Washington Trout Sues NMFS
Over Puget Sound Salmon-Harvest Plan

Washington Trout has filed a lawsuit against the National Marine Fisheries Service over its decision to approve a plan for harvesting salmon in Puget Sound. The Puget Sound Joint Resource Management Plan, or RMP, governs salmon-harvest activities impacting Puget Sound chinook, listed as Threatened under the Endangered Species Act. The RMP was developed by the Puget Sound Tribes and the Washington Department of Fish Wildlife, and submitted to NMFS for approval this past winter. Washington Trout submitted comments to NMFS outlining our objections to many elements of the RMP. In April, NMFS approved the plan without significant revision.

In its haste to authorize harvest, NMFS prematurely and improperly approved the RMP without preparing the complete biological and environmental analyses required by federal law. The ESA requires that NMFS should have prepared a Biological Opinion of the RMP, and NEPA (National Environmental Policy Act) requires a complete Environmental Impact Statement. Both of those processes are required to ensure that risks to the environment are fully assessed and minimized before the agency acts. NMFS did prepare what they called an Evaluation and Recommended Determination of the RMP, but the Evaluation was extremely cursory compared to an EIS and Biological Opinion, and at any rate does not satisfy the federal requirements.

"NMFS approved the RMP without adequately assessing its potential risks," says Kurt Beardslee, Washington Trout’s Executive Director. "Any plan that includes directly harvesting listed fish is inherently risky, but we were most immediately troubled by NMFS’s own lack of compliance with the ESA."

Washington Trout does not oppose commercial salmon-harvest in all cases and does not intend to challenge tribal treaty-fishing rights.

"We are not challenging the Northwest Tribes’ treaty-right to half of any harvestable surplus of salmon or steelhead," Beardslee said. "When the scientific evidence is clear that a surplus can be harvested without harming threatened stocks, we strongly support the Tribes’ priority right to prosecute those fisheries. The question is how you identify a surplus and how you manage risks to stocks that have no surplus."

In January 2001, NMFS finally enacted a 4d Rule that defines the "take" restrictions for seven populations of salmon and steelhead listed as Threatened under the ESA, including Puget Sound chinook. Under the 4d Rule, local agencies or governments can submit plans to NMFS on a host of issues, including forest practices, development, hatchery programs, and commercial and sport salmon-harvest. If approved, these plans can limit governments’ and individuals’ liabilities under the ESA. This is a new approach in ESA enforcement, and it has been controversial. Local governments and some economic stakeholders like it because they say it allows flexibility. Washington Trout and other environmentalists believe the approach simply allows business as usual and dilutes the power of the ESA to protect listed species.

The Northwest Treaty Tribes and WDFW submitted the RMP to NMFS in order to exempt harvest activities in Puget Sound from ESA-enforcement, even when those activities wind up killing, or "taking" listed Puget Sound chinook.

Salmonid populations in Puget Sound and elsewhere have been depressed by a complex combination of factors, including poor hatchery practices, overharvest, and habitat loss. Many runs of wild salmon, particularly some Puget Sound chinook populations, have declined so far that harvest-related impacts will impede their recovery. Harvest aimed at hatchery stocks imposes unacceptable risks to threatened wild stocks mingled in with the hatchery fish.

Washington Trout is not alone in our concern over the NMFS approach. The Salmon Recovery Science Review Panel was appointed by NMFS to evaluate salmon-recovery planning and regulation under the ESA. In November the Review Panel severely criticized NMFS’s approach to harvest-management.

The panel of nationally recognized experts said it was "mystified concerning the scientific justification for current allowable harvests." After calling it "clear" that harvest had contributed significantly to salmon declines, the panel noted that NMFS continues to permit "biologically unsustainable" harvest levels of listed salmon. They bluntly admonished NMFS to develop a policy that "does not demean scientific common sense." (See RSRP Report Criticizes NMFS Over Salmon Harvest)

Washington Trout objects to several controversial elements of the RMP. While it purports to cut harvest rates on some stocks, it will actually reduce the more important spawning targets on many runs, some by as much as half. The plan will allow essentially un-monitored harvest on smaller runs about which little is known. NMFS claims the current state of the habitat won’t produce more fish even if harvest is reduced, but it offers no data to support this counterintuitive assumption. To accommodate various stakeholders, the agency uncritically accepted the assertions of the entities it is supposed to regulate.

"We respect that the biological recovery-requirements of salmon do not exist outside of social and historical contexts," said Ramon Vanden Brulle, WT Communications Director. "The Tribes have certain rights, and other stakeholders have their needs. But risking the recovery of Puget Sound chinook is in no one’s long-term interest. We’re insisting that NMFS fully assess and minimize that risk before approving any salmon-harvest plan."

To read more about the suit click here.

To see the text of WT’s comments on the RMP, click here. To see our comments on the general 4d Rule, click here.