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A newsletter about salmon, watersheds and people
Issue No. 29
By Governor John Kitzhaber, M.D.
Editor's Note: The Willamette River faces critical challenges in water quality, declining salmon populations, and rapidly increasing human population. In addition, the Port of Portland, at the mouth of the Willamette, has been designated a Superfund site, meaning that the toxins, heavy metal contaminants, and other pollutants caused by industrial practices pose a considerable risk to public and watershed health. To provide context for these problems, Restoration is publishing a series of articles that focus on the Willamette River. The first article in this series, by Governor Kitzhaber, is an overview of the challenges facing the Willamette. The article is based on a speech the governor gave in Corvallis two years ago. In subsequent issues, Restoration will focus on water quality and how it is being addressed, fish and wildlife habitat, and the effects of growth and the choices that the valley's residents will face in the years ahead. The editors wish to thank the governor and his staff for updating this article for publication.
Oregon is still one of the most beautiful places on earth. The people of this state have had great courage and foresight in providing for us the quality of life we enjoy today. And though I am still filled with a great sense of hope, I know we only need to look below the surface to discover the challenges yet before us.
Oregon is growing rapidly-more people, more roads, more buildings, more fragmentation and destruction of habitat, declining species and species diversity, more conflict.
There is a growing sense that what has defined us is slipping away.
In particular, salmon-one of the great icons in the Northwest-is in trouble. If, as Norman Maclean says, "eventually all things merge into one and a river runs through it," then salmon swim through it-twice. What better indicator of our collective health.
And with all of the declining salmon runs, I believe it is safe to say we may be in trouble. If the salmon runs are not healthy, then our watersheds are not healthy-and if our watersheds are not healthy, we have lost our collective connection and sense of stewardship to the land and to each other. Then we have truly mortgaged the future. I do not intend to leave that as my legacy.
There's no question in my mind that our environmental problems are becoming more complex and challenging. They also have complex economic and social interconnections. And while some environmental problems will still respond to our traditional tools of regulation and litigation, I believe we are at a point where we need to develop new tools, new perspectives, and new approaches to deal with the growth that besets us and the environmental challenges and conflicts that come with it.
Take the issue of water quality as a case in point. Problems of point-source pollution, for example, lend themselves well to a regulatory approach. That was really the challenge facing Governor Tom McCall when he led the effort to clean up the Willamette River in the 1970s. Municipal sewage discharge points and pipes carrying industrial effluent can be identified, regulated, fined, or shut down. But reducing nonpoint-source pollution-perhaps the major challenge facing us on the Willamette River today-is a different question entirely. It involves not only runoff from agricultural lands that carry pesticides and other chemicals; not only runoff from timber land carrying silt into our streams; but also runoff from roads and lawns and driveways and rooftops in Portland, Salem, Albany, Eugene, and, indeed, all of urban Oregon. This involves what people put on their lawns, whether or not they wash their cars in the driveway with detergent, and hundreds of other individual actions that contribute to the load of nonpoint-source pollution.
There is no law or regulation that will miraculously change the behavior of hundreds of thousands of urban and suburban Oregonians. Rather, it will require sustained environmental stewardship-a long-term commitment to changed behavior-by millions of people living in the watershed, most of them living in the city.
I believe we are entering a new era of environmental politics-an era where the very nature and complexity of the problems we face challenge us to seek new strategies for success, particularly strategies that call for, and result in, greater individual responsibility and accountability for our air, land, and water. You cannot achieve these goals through regulation; you cannot achieve them through confrontation; you cannot achieve them through the courts.
You can achieve them only through a collaborative and cooperative process that engages thousands of Oregonians and gives them a stake in the problem and some degree of ownership in the solution. I believe the Oregon Plan for Salmon and Watersheds is the backbone of a new environmental approach in Oregon and potentially represents a model of environmental problem solving for the West.
This kind of collaboration is not new to Oregon. It was the same kind of broad-based, collaborative effort that cleaned up the Willamette River in the 1970s under the administration of Governor McCall. It was this community sense of environmental responsibility that led us to make our beaches public and to pass a returnable bottle bill that has made littering tantamount to betraying your roots as an Oregonian.
It is important to recognize that the objective of the Oregon Plan has never been to avoid a listing under the Endangered Species Act. Rather, the objective has been-and continues to be-to make the greatest progress possible in restoring species and restoring watersheds. It is also important to recognize that relying solely on the Endangered Species Act to recover salmon in Oregon not only would have triggered another divisive battle, but would ultimately have failed to recover salmon.
