Tucked into the Columbia River System Operators’ final environmental impact statement for the Columbia River power system’s impacts on salmon and steelhead that was released late last week is a more than 1,600 page biological opinion from NOAA Fisheries.
The first two sockeye salmon completed their 900 mile journey through eight Columbia and Snake river dams and up the Salmon River, climbing 6,500 feet in elevation and arriving in Idaho’s Sawtooth Basin over the weekend.
A British Columbia Province Report on recent Columbia River Treaty community meetings notes “there was a lack of consultation with Basin residents and Indigenous Nations when the Treaty was first negotiated, and feelings of hurt and anger remain to this day.”
Oregon and Washington opened the Columbia River mainstem to commercial gillnetters for fall chinook salmon, seven night-time openings that are to begin Monday, Aug. 10. In addition, the two-state Columbia River Compact approved continued commercial gillnetting in Select Areas in the lower river, beginning Aug. 4.
Elliot Mainzer, who has served as administrator and Chief Executive Officer of the Bonneville Power Administration for the past seven years, will leave the agency at the end of August.
Marine heatwaves across the world's oceans can displace habitat for sea turtles, whales, and other marine life by 10s to thousands of kilometers. They dramatically shift these animals' preferred temperatures in a fraction of the time that climate change is expected to do, new research shows.
NOAA Fisheries is taking public comment on its proposal to issue an Endangered Species Act determination for the Clackamas Hatchery Spring Chinook Salmon program, which moved this year from a segregated to an integrated broodstock program. Natural-origin spring chinook salmon will be spawned at the hatchery to bolster the genetic diversity of the broodstock and reduce genetic divergence from the wild stock.
