The Bonneville Power Administration could absorb the additional cost of diverting a portion of its annual revenue to the federal Treasury in 2007, but President Bush’s proposal would force Bonneville to raise its electricity rates about 7 percent in 2008.
President Bush’s proposed budget for Fiscal Year 2007 includes $578 million for “Columbia River Federal Basinwide Salmon Funding” – an increase of $19 million over FY 2006’s enacted budget of $559 million.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council entered the New Year with a revised power plan in place, but with much work to do balancing power requirements with actions outlined in subbasin plans adopted recently as part of its Columbia Basin fish and wildlife program.
More than a million fertilized white sturgeon eggs were released into the Kootenai River’s braided, canyon reaches upstream of Bonners Ferry, Idaho this past summer as a strategy to revive flagging wild populations.
Environmental and sport-fishing industry groups on Monday petitioned the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to keep intact the Fish Passage Center, a technical entity charged with keeping fish managers informed about salmon and other fishes’ success at traversing the federal Columbia River hydrosystem.
Bonneville Power Administration officials announced Thursday that they believe they can achieve a “seamless continuity of activities” by transferring the duties of Fish Passage Center to two other entities — the Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission and Battelle Northwest — beginning March 21.
An independent scientific panel’s review of fish data collected during last year’s court ordered summer spill operations at Columbia/Snake River hydro projects points out “potential” benefits and drawbacks of the practice.
Washington member Tom Karier was elected Wednesday to chair the Northwest Power and Conservation Council, a four-state energy planning and fish and wildlife mitigation agency.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council has in hand more than $1 billion worth of fish and wildlife project funding requests for fiscal years 2007-2009 — double the amount it will likely have to spend during the period.
A U.S./Canada scientific panel says there is no ready, or inexpensive, cure for problems that have beset the north Pacific’s coded-wire tag program for monitoring ocean fishing’s impacts on individual stocks of fish.
The Kootenai Tribe of Idaho, Idaho Department of Fish and Game, and federal agencies start a new chapter in efforts to conserve and recover Kootenai River white sturgeon.
The process for revising the federal government’s Columbia River hydrosystem salmon protection plan are described in a set of documents filed Tuesday with the U.S. District Court in Portland.
Bonneville Power Administration officials say the agency has received proposals from five entities that aspire to take over the primary functions of the Fish Passage Center, which will be phased out by the end of March.
Revived salmon and steelhead runs have the potential to provide a economic boost for Northwest communities, but a $544 million annual estimate proclaimed early this year overstates that potential, according to a newly completed report from the Independent Economic Advisory Board.
Fish Passage Center supporters and detractors marched to the microphone Wednesday, providing emotional testimony about the technical entity’s past and offering views about how the future should look without it.
Attorneys for fishing and conservation groups argued this week that their plan for boosting Columbia River hydrosystem spill and flow regimes next year has a sounder biological base than a federal strategy they predict would further harm salmon and steelhead now listed under the Endangered Species Act.
A truckload of documents filed with the U.S. District Court last week seek to discredit a previously submitted Columbia River hydrosystem operations plan for the spring and summer of 2006, and substitute plans that federal agencies and others say will provide more benefits for salmon and cost less to implement.
The Bonneville Power Administration will issue a request for proposals as early as next week for entities, or an entity, to take over the primary functions of Fish Passage Center.
Requested increases in the water spilled at Columbia and Snake river hydro projects next spring and summer and changes in river flows to aid juvenile salmon and steelhead migration in 2006 could cost the region a range from $125 million to $560 million, according to preliminary analysis of impacts on power generation completed by Northwest Power and Conservation Council staff.
Idaho Republican Sen. Larry Craig says he claimed a victory for science and thriftiness Monday when the 2006 Energy and Water appropriations bill cleared Congress containing language he had inserted to cut funding for the Fish Passage Center.
Montana stands to lose plenty in terms of water and impacts on fisheries and recreation if a federal judge goes along with the latest requests in a lawsuit over salmon recovery in the Columbia Basin, state officials say.
The Independent Scientific Advisory Board made official this week its intent to review data regarding the biological effectiveness of this year’s spill operations at Columbia River basin dams to provide downstream passage for salmon and steelhead juvenile migrants.
One angler earned $39,620 this year fishing for northern pikeminnows with a hook and line. His closest rival reeled in $38,084 during the five-month season.
The Independent Scientific Advisory Board has agreed to review available data regarding the biological effectiveness of the controversial, court-ordered 2005 federal hydrosystem summer spill program.
A joint 11-page report released last week by two independent science panels chides Columbia Basin fishery experts and policy makers for failing thus far to develop a plan for evaluating critical uncertainties — including possible negative effects — associated with supplementing natural spawning salmon and steelhead populations with hatchery fish.
A trio of Northwest congressmen exploring options to improve Columbia River adult salmon survival returned again and again to the topic of harvest during discussions with constituents this week in Vancouver, Wash.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council decided this week to move ahead with a fish and wildlife project selection process that will involve a review of proposals from across the Columbia River basin and the development of funding recommendations before the start of fiscal year 2007 next Oct. 1.
Independent scientists will judge the “net effect” of court-ordered spill this past summer at federal Columbia and Snake river dams if they agree to a request launched this week by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council.
The Fish Passage Center has released the annual 2005 “final draft” of the “Comparative Survival Study” that looks at smolt-to-adult return (SAR) data from electronically marked (PIT-tagged) Columbia River spring/summer chinook and summer steelhead during the years 1994 to 2003.
The Bonneville Power Administration says that 240,955 northern pikeminnow had been caught this season under the agency’s predator control program, ranking 2005 as one of the most successful years on record.
Fish and wildlife project sponsors looking to purchase wildlife, and in some cases resident fish, habitat may have a “new tool” available for them if the Bonneville Power Administration implements a proposed shift in its capitalization policy.
The future of Columbia/Snake river salmon restoration efforts drew comments ranging from gentle encouragement to threats Wednesday during closing exchanges at a Boise conference.
Idaho’s governor this week said regional interests needed to put the spurs to the federal government to produce a realistic salmon recovery plan and rein in commercial fishing practices that he says are blunting recovery efforts.
The financially embattled Fish Passage Center became the focal point of a discussion this week about why different scientists can analyze the same information and, as is often the case in Columbia River basin fish and wildlife arguments, come up with different conclusions.
The chairs of four Columbia River basin tribes with treaty-reserved fishing rights this week sent a letter supporting continued operation of the Fish Passage Center to Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., chairman of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs.
