Columbia River Archives - Page 3 of 5

Yakama Nation Protests Coal Export Terminal

Yakama Nation fishers and tribal leaders hopped on boats to the fishing site. As a protest, they dropped a net right next to the proposed Morrow Pacific coal export facility. | credit: Courtney Flatt

By Courtney Flatt, NPR

BOARDMAN, Ore. — Yakama Nation tribal members took to the Columbia River Tuesday to protest a proposed coal export facility in eastern Oregon. The tribe says the export facility would cut fishers off from treaty-protected fishing sites along the river.

More than 70 people held signs and waved flags on the banks of the Columbia River, just downstream from the proposed Morrow Pacific coal export terminal.

Fishers and tribal leaders rode boats to the treaty fishing site, dropping a fishing net right next to the proposed coal export facility to assert their treaty fishing rights.

Yakama Nation Chairman JoDe Goudy has fished the Columbia River since he was 6 years old. He said the proposed coal export terminal would threaten the river, fish, and the tribes’ treaty-protected fishing rights.

“We believe that an attack on these things is an attack on our very essence and our way of life,” Goudy said.

Ambre Energy, the company backing this export terminal, has said the project will not interfere with treaty fishing rights.

Goudy said the tribe isn’t concerned about whether any company chooses to acknowledge treaty fishing rights.

“[Our fishing rights] exist, regardless of what they wish to say on black and white, or on anything that they can document. We live it. We see it. We know it. We practice it on an annual basis. We practice it when the fish come. We go where the fish are,” Goudy said.

Members from the Lummi Nation also traveled to the protest. The tribe is fighting another proposed coal export terminal near Bellingham, Washington.

Just before Lummi Nation council member Jay Julius hopped on a fishing boat, he said it’s tribal members’ responsibility to protect future generations and their fishing rights.

“The coal company said they don’t fish here anymore, and we’re going to prove them wrong. The treaty doesn’t say, ‘if they fish here sometimes.’ It’s pretty clear. It says all usual and accustomed areas,” Julius said.

Julius said a larger proposed coal export terminal at Cherry Point would directly impact fishing areas there.

The Morrow Pacific Project would transport about 9 million tons of coal per year from the Powder River Basin to Boardman in eastern Oregon. Coal would then be barged down the Columbia River to Clatskanie, Oregon. From there, it would then be transported to Asia.

Coal Export Developer Challenges Tribal Claims To Fishing Sites On The Columbia

The Columbia River Intertribal Fish Commission says the white dots in the water are tribal fishing buoys and the wooden stake marks the beginning of the proposed Morrow Pacific coal export project site at the Port of Morrow in Boardman. | credit: Courtesy of CRITFC

By Cassandra Profita, OPB

An Oregon coal export developer is challenging claims that its proposed dock on the Columbia River would interfere with tribal fishing sites.

The Confederated Tribes of The Umatilla Indian Reservation and the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation have submitted letters and affidavits to the Oregon Department of State Lands indicating they have tribal fishing sites in the area where Morrow Pacific has proposed to build a dock in Boardman, Oregon for coal barges.

The Morrow Pacific project would transport around 9 million tons of coal per year from Wyoming and Montana to Asia. The coal would be delivered by train to the dock site in Boardman, where it would be transferred to barges on the Columbia River. The barges would carry the coal to another dock site downstream near Clatskanie, Oregon where the coal would be transferred onto ocean-going ships.

Morrow Pacific needs a permit from the DSL to build a dock at the Port of Morrow in Boardman. DSL rules say the state can issue the permit as long as the action would not “unreasonably interfere” with preservation of water for navigation, fishing and public recreation.

The company submitted a letter to the state Thursday arguing that its dock will not “unreasonably interfere” with fishing. It also argues that considering fishing impacts from the dock is outside the DSL’s authority for this permit.

Brian Gard, a spokesman for Morrow Pacific, says the company disagrees that tribes have proven their members fish at the dock site. He says the affidavits submitted to the state either misidentify the site geographically or they fail to show that tribal fishing has taken place in the dock location.

“We do not believe they establish tribal fishing or tribal fishing sites at the Port of Morrow industrial Dock 7 site,” Gard said. “Understanding the site context is important here. The proposed dock site is in a heavily industrial area. It’s on port of Morrow property. It’s situated between two other docks. It’s an area designated by the state as an area where docks are to go.”

