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By Samantha Wohlfeil
Feb 12, 2026

Last week, the Northwest Power and Conservation Council met in Spokane to take public comment on its draft Columbia River Basin Fish and Wildlife Program, a plan that is updated every five years.

Congress created the power council to represent the interests of people in Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana, with the passage of the Northwest Power Act in 1980. In addition to tasking the council with creating a plan to mitigate fish and wildlife impacts from the region’s hydroelectric dams, the act also calls for the council to create and regularly update a power plan for the dams, which are managed by Bonneville Power Administration, the Army Corps of Engineers, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the Bureau of Reclamation.

The current draft Fish and Wildlife Program, which was released in December, is one of the main updates before the council creates the Ninth Power Plan, which is expected to be released later this year.

The Fish and Wildlife Program calls for consistent spring and summer spill (noting voluntary spill over the dams has changed frequently over the last decade) in order to reliably track how it may help juvenile salmon reach the ocean. It also calls for increased management of predators, including walleye, northern pike and northern pikeminnow, which are all voracious eaters of other fish and thrive in the river conditions created by the dams.

The program also calls for habitat restoration, including land acquisition and maintenance, and vegetation planting to restore ecosystems that are vital to weakened fish runs.

The many goals in the nearly 200-page document will translate into real projects that the Bonneville Power Administration pays for, to the tune of about $300 million per year, including funding for state and tribal fisheries, hatcheries, and more.

‘THEY’RE NOT HERE’

After dams were built across Northwest rivers over the last century, historically abundant salmon and steelhead populations in the Snake and Columbia rivers plummeted, and access was completely lost to some tributaries, including the Spokane River.

Since 1987, the Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s goal has been to get the number of fish returning to the Columbia River back up to 5 million among all species.

“We are nowhere near that, with less than 2.5 million fish returning annually (and the majority are hatchery fish, not wild),” says Tanya Riordan, policy and advocacy director for Save Our Wild Salmon, via email to the Inlander.

The Northwest Power and Conservation Council notes the “10-year rolling average has been 2.3 million fish, a significant improvement from the 1990s when the average dipped to a low of 1.3 million and many stocks were listed under the Endangered Species Act.”

During the Spokane public hearing on Tuesday, Feb. 3, Save Our Wild Salmon staff and others called on the council to include explicit accountability measures for Bonneville Power to meet the fish goal.

“In previous iterations of the Fish and Wildlife Program, clear accountability metrics, timelines, and actions defined if fish recovery goals are not met have not been included,” Riordan writes. “With the Resilient Columbia Basin Agreement terminated by the Trump administration and continued efforts to weaken protections for endangered species, the NPCC 2026 Fish and Wildlife Program (and the Ninth Power Plan) is the best path right now to mitigate further harm to fish from hydropower operations in the Columbia and Snake rivers and make actionable progress towards recovery goals.”

Several speakers also asked for increased summer spill over the four lower Snake River dams through Aug. 31 (the program currently calls for elevated spill from mid-June to Aug. 1). They also requested the council include the potential for breaching those dams in the Ninth Power Plan.

Harvey Morrison, conservation chair of the Spokane Falls chapter of Trout Unlimited, told the council the hearing should have been conducted a day earlier, on Groundhog Day.

“Seems like I’ve played this day over and over and over,” Morrison said, referencing the 1993 movie that sees Bill Murray’s character stuck in a timeloop reliving the same day. “I first testified before this council on this Fish and Wildlife Program over 30 years ago.”

As he’s argued before, Morrison said the four lower Snake River dams never should have been built, and he noted that some fish runs now hover near extinction.

“For many years, I held the optimistic hope that this council would recognize that building these dams was a tragic and costly economic and ecological mistake, and that breaching them was the only sensible thing to do,” he said. “I urge the council to structure the Fish and Wildlife Program to facilitate the inevitable day when it becomes obvious that removing the dams is the only reasonable alternative.”

Craig Hill, 27, the youngest fluent speaker of the Spokane interior Salish language, spoke of the importance of fish to the Spokane Tribe and his great-great-grandmother, Sadie Boyd, who was alive before the Little Falls dam was built on the Spokane River in 1907-1910.

