Increased flows correlate highly with increased survival rates of
migrating Snake River subyearling fall chinook salmon, National Marine
Fisheries studies continue to show, but only drastic tests would settle
debates about the importance of flows augmented by releases from
upstream reservoirs.
The differences between hatchery bred salmon and wild salmon were
debated this week before a committee of Oregon’s House of
Representatives.
The House Committee on Stream Restoration and Recovery — which Chairman
Rep. Bob Jenson, R-Pendleton, said is charged with recommending changes
to the Oregon Plan for Salmon that could influence how Oregon hatcheries
operate in the future — heard scientists touting both sides of the
equation in Salem Monday.
A planned test of selective commercial harvest gear this spring won
Northwest Power Planning Council approval Wednesday, jumping ahead of a
pack of some 96 fish and wildlife proposals hoping to gain fiscal year
2001 “high priority” project funding.
Lawyers for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers this week asked U.S.
District Court Judge Helen J. Frye to dismiss a suit seeking it comply
with the clean water standards when operating four lower Snake River
dams. They said provisions added to the National Marine Fisheries
Service 2000 biological opinion address federal Clean Water Act
requirements and make the case unnecessary.
Washington state Sen. Bob Morton, vexed by a situation last year that
saw tens of thousands of hatchery “surplus” fish killed while streams
within his own district hold only remnant populations, says he is
pursuing accountability.
He has authored legislation in the Washington Senate that calls for a
two-year moratorium on federal fishery agency orders to destroy
“surplus” hatchery fish or their progeny returning the state’s
hatcheries.
The substantial differences between hatchery and wild fish that often
inhabit the same watershed is reason enough to support sacrificing
excess hatchery fish. That’s the conclusion of a white paper recently
released by the Oregon Chapter of the American Fisheries Society.
Western senators and utility officials this week warned that the
spreading California electricity crisis and dry winter in the Northwest
threaten to cause even worse problems this summer.
The risk of more power outages and price hikes is greater during that
time because California’s electricity demand will be even higher but
reservoirs at Columbia Basin dams are extremely low and may not refill …
Montana’s snowpack situation went from bad to worse when January failed
to produce any precipitation recovery.
Mountaintops across Montana are still showing snowpack concentrations no
higher than 60 percent of normal. In northwest Montana, conditions are
even worse, and runoff forecasts for the region’s two hydroelectric
projects are steadily dropping.
Environmental groups withdrew this week a petition asking for a
moratorium on handing out water withdrawal permits when Washington Gov.
Gary Locke announced plans to sponsor a regional initiative that would
develop a state water management strategy for the mainstem Columbia and
Snake rivers
Commercial fishing and environmental groups filed suit Tuesday against
the Environmental Protection Agency and its new administrator, Christine
Todd Whitman, claiming the agency has failed to protect salmon from
harmful effects of pesticides.
Nearly half — $45 million worth — of the “high priority” fish and
wildlife project proposals submitted for fiscal year 2001 funding
satisfy criteria set out by the Northwest Power Planning Council,
according to a report released Thursday by the Columbia Basin Fish and
Wildlife Authority.
A Columbia River estuary land acquisition announced last week should
bode well for salmon, waterfowl and other wildlife species as a
developing habitat restoration plan comes to fruition.
The Vancouver, Wash.-based Columbia Land Trust has acquired 871 acres,
or nearly two-thirds, of the Chinook River floodplain …
A bountiful, by recent standards, return of spring chinook salmon last
year has translated into the top spawning count on record for one
unlisted Oregon run and generally improved returns for ESA listed fish
on which much of the Columbia Basin’s recovery efforts are focused.
As the Northwest power emergency continues, five federal agencies have
taken control of the federal hydroelectric system’s in-season
management, a job that normally is the province of the Technical
Management Team.
The Bonneville Power Administration is on a path to wholesale power rate
increases averaging 60 percent over the next five years unless the
region can identify and take actions to reduce power costs, BPA Acting
Administrator Steve Wright said Thursday.
The Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission this year will increase
direct contacts with members of Congress and federal officials in
Washington, D.C., on salmon recovery funding and other issues, members
and staff said this week.
Columbia River Compact members balked Thursday at putting the financial
onus on commercial fishers for an experimental fishery intended to test
live capture methods that might increase harvest opportunities without
further imperiling ESA listed stocks.
The Compact, delegates representing the Oregon and Washington fish and
wildlife commissions and departments, is charged with setting mainstem
commercial fishing seasons.
A federal plan to build the grizzly bear population in western Montana’s
and central Idaho’s Bitterroot Mountains from zero to 280 has drawn
legal fire from Idaho and its governor, Dirk Kempthorne, via a lawsuit
challenging federal authority to import bears and claiming such a
decision usurps state sovereignty.
The Bonneville Power Administration announced Thursday that it began
this week predicting a power shortage of nearly 1,000 megawatts in the
Northwest and would have to run the Columbia River hydropower system
extra hard simply to meet Northwest electricity demand.
The agency increased flows at Bonneville Dam from 130,000 cubic feet per
second to 160 kcfs Thursday to generate more kilowatts and help make up
for the power deficit …
Columbia Basin electric ratepayers have footed a $3.48 billion bill
since 1978 to help restore fish and wildlife populations in the region,
according to a draft report released this week by the Northwest Power
Planning Council.
The “Annual Report of the Columbia Basin Fish and Wildlife Program,
1978-1999″ is a first-time attempt to detail exactly fish and wildlife
expenditures of the Bonneville Power Administration …
President-elect George Bush’s choice for secretary of energy, Spencer
Abraham, this week assured Northwest senators he no longer advocates
privatizing the Bonneville Power Administration.
Abraham, a defeated Republican senator from Michigan, co-sponsored bills
to abolish the Department of Energy and transfer its programs to other
agencies of government or the private sector.
Steve Wright, acting Bonneville Power Administration chief, told the
Northwest Power Planning Council Wednesday he expected the process of
appointing a new administrator could take up to six months. The
appointment would be made by president-elect George W. Bush’s Energy
secretary.
Speakers this week at a Federal Energy Regulatory Commission hearing in
Portland supported the agency’s proposal to streamline its hydroelectric
dam licensing process, but worried the shortened process would harm
either the environment or the bottom line.
FERC is required by legislation to look for efficiencies in that process
and is holding six hearings around the country to listen to comments on
its proposal.
The four lower Columbia River treaty tribes have offered a 2001 spring
fishing proposal they say will share an expected a wealth of returning
hatchery-produced upriver spring chinook salmon without blunting a
parallel resurgence in wild, Endangered Species Act listed fish numbers.
A bridge construction work stoppage in Oregon’s Clackamas County is a
signal that Pacific Northwest salmon restoration has entered a new era,
with new rules now in effect intended to protect Endangered Species Act
listed stocks.
Over the past four months new National Marine Fisheries Service habitat
rules have taken effect that aim to protect 14 populations of threatened
salmon and steelhead ranging from Southern California to the Canadian
border.
An Earthwise Knowledge Initiative Publication
