A request from the state of Montana to significantly drop sturgeon protection flows nearly two weeks early at Libby Dam to ensure sufficient and stable flows will be available during the summer was rejected this week by the Technical Management Team.
The salmon stock that has literally been at the eye of biological and political storms over the past several years -- the Oregon coastal coho -- is officially off the Endangered Species Act list.
The Nez Perce Tribe, saying that keeping subyearling chinook one extra year in the Lyons Ferry hatchery is unlawful, filed suit Monday (June 14) in Federal District Court in Portland to order the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife to release the fish this year.
Columbia River basin fish and wildlife managers this told the Northwest Power and Conservation Council that they feel they being left on the outside as decisions are made about how to protect and restore those resources.
The Bonneville Power Administration and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers unveiled at a press conference Tuesday (June 8) an amended proposal that will cut spill this summer at lower Snake River and Columbia River dams.
The offspring of spring chinook salmon planted in 2000 have returned to the Walla Walla River as 10-15-pound four-year-old adults.
The returns are the result of the supplementation and habitat improvement program of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation and the cooperative efforts of the Tribes, states and the Walla Walla Watershed Council, landowners, local irrigators and others.
Cattle have been removed, thousands of trees planted and the stream channel replaced so that 50 years after it was straightened, Bear Creak, located in the Upper Grand Ronde River subbasin, once again meanders through Longley Meadow.
Relief, accomplishment and, in some respects, disbelief were the most common feelings expressed this week as the Northwest Power Planning Council's subbasin planning process reached an milestone with fish and wildlife action plans flowing in from all corners of the Columbia River Basin.
An advisory committee of Oregon marine scientists has reviewed a recent report of the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy at the request of Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski, and strongly endorsed some of the key findings of that study – the oceans are in serious trouble, major changes are needed and current ocean policies do not reflect existing science and sound management principles.
The Upper Columbia steelhead "evolutionarily significant unit" is proposed for downlisting from endangered to threatened and the Lower Columbia River coho salmon should be given protection under the Endangered Species Act, NOAA Fisheries announced today (May 28).
NOAA Fisheries officials said today they will continue to weigh the risks that hatchery production poses to wild, naturally spawning West Coast salmon and steelhead, but that a proposed new policy does take into account developing science which indicates hatcheries may play a stronger role in the rebuilding of depressed natural stocks listed under the Endangered Species Act.
Northwest Indian tribes have endorsed the findings of a recently released scientific study conducted as part of the Columbia River Initiative and are calling for an interstate compact to help protect instream flows for fish and wildlife.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service outlined late Friday, May 21, its proposal for Libby Dam flows that are designed to aid spawning endangered Kootenai River white sturgeon and threatened bull trout in the river.
Interior Secretary Gale Norton this week announced $304,000 in challenge cost-share grants to support eight cooperative conservation projects in Idaho, from eradicating invasive species to restoring riparian habitat along Kootenai River tributaries.
Research at McNary Dam is endangering juveniles migrating through the dam, say regional salmon managers, prompting them to ask the Army Corps of Engineers this week to operate all turbines at the dam within the 1 percent peak efficiency range, which is required by the NOAA Fisheries 2000 Biological Opinion, and to cease the Vertical Barrier Screen (VBS) tests, which require operation of turbine units at the dam outside that range.
There is just enough water in the forecast for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service this week to move ahead on a white sturgeon operation in the Kootenai River in Montana.
The operation, which calls for ramping up higher flows out of Libby Dam once sturgeon spawn, could begin as early as next week.
The Nez Perce Tribe took a step Saturday (May 15) in reaching a settlement with the state of Idaho and federal agencies over Snake River water rights the tribe’s initially challenged in 1993.
Biologists with the Idaho Department of Fish and Game and the USDA Forest Service will be holding a public meeting this month to discuss the current status of the fish populations, with an emphasis on mountain whitefish, in the Big Lost River drainage.
When the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers decided last week that it was better to spill excess juvenile salmon at Lower Granite Dam than it was to bypass the fish, the Bonneville Power Administration worked a tradeoff for the spill that made the operation revenue neutral for the power marketing agency.
Washington officials floated ideas at public meetings in eastern Washington the end of April outlining what they think is needed to meet future water supply needs in the mid-Columbia and Snake rivers.
Montana's governor and a senator have asked for federal action to protect
the Flathead River Basin from potential coal bed methane and open pit coalmining in southeastern British Columbia.
While the Independent Scientific Review Panel (ISRP) generally supports a monitoring and evaluation (M&E) plan proposed by the Lower Columbia River Estuary Partnership for the Lower Columbia River and Estuary, it rejected that part of the monitoring plan for habitat, saying it lacks detail and so is not "fundable."
The Supreme Court on Monday rejected without comment a request that it overturn lower court rulings that say the U.S. Forest Service has the right to put conditions on permits that allow water to be channeled across public lands to irrigate crops on private ground in central Washington.
An island in the lower Columbia River estuary that has been used for decades as pastureland will be restored to something close to its original condition, providing new estuary habitat for juvenile salmon and steelhead.
In the past decade hundreds of miles of habitat have been restored, several hundred fish passage improvements have been completed and millions of salmon and steelhead have been reared and released into state waters, thanks to the efforts of citizen regional fisheries enhancement groups (RFEGs), sayWashington Department of Fish and Wildlife officials.
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