Similar to other speakers, he requested additional spill over the four lower Snake River dams, and consideration for breaching them.

Hill is from the Middle Band of the Spokane Tribe, known as snxʷméneʔi, and told the council the word for salmon, smłič, means “many backs,” a reference to abundant runs that used to populate the rivers before the dams.

“The literal translation of snxʷméneʔi is steelhead. I can’t call them smłič if they’re not here,” Hill said. “I can’t call myself snxʷméneʔi if they’re not here.”

Later, Hill tells the Inlander he finds it sad that some Spokane tribal members don’t realize they come from fishermen, because multiple generations have now grown up without having that connection to the river.

“My ancestors didn’t have a choice of whether they could have electricity or salmon. … Three generations of my family have lost our culture and language due to these impacts,” Hill says. “I enjoy electricity just as much as the next person, but I’d be willing to learn how to live without electricity if I could have salmon back. I know that’s not possible, not realistic, but that’s how important it is to my great-great-grandmother and my people.”

Public comment on the draft can be submitted by March 2 online.

Inlander: Salmon supporters lament a repeating cycle as a Northwest fish and wildlife plan still aims to restore runs after 40+ years

By K.C. Mehaffey
February 9, 2026

Without issuing a ruling on Feb. 6, U.S. District Judge Michael Simon said he was “tentatively inclined to deny the [federal defendants’] motion to dismiss, and to grant the [plaintiffs’] motion for preliminary injunction,” in a lawsuit over Columbia River System Operations.

Instead, he asked plaintiffs, defendants and intervening parties of National Wildlife Federation et al. v. National Marine Fisheries Service et al. [01-640] to attempt to reach agreement on as many points as possible in the plaintiffs’ proposed order for a preliminary injunction and to file a new proposed order by Feb. 20.

Simon said he will work on his decision over the next two weeks, and plans to issue a ruling Feb. 23, after seeing the new proposed order. The decision will cover both the federal government’s request to dismiss the case (Clearing Up No. 2242) and the preliminary injunction sought by 10 conservation groups and the State of Oregon (Clearing Up No. 2232).

Federal defendants—comprised of NMFS, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Bureau of Reclamation and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service—say the region would lose 407 aMW annually under the preliminary injunction compared to Columbia River hydro generation under the 2020 CRSO record of decision.

The Public Power Council said in court documents that the proposed injunction would result in a 1,600-MW capacity deficit and cost public-power customers $150 million a year (Clearing Up No. 2241).

During the 3.5-hour hearing, Simon asked parties about the potential for mediation while hearing arguments about whether he should issue an emergency order for increased spill, lower minimum operating pools (MOP), and a list of non-operational actions to aid Columbia Basin salmon and steelhead.

Near the end of the hearing, the judge asked all of the parties to come together on as many issues in the proposed order for injunctive relief as possible over the next two weeks.

He asked them to consider what they can live with—hypothetically—if he were to deny the defendants’ motion to dismiss the case and at least partially grant the preliminary injunction.

He said areas of agreement should be written in black print. “Where there’s disagreement on particular provisions, I’d like to see plaintiffs’ version in blue, and defendants’ version in yellow,” he said.

Simon said he also wanted input from intervening parties in the case—in different colors if necessary—and clarification on some issues raised in court, such as whether the injunction allows for variances in MOP.

“I probably will not be having further arguments on how do I decide between blue and yellow. And I might very well sort of do a baseball arbitration, and pick whichever one looks more reasonable,” Simon said.

It wasn’t Simon’s only reference to baseball during this hearing.

Pointing out the decades that this case has been in court, Simon quoted baseball legend Yogi Berra at the beginning of the hearing by saying, “It’s déjà vu all over again.”

And at the end of the hearing, he quoted Berra again: “If you don’t know where you’re going, when you get there you’ll be lost.”

