The Fiscal Year 2005 Energy and Water Development Appropriation Act signed by President Bush last month includes for the Army Corps of Engineers’ Portland District about $152 million to fund work in the Columbia, Willamette, Rogue and Cowlitz river basins.
U.S. District Court Judge Michael Hogan on Tuesday said he agreed with the legal contention that the federal government violated the Endangered Species Act when it failed to consider hatchery fish in its assessment of coho in southern Oregon and northern California rivers.
Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski and Idaho Gov. Dirk Kempthorne both delivered State of the State speeches Monday (Jan. 10) that addressed key Columbia Basin issues.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers this week put its official stamp of approval on a set of coordinated actions that it and other federal agencies say will insure that Federal Columbia River Power System operations “are not likely to jeopardize the continued existence of twelve listed and one proposed anadromous species….”
Fishing and conservation groups on Dec. 30 filed a “supplemental complaint” in federal court asking that NOAA Fisheries be ordered to withdraw its new biological opinion for the Columbia River federal hydropower system.
Eleven fishing and conservation groups said this week that the Bonneville Power Administration, U.S. Corps of Engineers and Bureau of Reclamation will be targeted with a lawsuit if the agencies implement their newly developed “Updated Proposed Action” for the operation of 14 Columbia Basin federally hydro projects.
Northwest Power and Conservation Council and Bonneville Power Administration staff and others are looking at past and potential demands in an attempt to determine Columbia River Fish and Wildlife program funding needs in the future.
“The (Northwest Power and Conservation) Council had it right,” scientist Chuck Coutant said of a 2003 assertion that a summertime change in flows from Montana’s Libby and Hungry Horse reservoirs would have little, if any, impact on salmon far downstream in the lower Columbia River.
After President Bush signed into law this week the $388 billion Consolidated Appropriation Act of 2005, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said it would begin planning to start the $150.5 million Columbia River navigation channel dredging project next summer.
Water flows downhill and stopping it — as federal irrigation projects do in Idaho’s Upper Snake region — logically causes change for salmon and steelhead downstream in the Columbia/Snake rivers, and affects management of downstream facilities as well.
Anticipating rain swollen rivers, the Bonneville Power Administration proposed to Columbia River operators that minimum protection flows for lower Columbia River chum salmon be raised by almost half a foot.
NOAA Fisheries this week released detailed responses to comments on the new biological opinion for protected Columbia Basin salmon and steelhead issued Tuesday.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is analyzing whether the 2005 domestic spending bill approved by Congress includes enough money to allow the Columbia River channel deepening project to move forward this summer.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is evaluating a permit application from PacifiCorp to remove the Condit Dam located on the White Salmon River in White Salmon, Wash.
Columbia River basin residents with a stake in the region’s salmon restoration effort remained at opposite poles regarding the value of a new federal plan to assure that hydrosystem operations do not push fish stocks to extinction.
Federal officials on Tuesday announced a package of Columbia/Snake river hydrosystem operations and off-site fish mitigation actions that they feel will both ward off the extinction of protected salmon and steelhead and parry potential legal thrusts like those that forced a December 2000 strategy to be rewritten.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is evaluating a permit application from PacifiCorp to remove the Condit Dam located on the White Salmon River in White Salmon, Wash.
A room full of scientists called together to consider the potential effects on salmon of reduced Columbia River summertime flow augmentation came away with new information, and more questions than answers.
After a turbulent 2003-04 winter when temperature, precipitation and water supply were difficult to predict, the Columbia River Basin will have a near normal water year in 2005, according to a prediction by Kyle Martin, hydrologist at the Columbia River Intertribal Fish Commission.
Attempts to keep the Columbia River Fish and Wildlife Program within a $139 million annual average for the 2003-2006 period are, for now, right on track, according to Bonneville Power Administration officials.
Federal attorneys have asked a U.S. District Court judge to reject a request that Columbia/Snake river hydro projects’ and Upper Snake River irrigation facilities’ operations be evaluated as a single “action” regarding their impacts on protected salmon and steelhead.
A group of state, federal and tribal officials that convened occasionally to troubleshoot during the development of 59 Columbia River basin “subbasin plans” was called together again last to offer advice on how and when the fish and wildlife goals of those plans should be implemented.
Accepting a charge from Northwest tribes, the American Fisheries Society’s Western Division will ask a team of scientists to investigate whether science properly underpins the policy directives outlined in NOAA Fisheries’ draft 2004 Federal Columbia River Power System biological opinion.
A Seattle-based judge has for the second time in two years blocked planned dredging of a lower Snake River navigation channel and inland ports, saying that the potential for “irreparable” environmental damage outweighs alleged economic harm that would occur if the channel is not cleared of sediment.
The group charged with setting spending priorities for fish passage improvements at federal mainstem hydro projects was asked last week whether they might want to put the Columbia River’s McNary Dam ahead of the Snake’s Little Goose facility for installation of so-called “removable spillway weirs” – a new surface bypass technology.
Ranging from lengthy, detailed critiques to succinct post cards, tens of thousands of comments have poured in regarding agencies’ plans to operate the federal Columbia River hydrosystem while protecting salmon and steelhead stocks listed under the Endangered Species Act.
Greg Delwiche, a 20-year veteran of Columbia River energy and natural resource management, is the new vice president of Environment, Fish and Wildlife of the Bonneville Power Administration, the agency announced this week.
Northwest salmon fishing tribes gave higher marks this year to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for keeping pool fluctuations to a minimum at three lower Columbia River dam reservoirs during the eight weeks of treaty gillnet fishing between August and October.
Although threatened Lower Columbia River chum salmon have yet to arrive at the reaches below Bonneville Dam to begin spawning, the Bonneville Power Administration and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers agreed this week to narrow the band of flow fluctuations at the dam in anticipation of their arrival.
Two first-draft views on how Columbia Basin Fish and Wildlife Program funding should be allocated in the years beyond fiscal 2006 have emerged — one coming from the Northwest Power and Conservation Council and the other from the Bonneville Power Administration.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council and NOAA Fisheries announced this week that they are sponsoring a symposium to examine how changes in reservoir operations at Libby and Hungry Horse dams in Montana may affect water conditions and fish survival in the mainstem Columbia River below Chief Joseph Dam.
Despite a fiscal wariness about large looming one-time and long-term costs, the Northwest Power and Conservation Council this week moved a $26 million expansion of the Northeast Oregon Hatchery program closer to reality.
A letter signed by over 100 Republican and Democratic legislators this week urges President Bush to revise the administration’s proposed recovery plan for salmon and steelhead in the Columbia and Snake River Basin.
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals this week ruled that the Army Corps of Engineers was not “arbitrary and capricious” when concluding that the “operations” of the four Lower Snake River dams do not contribute to water temperature violations under the Clean Water Act and Washington State water quality laws.
“Species already facing the specter of extinction can ill-afford another cumulative insult,” according to conservation groups asking for a U.S. District Court order to stop planned dredging this winter of the shipping channel in the lower Snake River.
