Opinion

Without one, they will keep getting sued.

October 31, 2025
By Marc Sullivan

Some of us have been fighting for salmon for more than three decades.

To understand the resolve of salmon advocates — and the frustration so many of us felt when the federal government recently reneged on a historic agreement, reigniting litigation — it’s helpful to review the legal history associated with protecting Columbia Basin salmon.

In a recent story about plaintiffs returning to court to protect Columbia Basin salmon, the Washington State Standard described the court battle as “long-running.” So true.

The initial shot was fired in 1991 after Snake River sockeye salmon became the first Columbia Basin salmonid to be listed as an endangered species under the Endangered Species Act. That listing requires federal agencies to ensure the protection and recovery of the fish.

Federal agencies involved with the federal dams in the Columbia Basin include the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (which operates dams on the lower Snake and lower Columbia rivers), the Bonneville Power Administration (which markets power from the dams), and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (which issues rulings on whether fish protection and recovery plans comply with the Endangered Species Act).

Since 1992, they’ve put forth no fewer than eight plans for operating the hydropower system while ostensibly protecting threatened and endangered salmon and steelhead in the Columbia Basin. (By 1999, 12 more salmon and steelhead stocks had been listed under the Endangered Species Act.)

Over three decades of litigation, three different federal district judges have declared six different federal dam management plans illegal for their failure to protect salmon and steelhead. That includes every plan since 2000. The very first plan was invalidated in 1994 by U.S. District Judge Malcolm Marsh, who proclaimed that the “situation literally cries out for a major overhaul,” but found that the federal plan failed to deliver any such fundamental change.

Fast forward to 2005, when District Court Judge James Redden struck down a 2004 federal plan, a plan he later called a “cynical and transparent attempt to avoid responsibility for the decline of listed Columbia and Snake River salmon and steelhead.”

In the following years, new plans were issued by the federal agencies in 2008, 2010, and 2014. Each was promptly struck down. After Redden’s retirement, Judge Michael Simon struck down the 2014 plan. Twice, the federal agencies tried appealing the district court rulings to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Twice, the circuit court upheld the district court.

The most recent plan, issued in the waning days of the first Trump administration, was promptly challenged, and was headed for the same fate as the prior plans, when the Biden administration decided not to defend the indefensible and entered into settlement talks with plaintiffs and Northwest states and tribes, with input from other stakeholders as well.

Those talks led to the adoption in 2023 of the Resilient Columbia Basin Agreement, a package of investments, changes in dam operations, and studies on replacing the services of four especially lethal dams on the lower Snake River (so that the dams could be breached and 140 miles of free-flowing river restored). Litigation was stayed while that agreement was in place.

In June of this year, the second Trump administration unilaterally renounced the agreement, leaving nothing to replace it save the illegal 2020 Trump salmon plan. So, it’s back to court.

In various rulings over the years, the courts have ordered modest changes in dam operations, but the federal agencies have repeatedly refused to produce the “major overhaul” Judge Marsh called for 31 years ago.

As a result, not one of the 13 listed populations is on a path to recovery. Despite misleading claims from federal agencies, public utilities, and other river user groups, most of those stocks are on a path to extinction.

It’s past time for the court to find a way to end more than three decades of stubborn evasion of the law by the federal agencies and direct them to, finally, produce a plan that will lead to restoration of abundant, harvestable populations of these iconic creatures.

Marc Sullivan is western Washington coordinator for the Save Our Wild Salmon Coalition, an alliance of more than 50 Northwest and national fishing and conservation groups. He lives near Sequim, on the Olympic Peninsula.

Washington State Standard Opinion: Federal agencies need a workable plan to protect salmon in the Columbia Basin

A quarter of the spring/summer Chinook populations in the Snake River Basin had fewer than 50 fish in 2024, a level so low it indicates functional extinction. Pictured are Young Chinook swimming at the Tucannon Hatchery near Pomeroy in Garfield County. (Erika Schultz / The Seattle Times)

Oct. 27, 2025
By Amanda Goodin / Special to The Seattle Times

Wild salmon and steelhead define our region. They’re woven into our way of life, our economy, our culture and our commitments to our region’s tribes. They feed our orcas and support our ecosystems. And they’re in trouble.

