Nearly $4.2 million in within-year fish and wildlife project funding budget expansions got the endorsement Wednesday of the Northwest Power and Conservation Council.
The 15 largest utilities in the Northwest collectively reduced demand for electricity by 108 average megawatts in 2005, enough power for about 63,000 homes, the Northwest Power and Conservation Council reported this week.
This week, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began installing permanent barriers at Bonneville Lock and Dam to keep sea lions from entering fish ladders — a key element in a new strategy to cut down mammals’ predation on migrating adult salmon.
Cormorants settling in the Columbia River estuary last year again appear to have eaten more migrating juvenile salmon and steelhead than their more studied and oft-vilified neighbors, Caspian terns, according to a 2005 Draft Research Summary released this week.
President Bush’s proposed fiscal year 2007 budget released to Congress this week calls for the Bonneville Power Administration to use any surplus power sales (“net secondary”) revenues it earns above its historical high level of $500 million in a year to make early payments on its federal bond debt to the U.S. Treasury.
The Bonneville Power Administration could absorb the additional cost of diverting a portion of its annual revenue to the federal Treasury in 2007, but President Bush’s proposal would force Bonneville to raise its electricity rates about 7 percent in 2008.
Legal efforts have resumed to convince the U.S. District Court that Upper Snake reservoir operations should be pooled with those of the lower Columbia/Snake river federal hydrosystem in judging impacts to salmon and steelhead listed under the Endangered Species Act.
A preliminary set of “terms and conditions” submitted last week by NOAA Fisheries would require the owners of the Snake River’s Hells Canyon Complex of hydro projects to make flow manipulations and do habitat work for the benefit of salmon and other species, but would not require fish ladders to provide access to historic spawning grounds.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council entered the New Year with a revised power plan in place, but with much work to do balancing power requirements with actions outlined in subbasin plans adopted recently as part of its Columbia Basin fish and wildlife program.
More than a million fertilized white sturgeon eggs were released into the Kootenai River’s braided, canyon reaches upstream of Bonners Ferry, Idaho this past summer as a strategy to revive flagging wild populations.
The Bush Administration announced this week that NOAA Fisheries will soon launch a collaborative review of how harvest and hatcheries are affecting the recovery of Pacific Northwest salmon and steelhead listed under the Endangered Species Act.
The Bush Administration’s announcement of a major new initiative to reform salmon and steelhead hatchery and harvest practices in the Columbia Basin elicited both support and concerns.
Environmental and sport-fishing industry groups on Monday petitioned the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to keep intact the Fish Passage Center, a technical entity charged with keeping fish managers informed about salmon and other fishes’ success at traversing the federal Columbia River hydrosystem.
Bonneville Power Administration officials announced Thursday that they believe they can achieve a “seamless continuity of activities” by transferring the duties of Fish Passage Center to two other entities — the Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission and Battelle Northwest — beginning March 21.
The latest forecast for snowpack runoff past The Dalles from January through July sits at 102 percent of normal, an early sign that Mother Nature could well break a streak of six straight subpar water years in the Columbia River basin.
U.S. District Court Judge James A. Redden said Friday he “is not disappointed with the progress to this point” on the restructuring of the federal government’s Columbia/Snake mainstem hydro salmon protection plan.
An independent scientific panel’s review of fish data collected during last year’s court ordered summer spill operations at Columbia/Snake River hydro projects points out “potential” benefits and drawbacks of the practice.
The Fiscal Year 2006 Energy and Water Development Appropriations Act signed by President Bush includes for the Portland District of the Corps of Engineers about $206 million to fund work in the Rogue, Willamette, Columbia, and Cowlitz river basins.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council has in hand more than $1 billion worth of fish and wildlife project funding requests for fiscal years 2007-2009 — double the amount it will likely have to spend during the period.
Moisture-filled storms have battered the Columbia River basin in recent weeks, raising expectations that an adequate water supply will be available next spring and summer.
Last year proved to be “a pretty typical migration” for Columbia/Snake river juvenile spring chinook salmon and steelhead in terms of timing and survival but the jury’s still out on Snake River fall chinook, which rushed toward the ocean a bit earlier than normal.
“From a consumers’ standpoint nothing happened,” the Bonneville Power Administration’s John Wellschlager said of the stresses put on his agency’s transmission system this past summer when court-ordered spill at federal hydro projects altered traditional power generating patterns.
The process for revising the federal government’s Columbia River hydrosystem salmon protection plan are described in a set of documents filed Tuesday with the U.S. District Court in Portland.
Claims of victory came from a variety of sources following U.S. District Court Judge James A. Redden’s approval of plans to spill water this spring and summer as a passage route for salmon and steelhead approaching Columbia/Snake hydro projects.
Bonneville Power Administration officials say the agency has received proposals from five entities that aspire to take over the primary functions of the Fish Passage Center, which will be phased out by the end of March.
The Army Corps of Engineers was releasing large amounts of water today (Jan. 6) from its reservoirs on the Middle Fork of the Willamette River and the North Santiam River to prepare for future rain storms.
Judge James A. Redden this week drew a fine line between federal and conservation groups’ proposals for managing the federal Columbia River hydrosystem next spring and summer — approving with modifications a new government plan to provide more spill at dams for juvenile salmon passage but forestalling decisions on requested manipulations of flow regimes.
NWF seeks injunctive relief modifying the Corps’ proposed dam operations in
2006 in order to mitigate jeopardy. NWF requests an order increasing spring and summer spill and decreasing the Corps’ reliance on transportation in order to provide migrating salmon a safer passage past the dams. In addition, NWF requests that the Corps and other federal defendants take specific actions to augment river flow in order to establish a more natural river hydrograph
The U.S. Department of Justice and the state of Idaho Wednesday have filed a notice of appeal of the decisions made earlier this year by U.S. District Court James A. Redden that declared invalid federal Columbia River hydrosystem salmon protection plans.
The Bonneville Power Administration’s 2005 annual report shows the agency earned just over $126 million in modified net revenues, the highest since prior to the West Coast energy crisis of 2000-2001.
Grant County Public Utility District this month received approval from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to continue installation of the remaining nine advanced turbine units at Wanapum Dam.
Phase One of the Columbia River Channel Improvement Project was completed in December, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced.
