The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service relocated 37 deer to the Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge 60 miles away and brimming with prime habitat.
Now, those efforts are paying off.
In its five-year review of the deer, the service is recommending the Columbian white-tailed deer be downgraded from an endangered species to a threatened one.
That’s one step closer – in a long series of steps – to removing the deer from the endangered species list. However, the recommendation is only that, a recommendation, which is not always taken.
But biologists are pretty confident that the Columbian white-tailed deer will one day be fully recovered.
“Finally after 40 years, with this particular population segment in the Columbia River, we really are on the right track. Things are going to move quickly from here,” said Rebecca Toland, a wildlife biologist with the service.
Ten years ago, the service removed another Columbian white-tailed deer population in Oregon from the endangered species list. Biologists say that shows, given the right conditions, the Columbian white-tailed deer can make their way off the list.
“There’s a precedence for recovering and reclassifying and, ultimately, delisting under the endangered species act. But particularly for this species. There is a track record of the service doing that when warranted,” said Chris Allen, fisheries biologist with the service.
If Washington’s population is downgraded to a threatened species, the doors are opened up for more biologists and wildlife managers to work to protect the deer. Under federal law, there are many research restrictions when a species is classified as endangered. The threatened classification loosens those restrictions.
The service had several specific goals for the Columbian white-tailed deer to meet:
A minimum of 400 deer across the Columbia River population;
Three groups of at least 50 deer living in three different locations;
Two of those three groups had to be on protected, secure habitat.
Now, Toland said, biologists can put a check mark next to each of those items.
After biologists moved deer away from the eroding dike in southwestern Washington, the new Ridgefield population has begun to flourish, Toland said. Biologists have spotted two fawns at the refuge.
“They’re taking to the habitat,” Toland said. “It’s supporting them, and they’re finding enough cover and forage, and the things that they need in their new home. It’s always a challenge moving species to a completely new environment that they’re not familiar with.”
The dike near the Julia Butler Hansen Refuge is also being repaired. A one-mile setback dike was built this fall to prevent the refuge from flooding if the dike were to burst. Parts of the old dike will be removed next year, which will restore tidal connection and fish access to the refuge.
The service will likely decide whether to accept this recommendation in 2014. If the downgrade is officially proposed the public will then be able to comment.
Pacific lamprey are the oldest known fish in the Columbia River System. Fossils indicate they were here 450 million years ago.
A Pacific lamprey, caught
at Willamette Falls in Oregon.
But in mid-20th centrury tribal fishers started noticing their numbers dwindling. Rivers once clogged with lamprey reached a historic low in 2010, said Brian McIlraith, lamprey project leader at the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission.
The toothy, eel-like fish are an important part of tribal diets and a good indicator of ecosystem health. But salmon and steelhead recoveries have overshadowed the decline of the lamprey, which some non-tribal fishers considered a “trash fish.”
The documentary travels to all the Columbia River tribes to highlight different lamprey projects, from harvesting lamprey at Willamette Falls — which I can tell you is a wet, slippery, exciting job — to trucking the fish around dams.
Right now, CRITFC is holding screenings for the tribes. The East Oregonian reports about 35 people came to a showing in Pendleton, Ore. Organizers hope to screen the documentary around the Pacific Northwest in the future.
Native fishermen on the Pacific coast are seeing fewer cold water animals and reporting more sightings of warmer water species. Humboldt squid are being reported in waters off OR, WA, and BC. Ten years ago, sightings north of San Diego were rare. | credit: Katie Campbell
The top climate scientists in the Northwest have published a new report that surveys the many regional impacts of climate change.
It captures impacts large and small, from the hairy woodpecker which may enjoy more habitat, to smaller snowpack storing less water for the hydropower dams on the Columbia River. The report is the Northwest chapter of the third U.S. National Climate Assessment, a state-of-the-science update that Congress will receive next year. It was put together by the Oregon Climate Change Research Institute at Oregon State University and the Climate Impacts Group at the University of Washington — with input from researchers, native American tribes and economists.
