----------------------------------------------------------------------
NEWS BRIEFS
NW
SALMON: Fishing and conservation groups this week asked Northwest
members of Congress to support a Columbia/Snake river
operations plan that would improve river conditions for salmon without reducing
power generation as an alternative to a proposal from federal agencies to
eliminate important salmon protection measures and run the rivers solely for
electricity.
The specific river operations proposal,
which focuses on additional
Water from upriver storage
reservoirs and more aggressive energy conservation measures, was presented by
the groups in formal comments to the federal agencies on March 15. Some water
would be used to help fish past dams and the rest used to increase flows and
would therefore be used to generate power. A portion of the power revenues
should be used to compensate farmers hurt by this year's drought.
These same groups also sent a letter to
Northwest members of Congress requesting their help in "preventing a massive
loss of Columbia and Snake River salmon" by supporting this alternative river
plan because it "would not only substantially improve salmon survival- it would
not decrease energy generation." The groups said the federal agencies' plan,
known as the Proposed Principles, "is bad public policy and likely inconsistent
with federal law."
Federal agencies say a water shortage
means critical parts of the new federal salmon plan, also called a Biological
Opinion, will not be implemented. They want to stop spilling water over dams and
to not provide additional river flows for migrating salmon, at least through the
summer. Instead of getting additional water to improve river conditions, which
they have the authority to acquire, agencies propose to barge and truck as many
fish as possible downstream.
The following organizations signed the
letter to Congress: Save Our Wild Salmon, American Rivers, Friends of the Earth,
Natural Resources Defense Council, National Wildlife Federation, Pacific Coast
Federation of Fishermen's Associations, Idaho Rivers United, NW Energy
Coalition, Northwest Sportfishing Industry Association, and Trout Unlimited.
(American Rivers press release 03/20/01)
Read the press release at:
http://www.amrivers.org/pressrelease/snakepress3.20.01.htm
Also concerning NW salmon, this
week the regional directors of the
Fish and Wildlife
Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service told five land management
officials that they are no longer in support of a supplemental biological
opinion that was signed on President Clinton's last day in office. A spokesman
for the National Marine Fisheries Service, Brian Gorman, said that the 1998
regulations provide more than enough help to threatened and endangered salmon.
As reports the Oregonian (03/22/01), "the supplement clarified and extended a
1998 biological opinion governing how federal lands are managed east of the
Cascades," as well as expanded existing buffers along streams to protect fish
habitats by preventing logging in those areas. With the withdrawal by the
agencies, the 1998 opinion is left in effect, without the extension of the
buffers and other clarifications. Gorman also said that the decision to withdraw
approval of the opinion "was inspired in part by questions over whether the
regional directors of either agency had the authority to sign the supplemental
opinion."
Read more about Snake River salmon at:
http://www.amrivers.org/snakeriver/default.htm
HUDSON RIVER: This week a group of 50 Democratic lawmakers signed a
letter urging U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Christie Todd
Whitman to dredge the Hudson River to clean up its PCB pollutants. "The letter
is the latest in an avalanche of correspondence sent to the EPA from New York
state lawmakers on the $460 million proposal to dredge General Electric Co. PCBs
from the riverbed," reports the Times Union (03/21/01). In the past, republicans
Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, Assemblyman John Faso and Assemblyman John
Sweeney had sent in letters opposing the dredging, but the Pataki administration
is in support of the EPA's dredging plan.
ARKANSAS RIVER: The question of whether
Kansas is entitled to about $19 million in interest payments from Colorado
taxpayers was addressed this week by members of the US Supreme Court. The money
results from damages incurred through decades of Colorado diverting Arkansas
River water before it reaches Kansas. However, Colorado Attorney General Ken
Salazar is optimistic that the high court might reject much of the money Kansas
is seeking from Colorado. "Kansas and Colorado are tens of millions of dollars
apart over how much money Colorado should pay for Arkansas River water that
never reached Kansas," reports the Denver Post (03/20/01). Colorado figures
damages to be about $9 million or less, while Kansas says damages come to at
least $57 million. Kansas had learned of the water diversions in 1969, but
waited 16 years before suing Colorado. Of concern to Justice Stephen Breyer is
the precedent the case might set if Kansas receives significant money, saying
that other states might claim "horrendous amounts" if Kansas receives large
interest payments for the missing water. The court's decision is expected this
spring.
