The Northwest Power and Conservation Council on Wednesday recommended $157.2 million in Columbia River Fish and Wildlife Program project spending during fiscal year 2006.
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Tuesday ruled that a lower court’s order to spill water for fish passage during late summer at five federal Columbia Basin mainstem dams did not abuse the court’s discretion and was “well-grounded in governing statute.”
In the wake of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals’ ruling upholding a lower court order requiring spill at Snake and lower Columbia River dams this summer, federal officials, who argued vigorously against the spill, say they will continue pursuing a consensus approach to hydro operations, as well as region-wide recovery plans.
A stalemated biological argument was broken Thursday when federal officials decided to follow prescriptions in NOAA Fisheries' 2004 Federal Columbia River Power System biological opinion rather than slow the drawdown of reservoirs behind Libby and Hungry Horse dams as the state of Montana has requested.
Fishery officials last week began pumping a stream of liquid phosphorous and nitrogen into the Kootenai River at the Montana/Idaho border with the hope of rebuilding a depleted ecosystem and boost native cutthroat and rainbow trout and whitefish populations and, as a result, fisheries.
A three-member federal appeals panel played devil's advocate Wednesday, questioning both fishing and conservation groups' biological rationale for wanting water spilled at additional Columbia/Snake river dams in summer to aid fish passage and the federal government's desire to forego spill and move fish through the system aboard barges.
Knowledge about the effects of harvests on naturally spawning Columbia River salmon and steelhead populations has advanced notably but the region still lacks the data and tools necessary to determine whether recovery efforts are hindered by carefully managed fisheries.
Idaho Republican U.S. Sen. Mike Crapo says a key fish restoration effort in the upper Columbia Basin is an example of how collaboration can serve as an alternative to listings and litigation under the Endangered Species act.
A staff-generated proposal for Fiscal Year 2006 fish and wildlife project funding, and for the treatment of related issues, won favor neither in committee nor before the full Northwest Power and Conservation Council.
A study of barnacles on the central Oregon Coast has revealed significant “hot spots” of ocean productivity where marine life has much greater reproductive potential – information that could be a key to the successful siting of marine reserves.
Some 20 conservation and fishing organizations involved in Columbia Basin salmon recovery issues are asking U.S. Senate Minority Leader Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., to
intervene in efforts to halt funding for the Fish Passage Center.
Debate continued this week over the value of summertime spill for Columbia Basin salmon and steelhead, this time with parties filing briefs with a federal appellate court.
The Upper Columbia United Tribes and the Bonneville Power Administration announced this week that they have signed a memorandum of understanding intended to "increase the proportion of mitigated habitat in the upper Columbia River eco-region through improved funding and contracting measures and as appropriate other methods."
Oregon on Tuesday voted with "reluctance" in favor of Washington fishery officials’ proposal to allow sport anglers to keep both marked and unmarked chinook salmon that are forging their way up the Columbia River mainstem during July.
A federal judge is allowing the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to reconsider its “critical habitat” designations for bull trout in the Pacific Northwest, and the service’s regional recovery coordinator says the intent is to reinforce the rationale for excluding habitat originally proposed for designation.
The Senate Energy and Water Appropriations bill for Fiscal Year 2006, approved by the full Senate Appropriations Committee late last week, was accompanied with some surprise language for those involved in Columbia Basin salmon recovery.
The Washington Department of Ecology has reached a landmark agreement with
the Walla Walla County Conservation District to pay for
irrigation-improvement projects that will benefit farmers while also
increasing flows in the Walla Walla and Touchet rivers to help fish survive.
The Senate Appropriations Committee last week approved $1.5 million for the Bureau of Reclamation to continue the Yakima Basin Storage Study.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council last week closed the loop on what has been a nearly three-year, $15.2 million process with the adoption of Oregon's John Day Basin fish and wildlife management plan.
A $9 million federally funded research program announced last week will bolster Idaho’s ability to study critical water and aquaculture issues.
U.S. District Court Judge Ricardo Martinez Wednesday rejected environmentalists’ legal challenge to the federal government’s plan to deepen by three feet the Columbia River from the estuary to Portland.
Long-familiar personalities moved to the background this week with the appointment of six new members to the Independent Scientific Review Panel -- the largest turnover in the nine-year history of the group that reviews fish and wildlife projects as well as offering advice on other issues to the Northwest Power and Conservation Council.
Following U.S. District Court Judge James Redden's decision today to order additional spill at federal dams, federal executives in charge of the Federal Columbia River Power System expressed concern that the ruling "provides no guarantee for the improvement of salmon stocks, and it could make things worse, at an enormous cost to the region."
Members of Congress heard two contrasting views on salmon recovery, dam breaching and the Endangered Species Act Monday ( June 6) but also said they saw and heard room for compromise.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers this week released its final environmental impact statement justifying its plan to clear sediment from the federal navigation channel and berthing areas at certain public port facilities on the lower Snake and Clearwater rivers in Washington and Idaho.
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