The Independent Scientific Review Panel’s “Retrospective Report: 1997-2005” says that the scientific rigor of Columbia River basin fish and wildlife projects is much improved as the result of a years-long give-and-take between them, project sponsors, the Northwest Power and Conservation Council and others in the region.
After reaching agreement on a variety of vexing issues, a Northwest Power and Conservation Council committee this week moved forward a proposed process for reviewing and selecting Columbia Basin fish and wildlife projects for funding.
Long-running litigation has focused on assuring that federal Columbia River hydrosystem operations do not jeopardize salmon and steelhead stocks over the long haul.
But legal battles within that legal battle have erupted regarding near-term operations such as spill and flow augmentation that are intended to benefit salmon stocks that are listed under the federal Endangered Species Act and can affect other fish stocks as well.
The Fish Passage Center this week released a “preliminary analysis” concluding that survival levels of juvenile salmon migrating “in-river” through the lower Snake River this summer were “the highest recorded in recent years.”
A draft “Snake and Columbia River Surface Passage Strategy” completed this summer by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers cites early successes of the fish passage technology and calls for a reasoned process to decide how, when and where installation will unfold at other hydro facilities in the system.
The Pacific Northwest appears to have a surplus of electricity for the coming fall and winter, according to an analysis by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council.
A decision on when to trigger its next project selection process was delayed for at least month while the Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s Fish and Wildlife Committee continues to ponder such issues as the overall allocation of funds across the region and its research, monitoring and evaluation desires.
Parties to the lawsuit have been given until Sept. 27 to describe their vision for remedying a federal Columbia River salmon protection plan left in question this spring by U.S. District Court Judge James A. Redden.
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials say they will provide the construction costs if other entities pay ongoing operations and maintenance and monitoring expenses that are necessary to eliminate costly March spill that is intended to flush hatchery-produced tule fall chinook salmon through Bonneville Dam.
Montana has been granted intervenor status in a lawsuit over salmon recovery efforts in the Columbia River Basin.
Dozens of innovative water transactions are set to play out in the Columbia Basin as the driest time of the year descends on the region’s tributaries. Imperiled salmon must navigate these often isolated streams where water shortages escape the notice of population centers.
Veteran Columbia River basin fish biologist Bruce Suzumoto will assume the daunting task of balancing hydrosystem and power needs with those of imperiled fish when he takes over Oct. 17 as assistant regional administrator for NOAA Fisheries’ Hydropower Division.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Pacific Region Fisheries Program has begun a three-year review of the Columbia River Basin salmon hatcheries it owns or operates with the aim of producing recommendations about how they might best be run to achieve Endangered Species Act recovery goals while providing sustainable fisheries.
A series of “scoping” meetings are planned later this month to discuss the potential hatchery project that the Bonneville Power Administration has proposed for funding on the Columbia River in central Washington.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council on Wednesday recommended $157.2 million in Columbia River Fish and Wildlife Program project spending during fiscal year 2006.
While the Pacific Northwest currently enjoys an electricity surplus big enough to power a city the size of Seattle, hot weather this summer could create shortages for certain hours that force wholesale power prices to high levels, according to the Northwest Power and Conservation Council.
A stalemated biological argument was broken Thursday when federal officials decided to follow prescriptions in NOAA Fisheries’ 2004 Federal Columbia River Power System biological opinion rather than slow the drawdown of reservoirs behind Libby and Hungry Horse dams as the state of Montana has requested.
Montana again is pursuing summer operations at Libby and Hungry Horse dams to benefit resident fish, but a conflicting proposal is aimed at delivering all “flow augmentation” water for migrating salmon in the lower Columbia Basin by the end of August.
Knowledge about the effects of harvests on naturally spawning Columbia River salmon and steelhead populations has advanced notably but the region still lacks the data and tools necessary to determine whether recovery efforts are hindered by carefully managed fisheries.
Idaho Republican U.S. Sen. Mike Crapo says a key fish restoration effort in the upper Columbia Basin is an example of how collaboration can serve as an alternative to listings and litigation under the Endangered Species act.
A staff-generated proposal for Fiscal Year 2006 fish and wildlife project funding, and for the treatment of related issues, won favor neither in committee nor before the full Northwest Power and Conservation Council.
Recent, relatively bountiful run sizes have helped fuel the West Coast economy to the tune of about $142 million in personal income, according to a study conducted by a panel of eight independent economists at the request of the Northwest Power and Conservation Council.
The Upper Columbia United Tribes and the Bonneville Power Administration announced this week that they have signed a memorandum of understanding intended to “increase the proportion of mitigated habitat in the upper Columbia River eco-region through improved funding and contracting measures and as appropriate other methods.”
The Senate Energy and Water Appropriations bill for Fiscal Year 2006, approved by the full Senate Appropriations Committee late last week, was accompanied with some surprise language for those involved in Columbia Basin salmon recovery.
A preliminary look at Fiscal Year 2006 funding needs that shifts perceived “capital” projects into the Columbia River Basin fish and wildlife expense budget would top out at about $170 million, according to an assessment coordinated by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council staff.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council last week closed the loop on what has been a nearly three-year, $15.2 million process with the adoption of Oregon’s John Day Basin fish and wildlife management plan.
The first non-tribal commercial fisheries in 40 years that specifically target Upper Columbia summer chinook salmon were approved this week by the Columbia River Compact.
Fish hatcheries in the Columbia River Basin need clearly defined goals, better integration with wild fish production and better coordination among the numerous fish-production programs, according to a report approved by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council this week for transmission to Congress.
Long-familiar personalities moved to the background this week with the appointment of six new members to the Independent Scientific Review Panel — the largest turnover in the nine-year history of the group that reviews fish and wildlife projects as well as offering advice on other issues to the Northwest Power and Conservation Council.
Montanan Brian Lipscomb has accepted the position of executive director of the Portland-based Columbia Basin Fish and Wildlife Authority, pledging to continue the good work of the organization that aims to build consensus among the region’s federal, state and tribal fish and wildlife managers.
Utility interests and fish advocates used Monday’s final Power Function Review meeting to continue to pull the Bonneville Administration either way on the fish and wildlife spending scale.
Independent scientists who advise salmon recovery efforts this week asked the Northwest Power and Conservation Council to support a proposed study of the impact of power “load following” on the behavior and survival of migrating juvenile fall chinook salmon.
