A $1.4 million, 165-acre conservation easement purchase announced this week is intended to safeguard valuable Willamette Valley wetland habitat forever.
A letter signed by over 100 Republican and Democratic legislators this week urges President Bush to revise the administration’s proposed recovery plan for salmon and steelhead in the Columbia and Snake River Basin.
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals this week ruled that the Army Corps of Engineers was not “arbitrary and capricious” when concluding that the “operations” of the four Lower Snake River dams do not contribute to water temperature violations under the Clean Water Act and Washington State water quality laws.
“Species already facing the specter of extinction can ill-afford another cumulative insult,” according to conservation groups asking for a U.S. District Court order to stop planned dredging this winter of the shipping channel in the lower Snake River.
Oregon and Washington managers on Oct. 1 set the terms for what well could be the final Columbia River mainstem tribal and non-Indian commercial fishing outings of the season targeting, primarily, fall chinook and coho salmon.
Federal officials this week released a draft document intended to help the public better understand the “relationship and differences” between actions proposed in NOAA Fisheries’ new draft biological opinion for the federal hydropower system and the 2000 BiOp.
Satellite imagery and floodplain-well monitoring have developed a two-dimensional computer model to measure the impact of shallow groundwater on temperatures in the upper Umatilla River in Eastern Oregon.
A study proposed by the United States Geologic Survey’s Western Fisheries Research Center in Cook, Wash. will test in November the day and night effects of higher flows on chum salmon spawning behavior.
Seventy-six acres of tidal marsh and 115 acres of forest on the lower Columbia River’s Crims Island will be restored to provide better habitat for young salmon, a group of government agencies and conservation groups announced this week.
The first legal shots were fired over the bow of the federal government’s draft Columbia River basin salmon protection plan this week by litigants who forced a reworking of the existing strategy, and by the judge who last year called the prevailing strategy illegal under the Endangered Species Act.
A panel discussion Thursday focused on what might be done in the coming years and decades to maintain that buffer that Columbia River basin salmon populations will inevitably need when “ocean conditions” worsen and creeping global warming brings negative changes to their freshwater home as well.
An economic analysis of the most popular and visible predator control program in the Columbia River Basin found the program to be a cost-effective of salmon recovery tool. In addition, the study provided some ways to improve the program’s effectiveness.
The global average surface temperature has been warming for over a century and the last two years have been two of the warmest on record. And, the warmth will continue, according to climatologists at this week’s Climate and Water Resources Forecasts workshop in Portland.
A Columbia River basin “subbasin” planning effort that began more than two years ago has entered its stretch run with total spending expected to be $13.6 million through the end of the calendar year — $1.6 million less than the $15.2 million originally earmarked by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council and Bonneville Power Administration.
The Environmental Protection Agency has approved limits on pollutants in more than two hundred miles of the Snake River, from the Idaho/Oregon border near Adrian, Oregon to the inflow of the Salmon River.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council this week unveiled its draft Fifth Northwest Power Plan, a blueprint for an adequate, low-cost and low-risk energy future in the wake of the West Coast energy crisis of 2000/2001.
Does the Pacific Northwest have adequate electricity supplies? That depends largely on how much power from new plants is sold here or shipped outside the region, the Bonneville Power Administration’s annual forecast of electricity supply shows.
Addressing the growing Columbia River estuary presence of double-breasted cormorants, and their predation on salmon, would require research, data gathering and painstaking development of a management schemes similar to the process now in midstream for Caspian terns, according to U.S. Army Corps of Engineers officials.
The Idaho Power Company agreed with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to work towards a settlement to resolve how it will ultimately operate its Hells Canyon complex of dams to protect steelhead and salmon in the Snake River.
As conservationists and tribes criticized the draft biological opinion released by NOAA Fisheries this week, states were cautious while awaiting staff reviews and utilities were optimistic that the plan will consider the cost of operations to the Northwest federal hydroelectric system.
Nearly half of the 59 subbasin plans submitted at the end of May are on the fast track for approval as amendments to the Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s Columbia River basin fish and wildlife program in December if a staff-recommended schedule can be achieved.
Federal agencies released draft documents Thursday that officials say will shore up Columbia River basin salmon protection efforts biologically and legally, and do it in a manner that potentially reduces the cost to the federal hydropower system.
NOAA Fisheries’ hints of things to come in its revised Federal Columbia River Power System “biological opinion” left some process watchers heartened by what they believe will be a more economical, sensible approach to salmon recovery while others fear a slackening of salmon protections.
The jury is still out on the 2004 sockeye return to central Idaho’s Stanley Basin, though it is already better than the dismal 2003 run when only three fish managed the 900 miles from the Pacific Ocean up the Columbia, Snake and Salmon rivers.
NOAA Fisheries and federal “action” agencies said Tuesday that fish protection measures — past and future — at Columbia/Snake River dams and “offsite” have removed the stigma that salmon and steelhead listed under the Endangered Species Act are jeopardized by hydrosystem operations.
Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) released this week recorded audio tapes of Enron traders and executives planning to ship “fish kill” power out of California and into other Southwest electricity markets during the West Coast energy crisis in 2000.
Dave Allen, regional director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Pacific Region, this week highlighted the approval of more than $2.2 million in grants to private landowners, conservation organizations and Native American tribes in Oregon, Washington and Idaho for conservation projects to benefit endangered, threatened and at-risk species and other wildlife.
Large numbers of non-native American shad appear to be filling a food niche in the Lower Columbia River that allows aquatic predators to grow faster and, ultimately, take a bigger bite out of salmon populations that fish managers and others are trying to rebuild.
Tribal and non-tribal Columbia River mainstem commercial fishers are hoping that the past few days of changed weather will trigger the spawning urges of fall chinook that have begun to enter the river but have yet to surge upstream en masse.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has ordered the Idaho Power Company to complete 14 additional fish and wildlife studies to supplement its application to relicense the Hells Canyon Complex of dams.
The Montana delegation on Thursday suggested that, in the future, the Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s fish and wildlife program should in some way share the financial risk when costly measures are taken in the federal hydrosystem in response to NPCC requests.
The Columbia Basin Fish and Wildlife Authority’s members voted Thursday to form a committee to “explore the options for reforming the way the (Columbia Basin) fish and wildlife program is implemented.”
Saying the U.S. District Court “abused its discretion” in halting a Columbia River hydrosystem spill reduction plan, federal attorneys have turned to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in hopes of reviving a strategy they say will save electricity ratepayers $1 million per day while actually benefiting the fish the spill is intended to help.
Idaho’s congressional delegation introduced bills in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives in late July that would move forward a $193 million framework agreement signed in May by the Nez Perce Tribe, the state of Idaho and the federal government. The agreement would resolve many of the longstanding water issues of the Snake River Adjudication.
Adjustments the last two weeks to flow and the temperature of the water released from Dworshak Dam successfully cooled the Snake River at Lower Granite Dam during a two-week hot spell.
The Bureau of Reclamation is providing 335,000 acre-feet of water in 2004 for flow augmentation for ESA-listed salmon and steelhead species, says Bureau Regional Director Bill McDonald.
Officials from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers this week laid out a plan to correct the discrepancy it found late last week in the amount of spill it has reported at Bonneville Dam. The discrepancy has resulted in up to 30 percent less water being spilled at the dam than the Corps has reported.
