Bush asks court to block dam ruling
Jun. 17--By MICHAEL MILSTEIN, The Oregonian, Portland, Ore. Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News
The Bush administration has pushed back -- and hard -- against the Portland judge who dumped its strategy for Columbia River salmon and ordered the costly spilling of water over dams to aid fish this summer.
The federal filing accused Redden of abusing his discretion, ignoring the law
and facts, and doing salmon more harm than good.
"The court has for the first time injected itself into the day-to-day
management of an extremely complicated system of dams," the government
contended. "Courts lack the expertise to undertake this task and should not
be in the business of running dams."
Federal officials hope for an appeals court ruling early next week.
The argument was the administration's latest testy reaction to Redden's
sweeping rejection last month of its plan to protect imperiled salmon while
federal dams on the Columbia and Snake rivers churn out low-cost electricity.
Redden had called the federal plan an exercise "more in cynicism than in
sincerity." He said it illegally ignored the government's obligation to
restore healthy salmon populations, and disregarded the impact of dams on salmon
by deeming the dams a fundamental part of their environment.
His ruling could reshape the federal approach to hydropower as dramatically
as rulings protecting the northern spotted owl remade federal forest policy by
limiting old-growth logging more than a decade ago.
Redden followed his ruling by directing the government last week to spill
water over dams starting June 20 to carry migrating salmon downstream this
summer. Spilled water escapes electric turbines, and authorities say the move
will cost some $67 million in lost power revenues.
The government contended in its argument to the appeals court that the young
fish will be better off shipped downriver on barges. Spilling water makes it
more difficult to collect the fish to load onto the barges.
It also exposes fish to underwater gases that could harm them the way the
bends harms human divers, the Bush administration argued.
Redden disregarded advice from federal agencies and "instead premised
(his) spill relief on (his) conjecture," federal lawyers said.
The power industry joined the government with an almost simultaneous filing
to the appeals court this week.
"We think there's a real possibility more fish will be harmed ,"
said Scott Corwin, vice president of a Portland-based group of rural electric
cooperatives. "You're paying more money for worse fish survival, and that
just doesn't compute."
But salmon defenders said the government is using the same arguments that
have already failed in court. Without spilled water to carry salmon over dams,
fish mass behind the concrete before they finally dive downward in an attempt to
go underneath them, they argued.
That slows their migration and exposes them to predators.
"It's entirely unnatural," said Jim Martin, retired chief of
fisheries for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife and now conservation
director for the Berkley Fishing Tackle Co. "I cannot believe the federal
government says with a straight face this strategy will recover these fish, when
the plain evidence shows that's not the case."
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