.Just as environmentalists started heating things up over salmon runs and smolt migration downstream in flow to the Pacific Ocean, the good news came in.
The Vancouver Columbian newspaper reported that more Chinnok salmon were counted in the fish ladders at Bonneville Dam on September 11 than on any day since the structure was built on the Columbia River in 1938.
Numbers tallied show 45,884 fall Chinook making it up the fish ladder. The previous one-day high was 39,378 on September 12, 1987.
Environmentalists are threatening suit against the Bureau of Reclamation for nearly all the Snake River flow to increase smolt migration downstream and their return in the fall two years later.
Growers in Idaho, Washington and Oregon are watching the situation carefully after three environmental groups threatened to sue to take Snake River water for fish migration. If that were to happen, it would dry up millions of acres of farmland.