The Columbia Basin was once one of the largest producers of salmon in the world, with 10 million to 16 million wild salmon returning annually to spawn. Today, many of the basin’s salmon populations are hovering on the brink of extinction.

That’s why we’re returning to court — to fight for the survival of these fish.

Two years ago, we were on a path full of promise. The federal government, the states of Oregon and Washington, four lower Columbia Basin tribes, and conservation, fishing and renewable energy groups represented by Earthjustice signed a historic agreement to restore the Columbia Basin.

The 2023 Resilient Columbia Basin Agreement provided an unprecedented opportunity to invest in the intertwined needs of salmon recovery and regional energy resiliency. Because this agreement included real commitments to work together to recover salmon, we agreed to a multiyear pause in our long-standing litigation to protect salmon.

Unfortunately, this June, the Trump administration abruptly abandoned this win-win agreement.

Now, we’re back in court fighting to protect salmon while we also battle a misinformation campaign waged by industrial associations that benefit from the status quo. Case in point: On Oct. 2, five industry groups ran a full-page ad in The Seattle Times, followed by a digital advertising blitz, claiming salmon are on the rebound and decrying our return to court.

We’re going back to court because it’s our best path to prevent extinction and protect salmon now that the Trump administration has reneged on the agreement. These industry associations claim they want to talk now, but that time has passed; they had years to participate in the conversation about meaningful changes to help our imperiled native fisheries, but refused to do so.

Their claims that a court ruling protecting salmon would lead to blackouts and enormous rate increases are also alarmist. Federal analysis of the rate impacts of similar changes showed the impact would be quite low.

Their claims that salmon and steelhead are recovering are backed by data that conflates different species and runs that return to different regions in the basin, and by using historic lows as a reference point.

Here are the facts from federal, state and tribal fishery managers: Four of the 16 interior Columbia Basin stocks have already gone extinct. Of those that remain, seven salmon stocks are listed under the Endangered Species Act. The numbers are even more alarming for the Snake River Basin, where a quarter of the spring/summer Chinook populations had fewer than 50 fish in 2024, a level so low it indicates functional extinction.

Overall fish returns in the basin remain far below established recovery goals. Furthermore, the Northwest Power and Conservation Council, a multistate agency responsible for ensuring affordable and reliable energy and healthy fish and wildlife in the Columbia Basin, determined that the biggest driver of this precipitous decline is hydropower — the dozens of federal dams and their reservoirs that have cut off and degraded thousands of miles of once highly productive habitat.

These dams hinder migration, kill and harm salmon and steelhead as they pass through turbines and turn cold, fast-flowing rivers into lethal warm-water reservoirs. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s fisheries recently reached a similar conclusion, stating in a 2022 report that breaching the four Lower Snake River Dams is a “centerpiece” to meaningful recovery for Snake River salmon.

We applaud the work of the Six Sovereigns — the governors of Washington and Oregon and the four Lower Columbia Basin tribes — who are helping our region find a new path forward with the development of a critical recovery plan, the Columbia Basin Restoration Initiative. Like them, we know our region’s economy, culture and identity are intertwined with salmon and that a healthy region is a region where wild salmon thrive. That’s why we continue to fight for their survival.

Amanda Goodin: is an attorney with Earthjustice, representing conservation, fishing and renewable energy groups in the battle to protect Columbia Basin salmon.

Seattle Times Opinion: We’re back in court for Columbia Basin salmon’s survival

The Trump administration’s action forces a return of litigation, but pact’s partners can still act.

Endangered sockeye salmon in Redfish Lake 900 miles inland and 6500 feet above sea level. © Emily Nuchols/SOS

Saturday, October 18, 2025
By Joseph Bogaard / For The Herald

Imagine a win-win-win solution to linked challenges that have dogged our Northwest home for decades: endangered salmon and steelhead, aging and inadequate energy infrastructure and broken promises to Tribal nations.

