Northwest nonprofits have challenged in federal court the Bonneville Power Administration’s decision to join a Southeast power market and sell Northwest hydropower to customers as far away as Louisiana, saying the change would result in higher energy bills, higher transmission costs, reduced access to renewable energy and threaten the agency’s commitment to salmon and steelhead recovery.
In its recommendations for change to the Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s 2014/2020 Columbia Basin Fish and Wildlife Program, the Bonneville Power Administration says the Program’s estimates and goals are beyond the power marketing agency’s statutory responsibility.
Federal agencies this week backed away from their efforts to prepare a supplemental environmental impact statement for Columbia River basin dam operations and their impact on salmon and steelhead, citing a June 12 Presidential Memorandum as their justification.
NOAA Fisheries agreed in Oregon District Court to complete its long-awaited decisions to list coastal spring Chinook salmon in Washington, Oregon and Northern California under the federal Endangered Species Act.
As happens every summer, cold water from Dworshak Dam on the North Fork Clearwater River in Idaho began being released in late June to help keep the tailwater cooler for migrating salmon and steelhead at Lower Granite Dam downstream on the lower Snake River.
A vitamin deficiency likely killed as many as half of newly hatched fry of endangered winter-run Chinook salmon in the Sacramento River in 2020 and 2021. These new findings were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
More summer Chinook salmon will enter the Columbia River than was previously forecasted, allowing Oregon and Washington to open the river to recreational angling from its mouth to the two-state border near Pasco, WA for eight days.