The main conclusions won’t surprise anyone who follows climate science, or who reads EarthFix regularly. The greatest risks in the Northwest fall into three categories: risks caused by declining snowpack and water storage, risks due to rising sea levels and coastal ecosystems, and risks related to forest fires and forest health.
But the report highlights some less familiar research as well. Here are five projected impacts of climate change you may not be aware of:
1. Rising Seas and a Falling Continent
Predictions of sea level rise in the Northwest are complicated by plate tectonics. For example, very little sea level rise has been observed on the Olympic Peninsula to date because the peninsula is uplifting at about the same rate that the sea level is rising. Scientists project that sea level rises will range from 4 inches to 4 feet along the Northwest coast. But that doesn’t take into account a major Cascadia subduction zone quake. OSU’s Philip Mote, one of the report’s editors, says when the big one hits, it could cause the entire coastline to drop by 3 feet, compounding the impact of rising seas.
2. Your Health Is At Stake
Mote says the Northwest doesn’t have the kind of extreme weather events like hurricanes and tornadoes that tend to end with a high death toll. But rising temperatures are expected to make us more vulnerable to a whole range of troublesome and potentially fatal illnesses, from respiratory disorders to heat stroke to paralytic shellfish poisoning. If you want to learn more, check out EarthFix’s timely multimedia series, Symptoms of Climate Change: Will a Warming World Make Us Sick?
3. Hot Potatoes
Projected changes in temperatures, carbon dioxide levels, and the availability of irrigation water make the impact of climate change on agricultural crops surprisingly complicated to predict. The yield of winter wheat, for example, is expected to increase by up to 25 percent.
Potato yields are expected to increase until the middle of the century and then begin to decline, in some places as much as 40 percent. Mote says one reason agricultural yields may increase in the short term is the higher levels of CO2 in the air. “Carbon dioxide is plant food. It’s one of the nutrients that plants take in to grow structures and fruits and vegetables. For most plants, having more food allows them to grow faster,” he says. However, for many crops that positive effect may be offset by the impact of longer summer droughts with less water available for irrigation.
4. Thin shells
Climate change is tough news if you’re a marine creature with a shell or exoskeleton.
The Northwest already has some of the most acidified oceans in the world, and climate change is projected to reduce the pH of the oceans even further. Scientists predict that as a result of all the lower pH, mussels will form shells 25 percent more slowly and oysters will form shells 10 percent more slowly by the end of the century. EarthFix has reported extensively on this.
Other ocean critters may fare better; sea grasses and northern elephant seals may find more habitat available in a warming ocean. Paul Williams, who studies climate science and shellfish management for the Suquamish Tribe, says that while the big trend is clear, far more research is needed to understand how marine life will respond to acidification.
“If you want to ask, are the crabs going to disappear in Puget Sound, it’s hard to be that specific. What’s very clear is that we’ve changed the fundamental chemistry of the ocean,” he says.
5. Tribes
Climate change could affect many of the treaty rights reserved by tribes in the northwest, from water rights to shellfish gathering to the use of forests. And decreased summer water flows and increased stream temperatures could add to the stress that dams have placed on the region’s salmon runs, which are culturally and economically critical to many tribes. Several of the tribes in the Northwest have developed their own climate change research and mitigation and adaptation plans.
The Takeaway
I asked Philip Mote what he thinks the takeaway from the science is. He paraphrased John Holdren, a science advisor to President Obama. Holdren has suggested that three things will happen as we contend with climate change: mitigation, adaptation, and suffering.
“The less we try to mitigate and the less we try to adapt, the more that plants, animals, and other humans will fare negatively,” Mote says.
A state regulatory board is blocking permits for two crude oil shipping terminals in Grays Harbor, Wash., saying backers have failed to address public safety and environmental issues.
The State Department of Ecology worked with the city of Hoquiam to approve permits for the terminals earlier this year.
The Quinault Indian Nation and several conservation groups successfully argued that permits issued for two terminals in Grays Harbor, Washington should be reversed.
“Those permits should have never been issued in the first place,” said Fawn Sharp, president of the Quinalt Nation.
“The shipping terminals would be a clear violation of public safety as well as treaty-protected rights. Far more jobs would be lost when the inevitable spills occur than would be gained from the development of the proposed oil terminals,” Sharp said.
