Wild Salmon & Steelhead News is published regularly by the Save Our wild Salmon Coalition. Read on to learn about the Columbia-Snake River Basin’s endangered wild salmon and steelhead, the many benefits they deliver to people and ecosystems, and the extinction crisis they face today - unless we act! Find out how SOS is helping lead efforts to restore health, connectivity, and resilience to the rivers and streams these fish depend upon in the Columbia-Snake Basin and how you can get involved to help restore healthy, abundant, and harvestable populations and sustain more just and prosperous communities. To learn more and/or get involved, contact Martha Campos.

Table of Contents:

1. A summer full of activism and connection with the land, water, salmon and community!
2. Our work ahead to recover healthy salmon, orca, and rivers
3. The RECIPROCITY webinar series is back for fall 2025! 
4. Honoring Dr. Jane Goodall (1934-2025)  
5. Salmon media roundup

1. A summer full of activism and connection with the land, water, salmon and community!

In these extraordinarily challenging times, SOS staff found solace, energy and inspiration this summer in the opportunity to connect with many community members across the Northwest and the healthy lands, clean waters, and fish and wildlife we all hold dear.

In August, Tanya Riordan, Abby Saks, and Abby Dalke gathered on the banks of the lower Snake River near Lewiston to prepare for the annual flotilla hosted by our good friends and allies at Nimiipuu Protecting the Environment (read more about it below!). We were scurrying around to set up, when we were stopped in our tracks by a mesmerizing flock of swallows flying above our heads. Swooping and swirling in every which way, the birds were flying in a jumbled yet also highly coordinated and unified pattern. This spectacular sight, Tanya shared with us, is called murmuration. The birds moving en masse offer several key survival tactics – safety in numbers; leading the flock to roost, staying warmer together at night; and a visual invitation to straggling birds to join the flock. While we stood in awe, we were reminded of an important lesson: the power of the flock; the strength in community and the profound impact of collective care for one another.

This issue of the News recaps and highlights just a few of our activities this past summer - getting our hands dirty and feet wet in the Columbia Basin. Thank you to those who were able to join us at various events. As always, consider this your invitation to join our flock at future events, too. You are always welcome.

Envisioning a Restored Snake River Flotilla led by Nimiipuu Protecting the Environment -August 15-16.

In mid-August, hundreds of community members gathered at Hells Gate State Park near Lewiston, Idaho, to envision a free-flowing lower Snake River. Advocates floated along the Snake River, encircling a "Free the Snake" banner while Tribal leaders spoke to the urgent need to restore the river and uphold our nation's longstanding promises to Indigenous People in the Snake River Basin and beyond. Nez Perce Elders welcomed Tribal canoe families ashore, followed by other participants of this year's flotilla. Ashore, we heard Indigenous leaders' stories about salmon's profound significance in Tribal communities, and the Columbia Basin Restoration Initiative (CBRI) and how it will benefit salmon, ecosystems, and Tribal and non-Tribal communities alike. This powerful gathering culminated with a call to action - that participants contact their members of Congress and other policymakers to urge them to support the implementation of the CBRI and restore salmon abundance across the Basin.

Flights above the Snake River Basin with EcoFlight -August 13-14.

With the help of our coalition partners at EcoFlight, we hosted several flyovers of the Snake River Basin to help policymakers better understand this river and the surrounding landscape as well as the urgency and opportunity presented by lower Snake River restoration. Boarding a small six-passenger plane, we took off with policymaker staff, Tribal leaders, an energy expert, and a local farmer. Looking down at the reservoir behind Lower Granite Dam, we spotted a spreading toxic algal bloom - another sign of the river's degraded health. We veered south, flying over the Tucannon River, that flows into a warm, stagnant reservoir on the lower Snake. The Tucannon represents an urgent and compelling case study. This river demonstrates that the most advanced tributary habitat restoration efforts cannot protect imperiled salmon if out-migrating smolts must run the gauntlet through multiple, hot, stagnant reservoirs filled with non-native predator fish during their journey to the Pacific Ocean.

Huge appreciation to EcoFlight for helping us all see the Basin from a new perspective!

Sawtooth Salmon Fest hosted by Idaho Rivers United (IRU) and the Sawtooth Interpretive & Historical Association (SIHA) - August 26-28.

As August came to an end and Idaho’s salmon persevered through their 900-mile journey home to the heart of the Rocky Mountains, we joined friends and allies in Stanley, Idaho for Sawtooth Salmon Fest, an annual event hosted by IRU and SIHA celebrating this epic migration. Before the festival began, IRU’s Tom Stuart and Stephen Pfeiffer led us on a search for spawning salmon along the banks of the Salmon River and its tributaries. Originally named for the bright red sockeye that once filled its waters during spawning season, Redfish Lake and other Stanley Basin lakes that the Salmon River flows from saw a combined 14 wild salmon return in 2025. Our struggle to find any sockeye (wild or otherwise) swimming upstream was a stark reminder of the multitude of obstacles that Idaho’s salmon must overcome to return and spawn, including and especially the eight dams and 140 miles of hot, toxic, and stagnant reservoir waters on the lower Snake River between the Tri-Cities and Lewiston, ID.

Our time at Sawtooth Salmon Fest itself was absolutely energizing. We connected with all sorts of amazing community members through a very popular activity, creating beautiful works of salmon art. Over a hundred participants joined us to use Northwest Artists Against Extinction-designed stencils to create salmon prints. It was a beautiful way to end the weekend: gathering in community and creating advocacy art for salmon, while the Sawtooth Mountains stood in the backdrop and the Salmon River flowed freely right behind us.

Thank you to IRU and SIHA for hosting this amazing event, and we hope to see you all at Sawtooth Salmon Fest next year!

The Way of the Masks Journey led by Se’Si’Le -September 9-20.

In September, SOS was proud to support and participate in Se'Si'Le's 'Way of the Masks' journey as it toured through the Pacific Northwest, featuring powerful cultural events rooted in Indigenous artistry and environmental activism. The tour's message: protecting ancient forests is not just good policy — it's an integral part of Indigenous identity, our Northwest legacy, and our shared responsibility. Carved by Lummi Nation Master Carver Jewell James, a 12-foot cedar totem pole adorned with Coast Salish stories and symbols served as a striking visual and call-to-action for protecting our most sacred forests and the wild salmon that depend on them.

At each stop, local and Indigenous speakers shared heartfelt stories, prayers, music, and calls to action to protect ancient forests, wild salmon, and our Northwest home. Eight beautiful wooden masks, also hand-carved by Jewell James, was gifted in each location to a community leader who has played a key role in forest and salmon protection efforts.

Check out SOS' Events page to join events near you!  

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2. Our work ahead to recover healthy salmon, orca, and rivers

Thanks to your ongoing support and advocacy, we're making a strong and stead impression on regional policymakers and influential stakeholders and partners. Working with allies across the Northwest, we organized dozens of meetings and many thousands of grassroots/citizen contacts with Members of Congress, governors and local elected officials - urging them to defend our Northwest values and work collaboratively and consistently toward a more prosperous future for all, with healthy waters and abundant fish in the Columbia-Snake Basin.

Here are some recent developments and updates on the status of our rivers, endangered salmon and steelhead, and Southern Resident orcas, and our work ahead to protect and restore a healthier and more resilient Columbia-Snake Basin and Pacific Northwest.

Tragic death of a Southern Resident calf:

On September 12, Alki (J36) was observed by researchers at the Center for Whale Research carrying a dead female neonate calf with its umbilical cord still attached. This was not her first loss. Alki’s 2-year-old son Sonic (J52) died in 2017, and she is known to have experienced multiple miscarriages in recent years. We will never know for certain the exact cause of this calf's death, but we do know that the lack of salmon continues to be the single greatest threat to the survival of the Southern Resident orcas. Despite many years of effort to better protect Southern Resident orcas and many populations of Pacific Northwest salmon, both continue to teeter on the brink of extinction. These tragic deaths of the Southern Residents underscore the urgent need to rebuild abundant salmon populations in the Columbia-Snake Basin and across the Pacific Northwest. Scientists agree that rebuilding Spring/Summer chinook salmon in the Snake River Basin is essential priority to protect orcas from extinction. Removing the four lower Snake River dams represents our nation's greatest river/salmon restoration opportunity anywhere on the West Coast.

Dangerous water conditions in the lower Snake River:

This summer, all eight lower Columbia and Snake River reservoirs experienced sustained water temperatures above 68°F – the biological and legal limit scientists tell us is needed to protect cold water fish like salmon and steelhead from harm or death.

The hot water temperatures now regularly occurring in the summer months in the Columbia and Snake rivers impact the behavior, reproductive success, and survival of all upriver populations of salmon and steelhead. At a minimum, elevated water temperatures can significantly delay in their migration journey to Idaho. At higher temperatures, impacts can worsen and include disease, degraded egg and milt quality, and death. Hot water impacts on salmon and steelhead behavior and health can also impact Tribal and non-tribal fisheries, harming these communities and economies. 

The lower Snake River reservoirs also now routinely test positive for microcystins in the summer and fall months. Microcystins are a toxin that can harm the liver and is commonly responsible for human and animal poisonings, and habitat degradation. Already under stress due to warm temperatures in all eight reservoirs, salmon and steelhead must now also migrate through toxic algal blooms that can cause dangerous oxygen depletion and changes in pH levels.

Sovereigns and NGOs return to court to protect imperiled salmon and steelhead:

On September 11, a coalition of conservation, fishing, and clean energy groups, along with the states of Oregon and Washington and four Lower Columbia River Treaty Tribes, filed a motion with the U.S. District Court in Portland to lift a stay or pause in litigation that had been put in place as part of the historic Resilient Columbia Basin Agreement (RCBA).

Across nearly three decades of litigation, three different federal district court judges have declared six federal dam management plans inadequate and illegal for protecting imperiled wild salmon and steelhead populations in the Snake and Columbia rivers as required by federal law. The most recent 2020 federal salmon/dams plan, developed during the first Trump Administration, is no exception. Plaintiffs in the case - the Nez Perce Tribe, the state of Oregon and conservation and fishing NGOs led by Earthjustice - made a decision to pause this long-running litigation in 2021 and work with the Biden Administration with the hope of developing a durable, long-term solution to protect and restore endangered wild salmon and steelhead populations. Then in December 2023, the Biden Administration and Northwest Tribes, states, and stakeholders announced the Resilient Columbia Basin Agreement. The RCBA represented a first significant step toward implementing a comprehensive and collaborative plan to protect and rebuild salmon abundance, expand clean energy resources, honor Tribal treaty rights, and restore healthy ecosystems while supporting a robust Pacific Northwest economy. Importantly, the agreement included planning and funding to replace the services provided by the lower Snake River dams.

However, in June 2025, the Trump Administration suddenly terminated the RCBA and walked away from this historic collaboration to recover the Northwest's native fish, invest in communities and begin to solve some longstanding regional problems. Without the agreement in place, plaintiffs have been left with no alternative but to return to court to challenge the inadequate 2020 federal salmon plan and to ask the court to require critical near-term changes in the operations of the dams and reservoirs to provide urgently-needed survival benefits for migrating salmon and steelhead. See this factsheet for additional details on the status of fish populations.

Save Our wild Salmon Coalition deeply appreciates the leadership of the plaintiffs, and we hope the court acts expeditiously to approve the urgent measures needed to improve the dismal survival rates of salmon and steelhead in time for the upcoming 2026 spring-summer migration season.

Read more:

• Idaho River United News: IRU Returns to Court to Defend Snake River Salmon & Steelhead
• Earthjustice Press Release: Groups Return to Court to Protect Imperiled Columbia Basin Salmon
• The Oregonian Opinion: Back to court, but our regional work to protect salmon will continue

Congressional hearing on the harmful bill “Defending Our Dams Act” - Sept. 4:

On September 3, the House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Water, Wildlife, and Fisheries held a hearing for the “Defending our Dams Act” (H.R. 2073), introduced earlier this year by Rep. Newhouse (WA-04). If passed, the legislation would stop progress to restore a freely flowing lower Snake River restoration by prohibiting federal funds or activity to understand and/or study lower Snake River dam removal or service replacement. H.R. 2073 would also prevent the implementation of the Columbia Basin Restoration Initiative (CBRI) — the comprehensive strategy developed by the Six Sovereigns to recover salmon abundance in the Columbia basin while investing in clean and affordable energy, healthy communities, and modernized infrastructure.

