The problem with wind power—one of them, anyway—lies in the phrase “fickle as the wind.” Ocean tides, by comparison, are a paragon of reliability. They come and go twice a day, like clockwork. Seasonally, they’re strongest at the solstices in June and December and weakest at the equinoxes in March and September.

That predictability is a big part of the appeal of generating electricity from underwater turbines. Tidal turbines also work out-of-sight, avoiding the sort of conflicts over aesthetics that have tangled up wind farm projects.

I spent a morning recently with researchers who hope to see two donut-shaped turbines lowered into Puget Sound in a pilot program run by the Northwest National Marine Renewable Energy Center, a partnership between the University of Washington and Oregon State University. If the pilot succeeds, a local utility district envisions dozens of turbines lining the sea bed in the future.

Such a full-scale deployment is a long way off, as tidal power is still in its infancy in almost every respect. There are just five or so test sites worldwide, the technology is largely unproven, environmental concerns must be settled, and it receives a minute fraction of the research funding other renewable sources receive.

“I would say that tidal power is in a state where wind was 20 years ago,” said Brian Polagye, a mechanical engineering professor at the University of Washington and a lead researcher of the Puget Sound project. “However, because tidal power leverages much of what we've learned from wind power (for the actual devices and drive trains) and offshore oil and gas (for the foundations), I would expect that tidal power will be on a steeper development curb.”

Polagye, geeky in a thoroughly endearing way, spoke with naked enthusiasm about the project out on the water last week during a tour of the test site. His research team faces lots of questions—technological, environmental, and economic. But field tests begun this spring have yielded some encouraging early results. The seafloor current turned out to be several knots  faster than earlier estimates, for example.

Because much of this is easier explained with pictures, the rest of the story is in a slideshow:

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Fair, Ambitious & Binding: Essentials for a Successful Climate Deal

Since 1970, Americans have set aside April 22 to celebrate the wonders of the big blue-green globe we call Earth -- and to renew our resolve to protect it for our children and grandchildren.

On this Earth Day, I want to remind us all that there is no more time to waste.

The respected writer Thomas Freidman has a warning call to signal the importance of what we must do to save and protect our world and our incredibly beautiful state.

He calls it Code Green -- a call to arms if you will -- to reverse climate change, to make our world safer, and to create a green 21st century economy -- all by reducing our use of fossil fuels.

And I firmly believe Washington State -- where innovation is part of our very DNA -- will lead the way and serve as a model for the country.

A green economy is not just a politically correct slogan for a bumper sticker. Neither our environment nor our economy can survive if we continue to depend so heavily on oil. It's as simple as that. Oil is too expensive, too volatile, and the rest of the world's growing populations are too happy to use it as much as we do. So why do we keep forgetting this simple reality?

I'm happy to report that Washington innovators understand Code Green, and they are answering the call of a generation.

First, our innovators are working on using the energy we already have in smarter ways. Second, government and the private sector are developing and creating economies-of-scale for a diverse menu of alternatives from wind power to solar to biofuels.

In short, it's about harnessing our innovators and our technology to squeeze out every last clean electron we can to reduce our reliance on oil and save money. And we, with our incredible culture of innovation, can lead the world!

Washington State is the fifth largest producer of wind power and we're working on ways to store it. We're building solar-power components, and making real breakthroughs in bio-energy. And I'm talking with the governors of Oregon and California to create the first green freeway in the United States from the Canadian to Mexican borders.

We envision Interstate 5 with a network of rest stops where -- as President Obama said when he looked at the idea -- motorists would get more than a cup of coffee and bathroom break.

And this brings me to an important piece of a green economy -- the role of government. We can and must help create markets for alternative-energy development. It's all about infrastructure and incentives to give our innovators a reason to innovate. And it's all about 21st century jobs for us and our children.

A carbon cap-and-trade system is already in place in Europe and some eastern states, and awaits action by the U.S. Congress. I want Washington to get out in front on this! We need to make sure our assets -- like agriculture and forestry -- get the credit they are due; that companies who have already stepped up to the challenge get the credit; that Congress delivers a program that is informed by our expertise so that it works for us.

When nearly $5 gas helped bring this country to its knees last year, I couldn't help but reflect on how many times I'd seen this Grade B movie before -- way back in the '70s! Back in the '80s!

