As with the draft version, federal agencies rejected breaching the four lower Snake River dams in the final environmental impact statement (FEIS) for Columbia River System Operations, released July 31. Read more
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission threw a wrench into the decades-long march to decommission and remove the four dams of PacifiCorp's 169 megawatt Lower Klamath Project. Read more
Deferred maintenance of hatcheries in the Lower Snake River Compensation Plan leaves the Columbia Basin's major mitigation program with a huge funding hole, and no clear direction on who should pay for it. Read more
The question of whether Washington state can require federal agencies to address increases in water temperature caused by reservoirs at federal hydroelectric dams is shaping up to become a potential legal battle. Read more
The Environmental Protection Agency extended the comment period on one of the hottest issues in the Columbia Basin—its study on river temperatures, released May 18. Read more
An agreement to protect Hanford Reach fall Chinook by regulating flows at upper and mid-Columbia River dams is meeting all of its flow-level goals, and bringing more adult Chinook back to the reach to spawn. Read more
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is working to keep total dissolved gas (TDG) levels under 115 percent at Ice Harbor Dam on the Snake River, and water temperature below 68 degrees Fahrenheit at Lower Granite Dam. Read more
Transporting juvenile salmon or steelhead collected at Lower Granite and Little Goose dams by truck instead of leaving them in the river to migrate is resuming about two weeks earlier than described in the 2020 plan for fish operations. Summer transportation by barge will not resume at Lower… Read more
The National Marine Fisheries Service is accepting public comments on its draft environmental assessment of four Hatchery and Genetic Management Plans for six hatchery programs in the Touchet, Umatilla, Deschutes and Hood river basins. Read more
The Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission unanimously adopted a policy on July 10 to consider climate change and its impacts to the ocean in all its actions, and to develop a plan for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife to be carbon-neutral by 2050. Read more
British Columbia released a 49-page report summarizing 12 community meetings in Canada on negotiations to modernize the Columbia River Treaty. Read more
Upper Columbia summer Chinook have been removed from NOAA Fisheries' "overfishing" list, according to the agency's 2019 Status of U.S. Fisheries Report released this month. Read more
The Bonneville Power Administration and the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes will pay anglers to catch thousands of lake trout from Montana's Flathead Lake for more than two months this fall in an effort to make more room for native trout, including bull trout—listed as threatened und… Read more
An estimated 100 gallons of oil spilled into the Columbia River at Bonneville Dam, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers reports. The agency discovered a leaking turbine thrust bearing on July 13, and deployed a rapid spill response. The generating unit is no longer leaking, and the equipment is … Read more
