Hail to the salmon chief?

LA Times: Hail to the salmon chief?

Could there be a new big fish coming to the pond that is our nation’s capitol?

Commercial and recreational fishermen are urging President Obama to create a new position in his administration: salmon director.

But don’t be fooled by the title. The job interview won’t include a thorough vetting on sauté skills and work with a barbecue or broiler. The salmon director would develop and coordinate restoration policy in states where the tasty and environmentally troubled fish swims.

More than 75 fishing organizations from six Pacific states -– California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Nevada and Alaska –- signed a letter sent Monday to Obama asking for the new post. Dwindling numbers of the fish have virtually shut down the West Coast's commercial salmon fishing industry over the past two seasons.

The letter urges the Obama administration to begin work immediately in creating the position to “protect and restore dwindling populations of Pacific salmon and steelhead and the tens of thousands of jobs in our states that depend upon them.”

Zeke Grader of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Assns. said creation of the position right inside the walls of the White House would “send a strong signal” to hard-hit fishing communities that the president “is committed to correcting past failure” and putting salmon on the road to recovery.

No word from Obama on the prospects for the new post.

-- Eric Bailey

Photo: A fisherman with catch. Credit: Rick Loomis / Los Angeles Times

Tell the Oregonian we need real solutions for wild salmon!

This morning, just hours before U.S. District Court Judge James Redden held a hearing on the legality of the federal government's (a rollover from the Bush administration) federal salmon plan for the Columbia & Snake Rivers, the Oregonian published an editorial touting the historic collaboration occurring in the Northwest on salmon recovery.

Please read the editorial and send a letter to the editor: http://tiny.cc/ASYhu

Judge Redden is expected to rule a month from now. The Bush administration's plan before the Judge is remarkably similar to previous plans that have been ruled illegal in court. While the Oregonian paints a very rosy picture of the federal government's efforts, their conclusion is premature and says nothing about the other stakeholders, including commercial and sport fishermen, who were not invited to the collaboration table. This plan would take us several steps backward.

The Oregonian states that "the real and lasting legacy will be all those former adversaries in the long Northwest fish wars who have finally come together to save Columbia salmon." Members of the Save Our Wild Salmon Coalition couldn't agree more. The Northwest wants to look to a future that gives us restored salmon populations but we have yet to create the kind of broad dialogue that will get us there. To bank on an illegal and scientifically bankrupt plan held over from the Bush Administration's reckless salmon policy is misguided.

While the upcoming court decision will likely guide the fate of these fish and the communities they serve, the Northwest desperately needs it's political leaders to craft a table of stakeholders representing all parties that have a real stake in the future of these salmon and the salmon economy. It's time to make real changes that invest taxpayer dollars wisely, lead to the restoration of healthy, abundant salmon populations in the Columbia-Snake Basin, builds an energy infrastructure that is truly clean, and restores a Snake River that works for everyone.

Please take a moment and write a letter to the editor today.

The Oregonian:
letters@news.oregonian.com

Note: The Oregonian only accepts letters that are 150 words or less.
Another way to let your voice be heard is to submit a comment online below the editorial:
http://tiny.cc/ASYhu

Some tips on writing a letter to the editor:
http://tiny.cc/a7A6G

Please remind the Oregonian:

- Many stakeholders advocating for change remain shut out of the process of building a plan that works - the deck has been stacked and a dialogue about what must be done to recover Columbia & Snake River salmon has been stunted. Thousands of good jobs in communities across the Northwest are dependent on Columbia & Snake River salmon. These stakeholders must have a voice. More on this subject: http://tiny.cc/9jiTT

- In addition, residents of communities that have historically be against any change on the Snake River have become very concerned about the growing flood risk and growing costs of keeping the four lower Snake River dams. More on this subject: http://tiny.cc/Kut7N

- Much of the science has been shut out as well. For years, hundreds of federal, state, tribal and independent scientists have concluded that removing the four lower Snake River dams is the best and perhaps only means to protect these fish from extinction and recover healthy populations. If we serious about looking at all available options for recovering these fish, why isn't this option considered in the Bush Administration?s plan? More on this subject: http://tiny.cc/foDCJ

- Over $8 billion dollars has been spent on salmon recovery measures that haven't led to recovery. Runs of wild salmon in the Columbia & Snake Rivers teeter near the levels at which many were listed under the Endangered Species Act. It's time to invest our federal dollars in a plan that actually addresses the key problems with salmon declines in a way that can revitalize local communities and promotes key priorities by creating jobs and building clean energy.

-Tens of thousands of families, businesses, and organizations from across the country support real and lasting solutions to the salmon crisis that include the removal of the four lower Snake River dams and in creates family-wage jobs, invests in our fishing and farming communities, and encourages the development of truly clean energy resources.

Please contact emily@wildsalmon.org if you have any questions or need help writing a letter.

