Wild Salmon for the Next Millennium:

We Can Get There from Here

by Daniel Jack Chasan

(This paper was reviewed and critiqued by a panel of experts, and underwritten by the Bullitt Foundation. The positions taken and opinions expressed are solely the responsibility of the author.)

June 1998

Puget Sound's wild salmon are in trouble. Everybody who catches salmon in the Sound for sport or money has known it for years. Salmon at the Crossroads, the seminal paper published in 1991 by three members of the American Fisheries Society's endangered species committee, identified dozens of Puget Sound salmon, steelhead and sea-run trout stocks as at high or moderate risk of extinction or of special concern. A 1993 report by the state and treaty tribes found that 44 Puget Sound salmon and steelhead stocks were depressed, 11 critical, and one extinct. The status of 60 was unknown. The gene pool that has enabled Puget Sound salmon to survive predators, ocean journeys, floods, landslides, climate changes and volcanic eruptions since the last Ice Age has already been depleted and may largely disappear. The federal government probably will list Puget Sound chinook as threatened or endangered in 1999. Other listings likely will follow. Generations of habitat destruction, overfishing, and misguided technological fixes have finally come home to roost.

The problem is as simple as one, two, three: habitat, harvest, and hatcheries. Historically, we have destroyed or diminished salmon habitat. We have caught too many wild salmon. And we have flooded the rivers with hatchery fish that have competed with them for food, eaten them, diluted their gene pools and seduced fishery managers into sacrificing their smaller runs.

But these straightforward processes are enmeshed with the history, economy and culture of an entire region, from the Nooksack River to the inlets of south Puget Sound and west along the Strait of Juan de Fuca to the Elwha River--the area that the National Marine Fisheries Service has included in its proposed listing of Puget Sound chinook.

People have been destroying salmon habitat in the Puget Sound basin since the mid-1800s. Hydroelectric and water supply dams that keep fish from their spawning grounds started going up around the turn of the century,. Since then, population growth, logging, farming and industrial development have transformed entire watersheds: Roads built beside rivers have kept them from using wetlands and sloughs. Roads built across streams also have formed at least seasonal barriers to migration; if a stream is channeled through a culvert and the culvert is placed badly, any fish trying to migrate upstream will be unable to get through.

Logging on steep slopes has removed the vegetative cover that prevented erosion, permitting soil to wash downhill and bury the spawning gravel. The construction of logging roads across those slopes, especially when soil excavated from the roadbed was pushed to the outside of the slope and used as fill, has led to landslides that have buried the gravel. Clearing land and building roads for residential and commercial development has caused erosion, too. Even where road construction hasn't triggered erosion or slides, it has disrupted normal patterns of runoff to the streams.

Logging or clearing for residential development along streams has removed the vegetation that shaded the water, allowing summer water temperatures to rise beyond levels suitable for fish. Cutting down large, old trees has removed the source of logs and branches that otherwise would fall into the water and create the pools that young fish need as protection from floods and mature fish need as resting places. Neglecting the general health of the watersheds has led to reductions in the number and variety of organisms on which salmon can feed.

In the river mouths, where juvenile chinook can spend many months preparing for their ocean journeys, dredging, diking and filling have simplified the river channels and impoverished the environment for fish, destroying areas in which salmon fed and hid. The fish have adapted to river systems that change unpredictably. People who invest money in river valleys want predictability. Consequently, society has prevented the rivers from spreading out onto their floodplains. Side channels have been eliminated. Complex, braided channels have been replaced by single, artificially deepened ones. Salt marshes, especially wooded marshes, have been filled in and in many cases paved over.

People concerned about wild salmon focus on the freshwater environment, because that is the only environment human beings can see or do much about, but it is no more important than the salt water that lies largely beyond the reach of human control. Salmon spend much or most of their lives in the ocean. Even under the best of circumstances most of the fish that reach salt water die there. Those that survive gain up to 90 percent of their adult weight and grow to maturity at sea.

Ocean conditions naturally fluctuate in long multi-year cycles, which change water temperatures and the amount of upwelling--which brings nutrients from deep water to the surface--in parts of the North Pacific. Right now, partly because of the strongest El Nino effect in recorded history, surface water temperatures have risen in parts of the Pacific that are crucial to salmon from Puget Sound. The higher surface temperatures have decreased the amount of upwelling. Therefore, less food is being transported to the higher layers in which salmon live. Not only do the fish have less to eat, but if they concentrate in the relatively few places where food is available, predators may be able to find them more easily. And the warm waters have lured more predators into the waters through which Puget Sound salmon swim. Probably because of ocean phenomena related to higher temperatures--but possibly for some other reason--very few Puget Sound salmon have been surviving their time in salt water.

For decades, favorable ocean conditions may have masked the effects of freshwater habitat destruction. Now, unfavorable ocean conditions seem to be exacerbating those effects. The freshwater habitat no longer provides a cushion for salmon populations facing a rough time at sea.

