Posted on 09/30/2005 3:50:02 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) - A federal judge Friday gave federal agencies one year to come up with a new plan to keep threatened and endangered salmon from getting killed by the government's hydroelectric dams on the Snake and Columbia rivers.
Federal officials had asked for two years. But U.S. District Judge James Redden went along with the one-year timetable sought by environmentalists, Indian tribes and fishermen.
"We're running out of time," the judge said. "This time we're going to do it."
Salmon are dwindling in the Columbia Basin because of the combined effects of dams, overfishing, logging, grazing, irrigation and urban development. Many salmon get killed as they try to pass through the gauntlet of hydroelectric dams.
Last May, Redden rejected the Bush administration's $6 billion plan to protect salmon. The plan relied heavily on installing huge fish slides on dams to keep migrating young salmon out of the turbines.
The new plan could call for spilling more water over dams and increasing river flows to help young salmon reach the ocean. But that could mean higher electric rates in the Pacific Northwest.
Am I the only one here who can't remenber the "Salmon Amendment" to the Constitution?
This Judge wants the dams torn out. He single handedly rejects any solution proposed. He attributes all blame to the dams and none to over fishing and agriculture.
A greenie in a black robe.
Redden, James Anthony
Born 1929 in Springfield, MA
Federal Judicial Service:
U. S. District Court, District of Oregon
Nominated by Jimmy Carter on December 3,
1979
You kept us hanging there... ;-)
Brush salmon fillets with olive oil, sprinkle with salt, a lot of cracked pepper, and a touch of chopped garlic; grill over a medium high flame till nicely seared on the outside, but still rare on the inside. Serve with a light red wine, such as an Oregon Pinot Noir.
Thanks , I got diverted before I could post the Judge's vital info.
another easterner that went West.. there's a lot of them out here along the Left Coast in courts and elected positions.
In May, U.S. District Judge James Redden in Portland, Ore., rejected the Bush administration's plan for protecting salmon from federal dams. Redden then ordered federal dam operators to spill water over the dams, at a cost of $67 million to Bonneville Power Administration ratepayers this summer, to help the fish.
The Judge reached this remarkable decision by a methodology now common in federal court environmental cases. The salmon advocates file written testimony riddled with outright lies and distortions. All normal processes of litigation are denied. Here, the Judge denied permission to question the witnesses proffered by the salmon advocates. The Judge denied permission to summon them to testify in Court. There was no trial, just a oral argument with no witnesses. The argument time was so severely limited that there was no hope of explaining the complicated issues to the Judge. All that parties opposing the salmon advocates can do is file their own written testimony, and hope that the Judge will read it.
The salmon advocates claimed that their summer spill plan would save fish. According to the federal scientists, the advocates' plan would kill fish. Indeed, the federal scientists testified that the salmon advocates typed the wrong input parameters into the federal scientists' computer models to reach the "save fish" conclusions. The only real case the salmon advocates could make is that the scientific evidence on spill and transportation was not definitive.
If they get by with tearing down the dams, Eastern Washington will be devasted and our power costs will really go up.
As we reported in News from the Front #83, United States District Judge James Redden ordered the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to begin spilling water over the tops of four Snake River Dams, rather than generating electricity. As explained in that article, the program was virtually certain to injure juvenile salmon, not help them. Within days, the Walla Walla Union-Bulletin published an article noting that local fishermen in the vicinity of Little Goose Dam were complaining that the spill had "create[d] a whirlpool flow of water, which has interrupted [the adult salmon] going up the ladder . . .". Neither Little Goose Dam nor any of the other Snake River dams were engineered to operate at such high spill levels, because until the early 1990s, Congress understood that spill meant wasting water that could otherwise be used to generate clean, renewable, low-cost electricity.
As a result of the high spill levels, hundreds of fish arriving at Little Goose Dam simply could not make it past the dam. The flows of water were so strong, and so peculiar, that at some points water was apparently flowing into the bottoms of the adult fish ladders rather than out of them, destroying what biologists call "attraction flows" that permit the fish to find the ladders. Daily fish counts at Little Goose and other projects showed an immediate and sharp drop in fish counts as the spill program commenced. By Wednesday, June 29th, biologists at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers were suggesting that as many as 2,200 salmon were penned up below Little Goose Dam.
More lefty lunacy.
none to over fishing and agriculture.
Oh, okay, blame agriculture, everyone else does. How the hell does a cow grazing on grass affect salmon!
By the way, more and more farm-raised salmon on the market these days. Who the hell needs oregon anyway.
Post #8 ROFLMAO!!
Wow, there's a blast from the past. Thanks for the link.
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