Federal Fish Policies Hooked on Feelings?

0 Comments | Environmental Insider News, Feb 6, 2002

While admitting there could be new information by the time the final report is issued next spring, committee chair William M. Lewis, Jr., of the University of Colorado, said that, "The available scientific evidence does not support current proposals to change water levels or river flows to promote the welfare of the fish currently at risk." The committee found, first, that there is no clear connection between water levels in Upper Klamath Lake and conditions adverse to suckers. No fish kills in the lake have ever been linked to years of low water levels; instead, the highest recorded INCREASE in adult suckers occurred in a low-water-level year.

The panel also found no scientific justification for increased minimum flows in the Klamath River to protect coho salmon - water which in dry years would have to come from reservoirs. Even worse, sending the warmer reservoir water to the river could devastate the salmon, who are already barely tolerating the temperature in existing river water. On the other hand, the USBR recommendation that would allow lake levels to drop below mean minimum levels also had no scientific foundation, the committee found.

Secretary Norton has ordered agency heads - including newly sworn in USFWS Director Steve Williams - to evaluate the NSF/NRC critique, and indicated that changes may soon be announced in the way the Klamath Basin's water is allocated. Yet with typical CYA bravado, one USFWS underling told reporters that, "They didn't say the science proves we were wrong; they just said there wasn't enough science to prove us right." Nor, it now appears, did the USFWS.

Intuition, it has been virtually admitted, has been at the bottom of many federal and state environmental policy decisions in the Northwest (and elsewhere in the U.S.?) in recent years. At least, that's the perception of the American Land Rights Association. Executive Director Chuck Cushman, cheering the NAS/NSF report, noted, "You can't trust the [government] science, because you can't trust the [government] scientists. They've got a biased point of view, and there is no way for people to fight back." But should the rules be changed to require sound science, rather than intuition alone, to undergird federal policy, who knows?