Protection of Puget Sound salmon runs proposed
by Lynda V. Mapes and Jim Simon Seattle Times staff reporters (2/26/98)
Top state officials crisscrossed Washington much of last year, warning there'd be a heavy price to pay if the federal government ordered Puget Sound salmon runs protected under the Endangered Species Act.
A listing could halt real-estate development in at least a dozen counties, members of Gov. Gary Locke's Cabinet predicted. To protect salmon spawning and habitat, it could keep homebuilders from obtaining new water permits. It could even slow expansion of Boeing and Microsoft, some said.
Now, the process of listing the salmon has begun.
Yesterday, the federal government took the first step toward protecting wild chinook in the Sound when the National Marine Fisheries Service proposed designating chinook runs as "threatened." The fisheries service will review data for one year before making a final decision on whether to extend federal protection.
The long-expected proposal to protect the salmon in a vast area shared with nearly 4 million humans could, in theory, lead to dramatic economic consequences.
But if there are any lessons in the Northwest's recent history with battles over salmon recovery, it won't be any time soon.
Aiding salmon under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) would likely cost the region tens of millions of dollars, possibly raising electric or sewer bills. But if federal protection brings changes, they are likely to be evolutionary, not revolutionary.
"On its face, the ESA could require monstrous changes. But those monstrous changes are a threat to get a negotiated settlement. The federal government is scared to death of it itself," said Mark Plummer, a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute in Seattle and author of a book on the Endangered Species Act.
"I suspect on Puget Sound what we're going to get into is a never-ending legal battle, since the ESA standard would be almost impossible to meet on every watershed in Puget Sound. So someone is going to have to decide whether and where we wink at the law."
In 1991, policymakers sounded similar alarms when the federal government listed salmon runs in the Snake and Columbia river system.
They predicted soaring electric rates and reduced water supplies for farmers. Neither has come to pass. After seven years of study and more than $3 billion spent, politicians and scientists are still arguing about how best to rebuild the Columbia's legendary salmon runs.
Far from shutting down commerce in favor of the fish, the fisheries service has only rarely ordered changes in the operation of the river.
The agency has halted new water rights permits on the river, blocking the withdrawal of water last year to develop potato-growing land leased by Boeing in Eastern Oregon.
Tribes, conservation groups and even states have sued the fisheries service to force bolder action. Four years ago, a federal judge ordered the service to study options on changing the system of hydroelectric dams, saying the situation "literally cries out for major overhaul."
So far, however, the fisheries service has delayed taking a position on the politically sensitive questions of dismantling dams or lowering the reservoirs behind them.
"The lesson from the Columbia is that it's cheaper to hire biologists, lawyers and advertising companies than make real changes," said Tim Stearns, director of Save Our Wild Salmon, a conservation group. "The evidence that the feds will drop the hammer and put a halt to any activities is fairly scanty."
In recent years, the Clinton administration has shown more interest in negotiations than enforcement actions when it comes to the ESA.
These include "Habitat Conservation Plans" with private timber companies - long-term management plans that insulate property owners from future ESA listings, such as that protecting the northern spotted owl.
In Oregon, the fisheries service has declined, so far, to apply the ESA to coastal coho salmon runs, instead allowing the state to try to implement a $30 million recovery plan.
In California's Central Valley, farmers feared a 1994 decision to declare Sacramento River chinook and steelhead endangered would force the federal government to cut irrigation water. So far, the Bureau of Reclamation, which runs the valley's big irrigation projects, has reduced some water allocations but hasn't canceled any irrigation contracts.
A frequent misunderstanding, said the fisheries service's Craig Wingert, is that the ESA requires the federal government to restore salmon runs or other endangered creatures to their former numbers, with no regard to cost. In practice, that's not how it works.
"In places like the Sacramento River or Puget Sound, there are huge public and private investments at stake," Wingert said. "You kind of work around the edges of that."
Curt Smitch, Locke's natural-resources adviser, thinks the fisheries service will find it politically impossible to get involved in day-to-day decisions affecting private-property development around the Sound.
What's important for the region, said Smitch, who recently worked for the Clinton administration, is not avoiding an endangered-species listing but crafting a recovery plan that will stand up in court.
"What you don't want is a judge coming in and saying, `You're not trying to implement the ESA, so you can't issue any more water permits.' To avoid that, we have to have a strategy - something that says counties, cities and the state are dealing seriously with the problem."
Most experts think Puget Sound salmon runs are too far gone to prevent a listing.
Brian Jones, a fisheries service spokesman, said whether or not there is a listing, the agency's aim is to help local governments and even community groups develop salmon-recovery plans for each watershed.
Though the challenge of responding to the near-demise of once-abundant salmon is daunting, officials from King, Pierce and Snohomish counties - along with their cities, water districts, business and environmental interests, and tribes - have begun trying. They say there are major, encouraging differences between the Columbia and Puget Sound salmon situations.
On the Columbia, various interest groups and their scientists are wrangling over what to blame for killing the most fish. Environmentalists and tribes point to the massive dams. Power users and barge operators blame overfishing and logging.
In Puget Sound, there is greater scientific consensus about what's killing salmon: loss of habitat to urban development, farming and logging practices that damage streams, and polluted runoff from acres and acres of pavement.
Salmon problems aren't isolated from the other headaches of growth - gridlocked traffic, loss of green space, water quality - that already are confronting local governments.
King County Executive Ron Sims said the county is working to put together at least a framework for salmon-recovery efforts by September or October. Those ideas will be considered by Locke's salmon experts as they put together a recovery plan for consideration by the Legislature next January .
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