The Washington Shorelines Hearings Board said the permits didn’t adequately assess the environmental risk of oil spills, seismic events, greenhouse gas emissions, and impacts to cultural resources.
The denial of these permits won’t necessarily stop the projects from going forward, but the Department of Ecology may require a more comprehensive review.
“We are in the process of reviewing the board’s decision with our attorneys to determine the full implications before making any decisons on next steps,” said Linda Kent, a spokesperson for the Department of Ecology.
There are three terminals on the table for Grays Harbor. Two are officially in the permitting process, which is now on hold.
The Imperium terminal would draw two additional trains per day and 200 ships or barges per year. It would have storage capacity for more than 30 million gallons of oil. It would create 20 jobs.
The Westway terminal would draw two unit trains every three days and 64 barge movements. It would have storage capacity for more than 33 million gallons of oil.
Overall, the proposed projects could lead to 520 additional vessel transits per year in Grays Harbor, and 973 unit trains per year to the Port of Grays Harbor.
The Washington Shorelines Hearings Board withdrew the permits on Wednesday, saying they were issued without appropriate review of the vessel and rail transit increases and identified “troubling questions of the adequacy of the analysis done regarding the potential for individual and cumulative impacts from oil spills, seismic events, greenhouse gas emissions, and impacts to cultural resources.”
There are now 10 places in the Northwest considering taking oil arriving by rail from North Dakota to be transported onto ships. Meanwhile, there’s talk in Congress about weakening rules against exporting American oil.
Millennium Bulk Terminals has proposed to export 44 million tons of coal per year through this site in Longview, Wash. | credit: Courtesy of Millennium Bulk Terminals | rollover image for more
More than 195,000 public comments have flooded the environmental review of the Millennium coal export terminal proposed for Longview, Wash.
That’s the number of letters, emails, and statements read aloud at public meetings as of Friday. It exceeds the 125,000 comments agencies received on the environmental review of the Gateway Pacific coal export project in Bellingham, Wash., earlier this year.
Monday was the deadline for the public to comment on the Millennium project during this phase of the environmental review. The total could climb even higher with the addition of comments post-marked Nov. 18, according to Linda Kent, spokeswoman for the Washington Department of Ecology. People can read all the comments online.
Ecology is one of three agencies taking comments on which environmental impacts they should study before permitting begins along with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Cowlitz County. Kent said her agency hasn’t set a timeline for reviewing all the comments.
“Obviously this is a large number of comments to review, so there is really not a specific set time frame,” she said. “We’re going to be doing that as effectively and efficiently as we can.”
The Millennium project would export 44 million tons of coal from Wyoming and Montana to Asia. It would receive coal by rail at a terminal in Longview, Wash., and transfer it onto vessels.
Many people have asked the agencies to consider the health impacts of coal dust and diesel emissions along the delivery route.
On Sunday, 160 Oregon and Washington physicians submitted comments asking the agencies to do a health impact assessment of the project as part of their environmental reviews.
Regna Merritt of the Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility says that makes for a total of 3,000 health professionals and advocates who have made similar requests in comments on the Millennium project.
Merritt said the comments submitted Sunday mirror those of a group called the Whatcom Docs, who asked for a health impact assessment on the Gateway Pacific coal export project in Bellingham.
Ecology announced earlier this year it would consider the health impacts in its environmental review of that coal export project.
“At the very least we need the same consideration for Longview,” Merritt said.
SEATTLE — Ah, the Garden Giant. He’s a jolly fellow who roams around your garden at night tossing mulch as he merrily skips along, helping your veggies grow lush and tall.
Not quite. The Garden Giant is actually a species of mushroom, scientifically known as Stropharia rugosoannulata, that may hold a key to filtering harmful pollutants from stormwater runoff.
Although this mushroom can be rather “giant” as the name implies, growing up to eight inches tall and a foot wide at its cap, it is not the mushroom itself that does the work. It is something hidden underground — a fungal root-like material called mycelium. Mycelium is a microscopic, cobwebby, fungal thread that, when mixed with woody debris, decomposes bacteria.
