The Sierra Club, working in partnership with our allies, made real progress towards restoring the Columbia and Snake Rivers for salmon, tribes, and the entire surrounding ecosystems. Working with the Biden Administration in 2024 in implementing the Resilient Columbia Basin Agreement (RCBA), our key areas of progress included:
Federal Appropriates for Restoration Secured
1) Securing federal appropriations for habitat restoration, clean water, hatchery upgrades and moving forward the plans for replacing the services from the four Lower Snake River Dams (LSRD's) when they are breached. We supported funding consistent with recommendations by the Six Sovereigns (the four lower Columbia River Treaty Tribes, Nez Perce, Yakama, Umtilla and Warm Springs and the states of Oregon and Washington) and Biden Administration budget requests. Working with Senator Murray, Wyden, and others the continuing resolution passed by congress at the end of 2024 included that funding as well as no riders (bad language to artificially cap budgets or impede implementation of the agreement).
Service Replacement from the Lower Snake River Dams
2) The processes for developing plans for replacing the services of the LSRD's when they are breached are all moving forward. Some are moving faster than others but all are making progress. The draft report on replacing irrigation from the reservoirs was released on Dec. 20, 2024. A key finding was that there was more than sufficient water for irrigation from a restored Snake River. The joint report from Bureau of Reclamation and Washington State Department of Ecology also emphasized the critical need to address Tribal treaty rights and risk of salmon extinction. Meanwhile, the plans for replacing the energy, transportation, and recreation services are also moving forward but at different stages.
Kotek Issues Executive Order
3) In the fall of 2024 Oregon and Washington issued Executive Orders that directed relevant state agencies to prioritize recovery of salmon, steelhead, and other native fish as well as the commitments included in the Columbia Basin Salmon agreement. These Executive Orders complement and supplement the MOU from September of 2023 issued by President Biden to the federal agencies. Governor Kotek continues to provide real leadership for Oregon on moving forward the CBRI and actions to help our beleaguered salmon and steelhead and address our treaty rights responsibilities.
Federal Agencies Order Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement
4) Finally, and importantly, on Dec. 18, 2024 the federal agencies - Army Corps of Engineers and Bureau of Reclamation - issued a decision to update the environmental documents that underpin the current federal salmon plan. Here is the press release from the plaintiff groups that are represented by EarthJustice on the decision by the federal agencies to do a Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS) to update the 2020 EIS/ROD that underpins management of the Columba and Snake River dams. The 2020 EIS/ROD was challenged by our organizations (and the Nez Perce Tribe and State of Oregon) as inadequate and illegal. We collectively agreed to stay the litigation as part of the overall agreement with the Biden Administration and Six Sovereigns. One of the commitments made by the United State Government as part of the agreement was to make a determination on whether to update the 2020 environmental documents by fall of 2020. Based on new information and changes that have occurred they not surprisingly concluded they needed to do so. We welcome that decision and believe it to be an essential part of moving the Columbia Basin salmon agreement forward. We believe this new SEIS will provide an important opportunity to include additional information and updated science studies that further demonstrate that breaching the LSRD's is essential to restoring salmon and steelhead in the Columbia Basin.
There is a 90 day scoping period that started Dec. 18, 2024 and runs through March 18, 2025. We will be putting out additional information on how to submit comments to this process. Please look for future emails about this important opportunity.
Prepared by Bill Arthur and Irene Vlach