Issues Impacting Fisheries
December 29 - Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) - S.2747
A recent national poll reports that a broad cross-section of the American public overwhelmingly supports preserving natural areas and open space. In addition, 81 percent of the public believes the continuance of a dedicated funding stream from federal oil and gas leasing should be used to fund the Land and Water Conservation Fund.
Since the above aims will ultimately protect endangered fisheries, the Northwest Steelheaders recently supported and signed onto with over 40 groups from Oregon letters urging Senators Merkley and Wyden to co-sponsor the Land and Water Reauthorization and Funding Act (S.2747), which will provide full and dedicated funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) at the authorized level of $900 million annually. LWCF has been chronically underfunded and in the past eight years funding has steadily declined, with a low of $155 million in 2008. This Bill offers our best opportunity to ensure that $900 million is guaranteed annually for LWCF for critical federal investments in America’s and Oregon’s natural, cultural, and recreational heritage. This translates to more money for Oregon’s parks, trails, refuges, river corridors, and forests.
December 23 - River Rights Senate Bill 844
Thank you for the
opportunity to propose changes to the River
Rights Senate Bill 844 that was presented
September 30th. Text that was already
crossed out has been removed for clarity.
Please do not be alarmed by the amount of red
in the attachment. Most of the changes
are just cleanup that would likely take place
through legislative council anyway. This
is made clear in the comments shown on the
attachment.
The main substantive
changes are to more closely align the bill with
the AG’s opinion.
Specifically:
•
The term “recreational” use should be “public
use” as defined in the AG’s
opinion;
•
The definitions of class 1 & 2 waterways
should be removed because the AG’s opinion
defines “floatable waterways” in a way that
transcends the class definitions;
and
•
The need for additional and tighter definition
of some terms.
We have
reviewed this legislation with other interested
conservation and user groups. I believe
the attached is essentially the consensus of
these groups at this point. There is also
agreement with this approach splitting the
issue of river rights and the issue of
ownership of beds and banks. It is
generally agreed these both need to be dealt
with but can be done separately.
Other concerns commonly held is
the fear that this bill becoming law will be
subjected to a court challenge as a “taking”
under measure 37 because it will be felt that
this law would add a public easement to private
property, particularly to floatable waters that
would not meet the navigability test.
Some feel there is not enough time in the
interim session to address such issues.
The ANWS believes it is inappropriate for us to
tell legislative council whether they have time
to take such actions as investigating this
relative to existing challenges to the Montana
river rights law vs. Article 1, section 18 of
the Oregon Constitution and the Oregon Supreme
Court 1909 ruling on public use. It is
our hope we can all move to pass good
legislation in 2010.
Thank you
once again for allowing the ANWS to comment on
this legislation. We look forward to
continuing this effort with you and the
legislature to our common goal of codifying the
AG’s opinion.
Norman E. Ritchie,
P.E.
Government Affairs
Director
Association of Northwest
Steelheaders
October 18 - Will We Continue to Protect Salmon? Commentary by Liz Hamilton and Mark Heckert For The Daily News
"One thing every good angler knows is that our waters are all connected. The small streams and wetlands higher up in a watershed feed into larger lakes and rivers, which eventually connect to our coastal waters.
Salmon depend on the health of this entire system - from headwaters to estuaries - to support their complex life cycles. Wild salmon are the energy that fuels both the natural cycle and our local economy. When we talk about maintaining the survival of our precious wild salmon, we are talking about the survival of an inter-connected system that defines the natural heritage of the Pacific Northwest. Luckily Congress understood these connections in 1972 when it enacted the Clean Water Act to not only protect our major rivers and lakes, but also the headwaters so critical to water quality and our five native salmon species. However, these protections were removed during the Bush Administration, and it is now up to Congress to create a responsible solution.
The Clean Water Act was enacted to "restore and maintain the chemical, physical and biological integrity of our nation's waters. Congress recognized that the water quality of large rivers and lakes is dependent on the health of the waters that feed them and so extended Clean Water Act protections to small creeks and wetlands. Thus, the Clean Water Act has been incredibly successful in protecting critical habitat and earned the passionate support of hunters and anglers whose sport relies upon the habitat this legislation protects.
But now the broad powers that made the Clean Water Act so effective are slowly disintegrating, and the habitat most critical to the long-term vitality of our fisheries in Washington State could be severely threatened.
Recent Supreme Court rulings could open almost 60 percent of the nation's streams and more than 20 million acres of wetlands to potential development, pollution and destruction. In Washington State, EPA estimates that 41 percent to 54 percent of our headwater streams are currently without Clean Water Act protections.
