Accessible document
A newsletter about salmon, watersheds and people
Issue No. 34
Dear Readers: In September 1994, page one of the first issue of Restoration carried a headline, "Why This Newsletter?" In it I wrote, "We'd like readers to recognize Restoration as an information resource in the challenging work of environmental and community restoration that lies ahead." Over the decade since then, we've produced quarterly issues of this newsletter -- 34 of them now -- striving to be an "information resource" for you on the science and policy of salmon and watershed restoration. More than 1,400 of you receive every issue, and the three times we've asked for your collective feedback over the years, you've told us our information was helping you. Quite a few of you said more: you contributed articles, ideas for articles, or critiques. For those of us who produce the newsletter, that sense of having an interested community of readers made it all worthwhile. "All good things . . .," however, and this issue is almost certainly our last. Over the decade, Oregon Sea Grant has supported the newsletter's production entirely, except for two years when the Governor's Natural Resources Office and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service contributed. In this period of declining budgets, it's no longer possible for Sea Grant to support the newsletter on its own, given the many other demands we have on our finances and our attention. As we wrap up this last issue, I want to acknowledge my colleagues who have taken a truly personal as well as professional interest in producing the newsletter and addressing "the challenging work of environmental and community restoration." Staff members of Oregon Sea Grant have, of course, played critical roles: Sandy Ridlington, managing editor; Rick Cooper and Joel Southern, production and layout; John Baur, writer; and the two people behind the scenes who make sure you get the newsletter, Pat Kight, Webmaster, and Cindy Newberry, circulation coordinator. Finally, I'd like to give special recognition to the man who, with his passion and insight, has since 1998 made a critical difference to Restoration, editor Paul Hoobyar. Regards, Joe Cone |
by Paul Hoobyar
The 2003 legislature's decision to fund state agency staff and operations with Measure 66 lottery money has raised questions regarding whether this decision reflects the intent and legal obligations of the constitutional amendment. Furthermore, the legislature's decision to divert federal restoration funds dedicated to salmon recovery efforts to "backfill" state agency programs and personnel has led NOAA Fisheries to request a review and budget analysis of these funds.
In 1998, Oregonians approved Measure 66 as a constitutional amendment and created what has become the major funding mechanism for the Oregon Plan for Salmon and Watersheds. Sixty-seven percent of the electorate voted to set aside 7.5 percent of the state's lottery funds for watershed restoration and habitat conservation. The majority of those funds, 65 percent, are dedicated to "capital" projects -- ones that actually restore habitat or develop projects that protect and restore watersheds and habitat. The remaining 35 percent is allocated to "operations," including salaries for watershed council staff, research, monitoring, education, and outreach. For the past three biennia, Oregon's legislature has increasingly diverted Measure 66 operations funds to pay for the salaries of state agency personnel and programs in the Oregon State Police and the departments of Fish and Wildlife, Environmental Quality, Agriculture, and Forestry. For instance, in the 1999Ð2001 biennium, $10.6 million of Measure 66 operational funds were allocated to state agency staff and operations. In the 2003Ð2005 biennium, approximately 25 percent of the lottery funds -- almost $13 million -- has been allocated to agency personnel and operations. In addition, Measure 66's capital funding for state agency projects has more than tripled from $5.7 million in 1999Ð2001 to $18.4 million in the 2003Ð2005 budgets.
According to a recent Legislatively Approved Budget report, $4.9 million of Measure 66 funds will be used to pay for Oregon State Police Fish and Wildlife personnel in the current biennium; $3.375 million will now support the Department of Environmental Quality's "Total Maximum Daily Load" management staff; and $3.375 million of Measure 66 funding will be used for staff in the Department of Agriculture's water quality program. Notably, staff funding for the environmental quality, water resources, and agriculture agencies originally came from general fund obligations, which are supported through state income tax revenues. But, in an effort to create a balanced budget, the legislature has increasingly diverted Measure 66 funds to backfill those positions and programs.
At the same time, staff funding for watershed council and soil and water conservation districts has remained the same for several biennia ($8.2 million divided evenly between councils and districts). However, the legislature has changed the source for those funds in this biennium, from the relatively stable Measure 66 to a federal source that is renewed annually after congressional review. The legislature will now divert $6.2 million from the federal Pacific Coast Salmon Recovery Fund to staff local councils and districts, and only $2 million will come from Measure 66 funds. The legislature made this shift, according to a number of observers, because of the increased diversion of Measure 66 funds to fill state agency budgets for this biennium. As a result, the legislature needed the federal funds to support local groups while still creating a balanced state budget. In order to secure federal cooperation in this use of funds, the state had to sign an agreement with the federal government limiting this to a one-time diversion for staffing.
