Fish and wildlife Artificial Production Archive

Facilitator's Report on the Columbia River Basin Artificial Production Workshop

February 23, 1999

Related links:

• Cover letter
• Full report (document 99-2)

Prepared by Gordon, Thomas, Honeywell, Malanca, Peterson & Daheim, P.L.L.C.

For The Northwest Power Planning Council

INTRODUCTION: ARTIFICIAL PRODUCTION IN THE COLUMBIA RIVER BASIN -- A PROGRAM IN TRANSITION

Congressional Request/Artificial Production Review/Workshop
In its report on the Fiscal Year 1998 energy and water development appropriations bill, the Senate Appropriations Committee directed the Northwest Power Planning Council to "conduct a thorough review of all federally funded hatchery programs operating in the Columbia River basin, including an assessment of the hatchery operation goals and principles of State, tribal, and Federal hatcheries." The National Marine Fisheries Service, the states of Oregon, Washington and Idaho, and the Indian tribes in the basin are to "assist the Council in its review by providing information necessary." The Senate committee asked the Council to "produce a formal recommendation for a coordinated policy for the future operation of federally funded hatcheries in the basin and how to obtain such a coordinated policy." Pursuant to this request, the Council initiated what is called the Artificial Production Review (APR).

As part of the Artificial Production Review, the Council held a two-day workshop on January 19 and 20, 1999, to discuss production policy with people drawn from the many entities having an interest in artificial production in the Columbia River Basin. For purposes of discussion at the workshop, the Council staff developed a "Strawfish" proposal which included a series of policies and scientific principles gathered from the scientific studies conducted over recent years. Particular attention was given to the draft Review of Salmonid Artificial Production in the Columbia River Basin (Artificial Production Review) conducted by ISAB's Scientific Review Team (SRT). The SRT report and the Strawfish (see Attachment B) were circulated to a large number of federal, state and tribal agencies and other interested parties for comment prior to the workshop.

The Council asked Jim Waldo and associates from the Gordon Thomas Honeywell law firm in Tacoma to facilitate the workshop. This is the facilitators' report to the Council on the workshop. Section I provides an introduction to artificial production activities and policies in the Columbia basin. Section II describes the facilitators' impressions of the artificial production workshop. In Section III, the facilitators provide the Council with a set of recommendations for proceeding further in the APR and in developing recommendations for Congress.

Background on Artificial Production Policies in the Columbia River Basin
Attached to the report as Appendix A is a brief description of the major artificial production programs in the Columbia basin, federally funded programs as well as hatchery programs associated with FERC-licensed dams. Simply summarizing the many layers of federally funded anadromous fish hatchery programs in the basin illustrates the need for a comprehensive review of basin production and the development of reformed and coordinated production policies. Many dozens of hatcheries produce about two hundred million salmon and steelhead smolts every year under a variety of different programs that originated at different times over the last 60 years with different mandates and objectives. Many of these defined objectives are out of step with salmon recovery and rebuilding efforts that have become a priority at the end of the century.

The basin currently relies on artificial propagation for over 80 percent of the salmon and steelhead produced. Annual releases of hatchery-reared salmon grew at one time to over 200 million, and was reduced to just below 200 million in recent years by funding reductions and Endangered Species Act considerations. Production policy, directed by Congress and the federal and state agencies, largely replaced upriver fish lost to development with hatchery-produced fish in the lower river. The number of smolts released upriver has been increasing since 1980, but the significance of that trend is in debate. And despite what were constant increases in hatchery production until recent years, adult salmon returns to the Columbia River decreased steadily over the last half century, with natural runs showing especially severe declines throughout the basin.

Providing harvest opportunities in the ocean and in the river has been the primary objective of hatcheries. Even at that, their success has been open to questions about the long-term value and productivity of some hatcheries. But the critical issues of the last decade have gone beyond the basic question of production for harvest augmentation to three additional concerns, not always reconcilable on the surface: How can artificial production programs be revised to spread harvest opportunities to greater areas of the basin? What artificial production activities adversely affect wild fish to a significant degree and thus undermine the efforts to protect and rebuild wild runs? And, can artificial production be applied not only to avoid harm but also to assist in the preservation and rebuilding of naturally spawning runs?

Need for a Coordinated Policy
Congress called for the review of federally funded hatchery programs in the Columbia, and for a recommendation for a "coordinated policy," in an attempt to bring these disparate programs into one coordinated approach. Such a coordinated approach would have to be consistent with the current concerns in the basin, not just for harvest mitigation but also for fairness of harvest allocation and for rebuilding of naturally spawning fish populations. Congress has not been the only entity to call for a comprehensive review of production policy in the basin. Three scientific panels -- the National Marine Fisheries Service's Snake River Recovery Team (1995), a National Research Council work group in Upstream: Salmon and Society in the Pacific Northwest (1996), and the Council's Independent Scientific Group in Return to the River (1996) -- called for a comprehensive review of Columbia River Basin artificial production for salmon, emphasizing the need to integrate artificial production with natural production in a biologically sound manner. The Independent Scientific Review Panel, appointed by the Council pursuant to a 1996 amendment to the Northwest Power Act to review fish and wildlife projects proposed for Bonneville funding, added its call for a comprehensive evaluation of production in the basin for the same reason, and recommended extreme caution, if not a moratorium, in proceeding with new production initiatives in the basin until such an evaluation occurs.

Three federal agencies, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Marine Fisheries Service and the Bonneville Power Administration joined together to develop a draft programmatic environmental impact statement on artificial production in the basin. The Council's Columbia River Basin Fish and Wildlife Program recognized this effort as an attempt to satisfy the call for a comprehensive evaluation of production in the basin, especially "to assess the impacts on naturally produced salmon of large numbers of anadromous fish being introduced from federally funded hatcheries in the Columbia River Basin." When the draft programmatic EIS on production arrived toward the end of 1996, however, it suffered from unfortunate deficiencies and was the subject of significant criticism. The directive from the Senate committee arrived soon after, and with that prodding, the Council initiated its Artificial Production Review, an even broader review than envisioned in the programmatic EIS (e.g., including resident fish production). The recently completed workshop on artificial production (January 19-20, 1999) was one step in the review's effort to develop a recommendation on production policy to respond to the Senate's direction.

The Congressional directive, coming on top of these calls for comprehensive review and production policy development, implies a lack of analysis and policy development in the past few years. The reality is otherwise -- the last decade has seen a number of efforts to review Columbia basin production policies and activities and to try to reform both, as the region grapples with how production activities can serve what has become, formally or informally, a two-pronged objective: 1) to provide significant harvest opportunities across the basin, and 2) to protect and rebuild naturally spawning and wild runs in the mainstem and as many tributaries as possible. Much has been accomplished in the development of reforms in production policies and performance standards, if perhaps not in implementation of these reforms. The purpose of the Council's Artificial Production Review has been to build on that policy reform foundation; it is a measure of how difficult the problem is that so much of the transition remains to be accomplished or even defined and begun after the extensive effort of the last decade.

Several factors converged in the mid- to late-1980s to begin the transition in production policy. One source for change came out of the United States v. Oregon harvest litigation in federal court. U.S. v. Oregon, which in conjunction with the Council's Fish and Wildlife Program, became the driving vehicle for two of what have been the three key factors forcing change in existing production policy -- to widen the harvest opportunities provided by artificial production and to attempt to use artificial production techniques to try to rebuild naturally sustaining populations. U.S. v. Oregon began as and remains primarily a forum for resolving disputes over in-river harvest allocation. But production activities became part of the considerations as the state, federal and tribal parties recognized that treaty fishing rights could also be supported by increasing the numbers of fish upriver, above Bonneville Dam. After a series of yearly and five-year allocation agreements or decisions, in 1988 the parties to the litigation developed, and the court approved, the Columbia River Fish Management Plan. Providing one illustration of what has become the twin-pronged goal in the basin, the Management Plan's goal was "to rebuild weak runs to full productivity and fairly share the harvest of upper river runs." In the area of production, the Management Plan called for "agreed-to production oriented actions to achieve the goal of rebuilding upriver anadromous runs," so as to "assure that rebuilding and harvest allocation objectives are achieved concurrent with restoration of the runs." One part of this commitment was the hypothesis, favored especially by the tribes over the last decade, that artificial production could be used to supplement natural production, if combined with habitat improvements, and thus rebuild naturally-spawning upriver runs.

The Management Plan contemplated that the main vehicle for this effort was to be the development by the fish and wildlife managers of subbasin-by-subbasin harvest and production plans for the tributaries above Bonneville. This led to an extensive subbasin planning effort that became part of the Council's 1987 Fish and Wildlife Program amendment process. The co-managers developed draft subbasin plans, but the effort eventually ran afoul of developing Endangered Species Act concerns, as described below, and never reached the conclusion of subbasin plans adopted into the Council's Program. Pending the development of a comprehensive set of subbasin plans, the Management Plan also included a list of specific production actions utilizing artificial propagation to be undertaken during the Plan's tenure. Following the adoption of the Management Plan, most of the conflicts, disputes and agreements regarding production that have been part of the United States v. Oregon process have involved specific disputes concerning the use of hatchery fish to supplement natural production. Many of these production actions were already in master planning as part of the Council's Fish and Wildlife Program (e.g., the Yakima production program). In general, the production agreements under the Management Plan moved into the Council's Program to become the core of the production planning and activities now funded under that Program.

The third factor forcing change in existing production policy has been concerns over the adverse impact of hatchery production on wild fish. While these concerns have been expressed in the basin for some time, the driving vehicle for forcing this issue squarely into the core of hatchery policy has been the Endangered Species Act listings. They began in the Snake basin at the turn of the decade and have now spread to the whole basin. ESA consultations forced hatchery managers to evaluate and reach conclusions as to whether existing or proposed production programs jeopardized the continued existence of listed stocks through health impacts, competition and other ecological interactions, genetic impacts, and other considerations. Thus existing hatchery programs, especially in the Snake (e.g., the Lower Snake River Compensation Plan activities) came under this type of scrutiny. The scrutiny of existing programs will only increase and broaden with the recent additional listings and proposed listings throughout the Columbia basin. Coming under even greater scrutiny have been the tribal/state proposals to use new artificial production initiatives to try to help rebuild weak naturally spawning populations. The critical demographics that caused some to turn to artificial production techniques as part of the solution caused others to worry greatly that new artificial production efforts could fatally undermine vulnerable wild populations.