The Bonneville Power Administration’s suggested fiscal year 2007-2009 funding level for the Columbia River fish and wildlife program drew a mixed reaction during Northwest Power and Conservation Council discussions this week.
Fisheries experts continue to be confounded about the dismal Columbia/Snake upriver spring chinook salmon return that was predicted to be the fourth largest since 1979 with a total of more than a quarter million adult fish but will likely be about one-third that number.
Three “water optimization and/or passage” projects in central Washington that aim to improve conditions for federally protected salmon and steelhead won the approval Tuesday of the Northwest Power and Conservation Council.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council on Tuesday adopted as amendments to its fish and wildlife program subbasin plans for the Grande Ronde River watershed and for three sections of the Upper Snake River in Idaho.
A draft “closeout” letter and report released this week by the Bonneville Power Administration identifies potential net cost savings of up to $80 million per year for the fiscal year 2007-2009 rate period.
Cost estimates that fish and wildlife managers suggested be plugged into the Bonneville Power Administration’s power rate calculations for fiscal years 2007-2009 are “unrealistically broad in scope” in how they portray the federal power system’s obligation and what its ratepayers should, or could, bear, according to the agency.
A Bush Administration proposal to count new third-party debt backed by the Bonneville Power Administration within Bonneville’s U.S. Treasury borrowing limit could force the power marketing agency to reduce its future investments in energy conservation, renewable energy, and fish production and habitat in order to finance investments in its regionwide high-voltage transmission system, according to an analysis by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council.
Officials from the agencies that operate the federal Columbia River hydrosystem and sell its power met with the Northwest Power and Conservation Council this week to elaborate on earlier announcements about special actions to be taken this year in response to anticipated low water conditions.
The gap is wide economically, perhaps $100 million or more, between planned summer federal Columbia/Snake river hydrosystem operations for salmon and steelhead in this anticipated “low flow” year and alternative operations begin sought in federal court.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council sent three “Updated Proposed Action” projects ahead, but withheld its funding recommendation for five other projects pending further refinement called for by the Independent Scientific Review Panel.
With less than two months remaining before they intend to issue a “closeout” letter detailing expected costs for the 2007-2009 rate period, Bonneville Power Administration officials continued this week to take input on fish and wildlife expenditures that, at least for now, are estimated at $691.6 million per year.
The Nez Perce Tribal Executive Council Tuesday (March 29) voted to accept the terms of the proposed settlement of the Tribe’s water right claims included in the Snake River Basin Adjudication.
The goal of resurrecting tribal spring and summer/fall chinook salmon fisheries, and creating recreational opportunities, in Washington’s Okanogan subbasin and other waters of the Colville Reservation moved into the realm of possibility Tuesday.
A Bush Administration proposal that would have required power marketing administrations (PMAs), including the Bonneville Power Administration, to increase rates to customers was rejected by the Senate Budget Committee late last week, largely through the efforts of senators from the Pacific Northwest.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council this week adopted four subbasin management plans despite a failure to win the endorsement of local county governments that have expressed concern about certain elements of the fish and wildlife management strategies and the overall planning process.
Conditional approval was given Tuesday for the expenditure of up to $268,000 for two “off-site” habitat projects that Bonneville Power Administration officials say will further federal agencies’ goal of countering Columbia/Snake hydrosystem impacts on salmon and steelhead listed under the Endangered Species Act.
If the Bonneville Power Administration is forced to sell electricity at average wholesale market rates, as the Bush Administration proposed last month, Bonneville’s rates would jump up 65 percent and cost the region’s ratepayers about $1.3 billion, according to an economic analysis completed last week by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council staff.
Tribal representatives argued for a loosening of fish and wildlife funding purse strings during Tuesday’s Northwest Power and Conservation Council meeting while spokesmen for Northwest utility interests insisted that such costs should be held at current levels or pared back during the fiscal year 2007-2009 period.
The specter of 2001’s spring/summer water shortage and West Coast power crisis has not emerged, but bleak Columbia River Basin water runoff forecasts could well push up the cost of power and federal hydrosystem operations intended to aid salmon and steelhead.
Despite continuing legal threats hovering in the background, federal “action” agencies have begun to push for rapid implementation of actions they say will raise salmon survival through the Columbia River hydrosystem, and beyond, and foreclose the possibility that certain of fish stocks will become extinct.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council will analyze the potential impacts in the region of Bush Administration proposals that would raise electricity rates charged by the Bonneville Power Administration and also limit the agency’s capital borrowing authority.
Twenty-five locally developed subbasin management plans were adopted Thursday by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council as amendments to its Columbia River Basin Fish and Wildlife Program.
The 53-member Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians this week put their stamp of approval on a budget proposal prepared by Columbia River basin fish and wildlife managers that calls for a steady ramping up of spending over the next four years.
Fully implementing newly created subbasin goals and objectives over a 10-year span would require more than a doubling of the amount of money now being spent through the Columbia River Basin fish and wildlife plan, according to estimates compiled by a resource managers work group.
With new provincial review process mechanics still in development and recommendations from the old process mostly expired, the fiscal year 2006 Columbia River Fish and Wildlife Program will largely be shaped around existing projects that staff judge worthy of continuing based on performance and on those projects’ conformance with the goals of newly developed subbasin plans.
The Bonneville Power Administration this week triggered the process that will define, with the public’s help, what its wholesale power rates need to be to cover its costs for the period that begins with fiscal year 2007.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council on Thursday elected Oregon member Melinda Eden to serve as chairman during the coming year.
Swelling numbers of non-native American shad in the Columbia/Snake river mainstem are likely having an impact on salmon, other fish species and the ecosystem generally, but little is known about the magnitude, or even the direction, of that change, according to a U.S. Geological Survey researcher.
A Columbia Basin Fish and Wildlife Authority member work group has set about the task of “sizing” the ratepayer-funded fish and wildlife program so that it can offer its views on funding needs for the years beyond fiscal 2006.
Their shortcomings now addressed, a set of 23 subbasin management plans were approved this week as draft amendments to the Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s Columbia River Basin fish and wildlife program and offered for public comment through Jan. 31.
Northwest Power and Conservation Council and Bonneville Power Administration staff and others are looking at past and potential demands in an attempt to determine Columbia River Fish and Wildlife program funding needs in the future.
