Institutional constraints from multiple jurisdictions and lack of public awareness and stewardship make protection of the river challenging. Integrated, resilient and diverse biological communities are restored and maintained in the lower Columbia River and its estuary. Columbia River estuary have brought change to the plant and animal populations that share the resource. 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.