Jennifer Anders of Montana was unanimously elected this week to Chair the Northwest Power and Conservation Council, replacing outgoing chair Jim Yost of Idaho. The Council held the elections and made the transition to new officers at its meeting in Portland, Wednesday, Jan. 16.
Two Northwest Power and Conservation Council members, one the longest serving member since the Council’s inception in 1981, officially retired at the end of December 2018.
Recommendations for amendments to the Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s Columbia River Basin Fish and Wildlife Program received from state and federal agencies, tribes, Bonneville Power Administration customers, environmental and conservation groups and individuals are now out for public comment.
Legislation that will allow the lethal removal of more California sea lions, as well as steller sea lions, from the Columbia River passed two hurdles in the past week and now is headed to the President’s desk for signature.
Predation on listed salmon and steelhead in the Columbia River basin – by birds, by sea lions and even by other fish – has reached high proportions but it is difficult to know how reductions in predators impact the number of fish returning to spawning grounds.
Twenty-five existing research-focused projects were approved for new Bonneville Power Administration fish and wildlife funding by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council at its meeting this week.
In 2015, low river flow conditions, coupled with high air temperatures and warm water in the Snake and Columbia rivers and their tributaries from mid-June to mid-July, resulted in the highest mainstem water temperatures recorded in the Columbia River Basin.
Anglers in Lake Roosevelt caught a 47.5 inch, 27.5 pound northern pike in the lake and another angler caught a pike just 10 miles from the rim of Grand Coulee Dam, much further downstream than previous sightings of the predatory fish.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s Fish and Wildlife Committee approved 25 research-focused projects, recommending that the full Council at its December meeting approve $11.6 million to continue funding the projects.
Seven new Pacific lamprey conservation and restoration projects were sent to the Northwest Power Planning and Conservation Council for final approval in December. Three lamprey projects were completed in fiscal year 2018 and the seven new projects were approved by the Council’s Fish and Wildlife Committee at its meeting Nov. 13 in Portland.
A master plan to change spring chinook hatchery production from a segregated broodstock to an integrated brood stock more in line with the natural fish in the Klickitat River is coming to a conclusion.
A four-year bilateral memorandum of agreement that addresses the direct effects of construction, operation, inundation and maintenance of the Columbia River power system on Kootenai River sub-basin fish and wildlife is out for a two-week public review.
For eight years running, the Independent Scientific Advisory Board has reviewed the Fish Passage Center’s draft Comparative Survival Study for salmon and steelhead in the Columbia/Snake river basin.
A panel of scientists completed their review of a monitoring and evaluation plan for the new Walla Walla spring chinook hatchery on the south fork of the Walla Walla River that will produce a half million yearling spring chinook each year.
The Bonneville Power Administration, along with its partners in a new Columbia Basin Fish Accords, signed an agreement this month that for the most part extends the previous 2008 Accords it signed 10 years ago and that expired September 30, out to 2022.
A report by the Independent Science Review Panel that reviews 25 research-focused projects that touch on fish and wildlife populations, habitat and the effectiveness of restoration actions and fish propagation, and the effectiveness of hatchery supplementation, was released by the ISRP Sept. 28 and was out for review until Oct. 24.
Northern pike is a fish that is broadly distributed across the northern hemisphere, but is not native to the Pacific Northwest, and it remains unwanted.
Its presence as low in the Columbia River basin as Lake Roosevelt is now posing a threat to native fish downstream of Grand Coulee Dam in what many are calling the anadromous zone where salmon and steelhead fish spawn, rear and eventually migrate to and from the ocean.
As the Northwest Power and Conservation Council seeks new candidates for two scientific review panels, it is also looking to cut the annual budgets for both the Independent Scientific Review Panel and Independent Scientific Advisory Board.
The Chelan County Public Utility District commission at its meeting Sept. 18 approved a resolution to enter into a long-term, 15-year agreement with the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation for coho salmon hatchery fish rearing.
An innovative scientific tool was used in Montana to identify when an invasive fish was introduced to a water body and where that fish came from.
A draft report by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council that will be sent to Congress early next year says that changes in the energy markets as the U.S. and the West Coast transition away from coal, competition from other utilities, along with a massive build-up of solar power in California causing lower energy sales to the state is leaving the Bonneville Power Administration less competitive than in past years.
The Bonneville Power Administration and most parties to the previous 10 years of the 2008 Columbia Basin Fish Accords have come to a tentative agreement to extend the Accords beyond Sept. 30, the ending date of the first Accords.
A wildlife biologist who has studied the impacts of avian suppression efforts in the Columbia River basin for 23 years, made the case this week that those suppression efforts need to continue.
Flood control, ecosystem management, salmon reintroduction and inclusion of tribes directly in the negotiating process were concerns raised by local participants at a town hall on what modernizing the Columbia River Treaty should look like.
NOAA Fisheries’ Columbia Basin Partnership Task Force provisional quantitative and qualitative goals are out for review and the Northwest Power and Conservation Council at its meeting this week in Eugene, Ore. approved comments to the Task Force that were developed by the Council’s Fish and Wildlife Committee and staff.
Less than a month after a scientific review of its coho salmon master plan, the Yakama Nation broke ground on the Melvin R. Sampson Hatchery last week, which will eventually produce up to 700,000 coho smolts each year for release into the Yakima River.
At its meeting July 10 in Missoula, MT, the Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s Fish and Wildlife Committee reviewed draft vision statement, guiding principles and qualitative goals developed over the past year and a half by the Columbia Basin Partnership Task Force.
At last week’s meeting the Committee, along with the full Council, took an extra step and delved into the details of the Partnership’s work.
A long-range plan by tribes to restore Pacific lamprey runs into the Columbia River received approval last week from the Northwest Power and Conservation Council at its meeting in Portland.
A review of floating surface collectors at eight high-head hydroelectric projects found that some designs are better than others in funneling juvenile salmon and steelhead through the dam.
A program that has consumed an average of 18 percent of the Bonneville Power Administration’s fish and wildlife budget each year and has cost the agency over $560 million over its 10-year life is coming to end, although it may be extended.