He advised the parties that this is not the time to take an extreme stance on any of the provisions for which agreement can’t be reached, as he likely won’t be figuring out a middle path. “If blue is more reasonable than yellow, I’m going to take blue. If yellow is more reasonable than blue, I’m going to take yellow,” he said.

None of the parties are giving up their rights to appeal his decision, Simon said. But he also said he expects his Feb. 23 order to be followed this year, beginning with the start of spring spill March 1.

Plaintiffs, defendants and intervenors largely reiterated arguments already made in prior court briefings filed in the past few months.

Amanda Goodin, supervising senior attorney for Earthjustice, which represents the 10 conservation groups, said federal defendants want to “throw out” all of the science, standards and thresholds showing that increased spill and reduced reservoir elevations are the best tools to prevent irreparable harm.

“Instead, they want to look at whether we have a couple more fish or a couple less fish” in the system, she said.

Goodin stressed that the spring spill requested in the injunction is not much different from 2025 operations. And, she said, the level of spill in the federal government’s proposed 2026 Fish Operations Plan is lower than the level of spill that Simon ordered in 2017.

With respect to MOP, Goodin said it’s difficult to quantify the benefits to fish, but lowering reservoir elevations is a key tool for reducing juvenile fish travel times, which increases survival rates.

John Martin, senior trial attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice, countered that there’s not a linear relationship between increased spill and juvenile salmon survival.

He said that in 2024 and 2025, when the projects spilled at the highest levels ever, juvenile salmon had the lowest survival rates in the last five years. He said the plaintiffs’ argument ignores this most recent evidence on abundance.

Additionally, he said, high spill is harming Columbia Basin bull trout, which are also listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.

He said operations under the injunction, which combine higher year-round spill with lower reservoir levels, are unprecedented.

During arguments, Simon often interjected with his own thoughts and concerns.

With respect to spill, he told Goodin, “I’m really interested not only in what plaintiffs are asking for versus what defendants are proposing, but also how it compares to what actually happened in 2025.” He later asked about the likely effect on salmonid survival if he ordered the 2025 spill operations instead of those in the preliminary injunction.

Regarding lower reservoir elevations or MOP, he said, “Here’s my concern … From what I’ve read from defendants, and mostly from the amici supporting defendants, that would have catastrophic results for several of the amici’s agricultural operations and other needed operations.”

Simon also questioned whether some of the non-operational measures—such as hydroelectric facility repairs—are reasonable requests for a preliminary injunction as opposed to a permanent injunction to resolve the case.

During DOJ’s arguments, he commented, “[I]t’s the operation of the hydroelectric facility that’s causing the harm to the endangered and threatened species. And they’re not asking you to shut down the hydroelectric operations. They’re asking for something less than that, and that’s what makes this specific request sound more reasonable—much more reasonable than if they would have asked to shut down the entire hydroelectric operation.”

And, in response to DOJ’s concerns about how bargaining over the 2026 operations would impact a potential appeal, Simon explained his reason for asking the parties to find areas of agreement.

“It’s a partial reaction to what some of you said about wanting to ensure navigational safety is addressed, variability when need be, [and] what the irrigators’ needs are,” he said. He explained that if he grants a preliminary injunction, he wants it to cause less harm to defendants in areas where plaintiffs are willing to compromise. “I don’t want to inadvertently cause more harm than need be,” he said.

Clearing Up: Judge Urges Mediation and Compromise Prior to CRSO Lawsuit Decision

Feb. 6, 2026
By CLAIRE RUSH/The Associated Press

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Lawyers for conservation groups, Native American tribes, and the states of Oregon and Washington returned to court Friday to seek changes to dam operations on the Snake and Columbia Rivers, following the collapse of a landmark agreement with the federal government to help recover critically imperiled salmon runs.

Last year President Donald Trump torpedoed the 2023 deal, in which the Biden administration had promised to spend $1 billion over a decade to help restore salmon while also boosting tribal clean energy projects. The White House called it “radical environmentalism” that could have resulted in the breaching of four controversial dams on the Snake River.

Referring to the decades-long litigation, U.S. District Judge Michael Simon in Portland said it was “deja vu all over again” as he opened the hearing in a packed courtroom.

