Spring chinook salmon smolts held about two weeks longer in an acclimation facility before being released had higher survival rates when returning as adults than smolts allowed to migrate from the facility of their own accord, a recent report says.
A comprehensive report published by the U.S. Geological Survey provides new knowledge and tools to aid in the management of critical Columbia Plateau resources while coping with declines in groundwater levels and the uncertainties of climate change.
NOAA Fisheries has ramped up its ongoing efforts for comprehensive salmon and steelhead recovery with the creation of a new Columbia Basin Partnership, a collaborative group representing multiple entities with common but sometimes divergent interests.
The first scientific instrument Amanda Bowen of the National Weather Service in Portland pulled out of her backpack to predict snowfall this winter on the Willamette Valley floor was a toy, predictive 8-ball. The answer was no snowfall.
Abnormally low and warm water this spring contributed to one of the worst seasons for juvenile chinook and steelhead survival through Snake and Columbia river dams in the past 17 years.
The final summary report from a state-of-the-science forum on Columbia River eulachon, commonly known as smelt, is now available at the Northwest Power and Conservation Council website: http://www.nwcouncil.org/media/7149578/eulachon-science-policy-forum-report_final_october-2015.pdf.
An annual plan that guides operations at Columbia River dams for fiscal year 2016 is available for review by fish and dam managers at http://www.nwd-c.usace.army.mil/tmt/documents/wmp/2016/Oct_1_Draft/20150930_WMP_Draft_1.pdf.
Despite the die-off of 169 white sturgeon this summer – which is nearly 2 percent of the spawning population –in Columbia River reservoirs, the white sturgeon population in the Columbia River is healthy and holding steady.
The Pacific Northwest– including Canada’s southwest provinces — is the only area in the U.S. and Canada that hasn’t been invaded by quagga and zebra mussels, a species that already clogs water pipes and hydroelectric facilities in Midwestern states.
NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center provided an update on El Nino climatic influence for the coming winter Thursday that did not veer from predictions in recent months that one of the strongest El Nino patterns seen in the last 60 years will lead to a warmer, drier winter in the Pacific Northwest.
With climate change, demand for electricity will increase during warmer summers and it will decrease during rainier and warmer winters in the Pacific Northwest, but the power system itself will not need resources in addition to what is already anticipated.
Increased energy efficiency and demand response – programs or contracts to reduce power use during periods of peak demand – plus the increased use of existing natural gas-fired power plants to offset retiring coal-fired power plants offers the Northwest the lowest-cost, lowest-carbon energy future, according to the Council’s Draft Seventh Northwest Power Plan.
Toxic runoff from highways, parking lots and other developed surfaces is killing many of the adult coho salmon in urban streams along the West Coast, according to a new study that for the first time documents the fatal connection between urban stormwater and salmon survival.
NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center released an updated El Nino forecast this week that is in line with previous forecasts in recent months predicting that weather patterns driven by Pacific Ocean water temperatures will rival the strongest El Nino on record in 1997-1998.
Survival of juvenile salmon and steelhead while they migrate through tributaries of the Columbia River is lower than survival of the fish once they reach the mainstem.
If approved at its next meeting in October, the Northwest Power and Conservation Council along with the Bonneville Power Administration will soon release a joint request for proposal for as much as $200,000 to investigate potential salmon habitat blocked by Grand Coulee and Chief Joseph dams.
Four projects have risen to the top of the Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s emerging priority list: two were approved at this week’s Council meeting in Eagle, Idaho, while one was set aside for more work and the Council will act on the fourth in October.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council has released a new report on the “long-term cost planning” for its Columbia River Basin Fish and Wildlife Program.
Snowpack in California’s Sierra Nevada in 2015 was at the lowest level in the past 500 years, according to a new report led by University of Arizona researchers.
A new interactive mapping tool http://cida.usgs.gov/warp/home/ provides predicted concentrations for 108 pesticides in streams and rivers across the United States and identifies which streams are most likely to exceed water-quality guidelines for human health or aquatic life.
The Northwest Power Act requires the Northwest Power and Conservation Council to report annually to the U.S. Congress the “current state of the Columbia River Basin and the Council’s activities” and to make the draft report available for 90 days of public comment prior to submission to the U.S. Congress.
The Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes of Montana officially acquired license control and assets of Kerr Dam on Sept. 5, renaming the hydro operation at the foot of Flathead Lake the “Salish Kootenai Dam,” despite a last-ditch legal effort to block the acquisition.
For 25 years, methodical research by scientists has investigated the effects of the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989 on Alaskan communities and ecosystems.
U.S. Geological Survey hydrologic technicians are currently taking measurements from hundreds of streams and rivers across the western United States as part of a low flow study.
With BPA financial support, a private landowner in Columbia County, Ore. has breached a Columbia River dike allowing river water to, once again, fill a historical tidal wetland.
A recently released study http://www.nwcouncil.org/news/intlcolumbiariver/ identifies 46 collaborative initiatives between U.S. and Canadian partners in the Columbia River Basin, and it identifies several top transboundary priorities.
Eulachon, a forage fish that spends 95 percent of its life in the ocean, spawns in rivers along the West Coast from Alaska to Northern California.
Scientists at the University of Montana are perfecting a technique to detect the presence of invasive freshwater mussels long before they form massive colonies that can clog water intakes, impact hydropower and irrigation facilities, cover marinas and beaches, and ruin fisheries by robbing the water of nutrients.
An annual study of salmon and steelhead passage and survival through the Columbia and Snake river hydropower system is up for review and comment.
Litigants in a long-running legal battle over a strategy for protecting and enhancing conditions for salmon and steelhead fisheries in the Columbia and Snake river basins have formally responded to questions from U.S. District Judge Michael Simon, who is expected to rule on requests for summary judgement in the near future.
Very few rivers are still intact enough to study the full life history diversity of resident fish, but at least one population of Snake River finespotted cutthroat trout in Grand Teton National Park is intact enough to give clues as to which patterns of diversity should be targets of conservation efforts, according to a study published this summer.
Transmission lines that funnel power from hydroelectric dams and wind turbines across Eastern Washington affect greater sage grouse habitat by isolating fragile populations and limiting movement, a new study http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10980-015-0214-4
finds.
An internal report by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service questions whether culling double-crested cormorants in the Columbia River estuary would actually result in more returning salmon and steelhead.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council will be sponsoring a “Columbia River Eulachon (smelt) State of the Science and Science to Policy Forum” August 21.