Whatever happens to habitat, the pressure to catch fish continues. Fishery management agencies can and do cut back fishing drastically when the numbers of returning salmon sink too low, but they have historically seen fishermen as their constituents, so they have left little margin for error. They have managed for "maximum sustainable yield," a goal that has failed to protect naturally spawning runs. The idea behind maximum sustainable yield is simple: Each salmon stock needs a certain number of spawning adults to perpetuate the population at its current level. Any adult fish beyond that number constitutes a surplus. Letting surplus fish return to the stream or hatchery will not increase the sizes of future runs. Therefore, not catching surplus fish is wasteful at best.

That picture is oversimplified. When salmon return to their spawning streams, they bring protein from the ocean deep into the forests and mountains. This protein is used by a wide variety of other animals--22 different species of birds and mammals, according to one study--including eagles, bear, deer, and the benthic organisms on which the next generation of salmon feeds. The carcasses of "surplus" fish contribute important nutrients to the stream.

Whether or not a policy of "maximum sustainable yield" has impoverished streams, applying that policy to mixed-stock fisheries has led inevitably to the decline of wild stocks. Figuring out the "MSY" for a given fishery in a given year requires a complex calculation based on historical data that may be incomplete and probably don't describe current conditions. Inevitably, managers make mistakes. They seldom err on the side of the fish. Even if they set a truly sustainable number for the stronger run, nets are not selective. If the strongest run in a mixed-stock fishery is managed for maximum sustainable yield, only dumb luck will save the weak run from dropping below its maximum sustainable yield. In fact, the wild run may provide the "surplus."

If fishers have been reluctant to waste surplus fish in the spawning streams, they have been even more reluctant to waste fish in somebody else's nets. There is always somebody else: people who fish with different gear; people who live in different political jurisdictions. Why leave fish for them to catch?

The jumble of overlapping and competing jurisdictions is itself a major problem. Fish spawned in the Puget Sound basin and their habitat come under the jurisdiction of the United States and Canada, the states of Washington and Alaska, the Province of British Columbia, two federal fishery management councils, an international salmon management council, a half-dozen federal agencies, several state agencies, more than a dozen treaty Indian tribes, a dozen counties, and dozens of municipalities. No one is in charge. Or everyone is. Either way, no single political entity has complete control over the harvest, much less over both harvest and habitat, and one political jurisdiction's gain may be another's loss.

(The tribes have been a late but very significant addition to this jurisdictional stew. For generations, Indians fished primarily on the rivers, and they were considered rivals primarily by sportsmen, who fished in the rivers, too. State fish and game laws gave them no right to fish off their reservations. They were arrested and beaten by officers of the state game department, which viewed the sportsmen as its constituency. Then, in 1974, US District Court Judge George Boldt ruled that under the treaties signed in the 1850s, the tribes had kept the right to take half the fish, and to regulate their own fisheries. The Boldt decision gave the treaty tribes a huge stake in the commercial fishery and forced the state to negotiate with them as equals. It righted a major historical wrong: the systematic exclusion of Indian fishers from traditional fishing grounds to which they had been guaranteed access. But it did not keep the total number of fish and, ultimately, the tribal catch from going downhill. It did not relieve--it actually increased--the pressure on managers to let the fishing fleet catch every last fish. It increased the number of overlapping and conflicting jurisdictions. And it did nothing to halt the destruction of habitat.)

Society hasn't wanted to stop logging and developing riparian areas and flood plains or building dams or diking, dredging, channeling and filling river mouths or catching too many fish. For decades, society thought it didn't have to. By applying scientific knowledge and investing public capital in hatcheries, we could keep doing business as usual and still produce enough salmon to fill every net and creel. Hatcheries represent society's best effort to have its cake and eat it, too. They haven't worked. Not only have hatcheries failed to provide a long-term technological fix; they have actually worsened the plight of wild salmon.

Hatcheries have become part of the problem, rather than the solution, in a number of ways. Released into a stream with naturally spawning wild fish, hatchery fish can compete with the wild fish for a limited food supply. They may compete for food in the ocean. If the hatchery fish are significantly larger than wild salmon fry when they are released, they may devour the wild fish. They can spread disease to the wild population. They can interbreed with wild fish and alter the natural gene pool.

Finally, they put pressure on fishery managers to let fishers deplete wild salmon runs. Wild fish may have no "purpose" beyond simply existing. But hatchery fish have a clear purpose: to be caught for money and sport. If a relatively large hatchery run mingles with a relatively small wild run and people are allowed to catch a reasonable percentage of the hatchery fish, they will probably catch an unreasonable percentage of the wild fish. Sometimes, wild stocks have been depleted accidentally. Sometimes, they have been depleted on purpose: the state of Washington has identified 89 wild stocks in such mixed-stock fisheries that deliberately have been left unprotected.

