The captive broodstock hatchery program that has kept the endangered Snake River sockeye salmon population afloat has begun an expansion aimed, through sheer numbers, at helping revive the stock and providing better understanding of its problems.

"Our building now is basically finished," Eagle Hatchery manager Dan Baker said of an expansion at the Idaho Department of Fish and Game facilities near Boise.

"This building will allow us to double what we're doing," Baker said in early June.

The Eagle Hatchery produces its own captive adults for spawning. Eggs, juveniles and adults produced from hatchery spawning events are returned to the wild or used to produce the next generation of broodstock.

Adult returns from the program are spawned at the hatchery to infuse eggs, and genes, into the program.

Construction of the facility began in September. It will allow the program to up its annual production of adult spawners from 300-350 to 600-700. About half of the space now available will be used to spawn the captive broodstock; the other half will house returning spawners. The separation is desirable to prevent the potential spread of disease.

The expansion is part of a plan to increase overall production of smolts -- juvenile fish primed to make their migration from the Stanley Basin's lakes and streams to the Pacific Ocean.

The recently completed NOAA Fisheries Service biological opinion on the federal Columbia/Snake river hydro system calls for an "expansion of the program for building genetic resources and assisting in promoting recovery." The BiOp outlines dam operations and fish passage improvements, as well as off-site habitat, hatchery and harvest actions intend to improve survival and assure the hydro system doesn't jeopardize the survival of 13 listed Columbia salmon and steelhead stocks.

The BiOp's "reasonable and prudent alternative" calls for continue funding of the Snake River sockeye safety net program to achieve the interim goal of annual releases of 150,000 smolts, while also continuing to implement other release strategies in nursery lakes such as fry and parr releases, eyed-egg incubation boxes, and adult releases for "volitional spawning" The 150,000 goal was established in a 2004 BiOp, which was replaced May 5 with the 2008 BiOp.

The new BiOp's RPA 42 says: "For Snake River Sockeye: Fund further expansion of the sockeye program to increase total smolt releases to between 500,000 and 1 million fish."

Baker says that 150,000 smolts were released this year for the first time since the program was launched in 1991, the year the sockeye were listed. Smolt releases in May have shown to produce greater adult returns than fall pre-smolt releases into lakes or eyed-egg incubation boxes.

The BiOp goal is a big one. The program now uses space at the IDFG's Sawtooth Hatchery and the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife's Oxbow Hatchery to rear the fish to smolt stage. This year's expansion included work at Oxbow that will allow it to rear 150,000 smolts, Baker said. The projects, which together cost about $3.4 million, were funded by the Bonneville Power Administration through the Northwest Power and Conservation Council's fish and wildlife program.

"We're still looking for a facility to rear 500,000 to 1 million" smolts, Baker said. "We want to get all of the production into one hatchery."

The IDFG initially has looked for a private facility that it could potentially purchase, or possibly retrofit an existing facility it owns. Building a new facility would be very costly and poses many problems, such as finding a water source.

A memorandum of agreement reached between BPA and the state of Idaho lists $13.25 million in spending during fiscal 2008-2010 for "Sockeye conservation hatchery" capital spending -- $4.75 million for purchase and $8.5 million for construction.

"This project would result in the acquisition and development of a new conservation hatchery facility designed to produce up to one million Snake River sockeye salmon smolts annually for reintroduction back to the habitat," according to the April 7 draft MOA.

The BiOp's "take" discussion notes that information about the sockeye is limited on such topics as how transportation aboard barges from lower Snake River dams to the sea affects survival; what are differential adult survivals in various reaches of the Columbia and Snake, and the causes of significant juvenile mortality between the Stanley basin's Redfish Lake and the first dam they encounter, Lower Granite.,

"The small size of this population precludes a rigorous transportation study," the BiOp says, because so few can be outfitted with PIT tags to chart their progress up and down the rivers. The little data that is available indicates "transportation provides little if any benefit to Snake River sockeye salmon."

"Resolving the uncertainty of how best to manage the transport program for sockeye will remain uncertain due to the limited ability to acquire data on this population," the BiOp says.

"Increased production of juvenile Snake River sockeye salmon may allow studies (likely requiring the handling and tagging of hundreds or a few thousand individuals) to determine the cause of the substantial losses of these fish between their rearing areas in Redfish Lake (and the other nearby lakes supporting sockeye salmon) and Lower Granite Dam… assessing survival of fish transported and migrating in-river through the mainstem Snake and Columbia river projects."

A certain amount of take is assumed to occur because of the researchers' handling and tagging of the young fish.

The goal of hoped-for research is to identify "configuration and operation measures that may benefit the species on their migration through the FCRPS."

The RPA also mulls transportation of the returning fish.

"The Action Agencies will work with appropriate parties to investigate feasibility and potentially develop a plan for ground transport of adult sockeye from LGR Dam to Sawtooth Valley lakes or artificial propagation facilities," the BiOp RPA says.

"Typically we're around a 40 percent conversion rate from Lower Granite to Sawtooth" Hatchery, Baker said of the number of fish that make it that last 400 miles up the lower Snake and Salmon rivers.

Some years are worse, or better, depending on water temperatures and flows and other factors. Only 25 percent made it in 2006 and last year 53 sockeye were counted passing the dam and only four made to the hatchery.

The biggest return to the program thus far was 257 adult sockeye out of 299 that were counted passing Lower Granite in 2000.

The preseason forecast this year is for a return of 700 Snake River sockeye to the mouth of the Columbia River, which would be the largest since 1979.

The first Snake River sockeye was counted passing Lower Granite Wednesday, its eighth and final hydro hurdle on the 900-mile journey up the Columbia, Snake and Salmon rivers.

The past 10 years' returns have been the product of the Idaho sockeye salmon captive broodstock program. Only 16 wild-origin sockeye have returned to the basin since 1991. A single wild sockeye returned in 1998. Those were the fish that provided the genetic material to start, and continue, the program.

The Columbia basin sockeye runs are the southernmost in North America with eight tributatry lake systems historicially producing healthy returns. But dam construction, such as Grand Coulee on the Columbia and Swan Falls, Sunbeam, Black Canyon and Brownlee blocked passage to most. That reduced the available lake surface acreage by 96 percent, according to the Oregon and Washington deparm of fish and wildlife "Status Report: Columbia River Fish Runs and Fisheries, 1938-2000."

The sockeye returns from the program have small in number. There were 26 that returned from the ocean in 2001, 22 in 2002, 27 in 2004, six in 2005 and only three in 2006. The first hatchery-origin fish returned in 1999.

A relatively strong sockeye run does exist in the Columbia River, based in central Washington's Wenatchee and Okanagan river systems. They are now headed up stream along with the Snake River fish. Based on counts at Bonneville Dam's fish ladders, this year's run is one of the biggest in decades.

Baker is hopeful that the run will include a wealth of Snake River fish. The sockeye face fairly good river conditions with strong flows and generally cooler than normal water.