Despite conditions that are “no longer springlike,” the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was asked this week to delay the start of fish collections and transportation at the Columbia River’s McNary Dam.
The Marmot Dam access road near Sandy, Ore., will close temporarily on July 15, as Portland General Electric begins removing its Marmot Dam on the Sandy River.
Critics say a budding new federal plan to avoid jeopardizing salmon and steelhead impacted by the Columbia/Snake river hydrosystem represents mostly status quo strategies that have previously been declared legally deficient under the Endangered Species Act.
A marina upgrade project this spring dealt a blow to a multi-million dollar effort to restore kokanee salmon populations on north Idaho’s Lake Pend Oreille, wiping away 15 percent of the wild fry produced this year.
A burgeoning global population that includes steady Northwest growth is changing the air, water and landscape with ripple effects on fish and wildlife and their habitat.
Yet that changing landscape is little taken into account, in the Columbia River basin or elsewhere, as experts plot fish and wildlife support and recovery strategies.
High, turbid flows through much of the 2006 season helped juvenile Snake River spring chinook survive at the highest rate yet during their annual migration through the eight-dam Columbia/Snake hydrosystem toward the ocean.
Columbia/Snake River federal dam operators closely toed the line last year, spilling water for juvenile salmon and steelhead passage as prescribed by a court preliminary injunction 98.3 percent of the time over the spring and summer.
A Federal Columbia River Power System draft proposed “action” and accompanying biological analyses previewed last month represents a “positive step forward” in salmon recovery efforts, according to some.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s desire to “reinvigorate” oversight of the Fish Passage Center moved forward Wednesday with the appointment of seven people to serve in that capacity.
Agencies responsible for the operation of 13 federal dams in the Willamette River Basin submitted on May 31 a revised set of proposed actions intended to protect winter steelhead, spring chinook, bull trout, Oregon chub and other species listed as threatened or endangered under the federal Endangered Species Act.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service issued a positive 90-day finding on a petition to remove the Bliss Rapids snail from the federal Endangered Species Act list, determining that an additional review is appropriate.
An application for state authority to lethally remove salmon-hungry California sea lions from the Columbia River has drawn literally hundreds of comments from fishing interests, animal rights groups, tribes and others.
Tribes with treaty fishing rights on the mainstem Columbia River want to tap a little deeper this year, and in the future, what has become, virtually, an unlimited resource — American shad.
Grant County PUD Commissioners Monday approved a historic agreement with the Yakama Nation that will form a long-term partnership with benefits to both organizations.
Western Washington University received a grant for almost $900,000 from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to develop a model to determine the consequences of climate change on sea-level rise and river flow alteration in two of the most ecologically significant estuarine systems in Puget Sound, Padilla Bay and Skagit Bay.
The Bonneville Power Administrations plans to launch on June 7 an online “Report Center” that will contain a set of reports offering details about Columbia River basin fish and wildlife projects.
A total of 59 fish and wildlife proposals requesting $16.2 million are vying for $2 million in available funding during fiscal years 2008 and 2009 through the Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s “innovative” project category.
California sea lions have, for the most part, left their springtime feeding station below the Columbia River’s Bonneville Dam, taking with them what will likely be records in terms of numbers of salmon and steelhead consumed and the percentage taken of the overall salmonid run.
With the recent release of a Draft Environmental Impact Statement, another step was taken toward the tribal goal of boosting summer/fall chinook salmon abundance, and reintroducing long-extinct spring chinook, in north-central Washington’s Okanogan River basin.
Saying his words are “not a product of anger, but frustration,” U.S. District Court Judge James A. Redden in a May 23 order reminded federal agencies that it is not an option to shift away from Columbia/Snake river hydro system operations designed to benefit fish.
The gist of federal “action” agencies’ plan to push Columbia/Snake river basin salmon and steelhead stocks toward recovery, and thus away from extinction, was filed in federal court this week, nearly 20 months after the reigning plan was declared invalid under the Endangered Species Act.
Policy analyst and subbasin planning lead Tony Grover moves south of the border June 1, leaving his post with the Washington state office of the Northwest Power and Conservation Council to become director of the Council’s Fish and Wildlife Division.
Salmon and trout — coldwater fish species that get the most attention and money in the Columbia/Snake river basin — are the most vulnerable to global warming, which a new scientific report calls “unequivocal.”
Reserving water behind Libby Dam, and releasing it in “pulses” to prompt Kootenai white sturgeon spawning runs, may not be as vital if a developing plan to sculpture the river’s “braided reach” above Bonners Ferry proves viable.
Deviations from operations designed to benefit salmon and steelhead are inevitable within the federal Columbia/Snake river hydrosystem, according to documents filed Wednesday in Portland’s U.S. District Court.
A major step toward getting Columbia River basin salmon researchers all on the same page was taken this month with the publication of the first work ever to collect, standardize, and recommend a scientifically rigorous set of field protocols for monitoring and assessing salmon and trout populations.
Pollution threats, old and new, plague the lower Columbia River and estuary, potentially hampering efforts in the region to recover salmon and steelhead listed under the Endangered Species Act, according to research previewed Monday in Vancouver, Wash.
Plans to address many of the same Endangered Species Act issues faced in the Columbia/Snake river system, including the threat of lawsuits, are being developed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for its projects in the Willamette River basin.
With river flows expected to be in short supply, particularly from the Snake River basin, fish and federal hydrosystem managers were asked Wednesday to consider the possibility that a late May shift away from spill for salmon passage may be necessary.
Federal Columbia/Snake river hydrosystem deviations April 3 from measures designed to benefit migrating juvenile salmon and steelhead point to the need to cement fish provisions both legally and through more precisely defined operational protocols, according to documents filed this week in U.S. District Court.
With 41,372 adult upriver spring chinook salmon having passed Bonneville Dam through Sunday, and an estimated 4,800 of the stock having been harvested in the lower river, fisheries officials feel the 2007 run is well on its way to matching preseason expectations.