Our region was on the cusp of making real progress toward a comprehensive and collaborative solution to these intertwined challenges with the Resilient Columbia Basin Agreement, the historic accord announced in 2023 by the Biden administration and an alliance of four Columbia Basin Tribes and the states of Washington and Oregon. The region was finally on course to restore imperiled native fish, invest in a clean energy transition and make good on our nation’s treaty promises to Northwest Tribes.

Then in June, the Trump administration abruptly axed the agreement, leaving the Northwest with no plan and no path as we face a rapidly escalating crisis.

Fish biologists continue to sound the alarm: Columbia and Snake River salmon and steelhead runs are collapsing, and if we lose them, we lose so much more than a fish. Salmon swim through the heart of our Northwest identity. They are foundational to countless communities, people’s livelihoods and the ecosystem we all depend on. Rebuilding salmon abundance is central to making good on the promises our nation made long ago to our region’s original stewards. The economic, environmental and moral implications of losing this emblematic fish cannot be overstated.

This is why extinction is not an option. And this is why the Save Our wild Salmon Coalition supports the states, Tribes and conservation and fishing groups that recently restarted litigation to correct the federal government’s illegal dam and reservoir operations.

At the heart of this litigation are four federal dams on Washington state’s lower Snake River, the largest tributary of the Columbia. These dams have choked the river, warming its water to fatal temperatures for cold-water fish and fostering deadly toxic algal-blooms. Meanwhile, the dams produce less than 4 percent of the region’s energy that can be affordably and feasibly replaced.

Those who are pushing hard to keep the dams are also pushing a massive misinformation campaign about soaring salmon numbers and the outsize role these dams play in our region’s energy mix.

Let’s start with the fish. Since these dams were built, four of the 16 fish runs that historically returned to spawn above Bonneville Dam are now extinct, and seven more are officially listed as endangered or threatened, including all four populations that return to the Snake River.

Restarting litigation is our only hope for meeting the immediate survival needs of these imperiled fish. But they need more than emergency measures. Salmon need a healthy, resilient river. As National and Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Fisheries department made clear in its 2022 report, recovery efforts will continue to falter as long as the lower Snake River dams remain. These dams are the single largest source of human-caused fish mortality, and we need “bold, science-based action,” as NOAA put it, fast. To delay action any longer will lead us to a future without Columbia River salmon runs.

Now for energy. At the intersection of recovery is the tremendous opportunity to develop truly clean energy; a mix of solar, wind, battery and new technologies that can power our region’s future.

Backward-looking defenders of the status quo would like us to believe that these four Snake River dams are the backbone of our power supply. This is wishful thinking, at best, given the region’s rising energy demand, driven by the proliferation of data centers and expanded electrification of our economy. You might as well hope a flashlight will illuminate the Seattle skyline. From 2023 to 2028, the Pacific Northwest will see a load increase of 20 percent, and then 30 percent in the next decade, triple the prediction of just a few years ago.

We need to be clear-eyed about our region’s real energy needs, and we need to work together and think big.

Let’s also consider the real price tag of keeping these four outdated dams. To date, we’ve spent more than $24 billion on salmon programs in the Columbia Basin, but we have yet to recover even one imperiled population. The Bonneville Power Administration now spends hundreds of millions of dollars annually on recovery programs and dam operations that are supposed to protect migrating salmon and steelhead from extinction, and these costs are expected to rise by more than 10 percent over the next three years. But BPA’s programs have consistently failed our fish and our communities. We desperately need a new approach.

This crisis has been decades in the making, but it opens the door today to an historic opportunity and to solutions well within our grasp. While the Trump administration may have turned its back on the Northwest, our region’s Tribes, policymakers and people can continue our work together on shared solutions that both rebuild salmon abundance and invest in our clean and affordable energy future.

Joseph Bogaard is executive director of Save Our Wild Salmon Coalition.

Everett Herald: Comment: Scuttling Columbia Basin pact ignores peril to salmon

By Darryll Olsen
October 7, 2025

On June 12, 2025, the Trump administration issued a presidential memorandum directing all federal agencies to rescind involvement in the commitments and responsibilities stated in the 2024 lower Snake River (LSR) litigation settlement agreement, signed with the state of Oregon, Earthjustice, and several key Native American tribes like the Nez Perce. Although the agreement stayed litigation, requiring further river operations review, administration provocation was praised by some river system and regional power interests.