Each wild salmon stock represents a separate genetic population that has adapted over millennia to life in--and the long journey to and from--a specific stream. For the specific conditions of its home stream, it is the best fish nature can build. Collectively, the wild salmon stocks of Puget Sound represent genetic adaptations that enable fish to live in every habitat niche and to survive every natural disaster that has existed in the Puget Sound basin since the last ice age. By comparison, hatchery fish contain less genetic variety than wild populations, which means they are less well adapted to a range of habitat niches and less equipped to cope with environmental change. Released into streams, they don't behave as wild fish do. And over a number of generations, their long-term prognosis tends to be poor: in many cases, the longer a hatchery operates, the lower the survival rate of the fish it releases each year.

Hatcheries, habitat destruction and overfishing aren't unique to Puget Sound. But Puget Sound has its own unique problems and opportunities. Unlike the Columbia River, Puget Sound's tributaries aren't dominated by large hydroelectric dams, provide no significant amount of irrigation water, and are not forced through lock systems that make inland cities into deepwater ports. (However, in the Lake Washington Ship Canal, smolts die when they are washed at high speeds into rough-walled Hiram M. Chittenden Locks chambers, which are filled and emptied frequently for the convenience of people sailing pleasure boats between the lakes and salt water.) On the other hand, Puget Sound has undergone and is undergoing much more intense residential and commercial development.

The destruction of habitat in the Puget Sound basin is arguably more insidious, because it does not reflect a conscious decision to trade fish for something else. On the Columbia, society explicitly traded fish for kilowatts. People may be rethinking some parts of that bargain, and society has spent many millions of dollars to ameliorate its effects, but certainly at Grand Coulee and at the lesser dams, too, society decided that electricity--along with irrigation, barge access and flood control--was worth more than fish.

With some exceptions, society never made that kind of explicit decision in the Puget Sound basin. People have simply made economic and lifestyle choices without considering their effect on the environment. Salmon habitat has been destroyed largely inadvertently. But it has been destroyed nevertheless. And the destruction is still going on.

This isn't rocket science. And it isn't news. Every one who is even casually interested in salmon already knows most of it. The writings on salmon biology, salmon harvest, salmon management, salmon habitat, salmon culture, salmon recovery, salmon politics, and the Northwest's various salmon crises could dam a sizable spawning stream all by themselves. We don't lack knowledge. We lack leadership. And we haven't decided where we want to go.

Letting wild chinook or other wild salmon disappear isn't an acceptable option--not to anyone who cares about the natural environment or the regional culture of the Puget Sound basin, and not to anyone who cares about the Endangered Species Act. But as local politicians scramble to avoid an endangered species listing for Puget Sound chinook--or, more realistically, to control the content of a chinook recovery plan--they show no inclination to reform or dismantle the institutions that have produced the current crisis. They may dump the problem into the laps of governments and agencies that have shown no ability or willingness to solve it. They may just round up the usual suspects, give them some extra money, and call it a plan.

It's time to try something new:

STOP THE HARVEST

The survival and recovery of wild stocks must become the primary goal of harvest management. Therefore, the state must forbid any commercial fishing on mixed stocks that include wild runs. It must also forbid recreational fishing on mixed stocks that include wild runs considered depressed or critical or whose status is unknown. Any fishing on a federally listed species must of course be forbidden. Tribal fisheries must let wild salmon escape, too. The tribes have a vested interest in protecting salmon and salmon habitat, but not necessarily in protecting wild, as opposed to hatchery, fish. And yet, no management scheme can succeed unless the tribes cooperate.

These prohibitions should last at least for the length of a wild run's natural cycle--up to seven years in the case of chinook--and then be re-evaluated. Make more of the existing recreational fisheries catch-and-release. (Even this should be done judiciously; some fish caught on hooks and lines will be too badly injured to survive.) Short of that, let a recreational fisher take home a salmon for the barbecue but not six salmon for the freezer. Create a label, perhaps "sustainably caught," that could be used to advertise salmon caught commercially without endangering wild runs.

We must be willing to sacrifice some current interests to the interests of future generations. Therefore, it's time to scrap the concept of maximum sustainable yield. "MSY" hasn't worked. And it isn't likely to work. "Although intuitively attractive," write David W. Pearce and Jeremy J. Warford in World without End, published for the World Bank in 1993, "maximum sustainable yield is unlikely to be a rational management solution for renewable resources." The focus must shift from the welfare of fishers--the "yield"--to the welfare of fish. The authors of Upstream: salmon and society in the Pacific Northwest, published by the National Research Council in 1996, recommend a new standard that they call "minimum sustainable escapement"--the lowest number of fish needed to perpetuate the stock. In practice, they explain, "actual escapements should always exceed this value." In practice, this would not necessarily produce more fish than maximum sustainable yield. Instead, the state and federal fishery management agencies should adopt the principal of full habitat utilization. This means filling every habitat niche that can support salmon. It may be an unattainable goal, but if society wants to emphasize fish rather than harvest, it is the logical one.

Fishers should help the state figure out management and fishing techniques that will permit targeted harvest of hatchery runs and eventually of surplus wild fish. Terminal fisheries using fish traps or fish wheels should explicitly be on the table. (Traps and wheels would not be the only alternative. Terminal fisheries could also employ small boats and gill nets.) The number of potential trap sites is limited; placing those sites in the hands of either private enterprise or the state would raise the specter of "monopoly" or "socialism," and it would create controversy.