U.S. District Court Judge James A. Redden on Thursday said he was inclined to again order federal dam operators to spill water through July and August to facilitate juvenile salmon passage.
The federal agency charged with guarding the health of Columbia River basin salmon and steelhead populations this week noted 2005’s returns have been relatively strong despite what appears to be reduced ocean productivity to nourish those fishes to maturity.
A Columbia/Snake river basin snow accumulation season that began with a boom in early November has gone bust, at least temporarily, with snowpacks slumping below normal across much of the region and water supply forecasts next spring and summer falling too with each passing day.
Fish Passage Center supporters and detractors marched to the microphone Wednesday, providing emotional testimony about the technical entity’s past and offering views about how the future should look without it.
Attorneys for fishing and conservation groups argued this week that their plan for boosting Columbia River hydrosystem spill and flow regimes next year has a sounder biological base than a federal strategy they predict would further harm salmon and steelhead now listed under the Endangered Species Act.
Comments received from NOAA Fisheries and the Bonneville Power Administration faults the 2005 draft version of the Fish Passage Center’s smolt survival study as incomplete in its analysis.
A truckload of documents filed with the U.S. District Court last week seek to discredit a previously submitted Columbia River hydrosystem operations plan for the spring and summer of 2006, and substitute plans that federal agencies and others say will provide more benefits for salmon and cost less to implement.
The Bonneville Power Administration will issue a request for proposals as early as next week for entities, or an entity, to take over the primary functions of Fish Passage Center.
Metal and acoustic barriers will be thrown up and harassment will be an ever-ready option in 2006 as fishery and hydrosystem officials try to unsettle a crowd of California sea lions that has, in recent years, made the Bonneville Dam tailrace their salmon buffet table.
Requested increases in the water spilled at Columbia and Snake river hydro projects next spring and summer and changes in river flows to aid juvenile salmon and steelhead migration in 2006 could cost the region a range from $125 million to $560 million, according to preliminary analysis of impacts on power generation completed by Northwest Power and Conservation Council staff.
Idaho Republican Sen. Larry Craig says he claimed a victory for science and thriftiness Monday when the 2006 Energy and Water appropriations bill cleared Congress containing language he had inserted to cut funding for the Fish Passage Center.
Following a six-month public process on costs in an environment of volatile energy markets and uncertain fish obligations, the Bonneville Power Administration proposes to adopt adjustable wholesale power rates for the 2007-2009 period.
Montana stands to lose plenty in terms of water and impacts on fisheries and recreation if a federal judge goes along with the latest requests in a lawsuit over salmon recovery in the Columbia Basin, state officials say.
An Energy and Water appropriations bill now awaiting President George W. Bush’s signature tickets $15 million during fiscal year 2006 for continued work to deepen from 40 to 43 feet the lower Columbia River navigation channel.
Storage reservoirs in Montana, Idaho and Washington would be held as full as possible in late winter and early spring, and water would be spilled in greater quantities in spring and summer than is currently planned at federal Columbia River hydro facilities, if a Portland-based federal judge accedes to requests submitted to his court this week.
A request filed this week in U.S. District Court would in many respects change the federal government’s plan for operating the federal Columbia River basin hydrosystem to benefit fish, power generation, navigation and irrigation.
U.S. District Court Justice James A. Redden will not appoint a special scientific expert to evaluate testimony or hold a special session to hear scientific debate as he works toward a decision on how federal Columbia River hydro projects will be operate this winter, spring and fall to protect migrating salmon and steelhead.
A federal report issued this week notes high rates of survival for juvenile salmon migrants through Columbia and Snake river hydro projects during this past summer’s court-ordered spill program, but says the uncertainty remains over whether spill should be the preferred fish passage tool during the warmest of months.
Idaho Power has advised the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to proceed with the issuance of the “Notice of Ready for Environmental Analysis” in the relicensing proceeding for the company’s Hells Canyon Complex.
The Independent Scientific Advisory Board made official this week its intent to review data regarding the biological effectiveness of this year’s spill operations at Columbia River basin dams to provide downstream passage for salmon and steelhead juvenile migrants.
Six past members of Columbia River basin independent scientific review groups were offered this week as candidates to evaluate court testimony on flow and spill regimes intended to improve salmon survival.
The Independent Scientific Advisory Board has agreed to review available data regarding the biological effectiveness of the controversial, court-ordered 2005 federal hydrosystem summer spill program.
Federal Judge James A. Redden earlier this month gave federal agencies one year to rewrite its legally invalidated strategy for ensuring the federal Columbia River hydrosystem does not jeopardize the survival of salmon and steelhead listed under the Endangered Species Act.
Columbia River hydro and fish managers agreed Wednesday to implement two key winter operations aimed at maintaining steady flows for spawning chum salmon below Bonneville Dam and increase spawning success for kokanee in Lake Pend Oreille.
A joint 11-page report released last week by two independent science panels chides Columbia Basin fishery experts and policy makers for failing thus far to develop a plan for evaluating critical uncertainties — including possible negative effects — associated with supplementing natural spawning salmon and steelhead populations with hatchery fish.
Actions ranging from the installation of a new fish passage device at Ice Harbor Dam to restoration and protection of habitat are described in federal agencies’ fourth annual report on efforts to improve survival of Columbia River basin salmon and steelhead stocks.
A final report on the fish passage tests of the new advanced design turbine at Grant County PUD’s Wanapum Dam show juvenile salmon survival rates at nearly 98 percent, says the utility.
PacifiCorp, owner of the Condit Hydroelectric Project near White Salmon, WA, announced this week that it is filing numerous draft county permit applications as a prelude to removal of the Condit Dam in 2008.
A trio of Northwest congressmen exploring options to improve Columbia River adult salmon survival returned again and again to the topic of harvest during discussions with constituents this week in Vancouver, Wash.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council decided this week to move ahead with a fish and wildlife project selection process that will involve a review of proposals from across the Columbia River basin and the development of funding recommendations before the start of fiscal year 2007 next Oct. 1.
Independent scientists will judge the “net effect” of court-ordered spill this past summer at federal Columbia and Snake river dams if they agree to a request launched this week by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council.
The Fish Passage Center has released the annual 2005 “final draft” of the “Comparative Survival Study” that looks at smolt-to-adult return (SAR) data from electronically marked (PIT-tagged) Columbia River spring/summer chinook and summer steelhead during the years 1994 to 2003.