The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife and the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs Saturday (May 12) will release 175,000 steelhead fry into Whychus Creek near Sisters, Ore. as part of an effort to reestablish salmon and steelhead runs in Whychus Creek, the Metolius River, and other area streams.
Anglers can earn cash and help save salmon by participating in the Northern Pikeminnow Sport Reward Fishery Program, which kicks off May 14 in the lower Columbia and Snake rivers. The program continues until Sept. 30.
Federal court opinions rendered Thursday faulted the Bonneville Power Administration for a decision in 2000 that saddled its “preference customers” with costs incurred via an agreement with investor-owned utilities, and by establishing fiscal year 2002-2006 rates with fish and wildlife cost estimates that were “not supported by substantial evidence.”
The once distant threat of zebra mussels, and their kin, quagga mussels, has leapt closer to the Columbia River basin, a fact that should not be ignored by the public, government officials, or anyone else concerned about the health of the Northwest’s environment and economy.
Deviations from desired Columbia/Snake river hydro system fish operations April 3 were relatively minor in impact and responded to unanticipated power needs and a mechanical failure, and were not an intentional violation of salmon protections, according to legal documents filed Monday by the U.S. Justice Department.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council in a letter this week expressed “serious concerns about the FY 2007-09 (project funding) decision process, the number of changes Bonneville (Power Administration) made to Council funding recommendations, and several policy issues.”
Spill began earlier this month at eight Columbia/Snake river mainstem federal hydro projects as a means of easing in-river migrations for juvenile salmon and steelhead moving downstream toward the Pacific Ocean.
Time, perhaps as little as a month, will tell the fate of a controversial proposal from the state of Oregon to drop the John Day Dam reservoir level to “minimum operating pool” as a strategy to potentially improve survival of yearling spring/summer chinook salmon.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council agreed Wednesday to reconstitute the oversight board for the Fish Passage Center, a data collection and analysis entity that has drawn both fire and praise over the years regarding the veracity of its analyses.
The April “final” forecast issued by the Northwest River Forecast Center continues a season-long trend in estimating near or slightly above normal runoff volumes from the snowpacks feeding the Columbia River’s upper reaches but a short supply from that river’s biggest tributary, the Snake.
Columbia/Snake River Irrigators Association challenges to U.S. District Court Judge James A. Redden’s decisions on Columbia River basin salmon issues, and complaints about the judge himself, were rejected April 6 via a memorandum issued by a three-judge Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals panel.
The National Hydropower Association has awarded Avista the “Outstanding Stewardship of America’s Waters” for the Northwest utility’s collaborative efforts to protect the fisheries in Lake Pend Oreille by working with stakeholders to reduce predatory species.
A legal reaffirmation this week of the federal government’s need to fortify its Columbia/lower Snake river hydrosystem salmon protection strategy has drawn responses ranging from anger, to glee, to resolve that the job can be accomplished.
Putting hard numbers to the phenomenon called “latent mortality” – the delayed effect of downstream fish passage through the Columbia/Snake hydro system — will continue to be in the near term anyone’s guess, according to a report released this week by the Independent Scientific Advisory Board.
A 2005 lower court order that struck down the federal government’s plan for protecting salmon and steelhead that migrate through the federal Columbia/Snake River hydrosystem was upheld this week by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
Scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the University of Washington published a paper Thursday that states habitat deterioration associated with climate change is likely to make salmon recovery in the Pacific Northwest much more difficult, especially in relatively untouched, high-elevation river basins.
Status conferences on June 11 will potentially schedule the homestretch for two court-ordered remand processes that aim to develop “biological opinions” regarding federal dams’ impacts on Columbia River basin salmon and steelhead stocks.
The Washington State Department of Ecology has released a final environmental report related to the proposed removal of Condit Dam on the White Salmon River in Klickitat County.
In order to better prepare for future tasks, the Northwest Power and Conservation Council and staff need a “clearer understanding” of recent fish and wildlife project funding decisions, according to a letter forwarded Monday (March 19) to the Bonneville Power Administration.
It was so far, so good through the first four days of biological testing of a prototype “temporary spillway weir” at the Columbia River’s McNary Dam with injury rates no higher than 5 percent for balloon-tagged juvenile spring chinook salmon released from six different locations in the forebay.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council has asked for input on how it might update the guidance document it has used since 1997 in considering ocean conditions when making fish and wildlife project funding recommendations.
Cool Dworshak reservoir water released in summer to improve conditions for juvenile salmon and steelhead migrating toward the ocean could possibly be doing double duty by providing a haven for subyearling fall chinook that choose to linger in-river, according to a “draft final” research report released earlier this month by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Wind power projects are being rapidly developed throughout the Northwest, and the region’s existing power system can most likely accommodate the 6,000 megawatts of wind energy anticipated by 2024 – or perhaps much sooner given the current pace of development, says a new plan released this week.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council this week decided to seek further clarification on fiscal year 2007-2009 funding shifts that represent both contractual fine-tuning and the imposition of policy choices that are, from its standpoint, yet unresolved.
The decision to trigger the nomination process for a Fish Passage Center oversight board has been delayed for at least a month at the request of fish managers who want input on the composition and responsibilities of the panel.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council this week recommended spending $500,000 during fiscal year 2007 to further the goals of the Yakama Nation’s Yakima Side Channels fish and wildlife project.
Three Columbia River Basin tribes announced Wednesday a coalition agreement for better advocacy regarding fish and wildlife resources impacted by hydroelectric systems on the upper Snake River.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s Independent Economic Analysis Board Wednesday presented to the Council its review of Revenue Stream, a report prepared by the staff of several fishing associations and environmental groups.
A spike in mortalities of Spring Creek National Fish Hatchery juvenile fall chinook salmon passing Bonneville Dam last week disappeared as mysteriously as it had appeared.
Federal attorneys said last week the two new biological opinions on protected Columbia/Snake salmon and steelhead likely would be delivered to U.S. District Court at the same time.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council continues to mull whether it should officially respond to Bonneville Power Administration Feb. 26 fish and wildlife project funding decisions that strayed in many respects from the Council’s desires.
