July 23, 2024 — U.S. Senators Maria Cantwell (D-WA) and Patty Murray (D-WA) announced on Monday more than $28 million in funding for three projects in Washington state aimed at restoring habitats for threatened salmon species.
The grants, awarded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Transformational Habitat Restoration and Coastal Resilience Program, were secured through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act.
July 18, 2024 — A persistent heat wave gripping parts of Washington state could spike temperatures as high as 105 degrees this week, prompting warnings from the National Weather Service to drink plenty of fluids, avoid the sun, and check up on relatives and neighbors.
There’s no mention of what to do, however, if you’re a salmon swimming upstream to spawn.
As air temperatures hit records in recent weeks, Native American and state fisheries experts and environmentalists are warning that water temperatures in the Columbia River Basin are similarly on the rise.
Those warming waters — in major tributaries like the Okanogan River and the Snake River — come at the same time as annual migrations of sockeye salmon from the Pacific Ocean, complicating a spawning ritual that spans hundreds of miles and is already peppered with human-made obstacles. Although salmon populations in the region have benefited from efforts to improve their spawning habitat, restore river flows and remove barriers from their travels, fisheries managers worry long periods of hot water could ruin it all in the years to come.
“Those water temperatures are warmer than ever this year,” said Tom Iverson, regional coordinator for the Yakama Nation Fisheries. “Literally, they’re almost too warm to swim in.”
That’s because the fish — including a record run of nearly 740,000 sockeye past the Bonneville Dam at border of Washington and Oregon as of Sunday, nearly 235 percent above the 10-year average — prefer a water temperature below 68 degrees.
The Okanogan River, which will be traversed by the majority of those fish during the final leg of their journey into British Columbia and a series of four chain lakes, has reached temperatures of nearly 83 degrees in recent days, according to U.S. Geological Survey data.
Reservoirs along the Lower Snake River, which are home to endangered Snake River sockeye, similarly crested to 69.53 degrees, according to the nonprofit Save Our Wild Salmon, which tracks water temperatures.
July 8, 2024 — Seattle, Washington, U.S.A.-based pollock- and hake-fishing firm American Seafoods Group has paused its sale process.
In May 2023, Bregal Partners announced it would commence a sale process of its majority holding in the company.
May 16, 2024 — A letter from 17 industry leaders to Senators Patty Murray of Washington and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska urged Congress to “prioritize immediate and long-term funding” for the annual surveys of core commercial fisheries populations in the North Pacific done by the Alaska Fisheries Science Center (AFSC).
The May 10 letter was based on an earlier letter from the Freezer Longline Coalition (FLC), a trade association representing the owners of 19 longline vessels that target Pacific cod, urging the senators to bolster the survey program with funding and a strategic plan.
FLC’s executive director Chad See noted in his April 25 letter how essential collection of data is to support the sustainable management of North Pacific species, which provide “60% of all seafood harvested in the U.S. each year, directly support nearly 50,000 jobs and contribute nearly $16 billion to the U.S. economy.”
Just as annual surveys give scientists core data over a long term, missing or delaying surveys may leave scientists in the dark on anomalies that impact a species’ health. The cancellation of surveys during Covid meant managers were unaware of a continued, catastrophic drop in Bering Sea snow crab abundance. The head’s up they would have gotten in 2019 was not fully realized until 2021, delaying measures to recover the stock and contributing to unintentionally high catch limits.
“Stock data aside, North Pacific surveys also generate a wealth of other data that is helping NMFS scientists and fisheries stakeholders to better understand the impacts of climate change in the region and to anticipate potential management changes and other actions to support the continued sustainability of the fisheries, the marine ecosystem and the fishermen and communities that rely on the resource,” FLC’s See wrote in the April letter. “Perhaps more than anywhere else, the Arctic region within which the North Pacific lies is experiencing first-hand the impacts of a changing climate.”
April 25, 2024 — Seafood and the Pacific Northwest go hand in hand. Maybe you’re one of those people out fishing, clamming, and crabbing during the season. But if you’re more of a shopper, your options aren’t all local and sustainable.
Jessica Gephart is an assistant professor at the University of Washington School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences. She was recently quoted in a piece in The Guardian titled “Goodbye cod, hello herring: why putting a different fish on your dish will help the planet.” She told KUOW’s Kim Malcolm about her studies, and why our seafood choices matter.
This interview has been edited for clarity.
March 25, 2024 — Ray Hilborn has a doctorate from the University of British Columbia and is a professor at the University of Washington’s School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Washington State Academy of Sciences. He has been awarded the Volvo Environmental Prize and the International Fisheries Science Prize, and has published over 300 papers in peer-reviewed scientific journals.
