| In February 2005, the National Wildlife Federation and several other parties asked the court to invalidate the 2004 FCRPS BiOp. In October 2005, US District Court Judge James Redden found the 2004 FCRPS BiOp invalid and remanded it to NOAA Fisheries.
Judge Redden directed NOAA Fisheries to work with the sovereign parties (the federal action agencies - the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Bureau of Reclamation, Bonneville Power Administration; the party tribes - including the Nez Perce Tribe, the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Indians, of the Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs Reservation of Oregon, the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, the Kootenai Tribe of Idaho, the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation, the Spokane Tribe of Indians; and the States of Oregon, Idaho, Washington and Montana) to develop a new BiOp within one year. Judge Redden asked that the collaborating parties provide quarterly status updates on their progress to correct the deficiencies he identified and "clarifying policy issues and reaching agreement or narrowing the areas of disagreement on scientific and technical information." Since November of 2005, the sovereign parties have been working diligently toward completing the new Proposed Action and Biological Opinion as part of a broader overall salmon recovery effort. A Policy Working Group is guiding the analytical work of 12 technical workgroups, including harvest and hatcheries, habitat, modeling and governance, and others. In December of 2005, the Department of Justice appealed Judge Redden's remand order to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. In July of 2007, Judge Redden extended the timeline for the new draft BiOp to October of 2007. NOAA Fisheries delivered the final BiOp on May 5, 2008, completing the remand. |