Flows through northwest Montana’s Libby Dam were ramping up today (Friday) to create higher flows that might tempt endangered white sturgeon to move up the Kootenai River past Bonners Ferry, Idaho, to spawning habitat that they have long ignored.
Modified fish ladders at central Washington’s damaged Wanapum Dam on the mid-Columbia River appear to be doing the trick for adult spring chinook salmon headed upstream on their spawning journey.
The responsibility of Pacific Northwest electricity consumers to pay for a plan to restore threatened and endangered salmon runs has been stretched beyond reasonable limits, according to letter sent this month asking that the governors of Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Washington demand a “God Squad” assessment of the situation.
An extensive reworking of the juvenile salmon facility expected to begin this year at the lower Snake River’s Lower Granite Dam should help reduce stress, injury and delay during the fishes’ first encounter with the federal Snake-Columbia river hydro system.
Higher stream temperatures increase the sensitivity of subyearling chinook salmon in the Columbia River Basin to pesticides and the combined exposure to temperature and pesticides, such as malathion, may also make the fish more susceptible to disease.
Could a controversial proposal to boost springtime spill at mainstem Columbia and Snake river dams add to knowledge regarding spill, juvenile dam passage survival, and adult fish returns?
To provide further protections for threatened and endangered salmon and steelhead, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Walla Walla District is expanding its current nonlethal avian hazing program at five Corps dams to incorporate limited lethal “take” of certain piscivorous — fish-eating — birds.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced Thursday that it has begun implementing its 2014 “Spring Fish Operations Plan” at its four lower Snake River and four lower Columbia River dams.
Six fishing and conservation groups – all involved in long-running litigation in the past that has challenged the federal salmon protection plans for the Columbia River basin – on March 24 mailed a 60-day notice of their intent to sue the Bonneville Power Administration’s official adoption of the latest government strategy.
The release of hatchery produced salmon and steelhead into northwest Oregon’s Sandy River in 2014 can proceed largely as planned according to federal judge, who in a March 14 opinion and order denied an injunction request from fish conservation groups that said such releases should be stopped to prevent harm to naturally produced stocks.
President Obama’s fiscal year 2015 budget request released Tuesday identifies a total of $1 billion for the Bureau of Reclamation, the nation’s largest wholesale water supplier and second-largest producer of hydroelectric power.
Even though the official comment period has long since passed, passion is still sizzling about a recommendation that the Northwest Power and Conservation Council throw its support behind a proposal to boost springtime spill for fish passage at Columbia and Snake river dams.
The Bonneville Power Administration is circulating an analysis of a proposed spring spill test aimed at salmon recovery at Columbia/Snake River dams that suggests that if implemented for 10 years would lead to an annual loss of $110 million per year in power sales.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Walla Walla District this week announced it has completed an environmental assessment for its Inland Avian Predation Management Plan – a strategy that contains management actions designed to reduce predatory birds’ impacts on salmon and steelhead species that are listed under the Endangered Species Act.
Wild fish advocates are asking on several fronts in Oregon and Washington for federal courts to help reduce, or eliminate, hatchery releases in areas the plaintiffs say are well suited to be sanctuaries to aid the revival of threatened and endangered salmon, steelhead and trout stocks.
An Oregon-based U.S. District judge this week set the stage for continued legal arguments about what needs to be done by the state’s Fish and Wildlife Department and the federal government to ensure that negative impacts on wild salmon and steelhead caused by hatchery production in the Sandy River watershed are kept at legally acceptable limits.
Longstanding disagreements remain, as Columbia River basin stakeholders – power users, salmon protectors, irrigators, navigators and others – consider the latest plan for assuring federal hydro projects on the Columbia and Snake rivers avoid jeopardizing protected salmon and steelhead populations.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is seeking public comments on its recently released draft environmental assessment of Caspian tern habitat reduction on East Sand Island in the Columbia River estuary near Chinook, Wash.
NOAA Fisheries Service says that a new biological opinion issued today serves to confirm that its plan for improving salmon and steelhead survival through the Federal Columbia River Power System on the Columbia and Snake rivers is working, and that efforts to rehabilitate habitat for the fish will indeed help dodge extinction for species listed under the Endangered Species Act.
U.S. District Court Judge Ancer Haggerty in a Jan. 16 ruling said that NOAA Fisheries Service violated the Endangered Species Act and the National Environmental Policies Act when it approved the state of Oregon’s management plan for the operation of the Sandy River Hatchery.
Water temperatures at Lower Granite Dam exceeded allowable limits twice this past summer, temporarily stopping the adult runs of both sockeye and fall chinook salmon through the Snake River dam’s fish ladder.
The benefit of transportation for smolt-to-adult survival for salmon and steelhead in the Lower Snake River is narrowing and in some seasons and among some adult returns SARs for in-river fish are nearly equal.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council, in a split vote, decided Wednesday to ask for “independent” scientific advice on whether spill at Columbia and Snake river mainstem dams should be ramped up to see what kind of benefit such hydro operations might bring to migrating salmon and steelhead.
THE COLUMBIA BASIN BULLETIN:
Weekly Fish and Wildlife News
www.www.www.columbiabasinbulletin.org
December 12, 2013
Issue No. 688
THE COLUMBIA BASIN BULLETIN:
Weekly Fish and Wildlife News
www.www.www.columbiabasinbulletin.org
December 6, 2013
Issue No. 687
High water temperatures and fallback stress may be the biggest enemies, along with harvest, of endangered Snake River sockeye salmon species trying to make their way up roughly 900 miles of the Columbia, Snake and Salmon rivers to central Idaho’s Sawtooth Valley, according to preliminary results presented Tuesday at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers annual Anadromous Fish Evaluation Program research review.
