The New Year will start with a limited opportunity in lower Columbia River tributaries to catch smelt, with return numbers projected to be at a low ebb.
Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire announced two agreements this week with Eastern Washington tribes to deliver water from Lake Roosevelt to the Columbia Basin for farmers, cities and endangered salmon.
The New Year will start with a limited opportunity in lower Columbia River tributaries to catch smelt, with return numbers projected to be at a low ebb.
Four tribes -- the Umatillas, Yakamas, Warm Springs and Nez Perce -- are expected to create a limited liability company to operate the East White Salmon fish processing facility.
Tribes say they will work to improve the draft salmon recovery plan issued today, while industry and river-user interests said the new plan is science-based and a significant improvement over past plans.
A proposed increase in Oregon's fish consumption rate, which is used in developing human health criteria for water quality standards, is scheduled for discussion when the Oregon Environmental Quality Commission meets Oct. 17.
An 18-person panel of experts has been appointed to review a request for permission to lethally remove California sea lions believed to be having a "significant negative impact" on Columbia River basin salmon and steelhead stocks listed as threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act.
Grant County PUD Commissioners Monday approved a historic agreement with the Yakama Nation that will form a long-term partnership with benefits to both organizations.
The Interior Department's U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced this week that almost $9 million in grants will go to sixty Native American conservation projects in eighteen states.
Of this amount, nearly $1.6 million will be distributed to Tribes in Washington and Idaho.
More than 300 art lovers and appetites are expected from 5:30 to 10 p.m. Saturday, May 12, at Portland's Governor Hotel, 611 S.W. 10th Ave, for the seventh annual Wy-Kan-Ush-Pum Gala, a fundraiser for the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission's Spirit of the Salmon Fund.
The Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation and the Westland Irrigation District (Westland) today announced a commitment from the U.S. Department of Interior to begin a comprehensive analysis of water development alternatives in Oregon’s Umatilla Basin to meet the needs of local farmers and the CTUIR, while also increasing instream flows for fisheries.
The Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, Westland Irrigation District and the Oregon Water Resources Department have asked the U.S. Department of the Interior to consider “broader aims” to attract consensus on the establishment of a Tribal Water Rights Assessment Team and a concurrent study of the Umatilla Basin water supply.
The first of eight workshops to address the fish consumption rate used in developing Oregon’s human health criteria for water quality standards is scheduled for March 13 in Portland.
Full-scale operation of a commercial fish processing facility built for tribal fishers at an in-lieu fishing access site near White Salmon, Wash., is not expected to begin this fall as anticipated.
Nez Perce tribal officials said this week that they intended to implement their plan to increase their harvest of steelhead in the Snake River basin, beginning with a single gill-net permit Thursday through Saturday in the lower Clearwater.
The Bonneville Power Administration and five Columbia Basin tribes are working this week to seal an agreement that outlines Columbia/Snake river hydropower/fish passage operations for the 2007 juvenile salmon migration season, and provides funding for tribal fish restoration projects.
A $2.5 million funding package has been recommended for five entities' "coordination" activities over the next year while they and the Northwest Power and Conservation Council work to better define what that term means.
The Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission this week unveiled a new online blog as part of its Celilo Legacy project.
The blog will serve as a clearinghouse for public discourse, information, events, activities, and memorials in conjunction with the 50th anniversary of the inundation of Celilo Falls on March 10, 1957.
A higher “fish consumption rate” aimed at protecting the health of Native Americans and others who consume large amounts of fish will be considered in Oregon over the next 21 months, according to a plan outlined last week by federal, state and tribal officials.
Because so-called fish consumption rates influence water quality standards, the process might result in tougher restrictions on industry and municipalities allowed to discharge pollutants into the state’s waterways.
The state of Montana and the Kootenai Tribe of Idaho have joined a lawsuit contesting Libby Dam operations on different sides but with similar goals.
Montana intervened as plaintiffs in a lawsuit initiated by the Center for Biological Diversity, which has staunchly advocated higher flows in the Kootenai River for the benefit of white sturgeon, an endangered species. The Kootenai Tribes, meanwhile, joined in support of a recent biological opinion that the lawsuit challenges.
Construction is underway on a commercial fish processing facility that would produce some 10 tons of ice a day for tribal fishers on the Columbia River.
The "spring" 2006 non-tribal commercial harvest on the lower Columbia River mainstem officially ended this week as a result of an unexpectedly high catch of unmarked upriver chinook salmon and the downsizing of chinook return estimates.
Oregon State University researchers in collaboration with scientists from the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation are researching what happens to fish and invertebrates when water from the Umatilla and Walla Walla rivers is diverted for irrigation purposes in neighboring basins.
The Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation last week presented Washington Department of Ecology Director Jay Manning with a formal request for state funding to support a cooperative project in the Walla Walla River basin which involves the Tribes, irrigation districts and other community members.
Umatilla tribal leaders and Hermiston-area irrigators expect to sign an agreement by Feb. 15 that outlines how the two parties will work collaboratively toward completion of the third phase of the Umatilla Basin Project in Eastern Oregon.
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