Caspian terns that settle in each spring on an island in the Columbia River estuary and prey on passing salmon and steelhead smolts do hinder Endangered Species Act fish recovery efforts, according to a report released Sept. 26 by the National Marine Fisheries Service.
A massive fish die-off over the past two weeks has fanned the flames of controversy in the Klamath River Basin of southern Oregon and northern California with tribal members, conservation and fishing groups, a politician and California fishery officials saying federal water management policies give too much water to irrigators and too little for in-river fish flows.
Discharges from factories along the mainstem Columbia and lower Snake rivers have very little impact on the rivers' temperature, but the 19 dams on the two rivers do.
Coastal commercial salmon fishermen and conservation groups were joined by U.S. Rep. Mike Thompson, D-California, Thursday in filing papers in U.S. District Court that challenge the federal government's ten-year plan for managing irrigation in the Klamath River Basin.
The plan leaves migrating salmon high and dry, according to the groups.
A $1.3 billion federal loan to the Bonneville Power Administration for future transmission line construction and improvements is uncertain of winning congressional approval this year.
Meanwhile, the House Appropriations Committee has criticized the Northwest Power Planning Council for not doing a better job of scrutinizing BPA's construction, power plant acquisition and other capital funding projects, in general, and its original $2 billion borrowing increase proposal, in particular.
Senate energy bill negotiators this week proposed federal hydropower relicensing reforms that environmental groups charged would favor utilities at the expense of fish.
The Northwest Power Planning Council has nearly completed the first round in its newly created three-year rolling "provincial review" process for selecting projects to be funded through its Columbia Basin fish and wildlife program.
The Bonneville Power Administration says that power purchases and foregone revenues forced by federal hydrosystem operations to help migrating salmon and steelhead cost the agency's ratepayers $1.5 billion during fiscal year 2001, according to a Northwest Power Planning Council report released Wednesday.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers released this week a report prepared by a panel of seven economists that largely said the Corps' economic analysis of its plan to deepen the Columbia River navigation channel by three feet is reasonable and prudent.
The Nez Perce Tribe's hatchery supplementation program -- and to some extent Mother Nature -- can be credited for this year's fall chinook salmon count at Lower Granite Dam, which is expected to set a record with a return of 10,000 adult fish.
On Monday, 604 fall chinook were counted at the dam, located 20 miles northwest of Lewiston, Idaho, on the Snake River. That's higher than the total fall season counts in six individual years since the dam was built in 1975.
The federal Columbia Basin salmon and steelhead recovery effort can list $3.8 billion in costs over the past 20 years, but can not identify a biological benefits bottom line, according to a report recently released by U.S. General Accounting Office.
A report by the RAND Corporation says removal of the four lower Snake River dams and replacing the lost power with at least 20 percent conservation and renewable energy would have a negligible effect on the Northwest's economy and could even add up to 15,000 new jobs.
Bonneville Power Administration administrator Steve Wright last week challenged the Columbia Basin's federal, state and tribal fish and wildlife managers to identify potential cost reductions that could help the agency limit future power rate increases.
Public utility customers of the Bonneville Power Administration demanded this week deep cuts to the agency's budgets and questioned the value of continued spill at federal dams to aid salmon recovery.
The anticipation of funding from the Bonneville Power Administration for fish and wildlife projects recommended by the Northwest Power Planning Council has become, in some cases, as maddening as Chinese water torture, according to one Council member.
The Northwest Power Planning Council sorted through sometimes conflicting advice in making a decision to recommend that 10 projects be funded under its "innovative" fish and wildlife project category during the current fiscal year at cost of nearly $2 million.
Northwest Power Planning Council members from Idaho and Montana say they are willing to accept -- with qualifications -- a federal document's prescriptions for running the Columbia-Snake federal hydrosystem as a baseline for the Council's own fish and wildlife program mainstem strategy.
A list of 104 systemwide and mainstem fish and wildlife project proposals have started down the final gauntlet in the Northwest Power Planning Council' "rolling provincial review" funding approval process, with only 14 passing muster in an initial technical review by the Independent Scientific Review Panel.
Already behind schedule, implementation of the Columbia Basin salmon recovery plan would slip further under an annual federal funding bill recently approved by the Senate Appropriations Committee.
Plans and actions taken by key federal agencies to implement a 10-year Columbia River Basin salmon and steelhead recovery program are -- for the most part -- on schedule to meet the first major benchmark in the plan -- a major 2003 evaluation, the National Marine Fisheries Services announced Tuesday.
The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on Wednesday approved a bill by Oregon's senators to authorize up to $32 million in federal funding for repair of the privately owned Wallowa Lake Dam and for water conservation and fish restoration in the watershed.
The bill, S. 1883, by Gordon Smith, R-Ore., and Ron Wyden, D-Ore., both members of the committee, is opposed by the Bush administration because the northeastern Oregon dam is owned by local irrigators.
The National Marine Fisheries Service on Wednesday released a preliminary draft hatchery policy that reaffirms the agency's emphasis on building self-sustaining salmon and steelhead populations in their natural ecosystem with careful consideration of the risks and benefits that hatchery fish might bring to the recovery process.
Senate appropriators have agreed to increase the Army Corps of Engineers' budget for the Columbia River salmon mitigation by $6 million next year, to $87 million.
The Northwest Power Planning Council on Wednesday recommended the expenditure of $462,000 to have its artificial production review process complete draft documents that are necessary for Columbia Basin salmon hatcheries to gain "coverage" under the Endangered Species Act.
A federal judge in Seattle ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency must consult with the National Marine Fisheries Service regarding the effects of 55 pesticides on Northwest salmon and steelhead.
An Earthwise Knowledge Initiative Publication