Salmon and fishing advocates thank Representatives Huffman, Hoyle, Randall, and Stansbury of the House Natural Resources Subcommittee for attending this important hearing and voicing their strong opposition to this harmful legislation.Here are a few quotes from the hearing:

• Representative Huffman: “In December of 2023, four Tribes, two States, five federal agencies, and nonprofits all reached a historic agreement on Columbia River salmon restoration…called the Resilient Columbia Basin agreement. President Trump blew that up in June with this Presidential Memorandum entitled ‘Stopping Radical Environmentalism to Generate Power for the Columbia River Basin’... there's nothing radical about honoring tribal treaty rights or wanting functional salmon runs that people can actually fish, or building clean energy to address all climate change and salmon extinction.
• Representative Hoyle: “Unfortunately, I can't get behind the fact that HR 2073 would ban studies into what it would take to replace or modify these dams, but we shouldn't tie our own hands for being able to research their impacts, even while we acknowledge that right now, there is no other way to replace that power.”
• Representative Stansbury: “It's important to understand that there has been decades of litigation on the lower Snake River to ensure that the historic damming of those rivers that impact the salmon fisheries that are subject to numerous treaties of our Tribes and the federal trust responsibility are rectified. At the end of the day, this is not just about the restoration of that vast watershed and the river and ecosystem that it sustains, but it is also compliance with both federal law and tribal trust and treaty responsibilities. I humbly but emphatically oppose that bill.”

Nez Perce Tribal Chairman Shannon F. Wheeler also testified at the hearing, asking Congress to reject the bill. “The wild runs are indeed in dire straits,” said Chairman Wheeler. “This bill would tie the hands of federal agencies and set the United States on an unambiguous course to destroy wild Snake River salmon runs, which would abrogate our Treaty-reserved rights to fish in all our usual and accustomed fishing areas.” Chairman Wheeler reminded Congress that the dams block access to some of the most pristine salmon and steelhead habitat in the Lower 48, and that the health, culture, and treaty rights of Columbia Basin Tribes are inseparable from the survival of wild fish runs.

We thank Chairman Wheeler and all who contacted their representatives to oppose this bill and called upon them to work collaboratively to implement the CBRI, the only existing plan today that comprehensively addresses the issues facing salmon, the health of our rivers, community needs, and infrastructure. The CBRI represents an historic opportunity for the people of the Northwest and nation - and we all need to work together to support the Six Sovereigns leadership in collaboration with others in the region to move it forward.

Act Now! Petition to restore the Columbia Basin's native fish and hold BPA accountable:

The Northwest Power and Conservation Council is now working on amendments to update its region-wide Fish and Wildlife Program. As an initial step in this process, the Council solicited recommendations from state, federal and tribal fisheries managers and accepted recommendations from others, including the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA). BPA recommended that the Council abandon its long-held goal of seeing 5 million adult salmon and steelhead returning annually to the Columbia Basin to spawn. BPA further called on the Council to affirm that BPA was under no legal obligation to meet any numerical goal the Council might set.

In response, Save Our wild Salmon Coalition and partners released a petition calling on the Council to reassert its intended leadership role in undoing the vast damage hydropower development has done to fish and wildlife throughout the region and to hold BPA accountable to honor its legal obligations. Please add your name to the petition! Thank you all for signing and sharing the petition!

Sign the Petition 

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3. The RECIPROCITY webinar series is back for fall 2025! 

Join Oregon Wild, Washington Wild & SOS on October 23 at 6pm PT for the second fall installment of RECIPROCITY featuring award-winning Seattle Times reporter and author Lynda V. Mapes!

Lynda Mapesrecently published The Trees are Speaking: Dispatches from the salmon forests, an essential read for those with a deep interest in environmental stewardship, Indigenous land rights, sustainable communities and the urgent challenges posed by climate change. With vibrant storytelling supported by science and traditional ecological knowledge, Mapes will share a call to rethink our relationship with forests and invite us into a world where trees are kin, not commodities.

Register for the Webinar here 

Last month, we were honored to hear from Dr. Christopher J. Preston, who spoke about his latest book, Tenacious Beasts, which brings to life nature’s formidable resilience through successful recovery stories from wolves in Europe, bison on America’s Great Plains, and humpback whales in the Atlantic and Pacific. We’re grateful to Dr. Preston for sharing the evening with us, full of optimism as well as guidance about how we might live more harmoniously alongside our animal kin. If you missed it, you can watch the webinar recording here.

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4. Honoring Dr. Jane Goodall (1934-2025)

Dr. Jane Goodall is widely known for her groundbreaking research on chimpanzees and unconventional approach, by Western scientific standards at the time, to learn from nature, acknowledging, for example, that the chimpanzees were astutely watching her, too. While the salmon ecosystems of the Northwest may seem far from the forests of Gombe, her deep commitment, vision, wisdom and humanity has moved and inspired millions of people here and across the planet. Dr. Goodall had an infectious, innate love for all that is living and a deep understanding of what it means to be a part of nature. She inspired countless people to get outside, poke around in nature, and ultimately grow into strong environmental leaders. Not only did she fundamentally change the way we, as humans, understand ourselves, she also paved the way for young leaders in science. Dr. Goodall's legacy offers us all an enduring gift of perseverance, patience, and hope.

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5. Salmon media roundup

News:

• Moscow-Pullman: Tribes, states push to revive Snake and Columbia River salmon lawsuit after Trump order
• Capital Press: Governors respond to ad placed by dam advocates
• The Seattle-Times: Legal battle reignites over Lower Snake River Dams, salmon
• WA State Standard: Lawsuits against federal government over Columbia Basin dams to resume
• Daily Astorian: Oregon, tribes return to court to save Columbia River salmon from extinction
• Columbia Gorge News: Lummi Nation totem pole visits Hood River, drums up opposition to potential roadless rule recission
• News Data: Klamath River Water Temperatures Responding to Dam Removal

Opinion:

• Idaho Statesman: Opinion: Snake River salmon lawsuits were on hold. Now we have to resume
• The Oregonian: Opinion: Back to court, but our regional work to protect salmon will continue
• The Columbian: In Our View: Salmon policy ill-conceived, puts process in reverse
• NewsData: Guest Column: The Righteous Shall Prevail, or Perhaps Fail?
• The Spokesman-Review: Breach the dams save the ecosystem
• The Spokesman-Review: Clean water the answer to salmon recovery

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IN THIS ISSUE

 1.  New Federal Salmon Plan is Neither New Nor Much of a Plan

2.  New study documents Puget Sound's orca concentrated at the Columbia's mouth during Spring

3.  DamNation Film premieres at SXSW Film Festival

4.  Salmon Mean Business:  Big thanks to Patagonia and Cocoon!

 1.  New Federal Salmon Plan is Neither New Nor Much of a Plan

On Jan. 17, federal agencies released their latest plan for protecting imperiled salmon and steelhead that are harmed by the dams on the Columbia and Snake rivers. As foreshadowed by a draft issued last Fall, the new plan comes as a big disappointment – if not exactly a big surprise. By the agencies’ own admission, their 2014 plan is barely distinguishable from the illegal 2008/2010 plan it’s supposed to replace – despite clear direction from a federal court to do more to help salmon.

By hewing so closely to its illegal predecessor, this new – or, um, “new” – plan repeats many of the same mistakes that have kept our wild salmon at a prolonged (and, we would argue, unacceptable) risk of extinction over the past two decades. A partial list of the 2014 federal salmon plan’s shortcomings:

➢ Ignores regionally-supported sound science;

➢ Employs a low-bar recovery standard that declares success as long as salmon populations increase by more than one additional fish per year;

➢ Allows dam operators to roll back spill – our most effective near-term salmon protection measure that’s been a key driver of the modestly higher salmon returns of the past few years;

➢ Fails to address the current and worsening impacts of climate change, which are already hitting salmon hard.

It’s still too soon to say whether the 2014 plan will end up back in court, but what is clear is that NOAA Fisheries, Bonneville Power Administration, and other federal agencies have squandered a huge opportunity to finally do right by science, law, Northwest communities, American taxpayers – and salmon.

For more on the 2014 federal salmon plan, check out SOS’s factsheet here.

And here’s some recent press on the plan that we highly recommend:

Seattle Times editorial: Water over dams save salmon

High Country News: For better or worse, feds’ Columbia River Salmon plan stays the course http://www.hcn.org/blogs/goat/for-better-or-worse-feds-latest-columbia-river-salmon-opinion-stays-the-course

Crosscut: Feds’ latest Columbia River plan: Play me an old-fashioned melody

The Drake: Groundhog Day for Salmon:  Another biased BiOp makes the rounds

2. New study documents Puget Sound's orca concentrated at the Columbia's mouth during Spring

A recently-published study from the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America makes new findings that connect endangered Southern Resident Killer Whales (SRKWs) with threatened and endangered salmon of the Columbia and Snake Rivers. NOAA-Fisheries, the federal agency charged with protecting endangered orcas has previously identified the historic predation by these orcas on Columbia Basin chinook salmon and described the decline of salmon in the Columbia River basin as “[p]erhaps the single greatest change in food availability for resident killer whales since the late 1800s...”

Today, there is strong evidence that the SRKWs are often severely nutritionally stressed (starving). The lack of available prey is a key source of mortality and low reproductive success in recent years. This new study documents the frequent presence of SRKWs at or near the mouth of the Columbia River in March in recent years and speculates that they are drawn there to feed on oily, energy-rich spring chinook that also gather at the river’s mouth in March before beginning their upriver migration.

Needless to say, a Columbia Basin that produces many more chinook salmon would be a very good thing for SRKWs and help address what scientist consider orca’s biggest threat today: lack of a sufficient prey base to support them.
The study’s abstract below nicely summarizes the study’s findings, followed by a link to the full study.

Assessing the coastal occurrence of endangered killer whales using autonomous passive acoustic recorders.

By M. Bradley Hanson, Candice K. Emmons, and Eric J. Ward


Journal of the Acoustical Society of America

, November 2013

Abstract:
 Using moored autonomous acoustic recorders to detect and record the vocalizations of social odonotocetes to determine their occurrence patterns is a non-invasive tool in the study of these species in remote locations. Acoustic recorders were deployed in seven locations on the continental shelf of the U.S. west coast from Cape Flattery, WA to Pt. Reyes, CA to detect and record endangered southern resident killer whales between January and June of 2006–2011. Detection rates of these whales were greater in 2009 and 2011 than in 2006–2008, were most common in the month of March, and occurred with the greatest frequency off the Columbia River and Westport, which was likely related to the presence of their most commonly consumed prey, Chinook salmon. The observed patterns of annual and monthly killer whale occurrence may be related to run strength and run timing, respectively, for spring Chinook returning to the Columbia River, the largest run in this region at this time of year. Acoustic recorders provided a unique, long-term, dataset that will be important to inform future consideration of Critical Habitat designation for this U.S. Endangered Species Act listed species.

You can read the full study here. 

3.  DamNation Film premieres at SXSW Film Festival

SOS looks forward with great anticipation to the premiere of DamNation at the prestigious SXSW Film Festival in early March. Soon after it will appear at the Washington, DC Environmental Film Festival in late March, and Telluride Mountain Films in May.

Talented filmmakers Travis Rummel and Ben Knight, creators of the powerful Red Gold that documented the battle to stop Pebble Mine and save the greatest sockeye fishery in the world, have turned their cameras on the damage wrought by dams on our nation’s rivers and the growing movement to restore rivers around the country.

Rummel and Knight toured the country, interviewing community leaders, agency staff, tribal members, fishermen, and others where dams have come out and where momentum is building to take dams out. The film visits the Elwha, White Salmon, Rogue and Columbia-Snake Rivers among others. With their trademark beautiful and creative camera-work, humor and poignancy the film covers the history of our nation’s dam-building binge, its repercussions, and hope for the future as communities come together to remove costly and outdated dams.

Produced by Patagonia and Stoecker Ecological, DamNation will embark on a 9-city national tour this spring with stops in Seattle, Portland, Washington, DC, New York, San Francisco, Santa Monica, and Denver. SOS will be working with our member groups and local organizations to host film showings in the Northwest once the national tour launches.

Please contact Sam Mace at sam@wildsalmon.org for more information on film events in your area.

Watch the trailer and learn more here.

Read Outside Magazine on DamNation here.

4.  Salmon Mean Business:  Big thanks to Patagonia and Cocoon!

Patagonia has always been more than an outdoor clothing company.  Founder Yvon Chouinard has consistently set the standard for quality, integrity, ethics and ingenuity in both Patagonia's products and conservation work.  Patagonia is a long-time supporter of restoring rivers and protecting wild fisheries around the world.  The company has offered unwavering commitment to restoring the wild salmon in the Columbia and Snake Rivers, including supporting removal of the four lower Snake River dams.  Now Chouinard and Patagonia have produced the tremendous DamNation film, which will get the word out to many new audiences around the country.  A huge thanks from the wild salmon of the West!