The plaintiffs argue that the way the government operates the dams violates the Endangered Species Act, and judges have repeatedly ordered changes to help the fish over the years. They’re asking the court to order changes at eight large hydropower dams, including lowering reservoir water levels, which can help fish travel through them faster, and increasing spill, which can help juvenile fish pass over dams instead of through turbines.

“We are looking at fish that are on the cusp of extinction,” Amanda Goodin, an attorney with Earthjustice, a nonprofit law firm representing conservation, clean energy and fishing groups in the litigation, said during the hearing. “This is not a situation that can wait.”

In opposing arguments, an attorney for the federal government said “there’s not a linear relationship that more spill equals more benefit” for salmon.

In court filings, the federal government called the request a “sweeping scheme to wrest control” of the dams that would compromise the ability to operate them safely and efficiently. Any such court order could also raise rates for utility customers, the government said.

The lengthy legal battle was revived after Trump pulled the U.S. out of the Resilient Columbia Basin Agreement last June. The pact with Washington, Oregon and four Native American tribes had allowed for a pause in the litigation.

The plaintiffs, which include the state of Oregon and a coalition of conservation and fishing groups such as the National Wildlife Federation, filed the motion for a preliminary injunction, with Washington state, the Nez Perce Tribe and Yakama Nation supporting it as “friends of the court.” The parties have described salmon as central to Northwest tribal life.

The Columbia River Basin, spanning an area roughly the size of Texas, was once the world’s greatest salmon-producing river system, with at least 16 stocks of salmon and steelhead. Today, four are extinct and seven are endangered or threatened. Another iconic but endangered Northwest species, a population of killer whales, also depend on the salmon.

The construction of the first dams on the Columbia River, including the Grand Coulee and Bonneville in the 1930s, provided jobs during the Great Depression as well as hydropower and navigation. They made the town of Lewiston, Idaho, the most inland seaport on the West Coast, and many farmers continue to rely on barges to ship their crops.

Opponents of the proposed dam changes include the Inland Ports and Navigation Group, which said in a statement last year that increasing spill “can disproportionately hurt navigation, resulting in disruptions in the flow of commerce that has a highly destructive impact on our communities and economy.”

However, the dams are also a main culprit behind the decline of salmon, which regional tribes consider part of their cultural and spiritual identity.

Speaking before the hearing, Jeremy Takala of the Yakama Nation Tribal Council said “extinction is not an option.”

“This is very personal to me. It’s very intimate,” he said, describing how his grandfather took him to go fishing. “Every season of lower survival means closed subsistence fisheries, loss of ceremonies and fewer elders able to pass on fishing traditions to the next generation.”

The dams for which changes are being sought are the Ice Harbor, Lower Monumental, Little Goose and Lower Granite on the Snake River, and the Bonneville, The Dalles, John Day and McNary on the Columbia.

AP in Seattle Times: Oregon, Washington and tribes head back to court after Trump pulls out of deal to recover salmon

Following President Donald Trump’s abandonment of the Resilient Columbia River Basin Agreement in June, Native nations, Oregon, Washington and conservation groups returned to court on Friday, renewing litigation against the federal government to protect endangered salmon runs.

Speakers and attendees at a press conference held in downtown Portland on Feb. 6, taking place prior to opening arguments for renewed litigation against the federal government to protect endangered salmon runs. Speakers included representatives from Yakama Nation, Earthjustice and the Northwest Energy Coalition. (Photo by Jarrette Werk, Underscore Native News)

By Nika Bartoo-Smith, Underscore Native News + ICT and Photos by Jarrette Werk, Underscore Native News

February 6, 2026

PORTLAND – In the U.S. District Court on Friday, lawyers for conservation groups, Native nations, and the states of Oregon and Washington returned to court asking for changes to dam operations on the Snake and Columbia Rivers to protect salmon and steelhead species, which are on the brink of extinction.

Following nearly four hours of oral arguments, U.S. District Judge Michael H. Simon directed the plaintiffs and defendants to confer and come back with a rewritten injunction, also known as a court order, that would outline wants of all parties. The rewritten injunction is due back on February 23 before Judge Simon will make a final decision. 