A 16-year stint with the Northwest Power and Conservation Council ends this week (March 9) for fish and wildlife division director Doug Marker, who resigned recently to pursue other career opportunities.
The Oregon Sea Grant program based at Oregon State University has released a new edition of a popular DVD that examines a turning point in the history of the Pacific Northwest.
Northwest electricity ratepayers could pay $400 million to $550 million a year to replace the power capabilities of the four lower Snake River dams if those dams were removed, the Bonneville Power Administration said in a press release.
The installation of the first of two prototype structures at McNary Lock and Dam should be completed this week in time to test surface bypass technology during the fast approaching 2007 juvenile salmon and steelhead outmigration.
Caspian terns’ consumption of juvenile salmonids grew last year, as did the sheer numbers of another avian predator — doubled-crested cormorants — in the Columbia River estuary and elsewhere, according to a draft research report released this week.
A request by state salmon managers for specially-timed spill at Bonneville Dam to provide an extra passage route for juvenile Spring Creek National Fish Hatchery fall chinook tules was denied this week in a split — yes, no, or do-not-support-but-do-not-object — vote.
The goal of having a third lower Snake River hydroproject outfitted with a “removable spillway weir” in time for the 2007 spring-summer salmon migration will be missed due to construction delays, according to federal officials.
While calling a recent report on the cost and benefits of removing the four Lower Snake dams “unreliable,” the Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s independent economic advisors say that “perhaps” the region should again study the economic and ecological impacts of removing the dams.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council on Wednesday decided to seek assurances that long-term fish and wildlife funding agreements hammered out in federal court proceedings adhere to provisions of the Northwest Power Act.
The latest scientific information in, potentially, five complex subject areas will be reviewed and digested later this year when the Northwest Power and Conservation Council convenes a science/policy conference as preparation for planned Columbia River Basin Fish and Wildlife Program amendments.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council this week issued a plea to fish management entities to fuel research that might decide whether Snake River fall chinook salmon that migrate in-river to the ocean survive better to adulthood than those that are collected and barged downstream through the federal hydrosystem.
With the Fish Passage Center’s funding future assured for at least the near-term, the Northwest Power and Conservation Council spoke last week of “re-energizing” its oversight of the data collection and analysis entity.
The West’s water supplies are fraught with political, economic and environmental wrangling. When devastating droughts occurred in the 1970s and the 2000s, farmers and fish alike suffered.
Yet the ability to predict stream flows in the Western United States at seasonal lead times — months or longer — is scarcely better today than it was in the 1960s.
Does the Pacific Northwest electric power system have a surplus supply of electricity for the next 10 years or does it currently have an electricity deficit the size of a nuclear power plant?
Bonneville Power Administration officials said that the bottom lines are essentially the same, but Northwest Power and Conservation Council members left their meeting Wednesday with budgetary and legal questions about a fish and wildlife project funding package unveiled by the federal power marketing agency.
A Bush Administration proposal to speed Bonneville Power Administration repayments to the U.S. Treasury would drive up Northwest power rates and cause job losses as well other negative economic effects in the region, according to a draft analysis by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s Power Division staff.
An evaluation of the survival of in-river Snake River fall chinook salmon migrants vs. that of fish barged downriver through the hydrosystem appears stalled, at least for this year, despite the urgings this week from the Northwest Power and Conservation Council.
In a letter this week to the Administration, eight Northwest U.S. senators expressed opposition to provisions in the FY 2008 federal budget proposal that they contend would increase electricity rates in the Pacific Northwest by an estimated 5.5 to 11 percent.
A “good effort” to clarify policy issues and narrow areas of scientific disagreement is ongoing, but federal agencies can’t promise that all will be happy at the end of the long-running collaboration with Columbia River basin tribes and states on the intricacies of a new hydrosystem salmon protection plan.
A draft review of Oregon’s Eagle Creek National Fish Hatchery concludes the coho program there needs to eventually steer toward native broodstock, and its winter steelhead program may require termination if the out-of-basin products pose significant risk to protected, native Clackamas River stock.
A 320-foot high dam in Juniper Canyon northwest of Pendleton could impound up to 49,000 acre feet of water pumped from the Columbia River during winter months, according to an initial assessment by the Oregon Water Resources Department.
A relatively dry January in portions of the Columbia River basin have sent snowpack runoff forecasts for the spring and summer into a bit of a freefall, and started to raise concerns for fish managers, hydrosystem operators and other water users.
The federal government this week triggered a process that could ultimately provide the states of Idaho, Oregon and Washington authority to lethally remove California sea lions that prey each spring on threatened and endangered salmon in the lower Columbia River.
Columbia Basin tribes and fishing and conservation groups are jubilant, and Idaho’s senior U.S. senator is frustrated, over a Wednesday order by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit requiring continued federal funding for the Portland-based Fish Passage Center.
An Idaho water users group this week cited results from a 2006 study as proof that migrating juvenile salmon do not suffer ill effects from passing down through four lower Snake River federal hydroprojects, and nor does barging the young fish through the hydrosystem hinder their chances of surviving to adulthood.
Even the driest of winters would not test the “adequacy” of the Northwest’s supply of electricity despite the region’s heavy reliance on hydro power, according to recent analysis produced by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s Power Division staff.
A recent hydrosystem operations/fish and wildlife project funding agreement between the Bonneville Power Administration and five Columbia River tribes was described Wednesday as a step toward a broader agreement on how funding resources should be directed across the basin.
A solicitation for “innovative” fish and wildlife project proposals was approved this week, but its fleshing out awaits a Bonneville Power Administration determination on what it is willing to fund and how much it is able to spend.
Fishing and conservation groups informed federal court today that they will not seek a court injunction to impose Columbia River hydrosystem measures they feel would improve survival of protected salmon and steelhead during the 2007 migration season.
A signed agreement filed Tuesday in federal court promises the support of five Columbia River tribes for a specific set of 2007 federal dam operations designed to improve salmon and steelhead survival in exchange for the promise of funding for more than $5 million worth of fish and wildlife projects.