An appropriations bill that would fund work by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to deepen the Columbia River shipping channel by three feet stalled in the U.S. Senate this week.
Federal officials this week released a draft document intended to help the public better understand the “relationship and differences” between actions proposed in NOAA Fisheries’ new draft biological opinion for the federal hydropower system and the 2000 BiOp.
A study proposed by the United States Geologic Survey’s Western Fisheries Research Center in Cook, Wash. will test in November the day and night effects of higher flows on chum salmon spawning behavior.
Seventy-six acres of tidal marsh and 115 acres of forest on the lower Columbia River’s Crims Island will be restored to provide better habitat for young salmon, a group of government agencies and conservation groups announced this week.
The leaders of 400 salmon- and outdoor recreation-based businesses from 35 states this week signed a letter to Congress that chastises the federal government for its approach to protecting and enhancing Columbia River basin salmon and steelhead populations and asks help in refocusing the strategy.
The first legal shots were fired over the bow of the federal government’s draft Columbia River basin salmon protection plan this week by litigants who forced a reworking of the existing strategy, and by the judge who last year called the prevailing strategy illegal under the Endangered Species Act.
An economic analysis of the most popular and visible predator control program in the Columbia River Basin found the program to be a cost-effective of salmon recovery tool. In addition, the study provided some ways to improve the program’s effectiveness.
Federal attorneys say opponents of a 2004-2005 Snake/Clearwater River dredging plan exaggerate the project’s potential impacts on protected salmon stocks and downplay economic and safety problems that exist if the shipping channel is not cleared.
Water from Montana’s Libby Dam reservoir could provide augmentation flow for threatened Lower Columbia River chum salmon at Bonneville Dam in November if flows from Libby are lowered now and the water is stored in the reservoir.
A “supplemental” biological assessment of the effects of Libby Dam operations on Kootenai River white sturgeon urges a focus on artificial production and research in the near future rather than major changes in spawning and rearing flows as a means of sustaining and recovering the beleaguered stock.
A U.S. Court judge on Thursday denied a request from federal attorneys that action be delayed in a lawsuit challenging NOAA Fisheries’ biological opinion on operations of Bureau of Reclamation irrigation projects in the Idaho’s Upper Snake River basin.
As conservationists and tribes criticized the draft biological opinion released by NOAA Fisheries this week, states were cautious while awaiting staff reviews and utilities were optimistic that the plan will consider the cost of operations to the Northwest federal hydroelectric system.
President George W. Bush this week asked Congress to add $15 million to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ fiscal year 2005 budget to fund the Corps’ project to deepen the Columbia River navigation channel and to make the change without increasing the President’s total FY 2005 budget proposal.
Federal agencies released draft documents Thursday that officials say will shore up Columbia River basin salmon protection efforts biologically and legally, and do it in a manner that potentially reduces the cost to the federal hydropower system.
NOAA Fisheries’ hints of things to come in its revised Federal Columbia River Power System “biological opinion” left some process watchers heartened by what they believe will be a more economical, sensible approach to salmon recovery while others fear a slackening of salmon protections.
Seattle-based U.S. District Court Judge Robert Lasnik has again been called on to decide whether an Army Corps of Engineers dredging plan for the lower Snake River poses a threat salmon and steelhead listed under the Endangered Species Act.
NOAA Fisheries and federal “action” agencies said Tuesday that fish protection measures — past and future — at Columbia/Snake River dams and “offsite” have removed the stigma that salmon and steelhead listed under the Endangered Species Act are jeopardized by hydrosystem operations.
Against some salmon managers’ objections, the Bonneville Power Administration and Army Corps of Engineers this week held firm to their proposal to begin filling reservoirs behind Snake River dams Sept. 1.
Northwest Environmental Advocates has asked the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to withdraw its Record of Decision on its Columbia River channel improvement project in light of new information that NWEA said could substantially change the economics of the project.
President Bush visited the Port of Portland in Oregon today and announced his support for the proposal to deepen 104 miles of the Columbia River Channel — from the mouth of the Columbia River to Portland, Oregon, and Vancouver, Washington.
The Montana delegation on Thursday suggested that, in the future, the Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s fish and wildlife program should in some way share the financial risk when costly measures are taken in the federal hydrosystem in response to NPCC requests.
Saying the U.S. District Court “abused its discretion” in halting a Columbia River hydrosystem spill reduction plan, federal attorneys have turned to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in hopes of reviving a strategy they say will save electricity ratepayers $1 million per day while actually benefiting the fish the spill is intended to help.
Idaho’s congressional delegation introduced bills in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives in late July that would move forward a $193 million framework agreement signed in May by the Nez Perce Tribe, the state of Idaho and the federal government. The agreement would resolve many of the longstanding water issues of the Snake River Adjudication.
The Bureau of Reclamation is providing 335,000 acre-feet of water in 2004 for flow augmentation for ESA-listed salmon and steelhead species, says Bureau Regional Director Bill McDonald.
Officials from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers this week laid out a plan to correct the discrepancy it found late last week in the amount of spill it has reported at Bonneville Dam. The discrepancy has resulted in up to 30 percent less water being spilled at the dam than the Corps has reported.
Columbia River tribes gave the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers a passing grade on its ability this year to keep pool fluctuations to a minimum during its five periods of summer treaty fishing.
A U.S. District Court judge on Wednesday approved a preliminary injunction stopping the implementation of a hydrosystem spill reduction plan that federal proponents said could reap as much as a $28 million windfall without harming the salmon and steelhead that spill is intended to help.
The reaction to Wednesday’s federal court decision blocking a hydrosystem spill reduction plan was, predictably, sharply divided with fishing and conservation groups, as well as Columbia River basin treaty tribes, hailing the ruling and economic interests decrying what appears to be a lost opportunity.
Federal attorneys on Thursday said that fishing and conservation groups have neither a legal nor biological basis for asking that a U.S. District Court stop implementation of hydrosystem spill reduction plan or declare invalid a NOAA Fisheries endorsement of that plan.
NOAA Fisheries rejected last week parts of a river operation proposed by the State of Montana and on Monday, July 19, sent a letter explaining its decision to Northwest Power and Conservation Council Chairwoman Judi Danielson of Idaho.
The state of Oregon and its governor and four Columbia River treaty tribes filed legal papers July 17 in support of fishing and conservation groups’ efforts to stop the planned August elimination of spill as a route of passage for juvenile salmon and steelhead at federal hydroelectric projects.
NOAA Fisheries stepped in early this week to initially work to implement a plan proposed by the state of Montana that calls for stable summer flows below Libby Dam on the Kootenai River and shifting the release of 4,000 cubic feet per second of water from Montana reservoirs from summer into September.
Representatives of the states of Idaho, Montana and Washington on Wednesday overrode the objections of their Oregon peers on the Northwest Power and Conservation Council in putting their stamp of approval on a proposal to alter flow regimes stemming from Montana’s Hungry Horse and Libby dams that are designed to help salmon migrations in the lower Columbia River basin.