Naturally born steelhead trout of both “winter” and “summer” stocks from the Columbia/Snake river system that try a second run at spawning do much better than their hatchery origin peers, according to preliminary research results presented Tuesday at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Anadromous Fish Evaluation Program annual review in Walla Walla, Wash.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Walla Walla District is seeking public comments on a draft environmental assessment and draft Finding of No Significant Impact for the Inland Avian Predation Management Plan. Comments are due by Dec. 2.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council and staff earlier this month began discussions on how the organization’s fish and wildlife “program” might be amended while taking into account disparate views on topics ranging from hydro system spill for salmon passage to the role of hatcheries in fish recovery schemes to climate change and invasive species to providing upstream passage at dams that have long blocked access to historic habitat.
Southeast Washington and much of the inland Northwest has sweated through a hotter than normal summer season and has been, until very recently, perspiring about the fate of the Snake River fall chinook salmon run.
NOAA Fisheries has decided that it will largely stay the course with its plan to assure Columbia/Snake River salmon and steelhead stocks are not jeopardized by the existence and operation of the federal Columbia River Power system.
The Bureau of Reclamation signed a Memorandum of Agreement with the Lewiston Orchards Irrigation District to jointly fund the design and construction of the Lewiston Orchards Pilot Water Exchange Project.
Federal “action” agencies Friday afternoon (Aug. 23) made public a 300-page document that outlines hundreds of actions, most focused on habitat restoration, that they say will be implemented over the next five years to avoid jeopardizing the survival of 13 salmon and steelhead stocks native to the Columbia-Snake river basin that are now listed for protections under the Endangered Species Act.
The Walla Walla District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced Aug. 16 that it is delaying completion of the lower Snake River Programmatic Sediment Management Plan Environmental Impact Statement and proposed dredging of the lower Snake River in Lewiston-Clarkston and near Ice Harbor Lock and Dam in Burbank, Wash.
Spending through the Columbia River basin fish and wildlife program, after breaking through the budget ceiling in fiscal year 2012, is “on a trajectory to come within budget this year,” the Bonneville Power Administration’s Bill Maslen told the Northwest Power and Conservation Council last week.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council last week recommended funding and implementation of two projects aimed at answering, in one case, a demand of the Federal Columbia River Power System biological opinion and, in the other, moving forward a project aimed at restoring more normal river conditions for salmon and other species in the Yankee Fork Salmon River in central Idaho.
Federal “action” agencies this week gave themselves, and their partners, good marks in implementing the first five years of a 10-year plan aimed at countering impacts of Columbia-Snake River dams on salmon and steelhead stocks listed under the Endangered Species Act.
Fishery and hydro managers were put on notice this week that maintaining fish-friendly water temperatures in the lower Snake River as measured at Lower Granite Dam will likely require some tough decisions as the inland region’s summer season hits full stride.
The U.S. Corps of Engineers is set to reestablish the long-clogged main channel of northwest Oregon’s Sandy River near its confluence with the Columbia River, thus restoring historic conditions that are expected to provide more habitat benefits for protected salmon and steelhead as well as other fish and wildlife species.
The Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission heard public testimony pro and con from mid-morning Thursday until past quitting time (5:30 p.m.) before opting to readopt lower Columbia River fish management rules focused on phasing out mainstem commercial gill-net fishing and shifting most of the salmon harvest allocation there to recreational fishers.
The Bureau of Reclamation announced this week the receipt of a joint, coordinated biological opinion delivered by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Marine Fisheries Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that analyzes the effects of the ongoing operations of Reclamation’s Klamath Project through March 2023.
The available options for legal relief could well have done more harm than good for wild, protected salmon and steelhead, according to a May 16 opinion and order issued by Portland U.S. District Court Judge Ancer L. Haggerty.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers this week announced it is asking for public comments on a project it is proposing, in partnership with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, to restore tidal connection and fish access to 68 acres of long-blocked tidal wetlands on the mainstem of the lower Columbia River.
Eighteen months of discussions — including 15 face-to-face meetings and many more conference calls — among subject matter experts and policy makers produced 16 consensus recommendations for how the tagging and marking of salmon and other fish from the Columbia River basin might be made more efficient and cost-effective.
Flows sent down from northwest Montana’s Libby Dam with the intent of benefiting endangered Kootenai River white sturgeon will take a new shape this year in an ongoing attempt to lure the big beasts away from badly functioning spawning areas and onto gravelly river bottoms believed to be prime habitat for reproduction.
When determining the potential effects pesticides could pose to endangered or threatened species, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, National Marine Fisheries Service, and Fish and Wildlife Service should use a common scientific approach, says a new report http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18344 from the National Research Council.
A newly, and greatly, improved Minto Fish Collection Facility on western Oregon’s North Santiam River went online April 1 and fish were, more or less, standing in line for a lift into the wild fish sanctuary that awaits just upstream.
The long-held practice of sweeping in migrating subyearling fall chinook salmon at McNary Dam and barging and/or trucking them downstream past three other lower Columbia River dams during the heat of summer should be discontinued, according to a “system operational request” offered this week by federal, state and tribal “salmon managers.”
A Portland-based federal judge on Wednesday signed an agreement between The Northwest Environmental Advocates and the federal government that requires more rigorous oversight of Oregon’s setting of water temperature standards for the state’s rivers and streams.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has begun implementing its 2013 Fish Operations Plan to provide spill at the four lower Snake River and four lower Columbia River dams to facilitate the passage of juvenile salmon and steelhead to the ocean.
NOAA chief Kathryn D. Sullivan in a March 18 letter provides assurances to Washington Congressman Doc Hastings that one path towards rebuilding populations of imperiled Columbia River salmon and steelhead stocks will not block, or sidetrack, another.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is seeking comments on a draft environmental assessment for the John Day Mitigation Project. The Corps proposes to construct hatchery facilities to increase the production of fall chinook salmon, as required by the Federal Columbia River Power System Biological Opinion.
The state of Oregon and NOAA Fisheries, joined by three sport fishing organizations, say that the operation of northwest Oregon’s Sandy Hatchery under newly approved federal guidelines is legal and does not jeopardize wild salmon and steelhead protected under the Endangered Act.