A larger scale evaluation of the survival of transported juvenile Snake River fall chinook salmon compared to those that migrate in-river is in jeopardy due to a lack of available fish this year to launch the experiment.
Building the envisioned Black Rock water storage facility in eastern Washington would do more than assure more stable water supplies for fish, irrigators and municipalities.
A decision to operate Libby Dam under “strict VARQ” flood control operations this year will likely mean less water will be available than in recent years from the dam’s reservoir to augment flows in the lower Columbia River this summer for migrating salmon, according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
The sudden realization that infrastructure-damaging zebra mussels can literally leapfrog across the country could well reinvigorate Columbia River basin officials in their effort to build a defense against such an invasion.
Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer and Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., will headline one of two meetings Jan. 15 in Kalispell on coal-mine development in British Columbia’s Flathead drainage.
In a significant development, the Northwest Power and Conservation Council is taking up the issue at its meeting this month.
Proponents, and opponents, of new water storage options for the Yakima River basin, such as the Black Rock project, will get their say later this month when the Bureau of Reclamation and Washington Department of Ecology host open houses and public scoping meetings on the Bureau’s Yakima River Basin Water Storage Feasibility Study.
New Idaho Gov. C.L. “Butch” Otter announced one appointment on Wednesday to a key natural resources position in his administration, and another to an Idaho seat on the Northwest Power and Conservation Council.
The Columbia River basin’s mountains are holding a relatively normal early season snowpack with projections for a spring-summer water supply that is close to the 30-year average, according to the monthly “early bird” runoff forecast issued Dec. 28 by the National Weather Service’s Northwest River Forecast Center.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, with support from federal fish management agencies, has asked Oregon and Washington for a five-year waiver of the states’ Columbia River water quality standards to accommodate spill at mainstem dams for migrating salmon and steelhead.
The Bonneville Power Administration and five Columbia Basin tribes are working this week to seal an agreement that outlines Columbia/Snake river hydropower/fish passage operations for the 2007 juvenile salmon migration season, and provides funding for tribal fish restoration projects.
A new piece has been thrown into the puzzle that is Snake River fall chinook salmon life history.
New research shows that a certain share of juvenile fish not only scatter throughout the Columbia/Snake river hydrosystem to prepare for ocean life, but also settle in freshwater below Bonneville Dam for the winter.
A Washington climate change impacts analysis will be expanded to include the entire Columbia River basin with the help of a grant approved last week by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council.
A new study indicates that Snake River spring/summer chinook salmon and steelhead transported downstream in barges as juveniles have more trouble than in-river migrants in finding their natal streams and passing dams when they return as adults to spawn.
The rebuilding of the federal government’s Columbia River basin hydrosystem salmon protection plan will stretch to July 31, at least, under an order issued Wednesday by Portland-based U.S. District Court Judge James A. Redden.
Chum salmon spawners are on the rise, literally, as Bonneville Dam operators late Thursday began pushing as much water through as is legally allowed to create reservoir space to accommodate a continuing early winter deluge from Mother Nature.
A Northwest Power and Conservation Council initiative to better define appropriate costs for wildlife operation and maintenance projects gained momentum this week with discussions kindled on a variety of fronts.
Timing, not the stress from barge travel, is the most likely reason that transported juvenile Snake River spring chinook salmon have greater overall post-Bonneville Dam mortality than those migrating in-river to the ocean, according to an article published in the November edition of the American Fisheries Society’s on-line journal “Transactions.”
A long-running terminal fishing program in the Columbia River estuary costs more than the benefit it generates but does perform better economically than other basin harvest-producing enterprises, according to a recently completed draft report.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Tuesday announced that they had made official their intent to disperse a majority of the world’s largest colony of Caspian terns from their East Sand Island nesting site in the Columbia River estuary.
Fish management agencies from Oregon, Washington and Idaho announced this week that they have asked the federal government for permission to use lethal means, as a last resort, to remove individual California sea lions that prey on chinook salmon and steelhead below the Columbia River’s Bonneville Dam.
The Bureau of Reclamation and Washington Department of Ecology announced this week their decision to move forward into the feasibility phase of a storage study designed to bring more water to the Yakima River basin.
A sodden November across much of the Columbia River basin may well have provided water users with a hedge against “El Nino” conditions that are expected to settle into the region for the winter.
Sea lions were, for the most part, undeterred in their pursuit of salmon in the waters below Bonneville Dam this past spring and early summer despite efforts of biologists, and noise-making devices to shoo the large marine mammals away.
The Bonneville Power Administration’s 2006 annual report shows that the agency earned record-setting modified net revenues and reduced its wholesale power rates for 2007 to many of its customers.
Conservation and environmental groups this week continued their call for the breaching of four federal dams on the lower Snake River, citing a staff-produced report that claims such action would provide net biological benefits for salmon and economic gains for residents of the Columbia River basin.
A new 50-year license for Chelan County PUD to continue operating the Lake Chelan Hydroelectric Project has been issued.
U.S. District Court Judge James A. Redden at an Oct. 27 hearing said he was “not disappointed” with the status of a year-long collaboration with states and tribes as the federal government works to rebuild its Columbia/Snake river hydrosystem salmon protection plan.
NOAA Fisheries says the long-term benefits for protected Columbia River basin salmon and steelhead outweigh what will be short-term negative effects resulting from the proposed removal of Condit Dam on Washington’s White Salmon River.
Construction of the latest “removable spillway weir” to be added to the Columbia/Snake river hydrosystem fish passage toolbox is behind schedule by an estimated 32 days, threatening its installation in time for the 2007 spring juvenile outmigration.
Daily spikes in water releases from the mid-Columbia’s Priest Rapids Dam will be employed this year, followed by prolonged periods of lower flows, in an attempt to encourage lower-level spawning by returning Hanford Reach fall chinook salmon.
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers officials will return to the scene Nov. 6 to explain “what went well and what didn’t go well” as the agency responded to late spring flooding in North Idaho’s Kootenai River valley, according to Jim Barton, chief of Water Management Division.
A hydropower plant near Cle Elum, WA may be in the future power generation mix for Grant County PUD.
