TECHNICAL MANAGEMENT TEAM

BOR: Romeo Wisco\Harry Taylor NMFS:Chris Ross\Michael Newsom

BPA: Phil Thor\Dan Daley USFWS: Fred Olney\Marv Yoshinaka

COE: Cindy Henriksen\Bolyvong Tanovan

TECHNICAL MANAGEMENT TEAM MEETING MINUTES

March 19, 1997

DRAFT

I. Greeting and Introductions

The March 19 meeting of the Technical Management Team, held at the Custom House in Portland, Oregon, was chaired by Cindy Henriksen of COE. The following is a summary, not a verbatim transcript, of items discussed at the meeting and actions taken.

Marv Yoshinaka of USFWS gave the TMT a heads-up about a forthcoming System Operational Request for continued Spring Creek Hatchery spill -- essentially, it's just a reiteration of our request for 10 days, rather than seven days, of spill, he explained.

The TMT spent a few minutes discussing where to place this topic in the agenda, with Ron Boyce and Bob Heinith arguing that it be taken up immediately, rather than at the end of the meeting, when many of the TMT participants have left. Henriksen replied that, in the past, it has been agreed that requests and proposals requiring TMT decision are to be delivered to the TMT in a timely fashion, to give the membership a chance to evaluate the information before the weekly meeting begins. Throwing an SOR on the table at the beginning of the meeting does not meet that criteria, she said. After some minutes of further discussion, it was agreed to discuss the Spring Creek SOR under Section VII of the agenda, "Other TMT Business."

What was the outcome of the IT conference call to discuss Grand Coulee operations last Friday? asked Jim Ruff of the Power Planning Council staff. Apparently it was a bit of a disaster, he said -- people tried to call in, and all they got was busy signals. In general, Henriksen said, we put together eight different scenarios of runoff for Grand Coulee in the April period; we found that out of those eight runoff-year scenarios, there were only two in which we potentially would not meet 134 Kcfs at Priest Rapids during the first two weeks of April with a draft of either 22 or 30 feet out of Grand Coulee during April. The outcome of the conference call, Henriksen said, was that BOR agreed to target a March 31 Grand Coulee elevation of 1230 feet. The official April 30 flood control point for that project is elevation 1215 feet, but if we continue to get precipitation in that basin, that figure could change.

II. 1997 Runoff Forecast Update.

Henriksen said the March final forecast has not been updated. We're currently having some rain and snow events, along the coast and in the Washington Cascades, she said. By Monday, there may be a mid-month forecast available to look at these trends. At this time, however, there are no significant changes either to the long-term forecast or to project operations.

III. Emergency Protocols Update.

As you'll recall, by the end of the last TMT meeting, we had two versions of the emergency protocols, Henriksen said -- one drafted by Phil Thor and the TMT, the other drafted by the Salmon Managers. Phil then produced a legislative draft, merging the two versions and highlighting where their differences lay. We took this merged draft to the IT on March 6, Thor said; the IT's conclusion was that it would be difficult if not impossible to reach consensus on a single document that dealt with both power system emergencies and fish and wildlife emergencies. The IT suggested a possible alternative: produce separate draft protocols covering power emergencies and fish and wildlife emergencies.

The original task from the Executive Committee to the Implementation team was to develop protocols for dealing with power emergencies, and NMFS's Brian Brown, in particular, was concerned that TMT and IT follow through on this request, Thor continued. The decision was to go ahead and try to do that separation, with the TMT being tasked with the development of power system emergency protocols and the Salmon Managers charged with developing protocols for fish and wildlife-related emergencies. I have taken a stab at the power system emergency protocols, said Thor, distributing copies ("Protocols for Emergency Operations in Response to Generation or Transmission Emergencies," March 17, 1997 -- attached as Enclosure C).