The strongest criticism of the legislature's use of Measure 66 capital funding has been directed at its decision to fund a research hatchery on the coast. The legislature allocated $5.2 million to this research hatchery at the former Fall Creek Hatchery site on the Alsea River -- the largest single project in Measure 66's history.
"The bite into Measure 66 funds is an upward trend," noted Jason Miner, Oregon Trout's conservation director, "and if nobody challenges the Fall Creek Hatchery decision, then all we can expect is for this trend to continue."
"This [the Fall Creek Hatchery decision] is a direct appropriation of Measure 66 funds that undermines the intent of voters and does not go through any review process," Miner said.
The question of whether the legislature is circumventing the intent and legal obligations of Measure 66 and other state statutes goes beyond the Fall Creek Hatchery decision, according to many who work on the state's salmon recovery effort.
"The Oregon Plan is a four-legged stool,'" said Allison Hensey, policy analyst for the state's enhancement board. Those four legs include (1) agency programs, (2) on-the-ground restoration efforts, (3) monitoring and research, and (4) scientific oversight.
"OWEB directly supports three of the four legs of that stool," Hensley noted.
Some see the legislature's recent actions as circumventing that process. "The legislature is taking the decision making away from the OWEB Board," observed Louise Solliday, former policy advisor for Governor Kitzhaber, "and it calls into question whether the OWEB Board is still the single agency that is administering Measure 66 funds as stipulated in the Measure 66 legislation. About the only decision that OWEB is making at this point is for onthe- ground projects."
Solliday also said that the legislature's recent decisions regarding the use of federal restoration funds call into question whether the federal government will continue to provide Oregon with such funding.
In fact, the federal government, through NOAA Fisheries, is questioning decisions by the Oregon legislature regarding how federal funding of habitat and watershed restoration efforts, through the Pacific Coast Salmon Recovery Fund (PCSRF), is being allocated. In a letter dated August 25, 2003 from NOAA Fisheries' Deputy Regional Administrator Joe Scordino to Geoff Huntington, the Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board's executive director, Scordino wrote, "It has come to our attention that OWEB has cancelled its upcoming non-capital grant process for distribution of PCSRF funds to watershed activities . . . because much of the PCSRF funds will be redirected to state agency budgets." Scordino further wrote, "NOAA Fisheries views the direct allocation of over $20 million of PCSRF grant funds to state agencies as a significant departure from the past competitive public process that OWEB has used to distribute PCSRF funds to local salmon recovery efforts. . . . The PCSRF program was not contemplated for backfilling or replacing state agency budgets."
Scordino and NOAA Fisheries are now calling for a "complete statement of work and detailed budget for each agency program that may receive PCSRF funds."
According to the Legislatively Approved Budget report, $2 million from the federal Continued on page 8 grant program has been diverted to fund staff at the Water Resources Department; $6.6 million in federal funding is directed to Department of Fish and Wildlife programs and staff; $4.7 million is funding Department of Forestry programs and staff; and $3.1 million is funding Department of Agriculture programs and staff. In addition, approximately $10 million has been held over from the last fiscal year's federal fund and earmarked for agency "backfilling" by the state legislature in this biennium. Solliday argued that the legislature's actions "potentially threaten the future of federal funding for salmon recovery in the entire region," since PCSRF are allocated as a block to all four Pacific Coast states, not just Oregon.
"The big nightmare for the next biennium," Jim Myron, natural policy advisor for Governor Kulongoski said, "could be the $20 million of federal funding" (that has been used for state agency and other operations funding). "This is supposed to be a one-time fund shift, but if the economic recovery doesn't occur next year, and we don't have the general funds available to support those agency budgets, we could be facing a real crisis."
The backfilling of state agency budgets has impeded the funding of a number of other programs and activities considered essential to the success of the Oregon Plan for Salmon and Watersheds:
Many observers question whether the legislature is seizing too much control of salmon recovery in Oregon. The decision to fund the Fall Creek research hatchery is cited as an example of this trend. Under Oregon's statutes, the Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board has the authority to provide the research, monitoring, and planning that are considered to be essential components of a successful, scientifically based restoration program (ORS 541.371).
However, Oregon Trout's Miner and other observers now accuse the legislature of circumventing that process. "More and more of Measure 66 funding is not going through the process to have credibility -- through the regional review teams and the OWEB board itself," said Miner.
Critics of the Fall Creek Hatchery decision protest that it did not grow out of any analysis indicating that such a hatchery was needed or that the Fall Creek site was the most advantageous place for such a facility. "The IMST reviewed the Fall Creek site in December 2001," Jason Miner noted, "and they decided it was not a suitable site for a research facility. And that was the only specific scientific review of the proposal that was publicly available."