The company submitted declarations from local community members, the port director and tugboat operators who say they haven’t seen tribal fishing taking place at the dock site. It also consulted a fishery biologist who says the dock area does not support a healthy fishery.

Sara Thompson, spokeswoman for the Columbia River Intertribal Fish Commission, which includes the Umatilla and Yakama, released a photo (above) she says shows a set of tribal fishing buoys in the water next to the proposed Morrow Pacific project site.

“Not only have we been fishing there since time immemorial, but we continue to fish there at the present time,” said Chuck Sams, communications director for the Umatilla tribes. “We have provided affidavits to the Corps of Engineers and Oregon Department of State Lands, and we’ve spoken directly with Ambre Energy and Morrow Pacific explaining that we have fishing sites, usual and accustomed, at their proposed facility.”

In a recent speech, Gov. John Kitzhaber noted the conflicts flagged by the tribes shortly after declaring his opposition to coal exports in the Northwest. The governor said he will do all that he can “under existing Oregon law to ensure that we do not commit ourselves to a coal-dependent future.”

Federal Government Finds Harmful Contaminants In Columbia River Fish

An osprey soars with a fish in its talons. Research by the U.S. Geological Survey says osprey are among the species harmed by contaminants in the lower Columbia River. | credit: Matt Shiffler Photography/Flickr

By Devan Schwartz, OPB

The U.S. Geological Survey has found high levels of toxic substances in the Columbia River everywhere from sediments to resident fish to osprey eggs.

The results of a six-year study of the Columbia River downstream from the Bonneville Dam were announced on Tuesday.

USGS hydrologist Steven Sobieszczyk says the contaminants –- which come largely from household products -– hadn’t been effectively tested for in the past.

“In a lot of cases, there’s not even thresholds set for safe and unsafe because we’ve never looked for them before,” Sobieszczyk said.

READ Polluting The Water With Toothpaste, Shampoo, And Drugs

Elena Nilsen is a research chemist and team lead at USGS in Portland.

She says largescale sucker, the fish species they studied, show abnormalities including negative sperm health that makes it harder for them to reproduce.

With a study involving 13 principal investigators over those years, Nilsen points to confirmed links between household products and effects in the ecosystem of the Columbia River.

“A lot of these things come through the pathways of the wastewater treatment plant into the river – but the ultimate source was usually us,” Nilsen said.

Sara Thompson is public information officer for Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission. Although regional tribes don’t rely on largescale sucker as they do on salmon and steelhead as subsistence fisheries, she says the new USGS study raises larger water quality concerns.

“Water quality often goes overlooked and ignored because it’s not tangible. You can’t see it,” Thompson said. “We can see fish populations decrease in the Columbia River system and the Willamette System but we can’t see these toxics. We have to make water quality standards a priority in Washington, Oregon and Idaho.”

If resident sucker fish are consumed regularly, health risks, including cancer, could increase.

Nilsen says immigrant communities may be most affected; they eat largescale sucker fish more than other groups because the fish can be caught locally and provide a reliable food source.

The USGS study measured toxics in river sediments, aquatic insects, sucker, and then osprey eggs.

Nilsen says the findings show bioaccumulation -– in which higher levels of toxins were found the higher up the food chain you looked.

In addition, contaminant levels were higher the further downstream the government scientists looked, as the human impacts accumulated.

The three sites studied were near Columbia City, Ore. and Skamania and Longview on the Washington side of the lower Columbia River.

Nilsen says the toxic sources observed are often as innocuous as furniture, non-biodegradable cleaning products and even home electronics. Through consumption and cleaning those toxins can make their way into regional waterways.

“It’s made me just try to be more mindful of the effects that I in my own home can have –- and thinking about everything we’re putting down the drains,” Nilsen said.

USGS has provided this data to health authorities in Oregon and Washington, which are responsible for issuing consumption advisories.

The two states issued related advisories regarding resident fish below the Bonneville Dam last fall.

VIDEO produced by the USGS to explain its research into contamination in the Columbia River:

Tribes Optimistic About Returning Salmon To Upper Columbia Basin

File photo. An aerial view of Hells Canyon Dam on the Snake River, the border between Oregon and Idaho.Credit MrPanyGoff / Wikimedia — File photo. An aerial view of Hells Canyon Dam on the Snake River, the border between Oregon and Idaho.
Credit MrPanyGoff / Wikimedia

By Tom Banse, Thursday April 24, 2014, NW News Network

Hydropower dams built without fish ladders have blocked migratory fish from the upper reaches of the Columbia and Snake Rivers for decades.

