This announcement should come as no surprise.  Northwest residents have long known that our salmon runs were declining, due to a complex combination of causes: overharvesting, habit destruction, and hydroelectric power.

Even if salmon disappear forever from our Northwest rivers, we will always be able to enjoy them at our backyard barbecues.  In fact, much of the salmon we currently eat is imported from Chile or Norway.  There are also salmon farms on both coasts of the United States that raise salmon for food.

Protecting the salmon is about more than preserving dinner.  First of all, salmon have traditionally been an important economic resource for the Northwest.  Commercial fishing, which has long been a major industry of Washington state, suffers when salmon harvests decline.  Furthermore, the salmon bring in thousands of tourists– and their wallets– who enjoy sport fishing.  

Second, the salmon serve as an important indicator of our region’s environmental health.  If we destroy our watersheds to the point where salmon cannot survive, our ecosystem is in big trouble.  Let me give you an example.  Picture a river in a valley between two tree-covered hills.  If we clear-cut the trees on those slopes, the rain will quickly slide down the hills right into that river.  This drastically affects salmon in two ways.  The river will have more silt and particles in it, and the flow of the river will increase, washing away salmon eggs.

In a recent trip to the Snoqualmie National Forest, I saw this exact situation.  The clear-cutting and the damage to the river did not just affect the salmon; it also affected the surrounding communities.  When the river is dirtied and the flow increased, our drinking water is unclean and our flood risk heightened.

So you see, when the salmon are having trouble surviving in our rivers, it usually signals bad things for the entire region.

The announcement by the National Marine Fisheries Service was just a proposed listing, not a formal one.  We have one year before a formal listing occurs, and we need to take full advantage of that year.

Local leaders, businesses, and citizens must come together and devise a comprehensive salmon recovery plan.  If we don’t, the courts will do it for us.
 

A salmon recovery plan will not be without costs to all of us.  We will have to improve the water quality of our rivers, re-evaluate the necessity of all the dams in the region, examine our current commercial and sport fishing limits for all parties, and restrict growth in critical salmon habitat areas.  However, a balanced and comprehensive plan will spread the costs and minimize the pain.

This is a region-wide problem and no one entity should bear a disproportionate share of the burden.  I strongly believe that as your representative, it is my job to ensure that we have a balanced approach that recovers our salmon runs without choking our economy.

Throughout the next year, there will be public meetings around the region to solicit people’s opinions and concerns about any proposed plan.  I urge you to involve yourself in this process and make your voice heard.