The initial injunction submitted by the plaintiffs outlined their requests for the federal government to change how they operate dams in the Columbia River Basin, claiming that current operations violate the Endangered Species Act (ESA) by harming ESA-listed salmon and steelhead.

The arguments in court on Friday reopened decades old litigation to protect endangered Columbia Basin wild salmon and steelhead from federal dams. The litigation went on pause in 2023 following the Biden administration’s signing of the Resilient Columbia Basin Agreement, which allocated over a billion dollars in federal funds to fish restoration efforts and tribal energy development.

In June 2025, President Trump pulled out of the agreement. 

Back in court, plaintiffs argued for three main changes to dam operations throughout the basin. 

First, to increase the dam spills, which can allow juvenile fish to pass over the dams versus through turbines. 

Second, to lower reservoir water levels, helping fish travel faster. The plaintiffs claim that they are asking the federal government to operate the reservoirs at the bottom level of their own water range they have outlined. 

Lastly, to make repairs at the McNary and Bonneville dams and continue the anti-predator programs. 

Deanna Chang, attorney for the State of Oregon, argued that repairs have been slated at the Bonneville dam for years, but continue to be delayed, impacting dam spills critical to endangered fish. 

“We are just asking you to set the default at a place that’s right for fish and they can adjust as needed when the occasion arises,” said Amanda Goodin, a senior attorney at Earthjustice, a nonprofit law firm representing conservation, clean energy and fishing groups in the litigation.  “We are looking at fish that are on the cusp of extinction. We are looking at populations that are at and below the functional extinction threshold today. This is not a situation that can wait.”

Defendants in this case, including the National Marine Fisheries Service and intervenor-defendants the Public Power Council pushed back on these arguments. Defendants made a motion to dismiss the injunction.

John Martin, the attorney representing the National Marine Fisheries Service, alleged that data shows transporting salmon and steelhead leads to more adult returns than increasing the dam spills would, though plaintiffs disagree. 

Martin said that there has not been a proven linear relationship that shows that more dam spills leads to more returning salmon and steelhead. He also claimed that the increase in dam spills could be harmful to bull trout populations. 

Defendants on the case also asserted that the district court lacks jurisdiction in this case and that it belongs in the ninth circuit court.

Other arguments brought forth by intervenor defendants included the worry that agriculture would suffer with lower reservoir levels due to the need to water crops and that the proposed injunction would reduce the capacity of the hydro-system thus increasing the capacity, cost, and emissions for the electricity grid throughout the region. 

How did we get here?

In June 2025, President Trump issued a memorandum pulling out of a historic salmon recovery deal made by the Biden administration in 2023 between environmental advocates and four Native nations with treaty fishing rights in the Columbia River Basin: the Nez Perce, the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, the Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs, and the Yakama Nation.

The 2023 Resilient Columbia Basin Agreement promised over a billion dollars in federal funds to be allocated for wild fish restoration efforts and tribal energy development over a decade. The funds also had the potential to lead to the eventual removal of the Snake River Dams to further aid in native salmon recovery efforts.

The initial agreement came about following two years of negotiations and paused decades of lawsuits filed by Native nations over the harm done to salmon populations along the Columbia River by federally-owned dams along the Snake River, a tributary of the Columbia.  

The Columbia River Basin was once one of the most prolific salmon runs in the world, with at least 16 stocks, or distinct groups, of salmon and steelhead. Now over half of those stocks are listed as threatened or endangered.

 “The salmon and steelhead in the Columbia and Snake rivers are perilously close to going extinct,” said Kristen Boyles, northwest regional office managing attorney at Earthjustice. “This loss would be catastrophic to our region.”

Much of the reason for this stems from the construction of dams throughout the Columbia River Basin. 

Construction of the first dams on the Columbia River began with the Bonneville and Grand Coulee dams in the early 1930s by colonial settlers. In 1957, the Dalles Dam submerged Wy-am, also known as Celilo Falls. 