We've been living on borrowed time long enough. It's time for Code Green.

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Pacific Northwest ocean dead zone getting larger

Researchers believe global warming is behind a recurring low-oxygen "dead zone" in the Pacific Northwest ocean. Triggered by north winds, a process called upwelling encourages the growth of phytoplankton blooms; when the water calms, the phytoplankton die for lack of nutrients, sink to the bottom, and rot, using up oxygen in the water. Another round of upwelling then brings the low-oxygen water toward shore, killing fishies and crabs that aren't quick enough to escape. "We are seeing wild swings from year to year in the timing and duration of the winds that are favorable for upwelling," says marine specialist Jane Lubchenco. "This increased variability in the winds is consistent with what we would expect under climate change." Not to be outdone, an agricultural-runoff-caused dead zone off the Louisiana coast is likely to be 40 percent larger than average this year, or about 6,700 square miles. Soon we'll be looking around in vain for the live zones.

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Judge halts more than 140 Northwest timber sales to protect rare species

U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman has reinstated the "look before logging" rule on federal lands in the Pacific Northwest -- abolished in 2004 by the Bush administration -- and ordered a halt to 144 timber sales in California, Oregon, and Washington that might imperil about 300 rare animal and plant species. Federal lawyers had argued that reinstating ecological surveys would cost the government about $2.7 million a year, but Pechman ruled that the potential for environmental harm outweighed the burden and costs on both the government and timber companies. Although logging interests say they may restart a lawsuit to have the ecological surveys declared illegal, environmentalists are relieved by the ruling. Said Pete Frost of the Western Environmental Law Center, the law firm representing environmentalists in the case, "I think it's a small investment to make to preserve old-growth forests and the species that live in them."

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Federal judge says Bush rule change on logging illegal

The Bush administration broke the law last year when it changed the rules on logging in the Pacific Northwest, a federal judge ruled this week. The Northwest Forest Plan of 1994 requires the government to survey many proposed timber sales for the presence of rare plants and animals, and manage cuts to protect them. This "look before you log" rule has been crucial to protecting the Northwest's forests from overcutting, environmental advocates say, in part because it has empowered such advocates to appeal proposed timber sales and conduct citizen surveys of forests when the feds fall short of due diligence. Last year, the Bush administration ditched the rule, clearing the way for more commercial logging on at least a million acres of forest. But U.S. District Judge Marsha J. Pechman ruled that federal land managers broke the law by not fully assessing how skipping the surveys would affect protection of the critters and plants.

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Water should keep pouring over Northwest dams to aid salmon, court says

Salmon will continue to find a watery way over several Northwest dams. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals this week voted to uphold a federal judge's June order for the feds to aid migrating salmon by spilling water over five dams in the Columbia and Snake river systems in the Northwest. A three-judge panel of the appeals court specifically endorsed Judge James Redden's finding that 13 endangered species of salmon and steelhead in the region are not "evidencing signs of recovery" under the federal government's current management plan, which emphasizes barging or trucking the fish around dams so as not to disrupt hydroelectric power generation. More than half of the spring-summer run of Snake River chinook salmon are killed each year as they pass through dam turbines. The Bush administration had appealed Redden's order, arguing the spillage made this year's slower, hotter river conditions even more dangerous to tender young salmon.

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Idaho senator tries to axe center that analyzes endangered salmon

Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho) has inserted a rider into the federal energy bill that would eliminate funding for the Fish Passage Center, which has tracked salmon in the Columbia and Snake River systems in the Pacific Northwest for over 20 years. Craig is peeved that the center's fish survival data was used to support a recent federal court order mandating summer spills over Snake River dams, impacting electricity rates and barge travel along the rivers. The senator took umbrage at the center's support for what he calls a "controversial and one-sided" salmon recovery policy. Many other interested parties, from Indian tribes to state fish biologists to fishers to federal judges, support the center. Michele DeHart, the center's manager, says it compiles "data that is accurate and, yes, it does show that the federal hydro system kills fish." The Bonneville Power Administration, which both dispenses money to the center and sells electricity produced by federal dams, says it will not fight for or against Craig's measure.

