Oregon scientist Laurie Weitkamp is preparing to depart on the largest research expedition of its kind in the North Pacific Ocean with scientists from around the world who want to learn more about salmon as climate change is causing unpredictable changes in the species.

Inslee announced Tuesday a proposed $187 million in investments for salmon recovery, as part of his policy and budget proposals for the 2022 legislative session. The plan includes correcting fish passage barriers, investing in clean water infrastructure and expanding monitoring of salmon populations statewide.

SEATTLE — The $1.2 trillion federal infrastructure package signed into law this month creates a new billion-dollar program designed to open thousands of miles of congested transportation corridors. Those choked thoroughfares aren’t roads and bridges, however. They are creeks and streams used by migrating salmon when they return from the ocean to reach their spawning grounds.

“Salmon-Safe is substantially about water quality,” Scribner said. Good for farmers, and good for salmon, too.

The onset of fall and coming of seasonal rains is perfect timing for the salmon that spawn in the East Fork of the Lewis River. At places such as Lucia Falls Regional Park, along Northeast Lucia Falls Road northeast of Battle Ground, visitors can watch the large fish jump the waterfalls on their way to their ancestral spawning grounds.

Ecologists are piloting a technology that is expected to help restore waterways like the Green River to eventually produce more fish.

WASHINGTON – The Biden-Harris administration announced an important step to chart a path forward in a longstanding Columbia River Basin conflict regarding the operation of 14 federal dams and their impacts on the region’s salmon and steelhead populations.

Salmon are now spawning in waters blocked by Grand Coulee Dam. It’s the start of a larger effort to reintroduce salmon into the blocked area.

Whoosh Innovations said its fish passage system could transport salmon quickly over the Snake River dams – and generate $60 million over 10 years by diverting water from fish ladders to hydropower turbines. One Northwest company thinks it may have a better way to help adult salmon make it up and over the Snake River dams.

Pacific Northwest salmon could get some help from the proposed federal infrastructure package. Some of the funding in the U.S. Senate’s version of the bill could help remove barriers to salmon habitat – just not the same barriers on the Snake River that Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, had hoped to eventually include.

In 2015, extremely warm water combined with low stream flows. The Snake River sockeye run that year was supposed to break records. Instead, nearly 99% of the run died before it reached Idaho’s Sawtooth Valley. Improvements were also made to the system after 2015 to help temperatures at fish ladders. Idaho Fish and Game can also trap and haul sockeye captured at Lower Granite Dam to the Sawtooth Hatchery, when it deems the water is too warm.

“It’s important to reconnect to the water, the land, the elders, but also to call the salmon home,” said Peone, who organizes the Spokane tribe’s canoe and often serves as its skipper. “But we need a good, clean home for the salmon to come home to.” The tribes have been making strides toward that goal. Late last year, Colville tribal biologists observed the first spawning chinook salmon in the Upper Columbia river system in a generation. This spring, Spokane tribal biologists found a newly hatched salmon in Tshimakain Creek, also spelled Chamokane Creek, on the eastern edge of the Spokane Indian Reservation.

Young salmon are now spawning above Grand Coulee Dam. The fish were brought above the dam last year in an effort to see if salmon could survive in the area that’s been blocked for nearly 80 years.

The first time salmon were released above Chief Joseph and, later, Grand Coulee dams, Hemene James watched elders from the Coeur d’Alene Tribe. Many weren’t even old enough to remember when salmon last swam in those waters. In their faces he saw pure emotion, as salmon slipped into the waters where they hadn’t been since Grand Coulee Dam blocked their path in 1942. Then, he looked at the children. Their excitement was infectious. They jumped and ran into the water, trying to catch the fish swimming upstream.

CHEHALIS – Starting in summer 2021, construction will begin to remove a fish passage barrier on the West Fork Chehalis River. In partnership with Weyerhaeuser Company, Lewis Conservation District is sponsoring this river restoration project to open seven miles of previously isolated stream habitat for salmon and steelhead.

You see this in a new joint riparian habitat initiative that will provide a uniform, science-based management approach to salmon recovery. We need greater protection for the stream side vegetation that lowers water temperatures, filters pollutants and reduces sediment that smothers salmon eggs.

While all runs of salmon on the Skagit River experienced declines, Seattle City Light left 20-year-old glowing messages on its website – touting the utility’s stewardship that led to “strong” and “landmark” returns of salmon.

Ocean conditions can be integral to salmon survival. And in 2021, the Pacific Northwest’s iconic fish will face a mixed bag: some good and some bad conditions while out at sea.

But a new paper from Hanson and others at the NOAA Fisheries Northwest Fisheries Science Center provides the first real look at what the whales eat the rest of the year, when they cruise the outer Pacific Coast — data that reaffirms the central importance of Chinook to the whales and the importance of recovering Chinook populations to save the beloved mammals.

A KING 5 investigation reveals the cost of Seattle’s cheap electricity, and the price is salmon, orcas and a way of life for Native American tribes.

The conversation comes at a key time for the fish. Eight dams along the Snake and Columbia rivers hinder their migration to the Pacific and half of the young salmon die on the trip. Idaho salmon runs have dwindled from the millions of wild fish to only a few thousand some years.

Simpson says saving Snake River salmon runs isn’t possible without removing the federally-managed dams. But he says it’s not just dams versus salmon. He’s laying out a plan that tries to find solutions for all of the decades-old sticking points.

House Bill 1117 doesn't define net ecological gain, besides requiring road, sewer and other projects to aid salmon recovery. Fish and Wildlife, other state agencies and tribes would write the rules.