NOAA Awards over $6 Million to Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife

NOAA AWARDS OVER $6 MILLION TO OREGON
DEPARTMENT OF FISH AND WILDLIFE

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is awarding three grants totaling more than $6.02 million to the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. NOAA is an agency of the Commerce Department.

Two grants, the first totaling $1.7 million and the second totaling $3.9 million will support the Columbia River Fisheries Development Program. The $1.7 million grant will fund a project providing protection for rearing and migrating juvenile salmon through the construction, as well as the operation and maintenance of screens on irrigation diversions within Oregon. Additionally, this project funds the operation and maintenance of fishways and fish ladders, which allow the passage of adult salmon and steelhead over previously impassable water falls or other obstructions to migration.

The $3.9 million grant will provide funding for the continued operation and management of six hatcheries and assorted rearing and acclimation ponds in the Columbia River Basin that are operated by the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. These hatcheries release approximately twenty-three million salmon and steelhead into the Basin annually.

“NOAA and the Bush Administration are working to improve the understanding of our environment and to strengthen local and regional initiatives, such as the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife’s Columbia River Fisheries Development Program,” said retired Navy Vice Adm. Conrad C. Lautenbacher, Ph.D., undersecretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere and NOAA administrator. “These grants to the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife help advance knowledge critical to efforts in Oregon to manage and protect important fisheries.”

The final grant, totaling $416,488, will support the Anadromous Fish Conservation Act Program. The funds will be used in efforts to provide harvest, stock identification and stock assessment data needed for management of Pacific salmon stocks. Among the activities supported under this award are: catch sampling, harvest monitoring, tagging juvenile salmon, recovery of fish tags and stock identification.

Each year, NOAA awards approximately $900 million in grants to members of the academic, scientific and business communities to assist the agency in fulfilling its mission to study the Earth’s natural systems in order to predict environmental change, manage ocean resources, protect life and property and provide decision makers with reliable scientific information. NOAA goals and programs reflect a commitment to these basic responsibilities of science and service to the nation for the past 33 years.

The Commerce Department’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is dedicated to enhancing economic security and national safety through the prediction and research of weather and climate-related events and providing environmental stewardship of our nation’s coastal and marine resources. To learn more about NOAA, please visit http://www.noaa.gov.