The Northwest Power and Conservation Council and staff are getting ready to trigger the largest -- both in number of projects and dollars spent -- of its sequenced categorical reviews of projects seeking funding through the Council's Columbia River Basin Fish and Wildlife Program.
A draft "Columbia River Basin Toxics Reduction Action Plan" offered for public comment this week "represents a blueprint for immediate and short term actions to restore the Columbia River Basin over the next five years."
A “Preliminary Review of 2010 RME and Artificial Production Category Projects” gives a scientific thumbs up to 47 of the proposals for funding through the Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s Columbia River Basin Fish and Wildlife Program.
During a public meeting last week Grant County PUD officials previewed concept designs planned for future facilities for supplementation of spring chinook salmon on the White River and Nason Creek, two tributaries to the Wenatchee River in central Washington.
Idaho Gov. Butch Otter announced Monday that his state will no longer act as the federal government’s “designated agent” for wolf management.
Idaho’s move to end its cooperation with the federal government over wolf management may or may not have ramifications for Montana, a state that is not likely to follow the lead of its western neighbor.
On Tuesday the project backer sent out a press release that said is was "suspending" the development of a $650 million liquefied natural gas terminal at Bradwood Landing on the banks of the Columbia River upstream from Astoria, Ore.
The lower Columbia River is so crowded with spring chinook salmon that some are being bumped into off-channel areas where the spawning fish -- most headed for tributaries 100 and more miles upriver -- rarely wander.
A package of nine "fast track" research, monitoring and evaluation projects earned the endorsement of the Northwest Power and Conservation Council April 14.
The federal court, not the federal government, should decide whether spill for fish passage at three lower Snake River hydro projects will be ended by May 1, according to legal documents filed Wednesday for the state of Oregon and a coalition of fishing and conservation groups.
Federal agencies this week asked if they could use the same dam operational strategies in the spring of 2010 as they used in 2009 to accommodate salmon and steelhead passage down the Columbia-Snake river hydro system.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on Wednesday released a 98-page "plan of study" that outlines steps it believes would be necessary to evaluate whether one or more of the four lower Snake River dams should be breached to support Columbia River basin salmon recovery.
The Confederated Salish-Kootenai Tribes are launching a public review process for a controversial lake trout netting proposal for Montana's Flathead Lake, starting with upcoming meetings in Polson, Kalispell and Missoula.
The completed emergence of chum salmon fry from redds at Ives Island and the mouth of Hamilton Creek just below the lower Columbia River's Bonneville Dam has allowed more flexibility to implement operations intended to benefit another protected species, steelhead.
Engineers will develop the first of a new generation of advanced hydroelectric turbines for the Federal Columbia River Power System to provide safer passage for fish, under a contract awarded by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers last week.
The plan is for a "rollover" of the strategy used in 2009 to guide operations of the Columbia-Snake river mainstem hydro projects during the spring of 2010. But at least one major change could take place in May -- federal agencies, due to low flows, may decide to rush as many juvenile salmon as possible downstream aboard barges.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers this week announced plans for implementing operations at the lower Columbia's Bonneville Dam aimed at easing downstream passage for steelhead kelt, which are spawned out fish heading back toward the estuary and ocean to repair themselves for, perhaps, a return to freshwater for another try at reproduction.
New Clean Water Act water quality standards recently adopted by the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation may be the harbinger of stricter pollution controls for point-source discharges, including those of municipalities and industry.
NOAA Fisheries Service says that in low-flow years, such as 2010 is almost certain to be, a shutting off of spring spill for fish passage at lower Snake River "collector" dams and a shift to "maximum" transportation would result in greater steelhead and spring/summer chinook salmon returns a few years down the road.
Montana Sens. Max Baucus and Jon Tester have introduced legislation aimed at protecting the North Fork Flathead from mining, a response to similar protections recently enacted by the province of British Columbia.
Judge James A. Redden on Friday (Feb. 19) gave agencies three months to make whole their strategy for assuring the Federal Columbia River Power System avoids jeopardizing the survival of protected Columbia-Snake river salmon and steelhead stocks.
U.S. Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., and U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., this week introduced legislation that would authorize funding of efforts to reduce pollution in the Columbia River.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced Thursday it will again withdraw its proposal to list as threatened the Southwest Washington/Columbia River Distinct Population Segment of coastal cutthroat trout.
A new look at the data, including that collected during the significantly changed hydro operations of recent years, produces the same message -- after a certain point in time in springtime juvenile salmon and steelhead from the Snake River basin that were collected and barged downstream survive to adulthood at higher rates than fish allowed to proceed downstream in-river and through juvenile bypass systems.
NOAA's Fisheries Service has dropped out of the debate over the legality of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's September 2008 "conditional" approval of a proposal to build a liquefied natural gas terminal in the Columbia River estuary.
An Earthwise Knowledge Initiative Publication