Respected mycologist Paul Stamets and his team at Fungi Perfecti Research Lab have taken this natural strainer and developed a relatively simple biotechnology called mycofiltration that uses mushroom mycelium to filter stormwater runoff.
Garden Giant mycelium. Photo by Paul Stamets.
The technology was born 30 years ago when Stamets purchased the farm that is now the headquarters of his company and research lab. Soon after moving in he learned that, due to the few animals and a faulty septic system, his farm was discharging fecal coliform at levels that went far beyond the legal limit. The effluent was polluting shellfish beds downstream in Skookum Inlet in southern Puget Sound. Stamets was served with a court order and given a year to fix the problem.
Not one to take the traditional route to problem solving, Stamets decided to try using what he knew best … mushrooms.
“I knew from experience that the Garden Giant mycelium grows rather anemically in labs compared to other strains,” Stamets says. “But when it makes soil contact, the mycelium magically transforms into an extremely aggressive ropey white network that permeates into the ground and reaches far and wide.”
Stamets created a 200-foot bioswale at the edge of his farm, above the long drop down to the saltwater inlet. He filled the bioswale with a mix of Garden Giant mycelium and wood chips, and waited to see what would happen.
A year later water quality inspectors were shocked when they returned to find that despite the number of animals on the farm having doubled, there was more than a 99 percent reduction in fecal coliform content.
But it wasn’t until recently that Stamets was able to put this biotechnology through more rigorous lab testing. With the help of a grant from the Environmental Protection Agency, Fungi Perfecti partnered with the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department at Washington State University in 2012 to test the technology’s viability as a realistic urban stormwater management practice.
The research sought to determine which mushroom is most effective at filtering bacteria in urban environments. After testing a variety of species under various conditions, the research reaffirmed Stamets’ 1984 findings: The Garden Giant is the most efficient species for removing E. coli bacteria.
Furthermore, supporting research by Stamets and other mycologists indicates that this technique will likely reduce other harmful pollutants commonly found in urban stormwater runoff, such as heavy metals and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs. Mycelium can convert PAHs into fungal carbohydrates and may help absorb heavy metals.
Not only is this method efficient, but it has the potential to be a sustainable and cheap option for households, businesses and cities, says Alex Taylor, assistant researcher at Fungi Perfecti.
“Current methods of purifying water such as ozone and chlorine require large capital and structural investments,” Taylor says. “Our technology is very inexpensive and low-impact.”
The next step is to take this technology beyond the lab. The Fungi Perfecti team is now looking to partner with small businesses, municipalities and rain garden installers to conduct controlled field tests with urban mycofiltration.
“Right now we see mycofiltration as a treatment added to enhance the activity of existing stormwater management practices such as rain gardens,” Taylor says. “We can work together as a region to pioneer this technology.”
While rain gardens can capture pollutants, Taylor explained, they don’t effectively break them down. But by adding Garden Giant mycelium to the mix, the harmful substances can be transformed into carbohydrates and nutrients — which are actually useful to surrounding soil and plants.
So it seems that the Garden Giant may live up to its guardian of the garden reputation after all.
Once upon a time, in a land called the grocery store, customers could walk right in, grab a turkey, and take it home for Thanksgiving. The only choice to make was about size: big, huge, or insanely enormous? It was a time before words like “heritage” and “organic” became part of our food lexicon; back then, a bird was a bird, and feeding it low dosages of antibiotics in every meal had yet to be connected to the spread of antimicrobial resistant superbugs. It was a simpler time for the American Thanksgiving, but not a better one.
The turkey aisle has a lot more variety now, but it hasn’t made picking the best one easy. Free-range? Organic? Heirloom? Heritage? Is there a difference, and does it matter? Yes and maybe.
Shulamit Seidler-FellerMr. Koch stands proudly before his flock of turkeys.
But even though the only way is up, it’s still hard to figure out where to go from there. So I ventured into hinterlands of rural Pennsylvania to visit Duane Koch at Koch’s Turkey Farm, where his family has been raising turkeys of all kinds – from organic to free-range to heirloom – since 1939. Rearing about 700,000 turkeys every year, Koch’s farm sounds like a Big Kahuna until you compare it to the rest of the industry: Just three companies raise more than half of the country’s 265 million birds.
