2002-2003 Western Division
Conservation Achievement Award

National Marine Fisheries Service (Bob Lohn)
and
Northwest Power Planning Council (Larry Cassidy)

WDAFS’s Conservation Achievement Award is presented in recognition of an outstanding achievement in the conservation of fisheries resources within the Western Division. In the Columbia River Basin, fish and wildlife recovery efforts are complicated by the presence of multiple legal rights and responsibilities regarding fish and wildlife, multiple agencies with fish and wildlife management responsibilities, and recovery plans with different goals and objectives. Collaboration in developing fish and wildlife recovery plans in the Columbia River Basin is further complicated by the conflict between power generation and its impacts on fish and wildlife. Hydroelectric dams in the Basin provide about 40 percent of the Northwest’s electricity, and habitat in the Basin supports hundreds of populations of fish and wildlife including 12 populations of anadromous fish and two populations of resident fish that are listed for protection under the federal Endangered Species Act.

Specific, basinwide responsibilities for fish and wildlife recovery planning in the Columbia River Basin are vested in two government agencies. The Northwest Power Planning Council (NPPC), an interstate compact of Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Washington, has responsibility for protecting, mitigating and enhancing fish and wildlife, and related spawning grounds and habitat, of the Basin that have been affected by hydropower, including endangered species. Production and periodic amendment of its Columbia River Basin Fish and Wildlife Program, which is implemented by the federal Bonneville Power Administration, represented the principal means through which the NPPC addressed its responsibilities. The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) is the other organization with basinwide responsibilities for anadromous fish recovery planning. More specifically, NMFS is responsible for enforcing the Endangered Species Act for anadromous fish in the Basin. NMFS has responded to this challenge by producing a series of Biological Opinions on federal Columbia River hydropower operations to protect the listed species while formal recovery plans are being developed. Until 2000, the two agencies promulgated their recovery plans with little formal collaboration.

In 2000, under the direction of the then Fish and Wildlife Division Director, Bob Lohn and Chairman, Larry Cassidy, the NPPC committed to meeting its legal responsibilities through planning at the sub-basin level. After assuming the role of Regional Director of NMFS in 2001, Bob Lohn committed NMFS to collaborating with the NPPC and its other partners on this important initiative. Importantly, NFMS has agreed to utilizing scientifically-credible, locally-developed sub-basin plans as the foundation for establishing recovery plans for ESA listed salmon and steelhead populations. This collaboration should ensure that federal, state and Indian tribal legal rights and responsibilities are satisfied in recovery plans, while effectively involving citizen groups and other local interests in this process. These commitments are reflected in NMFS’s 2000 Biological Opinion on Operation of the Federal Columbia River Power System and the NPPC’s 2000 Fish and Wildlife Program.

In recognition of this commitment to collaboration in sub-basin planning, which should reduce duplication of planning efforts, enhance and focus research, improve data collection and, importantly, involve local citizens in designing recovery plans consistent with basinwide goals and objectives, the WDAFS is pleased to bestow the Conservation Achievement Award on Bob Lohn and the NPPC.

Presented by Bill Bradshaw
WDAFS Past-President & Awards Committee Chair
April 30, 2002