Hard work, experimentation and compromise were the words uttered most often Thursday as the Northwest Power and Conservation Council caught its collective breath, and approved unanimously amendments to the Columbia/Snake river mainstem portion of its fish and wildlife program.
The Bonneville Power Administration is refinancing as much of its high interest U.S. Treasury debt as possible now, when market interest rates are low, and prepaying its higher cost federal debt.
Such moves, the agency said, will lower its debt payments and enhance its ability to borrow money in the future.
A provision of the NOAA Fisheries 2000 biological opinion calls for the Bureau of Reclamation to begin implementing habitat projects, such as providing screens at irrigation diversions, but the agency must get congressional authorization before it can begin the work. That authorization could also bring with it additional money to address Northwest fish and wildlife issues.
Columbia River Basin power and fish managers decided Thursday that spill at hydroelectric projects as well as transportation of juvenile salmon around dams would begin dams this week.
The public record has closed, but deliberations go on as the Northwest Power Planning and Conservation Council tries to settle on its vision of how it would like federal agencies to operate the federal Columbia/Snake river hydrosystem for the best benefit of fish and wildlife.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council last week approved the work strategy for development of a Yakima fish and wildlife subbasin plan that could cost as much as $336,795.
Pressured by biological opinion deadlines, the Bonneville Power Administration and its federal partners are pushing for speedy funding and scientific decisions that, to the distress of others involved, go outside the normal process for choosing Columbia River Basin fish and wildlife projects.
Northwest Power and Conservation Council members on Wednesday postponed action on “mainstem” amendments to its fish and wildlife program, hoping to forge in the next two weeks enough agreement on water management and other issues to win the needed supermajority for passage.
Donald Sampson is leaving his position as executive director for the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission for a similar position on the Umatilla Indian Reservation in Eastern Oregon.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service declined this week to list burbot, a species of freshwater cod located in the Kootenai River in Idaho, as endangered under the federal Endangered Species Act.
But work by a coalition of parties to develop a conservation agreement for the species will continue and that may result in better circumstances for the species than if it were listed.
The issue of whether the Bonneville Power Administration is willing, and able, to borrow money to fund the acquisition of fish and wildlife habitat became more pointed this week with project sponsors urging a policy shift so the agency can follow through with prior commitments.
A final tally of data from last spring’s initial test of a “removable spillway weir” at the Snake River’s Lower Granite Dam shows that the device attracts young salmon and steelhead better, is more efficient in its use of water and sends the juvenile on their way faster than other means of passage, including spill.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council is expected next week to decide whether or not to approve amendments for the Columbia River mainstem portion of its fish and wildlife program.
The Council meets Tuesday and Wednesday, March 11-12, in Whitefish, Mont.
Members of Congress from four states served by the Bonneville Power Administration have asked the White House budget office to retract its criticism of the low-cost energy supplier.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council this week is to offer its recommendations — with caveats — for balancing a fiscal year 2003 budget that the Bonneville Power Administration estimated in December would spend $40 million more than the federal agency can afford.
An early draft of the spring and summer update for the Technical Management Team’s 2003 Water Management Plan is predicting water conditions that could preclude spill and order maximum transportation for smolts at lower Snake River dams this spring.
A report released last week says that Columbia/Snake river managers would be wise to test river management techniques other than flow augmentation as a means to improve in-river survival of, particularly, Snake River fall chinook salmon.
A longstanding assumption that the more efficient a hydroelectric turbine is run, the higher the survival for juvenile salmon that pass through the churning action of the turbine was challenged this week by Dr. John Skalski of the School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences at the University of Washington.
Intensive number crunching and a reliance on the capitalization of planned land acquisitions would push Columbia Basin fish and wildlife expenses under a $139 million spending limit without the need for large-scale project terminations, according to a proposal developed by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council staff.
The Independent Science Advisory Board says “a different perspective emerged” from its latest review of one of the Columbia River basin’s most frequently debated topics — the effect of flows on salmon and steelhead survival.
Three Northwest Indian tribes filed notices today (Feb. 14) with the Pollution Control Hearings Board of Washington that challenge water rights permits issued in January by the Washington Department of Ecology.
Congress has finally passed an annual spending bill to fund most departments of government for this fiscal year, which began Oct. 1.
The catchall appropriations bill for FY2003 includes a $700 million increase in the Bonneville Power Administration’s borrowing authority as well as funding for numerous salmon recovery programs that were sought by Northwest members of Congress.
The Bonneville Power Administration announced today that, due primarily to poor water conditions and lower-than-expected secondary (surplus power) revenues, it expects to raise wholesale power rates for utilities and large industrial customers.
The days are getting longer, but the time is getting shorter for the mountains that ring the Columbia River basin to accumulate enough snowpack to please hydropower producers, farmers and fish managers.
Criticism of the Bonneville Power Administration by the White House’s budget office this week raised fears in the Northwest congressional delegation about possible moves to sell off the federal electricity wholesaler.
President George W. Bush in his budget for fiscal year 2004 is asking Congress for less spending by federal agencies on Columbia Basin salmon recovery than he requested last year.
Last year, Bush requested a total of $506 million for FY03, but a catchall spending bill now moving through Congress would cut that by more than $50 million
A closer look at the data from a Jan. 16 test at Bonneville Dam showed that lowering the tailwater elevation below 11.5 feet could potentially put as many as 20 percent of the lower Columbia River chum redds in the Ives Island area below the dam at risk, far more than the previous estimate of 2 percent.
The process to squeeze the Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s fish and wildlife program under a $139 million budget cap lurched forward this week with thorny policy issues and ever-changing ledger sheet continuing to complicate things.
Tribal officials and other Columbia River basin fish and wildlife officials on Monday again stated the case that their programs are already under-funded and are inappropriately being targeted for budget cuts as a remedy for the Bonneville Power Administration’s financial missteps.
The Senate has approved an additional $700 million line of credit for the Bonneville Power Administration, mainly to finance new electricity transmission lines and improvements.
Fishery officials, as well as those who catch salmon, steelhead and other species, have stressed this week that the money and effort spent to revive Columbia River basin fish stocks is a wise investment.
And Mother Nature has given that theory validity, according to a panel assembled Wednesday to address the fish and wildlife managers that make up the Columbia Basin Fish and Wildlife Authority’s membership.
Federal, state and tribal managers are mulling their options this week, saying a proposed lopping of Columbia Basin fish and wildlife project funding is inequitable and that certain steps could and should be taken to avoid the cutbacks.
Under pressure to reduce the amount of water needed for chum operations, Technical Management Team fisheries managers may decide this afternoon to de-water a small portion of chum redds downstream from Bonneville Dam.
Saying it doesn’t have enough information to judge the task at hand, the Northwest Power and Conservation Council this week delayed a decision about how it would pare back its fish and wildlife program to fit under a $139 million cap.
Supporters and opponents of proposed revisions to the Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s mainstem fish and wildlife program both claimed Tuesday to have law, science and the best interests of the region on their side
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council corrected this week a mistake to its December calculations of the Federal Columbia River Power System’s loss of load probability (LOLP), saying that there is little to worry about this year and through 2006.
LOLP is a measurement of the likelihood that the regional power system would fail during January through March to meet all power loads and would have to curtail usage.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council on Thursday elected Idaho member Judi Danielson to serve as chairman of the four-state panel during 2003.