At its May meeting, the Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s Fish and Wildlife Committee released a letter soliciting recommendations from regional entities to amend its Columbia River Basin 2014 Fish and Wildlife Program. The recommendations were to be due to the Committee Sept. 14.
In each of its rate cases a component that makes up Bonneville Power Administration’s costs is the amount of water it has to spill to aid threatened and endangered juvenile fish passage at U.S. Army Corps of Engineers dams on the Columbia and Snake rivers.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council this week identified additional reductions to the Bonneville Power Administration’s fish and wildlife program expenditures that total about $1 million.
One new member was appointed to the Independent Scientific Review Panel and two current memberships were extended this week by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council.
U.S. Senate legislation that would change the existing Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972 by giving more flexibility to remove sea lions that prey upon threatened and endangered salmon and steelhead in the Columbia River passed one last hurdle before full Senate approval.
After a review requested by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s Fish and Wildlife Committee, the Independent Scientific Review Panel found the Yakama Nation’s coho plan for the Melvin R. Sampson coho facility in the Yakima River sub-basin to be a well-conceived plan for coho salmon reintroduction and supplementation.
A movement is underway to pursue a comprehensive study of the potential economic impacts that could come with an advancing northern pike invasion across the Columbia Basin river system, including salmon waters referred to as “The Anadromous Zone.”
Members of a regional partnership kicked off by NOAA Fisheries in early 2017 have agreed in principle to a vision statement and provisional goals.
The cost of federally funded fish and wildlife programs in the Columbia River Basin totaled $450.4 million in fiscal year 2017 (Oct. 1, 2016 – Sept. 30, 2017), according to the annual report released last week by the Northwest Planning and Conservation Council to Northwest governors.
Reviews of projects funded under the Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s Columbia River Basin Fish and Wildlife Program by the Bonneville Power Administration will begin in November and extend over the next three years, according to a discussion at the Council Fish and Wildlife Committee meeting last week in Missoula.
Looking for a 10 percent cut in Bonneville Power Administration fish and wildlife funding and with an extension of the Columbia Basin Fish Accords still uncertain, one member of the Northwest Power and Conservation Council this week says he would like to see a closer coordination between the Council and Bonneville in determining priorities, especially with the Accords.
The Northwest power supply is expected to remain adequate through 2020, but after that some actions will have to be taken to keep the power supply adequate.
A proposal to beef up suppression and monitoring of invasive northern pike in Lake Roosevelt was approved this week by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council.
A NOAA Fisheries Northwest Fisheries Science Center report on juvenile salmon released last year found that survival of juvenile sockeye salmon – both hatchery and wild – from Lower Granite Dam on the Snake River to Bonneville Dam on the Columbia River was just 17.6 percent, the fourth lowest survival estimate from 1998 to 2017.
The Columbia River basin fish and wildlife budget funded by the Bonneville Power Administration will likely see as much as a 10 percent cut in fiscal year 2019, according to Bryan Mercier, executive director of BPA’s fish and wildlife division.
A scientific panel completed its review of Northwest tribes’ master plan outlining activities to recover Pacific lamprey in the Columbia River basin, saying that the plan meets scientific review criteria with some qualifications.
A review of the Yakama Nation’s master plan to transition its Klickitat River hatchery program from a segregated to an integrated program in order to rebuild the river’s spring chinook salmon runs found the plan to be “well-conceived and presented,” but it also left the Independent Scientific Review Panel with questions.
A suppression program in the largest lake in Idaho to significantly reduce the number of lake trout has been successful at recovering the lake’s kokanee population, but biologists are now worrying about another invasive predator – walleye.
A draft report to northwest governors on Columbia Basin Fish and Wildlife Program costs in 2017 was released last week for review by the public, with the total program costs coming in at $450.4 million, about 18 percent of the Bonneville Power Administration’s power business line costs of $2.465 billion, and accounting for about one-third of the agency’s wholesale power rate.
If tribes pursue a salmon and steelhead reintroduction program upstream of Chief Joseph and Grand Coulee dams, some 1,160 miles of tributary habitat would be available for steelhead and 355 miles of tributary habitat would be available for spring chinook salmon, according to an overview of a draft assessment of potential habitat in the blocked areas presented at the Lake Roosevelt Forum, April 24 – 25.
The cost to remove invasive northern pike in Lake Roosevelt will likely rise to more than $1 million per year beginning next fiscal year and much of that will be funded by the Bonneville Power Administration.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council this week took the first step in a public process to amend the 2014 Columbia River Basin Fish and Wildlife Program when it approved the release of a letter soliciting amendment recommendations.
In its most recent review of the Lake Roosevelt Northern Pike suppression program, the Independent Scientific Review Panel said the project meets scientific review criteria with qualifications, but it also said it has doubts that efforts to suppress northern pike in the Columbia River basin could ever be fully successful, especially given current efforts.
After years of low abundance of legal-sized and adult-sized white sturgeon in the lower Columbia River downstream of Bonneville Dam, the numbers of fish are beginning to improve, according to a summary of sturgeon abundance throughout the Columbia and Snake rivers presented at the Northwest Power and Conservation Council meeting last week in Portland.
A draft letter calling for the region – tribes, state and federal agencies, and the public – to make recommendations to amend the Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s Columbia River Basin 2014 Fish and Wildlife Program was revealed by the Fish and Wildlife staff at its meeting last week in Portland.
A review of a program that grew from NOAA Fisheries’ 2008 salmon/steelhead biological opinion of the Columbia River federal power system found a number of limitations that impede efforts to accurately describe tributary habitat conditions and identify limiting factors.
As the Northwest Power and Conservation Council prepares to amend its 2014 Columbia River Basin Fish and Wildlife Program, it will seek input from tribes, state and federal agencies and the public. The Council’s Fish and Wildlife Committee also had asked for a science review of the current program to provide information that will be useful for the amendment process.
In two reports it posted to its website last week, the Northwest Power and Conservation Council said the region in 2016 spent over $621 million on fish and wildlife, bringing the total price tag for fish and wildlife programs since 1981 to over $15 billion.
Fisheries managers briefed the Northwest Power and Conservation Council at its meeting last week about what’s in store for Columbia River basin salmon and steelhead runs for 2018.