Fish and wildlife project sponsors looking to purchase wildlife, and in some cases resident fish, habitat may have a “new tool” available for them if the Bonneville Power Administration implements a proposed shift in its capitalization policy.
U.S. District Court Judge James A. Redden today (Friday) mapped out a detailed strategy for rewriting the federal government’s Columbia River Basin hydrosystem salmon protection plan that includes step-by-step participation by “sovereign entities” — the states of Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Washington and treaty tribes.
The future of Columbia/Snake river salmon restoration efforts drew comments ranging from gentle encouragement to threats Wednesday during closing exchanges at a Boise conference.
Despite the sixth below average water year in a row, the Bonneville Power Administration paid the U.S. Treasury $1.088 billion for fiscal year 2005, which ended Sept. 30.
Idaho’s governor this week said regional interests needed to put the spurs to the federal government to produce a realistic salmon recovery plan and rein in commercial fishing practices that he says are blunting recovery efforts.
The financially embattled Fish Passage Center became the focal point of a discussion this week about why different scientists can analyze the same information and, as is often the case in Columbia River basin fish and wildlife arguments, come up with different conclusions.
The chairs of four Columbia River basin tribes with treaty-reserved fishing rights this week sent a letter supporting continued operation of the Fish Passage Center to Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., chairman of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs.
The Independent Scientific Review Panel’s “Retrospective Report: 1997-2005” says that the scientific rigor of Columbia River basin fish and wildlife projects is much improved as the result of a years-long give-and-take between them, project sponsors, the Northwest Power and Conservation Council and others in the region.
Judge James A. Redden told litigants today that he will order NOAA Fisheries to rewrite its prescription for assuring dams in the Federal Columbia River Power System do not jeopardize the survival of salmon and steelhead listed under the Endangered Species Act.
Attorneys for the federal government, Northwest states, treaty tribes and navigation and power interests continued to fence this week over timeframes and the role the courts should play in an anticipated process to rewrite a Columbia/Snake river salmon protection plan.
After reaching agreement on a variety of vexing issues, a Northwest Power and Conservation Council committee this week moved forward a proposed process for reviewing and selecting Columbia Basin fish and wildlife projects for funding.
Fishing industry and conservation groups Thursday requested that federal judge James Redden invalidate A federal biological opinion for 12 federal reservoirs in the upper Snake River basin used for irrigation and flood control.
Ninety-four acres of tidal marsh and channels and 115 acres of forest on the lower Columbia River’s Crims Island are being restored to provide better habitat for young salmon, a group of government agencies and conservation groups said this week.
Fishing and conservation groups and four treaty tribes say that they would like to see work completed within a year on what is expected to be a court-ordered remand of the federal government’s Columbia/Snake river hydrosystem salmon protection plan, according to proposals filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court.
Long-running litigation has focused on assuring that federal Columbia River hydrosystem operations do not jeopardize salmon and steelhead stocks over the long haul.
But legal battles within that legal battle have erupted regarding near-term operations such as spill and flow augmentation that are intended to benefit salmon stocks that are listed under the federal Endangered Species Act and can affect other fish stocks as well.
White sturgeon are almost exclusively the victims of the so-called “ghost nets” that shroud the bottom of the Columbia River’s Bonneville, The Dalles and John Day dam reservoirs.
Researchers and data analysts are in the midst of measuring the impacts of this year’s court-ordered summer spill regime at Columbia/Snake river dams upon migrating juvenile salmon and Bonneville Power Administration ratepayers.
The Fish Passage Center this week released a “preliminary analysis” concluding that survival levels of juvenile salmon migrating “in-river” through the lower Snake River this summer were “the highest recorded in recent years.”
A draft “Snake and Columbia River Surface Passage Strategy” completed this summer by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers cites early successes of the fish passage technology and calls for a reasoned process to decide how, when and where installation will unfold at other hydro facilities in the system.
Current efforts to save wild salmon in the Pacific Northwest and California almost certainly will fail.
That’s the grim conclusion of 33 salmon scientists, policy analysts and wild salmon advocates participating in a year-long initiative to create policy options that would sustain wild runs of salmon in the West.
The Pacific Northwest appears to have a surplus of electricity for the coming fall and winter, according to an analysis by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council.
A decision on when to trigger its next project selection process was delayed for at least month while the Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s Fish and Wildlife Committee continues to ponder such issues as the overall allocation of funds across the region and its research, monitoring and evaluation desires.
Parties to the lawsuit have been given until Sept. 27 to describe their vision for remedying a federal Columbia River salmon protection plan left in question this spring by U.S. District Court Judge James A. Redden.
Montana has been granted intervenor status in a lawsuit over salmon recovery efforts in the Columbia River Basin.
Veteran Columbia River basin fish biologist Bruce Suzumoto will assume the daunting task of balancing hydrosystem and power needs with those of imperiled fish when he takes over Oct. 17 as assistant regional administrator for NOAA Fisheries’ Hydropower Division.
A decision about when to start refilling reservoir levels behind federal lower Snake River dams will wait until next week, and may have to be decided at a higher policy level, after members of the Technical Management Team failed Wednesday to reach consensus.
Legal jousting has begun once again over whether the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will be able to implement its plan this winter for maintenance dredging of the lower Snake/Clearwater river federal navigation channel and berthing areas at certain public port facilities.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Pacific Region Fisheries Program has begun a three-year review of the Columbia River Basin salmon hatcheries it owns or operates with the aim of producing recommendations about how they might best be run to achieve Endangered Species Act recovery goals while providing sustainable fisheries.
With one legal issue rendered moot and little time left to argue a second point, attorneys for power customers and federal agencies managing the Columbia River hydrosystem have ended attempts to halt court-ordered spill at the dams that is intended to aid fish passage.
As the court-ordered summer spill for fish continues this month at four federal Lower Snake River dams and McNary Dam on the Columbia River, researchers are continuing efforts to learn more about the fish most impacted by that spill — subyearling Snake River fall chinook.
A tinkering with the court-order hydrosystem spill program was not really considered July 18 when a projected deficit of as much as 800 megawatt hours during the afternoon’s peak usage hours forced a scramble at the Bonneville Power Administration to find enough power to feed all of its customers.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council on Wednesday recommended $157.2 million in Columbia River Fish and Wildlife Program project spending during fiscal year 2006.