Cocoon has supported the work of Save Our Wild Salmon for years.  With staff Sue Morrison, an avid steelhead angler,  based in Wenatchee, the sleeping bag manufacturer has joined with other outdoor companies in WA state to urge Washington State Governor Jay Inslee and other elected leaders to support a strong Columbia-Snake BiOp and to bring stakeholders together for long-term solutions.   Many thanks to Sue's work on behalf of wild salmon and steelhead and to the company for its support.  

IN THIS ISSUE

1. DamNation: winning awards, capturing the public's imagination - and now available online, in DVD and iTunes!

2.  Columbia River Treaty: Two important letters delivered to the White House this spring.

3.  The fight continues: In search of a lawful plan that protects and restores salmon and steelhead.

4.  Stuck in the Mud:  Sediment Plan from the Army Corps expected this summer.

5.  Salmon Mean Business:  Thanks to Boundary Bay Brewery, Siren's Pub and Village Books!

 1. DamNation: winning awards, capturing the public's imagination - and now available online, in DVD and iTunes!

DamNation continues to win awards and inspire new river advocates. Premiering at SXSW in Austin TX in March, this film has now been seen by tens of thousands of people coast to coast, garnered national media attention and critical acclaim.  And now the number of viewers is about to skyrocket as the film is now available for instant streaming on DVD and iTunes!
 
DamNation brings national attention to a movement that has been quietly, steadily building over the last two decades in every corner of our country. Removing out-dated, costly dams and restoring healthy rivers is good for communities, fish and wildlife, and the economy, and it is an excellent antidote to the warming impacts of climate change. This outstanding film shows how dam removal is going mainstream – while serving up the four lower Snake River dams as what’s on the horizon.
 
In just four months, DamNation has drawn critical acclaim and proven itself a people’s favorite at film festivals - garnering seven juried and four audience awards.
 
Patagonia, Felt Soul Media, and Stoecker Ecological have been all over the country since March attending festival premieres and community screenings. Every Patagonia store in the nation hosted a screening on June 5th, including in Washington D.C.  SOS’ Sam Mace, Nez Perce Tribe Executive Director Rebecca Miles and former Corps staff Jim Waddell (both featured in the film) attended the screening and spent the week on Capitol Hill meeting with the Administration and members of Congress to talk DamNation and the lower Snake River dams. 
 
This spring, SOS has worked with scores of other organizations, businesses, and community leaders to screen the film to thousands of people as part of a Northwest film tour that will continue through 2015. It is attracting large crowds who leave the theatre moved and motivated. Our Q&A sessions afterward featuring stakeholders and people from the film like Ms. Miles and Mr. Waddell are keeping people in their seats and generating excellent discussions.
 
Visit our DamNation project page to learn about upcoming Northwest shows.
Go here to find out about shows across the nation – or to learn about how you can host a screening in your community.

2. Columbia River Treaty: Two important letters delivered to the White House this spring

First, the Environmental Protection Agency on the Columbia River Treaty and Regional Recommendation.

In early April this year, EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy sent an excellent letter to Secretary of State John Kerry responding  to the Northwest's Dec. 2013 "Regional Recommendation" expressing the agency's views on the opportunities of and needs for modernizing the the fifty-year old U.S.-Canada Columbia River Treaty.

While acknowledging significant benefits of the Treaty to date, the letter also highlights some of its harmful impacts on the environment and the Basin's Tribal and non-tribal communities as a result of key omissions in the original agreement.

The EPA expresses it support for modernizing the Treaty by:

- fully integrating 'ecosystem function' (health of the river) as a new, third Treaty purpose that considers water quality, fish and wildlife, cultural needs, and economic sustainability and addresses climate change.

- providing the Columbia River Basin Tribes a role in developing and implementing a modern Columbia River Treaty.

It closes by saying "The EPA believes that a modern treaty with Canada will provide multiple benefits to the Pacific Northwest and that a strong commitment to a healthy Columbia River ecosystem will protect human health and safety and promote a strong regional economy in both the U.S. and Canada."

Second – The Northwest congressional delegation says “aye” to moving forward with Columbia River Treaty negotiations

We’re not sure if this has ever happened before: all 26 members of the Northwest congressional delegation – from all four states, both chambers of Congress and both sides of the aisle – signed a letter to President Obama last month, urging timely action on the United States’ efforts to renegotiate the Columbia River Treaty with Canada. The letter underscores the need for the State Department’s active engagement on Treaty negotiations within the next few months in order to ensure that the Northwest’s Regional Recommendation for Treaty modernization can move forward in 2015:

“In our view, it is essential that the Administration now advance this work through discussions with Canada to ensure that a post-2024 Treaty better reflects the interests of our constituents in the region and in the United States as a whole….We agree that it is critical that this process move forward in a timely fashion in order to best position the United States for a positive outcome in future discussions with Canada.”

While the delegation’s letter is silent on specific aspects of the Regional Recommendation – such as the need to consider ecosystem function as part of the Treaty’s purposes – its call for timely action on Treaty renegotiation is great news for the Northwest and all who care about modernizing this 50-year-old framework so that it provides the benefits and protections that the Columbia Basin needs in the 21st Century.

With the entire Northwest delegation on board, we hope the Obama Administration is listening.

3.  The fight continues: In search of a lawful plan that protects and restores salmon and steelhead.

Deja vu all over again. Groundhog Day (Bill Murray-style). Same <stuff>, different day.

Each of these expressions has been used at one time or another over the last 8 or 9 months to describe the virtually-unchanged Columbia-Snake salmon plan issued by federal agencies – first in draft form last September and then in final form in January. And while these phrases are entirely accurate – the 2014 federal salmon plan is almost identical to the illegal 2008/2010 plan it’s supposed to replace – they may not tell the full story. Sure, the federal agencies have issued three illegal plans in a row, and now we have a fourth attempt that manages to both repeat the mistakes of the past and roll back existing salmon protections.

But what this string of inadequate and failed plans really tells us is that the federal agencies seem intent on a lowest-common-denominator approach to safeguarding Columbia Basin salmon from the impacts of the hydropower system. Rather than ask questions like, “What do salmon actually need in order to survive and recover?” or “What does real salmon restoration look like and how do we get there?” – it’s as though our federal salmon managers are asking, “What’s the absolute minimum we can get by with under the law?” or “How can we redefine success under the Endangered Species Act so that things look a whole lot better than they really are?”

After nearly two decades of creatively reinterpreting the ESA, assiduously avoiding meaningful and substantial changes to the hydrosystem (where the bulk of salmon mortality occurs), touting habitat improvements as a means to mitigate for the harm caused by the dams despite a lack of evidence showing that such mitigation actually works, and, more recently, sidestepping any attempt to address the clear and present danger posed by climate change, the federal agencies have shown that their eagerness to protect the status quo apparently trumps their interest in ensuring the longterm protection and recovery of salmon and steelhead. Pacific Northwest residents, salmon-reliant businesses, and American taxpayers deserve more – as do the very species we’re supposed to be restoring.

With such stubborn recalcitrance, we can only assume that the federal government is content returning to court. Since the 2008/2010 salmon plan was ruled illegal almost three years ago (leading to the current plan that was issued in January), conservation and fishing groups have strongly and repeatedly urged, on occasions too numerous to list – that the Obama Administration seize the opportunity to end the cycle of poor decision-making and litigation and convene a solutions-driven process that brings together a range of stakeholders from across the Columbia Basin to find a durable path forward on this complex, long-running challenge.

No dice.

More recently, over the last year, salmon advocates, along with the State of Oregon, the Nez Perce Tribe, and others, have proposed a collaborative experimental spill program that could do wonders for salmon survival and productivity – another opportunity to perhaps take a break from the ongoing litigation. Again, the answer so far has been a resounding NO! (and if you’re an electricity ratepayer in the Northwest, you may be interested to know that Bonneville Power Administration has been leading the charge in the region to squash a salmon spill experiment; indeed, it may be safe to say that they’ve spared no expense to ensure this tremendously promising effort doesn’t get off the ground).

So a return to the courtroom seems inevitable – and, in the absence of any kind of collaborative process or willingness to consider new measures like expanded spill, a necessary next step toward ensuring our endangered Columbia and Snake River salmon receive the near-term protections they need - and that the law requires.

4.  Stuck in the mud:  Corps of Engineers expected to release plan to address lower Snake sediment problem

After 6 years of delay, the Army Corps of Engineers is expected to release a Final Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) on its plans to address the growing sediment problem in the lower Snake River, particularly behind the farthest upstream dam, Lower Granite.
The FEIS was originally scheduled for release last summer but was delayed when the Corps recognized that its plan was unlikely to pass legal, economic, or scientific muster.

Sediment has piled up behind Lower Granite far more quickly than expected since Lower Granite was finished in 1975. The reservoir is more than 55 percent full of sediment, disrupting the barge transportation system, undermining Port of Lewiston activities, and creating a flood risk for nearby towns Clarkston, WA and Lewiston, ID. As the rivers fills with sediment, the level of the river rises.  Reminiscent of New Orleans, one can stand on the levees along the Snake River and see that Lewiston's historic downtown would now be underwater - but for those levees.

With millions of cubic yards of sediment piling up, the Corps can't dredge its way out of this big problem.  Ultimately, the Corps faces two choices:  raise the levees and further wall the local towns off from their river or remove (at least) Lower Granite dam.  But the people of Lewiston are deadset against raising levees.  And the Corps, for the moment, refuses to consider dam removal as a viable option.  So the Corps appears content to punt the problem down the road by dredging "problem areas" and thereby "manage" sediment as it enters the river.  Good luck with that.

One thing's for sure:  dealing with this sediment is going to be very expensive over the long run, especially if levees are raised down the road.  Ultimately, bridges and roads will need to be moved when levees eventually reach 4 feet high.  And then there are the impacts to clean water and imperiled salmon from the Corps' current focus on dredging.

Is it time to call the question and have an honest conversation?  Is it time to weigh the mounting costs of dealing with sediment (not to mention other maintenance issues facing these aging dams)?  Especially when barge shipping on the lower Snake has fallen more than 70 percent in the past decade as shippers switch to rail, truck and the far more competitive lower Columbia waterway?  The fact is: the costs of maintaining the dams is rising fast while the benefits of the dams are declining.  And the Corps must justify further spending of taxpayer dollars on this money-losing endeavor.

The Corps final sediment EIS is an opportunity to further this larger conversation.  It's about a lot more than mud.  Soon, a 30-day public comment period will begin.  We hope you join us is demanding the Corps to explain why we should continue spending tens of millions of tax dollars on a waterway in decline that's not paying its own way, and ask them to include dam removal among the options on the table to address the "mud problem."  Stay tuned!

5.  Salmon Mean Business!

These three Washington-based businesses have been wonderful – helping SOS and other groups and businesses to host receptions and screenings of DamNation. We are extremely grateful for their support and their recognition of the benefits and values of abundant salmon populations and healthy rivers and watersheds.

Boundary Bay Brewery:  Boundary Bay Brewery’s been making great handcrafted beer and fresh, local food for the Bellingham (WA) community since 1995! The brewery houses a Tap Room and family-friendly Bistro, located in a restored historic 1922 warehouse in downtown.  They also have a great deck for outdoor dining and a beer garden where you can enjoy BBQ's and outdoor concerts in the Summer.

Siren’s Pub: Owned by Kris Nelson, Sirens Pub in Port Townsend on Washington State’s Olympic Peninsula has a full menu of delectable offerings with 11 micro brews on tap, and a extensive bar you’re sure to find just what you want. Kris also owns and operates serving the delicious and varied foods and wines of the Meditteranean.  In the summer the deck is a favorite of locals and tourists alike.  In the winter cozy up to the fireplace.  Live music on Friday and Saturday nights!

Village Books:Village Books is a community-based, independent bookstore located in the Historic Fairhaven district of Bellingham, Washington, where it has been awarded the Tourism Business of the Year by the members of the Convention & Visitors Bureau. Since 1980, Village Books has been Whatcom County, Washington's "Community Bookshop for Browsing."