The Council also voted in Washington’s Tom Karier as vice chairman. Both were elected unanimously.
A stormy late-December and early January helped pull Columbia River Basin snowpack totals up, but much work remains if Mother Nature is to bank the amount of moisture needed to satisfy the desires of hydro generators, agricultural interests and fish managers.
The Idaho Department of Fish and Game plans to launch within the next few weeks a rare commercial fishing season on a game fish — lake trout — in an attempt to prevent the total collapse of Lake Pend Oreille’s kokanee population.
Economists this week responded to U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service criticisms that said their economic review of a sample of Northwest hatcheries was based on inadequate data and that comparisons should not have been made between hatcheries with differing management objectives and using different data periods.
Tough choices are ahead for the Northwest Power Planning Council which on Thursday agreed to lead a process to cut, defer or reduce the scope of some $40 million worth of fish and wildlife work that the panel had earlier recommended, or was expected to recommend, for funding.
The Northwest Power Planning Council on Thursday moved an experimental lower Columbia River selective spring chinook harvest proposal to the front of the funding line so the project can be implemented in February.
A review of the available science surrounding salmon survival and the impacts of hydropower resources as well as municipal and irrigation water diversions in the Columbia River Basin in Washington begins in February.
The National Academy of Sciences’ National Research Council appointed 13 scientists to complete the review and report their findings to the Washington Department of Ecology.
An early forecast of the Columbia River Basin water supply for the coming year is far below normal and, if precipitation and snow accumulations don’t improve, January through July 2003 could prove to be the fifth lowest water year on record.
The 2003 return of upriver spring chinook salmon to the Columbia River basin may not match counts of the previous two years, but officials say the return should still afford plenty of fishing opportunities up and down the river.
A tidal wave of invoices expected during fiscal year 2003 has the potential to push spending in the Northwest Power Planning Council’s fish and wildlife program some $41 million, at minimum, beyond the $139 million cap set by the program’s funding agency, the Bonneville Power Administration.
Those testifying Tuesday evening attempted to pull Northwest Power Planning Council members in opposite directions — some saying the panel’s draft mainstem amendment follows a proper biological and economic course and others saying it ignores both legal and scientific bounds.
A Seattle-based U.S. District Court judge on Thursday issued a preliminary injunction prohibiting navigation channel dredging on the lower Snake River that was scheduled to begin on Dec. 15.
Both sides in the lawsuit agree that the injunction effectively scuttles dredging for the season.
Nearly every utility, power supplier, environmental group and government agency has an idea about the role the Bonneville Power Administration should play in the Northwest’s power future.
This week, the Northwest Power Planning Council took all the comments it had heard during almost four months of public input and put together its own views.
The tally of 474,000 adult fall chinook at Bonneville Dam during the summer and fall of this year is the highest since counting began in 1938, and figures to be one of the higher overall returns to the Columbia River in more than a half century.
With nearly 40,000 jacks counted at Bonneville as well, the total upriver fall chinook count swells to 514,000, also the best count on record. Jacks are smaller salmon that return to freshwater after only a year in saltwater.
The tally of 474,000 adult fall chinook at Bonneville Dam during the summer and fall of this year is the highest since counting began in 1938, and figures to be one of the higher overall returns to the Columbia River in more than a half century.
With nearly 40,000 jacks counted at Bonneville as well, the total upriver fall chinook count swells to 514,000, also the best count on record. Jacks are smaller salmon that return to freshwater after only a year in saltwater.
Frustrations flowed freely over federal dam operations in Montana at a Northwest Power Planning Council hearing in Kalispell this week.
About 20 people, many representing larger groups, generally testified in support of policy changes that are expected to improve habitat conditions for resident fish while still providing water for salmon in the lower Columbia River system.
Sightings of ocean-roving pinnipeds such as California sea lions have for decades been reported by fishers and others as far upstream as Bonneville Dam — more than 140 river miles from the Pacific Ocean.
But their presence seems more in evidence below the dam in recent years, intercepting adult salmon as they approach fish ladders that get them past that first hydrosystem hurdle on the Columbia River.
The Bonneville Power Administration’s top official announced today that the agency will not, at least for now, pursue a rate increase as a remedy for a growing budget deficit but instead continue to scour its own activities and the programs it funds for $500 million in cost savings over the next four years.
Average temperatures will increase and snowpack in the Cascade Mountains will decline by up to 50 percent by mid-century, causing decreased summer and autumn stream flows in the Columbia River Basin, according to a draft report sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy that will appear in the next edition of the journal Climatic Change.
Survival estimates for yearling chinook salmon and juvenile steelhead migrating in-river through the Columbia-Snake River hydrosystem rebounded this year from the precipitously low levels estimated during last year’s drought.
But trouble spots remain, particularly for steelhead, whose in-river survival rate has charted a steady decline, according to estimates compiled by National Marine Fisheries Service scientists in an ongoing study that began in 1993.
The Northwest Power Planning Council is expected this week to offer its recommendations on how, in the post-2006 era, the Bonneville Power Administration should distribute power generated in the federal hydrosystem.
The rhetoric flared Wednesday in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, along with promises to produce substantive scientific arguments, in what was the first of several public hearings scheduled to take comment of the Northwest Power Planning Council’s draft “mainstem” amendment to its Columbia Basin fish and wildlife program.
Only five members of the public spoke during the Wednesday session.
The face of Oregon’s Northwest Power Planning Council delegation is rapidly changing with the state’s former Senate president, Republican Gene Derfler, on Nov. 8 taking the seat that has been held by John Brogoitti.
The second of two Oregon spots on the NWPPC will shift from Eric Bloch to Melinda Eden on Jan. 1. Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber made the appointments last week.
The potential impacts to Columbia River Basin power generation from proposed changes to mainstem hydro fish operations are quantifiable based on historic averages, though year to year fluctuations in water supply and energy market prices can greatly affect costs and revenues.
The Northwest Power Planning Council draft mainstem amendments are getting praise in Montana, where they’re regarded as a policy step toward ending a long-standing conflict over federal dam operations in northwest Montana.
The Council’s proposed amendments to its fish and wildlife program could, among other things, alter dam operations to benefit Montana fisheries while still delivering water for migrating salmon in the lower Columbia River Basin.
Expect average weather this winter, although its intensity and when Northwesterners will see snow at low elevations varies by weatherman.
While giving luck its due in predicting weather, six meteorologists and climatologists forecasted winter weather in front of nearly a hundred people in Portland Oct 25.
A federal judge has denied an injunction request that would have scuttled a planned six-year evaluation of the egg-to-fry survival of kokanee salmon in northern Idaho’s Lake Pend Oreille.
The study is intended to further test the findings of an Idaho Department of Fish and Game study indicating that kokanee fry survival is greater when the lake is held at a higher winter level (2,055 feet above sea level) than levels maintained for the most part since the 1970s (2,051).
Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber, Portland General Electric, along with 21 government agencies, conservation groups and fishing groups, signed a long awaited agreement Oct. 24 to remove two dams in the Sandy River watershed, and to donate the dams’ water rights to public uses and 1,500 acres of PGE property to a public land trust.
Fishery officials, as well as those who catch salmon, steelhead and other species, have stressed this week that the money and effort spent to revive Columbia River basin fish stocks is a wise investment.