Fish traps already have a long, politically charged history on Puget Sound. When salmon canneries first established themselves on the Sound in the late 19th century, they made it possible to store salmon indefinitely and ship them around the world. For the first time, fish represented big money--but only to people who had big money to invest. The canning companies built fish traps strategically located to intercept salmon swimming toward their spawning streams.

Traps were more economically efficient--and more tightly focused on individual fishing runs--than gill nets or purse seines or troll lines. But the number of trap sites was limited, the capital investment was substantial, and the traps enabled big companies to capture most of the fish. Small fishermen hated the traps, and in 1935, they passed an initiative that outlawed them in the state of Washington. One pretext for getting rid of the traps was conservation. That was nonsense. A more plausible argument for abolishing them was populist: the salmon belonged to everyone, and everyone should have an equal right to catch them. No one should be allowed to monopolize a public resource. A pro-initiative brochure urged voters to "give this great natural resource back to the people."

In modern discussions of harvest policy, traps have been "the third rail of fisheries management," says Kai Lee, an author of Upstream, former member of the Northwest Power Planning Council, and director of the Williams College Center of Environmental Studies . But, Lee says, "times have changed." They have at least changed enough to permit the authors of Upstream to recommend terminal fisheries using live-catch traps. There is no question that traps are the most economically efficient way to catch salmon--which is why the canneries used them and small fishermen hated them--and also, properly regulated, the most biologically selective. They allow fishers to make fine distinctions among fish stocks: to keep coho and release chinook, for example, or keep fin-marked hatchery salmon and release wild ones, with little or no damage to the fish that are released. The question is who gets to use them and profit from traps. Clearly, the tribes would operate some. For non-tribal harvest, current fishing interests should have to prove that some alternative would work better than or at least as well as fish traps.

Over the long term, harvest managers must spread fishing opportunities among the largest number of people. This will be the best way to maximize both the cultural and economic value of the fish. Economically, salmon as a commodity can't compete with salmon as a recreational resource. A salmon caught by a sport fisher puts more money into the state economy than a salmon caught in a gillnet. The economic impact of sport fishing should be measured not in fish per se but in fishing days. Obviously, if no one caught any fish, most people would stop fishing, and the recreational fishery would have no value at all. But catching five fish in a day isn't necessarily worth appreciably more to the sport fisher or to the economy than catching four, or two or one. The activity, rather than the meat, provides most of the value.

Similarly, if one values the regional tradition of commercial fishing, the opportunity to fish matters more than the size of the catch. Obviously, if a commercial boat catches only a few salmon, it isn't really commercial. But no non-Indian fisher makes a living catching Puget Sound salmon these days--although people still earn portions of their yearly incomes by fishing here--and for generations, virtually no one has. The opportunity to be a commercial fisher has been passed on from generation to generation--and it may be passed on to future generations, if wild runs recover. But enabling commercial fishers to catch large numbers of fish is not a realistic management goal.

The state must buy boats and licenses from commercial fishers who leave the fishery. While runs rebuild themselves, commercial fishers who choose to stay could keep their skills intact and their boats on the water by catching fish for monitoring purposes. This might not be an ideal way to bridge the gap, but it would be better than nothing. Something similar has been done in Newfoundland to keep at least a fraction of the local cod fleet employed.

CLOSE THE HATCHERIES

Close most of them, anyway: Stop producing hatchery salmon that will intermingle with wild fish in the rivers and streams or be subject to mixed-stock fisheries in salt waster. The state must also stop raiding wild stocks for eggs and blocking natural spawning streams to protect hatchery operations. The tribes must be offered inducement to do the same. If they refuse, the federal government must force them to cooperate.

Hatcheries should be used only to rescue wild populations on the verge of extinction and to produce fish in places where no wild populations exist. They should no longer be used routinely to prop up commercial and sport catches. Before a hatchery is allowed to operate, its probable effect on wild fish should be assessed by an independent scientific panel; if it goes into operation, its actual effect on wild fish populations and its return on investment should be independently monitored. (Any artificial propagation of salmon in the Puget Sound basin should be independently assessed beforehand for its probable effect on wild fish, and its actual effect should be independently monitored.)

Abandoning our commitment to hatcheries as a source of fish for sport and commerce would be a radical step, and there is no clear consensus that we should take it, but the authors of Upstream tilted in that direction. "There are essentially two options," they wrote. "The first is substitution--society commits an indefinite and relatively high amount of human input in an attempt to make up for natural regenerative processes that are damaged in salmon ecosystems. . . . Costs will increase as the ability of human actions to make up for damaged natural regenerative processes decreases and falls short of expectations. . . . The other option is rehabilitation of the natural regenerative capacity of salmon ecosystems. This option reduces costs to society but requires a long-term commitment. . . . Major hatchery reforms are imperative with either option. In general, this committee favors the rehabilitation option as more likely to be successful over the long term."

