Current Stories
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New Oregon law will improve storage, water planning
Oregonian
07/01/2009
A bill passed by Oregon lawmakers improves planning for water use and provides $2.5 million for the next phase of a project to create underground water storage in the Umatilla Basin.
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Draining every drop
Seattle Times
06/30/2009
Groups are starting to meet again on water supply in WA's arid Yakima River Basin, the heavily irrigated region that's home to thousands of acres of tree fruit, wine grapes, hops and other crops. In drought years, fish suffer in low rivers and farmers and towns with newer water rights have their water supply rationed.
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Abandoned fishing nets no more
Seattle Times
07/01/2009
Nearly all of the abandoned fishing nets in Puget Sound that kill marine animals and damage habitat will be removed with the help of $4.6 million in federal stimulus money.
The net-removal efforts are among six projects in the state that will receive $16.5 million for marine and coastal habitat restoration.
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Coastal restoration projects for habitat and jobs
Oregon Public Broadcasting
06/30/2009
In the Pacific Northwest, the federal agency that oversees ocean life will spend stimulus funding to reconnect tidal wetlands, remove obsolete dams and clean up marine debris by hiring dozens of out of work crab fishermen.
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Saving species no longer about the prettiest
Washington Post
06/29/2009
Are we ready to start saving ugly species? Though we gravitate towards iconic creatures like salmon, scientists say they're noticing a little more love for the unlovely lately. Plain-Jane plants, birds with fluorescent goiters and beetles that meet their mates at rat corpses are getting new respect - valued as homely canaries inside treasured ecosystems.
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First foods inform tribe's conservation
Indian Country Today
06/28/2009
Resource management on the lands of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation in Oregon took a unique turn a couple years ago when the board of trustees approved a plan built around consideration for their first foods: water, salmon, fish, big game, roots and berries.
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Trucking salmon to upper McKenzie River in OR
Oregonian
06/29/2009
At the base of Oregon's Cougar Dam, construction crews are building a sophisticated trap-and-haul facility to truck salmon to the upper reaches of the South Fork of the McKenzie River. With all the concrete being poured its hard to picture the goal: completing the life cycle for a fish that once had the run of the rivers.
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Lost salmon funding may be recovered
Tri-City Herald
06/25/2009
Millions of dollars deleted this week from the Pacific Salmon Recovery Fund for 2010 may be restored in the US Senate. Sen. Patty Murray said she included $80 million for the salmon fund in the Senate Commerce, Justice, and Science Appropriations Bill that passed the subcommittee Wednesday.
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Taking out OR dam no easy task
Oregon Public Broadcasting
06/24/2009
After two decades of conflict, crews are finally jackhammering the Savage Rapids Dam on Oregon's Rogue River into oblivion. Efforts to return other rivers to free-flowing channels are getting more attention across the Northwest and in Congress. But what happened here gives some indication of how difficult it can be to rip out these engineering feats of the last century.
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Balancing salmon habitat and farmland
Everett Herald
06/24/2009
In Snohomish County, WA, a $13 million effort to restore chinook salmon habitat by flooding low-lying areas of Smith Island would come at the expense of farmland and a horse boarding facility. "The big question on the table is, 'What's the appropriate mix of agriculture versus habitat restoration?' " county public works director said.
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House leaders block funding for salmon recovery
Tri-City Herald
06/23/2009
Three months after Northwest members of Congress persuaded President Obama to reinstate $50 million for the 2010 Pacific Coastal Salmon Recovery Fund, the House of Representatives has said no deal, effectively terminating the program as of Sept. 30.
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Future up in air for bat colony
Olympian
06/22/2009
At a conservation preserve near Olympia, WA, plans are being made to remove some of the man-made structures that clutter the shoreline. While salmon and oysters would benefit from a more natural habitat, some of those log booms and piers have become havens for other wildlife, such as bats.
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A different kind of salmon story
Kitsap Sun
06/21/2009
The more dramatic headlines about salmon focus on water conflicts in California, legal battles over dams on the Columbia River and concerns about the survival of orcas in Puget Sound. At the same time, however, biologists are quietly celebrating a dramatic comeback by a unique race of chum salmon that populate Hood Canal.
