Columbia Basin Bulletin - January 20, 2025

'Killing Salmon To Lose Money', Voracious Juvenile Sablefish, Columbia River Basin Snowpack... and more

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Columbia Basin Bulletin
January 20, 2025

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said it could make hydroelectric dams on Oregon’s Willamette River safe for endangered salmon by building gigantic mechanical traps and hauling baby fish downstream in tanker trucks. The Corps started pressing forward over objections from fish advocates and power users who said the plan was costly and untested.

There is a new mouth to feed in the coastal waters of the Northwest where juvenile salmon first enter the ocean, and it’s a hungry one.

Although the snowpack in the western and southern portions of the Columbia River basin are higher than normal, other areas to the north and to the east are near- to lower-than-normal, and, as a result, January water supplies at key dams are being reported as below or slightly below normal.

A federal agency and a state agency have jointly completed a study on the impacts that breaching the four lower Snake River dams would have on water supplies and irrigation.

A December, 2023 agreement among six Northwest sovereigns and the U.S. government to restore Columbia River basin salmon and steelhead runs to “healthy and abundant levels” and touted by advocates as a collaborative effort to restore salmon runs in the basin, was questioned this week at the Northwest Power and Conservation Council meeting in Portland.

The Northwest Power and Conservation Council has released a letter requesting recommendations from the region on how to amend its Columbia River Basin Fish and Wildlife Program, with submissions due by April 17.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has denied petitions to remove Endangered Species Act protections from grizzly bears, finding that the imperiled animals still need federal protection.

Return Of Columbia River Smelt ( ESA-Listed 15 Years Ago)This Year Expected To Be Close To 10-Year Average; Limited, Tentative Fishery Announced

Expecting a slightly smaller run of eulachon (smelt) into the mainstem Columbia River this year than last year – about 8.6 million pounds – the two-state Columbia River Compact adopted a limited three-day-a-week commercial gillnet test fishery. The decision allows gillnetters using small mesh nets to fish for the threatened species in Zones 1 to 3 (roughly from the Astoria Megler Bridge to Puget Island).

Washington State Formally Bans Net Pen Aquaculture Seven Years After Net Pen Collapse Released Atlantic Salmon Into Puget Sound

Commercial net pen aquaculture was outlawed last week in Washington state, some seven years after a net pen collapsed, releasing thousands of Atlantic Salmon into Puget Sound, and two years after the last commercial net pens in the Sound lost their leases and were removed.

Boaters In Washington State Waters Must Now Stay 1,000 Yards (Half-Mile) Away From Killer Whales At All Times

As of Jan. 1, 2025, boaters in Washington waters must stay 1,000 yards away from Southern Resident killer whales (SRKW) at all times.

The new year came with both joy and sadness for endangered Southern Resident killer whales. Researchers first spotted J35, also known as Tahlequah, carrying her deceased calf off Alki Point in West Seattle on December 31. Tahlequah is the same whale that garnered international headlines and concern in 2018 when she carried another deceased newborn calf for 17 days.

The U.S. Department of Energy, Washington State Department of Ecology, and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency have finalized an agreement that outlines a course for cleaning up millions of gallons of radioactive and chemical waste from large, underground tanks at the Hanford Site near the Columbia River.