NOAA Fisheries on Tuesday published in the Federal Register a proposal to allow the reintroduction of upper Columbia spring chinook salmon in the Okanogan River basin in north-central Washington as an experimental population under Endangered Species Act regulations.
The Coastal Conservation Association on Tuesday gained permission from the Oregon Secretary of State to launch a drive that would ultimately aim to have voters ban the use of gill nets in the state’s waters for the non-tribal, commercial harvest of fish.
Three long-running ocean research projects that are drawing more than $4.7 million in funding during the current fiscal year were recommended for at least one more of funding with the proviso that they produce a synthesis explaining how their work is helping the Columbia River Basin Fish and Wildlife Program.
Expectations are that Bonneville Power Administration spending on fish and wildlife projects will continue to climb in fiscal year 2012 as the federal power marketing agency works to satisfy long-held obligations, as well as relatively newborn commitments made through the so-called “Fish Accords” and a federal “biological opinion.”
After being turned down earlier by the Washington Department of Ecology and in state Superior Court, a coalition of fishing and salmon conservation groups on Wednesday requested that a state appeals court require the easing of a state water quality standard so more water can be spilled for salmon passage at mainstem Columbia-Snake hydro projects.
NOAA this week announced a new aquaculture initiative the agency says will help meet the United States’ “growing demand for seafood, while creating jobs and restoring healthy ecosystems.”
“…if society-at-large wishes to restore Snake River salmon, steelhead, Pacific lamprey, and white sturgeon to sustainable, fishable levels, then a significant portion of the lower Snake River must be returned to a free-flowing condition by breaching the four lower Snake River dams,” according to a resolution approved recently by 86.4 percent of the Western Division of American Fisheries Society’s members.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ plan for shepherding juvenile salmon and steelhead down through the Columbia-Snake river hydro to the Pacific Ocean this summer includes a strong dose of spill as it has in recent years.
A settlement for the Coeur d’Alene River basin has been reached with Hecla Mining Company to resolve one of the largest cases ever filed under the Superfund statute.
Hugh Morrison has been selected to be the assistant regional director for Budget and Administration in the Pacific Region of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Regional Director Robyn Thorson announced this week.
A massive and continued outpouring down through the Columbia-Snake River system over the past couple of weeks has pushed water over the banks in many places and complicated the tasks of dam operators trying both to minimize flow damage and hold down “total dissolved gas” levels that could ultimately harm migrating salmon and other aquatic life.
The states of Oregon and Washington last week agreed to suspend their effort to trap and remove California sea lion from the lower Columbia River until at least September to allow newly kindled litigation to unfold in U.S. District Court.
The Humane Society of the United States, Wild Fish Conservancy, and two individual citizens today filed a complaint in federal court seeking to nullify a May 13 NOAA Fisheries Service decision authorizing removal, lethal or otherwise, of as many as 255 sea lions at Bonneville Dam over the next three years.
Improving the lot of wild Snake River steelhead is the primary focus of two west-central Idaho habitat restoration projects recommended by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council Tuesday for $3.8 million in funding during the fiscal year 2011-2014 period.
A total of up to $2.25 million will be spent this year to trigger a Kootenai River habitat restoration project in Idaho’s panhandle that is intended to improve spawning conditions and survival for endangered white sturgeon.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service this week unveiled a work plan that officials say will allow the agency to focus its resources on the species most in need of protection under the Endangered Species Act.
Litigants took turns Monday (May 9) both praising and tearing down NOAA Fisheries’ plan for rejuvenating Columbia-Snake river salmon runs in their responses to questions posed by U.S. District Court Judge James A. Redden about the strategy’s scientific underpinnings and assumptions.
A letter to counsel sent by U.S. District Court Judge James A. Redden aims to focus discussions Monday on a list of six “issues” he identified regarding NOAA Fisheries Service’s 2010 Supplemental Federal Columbia River Power System biological opinion.
Thanks to a big burst of salmon swimming up and over Bonneville Dam in recent days, Columbia River anglers will have at least additional four days to catch spring chinook on the mainstem from the hydro project up to the Oregon/Washington border under a re-opened season adopted Wednesday by fishery managers from Oregon and Washington.
Oral argument in federal appeals court in Seattle Tuesday focused on whether the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation properly considered “cumulative” and “indirect” effects on the environment in permitting the additional drawdown of central Washington’s Lake Roosevelt by as much as 132,500 acre-feet annually to feed irrigation in the Odessa Subarea and industries and cities, and to augment in-stream flows for salmon and other fish.
Two conservation groups on April 15 filed a 60-day notice of intent to sue the state Oregon and the federal government in order to stop hatchery operations on northeast Oregon’s Sandy River they say are causing harm to wild salmon and steelhead and violating the Endangered Species Act.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council on April 12 approved the Idaho Department of Fish and Game’s “Springfield Sockeye Hatchery Master Plan for the Snake River Sockeye Program,” which gives the state agency the go-ahead to begin more in-depth planning with an ultimate goal of building the facility.
Idaho Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter this week signed a bill declaring the federal government's introduction of wolves to Idaho a state disaster.
The Department of Justice and the Environmental Protection Agency announced this week that P4 Production LLC (P4), a mining and phosphorus processing company owned by Monsanto and operating near Soda Springs in southeast Idaho, has agreed to pay a $1.4 million civil penalty for alleged Clean Water Act violations at its South Rasmussen Mine.
Congress passed legislation Thursday removing Montana and Idaho wolves from the Endangered Species list and returning management to the states, as part of a budget bill to continue federal funding this year.
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