The U.S. State Department has set a Columbia River Treaty town hall in Boise, Idaho next week.
A federal judge has denied the request of three conservation groups to order a federal agency to make immediate changes at federal Willamette River dams to improve conditions for migrating juveniles and spawning adult threatened spring chinook and winter steelhead.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Oregon Department of Environmental Quality concluded the on-site investigation this week into reports of drums at the bottom of Wallowa Lake labeled with the herbicides "2,4-D or 2,4,5-T."
The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife recently released a statement essentially patting themselves on the back for maintaining the status quo in response to a growing problem on Washington’s salmon and steelhead streams.
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee said Tuesday the Canadian government’s approval of the Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion was “alarming and deeply disappointing.”
Oregon and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency have eight years in which to replace water pollution clean-up plans that allow temperatures harmful to salmon in some of the state’s key river basins, a federal court ordered late Tuesday.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Oregon Department of Environmental Quality are working to remove this summer drums containing herbicides at the bottom of Wallowa Lake in northeast Oregon.
Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson has filed a lawsuit challenging the Environmental Protection Agency’s decision to revise Washington’s water quality standards. The lawsuit asks the court to block the EPA from revising the standards.
The Trump Administration Thursday said it will change the definition of high-level waste stored at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation and other nuclear waste sites across the country, “opening the door for the federal government to walk away from its obligation to clean up millions of gallons of toxic, radioactive waste at Hanford,” say Washington State officials.
Restoring native salmon and steelhead runs in the Columbia River basin is the largest ecological restoration effort in the United States. Yet, after nearly 30 years and the spending of billions in public dollars, salmon and steelhead that spawn in the drainage of the nation’s second largest river remain in peril.
U.S. Secretary of the Interior David Bernhardt this week announced two actions intended to expedite the transfer of eligible Bureau of Reclamation facilities into local ownership and management -- a new “Categorical Exclusion” and an update of Reclamation’s operating manual procedures to streamline the title transfer process.
Five public meetings in the Willamette Valley are scheduled to provide and accept information about the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ environmental impact statement process at its Willamette Valley dams.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Friday announced an agreement in principle with the city of Portland and state of Oregon to help fund cleanup plans for the 10-mile Portland Harbor Superfund.
The Columbia Basin Transboundary Conference: One River, One Future is offering a limited number of scholarships of up to $400 CAD to registered post-secondary students and non-profit professionals who plan to attend or have already registered for the conference.
The states of Oregon and Idaho this week announced a settlement agreement regarding the operation of the Hells Canyon Complex on the Snake River that is intended to benefit water quality, habitat, and Columbia/Snake river basin fish.
On track to reach a run size of 3,200 fish, Willamette River wild steelhead may post one of the best returns of the threatened fish in more than three years, according to the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers opened a National Environmental Policy Act process this week that looks at the operation and maintenance of the agency’s Willamette River projects and their impact on threatened upper Willamette River wild winter steelhead and wild spring chinook.
In a two-step challenge to operations at Willamette River basin dams, attorneys for a coalition of conservation groups argued in court Thursday that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers should immediately take steps to improve conditions for migrating juveniles and spawning adult salmon and steelhead, even while the Corps works with NOAA Fisheries on a new biological opinion.
A new biological opinion for the federal Columbia River power system aimed at protecting and recovering salmon and steelhead listed under the federal Endangered Species Act was completed Friday and posted without fanfare to the NOAA Fisheries website.
After a colder than average February and with snow piling up at low elevations in the Snake River basin, a sunny and warm early March is resulting in runoff from the basin that is sufficiently supplementing flows lower in the Columbia River that will keep water over several hundred chum redds (nests) downstream of Bonneville Dam.
Providing access to areas upstream of dams in the Columbia River basin that when built blocked passage for anadromous fish is a priority in many of the amendment proposals to its basin Fish and Wildlife Program received by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council.
A 30-day comment period began this week (March 11) on a draft environmental assessment for downstream fish passage at Cougar Dam on the south fork of Oregon’s McKenzie River. The public review period will end April 10.
The Bonneville Power Administration spent nearly $260 million in direct costs for its Fish and Wildlife Program in fiscal year 2018, according to a draft report approved for public comment by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council.
The Bonneville Power Administration has spent billions of dollars on Columbia River basin fish and wildlife mitigation and it continues to spend nearly $300 million each year in direct expenses for the Columbia River Fish and Wildlife Program.
With continued low flows and less than average projected water supplies in the upper Columbia River basin, the interagency Technical Management Team this week began serious talks about how much longer minimum flows can be sustained that aid threatened chum salmon redds downstream of Bonneville Dam.
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