Columbia River tribes gave the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers a passing grade on its ability this year to keep pool fluctuations to a minimum during its five periods of summer treaty fishing.
A U.S. District Court judge on Wednesday approved a preliminary injunction stopping the implementation of a hydrosystem spill reduction plan that federal proponents said could reap as much as a $28 million windfall without harming the salmon and steelhead that spill is intended to help.
An Endangered Species Act review of a small snail that lives in free flowing sections of south central Idaho’s Snake River and a long overdue license for five small hydroelectric projects in the same area were both announced this week, and each impacts the other.
The reaction to Wednesday’s federal court decision blocking a hydrosystem spill reduction plan was, predictably, sharply divided with fishing and conservation groups, as well as Columbia River basin treaty tribes, hailing the ruling and economic interests decrying what appears to be a lost opportunity.
The Grant County Public Utility District has received approval from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to proceed with installation and testing of advanced hydroelectric turbines at Wanapum Dam.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced this week it is conducting a 5-year review of the Bliss Rapids snail (Taylorconcha serpenticola), as required under the Endangered Species Act.
During the past two years, scientists have successfully tapped the chemical reactions from decomposing organic matter on the ocean floor to create fuel cells that can provide low levels of electrical power for many months.
Federal attorneys on Thursday said that fishing and conservation groups have neither a legal nor biological basis for asking that a U.S. District Court stop implementation of hydrosystem spill reduction plan or declare invalid a NOAA Fisheries endorsement of that plan.
NOAA Fisheries rejected last week parts of a river operation proposed by the State of Montana and on Monday, July 19, sent a letter explaining its decision to Northwest Power and Conservation Council Chairwoman Judi Danielson of Idaho.
Representatives of Canadian and American water-use planning agencies met last week in Kimberley, British Columbia to discuss the creation of an international forum on Columbia River water issues.
As promised, a coalition of fishing and environmental groups has asked a federal court to stop a plan that would eliminate August spill at federal hydroelectric projects that is designed to improve passage, and survival, for fall chinook salmon that are listed under the Endangered Species Act.
The state of Oregon and its governor and four Columbia River treaty tribes filed legal papers July 17 in support of fishing and conservation groups’ efforts to stop the planned August elimination of spill as a route of passage for juvenile salmon and steelhead at federal hydroelectric projects.
NOAA Fisheries stepped in early this week to initially work to implement a plan proposed by the state of Montana that calls for stable summer flows below Libby Dam on the Kootenai River and shifting the release of 4,000 cubic feet per second of water from Montana reservoirs from summer into September.
Representatives of the states of Idaho, Montana and Washington on Wednesday overrode the objections of their Oregon peers on the Northwest Power and Conservation Council in putting their stamp of approval on a proposal to alter flow regimes stemming from Montana’s Hungry Horse and Libby dams that are designed to help salmon migrations in the lower Columbia River basin.
Staff members this week told the Northwest Power and Conservation Council that the subbasin plans submitted in May as proposed amendments to its fish and wildlife Program are, for the most part, receiving favorable scientific reviews.
After more than three years in development, the state and the Bonneville
Power Administration are taking comments on a draft plan for purging
non-native fish from 21 alpine lakes in Montana’s South Fork Flathead
drainage.
An agreement among 22 organizations that took 19 months of negotiations will result in the reintroduction of threatened summer steelhead and spring chinook salmon to 226 miles of habitat upstream of the Pelton/Round Butte complex of dams on the Deschutes River.
A U.S. Army Corps of Engineers decision this week to reduce summer spill as a means of fish passage at Columbia/Snake river hydroelectric projects in August is been followed, as promised, by a flurry of legal activity aimed at reversing the decision.
Salmon managers this week twice rejected a three year plan proposed by the State of Montana that calls for steady and lower summer flows below Libby Dam on the Kootenai River and shifting the release of some water from Montana dams from summer into September.
The modified summer spill program proposed by the Bonneville Power Administration and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on June 24 received NOAA Fisheries approval last week in a July 1 findings letter.
The Technical Management Team this week approved summer operations at Dworshak Dam on the North Fork of the Clearwater River that will save 200,000 acre feet of Dworshak’s stored water in order to augment and cool flows at Lower Granite Dam on the Snake River through mid-September.
The Bonneville Power Administration and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers delivered a summer spill plan to NOAA Fisheries Thursday, June 24, that includes a slightly smaller reduction in spill and a $3 million reduction in revenue benefits for BPA’s customers.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on Monday signed off on three “habitat conservation plans” that two Mid-Columbia public utilities say provide the highest level of fish protection ever established for a hydropower system while still providing certainty for continued hydroelectric generation.
Saying that “a reasonable time for agency action is typically counted in weeks or months, not years,” a federal court on Tuesday ordered the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to respond with 45 days to a 1997 petition from conservation groups requesting that the agency consult with NOAA Fisheries on the adverse impacts the Hells Canyon Complex might have on endangered salmon and steelhead.
Claiming the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has illegally denied Endangered Species Act protection for Columbia River and southwestern Washington populations of the coastal cutthroat trout under the Endangered Species Act, conservation groups this week filed a formal 60-day notice of intent to sue the agency.
The number of sea lions and other pinnipeds making the 140-mile journey from Pacific Ocean to the base of Bonneville Dam seems to have leveled off this spring after having more than tripled from 2002 to 2003
That leveling occurred, however, at a high number relative to the past.
Alongside the summer “spill reduction” proposal, another strategy has re-emerged which suggests spilling water at a Federal Columbia River Power System project where that fish passage option has not been offered before.
Federal agencies met with tribes, states and others Monday afternoon (June 14) to get feedback about an amended summer spill proposal that would cut spill for fish passage at Columbia and Snake River dams in July and August by about 39 percent.
Columbia River basin fish and wildlife managers this told the Northwest Power and Conservation Council that they feel they being left on the outside as decisions are made about how to protect and restore those resources.
Columbia River sport and commercial fishers harvested more than 64,000 spring chinook salmon this year – one of the better catches in recent decades — despite the fact that the upriver spawning run did not return in the numbers that fishery officials had anticipated.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council was told this week by its staff that it would take $145 million in spending during fiscal year 2005 to fund fish and wildlife projects and research at levels the panel recommended over the past few years during its provincial review process.
The Bonneville Power Administration and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers unveiled at a press conference Tuesday (June 8) an amended proposal that will cut spill this summer at lower Snake River and Columbia River dams.
A report released this month by the Government Accounting Office (GAO) describes how various laws and treaties interact in federal Northwest fish and wildlife activities.
The judge who last year ordered the federal government to shore up its Columbia River Basin salmon protection plan expressed concern this week that the effort may have strayed from the path set out by the court.
Relief, accomplishment and, in some respects, disbelief were the most common feelings expressed this week as the Northwest Power Planning Council’s subbasin planning process reached an milestone with fish and wildlife action plans flowing in from all corners of the Columbia River Basin.
The Bonneville Power Administration has signed agreements with the region’s investor-owned utilities that the agency says will benefit consumers of electricity throughout the Pacific Northwest.
While saying that precisely hitting spill targets at Columbia River dams is difficult, the Bonneville Power Administration and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said last week they would take steps to improve their ability to provide the full amount of spill at dams in the future.
