The Issaquah Press ~

Before emerging from the creek on a cold, sunny December morning, Dan Lantz pulled out a notebook to record a very familiar number this kokanee spawning season — zero. 
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Lantz, an environmental scientist for King County, and other fish ecologists were expecting a low return of kokanee this year. Spawning runs are typically cyclical, with boom and bust years. But nobody expected the numbers to be this bad.

The Oregonian ~

SPOKANE, Wash. — A federal judge is forcing discussion of a radical step to save endangered salmon: taking out four dams on the Lower Snake River.

The public will get a chance to weigh in at meetings throughout the Northwest starting next month.

"Scientists tell us that removing the four Lower Snake dams is the single most important action we could take to restore salmon in the entire Columbia-Snake river basin," said Sam Mace of Save Our Wild Salmon.

Peninsula Daily News ~
PORT ANGELES — It didn’t take long for a half-mile section of eroded beach to be transformed after derelict armor was removed east of the Elwha River mouth.

In one tidal cycle, parts of the sediment-starved, coarse-cobble shoreline were covered by 6 feet to 10 feet of sand as the Beach Lake Acquisition and Restoration project was put into motion last weekend.

National Geographic-

In August 2014, workers completed the largest dam removal project in U.S. history, as the final part of the 210-foot-high (64-meter-high) Glines Canyon Dam was dismantled on the Elwha River in northwestern Washington State.
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The multistage project began in 2011 with the blessing of the U.S. National Park Service, which administers the surrounding Olympic National Park. The goal was to remove unneeded, outdated dams and restore a natural river system, with presumed benefits for fish and other wildlife. 

Seattle PI -

Once-mighty Columbia River and Snake River salmon runs are in a "perilous state" and U.S. government restoration efforts are "failing," a U.S. District Court judge said in a tough opinion released Wednesday.

Judge Michael Simon threw out the feds' latest plan for managing the Northwest's greatest river system.

The 149-page ruling by Simon is the fifth time courts have rejected federal plans as flawed or inadequate under the Endangered Species Act and the National Environmental Policy Act.

The Columbian ~

ARIEL — State and federal fishery officials, along with PacifiCorp, have agreed to delay the preparation of Yale Reservoir and its tributaries for the reintroduction of salmon and steelhead.

PacifiCorp’s federal license to operate Merwin, Yale and Swift hydroelectric dams on the North Fork of the Lewis River calls for the utility to have a downstream fish passage facility at Yale Dam operational by June 26, 2021.

The settlement agreement between PacifiCorp and the fish agencies, Forest Service, Indian tribes and local governments also requires a “habitat preparation plan’’ beginning five years prior to fish passage.

Bellingham Herald -

Critical eelgrass beds are showing signs of recovering in parts of Puget Sound, including Hood Canal, according to the state Department of Natural Resources.

A new DNR report found sites with increased eelgrass outnumbered sites with declining eelgrass between 2010 and 2014. The rebound was most pronounced in lower Hood Canal.