At the head of a priority list of fish and wildlife goals in 2018 is to initiate the Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s amendments for its Columbia River Basin Fish and Wildlife Program.
As it begins to amend its 2014 Columbia River Basin Fish and Wildlife Program, the Northwest Power Act (Section 4h) requires the Fish and Wildlife Committee of the Northwest Power and Conservation Council to solicit recommendations from tribes, state and federal agencies, and the public.
Three projects to help restore Pacific lamprey in the Columbia River basin were approved this week by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council at its March 14 meeting in Portland.
Efforts to recover Pacific lamprey in the Columbia River basin took a step forward with the approval of three projects of the Pacific Lamprey Conservation Initiative facilitated by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and administered by the Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission.
Since it approved the 2014 Fish and Wildlife Program, the Northwest Power and Conservation Council, along with others in the region, has been developing maps that show what the Council has invested in over the past 37 years for, among other items, hatcheries, screens and the recovery of salmon and steelhead listed under the federal Endangered Species Act.
Since 2015, the Northwest Power and Conservation Council along with the Bonneville Power Administration have searched for and used cost savings from fish and wildlife programs to fund new work.
After a decade of habitat improvements spurred by a 2007 NOAA Fisheries recovery plan, upper Columbia River spring chinook salmon still remain a population at a high risk of extinction and a panel of scientists wanted to know why.
A report produced by Columbia River tribes on what is known about Pacific lamprey in the Columbia River basin was positively received by an independent body of scientists last month.
A proposal to expand a program this spring designed to suppress non-native Northern Pike in Lake Roosevelt was sent back to the program sponsors for more information in January.
The State of Idaho and the Bonneville Power Administration released this week for public comment a draft Wildlife Habitat Stewardship and Restoration Agreement for Albeni Falls Dam in northern Idaho.
Anticipating issues that could be included in a nearly year-long process to update its Columbia River Basin Fish and Wildlife Program, the Northwest Power and Conservation Council Fish and Wildlife Committee at its meeting last week in Portland began to consider what might become important issues during that effort.
One of the many ongoing efforts regarding recovery of salmon and steelhead in the Columbia River basin is being undertaken by a group organized by NOAA Fisheries known as the Columbia Basin Partnership Task Force.
The initial period after ocean entry for Columbia River basin juvenile salmon and steelhead is when most of the mortality occurs during their lives at sea, so ocean conditions – temperatures and nutrient supplies – during that period are critical to how many of the fish will return to the river as adults one to three years later.
A newly published study finds that hatchery supplementation after 22 years in two Idaho drainages, increased chinook salmon abundance at some life stages, but the effects did not persist after supplementation of hatchery stock ceased and had no apparent influence on productivity.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council unanimously approved a pilot demonstration map for Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs), a toxic contaminant that impacts aquatic organisms and stream food webs, and could limit habitat restoration projects.
Idaho and Montana members will lead the Northwest Power and Conservation Council in 2018.
A symposium to share information about the state of wild and hatchery white sturgeon found in waters from the mouth of the Columbia River to the Snake River to the Kootenai River was hosted in mid-November by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council.
A science review panel cleared the way for potential Northwest Power and Conservation Council and Bonneville Power Administration funding of lamprey projects in the Northwest once the project proponents meet certain criteria.
An annual report of smolt-to-adult salmon and steelhead survival through Snake and Columbia river dams was completed and released to the public at the end of December by the Fish Passage Center.
The Pacific Northwest’s economy is growing, overall employment levels are now exceeding levels from before the 2008 recession, and the region continues to produce more goods and services using less electricity according to a staff presentation at the Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s Power Committee meeting in Portland on December 12.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council turned its attention to the matter of rapid pike proliferation in Washington’s Lake Roosevelt in two forums this week in Portland: at a northern pike discussion and coordination meeting Monday, Dec. 11, and during a Fish and Wildlife Committee meeting Tuesday, Dec 12.
Pound nets or fish traps used to capture large numbers of salmon were outlawed on the Columbia River in 1936, over 80 years ago, largely due to massive harvests of salmon and steelhead when using the gear. So why has a Northwest nonprofit been testing the fish traps near Cathlamet, Washington for the last two years?
A one-year court-ordered plan that describes how to spill to a total dissolved gas cap level at each of the four lower Snake River and four lower Columbia River dams this coming spring was delivered to U.S. District Court of Oregon Friday, Dec. 8.
In the Columbia River between the Pacific Ocean and Bonneville Dam, a distance of about 145 miles, a substantial number of adult spring chinook salmon that are identified in the lower river continue to disappear before reaching the dam, research by NOAA Fisheries shows.
A group of Idaho fisheries conservation leaders has developed a new approach toward evaluating and prescribing effective habitat restoration measures for salmon and steelhead in the upper Salmon River Basin, with potential for the approach to be applied elsewhere.
Idaho Fish and Game personnel say they’ve made considerable progress in unraveling a mortality mystery for young Snake River sockeye released from the second and newest sockeye hatchery in Idaho, the Springfield Hatchery near American Falls.
Randy Hardy, an energy consultant and former head of the Bonneville Power Administration (1991-97), told the Northwest Power and Conservation Council Wednesday that California is engaged in a “fascinating social experiment” in its encouragement of renewable energy, particularly solar power, with serious implications for BPA that could worsen.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council approved a redirection of $474,000 in cost efficiency savings Wednesday to Columbia Basin hatchery infrastructure and fish diversion improvements.
Some 114,050 acres of native fish and wildlife habitat in the lower Columbia River have been lost to development since the 1870s, according to Lower Columbia Estuary Project information.
Oregon Gov. Kate Brown has nominated two state legislators to replace the current two Oregon members of the Northwest Power and Conservation Council, subject to confirmation by the state Senate.
Irrigators in eastern Washington denied wanting to re-litigate a federal court’s April 2017 decision calling for more spill for fish at Columbia/Snake river federal dams. Instead, they said in a reply brief filed last week that they want to present to the court new information about barging juvenile fish in low-flow and high temperature conditions.