At that time, Logan Norris, head of the independent science team, wrote to the Department of Fish and Wildlife, "IMST is [also] concerned about the proposed location of the project [for a research facility] at the closed Fall Creek Hatchery in the Alsea basin." Norris noted that no hatchery coho releases had occurred in the Alsea basin since the closing of the hatchery in 1998, and the team viewed this suspension of hatchery releases as "an excellent opportunity to study recovery of wild salmonids and natural recolonization rates." In response to criticism, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife has approached the IMST to help identify the research questions that the Fall Creek Hatchery should address.
The independent science team has reiterated its assessment that the Fall Creek site is not appropriate for a research facility, according to science team member Stan Gregory, a fisheries ecologist at Oregon State University. However, the Department of Fish and Wildlife has asked the science team to convene a workshop this fall to help develop a suite of research questions that the Fall Creek Hatchery, and other research hatcheries, should address. The workshop will also help inform the design of the Fall Creek facility. "The IMST told [the Department of Fish and Wildlife] that they didn't have the research questions in place that ultimately would influence the design of the Fall Creek facility," Gregory noted.
Carl Schreck, another science team member and OSU fisheries professor, has been actively involved in designing the workshop to help address these issues. The workshop, scheduled for October 21Ð22, will include approximately 50 scientists from around the nation and Canada with expertise in the use and design of research hatcheries in salmon restoration. These experts, along with members of the state's science team and the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, will help establish criteria and help develop the appropriate design at the Fall Creek facility, according to Schreck. Opportunities for public input at the workshop are planned.
"The IMST is still not endorsing the Fall Creek facility," Gregory said, "although the team does agree that having a discussion about the role of hatcheries in restoring native salmon populations would be appropriate and warranted."
According to Jim Myron, the governor's natural resource policy advisor, the governor supports the Fall Creek project. "The governor had written the federal delegation for funds for such a project last spring," Myron said. Myron also said that using Measure 66 dollars for such a facility "wasn't our first choice . . . but since it was not a production facility and it was keyed at the wild fish/natural fish interface and how hatcheries can be used to restore naturally spawning fisheries, we felt that it would be an appropriate use of those [Measure 66] funds."
When Measure 66 became a constitutional amendment, Oregon's Watershed Enhancement Board was designated as the "single agency" to administer those lottery funds under the terms of the amendment. At least some proponents of Measure 66 are now considering a legal challenge of the legislature's actions, arguing that a court might want to decide whether the legislature has usurped the Enhancement Board's "single agency" authority.
State Representative Jacqueline Dingfelder, (D-Portland), opposed the Department of Fish and Wildlife's budget during the last legislative session because of its inclusion of the Fall Creek Hatchery allocation. In her floor speech on June 27, Representative Dingfelder said that "Diverting lottery funds to unauthorized purposes and undermining the Oregon Salmon Plan will end up defying the will of Oregon voters, violating Oregon's constitution, and worsening the salmon crisis."
Measure 66 will eventually be referred back to the voters in 2014 as part of the original language authorizing the initiative. Given the legislature's increasing diversion of these funds to backfill state agency positions, voters may question the continued use of lottery funds designated ostensibly for watershed and habitat restoration. In the meantime, Oregon Trout, and possibly other groups, is considering whether a legal challenge to the legislature's use of Measure 66 funding is warranted.
Communities
by John Baur
What we know about the ocean is -- well -- a drop in the bucket.
As author Peter Benchley wrote in his book Shark Trouble (Random House, 2002), "We have seen less than five percent of our oceans; humans have actually visited less than five percent of that five percent. As a comparison, a terrestrial equivalent of the way in which we have gone about studying the ocean would be if we dragged a butterfly net behind an airplane over the Grand Canyon at night and, based on what we collected, developed theses, hypotheses and generalizations about life on earth."
But we're getting a handle on a few things. One is the scope of what we still don't know. Another is that the ocean is in trouble, and we're the major cause.
Those are among the conclusions of the landmark report, America's Living Oceans: Charting a Course for Sea Change, released June 4 as the end product of a three-year, nationwide study of the oceans. The report was compiled by the Pew Oceans Commission, a panel of scientists, fishers, conservationists, business leaders, and elected officials. The report catalogues a host of factors that threaten the health of the ocean. Many of them -- including overfishing, overdevelopment, and pollution -- are factors that have long been recognized, if not completely understood. For coastal residents -- and that includes a large and growing portion of the population -- the issue of pollution is of particular interest. Each year more and more people move to America's coastal communities, and many of the rest of us visit the coast for recreation and relaxation.
But even those who do not venture near the beach can have a direct impact on the ocean's health, because one of the major dangers facing the ocean is activity that takes place on land, the report emphasized.
