"Big Chinook Run Doesn't Let Columbia Dams Off the Hook, Activists Say"

"Salmon counters at Bonneville Dam on the Columbia River are seeing the biggest chinook run since 1938, but environmentalists still worry."

"BONNEVILLE DAM, Wash. -- The tiny fish-counting station, with its window onto the Columbia River, was darkened so the migrating salmon would not be spooked. And it was silent — until the shimmering bodies began to flicker by.

Then the room erupted with loud clicks, as Janet Dalen's fingers flew across her stumpy keyboard. Tallying the darting specimens, she chanted and chortled, her voice a cross between fish whisperer and aquatic auctioneer. ...

A record fall run of chinook salmon is heading up the Columbia River — more than any year since the Bonneville Lock and Dam was built in 1938, impeding natural access to the prized fish's traditional spawning grounds and stirring a controversy that has yet to abate."

Maria L. La Ganga reports for the Los Angeles Times September 24, 2013.