Montana Gov.-elect Brian Schweitzer on Wednesday announced the appointment of two Flathead basin residents as the state’s next representatives on the Northwest Power and Conservation Council.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council this week reached a long-sought goal by adopting as amendments to its Columbia River Fish and Wildlife program 23 individual subbasin management plans that will ultimately help the panel identify spending priorities.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council today approved the latest version of its Northwest Power Plan, the fifth plan since the Council was created in 1980.
The new plan, developed in the wake of the West Coast energy crisis of 2000/2001, is designed to help the region’s utilities and electricity consumers take steps in the future to avoid the shortages and high prices that characterized the energy crisis.
Washington Gov. Gary Locke, together with the Lower Columbia Fish Recovery Board (LCFRB) and the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, this week presented to the federal government the first locally developed regional salmon recovery plan for Washington state during an event in Vancouver.
Puzzlement was expressed, once again, in public discussions this week regarding the type of project that qualifies as a capital expenditure, and what does not, under Bonneville Power Administration guidelines for the Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s fish and wildlife program.
Federal officials on Tuesday announced a package of Columbia/Snake river hydrosystem operations and off-site fish mitigation actions that they feel will both ward off the extinction of protected salmon and steelhead and parry potential legal thrusts like those that forced a December 2000 strategy to be rewritten.
Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski this week announced that he will appoint State Sen. Joan Dukes, D-Astoria, to serve on the Northwest Power and Conservation Council.
Upon Senate confirmation, Dukes will fill the seat on the Council currently held by Gene Derfler, whose term expires January 15, 2005.
A room full of scientists called together to consider the potential effects on salmon of reduced Columbia River summertime flow augmentation came away with new information, and more questions than answers.
Attempts to keep the Columbia River Fish and Wildlife Program within a $139 million annual average for the 2003-2006 period are, for now, right on track, according to Bonneville Power Administration officials.
Public hearing testimony across the Columbia River Basin, written comments received to-date and input received in other discussions across the region have largely focused on a broad set of subbasin planning programmatic issues rather than on the specifics of the 29 management plans themselves, according to Northwest Power and Conservation Council staff.
The ongoing “tension” that exists over Fish Passage Center biological analyses simmered in the background this week as Northwest Power and Conservation Council members continued their dissection of the center’s job functions and budget.
A group of state, federal and tribal officials that convened occasionally to troubleshoot during the development of 59 Columbia River basin “subbasin plans” was called together again last to offer advice on how and when the fish and wildlife goals of those plans should be implemented.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council and staff continue on their previously announced schedule toward adoption of newly developed subbasin plans while at the same time plumbing regional stakeholders’ for their views on side issues that will affect how those fish and wildlife management strategies will be implemented.
Greg Delwiche, a 20-year veteran of Columbia River energy and natural resource management, is the new vice president of Environment, Fish and Wildlife of the Bonneville Power Administration, the agency announced this week.
Two first-draft views on how Columbia Basin Fish and Wildlife Program funding should be allocated in the years beyond fiscal 2006 have emerged — one coming from the Northwest Power and Conservation Council and the other from the Bonneville Power Administration.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council and NOAA Fisheries announced this week that they are sponsoring a symposium to examine how changes in reservoir operations at Libby and Hungry Horse dams in Montana may affect water conditions and fish survival in the mainstem Columbia River below Chief Joseph Dam.
A midsummer request for a budget increase has prompted Northwest Power and Conservation Council members to launch a hunt for efficiencies in the Fish Passage Center’s operations that they hope will help hold the line on an already stretched Fish and Wildlife Program budget.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council on Wednesday voted to release for public review and comment 29 locally produced “subbasin plan” recommendations as draft amendments to the Council’s fish and wildlife program.
Despite a fiscal wariness about large looming one-time and long-term costs, the Northwest Power and Conservation Council this week moved a $26 million expansion of the Northeast Oregon Hatchery program closer to reality.
A $1.4 million, 165-acre conservation easement purchase announced this week is intended to safeguard valuable Willamette Valley wetland habitat forever.
The Bonneville Power Administration said this week that there was a record catch of northern pikeminnow this year, saving 2.5-3.5 million juvenile salmon.
An economic analysis of the most popular and visible predator control program in the Columbia River Basin found the program to be a cost-effective of salmon recovery tool. In addition, the study provided some ways to improve the program’s effectiveness.
A Columbia River basin “subbasin” planning effort that began more than two years ago has entered its stretch run with total spending expected to be $13.6 million through the end of the calendar year — $1.6 million less than the $15.2 million originally earmarked by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council and Bonneville Power Administration.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council this week unveiled its draft Fifth Northwest Power Plan, a blueprint for an adequate, low-cost and low-risk energy future in the wake of the West Coast energy crisis of 2000/2001.
Does the Pacific Northwest have adequate electricity supplies? That depends largely on how much power from new plants is sold here or shipped outside the region, the Bonneville Power Administration’s annual forecast of electricity supply shows.
Addressing the growing Columbia River estuary presence of double-breasted cormorants, and their predation on salmon, would require research, data gathering and painstaking development of a management schemes similar to the process now in midstream for Caspian terns, according to U.S. Army Corps of Engineers officials.
Water from Montana’s Libby Dam reservoir could provide augmentation flow for threatened Lower Columbia River chum salmon at Bonneville Dam in November if flows from Libby are lowered now and the water is stored in the reservoir.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council, the Columbia River Indian Tribes, and NOAA Fisheries is inviting nominations to establish a pool of candidates who are qualified and interested in potential appointment to the Independent Scientific Advisory Board (ISAB) and/or the Independent Scientific Review Panel (ISRP).
Shooting California and ring-billed gulls in Mid-Columbia reservoirs as a means of reducing the species’ consumption of migrating salmon may be doing more harm than good, according to the results of a three-year study funded by the Chelan County Public Utility District.
As conservationists and tribes criticized the draft biological opinion released by NOAA Fisheries this week, states were cautious while awaiting staff reviews and utilities were optimistic that the plan will consider the cost of operations to the Northwest federal hydroelectric system.
Nearly half of the 59 subbasin plans submitted at the end of May are on the fast track for approval as amendments to the Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s Columbia River basin fish and wildlife program in December if a staff-recommended schedule can be achieved.
Federal agencies released draft documents Thursday that officials say will shore up Columbia River basin salmon protection efforts biologically and legally, and do it in a manner that potentially reduces the cost to the federal hydropower system.
Scientists asked by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council to review “subbasin plans” say that “approximately one quarter of the plans are complete enough to serve as standalone, scientifically sound amendments to the Fish and Wildlife Program without major additional treatment.”