The Northwest Power and Conservation on Wednesday completed its fiscal year 2007-2009 fish and wildlife project funding recommendations with but a few, albeit sometimes contentious, changes from a draft list produced a month ago.
A pair of Washington lawmakers on Monday announced their plan to introduce legislation in Congress that would allow the lethal removal of California sea lions preying on Columbia/Snake river salmon and steelhead as soon as next spring.
Documents filed this week in U.S. District Court contend federal agencies are hampering a year-long collaborative process by dismissing the so-called “10-Step Conceptual Framework” as the means for determining whether Columbia River Basin hydro projects jeopardize the survival and recovery of protected salmon and steelhead.
Chilling out the Kootenai River in November and December to improve spawning conditions for burbot hasn’t been easy, but it may be tried again this year.
The Entiat National Fish Hatchery spring chinook program should be terminated because it provides little harvest benefit and poses “significant straying genetic risk” to naturally produced, listed stocks in the Entiat River subbasin, according to a report released Oct. 13 by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
The Pacific Northwest has an ample supply of electricity for the coming winter months, according to an analysis by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council next week will ponder a wealth of newly-arrived advice when decides how it wants to allocate available fish and wildlife funding for the next three years across the Columbia River Basin.
While stressing that recently previewed analysis and determinations are preliminary, the Bonneville Power Administration has said that ultimately it intends to judge whether Columbia River Basin Fish and Wildlife Program projects present “in lieu” problems and seek corrective action.
The Bonneville Power Administration has paid the U.S. Treasury $1.113 billion for fiscal year 2006, which ended Sept. 30.
A long, relatively strong “tail” to the upriver fall chinook salmon run enabled Oregon and Washington fishery managers to reopen the lower Columbia River mainstem chinook season to anglers today (Oct. 13).
Issues have “narrowed” but much work still needs to be done before agencies put together a federal Columbia/Snake river hydrosystem “action ” that can be judged as to whether or not it jeopardizes the existence of protected salmon and steelhead, according to a report filed this week in U.S. District Court.
The planned biological analysis for federal upper Snake River irrigation projects “will essentially rearrange the components” from a lower Snake/Columbia hydro project “consultation” to determine if jeopardy is posed to protected salmon and steelhead, according to an initial status report filed Tuesday by NOAA Fisheries and the Bureau of Reclamation in U.S. District Court.
NOAA Fisheries Service on Sept. 29 released a proposed Endangered Species Act recovery plan for upper Columbia spring chinook salmon and steelhead that it says meets requirements under the Endangered Species Act.
U.S. District Court Judge James A. Redden on Monday put federal agencies on warning that the survival of threatened and endangered salmon and steelhead stocks must be the ultimate priority, not water allocation plans, as they devise a new biological opinion related to Idaho irrigation projects.
A Monday U.S. District Court remand order sets a timetable and reporting requirements for creation of a new upper Snake River biological opinion, but does not dictate what federal agencies must do to assure Idaho irrigation projects don’t jeopardize protected salmon and steelhead populations downstream.
Attorneys for the U.S. government and the state of Idaho say a request to have the looming Upper Snake biological opinion remand focused on the augmentation of river flows would undercut federal authorities and go contrary to previous judicial direction.
Draft fish and wildlife project funding recommendations approved this week by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council would largely balance provincial and mainstem on-the-ground/multi-province budgets at allocation targets for fiscal years 2007-2009, and come in at more than $10 million under budget in the basinwide category.
A three-judge appellate panel on Tuesday focused its questions on whether or not the Bonneville Power Administration used the proper rationale in deciding to end funding for the Fish Passage Center, and whether that decision aligned with language in the Northwest Power Act.
The Northwest Power and Conservation on Wednesday met the Colville Tribe halfway, approving $82,686 of a requested $133,686 within-year funding request to replace two culverts in central Washington’s Omak Creek to improve passage and habitat there for steelhead.
The number of returning summer chinook salmon greatly exceeded the 10-year average, according to the federal agencies responsible for salmon recovery efforts in the federal Columbia River hydropower system.
A federal submittal says agencies will do the work necessary to correct “legal deficiencies” in 2005’s biological opinion on the operation of upper Snake River irrigation projects, and offers a brief outline of progress reporting tasks and schedule.
A new book of essays from more than 30 salmon scientists, policy analysts and wild salmon advocates suggesting ways to save runs of wild salmon has been published by the American Fisheries Society – and some of the prescriptions are certain to raise a few eyebrows.
U.S. District Court Judge James A. Redden this week gave legal adversaries two weeks to develop a schedule and plan for reworking a biological opinion on federal irrigation projects in the upper Snake River basin that is “coordinated” with an ongoing remand of a BiOp on lower Snake and Columbia river hydro projects.
The Bonneville Power Administration will have the tools to raise power rates in dire times, if need be, to meet Endangered Species Act costs stemming from ongoing litigation in federal court, according to a report filed earlier this month.
About 35 percent — an estimated $29 million — of the fiscal year 2007 Columbia River Fish Mitigation program budget will be focused on projects to provide surface bypass for juvenile salmon and steelhead at hydro projects on the Columbia and Snake rivers, according to priorities set by the System Configuration Team.
A number of funding decisions remain in limbo as the Northwest Power and Conservation Council enters the stretch run in deciding which of $1 billion in funding requests will fit into a fish and wildlife program budget that holds about half that amount for fiscal years 2007-2009.
A Bonneville Power Administration interpretation of the Northwest Power Act would “render meaningless the detailed congressionally mandated processes” for deciding which Columbia River basin fish and wildlife projects are funded, according to briefs filed Monday in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
The most severe low-oxygen ocean conditions ever observed on the West Coast of the United States have turned parts of the seafloor off Oregon into a carpet of dead Dungeness crabs and rotting sea worms, a new survey shows.
Restarting early-summer flow augmentation for fish, at least in the near term, from the Hells Canyon Complex of dams could potentially be one of the terms for the federal relicensing sought by the hydro projects’ owner, the Idaho Power Company.
