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 Let's really talk about taking down those Snake River dams
June 07, 2010 - Economic effects have long been cited as reasons to keep the dams in place. While some inland businesses and farmers are willing to look at how dam removal could work for their communities, the leadership for a larger conversation has been missing. Are you listening, Sen. Murray?
By Daniel Jack Chasan
If the four lower Snake River dams come down, will they drag the economy of eastern Washington and western Idaho down with them? Salmon advocates don't think so.
They think that anyone who takes an unbiased look at the costs and benefits of those dams will call in the bulldozers. They have argued for years that the dams should be breached, so that Idaho salmon populations have a better shot at recovery. But they say they'll take a chance that if someone weighed all the costs and benefits, the dams would stay. They want somebody to do the math.
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Steve Wright: NW power boss for life?
Steve Wright has been reappointed administrator of the Bonneville Power Administration, a post he held in the Bush Administration and the Northwest's most important federal job.
But Wright's retention at the helm of the Portland-based power bureaucracy disappointed environmental groups and fisheries advocates, and opens a breach between greens and the Obama administration.
"Instead of 'Change We Can Believe In' we got change that didn't happen," said Bill Arthur of the Sierra Club.
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Crafting the operating manual for the Columbia River system
Editorial, May 28th, 2010
Federal District Judge James Redden is getting an updated operating plan for the Columbia River hydro system. He will decide if it is a technical fix he sought, or whether it provides him with reassurances about backup plans for changing river and fish conditions.
Years of battling about how best to manage the Columbia River hydroelectric system without doing greater harm to endangered salmon and steelhead is coming to another decision point.
Attempts to craft a workable plan for a spectrum of needs and uses — power, irrigation, flood control, navigation and recreation — have exhausted Cabinet secretaries and frustrated environmentalists.
The Obama administration seeks approval for a massaged Bush administration plan, and it faces a tough arbiter, federal District Judge James Redden.
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Salmon or political games? Obama administration makes its choice
A federal judge repeatedly warned the federal government that only big changes to proposals for hydro dams would guarantee approval. Instead, the Obama administration has presented a plan that looks very much like the Bush strategy.
By Daniel Jack Chasan
May 26, 2010 - Isn't it nice when new information proves you were right all along? The Obama administration has had that happy experience, and it shared the good news on May 20, when NOAA's National Marine Fisheries Service unveiled its Supplemental Biological Opinion on operation of the federal Columbia River system dams. The government looked at some new science. It looked at the old BiOp. And ... what do you know? Touch the old document up a little, and it's good to go — just as the feds had thought.
"Feds tweak Columbia salmon plan," says the headline on the Idaho Statesman's web site. "Obama Administration backs Bush-era plan for Columbia Basin salmon," says the equivalent headline in the Oregonian. "While there are verbs among the 'actions,' " says Todd True, managing attorney of Earthjustice's Northwest office, "there is no action."
Earthjustice attorney Steve Mashuda dismisses the new document as "a book report." Not even the government's own press release pretends that much has changed.
Federal courts have been tossing Columbia River BiOps since the Seattle Mariners had Alex Rodriguez at shortstop and Randy Johnson on the mound. The federal agencies are already 0-for-4. U.S. District Judge James Redden, who has thrown out two biological opinions and has had the current version in his court for two years, has made it clear that his patience has pretty well run out. It's hard to predict his next step in a case that has already dragged on into almost unchartered waters.
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - May 21, 2010
Contact Ed Shelleby - (202) 226-1507
Rep. McDermott Expresses Concern over 2010 Federal Salmon Plan for Columbia and Snake Rivers
McDermott cites insufficient revision from Bush Administration plan
 WASHINGTON, DC—Today, Rep. Jim McDermott questioned whether the National Marine Fisheries Service's revised plan for protecting 13 stocks of threatened and endangered salmon and steelhead in the Columbia and Snake Rivers included adequate improvements over the 2008 version.
The updated plan—which was issued yesterday—is the result of a voluntary 90-day review period during which National Marine Fisheries Service (NOAA Fisheries) modified a 2008 Bush Administration plan that a federal judge had indicated was unlikely to pass legal muster without significant changes.
"I have deep concerns that this revised plan does not include sufficient improvements over the 2008 version to accomplish its purpose of protecting salmon," said Rep. Jim McDermott. "An issue as complex and important to our way of life as Columbia Basin salmon restoration requires more than just minor changes—it requires a renewed commitment to following best practices and the very best science. This plan falls far short of what's needed to put imperiled wild salmon and steelhead on a path toward real recovery."
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Feds: No major changes for
Columbia Basin salmon
Abby Haight - May 20th, 2010
PORTLAND, Ore. — The Obama administration has made no major changes to a plan to protect endangered wild salmon runs in the Columbia River Basin, dismaying salmon advocates who say they expected more.
The government on Thursday submitted revisions for a 2008 Bush-era biological plan to U.S. District Judge James Redden in Portland.
"These guys came out with Band-Aids when we're hemorrhaging from a major artery," said Nicole Cordan, policy and legal director for Save Our Wild Salmon. "These are species that are already imperiled, and they're saying, 'We're going to do less for them.'"
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NW Salmon Battle Doesn't Bode
Well for Other Endangered Species
Public News Service - May 21st, 2010
PORTLAND, Ore. - It is Endangered Species Day and advocates for native Northwest salmon say the timing is ironic. On Thursday, the federal government submitted what it calls a "legally and scientifically sound" Biological Opinion (BiOp); a plan to protect endangered wild fish. Groups that have already challenged the previous BiOps in court say this one is not much better. In their view, the feds have ignored some studies in favor of others, and failed to take climate change into account.