Efforts continued this week in the lower Snake River to manipulate water temperatures and flows to provide the best possible migration conditions for endangered Snake River sockeye salmon.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council says a recent assessment of the Spokane Tribal Hatchery, which raises trout and kokanee for release into Lake Roosevelt behind Grand Coulee Dam, “will serve as a template for similar audits that the Council and the Bonneville Power Administration want to conduct of other hatcheries funded through the Council’s fish and wildlife program.”
The Bonneville Power Administration this week adopted a 7.1 percent average wholesale power rate increase and a 4.4 percent average transmission rate increase for fiscal years 2016 and 2017.
A teleconference was held Tuesday in Portland to provide an update on some of the water management gymnastics that federal agencies are engaged in to optimize river flows for fisheries and other purposes throughout the Columbia/Snake river basin in one of the worst low-water years seen in decades.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Walla Walla District, this week held a commemorative event at Ice Harbor Dam on the Lower Snake River to mark the tenth anniversary of the installation of a spillway weir at the dam.
More than a quarter of the rain and snow that falls on continents reaches the oceans as runoff.
The water supply picture for the Columbia Basin has continued to deteriorate going into the summer, with some new wrinkles.
While streamflows throughout the Columbia Basin are presenting troubles for fish and human water users, there is a bright spot in the Yakima River Basin, where ongoing efforts to address water supply issues have paid off with a rapid response to maintain tributary flows.
Chinook salmon, steelhead and bull trout, all species listed as threatened under the federal Endangered Species Act, coexist in Northern Washington’s Skagit River. As the top predator in the river system, 50 percent of a large bull trout’s diet is typically made up of salmon eggs and salmon carcasses. The other 50 percent of their diet is juvenile salmon and steelhead, resident fish and immature insects.
The 74 “Reasonable and Prudent Alternatives” in NOAA Fisheries’ 2014 Federal Columbia River Power System biological opinion for salmon and steelhead are producing results, according to government and tribal attorneys as they gave their oral arguments Tuesday in defense of the BiOp before Judge Michael H. Simon in U.S. District Court in Portland.
Hot weather, warm water and lower than average flows in the Snake River dominated the regional Technical Management Team meeting this week, but Russ Keifer of the Idaho Department of Fish and Game also had good news about Snake River sockeye adults passing Bonneville Dam.
The Bonneville Power Administration’s total fish and wildlife costs for 2014 was $782 million, according to the draft “2014 Columbia River Basin Fish and Wildlife Program Costs Report” released for public comment by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council.
Higher temperatures and lower flows in the Snake River are resulting in an earlier than usual change in summer hydro operations.
Tom Tebb was named this week to head the Washington Department of Ecology’s Office of Columbia River.
The U.S. State Department, in possible future negotiations with Canada over the Columbia River Treaty, has decided “to include flood risk mitigation, ecosystem-based function, and hydropower generation interests in the draft U.S. negotiating position,” according to a recent letter from the state department to the Northwest congressional delegation.
Recovery of Snake River sockeye salmon could take 50 to 100 years and over the next 25 years cost over $101 million, according to a Snake River Sockeye Salmon Recovery Plan released Monday by NOAA Fisheries.
A plan to cull thousands of double-crested cormorants from East Sand Island in the lower Columbia River estuary was put into motion over the Memorial Day weekend.
With a higher run estimate of spring chinook salmon, the two-state Columbia River Compact, made up of Oregon and Washington fisheries managers, approved on Tuesday more fishing for treaty and commercial gillnetters, as well as for recreational anglers.
A recent study that compared 12 wild chinook salmon populations that had been the focus of hatchery supplementation programs and 10 populations of salmon that had never been the focus of supplementation programs found none to small benefits in natural salmon abundance.
Calling on more water from Grand Coulee Dam, fisheries managers increased the average river flow objective at McNary Dam today (Friday, May 22) from 180,000 cubic feet per second to 210 kcfs for 10 days as a way to assist juvenile salmon past downstream Columbia River dams.
The two-state Columbia River Compact, made up of Oregon and Washington fisheries managers, approved on Monday a gillnet spring fishery in Zone 6 (Bonneville through John Day pools) for treaty tribes.
After agreeing last week with hydro operators to drop flows at McNary Dam on the Columbia River to 170,000 cubic feet per second, Technical Management Team fisheries managers increased flows back up to 180 kcfs to 185 kcfs for at least one week.
The first two System Operational Requests of the management season brought before the Technical Management Team were approved with very little discussion Wednesday at the in-season water manager’s weekly meeting.
The Bonneville Power Administration says it is positioned during this low-flow spring and summer to meet the ongoing power needs of its customers, as well as its non-power obligations, including those aimed at protecting fish.
The most recent water supply reports for the Columbia River Basin showed a continuing trend of deteriorating conditions due to warmer-than-average temperatures, below-average precipitation through much of the basin and a rapid, early runoff from mountain snowpack across the region.
The Technical Management Team, charged with the difficult task in a low water year of balancing spring juvenile fish passage with water and power needs in the region, dropped McNary flow objectives for the second week running and briefly raised flows from Dworshak Dam to help pass juvenile chinook salmon through lower Snake River dams.
Two requests to change management of the Kootenai River, the third largest tributary of the Columbia River, received a cool reception from fisheries managers at this week’s Technical Management Team meeting, and one of those, a request to deviate from VARQ on the river was denied.
There was a flurry of activity this week related to litigation over a 2014 Biological Opinion for salmon and steelhead in the Columbia River system, as defendant agencies led by the National Marine Fisheries Service filed briefs to meet a Wednesday deadline for doing so.
More than 1,000 dams have been removed across the United States because of safety concerns, sediment buildup, inefficiency or having otherwise outlived usefulness.
The increasing need for access to fresh water for drinking, agriculture, fisheries and other uses is at the root of a growing number of geopolitical conflicts around the world, yet there are few resource managers in charge who have training in both water science and diplomacy.
Faced with one of the worst water supply forecasts in over 50 years, the Technical Management Team this week agreed to lower the flow target at McNary Dam from 220,000 cubic feet per second to 180 kcfs, beginning today (May 1).
The National Marine Fisheries Service said this week it will initiate a status review of Snake River fall chinook in response to a petition to delist the fish as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.
Conservation and animal welfare groups filed a lawsuit this week in U.S. District Court of Oregon to stop the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ plan to kill and harass double-crested cormorants on East Sand Island in the lower Columbia River estuary.