The wild fish considerations embodied in the ESA listings were the major factor preventing the subbasin planning process from coming to a conclusion, as the managers could not agree in a number of basins how much risk to accept in planning for new production. Planning work on the specific supplementation proposals also slowed to a crawl as the agencies and tribes worked to address the wild fish and ESA concerns, dampen the extent of the risk presented by each project, and provide greater assurances that artificial production could be a boost and not a hindrance to natural production.

The logjam partially broke in the mid-1990s, as federal agency ESA review finally cleared a number of supplementation initiatives to proceed under the Council's Program as high priority experiments. Ironically, at the same time NMFS and others began to investigate using the most intrusive of artificial production techniques -- captive broodstock -- to try to save or conserve populations on the verge of extinction.

All of the production programs in the basin, including Mitchell Act and LSRCP, have been forced in some degree in recent years to try to come to terms with these three factors -- how to reform operations and policies to broaden harvest opportunities, protect wild populations, and if possible assist in rebuilding naturally spawning populations. The Council's Fish and Wildlife Program most clearly and officially embodies all three factors, probably because it is the most recent and is the result of recommendations developed by the agencies and tribes over the last 15 years while grappling with these questions. The Program's twin goals are to "double the runs" (i.e., increase abundance for increased harvest opportunities) while protecting biological diversity. The new artificial production initiatives are one of the key activities in the Council's Program for not only increasing the numbers for harvest but also for moving those harvest opportunities upriver. The same production initiatives are intended to help rebuild dwindling or extirpated naturally-spawning populations in the tributaries while being consistent with policies to protect wild fish -- thus, if all goes well, protecting and increasing biological diversity. The Program's production and habitat provisions represent confidence in the possibility of an intertwined habitat and production effort that can protect and increase natural production partly through a wide array of small- and not so small-scale supplementation experiments.

The individual planning efforts that have accompanied the specific, individual production initiatives in the Council's Program have yielded an extensive body of analysis about the problems and opportunities presented by the interaction of artificial and natural production. So has the ESA/wild fish analyses the federal agencies and others have had to produce. But given the nature of the Council's Program, in which all of the specific production initiatives are predicated on a conceptual foundation of experimenting with artificial production to assist rebuilding of naturally spawning populations, the Council, the agencies and tribes realized the need in the early 1990s for a more systematic approach to analyzing these issues. If supplementation proposals were to proceed in the face of ESA listings and increasing concerns for impacts on wild fish, what was needed was a systematic review of the dilemma and a set of guidelines for proceeding that, in theory at least, could increase to an acceptable level the chance that artificial production techniques could benefit natural production and the chance that existing wild populations would not be harmed.

Out of these considerations came the Regional Assessment of Supplementation Project (RASP), a multi-year, multi-agency analytical effort called for by the Council's Program and funded by Bonneville. The Final Report in 1992, produced by agency personnel and subject to independent scientific review, provided a background description of the supplementation concept, a discussion of the elements of supplementation theory and the uncertainties inherent in the experiment, model planning guidelines, objectives, actions and performance standards for supplementation initiatives, and a plan for regional coordination of research, monitoring and evaluation of supplementation actions. It was partly on the basis of the generally well received RASP effort, and the revision of individual supplementation initiatives to be consistent with the RASP guidelines, that NMFS and others agreed in 1996 that a number of supplementation initiatives in the Council's Program could proceed to implementation. See Columbia River Basin Fish and Wildlife Program, Section 7.3 (1994); Supplementation in the Columbia Basin, Final Report, Bonneville Project No. 85-62 (December 1992).

The RASP project applied only to the new supplementation initiatives, representing a small portion of the artificial production activities in the basin. So the Council's Program also recognized the need for a broader review of production policies and activities across the basin, to see whether and how production programs and individual hatcheries could be evaluated and reformed in a systematic way to deal with the critical factors now at play in the basin. This was the genesis for the formation of the inter-agency Integrated Hatchery Operations Team (IHOT), funded by Bonneville under the Council's Program. The Council's Program called on the fishery managers "and other experts as needed," "in consultation with appropriate specialists in genetics," to develop "basinwide guidelines to minimize genetic and ecological impacts of hatchery fish on wild and naturally spawning stocks." In the development of these guidelines, IHOT was to include "approaches to basinwide coordination of hatchery production" to reduce impacts, and monitoring and evaluation of hatchery and wild stock interactions. IHOT was to review existing production policies and then develop and update "regionally integrated policies for management and operation of all existing and future hatcheries in the basin," -- policies to "be monitored for consistency with the goal of increasing sustained production while maintaining genetic resources."

The Program specified that policies developed by IHOT had to include elements addressing fish health, genetics, ecological interactions, hatchery performance standards, and regional hatchery coordination with standards specified for each element. Moreover, the Program called for IHOT to submit a plan to the Council for implementing these policies and to plan and oversee independent audits of hatchery performance for consistency with guidelines and policies developed by IHOT. Columbia River Basin Fish and Wildlife Program, Section 7.2A, 7.2B. The Program's charge to IHOT strikingly resembles the Senate committee's directive to the Council to "conduct a thorough review" of production programs in the basin, to draw on the assistance of the state and federal agencies and tribes in conducting this review, and to recommend "a coordinated policy" for the future operation of hatcheries and "how to obtain such a coordinated policy."

Pursuant to the Program's charge, by late 1994 IHOT produced Policies and Procedures for Columbia Basin Anadromous Salmonid Hatcheries, containing policy elements, guidelines and performance standards in the areas specified in the Program. IHOT also set in motion independent audits of almost all of the anadromous fish hatcheries in the basin, using performance measures developed in the policy document. See A Summary of Hatchery Evaluation Reports (NWPPC, July 1998).

Artificial Production Policy is in Transition
Artificial production policy in the basin is in a state of transition. The Council's review and recommendations in the Artificial Production Review need to build on the foundation provided by RASP, IHOT, and the other efforts to review and reform production over the past decade. It is not that the products of RASP and IHOT perfectly cover the policy field -- the purpose of the Artificial Production Review should be to review what has been developed so far; identify policy deficiencies, gaps and weaknesses, if any (especially policy elements not in sync with the current state of the science or not substantial enough to cover a topic completely); recommend policies to correct the deficiencies and fill the gaps; and then coordinate and synthesize the policy developments. But a decade's worth of work pondering production activities in the basin may indicate that we are less in need of policy development, and more in need of agreement on how to implement the policies. What is especially needed is agreement at the subbasin level on what we want to accomplish in each subbasin, what strategies seem most promising for rebuilding naturally sustaining populations to healthy, harvestable levels, and whether and how to use the artificial production tool in each subbasin as part of these strategies.

The challenge is to manage the transition effectively. Clearly, by calling for review of federally funded hatchery programs, Congress is taking a serious look at whether these programs are in fact producing sufficient results to merit funding at traditional levels. Artificial production is currently a vital tool for maintaining fish harvest and, in some cases, rebuilding depressed stocks. Basin-wide policies and subbasin goals and objectives must guide artificial production and funding priorities.

II. FACILITATOR'S IMPRESSIONS OF WORKSHOP OUTCOME

Workshop Participants
Approximately 75 participants attended the two-day workshop from Oregon, Idaho and Washington. Participants included a combination of policy and technical representatives from tribal governments, state governments, the federal government, hatchery owners and operators, and private fishing interests, who have an interest in artificial production in the Columbia River Basin. In addition, members of the Science Review Team participated.

Purpose and Approach
On the first day of the workshop, participants were asked to comment on the "Strawfish" policy proposal circulated by the Council staff prior to the workshop. This draft document was intended as the initial step in preparing a recommendation on artificial production policy for public review prior to finalizing the report to Congress. The mission of the workshop was described as follows:

"Participants will be asked to help develop a report on artificial production policies that will have the potential for widespread support within the region and serve to focus additional discussion and decisions. This report will form the basis for regional discussion on artificial production policies which will lead to decisions by the Northwest Power Planning Council on its recommendations to Congress."

The goal was "to reach as much agreement as possible on the proposed policies for artificial production and to identify those areas in which there is not agreement."

Given the numerous perspectives on artificial production in the Columbia River Basin, the workshop was designed to encourage as much communication among participants as possible. Therefore, a combination of plenary sessions with the full group and smaller break-out groups was utilized. After each break-out session, the facilitators provided a report. After each report, the facilitators provided their group members with the opportunity to contribute to the report.

During the initial session it was emphasized that the Strawfish, which contained a set of general principles and policies for artificial production in the Columbia River Basin, was a draft that could be added to or revised based on the experience and knowledge of the various participants. The Scientific Principles contained in Section I were considered to be accepted due to its wide-spread review and use under the Columbia River Basin Multi-Species Framework process. However, participants did focus on these principles, suggested revisions during the workshop, and in some cases disagreed with the adequacy or acceptability of these principles.

Participants were divided into three break-out groups. The primary task was to review and comment on the Strawfish prepared by Council staff. Participants were also asked to review and comment on an initial Premise Statement prepared by the facilitation team (see Appendix C to this report). Although not clearly articulated in the IHOT report, the Strawfish, the Science Review Team's state-of-the-science report, or other sources, a number of premises and hypotheses were implicit in those initiatives. The Premise Statement was intended to help focus discussion on core issues and sharpen the regional discussion on artificial production.

During these discussions there was significant debate surrounding the draft Review of Salmonid Artificial Production in the Columbia River Basin, or state-of-the-science report, from the Scientific Review Team. Many participants felt there was a need to build artificial production policies around the many past efforts and studies conducted throughout the basin. That would include integrating recommendations from the IHOT, RASP, and other planning efforts.

