An Oregon Court of Appeals on Dec. 31 ruled that the state’s Water Resources Department must rethink its approvals of permit extensions requests from three Portland area municipal entities that aim to “perfect” – more fully develop – lower Clackamas River water rights.
A federal appeals court has accepted the request by U.S. Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Forest Service, and Ascot Resources Ltd to drop their appeal of a lower court order invalidating permits for exploratory mining just northeast of the Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument.
The potential for “substantial and irreparable harm to Pacific lamprey and listed salmon and steelhead from dredging” outweighs the benefits that a navigation channel clearing operation might bring, according to plaintiffs seeking a federal court order to stop a planned U.S. Army Corps of Engineers project.
The 2014 Federal Columbia River Power System biological opinion “continues to rely on a suite of hoped-for mitigation actions in estuary and tributary habitat, as well as uncertain actions to address other sources of salmon mortality, without specifically identifying many of these actions or rationally addressing their risks.”
Tribal and conservation groups’ “speculative” claims of potential harm to Pacific lamprey do not outweigh the need to ensure, via dredging, safe passage for commercial vessels, and their operators, that ply the lower Snake River, according to court documents filed this week by the federal government and shipping interests.
President Obama this week designated the waters of Alaska’s Bristol Bay as off limits to consideration for oil and gas leasing.
The Yakama Nation this week filed a complaint in Oregon’s U.S. District Court that seeks from the federal government costs incurred by the tribe for participation in the long-running investigation and cleanup of the so-called Bradford Island site at the lower Columbia River’s Bonneville Dam.
“More fish - and more wild fish - are returning to the river” according to an annual “progress” report released last week by federal action agencies charged with assuring that beleaguered Columbia and Snake salmon and steelhead populations survive, and ultimately thrive.
Last Thursday, three anti-nuclear environmental groups filed a petition questioning the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit issued to Energy Northwest for Columbia Generating Station by EFSEC, a Washington state agency. The previous NPDES permit was issued in 2006.
Biologists confirmed what they had heard as rumor from lake fishermen, that both fin-clipped and unmarked chinook salmon inhabit Green Peter Reservoir on the Middle Santiam River and spawn in Quartzville Creek in the upper Willamette River watershed.
Clean water groups filed a lawsuit this week asking Washington’s Thurston County Superior Court to overturn a state decision to renew a water quality permit for the Columbia River Generating Station, the Pacific Northwest’s only operating commercial nuclear reactor.
The Oregon Department of State Lands on Oct. 1 ruled Ambre Energy and the Port of Morrow have a “legally protected interest” in an Aug. 18 decision to deny a permit to build a coal transportation terminal at the port on the lower Columbia River near the town of Boardman.
A number of familiar adversaries, including the state of Oregon, have told Oregon’s U.S. District Court that they will join the recently resumed fight over the legality of the federal government’s strategy for assuring Federal Columbia River Power System operations avoid jeopardizing protected salmon and steelhead.
The Washington Department of Ecology has released for public review proposed water quality standards for toxic chemicals that include new fish consumption rates.
The Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission appointed Curt Melcher as the interim director for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced this week that it has placed on hold its consideration of a permit sought by Ambre Energy subsidiary Coyote Island Terminals, LLC’s to allow construction of a coal shipping terminal facility on the Columbia River at the Port of Morrow near Boardman, Ore.
Hatchery populations of spring chinook salmon in the subbasins of the upper Willamette River are genetically similar to the wild populations in these basins and should continue to be used for recovery of spring chinook salmon.
The project proponent, the Oregon port district where the work would take place and a primary coal source state – Wyoming – this week sought to overturn an Oregon agency permit denial of plans for construction of an export terminal on the Columbia River that would allow the transport of coal from trains to barges which, in turn, could be loaded onto ships bound for points east across the Pacific.
A hatchery supplementation program for endangered winter chinook salmon is achieving estimated survival rates of hatchery fry through the end of the first year in the ocean that is about four times greater than the survival for the program’s natural origin counterparts, according to a study by NOAA Fisheries scientists.
Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife Director Roy Elicker is resigning effective Oct. 10 to begin working for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
A primary source of cool water used to improve Snake River salmon summertime migration conditions was pinched Aug. 15, leaving fish and hydro system management representatives to debate how to make the best out of a bad situation.
Tribes and conservation groups this week cheered an Oregon Department of State Lands denial of a removal-fill permit that would be needed to carry forward a proposal by Ambre Energy to build coal shipping facilities at Coyote Island Terminal at the Port of Morrow in Boardman on the mainstem Columbia River.
After “years” of negotiations, Idaho officials and the Bonneville Power Administration are within a few short steps of finalizing a settlement agreement to bring $22 million to the state over the next 10 years for the purchase of wildlife habit to help mitigate for impacts caused by construction and operation of federal dams on the Snake River and tributaries.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Walla Walla District last week announced it will open for public review and comments its “Lower Snake River Final Programmatic Sediment Management Plan and Final Environmental Impact Statement.”
Under a settlement agreement signed Aug. 15 by U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Zilly, conditions ordered by the court in 2004 would be restored that impose expanded no-spray buffer zones around waterways to protect imperiled salmon and steelhead from five toxic pesticides.
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