[6] Judge Turns Down Request For One Big BiOp

Oregon District Court Judge James Redden denied plaintiff environmental groups' request (American Rivers v. NOAA Fisheries) to reconsider part of his recent opinion that called for NOAA Fisheries to add upper Snake operations in its analysis of lower Snake ESA fish needs in the next hydro BiOp.

Judge Redden had ruled that the feds could write either one big BiOp, or two different BiOps as long as Bureau of Reclamation operations (primarily water storage for irrigated agriculture) on the Upper Snake were analyzed in a proper framework and not improperly segmented from downriver operations.

However, environmental and fishing groups want the feds to put upper and lower Snake operations in one big BiOp. They cited a recent court ruling that they said proved the two operations were interrelated under ESA regulations. But Redden said American Rivers didn't present any new evidence or argument to justify reconsideration. Redden said his May 23 opinion pointed out that BOR's provision for flow augmentation "was not enough to conclude that all of the BOR projects were part of, or interrelated to, the downstream FCRPS operations." -B. R.

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