There was also general acceptance that the principles contained in the Strawfish did not address the specific needs or on-the-ground decision-making requirements at individual hatcheries or within a subbasin.

There was general agreement that the Premise Statement was an appropriate tool to guide artificial production policies. Among other comments, it was generally agreed that the Premise should include a recognition of the requirement to meet treaty rights, ESA and other legal mandates, as well as describe the various purposes for artificial production.

Restructuring the Approach
During the evening, the Council staff and facilitators considered the comments received during the day and agreed it was time to take a step back. There was not sufficient agreement among the participants on using the Strawfish for discussion purposes. The debate during the first day centered on the fact that the IHOT report had received significant peer review and contained a combination of operational standards and regional policies. The SRT's state-of-the science report and the Strawfish, on the other hand, were generally perceived as mandating regional policies without having a clear connection to hatchery operations and previous policy recommendations and actions. There was a need to merge these two efforts.

On the second day participants were divided into four break-out groups to discuss: 1) Genetics, 2) Hatchery Performance Standards and the revised Premise Statement, 3) Ecosystem Interaction, and 4) Implementation. Participants attended the break-out session of their choice. They were asked in each of the first three groups to review policy statements and performance standards contained in the IHOT report and determine how the Strawfish should be revised to incorporate those policies. They were also encouraged to make recommendations on any follow-up actions or tasks that could help lead to more informed decision-making.

Participant Recommendations
As noted above, the purpose of the workshop was to seek input from the participants on the draft statement of artificial production policies (the Strawfish). They were asked to help develop a report on artificial production policies that would have the potential for widespread support within the region and serve to focus additional discussion and decisions, leading eventually to the Council's recommendations on policy to Congress. It was not intended that participants would reach consensus on each policy or the overall package.

There was insufficient time to revisit the level of agreement among the participants on any one recommendation discussed.

1. Areas of General Agreement
There appeared to be general agreement in the following areas:

a. Report Process, Approach & Development:

• Participants stated there was probably 70% to 80% agreement among the participants on regional policies for artificial production. However, the 20% to 30% differences were significant.
• Artificial production must be based on scientifically defensible assumptions regarding the benefits and role of artificial production. There was significant concern that the SRT's report did not evaluate current changes in hatchery operations or sufficiently evaluate past work efforts such as the IHOT and RASP studies. The SRT's report should not be viewed as the only scientific basis for regional policy directions. These past efforts should be integrated into any regional policy.
• The SRT's state-of-the-science report did not sufficiently recognize that as artificial production purposes changed over time, hatchery operations changed to adapt to the new information.
• The Council should more clearly distinguish between policies, principles, objectives and purposes.
• Policies and principles guiding artificial production programs should recognize existing legal obligations.
• In general the regional policies should provide guidance for development of artificial production programs consistent with the law -- not form mandates.
• The policies must adequately address resident fish concerns.
• Some participants voiced the concern that the focus should be on implementing measures associated with artificial production as opposed to creating another forum for planning purposes. Some expressed frustration that the necessary policies had already been developed in the sub-regional planning forums.

b. Policy Directives

• The policy statements contained in the IHOT report should be incorporated into the regional policy report. This includes recommendations from the chapter on genetics and hatchery performance standards. Only the policy statement under ecosystem interaction should be incorporated.
• A revised premise statement and hypotheses should be included in the regional policy report and provide guidance and sharpen discussion of artificial production in the region.
• There is a need for coordination, compatibility and integration of artificial production objectives between entities and programs.
• The principles should recognize that the Columbia River Basin is an altered environment and will remain so for the foreseeable future. Concerns voiced ranged from believing that the extreme focus on natural freshwater habitat wasn't realistic, to recognizing the fish are in serious decline and therefore one cannot give up on the habitat.
• Hatcheries are a tool that have a mitigation and conservation role in the future Columbia River ecosystem. The roles include: rehabilitation programs for native runs; perpetual programs to supply fishing opportunities; meeting treaty rights and other legal obligations; management for greater harvest potential from a combination of natural production and hatcheries; and mitigating for habitat no longer accessible.
• With care given to the appropriate changes in the hatchery environment, the response of hatchery fish can be compatible with and complementary to the purposes of artificial production. * The role for and purposes of artificial production will change over time. As the role of the artificial program changes over time, the application of principles and policies should be revised to reflect the new information or new vision.
• Artificial Production has risks and benefits.
• Mimicking wild stock rearing conditions will reduce impacts. There was general acceptance that mimicking wild stock production, rearing, and release can improve survival and ultimately reduce impacts on wild stocks. There was also support for recognizing that, in some situations, it may be advantageous for both wild stocks and the overall fisheries to produce stocks that do not compete -- in time or place -- with wild stocks for the same ecological niche. This assumes straying could be managed and the artificially produced stock could be properly isolated. Adapting existing facilities to this vision, where appropriate, will require significant funding.
• Although there was recognition that an overall regional policy for artificial production is needed, the final decision on the purpose(s) of an artificial production program facility will need to be made within the context of subbasin plans. It is within a subbasin that the integration of the potential purpose(s) with natural stock preservation and rebuilding should occur and interaction with the ecosystem can best be understood.
• The subbasin plans will decide the purposes of artificial production within a subbasin and the level of risks and benefits of various strategies.
• Each subbasin plan should be integrated at the regional level and be compatible with activities in other subbasins. Developing these subbasin plans should be a priority.
• The risks associated with artificial production should be evaluated against performance standards, purposes, legal obligations, and the implications of lost fisheries due to not managing for cross purposes.
• Participants also provided specific language revisions to the principles under Section II and III.

c. Comments on the Scientific Principles - Strawfish Section I

There were several comments on the Scientific Principles for the Conceptual Framework of the Columbia River Basin Multi-Species Framework contained in Section I. Although these principles have been discussed in several forums many participants either disagreed with these principles or felt they were not complete. Workshop participants recommended several changes to the Framework Scientific Principles, including the addition of the word "responsive" to the list of ecosystem characteristics. Several participants also questioned whether ecosystems are necessarily structured hierarchically and whether the historical role of humans in the ecosystem should be stated more clearly. Some of the comments received are highlighted below.

• Ecosystems are not hierarchical. * There should be recognition that humans are part of and dependent on the ecosystem.
• Natural ecosystems are dynamic, resilient and responsive.
• The framework principles should recognize tribal values.
• See also areas of disagreement.

d. Hatchery Performance Work Group

The Hatchery Performance work group reviewed the Premise Statement, the IHOT Hatchery Performance Standards Policy (Chapter 4), and discussed the intersection between the IHOT report and the Strawfish Sections II and III.

• The Group agreed that the Premise Statement should function as a bridge between the scientific principles and the rest of the Strawfish. The participants agreed that hatcheries are dynamic and the purposes for hatcheries will change over time as requirements change.
• Generally the IHOT principles and policies were accepted. They were viewed as providing clear specifics of how to apply the standards in the local process and within a regional plan. They were also viewed to be consistent with the principles contained in the Strawfish.
• In Section II of the Strawfish, the Group proposed the following revisions:

• Define the purpose of artificial production to be consistent with other uses.
  The Group proposed the following definition: The purposes for use of artificial production should include:
  -- Mitigation (replace production from permanently lost habitat).
  -- Augmentation (increase harvest above the level provided by natural production).
  -- Supplementation (increase/maintain natural production and fitness).
  -- Restoration (re-establish extirpated populations in natural habitat).
  -- Conservation (preserve seriously depleted stocks/species).

Each of these purposes for use is legitimate if implemented consistent with the regional principles and policies and integrated within the ecological framework of the appropriate subbasins.

• Life history diversity should be maintained not maximized.
• Young's Bay and Willamette Steelhead programs were identified as successful examples of programs that were implemented before the vision of hatcheries changed to mimicking natural production. This kind of activity should not be excluded under the regional policy.
• It may be appropriate to bring new stocks into a subbasin before a population of fish has become extinct.
• Section III of the Strawfish became more palatable to the Group if the term "will" was changed to "should" or "when applicable".
• In Section III. A. 3, the Group identified a risk in closing hatcheries due to the loss of fish. In general, the Group recommended trying to remedy the problems within a hatchery before closing it. Participants also proposed developing a plan to prioritize artificial production investments in the region over a five year period. One participant suggested that artificial production funding should be flexibly managed to allow for moving funds to the best investment.
• In Section III. D. 5, the Group agreed there should be independent reviews of hatchery programs every 3-5 years. Government owned hatcheries would be evaluated under their own internal procedures. e. Genetics Work Group The Genetics Work Group generally agreed that the policy statement in the IHOT document defined the desired outcomes. A number of the goals and performance measures address hatchery fitness genetic issues. The report also recommends use of a geneticist in development of programs. Although the IHOT policy statement was approved by fisheries managers and federal agencies, participants believed that, if written today, there would be additional direction on genetics issues. The Group's recommendations included three future tasks.

Future Action #1:
A Task Team (SRT representatives and IHOT representatives) should develop guidelines to supplement the IHOT report. The purpose of the guidelines are listed below.

• The guidelines should be used in subregional or subbasin planning to guide objectives and integration with the ecosystem.
• The guidelines should be incorporated in evaluation of existing and new facilities.
• The guidelines should be used to evaluate risks and benefits of proposed strategies (to inform the decision-making process).
• The guidelines will reflect the artificial production program project purpose for the planning period. If goals are later changed, the decision would include assessment under applicable guidelines.
• The guidelines will provide the foundation together with subbasin or subregional plans for monitoring and evaluation.

Future Action #2:
The Task Team should adapt the Council "Three-Step" process for evaluating proposed new artificial production facilities so that it can be applied to existing facilities. The purpose of the program is to:

1. Apply the same analysis to existing hatcheries that would be applied to new facilities.
2. The tool could be used in subbasin or subregional planning.
3. This tool could be utilized in periodic individual facility reviews.

