RESEARCH COULD AID IN PREDICTING TIMING OF SALMON RETURNS Posted on Friday, December 01, 2006 (PST)

An increasingly volatile climate over the past decade provides environmental clues to better predict just when Columbia River basin spring chinook salmon will make their spawning surge upriver, according to a study conducted this year by University of Idaho researchers. Read More...

FEDS DETAIL PLANS TO DISPERSE WORLD’S LARGEST TERN COLONY Posted on Friday, December 01, 2006 (PST)

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Tuesday announced that they had made official their intent to disperse a majority of the world's largest colony of Caspian terns from their East Sand Island nesting site in the Columbia River estuary. Read More...

STATES SEEK LETHAL MEANS AS OPTION ON UPRIVER SEA LIONS Posted on Friday, December 01, 2006 (PST)

Fish management agencies from Oregon, Washington and Idaho announced this week that they have asked the federal government for permission to use lethal means, as a last resort, to remove individual California sea lions that prey on chinook salmon and steelhead below the Columbia River's Bonneville Dam. Read More...

CORPS DETAILS EVENTS LEADING TO KOOTENAI RIVER FLOODING Posted on Friday, December 01, 2006 (PST)

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers admits in a recent report that spilling and flooding on Montana's Kootenai River last spring could have been avoided had Libby Dam operators followed a variable discharge protocol rather than trying to refill Lake Koocanusa. Read More...

BUREAU, STATE MOVE FORWARD ON YAKIMA BASIN STORAGE STUDY Posted on Friday, December 01, 2006 (PST)

The Bureau of Reclamation and Washington Department of Ecology announced this week their decision to move forward into the feasibility phase of a storage study designed to bring more water to the Yakima River basin. Read More...

WET NOVEMBER MIGHT HELP MITIGATE COMING EL NINO IMPACTS Posted on Friday, December 01, 2006 (PST)

A sodden November across much of the Columbia River basin may well have provided water users with a hedge against "El Nino" conditions that are expected to settle into the region for the winter. Read More...

UW CLIMATE IMPACTS GROUP PROPOSES NATIONAL CLIMATE SERVICE Posted on Friday, December 01, 2006 (PST)

It's time for the United States to have a national climate service -- an interagency partnership led by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and charged with understanding climate dynamics, forecasts and impacts -- say six members of the University of Washington's Climate Impacts Group. Read More...