Save Our Wild Salmon is a nationwide coalition of conservation organizations, commercial and sportsfishing associations, businesses, river groups, and taxpayer advocates working collectively to restore self-sustaining, abundant, and harvestable populations of wild salmon and steelhead to rivers, streams and oceans of the Pacific Salmon states.
Groups to Washington State: Give Endangered Salmon a Fighting Chance by Changing Water Releases
Petition Urges State Department of Ecology to Follow Oregon and Allow Scientifically Supported Water Releases to Get Baby Salmon Past Big Dams
March 8, 2010
Olympia, WA - Commercial and sport fishing associations, partnering with conservation groups, petitioned the Washington Department of Ecology today to help the downstream migration of endangered salmon by allowing water to be spilled over Columbia and Snake River dams at levels that will improve salmon survival.
Spilling water over the dams-- rather than forcing it through turbines and complex bypass systems-- is critical to aid endangered migrating salmon and steelhead because it is the safest and best way for baby salmon to get to sea. Extensive scientific studies show that fish do much better riding over the tops of the dams-- as they once did over the free-flowing Columbia's waterfalls-- than they do going through the deadly turbines.
"We are filing this petition to the Washington Department of Ecology to give salmon more of what they need to survive," said Glen Spain, Northwest Regional Director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations (PCFFA), a trade organization for West Coast commercial fishing families. "Allowing more water (and fish) to flow over the dams and not go through the turbines will simply help these fish survive, as well as the coastal and inland communities who depend on them for their livelihoods."
Even in low water conditions, spilling water over the dams has helped produce some of the best returns of salmon and steelhead seen in many years. The returning salmon have given a shot-in- the-arm to sport and commercial fisheries in the Columbia River at a time when the rest of the West Coast salmon fishing picture has been a disaster.
"This petition needs to be granted -- and fast-- to help our Northwest salmon economy recover and become strong again," said Liz Hamilton, Executive Director of the Northwest Sportfishing Industry Association. "Spill is a proven, effective action that will help to ensure that there will always be sustainable salmon runs for the people and communities that depend on them."
February 10, 2010 -- A federal judge told the Obama administration on Wednesday that its plan to help endangered salmon in the Pacific Northwest was technically flawed, and he urged it to revise the proposal before he rules on its broader merits. Judge James Redden of United States District Court in Portland said the plan, an effort to modify but not replace one from the Bush administration, was procedurally improper. He gave the administration until next week to decide whether to modify its plan, and urged it to “do more” to protect salmon.
GRANTS PASS, Ore. (AP) -- The federal judge overseeing efforts to make the Columbia Basin's federal hydroelectric dams safer for salmon is giving the Obama administration one last chance to come up with something better that won't violate the Endangered Species Act.
U.S. District Judge James Redden in Portland on Wednesday gave NOAA Fisheries Service until Feb. 19 to decide whether to voluntarily take back their proposed improvements to the Bush administration plan, known as a biological opinion.
The judge said this can fix procedural problems with the Obama administration revisions that prevent him from considering them. But he added that there are deeper flaws, and urged the agency to produce a stronger plan based on the best available science, as the law requires.
"I will not sign an order of voluntary remand that effectively relieves Federal Defendants of their obligation to use the best available science and consider all important aspects of the problem," the judge wrote. "This court will not dictate the scope or substance of Federal Defendants' remand, but Federal Defendants must comply with the ESA in preparing any amended/supplemental biological opinion."
Redden warned NOAA fisheries that he will view with "heightened skepticism" any attempts to deal with the issues superficially.
The Obama administration's plan for the Columbia Basin doesn't go nearly far enough.
by Carl Safina
Recently, a photograph made its way to me on the Internet: In a surging Alaskan stream, a grizzly bear stands with a salmon in its jaws, and in the shallows, a wolf -- keeping its distance -- also hoists a thrashing salmon. Your eye goes to the bear, then the wolf. But the salmon convened the meeting. Without the salmon, you'd see only water.
When salmon return from the sea, their bodies are the ocean made flesh. Their tails propel ocean nutrients upstream and into forests, rivers and range lands, where they benefit hundreds of other species. Everything else in the photograph -- trees, bushes, all the animals and plants in the forest and the water -- contains ocean nutrients from salmon.
And now add orcas to the web of life fed by salmon. New research tells us that, before salmon hit the flowing streams, they are by far the most important food for resident killer whales along the Pacific Coast.
I am very familiar as a fisherman with another promise the Army Corps made when it built the lower Snake dams: that Idaho's great wild salmon runs would survive them. That is a promise that has been broken. Idaho's wild salmon and steelhead are endangered with extinction.
The Corps also promised Lewiston the Lower Snake dams would bring sustained commerce and jobs by making Lewiston an inland seaport. Another promise broken: Business and jobs at the port are fading away and its remaining customers are actively seeking road and rail transportation options for their future.
One more promise: The Lewiston levees, built with the lower Snake dams, would protect the town (downtown is below the river - think New Orleans), and give Lewiston residents a riverside walking, hiking and biking path. That promise is not yet broken - but it might not be long.
For healthy returns, juvenile salmon have to reach the ocean
Court-ordered spills of water on the Columbia River dam system are getting credit for helping ensure more juvenile fish reach the Pacific Ocean, where they can thrive and eventually return upstream.
Restoring iconic salmon runs in the Pacific Northwest has a corollary in the business world. Success equates to moving product.
Dramatic numbers of returning coho salmon to the upper and middle Columbia River, and equally impressive results for sockeye salmon in the Snake River basin, are directly related to quickly and safely reaching the Pacific Ocean.
Recent years of court-ordered spills at federal dams have ensured more juvenile fish are sped through the system and reach the ocean.
Michele DeHart, executive director of the Fish Passage Center in Portland, cites the role of spills in boosting fish returns.
Obama administration should make public all documents
Register Guard Editorial - Saturday, Dec 26, 2009 The Obama administration wants federal District Judge James Redden to believe that eight hydroelectric dams currently producing power on the Columbia and Snake rivers can coexist with 13 populations of salmon and steelhead that have become imperiled, largely because of those same dams.
It’s a formidable challenge, one the administration can help meet by releasing all documents regarding its scientific review of the Bush administration’s controversial biological opinion or, as it’s better known, “bi-op.”
On Nov. 30, Judge Redden asked the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and two other federal agencies to provide those documents. Save Our Wild Salmon, a plaintiff in a federal lawsuit challenging the Bush-era plan, also has requested the documents, including the testimony of scientists and a report on their review. But so far the agencies have released less than a third of the information to the public.
That doesn’t inspire confidence that the Obama administration engaged in the thorough and independent review that federal officials say they conducted before returning with a plan that left largely intact key components of the Bush administration’s bi-op.
Two respected biologists say President Obama must make good on his vow to “restore science” to salmon restoration
by Kevin Taylor
Like someone tilting a bucket into a sink, the Snake River pours winter into the sea.
In a jumble of wilderness and mountains, nearly a thousand miles from any coast — and more than a mile, in places, higher than the sea itself — snowmelt funnels and gathers from a multitude of points, braiding into a river that sluices downhill with immense mass and remorseless flow.
Don Chapman and Stephen Pettit carry this epic sense of the river as they make a rare visit to newspapers in Spokane to advocate on behalf of wild salmon.
Olympia, WA - Commercial and sport fishing associations, partnering with conservation groups, petitioned the Washington Department of Ecology today to help the downstream migration of endangered salmon by allowing water to be spilled over Columbia and Snake River dams at levels that will improve salmon survival.
- a three part series by Howard Garrett
