Environmental groups and commercial fishermen filed suit this week
against the National Marine Fisheries Service saying the agency's
biological opinion of a project to deepen the Columbia
River shipping channel lacked scientific foundation and will harm young salmon.
A yearlong lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Portland could decide in
the next month whether the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers must comply with
Clean Water Act standards when operating four lower Snake River dams.
Federal officials who say decisions will be based on pure science and
economics were met with a flood of emotional pleas Tuesday during a
meeting in Spokane to discuss, among other things, dam breaching's
potential for aiding salmon and steelhead recovery.
Under the Clinton administration's proposed budget for FY2001, spending
on Columbia River fish mitigation would increase by $33 million to $91
million.
Two bills dealing with federal funding of Columbia Basin salmon recovery
projects won approval from the Senate Energy and Natural Resources
Committee on Thursday.
When it issues a biological opinion of the federal hydro system, the
National Marine Fisheries Service will attach a work in progress that
also addresses federal Clean Water Act issues in the Columbia River
mainstem.
Federal officials heard pleas about the need to restore salmon
populations, and preserve the economic functions of the Columbia
Basin's hydroelectric system during the first public meeting planned around the region to gather public comment on fish recovery planning efforts.
Potlatch Corp. employees packed a meeting in Lewiston last week to
protest the temperature standard included in a draft pollution permit
governing the company's wastewater discharge in the Snake River.
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.
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.
Co-ownership of two lower Deschutes River hydroelectric dams will settle
a long-standing dispute between Portland General Electric and the Warm
Springs Tribes about who should be licensed to operate the dams. The
settlement had been in the works since the spring of 1999.
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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