Columbia Insight

09/03/2026

In 2021, the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation began reintroducing Canada lynx to northeastern Washington. Such programs take time to develop and assess. So, how has the lynx effort been progressing? Here’s the uplifting update:

Five years ago, the Colville Tribes began releasing lynx into the wild. Here’s what’s happened since Forward progress: Lynx recovery isn't out of the

09/02/2026

How do you get a child excited about the life cycle of a salmon?

The National Museum of Wildlife Art (NMWA) in Jackson, Wyo., has awarded author Annie Chen its 2026 Bull-Bransom Award for her mesmerizing coho illustrations.

Read story at ColumbiaInsight.org

The honor from the National Museum of Wildlife Art caught the artist by surprise but the work is sublime Salmon won: Annie Chen's award-winning illustrations blend fantastical

09/01/2026

Forest Service chief outlines agency’s largest reorganization in a century.

Funding for USFS set to fall by 24% in fiscal year 2027. “Morale is horrendous” says a retired forest supervisor.

Funding for USFS set to fall by 24% in fiscal year 2027. "Morale is horrendous" says a retired forest supervisor We need to talk: Forest Service

08/29/2026

The Blue Mountains include some of the most cherished wildlands in the Pacific Northwest—Wallowa Mountains, Hells Canyon and John Day River among them—revered by everyone from hikers to hunters.

“The Blue Mountains of NE Oregon and SE Washington [are] one of the best kept secrets in the elk hunting world,” touts one hunting-guide broker that promises “HUGE” bulls to its clients. “We are producing some 350-385” class bull elk last few years. Most of these hunts take place on National Forest.”

If you don’t understand the jargon, that “350-385” number translates pretty simply to “world-class trophy animal.”

Few expansive landscapes in America remain as unspoiled as the Blue Mountains.

Now, however, the U.S. Forest Service wants to cut down a significant portion of the area’s forests, including old-growth.

Earlier this month, the agency released a draft environmental impact statement and revisions to land management plans for the Blue Mountains in northeastern Oregon and southeastern Washington.

The plan opens up nearly 5 million acres of national forests to increased logging, including in the Malheur, Wallowa-Whitman and Umatilla national forests.

“The Trump administration is already taking a hatchet to protections for water, wildlife and the public’s voice,” says Lauren Anderson, climate forests campaign manager for Oregon Wild. “This plan is that philosophy in action, putting at risk the very values that make the Blue Mountains special.”

A stated aim of the proposed plan is to increase timber-sale goals from 106 million board feet to 364 million board feet over the next 10 years.

The plan would eliminate policies that protect Blue Mountain habitats, such as the roadless rule, the 21-inch rule and guidelines protecting native fish.

Read full story: https://columbiainsight.org/fed-scheme-to-monetize-one-of-wildest-places-left-in-us-revs-up/

08/28/2026

Once a dominant habitat in the Willamette Valley, a floodplain forest along I-5 is making a comeback.

Luckiamute State Natural Area, an Oregon state park located on the west side of the Luckiamute River just upstream of its confluence with the Willamette and Santiam rivers, is mostly empty. Ravens croak overhead. The sun shines brightly, and though it isn’t too hot yet, it’s humid.

Aubrey Siddiqui-Cloud, restoration program director at the Luckiamute Watershed Council, moves along comfortably in long pants, long sleeves and a hat.

“This site is really exciting for a lot of different reasons,” says Siddiqui-Cloud. “It’s really hydrodynamic.”

The park typically gets lots of public use this time of year, though it’s not actually managed for recreation. It’s managed for wildlife.

Read full story at ColumbiaInsight.org



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08/27/2026

Are we ready for an underwater power line in the Columbia River?

Permitting for the Cascade Renewable Transmission Project has hit a snag. Developers say it’s a minor hitch.