Tribal leaders from across the region gathered for the past two days in Portland to strategize how to return salmon to their full historic range.

The meeting ended Thursday on an optimistic note.

Northwest American tribes and Canadian First Nations presented a united front to restore salmon above Grand Coulee Dam on the Columbia River and to southern Idaho via the Snake River.

Shoshone-Bannock tribal chairman Nathan Small says on this he’s long felt like he was beating his head on a wall.

“Now I feel maybe my head is going to raise a little bit because there is that possibility to be talked about.”

Tribes and other fish advocates see opportunity to gain traction in two forums. One is the federal relicensing of Idaho Power’s Hells Canyon Project dams. The other is the pending renegotiation of the 50-year-old Columbia River Treaty between the U.S. and Canada.

But stumbling blocks remain. Those include ratepayer objections to the cost of getting salmon around very tall dams and degraded spawning habitat upstream.

Endangered Salmon Migrate Via Trucks Around Cracked Dam

At Priest Rapids Dam workers practice transporting salmon in trucks. They'll have to transport hundreds of fish a day so the salmon can get past the lowered water and several dams.Anna King Northwest News Network — At Priest Rapids Dam workers practice transporting salmon in trucks. They’ll have to transport hundreds of fish a day so the salmon can get past the lowered water and several dams.
Anna King Northwest News Network

By Anna King

April 15, 2014 NWNewsNetwork.org

The Columbia River will remain drawn down at least until June because of the cracked Wanapum Dam in southeast Washington.

That means fish can’t reach their traditional ladders, so now hundreds of Chinook salmon are being rounded up and loaded into tanker trucks to hitch a ride around the problem.

A short-term solution

Engineers are working on extensions and “water slides” to get fish ladders at the dam working again. But work to install this new equipment has been difficult with cranes, man baskets and the whipping Columbia River wind.

“You’re up here now and it’s kind of a nice cool breeze. But imagine it with 60 to 70 mile per hour gusts,” says Grant County utility district’s Thomas Stredwick. “And workers and man lifts and trying to haul equipment around — you can see how in pretty short order things can get pretty dicey.”

Workers are installing massive steel structures with wooden slides to help the fish over the dam.

This crew could start to see 12,000 fish collecting per day at the dam in the peak of summer. Already some early migrating fish are forcing a short-term solution that could turn into something longer.

At Priest Rapids Dam, about 20 miles down the Columbia River, Grant County utility district workers are trapping these early migrators so they can be trucked around the dams.

Trucks will fill up with thousands of gallons of river water and about 150 fish per load.

“The most endangered fish we have”

“It’s unthinkable for anyone in the state that we wouldn’t get a salmon run up the river,” says Jeff Korth, a major fish manager for Washington’s Fish and Wildlife.

At the peak of the fish run, Korth’s crew and Grant County utility district employees could be moving about 1,500 fish a day. They’re all hoping that engineers and construction crews can finish fixes on Wanapum and Rock Island dams soon so they won’t have to truck as many fish.

“One thing that’s not fortuitous is that the first run of salmon just happens to be the spring Chinook,” says Korth. “And they are the most endangered fish we have up here. We are going to have to deal with the most critical population, right out of the gate.”

“Never put anything past a fish”

Korth worries that even with the best plans and engineering, working with salmon is still unpredictable.

“That falls under the category that I call never put anything past a fish. If you’re absolutely sure they won’t do something, they’ll end up doing it.”

And if the modified ladder systems don’t work by the time the larger summer run arrives, Korth says, “We’d have to make some very hard decisions. But we’re pretty optimistic we’re not going to get there.”

He adds, “The logistics of hauling something like a half million fish would be pretty difficult.”

Korth says inept ladders would probably mean deciding which runs of salmon to save. Korth says a lot of engineering, policy and sweat has gone into getting salmon past the cracked dam, but we won’t know for at least a few weeks whether all this hard work will pay off.

Chinook make late arrival on Columbia River

By Wayne Kruse, Herald Writer

April 10, 2014

The spring chinook run on the Columbia River has finally picked up, just in time for the season to expire. The popular lower-river fishery for bright, feisty springers closes Monday, and no season extension is planned at this point. After the numbers are crunched, it’s possible an extension could be announced, Fish and Wildlife Department biologist Joe Hymer in Vancouver said, but it probably wouldn’t take place until mid-May and it would be a short extension.