A U.S. Army Corps of Engineers decision this week to reduce summer spill as a means of fish passage at Columbia/Snake river hydroelectric projects in August is been followed, as promised, by a flurry of legal activity aimed at reversing the decision.
Delaying judgment in a lawsuit challenging federal dam operations on the Upper Snake River would be doing a legal disservice to the plaintiffs, and a continuing biological disservice to salmon and steelhead downriver that are listed under the Endangered Species Act, according to conservation groups pressing the litigation.
The modified summer spill program proposed by the Bonneville Power Administration and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on June 24 received NOAA Fisheries approval last week in a July 1 findings letter.
The Technical Management Team this week approved summer operations at Dworshak Dam on the North Fork of the Clearwater River that will save 200,000 acre feet of Dworshak’s stored water in order to augment and cool flows at Lower Granite Dam on the Snake River through mid-September.
The Bonneville Power Administration and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers delivered a summer spill plan to NOAA Fisheries Thursday, June 24, that includes a slightly smaller reduction in spill and a $3 million reduction in revenue benefits for BPA’s customers.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on Monday signed off on three “habitat conservation plans” that two Mid-Columbia public utilities say provide the highest level of fish protection ever established for a hydropower system while still providing certainty for continued hydroelectric generation.
With the documents now in hand that Corps of Engineers officials feel validate a winter 2004/2005 Snake River dredging plan, federal attorneys are set to again approach the judge whose injunction has prohibited the shipping channel clearing for the past two years on environmental grounds.
A controversial Columbia River dredging project cleared the last administrative hurdle this week for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to begin a project to deepen the Columbia River navigation channel by three feet.
Northwest Environmental Advocates (NWEA) amended this week its original lawsuit that challenges NOAA Fisheries’ biological opinions of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineer’s dredging operations in the lower Columbia River and at the river’s mouth.
The number of sea lions and other pinnipeds making the 140-mile journey from Pacific Ocean to the base of Bonneville Dam seems to have leveled off this spring after having more than tripled from 2002 to 2003
That leveling occurred, however, at a high number relative to the past.
Alongside the summer “spill reduction” proposal, another strategy has re-emerged which suggests spilling water at a Federal Columbia River Power System project where that fish passage option has not been offered before.
A request from the state of Montana to significantly drop sturgeon protection flows nearly two weeks early at Libby Dam to ensure sufficient and stable flows will be available during the summer was rejected this week by the Technical Management Team.
Salmon managers at the Technical Management Team (TMT) meeting this week urged dam operating agencies to continue spilling water at McNary Dam through June 30, or at least as long as “spring-like conditions” persist.
Federal agencies met with tribes, states and others Monday afternoon (June 14) to get feedback about an amended summer spill proposal that would cut spill for fish passage at Columbia and Snake River dams in July and August by about 39 percent.
Late May and early June rains raised the water supply forecasts in much of the Columbia River Basin, including at The Dalles, where the water supply rose five percentage points from 74 percent of normal in May to 79 percent in June.
Columbia River sport and commercial fishers harvested more than 64,000 spring chinook salmon this year – one of the better catches in recent decades — despite the fact that the upriver spawning run did not return in the numbers that fishery officials had anticipated.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council was told this week by its staff that it would take $145 million in spending during fiscal year 2005 to fund fish and wildlife projects and research at levels the panel recommended over the past few years during its provincial review process.
The Bonneville Power Administration and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers unveiled at a press conference Tuesday (June 8) an amended proposal that will cut spill this summer at lower Snake River and Columbia River dams.
The judge who last year ordered the federal government to shore up its Columbia River Basin salmon protection plan expressed concern this week that the effort may have strayed from the path set out by the court.
River flows from Libby Dam ramped up Saturday, May 29, from 4,000 cubic feet per second to 13 kcfs after two female endangered Kootenai River white sturgeon had quickly turned downstream in the Canyon reach of the river. Several male fish also were present.
While saying that precisely hitting spill targets at Columbia River dams is difficult, the Bonneville Power Administration and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said last week they would take steps to improve their ability to provide the full amount of spill at dams in the future.
The Upper Columbia steelhead “evolutionarily significant unit” is proposed for downlisting from endangered to threatened and the Lower Columbia River coho salmon should be given protection under the Endangered Species Act, NOAA Fisheries announced today (May 28).
Salmon managers asked dam operators to increase flows June 1 from Grand Coulee Dam to provide protection flows for juvenile steelhead migrating in the mid-Columbia River.
They want at least 125,000 cubic feet per second downstream at Priest Rapids Dam, promising to readjust flows with changes in the water supply.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service outlined late Friday, May 21, its proposal for Libby Dam flows that are designed to aid spawning endangered Kootenai River white sturgeon and threatened bull trout in the river.
Research at McNary Dam is endangering juveniles migrating through the dam, say regional salmon managers, prompting them to ask the Army Corps of Engineers this week to operate all turbines at the dam within the 1 percent peak efficiency range, which is required by the NOAA Fisheries 2000 Biological Opinion, and to cease the Vertical Barrier Screen (VBS) tests, which require operation of turbine units at the dam outside that range.
The Northwest congressional delegation and Northwest governors delivered letters May 13 to congressional committee heads asking them to add $15 million to the Fiscal Year 2005 Energy and Water Development Appropriations Act specifically for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Columbia River channel improvement project.
There is just enough water in the forecast for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service this week to move ahead on a white sturgeon operation in the Kootenai River in Montana.
The operation, which calls for ramping up higher flows out of Libby Dam once sturgeon spawn, could begin as early as next week.
Regional salmon managers at this week’s multi-agency Technical Management Team asked for additional spill at one lower Columbia River dam in compensation for dam operators having coming up short this spring on meeting spill targets at The Dalles and John Day dams.
The Nez Perce Tribe took a step Saturday (May 15) in reaching a settlement with the state of Idaho and federal agencies over Snake River water rights the tribe’s initially challenged in 1993.
The agency charged with protecting Columbia River basin salmon and steelhead listed under the Endangered Species Act will have more time than originally scheduled to remold its opinion about the effects of federal hydrosystem operations on the fish, according to the judge that last year ruled the prevailing recovery strategy invalid.
Wrestling through numerous legal, biological and social complexities has prolonged the task of assembling a summer hydrosystem spill reduction plan that the region can accept, according the Bonneville Power Administration’s top fish and wildlife official.
The Northwest River Forecast Center (RFC) adjusted its water supply forecasts for Columbia River basin sites downwards from the forecast it had made just 10 days earlier, a situation that will leave salmon managers and river operating agencies with fewer alternatives for in-season management as the salmon migration season progresses.
For the second time this spring, tribes are fishing for spring chinook salmon in the lower Columbia River.
The Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, on behalf of Northwest tribes, this week asked the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for special operations at lower Columbia River dams to aid tribal gillnetters while they fish.
The long awaited amended summer spill proposal from the Bonneville Power Administration was again delayed this week with no date set for the proposal’s release.
The delay is due to the length of time federal agencies are taking to align the expected salmon losses caused by reducing summer spill with offset measures that would fully mitigate for those losses.