Duane himself, in his jeans, hiking boots, and baseball cap, bears little resemblance to his suit-wearing Big Turkey counterparts. It’s hard to imagine Butterball CEO Rod Brenneman spending his days getting gritty on a farm, talking about which of the birds are more docile and which are “spooky.”
But back to the birds. Ninety-nine percent of the turkeys raised in the U.S. are BBWs, and like Butterball and most turkey farms, Koch’s also raises the white-meat-heavy breed. Since the 1960’s, these have been the industry’s choice, largely because they’re so top heavy. But as factory farmers began to rely exclusively on the BBWs, and to breed them for size, turkeys got more and more breasty, until they were so big they were unable to naturally reproduce. (To give you a better visual: The male turkeys’ chests got so big they couldn’t mount the females anymore.) Now, almost all turkeys only reproduce through artificial insemination. But comparing a Butterball BBW to a Koch BBW is like doing a side-by-side of Steve Urkel and his alter ego Stefan Urquelle. Same but not the same.
Shulamit Seidler-FellerYard birds cruisin’ because they wanna.
Unlike the industrial version, Koch’s tall, white turkeys are all antibiotic-free and raised with the luxury of space. The free-range BBWs get plenty of outdoor access – though whether they choose to exercise that freedom is a decision every bird gets to make for itself. They leave the spacious barn for the yard outside, according to Duane, “whenever they feel like it.” They have no problem running when they want to, and as little chicks, before their D-Cups begin to runneth over, they can even fly over the surrounding fence. “Not a lot do,” Duane says, “but they can.”
Koch’s farm also raises organics, and more this year than ever. “A lot of people are scared of GMO grains,” Duane says, attributing the 30 percent increase in demand this year to that fear. His organics, like most, are BBWs, and consumers can rest assured that they were raised without antibiotics, growth enhancers, or GMO feed. They also have all the free-range amenities, including the outdoor space and the freedom to go in and out at their own leisure.
But although the BBWs have essentially cornered the Thanksgiving market, heritage and heirloom breed turkeys have been gaining traction. Unlike their modern, bred-for-breasts counterparts, these old birds are actually that: Heritage breeds date back to the 1800s, and so were probably what our colonial forebears were carving into. Heirloom breeds are a bit newer, dating to the early 1920s or 1930s.
A heritage bird, according to Whole Foods Global Meat Buyer Theo Weening, “is as close to a wild turkey as you can get.” They can fly like their wild cousins, and can technically reproduce naturally, though many farmers still “choose to artificially inseminate to meet demands.” Their genetics give them the multicolored feathers we envision on the hallowed First Thanksgiving turkeys, as well as significantly less white meat and a “gamey-er” taste, making them more like wild turkeys and less like the kind we’re used to eating. While Koch’s tried to raise heritages one year, they decided it wasn’t worth the investment. His flock grew slowly and had a higher mortality rate, too. “We can only get the poults [baby males] from these little hatcheries,” he said. “And a lot of them die the first week when you get them.” At $12 a pop, compared to $1 for a BBW, the Koch’s turned their focus to heirlooms, which come in in the middle at $6.
Heirlooms seem to strike a balance for Americans looking for something that harkens back to the days of yore but still tastes somewhat familiar. Like their heritage cousins, they have dark feathers, and their flavor is more robust and the meat more dense than your standard BBW — but they also have plenty of the white meat that Americans inexplicably crave. (Why anyone would prefer white meat over dark still baffles me – I might be a vegetarian, but I remember the dry lack of flavor.) Koch has been raising heirlooms for six years, with demand growing exponentially. “The first year we sold six hundred of them; this year we sold 12,000.” Duane said. “Next year, I’m going to have to grow more.”
On Koch’s farm, the heirlooms also get plenty of outdoor access and seem to enjoy it more than the BBWs in the barn nearby. “You should see them in the morning,” Duane says. “When you lead them out – they’re so happy!” (Barns stay closed at night to protect against predators like coyotes and foxes.) While Koch’s heirlooms aren’t technically organic, they still benefit from their proximity to the organic BBWs: When there’s leftover organic hay, guess who gets to eat it?
