The Wild Fish Conservancy has petitioned NOAA Fisheries to list Alaska king salmon under the Endangered Species Act, saying the fish are in “severe decline and poor condition.”
Curt Melcher, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife's Director since 2014, has announced he is retiring effective April 1, 2024.
Idaho and Montana – along with the region’s public power utilities and inland ports in Idaho, among others, are opposed to the Biden Administration’s Memorandum of Understanding on Columbia Basin salmon recovery and have filed their displeasure in federal court, saying they were entirely left out of making the deal.
NOAA’s Office of Habitat Conservation is using $27 million under the Infrastructure Law to support four major projects aiming at boosting threatened salmon and steelhead in Oregon’s Willamette River watershed.
The Biden Administration, Columbia River treaty tribes and the states of Oregon and Washington agreed Thursday to work to restore wild salmon populations in the Columbia and Snake river basins and to delay ongoing litigation for five years, with an option for the delay to go as long as 10 years.
Biden administration officials bound by court-ordered confidentiality declined to participate in a congressional oversight hearing Tuesday focused on a leaked draft settlement of the long-running salmon and dams litigation in the Columbia River basin.
A draft agreement mediated by the Biden Administration outlining investments in Columbia River basin salmon and steelhead recovery that was to remain confidential until mid-December was leaked early this week by Washington and Oregon members of Congress.
The U.S. Department of Justice this month announced a proposed settlement valued at approximately $33.2 million to compensate for natural resource injuries that resulted from hazardous substance releases and oil discharges into the Willamette River and Portland Harbor in Oregon.
U.S. Rep. Cliff Bentz, R-OR, who represents eastern, central and southern Oregon is requesting the White House Council on Environmental Quality release documents related to CEQ's role in mediation and settlement discussions regarding the Lower Snake River Dams.
Parties to the lawsuit challenging the federal government’s 2020 environmental impact statement and biological opinion for imperiled salmon and steelhead traversing Columbia/Snake River federal dams have developed a package of “actions and commitments” that they will present to regional partners to get buy-in over the next 45 days.
The Portland District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will gather the public’s perspective and opinions on the future of hydropower across the Corps’ Willamette Valley system of dams during three listening sessions – one in-person and two virtual.
The Center for Biological Diversity filed a formal notice this week of its intent to sue the National Marine Fisheries Service for what it says is a failure to protect marine mammals from being killed by the Bering Sea Aleutian Islands groundfish trawl fisheries.
A claim for $27.6 million in damages was filed in a Douglas County Circuit Court in Oregon claiming that more than half a million juvenile Pacific lamprey died in August during repairs to Winchester Dam, located on Oregon’s North Umpqua River.
The Center for Biological Diversity filed a formal notice this week of its intent to sue the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for failing to protect four imperiled bee species, including American bumblebees, under the Endangered Species Act. Southern Plains bumblebees, variable cuckoo bumblebees and blue calamintha bees are also included in today’s filing.
The Biden administration this week announced that the Bonneville Power Administration will provide three Upper Columbia River Tribes $200 million over 20 years for ongoing efforts to reintroduce salmon above Grand Coulee and Chief Joseph dams, which have blocked fish migration since 1942. The Tribes have agreed to a twenty-year pause to existing litigation while these actions are pursued.
Columbia Riverkeeper and the Port of Vancouver USA this week reached an agreement settling a Clean Water Act lawsuit challenging years of alleged unlawful water pollution from the public port. In the settlement, the port committed to make significant changes to reduce the amount of water pollution that flows off the 1643-acre property and into the Columbia River.
Most parties in the litigation challenging NOAA Fisheries 2020 biological opinion of the Columbia/Snake river federal hydroelectric system asked an Oregon U.S. District Court last week to extend a stay that has been in effect since 2021. The 60-day pause would allow the litigants –fisheries advocates, states, tribes and federal agencies – to continue to hammer out a lasting agreement on how to operate a hydro system while recovering threatened and endangered salmon and steelhead.
Tribes and fish advocacy groups say an end of year decision on fish passage rules by the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission weakens salmon, steelhead and lamprey protections in the state.
Responding to a recent District Court order, NOAA Fisheries has opened a review of its prey increase program specifically designed to provide more food for endangered Southern Resident killer whales in Puget Sound. NOAA is seeking written and verbal feedback from the public as it develops an Environmental Impact Statement for the program.
The Institute for Fisheries Resources and the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations has notified U.S. tire manufacturers of their intent to sue over the use of a chemical called 6PPD in rubber tires because of its devastating impacts on Endangered Species Act-protected salmon and steelhead.
Two conservation groups submitted a formal legal petition to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency urging the federal agency to update its toxic pollutant list, something it hasn’t done for 47 years, the groups say. And three Northwest tribes have petitioned EPA to ban a chemical used in tires that is deadly to coho salmon.
Four conservation groups notified the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that they intend to sue the agency over the heat pollution created by the four lower Snake River dams. The groups allege the dams overheat the river’s water and those conditions are killing or injuring Snake River sockeye salmon listed as endangered under the federal Endangered Species Act.
Southeast Alaska commercial trollers will begin fishing for Chinook salmon July 1 after a ruling by a three judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals that reversed an early May decision in a Washington federal district court. That previous decision shut down the summer and winter fishery.
Republican U.S. Rep. Cliff Bentz, chairman of the House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Water, Wildlife, and Fisheries, held a field hearing Monday in Richland, Washington titled “The Northwest at risk: the environmentalist’s effort to destroy navigation, transportation, and access to reliable power.”
The Center for Biological Diversity filed a formal notice of its intent to sue the Oregon and California state transportation agencies for failing to consider fatal impacts to salmon from toxic tire pollution.
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