Court-ordered spill designed to provide fish passage will be halted, briefly, each time a loaded barge makes its way into the locks at the lower Snake River’s Lower Monumental Dam.
A July 21 letter from the Bonneville Power Administration’s CEO Steve Wright reiterates the agency’s intent to defer funding for new Nez Perce tribal hatchery facilities while the project’s full biological benefits are weighed in an ongoing court-ordered process.
A Nez Perce proposal to minimize summer spill at Dworshak Dam and use resulting proceeds to police Columbia River fisheries got a mixed review during a Thursday meeting of the Implementation Team.
A process to rebuild the government’s salmon protection strategy for the Columbia River hydrosystem is on track, aiming for recovery of imperiled salmon and steelhead stocks, federal attorneys told U.S. District Court Judge James A. Redden July 21.
Federal attorneys have attempted to trivialize the government’s responsibility under the 1980 Northwest Power Act to fund Columbia River basin fish and wildlife restoration activities, according to a legal brief filed Monday for the Northwest Power and Conservation Council.
Corps of Engineers dam operators at midweek scaled back cold-water releases from Idaho’s Dworshak reservoir in an attempt to assure the precious water supply lasts through the summer salmon migration season.
U.S. District Judge James A. Redden will hold an Aug. 14 conference to hear widely divergent views on how the remand of NOAA Fisheries’ upper Snake River “biological opinion” should be carried out.
The milestone of placing the second of 10 massive hydroelectric turbines and shafts into its operating position has been accomplished at Grant PUD’s Wanapum Dam.
The Independent Scientific Advisory Board likes the concept, but says a proposal to make all Columbia River basin fish and wildlife data available through one internet source should start first as a demonstration/pilot project.
A rapid, late spring snowmelt that caused harm to northwest Montana resident fish could, in a round-about way, also bring those same trout long-sought benefits.
Implementing the purposes of the Northwest Power Act is a balancing act that requires discretion, and the Bonneville Power Administration’s CEO used it well last winter in deciding not to issue a new contract to fund the Fish Passage Center, according to a federal brief filed in federal court.
In a July 14 opinion and order, U.S. District Court Judge James A. Redden denied a request to have a single Endangered Species Act “biological opinion” prepared for two sets of federal Columbia Basin dams.
A looming heat wave, and rising lower Snake water temperatures, have prompted hydro operators and fish managers to call on a stronger release of Dworshak Reservoir’s coolest water to improve conditions downstream for migrating chinook salmon.
The House Resources Committee this week voted 17-10 to support the Endangered Species Compliance and Transparency Act, which requires Power Marketing Administrations such as the Bonneville Power Administration to list direct and indirect cost estimates associated with Endangered Species Act compliance.
Survival of juvenile Snake River spring chinook salmon from Lower Granite Dam to Bonneville Dam was higher in 2006 — 58 percent — than it has been since federal research began in 1993, according to researchers.
The Endangered Species Act is often “used as a tool to drive up costs for our electricity ratepayers,” U.S. Rep. Cathy McMorris said during a July 7 congressional oversight field hearing in Pasco, Wash.
The Bonneville Power Administration released a proposal this week aimed at defining its electrical power supply role in the Pacific Northwest after 2011, when its current power sales contracts expire.
Federal officials — reluctant July 6 to implement a hydrosystem operational strategy offered by Montana — will next week consider an alternative that would draw down Libby and Hungry Horse faster than the state would like but not as fast as is now planned.
The state of affairs will become clearer in the coming weeks within the federal government’s “collaborative” process to reconstruct its Columbia River hydrosystem salmon protection plan.
With advice from a variety of sources now in hand, Northwest Power and Conservation Council staff will begin piecing together a recommendation for how available fish and wildlife monies will be spent in fiscal years 2007-2009.
Montana officials will have to wait another week to find out if their long-sought summer outflow plan from Libby and Hungry Horse dams will be accepted by regional interests and implemented by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Bureau of Reclamation.
Rapidly rising Snake River water temperatures this week forced an early tapping of Dworshak Reservoir’s cool waters to improve conditions for migrating salmon downstream.
A new effort to have federal lower Snake/Columbia river and upper Snake River dam salmon protection plans combined is based on faulty interpretations of the law, according to attorneys for the federal government, the Nez Perce Tribe, the state of Idaho and water users groups.
The Bonneville Power Administration ignored provisions of the Northwest Power Act and followed instead non-binding congressional report language last year when it chose to stop funding Fish Passage Center operations, allege briefs filed June 16 with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
Girded by a recent appeals court decision in a separate case, fishing and conservation groups last week resumed their call to have biological impacts of upper Snake River and lower Snake/Columbia river dams judged as a single unit.
Officials from tribes, fish agencies, the U.S. Forest Service, local government, Grant Public Utility District and interested individuals on Wednesday met in Leavenworth, Wash., to discuss preliminary projects that could help restore populations of Upper Columbia River spring chinook salmon to the White River.
Idaho Power this month has begun trapping spring chinook salmon at both the Hells Canyon Dam and its Rapid River Hatchery with a combined capture goal of 2,700 fish for artificial spawning.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council this week endorsed expansion of the hatchery captive broodstock program that is the sole barrier between Snake River sockeye salmon and extinction.
The near edge of that “black box” called the Pacific Ocean has been pried open by NOAA Fisheries scientists who say they can gauge how well juvenile salmon and steelhead survive during that crucial time when they move from Columbia River freshwater to saltwater.
A hoped-for June start to construction on a $16.4 million Northeast Oregon Hatchery complex has been deferred as the project’s funding source, the Bonneville Power Administration, awaits assurances that it will bring desired Endangered Species Act “credit.”
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council is seeking public comments on its fifth annual report to the Northwest governors on Bonneville Power Administration expenditures to implement the Council’s program to protect and rebuild fish and wildlife in the Columbia River Basin.
New “PIT tag” data analysis developed by NOAA Fisheries should better allow the agency to calculate survival rates of adult salmon and steelhead as they attempt their spawning journey up through the Columbia and Snake rivers’ system of dams and reservoirs.
