Kimberly M. Brown
Chris May
Face of Salmon
January 18, 1999

WSSRS, Habitat Section: Pros and Cons

Changes in Agricultural Practices to Improve Fish Habitat

Pros:

• Voluntary program that provides incentives for participation which means less of a need for enforcement.
• Calls for adaptive management
• Benchmarks used for measurement of success.

Cons:

• Does not say how it will inform the agricultural society about the help/assistance they will receive if they voluntarily participate.

Forests and Fish: Timber, Fish and Wildlife

Pros:

• The 120-day emergency rule is helpful in that it provides greater protection near fish-bearing stream.
• Old roads are to be improved and new roads are to be built with higher standards.

Cons:

• 120-day emergency rule is not enough – it needs to be much longer than this to provide adequate protection of the habitat supportive of salmonids.
• It says riparian areas will be protected by buffers. How? What kind of buffers? What is the width of those buffers?
• 50 foot "no touch" zone is not adequate enough to provide LWD, proper shade, bank stability, or temperature and sediment control.

Linking Land Use Decisions and Salmon Recovery

Pros:

• Has really good objectives to support the goal of protecting water quality and physical habitat.
• Counties and cities are to review development plans every five years and amend them to conform with GMA and SMA.
• Providing counties and cities with reasons why to complete revisions to plans before required.
• Has recourse for those that do not comply – not eligible to receive certain protections granted by the ESA.

Cons:

• I could not see any cons.

Managing Urban Stormwater to protect streams

Pros:

• Talks about existing laws such as the GMA, SMA, PSWQMP, etc. and says why they are not effective enough – why they are not good enough.
• Good objectives – develop new ways to prevent urban stormwater impacts on salmon habitat.
• Strengthening of permit requirements and enforcement.

Cons:

• If no funding can be found for this, it will be discontinued.

Ensuring Adequate Water in Streams for Fish

Pros:

• Local watershed solutions.
• Healthier watersheds will receive higher priority.

Cons:

• Doesn’t say how or who is going to enforce this.
• Who is going to be doing the analysis of the watersheds in determining priority?
• Does this include all industry, agriculture, cities, counties, etc.? It does not say who this is targeted to.

Clean Water for Fish: Integrating key tools

Pros:

• Provides a means for landowners/agencies to know how to comply with both the CWA and ESA.
• Good collaboration among DOE, DFW, DNR, NMFS, USFWS, and EPA.
• Good plan for determining who is responsible for monitoring progress and even has the EPA as the default.

Cons:

• From reading this section, it is not really clear to me what this section plans to do. Basically, all I get out of it is that these agencies will be working together.

Fish Passage Barriers: Providing access to habitat

Pros:

• Good examples of barriers.
• Funding of barrier correction on a priority basis.
• Use of volunteer-based organizations

Cons:

• I did not see anything in this section that addressed the modification of future culverts, for example, that will help to prevent fish blockage.
• I did not see anything about changing the rules or changing the structure requirements of culverts.
• I did not see anything that talked about alternatives to culverts.