The Upper Columbia steelhead “evolutionarily significant unit” is proposed for downlisting from endangered to threatened and the Lower Columbia River coho salmon should be given protection under the Endangered Species Act, NOAA Fisheries announced today (May 28).
NOAA Fisheries officials said today they will continue to weigh the risks that hatchery production poses to wild, naturally spawning West Coast salmon and steelhead, but that a proposed new policy does take into account developing science which indicates hatcheries may play a stronger role in the rebuilding of depressed natural stocks listed under the Endangered Species Act.
Tribal gill net fishers targeted the tail end of the 2004 upriver spring chinook salmon run this week in a mainstem fishery approved Tuesday by the Columbia River Compact.
Zebra mussels, invasive species that could harm Washington fish and wildlife and damage hydroelectric dams and public water systems, were discovered this month on a large boat being trailered cross-country by commercial vehicle, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife reported this week.
The Oregon Environmental Quality Commission on Thursday adopted water quality criteria for toxic pollutants that tribes say do not adequately protect people who consume large amounts of fish.
Regional salmon managers at this week’s multi-agency Technical Management Team asked for additional spill at one lower Columbia River dam in compensation for dam operators having coming up short this spring on meeting spill targets at The Dalles and John Day dams.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has spilled oil 33 times since 1999 at nine of its Columbia and Snake river dams, prompting the Washington Department of Ecology this week to issue a warning to the federal agency.
The agency charged with protecting Columbia River basin salmon and steelhead listed under the Endangered Species Act will have more time than originally scheduled to remold its opinion about the effects of federal hydrosystem operations on the fish, according to the judge that last year ruled the prevailing recovery strategy invalid.
Wrestling through numerous legal, biological and social complexities has prolonged the task of assembling a summer hydrosystem spill reduction plan that the region can accept, according the Bonneville Power Administration’s top fish and wildlife official.
When the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers decided last week that it was better to spill excess juvenile salmon at Lower Granite Dam than it was to bypass the fish, the Bonneville Power Administration worked a tradeoff for the spill that made the operation revenue neutral for the power marketing agency.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approved Portland General Electric’s application to surrender the ownership of its Sandy River dams, opening the way to remove the dams by 2008. FERC is charged with licensing hydroelectric dams among its other responsibilities.
The latest estimate of the 2004 return of “upriver” spring chinook salmon to the Columbia River is roughly half what was forecast in preseason, but it is still expected to be the fifth largest in recent decades.
To improve the long-term economic stability of the Bonneville Power Administration and its customers, Northwest Power and Conservation Council recommends that the federal power-marketing agency fundamentally alter the way it sells electricity.
The long awaited amended summer spill proposal from the Bonneville Power Administration was again delayed this week with no date set for the proposal’s release.
The delay is due to the length of time federal agencies are taking to align the expected salmon losses caused by reducing summer spill with offset measures that would fully mitigate for those losses.
Lower than average snow and rainfall two months in a row and declining water supplies bodes poorly for Northwest river flows and salmon this summer.
The Northwest River Forecast Center released last week its May Early Bird forecast that predicts a water supply at The Dalles Dam of 81.6 million acre feet, or 76 percent of normal.
At its meeting next week, the Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s Fish and Wildlife Committee will consider whether the Council should sponsor an Executive Committee made of federal, state and tribal leaders that will oversee the Columbia Basin’s Regional Forum process.
More time should be allowed for the reconstruction of the biological opinion on federally protected Columbia River basin salmon and steelhead, but not nearly as much time as the federal government has requested, according to the plaintiffs in the lawsuit that forced the work.
About 2,000 10- to 12-inch-long white sturgeon will be released in Lake Roosevelt May 12, marking Washington’s first effort to recover declining populations of the largest and oldest freshwater fish in the upper Columbia River.
The Bonneville Power Administration announced this week that Greg Delwiche will immediately assume the role of acting vice president for BPA’s Office of Environment, Fish and Wildlife. Bill Maslen will become director of program policy in that office.
An island in the lower Columbia River estuary that has been used for decades as pastureland will be restored to something close to its original condition, providing new estuary habitat for juvenile salmon and steelhead.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council is asking for public review and comment of a final report by independent scientists that takes a programmatic look at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Anadromous Fish Evaluation Program (AFEP) for fiscal year 2004.
Anglers’ opportunities will be limited for the balance of the season after one week’s sport catch in the Columbia River mainstem witnessed a near doubling of that fishery’s “impact” on the upriver spring chinook salmon run.
About 13 million juvenile chinook salmon and steelhead are being released this spring from 13 Lower Snake River Compensation Plan (LSRCP) hatcheries and ponds in Oregon, Washington and Idaho, says the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Under a proposal announced today (April 16), the Bonneville Power Administration’s costs would decrease while residential and small-farm customers of investor-owned utilities would get certainty about future benefits from the Federal Columbia River Power System.
Attorneys for the state of Oregon and tribal fish managers told a federal judge today (April 16) that they had deep concerns about a federal proposal that makes dams and reservoirs part of the environmental baseline and judges the perils faced by salmon on day-to-day operations alone.
After three more meetings to talk about the issue, the most recent with the higher level Implementation Team (IT) at a Thursday meeting, parties could not agree on what to do and the decision was left to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which has the final responsibility to meet requirements set by the 2000 hydropower system biological opinion.
After being overwhelmed by over 200 comments about its preliminary summer spill proposal, the Bonneville Power Administration and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers put off until April 21 the release of their amended proposal and for one week a regional federal executives meeting previously scheduled for today.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s fish and wildlife program will be boosted by $5 million in both fiscal 2005 and 2006 if a proposed hydrosystem spill reduction plan is implemented.
Scientific opinion is overwhelming that global warming is taking place and that its effects will leave the Columbia River basin’s fish, farmers and hydro producers vulnerable, particularly in late summer, according to a University of Washington, and state of Washington, climatologist.
With a plummeting water supply forecast in the Columbia and Snake river basins, the Bonneville Power Administration proposed Thursday (April 8) to Technical Management Team salmon managers to immediately shut down spring spill at lower Snake River dams.
A change proposed by salmon managers of where total dissolved gas (TDG) levels would be measured could change the amount of water voluntarily spilled at Bonneville Dam.
The head of NOAA Fisheries’ Northwest Salmon Recovery Division balked when asked to detail the proposal Wednesday but acknowledged that his agency might judge the effects of federal hydrosystem operations on salmon from a different vantage point than it has in the past — one that considers the dams and reservoirs a part of the landscape or “environmental baseline.”
Revisions to the Federal Columbia River Power system biological opinion will likely be completed in November, not June 2 as ordered by a federal court, so that a federal collaboration with state and tribal fish managers on related scientific and analytical issues can run its course.
If Washington State issues additional permits for water to be diverted from the Columbia River for farm irrigation, it should do so only under the condition that withdrawals can be stopped if river flows become critically low for endangered and threatened salmon, says a new report from the National Research Council.
A coalition of utility and business interests call the federal proposal to cut back summer hydrosystem spill “a step in the right direction.”
Fishing and conservation groups call it a backward step for ongoing efforts to restore Columbia River salmon stocks.
Federal officials met with state and tribal officials, congressional staff and other Columbia River hydrosystem “stakeholders” Tuesday to explain a proposed test of fish management flexibility that involves shutting off one of the downstream fish passage routes in August, and providing more limited access in July.
