Less than a month after a scientific review of its coho salmon master plan, the Yakama Nation broke ground on the Melvin R. Sampson Hatchery last week, which will eventually produce up to 700,000 coho smolts each year for release into the Yakima River.
After a review requested by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s Fish and Wildlife Committee, the Independent Scientific Review Panel found the Yakama Nation’s coho plan for the Melvin R. Sampson coho facility in the Yakima River sub-basin to be a well-conceived plan for coho salmon reintroduction and supplementation.
The owner of an unpermitted, private dam that failed last year at the headwaters of Rattlesnake Creek in southeast Washington’s Asotin County has agreed to a multi-million-dollar restoration plan.
The number of summer chinook salmon expected to enter the Columbia River took another nose dive last week when biologists that estimate those numbers downgraded the run another 15 percent.
Portland General Electric moved for the second time in two years in federal court to dismiss a lawsuit in which the Deschutes River Alliance is charging the company with over a thousand clean water act violations resulting from its operations at the Pelton Round Butte Complex of Dams on the Deschutes River.
The Shoshone-Bannock Tribes of southern Idaho are siding with the state of Oregon in a fight over the inclusion of fish passage over the Snake River’s Hells Canyon Complex of dams.
The Kalispel Tribe of Indians has successfully formed its own electric utility.
The Montana Supreme Court has ruled that a water rights compact for the Confederated Salish-Kootenai Tribes is in compliance with the state Constitution, after a contentious period of resistance to the compact that has carried on for much of the last decade.
The Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation put a new fish transport system to work in collecting summer chinook salmon for hatchery purposes, with better-than-satisfying results.
The Idaho Fish and Game commissioners on Oct. 2 set a fishing season for coho salmon, which will run Oct. 17 through Nov. 16, or until further notice.
Treaty gillnetters will fish one more week upstream of Bonneville Dam for fall chinook and coho salmon, and steelhead, perhaps ending fall commercial gillnet fishing by Thursday, October 5.
Nez Perce leader Casey Mitchell was sworn in as chairman of the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission this week.
On Friday, April 7, 2017 a Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission four-member crew was conducting sea lion abundance counts in the lower Columbia River aboard the research vessel CRITFC 3 when it capsized near Multnomah Falls.
U.S. Sens. Maria Cantwell (D-WA), Patty Murray (D-WA), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Ron Wyden (D-OR), along with U.S. Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) sent a letter this week to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Office of Management and Budget, urging them to allocate the necessary funding to address unmet obligations to the four Columbia River Treaty Tribes regarding treaty fishing access sites.
The Nez Perce Tribe proposes to capture and recondition spawned steelhead in the Snake River to increase the steelhead return rate from 0.4 percent to at least 6 percent to meet a federal biological opinion reasonable and prudent alternative.
Long cut off from natal spawning grounds, chinook salmon and steelhead haven’t accessed Grant County’s upper Malheur River and its tributaries for decades. With an eye to the return of anadromous fish, the Burns Paiute Tribe is focused on restoring the river’s native, resident fish populations in salmon-friendly water.
Salmon fishing in Oregon’s southern Grant County had been a thing of the past for nearly 100 years – until a joint effort by the Burns Paiute Tribe and the state of Oregon brought salmon to Malheur Ford outside of Seneca.
The Spokane Tribe of Indians and the Bonneville Power Administration this week signed a new agreement that promises BPA ratepayer support of the Spokane Tribal Hatchery for another 20 years. The agreement also includes funding for hatchery modernization and improvements.
State and tribal fishery managers last week agreed to Puget Sound salmon-fishing seasons for 2016, ending several weeks of extended negotiations.
A review by the Independent Scientific Review Panel of the Colville Confederated Tribes’ resident fisheries management plan said the plan meets scientific review criteria, except for a few issues, including a proposed introduction of a non-native species into the Twin Lakes as a way to control golden shiners, also an introduced species.
A new coho salmon hatchery is one step closer to funding as the Bonneville Power Administration completed a public scoping process, the first condition for completing an environmental impact statement for the project.
The Federal Energy and Regulatory Commission recently issued an order denying further hearings related to the transfer of a federal license for Kerr Dam operations on Flathead Lake to the Confederated Salish-Kootenai Tribes of Montana.
This week U.S. Sens. Maria Cantwell (D-WA), Patty Murray (D-WA), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Ron Wyden (D-OR) and U.S. Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) sent a letter to Assistant Secretary of the Army Jo-Ellen Darcy expressing concern about current living conditions at Columbia River Treaty Fishing Access Sites in the Columbia Gorge and seeking a fair, sustainable, and timely solution to improve the conditions.
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals is considering a challenge to a 2013 ruling that found tribal treaty rights include assurances that salmon habitat would be protected, and that the state of Washington must remove culverts that prevent the passage of spawning salmon.
Montana’s elected Public Service Commission has weighed in on the transfer of a federal dam license for Kerr Dam at the foot of Flathead Lake to the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, alleging that the vetting process for the transfer has been inadequate.
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