Here are the highlights or lowlights for some major decisions to be made…
It’s Now or Never for the Columbia and Snake River Basin’s Wild Steelhead
The last decade (2011–2020) has been the worst average on record for steelhead returns in the Columbia and still managed to average around 200,000 fish per year. (The last five years have been especially awful, and pulled the average down considerably.) The previous decade, 2001–2010, one of the best on record, averaged more than twice as many. Anglers who were fishing those years will tell you how good it was. In 2001, an astounding 633,000 steelhead passed Bonneville. Of those, nearly 150,000 were unclipped fish. We are a far, far cry from those kinds of numbers right now.
Now Or Never
In late October, the Wild Steelhead Coalition released a three-chapter online campaign called “Wild Steelhead: Now or Never” in celebration of our 20th anniversary. “Now or Never” is a report on the state of steelhead populations, the causes for declines, and investments required to restore populations, and, most importantly, a call for steelhead anglers and the outdoor industry to use our political and economic power to demand that natural resource agencies and elected leaders make the changes required to restore wild steelhead and their home waters before it is too late…
Big Colorado River water cuts needed next year…
The largest single batch of water-use cuts ever carried out on the Colorado River is needed in 2023 to keep Lakes Mead and Powell from falling to critically low levels, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation commissioner told a congressional hearing Tuesday.
Between 2 million and 4 million acre-feet of water use must be cut for 2023 across the river basin to cope with continued declines in reservoir levels…
“Eighty percent of Colorado River water is used for agriculture and 80% of that is used for forage crops like alfalfa. I’m not saying farmers should stop farming, but that they carefully consider crop selections and make investments to improve efficiency. By reducing their use of Colorado River water, agricultural entities will be protecting their own interest,” Entsminger said.
Snow Weather and Flow 