Shulamit Seidler-FellerKoch’s turkey wares, on display.
All of Koch’s birds, even the ones that aren’t free-range, are Certified Humane, which is representative of the growing third-party certification trend. Other popular certifiers include Animal Welfare Approved, Food Alliance Certified, and American Grassfed, and all come with their own sets of standards, though humane treatment is always part of the deal. (“All natural,” it should be mentioned, is utterly meaningless and should never be solely relied upon when choosing food — whether it’s turkey, pork, or Gatorade.)
For many consumers, animal welfare isn’t the only concern. Price is obviously a big selling point, too. Heritage turkeys (which can fetch as much as $10 per pound) are generally the most expensive, followed by organic, then the heirlooms, and finally, the non-organic, free-range, antibiotic-free BBWs. If cost is your determinative factor, don’t feel bad. There’s no consensus on which bird is the best. Even Duane’s own family, which will be carving up an heirloom on the Big Day, can’t agree that it’s the best option. “My dad’s a firm believer that they’re the best,” Duane says. “But I like them all, and my sisters [prefer] the organics.”
Canada will allow genetically modified salmon eggs to be produced and exported — but no way in hell will the eggs be allowed to hatch on Canadian soil.
The GM salmon was developed by AquaBounty, which blended genetic material from Chinook salmon and from another type of fish called ocean pout into the DNA of Atlantic salmon. That helps accelerate growth rates. The eggs will be produced at a hatchery on Canada’s Prince Edward Island and exported to be hatched at a site in Panama. There, the fish will be fattened up before being exported to the U.S. for sale.
Worries abound that the genetically modified fish will escape and spread their altered genes to wild populations of salmon and trout. And those concerns are weighing on the minds of Canadian officials. From The Guardian:
The decision marked the first time any government had given the go-ahead to commercial scale production involving a GM food animal.
The move clears the way for AquaBounty to scale up production of the salmon at its sites in PEI and Panama in anticipation of eventual approval by American authorities. …
The Canadian government said in its decision that the GM fish presented a high risk to Atlantic salmon, in the event of an escape, and a spokesman was adamant there would be no immediate sale or consumption of GM salmon eggs in Canada.
“There are strict measures in place to prevent the release of this fish into the food chain,” an Environment Canada spokesman said by email. “In Canada, no genetically modified fish or eggs are currently approved for the purposes of human consumption.”
But the limited approval still represents a big win for AquaBounty, which has fought for 20 years to bring GM salmon to American dinner tables.
Many consumers have doubts about genetically modified meat, and leading American grocers have already announced that they will not sell it. Also, each fish will have traversed the continent, traveling from Canada to Panama and back up again to the U.S. before arriving at a plate — and that’s unlikely to prove particularly popular with any GM-friendly locavores, either.
OLYMPIA – Legislators grappled Thursday with a seemingly small question that has a big impact on Washington’s pollution laws: How much fish do people eat?
The answer will affect water pollution standards on many state waterways and the companies that must meet those standards because some of the pollution ends up in fish. How much fish people eat can determine the risk for some cancers and other diseases.
The question is more complicated than it sounds, Kelly Susewind of the Department of Ecology told the Senate Energy, Environment and Telecommunications Committee. Some groups, particularly Native Americans, eat more fish than others, and some people don’t eat any. Fish that spend their entire lives in a polluted river like the Spokane pick up more pollution than salmon, which are born in fresh water, live in salt water for much of their lives, then return to fresh water. Salmon that spend most of their lives in the Puget Sound can have as much as five times the polychlorinated biphenyls or PCBs, a known carcinogen, as salmon that spawn in coastal streams and live most of their lives in the Pacific.
So a person who only eats the highly touted Copper River salmon, which comes from Alaska and is only available a short time each year, would have less risk than someone who eats salmon from Puget Sound? asked Committee Chairman Doug Erickson, R-Ferndale. Yes, Susewind said, but the standards aren’t being set to take that into account.
There is no statewide study of how much fish people eat and where it comes from, so the department is primarily using studies of tribes that primarily eat locally caught fish, he said.