Coastal commercial fishermen and business people marched inland last week to vouch for the economic benefits received from a terminal fishery project funded through the Northwest Power Planning Council.
A draft amendment to the Northwest Power Planning Council fish and wildlife program approved Thursday would break the prescribed Columbia Basin federal hydrosystem operational mold by — among other measures — sending more water from upstream reservoirs in winter to generate power and possibly less in spring to augment flows for migrating juvenile salmon and steelhead.
Support for a Montana/Idaho-led plan to alter dam operations that was approved for public comment this week by the Northwest Power Planning Council has been evident during the Bonneville Power Administration’s Financial Choices public process this spring and summer.
The Northwest Power Planning Council this week gave its stamp of approval for nearly $2 million in spending for the development of fish and wildlife assessments and management plans in 12 of the Columbia River Basin’s subbasins.
The decisions, at Wednesday’s Council meeting in Spokane, signal approval of work plans and budgets and authorizes NWPPC executive director Steve Crow to negotiate contracts with the lead entities for the individual subbasins.
An eight-month effort to resolve issues through mediation has ended, coincident with a cavalcade of new filings in the lawsuit brought to challenge the federal government’s Columbia Basin salmon recovery plan.
Plaintiffs in the case, National Wildlife Federation, et al. v. National Marine Fisheries Service, are asking the court to require NMFS to withdraw its 2000 Federal Columbia River Power System biological opinion and reinitiate consultation on hydrosystem operations.
Caspian terns that settle in each spring on an island in the Columbia River estuary and prey on passing salmon and steelhead smolts do hinder Endangered Species Act fish recovery efforts, according to a report released Sept. 26 by the National Marine Fisheries Service.
A massive fish die-off over the past two weeks has fanned the flames of controversy in the Klamath River Basin of southern Oregon and northern California with tribal members, conservation and fishing groups, a politician and California fishery officials saying federal water management policies give too much water to irrigators and too little for in-river fish flows.
Senate energy bill negotiators this week proposed federal hydropower relicensing reforms that environmental groups charged would favor utilities at the expense of fish.
Preliminary testing of a “removable spillway weir” (RSW) at the Snake River’s Lower Granite Dam indicates that the fish passage device has great drawing power — flooding more juvenile salmon and steelhead downstream per volume of water than is accomplished with traditional spill.
Northwest Indian tribes aren’t waiting to see if Bonneville Power Administration administrator Steve Wright’s suggested cut of $50 million from BPA’s fish and wildlife budget is more than an abstract notion.
The Northwest Power Planning Council has nearly completed the first round in its newly created three-year rolling “provincial review” process for selecting projects to be funded through its Columbia Basin fish and wildlife program.
The Bonneville Power Administration says that power purchases and foregone revenues forced by federal hydrosystem operations to help migrating salmon and steelhead cost the agency’s ratepayers $1.5 billion during fiscal year 2001, according to a Northwest Power Planning Council report released Wednesday.
The Nez Perce Tribe’s hatchery supplementation program — and to some extent Mother Nature — can be credited for this year’s fall chinook salmon count at Lower Granite Dam, which is expected to set a record with a return of 10,000 adult fish.
On Monday, 604 fall chinook were counted at the dam, located 20 miles northwest of Lewiston, Idaho, on the Snake River. That’s higher than the total fall season counts in six individual years since the dam was built in 1975.
Tribal officials this week asked the Northwest Power Planning Council and the Bonneville Power Administration to help launch an effort to pinpoint sources of pollutants that a recent study says are contaminating the Columbia-Snake river system, its fish and the people who eat those fish.
The federal Columbia Basin salmon and steelhead recovery effort can list $3.8 billion in costs over the past 20 years, but can not identify a biological benefits bottom line, according to a report recently released by U.S. General Accounting Office.
A report by the RAND Corporation says removal of the four lower Snake River dams and replacing the lost power with at least 20 percent conservation and renewable energy would have a negligible effect on the Northwest’s economy and could even add up to 15,000 new jobs.
Bonneville Power Administration administrator Steve Wright last week challenged the Columbia Basin’s federal, state and tribal fish and wildlife managers to identify potential cost reductions that could help the agency limit future power rate increases.
Dam operators and fisheries managers this week agreed at a multi-agency Implementation Team meeting to swap a reduced level of spill in August at some dams so that biologists can conduct a spill test at The Dalles Dam in October.
The pieces of the Columbia River subbasin planning puzzle are slowly being fitted together, with the Northwest Power Planning Council over the past 2 1/2 months recommending funding for a variety of functions, persons and entities that will move the concept toward reality.
Researchers are taking stock as the latest batch of Snake River sockeye salmon begins to trickle back into Idaho’s Stanley Basin where a captive broodstock program aims to perpetuate a still-flickering genetic line.
Public utility customers of the Bonneville Power Administration demanded this week deep cuts to the agency’s budgets and questioned the value of continued spill at federal dams to aid salmon recovery.
The anticipation of funding from the Bonneville Power Administration for fish and wildlife projects recommended by the Northwest Power Planning Council has become, in some cases, as maddening as Chinese water torture, according to one Council member.
The Northwest Power Planning Council sorted through sometimes conflicting advice in making a decision to recommend that 10 projects be funded under its “innovative” fish and wildlife project category during the current fiscal year at cost of nearly $2 million.
Persistence has paid off for project proponents who will test whether a Umatilla River basin aquifer could, essentially, be pumped brimful in winter when surface water is plentiful and seep out during the summer’s dry months to enhance stream flows for fish and feed irrigation pumps.
Northwest Power Planning Council members from Idaho and Montana say they are willing to accept — with qualifications — a federal document’s prescriptions for running the Columbia-Snake federal hydrosystem as a baseline for the Council’s own fish and wildlife program mainstem strategy.
A list of 104 systemwide and mainstem fish and wildlife project proposals have started down the final gauntlet in the Northwest Power Planning Council’ “rolling provincial review” funding approval process, with only 14 passing muster in an initial technical review by the Independent Scientific Review Panel.
Already behind schedule, implementation of the Columbia Basin salmon recovery plan would slip further under an annual federal funding bill recently approved by the Senate Appropriations Committee.
Plans and actions taken by key federal agencies to implement a 10-year Columbia River Basin salmon and steelhead recovery program are — for the most part — on schedule to meet the first major benchmark in the plan — a major 2003 evaluation, the National Marine Fisheries Services announced Tuesday.
Oregon Northwest Power Planning Council member John Brogoitti lashed out this week — saying agriculture and other natural resource industries in the state are suffering as a result of Gov. John Kitzhaber’s agenda.
The outburst — delivered in a Monday press release — earned Brogoitti more than a censure from the man that appointed him to the Council. The governor’s top natural resource adviser, Louise Solliday, on Tuesday asked Brogoitti to deliver his resignation by the end of the day.
The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on Wednesday approved a bill by Oregon’s senators to authorize up to $32 million in federal funding for repair of the privately owned Wallowa Lake Dam and for water conservation and fish restoration in the watershed.
The bill, S. 1883, by Gordon Smith, R-Ore., and Ron Wyden, D-Ore., both members of the committee, is opposed by the Bush administration because the northeastern Oregon dam is owned by local irrigators.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced this week the makeup of two panels of economists who will evaluate the Corps’ economic conclusions of a project to deepen the Columbia River shipping channel by three feet.
