Court Decision Preserves Salmon Protections

Conservation groups are hailing the Bush administration's decision to give up its efforts to weaken protections for salmon in Pacific Northwest watersheds, according to news from the environmental legal organization Earthjustice.

The announcement came after the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals approved a motion by administration officials to withdraw their appeal in a lawsuit brought by environmental groups. Earthjustice represented the groups in that case, which claimed the Bush administration had no scientific basis for its changes to the Aquatic Conservation Strategy (ACS) of the Northwest Forest Plan.

This past April, a federal court agreed with that claim, ruling that Bush officials illegally changed the ACS by misrepresenting scientific opinions and suppressing dissent regarding the environmental impact of those revisions.

Developed by scientists in 1994, the ACS aims to protect salmon by regulating logging and other operations that can cause huge amounts of dirt to enter streams and rivers in steep watersheds. That dirt can muddy water and bury the gravel beds that salmon need to spawn.

Earthjustice says Bush officials changed ACS regulations to benefit the timber industry, which donated more than $1 million to the Republican campaign committee in 2000. The industry had sought to triple its logging activities in regions protected by the ACS.

"This is a story about how our federal government went to work to pay back the timber industry at the expense of West Coast salmon stocks and communities that rely on them," said Patti Goldman, an attorney with Earthjustice. "In the end the government wasted millions of dollars in staff and attorney time all for nothing. We were able to keep the salmon protections in place because the government couldn't get any reputable scientist to go along with their scheme."

Upon seeking to change the ACS, Bush officials questioned scientists who developed the original plan. Although many of them said the changes would damage the environment, the administration claimed its revisions had scientific support.

The April court ruling found that those claims were "contrary to the opinions that were actually expressed by the FEMAT (Forest Ecosystem Management Assessment Team) scientists in response to the questionnaire."

Among the groups that filed suit after the ACS was changed were the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations, the Institute for Fisheries Resources, Oregon Wild, the Pacific Rivers Council, The Wilderness Society, Umpqua Watersheds, the Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center, the Siskiyou Regional Educational Project, Conservation Northwest, the Klamath Forest Alliance and the National Center for Conservation Science and Policy.

Earthjustice, "Feds Throw in Towel on Effort to Strip Key Salmon Protections." URL: (http://www.earthjustice.org/news/press/007/feds-throw-in-towel-on-effort-to-strip-key-salmon-protections.html)