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opted to treat symptoms rather than causative problems. That the dams hinder upstream mi- gration ofadultfish has long been recog- nized, aruimuch has been clone to solve that. But a crucial problem remains: the slack water of reservoirs fatally slows the rlorcrostrvant mtgrauon of jur!rrtily fish (smolts). If' sur~iyal dtuing this or any part of the life cycle is i nsufLicien t, the stocks are doomed. The Columbia is now a series of lakes, which, howeye r, can become river- like again for short periods schen flow is high orwhf•n the dams are apptoptiately oper- ated. T}te seaward swim that used to take a week for smolts From some Snake Riser tribu- taries now often takes a month or more. Bnt if they don't make it in abc)ut 15 days, tltev lose the dow'nstreatn swim- ming behavor and the ability to switch from freshwater to sale+~tter life. Daring years of relatively low flow, it now takes smolts 1 ~ times lun~m-to swim to sea than before the dams were built (;39 rather than 2.Ei days from the Snake River's uppermostpassabledam). Duringhigh- flo++'vears, it takcssix tintes+vhat it used to (10 versus La das~s), which still lets mam' of the fish get to sea during their time-window of appropriate physiology and behavior. But such high flew is rare and. besides delay, the fish taco htvarcls like turbines, warm water and predatory fish. A4arked-fish studies and reckoning the compounded nx)rtality at dates and reservoirs (15 percent per dam; 20 percent per pool; eight sets of dams and pools) show that, withotu aid, over 95 percent of upper Snake River smolts die before reaching the sea. This massive mortality is from natu- ral and human-induced sources cont- hined. Of this, the lion's share is caused by darns and reser+•oir:s. The timing of water storage anti release in the Coluut- bia-Snake sti~tem has turned the sea- srn~al pattern of high ant} low• river flow °npside down." 14~ost water now flows at the time ofvearwhc n iloww•as nann-ally low, and water is held back at the season +vhcn natural flosvused to }x. high, which was when the smolts migrated. Ear safe smolt migration, this situation needs to he adjusted. Experts tell us it is feasible. Btu once the problem of delayed ju- venile migration was recognized, BPr~ and Corps of Engirteet s efforts to deal with it became an exercise in avoidism. Hatchery output was increased and, in- stead of making the necess<u-v modest adjustments indarn-conU•ollf~d tiger flow and reservoir levels (+vhic:h the Endan- Hess as usual" for the Pacific Northwest until it was too late-or almost so-fi)r the salmon, that is, until it became st.tch a crisis that the Endangered Species Act forced change. Now otLicials, industries and politi- cians publicize the "suddenly" neces- sar} "sacrifices" in riser regulation, The seaward swim that used to take n week for Snake River smolts now often takes n month or more. But if they don't make it in about 15 days, they lose downstream swim- ming behavior and the ability to switch from fresh to saltwater. During years of relatively low flow, it takes smolts 15 times longer to migrate than before the dams were built. With death of 15 percent per dam and 20 percent per pool, eight sets of dams and pools cause over 95 percent of upper Snake River smolts to die before reaching the sea. gored Spf ciesAct may n. n+• finally fierce) , the Corps concocted a program of trap- ping smolts at dams. crowding them into barges, and motoring dteut down the river. Increased artificiality to make up fi)r }n'e+ious artificialin•! Barging has been a disaster. Experts who have analied it bring this out time and again-and some ch:uacterizc as a ho~ix the Cotes' eflin~ts w represent barging as a success. Stu•+ival u) adult- hood by barged snu)lts is greater than the excec dingy poor survival of non- barged smolts that travel the rr~.cr~rrroir- slotur~rl riser, but that's nut good enough. Studies show that U-apj)ing and crowd- ing smolts into bat;ges seyerel+ sursses smolts (especially perlt<tps wild fish. ac- customed tc) open-water life), reducing their immnnitti• to disease, and resulting in delavc•d mortality. 1~~rrt,*r%lo-rrrluh srn= t ivrrl is /rxr (ora to allarc+ srtlrrron strxlrs fu rerovr): That's the hottcnn line. On the other hand, in years rebore r7rrrrr flott~ is r~rrcnr~•h to get them to sea on time, the survival offrec-s+vimmir tg smolts is suffi- cient to allow stock t•ecovery. Clearly, flow should be adjusted and bagging stopped. Concerning the Columbia and Snake river fisheries, tl)e public wits poorl' infin-tnedabout needsandwasdeceiyed about remedies. The water-user indus- n~ies were not led to+vard neceystn-v changes in apetations. The bureaucra- cies strained U) avoid infiingingon "busi- electricitti• costs, agricultural u-rtgauon. riser na+igation. and soon, as economi- cally painfirl for sex ien.:~;ain tmd a},rain, it turns out they've exaggerated the potential pain. And had the agencies anti inciusu-ies pre+ioush• not resisted making the changes incrententalh, the inconvenience might have been ~eyen less. NPR, the ptthlic educational radio system, interview-ed an :army Corps of Engineers biologist. He said he hat] come to work on the Columbia Riser in the Nl'P(:A program's early days, ready to do habitat projects because he knew that would {te the best way to restore anach•ontcnis runs. He went on w say that the agencies had their minds made up that they wanted fish hatcheries, so that's what they got, and it didn't work- Thev got lots of hatcheries, they got millions of hatchery smolts, and they got fewer and fewer adult salmon. A power indusu-y consultant's report in l~lyl revealed chat, as annual stocking of`hatcherv-reared Chinook salmon in the Snake Riser rose from about amil- lion smolts in the mid-1~160s to ] ~ mil- lion by the late 1!1S(-s, the runs of returning adults fell from around 60-80 thousand to around Zf)-'=}0 thousand (Figure I ). `I•he Columbia basin's 89 hatcheries nosy annually send more lrtrnrlrPd.s o~ millron.+ of smolts seawatd titan before European man set eyes on the rivet, but 1l:'rt \i\ 1092 'I'RUl'`I'