Market and natural forces, and an overextended power load commitment, have thrown the Bonneville Power Administration into a tenuous financial situation — one that has the federal power marketing agency’s chief out looking for help to make ends meet.
A six-month lobbying effort produced no converts Wednesday when an Oregon proposal to rotate Northwest Power Planning Council leadership positions on a fixed schedule among the member states was voted down 6-2.
The Northwest Power Planning Council on Wednesday recommended the expenditure of $462,000 to have its artificial production review process complete draft documents that are necessary for Columbia Basin salmon hatcheries to gain “coverage” under the Endangered Species Act.
A panel of independent economists this week outlined its conclusions and recommendations based on an analysis of the costs of rearing and releasing fish at eight Columbia Basin hatcheries.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers released this week a revision to its 1999 economic analysis of the costs and benefits of deepening the Columbia River shipping channel by three feet. While the Corps calculated lower shipping benefits than in its 1999 report, it also revised downwards the cost of dredging the channel.
Some called the process rigged. Others — including attorneys hired by two Washington counties — said any approval of a water quality certification application related to the removal of Condit Dam would almost certainly be illegal.
Rod Sando, the new executive director of the Portland-based Columbia Basin Fish and Wildlife Authority, has stepped into his new position amid a world of change — for the organization, and for the basin’s recovery and enhancement effort as a whole.
A final supplemental environmental impact statement issued this week recommends that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission allow the surrender of the federal hydroelectric license for southwest Washington’s Condit Dam and a one-year dismantling of the structure that would begin late in 2006.
Oregon and Washington fishery managers decided Tuesday to open a fishing season on hatchery-bred summer chinook that starts today (June 28) in the lower Columbia River. It marks the first time since 1973 that anglers may target summer chinook — known historically as “June hogs” because of their large size.
With the approval of the Flathead River “subbasin plan work plan,” the Northwest Power Planning Council has set in motion an envisioned grass-roots effort to develop strategies that meet the fish and wildlife needs in each of the Columbia River Basin’s subbasins.
A recently completed reconnaissance level study says that it would be technically feasible to build a new water storage facility in central Washington that would effectively “meet the entire need for fish and people.”
“The economic viability of the project is more difficult to establish,” according to the Black Rock Reservoir Study final report.
An abundant Methow River Basin spring chinook salmon return has allowed federal, state and tribal fishery officials to again implement a plan that involves the capture of naturally spawning fish to reinvigorate hatchery programs and allows any “surplus” hatchery returns to find spawning grounds in the wild.
The premises underlying three controversial fish passage strategies employed in the Columbia-Snake mainstem hydrosystem have not, in many cases, been scientifically justified.
An envisioned 10-year plan for managing the federal Klamath Project failed to clear its final hurdle this week with the Bureau of Reclamation’s regional chief criticizing federal fish agencies’ strategies for protecting fish listed under the Endangered Species Act.
Pressured by Oregon’s two senators, a Department of Interior official this week agreed to negotiate with them on their bill to rehabilitate Wallowa Dam and restore salmon in northeastern Oregon.
At a hearing on Thursday before the Senate water and power subcommittee, Bureau of Reclamation official Mark Limbaugh repeated the department’s opposition to the bill, which has also been introduced in the House by Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore.
A recently released draft Methow River Basin spring chinook genetic analysis says that it is too late to segregate an Upper Columbia salmon melting pot by phasing out the so-called “Carson” bloodlines in favor of “Methow composite” stock in hatchery operations.
A draft report now out for technical review likens the impact of predatory Caspian terns on migrating Columbia Basin juvenile salmon and steelhead to those brought by human activities that increase fish mortality.
With rain, warmer weather and more snow melt, juvenile salmon have been getting the amount of water they need to pass Columbia and Snake river dams. After a delayed spring snow melt, river levels began rising two weeks ago and have remained at or above target flow levels recommended in the National Marine Fisheries Service 2000 biological opinion.
The federal action agencies say they are “right on track” in implementing measures called for in a December 2000 federal fish recovery plan for the Columbia Basin.
Critics call that assertion a “fairy tale.”
A bill by California, Oregon and Idaho senators that would equalize federal funding of Pacific salmon restoration projects in Western states is opposed by Alaska and Washington.
But sponsors and opponents this week agreed to work on a compromise that all five states can support.
Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, objected strongly to changing the larger shares of funding that Alaska and Washington have received the past three years from Congress in annual spending bills.
“Sport reward” anglers will need plenty of luck and effort in their pursuit
of northern pikeminnow on the Columbia and Snake rivers this year if they
expect to break records set in 2001 both for fish caught and for cash
bounties collected.
The Idaho Power Company says that water from its Brownlee Reservoir on the
Snake River will be unavailable before August to augment flows in the river
unless the Bonneville Power Administration pays the company for the water.
The 2002 spring chinook salmon return to the Columbia River has been a forecaster’s nightmare, but it remains a fisherman’s dream because the very worst scenario described to date still amounts to one of the biggest upriver counts on record.
Oregon’s governor on Tuesday again challenged the Northwest and country as a whole to attack the salmon recovery issue at full power or be turned down a road of social, economic and legal chaos that leads ultimately to dam breaching.
For the second consecutive year, the spring chinook salmon tangle net fishery on the Columbia and Willamette rivers is showing positive results in immediate survival, according to an interim report by Oregon and Washington fisheries agencies. In addition, a recently completed study on long-term survival is showing that adults caught in the tangle net and released are surviving in high numbers.
The Senate on Thursday passed a sweeping energy bill that would allow owners of non-federal hydroelectric dams to change new fishway requirements if they showed they could meet environmental standards in less costly ways or benefit power production.
The National Marine Fisheries Service has provided its Columbia River
Basin salmon recovery partners with a set of numerical targets to help
“size” the task at hand — building fish populations to the point that
they can be removed from the Endangered Species list, and beyond.
The Technical Management Team extended spill this week to another lower
Snake River dam and also began spilling water at lower Columbia River
dams.
Several environmental and taxpayer groups this week said an increase in
federal borrowing by the Bonneville Power Administration should be
eliminated from next year’s budget.
An 11th-hour settlement has been reached between bird conservation
groups and fish management entities that would guide fast-arriving
Caspian terns toward Columbia River estuary nesting grounds where the
predatory birds are believed to be less of a threat to migrating
juvenile salmon.
The Northwest Power Planning Council on Wednesday recommended $36.3
million in funding for fish and wildlife projects in the Blue Mountain
and Mountain Snake “provinces” in northeastern Oregon, southeastern
Washington and central Idaho.
With yearling chinook showing up at lower Snake River dams, the
Technical Management Team this week gave approval to begin spilling
water at Snake River dams and will likely order spill at lower Columbia
River dams next week.
Two Columbia Basin fishing interests often at odds about how to share
fish harvests have united in an effort to wring more dollars from next
year’s federal budget.
The money is needed, they say, to ward off hatchery production cutbacks
and provide funding for fish marking that is allowing a more bountiful
harvest of returning hatchery salmon and steelhead through selective
fisheries.
In anticipation of a soon-to-be-released biological opinion, PacifiCorp
this week filed a 60-day Notice of Intent to sue the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service alleging violations of the Endangered Species Act and
the Administrative Procedures Act in Oregon’s Klamath Basin.
