[Mb-hair] NYTimes.com Article: Salmon and Science

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Salmon and Science

October 9, 2004
 


 

More than a dozen species of salmon in the Columbia and
Snake River basins are at risk of extinction. One would
think that these fish - culturally significant to Indian
tribes and commercially valuable to a large regional
fishing industry - could get a break. But they can't. A
recovery plan devised by the Clinton administration was
tossed out in 2003 by a federal judge who found its
recommendations too speculative and ordered the Bush
administration to draw up a better one. The Bush plan may
be worse. 

True, the administration proposes technological fixes to
help fish over and around the Columbia and Snake River
dams. Yet its habitat protections are no stronger and,
worse, it removes from future consideration the idea of
breaching the four dams on the lower Snake River - an
option the Clinton plan held in reserve in case all other
measures failed. Finally, in a bizarre misreading of the
Endangered Species Act, it abandons salmon recovery as the
goal of federal policy and asserts, in so many words, that
its only legal obligation is to keep the current rate of
decline from getting any worse. 

Salmon seem especially disadvantaged by this
administration's tendency to bend science and the law to
its political agenda. Despite a huge fish kill in the lower
Klamath River in Oregon in 2002, attributed by many
scientists to federal irrigation policies that robbed fish
of the water flows they needed, the Interior Department has
yet to produce a plausible long-term plan to redistribute
scarce water in a manner that satisfies all claimants. 

And earlier this year, the administration proposed to count
hatchery-raised salmon in its assessments of wild salmon
populations. This mathematical commingling ignores crucial
differences between wild and manufactured fish. But it
would instantly make wild salmon populations look healthier
than they are and give federal agencies a green light to
lift protections against commercial activities in the
watersheds where wild salmon spawn. 

The decline of the once-abundant wild salmon runs of the
Pacific Northwest ranks high on any list of environmental
blunders. Despite recent healthy salmon runs, the result of
unusually favorable weather and ocean conditions, the trend
line for many wild salmon species is still downward. It
will not be easy to turn this around. It will be harder
still if the federal government ignores its obligations. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/09/opinion/9sat3.html?ex=1098341482&ei=1&en=76633502ab600393


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