An independent panel of scientists has completed its eighth annual review of the Fish Passage Center’s draft 2017 report on Columbia River basin salmon survival, again finding that the methodology used by the FPC when calculating such items as smolt-to-adult survival and juvenile migration time and survival is already developed and useful.
A 10-year project to restore genetically pure native westslope cutthroat trout to northwest Montana’s South Fork of the Flathead River is coming to a successful close.
A wildlife settlement in Montana with a 60-year life is nearly halfway through its term and so far the settlement has resulted in more than 228,000 acres of wildlife habitat projects.
Some 29 long-term Columbia River basin wildlife projects that will cost more than $12 million in fiscal year 2018 were approved by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council and sent to the Bonneville Power Administration for continued annual funding.
Following a formal, but general letter to the Independent Science Advisory Board requesting a review of its 2014 Columbia River Basin Fish and Wildlife Program, the Northwest Power and Conservation Council this week approved a less formal, but more detailed query to the ISAB for more information.
The Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation put a new fish transport system to work in collecting summer chinook salmon for hatchery purposes, with better-than-satisfying results.
The number of wild Snake River adult spring/summer chinook, measured as a percentage of juveniles that left the river and returned as adults (smolt-to-adult returns or SARs), has declined four-fold since the early 1960s and since the four lower Snake River dams were built, according to a report produced by the Fish Passage Center.
A revolution in diagnostics portability is bringing the lab to the sample. Backpacks outfitted with environmental DNA sampling equipment make it simple enough for a six year-old to accurately test water samples in the field.
The Western Rivers Conservancy has purchased a ranch in Idaho’s Sawtooth National Recreation Area that has two creeks home to steelhead, chinook salmon and bull trout, and the Bonneville Power Administration is purchasing the water rights that will keep those creeks watered in the future.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council formally requested a review of its 2014 Columbia River Basin Fish and Wildlife Program by the Independent Scientific Advisory Board at its September 12 meeting in Spokane.
A recent CBB article (https://www.www.www.staging.columbiabasinbulletin.org/439508.aspx) wrote of a Northwest Power and Conservation Council meeting in which fish managers said that the primary cause of this year’s 40-year low in some salmon and steelhead returns, especially in the Snake River Basin, was ocean conditions – specifically, “a Blob” of hot water offshore.
To bring salmon and steelhead to the Columbia River above Grand Coulee and Chief Joseph dams researchers continue to search for the best hatchery stock and suitable habitat.
As the steelhead population above Willamette Falls declines, sea lion predation increases, putting the endangered fish at risk of extinction with only 512 making their way upriver.
A concerted effort to restore a viable white sturgeon population in the upper Columbia River has had at least one positive effect – enough hatchery fish to support of both tribal and non-tribal fisheries of North America’s largest freshwater fish.
Two Idaho wildlife mitigation projects received approval by scientists after a previous review found the two projects – Albeni Falls and Southern Idaho wildlife mitigation projects – had not met scientific review criteria.
For the next two years the budget for the largest fish and wildlife program in the United States will remain at levels seen over the last several years, but that’s only if the Bonneville Power Administration is able to manage a number of uncertainties, including the price of its power on the wide open West Coast power market.
Although the summer has been hot, state fisheries managers have not seen the die-off of salmon and sturgeon this year that was experienced during the low flow and warm water conditions of 2015. Still, 2015 conditions likely had a big impact on current adult salmon and steelhead returns.
The impacts of toxic pollutants on stream food webs are likely limiting the potential of habitat restoration projects in the Northwest, as well as putting at risk the investments already made in those improvements by the Bonneville Power Administration and its ratepayers.
In a six to two vote, the Northwest Power and Conservation Council approved $30,000 to develop a pilot demonstration map for Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs), a toxic contaminant that impacts aquatic organisms and stream food webs, and could limit habitat restoration projects.
Identified cost savings will help fund some $324,000 of hatchery upgrades, as well as $150,000 for upkeep of screens in fiscal year 2018 (Oct. 1, 2017 – Sept. 30, 2018).
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council approved its 16th review of the Bonneville Power Administration’s fish and wildlife costs for fiscal year 2016 at its meeting in Portland, August 15. The report had been out for review since the Council’s June meeting.
The population of northern pike that is taking up residency in Lake Roosevelt, the reservoir created by Grand Coulee Dam, has spread south this year and has a team of experts saying that suppression of the fish could easily have begun a year or two earlier than it did.
In a July 19 court memorandum, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s 2014 Columbia River Basin Fish and Wildlife Program.
A review of 29 wildlife habitat projects funded by the Bonneville Power Administration that is a part of the Council’s overall review of all programs funded under the power marketing agency’s Fish and Wildlife program was completed by the Independent Scientific Review Panel June 28.
Prior to the 1940s, as many as half a million to one million Columbia River chum salmon returned to the Columbia River to spawn as far up the river as Celilo Falls.
With the numbers of invasive northern pike expanding in areas of Lake Roosevelt, the reservoir backed up behind Grand Coulee Dam in northern Washington, the Spokane Tribe of Indians is seeking funds for additional gillnetting in the lake.
A review of the Bonneville Power Administration’s fish and wildlife costs for fiscal year 2016 is out for review. Fish and wildlife costs for fiscal year 2016 total $621.5 million, more than $100 million less than in FY2015.
The Pacific Northwest’s power supply is expected to be adequate through 2020, although the region will need to add new capacity by 2021 to maintain an adequate supply, according to the Northwest Power and Conservation Council.
A year-long effort to create a revised research plan that addresses the Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s critical fish and wildlife uncertainties was approved by the Council last week.
Work to satisfy the requirements of the Willamette River biological opinion to protect fish is progressing on at least two fronts, according to information given this week at the Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s meeting in Corvallis, June 14.
The sea lion population at Bonneville Dam has climbed above the 10-year average and so has the number of salmon and steelhead the animals are preying on, according to the most recent pinniped status report released by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, May 18.
Six projects known as umbrella projects and costing nearly $16 million were approved by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s Fish and Wildlife Committee at the Council’s meeting May 16 in Boise.