IN THIS ISSUE:

1.  A brief history of “spill”: our best near-term option for helping endangered wild salmon and steelhead.

2.  The Pacific Northwest Salmon Collaboration – a status report.

3.  Is Lower Snake River dredging REALLY a top priority? Taxpayer questions keep piling up.

4. Renewing the Columbia River Treaty: a-once-in-a-lifetime chance to help America’s greatest salmon river.

5. The Voyage of Rediscovery: an ambitious expedition to help restore the Columbia River’s legendary salmon.

1.   A Brief History of “spill”: our best near-term option for helping endangered wild salmon and steelhead.

Spill – the act of sending water over the Columbia and Snake River’s federal dams rather than through the turbines – is the most effective salmon survival measure with dams in place. In a dammed river, spill is an important step toward the natural template – the conditions under which salmon evolved, which scientists overwhelmingly agree we must seek to mimic if we are to restore salmon.

The Columbia Basin is large - roughly the size of Texas. The Columbia River’s headwaters are located in Canada while the Snake originates near Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming. This Basin was once the most productive salmon landscape on the planet – with up to 30 million fish returning annually for the benefit of people and ecosystems.

Today, it’s something of a stretch to call the Columbia and Snake “rivers” at all, given the back-to-back dams and reservoirs. Of the Columbia’s 600 non-tidal miles in the United States, just 51 still flow freely today – through the Hanford Reach in south-central Washington State (not coincidentally, also the home to the Basin’s strongest chinook populations). And in eastern Washington, many locals now refer to the Columbia’s biggest tributary as “Snake Lake”.

When compared with all other human causes of decline, dams are the biggest harvester of Columbia and Snake salmon. It’s the juvenile salmon – the smolts – migrating to the ocean through as many as eight dams and reservoirs that suffer the greatest casualties from the slack waters, long migration times, hot temperatures, high predator populations, and spinning turbines. Dams also inflict delayed mortality – fish that, while still alive when they hit the salt water, are so weakened by the cumulative stresses of migration through dams and reservoirs that they die at a higher rate in the ocean than do salmon from undammed or less-dammed rivers.

While far from perfect (the removal of the four lower Snake River dams would be considerably more helpful), spill helps mitigate the effects of dams in many ways: it shortens travel time to the ocean, reduces exposure to predators, helps move salmon through warm waters, keeps more fish out of spinning turbines, reduces human and mechanical handling, and reduces delayed mortality by reducing cumulative stress. Spill also reduces barging and trucking of juvenile salmon, the Army Corps’ preferred method of salmon migration despite its 30-year record of failure to restore salmon.

Scientists have long recognized the benefits of salmon spill and urged its expansion to help protect and recover endangered fish. Bonneville Power, on the other hand, has long opposed it, since spilled water does not spin turbines, produce electricity, or generate energy revenue. (It produces millions of dollars in salmon revenue, but BPA’s books don’t account for that.) BPA has long sought, and still seeks, to keep spill as discretionary as possible, so the agency could choose when, where and for how long to implement it.

A breakthrough came in 2005, when the U.S. District Court in Portland granted a spill injunction sought by the State of Oregon, Columbia River Tribes, and fishing and conservation groups. With the injunction, a base level of salmon spill has occurred each spring and summer for the last 8 years. This has generated many thousands more salmon and steelhead for people, economies and ecosystems. As you read these words, per federal court order, spill is pouring over the eight dams of the lower Snake and Columbia Rivers, carrying young salmon and steelhead more quickly and safely toward the Pacific Ocean.

In addition, these eight years of steady spill have provided a great deal of new data, over a range of water and weather conditions, on spill’s benefits and how best to manage it. The longest-running scientific study of Columbia and Snake River salmon passage and mortality recently concluded that additional spill, above the base level provided by the injunction, will boost salmon survival and adult returns even more - but only if the people and leaders of the Northwest choose to adopt it...We’ll dig into that more deeply in our July newsletter.

 2.    The Pacific Northwest Salmon Collaboration – a status report

As you know, SOS and our partners and allies have been seeking opportunities to resolve the long-standing conflicts in the Columbia and Snake Rivers through a collaborative stakeholder process, or “solutions table” – a place where all the parties with a stake in the intertwined issues of salmon, energy, agriculture, and transportation can sit down together to seek shared solutions. The goal: a lawful, science-based plan that restores healthy wild salmon and steelhead populations, expands the Northwest clean and affordable energy economy, and invests in our communities. In short, we believe that if stakeholders can work directly with each other to address and resolve their differences, we may just find that elusive common ground in the Columbia Basin.

Earlier this year, NOAA Fisheries, the federal agency with primary responsibility for protecting and restoring Columbia-Snake Basin salmon and steelhead, initiated a first step toward such a regional dialogue. NOAA contracted with a team of university-based facilitators to conduct a “situation assessment” of Columbia Basin salmon recovery issues – based on 200+ interviews with diverse stakeholders throughout the Northwest. These interviews will be completed and then compiled into a detailed report accompanied – we hope and expect - by options and recommendations for convening a formal stakeholder collaboration. The facilitators are now wrapping up the interviews, and will spend this summer assembling their final report – which will in turn be delivered to NOAA and the public late this summer.

Once the final report is released, NOAA will make a determination – in late 2013 or early 2014 – about what next steps to take for engaging stakeholders in collaboration and solutions. SOS and partners, along with dozens of elected officials and hundreds of businesses from around the country – and many of you – have worked hard over the past two years to support fair, open, inclusive stakeholder talks: an authentic, robust process to provide Northwesterners  the workspace they need to find durable solutions for salmon, communities, and the region’s economy. As the initial assessment phase sets up NOAA’s next steps, we will continue to work hard to make direct stakeholder talks a reality. The path forward for the Columbia Basin’s salmon, people and jobs starts with regional collaboration, and the time for that collaboration is now.

Olympian Guest Opinion: Inslee and Kitzhaber can lead a Columbia resolution - By Sara Patton and Bryan Jones.

3.  Is Lower Snake River dredging REALLY a top priority? Taxpayer questions keep piling up.

We continue to bird-dog the Corps’ plans to spend millions of dollars to maintain a barging corridor of dubious value and confront the growing flood risk at the towns of Clarkston, WA and Lewiston, ID created by the loads of sediment piling up behind Lower Granite dam.  Local citizens and groups are calling attention to the many millions of taxpayers dollars the Corps intends to spend on dredging and other potential measures include raising levees - a measure that is wildly unpopular in Lewiston.  The Corps' final environmental impact statement is expected sometime this summer.

The growing maintenance costs associated with the aging four lower Snake River dams, combined with continuous taxpayer funds needed to shore up the Port of Lewiston are prompting more people to question the long-term viability of both the Port and the waterway.  Today the Port of Lewiston handles a fraction of the waterborne goods it did two decades ago as more businesses choose rail and truck to deliver goods to Portland and Seattle for export. 

At a recent meeting in Lewiston, residents raised concerns about the costs of maintaining the Port of Lewiston.  Local citizens are still paying an annual $500,000 tax annually to support the Port, despite promises 40 years ago of financial self-sufficiency within its first 10 years of operation.  Questions over the economic worth of the Port were front and center at the recent Port meeting: The Port of Lewiston’s rising costs and shrinking benefits are begging larger questions about the economic viability of the lower Snake River transportation waterway – and indeed - the dams themselves.

The Lewiston Tribune recently published a piece -If you do the math, the dams don't add up - by Chris Carlson, a former advisor to long-time Idaho Governor and Interior Secretary Cecil Andrus, calling the question on the dams. 
 
Excerpted from his new book Medimont Reflections, Carlson connects these low value dams to the growing crisis our nation faces over crumbling infrastructure and limited dollars to maintain them: “In this period of diminishing federal resources, as the nation tries to get a handle on its deficit spending challenge, the cost-benefits derived from (dam removal are) overwhelmingly compelling.  Add to that the cost avoidance of the flooding of Lewiston and the elimination of shipping subsidies and breaching is a no-brainer.”  Well said, Mr. Carlson.

4.   Renewing the Columbia River Treaty: a-once-in-our-lifetime chance to help restore America’s greatest salmon river.

Save Our wild Salmon is joining with several other groups to make sure salmon and their habitats benefit from re-negotiation of the U.S.-Canada Columbia River Treaty that is now underway.  This is a 50-year opportunity to re-align water, salmon and energy management in the Columbia Basin to flexibly respond to climate change, restore salmon where they have been extirpated, bring flood control into the 21st century, and do long-delayed justice to Columbia Basin Indian Tribes.??

The original 1964 Treaty contained just two purposes:  hydroelectric development and flood control.  This has privileged those two uses over all other Columbia uses and values, including river health, for 50 years.  In addition, the Treaty was signed without consultation with Indian Tribes, yet they have been the people most negatively affected by it.  The Treaty has done good for the Northwest, but it needs fundamental change if it is to keep doing good in the very different next 50 years awaiting us.

Fifteen Columbia Basin Indian Tribes have joined together to seek changes to the Treaty, notably:  

- inclusion of a third purpose, called ecosystem-based function, co-equal with power and flood control.    

- addition of a third treaty co-manager to represent ecosystem function (as Bonneville Power today represents power and the Army Corps flood control).  Ideally, this should be the 15 Tribes themselves, with one vote.

- a significant forward turn of the Columbia hydrograph back toward the natural template prior to its dams, as the surest way that its waters, salmon, people and communities can respond effectively to the hot water challenge that has now begun. 

- experimental salmon reintroduction and passage above the major salmon-impassable dams in the region, such as Grand Coulee and the Hells Canyon Complex.

We think these changes will be good for the entire Northwest and all its people, not just for the Tribes. They will certainly be good for the Basin's imperiled salmon and steelhead.  So SOS is supporting these four Tribal proposals.  The Tribes are focused primarily on the inside game - the complex Treaty process in which they have sovereign standing.  SOS will focus primarily on the outside game - the public and political arenas where, in the end, final decisions on the next Treaty will be made.  SOS' supporters will hear more about this work in coming months, on our website and in this newsletter.

Download the June 27 Columbia River Treaty Working Draft and the accompanying Cover Letter (PDF).

Read Paul Lumley's op-ed in the Oregonian: To manage the Columbia River, we need a new treaty for a new era

5.    Sea2Source: an ambitious expedition up the Columbia to restore a legendary river’s legendary salmon.

Five Intrepid paddlers leading five hand-carved canoes representing five species of species of salmon and steelhead. Sea2source is the name of an ambitious 1,000 mile expedition up the Columbia River. These “salmon canoes” will retrace the ancient migratory route of the wild salmon and steelhead populations that disappeared nearly 100 years ago with the construction of Grand Coulee Dam.

On August 1 in Astoria, Oregon, five beautiful hand-carved, community-crafted salmon canoes will begin a migration up the main channel of the Columbia River – participating in dozens of events along the way – and educating and inspiring people about the past, present and future for the Northwest’s signature river, its salmon, and peoples of this corner of America.

Save Our wild Salmon is a proud partner of Sea2Source –a project working to raise awareness about the plight of wild Columbia/Snake River salmon and steelhead; about how salmon extinction has impacted Columbia Basin Tribes like the Spokane and Colville; and how we can seize an opportunity today to right a past wrong.

The Sea2Source expedition is well-timed. The discussion and debate over how to modernize the Columbia River Treaty between the United States and Canada is now underway (though largely beyond public view at the moment). What can we do as citizens, businesses, organizations to ensure that ecosystem-based functions including salmon restoration - join flood control and power production as fundamental treaty and management purposes?

LEARN more about the how and why in Episode 1: The Fish Ladder.

VOTE here in support of Voyage of Rediscovery as a Paddle with a Purpose on the Canoe and Kayak website.

The following businesses and organizations are sponsors of Wild Salmon & Steelhead News and the Save Our wild Salmon Coalition. They support healthy rivers, abundant wild salmon populations, and a thriving salmon economy and culture.

Please support them.

IN THIS ISSUE

1.  DamNation debuts to rave reviews

2.  Let's do this thing! Scientist' review provides pathway to expanded spill test

3.  Protecting one of the world’s last, great salmon runs: EPA, Bristol Bay, and the Pebble Mine.

4. An Evening with David Montgomery draws big crowd, celebrates two salmon/energy champions.

5.  Salmon Mean Business

 1.  DamNation debuts to rave reviews

Since premiering at SXSW earlier this month, the new film DamNation is winning awards and inspiring audiences across the country.  The film won the audience choice award at SXSW and best advocacy documentary at the Environmental Film Festival in Washington DC where it screens March 30th. The Washington Post describes DamNation as “both exquisitely shot and powerfully told.” Patagonia and Stoecker Ecological produced the film in conjunction with Felt Soul Media.

DamNation tells the story of changing attitudes towards dams and rivers, documenting the history and impacts of our nation’s dam-building era and the new movement to remove outdated dams to restore rivers and fisheries.  Film-makers Ben Knight and Travis Rummel traveled the country visiting rivers being restored through dam removals, including the Elwha and White Salmon in Washington State and the Rogue and Sandy Rivers in Oregon.

