Shrub assault on environment continues (nsr)

[natty dread]

Shrub et al just reduced protected habitat for endangered salmon by 80% to appease developers. Unreal. Hopefully the changes won't hold up in court...

From the Oregonian:

U.S. plan casts off protection for large areas of fish habitat
Federal officials say easing of streamside rules still would help salmon, and they rule out removal of Snake River dams
Wednesday, December 01, 2004
JOE ROJAS-BURKE
The Bush administration on Tuesday proposed a steep reduction in the miles of rivers and streams to come under federal protection for Pacific salmon, and offered exemptions for property owners and broad areas of the Northwest and California.

Also on Tuesday, the administration made final a decision that flatly rejects the possibility of demolishing Snake River hydropower dams to help restore salmon runs.

Together, the actions signal far-reaching changes in federal enforcement of the Endangered Species Act. Federal officials said they are more carefully balancing the needs of threatened and endangered salmon against human demands for water, energy, timber and real estate along the Northwest's cold-flowing rivers.

Conservation groups and fishing groups, including Native American tribes with treaty rights to salmon, said the federal actions are sacrificing salmon for developers seeking land and businesses wanting cheap energy.

"The tribes made treaties 150 years ago to carry on a way of life that depends on salmon," said Olney Patt Jr., executive director of the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, which represents the Nez Perce, Warm Springs, Yakama and Umatilla tribes. "Now we see the federal government is turning its back on that obligation."

In the habitat proposal, total protected river miles amount to one-fifth that were protected under a set of "critical habitat" rules issued in 2000. Those were challenged by real estate developers. The National Marine Fisheries Service withdrew the original habitat rules more than two years ago, after a federal court ruled that the agency failed to properly consider the economic effects.

Critical habitat is a legal definition for areas "essential" for the conservation of threatened or endangered species. On lands so designated, federal fish and wildlife authorities must complete extensive studies of potential harm to protected species before any development requiring federal action, such as permitting, can go forward. The proposed reductions in critical habitat affect 20 populations of Pacific salmon and steelhead.

But Bob Lohn, a regional administrator for the National Marine Fisheries Service, said that as a practical matter, the level of protection for the fish will not change.

"By incorporating more accurate data about the presence of salmon, we were able to conclude that the area occupied by salmon was one-fifth as large as the area proposed in the older designations," Lohn said.

Comment sought

Within the rivers and streams occupied by salmon, the agency is seeking public comment on exemptions that would allow public and private landowners to avoid critical habitat restrictions. For instance, the agency proposes to exempt about 10 percent of the occupied areas because conditions are of low value to salmon and unlikely to sustain significant populations. Where the costs of the regulation exceed the benefits, additional lands also may be excluded.

A more far-reaching proposal could allow the exemption of lands under other kinds of state or federal protections, such as the federal Northwest Forest Plan.

Lohn said his agency is weighing whether excluding such lands from critical habitat, and relying on other legal agreements, could lead to stronger protections for fish. As an example, he said owners of private forestlands might agree to higher standards of care for watersheds to avoid federal designation of their land as critical habitat.

"We're not asking whether the fish can do without that habitat," Lohn said. "We're asking how can we get to the arrangement that is most protective for fish."

The agency will hold public hearings in January in Washington, Oregon, Idaho and California.

Early reaction

Developers cautiously praised the proposal, particularly the potential for exemptions of land already regulated for salmon protection.

"Right now, it sounds positive," said Ernie Platt, president of the Oregon Home Builders Association, an affiliate of the national association that challenged the 2000 critical habitat rules. Platt said his group would reserve judgment until members study maps laying out where protections fall.

Conservation groups found reasons to be concerned. "What we're seeing here is a pattern of trying to avoid protecting salmon habitat," said Patti Goldman, an attorney with Earthjustice in Seattle. Goldman, who led a lawsuit that held the fisheries service to a deadline for completing the critical habitat rules, said exempting lands covered by the Northwest Forest Plan from critical habitat would be a "disaster" for salmon.

