Columbia River Basin

Average salmon and steelhead counts in the Columbia River Basin over the last decade are still well below officials’ goal of five million fish per year.

President Biden on Wednesday directed federal agencies to restore healthy and abundant wild salmon populations to the Columbia River Basin. The presidential memorandum says tribal treaties need to be honored.

Randy Settler’s family has spent generations fighting for its right to harvest salmon. But the federal government squandered its chance to recover the endangered fish before the onset of climate change. Now, Settler sees it all slipping away again.

Native tribes in the Columbia River Basin face a disproportionate risk of toxic exposure through their most important food. While tribes have pushed the government to pay closer attention to dangerous chemicals and metals in fish, that hasn’t happened. So, we did our own testing. What we found was alarming for tribes.

On Thursday, a coalition of tribes, environmental groups and the U.S. government asked a federal judge for another year to craft a long-term plan that protects fish while safeguarding the region’s power system.

Damming the powerful waters of the Columbia River was a boon for cheap, clean electricity. But the fish that swam those waters are dying out. And the agency in charge isn’t stopping that.

Researchers at Portland State University will spend the next year testing the air and water in urban and rural areas to learn more about where microplastic pollution is coming from across the Pacific Northwest.

Bringing salmon back to the Upper Columbia River will take a lot of time and a lot of money.

Plaintiffs in the lawsuit over dams in the Columbia River Basin are asking the court to order federal agencies to spill more water over the dams this spring to help threatened and endangered fish.