In response to a petition to list Gulf of Alaska Chinook salmon as threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act, NOAA Fisheries has found that listing may be warranted.
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.”
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.
A massive 2,000 page draft environmental impact statement on how Willamette River Valley dams impact threatened salmon, steelhead and bull trout is flawed and does not address one of its own primary goals, which is meeting obligations under the Endangered Species Act to avoid jeopardizing the existence of listed species, according to several groups and agencies that submitted comments to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in late February.
Operations at thirteen federal dams in the Willamette River basin may soon be altered to aid threatened upper Willamette River spring Chinook, winter steelhead, and bull trout. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which operates the dams, released a draft operations and maintenance programmatic environmental impact statement late last week for public review until January 19, 2023.
Seven interior Columbia River basin salmon and steelhead species listed as threatened or endangered under the federal Endangered Species Act should retain their current listing status, according to five-year status reviews released by NOAA Fisheries. The listed species are in the mid- and upper-Columbia River basin and the Snake River basin.
U.S. District Court Judge Michael H. Simon this morning agreed to a request by the Biden Administration and plaintiffs to extend for another year the stay in the litigation challenging the federal government’s environmental impact statement and biological opinion for Columbia/Snake river salmon and steelhead. The parties want more time to identify “comprehensive” solutions to basin salmon recovery.
Pending shoreline projects in the Salish Sea can now proceed under a new regulatory tool, a programmatic consultation.
A federal mediator told the Columbia Basin Collaborative Wednesday that his group is hoping for “an extension on the stay” of litigation over Columbia/Snake river basin salmon recovery so mediation among plaintiffs and defendants can continue to move forward.
The Water Resources Development Act of 2022 approved by the House of Representatives Wednesday includes a lengthy section called “Columbia River Basin Restoration” and would require an inter-agency assessment of the four lower Snake River dams’ impact on fish and wildlife.
The White House this week made clear it plans to be involved in Columbia River salmon recovery, saying it has engaged mediators to facilitate “public policy dialogue” with governments and stakeholders.
Due to continuing severe drought conditions in southern Idaho, the Bureau of Reclamation said it is unlikely it can provide this year a biological opinion level of flow augmentation from the upper Snake River basin to aid migrating juvenile salmon and steelhead in the lower Snake River.
Plaintiffs in the challenge to the Columbia/Snake River biological opinion for salmon and steelhead filed this week an unopposed stay in federal court that effectively puts the litigation on hold while all the parties search for comprehensive salmon recovery solutions.
Defendants in the latest challenge to the Columbia/Snake River biological opinion for salmon and steelhead and final environmental impact statement have questioned the cross-claims of the Columbia-Snake River Irrigators Association, saying the irrigators lack jurisdiction.
A federal judge in Oregon has set a schedule for future litigation proceedings in the eighth challenge since 2001 to the federal biological opinion for threatened and endangered Columbia River basin salmon and steelhead. Activity begins this month and extends out to at least August 2022 when final summary judgement briefs are due to the court.
When the Columbia River System Operators released the 2020 final environmental impact statement for the Columbia River power system’s impacts on salmon and steelhead in late July, tucked into the document were two biological opinions.
Tucked into the Columbia River System Operators’ final environmental impact statement for the Columbia River power system’s impacts on salmon and steelhead that was released late last week is a more than 1,600 page biological opinion from NOAA Fisheries.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has announced the initiation of five-year status reviews for 129 species in Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Hawaii, Montana, California, and Nevada under the Endangered Species Act, including threatened Columbia River basin bull trout.
Dam operating agencies released for public review this morning a long-awaited draft environmental impact statement that describes the impacts of 14 federal Columbia and Snake river dams on salmon, steelhead and lamprey.
A diverse group of river users, utilities and environmentalists is calling on Northwest governors to lead the way to find collaborative solutions to recover Columbia/Snake River Basin salmon and steelhead populations listed under the federal Endangered Species Act.
NOAA Fisheries has issued a final biological opinion on construction and operation of the Jordan Cove terminal in Coos Bay, Oregon, and the associated 229-mile long Pacific Connector Liquid Natural Gas pipeline that determines the proposed action does not jeopardize protected species or adversely modify their critical habitat.
The way the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is proposing to operate its Willamette River dams would likely jeopardize chinook and steelhead in the river, according to NOAA Fisheries. Both species are listed as threatened under the federal Endangered Species Act.
A lawsuit by environmental and public health groups that challenges approvals for a methanol refinery in Kalama, Wash. by the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers and NOAA Fisheries was filed this week in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington in Tacoma.
NOAA Fisheries this week published biological opinions for the long-term operation of the Central Valley Project and State Water Project, which evaluate impacts on Endangered Species Act-listed salmon, steelhead, green sturgeon, and orcas.
This week in a public announcement at their ancient fishing grounds at the former Celilo Falls, the Yakama Nation, with support of the Lummi Nation from northern Washington, demanded the removal of three lower Columbia River hydroelectric dams.
On track to reach a run size of 3,200 fish, Willamette River wild steelhead may post one of the best returns of the threatened fish in more than three years, according to the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers opened a National Environmental Policy Act process this week that looks at the operation and maintenance of the agency’s Willamette River projects and their impact on threatened upper Willamette River wild winter steelhead and wild spring chinook.
In a two-step challenge to operations at Willamette River basin dams, attorneys for a coalition of conservation groups argued in court Thursday that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers should immediately take steps to improve conditions for migrating juveniles and spawning adult salmon and steelhead, even while the Corps works with NOAA Fisheries on a new biological opinion.
A new biological opinion for the federal Columbia River power system aimed at protecting and recovering salmon and steelhead listed under the federal Endangered Species Act was completed Friday and posted without fanfare to the NOAA Fisheries website.
After a colder than average February and with snow piling up at low elevations in the Snake River basin, a sunny and warm early March is resulting in runoff from the basin that is sufficiently supplementing flows lower in the Columbia River that will keep water over several hundred chum redds (nests) downstream of Bonneville Dam.
Providing access to areas upstream of dams in the Columbia River basin that when built blocked passage for anadromous fish is a priority in many of the amendment proposals to its basin Fish and Wildlife Program received by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council.
A 30-day comment period began this week (March 11) on a draft environmental assessment for downstream fish passage at Cougar Dam on the south fork of Oregon’s McKenzie River. The public review period will end April 10.
The Bonneville Power Administration spent nearly $260 million in direct costs for its Fish and Wildlife Program in fiscal year 2018, according to a draft report approved for public comment by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council.