Federal attorneys argued June 1 that the government’s job is to assure that its activities do not worsen the lot of Columbia River basin salmon stocks listed under the Endangered Species Act.
The Independent Scientific Review Panel last Friday (June 2) issued its preliminary review of projects proposed for inclusion in the Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s Columbia River basin fish and wildlife program during the 2007-2009 funding cycle.
Nearly all of the 3.5 million fall chinook salmon smolts scheduled for release from the Ringold Springs Hatchery on the upper Columbia River have died – most likely of botulism poisoning, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) said last Friday (June 2).
A 2005 document giving Endangered Species Act clearance to federal dam operations on the upper Snake River is illegal, U.S. District Court Judge James A. Redden said in a Tuesday opinion and order.
A significant gap in assessments of salmon survival through the federal Columbia River basin hydrosystem has seemingly been closed with the installation this spring of a fish detection device at Bonneville Dam.
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals next week will hear oral arguments over the legality of a biological opinion that gauges the effect of the federal Columbia River basin hydrosystem on protected salmon and steelhead.
Nature has played right into the hands of federal agencies this week who began implementation of a “flow pulse” from Montana’s Libby Dam intended to trigger Kootenai River white sturgeon’s spawning movements.
Montana this week pressed regional hydro and fish managers for a more gradual drawdown of Montana reservoirs during this year’s salmon migration season.
A $16.4 million Nez Perce hatchery construction project was given a conditional green light by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council Tuesday, though state water permitting and Endangered Species Act hurdles remain before the first shovel of dirt is turned.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council this week recommended more that $6 million in “within-year” fish and wildlife project funding adjustments with the vast majority coming its capital expense account.
Grant PUD’s 2006 fish survival study season now underway at the Priest Rapids Project.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service released this week the assessments and recommendations report for the Warm Springs National Fish Hatchery (Warm Springs NFH) review.
Anglers targeting native northern pikeminnow this spring and summer on the mainstem Columbia and Snake rivers once again can reap numerous rewards — satisfying their fishing urge, earning money and helping boost salmon recovery.
Halfway through its fiscal year, the Bonneville Power Administration is projecting substantial improvement in its financial performance and the potential for making up severe losses suffered as a result of the 2001 West Coast energy crisis.
A federal analysis that compares select hydrosystem operational effects on salmon with a hypothetical “reference” operation strays far from Congress’ and the Endangered Species Act’s intent, attorneys for four Columbia Basin tribes, the state of Oregon and a coalition of fishing and environmental groups told a federal appellate court last week.
Widely spread precipitation during the first half of April totaled as much as 300 percent of normal in some parts of the Columbia River Basin, virtually assuring that the region’s rivers have above average flows this spring and summer for the first time in six years.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council has released for comment its plan for developing a basinwide system for evaluating the success of its fish and wildlife mitigation and restoration projects.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers last week awarded a $15 million contract to an Oregon City, Ore., company to build a surface-bypass structure to improve passage conditions for out-migrating juvenile salmon and steelhead at Lower Monumental Dam on the lower Snake River.
Federal officials say that, despite a remand extension to February, their agencies must maintain an “aggressive” pace if they are to meet their goal — assembling a Columbia/Snake hydrosystem protection plan for salmon and steelhead that will be legally and scientifically sound.
U.S. District Court Judge James A. Redden last week was asked to validate a federal approach for assessing upper Snake River irrigation projects’ effects on protected salmon and steelhead, and withhold judgment on the nuts and bolts of that biological opinion until related legal processes have played out.
The Spokane Tribe and others affected by the repeated rising and falling of north-central Washington’s Lake Roosevelt have long chaffed at perceived inequities in how the huge reservoir is managed.
The Army Corps of Engineers began collecting and barging migrating juvenile salmonids at the Snake River’s Lower Granite Dam this week, but will hold off smolt transportation at two downstream dams until next week.
The Technical Management Team Wednesday agreed to alter spill patterns at certain times at Lower Granite Dam to improve safety to tow operators.
An Army Corps of Engineers study of the Columbia River basin flood control system should be tightly focused on that topic, and not on providing additional flows for fish, and should not be paid for with dollars from electricity ratepayers, according to a letter penned this week by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council.
Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer on Thursday pitched new and alternative energy production and urged the Northwest Power and Conservation Council to recognize concerns about endangered species in the upper Columbia River Basin.
The Bonneville Power Administration announced this week that it has extended its existing funding agreement for the Fish Passage Center through Nov. 30 in order to assure compliance with a recent court order.
Oregon and Washington fishery officials expressed optimism that this year’s upriver spring chinook salmon will eventually make a surge towards their home hatcheries and spawning areas in reasonably high numbers.
The federal government’s opinion that planned Columbia River basin hydrosystem operations pose no jeopardy to 13 protected salmon and steelhead stocks is legally valid, and a court ordered restructuring of that opinion is not, according to arguments presented in the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals by the Justice Department.
Documents filed in federal court this week detail how Federal Columbia River Power System agencies plan to implement court-ordered spill for fish passage this spring and summer and how a “collaborative” effort to rework the hydrosystem salmon protection plan is progressing.
The “early bird” forecast completed last week predicts runoff down the Columbia/Snake river system will fall short of the norm for the seventh straight year, though just barely.
Those opposing a legal effort to link upper Snake River projects’ effects on salmon with effects from other Columbia Basin federal dams offer only “distinctions without a difference” in their defense, according to documents filed in U.S. District by a coalition of fishing and conservation groups.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will increase outflows from some of its Willamette Valley reservoirs over the next few weeks to protect endangered species of migrating fish.
An amendment introduced by Idaho Republican Sen. Larry Craig that prevents the Bonneville Power Administration from using excess revenues to retire long-term debt more quickly was approved this week by the Senate Appropriation Committee.
Columbia Basin salmon management agencies have asked that fish spill regimes at John Day Dam be altered to make up for survival benefits they believe will be lost due to a power system failure that has resulted in the idling of four turbine units at the facility.
A Canadian-based effort to track salmon and other sea-going creatures up the North Pacific coast’s continental shelf will fully flower this spring and summer with the goal of detailing fish movements and survival that have to this point mostly mystified fish managers.