The battle lines remain clearly drawn about whether southwest
Washington’s 125-foot-tall, concrete Condit Dam should be removed from
the White Salmon River to revive a free-flowing ecosystem, or retained
to provide the many benefits people have come to expect since the hydro
project was built in 1913.
A winter precipitation — and snow accumulation — season that began
fast in October and November slowed considerably in February to leave
irrigators, hydro power producers and fish managers with the prospect of
again having to carefully share a below-average supply of water.
The Department of Interior this week came out against a bill that would
authorize federal funding to rehabilitate an aging private dam and
enhance and restore salmon habitat in Oregon’s Wallowa River Basin.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said it will recalculate the economics
of deepening the lower Columbia River channel using costs and benefits
that more closely describe the project as it has evolved since its 1999
report.
The Corps, along with lower Columbia River ports, is proposing to deepen
the river by three feet in order to accommodate deeper draft boats.
The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation this week tossed the Klamath River
basin’s hottest potato to two federal fisheries agencies — issuing its
proposed plan for apportioning available water among irrigators while
still aiming to preserve habitat for imperiled stocks of fish.
Northwest voters support keeping existing hydroelectric capacity and
building new projects even if they might cause the loss of fish or
wildlife habitat, according to a hydropower industry poll released
Thursday.
It will cost an estimated $390 million over 10 years to implement
proposed structural improvements and changes in operations at four lower
Snake River federal dams under a chosen strategy to improve the survival
of migrating juvenile salmon listed under the Endangered Species Act.
Senate Democratic leaders have revised their comprehensive energy bill,
including a section on hydropower relicensing, and could bring it up for
debate next week.
Utilities and energy developers complain that the Federal Energy
Regulatory Commission process is often lengthy and expensive and that
other federal agencies have too much authority to set fish passage and
other environmental requirements.
The National Marine Fisheries Service this week officially concluded
that five of six delisting petitions it received last year contain
“substantial scientific and commercial information to suggest” that 14
of the 15 Pacific salmon and steelhead stocks addressed in the petitions
could warrant removal from the Endangered Species list
One of the most notable hot seats for federal officials in the Pacific
Northwest has only gotten hotter since Bob Lohn took over in September
as regional administrator for the National Marine Fisheries Service.
A Benton County judge in Washington ruled in favor of eastern Washington
irrigators in late January when he prohibited the state’s Department of
Ecology from using water flow limits in the National Marine Fisheries
Service’s biological opinion as the standard by which the state
restricts water rights.
President George W. Bush this week sent Congress an FY03 budget that
would boost spending on Columbia Basin salmon recovery to $506 million,
according to Northwest federal agency leaders.
Migrating juvenile spring chinook salmon and steelhead faced a gauntlet
last year with low, clear, and often warmer, Columbia-Snake river flows
retarding their downstream progress and leaving them more readily
accessible to fish and avian predators, according to National Marine
Fisheries Service officials.
Three Northwest environment groups on Thursday released an internal
cost estimate prepared by the National Marine Fisheries Service in
2000 that indicates the federal government is spending only half of
what is needed to implement the Columbia Basin salmon recovery plan.
A long-pondered settlement agreement calling for the removal of
southwest Washington’s 125-foot-tall Condit Dam was called “the best and
most cost-effective means of removing the project facilities and
reservoir sediments,” in a report issued Wednesday by Federal Energy
Regulatory Commission staff.
What a difference a year, or even a month, can make as the Columbia
Basin looks to Mother Nature for recovery from a drought-plagued 2001
when the second lowest runoff ever from the region’s snowpacks made for
poor river conditions for fish, hampered hydropower production and
limited irrigation.
Steve Wright, a career Bonneville Power Administration employee who
rose to acting administrator, this week was named permanently to the
top position.
Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham on Thursday appointed Wright as
administrator of the federal power-marketing agency, which he
successfully managed in his acting capacity through a turbulent year
of energy crisis and drought.
Despite an agency career that has spanned 21 years, Columbia Basin
reactions to the appointment of Steve Wright to lead the Bonneville
Power Administration this week focused for the most part on his
performance over the past 12 months during drought-caused energy and,
some say, salmon, crises.
The state of Oregon is among the list of official participants in
lawsuits filed in November accusing the Bonneville Power Administration
of failing to give fish and wildlife “equitable treatment” in planning
federal Columbia-Snake river hydrosystem operations.
Former U.S. Attorney for Oregon, Sid Lezak, has agreed to lead a
mediation effort among the parties involved in a lawsuit that claims a
2000 National Marine Fisheries Service Federal Columbia River Power
System biological opinion is doomed to failure and should be rewritten.
Despite vigorous opposition from Oregon and its governor, the Northwest
Power Planning Council on Wednesday made a change to its bylaws that
made possible, just moments later, the election of Washington’s Larry
Cassidy as the panel’s chairman for a third consecutive year.
Members of fishing and conservation groups questioned the move in
testimony presented before a vote on the bylaw change.
An idea hatched by Northwest Power Planning Council members from Oregon
and Idaho and aired publicly this week would change the way Columbia
Basin fish and wildlife project proposals are developed and judged.
The Yakama Nation became the sole challenger of Grant County Public
Utility District’s license to operate the Priest Rapids and Wanapum dams
on the mid-Columbia River.
The Nation was left as the sole owner of the Yakama Hydroelectric
Project, LLC when PacifiCorp signed a long-term power purchase contract
with Grant PUD. The power contract included a no-compete clause, which
barred PacifiCorp from challenging the Grant PUD license.
More than 300 cubic yards of electrical equipment could be removed from
the Columbia River upstream of Bonneville Dam by mid-March if a U.S.
Army Corps of Engineers cleanup plan is approved by the Oregon
Department of Environmental Quality.
The memories of last year’s Columbia Basin drought have not been washed
away, but near normal precipitation and snowpack accumulation to-date
means that hydrosystem operators, power users, fish managers and farmers
may be able to avoid some of the hard decisions of last summer.
The first system operations request (SOR) of the year for the Technical
Management Team asked for lower Kootenai River flows in Idaho and a
lower water temperature to protect burbot, a species little known in the
Northwest outside of the Kootenai River in Idaho and Kootenay Lake in
British Columbia.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is seeking comments on a proposal to
construct and operate a juvenile surface collection and bypass system at
the Bonneville Dam’s Second Powerhouse to improve salmon passage.
With rain, snow and a new buildup of power plants, power emergencies
like those that plagued the Northwest last summer are not as likely this
coming year.
Representatives of electric utilities and ratepayers and those charged
with recovering Columbia Basin fish and wildlife pulled at either end of
the budget rope this week during a roundtable discussion organized by
the Northwest Power Planning Council.
Representatives of irrigation groups from the four Columbia Basin states
joined the Northwest Power Planning Council this week to pitch their
vision of how to better manage the river system for power production,
irrigation and fish.
After more than five years of research conducted at a cost of $25
million, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced this week that major
systems improvements — not dam breaching — will be the preferred path
for trying to improve salmon and steelhead survival through four lower
Snake River federal hydroelectric projects.
The “federal executives,” along with representatives of states and
tribes, met this week to consider the potential of transitioning from an
informal organization to a more formal, regional decision-making forum.
Federal, state and tribal representatives raised issues this week with
the federal “implementation plan” released by the federal action
agencies in mid-November.
