Oregon recovery plan tries to give everyone a role

By Tom Gentle

In simple terms, the Oregon Plan for Salmon and Watersheds is an organized approach to improving watershed health and reversing the decline of native salmon in Oregon's rivers, lakes and coastal waters. It's also a proactive attempt to meet the requirements of the Endangered Species Act and other federal and state laws. In 1995, Gov. Kitzhaber asked various state agencies to develop a salmon recovery plan for coastal coho salmon. This plan, completed in 1996, was called the Oregon Coastal Salmon Restoration Initiative. The 1997 Oregon legislature supported the plan with legislation and funding. Since then, a plan for steelhead in the lower Columbia River and along the coast has been added and a plan for the Willamette Valley is now underway. This entire planning effort is now referred to as the Oregon Plan.

Oregon legislators Lynn Lundquist, left, and Brady Adams, center, and Gov. John Kitzhaber publicly celebrate agreement on a salmon and watershed recovery plan.

So you can say the Oregon Plan is an umbrella for a number of recovery efforts involving different species of salmon--coho, steelhead, chinook--and different rivers and geographic locations of each species. Sometimes these recovery efforts are referred to as the Oregon Plan and sometimes by their more specific titles.

This is not the first attempt to save the salmon. Salmon recovery efforts in Oregon go back more than 125 years. What makes the Oregon Plan different? Earlier recovery plans tended to focus on individual parts of the problem, according to Jay Nicholas, technical advisor to Gov. Kitzhaber and principal writer of the Oregon Plan.

For example, hatcheries were intended to increase the number of salmon. Fishing regulations were aimed at limiting the harvest so more salmon could return to spawn. Or a particular industry, such as logging, was singled out and asked to make changes to help restore fish habitat. But generally these efforts were carried out as if they had no connection to one another even though their goals were similar.

"In the Oregon Plan, we acknowledge that single track approaches will not get the job done. Everyone who has a role--government agencies, city dwellers, farmers, foresters, fishermen, environmental interests--needs to contribute to a solution," Nicholas said.

The Oregon Plan is also unique in its use of both regulatory and voluntary approaches, or what Nicholas calls "top down and bottom up." Fishing regulations, for instance, come from the top down to everyone who catches fish. You disobey them at your peril. On the other hand, decisions to conduct stream improvement projects on streams passing through private land are purely voluntary. You do them because you want to.

The voluntary element of the Oregon Plan is carried out through watershed councils--soil and water conservation districts and groups of local citizens who develop plans and carry out improvement projects. The voluntary element is considered crucial because a high percentage of salmon habitat occurs on private land and successful recovery efforts will require cooperation with private landowners.

Under the Endangered Species Act, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), a federal agency, is authorized to determine if Oregon's coastal coho are endangered or threatened. Once such a determination is made--called a "listing"--legal steps are set in motion that will affect the manner in which restoration occurs.

In 1997, NMFS signed a Memorandum of Agreement with the State of Oregon that said, in effect, if the state carried out the Oregon Plan, NMFS would not invoke the Endangered Species Act by listing coastal coho as threatened. "The acceptance of the Oregon Plan by NMFS reflects a whole new approach by the federal government," said Brian Gorman, NMFS spokesman in Seattle. "It's a recognition that the federal government can't recover salmon alone. It has to be done with broad support from state, county and local governments and local property owners. Recovery won't be successful without strong local support."

Environmental groups challenged the agreement in court. Chief among their complaints: the Oregon Plan places too much emphasis on voluntary efforts that could start out well but not be carried through if not compelled to do so by law.

In June 1998, a federal magistrate ruled that the law did not allow the fisheries service to avoid listing the coho as threatened in order to give the Oregon Plan a chance to work. In August, NMFS announced it would issue such a listing.

Supporters of the listing say it will create greater support for recovery efforts because it shows the importance of taking immediate action. Those opposed to the listing, including Gov. Kitzhaber, say the Endangered Species Act focuses on preventing further harm to coastal coho rather than on improving coho habitat.

Thus, the federal law can prevent private landowners from doing anything that harms the coho, but it cannot require them, for example, to carry out restoration projects such as streamside fencing.

"We at NMFS know we can't force people to do things. That's why we support the Oregon Plan. It encourages people to do positive things rather than the Endangered Species Act approach that tells people what they can't do," Gorman said.

Moreover, landowners may be reluctant to make improvements for fear of unintentionally harming the fish, which violates the Endangered Species Act and can result in a $25,000 fine and a year in jail. However, an earlier listing for coho on the southern Oregon coast did not slow restoration efforts there, according to Paul Heikkila, OSU Extension Sea Grant agent.

"People involved in stream restoration activities hoped there wouldn't be a listing. But once it happened, the attitude was to keep working at making streams better for salmon," Heikkila said.

Also on the down side, the listing will put an end to a special timber tax aimed at helping finance salmon recovery activities.

In spite of the disagreement on the merits of applying the Endangered Species Act to coastal coho, almost everyone appears to agree that the Oregon Plan holds the key to salmon restoration efforts. Spokesmen for timber, agriculture and environmental groups voiced continued support for it following the listing.

The Oregon Plan will continue to be in the news as both the state and the federal government have appealed the federal court ruling. Whatever the outcome, the Oregon Plan will still be the basic building block of salmon recovery.

There is an increasing recognition that salmon recovery is a regional problem. The federal response is already regional as evidenced in the Northwest Forest Plan and the Interior Columbia Basin Salmon Plan. In addition, salmon recovery plans with elements similar to those found in Oregon's plan are underway in California and Washington.

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