Tippets: Florida Bay Collapse, Saving New Zealand’s Rivers, Dismantling Dams, NOAA Hatchery Plan, Johnson Creek Restoration

April 13, 2016 By: Erin Block

  • Florida Bay is in danger due to hypersalinity and loss of seagrass. “Florida Bay is on the knife’s edge” of collapse, said Everglades Foundation wetland ecologist Stephen Davis at a Monday awareness event held in Islamorada. Via Keys Info Net.
  • Rebecca Macfie profiles ecologist Mike Joy and his work to save freshwater streams and rivers of New Zealand. “We’ve squandered our environmental riches,” writes Macfie, “and ended up with a pattern of degradation that places an inequitable burden on the poorest communities.” Read more via The New Zealand Listener.
  • The Obama administration and the state of California have reached a landmark agreement to tear down four hydroelectric dams on the Klamath River, bypassing Congress to restore a major salmon fishery on the Oregon border. Read more via SF Gate.
  • NOAA Fisheries has released its final Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) on the proposed hatchery and genetic management plans for winter steelhead hatchery programs in Puget Sound in Washington State. Read a summary of the EIS here. Via NOAA Fisheries West Coast Region.
  • A recent restoration project on Johnson Creek in Portland, Oregon planted native trees and shrubs along the streambank.  It will “increase native plant diversity, and enhance water quality by filtering pollutants and assisting with erosion control.”  Johnson Creek is the only salmon-bearing stream that runs through the city. Read more from Neva Knott on Ecotone Exchange.