Fish First

The Endangered Species Act of 1973, the first major expression of an ecological conscience by any society and the first effective effort by our species to preserve the planet's genetic wealth, has been a beacon for the world, inspiring similar statutes in other countries and serving as a blueprint for the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species. Despite what its enemies would like the public to believe, it has never failed. What has failed is enforcement and implementation. Under Section Seven of the act the "action agency" (in this case the Army Corps of Engineers because it issues Clean Water Act permits for instream work) must, in cases where it decides the proposal might affect the resource, write a biological assessment and present it to the agency which supposedly looks after the resource (in this case NMFS). NMFS must then consult with the Corps and either concur or write a biological opinion.

If Fish First waited for the Army Engineers to write their own biological assessments, the Corps might get around to doing so in, say, five years. So at its own expense, Fish First writes the assessments for the Corps, doing a meticulous job so that a lot of the information can be cut-and-pasted into NMFS's biological opinions. Still, the permits get hung up in the bureaucratic mill. Part of the reason is that the ESA listings caught the agencies off guard (though they might have seen them coming had they been more concerned and committed). Another part of the reason is that Congress doesn't think the resource is important enough to provide funding for the necessary staffing. And yet another part, to quote an audit by the Inspector General of the US Department of Commerce (NMFS's parent organization), is the "unnecessarily arrogant and confrontational" conduct of NMFS. The audit, based on interviews with 34 government, tribal and industry officials, went on to scold the agency for dawdling with biological opinions and for ignoring local fish-habitat enhancement efforts.

"In places where we used to shock the river for 1,400 feet and get maybe half a dozen salmon and steelhead fry I can now show you thousands," says Gary Loomis. "We get trophies and plaques from the governor and everyone else. But they can't help us get permits. We're down to one project a year; two years ago we didn't even get one. We could do six or seven a year if we could just get the permits. All we're doing is giving the fish what they need. It's not like we're building shopping centers."

Loomis, Dyrland and Fish First director Jack Kaeding complain about NMFS biologists, fresh from school and with no field experience, who can't read engineering plans, who say the settled, manipulated, tree-impoverished tributaries need to recruit their own gravel and large woody debris and who proclaim (with no supporting evidence) that Rosgen methodology won't work on the west side of the Cascades.

"We'd love to have the rivers fix themselves," says Dyrland, "but natural isn't going to do it. We'd have to move all the houses back half a mile, pull out all the culverts and bridges, then wait 500 years for the big trees to grow, die and fall into the water. If Rosgen designs won't work here, how come they're working everywhere else?

"We're at the end of the line with these species. The money is being spent—we're talking three or four-hundred million bucks, plus all the stuff from Bonneville Power and Northwest Power—but it's going to the bureaucracy, not the fish. We're just squandering opportunities. The federal government seems committed only to process, not product."

But could it be that Fish First is an enfant terrible ill-schooled in realities of federal paperwork? To find out I contacted Don Glaser, President of Friends of the Cowlitz, a lower-Columbia, Washington State group that does work similar to that of Fish First. "I could tell you war stories that would choke a horse," he said. "NMFS and the Corps are just awful. Permits can take two years." Dan Shively, who runs the fisheries program on the Mt. Hood National Forest in Oregon and serves on the recovery team for ESA-listed salmonids for the Willamette and Lower Columbia, has only unpleasant memories of Section Seven consultations with NMFS. When he was on the Gifford Pinchot National Forest he had to forgo a whole year's worth of habitat restoration for listed summer steelhead in the Wind River basin because he didn't get a biological opinion back from NMFS. "It's a long, slow, tedious process," he remarks. "You talk to any fish biologist in the Forest Service or BLM in Washington, Oregon, Idaho or California and you'll immediately sense dissatisfaction. What's so frustrating is that we know what needs to be done and no one wants to talk seriously about doing it."

The Fish and Wildlife Service's Travis Coley, also on the recovery team, agrees. "People right out of college get those [NMFS] jobs," he told me. "They're not politically savvy. They have to cut deals with people who have money, and sometimes they take it out on the little guy. Neophytes tend to be skeptical; they get up on their scientific soap boxes. All over the Northwest you hear how difficult it is to deal with them. They say things like Rosgen methodology won't work here. Water still runs downhill doesn't it?"

When Coley did the biological assessment for the Corps on Fish First's Chelatchie Creek project NMFS biologists told him he couldn't monitor fish with electro-shocking gear without going through another consultation. But the Fish and Wildlife Service was already monitoring brook lampreys and Pacific lampreys on Chelatchie Creek with electro gear. Why not just count the stunned salmonids that floated up, asked Coley? No, said NMFS. After the Chelatchie permit had incubated a year in the federal bureaucracy Fish First sought help from Rep. Brian Baird. Three days after Baird's phone call to NMFS brass the permit came through. According to NMFS, all the paperwork was basically done and the phone call had nothing to do with the permit's sudden appearance.

"There's a very tight window when we can do work because of weather and the fact that many of these streams have spring and fall runs," says Baird. "You can only be in the stream for a short period or you'll impede the down-running fish or the incoming fish. So if a permit is delayed and that window is missed, it creates a cascade of problems."