The Bonneville Power Administration has spent billions of dollars on Columbia River basin fish and wildlife mitigation and it continues to spend nearly $300 million each year in direct expenses for the Columbia River Fish and Wildlife Program.
With continued low flows and less than average projected water supplies in the upper Columbia River basin, the interagency Technical Management Team this week began serious talks about how much longer minimum flows can be sustained that aid threatened chum salmon redds downstream of Bonneville Dam.
NOAA Fisheries officials issued a Biological Opinion February 15, requiring the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers complete a downstream fish passage facility at Howard A. Hanson Dam (HAHD) on the Green River, 21 miles east of Auburn, Washington.
An agreement was signed by federal agencies, states and one tribe in December that sets a framework for how spring and some summer spill at Columbia/Snake river dams will be conducted this year and for a couple of years into the future until its concept can be tucked into a new environmental impact statement and biological opinion of the federal power system in 2020 and into the interim 2018 BiOp expected to be released by NOAA Fisheries in April.
A Washington state public review process that was to close February 19 for nine draft water quality permits at Columbia and Snake river dams took an unusual turn late last week when the federal government withdrew the permits without saying why.
The Bonneville Power Administration is funding a steelhead kelt reconditioning facility at the Nez Perce Fish Hatchery on the Clearwater River near Lewiston, Idaho.
Steelhead were hit hardest by steller and California sea lions at Bonneville Dam in the fall of 2017 and the spring of 2018.
A flexible spill agreement signed in December by federal agencies, states and a tribe promises additional spring spill to total dissolved gas limits, known as gas caps, beginning this spring at Columbia and Snake river dams. The additional spill is thought to aid juvenile salmon passage.
With federal partners on furlough due to the partial government shutdown, the Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s Fish and Wildlife Committee discussed whether it should alter its Columbia River Basin Fish and Wildlife Program amendment schedule.
Seeking to cut some $30 million from its future fish and wildlife expenses, the Bonneville Power Administration has completed its review of fiscal year 2019 programs, arriving at cuts to 35 programs totaling $6,391,576 along with more than $3 million from the Columbia River Fish Accords.
Following the orders of an October Presidential memorandum, federal agencies charged with producing an environmental impact statement analyzing the impacts of 14 federal Columbia/Snake river dams on salmon and steelhead released a schedule this week that shortens the time they will take to complete the EIS by one year.
Every day, between April 3 and June 20 last year, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had to determine what amount of spill would bring the lower Snake and Columbia rivers up to state-mandated total dissolved gas limits while not exceeding those limits.
An agreement signed this week by federal agencies, states and a tribe promises additional spring spill next year at Columbia and Snake river dams to aid juvenile salmon passage, but how the spill is conducted will be by agreement among six parties and not by court order, as it was in spring 2018.
Recommendations for amendments to the Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s Columbia River Basin Fish and Wildlife Program received from state and federal agencies, tribes, Bonneville Power Administration customers, environmental and conservation groups and individuals are now out for public comment.
Steelhead fishing is continuing past the December 7 cutoff date set by the Idaho Fish and Game Commission last week due to a last minute agreement between the state and conservation groups.
Four conservation groups filed a motion for a preliminary injunction in U.S. District Court in Portland Friday (Nov. 30) asking the court to compel the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to make immediate operational changes at Willamette River basin dams to aid threatened salmon and steelhead.
Idaho is suspending angling for steelhead in Idaho until it can obtain an incidental take permit from NOAA Fisheries that would legally allow the state to reopen the fishing.
An anticipated lower than average rainfall in the Columbia River basin led the interagency Technical Management Team to reduce the tailwater elevation requirement put in place to protect spawning chum salmon downstream of Bonneville Dam by 0.2 feet.
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee’s Southern Resident Killer Whale Recovery Task Force delivered last week its final list of ways to help the whales in Puget Sound recover and one of those recommendations is to consider the benefits to chinook salmon of removing lower Snake River dams.
A Presidential memorandum released Friday, October 19, directs federal agencies to reduce regulations at West Coast dams, including water projects in California, the Klamath River and federal dams in the Columbia River basin.
The Bonneville Power Administration, along with its partners in a new Columbia Basin Fish Accords, signed an agreement this month that for the most part extends the previous 2008 Accords it signed 10 years ago and that expired September 30, out to 2022.
Steller sea lions took a one-month break from feasting on salmon and steelhead at Bonneville Dam. The last sea lion, a Steller, at Bonneville Dam, was seen June 24, but as the fall run of chinook salmon returned, sea lions were once again seen at the dam, according to a recent report by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Five environmental groups sent to the Idaho Governor and Idaho fisheries agencies a 60-day notice that they intend to sue, alleging that Idaho is illegally allowing recreational angling for summer steelhead, particularly for the larger wild B-run steelhead. Snake River wild summer steelhead were listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act in 1997.
The river level could be higher and fluctuate more over the next three months in the pool formed by the John Day Dam in the Columbia River, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers reports.
The Bonneville Power Administration and most parties to the previous 10 years of the 2008 Columbia Basin Fish Accords have come to a tentative agreement to extend the Accords beyond Sept. 30, the ending date of the first Accords.
Snake River air and water temperatures are remaining cool this week as operations at Dworshak Dam prepare to drop flows of the dam’s cold water beginning Sept. 1 in order to preserve water for September.
Despite continuing high temperatures over the Columbia River basin and in the Clearwater and Snake river basins, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has managed to keep the tailwater temperature at Lower Granite Dam on the Snake under the 68 degree Fahrenheit limit set by the 2014 salmon/steelhead biological opinion for the federal power system.
A program that has consumed an average of 18 percent of the Bonneville Power Administration’s fish and wildlife budget each year and has cost the agency over $560 million over its 10-year life is coming to end, although it may be extended.
In each of its rate cases a component that makes up Bonneville Power Administration’s costs is the amount of water it has to spill to aid threatened and endangered juvenile fish passage at U.S. Army Corps of Engineers dams on the Columbia and Snake rivers.
With air temperatures expected to exceed 100 degrees Fahrenheit this week in the Clearwater and Snake river basin, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Monday increased flows of cold water from Dworshak Dam from about 10,000 cubic feet per second to 13 kcfs.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is holding public information meetings to give overviews of alternatives for temperature control and construction, fish collection options and potential staging areas for the fish passage and temperature control project at Detroit Dam and Lake.
