Environmental Groups Praise Obama's Move to Restore ESA Protections

Environmental Groups Praise Obama's Move to Restore ESA Protections

But Will Federal Agencies Protect the Delta?

by Dan Bacher

Environmental groups yesterday praised President Barack Obama's move to reverse the Bush administration's eleventh hour regulatory change to weaken the Endangered Species Act (ESA), a law that has often served as the last defense for species on the edge of extinction such as delta smelt, Central Valley Chinook salmon and southern resident killer whales.

Bush, under pressure from the "wise use" lobby, sought to cripple the ESA by cutting scientists out of the review process, allowing federal agencies to decide on their own whether federal projects, including construction of highways and dams, poses a threat to imperiled fish, wildlife and plants.

"Today I've signed a memorandum that will help restore the scientific process to its rightful place at the heart of the Endangered Species Act, a process undermined by past administrations," said President Obama at a ceremony in Washington D.C. with Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar to celebrate the 160th Anniversary of the Department of the Interior. "The work of scientists and experts in my administration -- including right here in the Interior Department -- will be respected. For more than three decades, the Endangered Species Act has successfully protected our nation's most threatened wildlife, and we should be looking for ways to improve it -- not weaken it."

Earthjustice attorney Janette Brimmer, who filed litigation challenging the changes in federal district court in San Francisco on December 16, applauded Obama's action.

"Today's action by the administration is a crucial and positive first step in reinstating protections for endangered species lost through last-minute actions by the Bush administration," she said. "We are encouraged by the President's action and look forward to full repeal of these illegal and ill-considered rules."

"We applaud the new administration's leadership in restoring scientific integrity to this agency and its mandate to protect our nation's wildlife," said Earthjustice Senior Legislative Representative Susan Holmes. "We're heartened that President Obama intends to return wildlife biologists to their rightful role in determining protections for America's plants and animals. What's needed now is for the Senate to defeat an attempt by Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) that seeks to make it more difficult for the Obama administration to undo this misguided rule change by the former administration."

"President Obama's directive sends a loud and clear signal that the former administration's political manipulation of science will no longer be tolerated," Holmes added. "There are a host of instances where flawed science was used in policy-making."

One example she cited is the development of the Bureau of Land Management's Western Oregon Plan Revisions where political interference from Bush administration officials kept wildlife and fish biologists entirely out of the loop in order to drastically change the protection scheme for 2.6 million acres of public forests, including eliminating protections for 364,000 acres of old growth forests in western Oregon.

Sierra Club Executive Director Carl Pope also praised the decision, saying it marked "the unequivocal return of science to the agencies that govern our fish, wildlife, and natural resources."

"These midnight regulations represented all the disdain for science and political trumping of expertise that characterized the Bush Administration's efforts to dismantle fundamental environmental laws," Pope stated. "Our wildlife are clearly in much better hands now. President Obama is bringing science back into decision-making."

Obama's move to restore ESA protections was also well received by West Coast recreational anglers, commercial fishermen and Indian Tribes that have suffered from the political manipulation practiced by the Bush and Schwarzenegger administrations to divert massive amounts of water out of the California Delta at the expense of Sacramento River chinook salmon, green sturgeon, delta smelt, the southern resident population of orcas and other imperiled species.

Craig Tucker, spokesman for the Karuk Tribe on the Klamath River, supported Obama's reversal of the Bush regulation change. "We don't want to see the ESA gutted," he stated.

He noted that "the ESA is necessary, but it is not sufficient just to protect endangered species by releasing a small amount of water down rivers. What we want is enough water to recover the fisheries to the point where we have a harvestable surplus of salmon and other fish."

"The ESA is not enough by itself," Tucker concluded. "It typically punishes the user groups not responsible for the problems - recreational, commercial and Tribal fishermen - rather than those who caused the fishery declines."

Also, whether the federal agencies will actually enforce the provisions of the ESA under the Obama administration is open to question. U.S. Bureau of Reclamation officials recently joined California Department of Water Resources (DWR) officials to ask the State Water Resources Control Board in an evidentiary hearing to temporarily suspend Delta outlow standards in an effort to pit one endangered species, Central Valley chinook salmon, over the imperiled delta smelt and longfin smelt.

The agency officials cynically claimed they were trying to "save" water in Central Valley reservoirs for salmon later this year - when it was their pumping of massive amounts of water to Westlands Water District, the Kern Water Bank and Southern California over the past two years that led to the extremely low conditions of Shasta, Oroville and Folsom lakes!

Mike Jackson, California Sportfishing Protection Alliance (CSPA) attorney, did a superb job of cross-examination while Bill Jennings, CSPA executive director, provided telling direct testimony during the hearing. Jennings said the water board had issued more than eight and a half times more water (245 million acre feet) than comprises the delta's average unimpaired flow (29 million acre feet). He emphasized that the export water rights are the most junior of all of the system's water rights and consequently, farmers using exported water from the Delta cannot rely on water every year.

In fact, Jerry Johns, deputy director of DWR, admitted during the hearing that his agency had already broken the water standards. "There probably were some days where we were not meeting the outflow standards," said Johns.

California's fisheries are in their greatest crisis ever. The Central Valley fall chinook population declined to a record low in 2008, with only 66,264 natural and hatchery fish returning to the system to spawn. "This is the lowest Sacramento River chinook return in history and surely will lead to almost certain closure of the recreational and commercial salmon fishery this year," said Jennings. "Given low upstream reservoir storage and expected high temperatures, next year may even be worse than this year."

However, he noted that the Delta fisheries are equally impacted. The Department of Fish and Game's 2008 fall mid-water trawl survey shows abundance indices for delta smelt, American shad, Sacramento splittail and threadfin shad to be the lowest in 41 years. The young of the year striped bass indices are the sixth lowest and longfin smelt indices are the fourth lowest on record.

"The mandated winter releases were designed to give these fisheries some relief, especially the Delta smelt, a fish listed on the endangered species list," said Jennings.

Obama's move to "restore science to its rightful place" is very welcome to those who endured 8 years of science being constantly manipulated to serve the interests of corporate agribusiness, the timber industry and oil and chemical companies.

However, if we are to save chinook salmon, delta smelt, green sturgeon, southern resident orcas and other imperiled species, the Bureau of Reclamation and federal fishery agencies must take a strong stance against the environmentally destructive policies of the Department of Water Resources under the Schwarzenegger administration. The sanctioning of the violation of Delta water standards by the Bureau of Reclamation and National Marine Fisheries Service cannot be tolerated if science is really going to be restored to its “rightful place” in federal decision making.