AGENCIES RELEASE ASSESSMENT OF NEW, LARGE WATER STORAGE SITES Posted on Tuesday, June 12, 2007 (PST)

The Lower Crab Creek basin in Grant County is the most viable candidate to support a new, large, off-channel water storage facility and merits a more detailed feasibility study, according to an assessment by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and the Washington Department of Ecology. Read More...

AGENCIES SUBMIT REVISED WILLAMETTE BIOLOGICAL ASSESSMENT Posted on Tuesday, June 12, 2007 (PST)

Agencies responsible for the operation of 13 federal dams in the Willamette River Basin submitted on May 31 a revised set of proposed actions intended to protect winter steelhead, spring chinook, bull trout, Oregon chub and other species listed as threatened or endangered under the federal Endangered Species Act. Read More...

USFWS SAYS DELISTING BLISS RAPIDS SNAIL MAY BE WARRANTED Posted on Friday, June 08, 2007 (PST)

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service issued a positive 90-day finding on a petition to remove the Bliss Rapids snail from the federal Endangered Species Act list, determining that an additional review is appropriate. Read More...

PINNIPED-FISHERY PROCESS: NEXT COMES FORMATION OF TASK FORCE Posted on Friday, June 08, 2007 (PST)

The U.S. Secretary of Commerce in January, acting through NOAA’s assistant administrator for Fisheries, found that the states of Idaho, Oregon and Washington had produced sufficient evidence to warrant establishing a task force to evaluate a proposal to lethally remove sea lions from the Columbia River. Read More...

HUNDREDS COMMENT ON STATES’ APPLICATION TO KILL SEA LIONS Posted on Friday, June 08, 2007 (PST)

An application for state authority to lethally remove salmon-hungry California sea lions from the Columbia River has drawn literally hundreds of comments from fishing interests, animal rights groups, tribes and others. Read More...

TRIBES WANT TO CATCH MORE COLUMBIA RIVER SHAD, EXPAND MARKET Posted on Wednesday, June 06, 2007 (PST)

Tribes with treaty fishing rights on the mainstem Columbia River want to tap a little deeper this year, and in the future, what has become, virtually, an unlimited resource -- American shad. Read More...

HIGHER COUNT MEANS FISHING OPENED FROM MOUTH TO MCNARY Posted on Wednesday, June 06, 2007 (PST)

A steadied flow of chinook salmon over Bonneville Dam has allowed Oregon and Washington fishery managers to expand sport fishing on the Columbia River mainstem from Tongue Point/Rocky Point near the river mouth to McNary Dam nearly 300 miles upstream. Read More...

HIGH COURT WANTS FEDS' VIEWS ON COLUMBIA RIVER POLLUTION CASE Posted on Wednesday, June 06, 2007 (PST)

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday asked the federal government for its opinion in a legal debate regarding a Canadian company's potential liability for lead-zinc processing byproducts that rode the current south across the border into Washington in the upper Columbia River. Read More...

GRANT PUD APPROVES POWER PURCHASING AGREEMENT WITH YAKAMA NATION Posted on Wednesday, June 06, 2007 (PST)

Grant County PUD Commissioners Monday approved a historic agreement with the Yakama Nation that will form a long-term partnership with benefits to both organizations. Read More...

GRANT FUNDS STUDY OF CLIMATE CHANGE IMPACT ON ESTUARIES Posted on Wednesday, June 06, 2007 (PST)

Western Washington University received a grant for almost $900,000 from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to develop a model to determine the consequences of climate change on sea-level rise and river flow alteration in two of the most ecologically significant estuarine systems in Puget Sound, Padilla Bay and Skagit Bay. Read More...