Fish conservation groups seeking a permanent end to hatchery produced salmon and steelhead in northwest Oregon’s Sandy River basin have asked a federal judge, in the near term, to preempt the planned release of several hundred fish later this month.
Citing a lack “reasoned decision making,” a federal appeals court panel last week vacated a 2008 National Marine Fisheries Service decision which judged that the use of three specific pesticides, as now allowed, would jeopardize the viability of Pacific salmon stocks protected under the Endangered Species Act.
Congressman Doc Hastings in a Feb. 4 letter to the head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Jane Lubchenco, expresses concerns over a contract the agency has signed with entities to conduct “closed interviews” with individuals about their opinions of ongoing salmon recovery activities in the Columbia River basin.
The Walla Walla District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced this week that it has extended the public comment period for the draft Environmental Impact Statement for the Lower Snake River Programmatic Sediment Management Plan to March 26.
Members of the Northwest Power and Conservation Council have elected Bill Bradbury, one of Oregon’s two members, to chair the regional energy planning agency in 2013. Bradbury was vice chair in 2012; the Council elects officers annually.
A 750-foot long, 45-foot wide, 8-foot high dam built in the 1930s would be removed next summer under a proposal aimed at restoring habitat in southwest Oregon’s lower Sandy for the benefit of, particularly, young salmon and steelhead that are listed under the Endangered Species Act.
Pleasing results have been unveiled from an elaborate, expensive experiment to measure whether passage improvements are helping to lift salmon survival at Columbia-Snake river dams above targets set out in the federal fish protection plan.
Planning and implementation is going well, yet a “more robust discussion is needed” to cement efforts to recover depleted Columbia River salmon and steelhead populations that are now protected under the Endangered Species Act, according to Barry Thom, deputy administrator for NOAA Fisheries’ Northwest Region.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers this week offered for public review its preferred plan for managing – in large part through dredging – sediment buildup on the lower Snake River that it says interferes with navigation and other federally authorized purposes of four dams on the river.
A controversial experiment affecting northwest Montana and northernmost Idaho has ended by legal edict after failed attempts — using large surges of water — to draw white sturgeon farther up the Kootenai River to the most desirable spawning habitat.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council and Bonneville Power Administration planned this week to launch a review of about 87 habitat-based projects proposed for continued funding in “anadromous” – salmon, steelhead, lamprey – areas of the Columbia/Snake river basin.
Critiques of the process are well taken and are helping move toward the goal of satisfying requirements that the federal Columbia/Snake river hydro system avoid jeopardizing the survival of salmon and steelhead stocks that are protected under the Endangered Species Act, notes a brief filed Nov. 9 by the U.S. Department of Justice in Oregon’s U.S. District Court.
The Bonneville Power Administration asked for help this summer in reining in Columbia River basin fish and wildlife spending, and got it to the tune of an estimated $15 million in projected project deferrals and efficiencies for fiscal years 2012 and 2013.
In an attempt to bring economies and efficiencies to its Columbia River Basin Fish and Wildlife Program, the Northwest Power and Conservation Council on Tuesday recommended that funding for a number of data management projects be cut back and that one, the Northwest Habitat Institute, be phased out.
Oregon’s Environmental Quality Commission has rejected a petition that called for more restrictions on pesticide use, hoping instead that farmers will voluntarily limit their use of pesticides that could compromise the health of humans as well as salmon and steelhead listed under the Endangered Species Act.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has kicked off a public scoping process to determine how to best manage a large salmon-munching colony of double-crested cormorants nesting on East Sand Island in the Columbia River estuary.
Legal adversaries say that implementation of a federal Columbia/Snake river salmon protection plan is lagging, not producing the intended benefits and that the agencies are plunging ahead without acknowledging that significant changes are needed to meet the requirements of both fish and the law.
A Sandy Hatchery operation proposed by the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife that includes the trapping of hatchery and wild spring chinook salmon and, presumably, the safe release of the naturally produced fish so that they can continue upstream to spawn, has gained the qualified endorsement of the federal agency charged with enforcing the Endangered Species Act.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued a ruling Monday that says the Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service violated federal law — both the Endangered Species Act and the National Environmental Policy Act — in sanctioning the construction of the 700-mile Ruby pipeline from natural gas fields in Wyoming to southern Oregon.
“Performance standard testing” at The Dalles, McNary and Bonneville dams on the lower Columbia River showed marked improvements in survival of outmigrating juvenile spring chinook and steelhead during 2011, according to the annual progress report released Sept. 28 by federal agencies engaged in efforts to boost the status of 13 salmon and steelhead stocks listed under the Endangered Species Act.
The Bonneville Power Administration this week, in a continuing saga, pressed forward with its call for frugality amidst unexpectedly high invoice totals for fish and wildlife work and, by its projections, lower than expected returns from the hydro power generated in the Federal Columbia River Power System.
The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife has issued for public review 17 updated lower Columbia River hatchery management plans aimed at assessing the affects those programs might have on wild salmon and steelhead that are protected under the Endangered Species Act.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Portland District will soon start a major construction project at Foster Dam near Sweet Home, Ore., to upgrade parts of the dam’s existing adult fish collection facility, which will be a next step in an ongoing process to resurrect salmon populations long cut off from the Willamette River headwaters.
With fast-warming water conditions, federal, state and tribal salmon managers this week protested U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ plans to shift juvenile salmon “transportation” from barges to trucks.
The Portland, OR-based Northwest Environmental Advocates on Thursday petitioned Oregon’s Environmental Quality Commission to adopt new rules restricting the use of pesticides across the state.
A petition filed Thursday with NOAA Fisheries asks that the so-called “southern” population of orcas – killer whales – be dropped from the listing under the Endangered Species Act.
