[env-trinity] AP-Federal whistleblower quits, alleges politicization of science

[Tom Stokely]

 http://www.sanluisobispo.com/mld/sanluisobispo/news/politics/8705712.htm 
    Federal whistleblower quits, alleges 
    politicization of science 

    DON THOMPSON 

    Associated Press 

    SACRAMENTO - A federal biologist who said his team's advice was illegally ignored prior to a 
    massive 2002 Klamath River fish kill has resigned, accusing the government of politicizing 
    scientific decision-making and misleading the public. 

    Michael Kelly had sought federal whistleblower protection after he complained the Bush 
    administration violated the Endangered Species Act by pressuring for altered scientific findings 
    by the review team he led for the National Marine Fisheries Service, now NOAA Fisheries. 

    "My efforts were ultimately unproductive," Kelly laments in his resignation letter, released 
    Wednesday through Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, which represented 
    Kelly in the whistleblower case first reported by The Associated Press. "Threatened coho salmon 
    in the Klamath basin still do not have adequate flow conditions to assure their survival." 

    Kelly alleged his team's recommendations were twice rejected as the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation 
    imposed lower water levels than were scientifically justified. 

    California wildlife officials, environmentalists, fishermen and Indian tribes blame low water 
    levels for the death of 33,000 salmon that fall, amounting to nearly a quarter of the projected 
    fall run in the river flowing from south central Oregon through northwest California. 

    The U.S. Office of Special Counsel declined to investigate Kelly's complaint, saying it could 
    neither prove "gross mismanagement" by NOAA Fisheries even if the agency relied on 
    conflicting science nor prove a cause-and-effect relationship between the low water decision and 
    the subsequent die-off. 

    Kelly's testimony has since been key in a federal court ruling overturning the agency's 
    long-term water flow plan for the Klamath, though a decision allowing the government to 
    proceed with its plans through 2008 is under appeal. 

    Kelly resigned from the agency's Arcata, Calif., office Friday after nine years, saying Regional 
    Manager Jim Lecky had again intervened in overturning his finding in the latest project to 
    which he was assigned. He feared a repeat of his ethical predicament two years ago. 

    NOAA Fisheries officials had no immediate comment. 

    The latest project is a proposal by the California Department of Fish and Game to rebuild a 
    collapsed levee and re-establish a freshwater pond in what has become a salt marsh at the 
    mouth of the Eel River. Kelly found that the marsh has become an important rearing area for 
    young threatened chinook salmon and other species. 

    He objects in his letter that the state agency appears to want to turn it back into a freshwater 
    pond mainly to concentrate ducks for convenient hunting. Karen Kovacs, a senior state biologist 
    supervisor, said the state manages the 2,200-acre Eel River Wildlife Area for all aquatic wildlife 
    - freshwater and saltwater - and to that end wants to re-establish a 120-acre pond that collapsed 
    six years ago, while leaving 200 acres as a salt marsh. 

    As a result of Kelly's finding, PEER called on the state to drop the proposal. 

    Kelly is the latest in a recent string of scientists to accuse the Bush administration of 
    substituting policy for science, charges the administration denies. 

    In his Tuesday resignation letter, he accuses his agency of doing so in recent decisions not to list 
    the green sturgeon under the Endangered Species Act; counting hatchery raised salmon along 
    with wild salmon in protection decisions; and an attempt, since blocked by a judge, to alter the 
    definition of dolphin-safe tuna. 

    "My particular case is just symptomatic of this agency's failure to correctly apply science and 
    caution to its decisions and public pronouncements. I speak for many of my fellow biologists who 
    are embarrassed and disgusted by the agency's apparent misuse of science," Kelly wrote. 

    "Federal service has just lost another biologist with the integrity to speak up," said Karen 
    Schambach, director of PEER's California office. "It is becoming increasingly difficult for 
    self-respecting scientists to continue working in agencies where politics now routinely and 
    flagrantly trump science." 

    ON THE NET 

    Read Kelly's allegations in the Klamath water case at http://www.peer.org/kellynarrative.pdf 

    Read the final biological opinion at 
    http://swr.nmfs.noaa.gov/psd/klamath/KpopBO2002finalMay31.PDF 
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