U.S. District Court Judge James A. Redden this week offered the government the opportunity to shore up its plan for protecting salmon and steelhead stocks that migrate through Columbia-Snake river dams and reservoirs.
Advocates of a mainstem Columbia River gillnet ban say they will go back to the drawing board, disappointed with changes made to their Oregon ballot initiative proposal made by the state Attorney General's Office.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council's Sixth Power Plan says the regional power system for the next 20 years can fund actions to benefit Columbia Basin fish and wildlife, including salmon and steelhead runs listed under the Endangered Species Act, while maintaining an economic, reliable energy supply.
The newly devised Adaptive Management Implementation Plan's triggering system got a test drive this fall and winter with an evaluation of whether the endangered Upper Columbia River spring chinook salmon stock had dipped to levels that require revival actions beyond those already taking place.
An overtime legal debate came to a close late last week with the federal government reiterating its stance that it can supplement the official record in the long-running lawsuit over the legitimacy of its Columbia-Snake river hydro system "BiOp."
A newfound regional momentum in both the fish and wildlife and power arenas needs to be encouraged and nurtured by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council, says Bruce Measure, newly elected NPCC chair.
Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar has appointed Steve Doherty, an experienced attorney, former Montana state senator, and recent parks and wildlife commission chair, as senior advisor to the secretary for the Northwest.
The Oregon Attorney General's office is now weighing the legality of a ballot initiative proposal that would outlaw the use of gillnets in Oregon waters -- notably the Columbia River -- by non-Indian commercial fishermen.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission was overly hasty and acted without proper environmental impacts analysis in licensing the proposed construction and operation of a liquefied natural gas ship terminal and plant in the Columbia River estuary, according to legal briefs filed Monday in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
Plaintiffs in the long-running debate over the legality of the Columbia-Snake river hydro system salmon protection plan say the federal government is "proposing illusory ways" to satisfy the Administrative Procedures Act and convince the court that after-the-fact information should be considered in the case.
Willamette River projects are expected to take an increasingly larger share of the Columbia River Fish Mitigation program pie, according the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council this week gave its blessing to a steelhead kelt "reconditioning" project with the hope that the strategy will be a helpful tool in efforts to restore a flagging Upper Columbia River steelhead stock.
The Idaho Department of Fish and Game says it is ready to launch the three-step process that must be completed before it can build the hatchery needed to boost production of endangered Snake River sockeye to as many as 1 million smolts annually.
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa P. Jackson this week announced the selection of Dennis J. McLerran to be the agency's regional administrator for EPA's Region 10. The region encompasses Alaska, Idaho, Oregon and Washington.
The covering of bird predation hot spots with wire arrays and launching of an intensified hazing effort in combination appears to have dissuaded Caspian terns and gulls from congregating below the mid-Columbia River's Priest Rapids and Wanapum dams to feed on migrating juvenile sockeye salmon, according data compiled last year by Grant County Public Utility District researchers.
The clock is expected to start ticking soon on NOAA Fisheries Service's process for evaluating whether the construction and operation of a liquefied natural gas terminal in the lower river would jeopardize the survival of 13 Columbia River basin salmon and steelhead stocks that are listed under the Endangered Species Act.
The public is being asked to review and comment on formal documents that will guide removal of black slag from a beach on the Upper Columbia River.
The slag, which has the appearance of black sand, is an industrial byproduct discharged into the Columbia River from a metals smelting facility operated by Teck Metals Ltd. (formerly Teck Cominco) in Trail, British Columbia.
Federal attorneys this week told U.S. District Court Judge James A. Redden that a Sept. 15 addendum to the government's 2008 Columbia River basin hydro system salmon protection strategy could simply be added to the court record the judge will consider in deciding whether the plan is legal under the Endangered Species Act.
Federal officials say they are on track, and producing results in terms of improved fish survival, after the first year of implementation of measures called for in NOAA Fisheries Service's 2008 Federal Columbia River Power System biological opinion.
Next spring as much as 10,000 cubic feet per second of water will be spilled from northwest Montana's Libby Dam as part of a modified strategy for luring endangered Kootenai River white sturgeon to more suitable spawning grounds.
U.S. District Court Judge Garr M. King will hear oral arguments in Portland Nov. 8 over whether the federal government can properly consider a request from Idaho’s Shoshone Bannock Tribes for permission to go fishing in northeast Oregon’s Grand Ronde and Imnaha rivers.
Because of the need to review a mountain of related documents, and an otherwise busy work schedule, a coalition of fishing and conservation groups asked U.S. District Court Judge James A. Redden for 17 additional days to formulate their legal challenge to the federal government’s Columbia River hydro system salmon protection plan.
Fisheries experts this week predicted, though with a few caveats, that the new year will bring the biggest return of upriver spring chinook salmon to the Columbia River basin -- 470,000 adult fish -- on a record dating back to 1938.
If such a run materializes, it would break the record of 439,885 set in 2001.
A proposal by the Colville Tribes to build a salmon hatchery near central Washington's Chief Joseph Dam appears to have cleared another procedural hurdle with the release last month of what is a mostly positive final Environmental Impact Statement.
Millions of dollars will go toward correcting more than a century of mining pollution in Idaho's Coeur d'Alene Basin under the terms of an environmental damage settlement announced this week by Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar.
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