What can you and I do to help salmon?

By Tom Gentle

Oregonians whose livesand livelihoods are directly affected by the salmon decline know the commitments they are being asked to make. But what about the rest of us? What can we do as individuals to stem the decline and start salmon back on the road to recovery?

"That's a question that recognizes this is not an issue that affects one or two sectors of our state, such as agriculture or timber. It affects people in downtown Portland, the suburbs, the cities of the Willamette Valley. And it reflects the challenge of how we live in the 21st century and whether or not there is room for wild salmon in our civilization," said Ken Bierly, program manager of the Governor's Watershed Enhancement Board.

It's also a question that Jim Martin, an assistant director of the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife and a developer of the Oregon Plan, has wrestled with for a long time. When pressed for an answer, he points to the bottle bill and the state's public beaches and how they have become ingrained in our daily lives. He would like people to think about salmon in the same way. "We want to make salmon recovery a permanent part of the public consciousness so it will not disappear--just like we can't get rid of the bottle bill or public beaches," he said.

A big part of that "public consciousness" involves educating the public about ways to behave that will help rather than harm salmon. "All of us make hundreds of choices in our daily lives. Taken separately, they don't mean much. But all those little decisions have a cumulative effect. That is, they add up, especially in the Willamette Valley where three-fourths of Oregon's population lives," said Louise Solliday, of the Governor's Office for Natural Resources. "We want people to make choices that will benefit fish and water quality."

The Governor's Office for Natural Resources is publishing a series of "Ten ways people can help restore clean water and salmon." There are lists for homeowners, gardeners, boaters, hikers and bikers as well as more specific ones for home builders, landscapers, owners of forest land and so on.

Urban landowners are urged to think about ways to reduce contamination of storm water with oil and household chemicals, and to conserve water. In semi-rural and rural areas, the emphasis is on activities that affect potential sediment runoff as well as chemical contamination and water conservation.

At first glance, many of the suggestions appear to be simple common sense. "Don't dump oil or chemicals down storm drains." "Avoid overuse of fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides." "When planting a garden, seek landscaping advice to help prevent erosion."

These are voluntary things that people can do. They are some of the ways we can change how we live in the modern world and still maintain habitat for anadromous [ocean going] fish, according to Bierly.

A number of natural resource protection laws also guide human activities in the urban and suburban areas. The federal Clean Water Act requires the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality to develop water quality standards to protect drinking water, cold water fisheries, industrial water supply, recreation and agricultural uses. The state must monitor water quality and ensure the standards are being met.

Section 303(d) of the Clean Water Act requires each state to develop a list of water bodies that do not meet standards and to submit an updated list to the Environmental Protection Agency every two years.

The Oregon Healthy Streams Partnership, approved and funded by the 1997 Oregon legislature, uses existing regulations under the Oregon Agriculture, Forestry and Environmental Quality departments to address water bodies that currently do not meet water quality standards.

In addition to laws, state officials are searching for ways to provide incentives to farmers and forest landowners to carry out projects for the benefit of salmon. "While we want landowners to do things that will help salmon, we don't want them to be hurt financially," Bierly said.

The Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program is one example of a program that provides an incentive to farmers. An offshoot of the federal Conservation Reserve Program, it will pay farmers to establish buffers along streams rather than planting crops to the water's edge. For forest landowners, the Stewardship Incentive Program provides up to 75 percent reimbursement for instream and riparian improvement projects.

But the cost of many changes to benefit salmon will have to be borne by all Oregonians. Here are some of the commitments we will be asked to make in order to restore salmon:

• Pay more for treatment of stormwater and waste water.
  
• Pay more for water (for example, pumping, water treatment, alternative sources).
  
• Pay more for electricity as we change the flow of water downriver to take fish into account.
  
• Restrict growth.
  
• Restrict development during certain times of year and in certain places.
  
• Redirect growth by requiring setbacks from floodplains; in some areas put development in foothills rather than flatlands to improve flood management by creating fewer hard surfaces for runoff.

There's another commitment that people will be asked to make: a commitment of time to become involved in local government issues relating to salmon. Perhaps the greatest long term challenge to salmon is the constantly growing human population in Oregon and the development it brings. Because local governments have a primary responsibility in determining where and how growth is accommodated, they will play a crucial role in salmon recovery.

Wide public participation is the key to successful management of growth, according to Helen Berg, mayor of Corvallis. "A lot of people complain that local governments spend too much time debating before they take action. But from my point of view, having a large segment of the public involved in public issues leads to broad-based decisions that don't tend to change much over the years. Public involvement gets us away from short-term thinking and short-term decisions," Berg said.

While people are being asked to make some major commitments for the sake of salmon, the fish are not the only ones to benefit. People benefit, too, by taking actions that will ensure an adequate supply of clean water at a time when many areas of the country face growing uncertainties about water.

When it comes to dealing with society at large, officials involved in salmon recovery efforts are using a carrot and stick approach. But in interviews, it was obvious they prefer to emphasize the carrot rather than the stick.

People in the Willamette Valley were quick to pick up on household recycling, these officials say. Now the question is whether or not people will embrace a salmon ethic with the same willing commitment.

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