Removing Dams (From Consideration)

Even Judge Redden, who surely will be hearing a challenge to the new biological opinion (possibly by the time you read this), is weighing in. Apparently he dislikes Bush's plan even more than Clinton's, which he ruled illegal; and he is publicly suggesting that NOAA Fisheries and the action agencies are steering us into a "train wreck."

During the 30 years Bert Bowler worked as a fisheries biologist for the Idaho Department of Fish & Game he struck me as unusually forthcoming during interviews. Now that he is native fisheries director for Idaho Rivers United he is even more so. What impresses Bowler most about the Bush administration's approach to salmonid management is its "arrogance." In addition to its shell game with wild and hatchery fish and its brazen assertion that the Endangered Species Act isn't about "recovery" of listed species, Bowler cites its 2004 attempt to cut summer spill rates needed to flush at least a few fall chinook smolts over the dams: "Their hue and cry was, 'Gee the energy market's bad; Bonneville's losing money; we're going to have to reduce spill.' We [a coalition of Idaho Rivers United, Save Our Wild Salmon, American Rivers, the Sierra Club, the National Wildlife Federation, and the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations] took the spill issue to Judge Redden. And we won. The feds then appealed to the Ninth Circuit, and we prevailed there, too.

"Their attitude has been: 'This federal judge, he's just getting in our way, but we're still going to plow ahead.' It's all a careful strategy, but they don't want to do everything right away because there'd be a huge outcry. These are smart people, working overtime to get around ESA. Edicts are coming down from DC: 'Hey, I don't care what the science says, this is the way it's going to be.' Bush put the foxes in charge of the henhouse; they're busy eating the chickens, and in four years there won't be any left. Demoralization among federal employees is horrendous; people are bailing out, but that's what the administration wants. Then they can outsource the whole thing."

Speaking of arrogance, maybe the most telling comment comes from the Bush administration itself. "We are doing the right thing by the law and by the fish," proclaims NOAA Fisheries spokesman Brian Gorman. "The Endangered Species Act does not mandate recovery; it mandates a recovery plan. That's different from recovery."

Advocates of wild salmon and steelhead should not give up; they still have the courts and Congress. On the other hand, they should be prepared for four very bleak years. I interviewed Bowler on October 12, 2004-before Bush had procured a second term. Now Bowler's observation that the administration doesn't want to give away the public's salmon and steelhead "right away" no longer applies. Now the president and his people don't have to worry about creating a huge outcry and backlash because they can't get voted out of office.

Now sportsmen and environmentalists can look for the White House to move much more quickly and aggressively against what it perceives to be and calls "impediments" and what the rest of society calls environmental laws.