For those of you who aren’t combing the blogroll, here are a bunch of important fisheries issues from across the Pacific Northwest:
Bill Bakke on the institutional barriers against wild salmon
A great look at the problem of relying on fish and wildlife agencies to save wild salmon from Bill Bakke’s blog: State governments have never been organized to actually protect wild salmonids and the habitats that sustain them. What passes for protection are carefully chosen words in plans and policies that are never expected to actually be carried out on the river. That way the public is pacified, the agency looks good, and the salmon continue to swim into the toilet.
Irrigation buyback on the Walla Walla could help reintroduced spring chinook
From the Osprey Steelhead News Blog: An effort is underway to secure funding for a $300 million irrigation project that would restore flows to the lower Walla Walla and provide irrigation water from the Columbia or Snake system. The headwaters of the Walla Walla are in excellent condition, however irrigation withdrawal most years leaves the lower river without very little flow. Efforts to reintroduce Spring Chinook to the Walla Walla began in 2000 when the tribe released 300 adult chinook in the Upper River. Since then number have gradually grown and in 2009, 800 chinook returned, the highest count since the reintroduction project began.
River Rights bill goes sideways: SB 1060-2 is a mess
Common Waters of Oregon worked with other river rights advocates over the past weeks to help shape SB 1060-1, not a perfect bill, but a piece of legislation that wouldn’t take away Oregonian’s River Rights. That process was recently blown up by a new amendment, SB 1060-2 that would allow for local jurisdictions to impose their own regulation on river use. Common Waters Oregon will not support this bill that fractures river rights across the state. Also worth noting, this bill avoids the elephant in the room — navigability. The current process of determining a river’s navigability is broken and this bill would do nothing to fix that. It would probably be best if this bill died right now and the Legislature looked at a comprehensive bill in the next full session. But for now, keep your fingers crossed and be thankful that we have people like Common Waters’ Heather McNeil and Jason Wells, Dave Moskowitz of Confluence Consulting, Trout Unlimited’s Tom Wolf and others fighting for your river rights in Salem.
Oregonian has a great article on Ocean Conditions and salmon returns
The Oregonian’s environmental reporter Matthew Preusch warns in a new article, Despite the recent good returns, over a dozen runs of salmon and steelhead remain on the federal list of protected species. None are expected to come off the list anytime soon.
Will golf courses get priority over salmon on Klamath Water deal?
One of the criticisms of the Klamath Basin restoration project is that the salmon won’t get enough water to make a go of it. Where is that water going? Primarily to California agriculture interests. But according to the KlamBlog, a bunch of water is going to non-agricultural sources like golf courses.
-MS