Unfortunately, these same water bodies play an essential, irreplaceable role in filtering pollutants, absorbing floodwaters and providing critical salmon spawning habitat in Puget Sound and throughout the Pacific Northwest. In view of this fact, it's not surprising that our state joined more than 30 states in asking the Supreme Court to uphold broad legal protections for small tributaries and their adjacent wetlands.
Congress must enact the strongest bill possible to restore Clean Water Act protections to streams and wetlands essential to the health of our wildlife and the people of Washington. In this effort, we are fortunate that Washington state congressional Reps. Brian Baird and Rick Larsen, members of the powerful House Transportation and Infrastructure committee, will be key in deciding the future of this bill. We urge our delegation to support and pass a bill that does not surrender the progress we have made in cleaning up the nation's waters and ensuring the long-term viability of our region's iconic and economically imperative salmon runs.
The fate of our wild salmon runs, which truly define the Pacific Northwest, are hanging in the balance. Congress should act quickly to reaffirm the historic scope of the Clean Water Act."
Liz Hamilton is executive director of the Northwest Sportfishing Industry Association. Mark Heckert is regional board director of National Wildlife Federation.
October 12 -
NOAA Enviromental Education
Bill - On Thursday, September
24th, Congresswoman Lois Capps (D-CA)
introduced H.R. 3644, a bill to authorize key
environmental education programs at the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
(NOAA). The full name of the bill is:
Bay-Watershed Education and Training (B-WET)
Regional Program and National Environmental
Literacy Grant Program Act.
Total funding for these programs
would be authorized at $235 million over 5
years, a significant boost from current funding
levels. Over the past several years, NOAA
B-WET and Environmental Literacy Grants
programs have made great strides in advancing
ocean, atmospheric, and environmental literacy
in the United States. With a focus on
kids from grades K-12, B-WET and Environmental
Literacy Grants have promoted public awareness
and appreciation of the economic, social, and
environmental benefits of coastal
watersheds. They have also emphasized
stewardship of critical coastal and marine
resources, including addressing the impact of
climate change on those resources.
October 8 - U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Draft Climate Change Strategic Plan - This plan is available for public review and comment. Commitments identified in the Plan are intended to guide the agency's actions over the next several years and thus, enabling the Service to take an appropriate role in the conservation community to address the unprecedented challenges of a changing climate system. The Draft Plan can be found at http://www.fws.gov/home/climatechange/.
October 6 - U.S. Fish and Wildlife Hires Science Leader for Climate Change Initiative - Longtime wildlife biologist and science leader Carol Schuler has been named Assistant Regional Director for Climate Change for the Pacific Region of the Service. Currently director of the U.S. Geological Survey's Forest and Rangeland Ecosystem Science Center in Corvallis, Oregon, Schuler will lead the regional implementation of the Service's efforts on meeting the threats of global climate change on natural resources.
September 20 - Board of Forestry Recent action: The BOF met in Silverton, Oregon on September 9, and decided to move forward to weaken the conservation commitments in the forest management plans for the Tillamook and Clatsop State Forests. In addition, the Salmon Anchor Habitat strategy will be largely abandoned.
The Northwest Steelheaders, Native Fish Society, Sierra Club, Pacific Rivers Council, Oregon Wildlife Federation, Trout Unlimited, and Wild Salmon Center all gave comments.
The Association opposed the proposed plan changes as detrimental to the conservation facet of forest management, especially because of the additional risks to fish habitat presented by increased clear cutting, increased road construction, and reduction of protections within Salmon Anchor Habitats.
September 15 - Status of Climate Change Federal Legislation: -The Association is part of a coalition of nearly 600 conservation, outdoor and recreation groups who delivered a letter to U.S. Senators on September 15 asking for legislation that reduces greenhouse gas emissions and dedicates 5 percent of the total allowance value to federal, state and tribal agencies to take actions needed to conserve natural resources. Although estimates remain difficult, 5 percent of allowances could be worth anywhere from $3 billion to $5 billion annually.
On a separate but related matter, after
hinting that the Senate might not take up
climate legislation until next year, Senate
Majority Leader Reid (D-NV) told reporters,
"We've always talked about doing climate after
health care." He affirmed, "We will do climate
as quickly as we can." Senate Environment and
Public Works Chairwoman Barbara Boxer (D-CA)
and Foreign Relations Chairman John Kerry
(D-MA) are still planning to introduce the core
pieces of a climate bill before the end of the
September, with plans to hold markups in
October.