[3] Oregon Coastal Coho Don't Make ESA List

The federal government has decided that the Oregon coastal coho stock, listed as a "threatened species" under the ESA in 1998, will not need legal protection under the law in the future. The coastal coho stocks plummeted in the 1990s when ocean conditions went sour, but have rebounded strongly since then. Their status has been in limbo since 2001 when they became the focus of a court case [Alsea Valley v. NMFS] that ultimately forced NOAA Fisheries to change its listing policy to accommodate many hatchery stocks.

In June 2004, NOAA Fisheries proposed to list the coastal coho as "threatened" and announced its draft hatchery policy. But last May, the state of Oregon released its own review of the stocks and concluded the populations were viable and "likely to persist in the foreseeable future."

The feds have reviewed that review and concurred with the state's judgment, announcing their decision not to list the coastal coho on Jan. 17. "This administration remains solidly committed to recovering Pacific salmon, and I am pleased to join the State of Oregon and local stakeholders in celebrating this important milestone," said NOAA Fisheries regional administrator Bob Lohn in a press release.

Lohn said he applauded the work of local stakeholders to develop a solid recovery plan. "This is an encouraging example of the diverse interests that can come together to improve conditions for salmon in the Pacific Northwest."

Critics of the announcement said most of the coho stocks' big jump in numbers came from improved ocean conditions that have boosted productivity since 1999. By 1998, the population had sagged to about 40,000 wild spawners, but rebounded to 265,000 fish in 2002.

In its response to comments, Oregon said that the low marine survivals of the 1990s were "unprecedented" in the past 50-year record. During the 1990s, the coastal stocks also endured drought and a major flood event, said Oregon analysts.

The state concluded that the life cycle of the fish, their population dynamics and structure, along with the broad geographic distribution of the species all reduced the likelihood of succumbing to a perfect storm of adverse environmental conditions.

But Bill Bakke, director of the Portland-based Native Fish Society, pointed out that comments from NOAA Fisheries' own Science Center in Seattle called the rosy prediction of coho futures into question.

"The NWFSC review posits that the empirical record is too short and the cause-and-effect relationship behind recent escapements is too poorly established to support Oregon's hypothesis," said Center scientists. They added that their reviews of the state's coho assessment "raise questions about the confidence one can have in the report's major conclusion--that the Oregon coast coho are not threatened with extinction."

Since 2000, more than $10 million in federal spending has been funneled through the Pacific Salmon Recovery Fund to pay for restoring and improving habitat for coho and other listed species on the Oregon coast.

"I think the Oregon Plan works," said Dan Riddle, vice president for Seneca Sawmills of Eugene, Ore. He didn't see a huge effect on his industry from the coho not being listed because the state's timber business has already adopted a cooperative approach. "It's a go-ahead and harvest, but voluntarily improve habitat" approach, said Riddle, who noted that many of the old logging roads in his region are being rebuilt to reduce adverse impacts to fish habitat.

Riddle said it was a much better situation for Oregon timber harvesters, than in California and Washington, where habitat plans developed to aid ESA-listed fish have taken large blocks of land out of timber production altogether.

But independent mill owners in Oregon were not always so happy with the coho situation. It was reported by several sources both in and out of the federal government that in 2004, some unhappy timber industry folks tried to have regional administrator Lohn replaced after the listing determination for the coastal coho dragged on for years.

James Connaughton, who chairs the White House Council on Environmental Quality, paid a visit to Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski in June 2003 to discuss the coho situation. Insiders say he had promised Kulongoski that the coho would be delisted by that November.

Riddle said there was admittedly some frustration with the slow progress of the federal bureaucracy to get the coho determination completed, but that it was a mischaracterization to say that the Oregon group was trying to have Lohn replaced. "He's got a tough job," Riddle said.

However, other sources say that some of the independent-minded small mill owners in Oregon, who were heavy contributors to the Republican presidential campaign, had gained Bush advisor Karl Rove's ear. And there was a subsequent attempt by the White House to have Lohn replaced by Mark Rutzick, a Portland-based attorney who once worked for timber industry clients through the Northwest Forest Resource Council (including Seneca Sawmills) and later moved to a position as a senior legal advisor for NOAA Fisheries.

Rutzick became a focus of scorn by environmental groups during his term at the federal fish agency, where he worked to broaden listed fish definitions to include hatchery stocks, redesignating critical habitat and was a principal architect of the legal framework of the 2004 hydro BiOp, since termed illegal. The 2004 BiOp analyzed effects of dams on fish in a more narrow way than previous BiOps did, because it placed the dams' existence in the environmental baseline. Rutzick is now back in private practice in the Portland area.

But Lohn kept his job after several influential Northwest Republicans, including Puget Sound salmon recovery czar Bill Ruckelshaus, made quick trips to Washington, D.C., to convince White House staffers that he should be kept on as regional administrator -B. R.

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