Dr. Jane Lubchenco is an environmental scientist and marine ecologist working from Oregon State University and an internationally recognized leader in the study of ocean health. As a member of the Pew Commission, she said, "We need to educate ourselves better about the consequences of activities that play out far away from where we are. Folks that live in the Willamette Valley may not think of themselves as living in a coastal community, but we do." In 1999, the research firm of Belden Russonello & Stewart conducted a comprehensive survey for the Ocean Project, trying to plumb the knowledge Americans have -- and lack -- about the world's seas. While the respondents generally had a high awareness of the importance of ocean health, they knew little about specific threats to the ocean and the part they themselves play in it. The survey found that 8 out of 10 respondents rejected the notion, once widely held, that the oceans are so vast that humans can't cause it lasting damage. Seven out of 10 agreed that the oceans can't clean themselves, and 8 of 10 disagreed with the statement that we don't need to worry about the health of the oceans because we will develop new technologies to keep them clean.
However, a large minority (45 percent) agreed with the statement, "What I do in my life doesn't impact ocean health very much." When the questions got more specific, the answers were correspondingly farther off the mark. Asked to choose the main source of ocean pollution from three sources, most (66 percent) chose "waste dumped by industry." Given the coverage that such incidents garner in the media -- think of oil tanker spills and heavily polluted industrial sites -- this answer is understandable. A grounded oil tanker is easy to visualize, and when such a tragedy occurs, the media are there in force, day after day providing pictures of fouled coastline, dead sea mammals, and oil-smeared birds. But the truth is, as bad as such catastrophes may be, they are not even close to the biggest problem for the oceans. In our individual daily lives, we combine to create a greater problem for the ocean than all the industrial spills put together. According to a National Academy of Sciences report, oil running off our streets and driveways and ultimately flowing into the oceans adds up to the equivalent of an Exxon Valdez spill -- that is, 10.9 million gallons of petrochemicals -- every eight months. "Paved surfaces have created expressways for oil, grease, and toxic pollutants into coastal waters," Lubchenco said. And only 14 percent of the survey's respondents got that right.
Further, oceans face a major peril from runoff of nutrients and pesticides from lawns and farmlands. When scientists and managers talk about nutrients as pollutants, the public can get confused. After all, nutrients sound like something that would be good. Nutritious even. But of course, it's all a matter of scale. "As in many things in life, moderation is better than excess," Lubchenco said. "When you have too many nutrients, it causes the system to respond in ways that are harmful."
The OSU scientist emphasized the word system when talking about ecosystems. A system is something that has developed over millions of years, with all the factors balancing and regulating each other. When one of the factors gets out of whack -- not enough water in drought years, for example, or an onslaught of nutrients from upstream farms -- it can rebound with catastrophic consequences.
"Excess nutrients trigger the growth of plants," Lubchenco explained. "In coastal waters certain kinds of microscopic plants, the algae and the phytoplankton, are able to grow very, very rapidly at the expense of the other plants of the system. . . . The excess nutrients can stimulate algal blooms and other species that can be toxic or harmful to other fish, humans, or other mammals."
Then, after the massive growth, the microscopic plants die, and the bacteria from their decay uses up the oxygen in the water. This can cause huge "dead zones," such as the Massachusetts- sized zone at the mouth of the Mississippi River, in which no fish or plants can grow. In southwest Oregon's Klamath River, that process seems to have taken place this summer, according to a July 29 report by Michael Milstein in the Oregonian. At least 20 fish have been found dead in warm water in which "thick mats of dying algae decomposing in hot, windless weather have devoured almost all oxygen in some places," the article notes. Fishery biologists are worrying about the returning coho salmon later in the year and say that "It's too late to head off a fish die-off if one is approaching."
According to the Pew Report, more than 60 percent of our coastal rivers and bays are moderately to severely degraded by nutrient runoff. This runoff creates harmful algal blooms and leads to the degradation or loss of sea grass and kelp beds as well as coral reefs that are important spawning and nursery grounds for fish.
If current practices continue, the report warns, nitrogen inputs to U.S. coastal waters in 2030 may be as much as 30 percent higher than at present and more than twice what they were in 1960. Resolving these nonpoint sources is difficult, Lubchenco said, but it can -- and must -- be done if the oceans as we know them are to survive.
"The responsibility is an individual thing -- not dumping oil in your own driveway, being careful with the things you put on your lawn. It's also a collective activity," Lubchenco said. "It's thinking about where we put roads and how we grow our crops, especially along rivers within the Willamette Valley, for example." There are many steps that can be taken with existing technologies that mitigate the impact of such activities on the ocean, she continued. Grease traps built along highways and roads can prevent oil and other toxins from flowing into the oceans. New developments often include buffer strips of plants that are able to withstand oil to help provide buffering capacity.
The very things that make an area attractive to farmers -- access to water and large tracts of soil enriched from long centuries of flooding -- make it equally likely to contribute to ocean pollution. But there are ways to deal with them, according to Lubchenco. "In riparian zones, you don't farm right up to the water's edge. You have strips along the river with plants that are able to absorb the extra nutrients," she said, noting that national legislation provides funds to help farmers pay for such additions.