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Tuesday ruled that a lower court’s order to spill water for fish passage during late summer at five federal Columbia Basin mainstem dams did not abuse the court’s discretion and was “well-grounded in governing statute.”
In the wake of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals’ ruling upholding a lower court order requiring spill at Snake and lower Columbia River dams this summer, federal officials, who argued vigorously against the spill, say they will continue pursuing a consensus approach to hydro operations, as well as region-wide recovery plans.
While the Pacific Northwest currently enjoys an electricity surplus big enough to power a city the size of Seattle, hot weather this summer could create shortages for certain hours that force wholesale power prices to high levels, according to the Northwest Power and Conservation Council.
A stalemated biological argument was broken Thursday when federal officials decided to follow prescriptions in NOAA Fisheries’ 2004 Federal Columbia River Power System biological opinion rather than slow the drawdown of reservoirs behind Libby and Hungry Horse dams as the state of Montana has requested.
A three-member federal appeals panel played devil’s advocate Wednesday, questioning both fishing and conservation groups’ biological rationale for wanting water spilled at additional Columbia/Snake river dams in summer to aid fish passage and the federal government’s desire to forego spill and move fish through the system aboard barges.
Montana again is pursuing summer operations at Libby and Hungry Horse dams to benefit resident fish, but a conflicting proposal is aimed at delivering all “flow augmentation” water for migrating salmon in the lower Columbia Basin by the end of August.
Knowledge about the effects of harvests on naturally spawning Columbia River salmon and steelhead populations has advanced notably but the region still lacks the data and tools necessary to determine whether recovery efforts are hindered by carefully managed fisheries.
Idaho Republican U.S. Sen. Mike Crapo says a key fish restoration effort in the upper Columbia Basin is an example of how collaboration can serve as an alternative to listings and litigation under the Endangered Species act.
A staff-generated proposal for Fiscal Year 2006 fish and wildlife project funding, and for the treatment of related issues, won favor neither in committee nor before the full Northwest Power and Conservation Council.
Commercial and sport fishing continues up and down the Columbia River mainstem even as passing numbers of adult summer chinook and sockeye salmon — mostly bound for central Washington lakes, river reaches and hatcheries — start to dwindle.
NOAA Fisheries is asking state, federal and tribal agencies to collaborate in efforts to improve fish passage modeling for the federal Columbia River hydropower system.
For the first time, teams of educators from across the Columbia Basin are touring the Columbia River to learn about the complex economic, social, and environmental dynamics at play across the entire river system.
Debate continued this week over the value of summertime spill for Columbia Basin salmon and steelhead, this time with parties filing briefs with a federal appellate court.
The Upper Columbia United Tribes and the Bonneville Power Administration announced this week that they have signed a memorandum of understanding intended to “increase the proportion of mitigated habitat in the upper Columbia River eco-region through improved funding and contracting measures and as appropriate other methods.”
Oregon on Tuesday voted with “reluctance” in favor of Washington fishery officials’ proposal to allow sport anglers to keep both marked and unmarked chinook salmon that are forging their way up the Columbia River mainstem during July.
The Senate Energy and Water Appropriations bill for Fiscal Year 2006, approved by the full Senate Appropriations Committee late last week, was accompanied with some surprise language for those involved in Columbia Basin salmon recovery.
An attempt to stop implementation of a court-ordered spill plan at five Columbia/Snake River federal hydro projects was rejected this week by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, but an appeal of the operations was put on the fast track.
A preliminary look at Fiscal Year 2006 funding needs that shifts perceived “capital” projects into the Columbia River Basin fish and wildlife expense budget would top out at about $170 million, according to an assessment coordinated by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council staff.
The Bureau of Reclamation will provide the full amount of flow augmentation water for ESA listed species in 2005, according to Regional Director Bill McDonald.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council last week closed the loop on what has been a nearly three-year, $15.2 million process with the adoption of Oregon’s John Day Basin fish and wildlife management plan.
A $9 million federally funded research program announced last week will bolster Idaho’s ability to study critical water and aquaculture issues.
The federal government, and purchasers of federal power, this week asked the Ninth Circuit of Appeals to immediately stay a lower court mandate that says spill must commence next week at four Lower Snake River hydro projects to facilitate passage of migrating juvenile fall chinook salmon.
Federal Judge James Redden’s order last week that federal agencies begin spilling water for fish on June 20 at Lower Snake River dams did not mention a key limiting factor – gas bubble disease.
Fish hatcheries in the Columbia River Basin need clearly defined goals, better integration with wild fish production and better coordination among the numerous fish-production programs, according to a report approved by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council this week for transmission to Congress.
Long-familiar personalities moved to the background this week with the appointment of six new members to the Independent Scientific Review Panel — the largest turnover in the nine-year history of the group that reviews fish and wildlife projects as well as offering advice on other issues to the Northwest Power and Conservation Council.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission this week formally made Portland General Electric and the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs the joint license holders for the largest hydroelectric project totally inside the boundaries of Oregon.
Rejecting suggestions that it is not the court’s role to make such decisions, U.S. District Court Judge James A. Redden announced Friday that he would order the U.S. Corps of Engineers to spill water for fish passage this summer at federal hydro projects on the Columbia/Snake river mainstem where the collection and transportation of young salmon has historically been the emphasis.
Following U.S. District Court Judge James Redden’s decision today to order additional spill at federal dams, federal executives in charge of the Federal Columbia River Power System expressed concern that the ruling “provides no guarantee for the improvement of salmon stocks, and it could make things worse, at an enormous cost to the region.”
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers this week released its final environmental impact statement justifying its plan to clear sediment from the federal navigation channel and berthing areas at certain public port facilities on the lower Snake and Clearwater rivers in Washington and Idaho.
Citing concerns about salmon protection, water, energy prices and the regional economy, a group of Northwest Republican lawmakers last week urged an appeal of the recent federal court ruling that invalidated the 2004 Biological Opinion governing endangered fish recovery in the Columbia and Snake River Basins.
Citing concerns about salmon protection, water, energy prices and the regional economy, a group of Northwest Republican lawmakers last week urged an appeal of the recent federal court ruling that invalidated the 2004 Biological Opinion governing endangered fish recovery in the Columbia and Snake River Basins.