On the hydropower ruling, salmon advocacy groups said the government is grossly understating the impact of dams. Todd True, an Earthjustice attorney representing several conservation groups, said the fisheries service appears to be ignoring the foremost requirement of the Endangered Species Act. "This opinion really isn't focused on keeping salmon from going extinct," he said.

Operation of dams

Federal officials said they do not have the legal authority to order the removal of federal dams -- only Congress has that power -- and so they did not consider it. To comply with a 2003 court order, the fisheries service, working with the Bonneville Power Administration and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, proposed specific changes in the operation of the dams to compensate for their lethal effects on salmon.

"The dams are being operated in a way that is vastly different from what would be found 10 years ago," Lohn said.

Among the actions, the agencies said they will expand efforts to reduce predators, such as Caspian terns and pikeminnow, that prey heavily on young salmon. The agencies said they will outfit all of the major dams with structures, called spillway weirs, that help juveniles pass downstream without getting sucked into turbines. The proposal also calls for continuing habitat restoration work, and transporting as much as 90 percent of the young of some salmon stocks by barge or truck past the dams.

[char]

President Bush's Admin. did a similar thing with the bulltrout in September.

We had a long discussion the other day in my policy class about this new development. What boogles the mind is that the reasoning on this one is that if there are no fish there, then it doesn't matter, no need to protect them, even if they were historically there. IE- If a salmon run dissapears from part of a river system where the habitat is currently protected then they could lift the critical designation on the habitat.

Also of interest will be the impact of this on other endangered species, such as the Spotted Owl. Can they simply do a cost benefit analysis, take it to a judge and invalidate sections of the Northwest Forest Plan?

"What we're seeing here is a pattern of trying to avoid protecting salmon habitat," said Patti Goldman, an attorney with Earthjustice in Seattle. Goldman, who led a lawsuit that held the fisheries service to a deadline for completing the critical habitat rules, said exempting lands covered by the Northwest Forest Plan from critical habitat would be a "disaster" for salmon.

This kind of stuff pisses me off. We need to get active again, do we care as much about the salmon as we do big trees? Do we really need to go back to the days of people chaining themselves to things in order to get their point across? The people of the PNW have clearly said that we value the salmon, we value the trees and we value our landscapes, period. Yet, again and again we have these policies thrown in our faces.

I'm sick and tired of this administration and it's anti-environment, pro-corporate agenda.

And guess who helped with this new habitat plan? Mark Rutzick, the guy who sued the feds on this issue on behalf of the timber industry in the first place!

GAH!KJNSDL

edit- spelling

[Greydon Clark]

Wait till you see what is planed for the endangered species act, it is unlikely that the ESA will not survive the next four years. Oh, by the end of the month they'll be opening the remainder of our wild national forests to road building. Kick ass! Fuck the green green lima beans... mountain bike riding mother fuckers.

[char]

Wait till you see what is planed for the endangered species act, it is unlikely that the ESA will not survive the next four years. Oh, by the end of the month they'll be opening the remainder of our wild national forests to road building. Kick ass! Fuck the green green lima beans... mountain bike riding mother fuckers.

Enlighten me, please. Links, contacts, whatever. I know about the roadless areas, not the ESA being in serious trouble.

[hop]

Wait till you see what is planed for the endangered species act, it is unlikely that the ESA will not survive the next four years. Oh, by the end of the month they'll be opening the remainder of our wild national forests to road building. Kick ass! Fuck the green green lima beans... mountain bike riding mother fuckers.

Is that double negative supposed to be there? I certainly hope it's unlikely that the ESA will not survive the next four years, because that would mean it's likely to survive the next four years.

This sucks. I might be chaining myself to a killer whale if things get out of hand. Killer whales (at least the threatened Southern Residents of the PNW) feed mainly on salmon. Salmon need healthy spawning grounds, meaning few/no dams and plenty of trees. No trees and no healthy streams mean no salmon therefore no whales, which means no job (which obviously would be the least of the problems facing the PNW at that point)! If that happens I might have to come from above with warm puddle of spew and then the shrub would be drown. Angry hop.