Before the U.S. government erected the Dalles Dam, Wy-am was a crucial gathering site for Native nations up and down the river, a place previously known to be abundant with giant chinook and other salmon. 

On the Snake River, a tributary of the Columbia, the four lower Snake River dams were built in the 1960s and 70s. The dams continue to decimate salmon runs, creating a series of warm, shallow lakes in the Lower Snake River, with predators, dam turbines and hot water killing many migrating salmon.

The 2023 Resilient Columbia Basin Agreement felt like a turning point for many Native nations, offering a sense of hope that federal dollars could make a significant impact on salmon and steelhead recovery efforts. 

“Now that the federal government has withdrawn from both the Fish Accords and the Resilient Columbia Basin Agreement, this buyout stands alone and fails to protect endangered salmon from jeopardy,” said Jeremy Takala, chair of the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission and a councilman of the Yakama Nation. “The biggest concern that we have is that extinction is not an option.”

‘Burdens fall first and hardest on tribal families’ 

As a young boy, Pax’una’shut, whose English name is Jeremey Takala, remembers his grandfather teaching him to fish along the Columbia River, as is his inherent right as a citizen of the Yakama Nation. 

Though he carries on the tradition of fishing on the Columbia River Basin with his own children, there is the potential of a future in which he cannot do the same for his grandkids. Thinking about future generations, Takala now works fighting for salmon and the treaty-rights of his people, as the chair of the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission and a councilman of the Yakama Nation. 

“When the federal system harms fish, tribal families pay first,” Takala said during a press conference on February 6. The press conference took place just a few hours before the Oregon federal court heard arguments about how to protect salmon in the Columbia River Basin.

“The Treaty of 1855 guarantees the continued existence of fish, not just access to empty fishing places,” he added. “For tribal families, delay isn't neutral. Every season of lower survival means closed subsistence fisheries, loss of ceremonies, fewer elders able to pass on fishing traditions to the next generation.”

Lawyers for both the Nez Perce Tribe and the Yakama Nation appeared on Friday, representing the tribes.

Both argued that Columbia River treaty tribes will continue to bear the brunt of the harm as salmon and steelhead continue to edge closer toward extinction. 

Kate Markworth, lawyer for the Yakama Nation, argued that tribes are forced to carry the burden of a failing system, one they did not create nor do they control.

“These conservation burdens are not abstract. They weigh on the shoulders of tribal leaders, who must restrict when and how their people can fish,” Markworth said. “The tribes impose these restrictions voluntarily because they want to prevent extinction grounds and ultimately see them recover. But these restrictions are painful.” 

Markworth further argued that the defendants must comply with the Endangered Species Act as a prerequisite for upholding treaty and trust obligations to Native nations within the Columbia River Basin. The obligations guarantee the continued access to fishing within the Columbia River Basin.

David Cummings, senior staff attorney for the Nez Perce Tribe, echoed that sentiment. 

He pointed to the treaty and trust responsibilities outlined in the 1855 treaty with Nez Perce, promising that they would be able to fish at all usual and accustomed fishing sites forever, as they had since time immemorial. Other Native nations throughout the Columbia River Basin also signed treaties with the U.S. government promising rights to fish.

 “As the salmon go, so do the salmon people,” Cummings said. “And that's why the Nez Perce tribe is here again today, because of the unquestionably dire status of these ESA listed fish.”

Underscore News: Legal Battle Over Columbia Basin Dams Returns to Court

This article first appeared on Underscore Native News and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s latest fish program allocates $300 million per year on salmon recovery

By Kendra Chamberlain.
January 13, 2026

The Northwest Power and Conservation Council has released the latest draft plan for its 40-year-old Columbia River Basin Fish and Wildlife Program. The plan steers the next five years of hydrosystem operations for dams on the Columbia and Snake rivers to support salmon, steelhead and other species.

The council says its proposed actions will result in cooler water temperatures, elevated spill levels in spring and summer, reductions in ramping and daily flow fluctuations and reduced predation.

Funded by the Bonneville Power Administration, the plan allocates $300 million annually toward the cause, including funding habitat restoration projects throughout the Columbia River Basin.