A federal salmon protection plan thrown recently into legal limbo by a federal judge was ripped again last week, this time in a report released by fishery managers and scientists.
For the second time in four years, U.S. District Court Judge James A. Redden has struck down the federal government’s plan for assuring that the Columbia/Snake river federal hydrosystem doesn’t jeopardize the survival of 12 salmon and steelhead stocks listed under the Endangered Species Act.
In Thursday’s ruling, U.S. District Court Judge James A. Redden sided with the coalition of 15 fishing and conservation groups, led by the National Wildlife Federation, and the state of Oregon in all of their key challenges to the 2004 biological opinion for the federal Columbia River hydropower system.
Washington Gov. Christine Gregoire met Thursday with Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski and federal officials to discuss a court ruling that says the Bush administration’s plan for operating hydroelectric dams in the Columbia River Basin violates the Endangered Species Act.
Tribal interests and hydropower customer representatives were alternately elated and deflated by the news that basic elements of the federal government’s Columbia/Snake salmon protection plan had been deemed by a judge as “arbitrary and capricious” and illegal under the Endangered Species Act.
A surge of rain across much of the Columbia River basin in recent weeks has improved the immediate water supply prospects for farmers, hydropower producers, fish and other users though a rapidly declining snowpack will likely leave that tank empty by midsummer.
State and tribal salmon managers, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, were denied Wednesday their request to ramp up daytime spill levels at John Day Dam, but dam operators did agree to extend a previous spill plan that is intended to improve survival of spring chinook juveniles passing the hydroproject.
Fishery managers released the first hatchery-reared fall chinook salmon into the Grande Ronde River Monday and Tuesday with the hope they’ll both help recover the threatened species and, eventually, contribute to fisheries.
Utility interests and fish advocates used Monday’s final Power Function Review meeting to continue to pull the Bonneville Administration either way on the fish and wildlife spending scale.
Federal dam operators have agreed to commence daytime spill at the Columbia River’s John Day Dam for up to seven days as a “limited one-time agreement for the benefit of fish,” according to the head of the Corps of Engineers’ Reservoir Control Center.
Spill and a “modest” combination of increased flow augmentation and reservoir drawdown in the Columbia/Snake river hydrosystem this summer would reduce the harm faced by migrating Snake River juvenile fall chinook salmon with, potentially, positive economic effects, according to a memorandum and support documents filed Monday in Portland’s U.S. District Court.
Independent scientists who advise salmon recovery efforts this week asked the Northwest Power and Conservation Council to support a proposed study of the impact of power “load following” on the behavior and survival of migrating juvenile fall chinook salmon.
The Bonneville Power Administration’s suggested fiscal year 2007-2009 funding level for the Columbia River fish and wildlife program drew a mixed reaction during Northwest Power and Conservation Council discussions this week.
Fisheries experts continue to be confounded about the dismal Columbia/Snake upriver spring chinook salmon return that was predicted to be the fourth largest since 1979 with a total of more than a quarter million adult fish but will likely be about one-third that number.
For the first time, the Bonneville Power Administration and the Confederated Salish-Kootenai Tribes have reached an agreement that provides the tribes with $3.49 million for conservation land purchases to mitigate for damages caused by construction of Hungry Horse Dam.
A draft “closeout” letter and report released this week by the Bonneville Power Administration identifies potential net cost savings of up to $80 million per year for the fiscal year 2007-2009 rate period.
Cost estimates that fish and wildlife managers suggested be plugged into the Bonneville Power Administration’s power rate calculations for fiscal years 2007-2009 are “unrealistically broad in scope” in how they portray the federal power system’s obligation and what its ratepayers should, or could, bear, according to the agency.
Treaty fishers have pulled in their nets and the state of Idaho has ended prematurely a sport fishing season on the lower Snake River because a projected upriver spring chinook salmon bounty has, at least through midweek, failed to materialize.
The Regional Forum’s Technical Management Team agreed Wednesday to increase flows both from the Snake River Basin’s Dworshak Dam in Idaho and central Washington’s Grand Coulee Dam in an attempt to facilitate juvenile spring chinook salmon and steelhead movement toward the ocean.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Tuesday released analyses that estimate costs related to the conservation of the bull trout and its proposed critical habitat for three separate groupings of the federally protected fish species.
During a daylong hearing Wednesday U.S. District Court Judge James Redden gave no hints of his leanings as attorneys for federal, state, and tribal governments, utilities, irrigators and river users debated the merits of the federal government’s Columbia/Snake hydrosystem salmon protection plan.
Federal attorneys last week told a federal court that a legal proposal to increase spill at Snake and Columbia river dams this summer and augment river flows would likely bring more harm than good to migrating juvenile salmon.
A “sound fence” erected last week in front of Bonneville Dams fish ladders seems to have accomplished its task, at least for now, of keeping invading sea lions out of the structure while allowing a growing pulse of upriver spring chinook salmon to swim upstream towards spawning grounds and hatcheries.
According to preliminary research data, survival rates for juvenile fish is expected to improve with the installation of advanced turbines at Grant Public Utility District’s Wanapum Dam on the Columbia River.
NOAA Fisheries this week released a draft interim salmon recovery plan for the Lower Columbia River Subbasin that the agency says is the Northwest’s first comprehensive science-based recovery plan for salmon and steelhead listed under the Endangered Species Act.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has a growing, pinniped-repulsion arsenal, and the animals have a growing food supply in recent days.
A Bush Administration proposal to count new third-party debt backed by the Bonneville Power Administration within Bonneville’s U.S. Treasury borrowing limit could force the power marketing agency to reduce its future investments in energy conservation, renewable energy, and fish production and habitat in order to finance investments in its regionwide high-voltage transmission system, according to an analysis by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council.
A study released this morning (April 15) concludes that flow fluctuations in the mid-Columbia River’s Hanford reach due to dam operations cause significant mortality of juvenile fall chinook that rear there and that those impacts appear to be significantly greater than previously estimated.
Officials from the agencies that operate the federal Columbia River hydrosystem and sell its power met with the Northwest Power and Conservation Council this week to elaborate on earlier announcements about special actions to be taken this year in response to anticipated low water conditions.
The gap is wide economically, perhaps $100 million or more, between planned summer federal Columbia/Snake river hydrosystem operations for salmon and steelhead in this anticipated “low flow” year and alternative operations begin sought in federal court.
