Salmon and Bushamentalism

It seems that, as we count down to the 2004 election, the Bush administration is almost counting on outrage fatigue: Erecting one insane policy after another in such an endless stream that, after awhile, the citizens aware enough to be outraged by it all simply can't keep up.

The most recent: The administration's decision, announced yesterday, to count hatchery salmon as part of the same runs as wild populations in determining which salmon will be protected under the Endangered Species Act:

The decision, contained in a draft document and confirmed Wednesday by federal officials, means that the health of spawning wild salmon will no longer be the sole gauge of whether a salmon species is judged by the federal government to be on the brink of extinction. Four of five salmon found in major West Coast rivers, including the Columbia, are already bred in hatcheries, and some will now be counted as the federal government tries to determine what salmon species are endangered.

This may seem to everyone else to be a mere regional problem affecting mostly the Pacific Northwest. But its ramifications are far broader: If the administration pulls this off, it means that Team Bush can get away with ignoring the Endangered Species Act simply by moving the goal posts.

It is also indicative of what we have long known about Bush's environmental approach: If serious, well-grounded science runs against the administration's preferred pro-business policy, the Bushites merely declare it "bad science" and then concoct a policy based on pseudo-science engendered by the business interests they serve.

In other words, it's another case of Bushamentalism: The administration decides what its policy will be based on narrow political interests, and then goes looking for anything it can find in support of it, meanwhile excluding the wealth of evidence to the contrary.

In this case, it's ignoring its own scientists:

A federal advisory panel of scientists convened by the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) has concluded that hatchery fish cannot maintain populations of wild salmon in the long term and should not be used to justify proposed removal of federal protections for wild salmon. But these findings appear to run contrary to the policies of the Bush administration, which told the panel that its conclusions go beyond science and into policy and are thus inappropriate for official reports.

The committee, which was formed to serve as an external review committee for the Pacific salmon recovery efforts, published its findings in the current issue of the journal "Science," a publication of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

The scientists said the decision to publish was taken out of the panel's concern for the recovery of wild salmon in California, Oregon, Washington and Idaho. They want to ensure the policy implications of their findings are not suppressed but reach a wide audience.

"We should not open the legal door to maintaining salmon only in hatcheries," said University of Washington ecologist Robert Paine, coauthor of the report and chairman of the panel. "The science is clear and unambiguous -- as they are currently operated, hatcheries and hatchery fish cannot protect wild stocks."

The administration's current decision comes at the behest of business interests that are combating the effects of listing Northwest salmon under the ESA:

The policy change was applauded by development and farm groups who have spent millions of dollars altering how they build or irrigate farms to accommodate plummeting runs of wild salmon. Builders often must avoid allowing runoff into streams from nearby construction. Farmers sometimes can't get as much water as they would like.

"It's about time," said Timothy Harris, an attorney with the Building Industry Association of Washington, which has been battling National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Fisheries in court over salmon listings. "I'm hoping this will finally result in de-listing of some of these salmon populations."

Predictably enough, the administration is denying that it is listening to such interests:

"I assure you there is no political judgment or political expediency," said Lautenbacher, who appeared before the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Oceans, Fisheries and Coast Guard.

"We are trying to make sure our decision is based on the best synthesis of scientific opinion we have today," he added. "The policy will guide decisions about whether species are listed."

Right.

This policy is such obviously bad science, however, that the administration so far has not even been able to present a single scientist who could defend it. Because everyone who studies fish knows that hatchery fish are substantially different in nature from the wild species:

Many scientists, however, say naturally spawned fish are the most likely to conserve much-needed genetic variations. Genetic variability has allowed salmon to survive thousands of years in streams as varied as the steep, cold creeks of the rain-drenched Olympic Peninsula and the slow-moving, warmer waters where the Snake River creeps through arid high desert -- all the while hustling to survive through droughts, floods, stream-altering volcanoes and earthquakes, and in an ocean whose hospitality regularly surges and swoons.

Fish born outside a hatchery are genetically programmed to spread their risk.

For example, some lay their eggs in the well-washed gravel of those cool Olympic streams, where they are very likely to survive and hatch. Others nest in the beds of lower-level, warmer streams where they are more likely to be smothered by dirt. However, suppose a drought comes along. The fish in the lower river are most likely to have water throughout the summer. The upper mountain streams might run dry. Later, descendants of the survivors can climb high and recolonize the upper reaches.

... Meanwhile, hatchery fish compete with and overwhelm wild fish. Because they are typically released before wild fish hatch, hatchery fish early in life are larger -- so they gain an advantage competing for living space and food.

Also, the sheer number of hatchery fish allows fishing seasons to go on when they otherwise would be shut down for lack of fish -- yet some fish from struggling wild runs get caught, too. And diseases caused by hatchery conditions can be transmitted to wild fish.

As Joel Connelly points out:

What's the difference between a salmon that grows up in a tank and a fish raised in a river or lake?

Casting for an answer, I dialed up a one-time Orofino, Idaho, lumberjack and angler -- Cecil Andrus -- who went on to serve four terms as governor of Idaho and a four-year stint as interior secretary.

"Of course you can tell the difference," Andrus explained. "A wild salmon is a heartier, stronger fish. A hatchery-raised fish does not have the genes in it for survival. A wild salmon is, well, a creature of the wild, and will fight to stay that way."

Up on the Skagit River, home to the greatest wild-salmon populations left in the Puget Sound basin, an expert fisherman who once edited the Seattle Post-Intelligencer's editorial page had a similar take.

"A fair number of hatchery fish are deformed, diseased and small," Jack DeYonge said. "They return from the ocean at a rate of slightly under 1 percent. Wild salmon come back at a rate of 3 percent.

"What the Bush administration proposes to do is wipe out the most efficient breed of fish and replace it with the least efficient."

The long-term ramifications of the Bush policy are profound. Because not only salmon are affected: Indeed, some 150 species -- including, of course, the native orca populations -- are directly dependent on the salmon. Even more species depend on a secondary level on their presence, including birds that feed off the insects that rely on the nutrients provided by the carcasses of returned salmon spawners. Under this policy, their gradual decline is simply inevitable. And the appearance of a hatchery-borne disease could wipe out entire runs in a single swoop, and with it all the animals that depend on them.

In other words, the Bush plan is the first step in transforming the Northwest into the sterile plains that infect so much of the rest of the nation. As Connelly puts it:

Rich Steele, a retired nuclear technician from Richland, has fought since the 1960s to protect the 48-mile-long Hanford Reach, the lone stretch of Columbia River between Bonneville Dam and the Canadian border that has not been turned into a reservoir. Its population of fall chinook salmon is the river's last great wild fish run.

"The new policy is going to get the feds, and the counties and property owners, off the hook when it comes to protecting fish habitat," Steele said.

"When you can dump millions of hatchery fish into a river, why limit pesticides? Why limit logging along streams? It allows them to curtail the streamside protection we have talked about for years and years."

And, added Andrus, "Cold, clear unpolluted water not only sustains salmon; it sustains us."

This is true not only for the Northwest. It is true for the rest of America -- and, indeed, the world.