Flow and spill in the lower Snake and Columbia rivers during June dropped below the involuntary spill levels seen in May at four lower Snake River and four Columbia River dams, according to a third and last spill report on court-ordered spring spill that covers the month of June.
All three generators at Dworshak Dam tripped off Tuesday, July 24, at 11 a.m. and, although one generator, Unit No. 1, the largest of the dam’s generators, was back online within a couple of hours, the other two were not restored until 10 p.m. Tuesday night, according to Alfredo Rodriguez of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineer’s Walla Walla District.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has published its analysis of the public comments received during the scoping process for the Detroit Dam project intended to provide downstream passage for juvenile Willamette River chinook salmon and colder water for migrating salmon downstream of the dam in the North Santiam River.
Fish managers hope a change in the spill pattern at Lower Monumental Dam on the lower Snake River will stimulate endangered sockeye salmon to pass the dam in higher numbers.
The cost of federally funded fish and wildlife programs in the Columbia River Basin totaled $450.4 million in fiscal year 2017 (Oct. 1, 2016 – Sept. 30, 2017), according to the annual report released last week by the Northwest Planning and Conservation Council to Northwest governors.
Cool water from Dworshak Dam on Idaho’s North Fork Clearwater River is keeping tailwater temperatures at Lower Granite Dam cool as air temperatures in the lower Snake River rise into the 90s. The water is released to ensure that adult Snake River sockeye salmon, listed as endangered under the federal Endangered Species Act, have a cool passage upstream.
Looking for a 10 percent cut in Bonneville Power Administration fish and wildlife funding and with an extension of the Columbia Basin Fish Accords still uncertain, one member of the Northwest Power and Conservation Council this week says he would like to see a closer coordination between the Council and Bonneville in determining priorities, especially with the Accords.
Flows in the lower Snake and Columbia rivers during May were well above average and so was spill and levels of total dissolved gas in the tailwaters of dams, as well as in dams’ forebays, according to a second report on court-ordered spill.
Willamette Riverkeeper and the Conservation Angler filed a second amended complaint in U.S. District Court that asks the court, among other things, to order the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to stop releasing hatchery produced summer steelhead and rainbow trout into the North and South Santiam rivers. The complaint was filed in the Eugene Division of the District Court June 20, 2018.
A NOAA Fisheries Northwest Fisheries Science Center report on juvenile salmon released last year found that survival of juvenile sockeye salmon – both hatchery and wild – from Lower Granite Dam on the Snake River to Bonneville Dam on the Columbia River was just 17.6 percent, the fourth lowest survival estimate from 1998 to 2017.
The Columbia River basin fish and wildlife budget funded by the Bonneville Power Administration will likely see as much as a 10 percent cut in fiscal year 2019, according to Bryan Mercier, executive director of BPA’s fish and wildlife division.
NOAA Fisheries last month delivered its first report on court-ordered spring spill for juvenile salmon and steelhead passage to the U.S. District Court in Oregon.
Though a federal court is not requiring it, NOAA Fisheries said last week it will complete by the end of the year a 2018 biological opinion for Columbia/Snake river salmon and steelhead.
The U.S. House of Representatives Wednesday approved a bill that would until at least 2022 require congressional authorization for any structural modification or action — including court-ordered spill for fish — at Columbia/Snake river federal dams that would restrict power generation or navigation.
U.S. District Court Judge Michael H. Simon this week lifted the requirement that NOAA Fisheries must complete its next iteration of a salmon/steelhead biological opinion for the federal Columbia River power system by December 31, 2018.
A biological opinion of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineer’s 13 Willamette River dams last completed in 2008 may be headed for its next iteration.
A review of a program that grew from NOAA Fisheries’ 2008 salmon/steelhead biological opinion of the Columbia River federal power system found a number of limitations that impede efforts to accurately describe tributary habitat conditions and identify limiting factors.
The U.S. House Natural Resources Committee this week passed a bill that would require congressional authorization for any structural modification or action at Columbia/Snake river federal dams that would restrict power generation or navigation.
A three-judge federal appeals court panel ruled this week in favor of an Oregon U.S. District Court injunction ordering more spill at eight lower Snake and Columbia river dams intended to benefit migrating juvenile salmon and steelhead.
Parties to a U.S. District Court of Oregon injunction that orders higher spring spill for juvenile salmonids at Columbia/Snake River dams got their day in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals this week, March 20, in San Francisco.
The assertion that spilling more water at four lower Snake River and four lower Columbia River dams would result in more salmon and steelhead returning to the rivers is now being argued in the Ninth Circuit Court.
A coalition of conservation groups this week filed a long-promised lawsuit against federal agencies for what the groups say is a failure to protect and recover threatened upper Willamette River chinook salmon and winter steelhead.
A motion for more spill at Pelton Round Butte’s reregulation dam on the Deschutes River will move forward next week, according to a U.S. District Court of Oregon decision.
As it looks for ways to help reintroduce anadromous fish upstream of Willamette Valley dams, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is considering adding a $100 to $200 million water temperature control tower in the Detroit Reservoir.
It’s been sixteen years since the U.S. Forest Service in a biological assessment of 23 water diversions in the Sawtooth Valley found the diversions “likely to adversely affect” listed salmon, steelhead and bull trout in the valley, but the Service has yet to complete consultations with the agencies overseeing the fish.
Defendants in a district court case that resulted in injunctive relief ordering more spring spill at eight lower Snake and Columbia river dams said in reply briefs before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals that the current biological opinion covering dam operations on the rivers is improving survival of salmon and steelhead listed under the federal Endangered Species Act, not causing the irreparable harm that would be needed to warrant an injunction.
Plaintiffs in a case before the US District Court of Oregon that resulted in a remand of NOAA Fisheries’ 2014 biological opinion for Columbia Basin salmon and steelhead are now arguing that the schedule for the remand should be changed.
Anticipating issues that could be included in a nearly year-long process to update its Columbia River Basin Fish and Wildlife Program, the Northwest Power and Conservation Council Fish and Wildlife Committee at its meeting last week in Portland began to consider what might become important issues during that effort.
When it ordered more spring spill at eight lower Snake and Columbia river dams for 2018, the U.S. District Court of Oregon was acting well within its discretion, according to plaintiffs who brought the case to the court last January.
It’s not too late to comment on the scope of studies for an environmental review of downstream salmon passage and temperature control for juvenile fish at Detroit Dam on the North Santiam River.