Business community calls for Lower Snake River dam removal to Save Our Wild Salmon

More than 100 businesses have joined a landmark movement to restore an American icon: wild Columbia and Snake River salmon. Outdoor and fishing business leaders have signed on to a letter asking President Obama to bring stakeholders together to create a real recovery blueprint that will restore the Columbia Basin’s wild salmon and steelhead runs to vibrant, self-sustaining levels.

Business community calls for Lower Snake River dam removal to Save Our Wild Salmon

More than 50 businesses are calling on President Obama to bring real solutions to the Northwest by removing four outdated dams on the Lower Snake River — an action that will restore a river, recover salmon, create family-wage jobs and build a truly clean energy future.

Want to join the fight? Contact emily@wildsalmon.org to sign on! Click here for full text of the letter and signers.

Salmon advocates ask Sen. Kerry for help

During the 2004 presidential campaign, Democratic candidate John Kerry spent a week at his family's vacation home in Sun Valley, Idaho, to showcase his love of the Pacific Northwest and its abundant wild surroundings. Now, Kerry's Idaho neighbors are asking the Mass. senator to take a leading role in saving one of the Northwest's most storied wild species. Salmon advocates are this week delivering a video to the senator from eight Sun Valley-area residents asking him to introduce legislation authroizing removal of four salmon-killing dams on the lower Snake River in eastern Washington.

"We're asking Senator Kerry to help bring our salmon back from the edge of extinction," said Andy Munter, one of the Sun Valley residents featured in the video. Munter is owner of Backwoods Mountain Sports in Ketchum. "The health of our economy, our salmon populations and our quality of life depend on our ability to bring people together to take advantage of this opportunity. Senator Kerry is a leader who can make this happen."

Sun Valley is just 30 miles south of the headwaters of the Salmon River, where chinook and sockeye salmon once returned in abundance each summer and fall. But, with migrations to and from the Pacific Ocean hindered by four dams on the lower Snake River, salmon populations have crashed.

Snake River sockeye were given Endangered Species Act protection in 1991, and Snake River chinook were similarly listed in 1992. Since then, the federal government has failed to draft recovery plans that address the real problem — four expensive and outdated dams on the lower Snake River.

"We think there are ways in which legislation can be drawn so that we can preserve the salmon and take care of the people who are going to have a downstream effect from the removal of the dams," said former Blaine County Commissioner Len Harlig in the video.

Kerry and his wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, are longstanding part-time Sun Valley residents, and the family's philanthropy has not gone unnoticed in the community. In 1994, Teresa Heinz spearheaded an effort to preserve a piece of the region's heritage, donating $325,000 from the Heinz Family Foundation to purchase and preserve the historic Galena Lodge from an uncertain future. The historic lodge is now publicly owned and serves as a recreational hub for cross-country skiers in winter and hikers in summer.

Sun Valley's residents are hoping for similar vision from Sen. Kerry now as salmon, an important face of Idaho's ecological heritage, face extinction. Recent political changes in the White House and throughout the Northwest have created a momentous opportunity to recover wild salmon. With the 111th session of Congress underway, introduction of a bill by Kerry could save endangered wild salmon, create jobs and bolster rural economies throughout the Northwest. This is a vision for a brighter future that begins with removal of the four obsolete dams on the lower Snake River.

"For eight years the Bush administration blocked our call for change and blatantly ignored science and law in order to pursue a purely political agenda that only benefitted a few," said Dr. Stephen Pauley, a retired physician featured in the film. "Now it is time for change."

A majority of scientists agree that dam removal is the only way to save Idaho's wild salmon. Economists and business leaders say that removing the dams could also boost the Northwest economy by $6.8 billion, adding hundreds of long-term jobs in commercial fishing, sport fishing, recreation and tourism.

"It's going to take someone with your leadership to push it through, and that's what we're asking," said Buck Drew, a dentist featured in the film.

Mitch Wood, another of the Sun Valley-area residents in the film, grew up in Central Idaho. His father was a logger who used to fish the waters of the upper salmon river for the famed anadromous fish.

"I'm a kayaker, climber, skier, hunter, fisherman — a general Idaho outdoorsman, and I like to see nature in abundance, and I think fish are an important part of the cycle," he said. "I'm not a blast-the-dams with no understanding of what they provide kind of guy. It's a cost-benefit issue, but the cost of keeping the dams is, for me, too high."

Brent Estep lives in Ketchum and owns Mackay Wilderness River Trips, a raft company that organizes trips on the Salmon and Middle Fork of the Salmon rivers.

"We call it the Salmon River for a reason," he said. "Historically, there have always been huge runs of fish in that river, spawning, dying and feeding a whole ecosystem up and down the river until we started damming it. Until we get rid of those dams we're never going to get that drainage to the place where it should be."

Pauley put it this way in the video.

" I look at our salmon the same way I do the bald eagle. Because the bald eagle represents America, so do the salmon represent the feelings people have in the Northwest about wildlife. So I want to be able to tell our kids, our grandchildren, that we did something on our watch to prevent extinction."

To view the full video please visit: http://www.ceibaproductions.com/SOS/SOS_kerry.html