March 2005 Conservation Notes

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Watch salmon fly in this innovative flash ad promoting Snake River dam removal.
Click here to view.

Because I dedicated last month's article to the letter writing campaign opposing NOAA's redesignation of critical salmon and steelhead habitat I got a little behind on the monthly articles. Here's some of what we missed in January and February:

Hatchery Fish To Be Counted in ESA?

This is definitely a tactic that developers, irrigators, and other commercial water interests will use over and over again. For those of you who haven't followed this issue, when fish or other species are listed under the Endangered Species Act (ESA), the law places restrictions on activities that are detrimental to the listed animal. Suppose you were a developer and wanted to build, say, condos on a piece of critical habitat, but development there was restricted by the ESA. Well, one strategy would be to use every possible measure to remove the offending animal from the endangered species list. In the case of steelhead and salmon, one such strategy would be to argue that hatchery fish should be included in the counts of "endangered" fish. After all, they're all the same, right? This Eureka Reporter article documents the sorry legal proceedings that result from this Orwellian tactic, this time on the Klamath River. In this particular battle, Federal Courts ruled in favor of the Pacific Legal Foundation - an organization representing Klamath Basin farmers - in its attempt to force NOAA to include counts of hatchery salmon in the determination of whether the salmon are endangered or not.

Fish and Wildlife Service Scientists Feel Pressured to Alter Findings

In a mail-in survey, many scientists at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service responded that they felt pressured to change or alter their conclusions in ways that work against greater protections for endangered species. Although the survey -- sponsored by the Union of Concerned Scientists and Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility -- was not scientific, nearly 30% of the queried biologists, ecologists, botanists, and other scientists responded to the survey. Of these 44% of the scientists who responded said they have been asked by their superiors to avoid making findings that would require greater protection of endangered species. More details are available in this SF Chronicle article.

Electricity Prices for Klamath Farmers Set to Rise

I have to admit that I sometimes indulge in schadenfreude when someone who is clearly gaming the system is confronted by market realities -- and then cries "unfair." While irrigators have been fighting to use every possible drop of water, Pacificorp -- the electric company that provides the power that irrigators use to move all that water -- has announced its intention to raise the price of electricity sold to farmers from 0.6 cents to more than 6 cents per kilowatt-hour - a tenfold increase. The 0.6 cent rate has been in force for nearly 90 years. Details of this historic change are available in this Sac Bee article. Although I'm not a political scientist, there may be similar consequences resulting from the Bush Administration's 2006 Federal Budget that proposes cuts to farm subsidies.

That's all for this month.

– Rodney