The idea that hatcheries aren't a panacea isn't new. In 1917, John N. Cobb, who would soon become the first director of the University of Washington's college of fisheries, wrote that "[i]n some sections an almost idolatrous faith in the efficacy of artificial culture of fish for replenishing the ravages of man and animals is manifested, and nothing has done more harm than the prevalence of such an idea."

But the faith has persisted. Seventy-seven years later, University of Washington fisheries and zoology professor James R. Karr wrote, "Worst of all, hatcheries lull people into thinking that the causes of fishery declines have been 'fixed' when, in fact, they have not. Yet the public pressure to maintain hatcheries persists."

Educate the public about the ways in which salmon hatcheries have failed. Taxpayers should know that the money poured into hatcheries has largely made matters worse.

SAVE THE HABITAT

Ultimately, even if we close the hatcheries and stop the harvest, wild fish will need places to live. The 1993 report by the state and treaty tribes found 93 of 209 Puget Sound salmon and steelhead stocks "healthy" but conceded that "healthy" was a relative term. "If stock status were rated against a pristine habitat base," the authors explained, "virtually every stock could be rated depressed or worse."

The state and counties should protect and restore habitat, choosing their priorities from three complementary lists. The lists should reflect these goals:

* Bring salmon into contact with the largest number of citizens. Restoring creeks in Seattle and other urban areas would fall into this category. Not all urban creeks can be restored. And bringing fish into population centers should not be confused with saving wild salmon. In terms of salmon per dollar spent, it wouldn't be cost-effective. But producing the largest number of salmon per dollar shouldn't be the goal. Restoring some urban streams would have several virtues: It would increase the value of salmon as a regional amenity by actually putting fish into neighborhoods. Urban salmon streams could form the cores of open space networks and pedestrian and bicycle corridors. They would bring salmon into the daily lives of citizens--both children and adults--who don't fish. Restoring salmon runs in urban streams would also pay political dividends. It would give urban voters who don't fish a concrete stake in salmon recovery.

* Outside urban areas, let wild salmon fill the largest number and variety of existing habitat niches. Salmon are resilient. Preserve it and they will come. Karr has written that "[t]he . . . goal must be to provide regional landscapes capable of supporting salmon. That is, we need to fix the landscapes, and salmon will take care of themselves." Emphasize the preservation of habitat rather than the creation of habitat. We should build on our regional strengths. Instead of trying to reengineer small stretches of degraded stream, create linkages that will enable salmon to use habitat that is already of high quality or already is protected. Removing the Elwha dams, for example, would enable salmon to occupy largely pristine habitat throughout the largest drainage of Olympic National Park. (We should not avoid untried projects with low risk to fish and large potential benefits. Government should not throw money away. On the other hand, to oppose, say, dam removal on the grounds that we don't know how or even if it will work is disingenuous. Of course we don't know. We haven't tried it. We'll never know unless we do. Besides, many of the things we've done in the past to save fish have been untried, as well, and many of the things we continue doing haven't worked.) Expand protected areas. Except where there will be specific aesthetic, recreational or educational benefits--or where it is possible to connect large areas of relatively intact habitat--don't invest public money in habitat that has already been badly degraded.

Once regional priorities have been established, create citizens' committees--on an ad hoc basis for limited times--to draw up habitat plans for the watersheds in which they live.

* Stop subsidizing cost-ineffective projects that destroy salmon habitat. Society has, for example, pumped many millions of dollars into projects that protect pastures or scattered houses from occasional floods. Obviously, society will continue to protect downtown Renton and other highly developed areas even if people shouldn't have built there in the first place and continued flood control is bad for salmon. But buying property or development rights in some flood plains rather than controlling floods would save society money in the long run, as well as helping salmon. So would eliminating subsidized logging in public forests.

TAKE FISHERY MANAGEMENT BEYOND POLITICS

We must find ways to bypass or override the failed institutions that have produced the current mess. Existing institutions haven't protected the traditional stakeholders' interests, much less the broader public interest. They are too balkanized to control the harvest in any coordinated way. Someone must be able to control harvest policies both inside and outside the state. (Someone also must be able to use American harvesting of salmon in Southeast Alaska and the approaches to the Fraser River as bargaining chips in negotiations with Canada.) One could create a federal salmon czar. But a salmon czar would be a political appointee who would be subjected to intense political and institutional pressures. As an alternative, get a special master appointed by a federal district court to oversee all harvest regulations. (The Puget Sound region and the Pacific Northwest have experience with federal court oversight of natural resource management. US District Court judge William Dwyer exercised a veto power over federal timber management in northern spotted owl territory during the early 1990s, and US District Court judge George Boldt oversaw commercial fisheries in western Washington after his 1974 decision that recognized Indian treaty fishing rights.) The time may become ripe when Puget Sound chinook are listed. The current task is therefore to identify the issues and do the legal research for a civil suit that will lead to appointment of a special master.

