Wednesday April 23, 2025
The Columbian —
A move by federal water managers to pause a landmark environmental review of the Columbia River hydropower system has become a Rorschach test that leaves utilities, salmon advocates, commercial shippers and Native nations, as well as Washington and Oregon officials guessing.
The pause could be routine, as officials with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Bureau of Reclamation insist. Or, it could be the beginning of the end for the review — the clearest path to removal of the lower Snake River dams, which salmon advocates say is the only way to save the prized Northwest fish.
The two federal agencies announced earlier this month an indeterminate pause on the supplemental environmental impact statement for the federal hydropower system. The move marks the second publicly announced delay since the review was started late last year.
The closely watched review came out of a 2023 Biden administration-brokered agreement that stopped litigation between environmentalists, fishing groups and Native nations on one end, and federal power and water managers on the other.