Efforts to shoo an adventurous sea lion out of fish ladders at Bonneville Dam are, officially, 1-for-1, with the offending animal diving and disappearing after two “screamer shells” were fired over his head Wednesday morning.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council sent three “Updated Proposed Action” projects ahead, but withheld its funding recommendation for five other projects pending further refinement called for by the Independent Scientific Review Panel.
For this low-water spring season, federal hydro operations on the Columbia and Snake rivers will be guided by the plan for dry years as set out in the 2004 biological opinion for Columbia River basin salmon and steelhead listed under the Endangered Species Act.
With less than two months remaining before they intend to issue a “closeout” letter detailing expected costs for the 2007-2009 rate period, Bonneville Power Administration officials continued this week to take input on fish and wildlife expenditures that, at least for now, are estimated at $691.6 million per year.
A spring test of spill survival at the lower Snake River’s Lower Monumental Dam –scheduled, then scrubbed because of low water conditions — may yet be implemented if researchers show it will yield information pertinent to the siting of a “removable spillway weir” at the facility.
Three of ten hydropower projects recognized by the National Hydropower Association for “outstanding environmental stewardship efforts” are in the Columbia River Basin.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has announced that Grant PUD’s application for a new operating license for the Priest Rapids Project, which includes both Priest Rapids and Wanapum dams on the Columbia River, is ready for environmental analysis.
A series of storms that have passed through the Pacific Northwest over the past two weeks have served to dampen much of the Columbia River Basin landscape but has not come close to removing the specter of drought and shortages this summer for fish, irrigation and other water users.
Unless there’s some kind of a hitch, testing will begin Monday to see how the second “removable spillway weir” in the federal Columbia/Snake river hydrosystem might treat juvenile salmon and steelhead that are making their way toward the Pacific Ocean.
The Nez Perce Tribal Executive Council Tuesday (March 29) voted to accept the terms of the proposed settlement of the Tribe’s water right claims included in the Snake River Basin Adjudication.
The coalition of conservationists, sport and commercial fishermen and businesses now challenging the federal government’s Columbia River Basin hydrosystem salmon protection plan last week asked the court to assure migrating fish get a greater share of what will likely be a meager supply of water this summer.
A new strategy to assure protected salmon and salmon stocks are not jeopardized by the federal Columbia River Basin hydrosystem seeks to hide the real problems the fish face, rather than address them, according to fishing and conservation groups who want that plan reworked.
For the first time in nearly thirty years, anglers in Idaho may have the chance to fish for chinook salmon on the Upper Salmon River.
Documents received by the Bureau of Reclamation say that planned operations and maintenance of 12 federal reservoirs in the Upper Snake River basin for irrigation and flood control will not jeopardize the survival of federally protected fish and wildlife species.
U.S. Justice Department attorneys last week asked Oregon’s U.S. District Court to reject legal requests from a coalition of fishing and conservation groups, from the state of Oregon and from two irrigation associations to have the 10-year federal Columbia River hydrosystem salmon protection plan declared illegal.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council this week adopted four subbasin management plans despite a failure to win the endorsement of local county governments that have expressed concern about certain elements of the fish and wildlife management strategies and the overall planning process.
Conditional approval was given Tuesday for the expenditure of up to $268,000 for two “off-site” habitat projects that Bonneville Power Administration officials say will further federal agencies’ goal of countering Columbia/Snake hydrosystem impacts on salmon and steelhead listed under the Endangered Species Act.
While Idaho’s big game animals have enjoyed an extremely mild winter, record low snow pack and eventual spring runoff mean trouble for Idaho’s migrating salmon and steelhead smolts.
A weather system of high pressure and a split flow pattern have kept the Columbia River basin warm and dry through much of the winter, turning early season promise into a forecast for one of the lowest spring/summer water supplies in recent memory.
A fourth straight month of below-average precipitation across most of the Columbia River basin, and a cloudless start to March, have irrigators, power producers, fish advocates and others positioning themselves to make claims for a share of what is likely to be a meager spring/summer water supply.
Washington Gov. Christine Gregoire this week authorized the Department of Ecology to declare a statewide drought emergency, based on the extremely low snow pack in the mountains and record-low flows that are being seen in many rivers across the state.
Grant County Public Utility District, in coordination with upstream federal and PUD dam operators, began last week what is an early implementation of additional flow constraints at its Priest River hydro project in an attempt to protect emerging salmon fry along the Columbia River’s Hanford Reach.
Decades of liquid effluent from the Teck-Cominco smelter in British Columbia contributed most of the zinc, lead, cadmium, and other trace elements detected in a recent sediment-coring study of Lake Roosevelt, according to a report published this week by the U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation.
A fight within a legal fight has emerged with one party claiming a federal Columbia River salmon protection plan puts too little blame on the hydrosystem while another faults the plan because it lumps too much responsibility for fish mortality on the dams’ operations.
U.S. District Court Judge James A. Redden last week ordered NOAA Fisheries to supplement the “administrative record” filed Jan. 28 in support of the agency’s 2004 Federal Columbia River Power System biological opinion — a salmon protection plan now being challenged by a coalition of fishing and conservation groups and the state of Oregon.
A block of 50 House Republicans expressed strong opposition this week to a Bush Administration proposal that would raise Power Marketing Administration (PMA) rates by 20 percent each year.
Northwest U.S. Senators this week said Senate Budget Committee Chairman Judd Gregg, R-NH, has said a Bush Administration proposal to raise Bonneville Power Administration wholesale power rates would not be included in the Senate’s Fiscal Year 2006 budget resolution.
With an ample supply of marine prey fish available, salmon consumption in the Columbia River estuary by the world’s largest Caspian tern colony last spring and summer dropped to an all-time low since research on the birds’ diet began in 1997.
Tribal representatives argued for a loosening of fish and wildlife funding purse strings during Tuesday’s Northwest Power and Conservation Council meeting while spokesmen for Northwest utility interests insisted that such costs should be held at current levels or pared back during the fiscal year 2007-2009 period.
Attorneys for fishing and conservation groups, the state of Oregon and tribes in Feb. 11 court documents detail why they feel a federal Columbia River salmon protection plan twists both the laws of the land and those of science in declaring that hydrosystem operations won’t jeopardize the survival of 12 stocks of fish.