Large numbers of non-native American shad appear to be filling a food niche in the Lower Columbia River that allows aquatic predators to grow faster and, ultimately, take a bigger bite out of salmon populations that fish managers and others are trying to rebuild.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council staff sequestered themselves in a Portland conference today to sort through huge mounds of public and Independent Scientific Review Panel comments and decide what next steps must be taken to usher nearly 60 draft subbasin plans “across the finish line.”
The Montana delegation on Thursday suggested that, in the future, the Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s fish and wildlife program should in some way share the financial risk when costly measures are taken in the federal hydrosystem in response to NPCC requests.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council on Thursday unanimously approved the $1.2 million expansion of a habitat acquisition project near Eugene, Ore., despite concerns of the Montana members about the cost per acre and a perceived skirting of capitalization/crediting issues.
The Columbia Basin Fish and Wildlife Authority’s members voted Thursday to form a committee to “explore the options for reforming the way the (Columbia Basin) fish and wildlife program is implemented.”
NOAA Fisheries rejected last week parts of a river operation proposed by the State of Montana and on Monday, July 19, sent a letter explaining its decision to Northwest Power and Conservation Council Chairwoman Judi Danielson of Idaho.
A Northwest Power and Conservation Council issue paper on Columbia River basin hatchery management was sent out this week in search of answers about how artificial production should be used in the future to meet both harvest and conservation needs.
Representatives of Canadian and American water-use planning agencies met last week in Kimberley, British Columbia to discuss the creation of an international forum on Columbia River water issues.
As promised, a coalition of fishing and environmental groups has asked a federal court to stop a plan that would eliminate August spill at federal hydroelectric projects that is designed to improve passage, and survival, for fall chinook salmon that are listed under the Endangered Species Act.
NOAA Fisheries stepped in early this week to initially work to implement a plan proposed by the state of Montana that calls for stable summer flows below Libby Dam on the Kootenai River and shifting the release of 4,000 cubic feet per second of water from Montana reservoirs from summer into September.
Representatives of the states of Idaho, Montana and Washington on Wednesday overrode the objections of their Oregon peers on the Northwest Power and Conservation Council in putting their stamp of approval on a proposal to alter flow regimes stemming from Montana’s Hungry Horse and Libby dams that are designed to help salmon migrations in the lower Columbia River basin.
Staff members this week told the Northwest Power and Conservation Council that the subbasin plans submitted in May as proposed amendments to its fish and wildlife Program are, for the most part, receiving favorable scientific reviews.
A U.S. Army Corps of Engineers decision this week to reduce summer spill as a means of fish passage at Columbia/Snake river hydroelectric projects in August is been followed, as promised, by a flurry of legal activity aimed at reversing the decision.
Salmon managers this week twice rejected a three year plan proposed by the State of Montana that calls for steady and lower summer flows below Libby Dam on the Kootenai River and shifting the release of some water from Montana dams from summer into September.
The Bonneville Power Administration released a draft plan in its Regional Dialogue process that would limit power sales to its customers to the amount of energy generated at federal Columbia River Basin dams and the Columbia Generating Station, owned and operated by Energy Northwest.
Federal agencies met with tribes, states and others Monday afternoon (June 14) to get feedback about an amended summer spill proposal that would cut spill for fish passage at Columbia and Snake River dams in July and August by about 39 percent.
The amended spill proposal released Tuesday (June 8) by the Bonneville Power Administration and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers contains six offset measures that the agencies say will mitigate for juvenile salmon losses in 2004 caused by curtailing spill in July and August.
Columbia River basin fish and wildlife managers this told the Northwest Power and Conservation Council that they feel they being left on the outside as decisions are made about how to protect and restore those resources.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council was told this week by its staff that it would take $145 million in spending during fiscal year 2005 to fund fish and wildlife projects and research at levels the panel recommended over the past few years during its provincial review process.
The offspring of spring chinook salmon planted in 2000 have returned to the Walla Walla River as 10-15-pound four-year-old adults.
The returns are the result of the supplementation and habitat improvement program of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation and the cooperative efforts of the Tribes, states and the Walla Walla Watershed Council, landowners, local irrigators and others.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service outlined late Friday, May 21, its proposal for Libby Dam flows that are designed to aid spawning endangered Kootenai River white sturgeon and threatened bull trout in the river.
There is just enough water in the forecast for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service this week to move ahead on a white sturgeon operation in the Kootenai River in Montana.
The operation, which calls for ramping up higher flows out of Libby Dam once sturgeon spawn, could begin as early as next week.
The Bonneville Power Administration this week released an updated assessment of energy conservation it has funded in the Northwest. The analysis shows additional savings of 57 average megawatts in 2003, bringing the adjusted total to 805 average megawatts since BPA’s efforts began in 1982.
Wrestling through numerous legal, biological and social complexities has prolonged the task of assembling a summer hydrosystem spill reduction plan that the region can accept, according the Bonneville Power Administration’s top fish and wildlife official.
While the Independent Scientific Review Panel (ISRP) generally supports a monitoring and evaluation (M&E) plan proposed by the Lower Columbia River Estuary Partnership for the Lower Columbia River and Estuary, it rejected that part of the monitoring plan for habitat, saying it lacks detail and so is not “fundable.”
To improve the long-term economic stability of the Bonneville Power Administration and its customers, Northwest Power and Conservation Council recommends that the federal power-marketing agency fundamentally alter the way it sells electricity.
At its meeting next week, the Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s Fish and Wildlife Committee will consider whether the Council should sponsor an Executive Committee made of federal, state and tribal leaders that will oversee the Columbia Basin’s Regional Forum process.
The Bonneville Power Administration announced this week that Greg Delwiche will immediately assume the role of acting vice president for BPA’s Office of Environment, Fish and Wildlife. Bill Maslen will become director of program policy in that office.
An island in the lower Columbia River estuary that has been used for decades as pastureland will be restored to something close to its original condition, providing new estuary habitat for juvenile salmon and steelhead.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council is asking for public review and comment of a final report by independent scientists that takes a programmatic look at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Anadromous Fish Evaluation Program (AFEP) for fiscal year 2004.
Scientific review panels are “favorably impressed” with subbasin plans that
have been developed for the Flathead and Kootenai river basins.