Being a defendant-intervener, the Columbia-Snake River Irrigators Association (CSRIA) joined the plaintiffs and defendants supporting the 2024 agreement, then formally ordered by U.S. District Judge Michael Simon of Oregon (Clearing Up No. 2144). Over the course of five to 10 years, regional review of LSR dam breaching criteria and other fish mitigation actions would be assessed. A breach decision may have, or may not have, emerged thereafter.

No Secret Treaties

Some industry groups have wrapped themselves with propagandistic robes, crying out that they were not appreciably included in the settlement agreement process. Like the CSRIA, they were offered every opportunity to convey their positions, or state alternatives, during multiple mediation sessions (Clearing Up No. 2137). In denying this fact, they turn truth around backwards. The court accepted the plaintiffs' and defendants' mediation decision. That is how litigation works. That is how LSR dam breaching was placed on hold.

But apparently, this fuels a false sense of righteousness to plunge the region back into litigation.

What Were They Thinking?

Searching for a rational, or meaningful, justification for inflaming another episode of dam breaching litigation is roughly akin to Diogenes looking for the last honest man.

Were they thinking that Judge Simon would not become like a scorned Fallen Angel, ready to cast the hydro agencies and river industries into economic Hell? Did they ignore the plaintiffs' earlier preliminary injunction proposal that would impose irrigation-power system costs greater than actual LSR dam breaching (Clearing Up No. 2013)? Did they think the tribes would ignore U.S. Department of Justice lawyers shredding the Stevens Treaties?

Not? Working Toward a Solution?

To suggest that the plaintiffs are not willing to "work with" the hydro agencies and river industries, after being forced into new litigation, is pure hypocrisy. The court-ordered litigation stay was the "working together" period. Those now pushing the Trump administration to break the peace ignored any semblance of regional cooperation already in place and the presence of sustainable grace.

True Believers Confront Reality?

There is no shortage of feigned indignation and self-righteousness these days, the region, and nation seem to thrive on it. Even so, the CSRIA is more interested in securing a long-term commitment with the plaintiffs-for LSR hydro operations-than using self-affirming righteousness to provoke conflict. The CSRIA leadership will continue to listen to the plaintiffs, and perhaps they will even listen to us.

Darryll Olsen is board representative for the Columbia-Snake River Irrigators Association.

NewsData: Guest Column: The Righteous Shall Prevail, or Perhaps Fail?

By Stephen Pfeiffer, Abbie Abramovich and Lisa Young
October 6, 2025

Conservation and fishing groups, including Idaho Rivers United, Idaho Conservation League and the Sierra Club, alongside the states of Oregon and Washington and four tribes, have asked a judge to lift a pause on litigation in order to hold the federal government accountable for failing to protect the bottom line and long-term future for imperiled salmon and steelhead populations here in Idaho and across the Columbia Basin.

After several years of collaboration, a landmark 2023 agreement between the aforementioned entities and the federal government, known as the Resilient Columbia Basin Agreement, had put in place this long-term litigation pause surrounding salmon. This agreement outlined a state-tribal-federal partnership effort with a commitment of hundreds of millions of federal dollars to recover fish and develop clean energy across the region. This included studying and investing in replacement services for the four Lower Snake River dams, and moving beyond a costly status quo that has been effectively managing salmon runs towards extinction.

The Trump administration abruptly exited this partnership in June and offered no replacement salmon recovery plan. This left the region locked back into the same outdated infrastructure and hydro operations that have been failing fish and Idaho communities that rely on salmon runs for decades. It also left our groups, and state and tribal partners, no choice but to renew litigation over the lack of meaningful federal action to honor treaty rights and recover salmon.

For Idaho’s Snake River salmon that primarily spawn in the Salmon and Clearwater basins, the return to business as usual operations along the hydrosystem of eight federal dams and reservoirs between Idaho and the ocean is a particularly stark failure.

