And now:Ish <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
via MarthaET
Header: More Salmon Species Now Endangered
Trailer: CIS:NSW-5761
AP 16-Mar-1999 4:48 EST
By HAL SPENCER
Associated Press Writer
SEATTLE (AP) -- Uncle Sam has set his sights on salmon.
Nine species of the fish -- including one that swims in the heart of
bustling Puget Sound -- were to be listed as endangered or threatened under
federal law today, a move that promises to have economic reverberations
across the region for years.
The National Marine Fisheries Service hopes to protect salmon found in
waters from Washington's Puget Sound to Oregon's Willamette Valley, 300
miles away. The stretch includes the Northwest's largest cities: Seattle
and Portland, Ore.
The protections under the Endangered Species Act will cover seven salmon
runs in Washington and two in Oregon, and will likely be felt by all the
region's residents, from foresters and farmers to homebuilders and
fishermen.
Anything that requires a federal permit -- from grazing to logging to
putting a dock on a river in a listed salmon habitat -- will require the
permission of federal biologists.
Sewer bills and home prices in the Northwest may go up, roads may take
longer to build and the government may tell people when and how often they
can water their lawns.
Anyone harming salmon or its habitat risks a felony charge. The species
being added to the list must be released if caught.
Unlike the listing of the northern spotted owl, which triggered
unpopular federally imposed cutbacks on logging on national forests, the
salmon listings will give local, state, regional and tribal entities a
chance to come up with solutions to saving the salmon.
There has been widespread support for saving salmon.
"It's really amazing to see folks saying, 'We're going to work
together,"' said Mark Hubbard, spokesman for the EarthJustice Legal Defense
Fund.
Northwest waterways, once full of salmon, are now surrounded by urban
sprawl where industries pollute rivers, road culverts block spawning areas
and even lawn fertilizers and soap used to wash cars seep into streams
through storm drains.
"People need to ask whether they want to be the last generation in the
Northwest to have the privilege of marveling at these wild stocks of
salmon," said Terry Garcia, assistant U.S. commerce secretary for oceans
and atmosphere. "You can choose to send these species along the path to
extinction or choose to find a path that will allow you to take them with
us into the next millennium."
Still, the new listings are expected to further slow an already
depressed sport fishing industry. Local fishing regulations will have to
change to protect the wild salmon, federal officials said.
Curt Smitch, Gov. Gary Locke's advisor on salmon issues and a former
regional official with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, called the
impact of the move on the human population "unprecedented."
In other cases -- the endangered falcon and cactus in Southern
California, for example -- "people have been able to set aside certain land
areas to protect a species," he said.
"In this case, the threatened salmon live where we live, and they live
in the water, which goes everywhere," Smitch said.
The latest restrictions will not take effect for about two months. In
the meantime, local government officials intend to work with the federal
government to determine how the new restrictions will be enforced.
The salmon included in the announcement are the Puget Sound chinook, the
Lower Columbia River chinook, Upper Columbia spring chinook, Lake Ozette
sockeye, Hood Canal summer chum, Lower Columbia chum and the Mid-Columbia
steelhead, and the steelhead and chinook in the Upper Willamette River.
Nine other salmonid species in Washington have already been listed.
The fisheries service may take further action in other waterways in
California and Oregon. Decisions on those will come within six months, the
agency said.
"In the end, we have little choice," said Will Stelle, Northwest
regional director of the National Marine Fisheries Service. "Saving salmon
may well, at the end of the day, be saving ourselves. Because salmon and
clean water are one in the same."
Copyright 1999. The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
The information contained in the AP news report may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without the prior written
authority of The Associated Press.
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Tsonkwadiyonrat (We are ONE Spirit)
Unenh onhwa' Awayaton
http://www.tdi.net/ishgooda/
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