[5] Bull Trout Critical Habitat Expanded Nearly Five-Fold
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced Oct. 12 that it is significantly expanding the "critical habitat" for ESA-listed bull trout in the Northwest.
The new rule covers nearly 19,000 stream miles--almost five times the amount covered in a 2005 designation--along with about 900 miles of marine shoreline in Washington state and 490,000 acres of lakes and reservoirs, 3.4 times the coverage of the earlier rule.
But the final version pared about 13 percent of stream-miles from the proposed rule, and cut proposed "critical" marine shorelines after weighing review comments, the agency said in a press release.
"This action is the result of an extensive review of the service's previous bull trout critical habitat proposals and designation, as well as comments and new information received during the 2010 public review process," said Robyn Thorson, regional director of the USFWS Pacific region, in the release. "Our biologists worked hard to ensure the best science was used to identify the features and areas essential to the conservation of bull trout rangewide."
In developing the final designation of critical habitat, USFWS said it excluded 1,707 miles of streams (9 percent), 19,396 acres of lakes and reservoirs (4 percent) and 216 miles of marine shoreline (28.7 percent) of suitable critical habitat from the 2010 proposed designation because habitat conservation plans from other organizations have formally committed to protect bull trout habitat. Fifteen miles of marine shoreline were excluded for national security reasons because the area is used as a U.S. Navy training area, the service said.
An economic analysis found that federal agencies would be spending between $5 million and $7.4 million a year to add bull trout consultations to their permitting processes.
But the Fish and Wildlife Service said that most other federal agencies are already managing their lands to "a significant conservation standard" because critical habitat designations are already in place for listed salmonids in places shared with bull trout. "This designation is not expected to add significant additional conservation requirements because bull trout were originally listed due to threats to their habitat."
The new rule satisfies the latest legal challenge brought by environmental groups, Friends of the Wild Swan and Alliance for the Wild Rockies, who had initially petitioned the feds to protect bull trout way back in the early 1990s.
The government asked for a voluntary remand after the earlier rule was found to be influenced by a Bush administration appointee, deputy assistant secretary of Interior Julie MacDonald, who resigned in 2007.
According to a report from the DOI's Inspector General, she committed no illegal actions, but its investigation found that she had distributed non-public information to the California Farm Bureau and the Pacific Legal Foundation. The report also contained testimony from USFWS scientists that she had reshaped field reports. Another note in the report said MacDonald had forced a reduction in critical habitat miles in the Klamath River Basin from 296 miles to 42 miles.
Idaho water users were predictably torqued. "This new designation could simply not be worse for Idaho water," said Norm Semanko, executive director of the Idaho Water Users Association, in a response posted on the group's website.
Semanko said the new rule could mean up to $1 billion in impacts, and hinted at the potential for more litigation. -B. R.
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