RIO GRANDE: Mexico has agreed to
deliver close to 200 billion gallons of water into the Rio Grande as partial
payment of a water debt which promises much needed relief for farmers in Texas
who depend on the Rio Grande. As reports the Houston Chronicle (03/19/01), the
water supply in the two Rio Grande reservoirs has been reduced to 43 percent of
capacity due to a lingering drought. In 1992, Mexico began diverting water from
the Rio Grande to industry and large farms, despite a 1944 water treaty that had
the two countries agreeing to share the water stored in the two reservoirs.
Under the federal agreement reached this week, Mexican water officials will
provide 600,000 acre-feet of water by July 31, and also agreed to schedule
repayment by the year's end of what remains of the total 1.4 million acre-feet
of water debt accumulated since 1992.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Want to find out how you can help rivers? Visit
http://www.americanrivers.org/takeaction
----------------------------------------------------------------------
OREGON WATERS: Oregon's US Senator
Gordon Smith has asked the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to give state
ranches and feedlot more leeway in complying with the Clean Water Act. As
reports the Seattle Times (03/19/01), Smith is requesting that EPA Administrator
Christine Whitman review the enforcement actions taken against Oregon cattle and
livestock operations and to warn ranchers before punishing them for violations.
Due to a loophole, most beef-cattle operations are exempt from state inspection,
but last year Clean Water Act violations were found at 18 ranches permitted by
the state Department of Agriculture. The EPA is seeking to close that loophole
to better control water pollution that comes from manure. However, the ranching
industry and state officials have been angered by tactics used by the EPA,
including flyovers and unannounced inspections.
BRONX RIVER: This week the Bronx Zoo
agreed to stop polluting the
Bronx River with water
contaminated by animal waste, which has been going on for at least 20 years,
according to a New York's attorney general, Eliot L. Spitzer. However, Richard
L. Lattis, general director of the Wildlife Conservation Society which operates
the zoo says they were unaware of the pollution until notified by the attorney
general's office two years ago. "The runoff amounted to 200,000 gallons a day
and the agreement was the first stemming from a broadened investigation into
businesses and individuals that are polluting the river," reports the New York
Times (03/16/01). The zoo has agreed to install systems to clean water draining
from open fields where animals are kept, and to build a $1 million walkway and
nature trail along the section of the river's shore by the zoo. Finally, it will
spend $250,000 over the next 10 to 15 years to pay local residents to remove
debris from the river.
GULF STURGEON: The U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service has been ordered by the 5th U.S. Court of Appeals in New
Orleans to establish protective areas of rivers in three states to protect the
Gulf Sturgeon, one of the oldest living species of fish.
The rivers that will be affected
include the Pearl River in Louisiana, the Pascagoula River in Mississippi, and
the Suwannee and Apalachicola rivers in Florida. As reports the Times-Picayune
(03/19/01), the order "requires the agency to pinpoint areas where endangered
Gulf sturgeon lay their eggs and forbids the Army Corps of Engineers from
dredging those areas." The Gulf sturgeon dates back 250 million years, can live
100 years, and can reach up to 6 to 8 feet in length. Dredging, overharvesting
by commercial fishers, dams, pollution and other habitat damage have led to its
placement on the Endangered Species list.
Read more about the Mississippi
River
http://www.amrivers.org/mississippiriver/default.htm
Read more about reforming the
Army Corps of Engineers
http://www.amrivers.org/armycorpreform/default.htm
WILLAMETTE RIVER: Close to 4 million gallons of raw sewage was sent into
the Willamette River in downtown Portland, Oregon after a power failure shut
down the city's Ankeny pump station for more than five hours. The spill occurred
last Sunday when the pump stopped operating and sewage began flowing directly
into the river. Unfortunately, these kind of spills are not particularly rare.
