May 31, 2011

Native orchids “concealed” in Oregon forest

May 31, 2011

Jule Gilfillan's 5 ways to get behind the scenes

Jule Gilfillan is the newest producer for Oregon Field Guide.

May 31, 2011

Saving white oak trees ... by climbing them?

I've been meaning to mention the oak savannah Treeverse project for awhile now. A filmmaker and a team of tree climbers turned an environmental issue – Oregon's increasingly rare oak savannah ecosystem – into an adventure. And a documentary.

May 27, 2011

Opposing views on the Grand Coulee fish kill

Several interesting arguments surfaced at today's court hearing over the threats to fish from water spilling over Grand Coulee Dam.

May 27, 2011

Dulcich: "There's going to be more dead fish"

Pacific Seafood President and CEO Frank Dulcich said he didn't know yet whether his company would appeal Judge James Redden's decision not to scale back fish-killing water spills over Grand Coulee Dam.

May 27, 2011

Redden: Feds can keep spilling at Grand Coulee

Judge Redden denied a request to order federal dam managers to scale back water spills from Grand Coulee Dam. After hearing arguments from Pacific Aquaculture and federal dam managers this afternoon, the judge said there isn't enough evidence showing the large spills are harming any fish protected by the Endangered Species Act.

May 27, 2011

Pacific Aquaculture goes to court over fish kills

I'm headed to the 4 p.m. court hearing on the case of Grand Coulee dam water releases vs. fish downstream at Pacific Aquaculture Inc.

May 24, 2011

Oregon lawmakers: Please don't send more radioactive waste to Hanford

Seventeen Oregon lawmakers are politely asking the U.S. Department of Energy not to choose Hanford as a permanent storage site for radioactive waste around the country. The DOE is considering Hanford for storage of waste that is "Greater than Class C" – not spent nuclear fuel but other kinds of waste like contaminated metal from decommissioned nuclear plants with radioactivity ...

May 24, 2011

New maps seek the best places for wave energy

Is there a good place to develop wave energy in Oregon's 3-mile swath of the Pacific?

May 23, 2011

Protecting landowners with a fish designation

Landowners on Central Oregon’s Deschutes River and its tributaries would have at least 12 years without facing water-diversion limits or other restrictions triggered by the presence of a newly reintroduced steelhead that’s on the endangered species list.

May 23, 2011

Meet the alpha male of the Imnaha wolf pack

The alpha male of Oregon's Imnaha wolf pack was fitted with a new GPS tracking collar last week. His former GPS collar stopped working in May of last year.

May 23, 2011

New species of underwater mushroom found growing in the Rogue

The International Institute for Species Exploration has named its top new species discovered in 2010, and an Oregon mushroom, Psathyrella aquatica, is on the list. Aquatica is the first species of mushroom with gills that scientists have observed fruiting underwater.

May 20, 2011

Critics challenge plan to kill sea lions – again

About a week after the feds OK'd a new plan to kill sea lions at Bonneville Dam, opponents with the Humane Society and Wild Fish Conservancy are taking them back to court to stop the killing.

May 20, 2011

Court: Washington can keep dissolved gas limit

I was just talking about this case – a challenge from salmon advocates to the state of Washington's rule for how much total dissolved gas is allowed downstream from dams. The court sided with the state – confirming the current limit to how much water can legally be spilled over dams to scale back hydropower generation and free up space ...

May 20, 2011

BPA: "We have all this power and nobody wants it."

I just had another talk with Michael Milstein at the BPA about the question of how much spill is too much for salmon. He reiterated a key point in the dilemma of having too much water in the Columbia. Namely, that BPA is not making money off the hydropower it's generating now. And in some cases, it's costing them money ...

May 20, 2011

Gassing salmon with spill water: A real risk or an excuse to shut off wind turbines?

An intriguing question has come up in the power struggle between hydropower and wind energy in the Northwest:

May 19, 2011

Eek! Zebra mussels found at Ashland checkpoint

The Medford Mail reports a state boat inspection crew found the first non-native zebra mussels at a checkpoint near Ashland.

May 19, 2011

State shoots Imnaha wolf in northeast Oregon

Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife shot an uncollared female wolf from the Imnaha pack last night. It was the second of two planned wolf kills to protect livestock in Wallowa County – particularly in a hot spot north of Joseph.

May 18, 2011

Ruby Pipeline underway in southern Oregon

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May 18, 2011

Wind vs. Water: Is this case headed to court?

Wind energy advocates at the nonprofit Renewable Northwest Project issued a statement last week that hints at a legal fight brewing between the wind industry and hydropower managers. It stems from Bonneville Power Administration's decision to curtail wind turbines when there's too much spring runoff in the Columbia River Basin. The rub is that BPA decided not to compensate wind ...

