Judge denies feds’ attempt to dismiss revived lawsuit over Columbia Basin salmon protections

PORTLAND, Ore. (CN) — A federal judge Thursday declined to dismiss a lawsuit over the conditions of endangered steelhead and salmon in the Columbia Basin, handing conservation groups, tribes and the states of Washington and Oregon a win in a quarter-century-old case.

In his 28-page ruling, U.S. District Judge Michael Simon rejected both of the defendants’ arguments that the court lacks jurisdiction to hear the case and that the plaintiffs’ claims are caught between two jurisdictional statutes.

“Neither argument is persuasive,” the Barack Obama appointee said.

The judge called out the defendants’ new reasoning, especially, as he said, it appeared that the case was heading to final resolution just a few years ago.

“Defendants argue — for the first time — that, after 25 years and all the effort that has been expended, this court lacks subject matter jurisdiction. For the reasons explained below, the court denies that motion,” he said.

In a statement to Courthouse News, Charisa Gowen-Takahashi of Earthjustice, an attorney for the plaintiffs, lauded the court’s ruling.

“After 25 years of litigation seeking to protect desperately imperiled salmon, the Army Corps of Engineers sought to dismiss this case based on an argument about Bonneville Power Administration’s jurisdiction, an agency that’s not even in the case. The court got it right,” she said.

Representatives for the defendants did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The lawsuit over fish conditions began in 2001 and had reached an agreement until the Trump administration in June abruptly withdrew from the Biden-era 2023 Resilient Columbia Basin Agreement, which promised to spend $1 billion to protect endangered steelhead and salmon.

The agreement was the result of a deal struck with Oregon, Washington, the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation, the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, the Nez Perce Tribe, the Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs Reservation of Oregon and the National Wildlife Federation, after they had proposed the Columbia Basin Restoration Initiative.

Under the agreement, the government committed to immediate measures to protect salmon, along with a decade-long plan to manage hydropower operations while meeting rising energy needs.

The agreement followed decades of litigation and prompted the plaintiffs to ask the court to pause proceedings. However, President Donald Trump directed federal agencies to withdraw from the agreement in an executive order titled “Stopping Radical Environmentalism to Generate Power for the Columbia River Basin.”

Trump accused the agreement of placing too much value on the treatment of fish and concerns about climate change over the “nation’s interests in reliable energy resources and the needs of American citizens.”

Simon lifted the stay in September, and the coalition of plaintiffs argued for stopgap measures to mitigate the extinction risk to endangered fish.

The judge partially granted the plaintiffs’ request for a preliminary injunction in February, finding that the plaintiffs were likely to succeed on their challenge to a 2020 biological opinion completed during Trump’s first term that concluded the Federal Columbia River Power System was unlikely to jeopardize salmon.

The judge also ruled the plaintiffs were likely to be harmed without court intervention and noted that the defendants’ proposed action is largely a continuation of previous Federal Columbia River Power System operations found to be violating environmental law.

The dam operations, as acknowledged by the federal defendants in the 2020 biological opinion, will kill a substantial amount of the 14 endangered and threatened populations of salmonids at issue in the case.

“For some populations, the rate of slaughter is likely to be so high as to result in generational decline,” he wrote.

Simon ordered the federal defendants to use the lower 2025 operating reservoir levels and increase the spill — which helps juvenile fish pass over the dam rather than through turbines.

However, he declined to order the defendants to undertake specific dam infrastructure repair and maintenance projects and declined to impose additional conservation measures requested by the coalition.

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