The Technical Management Team this week decided to delay a test at McNary
Dam that, if it works, could offer insight into achieving cooler water
temperatures.
The TMT also decided to begin ramping down outflows at Dworshak Dam.
In the process, TMT members acknowledged that river operations decisions
after Aug. 31 will have less to do with endangered species survival and
more to do with other uses, such as power generation, as the National Marine
Fisheries Service biological opinion season

A anticipated first step toward the development of a Lower Snake River
water temperature monitoring program became a half-step backward
Thursday when Implementation Team (IT) discussions pointed out the
need
to assess available information before plunging ahead.
The water quality team (WQT) presented a briefing paper Thursday
outlining a framework or strategy for development and implementation
of
a water temperature monitoring program. The WQT is a multi-agency group
produced from ...

wide, 1.75 mile channel to Tongue Point based on
the speculation that the facility would be used.
?Today, there still is not a user for that site,?
she said.
Huhtala said CDOG had concerns other than those
addressed by Hicks, such as toxic waste on the
floor of Portland?s harbor, radioactive materials
in the Columbia River that could be stirred up
with the dredging operation and the turbidity
caused by blasting and dredging.
Carl Erickson, hydraulic engineer for the Corps,
said it had

The state of Idaho agreed to criteria this week on when to begin ramping-up
discharges from Idahos Dworshak Dam to augment flows and cool water at
Lower Granite Dam on the Snake River.
An Idaho representative said the state expects that Dworshak water will
be needed sometime this weekend to ensure flow targets set by the multi-agency
Technical Management Team, but asked that the Dworshak reservoir be allowed
to fill at least through Friday, or as long as possible.
"We anticipate that some

With the bulk of the spring juvenile fish migration completed, the fish
transportation emphasis will soon shift from the Snake River to the
Columbia's McNary Dam to accommodate summer migrants such as the fall
chinook salmon.
As of June 13, 20.1 million young fish -- predominantly spring chinook
and steelhead -- had been collected by the Corps of Engineers at three
Lower Snake River dams. Of those, 15.15 million were transported by
barge and released below Bonneville dam, the dam on ...

Avista Corp. and the state of Montana have developed a draft agreement
aimed at protecting existing water rights in the Clark Fork Basin.
Avista, formerly Washington Water Power, and the state negotiated the
draft at the company's Noxon Rapids hydro facility on the Clark Fork river
last week.
The water rights issues were not resolved when an unprecedented licensing
agreement for Avista's Noxon Rapids and Cabinet Gorge dams was reached
early this year. Collaborating with 39 ...

Precious water held behind Grand Coulee and Dworshak dams is being released
to supplement Columbia and Snake river flows that are lower than expected
because lingering cool weather has slowed mountain snow melt.
Columbia Basin salmon and hydropower managers on Wednesday decided to
release more water, rather than beginning to refill the reservoirs.
If cool weather continues, the extra water will likely be needed to
meet flow targets prescribed in the National Marine Fisheries Service ...

The Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission expressed to National
Marine Fisheries Service regional administrator Will Stelle its strong
opposition to the NMFS spill program specifically designed for a juvenile
survival study at The Dalles Dam.

"While we understand the purpose of reducing the spill is to conduct
a regionally contentious juvenile survival study, we believe that it is
unnecessarily risky to subject the entire 1999 spring and summer migrations
of listed and ...

Pushed for continued maximum spill, the Corps of Engineers last week
picked a "compromise" to finish off an operational request to
pass 4.1 million Spring Creek Hatchery tule fall chinook over Bonneville
Dam. An initial request from regional salmon managers had been for 10 days
of 24-hour spill to a 120 percent total dissolved gas supersaturation cap.
During a March 18 meeting of the multi-agency Technical Management Team,
the Corps agreed to the request, but asked that a ...

Available information on the benefits of flow augmentation to migrating
juvenile salmon and steelhead on the Snake and Columbia Rivers will be
compiled in a report due for completion in June. The report is an attempt
to answer an Idaho Governor's Office request for better justification of
the practice as a salmon recovery measure.

At a Feb. 4 meeting of NMFS's multi-agency Implementation Team, Gov.
Dirk Kempthorne's natural resources adviser Jim Yost asked for an explanation
of the ...