Heat, wildfire, invasive species, power-hungry corporations. The Pac NW kept getting more of everything
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By Chuck Thompson. December 19, 2024. In April, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission denied petitions and opposition from environmentalists, the governors of Oregon and Washington and the states’ U.S. senators and attorneys general and green lit plans by Canadian company TC Energy to expand a 1,400-mile gas pipeline through Idaho, Washington, Oregon and northern California.
In October, federal and state officials announced they were seeking information connected to the illegal killing of two endangered gray wolves in Washington.
In July, Columbia Insight published a lengthy investigation into complaints that the Pelton Round Butte Hydroelectric complex near Madras, Ore., operated by PGE, is degrading water quality and fisheries in the river. In December, the fledgling Oregon Journalism Project launched its operation with the same story.
Important events, no doubt, but each was edged out by 10 others on our annual list of the year’s biggest environmental stories.
Photo: Ania Tusel Photography/Flickr
In March, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Park Service proposed relocating three to seven bears to the northern Cascade Range annually until an initial population of 25 grizzly bears is established. The long-term goal is to have 200 bears living in a 9,800-square-mile grizzly bear recovery zone in the next 60 to 100 years. The proposal doesn’t amount to a final decision, but, after three decades of study and public debate, advocates and opponents seemed to take the announcement as indication of a done deal.
Photo: AP Photo/Jenny Kane
Portland endured its hottest July on record—factoring both daily highs and lows the average monthly temperature at Portland International Airport was 74.4 degrees. Even low temps stayed high, more often than not remaining in the 60s overnight. The July heat wave was cited as a factor in at least 17 deaths statewide.
Photo: IDFW
In April, in the midst of their ongoing battle against invasive quagga mussels, fish managers and tribal biologists across Idaho, Washington, Oregon joined federal agencies to fight the invasion of nonnative walleye. The beloved game fish of the Midwest, walleye have been in the Columbia River system since the 1940s and reached Snake in the 1990s. Now the fish are moving into upstream anadromous rearing habitat. “That’s when it starts getting really concerning,” said Marika Dobos of the Idaho Department of Fish and Game. Fish biologists are worried the walleye could undo decades of progress made on rebuilding salmon and steelhead populations in the Snake River.
Photo: U.S. Dept. of State
After six years and 19 rounds of largely closed-door negotiations, the United States and Canada announced in July that an agreement to update the 60-year-old Columbia River Treaty had finally been struck. The update will see a 50% reduction in power the United States sends to Canada by 2033. The United States will have access to “reservoir storage space” behind Canadian treaty dams for flood management, but will fork over roughly $37 million over the next 20 years. Critics called the updates “business as usual.” The treaty does not reflect tribal interests, nor the needs of the river or its fish, said the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission. Stakeholders are concerned the U.S. Senate and incoming Trump administration won’t ratify the treaty.
Photo: NOAA
The Fish Passage Center at Bonneville Dam on the Columbia River recorded 755,909 sockeye over the dam in 2024, obliterating the 10-year average return of 329,570. Experts credited careful dam management and improved ocean conditions. “Implementation of a fish water management tool since 2014 has been key in turning this run of salmon around from near extinction in 1994 to one of the strongest in the Columbia Basin—despite crossing nine dams,” reported The Seattle Times.
In November, fish biologists recorded the highest number of adult steelhead trout to return to Oregon’s Deschutes River since the 1960s. After a spate of poor press, Portland General Electric and the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs (partners in the maligned Pelton Round Butte Hydroelectric Project on the river) celebrated a count of more than 250 adult steelhead swimming through the Deschutes.
Photo: Washington DOE
In March, the EPA added the Upper Columbia River Site in northeast Washington to the list of hazardous waste sites in the United States eligible for cleanup under the federal Superfund Program. “The agency has determined that soils contaminated with lead and arsenic pose unacceptable risk to residents at affected properties, particularly to children,” said the EPA. Canadian mining company Teck Cominco Metals dumped almost 10 million tons of toxic slag into the Columbia River over a period of 90 years, contaminating portions 150 miles upstream of Grand Coulee Dam, including the Lake Roosevelt National Recreation Area.
Photo: Jurgen Hess
Wildfires once again devastated landscapes, forced evacuations, closed highways and led to fatalities across the Pacific Northwest. No state was harder hit in 2024 than Oregon, which endured a record-breaking fire year, with more than 1.9 million acres burned statewide. The most acres burned before 2024 was in 2012, when 1.2 million acres were scorched. On average, 620,000 acres have burned each year this decade. “It started early, and it’s kept a steady pace since then,” Oregon Department of Forestry spokesperson Jessica Neujahr said in September.
Photo: Michael-Wier/Klamath River Renewal/Cal Trout
In October, the last lower Klamath hydroelectric dam was fully removed, opening 420 miles of the Klamath River and its tributaries in Oregon and California. A tribal-led movement, the largest dam-removal project in history destroyed four dams built between 1918 and 1964 to provide electricity but that had disastrous effects on tribal communities and salmon populations.
Photo: National Archives
From ratification of the new Columbia River Treaty to EV rebates to fish habitat protections, the future of endless conservation issues in the Pacific Northwest and around the country were cast into doubt in November when Donald Trump became President-elect Trump and Republicans gained control of the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate. Local and statewide conservation ballot measures were approved by voters in the Pacific Northwest, but for conservationists, Trump’s history of favoring industry, commercialization and development over conservation, and his statements calling climate change “a hoax,” cast an ominous shadow over the future of environmental preservation.
Photo: Google
Operated by large tech firms, such as Amazon, Apple, Google and Meta, data centers are on the march throughout the Pacific Northwest and consuming electricity at astounding rates. A Seattle Times/ProPublica series reported “the data center industry’s demand for electricity is growing so much that it could threaten Washington’s efforts to transition to a carbon-free power grid.”
The voracious appetite of data centers could push the region’s power grid to its limits leading to rolling blackouts, according to a July forecast from the Northwest Power and Conservation Council. “The Pacific Northwest has seen its data center market grow rapidly in recent years as more hyperscale facilities are built to meet soaring demand. The region’s relatively cool climate and large amounts of available hydropower, make it a popular location for operators,” reported London-based Data Centre Dynamics.
In November, as reported by Columbia Insight, Amazon announced an agreement with Energy Northwest, a consortium of 29 utilities in Washington, to build four small nuclear reactors at the Columbia Generating Station in Richland, Wash., to power data centers in eastern Oregon.
In December, The Oregonian reported the tech sector “will take all the electricity it can get its hands on” and warned of “severe consequences if the region doesn’t respond in time,” adding that data center demand is “soaring because of artificial intelligence, which uses massive amounts of electricity for advanced computation.”
According to data center researcher Baxtel, The Pacific Northwest Data Center Market has 237 data centers, operated by 74 providers. More are on the way.
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