DamNation also explores the impacts on salmon, tribal communities and the Northwest from dams built on the Columbia and Snake Rivers, targeting the aging four lower Snake River dams, whose value to the region is in steep decline while the costs to maintain them continue to grow.

The film has finally come to salmon country and Save Our Wild Salmon is excited to be partnering with Patagonia and other organizations to bring this film to towns across the Northwest. The film premiered in Boise to a standing-room-only crowd at the TreeFort Film Festival last week.  Upcoming screenings include Missoula MT on April 15, Portland OR on April 17, Spokane WA on April 23 and Moscow ID on April 30.  For information on these screenings and information on how to purchase tickets to Northwest shows - go here.  We will be updating the list of Northwest screenings as they are scheduled.  

If you are interested in bringing the film to your community in the Northwest - please contact Sam Mace.

Patagonia is a long-time supporter of restoring Columbia-Snake River salmon.  They’ve stepped up to the plate yet again, not only helping make this powerful film, but launching a call-to-action to fix the Snake River in conjunction with the film.  Patagonia has launched a "Deadbeat Dams" national campaign that includes a petition drive calling on President Obama and elected leaders to begin the feasibility studies necessary to remove the four lower Snake River dams. 

We have no doubt DamNation will inspire thousands to add their name to the petition and energize a new generation of river defenders. 

WATCH the film trailer here. 

SIGN the petition here. 

JOIN us at a screening coming to a theater near you! Our schedule is here.

READ the Washington Post's review here and Idaho River United's report on Boise's sold-out screening here.

 2.  Let’s do this thing! Science panel’s review provides pathway to expanded spill test

The bottom line: Spilling water over Columbia and Snake River dams is good for salmon. It helps young fish make the trip to the Pacific more safely, and it helps them better survive in the ocean to return a few years later as adults. As long as the dams remain in place, spill is our most effective near-term measure for improving salmon survival. We know this from nearly 20 years of data about salmon – data that has been collected and analyzed by state, federal, and tribal fishery scientists working cooperatively as part of something called the Comparative Survival Study (CSS). Last year, CSS scientists presented findings that indicated expanding spill above and beyond current court-ordered levels could allow some imperiled Columbia-Snake salmon runs to rebuild and even recover. Indeed, expanded spill could possibly double the number of fish returning to Idaho.

Because these findings are so promising, the State of Oregon proposed an experiment to put expanded spill to the test in real-world/real-river conditions. Oregon submitted its proposal last fall to the Northwest Power and Conservation Council as a recommended amendment to the Council’s updated Fish & Wildlife Program, which is currently being drafted. As part of its consideration of Oregon’s spill proposal, the Council referred the proposal to its Independent Scientific Advisory Board (ISAB) for additional review earlier this winter. On February 20, the ISAB issued its review, determining that the proposal’s hypothesis has merit and encouraging the development of a more detailed study design to move forward with a rigorous test of expanded spill.

The ISAB is inviting an iterative process that could result in a stronger study design that moves the needle on our understanding of what's possible for salmon recovery with the dams in place. This is an excellent opportunity both for expanding the region’s knowledge through adaptive management and providing near-term help to salmon that could yield significant survival gains that bring our shared recovery goals further within reach – something the ISAB recognizes we’re still a long way off from achieving under current efforts.  That’s why fishing and salmon advocates enthusiastically support a request made this month by Northwest Sportfishing Industry Association that the Council ask the CSS to utilize the ISAB’s recommendations to strengthen and resubmit an experimental spill design within 60 days. Doing so will allow CSS scientists to address the issues raised by the ISAB and move the study design forward in a manner that leads to a robust proposal that could be considered as part of the 2014 Fish and Wildlife Program process.

You can read SOS’s factsheet about the ISAB review here.

You can download and read the ISAB review here.

3.  Protecting one of the world’s last, great salmon runs: EPA takes a critical step to permanently protect Bristol Bay salmon and watershed.

The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently initiated a review process under the Clean Water Act to determine if large-scale mining in the renowned Bristol Bay watershed of southwest Alaska can co-exist with the area’s renewable natural resources, most importantly the waters that provide the spawning and rearing habitat for the world’s largest sockeye salmon population, as well as trophy rainbow trout, Dolly Varden, Arctic grayling and four other Pacific salmon species.

If approved, the Pebble Mine would become one of the largest copper and gold mines on the planet. It’s proponents – Pebble Mine partnership – are seeking to locate the massive open-pit operation in the headwaters of Bristol Bay in southwest Alaska - home to one of the world’s last great remaining salmon runs.

A broad coalition of Native communities, commercial and recreational fishermen, conservationists, and businesses have opposed siting the massive mine in the heart of a pristine ecosystem that supports a naturally sustainable resource and thousands of jobs and produces a healthy delicious food that feeds hundreds of thousands of people.

The EPA's involvement in Bristol Bay and the Pebble Mine started in 2010 when, at the request of local tribes and stakeholder groups, it initiated a comprehensive study of the potential effects of large-scale mining on the watershed. That process took three years. After gathering data, numerous public meetings, more than a million online comments, and two rounds of scientific peer review, the final draft of the Bristol Bay Watershed Assessment was released last January.

While the EPA’s Clean Water Act review is just getting started, many close to this issue see the move as a nail in the coffin for the massive mine. It is a rare use of the EPA's authority to restrict or outright prohibit any discharge of dredge or fill that might have "unacceptable adverse effects" on water supplies, wildlife, fisheries, or recreational areas. Such a process has been initiated just 29 times previously, and it has run to completion and resulted in restrictions just 13 times.

While the fight is far from over, this move by the EPA is a critical step toward a decision that says we hope eventually says “NO!” to a massive mine and “YES!” to protecting wild salmon, a pristine ecosystem, and a sustainable economy and delicious source of protein.

Links to further information:

Pictures: Photographer Who Shot Bristol Bay Celebrates Halt of Pebble Mine

EPA takes step toward restricting Pebble Mine project on Alaska’s Bristol Bay

4.  An Evening with David Montgomery draws standing room only crowd, celebrates two deserving wild salmon and clean energy champions.

More than 130 guests gathered recently at the University of Washington’s Burke Museum for an evening of excellent food, a wonderful speaker, and to celebrate two long-time SOS leaders – NW Energy Coalition executive director Sara Patton and Sierra Club’s NW Regional Director Bill Arthur.

The evening coincided with the Burke Museum’s beautiful and moving Elwha: A River Reborn exhibit. Inspired by the 2013 book by the same name, the exhibit tells a story of restoration for a river, its salmon, and its people – the K’lallam Tribe.

Delicious food was prepared by Kevin Davis and Anthony Polizzi of blueacre seafood and Steelhead Diner, with foods donated by Charlie’s Produce, Seafood Producers Cooperative, Coastal Trollers Association. Taylor Shellfish served fresh oysters. Beer and wine was donated by Fremont Brewing Company and Waterbrook Winery. Plauche and Carr LLP also helped to underwrite this event.

University of Washington Professor, MacArthur Genius Awardee, Big Dirt Lead Guitarist, and author Dr. David R. Montgomery gave the keynote presentation. 2014 is the 10th anniversary of his book – King of Fish – The Thousand-Year Run of Salmon. Dr. Montgomery reflected on both the progress we’ve made since his book was published, and the work ahead.

Finally, SOS awarded our first-ever Mighty Chinook Awards to long-time SOS board members/leaders Sara Patton and Bill Arthur. Both Bill and Sara have been instrumental leaders in the SOS family since the early 1990s – smart, passionate, and articulate advocates for a Columbia/Snake River Basin that supports both clean and affordable energy and wild and abundant salmon and steelhead.

 IV. Salmon Mean Business!

This month and next, we’re highlighting some of the businesses that generously supported our recent event at the Burke Museum on the University of Washington campus. We are extremely grateful for their help to make our event delicious and successful.

Plauché & Carr LLP attorneys serve as advocates and counselors regarding legal and regulatory issues related to natural resource based activities. We strive for a collaborative approach in which we bring multiple representatives together to reach solutions and achieve our clients' business goals. Creativity, innovation, and depth of understanding of each client's vision provide the best avenues for helping our clients reach their objectives. At Plauché & Carr LLP, "we are passionate about the work that we do, and are only satisfied if we do it exceptionally well."

Taylor Shellfish:In the 1890s our family began farming shellfish in the Puget Sound. Five generations later, we continue to provide our customers with the best shellfish the Pacific Northwest has to offer. Through family dedication and with the assistance of committed employees, we maintain our tradition of sustainable farming through new techniques and innovative growing methods. Our family is proud to grow high quality clams, oysters, mussels, and geoducks straight from tidelands across Western Washington and British Columbia. Taste our product to experience what we have perfected over the last 100 years.

Coastal Trollers Associationworks to enhance and protect an economically viable Washington troll fishery."  The purpose of the CTA is to promote long-term sustainability of troll fisheries resources, to enhance economically viable opportunities for troll fishermen and to fairly represent its members.   As part of these efforts, CTA will be involved in season-setting processes, development of stable lucrative markets for high-quality line-caught fish, cooperation with the coastal communities and advancing predictable season-long catch opportunities for license holders.

Our "SPILL" Edition

In addition to our court victories rejecting the government's inadequate and illegal salmon plans over the last 12+ years, "SPILL" has been one of salmon and fishing advocates' most important achievements to protect the Columbia & Snake Rivers' endangered wild salmon and steelhead from extinction.

Court-ordered spill has helped stabilize many imperiled populations and "bought" much-needed time while we work together with others on effective long-term solutions to restore healthier rivers, healthier salmon, and healthier communities.

Take a look at this issue of the Wild Salmon & Steelhead News to learn about the latest science on the positive impacts of spill, and how scientists describe how higher levels of spill in the near-future could provide even greater benefits for young salmon and steelhead as they migrate to the Pacific Ocean during the spring and summer.

IN THIS ISSUE:

1.   All Scientists Are Saying Is…Give (More) Spill A Chance!

2.   THE TOP 12: SOS 'dredges up' twelve facts that raise big questions re: the fiscal and environmental sustainability of the Army Corps' "sediment management" plans on the lower Snake River.

3.   SOS and NW Energy Coalition celebrate two Northwest river restoration champions.

4.   IN THE NEWS – Salmon Collaboration, Climate Change, and Restoration.

5.   REMINDER – Raft the Middle Fork Salmon with SOS this August!

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1.  All Scientists Are Saying Is…"Give (More) Spill A Chance."

120% or 125%?

2%, 4%, or 6%?

35% or 70%?

SARs?

These numbers and acronyms are just a sample of the many facts and figures presented at the Comparative Survival Study (CSS) annual meeting held April 30 in Vancouver, WA. CSS is a collaborative scientific study, initiated in 1996 by state and Tribal fishery managers and the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, to estimate Columbia Basin salmon and steelhead survival rates at different life stages. Probably our most effective near-term salmon protection measure is spill - a program that sends some water over Columbia/Snake River dams (rather than through turbines) to help more young fish reach the Pacific Ocean safely. With the dams in place, spill helps the river act just a bit more like, well, a river – which is exactly what endangered salmon and steelhead need.

Since 2006, under federal court order (as a result of a legal victory achieved by salmon and fishing advocates, the State of Oregon, and the Nez Perce Tribe), federal dam managers have been required to spill water to improve salmon survival during their spring/summer migration.

Scientists have long understood that spill helps salmon, but it turns out to be even more beneficial than we thought – not just in terms of getting ocean-bound smolts downstream in one piece, but also in terms of their survival in the ocean and eventual return to spawning gravels as adults.

At this year’s meeting, scientists presented a range of modeled scenarios that indicate more spill - up to a point - can lead to survival improvements that could move imperiled salmon and steelhead stocks from the “treading water/ at high risk of extinction” column into the “hey, now we’re getting somewhere” column.

The truest way to measure salmon survival is something called the Smolt-to-Adult Return ratio, or SAR. For example, for every 100 smolts that journey downstream, how many ultimately return as adults? Generally, a 2-4% SAR is needed for survival over the long-term, while a 4-6% SAR is required to rebuild populations. CSS modeled various levels of spill to see how each of four scenarios affected the SARs.

Underpinning these scenarios is a key balancing question: can we spill enough water to yield an SAR at or above 2% (the region’s minimum target for getting salmon numbers "back in the black"), but without spilling so much water that in-river gas levels put the fish at risk of injury? (As spill levels increase, dissolved gases do too, and at certain threshold levels, this can become problematic for salmon and steelhead.)

