Judge orders changes to Columbia and Snake river dam operations to help 'disappearing' salmon
Source: AP
Updated 12:10 AM EST, February 26, 2026
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — A federal judge in Oregon late Wednesday ordered narrow changes to hydropower dam operations on the Columbia and Snake rivers in the Pacific Northwest in order to help salmon, saying that the Trump administration’s plans for the massive structures would harm salmon runs that are “disappearing from the landscape.”
The ruling came in a decades-long legal effort by the states of Oregon and Washington, Native American tribes and conservation and fishing groups to ensure better protections for migrating salmon, which are killed in large numbers by the massive dams.
In a landmark 2023 deal that paused the litigation in favor of finding long-term solutions, the Biden administration promised to spend $1 billion over a decade to help restore salmon while also boosting tribal clean energy projects. But last year the Trump administration torpedoed that agreement, calling it “radical environmentalism” that could have resulted in the breaching of four controversial dams on the Snake River, and the plaintiffs went back to court.
U.S. District Judge Michael Simon in his ruling Wednesday lamented what he described as the “disappointing history of government avoidance and manipulation instead of sincere efforts at solving the problem.”
Read more: https://apnews.com/article/snake-columbia-rivers-dams-salmon-trump-d9e5f824be812d3f86539060272c234a
Link to ORDER (PDF) - https://www.courthousenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/columbia-basin-preliminary-injunction.pdf
REFERENCES
https://www.democraticunderground.com/10143163324
https://www.democraticunderground.com/10143199234
https://www.democraticunderground.com/10143318974
https://www.democraticunderground.com/10143341626
https://www.democraticunderground.com/10143298154
https://www.democraticunderground.com/10143299648
https://www.democraticunderground.com/10143477513
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Under President Biden, with lots of local, and state help 2 rivers in the Pacific Northwest
the Umpqua and the Klamath are now open all the way to the Pacific. This allows food,
sediments, and salmonoids to travel up and down the rivers it also allows for the building
of functioning estuaries which are very important for a number things such as biodiversity,
fixing carbon, and cute sea otters.