The IT's direction to the Salmon Managers wasn't very clear, said Thor -- they didn't specify a deadline, or even a scope for the activity they were requesting. Once the Salmon Managers have a draft, will it come back to the TMT for review, or will it be submitted directly to IT? asked Mark Reller of Montana. The two major issues were mitigation, and the definition of "emergency," replied Heinith -- those two items will probably be discussed at IT next week, and, most likely, elevated to the EC on April 4. So the TMT is effectively out of the loop on the fish emergencies side of things? asked Reller. At this point, I think that's correct, Heinith said. I should add that Brian Brown volunteered to take a shot at drafting the mitigation section of the power system emergency protocols, Thor said.

Boyce objected to Thor's draft power emergency protocols, calling them totally unacceptable at this point and saying that it appears that Thor did not incorporate any of the comments provided by the Salmon Managers on the power emergency sections. That's not true, said Thor, pointing out several specific sections where Salmon Managers' comments had been incorporated. It's the context, said Boyce -- I think this loses a lot of what we had in our earlier draft, and I think there is still an outstanding issue in how we determine what an emergency is, in terms of a planned vs. an unplanned operation. I also do not agree with the idea of separating out power emergencies from fish emergencies -- there are no "fish emergencies" that are separable from transmission or generation emergencies, or from facilities emergencies that impact fish, Boyce said. Fish do not create emergencies for themselves, and I'm baffled by the direction IT has given us.

I guess where we go from here on this issue, said Henriksen, is to prepare for the fact that this topic is on the agenda for both the upcoming IT and EC meetings. If it will be taken up there, I don't think we should take up our time today, said Boyce. The March 17 version of the emergency protocols is available on the TMT's Internet homepage, Henriksen added.

IV. TMT Guidelines Update.

Chris Ross of NMFS said Brown is incorporating the comments received to date into a new draft of the Guidelines, for discussion at the March 24 IT meeting. After that, the new draft of the guidelines will most likely be taken up at the April 3 IT/ADR meeting, where, if possible, any outstanding issues will be resolved. If that can be accomplished, working guidelines will be adopted and in place prior to the start of the 1997 migration season.

Are the guidelines going to be adopted by someone other than TMT, and simply handed to us? asked Thor. Or will TMT have the opportunity to review, comment on and influence the final version of the guidelines? Good question, said Ross -- I don't know. It might be a good point to raise at IT on Monday.

Reller expressed dismay at the fact that the IT will be discussing a draft of the guidelines that no one, including the TMT, has had a chance to review or comment on prior to the March 24 meeting. Will the revised version of the guidelines be available via Internet prior to Monday's meeting? asked Karen Garrison of NRDC. They should be -- I'll check into that, Ross replied. In response to another question, Ross said that most of the differences between the new draft guidelines and the last draft have been made in the interest of streamlining, to remove redundancies.

V. 1997 Water Management Plan Update.

We had hoped that this item would be the main focus of today's discussion, said Henriksen -- as most of you are aware, it is our charge to have a 1997 Water Management Plan (WMP) in place by April 15. The draft WMP has been available for comment for several months now; some comments have been received and the current draft of the WMP (Enclosure D) incorporates many of those comments. We have also provided a table listing the comments received to date, and how the Corps responded to each (Enclosure E). Both of these documents are available on the TMT's Internet homepage.

So we have incorporated many of the comments received; some outstanding issues have already been submitted to the IT and have been resolved, while others are still being discussed, Henriksen said. The bottom line is that, in my opinion, we have a Water Management Plan draft that is 95% complete.

Reller asked for an update on the potential for Owyhee Reservoir contributions to the 427 KAF of Upper Snake augmentation water in 1997. For the last four years, we've been in discussions with the Owyhee irrigators over the purchase of water from Owyhee Reservoir, Boyce replied. Those discussions are continuing; it appears that, due to the strong runoff forecast in that basin for 1997, the irrigators may be more amenable to selling some of their water. It's not a done deal at this point, but we're still pursuing it, Boyce said. Reclamation has also contracted for the same amount of water -- 20 KAF -- it purchased from Skyline Farms last year, Boyce added. However, neither deal will produce any additional water in the Snake system -- it would be used to offset flows from other reservoirs.