A contingent of Yakima River basin residents visited Portland last week to enlighten — and try win the support of — Northwest Power and Conservation Council members regarding a proposal to more than double the water reservoir storage capacity in the central Washington area through a loan of water from the Columbia River.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council is recommending changes in how the Bonneville Power Administration provides power to its customers.
If adopted, the recommendations could lead to changes in the BPA’s role in regional power supply, the Council said.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s fish and wildlife program will be boosted by $5 million in both fiscal 2005 and 2006 if a proposed hydrosystem spill reduction plan is implemented.
Scientific opinion is overwhelming that global warming is taking place and that its effects will leave the Columbia River basin’s fish, farmers and hydro producers vulnerable, particularly in late summer, according to a University of Washington, and state of Washington, climatologist.
With a plummeting water supply forecast in the Columbia and Snake river basins, the Bonneville Power Administration proposed Thursday (April 8) to Technical Management Team salmon managers to immediately shut down spring spill at lower Snake River dams.
The head of NOAA Fisheries’ Northwest Salmon Recovery Division balked when asked to detail the proposal Wednesday but acknowledged that his agency might judge the effects of federal hydrosystem operations on salmon from a different vantage point than it has in the past — one that considers the dams and reservoirs a part of the landscape or “environmental baseline.”
Columbia Basin state, tribal and federal fishery managers attending this week’s Implementation Team meeting expressed concerns that a federal proposal for a three-year pilot plan to cut summer spill does not include adequate testing that would result in new information.
A coalition of utility and business interests call the federal proposal to cut back summer hydrosystem spill “a step in the right direction.”
Fishing and conservation groups call it a backward step for ongoing efforts to restore Columbia River salmon stocks.
Federal officials met with state and tribal officials, congressional staff and other Columbia River hydrosystem “stakeholders” Tuesday to explain a proposed test of fish management flexibility that involves shutting off one of the downstream fish passage routes in August, and providing more limited access in July.
The Northwest’s four governors Monday (March 29) sent a series of recommendations to the federal agencies working on a three-year pilot plan for alternative summer spill operations on the Federal Columbia River Power System.
The Independent Economic Analysis Board wants to provide the Northwest Power and Conservation Council with a framework that would allow the Council and others to inject a cost-effectiveness analysis when comparing among alternative fish recovery projects.
Ten Northwest members of Congress support the Bonneville Power Administration’s efforts to test reduced summer spill operations.
However, they ask for up to three years of testing and say the change in spill operations should be mitigated and result in the same or better conditions for salmon at a lower cost to Northwest electric ratepayers.
A decision on whether a federal Columbia River hydrosystem “spill reduction” test will be implemented this summer is due by the third week in April, officials told the Northwest Power and Conservation Council Wednesday.
Two bills that would authorize federal assistance to private irrigation facilities to construct fish screens, passage and other improvements benefiting endangered Columbia Basin salmon won approval this week from a Senate committee.
Tribal members, union workers, farmers, environmentalists and others this week used a spotlight provided by Oregon legislators to make impassioned pleas for and against proposals to reduce or eliminate summer spill for salmon in the Columbia-Snake river federal hydrosystem.
Members of an Oregon House subcommittee at times this week seemed incredulous at the estimated costliness of spill employed during July and August at federal Columbia/Snake river hydro projects to provide a third passage option for outmigrating juvenile salmon.
Two draft analyses by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council offer new
views of the region’s future power supply and wholesale power prices.
One analysis indicates that the Northwest has a surplus of electricity that could last through 2008, depending on the impacts of hydroelectric conditions and growth in the demand for power.
A Columbia River Basin fish and wildlife program budget already facing stress is not a likely target for cuts as the Bonneville Power Administration searches for $100 million in savings and/or “revenue enhancements” in fiscal years 2004 and 2005.
Organizations representing agriculture-employers, utilities, businesses and other Columbia River users have joined hands with the stated goal of forcing more “cost effective” implementation of basin salmon restoration efforts — beginning with the immediate elimination of the summer hydrosystem spill program.
Weighing in on a proposal to reduce or eliminate spilling water during summer months, environmental groups and fish and wildlife agencies — with the notable exception of the State of Montana – said that the analyses of a half-dozen spill options is insufficient and doesn’t support the proposed changes.
Frustrated with an ever-slipping schedule, the Northwest Power and Conservation Council on Wednesday launched a letter to the region’s top federal officials asking for quick action on research proposals designed to test the biological benefit of hydrosystem spill in late summer to facilitate passage for migrating salmon.
The fiscal year 2004 fish and wildlife program budget is predicted to reach unprecedented levels because of Bonneville Power Administration accounting policies and management, say project sponsors, Northwest Power and Conservation Council staff and at least some Council members.
Northwest Power and Conservation Council members this week pondered the adequacy of a newly developed “response” process to address policy and science issues unearthed during technical and public review of subbasin plans soon to be delivered from across the Columbia River basin.
The Bonneville Power Administration is about where it expected it would be financially through the first quarter of fiscal year 2004. Even though revenues are slightly down, cost savings are keeping the federal power marketing and transmission organization in the black.
The fifty-four member Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians on Thursday in a consensus passed a resolution in opposition to proposals to reduce or eliminate summer spill at federal hydro projects in the lower Columbia and Snake rivers that is intended to benefit migrating salmon and steelhead.
The Columbia River Basin’s trail-breaking Clearwater subbasin planning committee, and Northwest Power and Conservation Council, were left to ponder next steps after their product of more than three years of work was deemed scientifically unjustified.
Fisheries managers were skeptical this week of an analysis provided by federal agencies that look at seven scenarios for summer spill.
The analysis concludes that eliminating spill at Columbia River dams in July and August would reduce adult chinook salmon returns by 19,000 fish, but gain the Bonneville Power Administration as much as $77 million in revenue it now forgoes when it spills water over dams.
The Marine Fish Conservation Network sent this week to governors of coastal states and members of Congress a review of the most recent scientific findings on the health of America’s oceans.
The review can be found at www.conservefish.org
Judi Danielson, an Idaho member of the Northwest Power and
Conservation Council, has been re-elected chair of the four-state compact.
Melinda Eden, an Oregon member of the Council, was elected vice chair. Both
terms are for one calendar year.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council was asked this week to restore nearly $900,000 in funding for conservation enforcement activities that tribal officials say bring big rewards in terms of reduced illegal take of salmon and steelhead.
Two science advisory panels this week released their joint review of the federal agencies’ draft plan for evaluating the status of Columbia River basin salmonid stocks listed under the Endangered Species Act and monitoring the effectiveness of mitigation and conservation actions.
