Judge sides with salmon against Trump administration in hydropower ruling | US news

A federal judge in Oregon sided with salmon against the Trump administration on Wednesday, ordering the federal government to change hydroelectric system operations long believed to be at the heart of the sharp decline in native fish populations.

At the center of the conflict are eight dams and reservoirs on the Columbia and Snake rivers in the Pacific Northwest that have created devastating obstacles for salmon and steelhead unable to break their deadly turbines or navigate the large, warm, man-made pools. Federal agencies and their supporters, which include a group of utilities, water managers and agricultural organizations, have argued that drawing from the reservoirs would jeopardize electricity reliability.

Decades-long legal battles over harm were put on hold in 2021 as stakeholders — including the states of Oregon and Washington, four Native American tribes and a coalition of conservation and fishing groups — began working with the Biden administration to find a solution.

As part of the Resilient Columbia Basin Agreement, a historic salmon recovery plan negotiated in late 2023, the federal government committed more than $1 billion over a decade to support depleted salmon runs and new investments in clean energy projects in the region to replace hydropower generated by dams. However, the project will be short-lived.

Months after returning to office, Trump withdrew from the deal, calling it “radical environmentalism,” and the parties quickly returned to court.

But in a strong ruling issued Wednesday evening, Oregon District Court Judge Michael Simon chastised the administration’s position and the government’s “disappointing history of avoidance and manipulation instead of sincere efforts to solve the problem,” as well as the evidence presented, which he said was created for the trial and contradicted the scientific record.

In a report released under Biden in 2024 and withdrawn from public view by the Trump administration, the Interior Department acknowledged that the dams had caused damage to the river and the Native American tribes that depend on it. Dam construction at the turn of the 20th century transformed riverine ecosystems and devastated salmon runs, flooded villages and cemeteries, and forced tribal members to leave their lands, traditions, culture, and food sources.

The Columbia River Basin, which spans an expanse of land the size of Texas, once produced more salmon than any other system in the world. But of the 16 stocks of salmon and steelhead that once thrived here, seven are listed under the Endangered Species Act and four are already extinct.

“One of the founding symbols of the West, a vital recreational, cultural and economic engine for Western states, as well as the beating heart and guaranteed resource protected by treaties with several Native American tribes, is disappearing from the landscape,” Simon wrote of the threatened and endangered salmon and steelhead.

He lamented that the battle for the lives of these important and declining species was “not fought on the end of hook and line, nor in the woven threads of a fishing net, nor even based on the appetite of sea lions, avian predators or killer whales. Instead, the greater battle was fought in the courts,” he said.

His order generally maintains the status quo, returning reservoir and flow levels to what they were last year with some slight increases. The groups that filed the lawsuit celebrated the order and said the decision was necessary to prevent the extinction of salmon in the basin.

“Salmon need help now, and we are encouraged that the court has granted an immediate, common-sense relief that will help protect imperiled Northwest salmon and steelhead,” said attorney Amanda Goodin, who works for Earthjustice, an environmental law organization that represented the plaintiffs.

Advocates also said the move does not mean the end of problems in the region.

“While these emergency measures are implemented, we will keep an eye on our long-term goal of helping tribes and states restore Snake River salmon for generations to come,” Mike Leahy, senior director of wildlife, game and fishery policy at the National Wildlife Federation, said in a statement.

Oliver Milman and Léonie Chao-Fong contributed reporting