Lower than average snow and rainfall two months in a row and declining water supplies bodes poorly for Northwest river flows and salmon this summer.
The Northwest River Forecast Center released last week its May Early Bird forecast that predicts a water supply at The Dalles Dam of 81.6 million acre feet, or 76 percent of normal.
Juvenile salmon and steelhead mortality rose briefly at McNary and Lower Granite dams and at the Snake River dam the mortality ultimately resulted in spilling water this week, something operating agencies had stopped April 23 due to low water flows in the river.
The Supreme Court on Monday rejected without comment a request that it overturn lower court rulings that say the U.S. Forest Service has the right to put conditions on permits that allow water to be channeled across public lands to irrigate crops on private ground in central Washington.
Spring chinook salmon fishing was ended sooner than most would like on the Columbia River mainstem, and likely the Snake River, in large part because the overall return will not be as large as expected.
More time should be allowed for the reconstruction of the biological opinion on federally protected Columbia River basin salmon and steelhead, but not nearly as much time as the federal government has requested, according to the plaintiffs in the lawsuit that forced the work.
Fears that a late-timed 2004 spring chinook salmon return may also be less numerous than expected has prompted Oregon and Washington officials to close what has been productive mainstem Columbia River fishery.
Spring spill ended last Friday, April 23, at the two lower Snake River dams, but salmon managers at this week’s Technical Management Team meeting asked the federal operating agencies to keep the final decision on spring spill open through mid-June in case flows in the river improve.
Salmon managers said at this week’s Technical Management Team meeting that a monitoring plan developed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for operating McNary Dam turbines outside the one percent efficiency range is insufficient to monitor changes in fish survival at the dam.
The federal government this week made official its desire to push back the U.S. District Court deadline for reworking NOAA Fisheries’ strategy for boosting Columbia River salmon and steelhead stocks listed under the Endangered Species Act.
An island in the lower Columbia River estuary that has been used for decades as pastureland will be restored to something close to its original condition, providing new estuary habitat for juvenile salmon and steelhead.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council is asking for public review and comment of a final report by independent scientists that takes a programmatic look at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Anadromous Fish Evaluation Program (AFEP) for fiscal year 2004.
Federal agencies in a meeting this week agreed to continue spring spill at two lower Snake River dams until Friday and to conduct a modified spill test at Lower Monumental Dam in May.
An operation at McNary Dam that the Bonneville Power Administration said at the Technical Management Team meeting last week would produce up to $5 million more in revenues from increased generation during the spring and summer was withdrawn this week.
Saying that spilling water over dams is the safest route for juvenile salmon and steelhead, the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation threatened this week to sue the federal government if summer spill at Columbia River dams is curtailed as proposed.
A 19-page federal “answer” filed in Portland’s U.S. District Court last week disputes conservation groups’ claims that a no-jeopardy NOAA Fisheries biological opinion regarding the operation of Bureau of Reclamation irrigation projects in Idaho’s Snake River basin is illegal.
Attorneys for the state of Oregon and tribal fish managers told a federal judge today (April 16) that they had deep concerns about a federal proposal that makes dams and reservoirs part of the environmental baseline and judges the perils faced by salmon on day-to-day operations alone.
After three more meetings to talk about the issue, the most recent with the higher level Implementation Team (IT) at a Thursday meeting, parties could not agree on what to do and the decision was left to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which has the final responsibility to meet requirements set by the 2000 hydropower system biological opinion.
After being overwhelmed by over 200 comments about its preliminary summer spill proposal, the Bonneville Power Administration and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers put off until April 21 the release of their amended proposal and for one week a regional federal executives meeting previously scheduled for today.
A contingent of Yakima River basin residents visited Portland last week to enlighten — and try win the support of — Northwest Power and Conservation Council members regarding a proposal to more than double the water reservoir storage capacity in the central Washington area through a loan of water from the Columbia River.
The Bonneville Power Administration, along with researchers at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, told the Technical Management Team this week that a monitoring plan has been prepared to track the impact on juvenile salmon and steelhead survival when operating turbines at McNary Dam outside the 1 percent peak efficiency range.
Dam operating agencies agreed with salmon managers at this week’s Technical Management Team meeting to increase both river flow from Grand Coulee Dam and spill at Bonneville Dam.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s fish and wildlife program will be boosted by $5 million in both fiscal 2005 and 2006 if a proposed hydrosystem spill reduction plan is implemented.
With a plummeting water supply forecast in the Columbia and Snake river basins, the Bonneville Power Administration proposed Thursday (April 8) to Technical Management Team salmon managers to immediately shut down spring spill at lower Snake River dams.
A change proposed by salmon managers of where total dissolved gas (TDG) levels would be measured could change the amount of water voluntarily spilled at Bonneville Dam.
The head of NOAA Fisheries’ Northwest Salmon Recovery Division balked when asked to detail the proposal Wednesday but acknowledged that his agency might judge the effects of federal hydrosystem operations on salmon from a different vantage point than it has in the past — one that considers the dams and reservoirs a part of the landscape or “environmental baseline.”
Revisions to the Federal Columbia River Power system biological opinion will likely be completed in November, not June 2 as ordered by a federal court, so that a federal collaboration with state and tribal fish managers on related scientific and analytical issues can run its course.
Federal officials met with state and tribal officials, congressional staff and other Columbia River hydrosystem “stakeholders” Tuesday to explain a proposed test of fish management flexibility that involves shutting off one of the downstream fish passage routes in August, and providing more limited access in July.
The Northwest’s four governors Monday (March 29) sent a series of recommendations to the federal agencies working on a three-year pilot plan for alternative summer spill operations on the Federal Columbia River Power System.
NOAA Fisheries has signed on to a twice-delayed U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ plan to clear accumulated sediment from portions of the lower Snake River shipping channel, from ports and from dam navigation lock approaches.
Fish managers continue to advocate a cautious approach while the Bonneville Power Administration would like all-out implementation of turbine operations at McNary Dam that would deviate from those described in a NOAA Fisheries biological opinion regarding the jeopardy posed to protected fish by the federal Columbia River hydrosystem.
“Citizens have the right to challenge governmental decisions that violate the law, and the mere desire of other persons to continue those programs is not a right that can be invoked to foreclose consideration of the challengers,” claims, wrote Portland attorney James Buchal in a memorandum filed Tuesday with the U.S. District Court.
Pools behind three lower Snake River dams will have more water again this year to give towboat operators the margin of safety they need in the navigation channel to transport goods to and from Snake River ports and to safely enter and leave locks at Snake River dams.
Legal jousting continued last week with the Justice Department asking that a Portland U.S. District Court judge stay one legal challenge to the federal government’s salmon recovery plan until a separate lawsuit completes its first stage.
A decision on whether a federal Columbia River hydrosystem “spill reduction” test will be implemented this summer is due by the third week in April, officials told the Northwest Power and Conservation Council Wednesday.