A wetter than normal springtime has served to wipe away most of the last remnants of snowpack above west-central Idaho’s Dworshak Dam but has also served to fill the valued reservoir of water well in advance of the annual launch of flow augmentation for migrating salmon and steelhead.
The Bonneville Power Administration and the Army Corps of Engineers have scheduled a round of public listening sessions/workshops related to the future implementation of the 1964 Columbia River Treaty.
A program started 21 years ago with a principle goal of warding off extinction of the Snake River sockeye run now has — with the go-ahead to build a new hatchery — recovery in the “cross hairs,” the Idaho Department of Fish and Game’s Paul Kline told the Northwest Power and Conservation Council Wednesday.
Montana’s Libby Dam has been releasing water over its spillway this week to test possible benefits to white sturgeon spawning in the Kootenai River near Bonners Ferry, Idaho.
The Kootenai Tribe of Idaho is in the second year of implementing a top-down approach to restoring and improving Kootenai River habitat for white sturgeon and other native species.
With salmon counts lagging at the Bonneville Dam, fish and hydro system managers have ventured into relatively new territory by holding back a share of the incoming for a four-hour period Thursday from a surging Columbia River in an attempt to entice movement of what was expected to be a bumper upriver run.
In a retrospective interview with Idaho Public Television previewed this week, the long-time presiding federal judge in the Columbia River basin’s salmon recovery debate said efforts may to this point have fallen short by assuming dam breaching is not an option.
The surf’s up as Columbia and lower Snake rivers and tributaries flow with rains and runoff from bountiful snowpacks — water that is pouring down through the system earlier and at a higher level than normal.
The Environmental Protection Agency is seeking comments by April 30 on measures proposed by the National Marine Fisheries Service to protect threatened and endangered pacific salmon from potential effects from three pesticides — oryzalin, pendimethalin, and trifluralin.
The Independent Scientific Review Panel’s recently completed final review of 71 “Resident Fish, Data Management, and Regional Coordination” proposals includes a thumbs up for 14 projects submitted for funding through the Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s Columbia River Fish and Wildlife Program.
Columbia Land Trust and the Bonneville Power Administration on Wednesday announced the purchase of 560 acres near the mouth of the Columbia River to permanently protect riverside habitat for Northwest fish and wildlife, including threatened and endangered salmon and steelhead.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has begun implementing its 2012 Fish Operations Plan addressing Columbia River Basin juvenile salmon and steelhead migration to the ocean.
Research on northeast Oregon’s Catherine Creek is helping to focus habitat restoration efforts needed to recover the creek’s spring chinook, steelhead and bull trout populations, which are all listed under the federal Endangered Species Act.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has launched a process aimed at determining what management actions might be undertaken to reduce avian predators’ impacts on protected Columbia and Snake River salmon and steelhead in the mid-Columbia plateau region.
The complete elimination of the West Coast’s largest double-crested cormorant colony, located each spring and summer just inside the mouth of the Columbia River at East Sand Island, could, as a result of reduced predation on juvenile fish, boost populations of upriver steelhead by as much as 2.5 percent, according to a recent research report.
The Bonneville Power Administration aims to clamp down in some regards on Integrated Fish and Wildlife Program spending that so far in fiscal year 2012 is “running hot.”
— From Ed Schriever, Chief of Fisheries, Idaho Department of Fish and Game
An article (CBB, Jan. 20, 2012, “Corps Dworshak Nutrient Supplementation Study Aims To Boost Kokanee, Listed Bull Trout https://www.www.www.columbiabasinbulletin.org/415679.aspx) about the Dworshak Nutrient Supplementation Project was published in a recent issue of the CBB and was followed by a response by Mike Faler (fisheries biologist) of Orofino
A federal court in Portland this week sent three federal agencies back to the drawing board on their review of how Oregon regulates the temperatures of its rivers and streams to protect salmon, steelhead, and bull trout.
Interested parties can now comment on a plan to “dissuade” nesting of yet another salmon-eating bird species on a portion the lower Columbia River’s East Sand Island, which in recent years has become what is believed to be the United States’ largest double-crested cormorant colony.
A return to old ways could well “make a contribution to recovery” of a Willamette spring chinook stock that was listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act in 1999.
The Columbia Land Trust, Bonneville Power Administration and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on Tuesday announced what they say is the largest purchase of fish and wildlife riverside habitat in the Columbia River estuary in nearly 40 years.
Projects aimed at satisfying the goals of the Willamette Project biological opinion will take a large share, about $40 million, of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ 2012 Columbia River Fish Mitigation budget, which is expected to total about $125.8 million.
Following a “qualified” endorsement from its Independent Scientific Review Panel, the Northwest Power and Conservation Council on Tuesday recommended that $10 million be earmarked for a plan to provide permanent protection for core salmon habitat in the “ceded” territory of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation.
A recently completed draft “Research, Monitoring and Evaluation” plan represents a “significant step” toward the development of a framework to guide efforts to revive salmon populations and other fish stocks in Oregon’s Willamette River valley, according to a report issued by the Independent Scientific Review Panel.
Plaintiffs have asked for another shot at convincing a new presiding judge to add two new processes to a court-ordered remand intended to rebuild the federal government’s Columbia/Snake river salmon protection plan.
Perhaps the most recognizable name in Columbia River basin salmon recovery circles, U.S. District Court Judge James A. Redden, has decided to step to the sidelines.
Judge James A. Redden in a recent e-mail invited the federal government to respond to an Oct. 25 request that a court-appointed panel of independent scientist and a settlement judge be added to an ongoing process aimed at shoring up the strategy for protecting Columbia River basin salmon and steelhead stocks listed under the Endangered Species Act.
He got more than he asked for.
The federal government on Wednesday reiterated its intent to work with the region’s tribes and states to respond to U.S. District Court Judge James Redden’s Aug. 2 order requiring a bolstering of habitat actions in the federal plan to restore Columbia Basin salmon and steelhead listed under the Endangered Species Act.
