Montanan Brian Lipscomb has accepted the position of executive director of the Portland-based Columbia Basin Fish and Wildlife Authority, pledging to continue the good work of the organization that aims to build consensus among the region's federal, state and tribal fish and wildlife managers.
For the second time in four years, U.S. District Court Judge James A. Redden has struck down the federal government's plan for assuring that the Columbia/Snake river federal hydrosystem doesn't jeopardize the survival of 12 salmon and steelhead stocks listed under the Endangered Species Act.
In Thursday’s ruling, U.S. District Court Judge James A. Redden sided with the coalition of 15 fishing and conservation groups, led by the National Wildlife Federation, and the state of Oregon in all of their key challenges to the 2004 biological opinion for the federal Columbia River hydropower system.
Washington Gov. Christine Gregoire met Thursday with Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski and federal officials to discuss a court ruling that says the Bush administration's plan for operating hydroelectric dams in the Columbia River Basin violates the Endangered Species Act.
Tribal interests and hydropower customer representatives were alternately elated and deflated by the news that basic elements of the federal government's Columbia/Snake salmon protection plan had been deemed by a judge as "arbitrary and capricious" and illegal under the Endangered Species Act.
Fishery managers released the first hatchery-reared fall chinook salmon into the Grande Ronde River Monday and Tuesday with the hope they'll both help recover the threatened species and, eventually, contribute to fisheries.
Utility interests and fish advocates used Monday's final Power Function Review meeting to continue to pull the Bonneville Administration either way on the fish and wildlife spending scale.
Libby Dam releases started ramping up late Wednesday under a plan with different aproaches toward helping endangered white sturgeon in the lower Kootenai River.
Washington's new capital budget for July 2005 through June 2007 earmarks some $1.35 million to help the Methow Valley Irrigation District deliver water to its members more efficiently and in doing so, maintain a higher flow for fish.
The Bonneville Power Administration's suggested fiscal year 2007-2009 funding level for the Columbia River fish and wildlife program drew a mixed reaction during Northwest Power and Conservation Council discussions this week.
For the first time, the Bonneville Power Administration and the Confederated Salish-Kootenai Tribes have reached an agreement that provides the tribes with $3.49 million for conservation land purchases to mitigate for damages caused by construction of Hungry Horse Dam.
Three "water optimization and/or passage" projects in central Washington that aim to improve conditions for federally protected salmon and steelhead won the approval Tuesday of the Northwest Power and Conservation Council.
A draft "closeout" letter and report released this week by the Bonneville Power Administration identifies potential net cost savings of up to $80 million per year for the fiscal year 2007-2009 rate period.
Cost estimates that fish and wildlife managers suggested be plugged into the Bonneville Power Administration's power rate calculations for fiscal years 2007-2009 are "unrealistically broad in scope" in how they portray the federal power system's obligation and what its ratepayers should, or could, bear, according to the agency.
Two University of Idaho professors participated in the nation’s most ambitious scientific effort to understand river restoration efforts that total nearly $1 billion in costs annually.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Tuesday released analyses that estimate costs related to the conservation of the bull trout and its proposed critical habitat for three separate groupings of the federally protected fish species.
During a daylong hearing Wednesday U.S. District Court Judge James Redden gave no hints of his leanings as attorneys for federal, state, and tribal governments, utilities, irrigators and river users debated the merits of the federal government's Columbia/Snake hydrosystem salmon protection plan.
The University of Washington Alaska Salmon Program, the world's longest-running effort to monitor salmon and their ecosystems, has received nearly $2.4 million from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation to expand its sampling scope and sophistication.
NOAA Fisheries this week released a draft interim salmon recovery plan for the Lower Columbia River Subbasin that the agency says is the Northwest’s first comprehensive science-based recovery plan for salmon and steelhead listed under the Endangered Species Act.
A Bush Administration proposal to count new third-party debt backed by the Bonneville Power Administration within Bonneville’s U.S. Treasury borrowing limit could force the power marketing agency to reduce its future investments in energy conservation, renewable energy, and fish production and habitat in order to finance investments in its regionwide high-voltage transmission system, according to an analysis by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council.
The ones that stay and the ones that stray are biological puzzles among Pacific salmon.
The vast majority of the fish -- but not all -- travel thousands of miles to sea and back to the streams where they hatched.
A study released this morning (April 15) concludes that flow fluctuations in the mid-Columbia River's Hanford reach due to dam operations cause significant mortality of juvenile fall chinook that rear there and that those impacts appear to be significantly greater than previously estimated.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council sent three "Updated Proposed Action" projects ahead, but withheld its funding recommendation for five other projects pending further refinement called for by the Independent Scientific Review Panel.
With less than two months remaining before they intend to issue a "closeout" letter detailing expected costs for the 2007-2009 rate period, Bonneville Power Administration officials continued this week to take input on fish and wildlife expenditures that, at least for now, are estimated at $691.6 million per year.
Three of ten hydropower projects recognized by the National Hydropower Association for “outstanding environmental stewardship efforts” are in the Columbia River Basin.
An Earthwise Knowledge Initiative Publication