We need to remember that the primary role of the federal government under the Endangered Species Act is a regulatory one. And while regulation has an important role to play, there are limits to its effectiveness. Regulation can keep people from doing the wrong things, but it provides no incentive for them to do the right thing.
So while the Endangered Species Act can prevent landowners from engaging in activities that result in an intentional or unintentional kill, or "take," of a listed species, it cannot compel them to do more. Yet 60 to 70 percent of coho habitat lies in private ownership, and therefore recovery will occur only if private landowners undertake restoration activities that go well beyond simply avoiding take.
In my 20 years of involvement in western state politics, I have experienced over and over again the fact that an approach which involves private landowners in the decision making-which gives them some ownership and investment in the work being done-has a greater and more immediate positive impact on the resource than simply applying regulations that tell them what to do. Telling people what to do with their land in the West is an explosive proposition. As a result, the Oregon Plan was designed to involve and empower private landowners and to encourage them to make voluntary commitments to watershed and habitat restoration.
The commitments are built on a solid foundation of federal, state, and local regulation, including harvest limits, Clean Water Act requirements, forest practice requirements, land use laws, and state water law.
The increment that will make a difference in how quickly and successfully we recover salmon and watersheds comes largely from the voluntary commitments by landowners and communities working alone or through their local watershed councils. These efforts do not have to wait for long federal planning processes to be completed. They can begin right away. I have observed that when there is a compelling goal, people can change their relationship to the land and to each other quite quickly. This is significant.
This principle recognizes the importance of good science to well-informed decision making. It also recognizes that there is often some degree of uncertainty in the science and that difficult policy decisions cannot always await science to provide a clear and unambiguous direction. For example, the lack of “perfect” science on the Columbia has been used by a variety of interests to thwart any meaningful action at all.
When science is ambiguous, a public process must be used to set priorities and make decisions informed by the best objective data gathering available. The lack of perfect science should not be used as a justification for paralysis. The work of the Pacific Northwest Ecosystem Research Consortium is an example of the use of good science as an aid to making sound public policy. The consortium has created an atlas that provides a scientific foundation for community-based environmental planning.
With the challenges that Oregonians, and citizens in the Willamette Valley in particular, face in the years ahead, having clear information about the challenges, as well as an idea of the choices that can be made and the trade-offs each of those choices involve, will be critical to designing and executing a successful restoration strategy.
By Paul Hoobyar
The Bush administration recently decided not to contest the National Association of Home Builders' lawsuit regarding critical habitat designation for 19 populations of chinook, chum, coho, sockeye, and steelhead. Does this decision signal a retrenchment on environmental issues, as many in the conservation community fear? Or is it simply the result of the National Marine Fisheries Service's realization that it made a mistake in its methodology when it designated critical habitat and that, as the Association of Home Builders contends, the designation would not stand up under legal scrutiny? Although many in the environmental community see this decision as another instance of the administration's scaling back of environmental protections, those who work in federal, state, and local agencies don't see it as a major setback to salmon protection. The federal fisheries agency's official response, according to its public affairs office, is that it "expects this action will not significantly affect the protection of these 19 populations of chinook, chum and sockeye salmon [or] steelhead populations whose ESA status remains unchanged." The agency believes that the other "authorities" of the Endangered Species Act (specifically Sections 4, 7, 9, and 10) that it relies on for enforcement and protective actions will still provide the greatest protection. According to Steve Smith, with the habitat division of the National Marine Fisheries Service (Northwest Region), "Recent lawsuits have called into question our ability to sustain a legal action [on the designations], particularly with respect to the economics associated with the designations. This has nothing to do with 'take' prohibitions which will remain in place for these species under sections 4(d) and 9."
"Critical habitat only has application in one place in the ESA," Smith noted, "and that's under Section 7, consultation with other federal agencies involved in conducting, authorizing or funding activities that may affect listed species."
Basically, the Endangered Species Act, under Section 7, requires designating a listed species' critical habitat. There are two standards, or definitions, by which impacts to listed species are determined, Smith noted. One of them involves analyzing whether a proposed action will result in "jeopardy," or harm, to a listed species. The other standard the agency uses is whether an action will adversely modify a species' critical habitat.
"Generally," Smith said, "to date it's been very rare for activities to just result in adverse modifications [to habitat]. Those actions that have resulted in adverse modifications have also resulted in a jeopardy call as well." Smith said that it's been the fisheries agency's experience that these two effects of proposed actions on listed species are very closely linked, and that's why the agency doesn't consider removing critical habitat designations for the 19 salmonid populations as a serious setback.
"We think the jeopardy analysis equates to determining whether a proposed action will have an adverse modification on habitat for a species," Smith concluded.