“What I think they’re looking at,” Hymer said, “would be to run it right on into the summer chinook season.”

The springer fishery started slowly, due in part to high, dirty, cold water conditions, Hymer said, and better success rates have followed a clearing, warming trend.

“We got off to a bad start,” he said, “but fishing has picked up the last few days to a point where it looks like we’ll come close to hitting predictions.”

The kings have been scattered from Cathlamet up to BonnevIlle Dam, and fishing has been good one day and not so good the next. Anglers are trolling herring, with or without a FishFlash, on both tides but primarily in a downstream direction. Others anchor on the ebb and put out Kwikfish with a sardine or tuna-belly wrap.

Tuna belly?

Sardines, anchovies, even herring in a pinch, but tuna belly?

“Yeah,” Hymer said. “Lots of oil and scent there. Works pretty well.”

Popular plug colors include silver, chartreuse, greens and pinks.

State creel checks late last week and over the weekend on the river below Bonneville counted 2,557 salmonid anglers (including 835 boats) with 316 adult and two jack springers, and nine steelhead. Effort had increased through Sunday, when a flight counted 1,300 boats and 1,146 bank anglers on the lower river.

Peninsula steelhead

A very good wild-stock steelhead fishery is underway on the Olympic Peninsula, according to Bob Gooding at Olympic Sporting Goods (360-374-6330), and unlike a lot of late seasons, the Sol Duc isn’t the only venue.

“It’s a good run of native fish,” Gooding said. “The hatchery run this winter was disappointing, but the wild fish are showing up pretty well.”

Most of the eight rivers centered in the Forks area that allow retention of one native steelhead per season have been putting out fish, Gooding said. The Sol Duc is probably the best, especially since there are a few spring chinook available on the lower end.

“Add springers to a good late steelhead run and you have a circus,” Gooding said. “Pressure on the Sol Duc has been pretty heavy.”

The Calawah, Bogachiel and Hoh also have been kicking out natives, according to Gooding, which has eased crowding on the Sol Duc a little.

The Hoh is popular, particularly with fly fishermen.

“They don’t catch a ton of fish,” Gooding said, “but a lot of them fish the Hoh. It has a lot of open gravel bars, access is pretty good, and it’s a relatively easy river to fish.”

Almost everyone else uses a float/jig or float/pink plastic worm.

“And I personally don’t care for that gear,” Gooding said. “I may be old-fashioned, but I like to drift my rig down the gravel and feel that ‘tap, tap’ and know I’m about to have a blast. Float fishing, all you do is sit and watch the float all day and when it goes ‘blip’ you start reeling and the fish is either there or it isn’t. Not my cup of tea.”

State Fish and Wildlife Department personnel checked 82 anglers on the Sol Duc over the weekend, 71 boat fishermen and 11 bankers, with two native fish kept and 120 releasedplus two hatchery fish kept. On the Bogachiel it was 12 boat fishermen with 16 natives released and two hatchery fish kept. On the lower Hoh, it was 35 bank anglers and 32 boaters with 22 natives released, and on the upper Hoh, 48 anglers with 13 natives released.

Razor clams

The last razor clam dig on the coastal beaches drew a near-record crowd, probably because of the switch from winter evening tides to the more popular morning tides. Weather and surf didn’t cooperate fully, according to state shellfish manager Dan Ayres in Montesano, and the average number of clams per person swung from 4.1 to about 13, depending on the day and the beach.

Next up is a tentative series of tides as follows: Monday, 6:46 a.m., plus 0.2 feet, at Twin Harbors beach; Tuesday, 7:24 a.m., minus 0.3 feet, at Twin Harbors and Long Beach; Wednesday, 8:03 a.m., minus 0.6 feet, at Twin Harbors and Long Beach; April 17, 8:43 a.m., minus 0.8 feet, at Twin Harbors and Long Beach; April 18, 9:26 a.m., minus 0.8 feet, at Twin Harbors, Long Beach and Mocrocks; April 19, 10.14 a.m., minus 0.7 feet, at Twin Harbors, Long Beach, Copalis and Mocrocks; and April 20, 11:06 a.m., minus 0.4 feet , at Twin Harbors, Long Beach, Copalis and Mocrocks.