The prevailing theory is that streams warm as they travel downstream, from their cool and bubbly mountain beginnings to the slower and warmer winding rivers in flatlands. While that may be true for some rivers, many will actually have cooler sections where tributaries or underground springs join the main river, and coastal streams can be cooler where they empty into the ocean due to a prevalence of cooling fog.
Below-average snowpack in the Clearwater sub-basin and uncertain inflows from future weather conditions add up to an earlier-than-normal fill planned for Dworshak Reservoir, according to U.S. Army Corps of Engineers water-management officials.
A one-year permit that will allow the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to carry out the first year of its plan to significantly cull the East Sand Island population of double-crested cormorants in order to reduce the birds’ predation on juvenile salmon was approved this week by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
After a lackluster 2013-14 that saw just a few fish moving into the Metolius, Deschutes and Crooked rivers upstream of Lake Billy Chinook on the Deschutes River, but no spawning, researchers are now seeing active spawning by steelhead this year in the Crooked River.
In response to a request by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council, the Independent Scientific Review Panel has evaluated the “White Sturgeon Hatchery Master Plan: Lower Columbia and Snake River Impoundments” prepared by the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission.
An April 9 water supply report issued by the Northwest River Forecast Center paints a picture of varying precipitation across the Columbia Basin, combined with higher than normal temperatures that are resulting in a rapid, early runoff from mountain snowpack across the region.
Seventy per cent of glacier ice in British Columbia and Alberta could disappear by the end of the 21st century, creating major problems for local ecosystems, power supplies, and water quality, according to a new study by University of British Columbia researchers.
The upkeep for fish screens, hatcheries, fishways and traps, lands and habitat projects have been identified as important infrastructure projects worth preserving, according to a little known segment of the Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s Columbia River Fish and Wildlife Program 2014, a document approved last October.
American Rivers this week named the Columbia River among America’s Most Endangered Rivers of 2015, with a focus on the Columbia River Treaty.
British Columbia is expanding the fight against invasive mussels with a $1.3-million boost toward early detection and rapid response.
The Audubon Society of Portland last week announced its intent to sue the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to prevent it from putting a plan in place to reduce the population of double-crested cormorants at East Sand Island in the lower Columbia River estuary.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers alerts boaters and other users of Foster Reservoir near Sweet Home, Ore., that the reservoir’s normal spring refill schedule has changed again this year to accommodate ongoing fish passage research. The reservoir’s summer elevation will also be slightly lower again this summer.
The U.S. Department of Energy, U.S. Department of the Interior and U.S. Department of the Army for Civil Works announced this week that the three agencies have extended their partnership to advance hydropower development for an additional five years.
The late winter presence of marine mammals in the lower Columbia River has been huge, and obvious, with animals settling in at Astoria, Ore., and other estuary sites to prey, many suspect, on returning eulachon.
Fisheries managers have announced that the popular spring chinook salmon fishery on the north-central Oregon’s Deschutes River will not open in 2015 because of an anticipated “very poor return of both hatchery and wild fish this season.”
The long-anticipated El Niño has finally arrived, according to forecasters with NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center. In their updated monthly outlook released March 5, forecasters issued an El Niño Advisory to declare the arrival of the ocean-atmospheric phenomenon marked by warmer-than-average sea surface temperatures in the central Pacific Ocean near the equator.
Pacific Lamprey that spawn in Idaho and Oregon rivers, migrate 900 kilometers to 1,100 kilometers (559 to 683 miles) from the ocean, which are among the longest distances traveled by any lamprey species in freshwater.
Interior Columbia River basin researchers bring at least some good news to an ever darkening picture of potential impacts to fish and wildlife from global warming.
Salmon recovery efforts in Washington are making a difference – more salmon are returning home in some areas, although significant work remains – according to a new report released this week by the Governor’s Salmon Recovery Office.
“Pretty simple actions,” at the mid-Columbia Basin’s Goose Island have produced “pretty dramatic results” in the effort to reduce avian predation on protected salmon and, particularly, steelhead that swim downstream through the Grant County Public Utility District’s Wanapum and Priest Rapids dams and reservoirs, according to Grant’s assistant general manager, Chuck Berrie.
Engineers at Oregon State University have completed one of the most precise evaluations yet done about the impact of a major tsunami event on the Columbia River, what forces are most important in controlling water flow and what areas might be inundated.
Both salmon and steelhead species seem to be taking advantage of new spawning and rearing habitat options made available via the 2011 breaching and removal of Condit Dam on the lower White Salmon River in southwest Washington.
Bull trout, the threatened char native to the Northwest, are finicky spawners, at least in northwest Montana.
A final environmental impact statement released today says the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers would like to take a double-barreled approach in its attempt to reduce double-crested cormorant predation on protected juvenile salmon migrating through the lower Columbia River estuary toward the Pacific Ocean.
A total of 6,715 Snake River fall chinook salmon redds (river bottom nests) were estimated in the Snake River basin during 2014 – the highest total recorded since intensive surveys began in 1988.
A record return of Pacific lamprey to the Umatilla River has tribal fish managers optimistic that their restoration efforts are working, but it isn’t stopping them from embarking on an artificial propagation program that would be the first of its kind in the United States.
Oregon’s Foster Dam just got an upgrade, one that may be vital to the survival of threatened Upper Willamette River spring chinook salmon and winter steelhead.
Columbia River basin state and tribal fisheries managers could gain a new tool in their battle to reduce sea lion predation on threatened salmon if legislation proposed this week to amend the Marine Mammal Predation Act passes muster with Congress.
The Upper Columbia United Tribes on Tuesday announced a public comment period on a newly completed tribal strategy for reintroducing salmon above Grand Coulee Dam, which has long blocked access to spawning grounds above the hydro project in the United States and Canada.
Fish no longer need to go under the knife to help researchers understand exactly how they swim through hydroelectric dams, thanks to a new injectable tracking device described this week in the journal Scientific Reports.
Managing the impacts of sea lions and seals on protected salmon and steelhead and other fish stocks is a tough job that has only gotten tougher in recent years due, probably, to fluctuations in both predator and prey species populations in the lower Columbia River.
The Western Rivers Conservancy and the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde announced this week the purchase of 91 acres along west-central Oregon’s North Santiam River to complete a conservation assemblage called “Chahalpam,” which means “place of the Santiam Kalapuya people” in the tribal Santiam Kalapuya language.