Marine fisheries in British Columbia, Canada, not only provide excellent seafood for Canadians, they also employ thousands of people and support small coastal communities, and yet these fisheries are seen to be in trouble, the industry is vilified, and immediate action is demanded.
February 26, 2024 — The Biden administration, leaders of four Columbia River Basin tribes and the governors of Oregon and Washington celebrated on Friday as they signed papers formally launching a $1 billion plan to help recover depleted salmon populations in the Pacific Northwest.
The plan, announced in December, stopped short of calling for the removal of four controversial dams on the Snake River, as some environmental groups and tribal leaders have urged. But officials said it would boost clean energy production and help offset hydropower, transportation and other benefits provided by the dams should Congress ever agree to breach them.
The plan brokered by the Biden administration pauses long-running litigation over federal dam operations and represents the most significant step yet toward eventually taking the four Snake River dams down. The plan will strengthen tribal clean energy projects and provide other benefits for tribes and other communities that depend on the Columbia Basin for agriculture, energy, recreation and transportation, the White House said.
Read the full article at the Associated Press
February 24, 2024 — A “landmark” agreement was signed by the federal government, the Pacific Northwest, and tribes to help save declining salmon populations in the Columbia Basin.
Friday’s ceremonial signing formalizes the Biden administration’s historic agreement made in December with Oregon, Washington, advocacy groups, and the “Six Sovereigns,” including the Yakima, Umatilla, Warm Springs, and Nez Pierce tribes.
The effort aims to preserve ecosystems supporting wild salmon, steelhead, and other native fish habitats in the region.
The agreement includes efforts to expand tribally sponsored clean energy production and aims to provide stability to communities that rely on the Columbia Basin.
The agreement includes efforts to expand tribally sponsored clean energy production and aims to provide stability to communities that rely on the Columbia Basin.
February 21, 2024 — A portion of a dam on the Puyallup River in Washington, operated by the utility company Electron Hydro, must be removed because it harms fish protected by the Endangered Species Act, a federal judge ruled Friday morning.
In December 2020, Electron Hydro attempted to replace a central portion of the dam, which lies on the Puyallup River near Tacoma. A temporary bypass channel was lined with field turf, rubber and other materials. Then it ruptured, spilling its contents into the river.
Once authorities were notified of the spill, Electron Hydro was ordered to clean up the river before continuing any construction on the dam. Where the temporary bypass channel once stood, Electron erected a temporary rock dam which remains in place to this day.
The Puyallup Tribe, a federally recognized tribe in western Washington, sued Electron Hydro in 2020, claiming that the company polluted the river with toxic materials when the the temporary bypass ruptured.
The tribe also claimed the rock dam impeded the upstream travel and spawning of endangered Chinook salmon, bull trout and steelhead trout. This amounts to an illegal taking of the fish, the tribe says, because Electron Hydro does not possess permits to take any of the fish.
In an 11-page opinion, Senior U.S. District Judge John Coughenour found the tribe presented extensive evidence that the rock dam impedes safe passage for the fish. (Electron Hydro had not argued otherwise.) Since the case is an Endangered Species Act case, he wrote, the tribe needs only to prove that irreparable injury has occurred.
A Reagan appointee, Coughenour pointed to evidence presented by the tribe of “attraction flows” — that is, accelerated water which attracts migrating fish to the rock structure and away from the fish ladder that would allow them to continue upstream.
February 20, 2024 — An introductory meeting was enough for a little-known Canadian group with links to the founder of outdoor clothing retailer Patagonia to initiate a partnership giving it first crack at revolutionizing the salmon farming industry in the US state of Washington.
Nova Scotia-based Sustainable Blue left that meeting, in January 2023, with agreement to draft a Letter of Intent (LOI) to develop the first land-based salmon farm in the state, according to multiple emails and documents obtained by IntraFish.
Just three months later, Washington State Commissioner of Public Lands Hilary Franz – a key decision-maker on aquaculture policy in the state, and a participant in that meeting – announced the partnership to the public.
The unusual speed of the deal between Sustainable Blue and Washington’s Department of Natural Resources (DNR) has raised questions among established aquaculture companies, several of which say they were excluded from the selection process or consulted only after the LOI was signed.
The agreement has also invited scrutiny of the relationships between Franz, Patagonia and a non-governmental organization by the name of Wild Fish Conservancy, each of which has campaigned on different fronts against farming salmon in netpens.
This month, Franz was a keynote speaker in Reykjavik at the launch of Patagonia’s new film, “Laxaþjóð: A Salmon Nation”, which is part of a campaign to end netpen salmon farming in Iceland.