The nearly 200-page document underscores the scale and complexity of salmon recovery.

“There are many factors that affect salmon recovery. Our focus here is on mitigating for hydrosystem impacts, and we have an ‘all of the above’ set of tools that we use to apply to that,” Kris Homel, program performance biologist at the NPCC’s fish and wildlife division, told Columbia Insight.

The NPCC has set a goal of reaching five million salmon returning to the Basin each year. Current estimates peg the 10-year rolling average at about half that number.

The NPCC’s Fish and Wildlife Program is one of the larger management plans in the region.

Since the Trump administration decided to abandon the historic Columbia River Basin Restoration Plan with Tribes agreed to in 2023, some conservationists are looking to the NPCC’s Fish and Wildlife Program, and the companion power plan the Council will develop next, to fill the gaps.

“This is absolutely the best path right now to mitigate further harm to fish from the hydropower operations and make actual progress toward important recovery goals,” Tanya Riordan, policy and advocacy director at the conservation nonprofit Save our Salmon, told Columbia Insight.

Regulating spill

One of the stickier issues at play is spill levels at dams during spring and summer migration periods for salmon.

Spill levels have been altered a number of times over a relatively short period of time, according to Patty O’Toole, NPCC’s fish and wildlife division director, making it difficult to draw reliable conclusions about their impacts.

A key goal of the draft plan is to hold spring and summer spill levels at dams at a consistent level long enough to study the impacts of that level.

“Spill levels, spring spill particularly, have really changed every couple of years, and there hasn’t been enough time at any one level to learn that much,” O’Toole said. “That’s resulted in a lot of debate over the effectiveness of this spill level or that spill level.

“A salmon life cycle is not just a couple of years. We’re talking five, seven, eight years for some species, just to turn around one single life cycle. So if you really want to know if things are helping it takes longer than a couple years to learn from that.”

The draft plan prioritizes spring spill to the 125% gas cap 24 hours a day from April to the middle of June. “Gas cap spill” means spill to the maximum level that meets, but does not exceed, the “total dissolved gas” criteria allowed under applicable state water quality standards.

Higher spill levels will be prioritized from mid-June through Aug. 1 at the lower Snake River dams, and through Aug. 15 at lower Columbia River dams.

But Save Our Salmon’s Riordan pointed out that tribal fish managers have called for elevated spill levels to be held through the entire month of August, to support remaining wild stock of some salmon species.

“Juvenile salmon migration throughout the warmer August period yields a significant, oversized portion of the wild spawners returning to the Columbia and Snake rivers,” said Riordan. “So it’s a really crucial timeframe to include that elevated level of spill for the juvenile out-migration.”

The Council is accepting public comment on the plan through March 2, and will be holding public hearings across Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana.

Columbia Insight: Trump kiboshed salmon recovery deal. Can this plan fill the gap?

K.C. Mehaffey 
December 18, 2025

The Northwest Power and Conservation Council released a draft of its 2026 Columbia Basin Fish and Wildlife Program on Dec. 17 that includes more detailed objectives for hydropower operations than ever before.

The draft program, if implemented, would prioritize spill to 125 percent of total dissolved gas for 24 hours a day from April to the middle of June. It also calls for consistent spill operations from mid-June to Aug. 1 at the lower Snake River dams and through Aug. 15 at the lower Columbia River dams.

However, the draft program does not call for extending the summer spill season to the end of August, as some salmon managers had requested.

The draft document also proposes to minimize ramp rates and daily flow fluctuations on the lower Columbia and Snake rivers during the spring and summer salmon migration period but allows for fluctuations during times of the year when fewer juvenile fish are migrating downstream.

The draft document comes nearly a year after the NWPCC called for recommendations from the region’s fish and wildlife managers and the public on how to amend the 44-year-old program developed to “protect, mitigate, and enhance” fish and wildlife affected by the basin’s hydro system.

This part of the amendment process includes a 75-day comment period through March 2, along with public hearings in Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana.