May 18, 2011

Wallowa County's hot spot for wolf depredation

Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife confirmed another calf has been killed by a wolf in Wallowa County today. It's was the same place north of Joseph where the state trapped and killed a wolf yesterday.

May 18, 2011

Wind power shut down to make way for hydro

May 18, 2011

Study: Oregon #2 in clean energy leadership

The clean-tech research firm Clean Edge ranked Oregon the No. 2 leader in clean energy behind California.

May 17, 2011

Oregon LNG backer: "If we had known what we were getting into, we would not have done it!"

While reporting on another lost court challenge for Oregon LNG today, OPB's environment reporter Rob Manning dug up this report from Leucadia National Corp., the New York holding company funding the Oregon LNG project.

May 17, 2011

ODFW kills one wolf, still hunting for the other

Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife has killed the first of two wolves in Northeast Oregon's Imnaha pack. The uncollared male wolf was captured on the same private land where a wolf depredation took place in April. The agency is still looking for a second young wolf. Both wolves are being killed to protect livestock following a rash of livestock ...

May 17, 2011

Events: Three heritage pigs and a wolf symposium

I had to laugh looking at my last couple calendar entries. They both sound interesting, but they also call to mind a certain children's book.

May 17, 2011

Here, now: All-renewable electricity

Bonneville Power Administration has shut down natural gas, nuclear and coal-fired power plants to make room on the grid for lots of hydropower coming from spring water runoff passing through dams in the Columbia River Basin.

May 16, 2011

How the Northwest power grid is getting smarter

So, the power grid in the Pacific Northwest is still dumb. But that's not the end of the story.

May 16, 2011

A preview of Oregon's next solar panel plant

Mayor Adams Tours the SoloPower Factory from Mayor Sam Adams on Vimeo.

May 13, 2011

Wind vs. water: The power struggle continues

Bonneville Power Administration just announced it will reserve the right to dial down wind turbines this spring to manage the renewable power gridlock that comes when the region has too much wind and water at the same time.

May 13, 2011

Why the Northwest power grid is still dumb

I got a few minutes to quiz Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Chairman Jon Wellinghoff last month at the Portland Future Energy Conference.

May 13, 2011

An incubator for Northwest food innovations

So you want to open an ice cream shop. You've dreamed about it for years.

May 12, 2011

Where will Oregon's new solar manufacturer go?

Sustainable Business Oregon reports SoloPower's deal with the city of Wilsonville is looking shaky, and the state's new thin-film solar panel manufacturer might be headed to Portland instead. This is interesting because the exact location of the plant has been up in the air for awhile now – even as the San Diego-based company has landed big-time federal loan backing ...

May 12, 2011

A push for more effective recycling at SOU

A student group at Southern Oregon University has raised $57,000 to build a recycling center and overhaul its recycling policy.

May 11, 2011

A familiar wolf story half a world away

Thanks to OPB's All Things Considered host Beth Hyams for flagging this story from Public Radio International about how wolves are returning to northeast Spain and snacking on sheep just 25 miles outside of Barcelona.

May 11, 2011

Study: New counts reveal more barred owls

A new study by the U.S. Geological Survey has found there are probably a lot more barred owls in Northwest forests than past studies have shown.

May 10, 2011

Introducing OPB's Medford Bureau

May 10, 2011

Oregon issues eight wolf kill permits to ranchers

Remember how I said the federal delisting of wolves in the Northern Rockies would change management in eastern Oregon? One big difference is that ranchers can now apply for "caught in the act" permits to kill wolves that are attacking livestock. Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife announced today it has issued eight of these permits. That's on top of ...

May 10, 2011

Clever hoax: Free vanity inhalers from Peabody coal

Yes, May is Asthma Awareness Month. No, you can't get a free Justin Bieber inhaler from Peabody Coal. But it looks like you can at a new Coal Cares website.

May 10, 2011

5 projects in line for state energy tax credits

A quick share the projects that have made it over the latest hurdle in the state Business Energy Tax Credit program for a share of $10 million in tax credits. They still have to go through a technical review. But I thought the list was interesting. They're the top tier projects – worth $6 million or more – and they've ...

May 10, 2011

How to tackle an endangered species "bioblitz"

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced a new work plan today – a way to deal with a "bioblitz" of endangered species listing petitions without repeatedly missing deadlines and winding up in court.

May 09, 2011

NOAA: "Fish coming back is really the true test"

One of the key questions in the ongoing fight over Columbia River dam management is whether habitat can actually produce measurable progress toward salmon recovery. Judge Redden will have to decide if the federal government's plan to manage dams while protecting salmon and steelhead does enough to avoid jeopardizing any of the 13 species on the endangered list. And Bonneville ...

