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More than $25 million was approved last week by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council for non-recurring maintenance at hatcheries and for fish screen maintenance throughout the Columbia River basin in fiscal year 2024. The cost of maintenance projects at 13 hatcheries that totals $23,356,074 will be paid by excess revenue funds from the Bonneville Power Administration’s reserves distribution clause.

At its January meeting, Northwest Power and Conservation Council members elected Idaho’s Jeff Allen to serve as chair and Washington’s KC Golden to serve as vice chair of the four-state agency.

The Northwest Power and Conservation Council has hired Ann E. Gravatt to be its communications and public affairs director. She will join the Council on September 28.

Inflation is big news right now. And the Northwest Power and Conservation Council is concerned that rising inflation combined with years-long flat funding for fish and wildlife projects will degrade the region’s Columbia River Basin Fish and Wildlife program. At the same time, the Council is looking for a new way to review mitigation projects for funding.

Northwest Power and Conservation Council staff discussed with the Council’s power committee this week a proposed seven-phase, scope-of-work plan to evaluate what it would take to replace the “power system services” provided by the Lower Snake River dams, and the feedback staff has received.

A draft scoping plan to study the impacts on the Northwest power system of removing four lower Snake River dams and replacing the dams’ generating output is running up against stiff opposition from utilities and some members of the Northwest Power and Conservation Council.

A science panel presented to the Northwest Power and Conservation Council this week its final review of 122 Columbia/Snake river basin hatchery and habitat projects being considered for continued funding by the Bonneville

At its January meeting, the Northwest Power and Conservation Council elected Guy Norman, a Washington member, Chair and Doug Grob, a Montana member, vice chair for 2022.

More than one-third of the public comments on its draft Power Plan received by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council had to do with whether it got it right on the four lower Snake River dams.

The U.S. Senate last week unanimously approved the nomination of Charles “Chuck” Sams III as National Park Service director, which will make him the first Native American to lead the agency.

Tracking more than 300 Columbia River basin fish and wildlife projects is a daunting task, but a recent thorough review of the projects is attempting to more succinctly tie projects to the Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s Columbia River Basin Fish and Wildlife Program and to the Bonneville Power Administration’s strategic plan.

Money set aside as cost savings for fiscal year 2021 – some $450,000 – was approved this week to pay for asset management improvements at hatcheries and for fish screens before the end of the year, Sept. 30, 2021.

An emergency budgeting and funding mechanism for Columbia River basin fish and wildlife projects is in the process of getting a facelift. The Budget Oversight Group initially funded special projects or additions to projects already funded to the tune of $1 million a year.

A science panel recently completed reviews of Idaho and Montana habitat and mitigation projects for Libby Dam, the Kootenai River and Hungry Horse Dam and Reservoir. All three reviews address resident fish projects under the Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s Columbia River Basin Fish and Wildlife Program.

The timeline to review 124 Bonneville Power Administration-funded hatchery and habitat projects was laid out for the Northwest Power and Conservation Council at its meeting this week.

Another membership change for the Northwest Power and Conservation Council took place this month with Mike Milburn replacing Bo Downen as a Montana member.

The Bonneville Power Administration’s ‘direct expenses’ in fiscal year 2020 for the cost of the Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s Fish and Wildlife program was $238.1 million, very near what direct expenses were in FY2019 ($240.4 million) and more than $21 million less than in FY2018, according to a draft report for Northwest governors released this week for 30 days of public review.

The Northwest Power and Conservation Council is about to launch a 14-month process to review 134 hatchery and habitat projects that are funded by the Bonneville Power Administration through the Council’s Columbia River Basin Fish and Wildlife Program. It’s the largest the category of projects reviewed by the Council.

A recent CBB Notebook piece suggests salmon recovery in the Columbia Basin, given ESA listings, depends on an entity with the authority to direct stakeholders how to proceed. It also asserts that by this standard the Northwest Power and Conservation Council, which the author deems divided by regional strife and disagreements, is incapable of achieving the needed results. Respectfully, based on our past experience as Council members, we think the criticism is off the mark on both counts.

The full Northwest Power and Conservation Council this week approved a recommendation for the Bonneville Power Administration to spend more than $35 million on 44 resident fish and sturgeon mitigation projects in the Columbia River basin. The recommendation comes with a message to BPA.

In the most recent draft of its annual report to Congress on the state of the Columbia River Basin, the Northwest Power and Conservation Council said that fiscal year 2020, which ends Sept. 30, 2020, was significant.

The Northwest Power and Conservation Council has sent a letter to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service supporting a proposal allowing an expansion of lethal control of double-crested cormorants that consume juvenile Columbia River salmon and steelhead.

The Bonneville Power Administration’s Crystal Ball spoke to the Northwest Power and Conservation Council at its meeting this week in Portland. It was her first appearance at the Council since she assumed the position as the agency’s Executive Manager for its Fish and Wildlife Division. She replaces Bryan Mercier, who left BPA last year.

Looking ahead to ensure continued funding for Northwest watercraft inspection stations, the Northwest Power and Conservation Council sent a letter to Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) asking for an increase in federal funding for the inspection program in 2020.

Idaho Gov. Brad Little announced today his appointment of Jeffery Allen to the Northwest Power and Conservation Council.

With the passage of legislation that allows for the lethal removal of more sea lions in the Columbia River, states and tribes asked for funding to buy much larger equipment that will be used to remove steller sea lions at Bonneville Dam.

Two Northwest Power and Conservation Council members, one the longest serving member since the Council’s inception in 1981, officially retired at the end of December 2018.

Legislation that will allow the lethal removal of more California sea lions, as well as steller sea lions, from the Columbia River passed two hurdles in the past week and now is headed to the President’s desk for signature.

Predation on listed salmon and steelhead in the Columbia River basin – by birds, by sea lions and even by other fish – has reached high proportions but it is difficult to know how reductions in predators impact the number of fish returning to spawning grounds.

Anglers in Lake Roosevelt caught a 47.5 inch, 27.5 pound northern pike in the lake and another angler caught a pike just 10 miles from the rim of Grand Coulee Dam, much further downstream than previous sightings of the predatory fish.

As the Northwest Power and Conservation Council seeks new candidates for two scientific review panels, it is also looking to cut the annual budgets for both the Independent Scientific Review Panel and Independent Scientific Advisory Board.

A draft report by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council that will be sent to Congress early next year says that changes in the energy markets as the U.S. and the West Coast transition away from coal, competition from other utilities, along with a massive build-up of solar power in California causing lower energy sales to the state is leaving the Bonneville Power Administration less competitive than in past years.

A long-range plan by tribes to restore Pacific lamprey runs into the Columbia River received approval last week from the Northwest Power and Conservation Council at its meeting in Portland.