The Northwest’s four governors Monday (March 29) sent a series of recommendations to the federal agencies working on a three-year pilot plan for alternative summer spill operations on the Federal Columbia River Power System.
Fish managers continue to advocate a cautious approach while the Bonneville Power Administration would like all-out implementation of turbine operations at McNary Dam that would deviate from those described in a NOAA Fisheries biological opinion regarding the jeopardy posed to protected fish by the federal Columbia River hydrosystem.
“Citizens have the right to challenge governmental decisions that violate the law, and the mere desire of other persons to continue those programs is not a right that can be invoked to foreclose consideration of the challengers,” claims, wrote Portland attorney James Buchal in a memorandum filed Tuesday with the U.S. District Court.
Legal jousting continued last week with the Justice Department asking that a Portland U.S. District Court judge stay one legal challenge to the federal government’s salmon recovery plan until a separate lawsuit completes its first stage.
A decision on whether a federal Columbia River hydrosystem “spill reduction” test will be implemented this summer is due by the third week in April, officials told the Northwest Power and Conservation Council Wednesday.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Fiscal Year 2005 budget, as proposed to Congress by President Bush, includes $194 million for the Corps’ Portland District to fund work in the Rogue, Willamette, Columbia and Cowlitz river basins.
The judge presiding over one legal challenge to the federal Columbia River basin salmon protection plan will remain as magistrate of record in a separate lawsuit that attacks the fish strategy from a different angle.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers expects to make a decision by early April to move ahead with long-delayed plans for dredging lower the lower Snake River navigation channel and inland ports.
The federal Environmental Protection Agency approved in the nick of time new water quality standards submitted to the federal agency in December by the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality.
The water quality rules set new water temperature standards to protect salmon and trout, including some temperatures that are cooler than the state’s previously approved standards and some that allow for warmer water. All are based on scientific data, the two agencies said.
Tribal members, union workers, farmers, environmentalists and others this week used a spotlight provided by Oregon legislators to make impassioned pleas for and against proposals to reduce or eliminate summer spill for salmon in the Columbia-Snake river federal hydrosystem.
Members of an Oregon House subcommittee at times this week seemed incredulous at the estimated costliness of spill employed during July and August at federal Columbia/Snake river hydro projects to provide a third passage option for outmigrating juvenile salmon.
Two draft analyses by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council offer new
views of the region’s future power supply and wholesale power prices.
One analysis indicates that the Northwest has a surplus of electricity that could last through 2008, depending on the impacts of hydroelectric conditions and growth in the demand for power.
The Bonneville Power Administration this week agreed to four days of spill at Bonneville Dam to help a release of juvenile tule fall chinook travel safely past the only dam between the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’ Spring Creek Hatchery and the Columbia River estuary.
A Columbia River Basin fish and wildlife program budget already facing stress is not a likely target for cuts as the Bonneville Power Administration searches for $100 million in savings and/or “revenue enhancements” in fiscal years 2004 and 2005.
Fishing and conservation groups this week began to lay the groundwork for a legal challenge to the federal agencies that operate Columbia River hydroelectric system, and the one that markets its power, should they opt to reduce summer spill or carry out other operations that threaten the survival of protected salmon.
Organizations representing agriculture-employers, utilities, businesses and other Columbia River users have joined hands with the stated goal of forcing more “cost effective” implementation of basin salmon restoration efforts — beginning with the immediate elimination of the summer hydrosystem spill program.
Weighing in on a proposal to reduce or eliminate spilling water during summer months, environmental groups and fish and wildlife agencies — with the notable exception of the State of Montana – said that the analyses of a half-dozen spill options is insufficient and doesn’t support the proposed changes.
Frustrated with an ever-slipping schedule, the Northwest Power and Conservation Council on Wednesday launched a letter to the region’s top federal officials asking for quick action on research proposals designed to test the biological benefit of hydrosystem spill in late summer to facilitate passage for migrating salmon.
Global warming will diminish the amount of water stored as snow in the Western United States by up to 70 percent in the coastal mountains over the next 50 years, according to a new climate change model released last week.
The fiscal year 2004 fish and wildlife program budget is predicted to reach unprecedented levels because of Bonneville Power Administration accounting policies and management, say project sponsors, Northwest Power and Conservation Council staff and at least some Council members.
Fisheries managers at the Technical Management Team meeting this week proposed threshold criteria designed to help TMT make in-season decisions about when attraction spill is needed for wild steelhead at Bonneville Dam and when to turn off nighttime zero flow at lower Snake River dams.
An official request sent Feb. 13 by the states of Oregon and Washington to NOAA Fisheries requests that greater impact or “incidental take” be allowed on protected, wild winter steelhead during the course of commercial fisheries targeting returning hatchery-raised chinook in the lower Columbia River.
The Bonneville Power Administration is about where it expected it would be financially through the first quarter of fiscal year 2004. Even though revenues are slightly down, cost savings are keeping the federal power marketing and transmission organization in the black.
It appears that a pair of lawsuits attacking NOAA Fisheries’ Columbia River salmon protection plan from different directions will continue on separate courses, and potentially with different judges presiding.
Columbia Basin federal dam operators could keep as much as 8 million acre feet (maf) more water in reservoirs in the winter to be used to augment flows in the spring and have more than 3 maf more to augment summer flows to aid salmon in low water years if they changed early-year flood control operations, according to calculations by the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission (CRITFC).
The fifty-four member Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians on Thursday in a consensus passed a resolution in opposition to proposals to reduce or eliminate summer spill at federal hydro projects in the lower Columbia and Snake rivers that is intended to benefit migrating salmon and steelhead.
Washington’s first effort to recover the largest and oldest freshwater fish in the upper Columbia River will get under way Feb.18, when 2,000 white sturgeon are transported from Canada to the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife Columbia Basin Fish Hatchery in Moses Lake.
Fisheries managers were skeptical this week of an analysis provided by federal agencies that look at seven scenarios for summer spill.
The analysis concludes that eliminating spill at Columbia River dams in July and August would reduce adult chinook salmon returns by 19,000 fish, but gain the Bonneville Power Administration as much as $77 million in revenue it now forgoes when it spills water over dams.
Fisheries managers said this week that an analysis that looks at alternatives to summer spill that was completed by the Bonneville Power Administration and the U.S. Corps of Engineers, with technical help from NOAA Fisheries, still needs work.
Aside from a couple adjustments suggested by salmon managers, the System Configuration Team this week endorsed a Corps of Engineers’ plan for cutting back the fiscal year 2004 Columbia River Fish Mitigation Program budget even while adding in $5.8 million to further the Ice Harbor Dam removal spillway weir project.
State, federal and tribal scientists are ready to take the first step in an effort to collaborate in the development of the technical underpinnings for NOAA Fisheries’ next assessment of whether the survival of Columbia Basin salmon and steelhead is threatened by federal hydrosystem operations.
Despite a relatively stormy January across much of the Columbia River basin, the rising snowpack — needed to feed rivers and streams and fill reservoirs — only managed to keep pace with historic averages.
The February “early bird” forecast issued Jan. 30 by the National Weather Service’s Northwest River Forecast Center predicts that runoff from January through July, as measured at The Dalles, will be 102 million acre feet of water or 95 percent of normal.
