From Fishermen's
News, June 2000 issue
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Two of the largest commercial fishing organizations on the west coast filed intervention papers May 3, 2000 in U.S. District court in Washington DC to block efforts by a coalition of farming, cattle and realtor associations to roll back Pacific salmon protections under the federal Endangered Species Act (ESA). In so doing the action puts much of the west coast's commercial fishing industry, representing fishermen as family food providers, directly opposed to a drive by the Washington State and American Farm Bureaus, Washington Cattlemen's Association, the Building Industry Association of Washington and various regional and national 'property rights groups' to paralyze west coast efforts to protect fast disappearing Pacific salmon runs under the ESA.
"Family fishermen are not going to just sand around idle while voracious industries continue to trash our watersheds and destroy more salmon habitat for profit, at the expense of our downriver jobs and communities," said Pacific Coast Fishermen's Associations Northwest Regional Director Glen Spain. "What those groups really want is just to continue destroying public resources as usual, and to hell with fishing families and fishing dependent communities downstream."
As recently as 1988, salmon fishing as a whole contributed about 21,050 family wages jobs and brought in an estimated $415 million to the Washington State economy alone. An active protection and restoration program for salmon habitat could return most of these jobs over time, but would require curtailing some of the most highly destructive urban development and agricultural practices that are known to be major causes of salmon habitat loss and which jeopardize clean water for downriver urban users and industries.
The two fishing industry organizations intervening are the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations (PCFFA) and the Puget Sound Gillnetter's Association (PSGA). They are also joined by the Institute of Fisheries Resources (IFR), a scientific research and salmon protection organization affiliated with PCFFA. The groups are being represented in court by Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund, a nonprofit public interest environmental defense law firm with offices in Washington DC and in Seattle.
The original suit was brought by a group calling itself "Common Sense Salmon Recovery," but is a front for many of the industries who have profited handsomely from salmon habitat destruction over the years. According to their own web site, CSSR's membership includes the Building Industry Association of Washington, the Washington Association of Realtors, the Washington, California and national Farm Bureaus, and various 'private property rights' groups (see http://www.salmonjustice.com/CSSR/membership.htm).
The CSSR group is also being advised by the Pacific Legal Foundation, an extremist property rights legal defense group that has spearheaded other efforts to eliminate salmon protection measures with claims that there is no difference between wildfish subject to ESA protection and mass produced hatchery fish. the Pacific Legal Foundation tried a similar attack on salmon protections in state and federal courts in Oregon last year and lost one very issue. This effort is a continuation of that anti-salmon strategy. If they are able to prevail in this issue, all ESA-related protections for wild salmon would simply disappear. Because more hatchery fish could always be produced at will in any quantity, and would still have to be counted as "wild," no truly wild salmon runs could ever again be listed. CSSR also predictably places the blame for salmon declines on overfishing, ocean conditions and sea-lions, but accepts no responsibility for protecting habitat under their member's control.
"The only platform the CSSR group has is to let these economically and biologically irreplaceable fish go extinct, because its too much bother to them to change anything they do to help them," continued PCFFA's Glen Spain. "Meanwhile, in the name of private property rights they are busily destroying the public's property rights and the public's watersheds."
Real estate developers particularly object to setting aside strips of land near salmon-bearing streams and rivers, claiming this would jeopardize development. "Could you spawn with a bulldozer in your bedroom? I think that would be difficult for salmon or for humans," said Pete Knutson of the Puget Sound Gillnetters Association, adding, "Frankly, the Endangered Species Act is the only things that now stands between these fish and extinction."
Fishermen have long been the primary advocates for salmon protections on the west coast. PSGA was the lead Plaintiff, along with several sportsfishing groups, in a lawsuit filed in 1997 against the NMFS, which has ESA jurisdiction over salmon, that led to these Puget Sound listings to begin with. PCFFA has also long been active in salmon habitat restoration efforts since its founding almost 25 years ago.
"Salmon fishermen are already doing their part and more," noted Spain. "We have most of the west coast coho fishery and inriver fisheries already long closed, and much of the rest severely restricted, but the problems now are in the watersheds where CSSR members do business. Instead of being progressive like our industry has been, the Farm Bureau and its friends are simply trying to turn back the clock and to perpetuate denial," Glen said.
"The streams and rivers which support salmon-based communities have been devastated by wanton abuse," continued fisherman Pete Knutson. "Upstream profit for abusers of salmon habitat has meant downstream bankruptcy for fishing communities. This has got to change."
The case has broad implications for salmon protections everywhere, as well as implications as to whether or not local communities can enforce salmon protection measures as part of local zoning laws and recovery plans when required under the ESA.
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