The state of Idaho and a coalition of water users have both filed the papers necessary to gain a voice in a lawsuit they say challenges Idaho’s sovereignty and control of the state’s water.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Fiscal Year 2005 budget, as proposed to Congress by President Bush, includes $194 million for the Corps’ Portland District to fund work in the Rogue, Willamette, Columbia and Cowlitz river basins.
The judge presiding over one legal challenge to the federal Columbia River basin salmon protection plan will remain as magistrate of record in a separate lawsuit that attacks the fish strategy from a different angle.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers expects to make a decision by early April to move ahead with long-delayed plans for dredging lower the lower Snake River navigation channel and inland ports.
As it has done in each of the past five years, the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission offered up at this week’s Technical Management Team meeting its version of how the Federal Columbia River Power System should be operated.
Citing an increase in dangerous shoaling in lower Snake River navigation channel, operators of commercial tugboats asked the Technical Management Team this week to allow pool levels at lower Snake River dams to remain one foot higher than minimum operating pool (MOP).
Spill began at Bonneville Dam Tuesday evening at 8 p.m. to provide safe passage past the dam for tule fall chinook released Monday from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Spring Creek Hatchery. Spill will continue for 96 hours to 8 p.m. Saturday, March 6.
The federal Environmental Protection Agency approved in the nick of time new water quality standards submitted to the federal agency in December by the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality.
The water quality rules set new water temperature standards to protect salmon and trout, including some temperatures that are cooler than the state’s previously approved standards and some that allow for warmer water. All are based on scientific data, the two agencies said.
Tribal members, union workers, farmers, environmentalists and others this week used a spotlight provided by Oregon legislators to make impassioned pleas for and against proposals to reduce or eliminate summer spill for salmon in the Columbia-Snake river federal hydrosystem.
Members of an Oregon House subcommittee at times this week seemed incredulous at the estimated costliness of spill employed during July and August at federal Columbia/Snake river hydro projects to provide a third passage option for outmigrating juvenile salmon.
The Bonneville Power Administration this week agreed to four days of spill at Bonneville Dam to help a release of juvenile tule fall chinook travel safely past the only dam between the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’ Spring Creek Hatchery and the Columbia River estuary.
Fishing and conservation groups this week began to lay the groundwork for a legal challenge to the federal agencies that operate Columbia River hydroelectric system, and the one that markets its power, should they opt to reduce summer spill or carry out other operations that threaten the survival of protected salmon.
Organizations representing agriculture-employers, utilities, businesses and other Columbia River users have joined hands with the stated goal of forcing more “cost effective” implementation of basin salmon restoration efforts — beginning with the immediate elimination of the summer hydrosystem spill program.
Weighing in on a proposal to reduce or eliminate spilling water during summer months, environmental groups and fish and wildlife agencies — with the notable exception of the State of Montana – said that the analyses of a half-dozen spill options is insufficient and doesn’t support the proposed changes.
Frustrated with an ever-slipping schedule, the Northwest Power and Conservation Council on Wednesday launched a letter to the region’s top federal officials asking for quick action on research proposals designed to test the biological benefit of hydrosystem spill in late summer to facilitate passage for migrating salmon.
The fiscal year 2004 fish and wildlife program budget is predicted to reach unprecedented levels because of Bonneville Power Administration accounting policies and management, say project sponsors, Northwest Power and Conservation Council staff and at least some Council members.
Fisheries managers at the Technical Management Team meeting this week proposed threshold criteria designed to help TMT make in-season decisions about when attraction spill is needed for wild steelhead at Bonneville Dam and when to turn off nighttime zero flow at lower Snake River dams.
An official request sent Feb. 13 by the states of Oregon and Washington to NOAA Fisheries requests that greater impact or “incidental take” be allowed on protected, wild winter steelhead during the course of commercial fisheries targeting returning hatchery-raised chinook in the lower Columbia River.
It appears that a pair of lawsuits attacking NOAA Fisheries’ Columbia River salmon protection plan from different directions will continue on separate courses, and potentially with different judges presiding.
Columbia Basin federal dam operators could keep as much as 8 million acre feet (maf) more water in reservoirs in the winter to be used to augment flows in the spring and have more than 3 maf more to augment summer flows to aid salmon in low water years if they changed early-year flood control operations, according to calculations by the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission (CRITFC).
The fifty-four member Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians on Thursday in a consensus passed a resolution in opposition to proposals to reduce or eliminate summer spill at federal hydro projects in the lower Columbia and Snake rivers that is intended to benefit migrating salmon and steelhead.
The Columbia River Compact on Thursday agreed to a plan that it thinks will maximize sport and commercial access in the coming months to the hatchery-reared portion of what is expected to be the second largest return of spring chinook salmon to the Columbia River on record.
Fisheries managers were skeptical this week of an analysis provided by federal agencies that look at seven scenarios for summer spill.
The analysis concludes that eliminating spill at Columbia River dams in July and August would reduce adult chinook salmon returns by 19,000 fish, but gain the Bonneville Power Administration as much as $77 million in revenue it now forgoes when it spills water over dams.
Fisheries managers said this week that an analysis that looks at alternatives to summer spill that was completed by the Bonneville Power Administration and the U.S. Corps of Engineers, with technical help from NOAA Fisheries, still needs work.
Aside from a couple adjustments suggested by salmon managers, the System Configuration Team this week endorsed a Corps of Engineers’ plan for cutting back the fiscal year 2004 Columbia River Fish Mitigation Program budget even while adding in $5.8 million to further the Ice Harbor Dam removal spillway weir project.
State, federal and tribal scientists are ready to take the first step in an effort to collaborate in the development of the technical underpinnings for NOAA Fisheries’ next assessment of whether the survival of Columbia Basin salmon and steelhead is threatened by federal hydrosystem operations.
The Northwest Fisheries Science Center in Seattle has released for comment the first of several draft documents intended to address whether improvements to estuarine and tributary habitats can improve the population status of salmonids listed under the Endangered Species Act.
President Bush submitted a 2005 environmental budget this week that the Administration says includes the highest level of funding ever requested by a President for high-priority environment and natural resource programs.
States and tribes this week sent a letter to the federal government suggesting a “collaborative scientific process” as part of the writing of a new NOAA Fisheries’ biological opinion for the federal Columbia River power system.
The U.S. Supreme Court was sent a request Tuesday to review a Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decision that a group of Washington farmers say could dramatically affect water rights throughout the West.
On the opening day of the second session of the 108th Congress, Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., introduced the Sound Science for Endangered Species Planning Act (S. 2009) which would require greater weight be given to field-tested and scientifically reviewed data when making decisions under the Endangered Species Act.
Two science advisory panels this week released their joint review of the federal agencies’ draft plan for evaluating the status of Columbia River basin salmonid stocks listed under the Endangered Species Act and monitoring the effectiveness of mitigation and conservation actions.
Funding “is a problem, a challenge” but a Corps of Engineers-led initiative to have a “removable spillway weir” operating at the lower Snake River’s Ice Harbor Dam in time for the 2005 spring salmon outmigration remains on track, according to the Corps of Engineers’ Witt Anderson.
