The Wild Salmon Recovery Initiative
Giving it Everything We’ve Got
by Ramon Vanden Brulle and Nick Gayeski

In Washington, twelve separate populations or “Evolutionarily Significant Units” of Pacific salmonids are listed as Threatened or Endangered under the Endangered Species Act, including Puget Sound chinook, listed as Threatened in 1999. The Puget Sound listing is arguably the most significant. It brings the challenge of salmon recovery right to the economic and political heart of the Northwest. The development of the Puget Sound recovery effort will likely create a model for the entire region.

Washington Trout’s largest and most comprehensive program, the Wild Salmon Recovery Initiative, is an evolving suite of activities and projects intended to respond to the challenges of salmonid recovery statewide. The primary goal of the Initiative is to influence the National Marine Fisheries Service and other regional resource-management agencies to effectively enforce and comply with the ESA, to develop and implement management proposals that will promote the preservation and recovery of listed salmon and steelhead populations, and to revise and modify proposals that fall short of that mark.

The scope of the WSRI is broad and flexible, allowing WT to respond to conditions and opportunities as they evolve, but the program can be divided into several discreet categories. Under the program, WT policy and technical staff participate on several regional recovery-planning committees. WT Resource Analyst Nick Gayeski is helping develop and present a series of forums and workshops on the “Adaptive Management” of salmon-recovery efforts for public-policy makers, agency personnel, the conservation community, and the general public. WT staff continually review, evaluate, and submit comments on selected management proposals, recovery-planning documents, and Biological Opinions related to ESA-mandated regulations. If and when participation in these public processes fails to improve scientifically or legally inadequate salmon-recovery proposals, WT is willing and prepared to challenge those proposals through the courts.

Contributing to, monitoring, evaluating, and if necessary challenging salmon-recovery management throughout the region is part of Washington Trout’s mission to protect and restore declining salmon and steelhead populations throughout the Northwest. 

A Legacy of Accomplishment
Washington Trout conceived and initiated the Wild Salmon Recovery Initiative in 1996. The initial objective of the program was to contribute to the development of the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife’s “Wild Salmonid Policy.” The Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission adopted the Wild Salmonid Policy in late 1997. WT was successful in influencing the shape and direction of that document, the first time that any state agency had developed and codified a specific policy for managing, conserving, and recovering Washington’s wild salmon, steelhead, trout, and native char. As is typically the case, the final document was not everything that WT and other wild-fish advocates might have hoped for, but due in part to WT’s contributions, the policy contains important criteria and performance standards for hatchery programs relative to their impacts on and interactions with wild populations, and important if incremental revisions in harvest management.

In 1998 the program evolved and broadened so that WT could participate on a variety of regional salmon-recovery planning entities and technical committees, providing our independent perspective based in contemporary conservation-ecology. Perhaps the most important of these committees was the Snohomish Basin Salmonid Recovery Technical Committee. Nick Gayeski and contracted Fisheries Professional Sam Wright sat on the Committee with representatives from NMFS, the US Forest Service, the Environmental Protection Agency, WDFW, the Washington Department of Ecology, the Washington Conservation Commission, the Tulalip Tribes, King and Snohomish Counties, the Cities of Seattle and Everett, the Port of Everett, the Stilly-Snohomish Fisheries Enhancement Task Force, and Pentec Environmental Inc., a private consulting firm.

Under the WSRI, WT Resource Analyst Nick Gayeski wrote a chapter on ecosystem processes and their disruption for the Salmon-Recovery Technical Committee's Work Plan, identifying, among other things, floodplain filling as a severe limiting factor in the Snoqualmie Basin.

The SRTC was charged with identifying the factors that contributed to salmon declines in the Snohomish River system, and developing recommendations for conservation and recovery actions. In October 1999 the SRTCreleased its initial report, the Initial Snohomish River Basin Chinook Salmon Conservation/Recovery Technical Work Plan. Several chapters of the Work Plan were written principally by Gayeski and/or Wright, including sections on ecosystem processes and their disruption, and the role of hatchery and harvest practices in the decline of chinook in the Snohomish Basin.

[Editorial Clarification: The “Work Plan” chapter on hatchery and harvest practice was compiled by the Hatchery/Harvest Subcommittee of the SRTC, with significant contributions from Sam Wright, as well as other members of the SRTC. The preceding paragraph appears un-amended in the hard-copy version of the Winter 2001 “Washington Trout Report.” We regret any implication that Mr. Wright was the sole or principal author of the hatchery/harvest section of the report.]

