[env-trinity] San Francisco Chronicle Editorial

[Byron]

FISHERIES PROTECTION

Editorial: Slow-fading salmon 

San Francisco Chronicle - 12/2/04

Restoring salmon and steelhead trout runs in West Coast rivers is a
monumental challenge. Dams, farming, logging and population growth all
contribute to declines that border on extinction. 

What will it take to fill streams again with these silvery fish, symbols of
nature and a clean, thriving environment? There are lots of answers, but
don't expect any good ones from the Bush administration. 

Step by step, it is rolling back policies and changing rules to undercut a
revival of these fish. The latest is a plan to cut protections for rivers,
which are the vital nurseries of the fish to spawn and grow before heading
out to sea. 

The proposal wipes out 80 percent of the habitat controls that prevent
timber cuts and roads that muddy the clear-flowing water needed by the fish.
The shift also helps developers who want to build near streams, another
activity that can lead to lower water quality. 

It's a giveaway to business and a loss for the environment. Coming a month
after the presidential vote, the move seems timed to minimize fallout for
President Bush. 

The cuts in river protections aren't the only dismaying setback for salmon.
Earlier, the administration tried to count hatchery-raised fish along with
slim numbers of wild fish to show that populations weren't endangered. 

Also, this week Bush officials formally buried talk of taking down federal
dams on the Columbia and Snake rivers that obstruct migrating fish. Removing
the eight major dams -- a radical step, to be sure -- had at least stayed on
the table in a long-running argument in the Northwest about salmon losses. 

Salmon and steelhead are no match for the White House's political
calculations.

 

 

Byron Leydecker

Chair, Friends of Trinity River

Consultant, California Trout, Inc.

PO Box 2327

Mill Valley, CA 94942-2327

415 383 4810 ph

415 519 4810 ce

415 383 9562 fx

bwl3 at comcast.net

 <mailto:bleydecker at stanfordalumni.org> bleydecker at stanfordalumni.org
(secondary)

http://www.fotr.org

http://www.caltrout.org

 

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