The key, according to Lubchenco, begins with people understanding and taking responsibility for activities that at first blush seem to be unconnected to ocean health. "We need to educate ourselves better about the consequences of activities that play out far away from where we are," she said.
OPINION
Editor's Note: We asked four longtime observers of the salmon crisis to provide their assessment of whether native Pacific salmon will still be surviving in the next hundred years in the Northwest. Below are their responses, edited for space and clarity. The editors want to thank the contributors.
by Robert T. Lackey
The decline of salmon was caused by an extensively studied, but still poorly understood, combination of factors. Determining the relative importance of these factors has been complicated by the overlapping influences of random and cyclic changes in ocean and climatic conditions. The runs remain relatively low for many of the same reasons that caused the original decline. The "record" runs in the Columbia River over the most recent few years have been anticipated by many familiar with the historic pattern of salmon abundance, that is, a pattern of changes driven predominantly by ocean conditions. The majority of these runs are of hatchery origin and small compared to pre-1850 levels. In spite of the failure of most wild salmon restoration efforts, the goal (and legal requirement) of restoring these runs appears to enjoy continued widespread public support. Billions of dollars continue to be spent in a so-far failed attempt to reverse the long-term, overall decline.
How can it be that although the direct causes of the decline are reasonably well known and although the public appears to be supportive of changing the downward trajectory for wild salmon, the long-term prognosis is nevertheless poor for California, Oregon, Washington, and Idaho? The answer is that effecting any change in the long-term, downward trend for wild salmon is probably futile in the absence of substantial shifts in the factors that drive the decline. There are six root causes, or core drivers, of the salmon decline. Society has minimal control over two of them, climate and ocean conditions. However, society could control the other four drivers:
Without substantial changes in these four drivers, the status of wild salmon through this century will likely continue the downward spiral of the past 150 years. An assessment of current individual and societal priorities provides little indication that the public appears willing to make substantial changes in any of the drivers.
Not all salmon restoration options require draconian changes in these drivers. Some options are likely to be ecologically achievable and less socially disruptive than current wild salmon recovery strategies, but these options also have much more modest restoration objectives, require extensive hatchery intervention, or involve creating protected areas.
by Jim Lichatowich
Will salmon survive the next century? The answer to that question is yes. Salmon are survivors and I am confident in their ability to persist. Over the past several thousand years, they have survived extreme changes in their habitat, so I believe there will be salmon around a century from now somewhere along the Pacific Rim.
The more important questions are, Will salmon still penetrate the rivers of the Pacific Northwest and will they still be able to migrate, spawn, and rear in them? Will they still call the region's rivers home or will they be found only in hatcheries, like so many feedlot cattle? Will the salmon still be close to the people -- as close as the nearest stream -- or will they lose their status as regional icon and fade into a distant memory, remembered on coffee cups, T-shirts, posters, and other trivia? Will the people of the Pacific Northwest find the courage and the will to move over a little and make room for salmon in watersheds of the Pacific Northwest?
I am not as optimistic about the answers to those questions. Although we can obtain more information from research to help us better understand the needs of the salmon, we do not have the political will to use the information we have now. For example, recent attempts by some in the legislature to declare by statute that there are no differences between hatchery and wild fish fly in the face of what we have learned over the past century. It was an attempt to face the problems of the 21st century by returning to the 19th.
In a speech to the Oregon chapter of the American Fisheries Society a few years ago, Governor Kitzhaber challenged the region's political leaders to create a vision for the region, a vision of healthy rivers and robust salmon alongside a healthy economy and the trade-offs needed to achieve it. His challenge has remained unanswered, and as long as political leaders lack the courage to rise to Kitzhabers's challenge, the fate of the salmon will remain uncertain.
By Gordon Reeves
The demands on salmon habitat, particularly on freshwater habitats, will continue to grow as the human population of the Pacific Northwest increases. Whether society will accommodate the needs of salmon in a way that allows the fish to persist is an unanswered question. I think it is unlikely that we will. Economics and basic human requirements will trump the needs of salmon.
However, a part of me is more optimistic. One reason for this is that I think salmon represent a part of the emotional culture of the Pacific Northwest that will be difficult for people to lose.
In the past 13 years, I have worked on several efforts to develop conservation plans for salmon. During this time we have made major strides in protecting and managing the ecosystems on which these fish depend. Some argue that we haven't done enough. But I say we are moving in the right direction (albeit slowly) and have preserved options for the future.