A simple column of common soil can reverse the toxic effects of urban runoff that otherwise quickly kills young coho salmon and their insect prey, according to new research by NOAA Fisheries, Washington State University and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
The 2014-2015 snowpack building season started out on a track toward stowing away average water runoff for use in spring and summer, but relatively dry early to mid-January in parts of the Columbia-Snake River basin have seen predictions slip.
Tribal officials on Tuesday spoke Tuesday on the need to enlist the aid of the Northwest Power and Conservation Council in work aimed at, first, determining the feasibility of reintroducing salmon to long-blocked habitat above central Washington’s Grand Coulee and Chief Joseph dams on the Columbia River, and potentially following through.
A normal water supply is predicted for much of the West this year, while the Southwest, Sierra Nevada region and Pacific Northwest are beginning the year drier than normal, according to data from the first 2015 forecast of USDA’s National Water and Climate Center.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers completed federal navigation channel dredging at the lower Snake River’s Ice Harbor Lock and Dam Thursday, so the federal hydro project’s lock operations have returned to normal.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council this week elected Washington and Idaho members to lead the four-state energy and fish and wildlife planning agency in 2015.
Public access to central Washington’s Wanapum reservoir on the mid-Columbia River opened this past Wednesday after being largely closed since last spring, when structural cracks were discovered in a spillbay structure at the hydro project that controls water elevations.
It’s the largest trust water donation in Washington state history. Enough water to fill a football field 130 miles deep will stay in the White River for perpetuity.
The new “water year,” which began Oct. 1, is off to a relatively good start with precipitation totals above average for much of the Columbia River basin.
The 2014 Federal Columbia River Power System biological opinion “continues to rely on a suite of hoped-for mitigation actions in estuary and tributary habitat, as well as uncertain actions to address other sources of salmon mortality, without specifically identifying many of these actions or rationally addressing their risks.”
In its recently adopted 2014 Columbia River Basin Fish and Wildlife Program, the Northwest Power and Conservation Council committed to working with the region’s fish managers — state, federal, and tribal — to review objectives that can be “quantified” in rebuilding salmon and steelhead populations in the Columbia drainage.
The white sturgeon sport fishery in the Bonneville Dam reservoir will open Jan. 1 and extend through March 1 as long as harvest totals remain within projections, according to fishing rules adopted Thursday by the Oregon and Washington departments of fish and wildlife.
Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell this week announced that Interior’s Northwest Climate Science Center is awarding more than $1 million to universities and other partners for research to guide managers of parks, refuges and other cultural and natural resources in planning how to help species and ecosystems adapt to climate change.
Many of the worst West Coast winter floods pack a double punch. Heavy rains and melting snow wash down the mountains together to breach riverbanks, wash out roads and flood buildings.
British Columbia Premier Christy Clark announced this week the province has approved the “Site C Clean Energy Project,” – a large dam on the Peace River in northeastern in British Columbia — concluding it will provide British Columbia with the most affordable, reliable clean power for over 100 years.
The Yakama Nation this week filed a complaint in Oregon’s U.S. District Court that seeks from the federal government costs incurred by the tribe for participation in the long-running investigation and cleanup of the so-called Bradford Island site at the lower Columbia River’s Bonneville Dam.
Scientists monitoring incoming tsunami debris were taken aback last spring when some 30 fishing vessels from Japan washed ashore along the Pacific Northwest coast – many of them covered in living organisms indigenous to Asia.
A study commissioned by the U.S. Department of Energy identifies far more hydroelectric energy potential available in the Northwest than a similar and more recent study commissioned by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council.
Saying the move is necessary to keep pace with needed investments in the Federal Columbia River Power System, which provides hydropower at cost to Northwest public utilities, the Bonneville Power Administration Thursday proposed a 6.7 percent average wholesale power rate increase for the fiscal year 2016-2017 rate period.
Fickle white sturgeon – listed as at great risk of extinction under the federal Endangered Species Act – are nibbling on strategies aimed at restoring spawning activities in preferred zones in northernmost Idaho’s Kootenai River.
Snake River sockeye salmon, once virtually extinct with one wild fish, or none, returning annually to central Idaho’s Sawtooth Valley, have rallied to the point that they are cover boys and girls for this month’s American Fisheries Society’s Fisheries magazine.
“More fish – and more wild fish – are returning to the river” according to an annual “progress” report released last week by federal action agencies charged with assuring that beleaguered Columbia and Snake salmon and steelhead populations survive, and ultimately thrive.
After months of working around the clock to repair and strengthen Wanapum Dam’s spillway, Grant County Public Utility District will soon be able to raise the reservoir behind the dam and move back toward operating the mid-Columbia facility as intended to produce power, feed irrigation pumps, facilitate recreation and ease salmon and steelhead passage.
The practice remains controversial and in some cases could be better focused scientifically.
But the century-old tactic of attempting to improve freshwater habitat for salmon and other fish species by inserting logs and other large woody debris in rivers and streams most often helps, according to a research article published online Monday in the Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences.
The University of Washington Climate Impacts Group released information on several new publications involving CIG authors. These papers address issues in the following areas:
— Climate change and biodiversity
— Trends in coastal upwelling
— Climate change impacts on flooding
— Climate change impacts on U.S. dairy production
— Climate change adaptation in forested ecosystems of the North Cascades
— Climate change and very large wildfires
The historic, first-time-ever season for coho salmon in Idaho will end for the year Sunday, Nov. 16 in the Clearwater River basin.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council gave its conditional approval for the continuation of funding for a Yakama Nation project aimed at determining whether beleaguered upper Columbia steelhead populations can get a reproductive boost through the “reconditioning” of fish with an urge to spawn a second time.
The Colville Confederated Tribes got the go-ahead to continue development of a stock assessment that they hope will guide co-managers, including Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife and the Spokane Tribe, in managing fisheries for a “neglected” fish stock — Lake Roosevelt burbot.
It is hoped a new synthetic fish will help existing hydroelectric dams and new, smaller hydro facilities become more fish-friendly.
A new report released this week identifies natural resources that will be sensitive to a warmer climate in the North Cascades and offers management responses that will minimize adverse impacts on aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems.
A combination of federal budget cuts and higher operating costs have forced the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife to reduce salmon and steelhead production at three of its lower Columbia River fish hatchery facilities and plant juvenile coho salmon into a regional lake this fall.