The plan describes the specific measures the agencies will implement
between Oct. 1, 2001, and Sept. 30, 2002, to comply with the National
Marine Fisheries Service’ 2000 biological opinion.
One or two storms does not necessarily mark the end of a drought cycle.
But things are looking up for those in the Pacific Northwest that have
been praying for rain, and snow.
An October discovery that a section of north-central Washington’s Methow
River had run dry has caused funding entities to rethink a March
decision to spend $2.5 million to protect the reach’s riparian habitat.
Maintenance dredging in the lower Snake River — stalled last year in
large part because of feared impacts on migrating salmon and steelhead
— will have to wait another year while the Corps of Engineers puts
final touches on a plan expected to guide the process for the next 20
years.
A federal decision to revisit Endangered Species Act listing decisions
for 23 of 25 West Coast salmon and steelhead stocks has provoked a
variety of opinions about the future of the region’s fish recovery
efforts.
In a time that has lawsuits littering the salmon recovery landscape and
pressure increasing on the Northwest Power Planning Council to satisfy a
variety of fish and wildlife funding demands, NWPPC chairman Larry
Cassidy still relishes the challenge.
Fishing and conservation groups and two Columbia Basin tribes this week
announced the filing of lawsuits claiming that the Bonneville Power
Administration has violated the Northwest Power Act by failing to manage
the federal hydrosystem “equitably” to produce energy and to restore
salmon.
Flows to protect threatened lower Columbia River chum salmon likely
won’t start until at least Nov. 19, after restrictions on flows in
Hanford Reach are lifted. The federal hydroelectric system operating
agencies told fisheries managers at this week’s Technical Management
Team meeting that the Vernita Bar Agreement restricts the amount of water they can get to Bonneville Dam through Feb. 18.
The Northwest Power Planning Council marched ahead Thursday with a plan
that allots nearly $35 million in fiscal year 2002 spending on new and
ongoing fish and wildlife projects in the Columbia Plateau Province.
“This is an example of the Council approving on-the-ground projects that
will benefit fish and wildlife, and doing so within the budget
established by Bonneville,” Council Chairman Larry Cassidy of Vancouver,
Wash., said.
If higher river flow is provided for chum salmon spawning downstream
from Bonneville Dam beginning Monday, as Oregon and the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service want, the Bonneville Power Administration doubts it
could sustain the flow through January without jeopardizing juvenile
salmon operations next spring and summer.
A $2 billion increase in federal borrowing authority for the Bonneville
Power Administration was dropped this week from the annual Department of
Energy spending bill.
No less than five administrative “de-listing” petitions — targeting
fish stocks from the Puget Sound to northern California and Oregon’s
Klamath Basin — have landed on federal fish managers’ desks in recent
week.
The U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday passed two bills aimed at
boosting security for federal dams and other water and power facilities
in the West.
One measure would allow the Bureau of Reclamation to contract with
local, state, tribal and other federal law enforcement agencies to
provide trained and certified law enforcement security.
The most familiar face on the Northwest Power Planning Council, Stan
Grace, bowed out Monday after serving the state of Montana on the panel
for the past 12 years — a period in which regional power and fish and
wildlife issues became increasingly complex.
A flood of Endangered Species Act listings and burgeoning power needs
had served to complicating the Council’s job.
Montana Gov. Judy Martz this week appointed Ed Bartlett to serve as one
of the state’s two representatives to the Northwest Power Power Planning
Council.
Bartlett replaces Stan Grace, who retired after 12 years on the Council.
A depressing power reliability outlook released in May by the Northwest
Power Planning Council turned rosy this week when Council staff released
a new study that predicts a loss of load probability through the coming
winter of less than 1 percent, far lower than the prediction for the
same measurement in May.
Actions taken to reduce the demand for electricity and increase the
supply, and Columbia-Snake river operational changes that increased
hydropower production, helped avert Northwest power blackouts over the
past year during what was deemed an energy crisis.
A number of undefined variables remained this week as the Northwest
Power Planning Council searched for an equitable means of spreading
available fish and wildlife project funding across the basin.
Some of the lowest river flows on record, coupled with no spill, or
reduced spill provided too late at Columbia Basin dams to move the main
body of juvenile migrants downstream, resulted this spring and summer in
lower than ever in-river survival for juvenile salmon and steelhead.
By anyone’s spin, it was a bad year for salmon and steelhead juveniles.
Gov. Gary Locke on Monday launched a “sweeping new Columbia River Regional Initiative” he says is aimed at improving Columbia and Snake river water management for the benefit of fish and humans.
The Northwest Power Planning Council is pondering a “freeze” on funding
for new fish and wildlife projects until it can judge the full weight of
growing demands stemming from its newly instituted provincial review
process and from federal hydrosystem biological opinions.
Chum flows last season cost the Northwest hydroelectric system a
significant amount of valuable water and partially depleted headwater
storage reservoirs. Despite this effort, when regional fisheries and
operations managers shut off chum flows in mid-March, only 20 percent of
Columbia River chum had emerged from mainstem redds and even fewer had
emerged from Hardy Creek and Hamilton Springs spawning areas.
The Bonneville Power Administration officially ended Oct. 3 a power
emergency that had been in effect since April 3.
The emergency was declared by BPA administrator Steve Wright when the
agency realized that a combination West Coast power shortage, high
wholesale electricity prices and a drought that had depleted water
supplies caused the reliability of the region’s electricity system to be
in peril.
The Northwest Power Planning Council Thursday adopted a fiscal year 2002
fish and wildlife program “provisional start of year” budget that sets a
wavy line at $152.7 million.
The Senate has approved an additional $4 million for Pacific salmon
restoration projects in Washington state, raising total funding next
year to $74 million for four West Coast states.
The Pacific Salmon Fund is part of the $42 billion FY02 appropriation
bill for the Department of Commerce and other departments. The Senate
total is $26 million less than the House approved in July but $18
million above the current fiscal year.
Boosted by a huge “tule” return, the 2001Columbia River upriver fall
chinook run has tracked at a record pace, with more adults passing
Bonneville Dam this year than in any year since the project was built in
1938.
The threatened Snake River portion of the upriver run is also producing
some surprising numbers.
U.S. Secretary of Commerce Don Evans on Thursday announced the
appointment of Dr. William T. Hogarth to head the department’s National
Marine Fisheries Service and Robert Lohn as chief of NMFS’ Northwest
region.
Hogarth, a veteran with 16 years of experience in fisheries and natural
resources management, has since January been NMFS acting assistant
administrator.
Columbia Basin fish and wildlife managers have been asked to more
precisely outline their project priorities midway through a new process
that has identified fish and wildlife project needs likely to surpass
the projected budget ceiling for fiscal year 2002 and beyond.
At the request of the Federal Caucus (federal dam operators, regulators
and fish and wildlife agencies), the multi-agency Implementation Team
(IT) is reviewing what it may have learned this spring and summer from
operating the Federal Columbia River Power System under a system power
emergency.
The Columbia Basin’s healthiest wild fall chinook population took a
potentially severe hit this spring and early summer with at least 1.6
million fry dying outright — the victims of low river flows and
fluctuating water levels in south-central Washington’s Hanford Reach.
Fisheries biologists have counted 13 adult sockeye that have made it all
the way back into the Stanley Basin, with three more holding below the
Sawtooth weir, for a total of 16 so far, according to the Idaho Fish and
Game Department.
