Are we really serious about applying the best available science to saving endangered salmon and restoring healthy rivers in Washington state?

This is one of many questions arising from a proposed deal to provide regulatory certainty to logging under the Endangered Species Act (ESA).

A few weeks ago, federal and state officials announced that the state of Washington was formally applying to the federal government for approval of a Habitat Conservation Plan (HCP). The HCP would regulate logging on 9.1 million acres of state and private forests and along 60,000 miles of streams and rivers.

If the federal government approves this plan, the state and timber companies would be exempt from the provision of the ESA that prohibits landowners from harming or "taking" salmon for the next 50 years, even if wild salmon continue to decline — or more stocks go extinct.

James R. Karr

To be fair, many of the HCP elements improve upon past practices. Still, the overall question remains — is the HCP a good or bad deal for salmon?

Logging is only one of several causes of the decline of salmon, but it is a major one. According to the environmental-impact statement for the proposed HCP, logging has seriously impaired habitat in more than three-quarters of Western Washington's forested streams and rivers; the figure is just under two-thirds for less-forested Eastern Washington rivers. Two-thirds of Washington's private logging-road systems are in serious disrepair, bleeding sediment into rivers and blocking fish passage in 90 percent of the state's watersheds. Streamside logging of trees has resulted in major changes to the type, amount and condition of salmon habitat across the state.

Given these poor existing conditions, one would think that a plan to enforce a no-extinction mandate under ESA would adopt conservative procedures. Yet, no-cut zones around rivers and streams under the state HCP are narrower and less extensive than zones required under federal logging rules and other approved habitat-conservation plans for private lands. Does the best available science really change at property boundaries?

Incredibly, the state's HCP does not distinguish between areas that have previously been logged heavily and other areas that remain far less disturbed. Rather, the HCP includes one-size-fits-all rules like those the timber industry hated — until now. By adopting rules that ignore location-specific factors and conditions, the HCP discounts the legacy of the cumulative effect of past practices and any damage from future logging.

The HCP would still allow logging on steep, potentially unstable slopes. Using our past experience as a guide, it's a rare industry-hired expert who finds enough risk to preclude logging steep terrain even when people live immediately downslope. If public safety is not more important than "getting the cut out," what can we expect with regard to safeguarding salmon?

Finally, the HCP suffers from the "fox guarding the henhouse" problem. As currently written and implemented, the timber industry has the potential to unduly influence whether any improvements to state forest-practice rules will be made through the HCP's adaptive-management process. Just as troubling is that this process relies on funding from strapped federal and state agencies that have not promised to provide the necessary funds.

In addition, though the scientists have worked long and hard on it, no rule changes have taken place in the past six years despite state-sponsored science projects that found the current rules do not meet environmental targets. Instead, it appears that "policy" considerations may trump science through simply changing the targets when these projects have finally wound their way through the system.

Yet, if there is one thing we do know, it is that the scientific rationale for whatever regulations we adopt now will evolve over time as we learn more. Without the political will to follow the lessons of science, adaptive management is little more than false promises.

If federal agencies are going to exempt the state and timber industry from critical ESA provisions for 50 years — a long time for wild salmon runs on the brink of extinction — they should only approve an HCP based on the best available science supported by an independent, science-driven adaptive-management process. Confidently determining whether the HCP is based on the best available science can only be achieved through rigorous peer review and independent adjudication — something we called for way back in 1999.

Will the HCP work or not for salmon? Well, maybe, or maybe not. That's the problem. You just can't tell. Is this the certainty we want when it comes to protecting wild salmon and the rivers upon which they depend?

David R. Montgomery is a University of Washington professor of geomorphology and author of "King of Fish: The Thousand-Year Run of Salmon." James R. Karr is a professor of fisheries and biology at the UW and author with Ellen W. Chu of "Restoring Life in Running Waters." Both Karr and Montgomery have studied the effects of human activities, including logging, on stream ecology.