Linc Mann, a spokesman for the city's Bureau of Environmental Services, says
that a total of 2.8 billion gallons of raw sewage flow into the river each year
from combined sewer overflows. As reports the Oregonian (03/19/01), river users
were warned to avoid contact with the river for a couple of days.
Also concerning the Willamette River,
Gary Filed, the environmental services superintendent of the Smurfit Newsprint
paper mill, was sentenced to three years of probation and six months of home
detention for illegally discharging pollutants into the river while working at
the mill. Field admitted to falsifying water monitoring reports from 1994 to
1999, and was fined by the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality $481,400
last year for violating the Clean Water Act. The fine was later reduced to
$96,280 because the company reported the violations in 1999, reports the
Oregonian (03/19/01).
ILLINOIS RIVER: As a first step in
returning the rich backwater lakes, abundant wildlife and diverse habitat that
covered a 2,544-acre flood plain just south of Hennepin, IL, less than 100 years
ago, the Illinois
River will began to rise on the floodplain. Thanks to a project called The Wetlands Initiative, land has been purchased from nine private landowners in the Hennepin Drainage and Levee District for the last three years. As reports the Peoria Journal Star (03/16/01), only two landowners were reluctant to sell, but finally made deals with the project. One landowner agreed to trade his property for some higher ground owned by LTV Steel of Hennepin, and the other agreed to sell after he and his family were given permission to live on the site for one year.
WEST VIRGINIA WATERS: A report released
this week by the West Virginia Rivers Coalition says that the West Virginia
Division of Environmental Protection needs to do more to find out what state
residents think about water pollution permits before they are renewed by the
agency. According to the group, the number of permits issued by the agency has
increased by 375 percent over the last two years, with the huge permit backlog
being reduced to just 30 permits. As reports the Charleston Gazette (03/21/01),
the coalition says that "none of the water pollution permits it examined
contained federally required anti-degradation reviews." Lawmakers in that state
are currently considering a bill that would dictate how the DEP should apply the
stream anti-degradation policy.
KLAMATH LAKE: The US Bureau of
Reclamation of the Klamath Project irrigation system in Oregon on the Upper
Klamath Lake is being sued by environmentalists who say that the federal
operators failed to keep thousands of endangered fish from being drawn into
diversions to die. The lawsuit says that the Bureau allowed "thousands of
juvenile Lost River suckers and shortnosed suckers, as well as hundreds of adult
fish, to die by failing to install screens on diversions that draw water from
the Link River Dam on Upper Klamath Lake in Klamath Falls." PacifiCorp and Cell
Tech International, the permit holders on the diversions, were instructed by the
Bureau to install fish screens on diversions on the east and west sides of Link
River Dam by June 1, 2000, but have failed to do so.
Also concerning the Klamath Project,
the National Marine Fisheries Service decided this week that
"irrigation-as-usual at the massive Klamath Project this drought year
jeopardizes the survival of the Klamath River's dwindling run of wild coho
salmon." The agency said that the Bureau of Reclamation's plans for irrigating
240,000 acres of farm fields poses an unacceptable risk to salmon fry in spring,
juvenile coho in summer and returning spawners in fall. The agency also said
that continuing irrigations would further degrade salmon habitat that already
suffers from logging, road building, grazing, mining, urbanization, stream
channelization, dams, wetland loss, unscreened irrigation diversions and water
withdrawals. To assist farmers now short of water, the Bureau will pay $2.8
million to 170 farmers who have agreed to not plant crops on 16,000 acres this
year, and another 10 property owners will receive $1.2 million for providing
37,000 acre-feet of well water to the Klamath Project.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
RiverCurrents is a weekly summary of
river news and information. Inclusion of stories, news briefs, and links should
not necessarily be seen as endorsement by American Rivers. This service is made
possible by American Rivers Online. Questions, comments, or submissions should
be sent to asouers at amrivers_org.
To unsubscribe, please send a note to
currents at amrivers_org with the word unsubscribe in the subject line.
Additional information is
available at www.americanrivers.org.
To become a member of American Rivers or to help support river
conservation efforts, please visit <http://www.americanrivers.org/joindonate/default.htm
or call
1-800-296-6900 x3009