The Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes of Montana officially acquired license control and assets of Kerr Dam on Sept. 5, renaming the hydro operation at the foot of Flathead Lake the “Salish Kootenai Dam,” despite a last-ditch legal effort to block the acquisition.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council says a recent assessment of the Spokane Tribal Hatchery, which raises trout and kokanee for release into Lake Roosevelt behind Grand Coulee Dam, “will serve as a template for similar audits that the Council and the Bonneville Power Administration want to conduct of other hatcheries funded through the Council’s fish and wildlife program.”
Montana Gov. Steve Bullock signed legislation into law on April 24 that will implement a water rights compact for the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, despite a lingering lawsuit that sought to prevent him from doing so.
Despite determined efforts to block or amend a controversial water rights compact for the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, the compact was passed by the Montana House of Representatives Wednesday.
In its first year on the Columbia River, tribally owned New River Co. purchased nearly 700,000 pounds of quality native-caught fish under a contract with a nationwide distributor.
The Yakama Nation this week filed a complaint in Oregon’s U.S. District Court that seeks from the federal government costs incurred by the tribe for participation in the long-running investigation and cleanup of the so-called Bradford Island site at the lower Columbia River’s Bonneville Dam.
Zachary L. Penney, a member of the Nez Perce Tribe, has been selected to lead the Fishery Science Department of the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission beginning March 2.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council gave its conditional approval for the continuation of funding for a Yakama Nation project aimed at determining whether beleaguered upper Columbia steelhead populations can get a reproductive boost through the “reconditioning” of fish with an urge to spawn a second time.
Federal, state, local and tribal officials from both sides of the U.S.-Canadian border gathered Oct. 9 at the top of Idaho’s panhandle to celebrate the latest, large step toward fulfillment of long-held dream held, most particularly, by the Kootenai Tribe of Idaho.
A 20-year Nez Perce Tribe effort to reintroduce coho salmon in the Snake River basin has shown steady progress, but this year is riding a particularly high wave as tens of thousands of the shiny fish are surging up the Columbia and Snake rivers on the way to the Clearwater River and tributaries.
Tribes and conservation groups this week cheered an Oregon Department of State Lands denial of a removal-fill permit that would be needed to carry forward a proposal by Ambre Energy to build coal shipping facilities at Coyote Island Terminal at the Port of Morrow in Boardman on the mainstem Columbia River.
The Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission and its member tribes (Umatilla, Yakama, Warm Springs and Nez Perce) this week announced the release of the first update to their comprehensive, gravel-to-gravel, fisheries restoration plan, Wy-Kan-Ush-Mi Wa-Kish-Wit (Spirit of the Salmon).
The Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes completed an initial phase of gill netting on Montana's Flathead Lake during the last two weeks of April, catching 5,232 lake trout.
Just like the rivers he spent a lifetime working to protect, tributes continue to flow in for Billy Frank Jr., the Nisqually tribal leader who died unexpectedly on Monday at the age of 83.
The Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes have filed a lawsuit in federal court that seeks to claim tribal ownership of water and water rights on the Flathead Reservation.
The American Arbitration Association’s panel has made a final ruling regarding the estimated conveyance price that Energy Keepers, Incorporated (EKI) will pay on behalf of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes to PPL Montana in order for CSKT to acquire the Kerr Hydroelectric Project.
The Kootenai Tribe of Idaho, working with federal, state and other tribal partners, has developed what it feels is a reliable tool for assessing impacts to wildlife habitat along the Kootenai River caused by the operation of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Libby Dam in northwest Montana and measure how well particular restoration actions might help ecosystem functions.
Yakama Nation Fisheries biologists on Wednesday begin releasing approximately 280 “reconditioned” adult steelhead into the Yakima River basin so that the fish – called kelt – can select mates and spawn again.
The Bonneville Power Administration will not pay for gill netting lake trout on Flathead Lake unless there is management consensus between the state of Montana and the Confederated Salish-Kootenai Tribes, and talks have been under way on developing a new co-management plan for the lake.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council on Tuesday moved forward a proposal from the Yakama Nation that would ultimately involve the spending of nearly $9 million to build hatchery facilities aimed at advancing efforts to rebuild coho salmon returns in central Washington’s upper Yakima River basin.
Leaders from the Umatilla, Yakama, Nez Perce, and Warm Springs tribes have unanimously selected Nez Perce Tribal Councilman Joel Moffett to lead the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission as its new chairman.
For the first time in well over 100 years a Cle Elum Lake-origin sockeye salmon spawner is chilling in those cool waters, and Yakama Nation biologists hope there are many more to come.
A healthy future for what is “perhaps the finest relic of fish and wildlife habitat in the entire Willamette” river valley was guaranteed this week with the acquisition of 338 acres of land, and conveyance of that land to the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde for management and protection.
Touched with success, Yakama Nation Fisheries efforts to build returns of once-extinct coho salmon to the mid-Columbia River region are branching out, with hopes of infusing fish into the fingertips of central Washington’s Yakima River basin.
A federal court judge in a March 29 injunction order put Washington and state agencies on a schedule to identify and fix any culverts in the “case area” that block access to 200 meters or more of salmon habitat.
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