Columbia River salmon recovery programs fared better in the 2026 federal budget than tribes, advocates, bureaucrats and biologists feared.
President Donald Trump had made major cuts to the programs in 2025.
But those cuts brought together a wide-ranging group of powerful interests around the Columbia River Basin to ask Congress to fund programs such as hatcheries, habitat restoration and sea lion killing.
The rare coalition included both the hydropower lobby and salmon advocates.
“That really is very indicative of how the Columbia River defines our region, and we all have an interest in making sure that it’s healthy,” said Jeremy FiveCrows, communications director for Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, which represents four Native nations in the basin.
The Pacific Northwest’s congressional delegation then delivered on the basin’s funding asks, said seven people familiar with the budget struggle who discussed the funding with The Columbian. They work on all sides of Columbia River operations, ranging from senior biologists at Native nations’ fish programs to senior policy analysts with the state.
“We’re very thankful to our regional delegation for supporting a number of programs that restore salmon runs and also support the hydropower system that the region depends on,” said Clark Mather, who leads Northwest RiverPartners, a group that mostly advocates for hydropower dams.
Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell, both D- Wash., as well as U.S. Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, D-Skamania, each celebrated the win in news releases.
“I said I would tear up Trump’s budget and write a new one — and I did,” Murray said in a press release. “As the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, I made sure Washington state had a strong voice and a seat at the table at every step in negotiations over these spending bills.”
The new funding bill covers fiscal year 2026, which began on Oct. 1, 2025, and ends on Sept. 30, 2026.
Reversal on salmon
NOAA Fisheries’ Pacific Coastal Salmon Recovery Fund is one example of the regional funding wins.
Last April, a leaked memo revealed Trump wanted to gut the program by slashing its budget from $65 million to zero. The program funds recovery work that is part of the federal government’s efforts to abide by legal promises it made in treaties with many Native nations.
A spokesperson for NOAA Fisheries told The Columbian at the time that the fund had 342 projects currently underway around the Columbia River Basin, totaling about $115 million in investment. Some of that work has been in Southwest Washington, including on the Kalama River.
The agency said every $1 million the fund invests in watershed restoration “creates between 13 and 32 jobs and between $2.2 and $3.4 million in economic activity.”
The potential loss of the fund last year sparked outrage. Washington and Oregon’s governors, along with four lower and mid-Columbia tribes, sent a letter to Congress asking for the program to be fully funded.
In the new budget bill last month, the program received the same $65 million funding level it had been awarded in previous years, appropriations documents show.
Wave of wins
FiveCrows said the tribal fish commission is especially excited about a couple of items. One is funding to improve safety and sanitation infrastructure at fishing access sites the federal government built for Native people after villages were flooded by hydropower dams on the Columbia.
Another is funding for NOAA’s Integrated Ocean Observing System, which monitors ocean conditions around the country, providing information to shippers, climate researchers and others. The tribal fish commission operates the network’s Columbia River monitoring station.
FiveCrows also pointed to funding for the Army Corps of Engineers’ Columbia River Fish Mitigation program, which partly counterbalances the harms the hydropower system inflicts on endangered salmon and steelhead stocks.
The Trump administration cut the program’s budget by about half last year. An email from the manager of the program obtained by The Columbian at the time showed the program expected to have to cut some of its services.
But this year it was funded with about $57 million, a supplemental budget document shows. That’s about $10 million less than pre-Trump funding, instead of the $31 million less it received last year.
The supplemental budget document is known as an “explanatory statement” and accompanies the broader appropriations bill to clarify Congress’ intentions behind allocated funding.
A spokesperson for the Corps’ Northwest Division said the agency will not be sure how the program will actually be funded until its final budget disbursement process is completed in “a couple months.”
A state policy official and a fisheries biologist The Columbian talked to both celebrated NOAA’s Pacific Salmon Treaty program also receiving funding.
And a state wildlife policy expert celebrated a $4 million funding bump Mitchell Act Hatcheries received, as well as funding hatcheries on the lower Snake and Columbia rivers received through another explanatory statement.
That document also shows the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area scored funding for deferred maintenance, and the basin will see a $1 million study on “the potential environmental impacts from oil spills in the Columbia River Basin as a result of a potential seismic event.”
The Army Corps was pushed in the budget documents to hurry along the cleanup of its Bradford Island Superfund site, where Bonneville Dam workers dumped toxic chemicals for decades. No additional funding was awarded.
Documents show the Corps did get an undetermined sum of money to “implement” the Columbia River Treaty with Canada. An agency spokesperson said they received $40 million as part of ongoing efforts to operate and coordinate with Canada a system of reservoirs that control the river’s 65 trillion gallon yearly flow.
The treaty determines the flow and timing of trillions of gallons of water, tens of billions of dollars and more than a billion watts of electricity each year. Negotiations fell apart last year after getting caught in Trump’s trade war with the U.S. northern neighbor.
On the far less controversial topic of sea lions, Perez managed to secure about $1 million for NOAA and partners to study “better removal methods for the Corolla-sized sea lions that are damaging salmon and steelhead populations — including more efficient direct-kill methods.”
Killing the salmon-eating goliaths has become a rare point of consensus in the basin as proposed solutions to salmon extinction that involve sacrifices from the hydropower lobby have floundered amid skyrocketing power demand.
Another funding allotment went to the Colville Tribe’s fish and wildlife program from the Bonneville Power Administration, a federal agency that markets power created by the federal hydropower system.
The money is not part of a recently approved effort by the tribe and others to reintroduce salmon into the Upper Columbia above the impassable Chief Joseph and Grand Coulee dams, an agency spokesperson said.
The Army Corps also received funding for routine operation and maintenance of the federal navigation channel in the river, budget documents show and a spokesperson confirmed.
Rinse and repeat
“WDFW and the state of Washington are pleased that Congress was able to hold the line in many cases and improve in some cases of salmon recovery funding for the Columbia River,” said Michael Garrity, the state Department of Fish and Wildlife’s special assistant for Columbia River policy.
Tom Iverson, regional coordinator for Yakama Nation Fisheries, echoed that.
“The region came together and expressed the importance of salmon funding for the Pacific Northwest, and Congress responded appropriately,” he said. “So I really think that, because we got such a diverse stakeholder support for salmon funding, we were able to overcome the presidential recommendations.”
All this comes as Trump missed the Feb. 2 deadline to submit his budget proposal for the 2027 fiscal year, starting the cycle all over again.
But back in the Columbia River Basin it’s business as usual. Anglers are getting ready for the arrival of early spring salmon runs, and the tribes, advocates, bureaucrats and biologists that keep the strained system running have started preparations for another year of federal budget wrangling.
About the project: The Murrow News Fellowship is a state-funded journalism project managed by Washington State University. Local partners are The Columbian and The Daily News. For more information, visit news-fellowship.murrow.wsu.edu.