And while the section on main-stem hydro-system flow and passage operations is only part of a much larger document, it’s sure to be one of the best-read chapters, given the revived lawsuit over Columbia River System Operations, and a pending motion for injunctive relief (Clearing Up No. 2232).

Some of the same measures sought in the injunction are included in the proposed new program, while others are not.

“One of our big program goals is to improve juvenile fish passage survival and adult fish migration through the hydro system,” Patty O’Toole, director of the Council’s Fish and Wildlife Division, said during a Sept. 17 press conference announcing the release of the draft F&W Program, which is amended every five years.

O’Toole noted that—based on recommendations from the region—the hydropower system got additional attention during this program amendment process.

“What we have observed is that things change every few years either based on litigation or planning. And it’s really hard to get a long-term data series going to really understand—Are we having an impact? Is it headed in the right direction? So, consistency is something this program really calls for,” she said.

O’Toole noted that more attention was paid to the Council’s goal of keeping water moving downstream, through the hydro system and to the ocean, which is correlated with faster migration and higher survival rates for juvenile salmon and steelhead.

But in addition to protecting fish, another important role of the Council is to develop a Northwest Power Plan to ensure an adequate, efficient, economical and reliable power supply, O’Toole noted. “We work on both sides of the equation,” she said.

Jennifer Light, director of the Council’s Power Division, said implementing operations to benefit fish and wildlife while also making sure the region has a reliable and affordable power is “really the heart of where the Council’s work overlaps.”

She said implementation of the F&W Program has, over the years, reduced hydropower generation by about 1,200 aMW, or about 10 percent of the system.

That loss of power was incremental, and the power system adjusted largely with energy-efficiency programs. Light said the Bonneville Power Administration has acquired more than 2,500 aMW through efficiency since the 1980s, which has helped meet load growth and address the fish and wildlife mitigation obligation.

The next power plan seeks to incorporate some of the operations that some salmon managers believe will improve survival through the hydro system.

Light said that the draft 2026 F&W Program emphasizes the need to minimize fluctuations when juvenile salmon are moving through the system, but provides for more flexibility in fluctuations during other times of the year.

She explained, “Having the river bounce up and down isn’t great for fish, particularly as they’re trying to migrate downriver.”

While higher spill and reduced fluctuations were recommended by salmon managers from state and Native American tribal agencies, not all of their requests made it into the draft F&W Program.

At the NWPCC’s Dec. 16 meeting, Council member Margaret Hoffmann, who represents Oregon, said she was concerned that a key recommendation by the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife and other salmon managers to elevate levels of spill through Aug. 31 was not incorporated into the draft F&W Program.

“The Northwest Power Act directs the Council to solicit and give weight to comments from tribal, state and federal fish and wildlife managers,” she noted, adding, “I just want to state for the record at this time, as I did during the November meeting, that I fully support the recommendation from our fish experts.”

Washington state members KC Golden and Les Purce expressed support for her comments.

The draft calls for using in-season management to change when summer spill is reduced, based on when the bulk of subyearling salmonid juveniles have passed McNary Dam, or have yet to pass.

It also calls for implementing a consistent summer spill operation with elevated levels of spill from mid-June through Aug. 1 at the lower Snake River dams and through Aug. 15 at the lower Columbia River dams.

“The [U.S. Army Corps of Engineers] and Bonneville can and should reduce spill to spillway maintenance levels when needed to avert significant power system reliability events, using existing power system emergency protocols,” the draft F&W Program says.

Light said operations for spill and reduced spring and summer fluctuations in the draft F&W Program have been included in planning for The 9th Northwest Regional Power Plan, a draft of which is expected by mid-2026.

The 2026 Fish and Wildlife Program is expected to be finalized prior to release of the draft power plan, she said. “We’re looking at how to make sure we meet all the future load growth needs while maintaining these operations going forward,” she said.

Once adopted, the final 2026 F&W Program will replace the 2014 program and the 2020 addendum.

The new hydro operations, if implemented, would begin in 2027, she added.

NewsData: Draft F&W Program Calls for Consistent Spill, Steady Flows