With a fish and wildlife spending ramp up expected to continue in 2012 and beyond, the Bonneville Power Administration has said it must go slow in deciding whether to fund a $575,000 irrigation diversion improvement project in central Washington that is intended to benefit threatened Mid-Columbia River steelhead.
A Maryland-based U.S. District Court judge on Monday upheld a 2008 NOAA Fisheries Service “biological opinion” that says the federal registration of the three pesticides without recently imposed restrictions would jeopardize 27 West Coast salmon and steelhead species that are protected under the Endangered Species Act.
Legal foes this week filed comments that say the federal government’s Columbia River basin salmon protection effort “fails to actually provide a meaningful or transparent” report on progress to-date and asks the judge presiding in the case to appoint a panel of independent scientific experts to ride herd on the process.
Survival of hatchery spring chinook salmon released this past spring below central Washington’s Lake Wenatchee was substantially higher (approximately 45 percent) than for those released above the lake (approximately 10 percent).
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council on Tuesday recommended, with qualifications, that an ambitious and expensive habitat restoration project be funded in the Tucannon River basin to make the southeast Washington stream more hospitable for threatened Snake River spring/summer chinook salmon and steelhead.
The federal government on Sept. 30 filed what it calls a “protective” notice of appeal with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit regarding U.S. District Court Judge James A Redden’s Aug. 2 ruling declaring illegal the 2010 biological opinion for the Federal Columbia River Power System.
“Major dam improvements occurred, acres of habitat were improved, predators were controlled, and fish status overall was good,” according the conclusion of the annual report summarizing a third year of implementation of the 10-year Federal Columbia River Power System biological opinion.
The 2011 spring season’s high, cool flows down through the Columbia-Snake river hydro system may have been both a blessing and a curse, with overall survival of juvenile steelhead and yearling spring chinook above and near, respectively, long-term averages but lagging behind the past two years’ rates.
Based on a recently completed review, NOAA Fisheries Service has determined that all 13 Columbia River basin salmon and steelhead stocks now listed under the Endangered Species Act will retain their listing classification as either threatened or endangered.
The state of Oregon late last week released a conservation plan for Upper Willamette chinook salmon and steelhead, fish that have been protected under the Endangered Species Act since 1999.
More than 1,000 American businesses signed on to a letter sent Tuesday asking President Obama for a change in the government’s policy for restoring wild Columbia and Snake river salmon and steelhead.
(Revised From Aug. 3 Version)
U.S. District Court Judge James A. Redden on Tuesday found wanting a federal plan to mitigate for hydro system impacts to Columbia-Snake river salmon and steelhead, but he gave NOAA Fisheries 2½ years to correct “a reliance on mitigation measures that are unidentified and not reasonably certain to occur.”
Three federal agencies have been collaborating on a climate change initiative launched in 2008 that called for the development of common and consistent climate change data for use in the three agencies’ longer-term planning activities for operation of Columbia-Snake hydro system for power production, and to assure safe passage up and downstream for salmon and steelhead.
U.S. District Court Judge James A. Redden on Tuesday found wanting a federal plan to mitigate for hydro system impacts to Columbia-Snake river salmon and steelhead, but he gave the agency in charge 2 ½ years to determine whether its approach is legally and/or biologically valid.
The Bonneville Power Administration this week adopted a 7.8 percent average wholesale power rate increase.
NOAA Fisheries on Tuesday published in the Federal Register a proposal to allow the reintroduction of upper Columbia spring chinook salmon in the Okanogan River basin in north-central Washington as an experimental population under Endangered Species Act regulations.
Three long-running ocean research projects that are drawing more than $4.7 million in funding during the current fiscal year were recommended for at least one more of funding with the proviso that they produce a synthesis explaining how their work is helping the Columbia River Basin Fish and Wildlife Program.
Expectations are that Bonneville Power Administration spending on fish and wildlife projects will continue to climb in fiscal year 2012 as the federal power marketing agency works to satisfy long-held obligations, as well as relatively newborn commitments made through the so-called “Fish Accords” and a federal “biological opinion.”
“…if society-at-large wishes to restore Snake River salmon, steelhead, Pacific lamprey, and white sturgeon to sustainable, fishable levels, then a significant portion of the lower Snake River must be returned to a free-flowing condition by breaching the four lower Snake River dams,” according to a resolution approved recently by 86.4 percent of the Western Division of American Fisheries Society’s members.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ plan for shepherding juvenile salmon and steelhead down through the Columbia-Snake river hydro to the Pacific Ocean this summer includes a strong dose of spill as it has in recent years.
A massive and continued outpouring down through the Columbia-Snake River system over the past couple of weeks has pushed water over the banks in many places and complicated the tasks of dam operators trying both to minimize flow damage and hold down “total dissolved gas” levels that could ultimately harm migrating salmon and other aquatic life.
A record-high water supply and high flows on the Kootenai River are expected to override a planned spill from Libby Dam to optimize spawning conditions for endangered white sturgeon.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and NOAA Fisheries Service have launched a joint effort to identify and implement administrative changes to the Endangered Species Act aimed at accelerating recovery of imperiled species, enhancing on-the-ground conservation delivery, and “better engaging the resources and expertise of partners to meet the goals of the ESA.”
With high Columbia-Snake river flows generating an oversupply of hydroelectricity in the middle of the night Tuesday-Wednesday, the Bonneville Power Administration partially and temporarily limited the production of non-hydro energy, including fossil-fuel and other thermal generation and wind energy that was entering its transmission system.
Improving the lot of wild Snake River steelhead is the primary focus of two west-central Idaho habitat restoration projects recommended by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council Tuesday for $3.8 million in funding during the fiscal year 2011-2014 period.
A total of up to $2.25 million will be spent this year to trigger a Kootenai River habitat restoration project in Idaho’s panhandle that is intended to improve spawning conditions and survival for endangered white sturgeon.