The financial windfall could be as high as $77 million and the biological loss as high as an estimated 19,000 Columbia River basin adult fall chinook salmon on average annually if hydrosystem “spill” for fish passage is turned off in July and August, according to analysis released this week.
As the rewrite of the biological opinion on the Federal Columbia River Power System’s impact on salmon and steelhead survival hit its halfway point, the judge that ordered the remand is keeping a careful eye on the success the federal government is having at implementing the current “BiOp.”
Conservation groups and Pacific Coast commercial fishermen filed a lawsuit Jan. 16 asking a federal judge to declare illegal a NOAA Fisheries’ biological opinion governing the operation of Bureau of Reclamation irrigation projects in the Snake River basin.
Estimates of the number of adult lower Columbia River chum returning to spawn in the river in 2003 could be nearly as high as returns in 2002, even while spawning in the Ives Island area downstream from Bonneville Dam was just 20 percent of the 2002 total.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has been spilling a small amount of water at one of the Bonneville Dam spillways since Dec. 1, 2003 in order to attract salmon and steelhead to one of the dam’s fish ladders. With a combined average of four hatchery and listed fish passing the dam per day, the Technical Management Team today agreed to end the spill until more fish are present, but it didn’t agree on how many fish must be present before the attraction spill should be turned on again.
The Nez Perce Tribe last week initiated a lawsuit against three federal agencies in an attempt stall a plan to harvest 42 million board feet of timber in north-central Idaho Lochsa River drainage.
A judge told the federal government today (Jan. 16) that, even if it prolongs the process, he wants state and tribal representatives to be allowed more involvement in the processes now under way to build the scientific foundation for a new Federal Columbia River Power System biological opinion.
Portland General Electric will spend up to $9 million to improve anadromous fish passage at its four Clackamas River dams, beginning with the circa 1911 River Mill Dam near Estacada, Ore.
With efforts across the Columbia River basin steamrolling toward a May 28 subbasin plan submittal deadline, participants at the grass-roots level are beginning to wonder about the hereafter — whether they’ll have a role in any customizing of those plans and in the implementation the plans’ fish and wildlife management strategies.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ director of Civil Works signed the final Record of Decision for the $136 million Columbia River channel improvement project and sent the ROD to Congress to be included in the federal government’s 2005 budget cycle.
NOAA Fisheries has released for public comment four preliminary drafts of “Technical Memoranda,” or “white papers” that summarize some of the key science to be used in rewriting the 2000 Biological Opinion for the federal Columbia River hydropower system.
The number of chum spawning in 2003 in the Ives Island area below Bonneville Dam on the Columbia River is a fifth of the 2002 record total.
The number of the species that spawn in the lower Columbia River has been growing over the past several years, culminating in 2002 with 6,194 Lower Columbia River chum counted by biologists in the Ives Island area. However, the most recent cumulative count on Dec. 12, 2003 found just 1,381 live chum, 22 percent of the 2002 count.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers increased flows at Dworshak Dam, located on the North Fork of the Clearwater River, to about 8,000 cubic feet per second to help power the Northwest during this week’s cold spell that saw temperatures drop to near zero in Western Idaho and eastern Oregon and Washington.
The Portland District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is expected to receive about $186 million of the $4.7 billion national budget for civil works projects included in the Fiscal Year 2004 Energy and Water Development Appropriation Act recently signed by President Bush.
The Corps’ Portland District will use the funds for projects in the Rogue, Willamette, Columbia, and Cowlitz river basins.
NOAA Fisheries issued a report today concluding that, while some significant progress is being made, the three federal agencies charged with carrying out the ten-year Columbia River Basin salmon-recovery program are not fully meeting expectations.
But NOAA officials added that the agencies are capable of timely resolution of the shortcomings.
A federal judge has rebuffed an attempt to bring upper Snake River federal water projects into consideration during a court-ordered re-evaluation of Columbia River federal hydrosystem impacts on salmon and steelhead.
The Oregon Environmental Quality Commission approved new Oregon water quality standards, including standards for temperature in streams and lakes, proposed by the state’s Department of Environmental Quality. DEQ delivered the new standards to the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Dec. 10.
The Bonneville Power Administration would like to see expanded testing next year of the long-held theory that operating hydro turbine near peak efficiency provides the highest survival for juvenile salmon.
A proposal to evaluate the effect on survival of deviating from the “one percent efficiency” rule would expand from a limited test at a few units to across all 14 turbines at McNary Dam.
Commercial troll fishers from Alaska’s southeast coast have gone straight to the top — President George W. Bush — to discourage consideration of any reduction in summer spill at Columbia River federal hydro projects or attempts to further clamp down on fishing opportunities.
Threatened lower Columbia River chum salmon are spawning in the Ives Island area downstream from Bonneville Dam in lower numbers than they did in 2002.
The most recent count of chum salmon and redds observed by biologists on the spawning grounds between Ives and Pierce islands and the Washington shore is 25 percent lower than last year at this time, according to Ron Boyce, of the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife.
Any attempt in 2004 to measure the effect of reducing summertime spill on juvenile salmon survival would likely take place at a project or two, not across the system of Columbia River federal hydroelectric projects, the Northwest Power and Conservation Council was told this week by staff and by the regional chief of the federal agency charged with protecting salmon and steelhead populations.
Columbia-Snake River federal hydrosystem operations next summer aimed at evaluating the impacts of reduced spill on migrating juvenile salmon would not necessarily go counter to the government’s salmon protection strategy if fish losses are “offset” by other measures, according to the regional chief of NOAA Fisheries.
The Idaho Water Users Association this week forwarded to NOAA Fisheries and the Bureau of Reclamation a new scientific paper contending that flow augmentation from Idaho reservoirs provides little benefit for salmon and steelhead, and that the effects of water withdrawals on fish travel time are “small to insignificant.”
A spokesman for wholesale power customers and tribal fish advocates, alternately, asked for the Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s support in the ongoing debate over “spill” levels at federal hydro projects on the Columbia and Snake rivers during the summer season.
A “water transactions” program intended to address mandates from both the Northwest Power Act and Endangered Species Act began opening doors during fiscal 2003 for water rights holders interested in selling or leasing those rights so that the water can be left in-stream to improve conditions for fish and wildlife.
Economists are working on a report that describes the cost-effectiveness of some juvenile passage measures, particularly measures that could eliminate or cut spill, and how cost-effective analyses could be useful for making decisions about fish and wildlife actions in the Columbia River Basin.
Staff for the Northwest Power and Conservation Council got the go ahead this week from Power Committee members to develop a model that would measure the impact of adverse power operations on fish and wildlife recovery measures similar to how BPA predicts risks to the power system’s reliability.
Congress is scheduled to vote next week on a massive federal budget
package that includes more than $100 million for Columbia River and
other Pacific salmon recovery programs in the fiscal year 2004, but
final approval may not come until January.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers installed an RSW at Lower Granite Dam in early 2002 to improve fish passage and survival at the dam. Early results showed that both passage and survival improved and that it was accomplished with less spill at the dam. Seeking a lower cost and more effective way to spill water to improve fish survival, the Bonneville Power Administration in October 2002 proposed to SCT to accelerate the installation of RSWs at Ice Harbor and Lower Monumental dams…
The plaintiffs in the lawsuit that has forced the federal government to rethink its Federal Columbia River Power System salmon protection plan continue to press in U.S. District Court for a broader interpretation of that plan’s responsibility.