Future Action #3:
Compliance will be achieved through requiring that access to funding will be contingent on establishing objectives and meeting IHOT and guideline requirements. Priority access to funding for reprogramming, redesign or other improvements will also be tied into actions to implement this approach.

• These decisions will lead to some artificial production programs being continued, some modified, and some discontinued.
• Periodic audits would evaluate whether objectives are being achieved, and risks managed appropriately.

f. Ecological Interaction Work Group
The Ecological Interaction Work Group generally concurred that the IHOT policy document (Chapter 6) gave individual facilities guidance for determining whether they are meeting their current objective, and how to take ecological interaction into account. There was general agreement that the next step should be to evaluate whether or not the individual programs are meeting the right objectives. Some participants were hesitant to agree this needed to happen on a basin-wide scale. Subbasin or subregional reviews may be more appropriate. Generally, scientific review of the IHOT report and the resulting audits was welcomed.

The Group noted that the performance measures focused on interaction between fish species rather than overall ecological interactions. The Group agreed the way to determine overall ecological interactions was through monitoring and evaluation. Generally, the IHOT report did not provide guidance on evaluations of ecological interactions beyond the area relatively near the release of fish, which is generally the range of the producing facility's monitoring and evaluation plan.

The IHOT report does not give sufficient direction to fish managers. The Group agreed that fish managers must consider ecological interactions when determining whether the objectives they are setting meets the legal mandates they are under. Hatchery managers must consider ecological interactions when determining whether they are meeting their given objectives.

Although guidelines are needed, legal and institutional barriers to change were noted:

• Facility infrastructure is difficult to modify, and often expensive.
• Habitat ownership and jurisdiction, such as river operation, are out of the control of fish and hatchery managers.
• There are often conflicts between mitigation agreements and ESA and other federal laws.
• There are limited/inadequate funds for monitoring and evaluation by fish managers.
• Societal values often come into play when attempting change. Questions such as: what are we willing to live with, and how will we decide this, are difficult to answer. This highlighted the need to determine acceptable risk.
• Harvest regimes are established and are hard to change.
• There is a balancing act between affects on ecological interactions and meeting obligations.

The Work Group recommended an approach to regional ecological interaction.

1. Regional monitoring and evaluation coordination using existing forums.
2. Subbasin monitoring and evaluation coordination.
3. Development of risk/benefit guidelines by scientific community built on existing documents at both the regional and subbasin levels.

The goal of this approach would be minimizing ecological interactions, generating consistency where appropriate, and determining whether the objectives of a hatchery are appropriate.

There was general agreement that the IHOT document serves as great background and a starting point for developing coordinated hatchery reform. A review of current hatchery objectives is important. We must ask whether we have the appropriate mix in the basin.

g. Implementation Work Group
The Implementation Work Group focused its attention on what should be included in the report to Congress, how the regional policy should be implemented in the future, and how the programs should be funded.

They agreed there was a lack of coordination among the various programs and viewed this process as an opportunity to inform Congress on the underpinnings of hatchery programs.

They recommended the report describe the overall goals and purposes of hatcheries. This would include the multiple roles, all of which are valid as long as they are done in a scientific manner. The report should also:

• Communicate the status of hatchery management and objectives.
• Include various scientific and policy reports including the IHOT policy document.
• Address where we need to go from here and what is intended in the future to meet the identified objectives.
• Describe how hatcheries are linked to subbasin plans -- as an integrated part of the solution.

The Group recommended incorporating the following concepts into the report:

• Statement describing hatchery programs. This would include the goals and history --- how they were modified and changed overtime. It would identify the multiple goals for artificial production which include support for restoration and to provide for fisheries.
• Statement of scientific underpinnings.
• Statement of overarching policies, guidelines, and premises.
• Status of programs and facilities.
• Integration of subbasin planning.
• Describe management plans and funding.
• Final recommendations.

They also discussed "dusting-off" the subbasin plans and using the draft multi-year implementation plan, along with including descriptions of some of the successful programs that have been funded by the Council in the past.

Following this report, the full group outlined the following report elements:

• Statement describing existing hatchery programs. Describe the purpose and use, goals and past problems, and changes in goals over time to the present situation of twin goals we have today.

a) Supporting restoration of naturally producing populations.
b) Providing fishery opportunities

-Twin goals either formally or informally
-Basic dilemma is how to use this tool to satisfy both goals

• Include description of previous work to develop and review policies: the IHOT report, the RASP guidelines, etc.
• Scientific underpinnings -- include the revised SRT's state-of-the-science report.

2. Areas of Disagreement

• Should the Scientific Principles contained in Section I of the Strawfish form the basis for the regional policies on artificial production.
  -- They are not adopted and require further debate.
  -- They have received approval and no further debate is needed.
  -- They are broader then the SRT's report/Strawfish.
  -- They should not be included in the Council's policies on artificial production.
• There was significant discussions regarding the purpose of artificial production both on a regional basis and within subbasins. The participants generally agreed that artificial production can serve beneficial purposes of augmenting fisheries as well as restoring some of the natural runs. There was disagreement, however, by some participants who felt that the goal of conservation did not necessarily address the goal of rebuilding natural runs. Conservation was described by the Hatchery Performance Work Group as preserving seriously depleted stocks/species. (See page 13 regarding this Work Group's recommendation on purposes.)
• Due to time constraints the participants did not have the opportunity to comment on Sections IV and V of the Strawfish. Lack of comment does not represent agreement.

Conclusion
Over the two days, there was broad participation by the individuals. The sessions were intense and helped identify where there were significant differences among participants on key points.

The participants recognized that Congress is unlikely to continue to fund artificial production programs at current levels in the Columbia River Basin unless the programs are fulfilling their purpose and meeting specific objectives to improve fisheries. There was fear that the need for change will be used as an excuse to cut funding or erode mitigation responsibilities.

It was recognized that there is a need to develop a coherent, science-based, and coordinated approach to artificial production. Yet there were serious reservations about the current process, including the conclusions reached in the SRT's state-of-the-science report. The participants acknowledged that there was a substantial amount of agreement among them on what should be contained in a set of regional policies for artificial production. They also emphasized the need to build those policies on past efforts by integrating the operational standards and regional policies recommended in the IHOT policy study, the SRT's initial report, the RASP guidelines, and other reports.

Although transitions in artificial production programs have occurred over time as new information becomes available, reforming existing hatcheries will be costly. In light of this, there was general agreement that a transition strategy and an investment strategy are needed.

III. FACILITATOR'S RECOMMENDATIONS

A. USE RECENT POLICY AND SCIENTIFIC REPORTS AS THE STARTING POINT FOR DEVELOPING THE POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS TO CONGRESS

Policies attempting to guide artificial production in the Columbia Basin have been in a state of dramatic transition for more than the last decade. A number of recent scientific studies and regional reports, as well as numerous listings under the Endangered Species Act (ESA), have required a reassessment of the purposes, policies, objectives, and performance indicators for artificial production programs. The Artificial Production Review (APR), of which the Workshop was a part, is the Council's response to Congressional direction to develop a coordinated and scientifically credible set of policies from this recent work to guide programs and public investment in them. In preparation for the APR Workshop, Council staff developed a Strawfish proposal (See Appendix B) which was drawn from their Scientific Review Team (SRT) Report on artificial production, as well as the Multi-Species Framework document's Scientific Principles and other sources. The Strawfish was intended to focus Workshop discussion and help develop agreement on a coherent set of policies.

During the first session of the Workshop, it became clear that an APR policy document must be more closely connected to recent major efforts in this area, such as the IHOT and RASP reports, which had as their very purpose developing policies and performance standards to reform hatchery practices to address recent scientific and management concerns. This is not to say that these existing policy studies perfectly cover the field and thus the Council should simply send them on to Congress as the latest word in production policy. But these policy developments should be the starting point and foundation for the APR policy review, tested in the policy and scientific review processes to see if the policy statements are adequate or if there are gaps to fill and problems to correct.

At the same time we (the facilitators) were preparing this report, we continued to work with Council staff to revise the proposed statement of artificial production policies along the lines suggested above. Together with Council staff, we are presenting the revised proposed policy statement to the Council at the same time as this report, "Draft NWPPC Artificial Production Policy Statement, Columbia Basin Hatcheries: A Program In Transition (updated February 17, 1999)." We recommend:

1. Continue to develop the policy statement and review with interested parties and the public. The Council's APR initiative must draw from the major regional studies and policy documents developed over the last seven years on artificial production, especially those which have special scientific credibility and/or broad acceptance within the Columbia Basin.

• Of particular importance is the Integrated Hatchery Operations Team (IHOT) Report, developed by the fish managers, as well as the Regional Assessment of Supplementation Project (RASP) Report, and reports by the Independent Scientific Group, the National Fish Hatchery Review Panel, and the National Research Council.

2. General policies must be broadly applicable throughout the Basin and specific policies and performance indicators must provide tangible guidance for hatchery managers.

• The APR Policy Statement must integrate both "top down" guidance, such as the Multi-Species Framework Scientific Principles, and "bottom up" policies and performance indicators, as found in the IHOT report.

B. FURTHER DEFINE SCIENTIFIC PRINCIPLES

Discussion at the Workshop indicated that although it is valuable to have overarching scientific principles that are applicable throughout the Columbia Basin, and which help bind together the different pieces of the Multi-Species Framework process, there was uncertainty and concern about some of the terms and principles. Many participants either disagreed with certain of these principles or felt they were not complete. For example, workshop participants recommended changes to certain of the Framework Scientific Principles, such as the addition of the word "responsive" to the list of ecosystem characteristics, that is, natural ecosystems are "dynamic, resilient and responsive." Several participants also questioned whether ecosystems are necessarily structured hierarchically and whether the historical role of humans in the ecosystem should be stated more clearly -- that humans are a part of and dependent on the ecosystem. Others commented that the framework principles should recognize tribal values.

Although it is not within the scope of the APR to revise elements of the Multi-Species Framework, the Council and regional interests should work to clarify and further define the Scientific Principles.

