The Hydropower Reform Coalition and the National Park Service are proud to release " Flows and Recreation: A Guide to Studies for River Professionals."

A comprehensive settlement has been reached (hurrah!) on the Lewis River projects in Washington. The settlement will allow for improved and restored flows, and sets fish passage triggers that may open up as much as 174 miles of new habitat.

Read PacifiCorp's press release, or read on for the lead conservation group's statement on the settlement. Other signing organizations include Trout Unlimited and Native Fish Society.

A 2004 historic settlement agreement will allow fish to pass three enormous dams on the mainstem Deschutes for the first time in decades.

Co-signed by joint owners Portland General Electric and Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs and 20 other agencies and organizations, the settlement agreement restores flow, water quality and fish habitat through the project area.

Signatories included HRC members American Rivers, WaterWatch of Oregon, Oregon Trout, and Trout Unlimited.

The Cushman Project lies on the North Fork Skokomish River in Washington. On May 21, 1999, FERC issued an Order granting the City of Tacoma' s motion to stay implementation of the new Cushman license pending litigation, including the instream flow provisions. At that time, FERC instituted an interim flow requirement of only 60 cubic feet per second (“ cfs” ), well under the 240 cfs established in the new license. The 60 cfs is wholly inadequate to support a healthy riparian ecosystem and adversely impact fish spawning, rearing, and access to salmon and steelhead habitat.

The Coastal Conservation League and American Rivers appealed Georgia's water quality certification for the City of Augusta's operation on the Augusta Canal and Diversion Dam. Lack of terms and conditions for any stream flow to be maintained in the four-mile long Augusta Shoals, a stretch of river whose flow is diverted at the dam, served as the basis for January' s appeal.

The certification also did not include conditions to protect federally and state endangered species that occur in the shoals, nor did it require construction of a fish passage facility to allow migrating fish access to upstream waters.

In a recent decision issued by the US Court of Appeals, a judge decided that Snoqualmine Falls hydroelectric project does not interfere with a local tribe's religious freedom.