Feds place Idaho fish and water in jeopardy

[Ithaca 37]

"Politics may not be on the side of breaching, but it isn't the job of science to dismiss options that make politicians uneasy."

"The federal government on Thursday released a 10-year salmon recovery plan that does plenty to preserve dams and not enough to save Idaho salmon from them.

The feds say dams will not wipe out salmon or steelhead populations. The plan makes the wild assertion that man-made dams are part of the natural environment fish must navigate on their way to and from the Pacific Ocean. The feds reject, prematurely, the idea of breaching four dams on the lower Snake River: Ice Harbor, Lower Granite, Lower Monumental and Little Goose.........."

http://www.idahostatesman.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20040912/NEWS0501/409120319/1052/NEWS05

 

[Ithaca 37]

"People don't have to dig too deeply into the Bush administration's proposed new salmon plan to see that it's bad news for Idaho's wild salmon and steelhead.

A quick look will also reveal that the new plan is bad news for Idaho's salmon-dependent ecosystems — places like the Frank Church wilderness, the Stanley Basin and the Selway-Bitterroot; bad news for Idahoans who enjoy salmon and steelhead fishing; and bad news for Idaho communities hoping for an economic boost from restored fisheries.

Rewritten during the past 18 months under orders from federal Judge James Redden, who found the government's last salmon plan illegal, the new plan:

• Ignores decades of scientific evidence by claiming that the existence and operation of federal dams on the Columbia River and lower Snake River don't jeopardize imperiled salmon and steelhead populations.

• Ignores prevailing scientific views that hold removal of four low-value/high-cost dams on the lower Snake River is the best — and perhaps only method — of restoring Idaho's wild salmon and steelhead.

• Ignores the desires of most Idahoans (including Gov. Dirk Kempthorne and U.S. Sen. Mike Crapo), who have repeatedly called on the federal government to restore Idaho's wild salmon to harvestable, self-sustaining levels.

• And ignores the needs of rural communities and families — in towns like Salmon, Challis, Stanley, Riggins, Orofino, Kamiah and Kooskia, which could benefit greatly from restored salmon runs — by asserting that the government's only obligation under the Endangered Species Act is to prevent the extinction of salmon, rather than ensure recovery to fishable numbers.........."

http://www.idahostatesman.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20040912/NEWS0503/409120317/1052/NEWS05