Litigants took turns Monday (May 9) both praising and tearing down NOAA Fisheries’ plan for rejuvenating Columbia-Snake river salmon runs in their responses to questions posed by U.S. District Court Judge James A. Redden about the strategy’s scientific underpinnings and assumptions.
A letter to counsel sent by U.S. District Court Judge James A. Redden aims to focus discussions Monday on a list of six “issues” he identified regarding NOAA Fisheries Service’s 2010 Supplemental Federal Columbia River Power System biological opinion.
Thanks to a big burst of salmon swimming up and over Bonneville Dam in recent days, Columbia River anglers will have at least additional four days to catch spring chinook on the mainstem from the hydro project up to the Oregon/Washington border under a re-opened season adopted Wednesday by fishery managers from Oregon and Washington.
A new “synthesis” of research data points to three bird colonies, out of nine total, in the mid-Columbia/lower Snake River region that might be the best targets for management actions to reduce predation on migrating wild juvenile salmon and steelhead that are listed under the Endangered Species Act.
Two conservation groups on April 15 filed a 60-day notice of intent to sue the state Oregon and the federal government in order to stop hatchery operations on northeast Oregon’s Sandy River they say are causing harm to wild salmon and steelhead and violating the Endangered Species Act.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council on April 12 approved the Idaho Department of Fish and Game’s “Springfield Sockeye Hatchery Master Plan for the Snake River Sockeye Program,” which gives the state agency the go-ahead to begin more in-depth planning with an ultimate goal of building the facility.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers last week developed an interim operations plan it feels will provide a safe navigation route through Lower Granite Dam’s reservoir while still attending to the needs of juvenile salmon and steelhead migrating toward the Pacific Ocean.
A decision nearly a year in the making is expected next week when the Northwest Power and Conservation Council passes judgment on a set of 100 fish and wildlife project proposals that are projected to draw an estimated $78 million in funding during fiscal year 2012.
Eulachon (smelt) “are a relatively poorly monitored species” say scientists who recently evaluated the population status of the small fish that grows to adulthood in the Pacific Ocean and returns to the Columbia River and other streams along the coast to spawn.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers awarded a $23.9 million contract March 22 to Slayden Construction Group of Stayton, Ore., to rebuild the Minto Fish Collection Facility, downstream of Detroit Dam near Stayton. The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife will continue to operate the facility.
After making a few adjustments, federal agencies this week submitted to U.S. District Court a spring 2011 “fish operations plan” for mainstem Columbia-Snake river hydro projects that has been accepted by legal allies and foes.
A statistical “chum emergence model” that has proved out in recent years’ testing is giving hydro and salmon managers another tool for assessing conditions experienced by the threatened species in the often roiled water below Bonneville Dam.
The Estuary Partnership is requesting proposals for habitat restoration projects in the lower Columbia River and estuary. Projects that address salmonid restoration and protection are the priority of this request. Applications for the first round of funding are due on April 22.
A hatchery program that has since 1991 focused, primarily, on preserving genetic materials and avoiding extinction of a species is poised to take the next steps toward recolonizing three high country lakes, two of which that have long been empty, with anadromous, naturally produced Snake River sockeye salmon.
The sluiceway at Bonneville Dam’s Powerhouse 1 (nearest the Oregon shore) passed with flying colors tests evaluating whether it would be a suitable passage route for spawned out steelhead, or kelt.
The kelt are headed downstream toward saltwater and thus have the potential to turn around and return later in the year to spawn again.
The Environmental Protection Agency is seeking comment on the National Marine Fisheries Service’s draft plan to protect Pacific salmon from six pesticides.
“The federal salmon plan is based in sound science, is action oriented, has a vast partnership as an implementation team and should be given a chance to succeed,” according to a legal brief filed jointly Feb. 11 by the Warm Springs, Umatilla and Yakama tribes.
The Nez Perce Tribe has put its lawsuit over the Lewiston Orchards Irrigation District on hold while it and other parties seek an alternate water source for the project that diverts water from critical steelhead habitat.
Fishery managers and researchers face a number of troublesome questions before pursuing their goal of reintroducing chinook salmon, and building viable naturally spawning populations, to historic and relatively pristine habitats in the upper Willamette River basin that are now blocked by impassable dams.
The states of Alaska and Washington announced this week they will conduct a review of a recent biological opinion by the National Marine Fisheries Service concerning the impact of groundfish fisheries on Steller sea lions.
A coalition of fishing and conservation groups, the state of Oregon and the Nez Perce Tribe last week continued to press their claims that the federal government’s plan to mitigate for Columbia-Snake river dams’ impacts on protected salmon is inadequate, and illegal.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council recommended Wednesday that funding be continued for research aimed at identifying through genetics particular fish traits that might allow them to survive better in the wild.
Northwest Power and Conservation Council members on Wednesday elected Bruce Measure, a Montana member, chair of the Council for 2011, and Dick Wallace, a Washington member, vice chair. It is the second consecutive year for both as chair and vice chair, respectively.
An extension this week was granted in the long-running legal debate over the adequacy of the government’s plan for improving conditions for salmon and steelhead that negotiate the Federal Columbia River Power System.
The federal government and a host of other parties filed court documents today (Dec. 23) in support of a retooled “biological opinion” that they say puts the Columbia River basin on the proper legal and biological paths toward boosting imperiled wild steelhead and salmon stocks.
Federal agencies Wednesday released a new report describing the second year of progress in implementing a NOAA Fisheries’ 2008 biological opinion that outlines protections for salmon and steelhead affected by the Federal Columbia River Power System.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency this week asked for public comment on a petition submitted Sept. 16 by a coalition of agricultural entities that asks the agency to allow more stakeholder participation during federal consultations on salmon-related Endangered Species Act issues.
The wild vs. hatchery public debate was amplified this week with the closing of NOAA Fisheries’ comment period on a draft environmental impact statement on the use of federal funding for artificial propagation to fuel Columbia River basin fisheries.
Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar has awarded a Partners in Conservation Award to the Upper Columbia Salmon Recovery Board Implementation Team for its contributions to salmon recovery in Washington state.
A newly completed $51 million wall constructed in the Columbia River below The Dalles Dam significantly boosted survival of juvenile salmon and steelhead migrating downstream past the dam this year, according to research presented Tuesday at a major gathering of fish scientists in Portland.
Conservation and fishing groups on Monday filed a lawsuit asking the U.S. District Court in Seattle to rescind, at least temporarily, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to allow the use of pesticides that cause harm to imperiled West Coast salmon and steelhead.
A new adult fish collection facility was in operation this summer at Cougar Dam on the South Fork McKenzie River and construction is set to begin this winter to create a new and improved Minto Fish Facility on the North Santiam River as the strategy for improving the lot of threatened upper Willamette River chinook salmon and steelhead starts to unfold.
The Bonneville Power Administration this week proposed an 8.5 percent average wholesale power rate increase primarily to support maintenance and refurbishment of Northwest hydroelectric and nuclear generating facilities.
RE: “ Rebuilding Snake River Sockeye Run A Multi-Lake Recovery Strategy; 176 Natural-Born Return This Year” https://www.www.www.columbiabasinbulletin.org/399491.aspx
A May 2010 Columbia-Snake river “biological opinion” is illegal in its own right, and does nothing to cure the ills of a 2008 federal strategy for assuring the hydro system avoids jeopardizing the survival of salmon and steelhead protected under the Endangered Species Act.
That’s the contention of the Nez Perce and Spokane tribes, the state of Oregon and a coalition of fishing and conservation groups.
Federal biologists feel they might have found the right combination of actions at John Day Dam to lift juvenile salmon survival to standards targeted in a Columbia-Snake hydro system biological opinion that prescribes actions believed necessary to avoid jeopardizing protected fish.
The Idaho Department of Fish and Game this week completed its purchase of a former southeast Idaho trout hatchery site with the goal of constructing a new hatchery to help boost numbers of endangered Snake River sockeye salmon.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council on Wednesday recommended funding for three projects that aim to fill needs of either the May 2008 Federal Columbia River Power system biological opinion or a Columbia Basin Fish Accord.
Researchers last week began to test whether endangered Snake River sockeye salmon spawners can be trapped at southeast Washington’s Lower Granite Dam and safely transported via tanker truck to holding facilities at Eagle Hatchery near Boise.
The Northwest Resource Information Center filed a lawsuit in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals this week that contends the region’s Sixth Power Plan includes inflated estimates of the cost of flow augmentation and spill for fish passage on the Snake and Columbia rivers and fails to adequately quantify the benefits of salmon recovery.
With an unknown number of chum salmon known to be headed up the Columbia River, the Technical Management Team on Tuesday set Nov. 1 as the date for the start of flows past Bonneville Dam at levels designed to facilitate spawning and protect egg nests until young fish hatch out next spring to start a new generation.
Federal agencies on Wednesday released details of planned work for 2010-2013 to protect Columbia/Snake River salmon and steelhead. The document describes a extensive program of habitat restoration, hatchery reforms and hydrosystem operations and improvements.
Researchers hope to launch this year an investigation into whether management actions might be necessary to reduce the impacts of two non-native fish species’ — smallmouth bass and American shad — on native Columbia River basin salmon and steelhead stocks that are listed under the Endangered Species Act.
U.S. District Court Judge James A. Redden on Monday adopted a proposed order that uses last year’s lower Columbia/Snake River hydro system summer operations as the guide this year for implementing spill at the dams to accommodate juvenile salmon and steelhead passage downstream.
The Bonneville Power Administration’s Greg Delwiche next week will complete a full circle of sorts when he takes over as the federal power marketing agency’s senior vice president for Power Services.
The Bonneville Power Administration has announced that Lorri Bodi will become acting vice president for Environment, Fish and Wildlife, effective Monday, June 21, when Greg Delwiche moves into his new job as senior vice president for Power Services.
The Environment Protection Agency is seeking comments from pesticide users, registrants, and other interested parties on draft “reasonable and prudent measures and alternatives” included in a draft biological opinion received from the National Marine Fisheries Service on June 16.
Time will tell if a “pulse” of water now beginning to surge down the down the Kootenai River in northwestern Montana-northern Idaho is a viable tool for improving productivity of wild white sturgeon populations that have been judged to be on the brink of extinction.
U.S. District Court Judge James A. Redden in an order issued Tuesday outlines how and when the legal merit of the newly released “supplemental biological opinion” for the Federal Columbia River Power System will be debated.
Public comments decrying planned road decommissioning in central Idaho’s Big Creek drainage has shifted project proponents, the Nez Perce Tribe and the Bonneville Power Administration, to a go-slow approach.
Federal agencies Thursday issued a 2010 “Supplemental Biological Opinion” intended to protect Columbia/Snake River Basin salmon and steelhead listed under the Endangered Species Act.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced this week that it will require pesticide use limitations to protect 28 species of Pacific salmon and steelhead in California and the Northwest listed under the Endangered Species Act.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council on Wednesday sent ahead nine “fast track” fish projects that are expected to have budgets of up to nearly $36 million for the period fiscal years 2010-2013.
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 “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.
Federal agencies, following discussions with independent scientists and other Columbia River basin sovereigns, have opted to continue spilling water this spring at lower Snake hydro projects to provide that passage route for juvenile salmon and steelhead migrating toward the Pacific Ocean.
A package of nine “fast track” research, monitoring and evaluation projects earned the endorsement of the Northwest Power and Conservation Council April 14.
A spread-the-risk strategy — spilling water at Columbia River hydro projects to ease in-river passage and the collecting and transporting young fish downriver aboard barges — remains the best approach, according to the Independent Scientific Advisory Panel.
With little chance of reservoir refill, use of one of the most precious tools of Columbia River basin salmon managers — cool water held back by west-central Idaho’s Dworshak Dam — likely will be limited this year.
