An extra-cold Columbia River is probably the reason this year's spring chinook run has been so late, regional biologists have said for the past several weeks. ...more

All parties in the years-long litigation over the Columbia River hydro BiOp [NWF et al v. NMFS et al] got another face-to-face last week in court, where they re-hashed old arguments about whether the salmon plan's jeopardy analysis was adequate. The subject had been dredged up by Judge James Redden, one of six questions he wanted to focus on at the May 9 hearing. ...more

An extensive report that examines coast-wide sockeye productivity has concluded that 2009's disastrous decline in Fraser River sockeye reflected a much larger and longer decline in the productivity of sockeye stocks from Seattle to southeast Alaska. ...more

Using a combination of original and peer-reviewed research, the Bureau of Reclamation has released a congressionally mandated assessment of future water supplies in eight major river basins in the West, including the Columbia--where precipitation and runoff are actually predicted to rise, along with temperatures, although flow timing is expected to change. ...more

With most of the region's muscle and money focused on recovering salmon stocks in the Columbia Basin, other ESA-listed runs in the Northwest such as the chinook in Puget Sound are stuck in neutral, victims of the latest recession. ...more

A draft report that has synthesized five years of research into avian predation on salmonids in the Columbia River Basin concludes the greatest potential for increasing smolt survival lies in managing efforts to reduce the numbers of Caspian terns nesting in the mid-Columbia at Crescent Island, Goose Island and the Blalock Islands. ...more

With more snow falling in mountain passes at the end of April, the Columbia River Basin's water supply kept growing past the end of the month. It jumped another 13 percent since the end of March. and now stands at 121 percent of average for April-September at The Dalles. ...more