The Northwest Fisheries Science Center in Seattle has released for comment the first of several draft documents intended to address whether improvements to estuarine and tributary habitats can improve the population status of salmonids listed under the Endangered Species Act.
Following the direction of the Washington and Oregon fish and wildlife commissions, the directors of the states’ fish and wildlife departments Friday (Jan. 30) announced that sport anglers in the Columbia River spring chinook fishery will be allowed 60 percent of the incidental impacts to upriver fish listed under the Endangered Species Act and commercial fishers will get 40 percent.
With the comment period over, a draft Artificial Production Review and Evaluation of some 3000 Columbia River basin programs moves on to a new phase — the development of an issue paper that will likely include recommendations on needed reforms to the system.
Citing the need to capitalize on the good fortune provided by the Pacific Ocean, administration officials say President Bush will purse increased funding in fiscal 2005 for a program that stresses partnerships at the local level to do good works for Columbia River basin salmon habitat.
Judi Danielson, an Idaho member of the Northwest Power and
Conservation Council, has been re-elected chair of the four-state compact.
Melinda Eden, an Oregon member of the Council, was elected vice chair. Both
terms are for one calendar year.
Funding “is a problem, a challenge” but a Corps of Engineers-led initiative to have a “removable spillway weir” operating at the lower Snake River’s Ice Harbor Dam in time for the 2005 spring salmon outmigration remains on track, according to the Corps of Engineers’ Witt Anderson.
The financial windfall could be as high as $77 million and the biological loss as high as an estimated 19,000 Columbia River basin adult fall chinook salmon on average annually if hydrosystem “spill” for fish passage is turned off in July and August, according to analysis released this week.
As the rewrite of the biological opinion on the Federal Columbia River Power System’s impact on salmon and steelhead survival hit its halfway point, the judge that ordered the remand is keeping a careful eye on the success the federal government is having at implementing the current “BiOp.”
A judge told the federal government today (Jan. 16) that, even if it prolongs the process, he wants state and tribal representatives to be allowed more involvement in the processes now under way to build the scientific foundation for a new Federal Columbia River Power System biological opinion.
Portland General Electric will spend up to $9 million to improve anadromous fish passage at its four Clackamas River dams, beginning with the circa 1911 River Mill Dam near Estacada, Ore.
With efforts across the Columbia River basin steamrolling toward a May 28 subbasin plan submittal deadline, participants at the grass-roots level are beginning to wonder about the hereafter — whether they’ll have a role in any customizing of those plans and in the implementation the plans’ fish and wildlife management strategies.
Fearing that it would loose a flood of similar proposals, the Columbia River basin’s Regional Coordinating Group this week chose not to endorse a request from the state of Oregon that the John Day planning group be allowed to stretch the deadline for submittal of its developing subbasin plan to the Northwest Power and Conservation Council.
An independent economic report prepared as a part of Washington’s Columbia River Initiative process says that scenarios in which as much as one million acre feet of additional water would be diverted from the river would have “moderately large negative impacts on hydropower production” but “very large positive impacts on the agricultural economy.”
NOAA Fisheries has released for public comment four preliminary drafts of “Technical Memoranda,” or “white papers” that summarize some of the key science to be used in rewriting the 2000 Biological Opinion for the federal Columbia River hydropower system.
Making sure the Wanapum and Priest Rapids dams do not degrade water
quality in the Columbia River will be the subject of a public hearing on
Grant County Public Utility District’s application to re-license its dams.
Those who want to make sure that fish have all the water they need and those who believe agriculture should be the first priority in any new Washington water resource management strategy got a chance in recent weeks to reinforce their points with the state Department of Ecology.
An aggressive tribal supplementation program, and good timing, has resulted in a burgeoning fall chinook return to the Snake River, where populations teetered for decades on the brink of extinction.
While the extreme winter weather of recent days has produced hand-wringing in many parts of the basin, it and other storms over the past month have produced hope that a plentiful supply of water will be available next spring and summer for farms, hydropower production and fish.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers increased flows at Dworshak Dam, located on the North Fork of the Clearwater River, to about 8,000 cubic feet per second to help power the Northwest during this week’s cold spell that saw temperatures drop to near zero in Western Idaho and eastern Oregon and Washington.
The Portland District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is expected to receive about $186 million of the $4.7 billion national budget for civil works projects included in the Fiscal Year 2004 Energy and Water Development Appropriation Act recently signed by President Bush.
The Corps’ Portland District will use the funds for projects in the Rogue, Willamette, Columbia, and Cowlitz river basins.
NOAA Fisheries issued a report today concluding that, while some significant progress is being made, the three federal agencies charged with carrying out the ten-year Columbia River Basin salmon-recovery program are not fully meeting expectations.
But NOAA officials added that the agencies are capable of timely resolution of the shortcomings.
A federal judge has rebuffed an attempt to bring upper Snake River federal water projects into consideration during a court-ordered re-evaluation of Columbia River federal hydrosystem impacts on salmon and steelhead.
The Bonneville Power Administration would like to see expanded testing next year of the long-held theory that operating hydro turbine near peak efficiency provides the highest survival for juvenile salmon.
A proposal to evaluate the effect on survival of deviating from the “one percent efficiency” rule would expand from a limited test at a few units to across all 14 turbines at McNary Dam.
NOAA Fisheries and the Bonneville Power Administration executives “strongly support” continuing to design the installation of a removable spillway weir (RSW) at Ice Harbor Dam on the lower Snake River.
Commercial troll fishers from Alaska’s southeast coast have gone straight to the top — President George W. Bush — to discourage consideration of any reduction in summer spill at Columbia River federal hydro projects or attempts to further clamp down on fishing opportunities.
Any attempt in 2004 to measure the effect of reducing summertime spill on juvenile salmon survival would likely take place at a project or two, not across the system of Columbia River federal hydroelectric projects, the Northwest Power and Conservation Council was told this week by staff and by the regional chief of the federal agency charged with protecting salmon and steelhead populations.
Columbia-Snake River federal hydrosystem operations next summer aimed at evaluating the impacts of reduced spill on migrating juvenile salmon would not necessarily go counter to the government’s salmon protection strategy if fish losses are “offset” by other measures, according to the regional chief of NOAA Fisheries.
The Idaho Water Users Association this week forwarded to NOAA Fisheries and the Bureau of Reclamation a new scientific paper contending that flow augmentation from Idaho reservoirs provides little benefit for salmon and steelhead, and that the effects of water withdrawals on fish travel time are “small to insignificant.”
A spokesman for wholesale power customers and tribal fish advocates, alternately, asked for the Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s support in the ongoing debate over “spill” levels at federal hydro projects on the Columbia and Snake rivers during the summer season.
A “water transactions” program intended to address mandates from both the Northwest Power Act and Endangered Species Act began opening doors during fiscal 2003 for water rights holders interested in selling or leasing those rights so that the water can be left in-stream to improve conditions for fish and wildlife.
Economists are working on a report that describes the cost-effectiveness of some juvenile passage measures, particularly measures that could eliminate or cut spill, and how cost-effective analyses could be useful for making decisions about fish and wildlife actions in the Columbia River Basin.
