The Center for Biological Diversity has filed petitions with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service seeking Endangered Species Act protections for the Owyhee hot springsnail and Owyhee upland pyrg.
An agreement to study transportation and recreational services that would need mitigation if the four lower Snake River dams were breached to recover the river’s threatened salmon and steelhead was signed early last week by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Washington’s Department of Transportation.
The Biden Administration has announced that NOAA is designating 4,543 square miles of coastal and offshore waters along 116 miles of California’s central coast as America’s 17th national marine sanctuary.
A draft report to Congress briefly outlines progress the Northwest Power and Conservation Council made in fiscal year 2023 on its Power Plan and Columbia River Basin Fish and Wildlife Program. The draft report was approved to go out for public comment until Dec. 10 by the Council last week at its meeting in Portland.
In a Columbia River Treaty “Agreement in Principle” with the United States, Canada will set aside 4-million-acre-feet of water each year that in the past has been used for power production. This water stored behind Canadian dams instead will be used to promote ecosystem functions and socio-economic and cultural values of British Columbia and its First Nations, according to an information session by B.C. Treaty negotiators last week.
A lawsuit contending that lower Columbia River hatcheries downstream of Bonneville Dam are a threat to wild salmon and steelhead listed under the federal Endangered Species Act was settled in part last week.
Responding to a years-long Supreme Court injunction over fish culverts, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife is seeking public input on a draft statewide strategy to prioritize the removal of small-scale barriers that prevent salmon and steelhead from swimming upstream.
Department of Interior’s Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Bryan Newland announced that Bryan Mercier has been selected to serve as the next director of the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
Environmental groups celebrated a legal victory last week when a federal district court judge overturned an offshore oil and gas lease sale in Alaska’s Cook Inlet, saying the federal government violated the law when holding the sale.
A pilot project proposed in Port Angeles, Washington is designed to test whether seawater can be used to soak up more carbon dioxide from the air. “Project Macoma,” as the proposed pilot is named, is an effort by a company called Ebb Carbon. It is a first-of-its-kind pilot project that has the potential to remove...
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals last week affirmed a lower court ruling that prevents Scott Timber from clearcutting old growth trees within Oregon’s Elliott State Forest. The decision will protect marbled murrelets, which are a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act.
In response to a petition to list Gulf of Alaska Chinook salmon as threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act, NOAA Fisheries has found that listing may be warranted.
The Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission last week voted unanimously to select Debbie Colbert as the new ODFW Director.
Two conservation groups followed up on their threat to sue in federal court against federal, state and local governments, saying that lower Columbia River hatcheries downstream of Bonneville Dam are a threat to wild salmon and steelhead listed under the federal Endangered Species Act.
2023 was a year of accelerated activity in the ongoing process of modernizing the Columbia River Treaty.
The Public Power Council has announced the Alliance of Western Energy Consumers will file a petition for review and join PPC’s Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals challenges of the Bonneville Power Administration’s decision to enter into a U.S. Government agreement and Memorandum of Understanding on Columbia River salmon recovery that commits BPA to various obligations.
The Biden administration, along with the governors of Oregon and Washington and leaders of four lower Columbia River tribes – the six sovereigns – formally signed an agreement last week that commits the federal government to as much as $1 billion to build infrastructure for eventual removal of four lower Snake River dams and to recover salmon and steelhead in the Columbia River basin.
Oregon U.S. District Court Judge Michael Simon Thursday approved a long-term pause in Columbia/Snake River salmon recovery litigation so a tribal-state plan and U.S. government commitments to restore salmon and steelhead in the Columbia River Basin will continue as plann
The Public Power Council this week filed a Petition for Review in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals regarding a recently announced U.S. Government agreement that PPC and its members believe inappropriately binds the Bonneville Power Administration to significant actions and commitments that are outside BPA’s congressionally-authorized mission and related obligations.
Two Northwest conservation groups have alleged that lower Columbia River hatcheries harm wild salmon and steelhead, sending a 60-day notice of intent to sue federal, state and county agencies that oversee and operate Mitchell Act and SAFE hatcheries.
Senior members of the Biden administration and Republican members of Congress painted vastly divergent pictures Tuesday of the agreement that could pause litigation over Snake River dams and salmon for the next decade.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced a public scoping period to consider options for restoring grizzly bears to the Bitterroot ecosystem.
The Center for Biological Diversity filed a legal petition this week with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to protect the wonder caddisfly under the Endangered Species Act.
Federal agencies, states and tribes say a five-year or more pause in U.S. District Court litigation over Columbia River basin salmon recovery will harm none of the parties that objected to the “stay” in December. Instead, they say in a Jan. 12 filing, a stay will allow the region to focus on “important partnership efforts … to benefit the fish, wildlife, diverse habitat, and Native American communities in the Northwest.”
Commitments to restore Columbia River basin salmon and steelhead populations made by the federal government and “six sovereigns” will intersect or overlap with the Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s responsibilities under the Northwest Power Act, according to a presentation at last week’s Council meeting.
An Earthwise Knowledge Initiative Publication