Part of the confusion with this issue lies in the two different approaches that the Endangered Species Act mandates for protecting species. When determining whether a species warrants receiving protection provided under the Endangered Species Act, the authorizing agency is directed to not take economic factors into account as a basis for listing the species.
Instead, the agency is to base its decision solely on the best available scientific information in determining the needs of the species. However, when an agency designates critical habitat for a listed species under Section 4(b) of the act, the law directs the agency to include an analysis of the economic impacts of the designation.
To date, the fishery agency's position has been that the economic impacts of listing a species are borne by the listing process itself and that adding critical habitat designations would have no subsequent economic impact.
The Homebuilder's Association lawsuit challenges the agency's practice of linking the economics of the listing process with the critical habitat designation.
The decision by the fisheries agency to rescind critical habitat designation doesn't apply to six other salmon populations in the West. The agency will continue to use both the "jeopardy" and the "adverse modification of critical habitat" standards when reviewing Snake River spring/summer chinook, Snake River fall chinook, Snake River sockeye, Oregon/California coho, central California coast coho, and Sacramento winter chinook. For the other 19 populations, once the court makes its decision, the agency will rely on its jeopardy analysis and the Essential Fish Habitat designation under the Magnuson/Stevens Act in determining whether a proposed action will harm fish.
Ironically, Jim Myron, of Oregon Trout, agrees with the Homebuilder's Association about the fisheries agency's initial approach to designating critical habitat. "NMFS declaring it all initially as critical habitat was contrary to the ESA," Myron said. "Rather than analyzing the habitat to determine where the critical areas actually were for the fish originally, they just took the lazy way out and designated it all as critical." However, Myron thinks that rescinding all of the designations is also a poor decision on the part of the agency. He called the action "contrary to the ESA."
Deanne Spooner, public lands director for the Pacific Rivers Council, believes that neither the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service nor the National Marine Fisheries Service has ever "met their statutory authority on critical habitat." Spooner also noted that, "Every critical habitat designation that has occurred has been the result of a lawsuit." When a court orders the services to make a designation, this "puts [them] in a defensive posture."
"There are some substantial protections that come with critical habitat designation that don't come from a 'jeopardy' decision," Spooner said. "On federal lands, once critical habitat designations are made, the agencies can't modify that habitat. With adverse modification of habitat, what you're really talking about is the habitat that the species depend upon, not just the numbers of the individual animals. What ultimately you're trying to achieve is recovery of the listed species, and critical habitat designations are essential to making that happen."
Spooner also noted a provision in the act that allows the secretary of the authorizing agency to make a critical habitat designation based on historical conditions. If a species historically had a greater range than it currently inhabits, having the critical habitat designation can help in planning for the recovery of a listed species, Spooner argued. In contrast, jeopardy calls are based on existing conditions.
Although critical habitat designations are done on public lands, Spooner thinks that such designations on private lands would let the landowners know that their lands do have areas that have significant conservation and habitat recovery potential.
"The agencies could be using critical habitat designations on private lands as an educational tool," Spooner said, "and the agencies have failed in their educational role."
By John Baur
A host of environmental challenges, detailed in the Oregon State of the Environment Report 2000, has underscored the need to conserve and restore Oregon's watersheds, native ecosystems, and endangered species, yet only about 1 percent of Oregon's budget is set aside for such purposes.
It's not as if more money isn't needed. The listing of many native salmon runs as endangered and the pressure to comply with the federal Clean Water Act have only compounded the ecological problems the state faces.
For instance, Oregon's wetland resources have suffered substantial losses in geographic distribution and diversity. In western Oregon, 53 percent of wetlands have been converted to other uses since European settlement, and in the Willamette Valley alone, more than 500 acres of wetlands are lost each year, according to the State of the Environment Report. Nationally, 35 percent of all rare and endangered species depend on wetlands. As wetland habitat is destroyed, the number of species threatened with extinction increases.
Oregonians thought in 1998 that they had provided a long-term answer for funding conservation and restoration efforts. By a vote of more than two to one (742,038 yes to 362,247 no), they passed Ballot Measure 66, which dedicated 15 percent of state lottery revenue to parks and habitat. Its backers expected it would generate about $45 million annually for these purposes. So the state's voters felt some satisfaction in taking a step to start dealing with those issues.
But even as those environmental challenges were being tabulated and compiled in the state environmental report, and as environmental groups and agencies were looking at the best way to tackle the problems, political and economic pressures began whittling away at the money earmarked for conservation. The legislature, facing a series of tight budgets, allocated much of the dedicated revenue to existing agency programs, filling holes created by the withdrawal of general fund support. For instance, in the 1999-2001 budget, $2.8 million of lottery funds were diverted to the Oregon State Police for positions that were previously funded from the general fund. The legislature also used $3.7 million of lottery funding to "back-fill" the Department of Fish and Wildlife that year. The money actually available for purchasing and restoring land is only a fraction of what Measure 66 proponents envisioned.