Congress is scheduled to vote next week on a massive federal budget
package that includes more than $100 million for Columbia River and
other Pacific salmon recovery programs in the fiscal year 2004, but
final approval may not come until January.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers installed an RSW at Lower Granite Dam in early 2002 to improve fish passage and survival at the dam. Early results showed that both passage and survival improved and that it was accomplished with less spill at the dam. Seeking a lower cost and more effective way to spill water to improve fish survival, the Bonneville Power Administration in October 2002 proposed to SCT to accelerate the installation of RSWs at Ice Harbor and Lower Monumental dams…
The plaintiffs in the lawsuit that has forced the federal government to rethink its Federal Columbia River Power System salmon protection plan continue to press in U.S. District Court for a broader interpretation of that plan’s responsibility.
The document in question is the FCRPS biological opinion, which was issued by NOAA Fisheries late in 2000 but is now under reconstruction as a part of a remand ordered by Judge James A. Redden early this past summer.
At the request of the Bonneville Power Administration, nighttime flows through lower Snake River dams will be allowed to drop to zero in order to refill the reservoirs during times when the demand for electricity is at its lowest. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will initiate the operations for up to six hours tonight during the eight-hour period from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m.
As part of an effort to prepare for the court-ordered revision of the 2000 Biological Opinion for the federal Columbia River hydropower system, the National Marine Fisheries Service has sent a request for information from Tribes and states about non-federal salmon habitat actions that might be included in the new “BiOp.”
Columbia Basin fish and wildlife agencies and Tribes have released the 2002 Comparative Survival Study (CSS) which estimates survival rates for spring/summer chinook – both transported and in-river – from major hatcheries in the Snake River Basin and selected hatcheries from the lower Columbia River.
Recent heavy precipitation in the form of snow in the mountains has Oregon’s current water year off to a good start with the hopes of continued winter weather over the next several months.
Tribes, Oregon and conservation groups gave the Columbia River action agencies a much lower score for their efforts to meet NOAA Fisheries’ 2000 biological opinion for the Federal Columbia River Power System than the agencies claimed for themselves.
The clock has begun ticking on Northwest Power and Conservation Council consideration of the first of an expected 58 subbasin plan submittals — for Idaho’s Clearwater River — as an amendment to its Columbia River basin fish and wildlife plan.
Northwest Power and Conservation Council members this week expressed concern that an effort it instigated — to explore more cost-effective options than current summertime spill operations for moving fish past federal hydro projects — could miss deadlines critical for 2004 implementation.
Final congressional passage of a comprehensive energy bill, including
modified hydroelectric dam relicensing reforms,was blocked on Friday in the Senate.
During this week’s Council meeting at the Coeur d’Alene Resort, special projects manager Bruce Suzumoto presented a perspective on “Recent Trends in Adult Returns to the Columbia Basin” from the view of fish counters at Bonneville, McNary, and Lower Granite dams.
Federal action agencies released a plan this week that outlines how the agencies will implement conservation measures in the NOAA Fisheries and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biological opinions for the Federal Columbia River Power System (FCRPS).
U.S. Justice Department attorneys say, in a Nov. 14 brief, that expanding the scope of the court-ordered Federal Columbia River Power System biological opinion remand to include the upper Snake would be illegal.
Scientists and policymakers converged at the conference Friday (Nov. 14), titled “Salmon Crossroads: Record Runs and New Directions,” where before an audience made up largely of utility representatives, they debated how to interpret the recent favorable salmon return news and what to do next.
The public won’t support salmon recovery programs if they perceive those programs are poorly managed and too expensive, Bonneville Power Administration Administrator Steve Wright told participants at a conference in Portland today.
……
more conference stories here this weekend…
The higher number of chum salmon present and spawning, prompted fisheries managers in a special Technical Management Team (TMT) meeting this week to ask the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Bonneville Power Administration to raise flows at the dam in order to create more spawning habitat for the species.
A new report from the National Academies’ National Research Council says new submersibles — both manned and unmanned — that are more capable than those in the current fleet are needed and would be of great value to the advancement of ocean research.
The Army Corps of Engineers received $85 million in construction
funds for salmon mitigation projects at the eight federal dams on the
Columbia and Snake rivers, the largest Northwest recovery program.
That is the same as this year’s amount but $10 million less than Bush
sought in his FY2004 budget. The program pays for fish screens,
collectors, ladders and passage improvements, including the
downstream migrant juvenile fish bypass at Bonneville Dam.
Subbasin planning participants responded coolly this week to the prospect that they will be asked to redirect some portion of their energies to help NOAA Fisheries shape a new biological opinion regarding operations of the Federal Columbia River Power System.
The BiOp assumes that spill provides the highest passage survival for juveniles through the federal hydroelectric system, but some believe that spill can be reduced and the lower survival of migrants can be compensated with offset measures, such as predator control or changes in operations at dams.
Despite the presence of the chum salmon, listed under the Endangered Species Act as threatened, the Technical Management Team this week agreed to change operations at the dam only if the change doesn’t impact the amount of water stored in Lake Roosevelt, backed up behind Grand Coulee Dam, and if it continues to give the Bonneville Power Administration the flexibility it needs at the dam to move water at critical times.
With information in hand that using fish passage data could extend summer spill beyond August 31 in eight out of 13 years, and into October in one of 13 years, the multi-agency Implementation Team decided today to ask top-ranking regional federal executives whether it should continue its investigation into developing new criteria for ending summer spill.
The new draft document would modify the existing basin plans by listing specific management policies, objectives and actions for managing anadromous summer steelhead, spring chinook, sockeye salmon and pacific lamprey, and resident bull trout upstream from the Pelton-Round Butte Hydroelectric Project. Currently, only bull trout are present upstream of the project.
A $50 million remodeling project at Bonneville Dam’s second powerhouse is expected to draw more migrating juvenile salmon and steelhead away from hydro turbines and deliver them to a safer place in the Columbia River below.
Construction is all but complete on the modification of the powerhouse’s trash and ice chute, which has long been a preferred route past the dam.
A new large-scale, multidisciplinary ocean exploration program would increase the pace of discovery of new species, ecosystems, energy sources, seafloor features, pharmaceutical products, and artifacts, as well as improve understanding of the role oceans play in climate change, says a new congressionally mandated report from the National Academies’ National Research Council.
“The new studies recommend winter flows that would more closely follow normal hydrologic conditions, while also keeping flows constant before spring snowmelt increases river flows,” said Chris Jansen-Lute, Reclamation Natural Resource Specialist. “This may depart from prior research which focused on establishing minimum flows, but research indicates higher flows late in the spring, when natural flows are increased by melting snow, benefit native cutthroat trout habitat.”
Reclamation is conducting a Yakima River Basin Water Storage Feasibility Study of options for additional water storage to benefit the Yakima River Basin. This study was authorized by Congress in February of this year. The authorization instructed Reclamation to place emphasis on the feasibility of storage of Columbia River water in the potential Black Rock Reservoir.
Congress has agreed to spend $11 million in FY2004 to improve stream
passage on federal lands for migrating salmon and other fish in the
Pacific Northwest.
A project to evaluate the damage being done by these so-called “ghosts nets,” and recover them, was cited in a recent Federal Caucus mailing as one of the hundreds of steps that have been taken since late 2000 to improve the survival of salmon and steelhead stocks listed under the Endangered Species Act.
A collection of weather experts this week offered a mixed bag of forecasts for coming months in a Northwest region heavily dependent on the rainy/snowy season to recharge a river system that provides such benefits as hydro generation, irrigation, navigation and flows for fish.
