For example, dam managers must ensure that 100,000 cubic feet per second is released into the Snake River in the spring, and that Snake River water temperatures must not exceed 58 degrees. By keeping flows sufficiently high in the Snake and Columbia rivers, dam managers help flush juvenile salmon downstream to the ocean and keep water temperature low, preventing fish from becoming physically stressed or being killed. Federal dam managers received two failing grades for allowing summer water temperatures to reach lethal levels in the Snake and Columbia rivers. The bill would also exclude from stormwater discharge regulations above-ground vegetated drainage ditches, a drainage way operated or owned in connection with a locally controlled road, construction activities that disturb up to five acres of land, and routine road maintenance. The goal of S. 188 is to reduce the amount of irrigation water lost to evaporation and seepage before reaching the fields.
Irrigated agriculture is the larges user of water in the western United States.
The bill would allow a state to file criminal charges against a federal agency for violating water pollution laws. Such charges could result in a fine or imprisonment. Currently, the federal government has immunity to federal water pollution laws. S. 669 would require federal departments, agencies, and facilities to comply with all federal, state, and local water pollution abatement regulations that apply to private entities, states, and localities. Three bills to designate or extend designated rivers in the Wild and Scenic Rivers System are moving in Congress.