By John Harrison. March 27, 2025:
Imagine a six-inch-thick, high-voltage electricity transmission line running underwater on the bottom of the Columbia River, from just east of The Dalles, Ore., to Portland. The line carries mostly wind and solar power from eastern Washington and Oregon, Idaho and Montana, the windiest, sunniest places in the Pacific Northwest.

Now ask yourself, really? Could it be done? Is it necessary?

The answer to each of these questions is yes, yes and depends on your perspective.

As wild as it seems, a (mostly) underwater power transmission line beneath the Columbia River could help lower overall electricity prices, preserve tens of thousands of acres from the visual despoilment of wind turbines and solar panels and provide a needed boost to the region’s electricity transmission supply.

Why do it? Because the Columbia River Basin doesn’t have the capacity to transmit the oncoming avalanche of electricity demand needed to power data centers and high-tech businesses, while also meeting carbon-free power requirements enshrined in law in Oregon and Washington.

To address the problem, a pair of companies proposed the underwater cable back in 2020. Called the Cascade Renewable Transmission Project, it promises to deliver renewable energy to densely developed areas west of the Cascade Range.

The companies making the proposal are Sun2o Partners, a renewable resource developer based in Connecticut and New York; and PowerBridge, a developer of high-voltage transmission based in Connecticut.

“The only places you can site solar and wind at scale are, for the most part, east of the Cascades. But the demand, the need for the electricity, is in Portland and Seattle, on the west side,” Corey Kupersmith, the New York-based renewable energy developer who cofounded Sun2o and dreamed up the cable scheme, told the Associated Press in 2021.

Read full story at ColumbiaInsight.org

Permitting for the Cascade Renewable Transmission Project has hit a snag. Developers say it’s a minor hitch High-powered waterway: The Columbia River, seen

08/26/2026

Hanford advisory board to be gutted, reshaped by longtime real estate developer.

The federal government will restructure oversight of the country’s most polluted place under an inexperienced appointee.

The Department of Energy stunned the Hanford Advisory Board on Aug. 12 with an announcement that it will shrink the board and replace its members with choices handpicked in Washington, D.C.

Although the change has been discussed for months within the Energy Department, the board first learned of the move when DOE Hanford Manager Ray Geimer announced the decision at the board’s Aug. 12 meeting in Richland, Wash.

Geimer explained the restructuring as part of a general overhaul of site-specific advisory boards across the DOE.

The Hanford nuclear site is located on the Columbia River near Richland in eastern Washington. After decades of nuclear weapons production, Hanford is often described as the most contaminated place in the Western Hemisphere. It is also the world’s largest environmental cleanup project.

Since its creation in 1994, the HAB has had 32 seats. Its members represent a wide spectrum of Pacific Northwest interest groups, including local governments, Tribes, labor organizations, local economic interests, environmental groups, Physicians For Social Responsibility, the University of Washington, the Oregon Department of Energy and others.

According to the DOE, “the Hanford Advisory Board was created to inform and involve stakeholders and the public more directly in Hanford Site cleanup decisions.”

Members have worked toward consensus to provide advice to the DOE, Environmental Protection Agency and Washington Department of Ecology. The constituencies pick their own members, which are approved by DOE.

The newly arranged board will provide advice solely to DOE.

Read full story at ColumbiaInsight.org

The federal government will restructure oversight of the country’s most polluted place under an inexperienced appointee

08/26/2026

The Department of Energy stunned the Hanford Advisory Board on Aug. 12 with an announcement that it will shrink the board and replace its members with choices handpicked in Washington, D.C.

Although the change has been discussed for months within the Energy Department, the board first learned of the move when DOE Hanford Manager Ray Geimer announced the decision at the board’s Aug. 12 meeting in Richland, Wash.

Geimer explained the restructuring as part of a general overhaul of site-specific advisory boards across the DOE.

The Hanford nuclear site is located on the Columbia River near Richland in eastern Washington. After decades of nuclear weapons production, Hanford is often described as the most contaminated place in the Western Hemisphere. It is also the world’s largest environmental cleanup project.