The main reason for my optimism is the fish. Salmon and other anadromous fish have survived in the Pacific Northwest for thousands of years in harsh environments -- volcanoes, floods, fires, and glaciers, to name a few. Salmon survived by being able to adapt -- by seeking new areas and quickly adjusting to new situations. They were like dandelions! I think salmon populations can exist without our having to go to extreme measures. Their survival will require that we develop different approaches to land-management practices than we currently have and that we forgo some economic gains. But if we can have the discussions that lead to such changes, there is no doubt in my mind that the fish can return. Will they return everywhere and will they be as abundant as in the "good old days"? No. There will be places where society will be unable or unwilling to make the necessary changes for that to occur. However, I don't think that the changes in human behavior or activities will need to be as great as many contend for strong salmon populations to persist in the future. It is my hope that we recognize this soon so that there will be fish in our region.
By Stan Gregory
Will native Pacific salmon and sea-run steelhead and cutthroat trout survive a century from now as species? Almost certainly. Will local stocks with unique life histories become extinct over the next century? Almost certainly.
Human populations in the Pacific Northwest are certain to increase, more than doubling over the next century. Local habitat degradation and overharvest are likely to cause continued loss of unique stocks in areas of the Northwest. But the widespread distribution, regional straying, and high fecundity of salmon and anadromous trout make them resilient as a species.
The greater risk is our society's ability to maintain the healthy and livable environment of the Pacific Northwest. Polluted waters that cannot support young salmon are signals of the toxicity of our water, air, and soil that directly influence our survival. Repeated overharvest of salmon and other fish indicates our inability to contain natural resource consumption and sustain the fish for our children. The miles of streams and rivers with eroding banks devoid of streamside forests and pools filled with lost soils speak loudly about our willingness to destroy the world we share.
The average American citizen now requires roughly 30 acres to provide the resources he or she consumes annually. Citizens of other countries require far fewer -- France, 18 acres; Mexico, 6 acres; India, 3 acres.
We have made many advances in regional decisions about natural resources. The Willamette River is far less polluted now than it was 50 years ago. Land uses are more carefully considered. But without considering our current course of actions carefully, the most likely outcomes for our region will not sustain the resources on which we depend. Our efforts to conserve and restore the region's salmon and watersheds over the next century are more about helping our children survive than our need to have salmon in our world. And salmon are one of the many signs we have about how successful we are in this endeavor.
Robert T. Lackey is acting chief of the Watershed Ecology Branch of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Western Ecology Division. Author of many journal articles about salmon, he recently received the EPA's 2003 Science Achievement Award for ecology.
Jim Lichatowich is a fisheries scientist who has been a member of numerous independent science teams in the region, including Oregon's Independent Multidisciplinary Science Team and the Independent Scientific Advisory Board for the Northwest Power Planning Council. He is also author of Salmon Without Rivers.
Gordon Reeves is a fish researcher with the USDA Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station. He helped develop the landmark aquatic conservation strategy in the 1993 Northwest Forest Plan.
Stan Gregory is a professor in the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife at Oregon State University. He has served on many science review teams, and his research in stream ecology is well known throughout the Pacific Northwest region.
Editor's note: With the departure of Restoration from your mailbox, where else will you look for information about salmon, watersheds, and communities? Here is a sample -- not a comprehensive list -- of available sources (no endorsement of specific content is intended).
For 44 issues, Science Findings, the six- to eight-page monthly newsletter of the Pacific Northwest Research Station of the U.S. Forest Service, has provided an exemplary source of information on recent forestry research and insights. Ably written by science writer Sally Duncan, Science Findings takes a single topic and examines it in detail understandable to the nonspecialist reader. Key insights are made more digestible through the effective use of graphics, photos, and highlighted sidebars and summaries. "Science affects the way we think together" is the newsletter's motto. One might only hope that the "thinking together" it espouses will become embraced throughout the agency that supports it, and beyond. Online versions of the newsletter and subscription information are at http://www.fs.fed.us/pnw/scifind.htm.
Watershed Review, a quarterly 12-page newsletter, is produced by the University of Washington's Center for Water and Watershed Studies as largely an in-house journal, mainly reporting on activities at the University of Washington and the center. As a result, there's a certain academic and Washington flavor to the newsletter, which is also reproduced at http:// depts.washington.edu/cwws/Outreach/Publications/ newsletters.html.
For subscription information, see http:// www.engr.washington.edu/epp/cwm.htm. The Center for Water and Watershed Studies declares it is "a source of comprehensive aquatic resources and water management information to maintain and enhance the earth's watersheds," and the program's Web site indeed appears detailed and deep. For more information, see http://www.depts.washington.edu/cwws/.
The Corvallis branch of the EPA produces an eight-page newsletter, EPA Western Ecology Division Research Update, which provides some watershed- and salmonrelated research findings, among other news of the unit. To get online issues of the newsletter, go to http:// www.epa.gov/wed/pages/news/researchupdates.htm.
