Tag Archives: Bonneville Power Administration

Saving salmon is a ruse for breaching our dams

In the early 1990s, our small group were researching environmental claims that the lower Snake River dams were devastating salmon runs. At that time, we learned about East Sand Island, a man-made island in the estuary of the Columbia River. This island was formed from dredging deposits in 1983. And by 1984 Caspian terns, cormorants and gulls, which had colonized the island, were feasting on salmon smolts. We thought: “Wow, this is an easy fix. Tear out a man-made island and save millions of endangered fish.” The environmentalists beat us to the punch. They filed in federal court to protect the island and the birds under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918. Now we have the largest nesting colony of these non-endangered birds in the world on a man-made island. >click to read< 08:38

Four Washington Dams Again on Chopping Block

Farmers, fishermen and environmentalists sparred Thursday over a proposal to breach four dams on the Snake River to prevent extinction of salmon born there. The time could be ripe for the proposal long favored by environmentalists, with requirements under decades-running litigation dovetailing with measures called for by a state task force bent on saving endangered killer whales. The government is preparing to take an official position in February on whether breaching the four dams is necessary.  >click to read< 20:31

Northwest Dams to Spill More Water to Help Salmon & Orca

Dam operators will send more water spilling over the eight dams along the Snake and Columbia rivers in an effort to help young salmon survive the notoriously deadly trip to the Pacific Ocean. The spill management plan for 2019 and 2020 is a win for salmon advocates in a 17-year legal battle where federal judges have repeatedly told the government it’s not doing enough to prevent the extinction of salmon in the rivers of the Northwest. It also brings that litigation into alignment with the work of a Washington state task force determined to prevent the extinction of Southern resident killer whales whose survival depends on endangered Chinook salmon. >click to read<12:03

The fate of the Northwest’s largest energy provider may decide future of our salmon

When they were first built, Columbia River dams like Grand Coulee and Bonneville were technological wonders that placed the Pacific Northwest on the edge of the future. Millions of acres of farmland were irrigated. The dams fueled the growth of urban areas around Seattle and Portland, and powered reactors at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation that produced the plutonium for the bomb dropped on Nagasaki in World War II. Salmon and the region’s Indian tribes were a second thought during this period — until the dams took their toll. click here to read the story 13:21

Major Fight Shapes up Over Salmon Harvest in the Columbia River

Agreements that have reigned for a decade on how to divide the catch of salmon and steelhead in the Columbia Basin expire on the last day of 2017. The new plan is so contentious that multiple sides have promised to sue over it. What are the outrageous details? Same as the current ones. But the moment is a pressure point that allows old arguments to resurface. The current agreement, which expires at midnight on Dec. 31,,, click here to read the story 05:54

Revised Columbia River Treaty could restore British Columbia salmon runs

A growing movement on both sides of the Canada-U.S. border wants to make the restoration of salmon runs in southeast British Columbia a key issue in negotiations over the Columbia River Treaty. continued@globeandmail