CRITFC filed extensive comments on February 11, with both TMT and IT, and I don't see any response to those comments here, said Boyce. I believe the IT responded to most of those issues, Henriksen replied. I think that many of our comments are technically-based, and should be addressed here, said Heinith.

CRITFC's 1997 Water Management Plan issues included:

• Water Temperature -- I believe we were supposed to have a plan addressing this issue by March 4, said Henriksen.

• Spring Transportation.

• Summer Spill at Collector Projects.

• Power Peaking. Alan Ruger of BPA agreed to bring BPA's response to the power peaking issue back to IT, but that hasn't happened yet, Heinith said. It's on the agenda for the March 24 IT meeting, and Bonneville will be prepared to discuss it, said Thor. There were actually three parts to this issue, said Ross; the first was a review of last year's data to see whether the 80% weekday/weekend threshold was violated at any time. That's been done, said Ruff. The second part to this issue was a request for the ISAB to review the available biological information on power peaking, Ross said; the third question was power impacts on [inaudible]. CRITFC also made a proposal that flows be limited to a 10% range of fluctuation in a given 24-hour period, he continued. In addition, we're asking that the 80% minimum criteria be maintained through holiday weekends, Heinith added.

In 1995, the 80%-or-greater-than-the-previous-five-days'-flow criteria was met, said Henriksen. In 1996, there was one week in which weekend flows were only 79.8% of the previous weekday flows. Regarding the holiday weekends proposal, said Ruff, the 80% minimum criteria has always applied to Memorial Day. What about Fourth of July? asked Heinith. That can fall on any day of the week, Henriksen replied. Anyway, I don't think it's a problem, said Thor.

Ross explained that the March 18 draft of the WMP (Enclosure D) was a reworking of the March 10 draft. The March 10 draft incorporated most of the comments received to date, he said; I simply went through the document, incorporating some other comments and streamlining some of the Biological Opinion language. My hope is that this draft includes everyone's comments; however, I would emphasize that this draft does not represent NMFS's position -- it's just an attempt to get the most complete possible draft on the table.

Various TMT participants objected to the fact that there are multiple drafts of the 1997 WMP now in circulation, and requested that COE and NMFS produce a single, unified, official draft document for TMT review in time for next week's meeting. Henriksen agreed to do so, and post it to the TMT's Internet homepage by March 21. However, bear in mind that April 15 is our deadline for completing this document, she said. It has been available for comment for some months now; everyone has had an opportunity to make their views known, and I don't mind going on the record to say that I don't want to see another complete rewrite of the Water Management Plan. If there are additional comments or issues, fine -- we can discuss them. If no one speaks up, then we have to assume we're going in the right direction. Personally, I was under the impression that we were close to coming to closure on this document.

Anyone who thinks we were ready to close the book on the 1997 Water Management Plan is fooling themselves, said Boyce. Can you be more specific? asked Henriksen. Because there are major outstanding issues regarding flow volumes, water management objectives, organizational and redundancy issues, Boyce replied.

Reller reiterated his objection to the production of a new WMP draft, and to the fact that all of Montana's comments have not been incorporated into the March 18 draft. It seems to me that we have a procedural issue about how we are going to handle the Water Management Plan from here out -- how do we bring this to closure? asked Boyce. We would appreciate a Corps response to each of CRITFC's February 11 comments, said Heinith. I'll get you my response, Henriksen said. Also, Brian Brown is preparing a memo to the IT that addresses the status of all of the issues IT has discussed this year, said Ross -- I would suggest that CRITFC and others look that document over, to see whether their concerns have been resolved. Reller said he would provide comments on the Corps' comments on Montana's earlier comments, and post that on the TMT homepage.