If it seems the winter was unusual, that’s because it was and continues to be, at least in Idaho, according to three climate scientists who spoke to the Northwest Power and Conservation Council at its meeting in Boise this week.
A fish and wildlife research plan that has been in the works for more than a year will go to the full Northwest Power and Conservation Council for final approval in June.
Three Columbia River white sturgeon projects were approved by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s Fish and Wildlife Committee at its meeting this week in Boise, Idaho.
A recently released report from Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks, in consultation with the Confederated Salish-Kootenai Tribes, states that further adjustments are needed for discharge and refill protocols at Libby and Hungry Horse dams in Northwest Montana.
Collecting environmental DNA is quick, inexpensive and, apparently, now open to crowdsourcing by volunteers who do not have to be biologists.
The number and size of northern pike found in Lake Roosevelt, the reservoir backed up behind Grand Coulee Dam, is growing and so too is the determination of tribes and the state of Washington to eradicate the voracious and invasive species, but they may be running out of the funds needed to continue their eradication work.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council and Bonneville Power Administration have narrowed nine proposed white sturgeon projects down to three and are now working to refine those proposals.
Progress on fish and wildlife recovery goals is becoming more accessible and easier to find through Northwest Power and Conservation Council web pages.
Transactions among willing buyers and sellers of water are delivering environmental benefits to fish while preserving economic benefits, particularly in rural communities.
Run forecasts for 2017 are down for nearly all salmon and steelhead runs offshore and in the Columbia River and managers are blaming poor ocean conditions over the past few years.
Seven responses from six entities to a January request for information for white sturgeon project proposals in the Columbia and Snake rivers were received by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council by February 28, the deadline to reply to the RFI.
American shad, a species that is not indigenous to the Columbia River basin, is providing food in August for subyearling chinook salmon in the John Day Dam reservoir.
Ocean and estuary research is getting a boost from a periodic Northwest Power and Conservation Council forum – the Ocean and Plume Science and Management Forum.
With the population decline of Pacific lamprey along the Northwest coast and in the inland Columbia River basin, a conservation initiative was established for the fish to promote the implementation of conservation measures in Alaska, Washington, Oregon and Idaho.
A NOAA Fisheries five year status review completed last year found that upper Columbia River spring chinook are at high risk of extinction, even after a recovery plan was put into place in 2007.
The immediate cost of operation and maintenance projects at Northwest hatcheries dropped to $115,000 from the previously identified $200,000 cost for repairs. The money was set aside to protect the region’s hatchery investments.
An all-inclusive region-wide effort to connect various salmon recovery efforts was set in motion by NOAA Fisheries this week as it held its first Columbia Basin Partnership Task Force meeting.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council Fish and Wildlife Committee approved the release of a white sturgeon request for information at its meeting in Portland January 10. The $300,000 projected cost for the RFI came from cost-savings from projects associated with the Council’s Fish and Wildlife Program.
Tim Baker this month replaced Pat Smith as one of Montana’s members on the Northwest Power and Conservation Council.
Using $300,000 identified from cost-savings in fiscal year 2016, the Northwest Power and Conservation Council and the Bonneville Power Administration released a request for information to fund project-ready study ideas for white sturgeon upstream of Bonneville Dam.
The Northwest Power And Conservation Council is inviting comments on a draft revision of the its “Research Plan” for the Columbia River Basin Fish and Wildlife Program.
After recording comments at 15 public scoping meetings, three federal agencies operating Columbia and Snake river dams are giving the public an additional three weeks to comment on the court-ordered Columbia River System Operations environmental impact statement for salmon and steelhead.
A paper evaluating the best and most up-to-date ways to pass salmon and steelhead beyond high head dams that have historically blocked passage was completed in December and posted at the Northwest Power and Conservation Council website.
Federal cost-sharing could be available to help fund invasive species watercraft inspection stations in the four Northwest states in time for the spring boating season, according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
A facility at the Nez Perce Hatchery on the Clearwater River in Idaho that will recondition spawned Snake River steelhead, known as kelts, was given the go-ahead by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council at its Portland meeting December 14.
Steelhead kelts – repeat spawning fish – brought into a reconditioning facility in the Yakima River basin will spawn again in either the first year after spawning or one year later.
As a result of its recent work with “relative reproductive success” projects, the Bonneville Power Administration and the Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s Fish and Wildlife Committee have identified a project that could free up more than $500,000 in savings that Bonneville could use in other fish and wildlife projects.
Online mapping software that tracks natural populations of Columbia River basin salmon and steelhead, along with abundance and recovery goals for each evolutionary significant unit, may be ready for review by December 30.
Federal agencies operating Columbia/Snake river dams and reservoirs on Thursday in Astoria completed the last of their sixteen regional “scoping” meetings which solicited public views regarding a court-ordered environmental impact statement for salmon and steelhead.
Some $3.7 million of federal funding to share costs in establishing and maintaining watercraft inspection and decontamination stations with four Northwest states that will combat an invasion of quagga and zebra mussels may not be available before the 2017 boating season.
Following the detection of invasive mussel larvae in early November, Governor Steve Bullock declared a statewide natural resource emergency in Montana, triggering the formation of an invasive species rapid response team.
The Nez Perce Tribe proposes to capture and recondition spawned steelhead in the Snake River to increase the steelhead return rate from 0.4 percent to at least 6 percent to meet a federal biological opinion reasonable and prudent alternative.
A white paper that evaluates the best and most up-to-date ways to pass salmon and steelhead beyond dams that have historically blocked passage will be ready for the public, as promised, by the end of 2016.
With news that invasive mussels have been found in Montana lakes just two hours from Columbia River basin waters, the Northwest Power and Conservation Council this week expressed an urgency for the already appropriated federal funding that would help support an invasive mussel-free zone around Northwest states.
More than half a million dollars was earmarked by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s Fish and Wildlife Committee for operation and maintenance projects at hatcheries, and for yet to be identified work with lamprey, sturgeon and climate change impacts. The Committee made the decision at its meeting Tuesday, November 15 in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho.
More than 225,000 Northern Pikeminnow were caught this year as part of a program that rewards anglers for each predatory fish they catch.