Recent surveys indicate people on the Colville Confederated Tribes reservation eat about 400 grams of fish a day, Gary Passmore, the tribes’ environmental trust director, said Wednesday at a conference in Spokane. Rates are similar for tribal and nontribal members.
Current state pollution standards assume people eat 6.5 grams of fish per day. That’s a piece about the size of a saltine cracker, said Sen. Marilyn Chase, D-Shoreline. The department is considering the effects of assuming they eat 125 grams, about a quarter pound; 175 grams, about a third of a pound; or 225 grams, about a half pound, and estimating the potential increase in cancers.
Some senators worried businesses that currently meet pollution levels set to a consumption of 6.5 grams per day could struggle to reduce their pollution levels at those higher rates. Erickson said the higher rates would put Washington at a “competitive disadvantage with South Carolina for manufacturing” – a not-so-veiled reference to fears that Boeing would build new factories or move existing ones to that state if fish consumption rates get set too high. South Carolina’s estimate is 17.5 grams per day, but each state’s geography, waterways and consumption patterns are different, Susewind said.
But Chase said the state should set standards that protect future generations: “I’m offended to think we would hold our water-quality standards hostage to manufacturers.”
Boeing isn’t the only company closely watching the fish consumption rate debate. Inland Empire Paper Co., which is owned by the same company that owns The Spokesman-Review, spokesman.com and KHQ-TV, could also be affected by a higher rate. So could Spokane city and county, which struggle with PCB pollution in wastewater and storm runoff.
There’s no proposed legislation yet for new standards. At Wednesday’s conference in Spokane, Rick Eichstaedt, attorney for Spokane Riverkeeper, said the state has a history of continued delay on more accurate fish consumption rates, which he called a civil rights and environmental justice issue.
“It’s not OK to force a higher cancer rate on Native Americans, persons of color or the poor,” who eat more fish than the general public, he said.
An alliance of environmental groups and commercial fishing interests filed a federal lawsuit last month to force the federal government to make the state update its consumption rates and comply with the Clean Water Act. That puts more pressure on the EPA to get involved if the Legislature continues to delay.
Eric Marks, salmon biologist for the Puyallup Tribe of Indians, conducts a spawning survey downstream from a new logjam.
Source: Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission
The Puyallup Tribe of Indians is already finding salmon using newly restored habitat on the Clearwater River.
“Its great to see salmon using the habitat so soon after the completion of the project,” said Russ Ladley, resource protection manager for the Puyallup Tribe. “In a few months, the offspring of these fish we’re seeing migrate and spawn in the Clearwater will be able to use this habitat to rear and find food.”
So far this year, the tribe has counted more than 100 chinook and 250 coho in about a mile of restored river.
The project was managed by the South Puget Sound Salmon Enhancement Group (SPSSEG).
Last summer a total of 18 large and small engineered logjams were installed in the Clearwater River about two miles up from where it joins the White River. Placement of these log jams will reconnect flows to a network of 11 existing side channels, dissipate floods, and increase instream structure and cover in the river.
“Adding the wood and instream structure to the river will encourage the river to move and create habitat in a way it always had,” said Kristin Williamson, SPSSEG project manager.
The Puyallup Tribe conducts extensive spawning surveys throughout the Clearwater for chinook, coho and pink salmon. Data from spawning surveys help natural managers assess the success of habitat projects. Fisheries managers also use the data to help build future salmon fisheries.
“Spawning surveys are a simple and essential tool for managing salmon,” Ladley said. “Nothing beats getting out on the water and counting fish.”
Just downstream from the project site the tribe also recently built a new juvenile chinook acclimation pond. The Puyallup Tribe annually transfers as many as 800,000 juvenile spring chinook from either a state or Muckleshoot tribal hatchery and raises them in several acclimation ponds in the upper White.
“Coho and chinook populations in the White River have demonstrated an encouraging upward trend over the past 15 years. Hopefully this project and other similar efforts will allow this trend to continue and extend to other species such as steelhead that that have not responded favorably,” Ladley said. “The best way to bring them back is to repair what habitat we can and protect what they have left.”