A lake trout eradication effort in Lake Pend Oreille, Idaho, could also take up to 55,000 lake whitefish, an introduced fish that can live over 40 years.
The Columbia River Compact on Oct. 23 approved what are likely to be its final Columbia River mainstem commercial fishing decisions this year, approving the tribal sale of salmon and other fishes caught with hoop and dip nets and with hook and line through the end of the year, and setting lower river non-tribal gill-net fisheries that stretch through today.
Federal, state, local and tribal officials from both sides of the U.S.-Canadian border gathered Oct. 9 at the top of Idaho’s panhandle to celebrate the latest, large step toward fulfillment of long-held dream held, most particularly, by the Kootenai Tribe of Idaho.
Survival estimates for juvenile steelhead moving down through the Columbia-Snake river hydro system during the 2014 spring-summer outmigration were so high – nearly 10 percent higher than the next best in a data record that goes back to 1997 – that researchers from NOAA Fisheries’ Northwest Fisheries Science say they need to review their statistical modeling methods and assumptions.
A 20-year Nez Perce Tribe effort to reintroduce coho salmon in the Snake River basin has shown steady progress, but this year is riding a particularly high wave as tens of thousands of the shiny fish are surging up the Columbia and Snake rivers on the way to the Clearwater River and tributaries.
For the past 22 years, Boise-based Idaho Power has managed flows below its Hells Canyon Dam on the lower Snake River to provide stable conditions for spawning fall chinook salmon.
Restoring ecosystems and wild fish are major themes spelled out in the latest version of the Columbia River Basin Fish and Wildlife Program, a set of strategies developed by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council over the past year and approved Wednesday during the panel’s meeting in Pendleton, Ore.
With an abundance of returning spawners expected, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife has announced a relatively rare opening for anglers to target coho salmon beginning Saturday in the upper Columbia River from south-central Washington’s Priest Rapids Dam upstream nearly 150 miles to Chief Joseph Dam.
Endangered Species Act “recovery” of beleaguered Columbia River basin salmon stocks is in sight, say federal, state and tribal officials, as the result of past and ongoing collaborative efforts.
A number of familiar adversaries, including the state of Oregon, have told Oregon’s U.S. District Court that they will join the recently resumed fight over the legality of the federal government’s strategy for assuring Federal Columbia River Power System operations avoid jeopardizing protected salmon and steelhead.
The Upper Columbia Salmon Recovery Board announced in mid-September the release of a comprehensive report on habitat work in the region over the past 13 years (1999-2012) – a report the panel says is the first of its kind in the salmon recovery arena.
By the end of this week, an estimated 239,000 fall chinook salmon will have been harvested in 2014 by treaty tribes, mostly in Columbia River reservoirs upstream of Bonneville Dam.
Efforts to restore greatly depleted populations of Pacific lamprey to the interior Columbia-Snake river basin could be aided by reading so-called genetic markers that tell researchers which of the spawners returning from the Pacific Ocean are best fitted for the arduous journey upstream, according to a research paper posted online this week in the scientific journal, Evolutionary Applications.
Religious and indigenous leaders this week transmitted to U.S. President Barack Obama and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper a “Declaration of Ethics and Modernizing the Columbia River Treaty,” which they say should serve as the foundation for international negotiations regarding renewal of the Columbia River Treaty.
A study to determine the number of spawning adult white sturgeon in an area of the upper Columbia River) that straddles the Canadian and U.S. border will help fisheries managers in the recovery efforts for the endangered fish.
The Walla Walla District of the Corps of Engineers placed Dworshak Dam’s hydroelectric generator Unit 3 back in service Monday after completing repairs of damage due to a short circuit in the stator winding on Aug. 15.
The federal Bureau of Reclamation and the state of Washington’s Department of Ecology this week released for public comment a draft environmental impact statement for the “Cle Elum Pool Raise Project,” which is part of a larger plan to boost water storage for use by fish and humans.
Southern Idaho wildlife habitat got a huge boost this week from a new $40 million agreement between the State of Idaho and the Bonneville Power Administration, said Idaho Gov. C.L. Butch Otter in a press release.
The “adjusted” white sturgeon consumption estimate (147) in the waters just below the lower Columbia River’s Bonneville Dam this year was the lowest by visiting sea lions since predation on the big fish was first observed in the hydro project’s tailrace in 2005, according a 2014 annual report released Sept. 16 by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Tuesday, Sept. 16, marked the 50th anniversary of the ratification of the Columbia River Treaty, an international agreement between Canada and the United States that was created with the goal of developing Columbia River water uses – specifically for power generation and flood control — for the benefit of both countries.
The surge of spawning salmon up and over the lower Columbia River’s Bonneville Dam have in recent days been of record proportions – at least in daily terms.
Another of the many human-built obstacles to salmon and steelhead passage up and down central Oregon’s Whychus Creek is being removed this late summer with the deconstruction of an irrigation diversion dam just above the town of Sisters that has long helped wet Pine Meadow Ranch fields and pastures.
Levels of pesticides continue to be a concern for aquatic life in many of the nation’s rivers and streams in agricultural and urban areas, according to a new USGS study spanning two decades (1992-2011). Pesticide levels seldom exceeded human health benchmarks.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council this week made final an annual report it will soon send off to the governors of Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Washington that details all fish and wildlife costs incurred by the Bonneville Power Administration during fiscal 2013.
Fall chinook salmon fish count at Columbia River hydro project thus far in the 2014 season are lagging, but sport and commercial fishers alike are hopeful that a burst of fish is in the offing that could lift the run to record proportions.
Like their upper Columbia River cousins, Snake River sockeye salmon are setting modern-day records for numbers of returning spawners.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Aug. 28 announced its decision to extend protection to the Oregon spotted frog (Rana pretiosa) as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act.
Three federal agencies are leading a project aimed at improving the design of hydroelectric turbines in Northwest dams to make them friendlier to future generations of fish.
A primary source of cool water used to improve Snake River salmon summertime migration conditions was pinched Aug. 15, leaving fish and hydro system management representatives to debate how to make the best out of a bad situation.
Treatment of the always simmering hatchery vs. wild salmon issue was at the forefront recently as the Northwest Power and Conservation Council began deliberations about shaping its next Columbia River Basin Fish and Wildlife Program earlier this month.
