Columbia Salmon, Steelhead Advocates Ask Federal Judge For Preliminary Injunction

A regional recreational fishing industry organization and other groups filed for a preliminary injunction in federal court today that seeks to increase spill over dams on the Columbia and Snake Rivers and other measures to improve survival of salmon and steelhead.

It’s the latest move in the long-running case over Columbia Basin hydropower operations’ impact on ESA-listed stocks, and it comes four months after the US government unilaterally pulled out of an agreement to restore the watershed and the recent lifting of a long-term stay to that litigation.

Along with spill over eight dams, which helps keep young fish out of spinning turbines and is “the safest passage past the (Columbia River System) dams with the highest survival rates,” plaintiffs want reservoirs lowered so salmon and steelhead don’t have to spend as much time in “stagnant, overheated waters,” removal of passage barriers on the Tucannon River that slow spring Chinook migration, and “increasing federal efforts to control predators like invasive walleye and some birds.”

They want spill to begin March 1, 2026, “and to remain in place until further order of the
Court, to reduce irreparable harm to ESA-listed salmon and steelhead in the Columbia and Snake
Rivers,” per the request for a preliminary injunction.

The groups say that with the feds backing out of the Resilient Columbia Basin Agreement without offering an alternate plan to recovering listed stocks, they have no choice but to ask a judge “to order federal agencies to take the most important, immediate and reasonable steps that are possible within the Columbia Basin’s current hydropower operating system to ensure our Northwest salmon don’t go extinct.”

The Oregon City-based Northwest Sportfishing Industry Association is among the plaintiffs represented in U.S. District Court for Oregon by Earthjustice, and its policy director Liz Hamilton was among those speaking out in a press release today on the preliminary injunction request.

“The spiraling declines of wild Snake River salmon and steelhead strangle most all fisheries from Canada back to the Snake Basin, especially in-river sport and tribal fisheries,” Hamilton said. “The requested emergency measures will benefit the baby salmon leaving the river next year and provide hope for those whose livelihoods and culture depend on their success. These measures help keep fish in the game while we continue our work with others in the region on a comprehensive solution.”

The RCBA came out of a recovery plan developed by the so-called six sovereigns – the states of Washington and Oregon and the Yakama Nation, Nez Perce Tribe, Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation and Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs Reservation. That plan is still in place, but is now missing the federal pieces meant to really get it going.

Besides NSIA, other plaintiffs include the National Wildlife Federation, Columbia Riverkeeper, Idaho Conservation League, Fly Fishers International, Inc., Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations, Institute for Fisheries Resources, Sierra Club, Idaho Rivers United and NW Energy Coalition.

According to Earthjustice, the state of Oregon filed a similar preliminary injunction request today, and the Nez Perce Tribe and state of Washington “plan to file soon as amici parties (friends of the court) in support of the requested relief.”