PRESS RELEASE

WASHINGTON TROUT

PO Box 402 Duvall, WA 98019 · Tel 425/788-1167 · Fax 425/788-9634 · wildfish@washingtontrout.org

Contact: Ramon Vanden Brulle, 425/788-1167 x222; ramon@washingtontrout.org

For Immediate Release: November 20, 2001

 

Washington Trout Sues NMFS

Over Puget Sound Salmon-Harvest Plan

Washington Trout, a statewide environmental-organization, has filed a lawsuit against the National Marine Fisheries Service over its decision to approve a plan for harvesting salmon in Puget Sound. The plan, known as the 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. NMFS approved the plan in April.

Washington Trout says NMFS improperly approved the RMP, without preparing complete biological and environmental analyses required by federal law.  NMFS skipped preparation of an Environmental Impact Statement and a Biological Opinion in its haste to authorize harvest, maintains the environmental group. NMFS did prepare what they called an Evaluation and Recommended Determination of the harvest-plan, but according to Washington Trout, the Evaluation does not adequately 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, says Beardslee, and they do 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 manage risks.”

In January 2001, NMFS enacted rules, known collectively as the 4d Rule, that determine how the ESA will be enforced in Puget Sound and elsewhere in Washington where different populations of salmon or steelhead have been listed as Threatened. 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. Environmentalists say the approach simply allows business as usual and dilutes the power of the ESA to protect listed species.

The Northwest Treaty Tribes and WDFW are charged with co-managing Washington’s salmon fisheries. They submitted the RMP to NMFS in order to exempt harvest activities in Puget Sound from ESA-enforcement, even if those activities wind up killing, or “taking” listed Puget Sound chinook.

Virtually everyone agrees that salmon runs in Puget Sound and elsewhere have been depressed by a complex combination of factors, including poor hatchery practices, overharvest, and habitat loss. Many scientists and environmentalists are concerned that many runs of wild salmon, particularly some Puget Sound chinook populations, have declined so far that harvest-related impacts could risk their recovery. Even when harvest is aimed at relatively robust hatchery stocks, the risks to threatened wild stocks mingled in with the hatchery fish will be too great, they say.

Washington Trout is not the only group concerned 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.”

The NMFS-approved plan has several controversial elements. While it may cut harvest rates on some stocks, it appears to actually reduce the more important spawning targets on many runs, some by as much as half. The plan could 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 at the assertions of the entities it is supposed to regulate, says Washington Trout.

“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.”

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For copies of the W T’s Suit and/or supporting information, contact Ramon Vanden Brulle.