Funding “is a problem, a challenge” but a Corps of Engineers-led initiative to have a “removable spillway weir” operating at the lower Snake River’s Ice Harbor Dam in time for the 2005 spring salmon outmigration remains on track, according to the Corps of Engineers’ Witt Anderson.
With efforts across the Columbia River basin steamrolling toward a May 28 subbasin plan submittal deadline, participants at the grass-roots level are beginning to wonder about the hereafter — whether they’ll have a role in any customizing of those plans and in the implementation the plans’ fish and wildlife management strategies.
Fearing that it would loose a flood of similar proposals, the Columbia River basin’s Regional Coordinating Group this week chose not to endorse a request from the state of Oregon that the John Day planning group be allowed to stretch the deadline for submittal of its developing subbasin plan to the Northwest Power and Conservation Council.
NOAA Fisheries has released for public comment four preliminary drafts of “Technical Memoranda,” or “white papers” that summarize some of the key science to be used in rewriting the 2000 Biological Opinion for the federal Columbia River hydropower system.
NOAA Fisheries issued a report today concluding that, while some significant progress is being made, the three federal agencies charged with carrying out the ten-year Columbia River Basin salmon-recovery program are not fully meeting expectations.
But NOAA officials added that the agencies are capable of timely resolution of the shortcomings.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began to ramp down flows at Libby Dam this week to meet a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service request to provide low and slow flows for burbot migrating and spawning in the Kootenai River.
Commercial troll fishers from Alaska’s southeast coast have gone straight to the top — President George W. Bush — to discourage consideration of any reduction in summer spill at Columbia River federal hydro projects or attempts to further clamp down on fishing opportunities.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council last week voted to stretch the term limits it had created for members of its Independent Scientific Review Panel to take advantage of the scientists’ accumulated knowledge through the NPCC subbasin planning process stretch run.
Any attempt in 2004 to measure the effect of reducing summertime spill on juvenile salmon survival would likely take place at a project or two, not across the system of Columbia River federal hydroelectric projects, the Northwest Power and Conservation Council was told this week by staff and by the regional chief of the federal agency charged with protecting salmon and steelhead populations.
Columbia-Snake River federal hydrosystem operations next summer aimed at evaluating the impacts of reduced spill on migrating juvenile salmon would not necessarily go counter to the government’s salmon protection strategy if fish losses are “offset” by other measures, according to the regional chief of NOAA Fisheries.
The Idaho Water Users Association this week forwarded to NOAA Fisheries and the Bureau of Reclamation a new scientific paper contending that flow augmentation from Idaho reservoirs provides little benefit for salmon and steelhead, and that the effects of water withdrawals on fish travel time are “small to insignificant.”
A spokesman for wholesale power customers and tribal fish advocates, alternately, asked for the Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s support in the ongoing debate over “spill” levels at federal hydro projects on the Columbia and Snake rivers during the summer season.
A “water transactions” program intended to address mandates from both the Northwest Power Act and Endangered Species Act began opening doors during fiscal 2003 for water rights holders interested in selling or leasing those rights so that the water can be left in-stream to improve conditions for fish and wildlife.
Economists are working on a report that describes the cost-effectiveness of some juvenile passage measures, particularly measures that could eliminate or cut spill, and how cost-effective analyses could be useful for making decisions about fish and wildlife actions in the Columbia River Basin.
Staff for the Northwest Power and Conservation Council got the go ahead this week from Power Committee members to develop a model that would measure the impact of adverse power operations on fish and wildlife recovery measures similar to how BPA predicts risks to the power system’s reliability.
Congress is scheduled to vote next week on a massive federal budget
package that includes more than $100 million for Columbia River and
other Pacific salmon recovery programs in the fiscal year 2004, but
final approval may not come until January.
A federal Libby Dam operations plan designed to avoid jeopardizing endangered Kootenai River white sturgeon is being reworked even as new research shows the long-lived creatures are on a steeper slide toward extinction than was thought just a few years ago.
As part of an effort to prepare for the court-ordered revision of the 2000 Biological Opinion for the federal Columbia River hydropower system, the National Marine Fisheries Service has sent a request for information from Tribes and states about non-federal salmon habitat actions that might be included in the new “BiOp.”
David Allen admittedly has only just begun to burrow into the complexities of those issues in his immediate environment, the Columbia River basin, and other locales in the Pacific Region. But he agreed this week to offer some of his first impressions about the efforts of his agency, and of others, to maintain and restore the Columbia Basin’s fish and wildlife resources.
Columbia Basin fish and wildlife agencies and Tribes have released the 2002 Comparative Survival Study (CSS) which estimates survival rates for spring/summer chinook – both transported and in-river – from major hatcheries in the Snake River Basin and selected hatcheries from the lower Columbia River.
The clock has begun ticking on Northwest Power and Conservation Council consideration of the first of an expected 58 subbasin plan submittals — for Idaho’s Clearwater River — as an amendment to its Columbia River basin fish and wildlife plan.
Northwest Power and Conservation Council members this week expressed concern that an effort it instigated — to explore more cost-effective options than current summertime spill operations for moving fish past federal hydro projects — could miss deadlines critical for 2004 implementation.
During this week’s Council meeting at the Coeur d’Alene Resort, special projects manager Bruce Suzumoto presented a perspective on “Recent Trends in Adult Returns to the Columbia Basin” from the view of fish counters at Bonneville, McNary, and Lower Granite dams.
A Columbia River basin fish and wildlife program budget that already threatens to push past boundaries established by its funding agency, the Bonneville Power Administration, has bulged further with the identification of more than $5 million in previously unidentified needs.
Federal action agencies released a plan this week that outlines how the agencies will implement conservation measures in the NOAA Fisheries and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biological opinions for the Federal Columbia River Power System (FCRPS).
Conference speakers agreed that perceptions about salmon and salmon runs aren’t always backed up by reality.
Scientists and policymakers converged at the conference Friday (Nov. 14), titled “Salmon Crossroads: Record Runs and New Directions,” where before an audience made up largely of utility representatives, they debated how to interpret the recent favorable salmon return news and what to do next.
The public won’t support salmon recovery programs if they perceive those programs are poorly managed and too expensive, Bonneville Power Administration Administrator Steve Wright told participants at a conference in Portland today.