With Columbia River flows expected to remain at low levels over the next few weeks, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will likely spill less water at times than is desired to provide juvenile salmon passage at Bonneville Dam.
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 state of Montana Department of Environmental Quality issued a temporary waiver of the state’s water quality standard for total dissolved gas on the Kootenai River this week to allow the Army Corps of Engineers to potentially spill extra water for a week this spring at Libby Dam.
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.
CBB Shorts: Bull Trout Comment Period; Annual Wolf Report; Reclamation’s New Northwest Director; Nuke Ruling Impact On BPA Ratepayers; Canal Piping Funds; Klamath Water Allocations
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.
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.
The reigning Federal Columbia River Power System biological opinion requires fishery and hydro managers to revisit their annual chum salmon redd protection decision at least monthly to make sure “it is consistent with the need to provide spring flows for listed Columbia and Snake River stocks.”
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
A report made public Thursday begins to weigh how dam operations in the United States aimed at boosting salmon survival might be affected by future changes to, or the elimination of, the Columbia River Treaty.
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.
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.
A federal judge this week suggested that a legal strategy might soon be in place to protect salmon and steelhead impacted by the Federal Columbia River Power System.
“I really believe that with a little more work we’ll have a BiOp,” U.S. District Court Judge James A. Redden told two crowded courtrooms Monday.
A pair of missives issued over the past week by U.S. District Court Judge James A. Redden note progress in the attempt to produce a legal strategy that avoids jeopardizing the survival of salmon and steelhead stock that negotiate the Columbia-Snake river hydro system.
The eternal quest to determine how, and if, habitat restoration actions affect the status of imperiled Columbia River basin salmon is taking wings in three intensively monitored watersheds.
Both effort and knowledge have increased since early 2007 when the Nez Perce Tribe first authorized the use of gill-nets fall-winter commercial fishing in the lower Snake River basin.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council on Thursday recommended funding three “within-year” fish and wildlife project budget requests, including $243,059 to build on restored momentum for habitat restoration work in Idaho’s Lemhi River subbasin.
The Independent Scientific Review Panel has given a thumbs-up to a research plan aimed at evaluating whether, and by how much, salmon survival at Columbia-Snake river dams is improved by actions called for in NOAA Fisheries’ Federal Columbia River Power System biological opinion.
Upon further review, the plan of action for protecting imperiled Columbia-Snake river salmon and steelhead that migrate through the federal hydro system is the most robust ever developed and built on the best available science, according to legal briefs filed Oct. 23 by the government and supportive “sovereigns.”
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council on Wednesday recommended more than $21 million in spending over the next four years to protect fish habitat, improve flows and reconnect tributary streams to eastern Idaho’s Lemhi River.
Sometimes Mother Nature doesn’t cooperate with government biological opinions, and that was the case this week with heavy rains in the Kootenai River basin.
The state of Oregon and the Bonneville Power Administration are inviting public comment on a new draft agreement that defines the federal obligation in the state to mitigate the impacts of federal dams in the Willamette Basin on wildlife habitat.
Growers for ESA Transparency (“GET”) filed a petition Thursday requesting that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency take immediate action to establish clear procedures for making pesticide effects determinations and subsequent actions consistent with Section 1010 of the 1988 amendments to the Endangered Species Act.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ program for improving fish survival through the Columbia River basin’s federal hydro system has a smaller fiscal year 2010 budget than expected but the gap will be narrowed with an infusion of “stimulus” funding.
Expectations for this year’s Columbia River upriver fall chinook salmon and summer steelhead runs were lowered this week, though not by much, based on fish counts thus far at Bonneville Dam.
U.S. District Court James A. Redden on Tuesday granted permission for the state of Oregon and a coalition of fishing and conservation groups to file amended complaints in a long-running lawsuit that has brought legal challenges to a series of federal strategies for protecting salmon that swim up and down the Columbia-Snake river hydro system.
A coalition of fishing and conservation groups and the state of Oregon late last week asked that they be allowed to refresh their legal arguments for the withdrawal of the federal government’s plan for assuring protected salmon and steelhead aren’t jeopardized by Columbia-Snake river hydro projects.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has completed a fish collection and sorting facility on the South Fork McKenzie River just below Cougar Dam to support the recovery of endangered salmon and bull trout populations in the Willamette River basin.
A new “Adaptive Management Implementation Plan” — produced by federal agencies with guidance from high-level Obama Administration officials — could make matters worse, not better, for imperiled Columbia River basin salmon and steelhead, according to briefs filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court.
Parties to the lawsuit challenging the validity of the 2008 Biological Opinion for Columbia/Snake River salmon and steelhead are debating whether more background information regarding the formation of the Obama Administration’s new “Adaptive Management Implementation Plan” should be produced for the court.
Federal officials this week told the Northwest Power and Conservation Council that a good plan for protecting Columbia River basin salmon just got better.
The state of Idaho hopes to soon take a huge step forward in its effort to rebuild a Snake River sockeye salmon stock that nearly winked out during the 1980s and 1990s.
The state of Oregon and Bonneville Power Administration are closing in on a 15-year, $103.5 million agreement that aims to protect and/or restore at least an additional 16,880 acres to fulfill the federal agency’s obligation to mitigate for wildlife habitat losses resulting from the construction of Willamette River basin dams.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council on Wednesday recommended the funding of nearly $16 million in within-year budget requests to enable the protection of about 2,600 acres of Willamette River basin fish and wildlife habitat at an overall cost of more than $33 million.
NOAA’s Fisheries Service this week released its recovery plan for Middle Columbia River steelhead, a fish that was first given protection under the Endangered Species Act in 1999.
U.S. District Court Judge James A. Redden has called for a round of legal arguments regarding the federal government’s recently released “insurance policy for fish” – a new chapter added to NOAA Fisheries Service’s Federal Columbia River Power System biological opinion on the status of protected salmon and steelhead stocks.
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