[Free Range Lobster]

this is also happening in Southern California

Was in the 1st's LA Times

[skier666]

Enlighten me, please. Links, contacts, whatever. I know about the roadless areas, not the ESA being in serious trouble.

Greydon Clark says,

The House Resources Committee, chaired by Richard Pombo (R-CA), has passed two bills that attempt to undermine fundamental elements of the statute: the use of best available science and the protection of habitat necessary to their survival. H.R. 1662, the Endangered Species Data Quality Act of 2004, seeks to undercut the use of the best available science by legislating what kind of science agencies can use, rather than leaving those issues to scientists. It also attempts to delay protective decisions by putting in place a perverse system of peer review that provides for significant political influence. Finally, the bill gives special rights to industry during the formulation of biological opinions, offering opportunities for undue influence in these decisions or outright prevention of them through future Data Quality Act challenges.

The other bill passed out of Chairman Pombo's committee is H.R. 2933, the Critical Habitat Reform Act of 2003. This bill would remove the legal requirement that the Fish and Wildlife Service identify, and federal agencies protect, the habitat critical to a species' recovery.

If these bills are passed they will profoundly weaken the Endangered Species Act.

[natty dread]

NYT:

New Risks for Salmon

Published: December 6, 2004
Endangered and Extinct Species

The Bush administration has dropped any pretense of providing serious long-term protection for endangered salmon species in the Pacific Northwest. Last Tuesday, the administration proposed to roll back restrictions on commercial development across millions of acres in California north to the Canadian border that had been designated four years ago as "critical habitat" essential to salmon recovery. The next day, the administration ruled out demolishing four dams on the lower Snake River - even as a last resort to save the fish.

Both announcements represented departures from the Clinton's administration's more robust approach to salmon recovery. Both also reflected the degree to which the administration is prepared to contort science and common sense to slide out from under its obligations under the Endangered Species Act to ensure long-term recovery of the fish instead of merely slowing their rate of decline.

Earlier this year, for instance, the administration proposed to count millions of hatchery-raised fish as wild fish - a bit of mathematical casuistry that would instantly make wild populations seem healthier than they are, undercut the need to keep wild salmon on the endangered species list and give the green light to federal agencies to drop protections against logging, homebuilding and other forms of commercial development.

But this was nowhere near as preposterous as its argument, in the dam ruling last week, that the dams were immutable parts of the landscape, like a mountain, and thus beyond the reach of the Endangered Species Act and "beyond the present discretion" of the government to remove them.

The administration offers endless justifications for its proposals, chiefly the insupportable claim that both dam removal and habitat protection would exact an unacceptable economic price. It also promises mitigating measures, including technological fixes to help the fish over and around the dams, and more "focused" habitat protection, albeit in a much smaller area than the fish's historical range. But clearly the administration's heart isn't in it. The underlying message here is that commercial interests come first, salmon second, even if history suggests that the two can comfortably coexist.

[char]

But this was nowhere near as preposterous as its argument, in the dam ruling last week, that the dams were immutable parts of the landscape, like a mountain, and thus beyond the reach of the Endangered Species Act and "beyond the present discretion" of the government to remove them.

WHAT?!? This is ridiculous. The "present discretion" of the government has decided that it is a good idea to remove the Glines Canyon and Elwha Dam's for the purpose of salmon and river ecosystem recovery, but apparently that is now equivalent to moving a mountain?

Keep posting this stuff natty, getting me fired up. I can't believe this shit, I wonder which species is on the chopping block next.

[Grange]

Oh, by the end of the month they'll be opening the remainder of our wild national forests to road building. Kick ass! Fuck the green green lima beans... mountain bike riding mother fuckers.

When they log the national forest by me the loggers like to close off the area to the public for safety reasons. Riding on logging roads suck because they like to level everything out and the ruts make it difficult for drainage so it is always muddy and slick.

The development rule rollback is what really pissed me off. residential lots cause more pollution to our waters than just about anything else.

