Check out a new story about what the feds are now thinking about the Snake River damns. Seems now they're saying the dams can stay if the focus is more on "habitat."

Habitat restoration gains emphasis over breaching of dams

Your right B.Gray, it's a total copout. And it's illogical as well. NMFS is ignoring improvements to both smolt and adult passage habitat as well as increased availability of spawning habitat that would occur if the dams were breached. You can hear bureaucrats far and wide lining up behind this new proposal. For example, the WDFW director (I forget his name) released a statement in the wake of the 696 defeat saying that we should focus on habitat rather than allocation. NMFS is right in saying that the habitat in the tributaries need help, but they're once again going for only a partial fix in ignoring mainstem habitat.

A big influence on this decision may be the fact that Congress cut the funding for NW salmon recovery by nearly 2/3rds. The Feds and the State view "habitat restoration" as a cheap fix because most of the infrastructure already exists to tackle the habitat issues. They have an "if you build it, they will come" attitude, which translates into "we love to chase our tails, won't you join us."

They're kidding themselves if they think they can substantially increase the runs in the Columbia Basin without seriously tweeking most of the 14 coffee grinders now in existance. Habitat is definitely an issue here, but where are we going to get the most bang for our dilluted government dollar?

Here is an interesting link. http://www.conservefish.org This kind of explains the fate of our fisheries if left up to the Feds. Ihave read twice now that the Federal Goverment is "selling" 700,000 salmon to China through some very quiet dealings. The fishing is taking place in Alaskan waters but beyond the state limits and in the Federal jurisdiction. Has anyone else heard of this?

We (the U.S.) has been working very hard for the last several years to open up new markets for american processed seafood in China. With Japan and Koreas' economies in turmoil, exports and demand have declined, thus neseccitating the need to spread the product elsewhere. I'm not sure if that 700,000 figure is processed salmon, or an allowance to catch that many fish.

Kind of interesting that number 700,000 keeps coming up. (my post "Killing salmon") Like I said, the info I got came from fox news, but details were not there. Sure would like to know what is going on.