Analysis by BPA of an emergency action to address the threatened extinction of the Snake River sockeye salmon
Office of NEPA Policy and Compliance
May 8, 1991
minute read time
While U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, with DOE’s Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) as a cooperating agency, was preparing 1992 Columbia River Salmon Flow Measures Options Analysis/EIS (DOE/EIS-0163), BPA conducted an emergency action to address the threatened extinction of the Snake River sockeye salmon. BPA consulted with the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) and prepared a special environmental assessment for a proposal from the Idaho Fish and Game Department and the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes to collect smolts migrating from Redfish Lake in the Salmon River Basin in Idaho. The smolts would be taken to the Idaho Fish and Game Department laboratory near Eagle, Idaho, where they would be cultured to maturity and spawned. The resulting sockeye offspring would be returned to Redfish Lake for imprinting and transportation to the Pacific Ocean.