C. TEST PREMISES AND HYPOTHESES

Various and sometimes contradictory premises underlie policies for artificial production. In an effort to bring these usually unstated premises into the open and subject them to scrutiny, the Facilitation Team developed an initial list of premises and related hypotheses. During the Workshop, and in follow up work sessions, the premise statement was discussed, revised, and amended. As important policy underpinnings, these premises and hypotheses should be used to help focus the regional discussion on artificial production and should be tested to determine their validity. The premise statement as discussed at the workshop is attached as an Appendix to this report; a revised version of the premise statement is part of the revised policy statement going to the Council along with this report.

D. DEFINE PURPOSES FOR ARTIFICIAL PRODUCTION, WHICH WILL GUIDE APPLICATION OF POLICIES AND PERFORMANCE INDICATORS

The purpose or role of an artificial production facility or program will determine the way in which policies and performance indicators should be applied to the design and operation. For example, if a hatchery's purpose is to supplement a depressed wild or naturally spawning run, it must be planned and operated according to policies and performance indicators designed to mimic the characteristics and rearing conditions of the depressed wild stock, if this is possible. If, on the other hand, the purpose is harvest augmentation alone, the design and operation of a facility might be guided by a set of policies and performance indicators designed to differentiate and isolate the artificially produced stock from wild runs. In either instance, a common goal is to minimize adverse impacts on wild and naturally spawning populations, but the approach taken to meet that goal might differ.

Given the importance of purposes in applying policies and evaluating artificial production facilities and programs, the Council and regional stakeholders should put a high priority on developing a comprehensive and broadly accepted definition of purposes, and in coming to an understanding or agreement as to the purpose or purposes for the operation of every facility and program. The workshop Strawfish contained a five-part definition of the purposes for artificial production. Council staff is working with participants in the APR to refine the definition.

E. UPDATE MATRIX MATCHING PURPOSES AND POLICIES

One of the most impressive and useful features of the Strawfish was the Section IV matrix: Policies for the Use of Artificial Production for Specific Production Purposes. Once a common set of definitions of purposes is developed and the APR policy statement is refined, the Council staff should work with the APR participants to revise the matrix and include it in the policy document. This should occur by early April, to allow for the matrix to circulate among interested persons for review and comment.

F. REVISE THE SRT'S INITIAL STATE-OF-THE-SCIENCE REPORT

The importance of a solid scientific foundation for the APR policy document cannot be overstated. The SRT's report will play a key role in determining the scientific credibility of the policy proposal and the report to Congress in May/June. Some conference participants were concerned about what they viewed as an unnecessarily restrictive approach toward artificial production by the SRT, as well as by their perception that it ignored other important and relevant regional initiatives, most notably the IHOT and RASP reports. Other participants were concerned that it focused exclusively on anadromous fish and did not address resident fish programs.

1. The Council and the SRT should make every effort to have the SRT revise its initial state-of-the-science report on artificial production, subject it in some way to public comment and some form of formal or informal peer review, and submit at least a revised draft to Congress along with the policy statement.
2. The SRT should give careful consideration to the policies and performance measures in the IHOT report and the RASP guidelines, as well as other major recent efforts to define reform standards for hatcheries. In revising the report, the SRT should also consider and address relevant comments received on the initial report.
3. The SRT's report should address the issue of resident fish programs, especially in up-river blocked areas where the natural system has been highly altered.
4. The revised SRT report should expand the discussion of ecological interactions.

G. HATCHERY REVIEWS

Once the SRT finishes its state-of-the-science report, the workplan for the APR calls on the SRT to conduct a performance evaluation of hatcheries. Managers at the Workshop expressed no lack of concern over the upcoming performance evaluation process, and the criteria to be used in the audits and evaluations. Since funding and allocation decisions are likely to be influenced by the evaluations, their concern is understandable. A chief specific concern was that artificial production programs and facilities be evaluated according to current purposes and corresponding policies and performance indicators. Also that the process be transparent and make use of existing audit data and protocols.

A performance evaluation in the current context ideally involves three different if related tasks. One is to describe the existing goals and objectives for a hatchery, evaluate whether the hatchery is meeting those goals and objectives, and assess the reason(s) why or why not these are being met or not met. The second task is to evaluate the operations of a hatchery not against its defined goals and objectives, but instead against the policies and performance standards for reformed operations developed recently and described in the policy statement. The third task assumes the first two have been completed. The challenge then is to make use of this information to revise mandates where needed, reform or close hatcheries that are not meeting defined objectives and/or current performance standards, provide funding and other support for transitions, etc. All three of these steps or tasks are described below.

1. Evaluation of how well hatcheries meet defined goals/objectives.
The performance evaluation planned for the SRT is of this first type -- evaluate how well hatcheries are meeting their defined goals and objectives. In most cases this means analyzing the contribution of a hatchery to harvest, and in fewer cases to maintaining or rebuilding naturally spawning populations. This work should require, for each hatchery and hatchery program, describing the goal and objectives of the hatchery and program and then evaluating how well that hatchery has fulfilled that goal and objectives. This kind of information is prelude to an investigation into the reasons why a hatchery has not met its objectives (if it has not), and to decisions about how to change the practices at that hatchery so it can better meet its objectives and/or revise the purposes of that hatchery -- reviewing and critiquing what the current hatchery objectives are is just another facet of reviewing whether these objectives have been met.

Some of this information already exists, and some of it needs to be developed, as follows:

• The region may already have good information on this subject for the Lower Snake River Compensation Plan hatcheries, from the 1998 symposium and from the FWS' January 1999 summary report prepared for the Council's review of the reimbursable budget this year and next.
• Information about the Council program hatcheries and production programs is also available, and what is not complete can be developed as an adjunct to this year's direct program review under the Power Act amendment.
• For the Corps' John Day, Bonneville and Willamette hatcheries, the information appears to be less developed, although the IHOT audits inquired to some extent into defined objectives and how well they had been met. These hatcheries are also subject to the Council's review of the reimbursable parts of Bonneville's budget, which will be one vehicle for further development of information on goals, objectives, and performance to be provided to the SRT.
• For the Bureau of Reclamation's Grande Coulee mitigation hatcheries, information similar to that noted above is available and the Council's review of the Bonneville reimbursable budget applies as well.
• For the Mitchell Act hatcheries, it is also unclear to the extent this information is available, beyond what limited inquiry took place as part of the IHOT audits. Also, the Mitchell Act hatcheries are not the subject of an annual regional funding review, and so we lack a convenient vehicle for developing information to feed to the SRT. Thus the highest priority should be finding out from NMFS and the Mitchell Act hatchery operating agencies whether they have this information, and if not, what it would take in actions and funding to get it.
• There may be other federal and state funded and operated hatcheries that will need to be reviewed as well. In particular, there are probably resident fish hatcheries that would fall into this category.
• The hatcheries associated with FERC-licensed projects are such a significant part of the basin production that they need to be evaluated in the same process. The Council staff and APR participants need to work with the FERC licensees and their hatchery operators (often state or tribal fish agencies) to develop this information for the SRT.

As this information is gathered and developed, the task for the SRT should be to organize and synthesize the information and display conclusions about how well hatcheries are meeting their defined goals and objectives.

2. Review of operations for consistency with standards/policies for reformed operations.
The second and different performance evaluation task is to evaluate how well hatcheries match up to the most recently defined policies and standards for hatchery operations (in terms of survival, genetics, fish health, ecological interactions, etc.), identify deficiencies, and recommend corrections. The APR workplan does not call for the SRT to conduct this type of evaluation, except to the extent the SRT finds these issues relevant as it evaluates why a particular hatchery did not meet its defined objectives. It is, however, a type of evaluation that Congress and others will be wondering about following the articulation of appropriate policies.

The IHOT report not only produced a set of policies, it produced audits of hatcheries based on performance standards that looked at program objectives, fish health, genetics, ecological interactions, etc. Thus the first task should be to review the IHOT audits to see what in fact has been done to evaluate hatcheries against responsible policies, look at the deficiencies noted and recommendations for reform, and come to some conclusions about whether these audits are sufficient for now or more needs to be done.

If more evaluation work needs to be done, the next step is to decide how best to evaluate hatchery performance against the most recent set of standards. This could be done in a separate review process. Or, the funding review processes (and the subbasin planning process, described below) might be used to conduct these performance evaluations. This strategy, once again, works well for all of the federally-funded hatchery programs except the Mitchell Act hatcheries, which do not have a regional funding review. The IHOT audits are a good source of audit information on these hatcheries, although possibly not sufficient to bring this program into proper relief. The Council should recommend to Congress that the region needs a special focus on the Mitchell Act program to decide how to evaluate the hatcheries.

3. Consider and make policy recommendations based on the conclusions of the performance evaluations.
Once the performance evaluations are complete, the obvious question is what to do with them -- how to make sure that needed reforms are made, that transition funding and other support is made available, that programs and facilities that cannot be reformed are closed, that defined goals and objectives are revised to make them consistent with current realities?

Two vehicles for considering and making these kinds of decisions are discussed above and elsewhere. One is to make use of the annual regional funding reviews for the reimbursable and direct program parts of Bonneville's budget as leverage to bring about these changes. There is no regional funding review for the Mitchell Act hatcheries (or the FERC-licensed hatcheries), so the best that could be done in this vein is to make the performance evaluation conclusions known to the Administration and Congress during the budget reviews. A second vehicle is to use the subbasin planning process to decide how best to use the artificial production tool in particular subbasins, consistent with the policies and performance standards described.

H. SUBBASIN AND BASIN-WIDE PLANNING

Artificial production programs cannot operate in a vacuum: the ecosystem and resource management decisions largely determine the survival of artificially produced fish, which, in turn, have an impact on other fish and the web of interactions within the ecosystem. Artificial production goals, purposes, policies, and operations must be integrated into this larger context.

Subbasin and Columbia River Basin planning is an important tool for integrating artificial production into a thoughtfully coordinated whole. The subbasin level especially is the level at which many decisions affecting habitat quality, quantity, and carrying capacity are made, and where the Endangered Species Act and harvest management intersect with natural and artificial production.