Since its creation in 1994, the HAB has had 32 seats. Its members represent a wide spectrum of Pacific Northwest interest groups, including local governments, Tribes, labor organizations, local economic interests, environmental groups, Physicians For Social Responsibility, the University of Washington, the Oregon Department of Energy and others.

According to the DOE, “the Hanford Advisory Board was created to inform and involve stakeholders and the public more directly in Hanford Site cleanup decisions.”

Members have worked toward consensus to provide advice to the DOE, Environmental Protection Agency and Washington Department of Ecology. The constituencies pick their own members, which are approved by DOE.

The newly arranged board will provide advice solely to DOE.

Read full story at ColumbiaInsight.org

08/21/2026

If you’re in the Gorge tonight why not go “The Year to Save the Earth: A Multimedia Experience by Jim Scott”?
Formerly of the Paul Winter Consort, Scott was composer of their celebrated Missa Gaia/Earth Mass and has sung with John Denver, Tracy Chapman and Joni Mitchell. His friend and mentor Pete Seeger called him “some kind of a magician.” Tonight’s event (August 21) 7-9 p.m. is at Rockford Grange, 4262 Barrett Dr. Hood River, Oregon.

“The World Needs Your Voice” is one of many songs that make this the right time to come together to express our love, our grief, our rage, and our vision. We’re gathering to meet each other, to sing together, to support our steadfast local organizers and to inspire more people to get involved....

08/20/2026

Did you hear about the dramatic osprey rescue? This is a case of lead poisoning and here’s the story and an update.

At about 7:15 am on Wednesday, Aug. 5, Angela Alberg was driving south on the Hood River-White Salmon Interstate Bridge over the Columbia River when she noticed the vehicles ahead of her swerving around an obstacle.

“I got to it and saw it was this huge bird—wings flapping, mouth open, freaked out,” she says.

After making sure there were no vehicles immediately behind her, Alberg stopped, turned on her hazard lights and grabbed a leopard-print beach towel from her back seat.

Alberg, who is the clinic manager at Indian Creek Family Eye Care in Hood River, Ore., was dressed for a day at the office, and had to tiptoe across the bridge’s grated deck to keep her high heels from slipping into the gaps.

She bundled up the “super weak and scared” bird and transported it to the Hood River Marina. There, she settled the bird on a patch of grass and contacted Mountain Top Wildlife in White Salmon, Wash. The clinic provides medical care and rehabilitation services for sick, injured and orphaned wildlife.

When Mountain Top veterinarian David Stauffacher arrived about two hours later, he found Alberg keeping watch over a young osprey between 50 and 55 days old. Ospreys mature quickly, and the bird was already adult-sized, with a full set of flight feathers and a five-foot wingspan. (Since the s*x of juvenile ospreys can’t be reliably determined, it’s not known whether the bird is male or female.)

Stauffacher and Mountain Top Founder and Wildlife Rehabilitator Ash Harris examined the bird at Mountain Top’s small intensive-care unit. Blood tests indicated elevated lead levels, and an X-ray showed what appeared to be small metallic fragments in its digestive tract. They surmised that the bird was suffering from acute lead poisoning, likely from ingesting lead fishing weights.

The weakness Alberg observed when she encountered the osprey is an early symptom of lead poisoning, and probably caused the bird to fall from its nest above the bridge’s lift span. Without treatment, lead-poisoned birds rapidly lose strength and coordination and can die within days.

Stauffacher and Harris started chelation therapy, administering two medications that bind to lead in the bloodstream and convert it into a form that can be excreted in urine.

While the treatment progressed well, “ospreys are not the easiest patient in wildlife,” says Stauffacher.

Like most ospreys held in captivity, the bird at Mountain Top refused food, requiring it to be tube-fed. As it recovered strength, it also began to test the limits of its six-foot-by-six-foot enclosure, risking broken feathers or bones.

Read full story at ColumbiaInsight.org

When an osprey tumbled from its nest above the Columbia River, a witness sprung into action Wrapped her: Actually, the s*x of