Jim Martin, former chief of fisheries for the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Department, says he's disappointed in the new plan.
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Agencies submit new Columbia River salmon plan
by Kim Murphy, May 20th, 2010
The Obama administration has come back with its final program for restoring endangered salmon on the Columbia River -- a plan substantially like the last one.
The revised biological opinion submitted by four federal agencies to the federal court in Portland, Ore., has been updated to reflect new scientific studies and to incorporate a flexible "adaptive management" strategy that will allow swift implementation of stronger measures if needed.
Officials hope that will be sufficient to head off yet another rejection by the court. "While much attention has focused on the courtroom, the region should be proud of what the federal government, states, tribes and communities together have accomplished for fish," the agencies said in a statement releasing the opinion.
"Last year alone, 9,609 miles of wetland habitat were protected and 244 miles of streams were reopened to fish. We've made much progress, and completion of this legal process now prepares us to make much more."
Conservationists had hoped the plan would be much bolder, with less emphasis on hatchery fish and stronger attention to the possibility of breaching dams on the Snake River in eastern Washington that cut off salmon from miles of pristine potential habitat.
"This was the Obama team's chance to change directions and protect salmon in the Columbia-Snake River basin and follow the law," said Todd True of Earthjustice, who is lead attorney for a group of fishing and conservation groups who have challenged the restoration plan in court.
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Obama administration ignores climate change impacts, weakens Endangered Species Act in release of Northwest salmon plan PORTLAND, Ore. — Just one month after oil began spilling into the Gulf of Mexico — crushing wildlife and fishing communities — and on the eve of Endangered Species Day, the Obama administration announced today that, instead of employing sound science and following the Endangered Species Act, it will stick with the Bush administration’s failed analyses and strategies for endangered wild salmon on the Columbia and Snake rivers in the Pacific Northwest. This was the Obama administration’s first attempt at a plan of their own for these iconic creatures.
"This is a disappointing decision from the administration,” said Rebecca Wodder, President of American Rivers. “These fish are truly one-of-a-kind — the only salmon on the planet that travel as far and as high. Their habitat is equally unique, providing the largest, wildest, highest, coldest salmon habitat in the lower 48, and our best chance of protecting and restoring Columbia and Snake salmon in the face of climate change. We can recover salmon and restore the Snake River in a way that works for local communities and the region’s economy, and we should embrace that path, not shy away from it."
The Obama salmon plan is an attempt to mitigate the harmful impacts of federal dams on endangered salmon and steelhead populations. But despite strong objections from fisheries biologists, former Northwest governors, and people and businesses across the nation, the Obama administration has taken no action to address the effects of climate change on rivers and salmon populations, and has effectively lowered the bar for protection of endangered species across the country.
“The administration has chosen to wear blinders regarding the impacts of climate change on salmon,” said John Kostyack, the executive director of the National Wildlife Federation’s Wildlife Conservation and Global Warming program. “The science tells us that our rivers and lakes are warming. This administration had an opportunity to confront this problem and to protect salmon from the impacts from climate change. Instead it elected to ignore the impacts and defend a discredited strategy written by the previous administration.”
In a speech before the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 2009, President Obama stated that "For more than three decades, the Endangered Species Act has successfully protected our nation's most threatened wildlife, and we should be looking for ways to improve it — not weaken it.” Unfortunately, the plan released today diverges sharply from this goal by undermining one of the Act’s key protective measures.
“It’s sad, but clear, that NOAA and its fisheries service have not gotten the President’s message,” said Zeke Grader, the executive director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations. “Today’s actions tell us there has been no change from the disastrous policies of the past 15 years that failed to protect endangered fish while endangering fishing jobs and fishing economies. Fishing communities deserved better than this.”
Salmon advocates maintain that the plan released today is illegal under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and largely ignores the impact federal dams have on threatened and endangered salmon and steelhead in the Columbia-Snake River Basin. In the past decade, the courts have rejected two similarly weak salmon plans.
“We believed the President when he said he would follow science and strengthen the ESA, but the administration has seemingly allowed regional political pressure to trump science and law,” said Brock Evans, President of the Endangered Species Coalition. “Tomorrow is Endangered Species Day. We should be celebrating and working to protect America’s endangered species, but instead, for Columbia Basin salmon, we’re mourning. Even so, make no mistake — we’re not done fighting to save species like wild salmon. They are simply irreplaceable.”
Nicole Cordan, Save Our Wild Salmon,
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503.230.0421, ext. 12 or 503.703.3733 (cell) Michael Garrity, American Rivers,
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206-852-5583 John Kostyack, National Wildlife Federation,
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202.797.6879 Brock Evans, Endangered Species Coalition,
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202.244.7138 |
Blogs getting the word out:
Obama to release revised Bush salmon plan
 While Columbia & Snake River wild salmon & steelhead remain on the brink, their story is swimming in abundance throughout the blogosphere.
As we mentioned last week, the Obama administration is on the cusp of a decision that will determine the strength of the Endangered Species Act and the fate of wild salmon and steelhead in the Columbia and Snake Rivers.
News of this upcoming decision is spreading. Take a look at any and all of the blogs below. The key word here is share. Please forward any of these links to your friends and family in an email or post one to any of your favorite social networks. Thank you!
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