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Property rights group challenges the EPA
PORTLAND — A California property rights group has filed a federal lawsuit
challenging Endangered Species Act listings for salmon in four Western states,
claiming the government is playing a “shell game’’ with hatchery and
naturally spawned fish by counting only the natural population to determine
listings.
The Pacific Legal Foundation, based in
Sacramento, also claims the salmon listings damage the Western economy by
driving up prices and cutting jobs in farming and agriculture, along with
other industries, including construction and transportation.
“This policy is an insult to the tens of thousands of people whose
livelihoods are being held hostage by needless regulations to protect fish
that aren’t endangered,’’ said Russell Brooks, the managing attorney for
the foundation’s office in Seattle.
Environmentalists immediately criticized the lawsuit, calling it a step
backward in salmon conservation efforts that have broad public, scientific and
political support.
“It’s just counter to all the science that’s out there, and I think
counter to common sense,’’ said Kristen Boyles, an attorney for
Earthjustice in Seattle.
The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Eugene, names the chief
of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Northwest
regional director of NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service.
Brian Gorman, spokesman for NOAA Fisheries in Seattle, said the agency cannot
comment on a pending lawsuit.
But he defended NOAA policy on wild and hatchery salmon in general, noting
that the Pacific Legal Foundation won a ruling in 2001 by U.S. District Judge
Michael Hogan in Eugene that required fishery managers to consider hatchery
salmon numbers when determining whether to list wild stocks as threatened or
endangered.
“The court clearly told us we had to account for hatchery fish,’’ Gorman
said. “But at no point did the court say that hatchery fish and natural
spawners were a one-to-one correspondence.’’
But Brooks, who led the previous lawsuit, said the latest lawsuit asks the
court to rule there should be no distinction between hatchery and wild salmon.
“Right now the Endangered Species Act doesn’t allow NOAA to wade into a
stream and pick the fish they like and the fish they don’t like,’’
Brooks said. “It’s got to treat them all equally.’’
Gorman said the only way to keep wild and hatchery salmon stocks separate is
to identify the genetic differences between them and preserve the wild fish.
Otherwise, fishery managers would be under pressure to inflate the total
number of salmon with hatchery fish.
“If the lawsuit says, ‘Count all the fish,’ the next step is to delist
them all,’’ Gorman said.
Conservation groups agreed.
“Counting hatchery fish the same as wild fish not only does not pass
scientific muster, it would be a huge setback to efforts of citizens across
the Northwest and California who are really trying to recover salmon,’’
said Amy Kober of American Rivers in Seattle.
She also dismissed arguments that salmon conservation damages the regional
economy, saying the effort adds jobs to Western states and also protects its
rivers, streams and forests.
“I think it’s a really tired cliche and argument to use the environment
versus the economy,’’ Kober said, noting that Western states have some of
the fastest-growing economies in the nation.