The document in question is the FCRPS biological opinion, which was issued by NOAA Fisheries late in 2000 but is now under reconstruction as a part of a remand ordered by Judge James A. Redden early this past summer.
A federal Libby Dam operations plan designed to avoid jeopardizing endangered Kootenai River white sturgeon is being reworked even as new research shows the long-lived creatures are on a steeper slide toward extinction than was thought just a few years ago.
As part of an effort to prepare for the court-ordered revision of the 2000 Biological Opinion for the federal Columbia River hydropower system, the National Marine Fisheries Service has sent a request for information from Tribes and states about non-federal salmon habitat actions that might be included in the new “BiOp.”
Columbia Basin fish and wildlife agencies and Tribes have released the 2002 Comparative Survival Study (CSS) which estimates survival rates for spring/summer chinook – both transported and in-river – from major hatcheries in the Snake River Basin and selected hatcheries from the lower Columbia River.
Tribes, Oregon and conservation groups gave the Columbia River action agencies a much lower score for their efforts to meet NOAA Fisheries’ 2000 biological opinion for the Federal Columbia River Power System than the agencies claimed for themselves.
Northwest Power and Conservation Council members this week expressed concern that an effort it instigated — to explore more cost-effective options than current summertime spill operations for moving fish past federal hydro projects — could miss deadlines critical for 2004 implementation.
With rain and snow now falling across most of Oregon and Washington, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers increased the Bonneville Dam tailwater elevation,providing more protection and more habitat for chum spawning in the Ives Island area.
Federal action agencies released a plan this week that outlines how the agencies will implement conservation measures in the NOAA Fisheries and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biological opinions for the Federal Columbia River Power System (FCRPS).
U.S. Justice Department attorneys say, in a Nov. 14 brief, that expanding the scope of the court-ordered Federal Columbia River Power System biological opinion remand to include the upper Snake would be illegal.
Scientists and policymakers converged at the conference Friday (Nov. 14), titled “Salmon Crossroads: Record Runs and New Directions,” where before an audience made up largely of utility representatives, they debated how to interpret the recent favorable salmon return news and what to do next.
The public won’t support salmon recovery programs if they perceive those programs are poorly managed and too expensive, Bonneville Power Administration Administrator Steve Wright told participants at a conference in Portland today.
……
more conference stories here this weekend…
The higher number of chum salmon present and spawning, prompted fisheries managers in a special Technical Management Team (TMT) meeting this week to ask the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Bonneville Power Administration to raise flows at the dam in order to create more spawning habitat for the species.
The Army Corps of Engineers received $85 million in construction
funds for salmon mitigation projects at the eight federal dams on the
Columbia and Snake rivers, the largest Northwest recovery program.
That is the same as this year’s amount but $10 million less than Bush
sought in his FY2004 budget. The program pays for fish screens,
collectors, ladders and passage improvements, including the
downstream migrant juvenile fish bypass at Bonneville Dam.
This year river managers found significant successes in using water from Dworshak Dam to cool Snake River water into mid-September, two weeks beyond operations called for by the NOAA Fisheries 2000 biological opinion. In addition, it was noted at the meeting that changes in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ flood control operations this spring resulted in additional water available from Dworshak reservoir that could be used when it was needed the most.
Montana officials say the spills suggested by the Corps would create
dissolved gases in the river that would exceed state water quality standards
and threaten trout populations just below the dam. While the letter does not
expressly request it, exceeding state standards would need approval from the
Montana Department of Environmental Quality.
Subbasin planning participants responded coolly this week to the prospect that they will be asked to redirect some portion of their energies to help NOAA Fisheries shape a new biological opinion regarding operations of the Federal Columbia River Power System.
The BiOp assumes that spill provides the highest passage survival for juveniles through the federal hydroelectric system, but some believe that spill can be reduced and the lower survival of migrants can be compensated with offset measures, such as predator control or changes in operations at dams.
Federal representatives said at a multi-agency Implementation Team meeting today that they would complete the fiscal year 2004 one-year Implementation Plan for salmon and steelhead recovery in mid-November, but that the plan will contain uncertainties, leaving it open to future changes.
Despite the presence of the chum salmon, listed under the Endangered Species Act as threatened, the Technical Management Team this week agreed to change operations at the dam only if the change doesn’t impact the amount of water stored in Lake Roosevelt, backed up behind Grand Coulee Dam, and if it continues to give the Bonneville Power Administration the flexibility it needs at the dam to move water at critical times.
With information in hand that using fish passage data could extend summer spill beyond August 31 in eight out of 13 years, and into October in one of 13 years, the multi-agency Implementation Team decided today to ask top-ranking regional federal executives whether it should continue its investigation into developing new criteria for ending summer spill.
A $50 million remodeling project at Bonneville Dam’s second powerhouse is expected to draw more migrating juvenile salmon and steelhead away from hydro turbines and deliver them to a safer place in the Columbia River below.
Construction is all but complete on the modification of the powerhouse’s trash and ice chute, which has long been a preferred route past the dam.
The Washington Pollution Control Hearings Board ruled DOE had failed to consult with the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, Nez Perce Tribe and the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation in issuing five water right permits from the Columbia River to the Kennewick Public Hospital District, the Kennewick Irrigation District, Mercer Ranchers, and the Lower Stemilt Irrigation District.
The Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management today announced the release of a “Final Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement” that proposes wording changes in the Aquatic Conservation Strategy of the Northwest Forest Plan.
A draft plan that sets out an approach on how research in the lower Columbia River estuary and its plume should proceed is in the peer review process and is nearing its implementation date in February 2004.
An operation at Bonneville Dam designed to provide spawning habitat for lower Columbia River chum salmon, a threatened species under the federal Endangered Species Act, will begin Monday, Nov. 3, but at a lower level than requested by fisheries managers at this week’s Technical Management Team meeting.
The Fish Passage Center indicated this week that changing the basis of ending spill at Snake and Columbia River dams from the planning date of Aug. 31 — contained in the NOAA Fisheries biological opinion — to fish passage data may not always lead to spill ending in August.
It’s seven months and counting down until dozens of subbasin plans — intended to be the essence of a regional Columbia Basin Fish and Wildlife program — fall into the laps of the Northwest Power and Conservation Council, its staff, the Independent Scientific Review Panel and the public.
A one-year operating plan for federal dams was completed this week by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Technical Management Team — as required by NOAA Fisheries and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 2000 biological opinions.
Columbia/Snake river mainstem sport reward fishing season for northern pikeminnow ended Oct. 12 with anglers cashing in $1 million worth of vouchers for doing what researchers say is a job well done.
