In Fiscal Year 2004, the Bonneville Power Administration spent a total of $493.6 million, and in Fiscal Year 2005 a total of $576.3 million, to implement the Council’s Columbia River Basin Fish and Wildlife Program. The program is designed to protect, mitigate and enhance Columbia River Basin fish and wildlife that have been affected by hydroelectric dams.
The Council’s last report on Bonneville’s fish and wildlife expenditures was current through Fiscal Year 2003. The current report includes expenditures through Fiscal Year 2005. The grand total of Bonneville’s fish and wildlife expenditures, 1978-2005, now stands at $7.802 billion. Expenditures are provided by Bonneville for this report and are not separately verified by the Council. Here, in descending order, is a breakdown of the expenditures, which are detailed further in the Appendix of this report:
- $2,740,300,000 ($191.0 million in 2004 and 110.8 million in 2005) for power purchases to meet load requirements in response to required river operations that reduce hydropower generation.
- $1,571,700,000 ($137.9 million in 2004 and $135.8 million in 2005) for the Council’s direct program. The 2004 and 2005 totals are for direct expenditures only and do not include annual expenditures from the separate capital investment budget. With capital expenditures added, total direct-program spending for 2004 is $146.4 million, and for 2005 the total is $148.0 million.
For the period 2001-2004, direct program expenditures included a total of $16,000,000 ($400,000 in 2004 and zero in 2005) in one-time expenditures for “high priority” and “action plan” projects. These are included in the total above. The high-priority projects were intended to bring immediate benefits to all species listed for protection under the Endangered Species Act in advance of subbasin planning (subbasin plans were submitted to the Council in 2004 and adopted into the fish and wildlife program in 2004 and 2005). The “action plan” projects were intended to bring immediate benefits to ESA listed salmon and steelhead that were affected by altered hydropower dam operations in the spring and early summer of 2001, when the flow of the Columbia River was at a near-record low.
Sorted by type of species, total (1978-2005) expenditures to implement the direct program are $1,306,861,461 ($96,206,584 in 2004 and $101,172,351 in 2005) on anadromous fish projects; $219,612,570 ($18,899,368 in 2004 and $20,236,591 in 2005) on resident fish projects, and $175,567,671 ($10,659,908 in 2004 and $13,278,339 in 2005) on wildlife projects. - $1,381,500,000 ($21.7 million in 2004 and $182.1 million in 2005) in forgone revenue, the calculated value of hydropower that could not be generated because of required river operations to assist fish passage and improve fish survival, such as water spills at the dams.
- $1,246,300,000 ($85.4 million in 2004 and $89.7 million in 2005) in fixed expenses for bonds issued by Bonneville to pay for capital investments in fish-passage facilities at the dams.
- $801,600,000 ($57.2 million in 2004 and $57.9 million in 2005) to reimburse the U.S. Treasury for the power-generation share of other federal agency expenditures to mitigate the impact of hydropower on fish and wildlife. Primarily these reimbursements are paid to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Bureau of Reclamation, and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for efforts to improve fish and wildlife survival apart from the Council’s program, such as operation and maintenance of fish passage facilities and federal fish hatcheries.
