Federal Dam Agencies To Drop New SEIS On Columbia Hydropower Operations

A pair of federal agencies have filed a notice of intent they will withdraw their plan to prepare a supplemental environmental impact statement for hydropower operations on the Columbia River system.

The filing on the Federal Register today for publication after the long Fourth of July holiday by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Bureau of Reclamation says it’s being done “(in) accordance with the Presidential Memorandum titled Stopping Radical Environmentalism to Generate Power for the Columbia Basin dated June 12, 2025.”

The news was first reported by Matthew Weaver in the Capital Press and KC Mehaffey at NewsData.

Public comment on the scope of the SEIS, which aimed in part to flesh out “changed circumstances and new information regarding Columbia River System operations,” began in the waning days of the Biden Administration last December, but with the Trump Administration coming in on January 20, the two federal agencies began pushing back input and planned meetings.

And then mid-June’s presidential memo put the feds’ part in the Resilient Columbia Basin Agreement on ice.

The RCBA paused a long-running federal court case and, if Congress had agreed, could have led to the breaching of the lower Snake River dams, considered the best way to restore Columbia Basin salmon and steelhead runs.

Mehaffey reports that two further directives from the White House on the RCBA “officially put the U.S. government out of compliance with commitments made in a joint motion with plaintiffs for a five- to 10-year stay of the decades-long lawsuit, National Wildlife Federation et al. v. National Marine Fisheries Service et al.”

She says that as of today, there have been no new filings in the federal court case.

The RCBA was preceded by the signing of the Columbia Basin Restoration Initiative by the six sovereigns – the states of Oregon and Washington and the Nez Perce Tribe, Yakama Nation, Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, and Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs Reservation. That was in no small part the changed circumstances, and it grew out of a plan from Idaho Representative Mike Simpson (R) to breach the dams and keep all affected parties whole.

After the White House’s June 12 announcement, ODFW’s Tucker Jones vowed Oregon’s efforts as part of CBRI would continue.

Also continuing as is for the time being, the Corps’ and Reclamation’s operations of the dams and hydro system.

“The Co-Lead Agencies will follow appropriate next steps as directed in the Presidential Memorandum. The Co-Lead Agencies continue to operate and maintain the 14 projects that make up the Columbia River System consistent with the selected alternative from the 2020 Columbia River System Operations Environmental Impact Statement Record of Decision, the current Biological Opinions, and relevant operating documents. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers continues to operate the Lower Snake River dams as authorized by Congress,” Brigadier General William C Hannan and Acting Regional Director Roland K Springer stated in their agencies’ filing.