Work goes on at Portland’s Fish Passage Center following a March 17 court order that requires funding be continued for the entity that collects, stores and analyzes data related to fish passage up and down the federal Columbia/Snake river hydrosystem.
A developing tool to assess the effects of Columbia/Snake river dams and dam operations on migrating salmon and steelhead should buoy future decision-making processes if remaining technological gaps are filled, according to a March 15 Independent Scientific Advisory Board Review.
Following a March 17 teleconference with the litigants, U.S. District Court Judge James A. Redden denied a request by fishing and conservation groups that the deadline for developing a new salmon protection plan for the Columbia/Snake river hydrosystem be extended by five months.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit at the 11th hour issued a three-paragraph order that would appear to keep the Portland-based Fish Passage Center in operation for at least the near term.
A request for a temporary restraining order that would keep the Fish Passage Center operating was turned aside this morning (March 17) by a Portland federal district court judge who told litigants that he lacked the jurisdiction, and the conviction, to respond favorably.
Court-ordered spill for fish passage at eight federal Columbia/Snake river hydro projects will mean about $60 million less in revenues, but will not affect the Bonneville Power Administration’s ability to answer Northwest power demand, according to analysis conducted by Northwest Power and Conservation Council staff.
Northwest Power and Conservation Council members and others in the region this week questioned the advisability of moving forward with a $30 million study to evaluate how Columbia River basin flood control operations might be changed to provide more water in-river for migrating salmon and steelhead.
An independent scientific review agrees with criticisms on numerous technical points but says the Fish Passage Center’s ongoing Comparative Survival Study is generally heading in the right direction and doing well with the tools at hand.
Next week, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will install at Bonneville Dam a 16-foot by 16-foot device capable of detecting electronically-tracked fish every 1/3 of a second.
As part of its ongoing actions to relicense the three-dam Hells Canyon hydroelectric complex, Idaho Power Company has decided to take advantage of a new federal rule to protest federal agencies’ proposed “mandatory license conditions” related to operations, passage for fish, erosion and other issues.
Technical and biological experts from federal agencies, states, and tribes are now working collaboratively to develop a plan to guide flows from Libby Dam during the spring and early summer for the next 10 years, as required by the 2006 FWS Biological Opinion.
Sport and commercial salmon fishing opportunities off the Oregon and Washington coasts will limited this summer as compared to recent years with one alternative under consideration that would close all fisheries from the north Oregon coast to Cape Sur just south of San Francisco.
The Bonneville Power Administration struck the proper balance in following a congressional directive to no longer fund the Fish Passage Center while staying within Northwest Power Act guidelines, according to a March 3 federal filing in U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
The federal government, Northwest states, upriver tribes and utility interests all feel that more than a year’s time might be needed to produce a legal and biologically sound biological opinion judging impacts of Columbia/Snake hydroelectric projects on protected salmon and steelhead.
The California sea lion labeled C-404 by federal and state biologists appears to be the prototypical troublemaker.
Despite a sunny February that witnessed lower than average precipitation across much of the region, the Columbia/Snake river basin remains on track to experience its first “normal” snowpack runoff this spring and summer in six years.
Global warming in coming decades may cause the disappearance of large areas of the low-elevation snowpack in the Cascade Range of the Pacific Northwest, a new study concludes, with significant impacts on area ski resorts that will face warm winters far more often than they do now.
Grant County PUD moved one step closer in the relicensing process for the Priest Rapids Project when commissioners adopted a resolution that establishes a Habitat Conservation Account and a No Net Impact Fund (NNI).
Attempts to link upper Snake River storage and hydroelectric projects’ impacts to salmon with those from lower Snake and Columbia river hydro operations are legally and biologically flawed, according to U.S. District court motions submitted March 3.
Biological and engineering uncertainty pose too much risk to fast-track the installation of a surface bypass structure at the lower Snake River’s Little Goose Dam in time for the 2008 salmon migration season, according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Representatives of federal agencies and Northwest states say they need more time to digest a Corps of Engineers’ “reconnaissance” report that suggests it may be possible to adjust Columbia River basin flood control operations to bring benefits to protected salmon and steelhead.
Northwest Power and Conservation Council staff last week unveiled a first iteration of a document that it will use to resolve problems or “issues” that arise in the process to decide who receives fish and wildlife project funding from a budget that could total as much as $537 million for fiscal years 2007-2009.
Among the 4H’s of salmon recovery, harvest won the headlines Tuesday (Feb. 21) when three Northwest Congressmen conducted their third public meeting to gather information on the survival of returning adult salmon and steelhead populations.
A reduction in “load following” at federal Columbia/Snake river hydroelectric projects could have serious implications that need to be understood before a study of their effects on fish is launched, Bonneville Power Administration officials said this week.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service revealed a plan Thursday that would allow spring flows to exceed Libby Dam’s powerhouse capacity to help the endangered Kootenai River white sturgeon.
A review and analysis of existing research says that salmon-related dam operations reduce average Columbia River basin hydroelectric generation by 9 percent annually and irrigation withdrawals from the Columbia and Snake rivers cut power production by 5 percent.
Columbia River basin federal, state and tribal salmon managers have asked hydro operators to spill at least 50,000 cubic feet per second of water at Bonneville Dam to pass about 7.5 million tule fall chinook being released March 2 from the Spring Creek hatchery located alongside the Bonneville pool.
Conservation and fishing groups last week asked the federal Ninth Circuit of Appeals to put a hold on plans dismantle the Fish Passage Center and transfer many of its present tasks to two other entities.
More time should allowed for the restructuring of a federal Columbia River hydrosystem salmon protection plan to assure that numerous “controversial” scientific issues, and differences of opinion, are properly explored by the federal agencies responsible for the plan, according to a motion submitted this week in federal court by plaintiffs in the lawsuit.
A federal judge has dismissed three Idaho irrigation districts’ cross claims asking for an order to end harvest of salmon in the Columbia/Snake river basin and flow augmentation from Upper Snake River reservoirs.
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