The specter of 2001’s spring/summer water shortage and West Coast power crisis has not emerged, but bleak Columbia River Basin water runoff forecasts could well push up the cost of power and federal hydrosystem operations intended to aid salmon and steelhead.
Despite continuing legal threats hovering in the background, federal “action” agencies have begun to push for rapid implementation of actions they say will raise salmon survival through the Columbia River hydrosystem, and beyond, and foreclose the possibility that certain of fish stocks will become extinct.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council will analyze the potential impacts in the region of Bush Administration proposals that would raise electricity rates charged by the Bonneville Power Administration and also limit the agency’s capital borrowing authority.
Twenty-five locally developed subbasin management plans were adopted Thursday by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council as amendments to its Columbia River Basin Fish and Wildlife Program.
The prevalence of blue skies and warm temperatures this winter could cause storm clouds in spring and summer for Columbia Basin river managers as they attempt to divide what is likely to be a meager water supply between water users, hydro generators and fish.
The 53-member Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians this week put their stamp of approval on a budget proposal prepared by Columbia River basin fish and wildlife managers that calls for a steady ramping up of spending over the next four years.
Federal attorneys say a legal complaint seeking ouster of NOAA Fisheries’ 2004 Federal Columbia River Power System biological opinion provides a distorted view of the document itself and its biological and legal underpinnings.
Letters, e-mails and phone calls are flooding in to Oregon and Washington fish and wildlife commissions, in large part protesting a proposal to relax limits on the incidental take of protected wild winter steelhead during the commercial harvest of hatchery-produced spring chinook salmon in the lower Columbia River.
Fully implementing newly created subbasin goals and objectives over a 10-year span would require more than a doubling of the amount of money now being spent through the Columbia River Basin fish and wildlife plan, according to estimates compiled by a resource managers work group.
A request by fishing and conservation groups to have federal dam operations declared in violation of the Endangered Species Act was denied last week by U.S. District Court Judge James A. Redden.
A better-than-average return of steelhead — the ocean-going rainbow trout — resulted in moderate to high success among Idaho anglers during the 2004 fall season.
Conservation groups on Thursday filed a lawsuit against the federal government in an attempt to force protection for populations of coastal cutthroat trout that still remain in Oregon and Washington.
With new provincial review process mechanics still in development and recommendations from the old process mostly expired, the fiscal year 2006 Columbia River Fish and Wildlife Program will largely be shaped around existing projects that staff judge worthy of continuing based on performance and on those projects’ conformance with the goals of newly developed subbasin plans.
The Bonneville Power Administration this week triggered the process that will define, with the public’s help, what its wholesale power rates need to be to cover its costs for the period that begins with fiscal year 2007.
Energy Northwest, the Bonneville Power Administration and the Washington State Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council (EFSEC) have joined together to save ratepayers approximately $7 million in restoration costs at two unfinished nuclear power plants.
Some sea lions are, quite simply, incorrigible, state and federal officials Thursday told a group of sport and commercial fishers who have become disgruntled about the pinnipeds’ growing presence in the lower Columbia River and their voracious appetite for salmon and steelhead.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council on Thursday elected Oregon member Melinda Eden to serve as chairman during the coming year.
Swelling numbers of non-native American shad in the Columbia/Snake river mainstem are likely having an impact on salmon, other fish species and the ecosystem generally, but little is known about the magnitude, or even the direction, of that change, according to a U.S. Geological Survey researcher.
This week a diverse group of interests including a trade union and some of the smallest and largest electricity consumers in the Northwest signaled their intent to engage in the lawsuit over how the Columbia River Power System should be run to assist salmon and steelhead.
Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski on Friday, Jan. 7, announced that Oregon has officially notified the federal government of the state’s intent to sue over the 2004 Biological Opinion for the Federal Columbia River Power System.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service today (Jan. 14) released a plan for dispersing two thirds of the world’s largest Caspian tern colony from the mouth of the Columbia River to seven alternate sites in Washington, Oregon and California.
The Fiscal Year 2005 Energy and Water Development Appropriation Act signed by President Bush last month includes for the Army Corps of Engineers’ Portland District about $152 million to fund work in the Columbia, Willamette, Rogue and Cowlitz river basins.
Researchers from the universities of Notre Dame and Wyoming are amidst a two-year study to determine the potential impact on the Columbia River Basin economy if zebra mussels were to infest the region’s waterways.
Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski and Idaho Gov. Dirk Kempthorne both delivered State of the State speeches Monday (Jan. 10) that addressed key Columbia Basin issues.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers this week put its official stamp of approval on a set of coordinated actions that it and other federal agencies say will insure that Federal Columbia River Power System operations “are not likely to jeopardize the continued existence of twelve listed and one proposed anadromous species….”
Rob Walton, NOAA Fisheries assistant regional administrator for salmon recovery, says his agency is stepping up efforts to gain the aid and advice of others in the region toward the goal of completing draft salmon recovery plans in each of six domains by December.
A Columbia Basin Fish and Wildlife Authority member work group has set about the task of “sizing” the ratepayer-funded fish and wildlife program so that it can offer its views on funding needs for the years beyond fiscal 2006.
Fishing and conservation groups on Dec. 30 filed a “supplemental complaint” in federal court asking that NOAA Fisheries be ordered to withdraw its new biological opinion for the Columbia River federal hydropower system.
It’s too early to start worrying about the slow start to the Columbia River Basin’s snow season but lingering El Nino-like signs could dim prospects that snowpack – the region’s major water supply source — will reach normal levels by springtime.
Eleven fishing and conservation groups said this week that the Bonneville Power Administration, U.S. Corps of Engineers and Bureau of Reclamation will be targeted with a lawsuit if the agencies implement their newly developed “Updated Proposed Action” for the operation of 14 Columbia Basin federally hydro projects.
Their shortcomings now addressed, a set of 23 subbasin management plans were approved this week as draft amendments to the Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s Columbia River Basin fish and wildlife program and offered for public comment through Jan. 31.
Northwest Power and Conservation Council and Bonneville Power Administration staff and others are looking at past and potential demands in an attempt to determine Columbia River Fish and Wildlife program funding needs in the future.
Montana Gov.-elect Brian Schweitzer on Wednesday announced the appointment of two Flathead basin residents as the state’s next representatives on the Northwest Power and Conservation Council.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council this week reached a long-sought goal by adopting as amendments to its Columbia River Fish and Wildlife program 23 individual subbasin management plans that will ultimately help the panel identify spending priorities.
