhead are yearling migrants and Fall are subyearlings. LGR - Lower Granite; LGO - Little Goose; LMO - Lower Monumental; IHR - Ice Harbor; MCN - McNary; JDA - John Day; TDA - The Dalles; BON - Bonneville | ||||||||
Q. Is juvenile fish transportation by barge and truck a failed program and if so, why is it being considered in the study?
A. National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) studies have shown that transported juvenile salmon and steelhead return twice as often as in-river migrating fish. Also, in a low water year, such as 2001, where there is no spill to pass fish through the lower Snake River Dams -- transporting the juvenile fish by barges and trucks is preferable to turbine passage and results in enhanced survival. The biological data shows the transportation program is a useful program to have in place. What is not known is the effect of transportation on juvenile fish. A theory that attributes a portion of juvenile mortality to something associated with the act of transport and occurs after their release from barges or trucks is called delayed mortality and is under study by the NMFS and the Corps.
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