The first endangered sockeye salmon returned to the Redfish Lake Creek trap Aug. 2, later by nearly a week than the first that led the way last year and in 2017, according to the Idaho Department of Fish and Game.
The most productive places on Earth for solar power are farmlands, according to an Oregon State University study. The study, published this week in the journal Scientific Reports, finds that if less than 1% of agricultural land was converted to solar panels, it would be sufficient to fulfill global electric energy demand. The concept of co-developing the same area of land for both solar photovoltaic power and conventional agriculture is known as agrivoltaics.
The economic consulting firm ECONorthwest released a report this week analyzing the tradeoffs associated with removing the four lower Snake River dams in Washington, suggesting the benefits of removal exceed the costs by $8.6 billion, and thus the region would likely be better off without the dams.
New meters will be installed at BPA’s transmission substations for eight of the “Big 10” hydro facilities in the Federal Columbia River Power System, the agency said in a press release this week.
Although a “lot” of sockeye salmon are passing Ice Harbor Dam, the first dam the fish encounter when migrating up the Snake River, few are passing upstream dams, according to Claire McGrath of NOAA Fisheries.
The Bonneville Power Administration has established rates for its power and transmission services for the 2020-2021 rate period that the agency says reflects “significant efforts to manage program costs and strengthen financial health.”
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s proposed changes to the Columbia River Basin Fish and Wildlife Program include implementing “a broad suite of actions to mitigate for the complete loss of anadromous fish and the losses to other fish and wildlife species in the Lake Roosevelt and Spokane River areas above Grand Coulee and Chief Joseph dams.”
Members of the U.S. panel charged with negotiating a modernized Columbia River Treaty heard from a variety of Idaho-centric interests Thursday in Boise, with a contrast between those urging status quo security in hydro operations and those seeking “ecosystem function” provisions in a new treaty.
Following up on a Phase 1 investigation of fish passage and reintroduction of salmon and steelhead upstream of Chief Joseph and Grand Coulee dams that was completed last month by the Upper Columbia United Tribes, the Northwest Power and Conservation Council this week approved a letter asking the Independent Scientific Advisory Board to review the report.
Some 48 fish and wildlife projects that will cost $43.5 million each year – hatchery work, data management, research -- were reviewed and approved by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s Fish and Wildlife Committee at its meeting this week in Butte, Montana.
Some five to 16 million salmon and steelhead had historically returned to the Columbia River basin, but just an average of two million fish return today and only 40 percent of those are naturally produced stocks. If goals in a new Columbia Basin Partnership Task Force report can be met in the next 50 to 100 years, the number of naturally produced fish could increase by eight-fold.
River temperatures in the tailrace of Lower Granite Dam on the Snake River rose above 67 degrees this week and the air temperature is predicted to rise above 90 degrees this weekend. That prompted the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to increase releases of water from Dworshak Dam to keep Lower Granite tailwater temperature under 68 degrees, partially as an aid to the few adult sockeye salmon expected to return to the Snake River and Sawtooth Basin this year.
Idaho recently launched a collaborative effort aimed at guiding salmon-steelhead conservation policy, with the Republican Gov. Brad Little urging a diverse, appointed workgroup to consider practical goals rather than getting bogged down in complex and controversial measures such as breaching lower Snake River dams.
A federal judge has denied the request of three conservation groups to order a federal agency to make immediate changes at federal Willamette River dams to improve conditions for migrating juveniles and spawning adult threatened spring chinook and winter steelhead.
Three years ago was the first time in 20 years a white sturgeon fishery in Lake Roosevelt was open to the public. That year more than 17,000 anglers took to the water to bag a prehistoric fish that can grow to more than 12 feet long and weigh hundreds of pounds.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has released a draft recovery plan for Kootenai River white sturgeon that mainly stays the course with restoration activities that have been underway for the last decade.
Among the findings in a report released last Friday by Portland General Electric is that the Crooked River is having a profound effect on water quality downstream in central Oregon’s lower Deschutes River.
The Bonneville Power Administration, the primary source of funding for Columbia River basin fish and wildlife mitigation, is one step closer in its consideration of joining the Western Energy Imbalance Market.
After two years of significant budget cuts to its fish and wildlife program, a key Bonneville Power Administration executive is anticipating holding steady on its fish and wildlife spending in fiscal year 2020.
Although the run of spring chinook into the Deschutes River is one of the lowest in years, as it has been throughout the Columbia River basin, the proportion of the Deschutes run that originated as reintroduced fish upstream of the Pelton Round Butte Hydroelectric Project near Madras, Oregon is one of the best in years, according to Portland General Electric.
There is plenty of habitat available for reintroduction of spawning and rearing anadromous salmon and steelhead upstream of Chief Joseph and Grand Coulee dams, according to a recently completed report by upper Columbia River tribes.
An advanced-design hydroelectric turbine, built to improve fish passage at federal dams in the Columbia River Basin, has been installed at Ice Harbor Dam on the Lower Snake River.
Northwest U.S. Senators are making their opposition known to a provision in President Trump’s Fiscal Year 2020 Budget that would have the Department of Energy auction off the transmission assets of the Bonneville Power Administration.
Although the abundance of adult white sturgeon in the lower Columbia River is above conservation status as set by a joint Washington/Oregon sturgeon management and conservation plan, the fish have yet to reach desired status abundance levels, a higher number also set by the plan.
The threatened Oregon Spotted Frog, which has lost habitat to development, agriculture and invasive species has found refuge in what may seem like an unlikely place: beneath the high-voltage power lines of the Bonneville Power Administration, said the agency in a press release.
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