So today, four years after Ballot Measure 66 and two years after the state environmental report found that Oregon "faces environmental challenges that existing policies and programs may not be sufficient to address, including: inadequate water supplies, poor water quality, . . . loss of wetlands, degraded riparian areas, depleted fish stocks, invasions of exotics, diminished biodiversity, waste and toxic releases," those concerned with the environment are once again asking, "How are we going to pay for it?"
To a growing number of environmentalists, making the available resources stretch the farthest means looking beyond today's trouble spots or whatever current crisis has the headlines and taking a long-term approach.
And that means looking at rural, undeveloped areas that can be saved, rather than urban, developed areas where higher land values make the costs of such work more expensive and continuing development pressure makes the results less promising.
According to Sara Vickerman, director of Oregon conservation programs for the Washington, D.C.-based Defenders of Wildlife, the best opportunities to conserve intact habitat and restore ecosystems are found in the rural areas of the state.
She cites the group's book Oregon's Living Landscape: Strategies and Opportunities to Conserve Biodiversity, which found in 1998 that "larger landscapes containing native vegetation and species are more likely to remain there [in rural areas], and land values make conservation investments more costeffective."
"In general, conservation strategies should follow "the path of least resistance. Given the option . . . biodiversity efforts should be targeted to areas that are least vulnerable to current and future threats," the book's authors argue.
To Anne Donnelly, wetlands projects manager for the South Coast Land Conservancy, that reasoning makes a lot of sense.
"In rural areas, there are more extensive units of land available to be saved. The larger the area, the healthier the habitat," she said. In more developed areas, even relatively preserved areas tend to be smaller, more fragmented, and isolated. Even if these check- erboards of undeveloped land can be preserved now, they will be under constant pressure from development in the future.
But there are some serious obstacles to such a program, Donnelly said, the biggest being the lack of a statewide effort in that direction. In rural areas, the pressure comes not so much from encroaching development as from a variety of political and economic forces.
Rural counties are typically dependent on logging, mining, and other resource-extraction industries. Payments to the counties by the federal government reward using the resources rather than preserving them. Local governments are also in the act, she added, because of the perception that protecting land creates a significant hit to the tax base. More development, the reasoning goes, would create higher property value for the land and thus more tax revenue to the cities and counties.
For many landowners and local officials, such policies make it more beneficial in the short term to allow development or resource extraction, regardless of what their sentiments or long-term interest might be.
"It's not a question of people being stupid or unthinking," Donnelly said. "It's a question of people trying to feed their families." As a counter to such prevailing views,
Donnelly pointed to studies showing that wellpreserved lands actually create economic benefits, including creating areas in which affluent people like to live. Also, under the state's land-use planning laws, land zoned for farm or forest use cannot easily be developed.
Human nature is another problem, Donnelly suggested. Because the land is rural and often undeveloped, people tend not to think it is in any danger.
"We don't start to react until it's almost too late. Our reactions are only triggered when people start realizing it's disappearing," she said. The result is that it's difficult to attract funding to rural areas.
What is needed, Donnelly and Vickerman said, is a statewide effort that recognizes and rewards preservation in the same way that policies have for years rewarded development.
That would create an economic incentive for landowners to restore their properties that could counterbalance the pressure to develop.
There are such funding and incentive programs operating on a piecemeal basis. Conservancy groups, land banks, and trusts are a growing factor. These programs put conservation restrictions on the property, often through liens on the property's deed, while keeping the lands on a county's tax rolls. At the same time, the owners continue farming or pursuing other uses of the property, usually with an infusion of cash that makes the remaining land more economically viable.
Esther Lev, executive of the Tualatin-based Wetlands Conservancy, said her group is already working in that direction. Under the Oregon's Greatest Wetlands initiative, scientists, ecologists, and local communities are being enlisted in a grassroots effort to identify the most important remaining wetlands in the state. The results will be gathered in a database that will not only identify the wetlands, but provide a wealth of information on them, including ownership, what restoration or protection work, if any, has been undertaken, what agencies and other groups are involved, and what kind of help is needed.
Such information will allow better coordination between different conservation efforts and let people in different areas learn from one another about what works and what doesn't.