……
more conference stories here this weekend…
The colony, which now nests five miles from the river mouth on East Sand Island from April to midsummer, gobbled up an estimated 4.2 million juvenile salmonids this year as the fish forged toward the Pacific Ocean, according to a draft 2003 summary report on the summer field season.
That compares to a peak of an estimated 12.4 million consumed by the terns in 1998, the second year of the study that has been financed by the Bonneville Power Administration.
Conference co-sponsors include the Bonneville Power Administration; the Northwest Power and Conservation Council; Pacific Northwest Utilities Conference Committee; Portland General Electric; Grant, Chelan and Douglas County public utility districts; Pacific Northwest Generating Cooperative; Pacific Northwest Waterways Association; NOAA Fisheries; and Weyerhaeuser and Energy News Data.
Montana officials say the spills suggested by the Corps would create
dissolved gases in the river that would exceed state water quality standards
and threaten trout populations just below the dam. While the letter does not
expressly request it, exceeding state standards would need approval from the
Montana Department of Environmental Quality.
Subbasin planning participants responded coolly this week to the prospect that they will be asked to redirect some portion of their energies to help NOAA Fisheries shape a new biological opinion regarding operations of the Federal Columbia River Power System.
The BiOp assumes that spill provides the highest passage survival for juveniles through the federal hydroelectric system, but some believe that spill can be reduced and the lower survival of migrants can be compensated with offset measures, such as predator control or changes in operations at dams.
Federal representatives said at a multi-agency Implementation Team meeting today that they would complete the fiscal year 2004 one-year Implementation Plan for salmon and steelhead recovery in mid-November, but that the plan will contain uncertainties, leaving it open to future changes.
Larry Cassidy, a Washington member of the Northwest Power and Conservation Council, has been appointed chairman of the Pacific Salmon Commission, an agency of the governments of the United States and Canada that implements the Pacific Salmon Treaty.
The division of the Columbia/Snake River Basin into provinces and subbasins is intended to be the foundation for salmon and steelhead recovery in Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Montana.
This new approach, dryly called “subbasin planning,” at some point will be the guiding light for directing millions of public dollars each year to implement locally-developed, watershed-based fish and wildlife restoration and protection plans.
A draft plan that sets out an approach on how research in the lower Columbia River estuary and its plume should proceed is in the peer review process and is nearing its implementation date in February 2004.
It’s seven months and counting down until dozens of subbasin plans — intended to be the essence of a regional Columbia Basin Fish and Wildlife program — fall into the laps of the Northwest Power and Conservation Council, its staff, the Independent Scientific Review Panel and the public.
A one-year operating plan for federal dams was completed this week by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Technical Management Team — as required by NOAA Fisheries and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 2000 biological opinions.
Columbia/Snake river mainstem sport reward fishing season for northern pikeminnow ended Oct. 12 with anglers cashing in $1 million worth of vouchers for doing what researchers say is a job well done.
The Independent Scientific Review Panel completed the first leg of its mission to review the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ research program that guides salmon and steelhead survival improvement efforts in federal Columbia/Snake mainstem hydrosystem.
Columbia Basin Fish and Wildlife Program spending in September reached unprecedented levels as project sponsors, apparently, made an 11th hour rush to get budgeted fiscal 2003 work done, and billed, to the Bonneville Power Administration.
The month ahead will be used to evaluate the technical and financial feasibility of a set of Columbia-Snake hydrosystem summer spill study alternatives that are being developed at the request of the Northwest Power and Conservation Council.
A long-held Coeur d’Alene Tribes strategy for rejuvenating native fisheries, and westslope cutthroat trout in particular, to tribal waters hit a dead end this week when the Northwest Power and Conservation Council rejected a plea for continued planning for a new trout hatchery.
Representatives of the Upper Columbia United Tribes and of the Columbia River basin’s fish and wildlife managers said this week that they wanted to set the record straight as regards their stance on the Bonneville Power Administration’s newly adopted strategy for managing fish and wildlife spending.
A draft report released for public comment this week by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council describes in broad terms strengths and weaknesses of a Columbia River basin hatchery network developed over the past century, and suggests it is time for some changes.
A Bonneville Power Administration funding decision finalized late last week both squeezes and expands budgets, and ushers fish and wildlife projects on and off the Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s recommendation list, in balancing the fiscal 2004-2006 budget for the mainstem/systemwide “province.”
Debate began at this week’s Technical Management Team meeting on whether the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers should complete this year a deep drawdown of Lake Pend Oreille to accommodate a 10-year study of the impacts of various fall and winter lake levels on kokanee spawning and on the lake’s threatened bull trout population.
A long-anticipated 2003 “check-in” report describes methodical progress toward implementation of the 10-year federal Columbia river salmon and steelhead recovery strategy — and meteoric, relatively, improvements in the status of the stocks in question.
Economists who advise the Northwest Power and Conservation Council are putting the final touches on a plan for a study designed to help the Council consider options for summer spill based upon the costs and benefits of those options.
Northwest Indian leaders, outraged over toxic contaminants poisoning the fish tribal members eat, are demanding the federal government cleanup the mess and reduce further pollution in the Columbia River Basin.
Feasibility studies conducted by the Army Corps of Engineers for major new construction projects would have to undergo independent expert review under a bill passed by the U.S. House of Representatives this week.
The most vocal of Washington state’s five regional salmon recovery planning groups — representing the Snake River — has a goal beyond the obvious, according to state officials.
The most vocal of Washington state’s five regional salmon recovery planning groups — representing the Snake River — has a goal beyond the obvious, according to state officials.
A $5 million effort to accelerate construction of a “removable spillway weir” at the lower Snake River’s Ice Harbor Dam, and potential evaluations of the biological effects of reduced spill levels at lower Columbia and Snake river federal hydroelectric projects, are among the issues to still be debated as priorities for an anticipated $70 million in fiscal year 2004 spending money.
A major electricity blackout like the one that hit the East Coast and parts of the Midwest on Aug. 14 is unlikely in the Pacific Northwest, thanks to actions that were taken in response to a similar blackout that hit much of the West Coast in August 1996.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council began the now-delicate process of shifting from one fiscal year to the next by recommending Wednesday that more than $154 million in fish and wildlife program “expense” and another $58 million in “capital” projects be funded by the Bonneville Power Administration during fiscal 2004.
The Bonneville Power Administration did not violate the “equitable treatment mandate” for Columbia Basin fish and wildlife when it declared an emergency during the 2001 drought and power crisis, the federal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled this week.
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