Calling it a “mature product,” the Independent Scientific Advisory Board completed its review of the latest draft of the Fish Passage Center’s Comparative Survival Study October 21.
An independent panel of scientists reviewing a watershed restoration strategy for eastern Oregon’s John Day River sent the document back for more work.
Sea lions have been seen at Bonneville Dam as recently as this week, long after the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers stopped its annual tracking of the predators at the dam at the end of May.
Charged with developing a single metric researchers would use to measure the effects of predator control activities in the Columbia River Basin, an advisory board to the Northwest Power and Conservation Council recommended two approaches, saying that a single metric is not adequate for evaluating all goals.
After identifying more than $650,000 in cost-savings available from five fish and wildlife projects, the Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s Fish and Wildlife Committee wants to identify projects on which to spend the remaining money in 2017.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council this week named Ben Kujala Director of Power Planning. Kujala has been acting director since April. He replaces Tom Eckman, who retired in July.
Focusing on areas likely to contain northern pike in the upper reaches of Washington’s Lake Roosevelt, researchers are netting fewer pike this summer than in the last few years, but many of the fish they are netting are older and some are spawning fish.
Letters from the Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s Fish and Wildlife Committee’s cost-savings workgroup were sent last week to leaders of 10 research projects inviting them to an all-day review at the Council offices October 13.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council reluctantly approved using Budget Oversight Group (known as BOG) emergency funding for the Bonneville Power Administration’s Northern Pikeminnow Sport Reward program, which is already over budget this year with one month remaining in its season.
In 2015, low flow conditions, coupled with high air temperatures and warm water in the Snake and Columbia rivers and their tributaries from mid-June to mid-July, resulted in the highest mainstem water temperatures recorded in the Columbia River Basin, making survival of the basin’s sockeye salmon a constant source of concern.
Guy Norman is the newest member of the Northwest Power and Conservation Council, appointed by Washington Gov. Jay Inslee this week to replace Phil Rockefeller, who retired earlier this year.
With climate change, Northwest rivers are warming earlier and staying warm longer and that sometimes causes adult salmon and steelhead migrating from the ocean to die in rivers before they can spawn, often before they can even reach their spawning grounds.
According to the Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s assessment of the Pacific Northwest’s power supply, the region should have an adequate supply through 2020, although the planned retirements of four coal plants by 2022 means that the region will have to acquire nearly 1,400 megawatts of new capacity to lower the chance of a shortfall.
Trapping and hauling listed sockeye will not be necessary this year due to cooler air and water temperatures in the lower Snake River, according to a briefing of Snake River conditions and operations at this week’s Northwest Power and Conservation Council meeting.
Calling it a “very important and valuable study,” the Independent Scientific Review Panel has completed its review of a 23-year-long study (1991 to 2014) of salmon supplementation in two Idaho river basins – the Salmon and Clearwater river basins.
The chief executive officer of a tribal entity that acquired Kerr Dam – now called the Salish Kootenai Dam — in western Montana says the transition of business and project operations over the last couple of years has been busy and challenging, but it has also been a relatively smooth process.
The Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes are winning their battle to reduce the number of non-native lake trout in Flathead Lake and surrounding streams that feed on, among other native species, bull trout.
The nation’s hydroelectric dams already provide about 10 percent of the nation’s energy, delivering over 100 gigawatts of clean, renewable energy, according to a report by the U.S. Department of Energy in July.
Saying that double-crested cormorants are not an endangered or threatened species, but that many of the salmon and steelhead they feast on in the lower Columbia River estuary are, U.S. District Court of Oregon Judge Michael H. Simon’s tentative ruling would allow the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ to continue culling cormorants in the estuary.
With cool water temperatures in the lower Snake River, sockeye salmon are passing dams on the river without encountering the thermal block that stopped them dead in their tracks in 2015.
NOAA Fisheries research indicates that after accounting for harvest, in some years as many as 45 percent of the salmon tagged in the estuary disappear before reaching Bonneville Dam, according to a presentation last week to the Northwest Power and Conservation Council.
A draft white paper released by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council that evaluates the best and most up-to-date ways to pass salmon and steelhead beyond dams that have historically blocked passage is out for an informal review.
NOAA Fisheries is seeking nominations for a new Columbia Basin Partnership Task Force to provide information and advice on the establishment of long-term goals for salmon and steelhead in the Columbia River Basin.
The outlook is good — compared to last year — for cooler water temperatures in the Lower Snake River basin with continuing benefits into the Columbia River due to some fortuitous weather developments, water and fish managers in the basin stated this week.
The July 2016 Council meeting in Olympia was the last for Washington Council Member Phil Rockefeller, who was appointed by then-Governor Christine Gregoire in 2011.
As a larger than predicted run of sockeye salmon head up the Columbia and Snake rivers – some 400,000 fish — the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers took steps this week to cool water in the lower Snake River.
Plaintiffs in a federal case in which they seek to stop the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers from continuing to shoot and oil double crested cormorant eggs in the lower Columbia River estuary called talk of “devastating impacts” on salmon by the birds’ predation “little more than a biological soundbite.”
Columbia Basin fish and water managers are planning for operations at Dworshak Dam on the Lower Snake River to regulate water temperatures for the benefit of migrating sockeye salmon this summer.
Shooting double-crested cormorants and suffocating their eggs with corn oil to reduce their predation on juvenile Snake River steelhead likely has no impact on the number of adult steelhead returning from the ocean to spawn, a US. Fish and Wildlife scientist has concluded in a preliminary analysis.
The planned timing of a change to the amount of water spilled at Lower Monumental Dam was spot on, according to fisheries and dam managers at this week’s interagency Technical Management Team meeting.
The amount of water to be spilled at Lower Monumental Dam on the lower Snake River was increased Friday to aid the passage of juvenile sockeye salmon and steelhead that are now migrating downstream to the ocean.
When reintroducing anadromous fish into blocked areas upstream of high head dams, such as what is being considered at Grand Coulee Dam, biologists and policymakers want to know if there is sufficient quality habitat to support salmon and steelhead before investing the considerable resources needed.
