U.S. Protection of Coho Salmon Spawns Criticism

Coho salmon that spawn in streams along 300 miles of California’s coast were declared a threatened species Friday, giving the fish federal protection that could interfere with timber cutting, home building and other economic activity.

Federal officials, however, postponed a more controversial decision over protecting the coho salmon in the timber-rich country of Oregon and California north of Mendocino County. Those areas will be studied for another six months.

Gov. Pete Wilson condemned the Clinton administration for imposing “a punitive, top down regulatory action” that he said “will harshly impact landowners and communities that are already suffering under severe economic pressure.”

Wilson, Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber and timber industry representatives had urged the federal government to delay the entire decision because some new evidence shows that the salmon might be healthier than previously believed.

A year ago, the National Marine Fisheries Service proposed to invoke the Endangered Species Act to safeguard the silvery fish swimming in coastal streams stretching 700 miles along the Pacific Coast and in waterways up to 100 miles inland. It was the farthest-reaching proposal in the law’s 23-year history.

But Friday, federal officials said they are convinced only that the coho in river basins from Santa Cruz to Punta Gorda near Eureka are heading toward extinction. Other spawning grounds in the two states, including the Klamath, Trinity and Umpqua rivers, will be studied before a decision is made in April.

Environmentalists lambasted the delay for much of California and all of Oregon as election-year politicking to appease the two governors and timber companies. They called it an inexcusable move that endangers a beloved cultural and ecological icon of the Pacific Northwest.

“This is essentially a political decision made to look like a biological one,” said Elyssa Rosen, a Sierra Club representative. “They have to do something, so they are going to list in an area that is less politically difficult to impose protections in.”

Logging companies consider Friday’s action a partial victory: They are pleased about the delay for the upper region, but troubled by the federal protection granted in eight California counties.

“Clearly, we’re very concerned about the listing that they did go forward with,” said David Bischel, president of the California Forestry Assn. “This will have a significant potential impact. . . . Five billion dollars worth of timber may be affected by this decision.”

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About 90% of land in the area where the salmon was declared threatened is privately owned, and thousands of small and large landowners in Northern California are now subject to federal authority.

Effective in 60 days, no one in that area, which encompasses nine large river basins, can harm coho or their spawning grounds without an often time-consuming and rigorous federal review. Logging, gravel mining, ranching, water diversions, farming, housing development and other economic activities that can interfere with the salmon’s survival along the coastal streams will be affected.

Hilda Diaz-Soltero, the fishery service’s southwest regional administrator, said: “We needed to take action immediately” to protect the dwindling coho in California. But she vowed to work to avoid conflicts and develop “creative home-grown solutions” with landowners, environmentalists and local and state government agencies.

The agency’s move to list only a portion of the Northern California area is “predictable, given that the timber industry is noticeably absent there,” Rosen said.

The sprawling area that was granted the delay encompasses 27 counties in the two states, including Humboldt and Del Norte counties, and contains ancient forests and other prime land used for large-scale timber harvesting. Included is the Headwaters Forest of old-growth redwoods that has been the focus of a fierce conflict between Pacific Lumber Co. and environmentalists.

The logging industry, however, says that although forestry to the north is more intense, the area deemed to contain threatened salmon contains over 10 billion board feet of timber owned by thousands of California landowners, including the large corporations of Louisiana Pacific and Georgia Pacific.

In a written appeal to President Clinton on Thursday, Wilson urged a six-month deferral of the listing for all coho in California. He wrote Clinton that the decision was “indefensible in light of the serious issues that are in scientific dispute” and warned that it “could result in a virtual shutdown of logging, mining, ranching and other agricultural activities over large parts of California. Urban water diversions and waste water treatment operations could be placed equally at risk.”

The decision had already taken three years, and the fisheries agency faced a court order to act Friday. Under the Endangered Species Act, it can postpone action for six months after a proposed listing, but only if there are significant scientific issues to be resolved.

William Stelle, the fishery agency’s northwest regional administrator, said a delay until April is warranted to try to resolve “substantial scientific disagreement” about how many coho remain between Punta Gorda and the Columbia River and how small of a population can survive a spiral toward extinction.

“It is more important to do it right than to do it quickly,” Stelle said. “These are very, very significant decisions and we absolutely have an obligation to . . . make sure those decisions are based on the best scientific information we can possibly muster.”

In 1994, fewer than 6,000 wild coho returned to spawn in streams between Monterey Bay and the Mendocino-Humboldt county line--the area designated threatened--compared with 50,000 to 125,000 half a century ago, the fishery agency said. In Oregon, spawning coho reportedly fell from more than 1 million to under 50,000.

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A year ago, timber industry representatives, including the California Forestry Assn., said they would not oppose the listing. But in recent months they changed their positions, saying surveys they conducted this year show that coho are spreading to streams that had been uninhabited due to drought and the El Nino ocean effect.

William Rukeyser, speaking for an alliance of 40 California environmental groups, said the Clinton administration “had another failure of nerve. . . The science is as clear as it can be.”

The Wilson administration says the best way to protect coho is through a fledgling conservation alliance of land owners, environmentalists and local governments. It is similar to a state program in Orange and San Diego counties for the gnatcatcher, a threatened songbird.

The timber industry is not participating in the state’s program, and Friday some environmental and fishing groups said they will quit the process because Wilson pushed for a delay in the listing.

The Wilson administration “has done everything possible to destroy coho, not rebuild them,” said Zeke Grader, an attorney for the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations.

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A thriving industry until the 1960s, coho fishing has been banned along the coast south of Alaska for the last few years. Commercial and sportfishing groups support Endangered Species Act protection because they believe it will lead to a rebound of the popular pink-fleshed fish.

Coho are born in freshwater coastal streams, then swim to the ocean to feed for two years, growing to about seven to 10 pounds. They somehow find their way back to the place they were born, then spawn and die. Coho are the fifth type of salmon to be protected under the Endangered Species Act and the most controversial.

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Protecting the Coho

The federal government on Friday declared coho salmon threatened in the area from Santa Cruz to Punta Gorda, north of Mendocino. A decision was deferred for six months on salmon in the areas north to the Columbia River in Oregon.