The CSS shows we can. According to the scientists' models, if we spill enough water to reach 125% total dissolved gas (ie, the saturation of nitrogen in the river on the dams’ downstream side), we are likely to see SARs at or above 2% more than 70% of the time. (The 125% dissolved gas level is also very safe for salmon; it is only at higher levels that fish start to show signs of impact or injury.) Even if we spill to a 120% gas cap, we’d see those sought-after SARs about 35% of the time.

Contrast both of those scenarios to the level of spill laid out in the now-illegal 2008/2010 federal salmon plan: it only hits an SAR of 2% or more 14% of the time. Our salmon, steelhead and fishing economy, and our region needs better than that; the CSS model shows that "better" is very possible.

While Bonneville Power Administration and the other federal dam managers still insist on much lower spill levels, many Northwest fishery managers appear interested in spilling more water (maybe to 120%, perhaps to 125%) to help fish – and “test the waters” to confirm that more spill at these higher levels will lead to many more salmon.

We want to see this too. With our partners, SOS has fought successfully for spill since 2005. We know that it works – and that it’s largely responsible (along with good ocean conditions) for the modest bumps in salmon returns that we’ve seen over the past few years.

The science says let's give spill a chance; now is the time for a new, expanded experimental spill program in the Columbia/Snake rivers.

SEE THE FULL REPORT on the Fish Passage Center website  - with the presentations from the 2013 CSS Annual Meeting.

2.  THE TOP 12: SOS "dredges up" twelve facts that raise big questions re: the fiscal and environmental sustainability of "sediment management" plans on the lower Snake River.

Meanwhile back on the Lower Snake River, the Army Corps of Engineers is still pushing their plan to dredge hundreds of thousands of tons of sediment, at great cost to American taxpayers, and harm to the river and its endangered salmon and steelhead.

SOS has produced The Top 12: Lower Snake River Dredging - By the Numbers to give you a flavor for Corps' deeply flawed arguments and the upside-down economics of the lower Snake River transportation waterway.

SOS is committed to working with lower Snake River businesses and communities to ensure reliable, affordable, and fiscally and environmentally sustainable transportation options. SOS supports re-directing the public funds that the Corps is currently wasting on an unsustainable lower Snake River waterway, and investing instead in the rail and road infrastructure improvements that eastern Washington growers and communities need. 

Here's a sample from the List:

#9:  $15,400 – the taxpayer subsidy per barge that ships from the Port of Lewiston at the confluence of the Snake and Clearwater Rivers on the Lower Granite Reservoir (in 2002 dollars), just to cover dredging costs as proposed in the Corps’ draft plan.

#10:  24 PERCENT – the increase in fuel efficiency when delivering wheat from eastern Washington and Idaho farms to coastal ports on rail compared to barge, measured in BTUs/ton‐mile. Barge
transportation requires 368 BTUs/ton‐mile of freight while rail requires just278.

DOWNLOAD the "Top 12 List" (PDF) here.

READ Dustin Aherin's May 5 guest opinion in Spokesman Review: It's time to assess use of shrinking tax dollars on the lower Snake River dams.

3.  SOS and NW Energy Coalition celebrate two Northwest river restoration champions

Save Our Wild Salmon was proud to co-host an event with partner organization NW Energy Coalition honoring two wild salmon and clean energy champions Shawn Cantrell and Katherine Ransel.

Shawn, now the Executive Director of Seattle Audubon, worked for Friends of the Earth in the 1990s and played a key role in gaining federal authorization to remove the Elwha's two century-old dams. Katherine was Co-Director of American Rivers in the Northwest during this same period and led the charge for dam removal in the FERC relicensing process for Condit Dam on the White Salmon.
 
On Wednesday, April 24, nearly fifty people gathered to celebrate these recent river/salmon victories, applaud two key people that helped bring them about, and watch two film shorts.

First, the award-winning The Art of Dam Removal, showed how art and artists served as key catalysts in the campaign to remove the Condit Dam and restore the White Salmon River - a tributary to the Columbia River named for its distinct white-colored salmon - in southwest Washington State.

WATCH The Art of Dam Removal here.

The second short was actually a trailer for Return of the River – a film-in-production that will tell the story of the restoration of the Elwha River on the Olympic Peninsula through removal of its two dams.
 
SEE the trailer and learn more about Return of the River here.

4.  IN THE NEWS - Collaboration, Climate Change, and Restoration

-- Will the feds ever get their dam act together? By Dan Chasan, crosscut.com

Long-time observer of the federal government’s Columbia Basin salmon recovery efforts brings people up to speed on all things salmon: recent returns, status of spill, the government’s upcoming salmon plan, and the new opportunity for a regional stakeholder collaboration.

-- A 21st century plan for saving Oregon’s species from climate change.By Bill Bradbury, guest writer for the Oregonian Oregon's Northwest Power and Conservation Council (NPCC) member Bill Bradbury highlights the mounting climate impacts on our fish and wildlife populations and the habitat they depend upon, and urges a path forward that can serve both ecology and economy.


-- The Life of the Elwha - the biography of a river - a book review by Daniel Jack Chasan in crosscut.com.

"Author Lynda Mapes' new book isn't a story about dams or salmon. It's a love story to the river itself." Mr. Chasan reviews a new book about the nation's biggest dam removal - the Elwha River on Washington State's Olympic Peninsula.

5. REMINDER: Take a wild trip in August down the Middle Fork of the Salmon River – AND help wild salmon and steelhead restoration too!

SOS is excited to partner with Idaho River Adventures in 2013 – and to invite you to join a trip this summer down the fabled Middle Fork of the Salmon River in central Idaho. The Middle Fork is one of the original eight rivers designated as Wild under the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act of 1968. It winds through the heart of the Lower 48’s largest contiguous wilderness area - the Frank Church River of No Return. 

Central Idaho is the historic home of millions of wild salmon and steelhead. Today, largely as a result of downstream dams on the lower Snake, only a small number these fish return each year. SOS is working with others to remove these four dams and reconnect wild salmon and steelhead with the largest, highest, wildest, and best protected chunk of salmon and steelhead habitat remaining in the Lower 48.

For river rats everywhere, the Middle Fork is among the most treasured river trips anywhere in the United States – a holy grail!

AND - when you sign up, Idaho River Adventures owner and guide Dustin Aherin will donate $400 of the trip cost to SOS!

As always, thank you for your support!

IN THIS ISSUE

1. Ground Hog Day: Latest draft federal salmon plan repeats old mistakes, final plan due end of year

2. Columbia River Treaty: "Draft Regional Recommendation" new and improved - thanks to you!

3. Idaho judge blocks Big Oil and halts Highway 12 'megaloads'!

4. Salmon Mean Business! A big thanks to Yakima Bait, Nikwax, and Blueacre Seafood...

1. 'GROUND HOG DAY':  LATEST DRAFT FEDERAL PLAN FALLS SHORT OF MARK; FINAL DUE BY YEAR'S END.

Let’s say you’re a federal agency responsible for ensuring the protection and restoration of endangered salmon and steelhead in the Columbia Basin. And let’s also say that the plan you’re required to produce that charts how you’re going to protect and restore these endangered salmon and steelhead has been ruled illegal in federal court. Three times in a row. And finally, let’s say that the judge who tossed out your last plan (the third in a decade) gave you over two years to come back with a new and improved version – what would you do?

Perhaps you’d follow the clear direction of the court and issue a new plan that addresses the flaws and inadequacies of the previous one, implements additional measures that help struggling wild salmon populations in the near-term, and fully considers the need for safety-net actions in case the shaky math in your underlying analysis doesn’t pencil out as planned.

Or, you could do what NOAA Fisheries did on September 9, and issue a plan that is virtually indistinguishable from its illegal predecessor. The fact that NOAA did just that – released a draft plan that fully ratifies the analyses and conclusions of its last plan, while claiming that no major changes are needed – leaves us little choice but to refer, repeatedly, to the movie “Groundhog Day.” As Bill Murray’s character, Phil, inquires of his guesthouse proprietress, “Do you ever have déjà vu, Mrs. Lancaster?”

It also leads us to ask, will this plan, if finalized as-is, do enough to help salmon, as the Endangered Species Act requires? Unfortunately, we think the answer is a big giant 'no'. Not only does the draft plan hew closely to the illegal plans of the past, it would also roll back existing court-ordered protections – specifically spill, the most effective and successful near-term measure out there for increasing salmon survival. Just as the region’s fishery scientists are telling us that expanded spill could help rebuild and even recover some imperiled populations, NOAA Fisheries and its action agencies, including Bonneville Power Administration, have issued a plan that would allow for less spill - potentially curtailing it in May and eliminating it in August.

By repeating the mistakes of the previous three illegal plans, NOAA, BPA, and the other federal agencies are squandering a huge opportunity to help imperiled salmon now, provide a much-needed boost to the fishing economy, produce a legal and scientifically sound plan that gets the region out of the courtroom, and increase momentum for a regional collaboration that can develop effective, long-term shared solutions for Northwest communities, businesses, and salmon.

The good news here is the plan is still a draft; the final plan is expected in December. Save Our Wild Salmon and our coalition partners will work hard throughout the Fall to urge that the federal government strengthen and improve its salmon plan prior to releasing a final version.  

For more information on the draft federal salmon plan, check out our factsheet here.

 2. A NEW, IMPROVED "DRAFT REGIONAL RECOMMENDATION" FOR MODERNIZING COLUMBIA RIVER TREATY

Thank you, SOS supporters, for your major role in improving the regional recommendation for modernizing the Columbia River Treaty!

On September 20, Bonneville Power and the Army Corps of Engineers released a “draft regional recommendation” for modernizing the Treaty.  It is also supported by the Treaty’s Sovereign Review Team, composed of federal agencies, Northwest States, and Columbia Basin Tribes.

This regional recommendation is much improved from the previous “Working Draft” released in July. Over 1000 SOS supporters submitted comments on the "Working Draft", which was fully one-third of all grassroots comments received.  And thirteen SOS fishing and conservation organizations submitted detailed comments.  This level of public interest helped get SOS and other groups an hour to share our vision of the Treaty with the Departments of State and Interior, and with Bonneville Power and the Army Corps, on September 13 in Portland, OR.  And it generated positive change in the recently-released "Regional Recommendation."

The most important change is that the new draft recommendation unambiguously states that ecosystem function should be added to the Treaty as a third co-equal leg joining power production and flood risk management.  This is a big important step forward.

There are still some problem areas in the new recommendation, and we must still defend the positive changes that have been made.  There is a 30-day comment period on the new recommendation, and you can expect a second alert from SOS soon asking for your help again on the Treaty.  But for now, thank you! Your letters made a difference!

 3. IDAHO JUDGE BLOCKS BIG OIL AND HALTS HIGHWAY 12 MEGALOADS

An Idaho judge issued a temporary injunction halting more so-called 'megaloads" on Idaho's Highway 12 until the U.S. Forest Service consults with the Nez Perce Tribe and completes the necessary studies to assess the impacts these loads will have on the Wild & Scenic river corridor, recreation, cultural and environmental values.

Federal Judge Lynn Winmill granted the injunction noting that the Nez Perce Tribe and (SOS member organization) Idaho Rivers United were likely to prevail in court. The judge dismissed General Electric and Omega Morgan’s hardship argument that they were losing millions of dollars. Saying that the companies knew full well that shipping these massive truckloads over Nez Perce lands and along a Wild & Scenic river would be challenged by the tribe and conservation groups, Judge Winmill noted,
“The plaintiffs are not seeking damages; they are seeking to preserve their Treaty rights along with cultural and intrinsic values that have no price tag.”

This court victory has mobilized local citizens, Nez Perce tribal members and salmon advocates to ultimately stop the oil companies from turning Highway 12 into an industrial transportation corridor. Save Our Wild Salmon will continue working to prevent the the lower Snake waterway and its ports from being used to support Big Oil at the expense of salmon, rivers, and communities.

Go here for more information.

4.  SALMON MEAN BUSINESS

Save Our Wild Salmon'seffectiveness and strength derives from the diversity and depth of our allies and supporters. Here are three businesses that have been very supportive of SOS for many years. We benefit greatly from the support of many allies, including these businesses, and would like to express our thanks to them. We also encourage you to support them by giving them the - your - business!

Yakima Bait  President Mark Masterson and Brand Manager Buzz Ramsey are both giants in the recreational fishing industry and long-time supporters of the Save Our wild Salmon Coalition. Over the years, they have contributed in many ways to SOS and salmon restoration efforts in the Columbia and Snake Rivers and Pacific Northwest. They understand the tight connections between abundant, fishable populations of salmon and steelhead and healthy businesses and economies. Yakima Bait is one of the top fishing lure manufacturers in the world.

