The reaction to the biological opinion of the Columbia River hydro
system released this week by the National Marine Fisheries Service
focused mostly on breaching four lower Snake River dams.
But not all looking at the breaching language in the same way.
Federal officials plan to release the final Columbia Basin salmon
restoration plan and biological opinion on the federal hydropower system
as required under the Endangered Species Act next week.
One of the major changes the region will see when the National Marine
Fisheries Service releases its final 2000 biological opinion governing
operations of the Columbia River federal hydro system is the exclusion
from the BiOp of Bureau of Reclamation dams in the upper Snake River
basin due to ongoing water adjudication.
Critical of both the science supporting draft federal salmon recovery
plans and the process used to produce it, Idaho Sen. Mike Crapo has
asked the National Marine Fisheries Service to slow its timetable for
implementing the strategies.
Panels made up of regional scientists, researchers and representatives
of economic interests were asked last week to offer their views on the
federal salmon recovery planning "process, science basis and prospects
for success."
The setting was a Senate Environment and Public Works Subcommittee on
Fisheries, Wildlife and Water hearing in Boise chaired by Idaho
Republican Sen. Mike Crapo.
Columbia Basin salmon managers -- unused to dealing with bounty -- are
smiling at preseason forecasts of a 2001 upriver spring chinook run that
would be 30 percent greater than the best run recorded since counts
began in 1938.
His tenure could, potentially, be brief, but acting Bonneville Power
Administration administrator Steve Wright sees the need to keep the
momentum rolling on a number of related fronts -- among them finding
agreement on a "unified" Columbia Basin fish and wildlife recovery plan
demanded by his predecessor.
The Bonneville Power Administration witnessed a changing of the guard
today (Nov. 17) with Administrator Judi Johansen leaving to become
executive vice president for government affairs and regulation at
PacifiCorp.
Saying that rivers already have too little water to meet flow targets
for salmon migration, environmental groups petitioned the Washington
Department of Ecology to renew a moratorium on issuing water rights
permits on the Columbia and Snake rivers and their tributaries.
An interim Corps of Engineers dredging plan intended to remove an
estimated 244,269 cubic yards of sediment from the federal navigation
channel at the confluence of the Snake and Clearwater rivers this winter
has drawn fire of conservation groups and tribes concerned about water
quality and impacts on ESA-listed and other fish.
A gathering last week celebrated the just-won congressional
authorization that $30 million be spent to restore habitat in the
Columbia River and Tillamook Bay estuaries.
Shepherding the Northwest estuary legislation through as part of the
Water Resources Development Act was U.S. Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore.
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.
A report produced by Idaho agency officials and researchers says that
federal studies used as justification for Lower Snake River flow
augmentation do not hold water.
Flow augmentation, called for in existing and proposed federal
hydrosystem biological opinions, is drawn from Idaho reservoirs created
for irrigation, recreation and other uses ...
The Senate has given final approval to an annual spending bill that
would provide some $170 million for West Coast salmon recovery,
primarily in the Northwest.
President Clinton is expected to veto the measure over unrelated
provisions, however. With the Senate having recessed this week, Congress
won't take up a modified version until after Tuesday's election. A lame
duck session is scheduled to begin on Nov. 14.
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.
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.
A spring 2000 strategy to reduce the number of migrating salmon consumed
by Caspian terns in the Columbia River estuary produced some
eye-catching results, though researchers say a few shifts in political
will, and tern nesting locales, could have made an even greater
salmon-saving impact.
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.
Reaction to Washington's and Oregon's denial of water quality permits
for deepening the Columbia River estuary ranged from proposed
celebrations in Astoria to a belief in Portland the process will still
work.
"Please pinch me, I might be dreaming," said Peter Huhtala, executive
director of the Columbia Deepening Opposition Group in Astoria.
The Senate gave final approval Monday to a $23.6 billion energy and
water spending bill, which includes $5.5 million for the Columbia River
channel deepening project.
The vote was 57-37, short of the 67 needed to override the veto that
White House officials have vowed because the bill would block the Army
Corps of Engineers from implementing a plan to alter the flow of the
Missouri River. The House passed the FY01 energy and water
appropriations measure last week, 301-118.
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.
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