Substantial concurrence between fish and wildlife managers and a
scientific panel on fish and wildlife project proposals in the “Columbia
Plateau” province figures to complicate decisions as the Northwest Power
Planning Council and Bonneville Power Administration launch into a new
post “MOA” era.
U.S. District Court Judge Barbara Rothstein on Tuesday delivered a
“legal slam dunk” in favor of bird advocates with a ruling that, for all
intents and purposes, ends an effort to manipulate Caspian tern and
cormorant populations to reduce their consumption of salmon in the
Columbia River Estuary.
Citing better than expected stream flows, but an uncertain financial
position, the Bonneville Power Administration proposed this week to
increase spill at two federal dams.
As a result of the proposal, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers increased
spill Wednesday at The Dalles Dam to 40 percent of river flow for 24
hours and to 24-hour spill of 50,000 cubic feet per second at Bonneville
Dam beginning Thursday evening.
Two unlikely partners announced they will team up to attempt a takeover
of two mid-Columbia dams when the dams’ license expires in 2005.
The Yakama Nation and PacifiCorp, a division of Scottish Power, will
compete in the licensing process to secure Grant County Public Utility
District’s Wanapum and Priest Rapids dams.
The agency caught in the middle — the Bonneville Power Administration
— fielded questions Wednesday about how it might mete out “off-site
mitigation” fish and wildlife recovery funding as the lines blur between
federal Endangered Species Act mandates and those under the Northwest
Power Act.
Three federal hydroelectric operating agencies released for public
comment their long-anticipated plan on how they will operate the hydro
system and what they will do in the other “H’s” — hatcheries, harvest
and habitat — to aid salmon recovery.
Columbia Basin state and tribal representatives gathered Wednesday to
discuss how they fit into salmon recovery plans that profess federal
responsibility but stress that success hinges in part on actions taken
outside federal agencies’ direct authorities.
A self-described “five-year blueprint for fish recovery actions by the
three (action) agencies” was released this week in draft form —
detailing how Federal Columbia River Power System operators aim to meet
survival goals for salmon, steelhead and resident fish species listed
under the Endangered Species Act.
The House of Representatives this week passed comprehensive legislation
to enact much of President George Bush’s energy plan, including
provisions to make it easier for hydroelectric projects to obtain new
licenses and comply with fish passage requirements.
The Bonneville Power Administration this week agreed to begin a limited
summer spill program at two lower Columbia River dams to help juvenile
salmon remaining in the river pass federal projects.
At the multi-agency Implementation Team meeting this week, BPA said it
can spill 30 percent of the river at The Dalles Dam for up to two weeks
and about 45,000 cubic feet per second for 5 hours per day at Bonneville
Dam, depending on actual river flow.
A 2001 trend towards early and abundant fish runs is continuing, with
upriver summer steelhead adult counts seemingly on a record pace.
The single highest daily steelhead count on record — 10,181 — was
charted Monday (July 23) at the Columbia River’s Bonneville Dam …
The number of endangered sockeye salmon swimming toward central Idaho’s
Stanley Basin is a trickle compared to the relative gusher of adults
that made the trip up the Columbia, Snake and Salmon rivers last year.
But researchers involved in the captive broodstock program — attempting
to revive a population that counted zero returning adults in 1997 and
one in 1998 — remain optimistic.
Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton on Wednesday announced that she
had authorized the Bureau of Reclamation to release water from southern
Oregon’s Upper Klamath Lake to irrigate area crops that have been left
parched in order to preserve the precious liquid for endangered sucker
fish that inhabit the lake.
A “first-cut” review of proposed fiscal 2002 hydrosystem fish passage
and research projects Wednesday served to shoehorn $100 million in
originally estimated needs into what is expected to be about an $80
million Columbia River Fish Mitigation Project budget.
A creative way to provide limited spill in order to aid the remainder of
the juvenile salmon migrating through the lower Columbia River got a
serious hearing this week, but no resolution. The proposal made to the
Technical Management Team by the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish
Commission suggested that the Bonneville Power Administration should
provide spill without using additional water now held in storage dams
for future power operations.
The Columbia Basin’s four governors received assurances last week that
the Bush administration is committed to implementing federal salmon
recovery strategies completed last year, and that it will do it
hand-in-hand with the states.
The Senate on Thursday passed a spending bill that would authorize $2
billion in new borrowing by the Bonneville Power Administration.
The energy and water development appropriation bill for fiscal 2002 also
provides funds for ecosystem restoration, riparian protection, and fish mitigation on the Columbia River.
The Bonneville Power Administration announced Thursday that it will fund
approximately $10 million worth of projects aimed at helping fish
affected by this year’s power emergency operations at federal
hydroelectric projects in the Columbia Basin.
Columbia Basin fish and wildlife managers and others watching this
year’s mainstem and tributary flows fear the worst for migrating
juvenile and adult salmon as the summer warms.
The forecast for January-July runoff as measured at The Dalles Dam fell
to 54.7 million acre feet or 52 percent of normal …
The Bonneville Power Administration this week raised the bounty on
northern pikeminnow with the hope more anglers will be enticed into
targeting predatory fish and, as a result, allow more of their salmon
and steelhead prey to continue their migration toward the Pacific Ocean.
Fisheries managers asked hydroelectric operators this week to begin
drafting Lake Roosevelt water now to help raise river flows at McNary
Dam.
However, the Bonneville Power Administration said the change in river
operations may not be possible because it would force BPA to sell
surplus power now and buy power back later, something it may not be able
to do.
A surprisingly low July water supply forecast and the delayed startup of
the Northwest’s only nuclear power plant caused the Bonneville Power
Administration to say no to summer spill at today’s (June 29) combined
meeting of federal executives with states and tribes.
Water should be spilled at Columbia and Snake river dams this summer to
help juvenile salmon and steelhead migrate to the ocean — but only if
the reliability of the region’s electricity system is not jeopardized,
the Northwest Power Planning Council recommended Wednesday.
Water should be spilled at Columbia and Snake river dams this summer to
help juvenile salmon and steelhead migrate to the ocean — but only if
the reliability of the region’s electricity system is not jeopardized,
the Northwest Power Planning Council recommended Wednesday.
Columbia Basin tribes and conservation groups responded angrily this
week to a Northwest Power Planning Council recommendation that says that
water should be spilled for fish passage at federal hydroelectric
projects only if such operations don’t increase the risk of power
outages in the region next winter.
Reducing spill at federal hydrosystem projects below levels outlined in
a National Marine Fisheries Service biological opinion would have
“negligible” impacts on migrating Snake River fall chinook salmon
juveniles, according to a preliminary Northwest Power Planning Council
staff issue paper released for public comment June 13.
The clock began ticking today (June 22) on a process that will allow the
Bonneville Power Administration and its administrator better take a
“comprehensive, consistent and unified approach” toward its
responsibility to fund the multiple Columbia Basin fish and wildlife
recovery efforts.
A hydropower vs. fish debate jumped onto the Federal Energy Regulatory
Commission stage this week, with fishery agencies from Alaska to the
Northwest, as well as tribal entities, protesting a proposal to forego
spill operations this summer at two mid-Columbia dams in order to
increase energy production.
