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Pulling back the curtains on wage-theft enforcement in MN; Trump's latest attack is on RFK, Jr; NM LGBTQ+ equality group endorses 2024 'Rock Star' candidates; Michigan's youth justice reforms: Expanded diversion, no fees.

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Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg says rebuilding Baltimore's Key Bridge will be challenging and expensive. An Alabama Democrat flips a state legislature seat and former Connecticut senator Joe Lieberman dies at 82.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

Science Board to Feds: Send Northwest Salmon Over the Dams

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Monday, April 12, 2010   

PORTLAND, Ore. - Fisheries scientists say Northwest salmon and steelhead need to take a big spill for their own good. The Independent Scientific Advisory Board of the Northwest Power and Conservation Council issued that advice to the Obama administration over the weekend. Continuing to spill water over dams on the Snake and Columbia rivers is the best way to give immature salmon and steelhead, called smolts, a fighting chance at making it to the Pacific, they said.

Douglas DeHart is a former chief of fisheries for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. He says spill makes more sense than other strategies, like trucking the fish around dams.

"Consistently, we've seen the very best survival among fish that migrate downstream in the river on their own."

Glen Spain with the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations says concerns about the impact of spill on water levels and electrical power generation do not add up because even in a low-water year there is plenty of flow at this time of year due to snowmelt. And, he adds, there is actually a small surplus of power in the region right now.

"We need to use some of that water for the fish. Counting water in the river against the fish is not good politics, it's not good economics and it's not good science."

The federal government has proposed stopping spill next month, citing concerns about low water levels, but DeHart calls spill an especially important tool for salmon survival during a low-flow water year, which will make it tougher than normal for the young fish to reach the Pacific Ocean.





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