MAKE WILD SALMON A PUBLIC TRUST

Develop and bring a case that establishes the principal that spawning streams are protected by the public trust doctrine. "[T]he public trust doctrine . . . is an affirmation of the duty of the state to protect the people's common heritage of streams, lakes, marshlands and tidelands," the California Supreme Court explained in its landmark 1983 decision protecting Mono Lake from the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. "The public trust doctrine resembles 'a covenant running with the land (or lake or marsh or shore) for the benefit of the public and the land's dependent wildlife,'" the Washington Supreme Court has said. "The classic list of interests protected by the public trust includes commerce, navigation and fisheries. . . .Under Washington law, environmental quality and water quality are probably also protected interests," the University of Washington law school's Ralph Johnson and colleagues argued in a 1992 Washington Law Review article. "The public's interest in fishing can only be realized if water quality and quantity are adequate to support fish. . . . If water quality is a protected interest, the public trust doctrine might limit activities that degrade water quality, including . . . activities that cause erosion and the silting of waterways. . . . Public trust values should be considered when planners balance alternatives and develop recommendations." Unlike land-use regulation, the public trust doctrine could be used to force governmental agencies to re-consider past decisions in the light of current knowledge. Extending the doctrine to spawning streams will provide a new legal tool for protecting salmon habitat. It will also help develop a rationale for treating habitat, as well as fish, as everybody's resource. Finally, it may help lay the groundwork for a funding mechanism that can be used to restore habitat.

GET PEOPLE'S FEET WET

Teaching people how spawning streams work will build a constituency for habitat protection, create pressure on management agencies and encourage more informed political decisions. Two simple programs could involve young people and elected leaders:

* Look at the bugs: Develop a program of biological monitoring on all Puget Sound's tributary streams. Currently, regulatory agencies focus on separate elements of salmon habitat: the amount of large woody debris or the purity of water. But the salmon's environment is more complex and more interrelated than that. The essential question isn't how clean the water is or how many logs have been placed in it but whether or not, taken as a whole, the stream is a good place for critters to live. One way to gauge this is by counting the number of simple critters that actually live there: look at the number and variety of insects in each stream.

"Benthic invertebrates and fish are particularly appropriate for us in [biological monitoring,]" James Karr writes. "invertebrates are abundant and easily sampled, and the species living in virtually any water body represent a diversity of morphological, ecological, and behavioral adaptations to their natural habitat. As humans alter watersheds and water bodies, shifts occur in taxa richness (number of kinds), species composition (identity of species), individual health, and feeding and reproductive relationships of fish and invertebrates.

"Samples of invertebrates from one of the best streams in rural King County, Washington, for example, contain twenty-seven taxa of invertebrates; similar samples from an urban stream in Seattle contain only seven."

A focus on invertebrates will measure the overall biological health of the stream, reflecting a complexity that goes beyond the usual measurements, such as water quality or the presence of large woody debris, which by themselves do not guarantee an environment in which fish can live. The first step in a biological monitoring program will be to establish a baseline on healthy streams. Then, volunteers can take and analyze samples from all streams at least once a year. Contract with local high schools to do the collection. Contract with local community colleges to do the analysis. By letting the kids do the work, you educate the public about what a healthy stream is and whether or not the streams near them fit the description. By spreading the job around to local schools and communities, you broaden awareness and build political support.

* Look at the streams: Develop a program that will transport elected officials, along with groups of their constituents and scientific experts, to actually see salmon spawning streams. Once upon a time, it may have been safe to assume that virtually everyone who lived around Puget Sound was personally familiar with spawning salmon and the streams to which they returned. That day is long gone. Public officials who have seen the streams and the fish and learned how they work may make better decisions.

GIVE THE GROWTH MANAGEMENT ACT MORE TEETH--

AND A LARGER BRAIN

Create a uniform floor under land-use regulation that protects salmon habitat and a lower floor under regulation that does not.

County governments have passed endless regulations to protect sensitive parts of the landscape, including wetlands, riparian areas and steep slopes, and in 1990 the state passed a landmark Growth Management Act, but regulation has managed to antagonize citizens without saving salmon. Despite the statewide reach of the Growth Management Act, regulations are not uniform across county lines. They do not establish minimum standards for protecting salmon habitat. They do not differentiate between blocks of similar habitat with widely differing ecological values.

Amend the Growth Management Act to make sure that all the counties around Puget Sound protect sensitive areas crucial to salmon. Require all new county plans to explicitly consider salmon. Establish a rating system similar to the public benefit rating system that King County uses to evaluate applications for Open Space taxation. Give points for biological values and for sensitivity. Based on those points, rate wetlands at three levels of priority. Require a certain level of protection for those at the highest level. Condition state grants or loans to counties or cities on the existence of a wild salmon protection element in the comprehensive plan.

DON'T STAKE EVERYTHING ON LAND-USE REGULATION

Regulation is necessary but not sufficient. Buy riparian land, development rights and conservation easements. Unlike regulation, this would be permanent, would create the interconnections that salmon need, and would not make the regulated citizens, who are mostly rural, resent the urban majority that expects them to atone for society's historic sins. It also would signal a deeper public commitment: in this culture, if we really want something, we should be willing to pay for it.

