Snowpack drought has salmon dying in overheated rivers

Migrating salmon on the Columbia River face tough odds for survival as the lack of snowmelt water and searing summer heat have sent water temperatures soaring.

HOME VALLEY, Skamania County — In a quiet, green pool off the Lower Columbia River, upstream from the Bonneville Dam, dozens of sickly sockeye salmon spend their final days.

They shouldn’t be here. Instead, the fish should have forged deep into the drainages of north-central Washington, the Okanogan region of British Columbia or Redfish Lake in central Idaho.

But their journey has been short-circuited by a startling surge in water temperatures that has turned the Columbia into a kill zone where salmon immune systems are weakened and…