In her book Heroic Tales of Wetlands Preservation, published last fall by the conservancy (see Restoration, issue no. 28, Media Received) Lev details the stories of 12 rural landowners who restored and enhanced their properties rather than succumb to the pressure to develop. In the book's final section, she asks about various programs the landowners used or tried to use and details the advantages and disadvantages.
All agreed that, while there are helpful state and federal programs, using them was difficult. Often, literally dozens of permits from different agencies were required.
"[The permits] took a lot of phone calls, and they came with a lot of hoops to jump through," Lev said. "There are a lot of different agencies with a lot of different goals. . . . Someone needs to step forward and look at where's the collision course between these different federal and state agencies."
Not all environmentalists agree with the idea of focusing on rural areas for conservation work. Mike Houck, urban naturalist for the Audubon Society in Portland and co-editor of Wild in the City, a Guide to Portland's Natural Areas, said, "The argument that restoration should occur only in pristine landscapes is unsupportable for biological, social, legal, and political reasons."
"Urban habitats are not biologically unimportant and should not be 'written off' by ecological purists," he said. Cities contain thousands of acres of intact and restorable habitat inside the urban growth boundary.
Houck also disagreed that there is a single, "limited" pot of money for "worthy" restoration projects. He said that the urban restoration movement is extremely entrepreneurial, scrounging relatively small pots of money from funds that are tied to ratepayers and disparate local programs. Such funds are not transferable to other landscapes.
More than 80 percent of Oregonians live in cities, he observed, and urban habitats provide an array of functions beyond biodiversity. City dwellers care very much about the educational, aesthetic, water quality, recreational, and economic values that urban natural areas provide them.
"Recognizing this is crucial to retaining support for the land-use planning program and for restoration efforts outside the city. For decades Thoreau's aphorism, 'In wildness is the preservation of the world,' has dominated the conservation agenda. I would argue that it's in livable cities that the conservation movement is most likely to succeed in preserving, and restoring, the wild," he said.
Lev, of the Wetlands Conservancy, countered that the suggestion of refocusing conservation efforts on rural areas is not an either-or proposition.
"I'm not suggesting that those [urban] areas get written off," she said. There are opportunities for restoration in urban areas and processes and strategies that would be uniquely effective in such settings, according to Lev. However, she said, urban areas have already been the site of much work, and more money is available for work in more developed settings because they are higher profile.
Vickerman, at Defenders of Wildlife, pointed to a couple of recent developments that offer her some hope for better coordination between agencies.
"New federal legislation (the State Wildlife Grant Program) requires Oregon to develop a statewide habitat plan in order to continue receiving federal funds under this program," she said. "The feds provide 75 percent of the money for the planning and 50 percent funding for projects. Last year Oregon got $800,000, this year $1.2 million. We are encouraging ODFW [the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife] to use these funds and their expertise to develop an interagency plan with forestry, ag, and other agencies. This is one mechanism for the state to establish conservation priorities and facilitate strategic investments."
Also, she said, State Forester Jim Brown is promoting the idea of state resource agencies working together to develop a statewide conservation plan. Brown and the state's Board of Forestry have begun urging the state's other resources agencies to join in framing the landuse debate around a series of guidelines, based on input from the scientific community, that would, they hope, move the debate away from the polarization that has characterized it and focus on a common framework for making conservation decisions. That effort is still in the early discussion phase, according to David Moorman of the Department of Forestry.
"It looks to me like the stars and moon could be aligned to get this done," Vickerman said.
By John Baur
Shortly after Salmon-Friendly Power began, state media characterized the initial sign-up for the market-based conservation program as low. They interpreted the numbers as an indication that the plan wasn't as successful as some had hoped. In an editorial, the Oregonian referred to the response as "underwhelming."
However, more than 2,000 people have signed up to take part in the program, which Pacific Power and Portland General Electric began offering to their customers on March 1.
Whether you qualify the sign-ups with either "only 2,000 people" or "2,000 people already" depends on your point of view.
For the Sake of the Salmon, a salmon conservation group, launched Salmon-Friendly Power in partnership with utilities. For a few extra dollars a month, participants can support salmon habitat restoration efforts in their local areas and create market demand for renewable energy resources that are less harmful to salmon than conventional sources of power.
Betsy Kauffman, the program's coordinator at For the Sake of the Salmon, was quietly pleased with the numbers and thought the implied criticism of the media reports was based on a lack of understanding.
"We're very pleased with how things are going," Kauffman said.
When For the Sake of the Salmon first began talking about launching the program in 1997, led by then-executive director Bill Bradbury, planners ambitiously hoped that about 5 percent of Oregon utility customers would sign on, but they quickly reset their sights.
