Toxic chemicals produced from oil emissions and wildfire smoke have been found in muscle and liver samples from Southern Resident killer whales and Bigg’s killer whales.
NOAA’s 2023 Arctic Report Card documents new records showing that human-caused warming of the air, ocean and land is affecting people, ecosystems and communities across the Arctic region, which is heating up faster than any other part of the world.
The Biden Administration, Columbia River treaty tribes and the states of Oregon and Washington agreed Thursday to work to restore wild salmon populations in the Columbia and Snake river basins and to delay ongoing litigation for five years, with an option for the delay to go as long as 10 years.
More than 17,000 adult coho salmon and nearly 5,000 wild spring Chinook salmon returned to Portland General Electric’s North Fork Dam on the Clackamas River this fall, according to the utility.
More than 93% of young Chinook safely passed Rocky Reach Hydroelectric Project last spring, says Chelan PUD. The results represent the most successful survival study of yearling Chinook in the 21-year history of the Rocky Reach Habitat Conservation Plan.
Oregon U.S. Sens. Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden announced this week a total of $4.1 million in federal investments from the Infrastructure Law are heading to the Crooked River Watershed Council and the Deschutes Land Trust. The funds are intended to boost collaborative projects focusing on water conservation, management, and restoration efforts. In addition, the Oregon Water Resources Department announced grants for four significant water conservation projects in Central Oregon.
The Department of the Interior this week announced $51 million provided by the two-year-old Infrastructure Law for 30 new Environmental Water Resource Projects in 11 states through the Bureau of Reclamation, including multi-million dollar projects in Oregon, Idaho and Washington that will aid fish protection and restoration.
The U.S. Department of Justice this month announced a proposed settlement valued at approximately $33.2 million to compensate for natural resource injuries that resulted from hazardous substance releases and oil discharges into the Willamette River and Portland Harbor in Oregon.
Parties to the lawsuit challenging the federal government’s 2020 environmental impact statement and biological opinion for imperiled salmon and steelhead traversing Columbia/Snake River federal dams have developed a package of “actions and commitments” that they will present to regional partners to get buy-in over the next 45 days.
Firsthand observations of a wolf hunting and killing a harbor seal and a group of wolves hunting and consuming a sea otter on Alaska’s Katmai coast have led scientists to reconsider assumptions about wolf hunting behavior.
For the first time in more than a decade, the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe is exercising its treaty right to harvest salmon from the Elwha River.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Park Service have released a draft plan analyzing options to restore grizzly bears to the North Cascades in Washington.
Chinook, coho and sockeye salmon are in steep decline in the North Pacific and one of the causes is the proliferation of pink salmon, many of which originate from Russian, Japanese and Alaskan fish hatcheries, according to a recent study by scientists in Alaska, Canada and Washington.
The Yurok Tribe and the Klamath River Renewal Corporation (KRRC), in collaboration with the Shasta Indian Nation, started preparing a stretch of the Klamath River to flow freely for the first time in a century.
The Biden administration this week announced that the Bonneville Power Administration will provide three Upper Columbia River Tribes $200 million over 20 years for ongoing efforts to reintroduce salmon above Grand Coulee and Chief Joseph dams, which have blocked fish migration since 1942. The Tribes have agreed to a twenty-year pause to existing litigation while these actions are pursued.
Tribes and fish advocacy groups say an end of year decision on fish passage rules by the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission weakens salmon, steelhead and lamprey protections in the state.
New research from the University of Washington and Polar Bears International in Bozeman, Montana, quantifies the relationship between greenhouse gas emissions and the survival of polar bear populations.
To aid flagging West Coast salmon and steelhead populations, NOAA Fisheries is recommending $106.1 million in funding for 16 new and continuing programs and projects through its Pacific Coastal Salmon Recovery Fund grant program.
A growing American white pelican population on an island in the mid-Columbia River basin could be a new threat to salmon and steelhead. The large white birds not only scoop out batches of juvenile fish, they also have been known to eat adult salmon, including sockeye salmon and other fish as large as 29 inches.
Two conservation groups submitted a formal legal petition to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency urging the federal agency to update its toxic pollutant list, something it hasn’t done for 47 years, the groups say. And three Northwest tribes have petitioned EPA to ban a chemical used in tires that is deadly to coho salmon.
A study examining protected birds found dead along power lines on public lands in the western U.S. shows that gunshot deaths were three times more common than deaths from other causes.
Four conservation groups notified the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that they intend to sue the agency over the heat pollution created by the four lower Snake River dams. The groups allege the dams overheat the river’s water and those conditions are killing or injuring Snake River sockeye salmon listed as endangered under the federal Endangered Species Act.
Scientists analyzed more than 650 dam removal projects over 55 years in the United States totaling $1.52 billion inflation-adjusted dollars to develop a tool to better estimate the cost of future dam removals.
When drought-stricken rivers and reservoirs run low across the American West, hydropower dries up and utilities fire up hundreds of power plants that burn coal, oil, or natural gas to keep up with demand for electricity. The timing couldn’t be worse, as accompanying heat waves drive up energy use, often to power air conditioners.
Researchers in the Oregon State University College of Engineering are developing technology to convert wastewater into a product that would simultaneously irrigate and fertilize crops.
An Earthwise Knowledge Initiative Publication
