The Northwest Power and Conservation Council Wednesday approved a $41 million Yakama Nation hatchery master plan aimed at increasing harvest of coho and chinook salmon in both the mainstem Columbia River and Yakima River.

Whoops and cheers erupted from the crowd - the sound of singing and hand drums alive in the background - as community members of the Coeur d’Alene Indian Reservation gathered at the edge of Hangman creek near Tensed, Idaho. All eyes were turned to the water and to the trucks full of chinook salmon.

Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross this week announced the allocation of $300 million in economic relief to U.S. fishermen and seafood industries affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. The funds were allocated as part of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, signed into law on March 27 by President Trump.

Thirteen new Deschutes River basin habitat, water quality and fish passage projects are getting a combined $4.5 million in funding, with individual grants ranging from $51,000 for an Upper Deschutes Watershed Council fish passage project to $1.25 million for a Priday Ranch steelhead conservation project.

The U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation Monday to provide the Spokane Tribe of Indians compensation for the lands taken by the United States as part of building Grand Coulee Dam in the 1930s and 1940s.

This week in a public announcement at their ancient fishing grounds at the former Celilo Falls, the Yakama Nation, with support of the Lummi Nation from northern Washington, demanded the removal of three lower Columbia River hydroelectric dams.

Tribes will again fish in waters upstream of Bonneville Dam with next week -- the second two-day commercial gillnet period for Treaty Tribes during this year’s summer chinook period. The two-state Columbia River Compact signed off Thursday, June 27, on the additional days as they also heard that the U.S. v Oregon Technical Advisory Committee, which met Monday, had downsized the anticipated run of sockeye salmon to 58,000 fish.

The Nez Perce Tribe recently filed a 60-day notice of intent to sue the Midas Gold Idaho, Inc., alleging the mining company has been illegally discharging arsenic and other pollutants at Stibnite Gold Project site in the headwaters of the South Fork of the Salmon River.

The Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs Reservation of Oregon are now the custodians of 1,200 additional acres of critical habitat along the Middle Fork John Day River, thanks to a recent land transaction with The Nature Conservancy.