September 9, 2013 — The Obama administration's latest plan for making 14 hydroelectric dams in the Northwest safe for salmon offers no major changes in strategy and continues to rely on habitat improvements to overcome the numbers of fish killed by the dams.
The 751-page draft of the court-ordered plan known as a biological opinion was released Monday by NOAA Fisheries Service.
The last plan was struck down in 2011 for depending too much on habitat improvements that weren't specific. That plan also failed to consider the possibility of breaching the four dams on the Snake River in Eastern Washington _ a move that would return the river to more natural conditions.
The new plan also doesn't consider breaching the four dams. It said current dam operations are working fine, survival of juvenile salmon migrating to the ocean has improved and habitat improvements are on track to be implemented by 2018, when the biological opinion runs out.
The latest plan also noted that scientists can't explain a downturn in the past four years in the numbers of adult fish surviving the reach between Bonneville Dam on the Columbia and Ice Harbor Dam on the Snake in Eastern Washington.
The survival outlook for many threatened and endangered salmon runs remains risky. Landscape-scale habitat improvements are being ramped up on the Columbia Estuary, where spending is increasing from $4 million to $13 million.
Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Daily Astorian