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Judge orders dam spills in Northwest; critics may call on higher power

Just two weeks after ruling that the Bush administration plan to protect Northwest salmon was inadequate, on Friday U.S. District Judge James Redden issued an order for large-scale spilling of water at a number of dams that are hindering the ability of juvenile salmon to navigate downstream to sea. Critics -- including power companies, some businesses, Washington Gov. Christine Gregoire (D), and other politicians -- say the summer spills could lead to trouble for farmers who need the water for irrigation, a drop in energy produced by the hydropower dams, and a cost of some $67 million passed on to electricity consumers. Some federal officials say coming up with a protection plan that meets all the court's technical and legal requirements may be impossible. The government, they say, may be forced to call on the so-called "God Squad" (!), a rarely used governing body, composed of seven cabinet secretaries, that has the power to decide if federal projects are more important than endangered-species protections.

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Federal judge calls Bush admin's salmon plan fishy

In a strongly worded opinion, U.S. District Judge James Redden yesterday ruled that the Bush administration's salmon-protection plan for the Columbia and Snake rivers in the Northwest is "contrary to law" because it doesn't take into account how dams affect the fish's chances of recovery. This is the third time in 12 years that the government's plan has been thrown out in court during battles over limited water supplies sought both for operating hydropower plants in the Northwest and for sustaining salmon populations that have been hammered by overfishing and habitat disturbance. The plan rejected by the judge included $6 billion worth of hydropower-dam improvements that would have been made over a decade to ease the salmon's plight, but the environmentalists, fishing groups, and Indian tribes that brought the legal challenge against the plan point to this spring's dramatic drop in returning chinook salmon and say small improvements are not enough. Some enviros say dams just need to be knocked down altogether to save the fish.

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Low Northwest salmon run confounds fishers, closes fisheries

Conservationists, salmon enthusiasts, and fisheries managers along the Columbia River in the Pacific Northwest are wondering, Is it something we said? They've been stood up by thousands of chinook salmon that were expected to swim up the river to spawn this season, but never arrived. Original projections estimated some 254,000 chinook would pass the first of many dams along the Columbia this spring, but so far only about 52,000 have, and dejected fishery experts are now expecting only a few thousand more, perhaps totaling a paltry 80,000. The numbers are so low that Idaho, Oregon, and Washington banned chinook fishing outright, devastating the region's sport-fishing industry and disappointing local fishers, among them Indian tribes with treaty rights to the salmon. "A lot of people had declared the salmon crisis over," said Buzz Ramsey, sales manager for a fishing-tackle company. "Last year's disappointment and this year's disappointing run shows we're really not over it." Many enviros and tribal officials blame federal dams along the river for the disappearance of the fish.

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White House Political Maneuvering Could Hurt Northwest Salmon

President Bush lost in Oregon and Washington in the 2000 election, but his team is working to ensure that he fares better in the Pacific Northwest in 2004 -- and that may mean trouble for salmon. Bush's top strategy honcho, Karl Rove, has been making quiet trips to the region and, some say, pressuring federal agencies to loosen protections for salmon and other endangered species because agricultural interests in the Northwest don't want protective measures to interfere with irrigation. Rove's intent seems to be to shore up support from Bush's base: farmers, ranchers, and the timber industry. The Interior Department's inspector general is launching an investigation into whether the White House interfered in the development of water policy in the Northwest. Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), a presidential contender, also sees something fishy going on here; he charged the Bush administration with acting "as if federal agencies like the Interior Department are a division of the Republican National Committee and at their disposal to give out political favors."

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Federal protections for the spotted owl and the marbled murrelet have been blamed by many in the anti-enviro camp for the collapse of the logging industry in the Pacific Northwest during the 1990s. Now, the Bush administration has announced that it will review those protections, as well as the designation of "critical habitat" thought necessary to ensure the survival of the species. The agreement to review the protections settles a lawsuit brought by the timber industry against federal biologists for allegedly dragging their feet on reviewing the health of the two birds. Under the terms of the settlement, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service must review the status of both species by the end of this year, and review the designation of critical habitat for the owl and murrelet by December 2005 and August 2006, respectively. Both species are currently listed as endangered under the federal Endangered Species Act, but a strong bill of health could alter their classifications and change the level of protection they receive.