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Protection in a fragile environment
Indian Country Today
06/22/2009
The Makah Nation’s land overlooks water that's home to whales, endangered salmon and dozens of other marine species. But the crossroads of the Strait of San Juan de Fuca and the Pacific Ocean is also notoriously perilous for oil tankers and cargo ships. The WA Legislature recognized that by adding a permanent funding source for an emergency response tug to be stationed at Neah Bay.
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Alaska's salmon scarce as ocean currents shift
Anchorage Daily News
06/21/2009
After a second straight year of weak king salmon returns around the rim of the Gulf of Alaska, state fisheries biologists believe they know where things went wrong: "In the ocean" more than a dozen said when interviewed this week. The how and what of went wrong there, however, leaves them scratching their heads.
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Has the dam breaching debate changed?
Boise Idaho Statesman
06/21/2009
Breaching dams seems no more likely under a new administration. But the fervor for keeping them has died down, too, and that opens the door for discussion.
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Vancouver WA adopts tougher stormwater rules
Vancouver Columbian
06/17/2009
For decades, rainwater was something you wanted to channel away from your land to prevent a muddy mess. Now the Vancouver, WA, city council has unanimously approved tougher controls that will require some developers to spend more to prevent stormwater from cascading off future projects.
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Ocean's chemistry may be killing sea life
Seattle Times
06/14/2009
As the Northwest's oyster industry heads into its fifth summer of crisis, scientists are pondering a disturbing theory. They suspect water that rises from deep in the Pacific Ocean may be corrosive enough to kill baby oysters. If true, that could mean shifts in ocean chemistry associated with carbon-dioxide emissions from fossil fuels may be impairing sea life faster and more dramatically than expected.
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As wind power grows, a push to remove dams
New York Times
06/11/2009
With increasing focus on clean power, some dam agencies are starting to go green, embracing wind power and energy conservation. The most aggressive is the Northwest's Bonneville Power Administration. But that shift also is fueling the case for tearing down dams in the BPA's territory, particularly four along the lower Snake River.
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Study: Hatchery-raised fish hurt wild steelhead
Oregon Public Broadcasting
06/11/2009
Scientists have long found hatchery-raised fish have a much tougher time in the wild. Now an Oregon State University zoology professor found the captive-born fish inter-breed and pass on their weaknesses to wild fish.
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Study: Hatchery life impairs wild fish
Eugene Register Guard
06/11/2009
Concrete ponds are no match for Oregon streams when it comes to producing hardy stock, new research on steelhead suggests. Just a single generation of hatchery living genetically impairs generations of fish, the study shows.
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Just add water to Chelan River
Wenatchee World
06/09/2009
They turned on the Chelan River - and it works. The Chelan County Public Utility District is spending nearly $16 million to restore year-round flow into a engineered channel with carefully placed boulders, logs and rocks, all to provide new spawning habitat for steelhead and chinook salmon.
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Oceans, 'blue economy' in trouble
Olympian
06/10/2009
In Washington state, oysters in some areas haven't reproduced for four years. In the Gulf of Mexico, disoriented shrimp jump into the air in what the locals call a "jubilee." Researchers, scientists and Jacques Cousteau's granddaughter painted a bleak picture for Congress Tuesday of the future of oceans and the "blue economy" of the nation's coastal states.
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WA tribes get grants to protect Puget Sound
Indian Country Today
06/09/2009
Washington tribes have received grants totaling nearly $2 million for on-the-ground projects to preserve water quality and salmon habitat in Puget Sound: taking inventory of fish-blocking culverts; connecting floodplains and building engineered logjams to create covered deep pools where Chinook salmon hold before spawning.
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Blue energy: Harnessing the ocean
Longview Daily News
06/07/2009
Spurred by a nationwide push to develop green energy, entrepreneurs and public utilities are scouting Washington's coastline for places to generate electricity by channeling the sea through turbines. But along with technical problems the industry faces, critics warn that turbines could bother salmon, migrating whales, boaters and fishermen.
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