Understanding Government

King salmon

While Washington, D.C. was solving another self-created crisis, real American solutions were emerging in the other Washington.   As William Yardley writes in the New York Times, massive dams that have prevented salmon from migrating upstream on the Elwha River are to be physically removed, allowing salmon to move naturally to their spawning grounds.  Experts predict that “392,000 fish will fill 70 miles of habitat now blocked by the dams, matching the predam peak. Chinook here once grew as big as 100 pounds, and experts say they should reach that size again.”  (more…)

A federal judge will take another week to issue his decision on the latest court battle over California’s water. The surprise delay came after Judge Oliver Wanger trashed a National Marine Fisheries Service biological opinion that several species, including once-teeming and now-endangered Chinook salmon, must be protected by a sharp reduction in water diversions. (more…)