After “years” of negotiations, Idaho officials and the Bonneville Power Administration are within a few short steps of finalizing a settlement agreement to bring $22 million to the state over the next 10 years for the purchase of wildlife habit to help mitigate for impacts caused by construction and operation of federal dams on the Snake River and tributaries.
Idaho Power Company biologists recently captured one of the largest fish it has encountered during a three-year survey of the white sturgeon fish population in the lower Snake River.
Menacing “El Nino” signs have eased — though not disappeared.
But another potential salmon nemesis – an apparent warm phase Pacific Decadal Oscillation – has made an appearance with warmer than average sea surface water conditions from the Gulf of Alaska and the eastern Bering Sea down to the so-called California Current off the coast of Oregon and Washington.
Federal government attorneys and those representing the conservation group Columbia Riverkeeper this week filed a proposed settlement agreement in Eastern Washington’s U.S. District Court that would, as planned, ward off a legal battle about whether Columbia and Snake river hydro projects are releasing pollutants in violation of the Clean Water Act.
Water quality agency staff from Idaho, Oregon, and Washington, U.S. EPA Region 10, Willamette Partnership, and The Freshwater Trust released draft recommendations this week on approaches to water quality trading in the Pacific Northwest.
The Hatchery Scientific Review Team in a June report to Congress summarizes the panel’s recently completed comprehensive review of scientific advancements in hatchery management.
Measuring juvenile salmon passage at Columbia/Snake River dams, and hitting survival targets, is a key directive in the federal government’s biological opinion for Columbia Basin salmon and steelhead listed under the Endangered Species Act.
Upper Columbia River sockeye salmon that have amazed in recent years with record returns to the Okanogan River system now have more room to roam with new access to an area where potentially more fish can rear, and keep those adult returns strong.
NOAA Fisheries, the Idaho Office of Species Conservation, Idaho Department of Fish and Game and the Idaho members of the Northwest Power and Conservation Council on Monday announced the release of the public review draft of the Endangered Species Act recovery plan for Snake River sockeye salmon.
The 900-mile trip up the Columbia, Snake and Salmon rivers is complete for at least one sockeye salmon spawner, with the promise of many more to come this year to seed the Sawtooth Valley’s Redfish Lake and help fuel the resurrection of a stock that had, 20 years ago, nearly gone extinct.
NOAA Fisheries Service earlier this month gave its final approval for the re-introduction of spring chinook salmon in north-central Washington’s Okanogan River basin as an “non-essential experimental” population under Endangered Species Act.
Sedating fish to implant radio tags, instead of collecting and restraining them without sedation, significantly reduces the impacts of the procedure on fish used throughout fishery research.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers this week announced it has extended by 15 days the public comment period on a draft plan detailing possible alternatives to reduce predation by double-crested cormorants on juvenile salmon and steelhead that are listed under the Endangered Species Act.
The Lake Pend Oreille kokanee population has literally risen from its death bed over the past eight years due in large part to an Idaho Department of Fish and Game strategy aimed at reducing predation on the smallish game fish.
With record number of sockeye salmon coursing up the Columbia River headed for, in large part, the Okanogan River basin, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife has once again stretched the daily salmon daily bag limits to allow anglers on the mainstem to take advantage of the bounty.
Lt. Col. Timothy R. Vail assumed command last week of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Walla Walla District, during a ceremony held in Walla Walla.
In the July 11th, 2014 edition of the Columbia Basin Bulletin there was an article covering the July 8th, 2014 public hearing in Portland on the Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s Fish and Wildlife Program Amendment process. American Whitewater appreciates coverage of our testimony about the Protected Areas Program, and writes to provide some background and clarification to some points highlighted in the article.
The sockeye salmon tally this year at the lower Columbia River’s Bonneville Dam on Tuesday set a record for any season since the construction of the dam was completed in 1938 and the counts began.
Mid-summer sockeye spawners counted passing Bonneville through Tuesday totaled 526,367, and counting.
People spoke pro and con regarding Columbia River salmon hatchery practices and about the viability of restoring fish passage to the upper river, about the need to keep certain areas hydro free, and about controlling costs for a fish and wildlife program that is believed to be one of the most extensive and expensive in the world.
Newer obligations, old obligations and other factors and agreements continue to drive up funding for what Bonneville Power Administration officials say is likely the country’s largest ecosystem improvement program.
With continuing strong counts at lower Columbia River hydro projects, Oregon and Washington officials decided this week to expand fishing opportunities for anglers and for both tribal and non-Indian commercial fishers on the mainstem Columbia River.
Tacoma Power, Lewis County Public Utility District and Bonneville Power Administration announced last week that they have signed a long-term agreement that will improve natural fish runs in western Washington’s Cowlitz River by providing more efficient passage downstream for juvenile outmigrants.
Streams less than 30 meters from roads in the interior Columbia River basin have significantly less wood debris in the stream than those waterways greater than 60 meters from roads, reducing habitat and rearing quality for salmonids in those streams.
A warming climate and the presence of non-native rainbow trout results in interbreeding with native westslope cutthroat trout in Montana rivers, but a conscious policy and program to remove non-native fish is showing promise in preserving the native fish.
Using new data from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the Bonneville Power Administration is funding two new studies to improve its understanding of the effects climate change could have on the Northwest.
The official comment deadline is still on the horizon, but tribes, power user groups and others have been taking advantage of public hearings and other avenues to press for changes to draft language for amendments to the Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s fish and wildlife program.
Creating fish for harvest while still protecting the sanctity of threatened wild Snake River salmon and steelhead remains “a critical adaptive management challenge” for Lower Snake River Compensation Plan managers, but one they should be equipped to handle, according to a recent review prepared by the Independent Scientific Review Panel.
With summer chinook adult spawner counts on track to achieve preseason return estimates, and sockeye salmon numbers looking even better than advertised, Oregon and Washington fisheries officials this week gave their go-ahead for two more weeks of commercial fishing for treaty tribes on the Columbia River mainstem reservoirs above Bonneville Dam.
Surface bypass systems at Columbia River and Snake River dams provide a safe passage for juvenile salmon and steelhead using a relatively small amount of water, according to a recent article that studied juvenile steelhead using a type of surface bypass system at Lower Granite Dam on the Snake River.
U.S. Sen. Dean Heller (R-NV) announced this week that he has introduced in the Senate the “Protecting Lakes against Quaggas (PLAQ) Act,” which would add invasive quagga mussels to the national list of invasive species covered under the Lacey Act.
