A column from IRU Executive Director Kevin Lewis.

A Puget Sound orca in late July brought the plight of endangered killer whales to the national and international spotlights when a grieving mother swam with her dead calf on her nose for a week or more. The tragedy was broadcast widely, but one of the underlying causes of the decline of Puget Sound killer whales—the decline of Columbia and Snake river salmon—was practically nonexistent in those stories.

Earl Dodds served as Big Creek District Ranger on the Payette National Forest for more than 25 years. He writes here about Midas Gold an the need for the communities of west central Idaho to push back.

Now in its fourth year, the Free the Snake Flotilla has become a popular fall event for people from around the Pacific Northwest. Join the Flotilla Sept. 7 and 8.

Midas Gold is advancing its work to make partners out of west central Idaho communities and has offered to create a trust in an apparent bid for political support. According to a McCall City Council agenda, Midas is focusing its efforts on McCall, Cascade, Council, Donnelly, New Meadows, Riggins and the village of Yellow Pine, as well as Adams, Idaho and Valley counties; and the West Central Mountains Community Partnership—basically every municipality in proposed mine’s direct area of impact.

Since early May IRU Conservation Associate Ava Isaacson has traveled to every corner of Idaho meeting with dozens of outfitters and hundreds of raft guides. The point of this far-reaching two months of intensive work is to teach the teachers, who collectively have the ability to reach thousands of people in the course of a summer season.

In an editorial published this morning, the Lewiston Tribune urged Idaho Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter not to tie the hands of Idaho's future elected leaders during the waning hours of his administration with regard to management to endangered salmon.

IRU and allied groups sent a letter earlier this month to Gov. Otter expressing that he should not sign away Idaho’s ability to argue on behalf of wild salmon.

New placer mining on the South Fork of the Payette River faced strong opposition from conservation interests during an administrative hearing June 6. “I do not accept that mining is the highest and best use on a Wild and Scenic river, or an eligible Wild and Scenic river,” said IRU Executive Director Kevin Lewis.

There’s trouble ahead for the Bonneville Power Administration, according to a report released this month. The report says the agency is faced with mounting fixed costs and an increasingly competitive free market—a combination that could lead to something sometimes referred to as an economic “death spiral.”

Every year upstream of Riggins a group of Idahoans gather at Spring Bar to welcome Idaho’s amazing wild salmon home. It’s a small gesture for a species on the brink of extinction, but a spiritual tradition that keeps hope alive for Idaho’s imperiled fish.

Episode 3 of IRU's podcast, Streamline, digs deeper into the dollars and cents of the lower Snake Rive dams. Economist Tony Jones, featured in the podcast, has been studying the lower Snake dams for decades and has come to the conclusion that they simply aren't needed, and in fact constitute an unnecessary strain on public coffers.