I think we need a formal TMT poll on how to proceed with the WMP from here on out, with the responses of all TMT participants noted for the record, said Boyce. Ultimately, none of the other TMT members responded to Boyce's suggestion.

Rick Parkin of EPA said his agency had a comment and a request regarding the '97 WMP. I was pleased to see that the working document incorporated our comment about temperature, he began. However, the way it is worded, it sounds as though the comment, that the water quality standard for temperature needs to be complied with to the extent feasible, represents only EPA's position. I would request that you replace the current sentence in the draft with wording similar to that used for total dissolved gas on page 4 -- "COE and BOR projects will be managed to avoid causing TDG saturation levels above state standards to the extent feasible," Parkin said. That way, it will be TMT's position, rather than EPA's only -- all I'm saying is, it's important for the TMT to own up to the fact that the water temperature standard exists. We're not going to meet it in the short term, Parkin said. However, it has to be one of our goals.

The TMT discussed Parkin's suggestion for some minutes; ultimately, no clear TMT resolution was reached on this issue. CRITFC has agreed to draft a water temperature section for the WMP, Henriksen said; until their suggested wording is received, the current language in the WMP is more or less a placeholder. How do we get more flesh on this section? asked Parkin. A TMT member needs to bring a proposal before the committee, Henriksen replied. We've made a proposal, said Heinith -- that we implement spill at collector projects when water temperatures in those facilities reach 68 degrees F. And I believe the IT has dealt with that issue, said Henriksen. IT booted it back down to the Corps' Fish Passage O&M subcommittee, which was unable to resolve it, Heinith said -- it will be coming back to IT on Monday, and back to TMT after that. And after it's sent back to TMT, we'll deal with it again, Henriksen said. And we'll send you a statement from EPA on this issue, so that it, too can be posted on the TMT homepage, said Mary Lou Soscia of EPA.

It was also agreed that a list of possible actions to reduce water temperature, similar to the list of potential TDG-reduction actions on p. 5 of the WMP, would be a useful addition to the water temperature section. Such a list once existed on p. 15 of the document; this list might provide the basis for an expanded list of water temperature reduction operational alternatives. Soscia also suggested that a water temperature workshop, to address both long- and short-term water temperature reduction measures, would be extremely useful to the region.

Heinith suggested that it might be useful to do a variance process for temperature water quality standards through the states. It might be a better idea to strategize that with the states themselves, because otherwise such a course of action might bring about more problems than solutions, Parkin replied. It's unlikely that we would look at that, said Erik Schlorff of WDOE.

Other Water Management Plan issues? asked Henriksen. The maintenance of base-level flows in the Mid-Columbia, replied Bob Ringo of CRITFC. After a few minutes of discussion, it was agreed that flow levels in the Mid-Columbia will be addressed on a weekly basis during the regular TMT meetings. We'll put it on the weekly agenda, Henriksen said.

One other issue that the tribes are going to ask be included in this year's WMP, said Heinith: operation during tribal fisheries. Basically, we're asking for full, stable pools in the Zone 6 area during the April-early May spring chinook fishery. There will be subsequent seasons for sockeye, steelhead and fall chinook which will need to be accommodated as well, he said.

VI. 1997 Dissolved Gas Management Plan Update.

NMFS's Mark Schneider, Chairman of the Dissolved Gas Team, said the DGT had developed a set of comments on the dissolved gas management plan appendix to the 1997 WMP, and had submitted those to the Corps last week. Many of the DGT's comments have been addressed in the most recent draft of the dissolved gas management plan, Schneider said; my intention is to distribute copies of this new draft with the agenda for the next DGT meeting, scheduled for March 24, and to ask the other DGT members to come prepared to comment.

Following the DGT meeting, the Corps will incorporate any additional comments into a final version of the dissolved gas management plan, which will be distributed to the region by March 31. Given the magnitude of the water year we're anticipating, and the likely need for expert TDG input into the TMT's in-season management process, on behalf of the DGT I would offer to turn any requests for information around quickly, Schneider said.

