Last week, the Northwest Power and Conservation Council met in Spokane to take public comment on its draft Columbia River Basin Fish and Wildlife Program, a plan that is updated every five years.
Congress created the power council to represent the interests of people in Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana, with the passage of the Northwest Power Act in 1980. In addition to tasking the council with creating a plan to mitigate fish and wildlife impacts from the region’s hydroelectric dams, the act also calls for the council to create and regularly update a power plan for the dams, which are managed by Bonneville Power Administration, the Army Corps of Engineers, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the Bureau of Reclamation.
The current draft Fish and Wildlife Program, which was released in December, is one of the main updates before the council creates the Ninth Power Plan, which is expected to be released later this year…