The multi-agency Implementation Team met this week to begin discussions about how to determine when spring and summer spill should begin and end, concluding that it needed more historical fish passage information before it can provide the guidance for making those determinations in-season.
A new set of budgeting rules is taking shape that will dictate how $556 million in Northwest ratepayer revenues are delivered to the Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s fish and wildlife program, and how that money is accounted for, during fiscal years 2003-2006.
A coalition of business, fishing, and conservation groups have sent a legal warning to the federal Bureau of Reclamation and NOAA Fisheries that the operation of 10 dams and reservoirs on the upper Snake River in Idaho needs to be re-evaluated to avoid harm to salmon and steelhead listed under the Endangered Species Act.
After hearing $1.3 million in bills for 2002 work must be paid from an overtaxed 2003 budget, irritated Northwest Power and Conservation Council members this week took to task Bonneville Power Administration fish and wildlife contract management practices, and managers.
Fearing a positive decision would move them onto slipperier legal ground, federal officials on Tuesday said they would not implement changes in federal Columbia River hydrosystem operations this summer that proponents say would yield great economic and upriver resident fish benefits without hindering salmon and steelhead recovery efforts.
Agency officials got an earful Tuesday from utility and industry representatives zeroing in on what they feel is a prime example of federal Columbia River salmon recovery decision-making run amok.
The occasion was the gathering of federal officials to consider hydrosystem operational changes suggested by the state of Montana.
Montana Gov. Judy Martz faxed a strongly worded letter to federal operations and fisheries executives Thursday asking to meet with them as soon as possible to resolve the “ongoing dispute” over how to use water from Montana reservoirs for the benefit of salmon in the Columbia River while also balancing the needs of Montana citizens and resident fish.
A “committee of lawyers” will provide a window into NOAA Fisheries processes as it works over the next 10 ½ months to correct deficiencies in the salmon and steelhead protection plan aimed at avoiding jeopardy posed by the federal Columbia/Snake hydrosystem.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council last week recommended that nearly $2 million in fiscal year 2003 capital funds be spent on two hatchery-related projects and a fish passage improvement proposal.
Closing the spill gates in summer when wholesale power prices are at their peak has the potential to generate millions of dollars in revenue with relatively small effect on Endangered Species Act-listed Columbia River Basin salmon and steelhead, according to Northwest Power and Conservation Council staff biological and economic analyses.
The Technical Management Team this week rejected Montana’s request to provide more stable flows, use less water from Libby and Hungry Horse dams for flow augmentation that benefits endangered salmon in the Columbia River and reduce spill in the lower Columbia River as an offset to the proposed operations.
The Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission’s executive director says the tribes “question the value” of a recently released scientific report that advises limited use of hatchery “supplementation” until its risks and benefits can be better evaluated.
Representatives of the Oregon and Washington departments of fish and wildlife this week cited financial and biological uncertainty in a plea for continued funding for their experimentation with live capture commercial fishing gear — so called tangle nets.
Federal funding for recovery of Columbia Basin and other Pacific salmon runs would be flat for next year under two key spending bills being considered by the House.
The House Appropriations Committee this week approved budgets for the two largest programs for FY2004.
Frustrated with Columbia River Fish and Wildlife Program funding modifications, the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation has for the second time in recent weeks asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit to step in.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council last week authorized the expenditure of slightly more than $1 million to launch subbasin plan development in three areas and to further work across the Columbia River Basin on what are expected to be the road maps for fish and wildlife project priority setters.
A funding recommendation made Wednesday by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council succeeds in balancing its fish and wildlife program budgets for the next three fiscal years but leaves numerous proposals on the outside, including some desired by the program’s funding source, the Bonneville Power Administration.
Fish and wildlife managers, researchers and federal officials chafed this week as many of their favored project proposals were left off the Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s recommended short list for funding through the mainstem/systemwide category of the NPCC’s fish and wildlife program.
The Confederated Tribes of the Yakama Nation challenged in the San Francisco-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth District Court the Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s approval of its $139 million Fish and Wildlife Program budget.
The governors of Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Washington on Thursday banded together to proclaim their support for a federal Columbia River salmon and steelhead recovery plan that has been judged inadequate by a federal court.
The federal strategy is working, the governors said, and should be left in place while the federal agencies address concerns about it expressed by U.S. District Court Judge James L. Redden in a May 7 order.
The harms, potentially, outweigh the benefits of supplementing naturally spawning salmon and steelhead populations with infusions of hatchery fish in most situations, according to a scientific panel.
But the magnitude of the effects produced from those wild/hatchery integrations — positive or negative — cannot at this point be accurately measured, says the Independent Scientific Advisory Board’s June 4 report.
A NOAA Fisheries “findings letter” generally gives good grades to the three action agencies charged with implementing actions designed to avoid jeopardizing the survival of salmon and steelhead stocks passing through the Federal Columbia River Power System.
A Portland-based U.S. District Court judge on Tuesday ruled that a federal salmon recovery strategy adopted in December 2000 is illegal because it relies improperly on actions that are not “reasonably certain to occur.”
A federal judge who has said he is predisposed toward overturning the federal government’s plan for Columbia River basin salmon recovery said Monday he gained “food for thought” from hearing oral arguments in the lawsuit pressed by conservation groups.
Hard work, experimentation and compromise were the words uttered most often Thursday as the Northwest Power and Conservation Council caught its collective breath, and approved unanimously amendments to the Columbia/Snake river mainstem portion of its fish and wildlife program.
