A newly published study finds that hatchery supplementation after 22 years in two Idaho drainages, increased chinook salmon abundance at some life stages, but the effects did not persist after supplementation of hatchery stock ceased and had no apparent influence on productivity.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council unanimously approved a pilot demonstration map for Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs), a toxic contaminant that impacts aquatic organisms and stream food webs, and could limit habitat restoration projects.
Idaho and Montana members will lead the Northwest Power and Conservation Council in 2018.
A symposium to share information about the state of wild and hatchery white sturgeon found in waters from the mouth of the Columbia River to the Snake River to the Kootenai River was hosted in mid-November by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council.
A science review panel cleared the way for potential Northwest Power and Conservation Council and Bonneville Power Administration funding of lamprey projects in the Northwest once the project proponents meet certain criteria.
An annual report of smolt-to-adult salmon and steelhead survival through Snake and Columbia river dams was completed and released to the public at the end of December by the Fish Passage Center.
The Pacific Northwest’s economy is growing, overall employment levels are now exceeding levels from before the 2008 recession, and the region continues to produce more goods and services using less electricity according to a staff presentation at the Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s Power Committee meeting in Portland on December 12.
The Kalispel Tribe of Indians has successfully formed its own electric utility.
For the third straight year, overall hydrosystem survival – Lower Granite Dam on the lower Snake River to Bonneville Dam on the lower Columbia River – for yearling chinook smolts during spring 2017 was below average (this year about 6 percent below average), with an overall survival rate of 44 percent, according to a preliminary report.
Higher flows, a double pulse of spring water and a long-term habitat project in the Kootenai River resulted this year in a 20 percent increase in sturgeon moving upstream of Bonners Ferry to spawn, according to a review last week of 2017 operations to aid white sturgeon and bull trout downstream of Libby Dam.
Recognizing that many large dams are here to stay, a University of Washington team is investigating an emerging solution to help achieve freshwater conservation goals by re-envisioning the ways in which water is released by dams.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council turned its attention to the matter of rapid pike proliferation in Washington’s Lake Roosevelt in two forums this week in Portland: at a northern pike discussion and coordination meeting Monday, Dec. 11, and during a Fish and Wildlife Committee meeting Tuesday, Dec 12.
Pound nets or fish traps used to capture large numbers of salmon were outlawed on the Columbia River in 1936, over 80 years ago, largely due to massive harvests of salmon and steelhead when using the gear. So why has a Northwest nonprofit been testing the fish traps near Cathlamet, Washington for the last two years?
In the Columbia River between the Pacific Ocean and Bonneville Dam, a distance of about 145 miles, a substantial number of adult spring chinook salmon that are identified in the lower river continue to disappear before reaching the dam, research by NOAA Fisheries shows.
After long-developing documentation of high levels of selenium, a bi-product of mining in British Columbia’s Elk Valley, and the failure of a water treatment plant to curb the problem, the state of Montana and tribal governments are weighing in on the matter.
A tentative settlement was reached this week in the decades long process to renew the Hells Canyon Complex’s operating license.
Federal agencies that operate fourteen Columbia/Snake River dams described this week their progress one year into a five-year National Environmental Policy Act process required by a court-ordered rewrite of the biological opinion for protected salmon and steelhead.
It appears negotiations between the United States and Canada on the Columbia River Treaty will begin soon.
Fisheries managers this week reset guidelines for when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Bonneville Power Administration can hold flows to zero at night and on weekends at lower Snake River dams.
A decades-long process to relicense the Hells Canyon Complex of hydroelectric dams on the Snake River has one more delay as Idaho Power analyzes additional data requested by the dams’ bordering states.
A five-year federal review of the Columbia/Snake River power system will not produce a finished environmental impact statement until 2021. That has U.S. District Court Judge Michael H. Simon asking whether a new biological opinion for salmon and steelhead, scheduled for 2018, should simply be suspended until the EIS is completed.
A group of Idaho fisheries conservation leaders has developed a new approach toward evaluating and prescribing effective habitat restoration measures for salmon and steelhead in the upper Salmon River Basin, with potential for the approach to be applied elsewhere.
NOAA Fisheries completed an environmental review of potential options that will guide the final agreement for managing salmon and steelhead fisheries in the Columbia River Basin for the next ten years.
A winter upgrade to Foster Dam’s fish weir is expected to provide a safer passage over the dam for juvenile salmon and steelhead.
Idaho Fish and Game personnel say they’ve made considerable progress in unraveling a mortality mystery for young Snake River sockeye released from the second and newest sockeye hatchery in Idaho, the Springfield Hatchery near American Falls.
An Earthwise Knowledge Initiative Publication