A draft plan that sets out an approach on how research in the lower Columbia River estuary and its plume should proceed is in the peer review process and is nearing its implementation date in February 2004.
An operation at Bonneville Dam designed to provide spawning habitat for lower Columbia River chum salmon, a threatened species under the federal Endangered Species Act, will begin Monday, Nov. 3, but at a lower level than requested by fisheries managers at this week’s Technical Management Team meeting.
The Fish Passage Center indicated this week that changing the basis of ending spill at Snake and Columbia River dams from the planning date of Aug. 31 — contained in the NOAA Fisheries biological opinion — to fish passage data may not always lead to spill ending in August.
It’s seven months and counting down until dozens of subbasin plans — intended to be the essence of a regional Columbia Basin Fish and Wildlife program — fall into the laps of the Northwest Power and Conservation Council, its staff, the Independent Scientific Review Panel and the public.
A one-year operating plan for federal dams was completed this week by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Technical Management Team — as required by NOAA Fisheries and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 2000 biological opinions.
The adult return of endangered Snake River sockeye salmon to Idaho remains a trickle, defying the upward trend witnessed for most other Columbia River Basin salmon and steelhead stock in recent years.
Columbia/Snake river mainstem sport reward fishing season for northern pikeminnow ended Oct. 12 with anglers cashing in $1 million worth of vouchers for doing what researchers say is a job well done.
The head of the has urged senators to pass legislation allowing Bureau of Reclamation the agency to fund and construct fish screens and passage improvements at non-federal irrigation facilities in Oregon and Washington state to aid salmon recovery.
The Independent Scientific Review Panel completed the first leg of its mission to review the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ research program that guides salmon and steelhead survival improvement efforts in federal Columbia/Snake mainstem hydrosystem.
Columbia Basin Fish and Wildlife Program spending in September reached unprecedented levels as project sponsors, apparently, made an 11th hour rush to get budgeted fiscal 2003 work done, and billed, to the Bonneville Power Administration.
The month ahead will be used to evaluate the technical and financial feasibility of a set of Columbia-Snake hydrosystem summer spill study alternatives that are being developed at the request of the Northwest Power and Conservation Council.
More than 100 members of Congress are urging the Bush administration to study the option of Snake River dam removal before adopting a new Columbia Basin salmon recovery plan.
A draft report released for public comment this week by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council describes in broad terms strengths and weaknesses of a Columbia River basin hatchery network developed over the past century, and suggests it is time for some changes.
Negotiations focused on steelhead recovery among two Mid-Columbia public utility districts, area tribes and the state of Washington have resulted in an unusual agreement that meshes hatchery and harvest management, as well as recovery monitoring and evaluation, on the upper Columbia River.
A long-anticipated 2003 “check-in” report describes methodical progress toward implementation of the 10-year federal Columbia river salmon and steelhead recovery strategy — and meteoric, relatively, improvements in the status of the stocks in question.
The Columbia-Snake River Irrigators Association and the Eastern Oregon Irrigators Association filed a lawsuit Tuesday against NOAA Fisheries, demanding changes to what the irrigators call “misleading and absurd standards” for the federal agency’s salmon recovery planning.
Two sets of special interest groups that are normally at total loggerheads found enough to talk about Saturday that they plan to meet again, with Idaho Sen. Mike Crapo as facilitator, to discuss the allocation of Upper Snake River basin water for farms and for fish.
Almost two-thirds of the shallow water habitat in the lower Columbia River once available for rearing juvenile salmon and steelhead is gone and the culprits are dikes and dams, according to a new report by researchers at the Oregon Health & Science University.
The city of Vancouver, Wash., on Sept. 26 denied a landowner the permit necessary to remove trees from his property, reasoning that the loss of cover could result in the degradation of one of the few known spawning areas for threatened Columbia River chum salmon.
A powerhouse at Willamette Falls south of Portland once owned by Blue Heron Paper Company and sold in late August to Portland General Electric will be shut down in 2005.
Federal agencies’ lack of progress in sorting out conflicting mandates,
and a meddlesome Clinton Administration, have brought into question
the
agencies’ ability to make sound salmon recovery decisions, according
to
Northwest members of the U.S. House of Representatives Resources
committee.
A committee oversight hearing held Thursday in Pasco, Wash., to hear
testimony on “practical and incremental steps that can be taken over
the
near-term to recover endangered salmon” turned at …
Wide ranging suggestions on the near-term direction of Columbia Basin
salmon recovery efforts were offered Thursday by witnesses called to
testify at a U.S. House of Representatives Resources Committee hearing
in Pasco. All but a few said dam breaching should be dropped from
consideration.
Meanwhile, the federal agency at the front in efforts to address
Endangered Species Act issues is expected to prescribe an approach
that
withholds a breaching decision while it weighs aggressive …
The Northwest can neither morally or legally allow salmon to go extinct.
This is one of the most difficult challenges facing the region and
the
region will be remembered for how well it does.
This is one of the conclusions Lori Bodi, senior policy advisor for
fish
and wildlife at the Bonneville Power Administration, offered to a
gathering of lawyers, students and salmon policy people at this week’s
Northwest Water Law & Policy Project fifth annual conference in
Portland.
The …
Local forest planners are looking for the devil in the detail of a
restoration plan that covers 62 million acres of federal lands in the
Columbia Basin.
But some who got a taste of the Interior Columbia Basin Ecosystem
Management Project last week think they’ve already found the devil,
and
it’s not necessarily in the detail.
“One of the big concerns is all the overlapping of all these issues
and
initiatives,” said Chuck Samuelson of Montanans for Multiple Use. “I
don’t know how they’re
If a collaboratively developed subbasin assessment template is to answer
the needs of all involved in Columbia Basin fish and wildlife recovery,
it will have to stand broader scrutiny than has so far been prescribed,
or funded.
“We do feel strongly that the use of three analytical tools is essential
to provide planners” with the necessary assessment information for
both
Endangered Species Act recovery planning and hydrosystem mitigation
responsibilities, according to Dr. Robert Bilby …
Two Northwest Republican senators
this week said they suspect the delay
of federal agencies’ recommendation
for modifying or removing lower
Snake River dams to improve salmon
recovery is aimed at helping Vice
President Al Gore’s presidential
campaign.
Army Corps of Engineers Brig.
Gen. Carl Strock said the agency recently
granted a 30-day extension of
the public comment period on its final
environmental impact, which had
been scheduled for completion in
October. The extension …
— Spring Chinook Count At Bonneville Stays High
The tally of adult spring chinook at Bonneville Dam is the largest in
more than 20 years for this date. The high fish counts could add up
to
one of the best years for Columbia River spring salmon since the strong
returns of the 1970s, says a Bonneville Power Administration press
release.
Scientists say Mother Nature has cooled down parts of the Pacific Ocean
where these fish mature, increasing the odds of survival for the fish.
An …
A proposed federal land management
plan for roughly 63 million acres in
Idaho, Oregon, Montana and Washington
is intended to leave a lighter
footprint both on the land and
on the resource-based economies within
that territory.
The Interior Columbia Basin Supplemental
Draft Environmental Impact
Statement released for public
review last week brings focus to a
“preferred alternative” during
a 90-day public comment period.