"Wildly successful programs in other parts of the country get 4 percent, 5 percent," she said. "You are considered a very successful program if you get 1 to 2 percent. For us to get to 2,000 (participants) right at the beginning is a good start."
A similar pilot program administered through PGE until the March 1 launch of the Salmon-Friendly Power plan drew 3,000 of the utility's 700,000 customers, something less than 1/2 percent. The Habitat Renewable Power plan is one of six options available to customers of Pacific Power and PGE under Oregon's electricity restructuring plan, which went into effect March 1. Along with basic electric service and rates that fluctuate with time of use or season are three socalled green plans. One plan allows users to specify that their power originates from wind generating plants; another allows customers to choose a mix of wind and other renewable resources. Both add an additional charge for purchasing the renewable resource.
The Salmon-Friendly Power option is the most ambitious. It lets customers subscribe to the renewable resources plus make a $2.50 monthly contribution to the Pacific Salmon Watershed Fund to support native fish habitat restoration. Sign-ups for all three green options combined have been even more promising, Kaufman said. For Pacific Power alone, 5,794 users had signed up for one of the three options, a little over 1 percent in the first three weeks.
The link between electricity users and salmon-habitat restoration is a natural, Kauffman said, since so much of the region's power comes from hydroelectricity, which is a major culprit in the decline of salmon runs. The full cost of "dirty power," delivered from existing plants that have already been paid for, may not show up on power bills, but, Kauffman said, everyone pays for them through the need to offset environmental degradation. By signing up for one of the green plans, customers help to create a market for new, cleaner power.
"We have been paying for years for dirty power, and those plants are paid for so they have become the cheapest form of power we have," she said. "The renewable power people will tell you we have a system in our society where pollution gets a free ride. The costs of pollution are not paid for by the generator, but we all pay for them."
"For every kilowatt hour you use, the utility is required to purchase that much power from renewable resources and put it into the grid."
The $2.50 fee for the Salmon-Friendly plan will be used for habitat restoration. The earlier program for PGE has helped pay for such activities as planting native species in watersheds, removing nonnative species, and replacing culverts. In some of the projects, the Salmon-Friendly Power money supplemented other funds. Other projects would not have happened at all without the power money, Kauffman said.
The plan is unique to Oregon, Kauffman said, but For the Sake of the Salmon hopes to help it spread. Initial contacts already have been made with such Washington utilities as Puget Sound Energy, Seattle City Light, and the Snohomish and Clark Public Utility Districts.
Details of the power plans and sign-up information can be found on the World Wide Web at www.salmonpower.org, at the Web sites for PGE and Pacific Power, or by contacting For the Sake of the Salmon, 319 SW Washington, Suite 706, Portland, OR 97204, 503-223-8511, or sending e-mail to betsy@4sos.org.
by Paul Hoobyar
As difficult and contentious as it is to list a species for protection under the Endangered Species Act, that effort pales in comparison to how complex the process is to "delist" a species. A workshop held in March at the University of Portland underscored the complexities involved.
Conveners organized the workshop, entitled "Habitat Delisting Criteria for Salmon Recovery Planning," because "habitat delisting criteria have not been developed, documented, or applied in the context of anadromous salmonid recovery planning," according to the Web site of Steward and Associates, a lead organizer of the workshop. The organizers also noted that habitat criteria are commonly specified in recovery plans for other species, despite this omission for salmon.
Cleve Steward, one of the members of a technical team charged with developing delisting criteria for salmon in the Willamette/ lower Columbia region, noted that some people question whether habitat should be even considered as a "requisite for delisting." However, Steward said, his team "strongly believes that habitat is one of the requisites that must be factored into any delisting criteria for salmon."
Because a number of Technical Recovery Teams in the West are "developing biological delisting criteria (e.g., abundance, growth rate, spatial structure, and diversity) for regional groupings of listed salmon species," according to the workshop organizers, and because considerable debate exists over whether habitat delisting criteria should be developed in conjunction with the other biological standards, the organizers hoped the workshop would help resolve, or improve, their understanding of how to incorporate habitat into the delisting criteria.
The Technical Recovery Team for the Willamette/lower Columbia region is composed of scientists affiliated with agencies and organizations primarily outside of the National Marine Fisheries Service, which is the agency responsible for recovering salmon protected under the Endangered Species Act. The Willamette/lower Columbia team has been studying recovery goals for listed salmon in the region for the past two years.
Over 100 technical and policy experts from governmental and nongovernmental sectors around the region attended the workshop. Presenters offered diverse perspectives on the issues associated with habitat criteria in delisting. Dan Rohlf, law professor at Lewis and Clark School of Law, for instance, reviewed the legal implications of the Endangered Species Act directive that recovery plans must include "objective, measurable criteria which, when met, would result in a determination . . . that the species be removed from the list."