Despite its currency in the scientific literature for over twenty years, adaptive management has yet to be successfully applied to natural resource recovery. In 1999, Washington Trout challenged the City of Seattle’s Habitat Conservation Plan for the Cedar River watershed, based in part on the inadequacy of the HCP’s adaptive management provisions. The subsequent settlement-agreement with Seattle provided Washington Trout the authority and funding to organize and present three annual Adaptive Management forums. The first symposium took place at the annual conference of the Society for Ecological Restoration in Bellevue, Washington in April 2001. The symposium was attended by key policy-makers, resource-management agency personnel, scientists, students, conservation advocates and professionals, and the general public from around the region and nation. Topics addressed included whether and how adaptive management can be integrated into resource-management decision making, what new evaluation systems would be required, and what types of information are important to meaningfully implementing a truly adaptive management approach. Washington Trout is currently developing and organizing the second round of workshops, scheduled for fall 2002.

The HCP Settlement Agreement also provided for WT’s participation on the Cedar River Anadromous Fish Committee.  The Cedar River AFC provides technical advice and stakeholder-input regarding implementation of the HCP, including evaluation and oversight on design of fish-passage facilities at Landsburg Dam, and the design and management of the sockeye-hatchery proposed under the HCP. Sam Wright represents WT’s resource-focused perspective on these and other issues addressed by the Committee.

Responding to the ESA
In response to the 1999 listing of Puget Sound chinook, and NMFS’s subsequent proposed 4d Rule in spring 2000, Washington Trout began monitoring and evaluating the development and implementation of the Rule. The 4d Rule is intended to regulate activities that “take” listed salmon. “Take” refers to actions defined under the ESA as harmful to listed species. It is generally illegal to take a listed species, except in areas listed under individual 4d Rules. Unfortunately, details of the current 4d Rule suggest that NMFS may be more concerned with accommodating regional bureaucratic and economic interests than in meeting the recovery requirements of Puget Sound chinook and other listed salmonids.

NMFS claims that the 4d Rule will apply take-restrictions to any activities that harm salmon, except in 13 broad areas where the restrictions can be “limited.” However, the 13 “limits” include nearly all the factors that have contributed to the salmon’s decline, including salmon harvest and hatchery programs, water diversions, road building, urban development, and forest practices. In March 2000, Washington Trout submitted comments to NMFS reflecting our objections to the approach and overall tone of the proposed 4d Rule  (see Washington Trout Responds to 4d Rule for Seven Threatened Salmon ESUs.)

We argued that NMFS was placing the trust and responsibility for recovery planning with the same agencies whose management failures resulted in listing. Under the 4d Rule, NMFS will review and approve management proposals from state and local agencies to qualify programs for one or more of the 13 take exemptions. Some of the programs had already been approved, like Washington’s so-called “Forest and Fish Plan” to regulate forest practices on state and private land in Washington State. Some of the plans were pending, like the “Tri-County Plan” to regulate development in Pierce, King, and Snohomish Counties. And NMFS listed criteria for submitting proposals to limit take liability in other categories, like harvest and hatchery management, after the 4d Rule took effect.

This spring, American Rivers named the Snoqualmie River as one of the 13 Most Endangered Rivers in America. Washington Trout cooperated with AR in the local campaign, providing technical and public-outreach support.

We were not alone in our criticism. WT’s evaluation of the proposed rule’s inadequacy was generally shared across the broad spectrum of the environmental community.  Several leading environmental organizations identified shortcomings in the habitat-protection provisions of the proposed Rule, particularly Washington’s Forest and Fish Plan. While we shared these concerns, we believed that our partners in the environmental community could effectively address these habitat issues. WT focused primarily on hatchery- and fisheries-management provisions of the 4d Rule. NMFS proposed that states and tribes develop Fishery Management and Evaluation Plans (FMEPs) and Hatchery Genetic Management Plans (HGMPs), to exempt co-managers from ESA take-prohibitions where fishery and hatchery activities conform to approved plans. Based on the proposed FMEP and HGMP criteria, WT anticipated that many of these plans would likely be inadequate to protect and recover listed populations. Under the Wild Salmon Recovery Initiative, WT staff prepared to review, evaluate, and submit comments on selected individual FMEPs and HGMPs.

Monitoring, evaluating, and if necessary challenging the development, implementation, and enforcement of ESA-related policies has now become the primary focus of the Initiative. 

Taking the Next Step
Despite the input from Washington Trout and other environmentalists, NMFS implemented the Final 4d Rule, without any major revisions, in January 2001. Since then, specific management proposals submitted under the 4d Rule, and NMFS’s response to certain activities on the ground, have reinforced Washington Trout’s belief that the Rule is fundamentally flawed, and will not recover Puget Sound chinook or the other Threatened ESUs.

Since implementing the Initiative in 1996, it has always been Washington Trout’s hope and expectation that substantive, good-faith participation in various public processes could improve and strengthen salmonid management, that federal, tribal, and state agencies could and would fulfill their responsibilities to foster the conservation and recovery of Washington’s wild-fish resources. However, despite ESA listings from two to ten years old, the recovery of the region’s wild-salmon resource in Puget Sound and elsewhere is still uncertain.