Ayres warns clam diggers that a 2014 license is needed. Licenses range from a three-day razor clam license to an annual combination fishing license.

Mike Chamberlain at Ted’s Sport Center in Lynnwood (425-743-9505) looked around the area and came up with the following:

Blackmouth fishing: better the farther west you go, around Port Townsend and beyond; slow locally.

Kokanee: starting to show in Lake Stevens, but probably won’t be steamin’ until at least the end of April.

Smelt: The Oak Harbor Marina and Cornet Bay are putting out surprisingly good smelt jigging, or at least better than it was early in the winter season.

Fly fishing: Pretty fair reports from fly fishermen working Lone Lake on Whidbey Island and Pass Lake south of Anacortes.

For more outdoor news, read Wayne Kruse’s blog at www.heraldnet.com/huntingandfishing.

Elected Officials Ask Oregon Governor To Deny Coal Export Permit

A coal mine in Wyoming's Powder River Basin. Elected officials from the Northwest and beyond want Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber to stop the Morrow Pacific project, which transfer Powder River Basin coal to Asia by way of the Columbia River. | credit: Katie Campbell | rollover image for more — A coal mine in Wyoming’s Powder River Basin. Elected officials from the Northwest and beyond want Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber to stop the Morrow Pacific project, which transfer Powder River Basin coal to Asia by way of the Columbia River. | credit: Katie Campbell

By Cassandra Profita, OPB

Dozens of elected officials from across the region are asking Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber and a state agency director to deny a key permit for a coal export project on the Columbia River.

The request went out in the form of a letter from 86 officials including mayors, city councilors and state lawmakers from Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Montana.

They want the governor and Oregon Department of State Lands Director Mary Abrams to stop the Morrow Pacific coal export project. The project would ship nearly 9 million tons of coal a year from Wyoming and Montana to Asia by trains, barges and ships.

Opponents say the state of Oregon can stop the project by denying a permit project developer Ambre Energy needs to build a dock for coal barges at the Port of Morrow in Boardman. Oregon Representative Jules Bailey of Portland is one of the officials who wants to see that happen. He says Gov. Kitzhaber has “a lot of tools at his disposal” that he could to deny the project.

“I think where there’s a will there’s a way,” he said. “Folks in state government from the governor on down ought to be looking for ways we can have a more responsible, sustainable path.”

Kitzhaber spokeswoman Rachel Wray says the permit in question is issued by the state lands department “a standards-based review process.”

She says isn’t aware of any plans for the governor to get involved in that permitting process.

Earlier this week, the company once again asked the state to extend the deadline for completing its permit application.

Last month, the Oregon Department of State Lands notified the company that it will also need to lease state land in the areas where the project would operate over state-owned land submerged in water. That will require additional state approval.

The Morrow Pacific project is the smallest of three proposed coal export facilities that mining and shipping interests want to build in the Pacific Northwest. The Gateway Pacific project proposed north of Bellingham Washington would ship 48 million tons a year and the Millenium Bulk terminal in Longview would ship up to 44 million tons of coal. All three projects would receive Wyoming or Montana coal hauled in by train. The terminals would transfer the coal to ocean-going vessels bound for Asian markets.

Bones Found Near Wanapum Dam Repatriated To Northwest Tribes

By Anna King

March 26, 2014 Nwnewsnetwork.org

File photo. Two skeletons were found several weeks ago along newly exposed Columbia River shore. Anna King Northwest News Network — File photo. Two skeletons were found several weeks ago along newly exposed Columbia River shore.
Anna King Northwest News Network

Two skeletons found upstream of the cracked Wanapum Dam have been handed over to Northwest tribes.

The remains were found near each other several weeks ago along the newly exposed Columbia River shore.

The state says it has the legislative authority to determine if remains are Native American and then repatriate them to tribes if they are.

But Richard Jantz, a well-known physical anthropologist who fought for a decade in federal court to study Kennewick Man, says it’s unfortunate that Washington state didn’t carbon-date these newfound remains before handing them over.

“We study the remains of Americans of all ethnicities,” says Jantz. “I think everybody loses when we understand less about the past than we might have.”

State experts say their initial studies show that one skeleton is male, the second female. In addition, the female’s skull shows signs of being flattened by a cradleboard — a traditional baby carrier used by indigenous North Americans.

Northwest tribal leaders in the area say they find it very disturbing for remains to be studied in any way.