In response to a question, Schneider said NMFS has received a 1997 total dissolved gas variance from Washington; an unresolved issue is holding up the 1997 variance from Oregon.

One other issue, said Ross: the impact of dissolved gas research on fish passage. I know there is an appendix to the Fish Passage Plan that addresses this issue; will it be detailed enough for our purposes? The group spent a few minutes discussing the appropriate level of research and study detail to be provided by the Corps; ultimately it was agreed that the FPP appendix may meet the TMT's needs; if so, it will be appended to the Water Management Plan as well. In response to a question from Heinith, Henriksen said the Corps is currently developing an Internet homepage document that will track scheduled and unscheduled unit outages systemwide on a real-time basis.

VII. Other TMT Business.

Ed Bowles drew the TMT's attention to Enclosure H, an Idaho proposal covering transportation for the 1997 spring migration period. The Idaho proposal makes the following system operational request:

• Alternate daily between transportation and bypass of salmon and steelhead smolts collected at Lower Granite, Little Goose and Lower Monumental Dams during the spring migration period (approximately April 10 through June 20).

• Manage nighttime spill to the maximum TDG levels allowed by state water quality agencies at all dams on the Lower Snake and Columbia Rivers when spring migrants are present (recognizing that spill from limited hydraulic capacity and lack of power demand will likely result in TDG levels exceeding state water quality standards for much of the spring period).

See Enclosure H (available from the TMT's Internet homepage) for detailed background and biological justification information on this proposal.

I don't think this proposal requires a great deal of technical discussion today, said Bowles, but I would like the TMT to talk about whether or not this SOR would fall within the range of the operating agencies' operational flexibility, as well as any logistical, structural or Biological Opinion concerns they may have. Henriksen suggested that the other TMT members call Bowles directly with any technical questions or concerns by close of business tomorrow. In response to a question, Bowles said the Idaho proposal will be presented to IT on March 24.

The discussion moved on to the new SOR from the Salmon Managers, referenced earlier in today's meeting, covering spill at Bonneville Dam for the Spring Creek Hatchery releases. As most of you are aware, said Marv Yoshinaka, this spill is already ongoing; basically, we're asking that it be continued for the full 10 days at the same levels that are currently being provided.

COE's Jim Athearn pointed out that, according to the Salmon Managers' own historic data, upwards of 90% of the Spring Creek fish move downstream within a few days of release -- there are only a few fish left in the spill zone during the last three days of the 10-day period, he observed. We're aware of that, Yoshinaka replied. However, there are a few Spring Creek fish still migrating at the end of the 10-day period, and we'd like to protect them as best we can.

What's the Corps' objection to providing the full 10 days of spill? he asked. None -- there is no cost to us, Athearn replied. BPA? asked Yoshinaka. I wouldn't say we have no concerns about providing the last few days of spill, replied BPA's Robyn MacKay -- there may be some costs involved, although I wouldn't expect them to be large.

Can we make a decision about this today? asked Heinith. It sounds like Bonneville still has one or two loose procedural ends to tie up, Henriksen replied -- spill is scheduled to continue through tomorrow anyway, so we'll make a decision by close of business tomorrow. We'll continue to spill until a final decision is made, promised Athearn. Flows are pretty high, observed Bolyvong Tanovan -- this will most likely be a moot issue anyway. In response to a question, Henriksen said she would call CRITFC to give them a chance to respond to the Corps' decision once it is made.

VIII. Next Meeting Date.

The group agreed to try meeting on Wednesday mornings as the TMT begins its in-season management period. Accordingly, the next TMT meeting was set for Wednesday, March 26 from 9 a.m.-1 p.m.. Meeting notes prepared by Jeff Kuechle, BPA contractor. If there are any questions or comments, please contact Cindy Henriksen at 503/326-3745 or Bolyvong Tanovan at 503/326-3764.

ATTENDANCE SHEET -- TMT 3/19/97

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