Attorneys representing Columbia River basin tribes and states, and other interests told a U.S. District Court judge Wednesday that a collaboration with federal agencies went well in many regards in developing future protections for threatened salmon and steelhead that ply the river's hydro system.

It was the "best shot" yet taken at resolving contentious scientific disagreements about what is best for fish -- i.e. identify what is needed to restore depleted salmon stocks, according to Spokane tribal attorney Howard Funke.

"But we haven't been able to throw the cat over the fence," Funke said of the reduced, yet still significant, areas of disagreement.

Representatives of the four states with acreage in the basin and affected tribes have been engaged in discussions over the past two years with federal agencies regarding strategies that might be necessary to mitigate for federal hydro system effects on 13 fish stocks listed under the Endangered Species Act.

Judge James A. Redden ordered the "collaborative" remand in October 2005 after earlier that year declaring illegal NOAA Fisheries' 2004 biological opinion on the Federal Columbia River Power System. The ESA requires NOAA assessments of whether or not federal "actions" jeopardize the survival of listed stocks.

Though involved federal agencies are charged with developing actions and NOAA holds final authority on judging the biological risks, Redden order the collaboration with the goals of:

-- Developing items to be included in the proposed action; and

-- Clarifying policy issues and reaching agreement or narrowing the areas of

disagreement on scientific and technical information.

The judge called a status conference this week to discuss a draft FCRPS BiOp that has sprung from the collaboration. The document was released at the end of October and NOAA is taking comments on the draft through Jan. 4 with a final BiOp scheduled for completion by March 18.

The draft outlines a complex set of measures to change hydro system operations, restore habitat, improve hatchery operations and reduce predation in order to improve survival of the listed salmon and steelhead. The strategy, replete with performance standards and research, monitoring and evaluation to assess progress, both avoids jeopardy and puts, over time, each individual population on a trajectory toward recovery, according to federal officials.

The feedback through the court, and comments on the draft, "provide a good foundation to work from" as federal agencies build a final BiOp, according to Scott Simms of the Bonneville Power Administration. His agency and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Bureau of Reclamation are the so-called "action" agencies. They developed the proposed action for hydro operations and off-site mitigation which was judged in the draft BiOp.

The tug-o-war going on within the court processes gives "a clearer view of just how difficult it is to operate the federal power system," Simms said. Fish and wildlife, irrigators and other water users, navigation and power customers are among those affected. Individual states, and tribes, too, have often different views about how the available resources should be used.

"We were pleased with the outcome of the hearing," NOAA's Brian Gorman said. An extended deadline will allow talks to continue regarding any needed additional mitigation and scientific issues, and revisions to the draft where needed.

The Spokane Tribe and other state and tribal legal representatives told Redden that the collaboration has produced many resolutions, but that many of their suggestions were left on the cutting room floor. Even the most strident critics of the draft BiOp expressed hope that the final version will be bolstered through continued discussions.

Redden said he felt the collaboration process had gone reasonably well, even though Wednesday's hearing showed considerable dissatisfaction with the draft product. He and litigants urged changes.

"If they don't get it right we lose our fish and our water," said Funke, who stressed that the final must include more emphasis on helping endangered Upper Columbia River spring chinook salmon and steelhead.

The two stocks are the most imperiled of the 13, aside from Snake River sockeye, he said, yet the draft BiOp focuses on helping threatened Snake River stocks. Water drawn from the upper Columbia's Grand Coulee and Chief Joseph reservoirs is timed to boost flows for downriver chum salmon and other stocks, not for the Upper Columbia fish, he said.

The BiOp's only answer for the Upper Columbia stock "seems to be hatcheries, one hatchery," Funke said.

"We're not there yet but we're making progress" in talks with federal agencies, said Warm Springs tribal attorney John Ogan, who spoke for four lower Columbia treaty tribes. The tribes support the draft's "All H" approach, but still have concerns about the proposed package of hydro system, habitat, harvest and hatchery fixes.

The federal agencies have promised increased funding commitments for habitat work and hatchery improvements, but "the treaty tribes are not focused on the dollar figure," Ogan said.

They want science, biology to "tell us where and how much" work is needed to build sustainable fisheries, Ogan said. Needs should dictate the amount of money that flows into such projects.

The plaintiffs in the long-running lawsuit, and the state of Oregon, say the gulf between what is needed and what has been offered by the federal agencies is large. A coalition of fishing and conservation groups, represented by Earthjustice, challenged the 2004 BiOp.

Earthjustice's Todd True ticked off a long list of strategies left out of the draft that should be tried: providing more water from upper Snake and Columbia reservoirs, drawing down reservoir pools in the lower Snake and the Columbia's John Day reservoir to facilitate fish migrations, increasing spill levels and reducing the dependence on transporting fish down stream and reducing power "load following."

"We have an abundance of mitigation measures; they are just not being implemented," he said. Earthjustice and the state of Oregon leveled blasts at the science used to evaluate whether the plan will jeopardize species' survival.

In comments submitted to the court last week, Oregon said the draft "manipulates science to justify policy objectives that subordinate the needs of protected fish." It also shows that the federal agencies did not really listen during the collaboration, said David Leith, assistant Oregon attorney general. He displayed a chart of Oregon "issues" brought forward during the collaboration, the vast majority were left unaddressed in the draft.

"It's graphically clear that what the U.S. is offering includes little compromise and little comfort," Leith said.

Attorney Mark Stermitz countered Leith's assertions, saying "the state of Oregon's argument today is nothing short of appalling." He represented the state of Montana and a coalition that includes his state, Idaho, Washington, the Colville Tribes and Kootenai Tribe of Idaho and BPA Customer Service Groups.

He called NOAA's jeopardy analysis sound, "an effort to put some meat on the bones" of a Ninth Circuit Court of appeals mandate that the federal assure jeopardy is avoided but to also develop a plan that pushes the stocks closer to recovery.

The draft federal plan "does more than what the ESA requires," Stermitz said. He said the coalition "believes in" the collaboration process.