A plan to develop a white sturgeon supplementation hatchery near Toppenish, Wash. proceeded to the second step of the process last week. The Northwest Power and Conservation Council at its meeting in Boise, Idaho approved the step after a review by the Independent Scientific Review found that the latest version of the hatchery master plan meets scientific review criteria.
After finding another $85,000 in cost-savings from a Washington-based project, the Northwest Power and Conservation Council Fish and Wildlife Committee’s cost savings workgroup will begin to review nine projects that have a common theme – relative reproductive success studies that are already in progress.
A long-term study of salmon “supplementation” on two Idaho streams – the Clearwater and Salmon rivers – found that the method successfully increased the number of naturally-produced juvenile chinook salmon at Lower Granite Dam, but that there was only small increase in returning adults.
Adult fish passing Lower Granite Dam can expect cooler water temperatures at the dam this summer due to a new fish ladder temperature improvement system that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers says will eliminate a thermal barrier that last year stopped lower Snake River sockeye salmon from migrating up the ladder.
Quicker decisions by river managers could have changed the outcome of the adult sockeye salmon runs in the Snake River and in the upper Columbia River, according to a 2015 sockeye salmon passage report released as a draft this week.
On a six-to-two vote, an assessment of the potential amount and quality of salmon and steelhead habitat upstream of Grand Coulee and Chief Joseph dams will move forward, with a contract that would kick-off the project to be signed by the end of June.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council approved at its meeting Wednesday more than $550,000 in cost-savings identified by the Council’s and the Bonneville Power Administration’s Cost-Savings Work Group.
Supplemental funding for a northern pike suppression project managed by the Spokane Tribe of Indians was approved by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council at its February meeting, but on the condition that the Independent Scientific Review Panel review the Tribe’s latest proposal.
A hatchery plan for upper Columbia River white sturgeon passed the latest review by the Independent Scientific Advisory Panel in March, which said the latest version of a Master Plan meets scientific review criteria for a Step Two review, but with qualifications.
Northwest environmental groups called on the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to develop a list of emergency actions that would prevent high water temperatures that caused the massive die-offs of salmon last summer as adult fish migrated through Columbia and Snake river dams and reservoirs.
Money to help protect the four Northwest states from an invasion of quagga and zebra mussels –arriving by highway attached to small boats and trailers — could be available to states as early as mid-year to help pay for the cost of inspection stations.
On a three-to-one vote, a study assessing habitat conditions in reaches of the Columbia River and tributaries upstream of Chief Joseph and Grand Coulee dams was given the go-ahead Tuesday by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s Fish and Wildlife Committee.
The infamous warm-water ocean “blob” has evolved into a more coastal phenomenon – the region is now at the trailing edge of a warm El Nino weather pattern, and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation is in a very warm period, according to Brian Burke, research fisheries biologist at NOAA Fisheries’ Northwest Fisheries Science Center.
From an already complex and over-contracted fish and wildlife budget, the Bonneville Power Administration and a cost-savings workgroup have identified six projects that are either closing out with money left in the project budget or the project’s budget has been reduced.
A review of a strategy to restore the John Day River watershed in Oregon has found the strategy insufficient in public partnering, monitoring and adaptive management strategies, and the incorporation of climate change.
A review by the Independent Scientific Review Panel of the Colville Confederated Tribes’ resident fisheries management plan said the plan meets scientific review criteria, except for a few issues, including a proposed introduction of a non-native species into the Twin Lakes as a way to control golden shiners, also an introduced species.
In adopting its Seventh Power Plan this week at a meeting in Portland, the Northwest Power and Conservation Council said the region can meet most of a 36 percent increase in power demand over the next 20 years with energy efficiency and demand response.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council approved using Budget Oversight Group (known as BOG) funding for two Northwest projects at a level lower than requested by the project sponsors at its meeting this week in Portland.
Lawmakers in Olympia are considering a memorial that asks the federal government to back a plan to reintroduce salmon and steelhead in blocked areas upstream of Chief Joseph and Grand Coulee dams on the Columbia River.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s Columbia Basin 2014 Fish and Wildlife Program calls for the Council to review ongoing research and revise the program’s research plan.
A new coho salmon hatchery is one step closer to funding as the Bonneville Power Administration completed a public scoping process, the first condition for completing an environmental impact statement for the project.
A group that says the Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s recently adopted 2014 Fish and Wildlife Program fails to protect Columbia River basin salmon and steelhead filed suit in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals last week.
After three consecutive meetings of considering a predator management program review, the Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s Fish and Wildlife Committee is nearing approval of a letter that will be sent to the Independent Scientific Advisory Board. It asks the ISAB to develop a common metric that would be used to measure the impact of predator management actions aimed at protecting Columbia River basin salmon and steelhead.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council this week tapped Oregon member Henry Lorenzen as its chairman for the next year and Idaho’s Bill Booth as vice-chair.
Quagga and zebra mussels that have taken over many of the waterways in central and eastern areas of the United States and Canada, especially in the Great Lakes, aren’t the only aquatic invasive species that have biologists worried.
To stay ahead of the curve on changing climate and water conditions, the Northwest Power and Conservation Council asked the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the mid-Columbia River PUDs to complete water temperature modeling in the mid-Columbia River.
An interactive mapping tool that tracks 295 populations and combinations of populations of natural origin salmon and steelhead in the Columbia River basin, along with each population’s abundance objective, is in development by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council Fish and Wildlife staff.
Overall smolt to adult return data shows that upper Columbia and Snake river salmon and steelhead populations are not meeting the 2 percent to 6 percent goal set by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council in its 2014 Fish and Wildlife Program.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council this week took another step towards evaluating passage for salmon and steelhead above Grand Coulee Dam when it sent the only proposal it received for the initial study of upriver habitat to the Independent Science Review Panel.
This year’s Columbia River basin salmon season ended with 2.3 million adult salmon passing Bonneville Dam on their up-river migration — making 2015 the second-strongest year for Columbia River salmon since the federal government built dams on the river nearly 80 years ago.
Eradication of northern pike — an invasive and voracious predator — in the Columbia River basin took on a more urgent tone this week with the announcement that a northern pike may have been caught in the reservoir backed up behind the John Day Dam.