A ten-year agreement that sets fisheries harvests in the Columbia River basin was extended in late December for two months while federal agencies complete their environmental analyses.
Higher flows, a double pulse of spring water and a long-term habitat project in the Kootenai River resulted this year in a 20 percent increase in sturgeon moving upstream of Bonners Ferry to spawn, according to a review last week of 2017 operations to aid white sturgeon and bull trout downstream of Libby Dam.
Federal defendants filed opening briefs in late October in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to expedite a reversal of an April 3 U.S. District Court of Oregon injunction that called for earlier spill in 2018 to aid juvenile fish passage and monitoring at federal dams.
Federal agencies that operate fourteen Columbia/Snake River dams described this week their progress one year into a five-year National Environmental Policy Act process required by a court-ordered rewrite of the biological opinion for protected salmon and steelhead.
As it studies how to provide downstream passage and temperature control for juvenile fish at Detroit Dam on the North Santiam River in Oregon, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will hold two open house-style meetings to get public input.
A five-year federal review of the Columbia/Snake River power system will not produce a finished environmental impact statement until 2021. That has U.S. District Court Judge Michael H. Simon asking whether a new biological opinion for salmon and steelhead, scheduled for 2018, should simply be suspended until the EIS is completed.
Irrigators in eastern Washington will not get a court hearing to show how the choice of spill over transportation in 2015 resulted in a loss of adult fish returning to the Snake River.
NOAA Fisheries completed an environmental review of potential options that will guide the final agreement for managing salmon and steelhead fisheries in the Columbia River Basin for the next ten years.
A winter upgrade to Foster Dam’s fish weir is expected to provide a safer passage over the dam for juvenile salmon and steelhead.
Saying that the five-year timeline to complete a National Environmental Policy Act process for the federal Columbia River power system’s impact on salmon and steelhead is aggressive, federal agencies this week also said they would continue to target completion of the process — which includes an environmental impact statement — with a record of decision by September 24, 2021.
Irrigators in eastern Washington denied wanting to re-litigate a federal court’s April 2017 decision calling for more spill for fish at Columbia/Snake river federal dams. Instead, they said in a reply brief filed last week that they want to present to the court new information about barging juvenile fish in low-flow and high temperature conditions.
Since white sturgeon in Montana’s Kootenai River was listed as endangered in 1994, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has completed several iterations of biological opinions and critical habitat designations for the freshwater fish.
Plaintiffs in the challenge to the biological opinion for Columbia Basin salmon and steelhead — the state of Oregon and National Wildlife Federation – along with federal defendants last week filed briefs in U.S. district court opposing a petition by eastern Washington irrigators to convene an evidentiary hearing on spill and transportation for juvenile fish.
Two bills that are in a U.S. House of Representatives subcommittee, if enacted, would change the way the federal Endangered Species Act is governed.
An annual study that looks at salmonid survival through Snake and Columbia river dams for the first time evaluated juvenile fish survival in the Snake River with and without the presence of the four lower dams on the river, as well as the impact on survival if spill is increased, as it may beginning next year.
Irrigators in eastern Washington are blaming fisheries managers for choosing spill over transportation during the spring juvenile migration in 2015, a choice they allege resulted in the loss of 65 percent of the wild spring chinook adults returning to the Snake River this year.
To bring salmon and steelhead to the Columbia River above Grand Coulee and Chief Joseph dams researchers continue to search for the best hatchery stock and suitable habitat.
Operations at Dworshak Dam designed to cool water during the summer in the lower Snake River will come to an end today, September 22, just in time for the fall equinox.
Construction crews are rebuilding Fall Creek Dam’s Adult Fish Collection Facility southeast of Eugene, Oregon. When complete, says the Army Corps of Engineers’ Portland District, the facility will support efforts to meet requirements of the 2008 Willamette Project biological opinions, issued by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service, says the Corps’ Portland District.
A fouled water supply caused by the Eagle Creek fire near Bonneville Dam and three Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife hatcheries in the Columbia River Gorge has forced the state agency to release some tule fall chinook six months early, as well as other chinook from four ponds, which were to be released next month. The total early release amounts to about 600,000 juveniles.
For the next two years the budget for the largest fish and wildlife program in the United States will remain at levels seen over the last several years, but that’s only if the Bonneville Power Administration is able to manage a number of uncertainties, including the price of its power on the wide open West Coast power market.
Although the summer has been hot, state fisheries managers have not seen the die-off of salmon and sturgeon this year that was experienced during the low flow and warm water conditions of 2015. Still, 2015 conditions likely had a big impact on current adult salmon and steelhead returns.
Hot weather is continuing in the lower Snake and Clearwater river basins but the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is managing to keep dissolved gas issues at bay as well keep the tailwater temperature at Lower Granite Dam under the 68 degree Fahrenheit threshold required by a biological opinion for salmon and steelhead in the Columbia/Snake river hydro system.
With a heat wave arriving this weekend and next week around Lewiston, Idaho, the interagency Technical Management Team this week increased the amount of cold water released from Dworshak Dam in order to maintain cooler water at Lower Granite Dam.
A white paper produced by Columbia Riverkeeper that used computer simulations says that if the four lower Snake River dams had not been in place in 2015, river water would have naturally remained cool enough for the sockeye salmon migrating in the river that year to have successfully completed their journey to their spawning grounds in the Sawtooth Basin in Idaho.
As many as 19,000 double-breasted and pelagic cormorants are hanging out at East Sand Island, a tiny dredge spoil island in the lower Columbia River estuary, as of the end of July. Some are mating but only about 500 are exhibiting nesting behaviors, far fewer at this time of year than is normal.
In a July 19 court memorandum, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s 2014 Columbia River Basin Fish and Wildlife Program.
Water temperatures in the Lower Granite Dam tailrace have been hovering around 68 degrees Fahrenheit and river and salmon managers took steps this week to hold the temperature at or below the 68 F threshold to protect migrating endangered adult sockeye salmon.
The House Appropriations Committee this week approved a 2018 Energy and Water bill that includes language prohibiting the removal of federal dams unless previously authorized by Congress.
In what has become an annual summer operation in the lower Snake River to protect endangered Snake River sockeye migrating upstream beginning in July, the interagency Technical Management Team Wednesday, July 5, agreed to increase the amount of cold water released from Dworshak Dam from 8,800 cubic feet per second to 10 kcfs.
Bald eagles continue to harass double-crested cormorants at East Sand Island in the lower Columbia River estuary, essentially bringing all nesting activity on the island to a halt.
