"What is your 'stakeholder' group's perspective on salmon recovery?"
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One of the recurring themes of panelists was the long time it may take for fish stocks to recover from 150 years of habitat decline, pollution, fishing pressure and other factors that have resulted in the "threatened" listing under the Endangered Species Act.
Curt Smitch, head of the Governor's Salmon Recovery Team, called the issue "The most complex social policy issue ever, in the history of the Pacific Northwest." The complicated nature of restoring the species to historic levels means it's a growth management issue, a shorelines issue, a water quality issue, a land use issue, a water rights issue, a pollution issue, a development issue, a regulatory issue and it will involve urban and rural areas.
The recovery will also take a lot of money. State and local governments will have to find funding to pay for increased project planning required under the Endangered Species Act. Depending on the project, more environmental assessment will likely be required in order to make sure there is no adverse impact on fish stocks or fish-related habitat. The creation of an ESA Salmon Recovery Plan by local governments will, in and of itself, cost plenty. The exact amount will be different for each town or county but staff time alone could be very expensive.
Another cost could be compensation when private property owners lose some use of their land to account for fish-saving programs. For example, a small timberland owner could be told that he/she couldn't cut certain trees in order to protect streamflows and water quality. Many of those at the seminar felt the landowner should be compensated for this lost value. That could come in the form of buy-outs, tax breaks or some other accommodation from the local government involved. In other instances, techniques such as the Public Benefit Rating System may be able to provide for lower property tax rates for the protection of high quality habitat.
Other public costs could include the millions for dam breaching or fish ladder improvements, scientific efforts to strengthen wild salmon stocks, buying back water rights, river habitat improvements, collection of data, transportation improvements and acquisition of open space.
The cost of housing could also go up as changes are made in buffer zones, setbacks, no impact zones and environmental facilities for new development.
Salmon recovery will take a great deal of interjurisdictional cooperation. Local governments will be looking to Congress and the state for funding to help pay for this expensive effort. In addition, salmon cross many political boundaries on their way to and from the ocean and all of those entities play a role in the survival of the species. The fish don't care who preserves the cool, clean water they need to live, as long as there is plenty of it.
While there is no single ESA strategy that will fit all governments, they can and should share their data and plans so every jurisdiction does not have to start from scratch. It only makes sense for everyone to cooperate to the greatest extent possible. In some cases, public policies that were developed 25, 50 or 100 years ago will have to be scrapped or revamped in order to save the resource. If governments cannot find the collective will to come up with the correct recovery plans, they could be forced to do so by the courts through lawsuits filed under the Endangered Species Act.
It's important to remember that a listing of "threatened" means there is hope for recovery. It took a century and a half for the situation to get this bad. It will take decades, at least, to see any major improvement. As one panelist said, it will be a slow process and people need to "keep an open mind, work together and relax." The true measure of the process we are starting now will come quite a ways down the road, when our children or grandchildren say "Isn't it wonderful that Pacific Northwest residents accepted the challenge back at the turn of the century, and took the steps necessary to replenish the salmon stocks?"
The next steps in this process will come in 2001 and beyond, as local governments decide what policies and programs should be enacted to save salmon. We invite you to stay involved and attend public meetings and comment on what those policies and programs should be.
John Tennis is the Public Information Program Manager for Thurston County.
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