Ironically, it was the additional uncertainty and difficulty associated with the ESA listings of Snake River salmon earlier in this decade that derailed the 31 subbasin plans which had been launched in the late 1980s as part of a major regional initiative. Developed at a cost of almost $6 million, these subbasin plans were completed in the early 1990s and covered the Columbia Basin below Chief Joseph and Hells Canyon dams. This effort was largely driven by the need to develop production allocation agreements and broaden harvest opportunities (under U.S. v. Oregon) and use artificial production to help rebuild declining natural populations. The listing of the Snake River stocks increased the importance of protecting and recovering natural populations and raised additional concerns about harvest and artificial production goals. Under the additional weight of these uncertainties and pressures, the agreement surrounding the subbasin planning initiative broke down.

Although they have been used to establish artificial production goals and objectives in many cases, the full benefit of the subbasin planning effort is unrealized. Although it was the weight of the ESA listings which caused the subbasin planning effort to bog down, the ESA also provides one of the major reasons for reinvigorating the initiative. The need to integrate policies and actions related to habitat, harvest, and artificial production has never been greater. The time is right to revisit the subbasin plans and update and revise them. The subbasin plans should be used as the basis for integration of artificial production with natural production and habitat restoration work and for setting goals and objectives within the respective subbasins.

Many of the important interactions related to artificial production occur at the subbasin level, where the relative impact of, and affect on, individual artificial production programs and facilities is the most concentrated. However, the full life cycle of wild and artificially produced salmon, and the full range of ecological interactions, must ultimately be taken into account. Ecosystem status and management decisions must be seen from a broader context as well, also requiring the updating of the system plan for the Columbia Basin.

1. Utilize subbasin plans, with appropriate updates and revisions, to provide the context for artificial production goals and objectives and as a forum for integration and decision making. Section 8 of the revised policy statement, presented to the Council along with this report, recommends an approach to subbasin planning. Some of the elements are highlighted here:

• Plans must reflect recent progress in production planning, monitoring and evaluation, status and needs of wild and naturally spawning fish, habitat restoration actions and opportunities, the potential benefits of supplementation, and other important developments. In addition, resident fish will need to be more fully addressed in most existing subbasin plans.
• The state and tribal fish managers and the principal stakeholders in the subbasins should have the primary responsibility for utilizing, and where necessary updating, the subbasin plans, with encouragement, technical assistance, financial support, and other incentives from regional and federal sources.
• Subbasin plans should be developed for the blocked areas above Chief Joseph and Hells Canyon dams, recognizing that in-stream conditions have been highly altered and that artificial production of resident fish is widespread.
• Subbasin plans should be used to determine the purposes and objectives of artificial production programs within the respective subbasins, including when and how artificial production should be used within the subbasin

2. The Columbia Basin System Plan should be updated and revised to provide the broader context for artificial production and other ecological interactions in the Columbia Basin, and in the estuarine, nearshore, and marine environments.

3. Monitoring and evaluation of ecological indicators and artificial production programs should be performed at the subbasin level.

I. MAJOR FISHERIES MANAGEMENT DECISIONS

This is a time of transition for fisheries management and artificial production programs in the Columbia Basin. Fundamental policy decisions must be made that will guide overall fish management goals and objectives and, more specifically, artificial production programs in the Basin. These decisions include which stocks receive management priority, whether we will manage hatcheries for harvest on an on-going basis, and how managers meet their respective goals and objectives. With several -- often conflicting -- mandates, including mitigation obligations, Treaty rights, ESA and wild fish requirements, and ecological constraints, this is not a simple matter.

As noted above, artificial production programs will be evaluated initially by how well they meet currently defined goals and objectives. The policy document will provide the guidance for artificial production programs needed to move ahead during this transition period with a sense of purpose and direction, understanding that the policies must be applied in the context of subbasin and Basin-wide plans. Managers must also navigate this transition with a sense of urgency.

There should be no delay in applying these policies, working within subbasin plans, and undertaking other reforms. If sufficient progress is not made in artificial production programs in the next year or two, it is likely that much of the autonomy now enjoyed by managers will be severely constrained. Reform is a requirement. How it is implemented and managed will largely be determined by the effectiveness of proactive efforts by program managers in the near future.

If annual funding reviews or subbasin plans are not sufficient to focus the necessary political attention on needed hatchery reforms, additional measures will be considered by Congress and other decisionmakers. For example, the Council has been considering, as part of its APR recommendations, the idea of proposing the formation of a "blue-ribbon" panel or steering committee, made up of individuals with a high degree of trust and integrity from government and the private sector, in the region and out, to review the application of artificial production policies.

In summary, the following policy guidance will help managers in the Columbia Basin make sound decisions on fisheries management and artificial production facilities.

1. The APR policy document must determine when, and under what conditions, it is necessary to mimic wild stock characteristics, rearing, and migration patterns as much as possible.
2. The APR policy document must also determine when, and under what conditions, it may be appropriate to pursue an isolation strategy for artificially produced fish, if possible.
3. The policies must be applied in the context of subbasin and basin-wide plans.
4. Policies regarding resident fish production programs must be given greater attention.
5. Efforts must be made to integrate, where possible, initiatives associated with the U.S. v. Oregon process.
6. Artificial production programs and other elements of subbasin plans must be subjected to ESA reviews with the National Marine Fisheries Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

J. INVESTMENT STRATEGY

It is clear from the Congressional requirement for the Council's policy recommendations on artificial production in the Columbia Basin, and other signs, that requests for continued funding of the status quo will be a failing strategy. Funding will follow reform and the question is how to develop a thoughtful transition strategy which benefits both wild stocks and fisheries, without breaking the bank.

1. The Council and regional decisionmakers and stakeholders must develop a collaborative transition strategy for artificial production in the Columbia Basin which provides incentives for necessary reforms and addresses the needs of both wild and naturally spawning fish and fish harvest.
2. Subbasin and Columbia Basin planning updates and related efforts should be a high funding priority because they are central to determining the purposes and policies for artificial production in the Basin.
3. Performance evaluations also deserve a high funding priority.

Attachment A

Attachment A is a brief description of the major artificial production programs in the Columbia basin, not only the federally funded programs, but also the hatchery programs associated with FERC-licensed dams.

Federally funded anadromous fish production programs include:

Mitchell Act hatcheries.
More than forty hatchery facilities funded by Congress under the Mitchell Act (also known as the Columbia River Fishery Development Program) are the heart of federally funded artificial production in the basin. Begun in the 1930s and 40s, and pursued ever since without a change in the basic legal authorization, the Mitchell Act called for the "conservation of the fishery resources of the Columbia River" through "one or more salmon cultural stations" and by other means. The majority of the hundreds of millions spent under the Mitchell Act have been used to mitigate for the salmon and steelhead losses that occurred throughout the river by developing hatchery production in the lower Columbia. Mitchell Act facilities are largely concentrated in the lower Columbia, below Bonneville Dam or in the Bonneville pool area and surroundings. Releases from Mitchell Act facilities represent a large portion of all smolts released in the Columbia River Basin -- estimated at one time to be approximately three-quarters of the total numbers produced and more than one-half of the total weight of all Columbia River Basin hatchery releases. Preserving lower-river and ocean harvest opportunities has thus been the main focus of the Mitchell Act program, a constant source of bitterness to the lower river treaty tribes, whose usual and accustomed fishing sites lie above Bonneville Dam. As a result of production agreements negotiated as part of the U.S. v. Oregon harvest litigation and embodied in the Columbia River Fish Management Plan, the federal, state and tribal governments have cooperated in recent years in moving some Mitchell Act fish upriver for release, such as the release of fall chinook and coho from Mitchell Act facilities in the Yakima River.

The Mitchell Act program is administered by NMFS, in cooperation primarily with the USFWS, Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife and the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. Mitchell Act funding comes from Congressional appropriations, without reimbursement by Bonneville, although funding for some of the efforts to re-program Mitchell Act releases upriver are making their way into the fish and wildlife projects funded by Bonneville to implement the Council's Fish and Wildlife Program. Mitchell Act facilities abandoned in recent years due to reductions in Congressional appropriations have also found their way into the Council's program, such as the adaptation of the Gnat Creek hatchery by ODFW to produce fish for a terminal fisheries project in Youngs Bay under the Council's program.

Grand Coulee mitigation -- Leavenworth complex.
The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation completed construction of Grand Coulee Dam in 1941, blocking the migration of salmon beyond that point on the mainstem of the Columbia River. In mitigation of the losses, the Bureau implemented a plan developed by the Washington fishery agency to trap adult salmon at Rock Island Dam on the mid-Columbia and transport them to a hatchery constructed on the Wenatchee River at Leavenworth for artificial propagation, the smolts to be planted in the Wenatchee, Methow, Entiat and Okanogan rivers. The Fish and Wildlife Service operates the Leavenworth facility, funded through Bureau appropriations and reimbursed by Bonneville. Adult returns resulting from this production program have been a fraction of the losses caused by Grand Coulee. In addition, chinook and steelhead in the mid-Columbia region are now listed or proposed for listing.

John Day Dam mitigation.
Congress authorized construction of the John Day Dam as part of the Flood Control Act of 1950. Construction and operation of the dam resulted in the loss of spawning grounds for an estimated 30,000 adult fall chinook salmon. Mitigation through production of millions of fall chinook juveniles has been provided by the Bonneville Fish Hatchery in Oregon, under an agreement between the Corps and the state of Oregon, and the Spring Creek Hatchery in Washington. Both were originally Mitchell Act hatcheries, with funding split between the Corps and NMFS. Out of appropriations, the Corps pays 45 percent of the operation and maintenance costs of the Bonneville hatchery and 50 percent of the operation and maintenance costs of Spring Creek, most of which is reimbursed by Bonneville. Funding provided through Mitchell Act appropriations and administered by NMFS pays for the balance of the operation and maintenance of both facilities.

