Another lost Salmon run

From Singlebarbed...

The British Columbia Globe and mail report:

Mark Hume

Vancouver — From Thursday's Globe and Mail Last updated on Thursday, Aug. 13, 2009 10:18PM EDT

The Fraser River is experiencing one of the biggest salmon disasters in recent history with more than nine million sockeye vanishing.

Aboriginal fish racks are empty, commercial boats worth millions of dollars are tied to the docks and sport anglers are being told to release any sockeye they catch while fishing for still healthy runs of Chinook.

Between 10.6 million and 13 million sockeye were expected to return to the Fraser this summer. But the official count is now just 1.7 million, according to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.

Where the nine to 11 million missing fish went remains a mystery.

“It's beyond a crisis with these latest numbers,” said Ernie Crey, fisheries adviser to the Sto:lo tribes on the Fraser. “What it means is that a lot of impoverished natives are going to be without salmon. … We have families with little or no income that were depending on these fish. … It's a catastrophe,” he said.

read the rest ....

What will the Obama conservation record look like ?

TODAY'S NYTIMES:

Editorial
Salmon Test

Published: August 11, 2009

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration must notify a federal court next month whether it will do what is necessary to save endangered salmon in the Pacific Northwest. The decision will tell us a lot about how the administration sees its obligations under the Endangered Species Act. The Bush team evaded its responsibilities with amazing acts of legal casuistry.

A dozen salmon species in the Columbia River Basin have been declared endangered or threatened — their spawning grounds destroyed by logging and commercial development, and their route to the sea made more arduous by a gauntlet of hydroelectric dams.

Over the years, the Bonneville Power Administration, which runs the dams, and other agencies have unblocked spawning streams and increased water flows over the dams to help young fish reach the sea. But that has not been enough to restore what scientists regard as sustainable fish runs. And it has not been enough for James Redden, a federal district judge in Oregon who has become the salmon’s most reliable defender.

Since 2003, Judge Redden has rejected two recovery plans devised in the Clinton and Bush administrations. Both promised further habitat restoration and further modifications in dam operations. Neither, in the judge’s view, did enough to ensure the fish’s long-term survival. And while the Endangered Species Act requires that every effort be made to ensure the recovery of a species, the Bush plan promised little more than allowing the fish to go extinct at a slower rate.

Judge Redden was about to toss a second Bush plan earlier this year on some of the same grounds when the Obama administration asked for time to review it. The judge said fine, while warning that he could not accept any revision that adopted the Bush administration’s misinterpretation of the law.

Significantly, he also said that any new plan should leave all recovery options on the table, including the idea of breaching four dams on the lower Snake River. We have long recommended such a course, which many scientists see as the surest means of restoring the fish.

The judge has now given the administration 30 days to get this right. The official who will ultimately make the decision is Gary Locke, the secretary of commerce and former governor of Washington. We would be surprised if he recommended immediate breaching. Ways must be found to replace the power that the dams generate, which amounts to 4 percent of the region’s total. But he has to do better than his predecessors, otherwise Judge Redden could well place the operations of the hyrdroelectric system under court order and devise a plan of his own.

This means that at the very least Mr. Locke must reject the Bush plan, promise to devise a new one in close consultation with regional interests and keep dam removal on the table as very real backup if all else fails.

TODAY'S NYTIME

More mining "truth" - if you call it that.

Well, I'm on vacation and the hdw-mobile blog has not been updated - so rather than write something new - I'm just plagiarizing quoting with extreme prejudice Troutunderground and Buster wants to fish, cause they both say it, better than I would anyway.

from the Troutunderground:

The Pebble Partnership’s hoping to reassure us sporting types that no way their giant open-pit mine - and all the toxic tailings associated with it - are going to harm wildlife in the area because, you know, they say so right in the ad.

Wow. If only they’d been this clear earlier, I’m sure the salmon themselves would have welcomed them with open arms.

My favorite line? “Pebble is just an exploratory project today. But already we’re setting new standards for environmental care.”

I’d like to point out that setting “new standards for environmental care” isn’t particularly difficult, given that prior open-pit mines have absolutely devastated the surrounding environment.

It’s a little like saying “Stalin set new standards in the creation of unpopulated territory” or “Donald Trump set new standards in hair styling.”

Meanwhile, the Sportsmen’s Alliance for Alaska continues its eBay fundraising auctions, so stop by and make a bid.

Until then, see you on the river, Tom Chandler.



From Buster wants to fish:

wherein we come to view the enemy’s face

The 20th century has been characterized by three developments of great political importance: the growth of democracy, the growth of corporate power, and the growth of corporate propaganda as a means of protecting corporate power against democracy.
–from the Chomsky/Herman theory of propaganda