Fish face a ‘triple threat’ in the Columbia River: Rising temperatures, stagnant water and toxic algae
||| FROM THE COLUMBIAN |||
Environmental group Save Our Wild Salmon released its first Columbia River Hot Water Report of the year Wednesday, as water temperatures throughout the basin this year have already surpassed the key 68-degree threshold for salmon health.
The report compiles water-temperature data with a summary of research to highlight the challenges that endangered salmon and steelhead face throughout the Columbia Basin. Its first installment this year comes as Washington is in drought, the already-low snowpack is quickly melting and once-rare toxic algae blooms have already started up for the season.
“The initial signs are another year, like previous years, where we’re going to have extended hot-water episodes in the reservoirs that have been created by the lower Columbia and the Lower Snake River dams,” said Joseph Bogaard, executive director of the group.
Bogaard has been in the role for about a dozen years and at the organization for about three decades. During that time, he’s seen the problem of increasingly warm water worsen.
“Salmon and steelhead and other native fishes in the Columbia Basin today are facing a sort of triple threat that is heat, stagnant waters and toxic algal blooms,” he said.
But the issue is much older than the 10-year-old Hot Water Report. The Great River of the West warmed about 4 degrees between 1853 and 2018, a 2023 study found. The research also noted that the number of days when water temperatures surpassed 68 degrees increased about 12-fold to 60 each year.
That 68-degree threshold is crucial for salmon survival, said Doug Hatch, a scientist who has worked at the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fishing Commission for 35 years. He was not involved in the report.
“The basic thing to remember is that they’re coldwater fish, salmon,” he said. “If it’s below 68 degrees, it’s not optimal — something closer to 50 degrees would be optimal temperature — but they can survive up to maybe about 72.”
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