The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s top official announced this week the agency will propose lifting protections for wolves throughout the lower 48 states, triggering predictable opposition from environmental groups and continued litigation.
NOAA Fisheries officials issued a Biological Opinion February 15, requiring the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers complete a downstream fish passage facility at Howard A. Hanson Dam (HAHD) on the Green River, 21 miles east of Auburn, Washington.
An agreement was signed by federal agencies, states and one tribe in December that sets a framework for how spring and some summer spill at Columbia/Snake river dams will be conducted this year and for a couple of years into the future until its concept can be tucked into a new environmental impact statement and biological opinion of the federal power system in 2020 and into the interim 2018 BiOp expected to be released by NOAA Fisheries in April.
A Washington state public review process that was to close February 19 for nine draft water quality permits at Columbia and Snake river dams took an unusual turn late last week when the federal government withdrew the permits without saying why.
The Bonneville Power Administration is funding a steelhead kelt reconditioning facility at the Nez Perce Fish Hatchery on the Clearwater River near Lewiston, Idaho.
Steelhead were hit hardest by steller and California sea lions at Bonneville Dam in the fall of 2017 and the spring of 2018.
A flexible spill agreement signed in December by federal agencies, states and a tribe promises additional spring spill to total dissolved gas limits, known as gas caps, beginning this spring at Columbia and Snake river dams. The additional spill is thought to aid juvenile salmon passage.
With federal partners on furlough due to the partial government shutdown, the Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s Fish and Wildlife Committee discussed whether it should alter its Columbia River Basin Fish and Wildlife Program amendment schedule.
Seeking to cut some $30 million from its future fish and wildlife expenses, the Bonneville Power Administration has completed its review of fiscal year 2019 programs, arriving at cuts to 35 programs totaling $6,391,576 along with more than $3 million from the Columbia River Fish Accords.
After receiving approval from NOAA Fisheries in November to lethally remove sea lions at Willamette Falls, Oregon spent little time starting the program that could euthanize as many as 93 California sea lions this year at the Falls.
Following the orders of an October Presidential memorandum, federal agencies charged with producing an environmental impact statement analyzing the impacts of 14 federal Columbia/Snake river dams on salmon and steelhead released a schedule this week that shortens the time they will take to complete the EIS by one year.
Every day, between April 3 and June 20 last year, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had to determine what amount of spill would bring the lower Snake and Columbia rivers up to state-mandated total dissolved gas limits while not exceeding those limits.
A new plan to reclassify nuclear waste would allow the federal government to walk away from its obligation to clean up millions of gallons of toxic, radioactive waste at Hanford, Washington state officials said this week.
An agreement signed this week by federal agencies, states and a tribe promises additional spring spill next year at Columbia and Snake river dams to aid juvenile salmon passage, but how the spill is conducted will be by agreement among six parties and not by court order, as it was in spring 2018.
Recommendations for amendments to the Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s Columbia River Basin Fish and Wildlife Program received from state and federal agencies, tribes, Bonneville Power Administration customers, environmental and conservation groups and individuals are now out for public comment.
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee announced late last week a budget that includes investments to save Southern Resident orca whales in Puget Sound. Much of his budget is aimed at increasing the number of chinook salmon, the killer whales’ primary food source, in the Columbia River basin and in Puget Sound, and includes funding a task force to look at breaching Snake River dams.
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Steelhead fishing is continuing past the December 7 cutoff date set by the Idaho Fish and Game Commission last week due to a last minute agreement between the state and conservation groups.
A court ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to work with plaintiffs in a clean water suit to set a schedule for when it can redo clean water standards for temperature in a number of Oregon streams.
Four conservation groups filed a motion for a preliminary injunction in U.S. District Court in Portland Friday (Nov. 30) asking the court to compel the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to make immediate operational changes at Willamette River basin dams to aid threatened salmon and steelhead.
A lawsuit filed in June by Idaho Power aimed at forcing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to set temperature standards downstream of the utility’s Snake River dams in Hells Canyon was put on hold while the EPA completes the work to set the standards.
An environmental law organization is challenging the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in court over what it says is the EPA’s failure to identify Oregon waters that are impaired by ocean acidification. That identification as impaired would allow Oregon to enforce pollution controls and other protective measures.
A settlement in an Oregon Circuit Court between environmental groups and the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality promises to clear up a backlog of 148 water pollution permits that are 10 years old or older.
An anticipated lower than average rainfall in the Columbia River basin led the interagency Technical Management Team to reduce the tailwater elevation requirement put in place to protect spawning chum salmon downstream of Bonneville Dam by 0.2 feet.
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee’s Southern Resident Killer Whale Recovery Task Force delivered last week its final list of ways to help the whales in Puget Sound recover and one of those recommendations is to consider the benefits to chinook salmon of removing lower Snake River dams.
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