In 2008, the Bush Administration imposed a plan that allows these lethal dams to continue killing up to 90% of some Snake River salmon runs. Earthjustice challenged the plan in court soon after it was issued, and now the Obama administration is conducting a 60-day review of that plan; providing some extra time to explore a way to resolve this long-running controversy.
Wild salmon and steelhead of the Columbia and Snake Rivers connect coastal and river communities from California to Alaska and inland as far as Idaho and Nevada. Earthjustice has been in court for over a decade fighting on behalf of fishermen and conservationists to protect and restore this endangered national treasure.
Working together, NOAA, CEQ, and the Corps can lead efforts to restore these vital wild salmon runs and make local communities whole again by bringing together key stakeholders in the Pacific Northwest to craft an effective, legal, and science-based blueprint to resolve this long-standing controversy in a way that produces healthy salmon populations, sustainable new jobs, healthy economies, an improved transportation system, and clean and affordable energy.
The recovery of the Snake River salmon runs is especially critical because these fish migrate the furthest, past the most dams, and yet have access to the largest area of unspoiled spawning habitat of any Columbia Basin salmon -- millions of acres of cool, high-elevation wilderness in central Idaho and northwest Oregon. This wild salmon refuge will be critical as the effects of global warming impact the west.
In announcing his preliminary conclusions about the Bush salmon plan, U.S. District Court Judge James Redden warned that "Federal Defendants have spent the better part of the last decade treading water, and avoiding their obligations under the Endangered Species Act. . . . We simply cannot afford to waste another decade."
Longline fishing is taking a terrible toll on threatened and endangered sea turtles in the Gulf of Mexico. Five of the world's seven sea turtle species are found in the Gulf of Mexico: leatherback, hawksbill, green, loggerhead and Kemp's ridley.
Attracted by thousands of baited hooks hanging from miles of fishing line, turtle species that have thrived for millions of years are sustaining life-threatening injuries and dying by the hundreds.
Bottom longline fishing has caught nearly 1,000 sea turtles in a recent two-and-a-half year period-wildly exceeding the original projections by the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) and in clear violation of the Endangered Species Act.
Loggerhead, Kemp's ridley, green, hawksbill, and leatherback sea turtles are suffering injuries that affect their ability to feed, swim, avoid predators, and reproduce.
Yet the NMFS has done nothing to stop this deadly practice.
A half dozen conservation groups sued the federal government on Wednesday, claiming the agency that oversees the Gulf of Mexico fishery is violating the Endangered Species Act by failing to protect threatened sea turtles.
The groups claim a common type of fishing from vessels in the Gulf of Mexico that use long, baited lines to catch grouper and other fish is killing hundreds of the rare turtles every year.
"We think they're required to stop the fishing," said Steve Roady, an attorney for Earthjustice, which is suing on behalf of the conservation groups.
The Clean Water Act -- for 30 years the most potent defender of our nation's waterways -- is under attack and needs your help if it is to retain its vital role.
Two Supreme Court rulings, and a number of Bush-EPA actions, have turned the law upside down, opening up loopholes that polluters are lining up to exploit. It will take an act of Congress to restore this law's integrity -- and that's where you come in.
Currently, polluters are seizing on the Supreme Court rulings to argue that the Clean Water Act only protects "navigable" waters such as major rivers, thus leaving unguarded an abundance of America's streams, lakes, rivers and wetlands. We can't allow industrial polluters access to these vulnerable waterways.
The Clean Water Restoration Act, as introduced in the 110th Congress, would protect all waters from these polluters. If adopted in the 111th Congress it would restore clear protections to water bodies that were covered before the Supreme Court rulings.
But, before the Clean Water Restoration Act can start protecting us, we have to do our part to get it introduced in Congress and then passed into law.
Email your congressional representatives today and urge them to support a bill that will clarify and restore the longstanding protections originally intended by Congress.
