Clinton administration officials this week said they will not seek
removal of four lower Snake River federal dams to restore endangered
salmon but will continue to study and plan for the option for the next
10 years in case it proves to be necessary to avoid extinction.
The administration's alternative to dam breaching will be ...
The Clinton administration's announcement this week that it would not
seek to tear down Snake River dams to aid endangered salmon was
criticized by both environmental advocates and dam supporters.
National and Northwest environmentalists said the administration's
proposed non-breaching salmon recovery strategy could lead to
extinctions, while Republicans criticized it for leaving the door open
to possible future dam removal.
The extended ruminations over dam breaching's salmon recovery potential
could be time well spent, according to a panel of economists called on
to critique the economic component of the Corps of Engineer's draft
Lower Snake River Juvenile Salmon Migration Feasibility Study and
environmental impact statement.
State and tribal negotiators reached agreement Thursday on a sharing of
the upcoming upriver fall chinook harvest, providing a going-away
present of sorts for the U.S. District Court judge who has guided such
discussions for the past 13 years.
Negotiations on a management agreement for this year's upper Columbia
River fall chinook, steelhead and coho runs had reached a dead-end in
recent weeks ...
Federal fish and wildlife officials, and those from Washington state,
agreed in principle this week to put surplus Carson stock spring chinook
into what is "essentially an empty system" in the Okanogan Basin.
But a continued reluctance to employ the stock in a Methow River salmon
restoration effort has angered Columbia River treaty tribes ...
The future is now for outmigrating Snake River fall chinook
subyearlings, which are expected to get a cooler ride to Lower Granite
Dam following a decision this past weekend to increase the outpouring of
water from the depths of Dworshak Reservoir in Idaho.
And according to a flow "shaping" plan discussed Wednesday by the
multi-agency Implementation Team ...
Those managing the Columbia-Snake river hydrosystem to balance fish
passage, power generation, irrigation and recreational needs find
themselves dealing with a rapidly dwindling resource -- water.
The Clinton administration this week issued final water quality
regulations aimed at reducing water pollution in runoff from
agricultural, forest and other lands.
A five-fold increase in sockeye salmon run expectations has enabled
non-Indian commercial fishers their first sockeye salmon fishing
opportunity since 1989 below the Columbia River's Bonneville Dam.
Frustrated with a shrinking share of fishing opportunities, the states
of Oregon and Washington filed suit this week in U.S. District Court in
an attempt to prevent the federal government from using Endangered
Species Act provisions as the means of allocating harvest between tribal
and non-tribal fishers.
The planned release of the National Marine Fisheries Service's
biological opinion regarding federal hydrosystem impacts on listed
Columbia Basin salmon species has been pushed back from late June to
late July as federal agencies continue to wrangle over the final details
of the document.
A self-described "odd coalition" of tribal, utility district,
agricultural and other local interests got together this past week to
demand that federal and state agencies rethink a federal salmon recovery
strategy that results in the "destruction" of surplus returning adult
hatchery fish.
About 75,000 soon-to-be smolted Snake River fall chinook salmon treaded
hatchery water this past week while the agencies and tribes debated the
merits of using the little fish in proposed research aimed at gauging
survival.
The slippery schedule for completing a draft biological opinion
governing operations of Columbia River hydroelectric projects slid
again, this time to June 30. Once coined the 1999 BiOp by the National
Marine Fisheries Service, it is now the 2000 BiOp and was last scheduled
for release in draft form May 22.
Attempts to bring agreement on the division of a limited amount of
Methow Valley water among competing uses has been greatly complicated
with the Endangered Species Act listing of spring chinook salmon in 1999
and steelhead in 1997 as endangered, according to federal, state and
local officials.
White House officials have assured state representatives that two federally-instigated Northwest salmon recovery plans would soon be ready for review. While those studies do not immediately recommend removing four lower Snake River dams, they do set performance standards, which if not met, could trigger removal of the dams within five or ten years.
The preliminary head count of upriver Columbia-Snake spring chinook at Bonneville Dam has provided a double blessing -- ample numbers to revive long foregone fishing opportunities and signs that next year's run will be even better.
Ninety percent of Caspian terns in the lower Columbia River estuary have chosen to nest at East Sand Island near the ocean, rather than at Rice Island where their diets consist of nearly 100 percent juvenile salmon, some of which are listed under the Endangered Species Act.
U.S. Secretary of Interior Bruce Babbitt's expected recommendation to
designate the Hanford Reach a national monument brought criticism from
Washington Republican lawmakers before and after his visit to the area
this week.
Lawyers for fishing and conservation groups asked a federal judge on
Friday to order the Bureau of Reclamation to stop delivering irrigation
water to unauthorized farmland in the Northwest.
A flood of comments -- many of them raising "significant issues" -- may
push a Corps of Engineers recommendation on lower Snake River dam
breaching into year 2001.
Northwest politicians, speaking from pulpits at home and in Washington,
D.C., said this week that their constituents deserve to hear Democratic
presidential hopeful Al Gore's opinion on a divisive regional issue --
whether four Lower Snake River dams should be breached as part of the
effort to restore depleted salmon stocks.
The most bountiful adult return since 1972 has enabled the first
commercial treaty fishery on Columbia-Snake river spring chinook salmon
in more than two decades as well as a relatively rare sport fishing
season in Idaho.
Caspian terns in the Columbia River estuary will remain largely
unmolested this year as a plan to move North America's largest colony
was stopped by a federal court this week.
A request from Columbia Basin salmon managers to "spread the risk" to
migrating juvenile salmon by increasing the amount of water voluntarily
spilled at the Lower Snake River's Little Goose Dam was rejected
Wednesday by the National Marine Fisheries Service.
An Earthwise Knowledge Initiative Publication
