U.S. to Add State Coho Salmon to Threatened List

In one of the most far-reaching decisions ever made under the controversial federal law protecting endangered species, the Clinton administration will declare the Northern California coho salmon a creature threatened with extinction, administration officials said Thursday.

By forcing potentially sharp restrictions on logging, agriculture and building along the crucial salmon-supporting streams of the northern coast, the action is intended to protect a fish lionized as the spirit of the Pacific Northwest. The coho’s numbers have plummeted because of over-harvesting, damage to the streams where they spawn, construction of dams that restrict their migration between freshwater tributaries and the ocean, and competition with hatchery-raised fish.

But officials, who plan to announce the decision today say the coho populations along much of the Oregon coast, which face similar assaults, will not be listed as threatened primarily because Oregon has established a protection plan approved by the National Marine Fisheries Service.

By easing restrictions in Oregon even as the federal government applies the full force of the Endangered Species Act to the Northern California coast, federal officials said the decision is intended to encourage states to act independently to protect wildlife and plants and avoid sometimes onerous federal rule-making.

“Our goal is to send a wake-up call to California that says, ‘Look at what Oregon has done,’ ” said one administration official.

The decision also reflects an effort to defuse angry opposition to the species protection law in Congress, where opponents complain that it unfairly limits the way property owners can use their land.

“What we are seeing here is the vast and largely untapped flexibility under the Endangered Species Act to incorporate state conservation plans into endangered species recovery,” said William Stelle, regional administrator of the National Marine Fisheries Service in Seattle. “We are plowing new ground here in terms of salmon recovery. This is good for the fish and good for the endangered species program.”

Coho salmon, a shimmering fish silvery blue in the ocean and often red-sided as it swims upstream to spawn and die, once provided abundant harvests for commercial fishing fleets--now banned from catching coho anywhere along the U.S. West Coast. The fish still offers a sporting challenge for anglers working rocky stream beds.

Historically it numbered as many as 1.4 million along the central and northern Oregon coast; now 80,000 native coho salmon are there, according to the fisheries office. Along the southern Oregon and Northern California coasts, where there used to be 150,000 to 400,000 coho salmon, now there are fewer than 10,000 native coho.

According to federal officials, California is being treated more harshly than Oregon for two reasons: First, Oregon prepared a 2,700-page document outlining its salmon-protection plan while California, despite last-minute efforts, did not.

Second, stream conditions along the central and northern Oregon coast are less degraded than those to the south and, as a result, “the fish are better off there,” one environmental official in California said.

The conservation action, taken in response to a federal court order, is part of a larger campaign to protect the diversity of fish in the cold, fast-running streams of the Northwest and in the northern Pacific Ocean.

In October, federal officials declared that coho salmon spawning in streams along a relatively narrow, 300-mile-long stretch of California coastline from Santa Cruz to Punta Gorda are heading toward extinction.

Today’s action, however, covers a wider area--about 700 miles of shoreline and waterways up to nearly 150 miles inland--and, as a result, will have a greater economic impact on the region. Fisheries service officials said they had not determined a dollar amount.

And with the exception of restrictions protecting whales that migrate the length of the Pacific Ocean and perhaps a decision covering owl habitat throughout the Northwest, it affects more territory than any previous measure taken under the 1973 Endangered Species Act.

Oregon’s timber industry, largely exempt from the stricter limits that a “threatened” listing would bring, praised the decision. A Sierra Club staff member in California, Elyssa Rosen, however, was displeased that the California limitations would not take effect for four months.

Within the California state government, there was disagreement: Michael Kahoe, the deputy secretary of the state Environmental Protection Agency, complained that California already has a stronger conservation plan, covering more species and spending more money, than Oregon, and said Oregon’s plan is based on promises of future action.

But Douglas P. Wheeler, the state Resources secretary, said the federal declaration’s impact will be softened by an anticipated state-federal agreement seeking collaboration in preserving the salmon and giving the state a leading role in salmon-related timber issues.

As the reach of the Endangered Species Act continues to grow, it has become one of the touchiest issues facing government officials.

Once a species is listed as threatened or, more severely, endangered, no federal agency can take actions that would harm it.

Thus, the U.S. Forest Service cannot allow logging that would fill streams with erosion-produced silt and choke its native creatures; the Army Corps of Engineers must limit the use of water if reduced stream flow would hurt the fish, and mining permits can be withheld if leaking acid would pollute a creek.

Similarly, private land owners can be prohibited from taking actions that would harm a species facing extinction. Companies cannot mine gravel from stream beds where fish spawn, and ranchers cannot graze their cattle near streams if the animals might tromp through the waterways, disturbing deposited fish eggs. And communities cannot build roads that might let sediment flow through riparian areas.

However, the precise impact of the federal action on California is not immediately clear.

Under the salmon decision, the federal fisheries agency decided that Oregon’s salmon-protection plan was sufficient to avoid listing as threatened the populations of salmon from Cape Blanco near Coos Bay north to the Columbia River, which forms Oregon’s border with Washington.

The agency is listing as threatened the salmon along the Northern California and southern Oregon coasts. But it will not apply most provisions of the Endangered Species Act to the southern Oregon segment because, Stelle said, Oregon has established “very solid” protection programs.

He said in an interview that Oregon’s governor, Democrat John Kitzhaber, had conducted weekly meetings for nearly two years to develop a plan intended to bring the salmon back to health. In California, he said, Gov. Pete Wilson “started with an initiative and it petered out.”

Stelle said California officials were working on the outline of an agreement with the federal agency, which could be finished as early as today. It would be the first step toward allowing California to operate its own salmon-conservation plan rather than having one imposed by the federal government.

The decision takes effect 60 days after it is announced, but enforcement of its restrictions will be delayed an additional 60 days.

Times staff writer Marla Cone in Los Angeles contributed to this story.