[2] Critical Habitat Designated For West Coast Salmon
Federal fish authorities have made their final call on the critical habitat needed by 19 ESA-listed fish populations on the West Coast, and cut about 80 percent of the original habitat designated by NOAA Fisheries as essential to the conservation of the listed species.
The final rule doesn't differ much from draft recommendations released last December that also proposed an 80 percent cutback.
The proposals were scaled back from the original February 2000 designations, which included all watersheds in the fishes' range, whether inhabited by listed fish or not. At that time, the federal agency judged no economic impact from the designations, other than what was already associated with the species listing.
However, after a lawsuit by homebuilders, farm groups and irrigators, the agency withdrew its designations in April 2002, admitting it had neglected to weigh these other economic concerns. They hired a few economists and spent several years coming up with the latest designation that includes more than 20,000 miles of Northwest streams, lake and estuarine habitat, along with more than 2,200 miles of nearshore marine habitat in Puget Sound.
"This Administration believes strongly in providing incentives for private landowners who are already protecting species voluntarily, and these designations recognize their hard work," said Bob Lohn, regional head of NOAA Fisheries Service. He said the agency "has focused very specifically on those areas that are most important to recovery of salmon and steelhead, allowing us to most efficiently use our resources to protect fish."
After weighing economic factors and balancing them against projected benefits to the species, nearly 2,000 stream miles in the Northwest were excluded from the designations, which was estimated to reduce impacts by more than $240 million. The agency estimated that fish conservation actions tied to the federal hydro system in the Columbia Basin were expected to cost $500 million to $700 million annually, including forgone power revenues.
Nearshore habitat in Seattle deemed critical under the new rule.
Almost 800 stream miles were excluded from the California designations, which was pegged to reduce impacts in that region by $100 million.
Military bases, tribal lands and other areas covered by habitat conservation plans were also excluded from the critical habitat designations.
Some regions, like Puget Sound, where chinook and Hood Canal chum are listed under the ESA, had significant reductions in the final rule, about an 18-percent reduction in stream miles, with impacts reduced from $91 million to about $71 million annually.
The entire Lake Sammamish watershed was excluded for protection, which is expected to reduce impacts by $4 million. The Baker River watershed, where Puget Sound Energy maintains a hydro project was also excluded, reducing impacts by another $6 million.
For listed chinook and steelhead in the upper Columbia region, only 3 percent of the proposed critical habitat was reduced for economic reasons, including all tributaries of the Lower Wenatchee, Icicle/Chumstick, Lower Methow, and Lake Entiat. But the exclusions were expected to cut economic impacts by $3.4 million or 19 percent of the $17.6 million in costs from the designation.
In Oregon's Upper Willamette region about 30 percent of the stream miles in the area were excluded for economic reasons, reducing the expected impact of $25 million by $4.4 million, or 30 percent.
"So far, NMFS is getting a B for the effort, but it's still really an incomplete at this stage," said Russell Brooks, attorney with the Pacific Legal Foundation. Brooks said it was a vast improvement over the invalidated rule, but his office still hadn't completed a review of the 550-page economic impact analysis to see if the feds had taken all the pertinent economic information into account.
But environmental groups deplored the final rule, especially its exclusion of habitat where listed fish are no longer present. "That'a a problem when you are talkig about species threatened primarily due to habitat destruction," said Earthjustice attorney Kristin Boyles. "Removing protected areas where fish have been within peoples' recent memories is not a recipe for recovery."-B. R.
The following links were mentioned in this story:
Critical Habitat Designations for West Coast Salmon and Steelhead
Subscriptions and Feedback
Subscribe to the Fishletter notification e-mail list.
Send e-mail comments to the editor.
THE ARCHIVE :: Previous NW Fishletter issues and supporting documents.
NW Fishletter is produced by Energy NewsData.
Publisher: Cyrus Noë, Editor: Bill Rudolph
Phone: (206) 285-4848 Fax: (206) 281-8035