[bdog]

And all of this is a surprise? In the past four years the Bush administration has rolled back enviromental legislation by more than a decade. Quietly opening the Tongass National Forest and removing it's status as a roadless area, selling off most of the Crimson Lady in CB for less than $5 an acre to mineing interests, etc etc. We will be fortunate if the ESA is the only thing to not survive the next four years.

[Viva]

Anyone notice that the forest pass/permit program was slipped into a recent spending bill? I became livid as I read the article and so am a bit sketchy on the details. I seem to recall something like: It's going to be extended for another 10 years and they're threatening $100 fines for first-time offenders.

They're also trying to figure a way to consolidate the myriad of currently available passes to reduce confusion. The BCS is being contacted to work on that.

[Mcwop]

WHAT?!? This is ridiculous. The "present discretion" of the government has decided that it is a good idea to remove the Glines Canyon and Elwha Dam's for the purpose of salmon and river ecosystem recovery, but apparently that is now equivalent to moving a mountain?

Keep posting this stuff natty, getting me fired up. I can't believe this shit, I wonder which species is on the chopping block next.

Dam removal is under the control of congress and FERC dam relicenses. Elwha removal proceedings have been underway since the early 1990's (only taken more than 10 years). It is a slow and ugly process. I worked on that type stuff with American Rivers in the early 1990's. It has always been the equivalent of moving a mountain.

[Grange]

Dam removal is under the control of congress and FERC dam relicenses. Elwha removal proceedings have been underway since the early 1990's (only taken more than 10 years). It is a slow and ugly process. I worked on that type stuff with American Rivers in the early 1990's. It has always been the equivalent of moving a mountain.

I worked on a couple of dam removal projects (the EA side) and I don't think they were under a FERC relicensing effort. I have also worked on FERC relicensing efforts from the power company's side and know how much of a pain they can be. We did an exhaustive study on fish mortality and passage though the dam and were told the study was no good. However to take even the remote possibility of dam removal off the table is a bad idea. That is like getting rid of the "big hammer" the Government has for forcing compliance with the safety regulations and potentially future liability.

[char]

When they log the national forest by me the loggers like to close off the area to the public for safety reasons.

I take it you've never been run off the road by a logging truck or seen someone hit by a falling tree? Logging is not always bad, even though these days it is almost always portrayed that way.

Mcwop,

Yeah, we figured the Elwha project was going to go through, it just seems futile in the long run if the new rules are going to allow for a slow, steady bleeding of the PNW salmon populations.

[Mcwop]

Mcwop,

Yeah, we figured the Elwha project was going to go through, it just seems futile in the long run if the new rules are going to allow for a slow, steady bleeding of the PNW salmon populations.

As far as what I know about the new rules - I agree. However, impediments to dam removal need to be changed at the legislative level. I would like to see legislation that makes dam removal easier, and faster. Three administrations later (Dam removals gained momentum under Bush I), removing a dam is still a long drawn out nightmare.

[Woodsy]

Environment dont matter, Middle Aerica and the SOuth are safe from Gays & terrorists.
Cecede or move.

Like other tyrannies, the tyranny of the majority was at first, and is still vulgarly, held in dread, chiefly as operating through the acts of the public authorities. But reflecting persons perceived that when society is itself the tyrant — society collectively over the separate individuals who compose it — its means of tyrannizing are not restricted to the acts which it may do by the hands of its political functionaries. Society can and does execute its own mandates; and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with which it ought not to meddle, it practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself.

Mill

[Grange]

I take it you've never been run off the road by a logging truck or seen someone hit by a falling tree? Logging is not always bad, even though these days it is almost always portrayed that way.

No I've never been run off the road by a logging truck. Other trucks and horses yes, but never a logging truck. I have almost been hit by a falling tree twice. Both times when they were felled by my old boss. The second time I have never chewed out someone as hard as I did him.

I know logging is not always bad. Some wildlife species actually flourish in clear cut areas such as whitetail deer and ruffed grouse. I have been involved in managed forest law plans. Selective cutting is a great way to make a forest "healthy" (eg. oak savanna) for a particular habitat.