Puzzlement was expressed, once again, in public discussions this week regarding the type of project that qualifies as a capital expenditure, and what does not, under Bonneville Power Administration guidelines for the Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s fish and wildlife program.
Water flows downhill and stopping it — as federal irrigation projects do in Idaho’s Upper Snake region — logically causes change for salmon and steelhead downstream in the Columbia/Snake rivers, and affects management of downstream facilities as well.
Some young Snake River fall chinook salmon may be making the best of a dam-caused situation, effectively shifting the timing of their migration to the ocean and thus creating a second distinct life history type within the same fish stock.
Anticipating rain swollen rivers, the Bonneville Power Administration proposed to Columbia River operators that minimum protection flows for lower Columbia River chum salmon be raised by almost half a foot.
NOAA Fisheries this week released detailed responses to comments on the new biological opinion for protected Columbia Basin salmon and steelhead issued Tuesday.
NOAA Fisheries this week released a proposal that would scale back by more than 80 percent — from a previous designation — the amount of in-stream and estuarine habitat it considers “critical” to the conservation of 13 populations of federally protected salmon and steelhead in Washington, Oregon and Idaho.
Columbia River basin residents with a stake in the region’s salmon restoration effort remained at opposite poles regarding the value of a new federal plan to assure that hydrosystem operations do not push fish stocks to extinction.
Federal officials on Tuesday announced a package of Columbia/Snake river hydrosystem operations and off-site fish mitigation actions that they feel will both ward off the extinction of protected salmon and steelhead and parry potential legal thrusts like those that forced a December 2000 strategy to be rewritten.
A relicensing plan for four Lewis River dams that will re-open up to 174 miles of potential Columbia River Basin salmon habitat was signed this week by negotiators representing utilities, tribes, federal and state resource agencies, three counties and environmental groups.
A room full of scientists called together to consider the potential effects on salmon of reduced Columbia River summertime flow augmentation came away with new information, and more questions than answers.
After a turbulent 2003-04 winter when temperature, precipitation and water supply were difficult to predict, the Columbia River Basin will have a near normal water year in 2005, according to a prediction by Kyle Martin, hydrologist at the Columbia River Intertribal Fish Commission.
Attempts to keep the Columbia River Fish and Wildlife Program within a $139 million annual average for the 2003-2006 period are, for now, right on track, according to Bonneville Power Administration officials.
Public hearing testimony across the Columbia River Basin, written comments received to-date and input received in other discussions across the region have largely focused on a broad set of subbasin planning programmatic issues rather than on the specifics of the 29 management plans themselves, according to Northwest Power and Conservation Council staff.
Federal attorneys have asked a U.S. District Court judge to reject a request that Columbia/Snake river hydro projects’ and Upper Snake River irrigation facilities’ operations be evaluated as a single “action” regarding their impacts on protected salmon and steelhead.
The Bonneville Power Administration announced week that it ended fiscal 2004 on Sept. 30 in positive territory despite another year of low water and less-than-projected power and transmission sales revenues.
A group of state, federal and tribal officials that convened occasionally to troubleshoot during the development of 59 Columbia River basin “subbasin plans” was called together again last to offer advice on how and when the fish and wildlife goals of those plans should be implemented.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council and staff continue on their previously announced schedule toward adoption of newly developed subbasin plans while at the same time plumbing regional stakeholders’ for their views on side issues that will affect how those fish and wildlife management strategies will be implemented.
Accepting a charge from Northwest tribes, the American Fisheries Society’s Western Division will ask a team of scientists to investigate whether science properly underpins the policy directives outlined in NOAA Fisheries’ draft 2004 Federal Columbia River Power System biological opinion.
A Seattle-based judge has for the second time in two years blocked planned dredging of a lower Snake River navigation channel and inland ports, saying that the potential for “irreparable” environmental damage outweighs alleged economic harm that would occur if the channel is not cleared of sediment.
The group charged with setting spending priorities for fish passage improvements at federal mainstem hydro projects was asked last week whether they might want to put the Columbia River’s McNary Dam ahead of the Snake’s Little Goose facility for installation of so-called “removable spillway weirs” – a new surface bypass technology.
Ranging from lengthy, detailed critiques to succinct post cards, tens of thousands of comments have poured in regarding agencies’ plans to operate the federal Columbia River hydrosystem while protecting salmon and steelhead stocks listed under the Endangered Species Act.
Greg Delwiche, a 20-year veteran of Columbia River energy and natural resource management, is the new vice president of Environment, Fish and Wildlife of the Bonneville Power Administration, the agency announced this week.
Do El Nino conditions — which tend to tip nature’s scale toward drier, warm winter conditions in much of the Pacific Northwest — exist this year?
That question prompted yes, no and maybe answers Thursday during the 11th annual “What will the winter be like?” gathering of the Oregon Chapter of the American Meteorological Society at Portland’s Oregon Museum of Science and Industry.
On Saturday, October 16, a 130-foot tractor-trailer with
13 axles rolled off highway 243 towards the Wanapum Dam powerhouse with
a brand new turbine shaft on board. At 80 tons, the shaft is the
heaviest piece of Grant County PUD’s new Advanced Turbine.
Two first-draft views on how Columbia Basin Fish and Wildlife Program funding should be allocated in the years beyond fiscal 2006 have emerged — one coming from the Northwest Power and Conservation Council and the other from the Bonneville Power Administration.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council and NOAA Fisheries announced this week that they are sponsoring a symposium to examine how changes in reservoir operations at Libby and Hungry Horse dams in Montana may affect water conditions and fish survival in the mainstem Columbia River below Chief Joseph Dam.
A midsummer request for a budget increase has prompted Northwest Power and Conservation Council members to launch a hunt for efficiencies in the Fish Passage Center’s operations that they hope will help hold the line on an already stretched Fish and Wildlife Program budget.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council on Wednesday voted to release for public review and comment 29 locally produced “subbasin plan” recommendations as draft amendments to the Council’s fish and wildlife program.
Despite the fifth below average water year in a row, the Bonneville Power Administration paid the U.S. Treasury $1.053 billion for fiscal year 2004, just ended Sept. 30.
An Earthwise Knowledge Initiative Publication