Nikwax has also been a strong supporter of healthy rivers, healthy salmon, and Save Our wild Salmon Coalition for many years. Based in Seattle, North American President Chas Fisher and Nikwax are recognized conservation leaders in the outdoor recreation sector. Nikwax is a global leader in safe, high performance waterproofing, cleaning and conditioning for outdoor gear.

Blueacre Seafood and sister restaurant Steelhead Diner are owned by Chef Kevin and Teresa Davis. They are among the finest seafood restaurants in the greater Seattle area, and both draw upon the vast array of wild seafood available from the United States’ coastal waters as well as carefully chosen, sustainably-farmed freshwater species, oysters, clams and mussels. Kevin Davis is indefatigable as chef, restaurant co-owner, parent, husband, runner, and avid steelhead fisherman. Kevin and Teresa have also been dependably wonderful conservation partners with Save Our wild Salmon – ready to help efforts that protect and restore healthy fish populations and the habitats that they need to survive and thrive.

In this issue:

(1) Army Corps Dredging Plan flushes more money down the river

(2) Commentary: This year's "record" salmon returns in the Columbia Basin

(3) The 1st Annual "Wild Rivers Night" in Seattle

(4) The Northwest DamNation Film Tour - back on the road!

(5) Columbia River Treaty: Report from D.C.

(6) Salmon Mean Business: "Thanks!" to our Wild Rivers Night Sponsors!

(1) Army Corps Dredging Plan flushes more money down the river

Last month the Army Corps of Engineers released their final proposal for dealing with the sediment piling up behind the four lower Snake River dams.  The Corps is expected to formally adopt its plan this month in hopes of getting the green light to dredge the lower Snake this winter.  

Thousands of citizens and regional conservation and fishing groups submitted comments to the Corps on its Lower Snake River Sediment Management Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS), urging the agency to do as the law requires: honestly assess the significant economic costs of dredging , consider all reasonable alternatives including dam removal and justify the costs of keeping the four dams in place.  Read our comments here.

The Corps’ plan is expensive for taxpayers and harmful to salmon.  Worst of all, it merely kicks the can down the road rather than offer any real long-term plans to deal with the accumulating sediment behind the lower Snake River dams.  With the reservoir behind Lower Granite dam 50 percent full of sediment and the existing levees increasingly insufficient to protect Lewiston, ID and Clarkston, WA from flooding, the dams face serious problems requiring serious solutions, not stopgap measures.  

With sediment piling up in the millions of cubic yards, continual expensive dredging will not solve this problem while it costs taxpayers millions of dollars a year.  There are only two real solutions:  (1) the highly unpopular proposal to raise the levees protecting the river towns or (2) removal of the lower Snake River dams.  Neither solution was included in the FEIS alternatives, although the agency notes that raising levees will likely be required down the road.  

Next steps: The Corps is expected to release it’s final plan (Record of Decision) any day.  SOS and allies will review the final plan to determine if it passes legal muster.  Meanwhile, we will continue to push the Corps to assess all options and push for a more affordable and common sense plan— one that includes lower Snake River dam removal.

 (2) Commentary: This year's "record" salmon returns in the Columbia Basin

From the desk of Sam Mace.

The Northwest enjoyed a bountiful fishing season this fall with big returns of fall chinook and sockeye benefiting commercial, sport and tribal fishermen.   The season has reminded Northwest people of the value that salmon bring to our communities and economies - pumping millions of dollars into the region and reminding us of what it means to live in the Northwest.   

But while we should celebrate this year's returns, we must not forget that many wild salmon runs are still imperiled and much work remains to be done. Not all salmon populations in the Columbia and Snake rivers are faring as well.

These good runs from these past several years are the result of two main factors.  First, recent good ocean conditions and good snowpack have helped boost salmon and steelhead runs in the Columbia Basin.  The second factor - additional and longer spill at Columbia and Snake river dams, were fought for and secured in court by fishing and conservation groups, the State of Oregon and the Nez Perce Tribe.

The runs this year are the progeny of parents and grandparents that benefited from spill ordered by the court each and every year since 2006.  Better river conditions combined with help from Mother Nature (good snowpack, good ocean conditions) have given the Northwest a glimpse of what robust, sustained runs mean to our people, economies, and ecosystems.  

Despite the abundant runs of Columbia River fall chinook and sockeye this year, many imperiled runs remain at risk of extinction.  Thirteen stocks of wild salmon and steelhead are listed under the Endangered Species Act, and wild Snake River spring/summer chinook and sockeye remain especially in peril - far from the population levels needed for true recovery.

We have an enormous opportunity to build on the success of spill and the leg up that Mother Nature has recently provided. Unfortunately, NOAA, BPA, and other agencies continue to balk at maintaining and increasing the spill that has recently helped salmon runs enormously.  Rather than joining scientists in support of an expansion of spill, these agencies continue their efforts to reduce spill while insisting on spending millions of dollars on measures with very little impact.

It’s time for the federal agencies to quit patting themselves on the back for successes for which they are not responsible and instead begin building on the improved runs. Citizens and elected leaders must urge the agencies to support and increase spill at the dams, as well as look at other necessary measures - including lower Snake River dam removal - that can truly bring our salmon back to healthy, harvestable numbers throughout the basin that can support jobs, businesses and towns (and ecosystems) throughout the Northwest.

(3) The 1st Annual Wild Rivers Night in Seattle:

Save Our wild Salmon joined forces with other organizations, businesses, and more than 200 good people for a very successful 1st Annual Wild Rivers Night in Seattle. We celebrated Washington State’s rivers - featuring short films, stunning photography, compelling information, humorous stories, a silent auction, socializing, and fun. And we talked about important efforts underway today to protect and restore healthy, free-flowing, salmon and steelhead abundant rivers and streams across Washington State. Our own Joseph Bogaard spoke on behalf of restoring the lower Snake River and its endangered wild salmon and steelhead. Other speaker-experts included SOS members: Tom O’Keefe (American Whitewater), Wendy McDermott (American Rivers), Tom Uniak (Washington Wild), and Graham Taylor (Sierra Club).

Participating rafting businesses included: Wildwater River Guides and Northwest Rafting Company.

Thanks to all you joined us and those helped make it happen – especially Wendy McDermott of American Rivers and Amy Terai of Filson!

The evening was skillfully emceed by Professor David Montgomery, UW Professor of Earth and Space Sciences and MacArthur Foundation Genius. Professor Montgomery is the renowned author of eight books, including King of Fish, and winner of the Washington State Book Award.

Special thanks to Filson for hosting all of us in their wonderful new facility; to blueacre seafood for the delicious food; to Troon Vineyards and Waterbrook Wines and Sierra Nevada Brewing for the excellent libations.

 (4) DamNation – SOS' Northwest Tour continues:

With the arrival of fall, the SOS is re-starting cour Northwest tour hosting DamNation screenings in Washington, Idaho, and Oregon with our conservation, fishing and business partners. Go here to view an updated schedule for upcoming Northwest screenings.
And if you are not in the Northwest, don’t despair. DamNation is screening across the country and you can check out the schedule here.

Finally, if still you can’t find a location to view it on the big screen (best on the big screen!), you can rent it online here.

Recent praise for DamNation:

"A quick, smart doc on the natural havoc dams cause."
-    The Village Voice (Read the full story here) "DamNation is a movie that matters...With a blend of history, face-melting nature cinematography, and a dash of Edward Abbey–style criminal mischief, DamNation lays bare this truth in a way that is educational, entertaining, and, perhaps most importantly, inspirational."
 - The Santa Barbara Independent (Read the full story here)

(5) Columbia River Treaty - Report from D.C.

In case you missed the September report on our trip to Washington D.C. to meet with Administration officials and members of Congress, you can find it here.

And here are two excellent articles from High Country News and Al Jazeera highlighting recent Treaty developments and activities by Columbia Basin Tribes and First Nation's, faith communities, and conservation and fishing advocates to highlight critical issues of ecosystem health, justice, and climate.

High Country News: Watershed Moment - The U.S. and Canada prepare to renegotiate the Columbia River Treaty (Oct. 6 2014)

Al Jazeera America: Salmon people pray for sacred fish to return to historic home (Oct. 5 2014)

 (6) Salmon Mean Business:

We want to give another shout-out to the generous businesses that helped make our inaugural Seattle Wild Rivers Night such a huge success. Please consider thanking these businesses for their support of wild rivers and wild salmon by giving them your business.

Filson has been making outstanding functional and attractive outdoor and work clothes since 1897. And virtually all of their clothing is made by hand right here in the U.S.A. Filson also has a long tradition of actively supporting efforts to conserve and restore our rivers, lands, and fish and wildlife.

Blueacre seafood: Located in downtown Seattle Kevin and Terresa Davis serve delicious food in a beautiful restaurant; they are committed to serving sustainably-sourced fish. Kevin and his team have been hugely supportive of Save Our wild Salmon and many other river and fish conservation organizations and efforts in the Northwest and beyond.

Waterbrook Wines:  Founded in 1984 as Walla Walla's fourth founded winery, Waterbrook is known for fruit-forward, food-friendly wines--primarily Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and Chardonnay. They’ve recently offered very generous support for SOS and our events.

Troon Vineyards:  Troon started as a pioneering vineyard in southern Oregon in 1972, and they’ve been making delicious wines ever since.

Sierra Nevada Brewing:  Sierra Nevada makes excellent beer, has supported hundreds of organizations and events working for healthy rivers and lands and abundant wild salmon and steelhead, and is a committed to always improving their sustainable business model by using, for example, clean, renewable energy and a constant search to find new ways to reduce waste.

Every June we are reminded of the famed “June hogs” – giant chinook salmon that once migrated back through the Columbia Basin at about this time of the year.  We will likely never see those runs again, but there’s still plenty of recovery to be had in one of our planet’s best salmon watersheds. In this edition: 1. Salmon and steelhead are under attack from Doc Hastings. 2. WE DID IT! - thank you for helping us reach our goal. 3. Maine's Great Works and the Columbia-Snake Opportunity. 4. VICTORY: Highway to Hell defeated. 1. Salmon and steelhead are under attack from Doc Hastings. Congressman Doc Hastings is continuing his attacks on wild salmon and the jobs and communities that depend on them. In his latest volley, Hastings is calling for a “rewrite” of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) to weaken protections and citizen overview of government actions to protect endangered species. Thank you for taking action: please forward this link to your friends and family or share it on Facebook: http://sows.convio.net/murray_cantwell

“When it comes to wild salmon, protecting and implementing the Endangered Species Act is about more than saving fish; it's about saving jobs and livelihoods in our communities as well. Literally thousands of businesses and tens of thousands of jobs are supported by salmon and steelhead in the West,” said Jeff Hickman, owner of Fish the Swing Guiding Service from Eagle Creek, Oregon. Hickman joined 20 other Northwest business leaders in sending a letter to Congressman Hastings last December in support of the ESA, jobs, and salmon. 

2. WE DID IT! – Thank you for helping us reach our goal.

All of us at the Save Our Wild Salmon Coalition express our deepest gratitude to our supporters, partners and allies across the country for helping us reach our 20th anniversary fundraising goal of $50,000.  Thanks to your efforts we exceeded our goal, coming in just under $56,000. In addition to all of our individual donors, this success would not have been possible without the support of the following coalition partners and business allies: American Rivers – Association of Northwest Steelheaders – Boulder-White Clouds Council – Earthjustice – Granite Gear – Idaho River Adventures – Idaho Rivers United – Idaho Salmon and Steelhead United – Institute for Fisheries Resources – ioby – Jensen's Smokehouse – KEEN – Klean Kanteen – The Lands Council – Light & Motion – Mountain Khakis – Northwest Guides and Anglers Association – NW Energy Coalition – Osprey Packs – Patagonia – Petzl – Saviah Cellars – Sierra Club – Tactics – Trout Unlimited – Washington Trollers Association Grand Prize Raffle Winners! - Congratulations to the follow SOS supporters: Beth Milliken from Saint Helena, CA – Beth won a Granite Gear - Nimbus Trace 62L multi-day backpack and a Petzl - Tikka 2 plus headlamp Michael Rossotto from Seattle, WA – Michael won 2 lbs. of wild-caught smoked salmon from Jensen's Smokehouse and a magnum of Big Sky Cuvee from Walla Walla, WA vinters at Saviah. Craig Mankowski from Naperville, IL – Craig won an Osprey Packs - Momentum 26 bike commuter pack and Light & Motion - Urban 180 bike light. Thank you again for your generosity and support as we celebrate our 20th year uniting people for salmon, rivers, and jobs.


