Today, the lower Columbia no longer sustains the variety and abundance that its rich history boasts. The salmon are predominantly hatchery-raised, not wild. Young otters suffer from reproductive abnormalities. Mink populations are down. Eagle sightings are rare.
Exotic plants crowd out traditional food supplies.
Conventional Pollutants Decades of asking the river to provide water for homes, industry, power generation and agriculture, to support transportation, and to carry away the wastes from all these activities have altered the estuary. In the lower Columbia River and estuary, temperature, turbidity, bacteria, dissolved oxygen and dissolved gas, and other conventional pollutants, are controlled to levels that protect the health of fish, wildlife and humans. Toxic contaminants are not present at levels that impair the health or threaten the future well-being of the lower Columbia River and estuary and the populations they support. The impact pervades the food chain. Pesticides and organic contaminants evident in sediment and fish tissue are found in the fragile shells of an endangered eagle population.