Politics over Science: Change in Recovery Plan for Salmon Smells Fishy

The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) announced August 31 it will not consider removing dams in the Columbia and Snake rivers in order to save the endangered salmon population. The announcement contradicts twenty years of research by both environmental groups and government agencies that supports breaching the dams as the most effective way to save the endangered fish population. The NMFS announcement precedes their upcoming biological opinion (BiOp) due out November 30, which will provide a strategy for "how the basin's hydroelectric system must be operated to minimize harm to the 13 populations of salmon that the federal environmental law protects," according to an NMFS press release. A federal district court determined in June 2003 that the agency's previous BiOp did not adequately detail the mechanisms for protecting the ESA-listed salmon, ordered NMFS to develop a new BiOp, and ordered NMFS to rework the draft plan as required by the federal Endangered Species Act. See National Wildlife Fed. v. National Marine Fisheries Serv., 254 F. Supp. 2d 1196 (D. Or. 2003). Although the previous plan did include dam breaching as an option, the one scientists identified as most effective, that strategy is notably absent from the revised version. In its announcement, NMFS cited recent increases in the wild salmon population as evidence that current methods are effective in protecting the endangered fish, making the breaching of the dams unnecessary. "NOAA Fisheries credits measures to restore hundreds of miles of in-river and estuary salmon habitat, state-of-the-art technological upgrades to hydroelectric dams and other facilities, aggressive predator control, better hatchery and harvest practices, and favorable ocean conditions with boosting returns over the past four years." The new findings contrast starkly with the 2000 NMFS report which considered the chance of salmon survival bleak without severe intervention: "[A]ll the Columbia River Basin salmon stocks are in a state of perilous decline, especially Upper Columbia Spring Chinook and Steelhead throughout its range. Put in starker terms: without substantial intervention, there is a greater than 50:50 chance that most of these ESUs will be extinct by the next century, some much sooner." Earthjustice attorney Steve Mashuda told the BNA that the agency's draft biological opinion may not be scientifically or "probably even legally defensible." Close to an election time the policy seems to reflect voter concern over jobs provided by the hydroelectric plants in the area rather than the obligations of the Endangered Species Act. John Kober of the National Wildlife Federation told the Washington Post that "President Bush, on campaign swings through the region, has repeatedly insisted that dams on the Snake River are crucial to the economic life of the Pacific Northwest and that he would never allow them to be breached."
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