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Led by climate change skeptic ExxonMobil, a collection of oil, gas, and other energy companies has pledged at least $175 million over 10 years to Stanford University to create a Global Climate and Energy Project. One goal of the project will be to help develop renewable energy technologies. Critics say the gift amounts to small change for the companies and is an attempt to shield them from criticism for spewing out so many greenhouse gas emissions each year. Meanwhile, the results of a climate change study sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy are in -- and they don't look good. The study, which examined the effects of global warming on water availability in the West, projected significant reductions in the flow and levels of the Colorado, Sacramento, and Columbia rivers in the next 25 to 50 years. Snowpack in the Pacific Northwest's Cascade Mountains could plummet by more than half. One of the scientists, Tim Barnett of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, said, "You'd like there to be some good news in there somewhere, but unfortunately there is not."

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There's no time for snails and 'shrooms -- that was the gist of an announcement Monday by the Bush administration, which is seeking to ease environmental regulations governing logging on federal land in the Pacific Northwest. The timber industry and administration officials complain that the "survey and manage" component of the regulations, which mandates detailed surveys of fungi and other small wildlife in potential logging areas, can take years to complete and cost the feds millions of dollars. The industry says the rules are preventing it from felling the 1.1 billion board feet of timber allowed for annually under the 1994 Northwest Forest Plan. Environmentalists defend the surveys as vital safeguards for old-growth forests and the species that depend on them. The Bush administration, which agreed to revisit the rules to settle a lawsuit filed by the timber industry, plans to propose a change to the regulations by the end of February and reach a final decision on the issue by July, after a public comment period.

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The biggest wind-energy meeting ever held in the U.S. opened today in Portland, Ore. Industry-watchers say the large turnout -- more than 1,500 people have registered for the three-day conference -- is a good sign for wind energy in general and for the role of the Pacific Northwest in the wind market in particular. Oregon doesn't have the best wind resources in the country, but it does have a strong base of environmentally minded consumers who are willing to pay a little more for clean energy and are driving a slow but steady local energy revolution. Just under 2 percent of Portland General Electric's residential customers opt for renewable energy, as do 1.7 percent of Pacific Power's residential customers. Although those numbers sound small, they are far larger than most states' renewable-energy customer base. Since 1998, new Northwest wind projects have added enough power to the grid to serve 100,000 homes.

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Salmon and other imperiled species would not be damaged by a proposed deepening of the Columbia River channel, federal scientists announced yesterday. Those findings -- biological opinions required under the Endangered Species Act -- will enable the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to proceed with the next steps in a $196 million project to deepen by about three feet 100 miles of shipping channel on the river between Vancouver, Wash., and Astoria, Ore. The National Marine Fisheries Service looked at the effects of deepening on Stellar sea lion and 12 salmon runs, while the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service gauged the impact on Columbia whitetail deer, bald eagles, cutthroat trout, and bulltrout. Neither agency found any potential harm to any species. That was welcome news to river ports, which want to avoid being left behind as shipping companies turn to bigger vessels. Environmentalists, however, are contemplating legal action to stop the deepening, which they fear would increase the river's salinity, thereby killing some plants and animals.

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State officials in the Pacific Northwest are searching for ways to reduce the amount of high-tech waste ending up in landfills. The waste in Oregon has more than doubled since 1998, and it can be nasty stuff -- computer monitors and televisions contain four to eight pounds of lead each. The officials are considering a "bottle bill" for computers, encouraging consumers to redeem a deposit on each PC by returning it to the manufacturer or retailer for recycling or safe disposal. Another model: The European Parliament has endorsed a measure that would require manufacturers to pay for the recycling of their products.

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Passions run high in the Pacific Northwest over whether to remove four large federal dams on the lower Snake River to recover the river's imperiled wild salmon and steelhead (a.k.a. sea-run rainbow trout). The Snake once produced more salmon and steelhead than any other river in the vast Columbia River basin -- over 2 million fish every year. Most of those fish were large, powerful Chinook salmon that spawned in the numerous Snake River tributaries. Today, the four remaining salmon and steelhead stocks are in steep decline and headed toward extinction.

Running on empty.

Photo: Save Our Wild Salmon.