Rohlf noted that recovery plans must address the same statutory factors in delisting that were cited as reasons for listing the species initially. For salmon, these include (1) the destruction, modification, or curtailment of its habitat or range, or even the threat of such activity; and (2) the inadequacy of existing regulatory mechanisms.
Fisheries biologist Pete Bisson posed a question that is critical to creating successful salmon recovery plans. "Are habitat delisting criteria feasible," Bisson asked, "in dynamic environments?" On the basis of his experience as a Weyerhaeuser and U.S. Forest Service researcher, Bisson pointed out several conceptual and practical problems with habitat delisting criteria. For instance, he noted the tendency for "standards" to become "targets," meaning that if regulators establish a specific number of salmon that must be maintained for a given stream as a necessary threshold for their survival, this number can become an oversimplified target for determining success in recovery. He also highlighted the lack of suitable field data. Finally, Bisson pointed to the difficulty of specifying and applying fixed standards in environments that vary in geographic size and incorporate varying scales of time. As an alternative approach, Bisson suggested developing criteria specific to each subbasin or watershed that describe a range of conditions and rates of change deemed necessary for recovery.
Jim Lichatowich, a fisheries biologist noted for his research on salmon in the context of their marine and freshwater habitats, provided both a historical perspective on salmon management and an alternative approach for developing and applying habitat delisting criteria. He described the "harvest-plushatcheries" paradigm that has dominated fisheries management in the twentieth century.
He argued that this approach de-emphasized habitat and the individual population and life history diversities of each stock of salmon.
Lichatowich believes this approach has led to reduced abundance and productivity for salmon across the region. Defining life histories as the "glue that binds populations to their habitat," Lichatowich argued that habitat must become the focus of recovery. However, he also cautioned against the use of inflexible habitat criteria, noting that they would promote fixed (nonadaptable) life histories.
Participants also heard from numerous other presenters, including Ulie Seal, head of the World Conservation Union's Captive Breeding Specialist Group, who has helped design conservation management programs for threatened species around the world.
For members of the Technical Recovery Team who attended the workshop, the event "definitely helped" in their understanding of the issues involved, Steward said. He also said the group was better positioned to create delisting criteria as a result of the workshop.
A final decision hasn't been made on whether to give habitat criteria the same weight as other biological standards, such as population viability, for establishing criteria for delisting salmon. However, a draft recommendation is being prepared by the technical team for review by regulators and policymakers at the end of April.
by Michael Blumm
425 pp. Den Bosch, The Netherlands: BookWorld Publications. $39.95 (softcover) and $69.95 (hardbound)
Many books have been written in the past few years that offer a historical and comprehensive assessment of Pacific salmon.
Most of these books have focused on the biology and ecology of the species and their habitats or on the management practices that have affected salmon and their habitats from aboriginal times, through settlement by European descendants, to the present day. These accounts, of necessity, have also included chapters on the complex policy and political landscapes through which these creatures must migrate, but the primary focus has been on the biology and habitat of salmon and on management issues.
Lewis and Clark Law School professor Michael Blumm's new book turns that approach around. Like other authors, Blumm begins by providing his readers with an overview of the biological uniqueness of each of the five Pacific salmon species. He then covers the chronology of salmon usage by humans, starting with the harvests and rituals of Native American tribes, through the migration of European descendants into the region. What makes Blumm's approach unique, however, is his discussions and in-depth analysis of the early treaties, the federal and state laws, and the policies and management programs that have evolved as integral parts of the salmon saga.
The picture Blumm portrays is discouraging. He documents how the early treaties the United States negotiated with Native American tribes were either ignored or blatantly disregarded shortly after they were ratified. "[Washington Governor] Stevens had promised the tribes two years in which to move to their new reservations, but he broke that promise by opening up Yakama lands to white settlement only twelve days after concluding negotiations. . . ."
He includes a chapter on judicial interpretations of the treaties that provides the reader with an understanding of how these treaties were interpreted through time, from the earliest court decisions in 1887, through the Boldt decision in 1970, and the story he tells is not one that puts the United States, Washington, Oregon, or the other Northwest states in the best light.
With a keen knowledge of policy and law, Blumm then takes the reader through analyses of hatcheries, dams, and a succession of federal acts, from the Federal Power Act through the Endangered Species and Clean Water Acts, and sheds light on how deficient these programs and laws have been in protecting salmon in the Columbia and restoring salmon runs there.