Lower Snake River Compensation Plan.
In the Water Resources Development Act of 1976, Congress authorized funding of a program to mitigate for fish and wildlife losses caused by construction and operation of the four lower Snake River hydroelectric projects, Lower Granite, Little Goose, Lower Monumental and Ice Harbor, known as the Lower Snake River Compensation Plan (LSRCP). The Corps of Engineers built ten hatcheries and sixteen satellite facilities for adult trapping and juvenile acclimation facilities between 1980 and 1998 on or for the lower Snake, Salmon, Clearwater, Walla Walla, Grande Ronde, Imnaha, Tucannon, Touchet and Walla Walla subbasins, at a cost over $170 million via Congressional appropriations later reimbursed by Bonneville. The Fish and Wildlife Service funds and generally administers the operation, maintenance and evaluation of LSRCP hatcheries and related facilities, using Congressional appropriations also reimbursed by Bonneville. Hatcheries and satellite facilities are operated by the FWS and by cooperating agencies, primarily the state agencies: Idaho Department of Fish and Game, Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, and Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. Three recently completed fall chinook facilities on the Snake and Clearwater rivers (Pittsburg, Big Canyon, Capt. John's), although part of the LSRCP program, have operations and evaluation costs directly funded by Bonneville under the Council's Fish and Wildlife Program. The new Captain John Rapids facility is operated by the Nez Perce Tribe in conjunction with WDFW. The Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation and Shoshone-Bannock Tribes participate as cooperators in operation and management decisions, and all cooperators except the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes receive funds to conduct monitoring and evaluation studies.

The purpose of the LSRCP has been to replace lost salmon, steelhead and trout fishing opportunities, with management goals focused on replacing the loss of returning adult steelhead and salmon, rather than on releasing a given number of smolts. The adult return goals have been based on estimates of salmon and steelhead adult returns to the Snake River basin in the years prior to the construction of the four lower Snake River dams -- adult returns of 18,300 fall chinook, 58,700 spring and summer chinook, and 55,100 steelhead to and above the area of the dams. Each year the LSRCP facilities produce approximately 20 million spring, summer and fall chinook and steelhead (as well as rainbow trout). No sockeye or coho are produced, even though these fish existed in the river and its tributaries prior to construction of the dams. Hatchery siting plans have been based in part on the estimated losses by basin and on the availability of suitable sites and water, access, costs, and other factors. With the possible exception of fall chinook and steelhead targets in the Snake mainstem in Washington, LSRCP production has not come close to meeting the adult return objectives. Meanwhile, naturally spawning salmon and steelhead runs in the Snake have declined to the point of endangered species listings. As an indication of the decline, one of the key issues for the LSRCP is whether these facilities can be transformed to be of use in supplementation efforts to rebuild naturally-spawning populations or even in conservation/captive propagation efforts to conserve wild populations before extinction.

Dworshak Dam mitigation.
Separate from the LSRCP is a production program to mitigate for losses caused by the construction of Dworshak Dam, blocking the North Fork Clearwater River in Idaho. The Corps of Engineers funded the construction of the Dworshak National Fish Hatchery, and the USFWS receives appropriations via the Corps to operate the facility, all reimbursed by Bonneville. The primary goal of fishery mitigation at Dworshak has been to preserve artificially the North Fork steelhead run, as the dam completely blocked the North Fork, a mitigation goal set at returning 20,000 adult steelhead to the Clearwater River. Approximately 1.3 million smolts are released at the hatchery, and 1 million are planted in upstream areas to expand the fishery when adult fish return. Adult steelhead returns to the hatchery have ranged from 1,988 to 43,942 since 1972, and the goal of 20,000 fish has been attained in eight of 25 years of operation.

Willamette River mitigation.
Congress authorized the Corps of Engineers to build a number of projects on tributaries of the Willamette, blocking or causing serious damage to anadromous and resident fish runs. These include Cougar and Blue River dams on the McKenzie River, Detroit and Big Cliff Dams on the North Santiam River, Green Peter and Foster Dams on the South Santiam, and Lookout Point and Dexter Dams on the Middle Fork of the Willamette. Anadromous fish mitigation is provided by the McKenzie, Marion Forks, South Santiam, and Willamette hatcheries, producing millions of spring chinook and steelhead smolts for release at various sites in the Willamette. ODFW operates the hatcheries; the Corps provides most of the funding, with reimbursement by Bonneville. Meanwhile, wild spring chinook in the Willamette and steelhead throughout the lower Columbia region have been listed or proposed for listing.

Northwest Power Act/Council's Fish and Wildlife Program.
The most recent attempt to adapt artificial production techniques to the changing needs in the basin has been through the Council's Fish and Wildlife Program. The Northwest Power Act requires the Council to develop a Columbia River Basin Fish and Wildlife Program consisting of measures to protect, mitigate and enhance fish and wildlife affected by the construction, operation and management of hydroelectric facilities in the basin. The basin's tribes and state fish and wildlife agencies, acting in various combinations, have used the Council's Fish and Wildlife Program to provide mitigation for hydropower effects in part by developing and obtaining funding for new artificial production programs in the subbasins above Bonneville Dam, to increase harvest opportunities and as part of an experimental attempt to supplement naturally spawning populations. The Council's Fish and Wildlife Program conceives of this effort as a coordinated habitat restoration/production program, in which artificial production efforts are supposed to be tied to habitat improvements to increase natural production capacity that can be seeded from the artificial production facilities. All Council Program projects are funded by Bonneville. These efforts have included:

Hood River Production Project -- a Warm Springs Tribe/ODFW to rebuild spring chinook and steelhead populations in the Hood River through hatchery and acclimation facilities on the Hood River and through use of production facilities already developed in the Deschutes River.

Yakima/Klickitat Fisheries Project -- a project whose main goal is to rebuild salmon runs in the Yakima River, which dropped from historic levels estimated as high as 900,000 adult fish per year to fewer than 5,000, as well as to increase populations in the Klickitat and other streams important to the Yakama Indian Nation. The main focus has been the multi-million dollar Cle Elum Supplementation and Research Facility, a Yakama Nation/WDFW effort in the Yakima subbasin intended to be the first large-scale test of spring chinook supplementation. The Yakama Nation has also begun or is planning fall chinook and coho production in the Yakima, Klickitat and other streams, in part using fish from Mitchell Act hatcheries. Significant funding for habitat work in the Yakima has also come from the Council's Program and other sources.

Umatilla Hatchery -- Hatchery propagation in the Umatilla River funded under the Council's Fish and Wildlife Program is part of a coordinated habitat restoration/flow improvement/production program to restore spring chinook, fall chinook, coho salmon and summer steelhead populations in the Umatilla subbasin. Salmon runs in the Umatilla have been gone since as far back as 1920, and the steelhead were at very low numbers when the program began. The Umatilla Hatchery and six satellite facilities provide juvenile acclimation/release and adult holding/spawning. ODFW operates the hatchery, and the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation operate the satellite facilities. Additional facilities are proposed, including a juvenile coho and fall chinook acclimation/release facility, and a hatchery on the South Fork Walla Walla River that would, in part, produce spring chinook smolts for release at satellite facilities in the Umatilla subbasin.

Northeast Oregon Production Facilities, Grande Ronde and Imnaha subbasins -- As part of what is called the Northeast Oregon Hatchery program, ODFW, the Umatilla Tribes and the Nez Perce Tribes have been planning a supplementation program for spring chinook and other fish in the Grande Ronde and Imnaha subbasins, also the scene of Lower Snake River Compensation Plan production. The Grande Ronde spring chinook runs declined so severely that the Grande Ronde production initiative project has transformed into a captive propagation effort -- facilities at the Bonneville Hatchery and elsewhere have been constructed or adapted so that spring chinook can be reared in captivity for later release into the Grand Ronde basins. The Grande Ronde has also been a Model Watershed under the Council's Fish and Wildlife Program, the scene of significant funding for watershed planning and rehabilitation activities.

Northeast Oregon Production Facilities, Walla Walla river -- Planning is under way to develop production and acclimation facilities to be used to help restore extirpated spring chinook and enhance the depressed steelhead populations in the Walla Walla, an effort led by the Umatilla Tribes, in conjunction with ODFW and WDFW. The project in concept also includes stream habitat/watershed enhancement, structural fish passage improvement and enhanced instream flow.

Salmon River supplementation -- The Council's Program funds a number of supplementation studies and activities by IDFG, the Nez Perce Tribe, the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes and the Fish and Wildlife Service to see if artificial production can be used to boost the rapidly declining, listed spring/summer chinook and steelhead populations in the Salmon. These efforts overlap with the LSRCP production, and as the LSRCP facilities and efforts begin to transform in part in the direction of supplementation and conservation, some of the LSRCP costs and activities are coming into the Council's Program itself. And as in the Grande Ronde, in part the effort has transformed into a conservation/captive propagation program, in which spring chinook are or will be reared in captivity for later release into the Salmon basin. The Salmon is also the basin where, in the summer of 1991, the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes, IDFG, NMFS and others initiated an emergency captive broodstock program to try to prevent Snake River sockeye in Redfish Lake from extinction.

Clearwater River/Nez Perce Tribal Hatchery -- The Council's Fish and Wildlife Program calls for the Nez Perce Tribe to develop a number of small-scale production facilities under the umbrella of a single facility for salmon and steelhead supplementation, primarily in the Clearwater. The multi-million dollar project is in the final design stage and is nearly ready to shift into construction and production. The Clearwater has also been a focus watershed for habitat improvements under the Council's Program. The Nez Perce Tribe is also working on a program to restore coho to the Snake River and tributaries.