It’s a record-smashing season for young salmon migrating through the Baker River in the North Cascades of Washington State. Fisheries crews have counted a staggering one million sockeye and coho salmon making their way to the Pacific Ocean. The fish just keep coming, and so do the records.
Fishing and conservation groups this week announced intentions to seek a legal declaration that the federal government’s plan to protect threatened and endangered Columbia and Snake river salmon and steelhead fails to achieve dictates of the Endangered Species Act.
“Buffered to a certain extent by more stable food resources” near East Sand Island in the Columbia River estuary, the nesting double-crested cormorant colony there has blossomed, while the number of breeding pairs elsewhere along the Pacific coast in Washington and British Columbia have dropped by some 66 percent, according to the soon-to-be published research article, “Status Assessment of Double-Crested Cormorants in Western North America.”
Results from the first year of a two-year study that is attempting to discover why some adult salmon that arrive at Bonneville Dam are not accounted for at McNary Dam, an upstream journey of 146 river miles, found that survival of radio tagged adult chinook and sockeye salmon is below performance standards set in the Federal Columbia River Power System Biological Opinion for salmon and steelhead.
Sockeye salmon, known for their bright red meat and high oil content, are starting to surge up the Columbia River on their spawning mission toward the Okanogan and Wenatchee rivers — which branch off from the big river in central Washington — and toward the Snake River’s Salmon River drainage.
Fishery managers announced this week that the spring chinook salmon fishing season scheduled to open this Saturday, June 21 on northeast Oregon’s Imnaha River has been delayed in hope that more hatchery-origin fish make their way back to river.
The “culling” of double-crested cormorants, by the thousands, is the preferred option considered in a newly released “environmental impact statement” from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in its ongoing effort to produce a management plan for reducing the big, fish-eating birds’ impacts on protected Columbia River salmon and steelhead.
The Bonneville Power Administration said it incurred $682.4 million in total fish and wildlife costs during fiscal year 2013, a total derived in great part by the need to buy and sell power and operate dams with the goal of improving salmon and steelhead passage up and down the federal Columbia/Snake River hydro system.
From 2001 to 2012 the percentage of hatchery fish marked at the hatchery has edged ever higher, according to a report prepared for the Northwest Power and Conservation Council at the request of Washington member Tom Karier.
Off-channel habitat created in a river’s flood plain – sloughs, beaver ponds, wetlands and side channels – can play an important role in salmonid production.
Habitat survey teams are fanning out across the Columbia River Basin this month, measuring the fine details of Northwest rivers and streams as part of a NOAA-led initiative to assess and track the condition of salmon and steelhead habitat, says NOAA Fisheries on its West Coast Region website.
A coalition of fishing and conservation groups on Tuesday filed a petition asking that a federal appeals court review, and vacate, a Feb. 27 Bonneville Power Administration “record of decision” to implement a plan that assures a set of federal dams in Columbia-Snake river basin do not jeopardize the survival of protected salmon and steelhead species.
California brown pelicans are showing up in the Columbia River estuary in larger numbers than ever for this time of year, and exhibiting courting behavior on an island that is hundreds of miles from their northernmost known breeding grounds.
Officials at the National Park Service’s Glen Canyon National Recreation Area announced late last week that it has developed a strategy to help reduce the spread of invasive quagga mussels from Colorado River’s Lake Powell to other lakes and rivers with an emphasis on inspections of boats leaving the reservoir.
“A mathematical error during the pre-construction design of Wanapum Dam” on the mid-Columbia River has been determined as the primary contributing factor to a fracture discovered this late winter that had developed within the dam’s spillway and forced major changes to hydro and fish passage operations there.
Stalled sport and commercial fishers were given the go-ahead, in decisions made Tuesday by Oregon and Washington officials, to pursue spring chinook salmon on the lower Columbia River mainstem, including “upriver” fish.
Upstream routes past dams for salmonids have proven effective since the middle of the 20th century and before. However, passage for juvenile yearling and subyearling salmon has only recently been deemed adequate, according to a series of articles published over the past four years.
Flows through northwest Montana’s Libby Dam were ramping up today (Friday) to create higher flows that might tempt endangered white sturgeon to move up the Kootenai River past Bonners Ferry, Idaho, to spawning habitat that they have long ignored.
A conference held Tuesday at Gonzaga University in Spokane resulted in a declaration from religious groups and tribes from north and south of the border calling on Canada and the United States for specific actions to “right historic wrongs and achieve stewardship in managing the Columbia River” during expected negotiations over the Columbia River Treaty.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council this week made available for public comment draft amendments to the panel’s Columbia River Basin Fish and Wildlife Program.
Modified fish ladders at central Washington’s damaged Wanapum Dam on the mid-Columbia River appear to be doing the trick for adult spring chinook salmon headed upstream on their spawning journey.
Pacific Northwest processes involving tribes, U.S. and Canadian governments, and other stakeholders, “are teeing up the right questions” about whether or not passage should be restored for salmon and steelhead long prevented by dams from returning to historic spawning areas in the upper Columbia River.
Fisheries managers are expressing confidence about a strong chinook salmon fishing season in Idaho after recent increases in the number of fish being counted in the Columbia River, including more than 17,000 counted passing Bonneville Dam in one day this week.
The National Hydropower Association on Wednesday presented Portland-based Northwest RiverPartners, central Washington’s Grant County Public Utility District and Portland General Electric with national Outstanding Stewards of America’s Waters Awards for projects that have provided “extraordinary operational, recreation, historical, environmental or educational value.”
The responsibility of Pacific Northwest electricity consumers to pay for a plan to restore threatened and endangered salmon runs has been stretched beyond reasonable limits, according to letter sent this month asking that the governors of Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Washington demand a “God Squad” assessment of the situation.
Continued improvement of north Idaho’s Lake Pend Oreille kokanee population has the Idaho Department of Fish and Game considering an increase to the harvest limit.
The reconfigured left bank fish ladder at central Washington’s Wanapum Dam was watered up Tuesday and, right on call, 10 spring chinook salmon and 46 steelhead climbed the steps and vanished up the Columbia River in search of spawning areas and/or the hatchery of their birth.
An extensive reworking of the juvenile salmon facility expected to begin this year at the lower Snake River’s Lower Granite Dam should help reduce stress, injury and delay during the fishes’ first encounter with the federal Snake-Columbia river hydro system.
