Under court order, the operators of eight federal dams on the lower Snake and lower Columbia rivers will begin to spill water for fish earlier next year, beginning April 3, to possibly improve survival rates for juvenile salmon and steelhead through the hydroelectric system.
A federal court judge denied Portland General Electric’s motion to dismiss a lawsuit brought against it over a central Oregon conservation group’s claims of water quality violations in the Deschutes River.
Two conservation groups intend to sue the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, seeking to force the Corps to begin an Endangered Species Act consultation with NOAA Fisheries over the Corps’ hatchery summer steelhead program in Oregon’s Willamette and Santiam rivers.
The National Park Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will extend the public comment period regarding the proposed alternatives for the restoration of grizzly bears to the North Cascades Ecosystem by 45 days, through April 28, 2017. The agencies received several requests for an extension to the comment period from members of the public and local elected officials.
The federal court judge who rejected last May the Columbia River hydropower system’s 2014 biological opinion for salmon and steelhead is leaning towards ordering more spring/summer spill at mainstem dams aimed at aiding juvenile fish passage-- but not until 2018.
Federal dam operating agencies released last week an annual evaluation of progress toward meeting the conservation requirements of the federal power system’s 2008 biological opinion and the 2014 supplemental BiOp for Columbia/Snake river salmon and steelhead.
Two environmental groups filed suit this week against the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, challenging the legality of a water pollution permitting program.
Three federal agencies managing Columbia/Snake river mainstem dams closed last month the publics’ initial opportunity to comment on the court-ordered “Columbia River System Operations” environmental impact statement for endangered and threatened salmon and steelhead.
Conservationists have notched a victory with a legal challenge over potential Endangered Species Act violations related to impacts of dams on bull trout populations in the Columbia River basin.
Following up on their promise in August to sue the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency under the Clean Water Act to compel the federal agency to develop a temperature pollution budget for the Columbia and Snake Rivers, five environmental groups filed the suit this week.
The Oregon and Washington attorneys general January 25 filed a brief in U.S. District Court disagreeing with Portland General Electric’s assertion that the Deschutes River Alliance’s clean water challenges over the Pelton Round Butte Complex of dams should be taken up with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, not with the court.
A federal judge has granted a preliminary injunction that will require the Bureau of Reclamation and the Klamath Project to provide additional flows for flushing out a parasite that has been harmful to protected salmon in the Klamath River Basin.
An all-inclusive region-wide effort to connect various salmon recovery efforts was set in motion by NOAA Fisheries this week as it held its first Columbia Basin Partnership Task Force meeting.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council Fish and Wildlife Committee approved the release of a white sturgeon request for information at its meeting in Portland January 10. The $300,000 projected cost for the RFI came from cost-savings from projects associated with the Council’s Fish and Wildlife Program.
The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation settled a lawsuit last week initially filed June 29, 2016 by Columbia Riverkeeper. The suit asked the agency to stop leaking “uncontrolled toxic oil pollution” at Grand Coulee Dam on the upper Columbia River.
Conservation groups, the state of Oregon and the Nez Perce Tribe are pleading their case before the U.S. District Court of Oregon to stop eleven capital projects at the four lower Snake River dams until the three federal agencies that operate the dams complete a National Environmental Policy Act review that could call for removing the dams.
NOAA Fisheries West Coast Region has completed a biological opinion of hatcheries funded under the Mitchell Act, potentially freeing the federal agency to make payments to operators of those hatcheries.
U.S. Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker Wednesday determined there are commercial fishery failures for nine salmon and crab fisheries in Alaska, California and Washington.
A federal judge has finally weighed in to end bureaucratic back-and-forthing between agencies over permitting a federal hatchery on a Wenatchee River tributary that has been going on since 1980.
After recording comments at 15 public scoping meetings, three federal agencies operating Columbia and Snake river dams are giving the public an additional three weeks to comment on the court-ordered Columbia River System Operations environmental impact statement for salmon and steelhead.
U.S. Sens. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) and Patty Murray (D-Wash.) have introduced the West Coast Ocean Protection Act to permanently prohibit offshore drilling on the outer continental shelf off of Washington, Oregon, and California.
A facility at the Nez Perce Hatchery on the Clearwater River in Idaho that will recondition spawned Snake River steelhead, known as kelts, was given the go-ahead by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council at its Portland meeting December 14.
Flow objectives were generally met this spring but not this summer as juvenile salmon, steelhead and lamprey migrated through the mid- Columbia and Snake Rivers, but the timing of the migration was early due to an early runoff and most fish had passed collection facilities before barging began.
The National Marine Fisheries Service has announced that it intends to obtain information necessary to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement for salmon and steelhead hatchery programs currently operating in the Upper Willamette River Basin of Oregon.
NOAA Fisheries this week described a proposed slate of changes at hatcheries that it says will reduce the impact of Mitchell Act hatchery fish on wild fish in the Columbia River basin.
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