A hydropower vs. fish debate jumped onto the Federal Energy Regulatory
Commission stage this week, with fishery agencies from Alaska to the
Northwest, as well as tribal entities, protesting a proposal to forego
spill operations this summer at two mid-Columbia dams in order to
increase energy production.
Even with a large rate increase imminent, a drop in market electricity
prices and a huge reduction in load from the region’s utilities, the
Bonneville Power Administration says a decision about summer spill is
too close to call.
BPA officials say the agency needs a water supply forecast of 54.8
million acre feet to 55.4 maf at The Dalles, January through July,
before it can initiate summer spill this year.
The Bonneville Power Administration, the California Department of Water
Resources and the California Independent System Operator have reached
agreement on a plan that outlines when and how BPA may be able to help
California during this summer’s anticipated energy shortages.
The Northwest Power Planning Council Wednesday endorsed a staff analysis
showing improved regional power system reliability while voicing
concerns about how that information had been used to justify spill
programs at federal hydro projects intended to aid fish passage.
During the Wednesday meeting, Council members from Idaho, Montana and
Washington said current spill regimes may not be justified, and were
implemented without the consultation that the Council had requested.
A Federal Energy Regulatory Commission order has cleared the way for a
proposed Columbia Basin “spill exchange” the agency says will both
assure flexibility and reliability” in the regional power grid and
protect fish species listed under the Endangered Species Act.
A group representing about 150 members of Congress from the Midwest and
Northeast this week renewed its call for ending the Pacific Northwest’s
exclusive rights to buy federal hydroelectricity and for raising its
price to market rates.
Reacting to improved news about the region’s electric system reliability
from the Northwest Power Planning Council, the Bonneville Power
Administration said today (May 25) that it will not only extend spill at
two lower Columbia River dams through next Friday, it will also spill
water through McNary and John Day dam spillways through Tuesday in an
effort to move juvenile salmon downstream.
Emergency measures including industrial power curtailments, reduced
water spills at dams and temporary generators are easing the Northwest’s
electricity shortage, but the crisis is not over, according to the
latest analysis by the Northwest Power Planning Council.
Emergency measures including industrial power curtailments, reduced
water spills at dams and temporary generators are easing the Northwest’s
electricity shortage, but the crisis is not over, according to the
latest analysis by the Northwest Power Planning Council.
The barge ride for nearly 360,000 juvenile salmon and steelhead
collected at the lower Snake River’s Lower Granite Dams was cut short
early Saturday morning when problems with fish tank overflow screens
forced the fishes’ release upstream from Ice Harbor Dam.
The barge ride for nearly 360,000 juvenile salmon and steelhead
collected at the lower Snake River’s Lower Granite Dams was cut short
early Saturday morning when problems with fish tank overflow screens
forced the fishes’ release upstream from Ice Harbor Dam.
An independent scientific panel this week urged regional entities to
learn as much as they can from this good news-bad news year for Columbia
Basin salmon recovery efforts.
The good news is that many of the basin’s salmon stocks are returning
this year in larger, and sometimes record, numbers to spawn naturally or
revisit the hatchery of their origin.
The Bonneville Power Administration began spilling water at two lower
Columbia River dams this week to help juvenile salmon safely negotiate
the dams on their journey to the ocean.
The federal power marketing agency made the decision to begin spill
despite not having a final assurance from Grant County Public Utility
District that it could trade spill for power later in the spring and
summer.
A bill that sponsors say would allow more hatchery salmon to spawn
naturally and require the state to use hatchery salmon eggs to replenish
fish runs was signed into law late Tuesday by Washington Gov. Gary Locke
over the protestations of the federal agency charged with protecting and
rebuilding “wild” salmon and steelhead runs.
The Bonneville Power Administration Wednesday announced an agreement
with Alcoa that will curtail operations at the Alcoa Ferndale (Intalco)
plant for up to two years and compensate workers in the interim.
In announcing his much anticipated energy plan, President George Bush on
Thursday did not propose short-term measures to address high electricity
prices and drought in the Northwest.
A proposal to begin spilling water now at lower Columbia River hydro
projects to improve passage for a building juvenile salmon and steelhead
migration hit a snag Friday (today) when the Bonneville Power
Administration and Grant County Public Utility District failed to win
regional support for the plan.
A proposal to begin spilling water now at lower Columbia River hydro
projects to improve passage for a building juvenile salmon and steelhead
migration hit a snag Friday (today) when the Bonneville Power
Administration and Grant County Public Utility District failed to win
regional support for the plan.
Two Oregon leaders are supporting a plan by Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, to
make Northwest salmon recovery a national priority and boost federal
funding by $400 million next year.
Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., this week gave his endorsement, and Gov. John
Kitzhaber praised the overall $688 million plan, which Crapo announced
on May 3.
With drought a near certainty, fishery managers and hydro operators are
trying to broker a deal that frees any amount of water that would help
move migrating Snake River juvenile salmon through the Lower Granite Dam
reservoir and improve migration conditions in the lower Snake River.
Worried that Flathead Lake will fall short of refilling, Pennsylvania
Power and Light Montana officials are curbing releases at Kerr Dam,
possibly in violation of their federal license.
The company has been struggling with the realities of drought, while
trying to balance conflicting license conditions above and below the dam
at the foot of Flathead Lake.
A lawsuit filed Thursday asks the U.S. District Court to order the
federal government to rethink a Columbia Basin salmon recovery plan that
the plaintiffs say is rife with faulty scientific assumptions and doomed
to failure because of a lack of Bush Administration support for
implementation funding.
The Bonneville Power Administration said it intends to launch within
days a fish and wildlife project solicitation intended to “offset”
adverse impacts of emergency hydrosystem operations on salmon and
steelhead listed under the Endangered Species Act.
BPA officials have said that from $10 million to $20 million could be
made available for the effort.
Federal executives won’t have a final Columbia River operations plan
ready until May 17, but they did promise decisions on four critical fish
operations by the end of this week. Of the four — spring spill,
transportation of juveniles at McNary Dam, lowering Vernita Bar flows
and beginning a pulsing operation at Lower Granite Dam — only two
decisions are made and a third is likely to receive attention today.
Flow “augmentation” via water releases from Snake River reservoirs and
those that feed the Snake should not be abandoned. But a fine-tuning of
research is needed to settle conclusively debates over the practice’s
potential benefit to migrating fall chinook salmon, according to a panel
of independent scientists.
Long wary of “so-called independent science committees,” the head of the
Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission has called for the
disbanding of an 11-member group assembled to advise the Northwest Power
Planning Council and National Marine Fisheries Service on fish and
wildlife recovery issues.
The Northwest Power Planning Council on Thursday advised federal Columbia River hydrosystem operators to maximize barge transportation as a means of getting migrating salmon past dams, and weigh carefully the use of any spill passage regimes that would take away from the system’s ability to power the region through the summer, fall and winter.
The Northwest Power Planning Council on Thursday advised federal Columbia River hydrosystem operators to maximize barge transportation as a means of getting migrating salmon past dams, and weigh carefully the use of any spill passage regimes that would take away from the system’s ability to power the region through the summer, fall and winter.
Oregon’s governor said Wednesday that evolving Northwest hydrosystem operations proposals would, in large part, leave salmon and steelhead populations high and dry this spring and summer during what is expected to be one of the worst water years on record.
An Earthwise Knowledge Initiative Publication