3. Maine's Great Works and the Columbia-Snake Opportunity

This month, we have another region of the country helping set the bar for solutions to protect salmon, restore rivers, and create jobs: New England’s Penobscot River Watershed. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar called the Penobscot River Restoration Project a “milestone”, stating, “Through a historic partnership that exemplifies President Obama’s America’s Great Outdoors initiative, we are reconnecting 1,000 miles of river, restoring vital habitat for fish and wildlife, expanding opportunities for outdoor recreation, and supporting energy production, jobs and economic growth in communities throughout Maine.” Read more on the SOS Blog.

4. VICTORY: Highway to Hell defeated.

From the desk of Pat Ford The threat from Exxon to the lower Snake River and Idaho/Montana Highway 12 is over, at least for now. Last week, Imperial Oil, owned by Exxon, withdrew its application to the Montana Department of Transportation to transport massive tar sands machinery through Montana on Highway 12 and other roads. Read more about this victory on the SOS Blog.

The Save Our wild Salmon Coalition’s mostly-monthly online newsletter with news, updates and developments affecting Columbia and Snake River wild salmon and steelhead, and the communities that rely on them.

IN THIS ISSUE:

On Feb. 4, Congressman Doc Hastings (R-WA) fired off a letter to the Obama Administration’s NOAA Chief Dr. Jane Lubchenco asking her to stop the salmon stakeholder process that her agency just got started. He stated his intent to bring pressure on the agency via a review of NOAA's efforts by the House Natural Resources Committee, which he chairs.

Fortunately, Congressman Hastings is increasingly on his own today. Many regional leaders - including Oregon's Gov. Kitzhaber, the U.S. senators from Washington, Oregon, and Idaho, and a number of U.S. House members - support an authentic stakeholder collaboration to resolve the tough issues that communities face in the Columbia-Snake River Basin. The Northwest’s three major newspapers - Seattle Times, Idaho Statesman, and Oregonian - have all editorialized in favor of solutions-oriented stakeholder talks.

TAKE ACTION: Please ask the Northwest’s newest Governor – Jay Inslee - to publicly support regional stakeholder collaboration as the right way forward for NW salmon and communities. Given Congressman Hastings' recent volley against NOAA's process, it is critical that the region’s newest governor join other Northwest leaders and publicly support this new stakeholder-driven approach to resolve the linked issues of salmon, clean energy, agriculture, and transportation in the Columbia Basin. While NOAA's stakeholder initiative is still in its infancy, Governor Inslee's early support is vital to ensuring that this new process has its best chance at success.

2. What Future for the Lower Snake River Waterway?

Late last year, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers released a draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) – a document that purports to analyze the future of the lower Snake River waterway and its continued use as a barge transportation corridor. In its DEIS, the Army Corps focuses on sediment management – aka, dredging – as its best option for maintaining the waterborne transportation system. Save Our wild Salmon, in cooperation with the Nez Perce Tribe and a number of local organizations and leaders, is now carefully reviewing the DEIS. In mid-January, we successfully asked the Army Corps for an extension of comment time. The new comment deadline is now March 26 – giving the public an additional 45 days to review and weigh in on the DEIS.

The creation of a barge transportation corridor was the main argument for building the four lower Snake River dams in the 1960s and ‘70s. Today, it remains a main argument for keeping them. But the system’s costs are growing – including the need for regular, harmful dredging operations and a worsening flood risk for the people and businesses of downtown Lewiston, ID. To be sure, farmers and other local businesses need a reliable, affordable transportation system to deliver their products to market, but the question of whether ‘barges are best’ deserves far more scrutiny – certainly more than the Army Corps provides in its DEIS (which is approximately none). Working with local community members, SOS wants to make sure that this EIS process provides for a broader discussion of the barge system’s true costs and benefits, its impacts on salmon and steelhead recovery, and how it fits into a larger set of regional transportation needs.

Visit our website to learn more about the Sediment DEIS and some initial thoughts about the barge system’s economics from Lin Laughey, co-founder of Fighting Goliath, the voice of the people of Highway 12 in central Idaho who joined forces to stop ExxonMobil from turning their functional, historic, and beautiful local road into an industrial corridor and sacrifice zone for tar sands development. The people of Highway 12 have won so far, but the Port of Lewiston has not stopped its quest to attract Big Oil/Gas/Coal traffic to help rescue the lower Snake’s navigation corridor from its decade-long decline.

Winter is when Northwest fisheries scientists pour over last year’s data in order to make predictions about the coming salmon and steelhead return. The Columbia and Snake River adult upriver migration won’t officially begin until April, finishing in early fall. Until then, of course, we won’t really know how the fish fare. This annual prediction ritual, however, is essential for setting up expectations and establishing fishing levels and seasons (targeting hatchery fish).

Based on reports so far, this year’s forecast unfortunately contains more bad news than good: Most stocks, including the thirteen Endangered Species Act-listed runs, are expected to return at levels lower than last year. 


In a specific example, the official forecast for this year’s wild spring/summer chinook return suggest that just 11,000 adults will likely survive to reach Idaho after passing eight dams on the Columbia and lower Snake Rivers. By comparison, last year’s wild run was 21,000; 2011 was 22,000; and 2010 was 26,000. Even if you ignore the recent downward trend, these are very small numbers compared with the two million salmon that returned to Idaho historically, and are a long, long ways from the ‘80,000 wild chinook returning for eight consecutive years’ that are estimated to be needed to remove the species from listing under the Endangered Species Act (ESA).

The main exception to the anticipated lower returns in 2013 comes from the upriver brights, or Fall chinook. Over 400,000 Fall chinook are expected this year. The vast majority of these fish will stick to the Columbia River mainstem – and more specifically the 51-mile free-flowing Hanford Reach in south-central Washington State. Just 31,000 of these anticipated fish are bound for the Snake River.

We’ll keep you posted as this information is updated and, of course, as the fish actually start showing up in early April.

Two Washington State filmmakers - John Gussman and Jessica Plumb - are busy at work to complete a film celebrating the restoration of a healthy, free-flowing, salmon-abundant Elwha River on the Olympic Peninsula in western Washington State. As you may recall, after a decades-long campaign on the part of a coalition that includes the Klallam Tribe, conservation and fishing advocates, and local communities, the federal government in 2011 began removal of two 100-year old dams from a river whose headwaters lay deep in the heart of Olympic National Park. It is the largest dam removal project – so far! – on the planet.

Visit their website and enjoy a 5 minute trailer to give you a little taste of the watershed, the river, and film – all currently works in progress. Enjoy – and we’ll keep you posted when the movie is released.

As always, thank you for your support for wild salmon, healthy rivers, and the communities that rely on them!

Joseph and the SOS Team

206-300-1003

Our End-of-2012 Holiday Issue: The Obama Administration Kicks Off a New Approach

Our final issue of the year focuses on just one recent major campaign achievement …but we’ll also take the opportunity to remind you about our end-of-the-year fundraising effort.

FIRST, THE NEWS: The Obama Administration just took a critical first step to engage stakeholders directly affected by long-standing, contentious (and failed!) efforts to protect and restore Columbia Basin salmon and steelhead. After twenty years of illegal federal plans, declining wild salmon populations, and struggling fishing communities, salmon and fishing advocates view this outreach to stakeholders as a very promising move by the administration.

The Save Our Wild Salmon Coalition and our allies and partners have long advocated for a ‘stakeholder table’ that brings people together to develop a long-term plan to rebuild endangered salmon and steelhead populations and the communities that rely on them. This is a first step toward initiating such a regional dialogue.

On December 11, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reached out to 150 Columbia Basin stakeholders to invite them to provide their views about “how to best approach long-term salmon and steelhead recovery in the Columbia Basin.”

This is the first time that the federal government has sought to directly engage Northwest stakeholders – including farmers, fishermen and fishing businesses, utilities, power producers, energy consumers, conservationists, and others – in a dialogue about solutions for Columbia/Snake salmon and Northwest communities.

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THIS IMPORTANT ACHIEVEMENT BELONGS TO YOU, and to all of us. Our coalition of citizens, fishermen, scientists, businesses, organizations, and elected officials - alongside the State of Oregon and Nez Perce Tribe - have made the case for constructive dialogue and shared solutions.

ALL OF US AT SOS ARE SO GRATEFUL for your commitment to our diverse partnership for wild salmon, healthy rivers, and healthy communities. We have a lot of work to do, but we have helped secure a genuine venue to seek long-term solutions for salmon and people on the Columbia-Snake.  Thank you.

-- Pat Ford, executive director

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Thanks to you, the public and political support for stakeholder talks is strong and growing, and NOAA’s new initiative is helping to start the conversation. We need to move beyond the gridlock, the uncertainty, and the salmon losses and take a new approach. By bringing together all affected interests to work together on shared solutions, we’ll have the best chance to develop a plan that restores healthy salmon, invests in communities and businesses, and has support across the Northwest because it broadly benefits its people and communities.

In the meantime, we’ll continue to work toward ensuring that - after NOAA gathers input from Northwest people in the first half of 2013 – a solutions-focused stakeholder process is convened in the second half.

These talks are needed – and soon. Endangered salmon and steelhead populations can’t wait, and neither can the communities and businesses that depend on them. Two decades of uncertainty and declines have come with a cost.

In order to succeed, talks must include all affected interests and consider all credible measures and options – including the removal of the four lower Snake River dams. Talks need to be transparent and guided by good science, good economics, and the law.

Listed below you will find a number of links to articles, op-eds, and editorials – expressing support for convening talks and reporting on the Obama Administration’s new efforts to engage stakeholders.

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But...before you click through to review the recent press coverage...please consider making an end of year, 100% tax-deductible, salmon-sustaining holiday donation to Save Our wild Salmon. We are hosting a terrific raffle and we have some great gifts in appreciation of your generosity.

Right now, we are half way to matching Patagonia’s generous $10,000 Holiday Challenge Grant. By contributing now, you'll help us double our money before the end of the year.

This new approach by the Administration represents a tremendous opportunity for wild salmon, clean energy, and communities. But we still have lots of work ahead of us in 2013. Your support is both critical and appreciated. THANK YOU!

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Now…to the press coverage!

PNS RADIO(December 13): A New Approach for Saving Northwest salmon

Oregonian (Oregon, December 12):  NOAA fisheries takes first step toward building consensus on Columbia Basin salmon recovery

Seattle Post Intelligencer (Washington State, December 12):  Feds: New move to break Columbia River salmon impasse 

Idaho Statesman Editorial (Idaho, December 5): Our View: The $9,000 Sockeye? There is a Better Answer

Op-ed in the Columbian (Washington State, December 2):  Time for new approach to save salmon

Daily Astorian Editorial (Oregon, November 13):  Salmon Recovery Waits on Obama

As always, thank you for your support!

Joseph and the SOS Team

This is the start of a very important month for the endangered wild salmon and steelhead of the Columbia and Snake Rivers, and the communities that rely on them. On September 15th, the Obama Administration will report to Federal Judge James Redden on their next moves for complying with the Endangered Species Act, and protecting and restoring Northwest wild salmon and steelhead. This issue of WSSN is part-call-to-action and part-update: A) CALL TO ACTION – Please contact Department of Commerce Secretary Gary Locke

(1) The new Administration could submit the 2008 Plan to the court with revisions in an attempt to satisfy the judge.Salmon and fishing advocates are highly skeptical that such a move would succeed. The judge, in his mid-May letter, identified a number of substantial improvements that would be needed in order for him to find the plan lawful under the Endangered Species Act, including a look at lower Snake River dam removal. The deficiencies of the current plan are so profound that a major overhaul would be needed. Modest tweaks will be inadequate. (2)  Time for a Collaborative Stakeholder Process? The Administration could, in recognition of the plan’s severe inadequacies, decide instead to change course and undertake an approach that many – including newspaper editorial boards, three former governors, a growing number of senators and representatives in Congress, businesses and organizations - are calling for. The Administration should convene an inclusive, settlement process (involving e.g. fishermen, farmers, utilities and energy consumers, tribes, states) to work together to craft a legal, science-guided salmon plan that both restores endangered salmon and steelhead and ensures that local, affected communities benefit at the same time.

Counsel to the President and his Administration keeps pouring in:
Just in the past several weeks, for example, President Obama and his salmon team have received lots of advice about what to do with the failed 2008 Plan that they inherited. Here are a series of links to review some this advice: