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forth, would be likely over the long term to allow the population to survive.'" After evaluating the proposed operations and specifying a variety of mitigation measures, the agency again concluded that the proposed power system operations would...
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Using water-permit processes to protect salmon. The states' primary responses to the Council's request that water permit processes be used to protect salmon was to enact various forms of moratoria on new water diversions.179 Idaho imposed a...
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water availability studies. Many other streams were being adjudicated, already had instream flow protection, or were not regarded as vulnerable to development. For most of the streams requiring further study, the Department processed diversion...
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more than 600 protests.187 Ultimately, the proceeding was mooted when the Idaho legislature adopted a law approving this water use on a temporary basis.188 The legislature also approved a memorial to the Power Planning Council endorsing a drawdown...
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Council called for an additional million acre-feet). Following the 1992 Idaho water transfer proceeding, the Bureau began gaining experience in acquiring this water.191
To begin with, the Bureau faced a dilemma. Many Snake Basin water users...
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Finding this water proved to be anything but straightforward. The Bureau's primary sources were to be uncontracted space in Bureau reservoirs, rental water from the Idaho water banks, and storage space the Bureau planned to reacquire from water...
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In putting these transactions, together, the Bureau cited a number of lessons: Decisions had to be made about whether to treat an acquisition as akin to a land title acquisition (logical for acquiring a natural flow right) or a contract matter...
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began as a lease option between the farm owners and BPA in 1994, brokered by the Defense Fund. In 1996, the Bureau of Reclamation agreed to pay the cost of purchasing the water rights to help meet its commitment to supply 427,000 acre-feet from...
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Inland Lands Biological Opinion," below). The controversy, which is still brewing, underscores the obdurate issues that face interstate water transactions that are part of species recovery programs.202
b. Mainstem and Headwater Storage...
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National Environmental Policy Act process concerning operation of the mainstem dams. To provide non-federal parties with assurance that the Corps' studies overlooked nothing important, the Council chartered a drawdown committee with...
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I feel even though we have been moved from one part of the Columbia River to another part, we had some happiness and we knew that we could live because we had a food supply. When 'progress' came and the dams were built, progress did not come to...
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c. Water Conservation Pilot Projects.—In many watersheds, government agencies such as the Bureau of Reclamation and the Natural Resources Conservation Service, local soil and water conservation districts, state water agencies and others have...
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the same time, however, these pilot projects have benefits even if they don't leave more water in rivers. They can remove barriers to migrating fish, help avoid destructive push-up dams, and produce cooler return flows. The concern over stream...
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and wildlife agency and tribal biologists.'" Following the opinion, the federal parties organized a large-scale consultation process with the states and tribes to reanalyze the technical merits of the biological opinion.
The Council was the next...
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v. Washington Department of Ecology,220 the U. S. Supreme Court decided that states may deny water quality permits to hydropower projects based on their salmon impacts. In effect, the lack of flow to support an existing salmon population is a form...
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address concerns about resident fish, the Council adopted integrated rule curves for Montana's storage reservoirs and called for the development of similar rule curves at other storage reservoirs.
The Council's membership changed in January...
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ambitious document, addressing not only the mitigation needs of salmon, but also proposing an institutional structure in which the Service would assume responsibility for coordinating a wide array of recovery actions.228 In substantive areas, the...
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consideration of resident fish impacts was limited. It was developed in coordination with the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service, however, which has Endangered Species Act jurisdiction over resident species.232
There were many similarities between...
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peer review. The court rejected technical challenges to the Service's analysis, emphasizing the court's obligation to defer to the Service's evaluation of risk to the species:
[T]he scientific data and analysis available for these listed species...
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Much of what is recommended to benefit salmon is what has been needed for a long time and what many have known was needed. More than
50 years ago, federal biologists warned that the consequences of continuing habitat degradation and additional...
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balance between providing water for salmon and protecting fish in upriver reservoirs, water contributions from the Snake River Basin, and the risks and benefits of hatcheries.240 The Council's and the Fisheries Service's are mandated by statute,...
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which administers the permit program, initially found that the permit would not jeopardize listed salmon, and in the Inland Lands opinion, the Fisheries Service disagreed.
The opinion is based largely on a Bureau of Reclamation evaluation of...
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will continue to grow as well. For the Federal agencies to allow additional future withdrawals to proceed, on the logic that each one by itself has a small impact, would undermine one of the major improvements in habitat conditions and further...
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V. Watershed Initiatives
Hydropower is much less a factor in the tributary streams than in the mainstem. Tributaries are more often dried up by water diversions, warmed and polluted by agricultural use and grazing, and silted up by timber... |
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V. Watershed Initiatives
Hydropower is much less a factor in the tributary streams than in the mainstem. Tributaries are more often dried up by water diversions, warmed and polluted by agricultural use and grazing, and silted up by timber... |
