Bush Administration Proposes Slashing Protections For Salmon

November 30, 2004

Release from: Kenneth R. Weiss
L.A.Times

The Bush administration on Tuesday proposed dramatically scaling back protections for salmon and steelhead trout streams from southern California to the Canadian border, saying the rare and endangered fish are sufficiently protected in other ways.

The revised plan, which was prompted by a lawsuit from the National Association of Homebuilders, could exclude about 80 percent to 90 percent of the "critical habitat" that the agency designated four years ago as necessary to keep salmon and steelhead populations from going extinct and to allow depleted populations to recover.

Previously protected streams and rivers on Vandenberg Air Force Base in Santa Barbara County and on Camp Pendleton in San Diego County would be excluded after the military argued the protections would delay training exercises, space launches and diminish military readiness.

In addition, streams that run through millions of acres of coastal forests stretching from northwest California through western Oregon and Washington would be excluded. Federal officials said they didn't want to impose another layer of restrictions on areas already subject to protections for the northern spotted owl.

The new plan also excludes private land where developers have struck conservation deals with government officials

By removing all of these areas, "we would get down to excluding around 90 percent of the critical habitat that had been (previously) identified," said Jim Lecky, an assistant regional administrator for the National Marine Fisheries Service.

The new plan, released late Tuesday, was immediately applauded as "a very large improvement" by Christopher Galik, an environmental policy analyst for the National Association of Homebuilders.

But environmentalists and fishermen said it failed to meet the agency's own scientific criteria for what is needed for the once abundant fish to return to healthy population levels. The salmon spend most of their adult lives in the ocean and then swim up rivers and streams to spawn.

"None of this defensible," said Chris Frissell, a fisheries biologist with the Pacific Rivers Council. "There is no way it would come anywhere close to help these fish recover."

All sides of this battle are predicting more lawsuits over designating "critical habitat," arguably the most powerful tool under the federal Endangered Species Act to control development, timber harvesting and farming practices that can degrade healthy streams and rivers.

"That the one certainty," Lecky said. "More litigation."

The legal battle began in the 1990s, after the federal government began its 15-year effort to bring back salmon, as well as steelhead, which are prized by fishermen and seafood lovers.

The National Marine Fisheries Service, in 2000, designated large areas of the Pacific Coast from Malibu Creek in Los Angeles County to the northwestern tip of Washington state as critical habitat for the ever-declining salmon and steelhead. It extended into the northern reaches of California's Central Valley and included vast areas of the Columbia and Snake River valleys that stretch into Idaho.

Homebuilders feared habitat restrictions would stall, change or cancel streamside projects. Timber companies worried habitat restrictions would curb plans for logging roads and harvesting practices which can muddy clear streams. Farmers were concerned that they would be prohibited from siphoning water from rivers and streams used by fish.

The National Association of Homebuilders led a list of groups that sued, arguing the designations were excessive, unduly vague and lacked a required analysis of economic impact.

The federal government withdrew the critical habitat designation for 19 types of salmon and steelhead.

On Tuesday, it reissued substantially modified designations after taking into account the economic costs of its first plan, which federal officials said could run about $230 million a year in the Pacific Northwest and $100 million to $200 million a year in California.

"Clearly, there were some areas were the economic costs of the critical habitat clearly outweighed the biological benefit," Lecky said. Other areas were eliminated, he said, because better mapping and more accurate data allow federal officials to more precisely pinpoint which streams are used by salmon and trout.

Nicole Cordan, policy and legal director of Save Our Wild Salmon, called the plan "ridiculous" on its face, predicting that eliminating 90 percent of protected habitat will fail to meet the biological needs of salmon or the legal tests of the Endangered Species Act.

The proposal, she said, falls in line with other administration positions, including one announced Tuesday that federal dams do not jeopardize salmon by blocking their migration upstream. Earlier this year, the administration proposed counting millions of hatchery-raised fish that are released into the wild, undercutting the need to keep the wild fish on the list of endangered species. This is, Cordan said, "typical of this administration -- ignore science, ignore sound economics and ignore the law."

Glen H. Spain, northwest regional director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations, said the administration is making a critical error in failing to consider the economic benefits of restored salmon -- such as struggling salmon fishing industry -- in its economic analysis.

"Conservation makes good economic sense and we are a perfectly good example of this," Spain said. "Our livelihood is on the line."