New McNary Dam Passage Gives High Hopes for Pacific Lamprey

U.S. Fish and Wildlife ServiceThe Pacific lamprey — U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
The Pacific lamprey

Indian Country Today Media Network

The Pacific lamprey, culturally significant to the Umatilla and other tribes, now has a shot at making it past the McNary Dam to spawn.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is supplementing the fish ladder of the dam’s Oregon shore with an additional structure that offers water velocities more conducive to lamprey migration, the Union-Bulletin reported on March 8.

The structure would allow lampreys, which tend to move along the river bottom in water that flows more slowly than the upper levels preferred by spawning salmon and steelhead, to access the fish ladder and make it upstream, the Union-Bulletin said.

“We plan to conduct video monitoring to observe which velocity is preferred by migrating lampreys,” said Mark Smith, who managed the project for the Corps, to the newspaper. “We anticipate this prototype structure will help us learn quite a bit about what’s best for lamprey passage.”

Lampreys have been around for at least 450 million years, the oldest fish in the Columbia River system, according to the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission (CRITFC). Though not in danger of extinction, they have declined from a former high of millions 30 years ago to just about 4,000 returning to the Snake, Clearwater and Salmon river drainages where they once teemed, said Aaron Jackson, lamprey project leader for the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, to the Union-Bulletin.

Tribes in the Pacific Northwest use the lamprey for food and medicine, and the fish plays a key role in regulating inland aquatic systems. They spend their first four to seven years of life acting as filters in freshwater sand and silt, then move to the ocean where they become parasites, latching onto various saltwater prey, the Union-Bulletin said. After two to three years of that they return to their freshwater origins to spawn.

The Army Corps of Engineers work group that helped design and engineer the structure included tribal representatives, the newspaper said. Built by Marine Industrial Construction of Wilsonville, Oregon under a $336,542 contract, was completed in late February and is the first such installation in the mid-Columbia River, the Union-Bulletin said.

“We’re excited to see something like this put in the river,” Jackson said.

2014 Fall Chinook Returns Could Be Biggest On Record

A chinook salmon photographed in the Snake River in 2013. That year's run set records, but 2014 returns are on track to outnumber last year's in the Columbia and Snake rivers. | credit: Aaron Kunz | rollover image for more — A chinook salmon photographed in the Snake River in 2013. That year’s run set records, but 2014 returns are on track to outnumber last year’s in the Columbia and Snake rivers. | credit: Aaron Kunz | rollover image for more

By Courtney Flatt, Northwest Public Radio

The future is looking bright for fall chinook salmon in the Columbia and Snake rivers. Predictions are in that this could be another record-breaking year for the fish.

Officials are predicting the largest return on record since 1938. That’s 1.6 million Columbia River fall chinook. Nearly 1 million of those fish will come from salmon near Hanford Reach. These are known as upriver brights, said Stuart Ellis, fisheries biologist with the Columbia River Intertribal Fish Commission.

“One interesting thing about the forecasts is that even though most of the forecasts are big, it is just the two large bright upriver stocks, the upriver brights and The pool upriver brights that we are predicting to be record high runs this year,” Ellis said.

Last year saw a record number of fall chinook salmon returning to the Columbia and Snake rivers since the dams were built. The upriver bright salmon are predicted to reach the same record as the entire returning fall chinook last year.

Joseph Bogaard, executive director of the advocacy group Save Our Wild Salmon, said the strong numbers are due in part to favorable ocean conditions, enough water spilling over dams during migration season and good habitat at Hanford Reach. That’s one of the longest free-flowing areas on the Columbia River.

Columbia River Indian tribes contend hatcheries also play a part in large Snake River fall chinook returns.

Sara Thompson, spokeswoman for the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission said, right now, a record number of salmon are spawning in the Snake River.

“This is the highest number of salmon spawning in the Snake River Basin that we’ve seen since the Lower Granite Dam was constructed,” she said. The dam, one of four on the lower Snake River in southeast Washington, was completed in 1975.

Thompson said more wild fall chinook salmon are expected to return to the Snake River this year.

Bogaard said even though the fall chinook predictions are high, work still needs to be done to protect other endangered salmon runs.

“While the fall chinook run looks like that they’re as strong as they’ve been in quite a few years, we’ve still got a lot of work to do to protect and restore many other runs that provide the benefits to people and ecosystems in the parts of the basin,” Bogaard said.