In addition to actually buying land or development rights, create incentives for landowners to go beyond the regulatory minimums--e.g., to expand riparian corridors on their property. Let them actually use habitat in sustainable ways. Provide tax breaks and also funds to build livestock fences and perform other acts that will benefit fish.

DON'T MAKE FISH PAY FOR ENERGY DEREGULATION

Pass legislation that in the event of energy deregulation will allow Washington utilities to include the price of maintaining, improving or creating fish passage in their distribution costs. Energy deregulation may be an idea whose time will never come in Washington State, but if the state does deregulate the retail electricity business--as bills already introduced in the Washington legislature would have done--the new competitive environment may give existing utilities financial incentives to ignore the needs of wild fish. Energy deregulation generally means competition in retail sales of electricity, comparable to the current competition in sales of long-distance telephone service. Any purveyor of energy would have a right to solicit residential, commercial or industrial customers within the state. All competing energy producers and packagers will have access to the existing electrical distribution systems. A utility that owns a distribution system must give outside energy purveyors access to its lines and may levy charges that reflect the full cost of building and maintaining them. Energy suppliers will therefore compete primarily on the basis of their generation costs. If the price of helping fish survive hydropower dams and spillways is added to the cost of generation, any utility that spends money on fish will be at a competitive disadvantage. But if the price of saving fish is added to the cost of distribution, those utilities will compete on a level playing field.

(Existing utilities should not be allowed to ignore the needs of wild fish. The state should oppose relicensing of any hydroelectric project that doesn't provide or improve fish passage.)

PUT THE REGION'S MONEY WHERE ITS MOUTH IS

Develop and establish--perhaps by initiative--a long-term, dedicated funding mechanism for habitat preservation and restoration. Limit the expenditures to purchase of land or development rights, the creation of fish passages, and other measures that do not include capital construction of sewage treatment plants, for example, or other facilities not directly related to fish. Create a citizen board--not a group of "stakeholders"--to set priorities. Collect and spend money on a regional basis. If an individual county wants to get a head start, that's admirable, but over the long haul, a county-by-county funding approach makes no sense--and neither does an approach that requires the money raised in a particular county to be spent there. Most of the money resides in urban areas. Most of the relatively intact habitat does not. Therefore, either the state or a new regional entity must, for example, raise money in King County to buy habitat along the Nooksack River. Sources of funding may include:

* a sales tax increase in the counties surrounding Puget Sound (This could be limited to specific relevant items, such as gasoline, diesel fuel and building materials.);

* 1% for salmon computed on all state-financed or partially state-financed public works projects in the Puget Sound area (just like the 1% for arts program);

* impact fees levied on all new development and possibly on permits for timber harvesting;

* a real estate excise tax;

* a Puget-Sound-wide utility district (which would have to comply with the state supreme court ruling that shot down the Seattle street utility, and would require legislation to permit it to operate on a multi-county basis).

WATCH WHAT THEY DO, NOT WHAT THEY SAY

Government has been saying "trust me" for a long time. The existing institutional leadership has not managed the harvest or protected the habitat well enough to prevent the decline of wild runs. Why should citizens trust that institutional leadership now? They shouldn't. They should watch the existing institutions--and any new institutions created to deal with the current perception of a salmon crisis--like a hawk. How are tax dollars being spent? Are programs actually working? Are elected officials even trying to make them work?

The attempt to save and restore wild salmon runs requires two kinds of oversight:

--a scientific panel should review and comment on all proposed and on-going major programs for preserving and restoring wild salmon runs in the Puget Sound basin. The panel should reflect a breadth of scientific expertise, rather than a breadth of interest groups. Members should be nominated by the dean of the University of Washington College of Fisheries and the director of the University of Washington Center for Marine Affairs.

--a coalition of nonprofit groups, or a body created and financed by the legislation that establishes a source of long-term, dedicated funding for salmon recovery, should conduct and publicize an annual Puget Sound wild salmon audit. The audit should cover: where public dollars are being spent; which projects are moving forward; what financial or institutional bottlenecks prevent projects from moving forward; what quantifiable progress has been made toward habitat protection and restoration; what quantifiable progress has been made toward restoration of wild fish runs.

SELL WILD SALMON TO THE REGION

LIKE PAUL ALLEN SOLD A NEW FOOTBALL STADIUM

Develop and run a public relations campaign that will use public service spots, bus signs, direct mail and other devices to emphasize salmon as:

"[R]ational salmon management is not just a search for technologies," one fisheries scientist has observed, "it is a search for values." As we search for values appropriate to the turn of the 21st century, we must broaden the definition of stakeholders.

In other words, treat wild salmon as everyone's resource. This is critical. Giving people with the largest direct economic stake in a resource a big say in managing it has a certain logical appeal. But that's the approach we have traditionally taken toward the management of wild salmon. It hasn't worked. Ask any Puget Sound chinook. If you can find one.

