Salmon restoration in Nevada? Come on now! I worked in Nevada for over 12 years and never heard anything about salmon in Nevada's streams - not that I recall, anyway. But then again, most of my work there was in the central and southern parts of the state, dealing with regional ground water flow and radioactive waste disposal. Salmon?
Obviously, for a region to have a natural salmon fishery it needs to have a water connection to the ocean. A small portion of Nevada lies within the Columbia-Snake River basin (see map from the High Country News). The recent (4 February 2008) HCN has an article (you may have to register for a free trial subscription) about a renewed interest in returning salmon to Nevada's streams.
Nevada still has a law on the books requiring fish ladders on dams. The law has been there since the 1800s, indicating how important salmon once were to the state. Tens of thousands of Nevada-bound adult salmon would swim up the Columbia, then the Snake, to return to their spawning grounds in the Snake River tributaries Owyhee, Jarbridge, and Bruneau Rivers and Salmon Falls Creek. Native Americans relied heavily on the salmon as did some of the whites.
Despite the state law requiring fish ladders, the salmon fell victim to dams downstream in Oregon 
and Idaho. When the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (USBR) closed the gates on the Owyhee Dam in 1932, the salmon disappeared from Nevada forever.
But things may be changing. Majority Leader Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) has thrown his weight behind an effort to restore salmon to the aforementioned streams. And Reid, now in the majority with his longtime foe Sen. Larry Craig (R-ID) on the sidelines, is flexing his muscles.
Reid wants the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to deny license renewal to Idaho Power Company's Hells Canyon dams on the Snake River unless they install fish ladders, as required by its original 1955 license. A broad constituency - not just in Nevada - supports Reid: tribes, environmentalists, fisheries scientists, sportsmen, and sportswomen.
Salmon and steelhead in the larger Columbia-Snake Basin are in trouble, so the problem is not simply in the Nevada streams. The eight dams on the Columbia and Lower Snake (below Hells Canyon) are the prime culprits.
The article suggests that Reid's action could break the logjam in the Columbia-Snake Basin. If nothing else, it signals that Nevada will be a player in larger Columbia-Snake Basin issues.
Read Ken Olsen's article - it's worth it.
Stay tuned.
"Gentleman, if we do not succeed, then we run the risk of failure." -- former Vice President Dan Quayle
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