A draft environmental impact statement for proposed harvests of Columbia River basin salmon and steelhead in the future is out for review and comment.
Federal dam operating agencies and advocates for more spill for fish are making progress on devising a 2018 spill plan at federal dams on the lower Snake and lower Columbia rivers, according to a status review submitted to U.S. District Court of Oregon last week.
Work to satisfy the requirements of the Willamette River biological opinion to protect fish is progressing on at least two fronts, according to information given this week at the Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s meeting in Corvallis, June 14.
After resuming culling of double-crested cormorants in the lower Columbia River estuary on April 11 for the first time this year, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineer’s contractor abruptly stopped the boat-based shooting of the birds April 27 after evidence the birds weren’t nesting on East Sand Island.
With Dworshak Dam’s largest generating unit out of service, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is planning to spill water this summer at the dam when it will need to provide the reservoir’s cold water to cool the lower Snake River at Lower Granite Dam.
Two environmental organizations that threatened in March to sue federal fisheries managers over releases of hatchery produced summer run steelhead in the upper Willamette River made good on their intent in late May.
Defendants gave notice in the U.S. District Court of Oregon that they are appealing to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals an April 3rd order to provide earlier spill for juvenile fish passage beginning next spring at lower Snake and Columbia river dams.
Advocates of more spill at Columbia/Snake river dams for juvenile fish passage and federal dam operating agencies have agreed to a schedule for periodic status conferences and a protocol in a federal court case.
Flows from Libby Dam will spike next week to benefit wild Kootenai River white sturgeon, but this year river operators will increase flows twice – once to encourage the sturgeon to move upriver into spawning grounds and a second time to trigger further movement upstream and spawning.
Anglers who fish for steelhead in five tributaries of the lower Columbia River can expect to see some changes in those fisheries as a result of new federal requirements for state hatchery production recently issued by NOAA-Fisheries.
A juvenile bypass system orifice at Little Goose Lock and Dam became plugged early Wednesday because of abnormally high seasonal debris from the lower Snake River, according to U.S. Army Corps of Engineers officials.
A recently released report from Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks, in consultation with the Confederated Salish-Kootenai Tribes, states that further adjustments are needed for discharge and refill protocols at Libby and Hungry Horse dams in Northwest Montana.
The third year of culling double-breasted cormorants on and near East Sand Island resumed two weeks ago.
Seven Idaho conservation groups asked NOAA Fisheries and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in a letter last week to end transporting endangered Snake River sockeye salmon juveniles beginning this spring.
Under court order, the operators of eight federal dams on the lower Snake and lower Columbia rivers will begin to spill water for fish earlier next year, beginning April 3, to possibly improve survival rates for juvenile salmon and steelhead through the hydroelectric system.
Two conservation groups intend to sue the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, seeking to force the Corps to begin an Endangered Species Act consultation with NOAA Fisheries over the Corps’ hatchery summer steelhead program in Oregon’s Willamette and Santiam rivers.
The federal court judge who rejected last May the Columbia River hydropower system’s 2014 biological opinion for salmon and steelhead is leaning towards ordering more spring/summer spill at mainstem dams aimed at aiding juvenile fish passage– but not until 2018.
Federal dam operating agencies released last week an annual evaluation of progress toward meeting the conservation requirements of the federal power system’s 2008 biological opinion and the 2014 supplemental BiOp for Columbia/Snake river salmon and steelhead.
Three federal agencies managing Columbia/Snake river mainstem dams closed last month the publics’ initial opportunity to comment on the court-ordered “Columbia River System Operations” environmental impact statement for endangered and threatened salmon and steelhead.
A federal judge has granted a preliminary injunction that will require the Bureau of Reclamation and the Klamath Project to provide additional flows for flushing out a parasite that has been harmful to protected salmon in the Klamath River Basin.
An all-inclusive region-wide effort to connect various salmon recovery efforts was set in motion by NOAA Fisheries this week as it held its first Columbia Basin Partnership Task Force meeting.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council Fish and Wildlife Committee approved the release of a white sturgeon request for information at its meeting in Portland January 10. The $300,000 projected cost for the RFI came from cost-savings from projects associated with the Council’s Fish and Wildlife Program.
Conservation groups, the state of Oregon and the Nez Perce Tribe are pleading their case before the U.S. District Court of Oregon to stop eleven capital projects at the four lower Snake River dams until the three federal agencies that operate the dams complete a National Environmental Policy Act review that could call for removing the dams.
NOAA Fisheries West Coast Region has completed a biological opinion of hatcheries funded under the Mitchell Act, potentially freeing the federal agency to make payments to operators of those hatcheries.
After recording comments at 15 public scoping meetings, three federal agencies operating Columbia and Snake river dams are giving the public an additional three weeks to comment on the court-ordered Columbia River System Operations environmental impact statement for salmon and steelhead.
A facility at the Nez Perce Hatchery on the Clearwater River in Idaho that will recondition spawned Snake River steelhead, known as kelts, was given the go-ahead by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council at its Portland meeting December 14.
Flow objectives were generally met this spring but not this summer as juvenile salmon, steelhead and lamprey migrated through the mid- Columbia and Snake Rivers, but the timing of the migration was early due to an early runoff and most fish had passed collection facilities before barging began.
NOAA Fisheries this week described a proposed slate of changes at hatcheries that it says will reduce the impact of Mitchell Act hatchery fish on wild fish in the Columbia River basin.
Federal agencies operating Columbia/Snake river dams and reservoirs on Thursday in Astoria completed the last of their sixteen regional “scoping” meetings which solicited public views regarding a court-ordered environmental impact statement for salmon and steelhead.
The Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission will review three options on how to continue or modify the two-state harvest reform policy for Columbia River salmon and steelhead at its meeting this weekend, December 9 and 10, in Olympia.
Expecting a more positive reception than it received two years ago, the Columbia-Snake River Irrigators Association in Kennewick, Washington, petitioned the Trump transition team to convene the Endangered Species Act Committee, also known as the “God Squad,” for a “reconsultation” of the Federal Columbia River Power System biological opinion for salmon and steelhead.
The Nez Perce Tribe proposes to capture and recondition spawned steelhead in the Snake River to increase the steelhead return rate from 0.4 percent to at least 6 percent to meet a federal biological opinion reasonable and prudent alternative.
