A pool of 66 proposals requesting nearly $20 million is the response to
a Northwest Power Planning Council search for projects that test
innovative approaches to restoring Columbia River Basin fish and
wildlife populations.
The Northwest Power Planning Council and Bonneville Power Administration
issued a solicitation this week for "high priority" fish and wildlife
project proposals expected to bring immediate, on-the-ground benefits
for listed salmon and steelhead.
The two major party candidates for president have staked out sharply
differing positions on the environment, including specifically the proposal to tear down four dams on the lower Snake River to save salmon.
But Green Party standard-bearer Ralph Nader has drawn some environmental support away from Gore in the Northwest by taking a harder line against commercial logging and suggesting he would consider dam breaching ...
At the request of fish and wildlife managers and hydropower customers,
the Northwest Power Planning Council has delayed putting into writing
its desires for a fish and wildlife program budget expansion for the
current fiscal year.
In an attempt to reduce high electricity prices in California, members
of Congress from the state are attacking federal laws and policies that
provide the Northwest with exclusive rights to low-cost power generated
at Columbia and Snake river dams.
A suddenly volatile, and high, energy market has heightened Lower
Columbia River tribes' fears that basin salmon recovery efforts --
intended at least in part of restore treaty protected resources -- will
get short-changed.
The Bonneville Power Administration announced last week that its amended
rate case for Fiscal Year 2002-2006 wholesale power rates will
officially begin in late November.
The amended process was made necessary when unforeseen and drastic
market shifts skewed the agency's cost-revenue picture.
Improved ocean and in-river migrating conditions in the past year or two
have added momentum to efforts intended to boost natural production of
Snake River fall chinook above Lower Granite Dam.
A test of hatchery supplementation using the only Snake River basin fall
chinook stock in the Northwest reaped benefits last year and this.
Idaho water users, and the state itself, have challenged proposed
federal salmon recovery plans, saying the strategy has the potential to
bleed the Upper Snake River's farming economy with no proven benefit to
fish listed under the Endangered Species Act.
Columbia Basin states, tribes and others have all pointed out what they
see as major flaws in two draft federal salmon recovery documents
designed to ensure survive of 12 salmon and steelhead species listed
under the federal Endangered Species Act.
In the face of a presidential veto threat, Sen. Slade Gorton, R-Wash.,
on Thursday agreed to drop his spending bill rider to prohibit studies
of federal dam removal in the Columbia Basin.
The one-year funding restriction was added last week to the final FY01
interior appropriations bill by a vote of 9-5 by the House-Senate
conference committee.
The House of Representatives on Thursday passed a final FY01 spending
bill that includes $4.5 million to improve fish habitat and water
quality in the lower Columbia River.
The restoration of 1,550 acres of wetland and riparian habitat at
Shillapoo Lake, Wash., and elsewhere would mitigate for the impacts of
the Army Corps of Engineers' project to lower the Columbia River
shipping channel by three feet, to 43 feet.
A draft Northwest Power Planning Council program amendment pays too
little attention to looming Endangered Species Act mandates and aims to
delve inappropriately into state and local watershed and land use
arenas, according to comments submitted last week by Washington state
agencies.
The Northwest Power Planning Council on Wednesday endorsed a $135
million spending package for fiscal year 2001 that pares back a majority
of the more than 200 ongoing fish and wildlife projects and leaves
uncommitted an estimated $7.3 million to answer a variety of anticipated
new funding needs.
Much of this week's Northwest Power Planning Council program budget
discussion focused not on what was on the table, but on expected "new"
demands for fish and wildlife resources during fiscal year 2001.
The Council on Wednesday recommended that the Bonneville Power
Administration fund $135 million worth of fish and wildlife project
renewals.
Three days of hearings before two Senate subcommittees this week
provided the first public forum for a direct exchange of views on the
Clinton administration's salmon recovery plan between top federal
officials and their strongest critics in the Northwest congressional
delegation.
Idaho Gov. Dirk Kempthorne and representatives of other Northwest
governors and the Northwest Power Council this week went to Washington,
D.C., to seek a greater role for states in salmon recovery.
They testified at a Senate hearing, and Kempthorne met with two Cabinet
members about the issue -- Secretary of Commerce Norman Mineta and
Secretary of Interior Bruce Babbitt. Kempthorne was accompanied by Idaho
Attorney General Al Lance.
Sen. Slade Gorton, R-Wash., this week announced he will seek to block
funding for federal agencies to further study the option of breaching
Columbia and Snake river dams to restore salmon.
In a Senate floor speech on Wednesday, Gorton said he would add the
funding restriction to the interior appropriations bill for FY2001.
Gorton chairs the Senate interior appropriations subcommittee.
The federal government's top regional salmon recovery official has opted
for the private life, leaving his job little more than a month after his
and other federal agencies unveiled their sweeping plan for restoring 12
Columbia Basin salmon and steelhead runs listed under the Endangered
Species Act.
The Bonneville Power Administration skirted another power emergency last
week that could have affected salmon recovery operations at Columbia and
Snake river dams, but at a cost for energy that was four to five times
higher than normal.
A draft federal hydrosystem biological opinion released last month
ventures into new territory and leaves, at least at this point, blurry
lines of funding responsibility, according to Northwest Power Planning
Council staff members.
Conservation groups and individuals on Wednesday asked the Northwest
Power Planning Council to take up the pro-dam breaching cause as part of
its amended Columbia Basin fish and wildlife program.
Breaching of four Lower Snake River hydroelectric dams "is the most
viable solution" to give impetus to salmon recovery efforts, Karie
Korporaal said during a public hearing on the Council's draft amendment
to its fish and wildlife program. "You need to take a stand."
Federal agencies intend to keep a closer eye on how available Columbia
Basin fish and wildlife funds are spent to ensure decisions are made
with Endangered Species Act recovery goals in mind.
The Bonneville Power Administration for the second week continued its
control of Columbia River operations as it declined to set absolute
river flow targets for upcoming weeks, but did say its intentions were
to operate the river according to projections by the U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers' Reservoir Control Center.
A series of public hearings have been scheduled over the next few weeks
to allow people in the region to deliver in person comments on draft
revisions to the Columbia Basin fish and wildlife program.
An Earthwise Knowledge Initiative Publication