Unfortunately, it seems sadly likely that salmon preservation — much less recovery — will not be secured without taking the next step, initiating legal action to force responsible entities to undertake the minimally necessary measures.

In January 2001, WT submitted 60-Day Notices of intent to sue Puget Sound Energy and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission under the ESA, alleging harm to federally listed bull trout and chinook salmon in the Baker, Skagit, and White Rivers (see Washington Trout Sues PSE and FERC). That case is currently before the 9^th Circuit Court of Appeals, to determine whether FERC will meet its responsibility to initiate a required ESA-consultation with NMFS regarding its ongoing regulation of PSE’s Baker River Dam..

Monitoring, evaluating, and if necessary challenging ESA-related harvest-and hatchery-management proposals is the primary focus of the Wild Salmon Recovery Initiative

In March 2001, WT submitted comments to NMFS on WDFW’s and the Puget Sound Tribes’ Joint Resource Management Plan for Puget Sound Chinook (RMP),submitted in lieu of an FMEP to apply for take-exemptions for salmon-harvest activities in Puget Sound. In September, WT filed a 60-Day Notice with NMFS, challenging their approval of the RMP on technical and legal grounds. In November, we filed the suit (see Washington Trout Sues NMFS Over Puget Sound Salmon-Harvest Plan).

Washington Trout has spent its history attempting to influence salmon-management and –recovery policy through appropriate and traditional channels and processes. In many cases those efforts have been productive. WT will continue those initiatives where they offer continued value. But when it becomes necessary to involve the courts in enforcing legal requirements for salmon protection and recovery, we will pursue any and all cases that appear to offer grounds for meaningful, successful litigation. 

An Expensive Initiative
The Wild Salmon Recovery Initiative is a large, complex, and obviously expensive program. Funding is required for staff time and contracted consultants to evaluate and submit comments on FMEPs, HGMPs, RMPs, and other relevant Recovery-Planning documents and/or Biological Opinions issued by NMFS. If legal action is warranted, we need more money for staff to help attorneys coordinate technical/scientific arguments into legal strategies. Significant staff time can be required to do literature or even field research to support our policy reviews or build legal cases. We need funding to cover staff and contract expenses to meet our responsibilities on various recovery-committees. Funding to plan, organize, and conduct the adaptive management workshops in 2002 is secured through the HCP Settlement Agreement, but additional funding to support staff time in developing and organizing the workshops may be required. 

Not least by any measure is the funding required to meet legal costs. This of course includes attorneys’ fees, but also court costs and fees for expert witnesses.

The program also requires funding to stay flexible, continue to evolve, and meet important public outreach and communications needs, or when necessary, coordinate public-information campaigns with complementary legal strategies. Under the Initiative, WT attempts to monitor and contribute to other salmon-recovery efforts throughout the region. For instance, this year WT cooperated first with American Rivers and then with the Washington Environmental Council on habitat-conservation and salmon-recovery outreach and legal campaigns in the Snoqualmie and Yakima River Basins. (See America’s Most Endangered Rivers.)

The Wild Salmon Recovery Initiative has been supported in part through grants from the W. Alton Jones Foundation, the Bullitt Foundation, the Flintridge Foundation, and the Northwest Fund for the Environment. Further funding comes from contracts with King County and through the HCP Settlement Agreement with the City of Seattle. Additional funding has to come from the WT membership, fundraising activities like our annual benefit auction, and the committed support of wild-fish advocates and other conservationists. We’re giving this critically important effort everything we’ve got. To succeed, we’ll need our members and supporters to give whatever they can as well.

A Broad and Ambitious Program
The Wild Salmon Recovery Initiative is a broad and ambitious program, but we believe it has an essential unity that binds each component tightly to the others. Merely participating in recovery-planning committees, or offering input on management proposals, for example, will not necessarily guarantee that an environmentally responsible perspective will be reflected in public salmon-recovery policies. And salmon recovery will not be sustained if it continues in fits and starts, requiring the constant intervention of environmental advocates. Resource-management agencies must embrace practices that generate an atmosphere of adaptive learning and management.

On the other hand, time is running out. Threatened and Endangered salmonid populations cannot afford the luxury of waiting for the region to stumble its way toward ecologically sound recovery policies. We need to hold public agencies accountable to the law. We must be prepared to argue the scientific and legal merits of our perspective in court when our legitimate objections fall on deaf (or covered) bureaucratic ears.

Linking and coordinating all of these elements is not easy, but current social, political, and ecological circumstances make it necessary. Washington Trout’s experience and abilities as an organization gives us confidence that we can do it successfully.