The four Columbia River treaty tribes took their complaints about the federal government's failure to consult with them on salmon issues to Washington, D.C., this week.
The National Marine Fisheries Service on Thursday told tribal and non-tribal fishers that there might not be enough Columbia-Snake river spring chinook salmon to satisfy everyone's harvest desires this year.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will harass Caspian terns on Rice
Island in the Columbia River estuary this spring so that no terns will
nest on the island.
About 13 miles of salmon spawning and rearing habitat in the lower
Columbia River estuary could be recovered if improvements suggested by a
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' environmental assessment are approved.
Objections from Idaho and Oregon fish and wildlife officials have left
in question planned pilot studies intended to explore impacts of dam
passage on adult salmon's survival and reproductive success.
Federal agencies operating dams in the Columbia River Basin released a
December assessment that dams adversely affect six species listed as endangered or threatened in 1999. They recommend a new Federal Columbia River Power System biological opinion.
Second-year Council member Larry Cassidy of Washington was elected
Wednesday as chairman of the Northwest Power Planning Council as it
prepares to reshape its Columbia Basin fish and wildlife program and
establish new procedures for allocating funding of fish and wildlife
restoration projects.
The National Marine Fisheries Service has released a draft of a
supplemental biological opinion on operation of the Columbia River
federal power system to federal and state agencies, along with tribes,
for quick review. It hopes to complete the BiOp by the spring 2000
juvenile migration.
A supplemental biological opinion completed last month blesses a plan to
continue federal operations which times the release of 427,000 acre feet
of reservoir water in Idaho to coincide, primarily, with the migration
of Snake River fall chinook salmon listed Endangered Species Act.
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