Lower Columbia River gillnetters told the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission last week that fishery harvest reforms initiated in 2013 are not working economically, while salmon and steelhead anglers accused the commission of vacating its promise to get gillnetters off the river.
Culling of double-crested cormorants near East Sand Island, a tiny island built from dredged materials in the lower Columbia River estuary, resumed October 3, after more than four months of inactivity and will continue through this month, according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Attorneys for NOAA Fisheries filed a status report last week in federal court outlining the fisheries agency’s progress towards completing biological opinions and incidental take statements for 10 Northwest hatcheries funded under the Mitchell Act.
The three agencies that operate 14 federal dams in the Columbia River Basin are seeking comments on the scope of what they should consider when preparing an environmental impact statement of the Federal Columbia River Power System.
Saying that the U.S. District Court lacks “subject matter jurisdiction to resolve this suit,” Portland General Electric filed last Friday in the court to dismiss a suit filed in August by the Deschutes River Alliance that claimed the utility is not in compliance with its clean water responsibilities.
As a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers contractor began disassembling generator unit-3 for overhaul at Dworshak Dam in Idaho Monday, about 291 gallons of oil spilled from the units’ guide ball bearings at 10:30 am.
In 2015, low flow conditions, coupled with high air temperatures and warm water in the Snake and Columbia rivers and their tributaries from mid-June to mid-July, resulted in the highest mainstem water temperatures recorded in the Columbia River Basin, making survival of the basin’s sockeye salmon a constant source of concern.
In a court filing responding to a lawsuit by the Deschutes River Alliance over alleged Clean Water Act violations, Portland General Electric suggested to the U.S. District Court that it should dismiss the case.
U.S. District Court of Oregon Judge Michael H. Simon will allow the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to continue culling double-crested cormorants, as well as oiling the birds’ eggs and destroying nests on East Sand Island in the lower Columbia River estuary.
NOAA Fisheries and the Wild Fish Conservancy have stipulated that the agency will not disburse Mitchell Act funds to 10 Northwest hatcheries until the federal agency has completed its hatchery biological opinion and incidental take statements for the disbursements.
Water in Lower Granite Dam’s tailwater continues to run several degrees cooler than the 68 degrees Fahrenheit upper temperature limit set by NOAA Fisheries’ 2014 biological opinion for Columbia/Snake salmon and steelhead, and the result has been improved passage for sockeye salmon.
Trapping and hauling listed sockeye will not be necessary this year due to cooler air and water temperatures in the lower Snake River, according to a briefing of Snake River conditions and operations at this week’s Northwest Power and Conservation Council meeting.
The federal judge presiding over the rewriting of the recovery plan for thirteen species of Columbia River salmon and steelhead says a thorough National Environmental Policy Act review is more important than the shortened remand schedule proposed by the litigation’s plaintiffs.
Results of survival tests for young salmon and steelhead that migrate to the ocean through six Federal Columbia River Power System dams all generally exceeded the survival requirements of NOAA Fisheries’ 2008 FCRPS biological opinion for Columbia River salmon and steelhead, according to a recent study.
River managers changed the spill pattern at Bonneville Dam last week in an attempt to reduce erosion that is occurring at the B-Branch fishway rip rap on the south side of the spillway at Bradford Island. The area had previously been repaired in 2011.
As a larger than predicted run of sockeye salmon head up the Columbia and Snake rivers – some 400,000 fish — the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers took steps this week to cool water in the lower Snake River.
Plaintiffs in a federal case in which they seek to stop the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers from continuing to shoot and oil double crested cormorant eggs in the lower Columbia River estuary called talk of “devastating impacts” on salmon by the birds’ predation “little more than a biological soundbite.”
A week after federal agencies said they could complete the NEPA process in five years, not the two years given by U.S. District Court Judge Michael H. Simon to complete both a new recovery plan for protected Columbia/Snake River salmon and steelhead and associated National Environmental Policy Act documents, plaintiffs in the case said the federal plan takes too long.
U.S. District Court Judge Michael H. Simon gave federal agencies two years – to March 1, 2018 – to return to court with a new recovery plan for protected Columbia/Snake River salmon and steelhead, along with associated National Environmental Policy Act documents.
After he had remanded the 2014 Federal Columbia River Power System biological opinion May 4, U.S. District Court Judge Michael H. Simon turned on May 12 to another case on his docket – the Audubon of Portland lawsuit challenging the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ plan to cull double crested cormorants in the lower Columbia River estuary.
As many as 16,000 nesting double crested cormorants abandoned their nests and eggs on East Sand Island in the lower Columbia River estuary and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers does not know why they left.
In rejecting much of NOAA Fisheries’ 2014 biological opinion for salmon and steelhead impacted by the Federal Columbia River Power System, U.S. District Court Judge Michael H. Simon gave the agency two years – to March 1, 2018 – to return with a new recovery plan and National Environmental Policy Act documents.
Culling of double-crested cormorants near East Sand Island in the Columbia River estuary resumed on April 7 and already the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is more than two-thirds of the way to the number of culled birds allowed this year by a permit it received from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
With over a week since spilling water at Dworshak Dam to test total dissolved gas degassing equipment at the federal fish hatchery downstream, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is scheduling maintenance on a hatchery pipeline and the Bonneville Power Administration is scheduling a transmission test at the dam.
A federal court this week rejected much of the federal government’s recovery plan for Columbia River salmon and steelhead — the 2014 NOAA Fisheries biological opinion for the Federal Columbia River Power System — and gave federal agencies almost two years to come back with a new and improved version that complies with federal environmental laws.
Adult fish passing Lower Granite Dam can expect cooler water temperatures at the dam this summer due to a new fish ladder temperature improvement system that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers says will eliminate a thermal barrier that last year stopped lower Snake River sockeye salmon from migrating up the ladder.
A cascading series of events this week resulted in reduced spill for fish at Ice Harbor Dam on the lower Snake River.
NOAA Fisheries, in a biological opinion, has concluded that the Federal Emergency Management Agency must change its implementation of the National Flood Insurance Program in Oregon to better protect imperiled salmon, steelhead and Southern Resident Killer Whales.
An eight month overhaul of the Unit 3 generator at Dworshak Dam could require spill at the dam that would exceed the 110 percent total dissolved gas cap set by the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality.
A Northwest environmental group yesterday filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court of Oregon in Portland against the National Marine Fisheries Service and the U.S. Department of Commerce for funding hatchery programs in the Columbia River basin under the Mitchell Act without complying with section 7 of the federal Endangered Species Act.