May 09, 2011

Plaintiff: BiOp still "mushy information without any standards"

Todd True, the EarthJustice attorney representing environmental groups in the BiOp lawsuit, made several points clear throughout the hearing today. In contrast to Bonneville Power Administration's position – that the biological opinion is ready to be implemented and will protect salmon as required by law – True says the BiOp is based on a false conclusion that the current plan ...

May 09, 2011

"We're close to the end of a long-running drama"

Steve Wright, administrator of Bonneville Power Administration, summed up some takeaway messages from today's court hearing on the BiOp. He responded to a key question that came up throughout the arguments today: What if the biological opinion doesn't work?

May 09, 2011

The final recess: Is there anything left to be said?

In a somewhat unexpected move, Judge Redden closed the court session today before lunch after asking the parties in the BiOp case if there was anything else they wanted to say. Nobody responded, and what had been planned to be a lunch recess became a recess for the day – and possibly for the entire case.

May 09, 2011

Is "one more fish than yesterday" good enough?

I'll fill in some more details on this question later but the first round of arguments focused on the federal government's metrics for measuring salmon recovery. Challengers argue the government is basing its biological opinion that dams do not put salmon in jeopardy on a misleading set of data. That the feds are using "one more fish than yesterday" as ...

May 09, 2011

Redden: "What we hope to learn today"

In his opening remarks, Judge Redden summed up the crux of the court's questions about the federal government's plan to protect salmon in the Columbia Basin. For one:What are the 'specific numerical benefits' to salmon recovery the feds can achieve?

May 09, 2011

Live from Judge Redden's court

I'm blogging from the BiOp courtroom. A fellow reporter who has covered this case in the past told me Judge Redden is actually quite soft spoken. In a case with such high stakes for the Northwest, there are a lot of stakeholders hanging on every word out of the judge's mouth. So, my colleague told me: "You can see everyone ...

May 09, 2011

Judge Redden's 6 questions on salmon and dams

The central questions back then are the same ones we're facing today: Do the Columbia Basin dams jeopardize salmon survival? Does the federal plan to protect the fish meet the requirements of the Endangered Species Act? But today, Judge Redden has asked parties to the court case to focus on six slightly more specific questions, as you can see in ...

May 06, 2011

5 Oregon food projects you should know about

I've been keeping a list of interesting food programs I'm going to follow. I figured I might as well share what I've learned so far about a long-term local food plan, an urban farmer apprenticeship program, the Match.com of the locavore movement, the world's first certified carbon-neutral wines, and bringing fresh local food into schools.

May 06, 2011

6 food bills in the state Legislature this session

The Oregonian has a rundown of six different food bills that the Oregon Legislature is considering right now. One of them aims to keep smuggled Chinese honey out of the state.

May 05, 2011

Back in charge of wolves, Oregon plans to kill two

Today, Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife took over wolf management in eastern Oregon from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. And it wasn't long before the state took the same position as the feds on chronic livestock losses to wolves in northeast Oregon. That is to kill two wolves from the Imnaha pack.

May 05, 2011

Spare a dime for lichen research? How about a forest crane?

Thought the Wind River “canopy crane” that we profiled on Oregon Field Guide was cool? Budget cuts just killed it. How about that lichen air quality research we featured this season? Budget cuts gutted that too.

May 05, 2011

The power of poop vs. the might of methane

When it comes to the greenhouse gases causing climate change, methane is mighty. Methane gas is more than 20 times better at trapping heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide.

May 04, 2011

Gray wolves come off endangered list tomorrow

What timing. Today Interior Secretary Ken Salazar just announced the official delisting of the Northern Rocky Mountain gray wolves will happen tomorrow. We knew this was coming, but we didn't know it was going to come right in the middle of a plan to kill two wolves in eastern Oregon.

May 03, 2011

Enviros sue to stop feds from killing wolves

Four conservation groups are suing the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service over the plan to kill two wolves in the Imnaha pack.

May 02, 2011

Two Imnaha pack wolves to be lethally removed

[module align="right" width="half" type="pull-quote"]“Lethal control of wolves is not something any of us in the conservation field take lightly. In fact, we do all we can to prevent situations from reaching this point. But in chronic cases like this, preventing a worsening conflict is in the best long term interest of wolf recovery.” - Paul Henson, U.S. Fish and Wildlife ...

May 02, 2011

Do watershed councils suffer from group-think?

Researchers at Oregon State University have found that a Portland area watershed council is overrepresented by well-educated, liberal urbanites, whose shared environmental values make it harder to engage conservative rural and pro-business stakeholders.