A horse of a different color from the other periodicals cited here, Cascadia Times is a representative of an important species in the information ecosystem, an "alternative," or as it calls itself, an "independent newspaper for the Pacific Northwest." Edited and partly written by Paul Koberstein, a former Oregonian environmental reporter who specialized in forest and salmon issues, Cascadia Times plays a useful role in offering a bioregional perspective on the Northwest. The newspaper often reports on environmental issues or trends skimped on or missed by other news outlets. Headlines in the summer 2003 issue, for example, included "British Columbia's 'Super Natural' Forests Under Seige" and "Canada's Leaky Life Raft: New 'Species at Risk Act' Full of Loopholes."
For more information, some online articles, and subscriptions to the newspaper, see http:// www.times.org.
Calling itself "news for salmon nation," Tidepool is an online news tool created by the Portland-based organization Ecotrust and is found at http://www.tidepool.org/. Tidepool says it is "updated every weekday by nine a.m. with the best news stories collected from more than three dozen online news sources" and declares that its "goal is to provide the Bioregional community with a daily source of the news they need to create a conservation based economy." Partly a specialized clipping service of mainstream publications like the Washington Post and Oregonian, partly an outlet for its own "alternative" viewpoints, Tidepool is a great name for an information environment that is a container for constant change. As with most of the other resources listed here, Tidepool is testimony to a commonplace of public communications during the last decade -- the value added to our information diet by the Internet.
-- Joe Cone
Edited by Kristine D. Lynch, Michael L. Jones, and William W. Taylor. 413 pp. American Fisheries Society, Bethesda, Maryland. 2002. $69
Comparison of salmon experiences across disciplines and regions yields surprising results in the continuing effort to perfect nature and have it conform to human needs and images. Salmon transported in the 19th century from the Pacific coast to restore the depleted Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) never succeeded. Yet the returning shad (Alosa sapidissima) and striped bass (Morone saxatilis) did quite well on the Pacific coast. Pacific salmon (Oncorhynchus kisutch and O. tschawytscha) introduced into the Great Lakes reduced the undesirable alewife (Alosa pseudoharengus) population and created a very successful fishery, which led fishery managers to develop management goals to decrease dependence on hatchery-reared fish. Atlantic salmon, the most prized of all game fish, rapidly became the cow of the seas as it outperformed other species in "finfish" aquaculture operations. In fact, Atlantic salmon are now the primary ranched salmon in the Pacific region, and they are escaping and spawning in the wild.
Contributors to this volume, which summarizes two centuries of management of salmon by nonnatives to North America, include experts with biological, human dimensions, policy, and management experience from the Atlantic, Great Lakes, and Pacific regions, and the book documents how management results vary greatly from region to region. In the Pacific, for instance, where Alaska, British Columbia, and the Pacific Northwest states attempt to manage the largest commercial fishery in the three regions, cooperation on an international basis has not worked. On the other hand, in the Great Lakes, international cooperation has been successful and a significant recreational fishery is the result. In the Atlantic region, management conflicts between national, state and federal, provincial and parliamentary, recreational and commercial, public and private, governmental and nongovernmental interests prevent actions needed to fight the extinction of salmon stocks driven down by habitat loss and past overfishing. Taken together, the articles in Sustaining North American Salmon offer a wonderful example of how the actions of tinkerers often take unexpected turns.
The papers in this volume come from sessions at the 1999 Hartford American Fisheries Society meetings. The several papers for each region include historical background from Native American/First Nation reliance on salmon to contemporary commercial, recreational, and preservation interests. Each region covers ecological and economic perspectives; evaluation of social, political, and institutional arrangements; and a look into the future. Chapter authors are a diverse mix of people with agency experience; a third are Canadian; and several are from nongovernmental organizations. The book's goal is to teach by sharing across regions and disciplines. A clear picture of what actions will make salmon sustainable does not emerge, although our collective understanding can facilitate progress toward the goal.
Although salmon have provided the foundation on which cultures, economies, and communities were built, and although they are among the most studied populations, what we do not know about them is still significant. Salmon continue to offer surprises as we and they constantly coadapt to change. Changes are caused by nature, as in the case of changing ocean conditions, or by human preferences, as in our continuing competition with salmon for habitat to fuel economic development and population growth. Salmon, however, have shown surprising resilience in a general pattern of declining habitat for wild stocks, a purposeful reduction in hatchery stocks, and the commercial success of ranched stocks. Sustaining North American Salmon is a cautionary tale about people who thought they could know enough, organize effectively, and save salmon. So far, and perhaps not surprisingly, the volume documents that none of these goals is being consistently achieved.
-- Courtland L. Smith, professor of anthropology, Oregon State University
Multimedia CD and software From Earth Systems Institute
Forest and watershed landscapes may seem eternal and unchanging to the casual observer, but in reality, they are being shaped and reshaped constantly by dynamic processes ranging from fire to rain, from landslides to seismic disturbance. A new, multimedia CD, produced by the Seattle-based Earth Systems Institute and California's Humboldt University Courseware Development Center for the U.S. Forest Service, uses 3-D modeling and complex scientific data sets to illustrate how some of those processes can affect the forest and watershed landscape over periods as long as hundreds of years.