Northwest environmental groups called on the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to develop a list of emergency actions that would prevent high water temperatures that caused the massive die-offs of salmon last summer as adult fish migrated through Columbia and Snake river dams and reservoirs.
A group that says the Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s recently adopted 2014 Fish and Wildlife Program fails to protect Columbia River basin salmon and steelhead filed suit in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals last week.
Two projects that are under review by the Budget Oversight Group, known as BOG, will go before the Northwest Power and Conservation Council for funding approval at the Council’s meeting in February.
Northwest rivers had unseasonably high temperatures this summer, warm enough to kill thousands of migrating sockeye salmon headed to the mid-Columbia and lower Snake rivers.
The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and NOAA Fisheries have reached an agreement to work over the next three years on plans to locate, protect and restore zones of cold water habitat for fish in the Columbia and lower Willamette rivers.
The Northwest Power Act requires the Northwest Power and Conservation Council to report annually to the U.S. Congress the “current state of the Columbia River Basin and the Council’s activities” and to make the draft report available for 90 days of public comment prior to submission to the U.S. Congress.
The Lower Granite Dam tailrace temperature is holding at around an average of 66 degrees Fahrenheit, a couple of degrees lower than the maximum 68 degree water temperature set by a NOAA Fisheries biological opinion for Columbia/Snake river salmon and steelhead.
Litigants in a long-running legal battle over a strategy for protecting and enhancing conditions for salmon and steelhead fisheries in the Columbia and Snake river basins have formally responded to questions from U.S. District Judge Michael Simon, who is expected to rule on requests for summary judgement in the near future.
With an expected increase in solar radiation and air temperature in the lower Snake River basin, river and power operators at Wednesday’s Technical Management Team meeting began to use what could be the last available water from Dworshak Dam until September to cool water in August in the Lower Granite Dam tailrace.
Canadian storage reservoirs have provided the lion’s share of water releases for the Columbia River Basin, and in a timely fashion, during one of the driest years in decades throughout the region.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council last week at its monthly meeting in Spokane approved modifications to its cost savings proposal, approving a final methodology describing how it and the Bonneville Power Administration would achieve the savings.
Fisheries managers began trapping endangered Snake River sockeye salmon from Lower Granite Dam Monday and transporting the fish to Eagle Hatchery in Idaho as river managers struggled to keep the river cool. As of Wednesday this week, just five fish had been captured and transported.
A teleconference was held Tuesday in Portland to provide an update on some of the water management gymnastics that federal agencies are engaged in to optimize river flows for fisheries and other purposes throughout the Columbia/Snake river basin in one of the worst low-water years seen in decades.
Salmon and river managers of the regional Technical Management Team briefly lost their battle to keep Snake River temperatures in the Lower Granite Dam tailrace below 68 degrees Fahrenheit this week as low water, higher river temperatures from upstream and warmer than normal weather continues to plague the Northwest.
The 74 “Reasonable and Prudent Alternatives” in NOAA Fisheries’ 2014 Federal Columbia River Power System biological opinion for salmon and steelhead are producing results, according to government and tribal attorneys as they gave their oral arguments Tuesday in defense of the BiOp before Judge Michael H. Simon in U.S. District Court in Portland.
Hot weather, warm water and lower than average flows in the Snake River dominated the regional Technical Management Team meeting this week, but Russ Keifer of the Idaho Department of Fish and Game also had good news about Snake River sockeye adults passing Bonneville Dam.
Higher temperatures and lower flows in the Snake River are resulting in an earlier than usual change in summer hydro operations.
Thanks to the Columbia Basin Bulletin for its June 12 article about NOAA Fisheries’ new sockeye salmon recovery plan.
A motion for a preliminary injunction to stop the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers plan to begin the first year of its four-year plan to ultimately cull up to 11,000 breeding pairs of double-crested cormorants from East Sand Island in the lower Columbia River estuary was denied last Friday (May 8) in federal court.
The first two System Operational Requests of the management season brought before the Technical Management Team were approved with very little discussion Wednesday at the in-season water manager’s weekly meeting.
The Bonneville Power Administration says it is positioned during this low-flow spring and summer to meet the ongoing power needs of its customers, as well as its non-power obligations, including those aimed at protecting fish.
The Technical Management Team, charged with the difficult task in a low water year of balancing spring juvenile fish passage with water and power needs in the region, dropped McNary flow objectives for the second week running and briefly raised flows from Dworshak Dam to help pass juvenile chinook salmon through lower Snake River dams.
Two requests to change management of the Kootenai River, the third largest tributary of the Columbia River, received a cool reception from fisheries managers at this week’s Technical Management Team meeting, and one of those, a request to deviate from VARQ on the river was denied.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council asked the Bonneville Power Administration to find cost savings in its Fish and Wildlife program that could be used for new projects that represent emerging priorities.
There was a flurry of activity this week related to litigation over a 2014 Biological Opinion for salmon and steelhead in the Columbia River system, as defendant agencies led by the National Marine Fisheries Service filed briefs to meet a Wednesday deadline for doing so.
Faced with one of the worst water supply forecasts in over 50 years, the Technical Management Team this week agreed to lower the flow target at McNary Dam from 220,000 cubic feet per second to 180 kcfs, beginning today (May 1).
Pieces of the puzzle are taking shape, and it appears likely that Montana reservoirs will be drawn down significantly to meet multiple needs in the Columbia Basin.
A federal judge earlier this month declined to immediately cut the number of hatchery chinook salmon released into Oregon’s McKenzie River, but recognized the need to protect the wild spring chinook salmon that spawn in the river.
NOAA Fisheries is proposing in its draft environmental assessment of the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife’s 2013 hatchery and genetic management plans (HGMP) substantial cuts in hatchery releases of salmon smolts in Oregon’s Sandy River.
The Audubon Society of Portland last week announced its intent to sue the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to prevent it from putting a plan in place to reduce the population of double-crested cormorants at East Sand Island in the lower Columbia River estuary.
Since the plaintiffs in a long-running legal battle over salmon and steelhead recovery plans for the Columbia River Basin filed for an expedient conclusion to the case last December, the federal government and supporting parties have been seeking summary judgement since March 6.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers alerts boaters and other users of Foster Reservoir near Sweet Home, Ore., that the reservoir’s normal spring refill schedule has changed again this year to accommodate ongoing fish passage research. The reservoir’s summer elevation will also be slightly lower again this summer.