Now the same federal agencies that boast a 25-year record of failure on the Snake River are once again claiming that it is possible to recover salmon while maintaining the lower Snake River dams. Coming from the Army Corps of Engineers, which operates the dams, this claim should surprise no one. Deeply disturbing, however, is that the government agency charged with recovering salmon, the National Marine Fisheries Service, turned its back on science this summer and joined the chorus opposing dam removal.

In July, NMFS issued a draft biological opinion, as required by the Endangered Species Act, articulating its preliminary decision to delay the removal of the dams for nearly 15 years. The agency proposes instead to rely on largely unidentified actions to achieve recovery. This decision flies in the face of reams of scientific information -- including analysis by the agency's own scientists -- supporting dam removal. Science indicates that the risk of extinction is alarmingly high; that recovery to self-sustaining, harvestable levels as required by law will require gains well in excess of those needed merely to avert extinction; and that a recovery plan which does not include dam removal is likely to fail.

Dam-ing evidence: Little Goose Dam on the lower Snake.

Photo: Save Our Wild Salmon.

Although a recent article in Science by several NMFS scientists suggested that dam removal may be unnecessary, the authors' case is predicated on the faulty assumption that first-year survival can be substantially improved by other means. Simply put, no other means have been identified -- let alone found feasible -- that would yield the necessary improvements. For this reason, the Oregon, Idaho, and Western Division chapters of the American Fisheries Society -- the nation's preeminent professional organization of fisheries scientists -- have passed resolutions stating that removal of the four lower Snake River dams is essential to recover Snake River stocks.

Its public message to the contrary notwithstanding, NMFS understands that its draft plan won't work. In November, the Portland Oregonian uncovered a May 18 draft of the biological opinion that had not been made available to the public. In this document, NMFS called for completing dam removal planning in three years and seeking congressional authorization for dam removal in 2006 if stocks do not rebound. Although this May opinion is entirely consistent with scientific evidence, NMFS abruptly changed course before releasing its official, public draft in July.

That shift, according to Will Stelle, Jr., NMFS's Northwest regional director at the time, was prompted by legal -- not scientific -- concerns. Stelle claims that the agency could not call for dam removal in 2006 -- although today's scientific evidence supports dam removal -- because it is impossible to know whether the science would support dam removal in the future.

This tortured logic speaks for itself. If Stelle's position were correct, NMFS could never call for any action to occur at a future date, even if current scientific evidence indicates that the action is necessary to protect endangered species. In fact, however, the Endangered Species Act requires that recovery actions be determined based on the best available science today; should new scientific information subsequently emerge that calls into question those actions, NMFS can revisit its decision at that time.

Stelle's dubious explanation should alert the public to the unfortunate reality that the decision-makers at NMFS are basing their decisions primarily on politics, not science. Consider public statements from NMFS spokespersons over the last few months suggesting that dam removal is unnecessary -- "dam removal is not a silver bullet" and "dam removal will only help four of the 12 listed stocks in the Columbia basin." Such statements divert attention from the central question: Is lower Snake River dam removal necessary to recover Snake River stocks? As evidenced by its own May draft biological opinion, NMFS knows that the answer is "yes."

The Lower Granite dam under construction. Let's tear it down!

Photo: Save Our Wild Salmon.

To be sure, over the years many factors have contributed to the demise of the once-bountiful Snake River fish. But it was not until the Army Corps of Engineers built Ice Harbor, Lower Monumental, Little Goose, and Lower Granite dams between 1961 and 1975 that the runs plummeted to precariously low numbers. Since the final dam, Lower Granite, was completed, the Chinook have never returned in numbers sufficient to perpetuate themselves -- despite the fact that billions of dollars have been spent on sundry "recovery" measures. These measures have not yielded the promised results.

Now, with the need for effective recovery measures greater than ever, the Clinton administration must demand that NMFS and other federal agencies refocus their attention on science and away from politics. NMFS's final biological opinion, scheduled for release in late December, should call for preparing to remove the dams in 2006 -- unless NMFS can identify specific, feasible actions that will recover salmon to self-sustaining, harvestable levels with the dams in place. The public deserves no less than this candid assessment from the agency entrusted with protecting and restoring Snake River salmon.

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