The Bonneville Power Administration is refinancing as much of its high interest U.S. Treasury debt as possible now, when market interest rates are low, and prepaying its higher cost federal debt.
Such moves, the agency said, will lower its debt payments and enhance its ability to borrow money in the future.
A provision of the NOAA Fisheries 2000 biological opinion calls for the Bureau of Reclamation to begin implementing habitat projects, such as providing screens at irrigation diversions, but the agency must get congressional authorization before it can begin the work. That authorization could also bring with it additional money to address Northwest fish and wildlife issues.
The public record has closed, but deliberations go on as the Northwest Power Planning and Conservation Council tries to settle on its vision of how it would like federal agencies to operate the federal Columbia/Snake river hydrosystem for the best benefit of fish and wildlife.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council last week approved the work strategy for development of a Yakima fish and wildlife subbasin plan that could cost as much as $336,795.
Pressured by biological opinion deadlines, the Bonneville Power Administration and its federal partners are pushing for speedy funding and scientific decisions that, to the distress of others involved, go outside the normal process for choosing Columbia River Basin fish and wildlife projects.
Northwest Power and Conservation Council members on Wednesday postponed action on “mainstem” amendments to its fish and wildlife program, hoping to forge in the next two weeks enough agreement on water management and other issues to win the needed supermajority for passage.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service declined this week to list burbot, a species of freshwater cod located in the Kootenai River in Idaho, as endangered under the federal Endangered Species Act.
But work by a coalition of parties to develop a conservation agreement for the species will continue and that may result in better circumstances for the species than if it were listed.
The issue of whether the Bonneville Power Administration is willing, and able, to borrow money to fund the acquisition of fish and wildlife habitat became more pointed this week with project sponsors urging a policy shift so the agency can follow through with prior commitments.
Federal agencies this week revealed that overall they will spend more in 2003 and 2004 for Columbia River Basin salmon and steelhead recovery activities than they did in 2002.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council is expected next week to decide whether or not to approve amendments for the Columbia River mainstem portion of its fish and wildlife program.
The Council meets Tuesday and Wednesday, March 11-12, in Whitefish, Mont.
The Independent Scientific Review Panel pulled no punches in what was its first technical review of a subbasin plan submitted through Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s fish and wildlife program amendment process.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council this week is to offer its recommendations — with caveats — for balancing a fiscal year 2003 budget that the Bonneville Power Administration estimated in December would spend $40 million more than the federal agency can afford.
A longstanding assumption that the more efficient a hydroelectric turbine is run, the higher the survival for juvenile salmon that pass through the churning action of the turbine was challenged this week by Dr. John Skalski of the School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences at the University of Washington.
Intensive number crunching and a reliance on the capitalization of planned land acquisitions would push Columbia Basin fish and wildlife expenses under a $139 million spending limit without the need for large-scale project terminations, according to a proposal developed by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council staff.
The Independent Science Advisory Board says “a different perspective emerged” from its latest review of one of the Columbia River basin’s most frequently debated topics — the effect of flows on salmon and steelhead survival.
The process to cut the Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s fish and wildlife program’s 2003 budget to the $139 million cap imposed by the Bonneville Power Administration could be making some progress.
The process to squeeze the Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s fish and wildlife program under a $139 million budget cap lurched forward this week with thorny policy issues and ever-changing ledger sheet continuing to complicate things.
Tribal officials and other Columbia River basin fish and wildlife officials on Monday again stated the case that their programs are already under-funded and are inappropriately being targeted for budget cuts as a remedy for the Bonneville Power Administration’s financial missteps.
Fishery officials, as well as those who catch salmon, steelhead and other species, have stressed this week that the money and effort spent to revive Columbia River basin fish stocks is a wise investment.
And Mother Nature has given that theory validity, according to a panel assembled Wednesday to address the fish and wildlife managers that make up the Columbia Basin Fish and Wildlife Authority’s membership.
Federal, state and tribal managers are mulling their options this week, saying a proposed lopping of Columbia Basin fish and wildlife project funding is inequitable and that certain steps could and should be taken to avoid the cutbacks.
Under pressure to reduce the amount of water needed for chum operations, Technical Management Team fisheries managers may decide this afternoon to de-water a small portion of chum redds downstream from Bonneville Dam.
Saying it doesn’t have enough information to judge the task at hand, the Northwest Power and Conservation Council this week delayed a decision about how it would pare back its fish and wildlife program to fit under a $139 million cap.
Supporters and opponents of proposed revisions to the Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s mainstem fish and wildlife program both claimed Tuesday to have law, science and the best interests of the region on their side
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council corrected this week a mistake to its December calculations of the Federal Columbia River Power System’s loss of load probability (LOLP), saying that there is little to worry about this year and through 2006.
LOLP is a measurement of the likelihood that the regional power system would fail during January through March to meet all power loads and would have to curtail usage.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council on Thursday elected Idaho member Judi Danielson to serve as chairman of the four-state panel during 2003.
The Council also voted in Washington’s Tom Karier as vice chairman. Both were elected unanimously.
Fishery officials, as well as those who catch salmon, steelhead and other species, have stressed this week that the money and effort spent to revive Columbia River basin fish stocks is a wise investment.
Federal agencies this week revealed that overall they will spend more in 2003 and 2004 for Columbia River Basin salmon and steelhead recovery activities than they did in 2002.
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