“Of the three alternatives presented,
Alternative S2 was …
F&G URGES BREACHING RECOMMENDATION
Alaskan fisheries officials,
and the state’s governor, say that
breaching four lower Snake River
dams must be “part of the solution” if
the federal government is to
properly meet its Endangered Species Act
obligations to recover listed
fish.
In comments on the Corps of Engineers
draft Lower Snake River Juvenile
Salmon migration feasibility
study and environmental impact statement,
the Alaska Department of Fish
and Game commissioner’s …
Preparing for the future when
steelhead and salmon could again spawn
upstream from a series of dams
on the Deschutes River in Central Oregon,
Portland General Electric contributed
$800,000 to protect property it
considers potentially prime summer
steelhead spawning habitat.
The PGE pledge will go to the
Deschutes Basin Land Trust, which will buy
and manage about 145 acres of
property along Squaw Creek, near Sisters,
known as Camp Polk Meadow. Protecting
a little more than a mile …
If wind turbines, other renewable
energy resources and conservation were
used to replace the lost power
from four hydroelectric dams on the lower
Snake River, the cost to consumers
would be about the same, but spew far
less carbon than building more
fossil fuel power plants, according to a
recent report released by conservation
organizations.
A report by the NW Energy Coalition
and the Natural Resources Defense
Council took issue with a December
1999 report by the U.S. Army …
The region’s fish and wildlife
managers spent Wednesday weighing their
options for influencing a Columbia
Basin fish and wildlife program
amendment process that has begun
to pick up speed and add layers of
complexity.
During a meeting in Portland,
Columbia Basin Fish and Wildlife Authority
members worked to fine-tune a
planned recommendation for Phase I of the
Northwest Power Planning Council’s
process for amending its regional
fish and wildlife recovery program.
They also pondered
The National Marine Fisheries
Service and the Columbia River operating
agencies agreed Thursday on a
spill plan for federal Columbia River and
lower Snake River dams. The agreement
was drawn up between NMFS, the
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers,
the Bonneville Power Administration and
the Bureau of Reclamation and
will go into effect immediately.
The agreement determines the
amount and timing of spill for the next
couple of years and will be included
in NMFS’ 2000 biological …
As the federal agency charged
with protecting salmon and steelhead
species listed under the Endangered
Species Act, the National Marine
Fisheries Service is involved
in a number of processes aimed at both
ensuring survival and promoting
recovery of the species.
Many of those efforts are directed
at the Columbia Basin, where the
number of listed species has
swelled to 12. Newly appointed NMFS
Columbia Basin coordinator Ric
Ilgenfritz has as his task coordinating
those efforts, …
Federal scientists conclude that drastic action must be taken soon to
head off extinction for Columbia Basin salmon runs in the worst shape,
and decision-makers must take that plunge without the certainty that
those actions will work.
During a March 29 workshop co-sponsored by National Marine Fisheries
Service, scientists stressed that the peril faced by certain salmon
and
steelhead populations demand immediate action — action that cannot
be
delayed until numerous biological …
The Bonneville Power Administration’s top official admitted Tuesday
that
ESA-spawned mandates may increase immediate Columbia Basin fish and
wildlife program needs, but she showed a reluctance to juggle funds
from
one account to another to answer those needs.
In a discussion with the Northwest Power Planning Council, BPA
administrator Judi Johansen noted a growing debate “about the so-called
$180 million” that was budgeted, but so far has not been spent, to
repay
Treasury loans for …
year in negotiations among state and federal agencies, the Yakama Indian
Nation, and several conservation and sportsmen’s groups.
The September agreement is intended to allow the power company to
continue operations for the next seven years to generate funds to offset
dam removal costs, which are not to exceed $17.15 million. Condit
provides 14 megawatts of electricity, enough to serve about 13,000
customers, according to PacifiCorp.
As FERC moves toward a decision, numerous local …
Those not involved in crafting a negotiated settlement calling for the
removal of southwest Washington’s Condit Dam would like to have their
say before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission passes judgment
on
the proposal.
FERC is now considering a request from PacifiCorp, the hydropower
project’s owner-operator, to extend the term of its license through
Oct.
Federal fisheries and land management agencies have too much power to
delay and dictate conditions for re-licensing hydropower projects,
Northwest and other utilities have told congressional committees.
House and Senate bills to streamline the Federal Energy Regulatory
Commission’s re-licensing process were supported by Portland-based
PacifiCorp, American Public Power Association, and others at a hearing
on March 30 by the House Energy and Power Subcommittee. But the
legislation was …
With federal Columbia Basin salmon recovery decisions looming, the
four-state Northwest Power Planning Council plans to submit testimony
asking for congressional appropriations that are sufficient funding
to
carry out past and potential federal fish and wildlife related mandates.
The Council’s funding recommendations for federal fish and wildlife
recovery activities mirror in many instances the Clinton
Administration’s budget requests for fiscal year 2001. In other cases
it
says the …
the
policies.
The requested new $1 million budget line items should be used for
completion of Hatchery Genetic Management Plans and monitoring and
activities consistent with the APR recommendations, according to the
Council testimony.
The Council also asks that the Mitchell Act hatchery program funding
be
increased from the Administration’s 2001 request of $15.2 million to
$16.307 million. The administration request targets $11.4 million for
hatchery operations, $3.365 million for …
As the first spill of the juvenile salmon outmigration season began
in
early April at Lower Snake dams, the National Marine Fisheries Service
and federal operating agencies are considering spill changes at other
dams in the Columbia River hydroelectric system.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began spill to aid juvenile fish
passage April 4 at Ice Harbor and Lower Monumental dams on the lower
Snake River, Cindy Henriksen of the Corps told the multi-agency
Implementation Team this …
Members of the Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs voted last week
by a large margin to pursue joint-ownership of the Pelton-Round Butte
hydroelectric project now owned solely by Portland General Electric.
Tribal members voted 753 to 127 in a referendum vote to spend as much
as
$90 million to gradually buy a percentage of two dams and to share
in
the hydroelectric project operations. The arrangement settles a
long-standing dispute between PGE and the Warm Springs Tribes …
The Columbia Basin fish and wildlife program amendment process took
on a
new turn this week with a Northwest Power Planning Council decision
to
foster calls for “high priority” projects that could win approval as
early as next fall.
The Council shifted gears Wednesday by responding to a “gathering
regional interest in identifying, funding and implementing a package
of
high priority habitat and other fish and wildlife actions on a faster
time scale,” according to a draft letter …
the turbines and into the tailrace.
The balloons bobbed the fish to the surface so that they could be easily
retrieved by the researchers. Each radio-tagged fish had its own
frequency so researchers could determine when and where they were
released into the turbines.
Video cameras down in the turbines verified that the fish were
delivered, by special pipes, to the three separate points on the
turbine.
Analysis of the results showed that that fish passing through the MGR
turbine had half
to roads/wo_caet-slc@fs.fed.us.
In a separate but related effort, the Forest Service is carrying out
the
President’s request to conduct an environmental impact statement (EIS)
and to determine how the public wants the agency to manage roadless
areas on national forests. The Draft EIS will be released this spring
for additional public comment. For more information on the proposed
road
management policy, go towww.fs.fed.us/news/roads.
— Smith Says Drop 4(d) Rule
Oregon Sen. …
An Earthwise Knowledge Initiative Publication