Hatcheries associated with FERC-licensed hydropower projects.
The list above is the federally-funded, anadromous fish hatchery production in the basin. Added to this are hatcheries producing millions more fish funded by private and public utilities as mitigation for the impacts of their FERC-licensed dams. With some exceptions, these facilities are funded by the utilities and operated by state agencies. The list includes production facilities funded by:

• Idaho Power Company (the Oxbow, Rapid River, Niagara Springs and Pahsimeroi hatchery complexes in the Snake and its Salmon River tributary, producing spring and fall chinook and steelhead, mitigating for the Hells Canyon Complex);
• PacifiCorp (Lewis and Speelyai hatcheries produce spring chinook and coho salmon and the Merwin Hatchery produces steelhead, sea-run cutthroat trout and rainbow trout, mitigating for Merwin Dam);
• Portland General Electric Company (Clackamas Hatchery produces spring chinook and steelhead in mitigation for Bull Run and Clackamas projects; spring chinook and steelhead are produced at Round Butte Hatchery in the Deschutes to mitigate for the Round Butte and Pelton projects);
• Washington Water Power (helped to fund the Cabinet Gorge Kokanee Hatchery, producing kokanee for Lake Pend Oreille, and funds rainbow trout stocking in the Spokane River in mitigation for its Spokane project);
• Douglas County PUD (hatchery and spawning channel facilities producing steelhead, spring chinook, and sockeye in the mid-Columbia region and in the Methow tributary, for Wells Dam mitigation);
• Chelan County PUD (hatchery production of coho, yearling chinook and steelhead as Rocky Reach mitigation, and kokanee production as Lake Chelan project mitigation);
• Grant County PUD (Priest Rapids Hatchery production of fall chinook as mitigation for Priest Rapids and Wanapum dams);
• City of Portland (helps fund production of spring chinook and steelhead at the Clackamas Hatchery, to mitigate for its Bull Run projects);
• Cowlitz County PUD (sharing the cost of some of the PacifiCorp production, in mitigation of North Fork Lewis River project);
• Tacoma Public Utilities (funding hatchery producing spring and fall chinook, coho, steelhead, sea-run cutthroat trout and resident trout, in mitigation for Mayfield and Mossyrock dams on the lower Cowlitz River).

Resident fish production.
Moreover, many of the federal programs -- e.g., the Lower Snake River Compensation Plan, Dworshak hatchery mitigation, Willamette mitigation, and especially the Council's Fish and Wildlife Program -- have significant resident fish production components as well, involving the stocking of various types of trout into rivers affected and reservoirs created by hydropower development, kokanee production efforts, bass production in some reservoirs, investigations throughout the basin about using artificial production techniques to help preserve and rebuild white sturgeon populations, and more. Here too we find questions about the viability of some of these programs, such as the kokanee production efforts in Flathead Lake and Lake Pend Oreille, and concerns about impacts of artificial production and the introduction of non-native species on native stocks, including listed species such as bull trout.

ATTACHMENT B

Strawfish for APR Workshop on January 19-20, 1999

(DRAFT Version as of 1/15/99 - Only changes are updated attachments 1 and 2.)

I. Scientific Principles for the Conceptual Foundation of the Columbia River Basin Multi-Species Framework

These scientific principles have been developed for the Multi-Species Framework. They are currently being applied in the Framework process. These form the first echelon of factors that must be addressed in applying the tool of artificial production.

• The abundance and productivity of fish and wildlife reflect the conditions they experience in their ecosystem over the course of their life cycle.
• Natural ecosystems are dynamic, evolutionary, and resilient.
• Ecosystems are structured hierarchically.
• Ecosystems are defined relative to specific communities of plant and animal species.
• Biological diversity accommodates environmental variation.
• Ecosystem conditions develop primarily through natural processes.
• Ecological management is adaptive and experimental.
• Human actions can be key factors structuring ecosystems.

II. General Principles for the use of Artificial Production in the Columbia River Basin

General principles must be consistent with the scientific principles. These are the second echelon of factors that must be addressed in applying the tool of artificial production.

• The purposes of the use of artificial production are augmentation (increase harvest above levels possible with natural production), mitigation for maintenance (replace habitat permanently lost to development), mitigation for recovery (rebuild seriously depressed natural populations), mitigation for preservation (preserve potentially lost genetic material), and mitigation for restoration (re-establish extirpated populations). Each of these purposes is, in theory, legitimate, but only if implemented consistent with the principles and policies described in this paper and integrated within the ecological framework of the appropriate subbasins.
• Life history diversity will be maximized.
• Artificial production inherently has risks not found in the natural environment that supports natural production of fish. ? Artificial production is a tool to be used in a manner consistent with the Scientific Principles.
• Objectives for artificial production must be based on the ability of the environment to support those objectives and, therefore, must be achievable.
• Justification of artificial fish production must be based on testable assumptions regarding the benefits and role of artificial production in the natural environment.
• Artificial production will impact the fitness and associated naturally produced populations. In setting objectives, the direction and magnitude of these impacts will be addressed.
• Artificial production programs must be evaluated relative to their objectives and their impacts on the natural ecosystem.
• The success of artificial production is directly tied to the quality and quantity of the environment into which the fish are released, therefore, the use of artificial production will be directly linked to watershed conditions including schedules and magnitude of any needed improvements.
• The success of artificial production depends on the ability to maintain physical and behavior attributes of the fish that enhance survival in the natural environment, and to avoid domestication. Therefore, genetic considerations will be addressed in the use of artificial production.
• Research and experimental approaches are encouraged in implementing artificial production.
• Stock transfers will not be used except where a population of fish has gone extinct and restoration is the objective.
• These policies should apply to all fish populations whether listed or not under the Endangered Species Act.

III. General Policies for the use of Artificial Production in the Columbia River Basin

General policies must be consistent with the general principles. These are the third echelon of factors that must be addressed in applying the tool of artificial production.

A. General Policies for Artificial Production Facilities

1. Technology to resemble natural incubation and rearing conditions will be used for artificial production of fish including:

a. incubation in substrate and darkness
b. incubation at lower densities
c. rearing at lower densities
d. rearing with shade cover available
e. exposure to in-pond, natural-like habitat
f. rearing in variable, higher velocity habitat
g. non-demand food distribution during rearing
h. exposure to predator training
i. minimize fish-human interaction
j. acclimation ponds at release sites
k. volitional emigration from release sites
l. artificial production incubation and rearing will use the natal stream water source whenever possible

2. New artificial production facilities will be designed and engineered to represent natural incubation and rearing habitat in order to simulate incubation and rearing experiences complementary with those of naturally producing fish in natural habitat.

3. Existing facilities will be evaluated to determine feasibility and cost of meeting the above standards. Based on this evaluation, a plan will be developed for a five year transition period for incorporating these standards or closing the facility. If the facility is altered or closed, provide alternatives for replacing this mitigation.

4. Application of new artificial production technology for improving fish quality and performance at existing and new facilities will include a plan for implementation and review to assure its application.

B. General Policies for Production of Fish

1. Genetic and breeding protocols consistent with local stock structure will be developed and applied to minimize potential negative effects of artificial production on naturally producing populations and to maximize the positive benefits of artificial production.

2. Artificial production will use large breeding populations to minimize inbreeding effects and maintain what genetic diversity is present within the population.

3. Artificial production strategies will mimic natural population parameters in size, maturation and timing of migrating juveniles so to synchronize with environmental selective forces.

4. Artificial production will use ambient natal stream habitat temperatures to reinforce compatibility with local environments.

5. Release of artificially produced fish will consider numerical limits of the biological limits of the receiving stream, including consideration of members of the release population that do not migrate. Considerations will include impacts on the naturally producing fish residing in the system as well as life history requirements of the cultured stock.

6. New and replacement artificial production facilities will be designed as small, stream-specific facilities that use local stocks, ambient water, and engineered habitat to simulate the natural stream.

7. Artificial production programs will avoid using strays in breeding operations to avoid stock hybridization.

8. Restoration of extirpated or weak populations will follow genetic guidelines to maximize the potential for re-establishing self-sustaining populations. Once restored, subsequent effort will concentrate on allowing selection to work, by discontinuing introductions.

9. Introductions of non-native species in areas where the non-native species currently does not occur are prohibited through the use of artificial production.

C. General Policy for Gene Preservation

1. Germ plasm repositories will be established to preserve genetic diversity to reinforce diversity among small inbred natural populations. Germ plasm will be collected from all populations for more than one year in order to develop as complete a repository as possible.

2. A regional genetics policy and guidelines will be developed by December 31, 1999. (See Attachment ? for applicable policies in program and developed by the Council genetics team.)

D. General Policy for Monitoring and Evaluation

1. The physical and genetic status of all natural populations of anadromous and resident salmonids need to be understood and routinely reviewed as the basis of management planning for artificial production. Information collected will include life history, population structure, and habitat utilized/condition. Information collection will be coordinated by StreamNet.

2. A fish production monitoring program will be developed that addresses performance of artificial produced juveniles including genetic assessment to ascertain if breeding protocol is maintaining naturally producing stock genotypic characteristics.

3. A fish production monitoring program will be developed that addresses performance of artificially produced fish from release to return, including information on survival success, interception distribution, behavior, and genotypic changes experienced from selection between release and return.

4. An analytical study will be completed by December 31, 1999 to determine the cost of adequately monitoring artificial production performance and potential sources of funding for this monitoring.

5. Performance evaluation audits of artificial production program (including objectives and goals) will be undertaken every three years. The initial performance evaluation will be completed by the end of December 31, 1999. The Government Performance and Results Act approach will be used for the audits and will be applied by a team of independent analysis/scientists. Where objectives are not successfully accomplished, actions such as operational and infrastructural changes and/or research will be identified and initiated to address and resolve problems.

E. General Policy relating to the Framework

1. The Council will appoint an independent peer review panel to develop a Basin-wide artificial production program plan to meet the ecological framework goals for production management.

F. Policies Addressing Harvest

1. Harvest rates will be set at levels to not adversely effect naturally producing populations.

G. Policies Addressing Institutional Structure

1. These policies and guidelines will be fully implemented and enforced by ???.

2. Managers of artificial production facilities will be reviewed for performance by ??? based on these policies and guidelines.

3. Funding from all sources for production programs (artificial and natural) will be coordinated for consistency within watersheds and regionally.

IV. Policies for the use of Artificial Production for Specific Production Purposes

Policies for specific production purposes must be consistent with the general policies. These are the fourth echelon of factors that must be addressed in applying the tool of artificial production.