Washington Ecology Opens Rulemaking For Dissolved Oxygen, Sediment Standards In Salmon, Steelhead Waters
December 6th, 2019
The Washington Department of Ecology opened a rulemaking this week that will revise its freshwater dissolved oxygen standard and add a rule setting limits on the amount of fine sediments allowed in streams where salmon and steelhead spawn.
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Lake Roosevelt Lowest Level In 70 Years But Flows For Listed Lower Columbia Chum Salmon Continue; Spawner Numbers Decent So Far
December 5th, 2019
More than 500 threatened chum salmon were counted at the end of November on spawning grounds downstream of Bonneville Dam in the Ives/Pierce island area on the Columbia’s north shore. Although only halfway through the spawning season for these salmon, an anadromous fish expert with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife says this year’s tally could end up being higher than the last five-year average.
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Post Condit Dam: PacificCorp Gives Yakama Nation Right Of First Offer For Waterfront Land On Lower White Salmon River
December 4th, 2019
Although the 289 acres of waterfront land along the lower White Salmon River is currently not for sale, the land’s owner, PacifiCorp, said it has signed an agreement with the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation giving the Nation the right of first offer when and if the property does go up for sale.
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Idaho Power To Drop EPA Lawsuit With New Water Temperature Criteria Set For Spawning Fall Chinook Below Hells Canyon Dam
December 4th, 2019
Idaho Power will soon drop a lawsuit it filed in U.S. District Court in Idaho in June 2018 aimed at forcing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to set a two-week water quality standard for fall chinook that spawn downstream of the utility’s Hells Canyon Complex of three dams on the Snake River.
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Kootenai River Burbot Recovery/Conservation Plan Leads To 60,000 Fish, First Harvest In 25 Years
November 21st, 2019
A fish culturally important to the Kootenai Tribe of Idaho is making a comeback with an abundance of some 60,000 fish, allowing harvest of the fish in January -- 25 years after the last burbot were harvested in the transboundary sections of the Kootenai River in northern Idaho and southern British Columbia.
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Council Hears Review Of Report On Salmon Reintroduction Above Grand Coulee: ‘Grand Experiment, No Guarantees’
November 15th, 2019
Two of the scientists who reviewed the phase 1 report that assesses the feasibility of reintroducing salmon and steelhead upstream of Chief Joseph and Grand Coulee dams told the Northwest Power and Conservation Council Wednesday that a cost analysis should be incorporated early in the process and in a stepwise fashion if the effort is to move forward.
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Freshwater Mussels – Canary In the Coal Mine For Streams – In Sharp Decline; Umatilla Tribes Working To Bring Back
November 14th, 2019
While the region has been focused on the potential invasion of destructive quagga and zebra mussels from the midwest or southwest United States, another kind of mussel – the “good mussels” – are in decline in Northwest rivers.
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Lawsuit Challenges Corps/NOAA Approvals Of Columbia River Methanol Refinery; Says Threat To Listed Salmon, Orcas
November 14th, 2019
A lawsuit by environmental and public health groups that challenges approvals for a methanol refinery in Kalama, Wash. by the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers and NOAA Fisheries was filed this week in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington in Tacoma.
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Study: Laundered Clothes Bringing Microplastics To Oysters, Clams On Oregon Coast Through Wastewater
November 13th, 2019
Tiny threads of plastics are showing up in Pacific oysters and razor clams along the Oregon coast -- and the yoga pants, fleece jackets, and sweat-wicking clothing that Pacific Northwesterners love to wear are a source of that pollution, according to a new Portland State University study.