Blumm's chapter headings provide an indication of how pessimistic he is about our attempts to protect and sustain salmon: "First Promise: The Stevens and Palmer Treaties"; "Second Promise: The False Hope of Salmon Hatcheries"; "Relicensing Nonfederal Dams: A Hidden Promise."
Blumm concludes by assessing what he calls "eight myths" that must be "overcome." These myths range from the belief that hatcheries can compensate for the loss of habitat, to the myth of artificial transport and of returning the river to a predevelopment "wilderness servitude." He also includes the faith in ecosystem management as a recovery cure-all and the belief that the "stakeholders" can settle this problem if only they would talk among themselves.
Sacrificing the Salmon ends with a look at how the lessons of the Columbia River salmon might contain an opportunity for change, not only in the Columbia Basin, but in other regions where intractable natural resource issues exist. For readers interested in the evolution of policy and law as they relate to the salmon crisis, or for those looking for analysis of one of our region's most challenging issues, this book is a worthy addition to their collection.
The book is available at www.salmonlaw.net or call 1-866-240-4297.
For anyone who is interested in the state's land-use planning process, as well as an analysis of its strengths and weaknesses in protecting fish and wildlife habitat, the new report published by Defenders of Wildlife provides a well-written and concise overview of these issues. The report investigates Oregon's land-use planning program and the efforts of a number of county and regional governmental organizations in the Willamette basin to address habitat and biodiversity issues.
No Place for Nature: The Limits of Oregon's Land Use Program in Protecting Fish and Wildlife Habitat in the Willamette Valley, written by former Land Conservation and Development Commissioner Pam Wiley, focuses on the Willamette basin because of the challenges the basin faces in conserving biological diversity from urbanization and population growth. The report concludes that better and additional conservation measures are needed to enhance biodiversity in the Willamette basin. It is available online at http:// www.biodiversitypartners.org/Wiley/ foreword.html. For a hard copy, e-mail Jbrubaker@defenders.org.
-Paul Hoobyar
One World Journeys has a Web site entitled, "Salmon, Spirit of the Land and Sea." This is an interactive site designed for students in grades K-12, but it is probably best for middle school ages. The viewer accompanies researchers on a 10-day trip as they travel the coastal waters of Alaska and British Columbia during the fall salmon migration. http://www.oneworldjourneys.com/expeditions/salmon/
A report published by the Western Trout Campaign, Imperiled Western Trout and the Importance of Roadless Areas, makes a case for the ecological importance of roadless areas in the region. All eight western species of native trout studied in the report have strongholds that remain on less than 5 percent of their historic range, and all eight species continue to survive in roadless areas. To obtain a copy of the report online, go to http:// www.westerntrout.org.
A recently published report by the Environmental Defense Fund focuses on Oregon's little-used Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program. The federally funded program makes $250 million available to agricultural landowners in Oregon, yet the funds go largely untapped. The funding is designed to provide cash incentives to landowners who create riparian buffers, restore wetlands, or use filter-strip practices on acreage bordering waters that have, or historically may have had, fish listed as endangered. Why aren't landowners using the program's funds more?
The report, entitled The Oregon Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program: A Major Funding Opportunity for Achieving Healthy Watersheds, gives some idea of the barriers that exist and suggests ways to make the program more enticing for landowners. It is available from Kathy Viatella at (512) 478-5161 or by e-mail at kviatella@environmentaldefense.org.
Applications are available for Oregon communities interested in applying for a Resource Assistance for Rural Environments (RARE) Participant to serve in 2002-2003. The RARE program helps increase the capacity of rural communities to improve their economic, social, and environmental conditions through the assistance of trained, graduate-level participants who live and work in communities for one year. For more information and an application, visit http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~rare/ , e-mail rare@darkwing.uoregon.edu, or call 541-346- 2879.
The School of Extended Studies and the Department of Environmental Sciences and Resources at Portland State University are offering several courses this spring and summer. Course descriptions are available on the Web at http://www.extended.pdx.edu/ wetdel/, or you can e-mail PSU Extended Studies Environmental Programs at deweyr@pdx.edu, or call 503-725-5388.
The Urban Watershed Institute is planning classes and workshops that address a number of restoration-related issues. Detailed descriptions and a registration form are available at www.uwi-ccc.org.
Explores experiences, tools, and issues in riverfront revitalization for social, environmental, and economic benefit. Location: Western Oregon University, Monmouth
Restoration (ISSN 1521-5261) is a quarterly publication of Oregon Sea Grant, a marine research, education, and outreach program based at Oregon State University. The newsletter is partially supported by grant no. NA76RG0476 from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and by appropriations made by the Oregon State legislature. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of NOAA or any of its subagencies.
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