The head of the has urged senators to pass legislation allowing Bureau of Reclamation the agency to fund and construct fish screens and passage improvements at non-federal irrigation facilities in Oregon and Washington state to aid salmon recovery.
Instead of focusing primarily on how water levels and flows affect endangered and threatened fish in Oregon’s Upper Klamath Lake and the Klamath River — which runs from the lake and down through northern California before emptying into the Pacific — federal agencies charged with protecting the fish should pay greater attention to other causes of harm, says a new report from the National Academies’ National Research Council.
The month ahead will be used to evaluate the technical and financial feasibility of a set of Columbia-Snake hydrosystem summer spill study alternatives that are being developed at the request of the Northwest Power and Conservation Council.
A coalition of conservation groups that filed, and then withdrew, a notice of intent to sue the federal government over salmon and water issues in Idaho announced Oct. 10 that the notice would not be re-filed after 30 days as planned.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency by court order is going out to the public for comments on the draft water quality standards it has developed for the state of Oregon, but conservation groups are already decrying the proposed standards because of their potential exemptions for federal dams.
A Bonneville Power Administration funding decision finalized late last week both squeezes and expands budgets, and ushers fish and wildlife projects on and off the Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s recommendation list, in balancing the fiscal 2004-2006 budget for the mainstem/systemwide “province.”
Debate began at this week’s Technical Management Team meeting on whether the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers should complete this year a deep drawdown of Lake Pend Oreille to accommodate a 10-year study of the impacts of various fall and winter lake levels on kokanee spawning and on the lake’s threatened bull trout population.
A sign that spring and summer fish passage operations is ending at federal Snake and Columbia River dams is the final decision to discontinue operating the Lower Granite Dam reservoir at its minimum operating pool level.
Negotiations focused on steelhead recovery among two Mid-Columbia public utility districts, area tribes and the state of Washington have resulted in an unusual agreement that meshes hatchery and harvest management, as well as recovery monitoring and evaluation, on the upper Columbia River.
A long-anticipated 2003 “check-in” report describes methodical progress toward implementation of the 10-year federal Columbia river salmon and steelhead recovery strategy — and meteoric, relatively, improvements in the status of the stocks in question.
The Columbia-Snake River Irrigators Association and the Eastern Oregon Irrigators Association filed a lawsuit Tuesday against NOAA Fisheries, demanding changes to what the irrigators call “misleading and absurd standards” for the federal agency’s salmon recovery planning.
Two sets of special interest groups that are normally at total loggerheads found enough to talk about Saturday that they plan to meet again, with Idaho Sen. Mike Crapo as facilitator, to discuss the allocation of Upper Snake River basin water for farms and for fish.
A 16-page status report, with 18 related documents, has been forwarded to U.S. District Court Judge James A. Redden noting “substantial progress” in the efforts of NOAA Fisheries and other federal entities to rework plans to protect Columbia Basin salmon and steelhead populations that are listed under the Endangered Species Act.
Federal agencies’ lack of progress in sorting out conflicting mandates,
and a meddlesome Clinton Administration, have brought into question
the
agencies’ ability to make sound salmon recovery decisions, according
to
Northwest members of the U.S. House of Representatives Resources
committee.
A committee oversight hearing held Thursday in Pasco, Wash., to hear
testimony on “practical and incremental steps that can be taken over
the
near-term to recover endangered salmon” turned at …
controversial channel deepening project lacked scientific foundation
and
could harm juvenile salmon traveling through the river’s estuary. While
the results of the suit may be unknown at this time, other efforts
to
purchase estuary lands are moving forward.
The Columbia Land Trust, a non-profit organization located in Vancouver,
Wash. recently received $999,000 from U.S. Fish and Wildlife and $6.1
million in matching money, which it will use to purchase about 1,500
acres of wetlands and
The Northwest can neither morally or legally allow salmon to go extinct.
This is one of the most difficult challenges facing the region and
the
region will be remembered for how well it does.
This is one of the conclusions Lori Bodi, senior policy advisor for
fish
and wildlife at the Bonneville Power Administration, offered to a
gathering of lawyers, students and salmon policy people at this week’s
Northwest Water Law & Policy Project fifth annual conference in
Portland.
The …
Several efforts are in the works to purchase and set aside more wetlands
in the Columbia River estuary, but will those purchases count towards
a
mitigation requirement set by the National Marine Fisheries Service
for
a river channel deepening project?
If Debrah Marriott, executive director of the Lower Columbia River
Estuary Program (LCREP) gets her wish, the efforts would be additive,
which could result in thousands of acres of new habitat being added
to
the estuary in the next …
Two Northwest Republican senators
this week said they suspect the delay
of federal agencies’ recommendation
for modifying or removing lower
Snake River dams to improve salmon
recovery is aimed at helping Vice
President Al Gore’s presidential
campaign.
Army Corps of Engineers Brig.
Gen. Carl Strock said the agency recently
granted a 30-day extension of
the public comment period on its final
environmental impact, which had
been scheduled for completion in
October. The extension …
Harassment of Caspian terns in
the lower Columbia River estuary ran into
a roadblock this week when environmental
groups filed for an injunction
against hazing the birds on Rice
Island. The filing resulted in a
temporary restraining order stopping
the hazing until at least April 24,
when a Seattle U.S. District
Court will listen to arguments from both
sides.
The hazing was part of a plan
to move the terns from Rice Island to East
Sand Island and was intended
to reduce predation …
A banner forecast for adult spring
chinook returns to the upper Columbia
and Snake rivers appears to be
coming true with daily counts mounting
and the cumulative number of
fish arriving at Bonneville Dam as of April
13 representing nearly 3 1/2
times the recent 10-year average.
According to Corps of Engineers
counts posted on the Fish Passage
Center’s internet site, 33,967
spring chinook adults had reached the dam
through Thursday compared to
the recent 10-year average of 9,490 fish
If wind turbines, other renewable
energy resources and conservation were
used to replace the lost power
from four hydroelectric dams on the lower
Snake River, the cost to consumers
would be about the same, but spew far
less carbon than building more
fossil fuel power plants, according to a
recent report released by conservation
organizations.
A report by the NW Energy Coalition
and the Natural Resources Defense
Council took issue with a December
1999 report by the U.S. Army …
The region’s fish and wildlife
managers spent Wednesday weighing their
options for influencing a Columbia
Basin fish and wildlife program
amendment process that has begun
to pick up speed and add layers of
complexity.
During a meeting in Portland,
Columbia Basin Fish and Wildlife Authority
members worked to fine-tune a
planned recommendation for Phase I of the
Northwest Power Planning Council’s
process for amending its regional
fish and wildlife recovery program.
They also pondered
The National Marine Fisheries
Service and the Columbia River operating
agencies agreed Thursday on a
spill plan for federal Columbia River and
lower Snake River dams. The agreement
was drawn up between NMFS, the
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers,
the Bonneville Power Administration and
the Bureau of Reclamation and
will go into effect immediately.
The agreement determines the
amount and timing of spill for the next
couple of years and will be included
in NMFS’ 2000 biological …
An Earthwise Knowledge Initiative Publication
