December 7, 2023 — Following two years of extensive research, analysis, and outreach, the Eugene Water and Electric Board’s (EWEB) General Manager and staff presented a recommendation to decommission and remove the Leaburg Hydroelectric Project and Dam at the December 6 Board of Commissioners meeting. In agreement with the recommendation, the Board directed EWEB staff to convert the recommendation to an action item for the Board to vote to approve early next year.
April 14, 2018 — A milestone for aquatic health was achieved today when the Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission unanimously ordered the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife to initiate a rulemaking process that would require individual permits for suction dredge mining in the state.
July 3, 2017 — On July 3 during a work session in Salem, the Capital Construction Subcommittee of the Joint Ways and Means Committee unanimously advanced $100 million in state bonding revenue to protect the 82,500-Elliott State Forest and keep it from being privatized. The vote followed a May 9 State Land Board meeting, where Governor Kate Brown, Treasurer Tobias Read, and Secretary of State Dennis Richardson voted 3-0 to keep the Elliott in public ownership through the use of state bonding capacity and the development of a Habitat Conservation Plan for the Coast Range forest. The full Ways and Means Committee is expected to pass the bill any day.
May 31, 2017 — The Oregon House passed legislation today in a show of bipartisan support to protect sensitive salmon and lamprey habitat from suction dredge mining. The Suction Dredge Reform bill (SB 3-A) takes a measured approach to protecting the most sensitive rivers and streams from the impacts of suction dredge mining, while still allowing suction dredges in areas where they do less harm.
April 10, 2017 — The Oregon Senate passed legislation today to protect sensitive salmon and lamprey habitat from suction dredge mining. The Suction Dredge Reform bill (SB 3-A Engrossed) balances the cultural heritage of mining in Oregon with impacts to native fish and clean water. The bill stops mining in sensitive habitat, but allows it to continue elsewhere under a permit system.
February 13, 2017 — Just days before the quarterly meeting of the State Land Board, Governor Brown released a framework for her plan for the Elliott State Forest. Though not an action item on the agenda for the Tuesday, February 14, 2017 Land Board meeting, the Board is set to hear an update on the potential sale of the forest from the Department of State Lands. The DSL staff report on the issue again asks the Board for direction on whether and how to proceed with privatizing the Elliott State Forest as described in a proposal submitted by Lone Rock Timber in December 2016.
January 10, 2017 — Conservation groups filed a notice of intent today to sue the state of Washington for allowing highly destructive suction dredge mining in rivers and streams critical to endangered salmon and steelhead. The Washington Department of Wildlife approves the harmful recreational gold-mining technique in rivers throughout the state that are home to numerous imperiled fish species. Conservation and fisheries groups have also introduced bills in the state legislature to better monitor and regulate suction dredge mining.
March 31, 2016 — A broad coalition of environmental, consumer, and commercial and recreational fishing organizations today sued the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for approving the first-ever genetically engineered (GE) food animal, an Atlantic salmon engineered to grow quickly. The man-made salmon was created by AquaBounty Technologies, Inc. with DNA from three fish: Atlantic salmon, Pacific king salmon, and Arctic ocean eelpout. This marks the first time any government in the world has approved a GE animal for commercial sale and consumption.
November 20, 2015 — To defend an Oregon law designed to protect wildlife from damaging gold mining along waterways, a broad coalition of groups moved to intervene today in a lawsuit by mining interests challenging the restrictions. Passed by the Oregon Legislature in 2013, Senate Bill 838 placed restrictions on gold mining using suction dredges and other motorized equipment along streams to prevent harmful impacts to salmon and develop a permitting process to better protect Oregon’s waterways. Miners are now alleging that the state law conflicts with federal laws passed in the 1800s to encourage westward expansion.
June 12, 2015 — A logging industry lawsuit that sought to force the Bureau of Land Management to increase logging on public lands in southwest Oregon was thrown out today by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. The ruling vacates a 2013 decision that would have forced the Bureau of Land Management to sell timber even when those sales would have harmed salmon and had detrimental impacts on water quality and recreation.