A plan to disperse the largest share of Caspian terns from the species’ largest West Coast nesting colony has thus far fallen short so the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Portland District is offering for public comment a strategy that would further reduce desirable habitat at the lower Columbia River’s East Sand Island.
“Pretty simple actions,” at the mid-Columbia Basin’s Goose Island have produced “pretty dramatic results” in the effort to reduce avian predation on protected salmon and, particularly, steelhead that swim downstream through the Grant County Public Utility District’s Wanapum and Priest Rapids dams and reservoirs, according to Grant’s assistant general manager, Chuck Berrie.
An Alaska-based commercial fishing advocacy group on Jan. 16 submitted a petition with NOAA Fisheries asking the federal agency to consider dropping the Snake River fall chinook salmon “evolutionarily significant unit” from the Endangered Species Act list.
Oregon’s Foster Dam just got an upgrade, one that may be vital to the survival of threatened Upper Willamette River spring chinook salmon and winter steelhead.
Managing the impacts of sea lions and seals on protected salmon and steelhead and other fish stocks is a tough job that has only gotten tougher in recent years due, probably, to fluctuations in both predator and prey species populations in the lower Columbia River.
Planned dredging of lower Snake River sites in southeast Washington this winter in the name of navigation safety and economy can move ahead as planned, according to a federal court order issued Wednesday.
The 2014 Federal Columbia River Power System biological opinion “continues to rely on a suite of hoped-for mitigation actions in estuary and tributary habitat, as well as uncertain actions to address other sources of salmon mortality, without specifically identifying many of these actions or rationally addressing their risks.”
“More fish – and more wild fish – are returning to the river” according to an annual “progress” report released last week by federal action agencies charged with assuring that beleaguered Columbia and Snake salmon and steelhead populations survive, and ultimately thrive.
Tests over the past three years involving the drawdown of the Upper Willamette River Basin’s Fall Creek Reservoir to run-of-river levels in late fall have proven so successful at pushing juvenile salmon and steelhead downriver safely that the U.S. Corps of Engineers plans to employ the strategy annually until further notice.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers this week released for public comments a draft environmental assessment of a proposed plan to upgrade the existing fish collection facility at west central Oregon’s Fall Creek Dam to enhance upriver passage of adult Upper Willamette River chinook, steelhead and other native species.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council gave its conditional approval for the continuation of funding for a Yakama Nation project aimed at determining whether beleaguered upper Columbia steelhead populations can get a reproductive boost through the “reconditioning” of fish with an urge to spawn a second time.
Biologists confirmed what they had heard as rumor from lake fishermen, that both fin-clipped and unmarked chinook salmon inhabit Green Peter Reservoir on the Middle Santiam River and spawn in Quartzville Creek in the upper Willamette River watershed.
A number of familiar adversaries, including the state of Oregon, have told Oregon’s U.S. District Court that they will join the recently resumed fight over the legality of the federal government’s strategy for assuring Federal Columbia River Power System operations avoid jeopardizing protected salmon and steelhead.
The Walla Walla District of the Corps of Engineers placed Dworshak Dam’s hydroelectric generator Unit 3 back in service Monday after completing repairs of damage due to a short circuit in the stator winding on Aug. 15.
Hatchery populations of spring chinook salmon in the subbasins of the upper Willamette River are genetically similar to the wild populations in these basins and should continue to be used for recovery of spring chinook salmon.
A hatchery supplementation program for endangered winter chinook salmon is achieving estimated survival rates of hatchery fry through the end of the first year in the ocean that is about four times greater than the survival for the program’s natural origin counterparts, according to a study by NOAA Fisheries scientists.
A primary source of cool water used to improve Snake River salmon summertime migration conditions was pinched Aug. 15, leaving fish and hydro system management representatives to debate how to make the best out of a bad situation.
Under a settlement agreement signed Aug. 15 by U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Zilly, conditions ordered by the court in 2004 would be restored that impose expanded no-spray buffer zones around waterways to protect imperiled salmon and steelhead from five toxic pesticides.
Measuring juvenile salmon passage at Columbia/Snake River dams, and hitting survival targets, is a key directive in the federal government’s biological opinion for Columbia Basin salmon and steelhead listed under the Endangered Species Act.
The 900-mile trip up the Columbia, Snake and Salmon rivers is complete for at least one sockeye salmon spawner, with the promise of many more to come this year to seed the Sawtooth Valley’s Redfish Lake and help fuel the resurrection of a stock that had, 20 years ago, nearly gone extinct.
NOAA Fisheries Service earlier this month gave its final approval for the re-introduction of spring chinook salmon in north-central Washington’s Okanogan River basin as an “non-essential experimental” population under Endangered Species Act.
A next big step down a “presumptive path” toward phasing out non-tribal commercial gill-nets on the lower Columbia River will be the deployment late this summer of 10 permit holders equipped with beach and purse seines, equipment that had been outlawed on the river for more than 60 years.
Newer obligations, old obligations and other factors and agreements continue to drive up funding for what Bonneville Power Administration officials say is likely the country’s largest ecosystem improvement program.
Streams less than 30 meters from roads in the interior Columbia River basin have significantly less wood debris in the stream than those waterways greater than 60 meters from roads, reducing habitat and rearing quality for salmonids in those streams.
Fishing and conservation groups this week announced intentions to seek a legal declaration that the federal government’s plan to protect threatened and endangered Columbia and Snake river salmon and steelhead fails to achieve dictates of the Endangered Species Act.
Results from the first year of a two-year study that is attempting to discover why some adult salmon that arrive at Bonneville Dam are not accounted for at McNary Dam, an upstream journey of 146 river miles, found that survival of radio tagged adult chinook and sockeye salmon is below performance standards set in the Federal Columbia River Power System Biological Opinion for salmon and steelhead.
The “culling” of double-crested cormorants, by the thousands, is the preferred option considered in a newly released “environmental impact statement” from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in its ongoing effort to produce a management plan for reducing the big, fish-eating birds’ impacts on protected Columbia River salmon and steelhead.
Habitat survey teams are fanning out across the Columbia River Basin this month, measuring the fine details of Northwest rivers and streams as part of a NOAA-led initiative to assess and track the condition of salmon and steelhead habitat, says NOAA Fisheries on its West Coast Region website.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on May 13 alerted boaters and other users of west central Oregon’s Foster Reservoir near Sweet Home, that the reservoir has been filled to an elevation of 635 feet above sea level for the summer of 2014; about two feet lower than usual.
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