Our state does not lack high-quality fish habitat. The thousands of clean, cold river miles in central Idaho wilderness make up the best remaining salmon habitat in the lower-48, now and into a warmer future.

This area is still capable of supporting hundreds of thousands of salmon and steelhead. We know this because it has occurred as recently as the 1950s, immediately before the four Lower Snake River dams were installed.

Decades of science from fisheries managers point towards removing these four dams and boosting salmon survival during their migrations as the effective recovery lever we can pull for Idaho salmon. The return on investment would be massive, thanks to the ready-made salmon habitat upstream waiting to be filled with fish.

Why continue to invest in a system that we know is broken? Idaho could and should be a leader in following the best science and pushing the region beyond an outdated system that has worked for some but placed hardship on salmon communities. We can support our families and communities with strong agriculture, reliable energy and abundant salmon — but only if we do things differently.

Our region deserves better. We will continue to push for the removal of these deadbeat dams and the necessary investments to not only replace their services, but also expand them while allowing these iconic species to flourish.

Stephen Pfeiffer is the wild fish and hydropower manager for Idaho Rivers United. Abbie Abramovich is the salmon program senior associate at the Idaho Conservation League. Lisa Young is the director of the Idaho Chapter of the Sierra Club.

Idaho Statesman: Opinion: Snake River salmon lawsuits were on hold. Now we have to resume

By The Columbian
September 16, 2025

The drawbacks to a Trump administration decision regarding salmon recovery are becoming clear. To summarize, the shortsighted policy has negative long-term impacts.

As media outlet Washington State Standard reported last week: “Northwest states, tribes and environmental groups are moving to restart litigation against the federal government over its hydroelectric dam operations in the Columbia River Basin that have harmed endangered native fish species.”

Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield said: “The federal government has put salmon and steelhead on the brink of extinction and once again broken promises to tribal partners. Extinction is not an option. Oregon will return to court to hold the federal government accountable and ensure these iconic fish runs have a future.” A spokesman for Washington Attorney General Nick Brown said our state is not a plaintiff in the case but has filed a brief in support of the plaintiffs.

For decades, salmon runs have been declining throughout the Columbia River Basin. Billions of dollars in recovery efforts have seen mixed success, and years of court battles have slowed the development of a consensus about how to best approach the issue.

In 2023, the Biden administration forged a $1 billion agreement with multiple stakeholders for working toward salmon recovery. The Resilient Columbia Basin Agreement included a provision to halt any existing lawsuits. The plan did not call for the breaching of four hydroelectric dams along the lower Snake River in Washington, but it did create a pathway toward removal.

In June of this year, however, the Trump administration withdrew from that agreement. The move halted potential progress; more important, it opened a door for the resumption of lawsuits.

In the process, the decision highlighted the capricious nature of the federal government under Trump. A “fact sheet” issued by the White House at the time heralded the decision for “stopping radical environmentalism” and “putting America first” — empty buzzwords that are the hallmark of Trump’s management. There is nothing radical about working to save salmon, which for millennia have been a cultural and economic cornerstone of the Northwest.

At the same time, U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright claimed that removal of the Snake River dams would cost the region more than 3,000 megawatts of hydroelectric generating capacity, demonstrating that the administration rarely is encumbered by facts. The average yearly output of the dams is approximately one-third of that.

But that is not the largest concern. As The Columbian wrote editorially: “The biggest shortcoming of the action is that it offers no solutions. It simply rejects an agreement, forged between multiple stakeholders, without offering a path forward for generating power, providing irrigation, enhancing river transportation and improving accessibility for salmon.”

The decision to withdraw from the agreement appears to be driven solely by desires to undermine any progress that could be associated with Joe Biden’s presidency. There are good arguments for maintaining the lower Snake River dams and the hydropower and benefits they provide. There also are good reasons for breaching the dams in an effort to improve salmon runs and, by extension, the orca population that relies on salmon for sustenance.

But rather than consider those issues and offer possible avenues for moving forward, the Trump administration simply threw the process into reverse. A resumption of lawsuits is an inevitable — and costly — result of that ill-conceived policy.

The Columbian: In Our View: Salmon policy ill-conceived, puts process in reverse