"We can't keep putting fishermen first," Washington Fish and Wildlife Director Bern Shanks has said. "We have to put fish first." In the long run, no one should have to choose between people and fish. The environment should be hospitable to both. The wild salmon runs should grow large enough so that society doesn't have to choose between saving the gene pool and saving a way of life.

In the short run, the traditional user groups should not be in a position to call the shots. And they should not be in a position to reap most of the benefits. The people at large shouldn't pay to restore salmon for their sake. That would be just another income transfer, another public business subsidy. Salmon must no longer be treated as a commodity. As a commodity, they can't compete with the economic value of activities that displace them. And they can't elicit the broad public support they need in order to survive.

They must matter for other reasons. Actually, they already do. Polls suggest that people value salmon as a heritage and a symbol--and as an indicator of water quality--more than as objects of commercial or sport fishing.

We must build on those values. We must also remind people that the natural environment helps bring cutting-edge businesses and tourist dollars to the Puget Sound region. "A healthy environment is a major stimulus for a healthy economy," a large group of Northwestern economists proclaimed in December, 1995. The economists noted that between 1989 and 1994, "this region led the nation in job creation, income generation, and success in attracting new businesses and residents." The natural environment played a significant part in this economic growth; the Northwest "is outperforming the rest of the nation in the growth of jobs and incomes . . . primarily because people want to live, work, and raise a family here."

And we must reinforce the idea that salmon matter to everyone. A coalition of nonprofit groups could sponsor a "people's jury" that could deliver a verdict on the state's recovery plan before it went to NMFS. This would draw widespread attention both to the issues and to the idea that a dozen ordinary citizens can decide where the public interest really lies. Lay the groundwork for this by devising a jury selection process and a way of presenting the case pro and con.

Recent statewide polls indicate that the loss of wild salmon already ranks just below traffic congestion on people's lists of environmental priorities, and 70 percent of the people think restoring wild salmon is extremely or very important. Liberals, conservatives and moderates basically agree on that. A constituency exists.

But the citizens need a program they can support. They must know the region has a plan that goes beyond business as usual, have confidence it will work, and believe we can afford it. If the people can be persuaded to buy a new football stadium, they should be willing to pay for wild salmon--as a legacy to their children and as one of the things that make the Puget Sound region a distinct place.

ACTION PLAN

1. Stop killing wild fish--i.e., get control of the harvest. Within the state, this means:

Forbid any commercial fishing on mixed stocks that include wild runs. (state action-- should be part of recovery plan) The whole premise of fishery management must change. The state must:

But a lot of fish are caught outside the state's jurisdiction. Therefore, a non-profit group or groups must identify the issues and do the legal research for a civil suit that will lead to appointment of a special master. (non-profit)

2. Stop creating situations in which wild fish will be killed and stop diluting the gene pool that makes wild fish worth saving--i.e., scrap the current hatchery system. This means: Stop producing hatchery salmon that will intermingle with wild fish in the rivers and streams or be subject to mixed-stock fisheries in salt water. (state action-- should be part of recovery plan) But the public has been told for generations that hatcheries are good. Therefore, so that people understand why the current hatchery system must go, educate the public about the ways in which salmon hatcheries have failed. (state, non-profit)

3. Give the fish a place to live--i.e., launch a long-term campaign to protect and restore habitat. This contains two parts: making a list of Puget-Sound-wide priorities and creating a dedicated, long-term source of funding. (state action-- should be part of recovery plan)

The list should include projects directed toward these three complementary goals:

Ultimately this should create a blueprint for a coordinated campaign to buy riparian land and development rights (state, county, nonprofit). But it shouldn't create a new formula for pork-barrel spending. To protect the integrity of the process, create a scientific panel to review and comment on all proposed programs.

4. To pay for habitat acquisition, protection and restoration, create a long-term revenue stream from one or more of these sources:

5. Build a constituency for wild fish. Develop and run a public relations campaign that redefines the significance of salmon to the Puget Sound region. (non-profit)

6. Make sure the money is well spent. Conduct and publicize an annual Puget Sound wild salmon audit.(non-profit)

7. Make sure land-use planning takes salmon into account: Amend the Growth Management Act to make sure that all the counties around Puget Sound protect sensitive areas crucial to salmon. (state action-- should be part of recovery plan) Require all county plans to explicitly consider salmon. Create incentives for landowners to go beyond the regulatory minimums. (state, county)

8. Get kids involved in and educated about habitat protection. Develop a program of biological monitoring on all Puget Sound's tributary streams. (state action)

9. Improve the quality of political decision-making. Develop a program that will transport elected officials, along with groups of their constituents and scientific experts, to actually see salmon spawning streams.(state or county or non-profit.

10. Don't make it hard for utilities to help fish. Pass legislation that in the event of energy deregulation will allow Washington utilities to include the price of maintaining, improving or creating fish passage in their distribution costs. (state)

11. Expand the legal possibilities. Develop and bring a case that establishes the principal that spawning streams are protected by the public trust doctrine (non-profit).