On Wednesday all 26 lawmakers representing the states of Washington, Oregon, Montana and Idaho delivered a letter to President Barack Obama urging him to make the future of the 1964 Columbia River Treaty a priority for 2014.
A large restoration effort is planned for the Clark Fork River delta, located on Lake Pend Oreille in northern Idaho.
Think of the pressure change you feel when an elevator zips you up multiple floors in a tall building. Imagine how you’d feel if that elevator carried you all the way up to the top of Mt. Everest – in the blink of an eye.
Col. Jose L. Aguilar became district commander of the Portland District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers at a ceremony this week.
The Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission in an April 2 letter to two federal agencies stresses the need to involve treaty tribes in processes to address issues posed by a fractured mid-Columbia River dam that has the potential to affect survival rates for migrating salmon and steelhead.
“March was a great month for the Pacific Northwest” as regards the collection of mountain snowpack that will feed the Columbia and Snake rivers and their tributaries this spring and summer, according to Joanne Salerno, a senior hydrologist for the Northwest River Forecast Center.
Could a controversial proposal to boost springtime spill at mainstem Columbia and Snake river dams add to knowledge regarding spill, juvenile dam passage survival, and adult fish returns?
In a report completed late last month, members of the Independent Economic Analysis Board “suggest that, with better information, economics could be applied to achieve more at less cost” through the Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s Columbia River Basin Fish and Wildlife Program.
Crude oil from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster causes severe defects in the developing hearts of bluefin and yellowfin tunas, according to a new study by a team of NOAA and academic scientists.
While investigations are continuing to identify the extent and cause of a 65-foot-long crack across a Wanapum Dam spillway pier monolith, fishery experts, engineers and others are scurrying to assure passage for fast-approaching salmon spawners.
To provide further protections for threatened and endangered salmon and steelhead, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Walla Walla District is expanding its current nonlethal avian hazing program at five Corps dams to incorporate limited lethal “take” of certain piscivorous — fish-eating — birds.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced Thursday that it has begun implementing its 2014 “Spring Fish Operations Plan” at its four lower Snake River and four lower Columbia River dams.
Six fishing and conservation groups – all involved in long-running litigation in the past that has challenged the federal salmon protection plans for the Columbia River basin – on March 24 mailed a 60-day notice of their intent to sue the Bonneville Power Administration’s official adoption of the latest government strategy.
After a lengthy rate proceeding, BPA officials have decided to allocate oversupply costs to generators within its balancing authority area based on their scheduled use of transmission during oversupply events.
British Columbia’s Minister of Energy and Mines and Minister Responsible for Core Review Bill Bennett announced last week that the Canadian government has decided that it wants continue the long-running Columbia River Treaty with the United States while seeking “improvements” within pact’s existing framework.
Discharge flows from Dworshak Dam on the North Fork of the Clearwater River in west-central Idaho were increased on Sunday from approximately 14,100 cubic feet per second to about 17.1 kcfs to make room for anticipated above average inflows resulting from spring rainfall and snowmelt, according to U.S. Army Corps of Engineers water-management officials.
A newly noted, blossoming infestation of non-native zebra and/or quagga mussels in the Southwest’s Lake Powell on the Colorado River is already, given northward boat traffic, being considered part of a growing threat to as-yet untainted waters in the Pacific Northwest.
Fish protections, irrigator access and hydro power generation are chief among the concerns at the mid-Columbia River’s Wanapum Dam, where on Feb. 27 a 65-foot long horizontal crack was discovered at one of the facility’s 12 spillways.
The California Department of Fish and Wildlife, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the National Marine Fisheries Service have agreed on a temporary contingency plan for the release of hatchery smolts in 2014 due to drought.
Fear of a blowout has been reduced, but Grant County Public Utility District officials are still puzzling over what to do about a worrisome 2-inch, 65-foot long horizontal crack discovered late last month along one of the 12 spillways at central Washington’s Wanapum Dam on the Columbia River.
The snowy blanket that builds in winter and feeds Columbia River rivers and streams through spring and summer has shown a much desired growth spurt thanks to a wet February and continued precipitation in early March.
Assertions by members of the Northwest congressional delegation that the Bonneville Power Administration is lopping off funding for coded wire tag monitoring of Columbia River basin salmon are greatly overstated, according recent letter from BPA CEO Elliot Mainzer.
The American Arbitration Association’s panel has made a final ruling regarding the estimated conveyance price that Energy Keepers, Incorporated (EKI) will pay on behalf of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes to PPL Montana in order for CSKT to acquire the Kerr Hydroelectric Project.
President Obama’s fiscal year 2015 budget request released Tuesday identifies a total of $1 billion for the Bureau of Reclamation, the nation’s largest wholesale water supplier and second-largest producer of hydroelectric power.
Restoring salmon passage to long-blocked habitat in the upper Columbia River basin in the United States and Canada should be investigated and implemented as a key element of integrating ecosystem considerations into a new Columbia River Treaty, according to a report developed by a coalition of 15 Columbia River basin tribes and Canadian First Nations.
In response to the massive fall chinook run predicted to return to the Columbia and Snake rivers this year, Idaho Fish and Game officials are seeking federal permission to harvest unmarked fish.
By adjusting water discharges in ways designed to boost salmon productivity, officials at a dam in central Washington were able to more than triple the numbers of juvenile fall chinook salmon downstream of the dam over a 30-year period, according to a study published Tuesday (Feb. 25) in the Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences’ online edition.
Even though the official comment period has long since passed, passion is still sizzling about a recommendation that the Northwest Power and Conservation Council throw its support behind a proposal to boost springtime spill for fish passage at Columbia and Snake river dams.
A once thriving fishery, the wild Kootenai River burbot – freshwater cod – is nearing extinction if it doesn’t get help, according to a scientific summary of the burbot in this river that spans two states and British Columbia.
Clearer views of waters along the U.S. and Canadian border are now possible with new seamless digital maps. These maps make it easier to solve complex water issues that require a thorough understanding of drainage systems on both sides of the international boundary.
Newly sworn-in Bonneville Power Administration Administrator Elliot Mainzer announced this week he has selected Greg Delwiche to serve as BPA’s deputy administrator and Claudia Andrews to serve as chief operating officer.
A total of 6,391 fall chinook salmon redds (scoured out nests in river bottom gravels) were estimated to have been built in the lower Snake River basin in 2013, representing the highest estimate since intensive surveys began in 1988.
An Earthwise Knowledge Initiative Publication