Water temperatures in northwest streams will rise about half as much as the expected air temperatures will rise due to climate warming caused by greenhouse gases, challenging some fish species to shift their range to seek cool water refuges in order to survive.
NOAA Fisheries has ramped up its ongoing efforts for comprehensive salmon and steelhead recovery with the creation of a new Columbia Basin Partnership, a collaborative group representing multiple entities with common but sometimes divergent interests.
Since the 1870s, 114,050 acres of land in the lower Columbia River estuary have been converted to farm, industrial and urban uses, reducing native habitat for fish and wildlife. The good news is that about half of that is recoverable and could be restored.
The final summary report from a state-of-the-science forum on Columbia River eulachon, commonly known as smelt, is now available at the Northwest Power and Conservation Council website: http://www.nwcouncil.org/media/7149578/eulachon-science-policy-forum-report_final_october-2015.pdf.
An annual plan that guides operations at Columbia River dams for fiscal year 2016 is available for review by fish and dam managers at http://www.nwd-c.usace.army.mil/tmt/documents/wmp/2016/Oct_1_Draft/20150930_WMP_Draft_1.pdf.
The first step to providing passage for salmon and steelhead beyond Grand Coulee dam – a habitat reach assessment – was approved this week by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council.
Despite the die-off of 169 white sturgeon this summer – which is nearly 2 percent of the spawning population –in Columbia River reservoirs, the white sturgeon population in the Columbia River is healthy and holding steady.
With climate change, demand for electricity will increase during warmer summers and it will decrease during rainier and warmer winters in the Pacific Northwest, but the power system itself will not need resources in addition to what is already anticipated.
If approved at its next meeting in October, the Northwest Power and Conservation Council along with the Bonneville Power Administration will soon release a joint request for proposal for as much as $200,000 to investigate potential salmon habitat blocked by Grand Coulee and Chief Joseph dams.
This summer chinook salmon swam in the Owyhee River on the Idaho and Nevada border for the first time in 87 years. Also for the first time since 1928, members of the Shoshone-Paiute Tribes on the Duck Valley Reservation, many of them children, fished for the salmon with traditional handmade wooden spears.
Four projects have risen to the top of the Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s emerging priority list: two were approved at this week’s Council meeting in Eagle, Idaho, while one was set aside for more work and the Council will act on the fourth in October.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council has released a new report on the “long-term cost planning” for its Columbia River Basin Fish and Wildlife Program.
The Northwest Power Act requires the Northwest Power and Conservation Council to report annually to the U.S. Congress the “current state of the Columbia River Basin and the Council’s activities” and to make the draft report available for 90 days of public comment prior to submission to the U.S. Congress.
A recently released study http://www.nwcouncil.org/news/intlcolumbiariver/ identifies 46 collaborative initiatives between U.S. and Canadian partners in the Columbia River Basin, and it identifies several top transboundary priorities.
Eulachon, a forage fish that spends 95 percent of its life in the ocean, spawns in rivers along the West Coast from Alaska to Northern California.
Scientists at the University of Montana are perfecting a technique to detect the presence of invasive freshwater mussels long before they form massive colonies that can clog water intakes, impact hydropower and irrigation facilities, cover marinas and beaches, and ruin fisheries by robbing the water of nutrients.
Some five billion hatchery salmon and steelhead are released into the North Pacific each year, including fish from 155 salmon, steelhead and trout hatcheries in the Northwest. But it’s the natural populations of fish that biologists believe to be the most resilient to climate change, according to a series of oral presentations at the 145th American Fisheries Society conference in Portland.
With an expected increase in solar radiation and air temperature in the lower Snake River basin, river and power operators at Wednesday’s Technical Management Team meeting began to use what could be the last available water from Dworshak Dam until September to cool water in August in the Lower Granite Dam tailrace.
After reviewing about a dozen potential fish and wildlife programs, the Bonneville Power Administration and the Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s Fish and Wildlife Committee have identified $183,000 in cost savings the Council can use in fiscal year 2016 to fund emerging fish and wildlife priorities, but the Council will need to act quickly to take advantage of the savings this coming year.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council will be sponsoring a “Columbia River Eulachon (smelt) State of the Science and Science to Policy Forum” August 21.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council says a recent assessment of the Spokane Tribal Hatchery, which raises trout and kokanee for release into Lake Roosevelt behind Grand Coulee Dam, “will serve as a template for similar audits that the Council and the Bonneville Power Administration want to conduct of other hatcheries funded through the Council’s fish and wildlife program.”
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council last week at its monthly meeting in Spokane approved modifications to its cost savings proposal, approving a final methodology describing how it and the Bonneville Power Administration would achieve the savings.
Northern pike were found in the Kettle River arm of Lake Roosevelt during a June 29 through July 3 survey, according to Jim Ruff, speaking at the Fish and Wildlife committee meeting during the Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s monthly meeting this week in Spokane.
The 74 “Reasonable and Prudent Alternatives” in NOAA Fisheries’ 2014 Federal Columbia River Power System biological opinion for salmon and steelhead are producing results, according to government and tribal attorneys as they gave their oral arguments Tuesday in defense of the BiOp before Judge Michael H. Simon in U.S. District Court in Portland.
The Bonneville Power Administration’s total fish and wildlife costs for 2014 was $782 million, according to the draft “2014 Columbia River Basin Fish and Wildlife Program Costs Report” released for public comment by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council.
Higher temperatures and lower flows in the Snake River are resulting in an earlier than usual change in summer hydro operations.
Northern pike, a voracious predator that is now found as far down the Columbia River as Lake Roosevelt, could soon find its way further downstream where the fish could potentially decimate endangered salmon and steelhead, according to a presentation on the species this week at the Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s monthly meeting in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council is seeking public comments on ways to achieve cost-savings in its fish and wildlife program funded by the Bonneville Power Administration, and it wants to create a work group to determine where savings can be found.
The Idaho Department of Fish and Game is working to protect the Clark Fork River Delta, an important riparian and wetland habitat for fish and birds in Lake Pend Oreille, from the effects of erosion caused by the operations of two dams, one upstream on the Clark Fork River and the other at the outlet of the lake.
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