Clearly narrated and illustrated with realworld photographs as well as computer simulations, the CD provides a short course on the subject for forest managers, landowners, and regulatory agency personnel. It includes a broad introduction, five teaching modules, a thorough bibliography, and a demonstration of the modeling software. The CD requires the latest versions of QuickTime and Adobe Acrobat software to run. To order a free copy, contact the USDA Forest Service, 907-498- 1392, or e-mail rschneider@fs.fed.us and ask for Landscape Dynamics and Forest Management, RMRS-GTR-101-CD.
-- Pat Kight, Oregon Sea Grant digital media specialist
Researchers who studied the effects of hatchery summer steelhead on wild populations in the Clackamas River recently concluded that the hatchery steelhead adults and their offspring have contributed to population declines in wild winter steelhead through competition for spawning and rearing habitats. The first peer-reviewed research project completed since hatchery summer steelhead were added to the Clackamas River in 1971, the study also found that although naturally spawning hatchery fish make up the higher total percentage of spawners in the Clackamas, the survival for these hatchery-derived fish from smolt to adult was poor. The authors estimated that over a two-year period the hatchery fish produced one-third fewer smolts per parent than wild fish, and one-tenth fewer adults than the wild steelhead, although they had the advantages of more adult spawners, a competitive edge at the juvenile stage, and more juvenile production.
The authors note that the recorded decline in the wild steelhead was not a result of interbreeding and genetic effects on the wild fish. Instead, they concluded, even though naturally spawning hatchery steelhead may experience poor reproductive success, they and their juvenile progeny may be abundant enough to occupy substantial portions of spawning and rearing habitat to the detriment of wild fish populations.
The article, "Naturally Spawning Hatchery Steelhead Contribute to Smolt Production but Experience Low Reproductive Success," is published in Transactions of the American Fisheries Society, vol. 132, no. 4, pp. 780Ð790, by Kathryn E. Kostow, Anne R. Marshall, and Stevan R. Phelps.
Governor Kulongoski signed into law this summer a new bill that allows owners of farm and forest lands to manage their land for habitat conservation without incurring higher property taxes. House Bill 3616 enacts many of the recommendations from the Conservation Incentives Work Group, a stakeholder forum convened by the Departments of Agriculture and Forestry that includes farmers, ranchers, timber producers, local governments, conservation organizations, and many state and federal agencies. The new law revises land eligibility criteria and gives local governments discretion on whether to participate in the program. One notable provision of the law is that all rural lands (instead of forested lands only) are eligible to participate in the conservation incentives program. Both the Department of Forestry and the Department of Agriculture can enter into stewardship agreements with landowners (jointly or independently). For more information, visit http:// www.biodiversitypartners.org/3564/001.html.
-- Paul Hoobyar
Oregon State University Library and Archives.
http://
digitalcollections.library. oregonstate.edu/streamsurvey/
In 1987, US Forest Service researcher James Seddell ran across a collection of old photographs that were destined for the dumpster. He rescued them -- and today's researchers, students, and watershed managers should be glad he did. The photos, taken in the 1930s and 1940s to illustrate a federal stream habitat survey of the Columbia Basin, represent the earliest and most complete quantitative documentation of anadromous fish habitat in the Pacific Northwest.
Thanks to a Meyer Foundation for Natural Resources grant, OSU archivists have put the entire collection -- more than 300 photographs of the Willamette and its tributaries dating back nearly 70 years -- on the Web. Eventually, the site will be fleshed out with data from research about the river basin. For the moment, the photos themselves offer a fascinating glimpse of the Willamette and environs as it was but is no more. The black-and-white photos show a wilder, less placid river, and one that was central to the region's resource-based economy. Log jams, mill ponds, vanished dams, and power plants stand alongside images of crashing waterfalls and winding riverscapes. The online collection is organized by watershed, tributary, and geographic locale, with a keyword search that makes it easy to locate, for instance, all photos of salmon.
-- Pat Kight
A workshop series addressing the redesigning of production models and organizational systems to produce sustainable economic, social, and environmental outcomes for both public and private sectors is being held at the University of Oregon. Workshop titles include
For more information: http://center.uoregon.edu/sustainability
541-346-4231 or 800-824-2714
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.
Note: This is an accessible version of a document originally produced for the Web in .pdf format. While it contains all significant content of the original print document, it may omit layout and graphic elements which contribute to the look and feel of the original, and make the .pdf version more suitable for printing.
Contact us: sea.grant.web@oregonstate.eduLast updated: Jan. 31, 2007