, hydro coordinator for Columbia River Inter-Tribal
Fish Commission:
RE: Governors and EPA Launch Estuary Plan
I find this plan no more than the standard "happy talk and hand holding."
. While EPA and the governors ostentatiously congratulate themselves on
the collaborative plan with the Ports of Vancouver and Portland standing
in the background, they won't mention their support for what could be the
most disastrous action ever on the living estuary. This is the Corps proposal
to ...

The Bonneville Power Administration has funded the purchase of 24,304
acres of wildlife habitat in Wheeler County, Ore., and the Warm Springs
Tribe will manage it.
"This is an example of how ratepayer dollars are invested in environmental
projects with potentially large dividends," said Judi Johansen, BPA administrator.
"Our Native American partners will now take the project and enhance it
as habitat for wildlife, including salmon and steelhead."
The Warm Springs Tribe purchased Pine ...

Bonneville Power Administator Judi Johansen
announced this month significant senior management changes and named a
new director of the Fish and Wildlife Division.
Long-time deputy administrator Jack Robertson
retired from the agency Sept. 30. Johansen said Steven G. Hickok, the agencys
chief operating officer, remains in his current post, which becomes the
number two position in the agency.
Johansen will position the deputy job as
the number three position and fill it on a rotating basis

A study for American Rivers by a former
top Army Corps of Engineers
official concludes it is feasible and
desirable to replace the barge
shipping system on the lower Snake River
with other transportation
alternatives for grain and other commodities
after breaching four
federal dams.
Public and private investments in highway
and rail infrastructure would
keep grain transportation rates affordable
during and after dams are
removed, a project that would take eight
years, economist ...

 
By Jim Mann
A boat rigged with deep-water nets may
be plying the waters of Lake
McDonald by next spring, with the U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service waiting
to see what comes up.
Wade Fredenberg, a fisheries biologist
with the agency, anticipates the
"experimental" netting would show that
Glacier's most famous lake is
choked with exotic lake trout, and that
native cutthroat and bull trout
have been displaced. It would also show
how effective netting techniques
imported from the

Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber today (Sept. 17) was expected to ask his
fellow Northwest governors to help develop a plan to cement regional control
of both fish and wildlife recovery efforts and the Bonneville Power Administration.
Kitzhaber was scheduled speak to a Seattle City Club luncheon crowd
that was to include the governors of Idaho, Montana and Washington, according
to an Associated Press report.
The new governing entity envisioned by Kitzhaber would have the authority
to direct ...

Poor scores from the Columbia Basin's 13 tribes pushed numerous Lower
Snake River dam passage projects to the bottom -- but not off -- of the
Corps of Engineers fiscal year 2000 priority list.
Corps officials are confident that enough money will be in hand to pay
for all of the proposed projects as they are now described.
The state and federal members of the multi-agency System Configuration
Team (SCT) are charged with ranking mainstem research and construction
projects proposed for ...