Agencies issue plan to run Columbia dams, conserve salmon. By Jeff Bernard. Associated Press.
It is very expensive, but does not remove the major problem — the dams on the lower Snake River. It may or may not meet the demands of U.S. District Judge James Redden who has been very hostile to past Administration efforts to meet the standards of the Endangered Species Act on the impereled salmon runs.
Matters have been complicated this year by very hostile conditions in the Pacific ocean. There has been a collapse of the food chain, prompting an moratorium on commercial salmon fishing off the coast of California and Oregon (after a recent record salmon run in the Sacramento River last year).
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Ralph Maughan
Dr. Ralph Maughan is professor emeritus of political science at Idaho State University with specialties in natural resource politics, public opinion, interest groups, political parties, voting and elections. Aside from academic publications, he is author or co-author of three hiking/backpacking guides, and he is President of the Western Watersheds Project.
From what i have read about the plan, they bought off the indians and aren’t really doing much to change the situation. There are a myriad of problems facing salmon in the PNW. They need to stop netting there food soure so heavily, increase the springtime flows, end commercial netting in the river, change canadian and alakan allocations, control the invasive predators withing the system and reduce the unnaturally high predator population at the mouth. (caspian terns ands cormorants)