Due to ongoing dry conditions at U.S. Army Corps of Engineers dams in Oregon’s Willamette Valley, reservoirs are currently as low as 20 percent full (Cougar Dam on the Mackenzie River) while, overall, the 13 dams in the Corps’ Willamette Valley System stand at 48 percent full, according to a recent virtual public meeting held...

Washington declared a state-wide drought in April and, according to a new draft report by the Department of Ecology, the state can expect to see an increase in multi-year droughts in coming years. This year’s declaration is already the fourth year in a row for some areas of the Northwest state, including the Yakima River...

Federal dam operating agencies began an operation last week that provides a small burst of water from the upper Columbia River. Although the flow augmentation of a maximum of 8,000 cubic feet per day of additional flow at McNary Dam is not directly a remnant of the now-paused U.S.-Canada Columbia River Treaty, it is provided...

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Portland District, has finalized a 20-year plan to maintain the lower Columbia River’s deep-draft navigation channel.

Runoff from a high-intensity storm during the 2022 McKinney Fire depleted oxygen in the Klamath River to levels lethal to fish, killing aquatic life along nearly 60 miles of one of California's most culturally significant waterways, according to a U.S. Geological Survey study

After a mid-season run-size update this week, the two-state Columbia River Compact approved two weekends of additional angling for spring Chinook salmon on the mainstem Columbia River, including angling over the Memorial Day holiday weekend both upstream and downstream of Bonneville Dam. The U.S. v Oregon Technical Advisory Committee for the first time during this...

Above table shows the years ranked low to high (numbers) based on whether ocean conditions are favorable or unfavorable for juvenile salmon survival. It’s an impossible task to manage salmon and steelhead ocean mortalities along the entire west coast of the United States, so fishery managers should concentrate more on influencing the environment along Washington’s...

Above: Map of the Yakima River Basin with the Bateman Island Causeway project location marked with a red star. Credit: Yakima Basin Fish & Wildlife Recovery Board Every summer, salmon and steelhead returning to the Yakima River swim hundreds of miles from the Pacific Ocean toward their spawning grounds in central Washington. But as they...