In a significant shift of California’s salmon strategy, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife has begun releasing juvenile fall-run Chinook salmon from CDFW-operated hatcheries into the main stem of the Sacramento River for the first time.
Based on an extensive aerial survey of Oregon’s forests completed last year by the Oregon Department of Forestry and the USDA Forest Service, a new report shows that drought, insect pests, and tree diseases continue to be the biggest threats to the state’s trees.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has released the first environmental impact statement since 1980 for its Willamette Valley system of 13 dams. The final EIS analyzes several alternatives and selects the preferred alternative the Corps says will be best for spring Chinook and winter steelhead listed under the Endangered Species Act. The Corps expects to release its Record of Decision in May.
Spring spill at Columbia/Snake River dams to aid juvenile salmon and steelhead in their migration through the hydro projects and out to the ocean is in full motion with all of the lower eight dams on the two rivers initiating full spill by April 10.
American Rivers this week announced America’s Most Endangered Rivers in its 40th annual listing, with Idaho’s Clearwater River Basin ranked the seventh most endangered.
Predacious sea lions in Bonneville Dam’s tailwaters took a bite out of the spring Chinook salmon and steelhead runs during the spring of 2024. Some 2.8 percent of the number of salmon counted at the dam last spring and 3.8 percent of the number of steelhead counted were snagged and eaten by Steller and California sea lions, according to a recently-released annual report by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Warmer temperatures with some snowmelt and near- or wetter-than-normal precipitation in much of the Columbia River basin in March led to some early runoff but overall resulted in higher April-Sept. water supply forecasts and a better outlook for stream flows in the basin that will aid juvenile and adult salmon and steelhead migrations this summer, according to a NOAA water supply briefing last week.
The Bureau of Reclamation today announced a $134 million award for the proposed Sites Reservoir Project. This new water storage project would be the second largest off-stream reservoir in the nation and would increase Northern California’s water storage capacity by up to 15 percent.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Portland District says it will not perform a deep drawdown at the Willamette Valley’s Detroit Reservoir in the fall of 2025.
Portland District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) invites the public to comment on the Engineering Evaluation/Cost Analysis (EE/CA) Report for the Upland Operable Unit (OU) of Bradford Island in Cascade Locks, Oregon.
2025 is forming to be the third consecutive year of low Columbia River basin water supplies, with the latest forecast April-September at The Dalles Dam of just 85 percent of the 30-year average, according to a NOAA water supply briefing this week.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is in the process of revamping the dam’s northern-most fish ladder near the Washington shore at a cost of some $8 million. According to the Corps, the project is changing out a portion of the fish ladder, which spans 800 feet from top to bottom, that was originally a serpentine passage of concrete walls, called baffles, with a newer baffle design more friendly to lamprey.
The Columbia-Snake River System, a critical trade corridor supporting $24 billion in commerce annually, will pause operations for two weeks beginning March 9, as the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Portland District, conducts its annual navigation lock maintenance.
The Washington Department of Ecology is hosting a public meeting March 17 to discuss how it will implement a long-awaited Total Maximum Daily Load plan for temperature in the Columbia and lower Snake rivers. The two rivers are included in Washington’s 303(d) list of impaired bodies of water due to their persistent high water temperatures...
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is still determining “how to proceed” in implementing actions directed by the 2024 Water Resources Development Act and a new jeopardy biological opinion for its 13 Willamette River projects completed by NOAA Fisheries Dec. 26. The Corps says that it still needs funds from Congress that it could get...
A drier than normal January is contributing to February’s lower Columbia River basin water supply forecasts for the months ahead.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said it could make hydroelectric dams on Oregon’s Willamette River safe for endangered salmon by building gigantic mechanical traps and hauling baby fish downstream in tanker trucks. The Corps started pressing forward over objections from fish advocates and power users who said the plan was costly and untested.
Although the snowpack in the western and southern portions of the Columbia River basin are higher than normal, other areas to the north and to the east are near- to lower-than-normal, and, as a result, January water supplies at key dams are being reported as below or slightly below normal.
A federal agency and a state agency have jointly completed a study on the impacts that breaching the four lower Snake River dams would have on water supplies and irrigation.
The Great Salt Lake has lost more than 15 billion cubic yards of water over the past three decades, is getting shallower at the rate of 4 inches a year, and an analysis of its water budget suggests reducing irrigation is necessary for saving it.
Citing new information and changed circumstances, two federal agencies are reopening this week their 2020 final environmental impact study for operations at 14 Columbia/Snake river federal hydroelectric dams and are now seeking public input. The final EIS guides the dams’ impacts on salmon and steelhead listed under the federal Endangered Species Act.
Canada will store several million-acre-feet of water that can be used in 2025 and for the next 20 years to help prevent floods in the Columbia River basin downstream in the United States, according to a virtual briefing earlier this month by federal dam operators on the Columbia River Treaty Agreement in Principle’s flood risk management protections.
The California Department of Fish and Wildlife has seen the first returns of threatened coho salmon to the upper Klamath River Basin in more than 60 years following historic dam removal completed last month.
In just its second year of court-ordered drawdowns at two Willamette River dams to aid passage of threatened spring Chinook salmon and winter steelhead, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced just prior to Thanksgiving that it halted the drawdown at one of the dams due to water quality issues at three municipalities downstream.
Comment Re: CBB article of November 26, 2024, entitled "2024 Survival Rate Of Migrating Juvenile Salmon In Columbia/Snake Rivers? Hard To Say With Yet Another Year Of Low Detection, Tagging Rates.”
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