Endangered Species Act listings mean hardships for most of Washington

The listing of a wild fish or animal species under the federal Endangered Species Act is a very serious action for the businesses and landowners -- and even ordinary citizens -- of a state.

Remember the 1990 listing of the northern spotted owl which brought major changes to the timber industry in Washington?

But the spotted owl listing affected chiefly remote, old-growth forest portions of the state and the logging communities that depended upon them.

The probability that the listing of several salmon and steelhead species this year could mean the Puget Sound, Cascades, southwestern and much of the agricultural parts of eastern Washington could feel serious economic consequences. That's about two-thirds of the state. The National Marine Fisheries Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service can make listing decisions that would affect state and local land use, agriculture, forestry and development practices. Only portions of the Olympic Peninsula, the Lake Chelan area and portions of the Columbia Basin likely will be spared the economic and social disruptions.

Here are examples of the economic consequences of recent ESA listings in other states:

• The removal of irrigation water from California's Sacramento River has been severely restricted to protect winter chinook listed as "endangered" in 1994. Many irrigation contracts for water were declared invalid.

• Local governments, businesses and private landowners in Colorado have had to pay more than $6 million in a recovery effort for two minnow species that so far has cost $41 million. Landowners, local governments and businesses are expected to pay much more of the eight-year, $104 million effort.

• The National Marine Fisheries Service this month (March 1997) is expected to recommend denial of a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers permit request to install a pump near Umatilla, Ore. to withdraw Columbia River water for irrigation. NMFS is expected to argue the water withdrawals would further jeopardize Snake River sockeye and spring chinook salmon.

They are: lower Columbia River steelhead (threatened); middle Columbia River steelhead (candidate); upper Columbia River steelhead (endangered); Snake River steelhead (threatened); southwest Washington coastal coho (threatened); Hood Canal/Strait of Juan de Fuca summer chum (threatened); lower Columbia River chum (endangered); Lake Ozette sockeye (threatened); Puget Sound chinook (threatened); upper Columbia River spring-run chinook (threatened); lower Columbia River cutthroat (threatened) and bull trout (endangered).

Listings for steelhead, chinook and chum could begin as early as this fall, and a bull trout listing may occur at any time. The causes for these possible listings include excessive harvests, poor hatchery practices, poor ocean conditions and habitat degradation and destruction.