RESEARCH ESTIMATES SALMON EXTINCTIONS FOR HISTORICAL BASELINE Posted on Friday, February 01, 2008 (PST)

An estimated 29 percent of the nearly 1,400 historical salmon and steelhead "populations" that once that once ranged the West Coast have been lost since Euro-American appearance in California and the Pacific Northwest, according to a research paper published in the August edition of Conservation Biology. Read More...

REDDEN GRANTS BIOP EXTENSION TO MAY 5; 2008 HYDRO OPS IN THE WORKS Posted on Friday, February 01, 2008 (PST)

U.S. District Court Judge James A. Redden on Tuesday granted the government's request for a 45-day extension of the time allotted for finishing biological opinions on whether federal hydro and irrigation projects jeopardize the survival of protected salmon and steelhead. Read More...

BUREAU RELEASES DRAFT EIS ON YAKIMA WATER STORAGE ALTERNATIVES Posted on Friday, February 01, 2008 (PST)

A package of six options -- headlined by the $4.5 million Black Rock Alternative -- for boosting the Yakima River's water supply will be vetted in the public over the next two months before the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and Washington's Department of Ecology at year's end decide which they might pursue. Read More...

PARTIES DEBATE BLACK ROCK DAM; YAKIMA WATER SUPPLY SOLUTIONS Posted on Friday, February 01, 2008 (PST)

The debates have resumed, almost before the ink was dry on the Yakima River Basin Water Storage Feasibility Study Draft Planning Report/Environmental Impact Statement issued Tuesday by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and the Washington Department of Ecology. Read More...

PAPER: CLIMATE CHANGE DEMANDS NEW WAYS TO PLAN WATER MANAGEMENT Posted on Friday, February 01, 2008 (PST)

The past is no longer a reliable base on which to plan the future of water management. So says a paper by a prominent group of hydrologists and climatologists, published Thursday in Science, that calls for fundamental changes to the science behind water planning and policy. Read More...

CHELAN PUD EXPANDS EFFORTS TO REDUCE NORTHERN PIKEMINNOW Posted on Friday, February 01, 2008 (PST)

A blossoming predator control program is helping the Chelan County Public Utility District deliver on its pledge to ensure 93 percent juvenile salmon and steelhead survival from just below the trailrace of one Mid-Columbia River hydro project to below the tailrace of the next. Read More...

MONTANA COMMISSION TO TAKE COMMENT ON HYBRID FISH PURGE Posted on Friday, February 01, 2008 (PST)

A state project aimed at ridding the South Fork Flathead River drainage of hybrid fish does not have the public support that Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks claims, according to the Fish, Wildlife and Parks commissioner who represents northwestern Montana. Read More...

STUDY LOOKS AT HOW RAPID CHANGE IN ECOSYSTEMS IMPACTS SPECIES SURVIVAL Posted on Friday, February 01, 2008 (PST)

In a laboratory at Oregon State University, some giant water bugs are swimming happily in a small aquarium -- the sole survivors of a population that had survived for thousands of years in a mountain stream near Tucson, Ariz., but during a severe 2004 drought went locally extinct. Read More...