Simply regulating development is a fishy way to save salmon

By GEORGE A. KRESOVICH Hillis Clark Martin & Peterson

The National Marine Fisheries Service listed the Puget Sound chinook salmon as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act in March 1999. Although few of us have experienced the impact of this listing so far, it will certainly affect many of our essential daily activities. For example, a recent newspaper article detailed how efforts by the Columbia Lutheran Home to obtain a wheelchair ramp at a curb cut have been delayed indefinitely by the ESA listing. Another recent article placed the needs of salmon at the center of the water-supply controversy between Seattle and King County.

The NMFS has announced that it will adopt what is known as a 4(d) Rule by June. It does not directly regulate any activities; rather, it specifies actions that can be taken without fear of potential liability. One part of the final rule is expected to be a set of regulatory measures that local governments in the Puget Sound basin will develop, adopt, administer and enforce. The framework for these regulations is being developed by a group of representatives of local governments called the Tri-County Forum.

Sadly, the focus of the Tri-County effort is fundamentally and fatally flawed - at least if we are serious about our commitment to restore salmon habitat. The problem is that the Tri-County framework focuses on the regulation of future development. This will not make any significant improvement to salmon habitat.

If we want to improve salmon habitat, we must focus instead on repairing the damage done by 150 years of development. We must acquire and restore habitat. We must take streams out of culverts and pipes and artificial drainage channels and restore them to a condition that will allow salmon to use them. We must retrofit our existing urban areas with stormwater detention and treatment facilities. These are the only ways we can achieve the result we say we are committed to.

We are all environmentalists

I take it as a given that the overwhelming majority of Puget Sound region residents favor restoring healthy salmon runs. For this region’s first immigrants, salmon have - literally - a totemic significance. For the rest of us, salmon are likewise an important symbol of what we value in Washington. If this is a litmus test to determine whether someone is an environmentalist, then we are all environmentalists.

There is both an opportunity and a danger in this overwhelming support for salmon. The opportunity is that we can capitalize on this support to undertake a program of habitat restoration that will provide for the survival of salmon forever. The danger is this overwhelming support will lead to a blind acceptance of whatever our local representatives negotiate with the NMFS and will stifle thoughtful criticism of that program.

More regulations not the panacea

The restoration at Bear Creek at Millenium Corpoate Park may serve as a model for how new development can co-exist with fish. But what about reducing the impact of existing development?

The foundation of the Tri-County program is the development of a comprehensive and stringent set of regulations that would be applied to new development. The primary reason for this is that it seems to be the cheapest way for government to address the problem. The public treasury bears only a small portion of the costs associated with regulation. The vast majority of these costs are initially borne by those who are regulated. (Ultimately, of course, those costs are paid by society as a whole.) From the standpoint of the public purse, a regulatory solution appears to be a bargain.

But regulation is not a bargain if it does not really address the problem. In that case, more regulation is simply a waste - a waste of time, money and effort. A moment’s consideration is all it takes to recognize that the regulation of future development will do nothing to address the existing problem.

The impacts of development in this region on salmon habitat began some 150 years ago when the first Europeans arrived and "settled" or "developed" the area. That development - the construction of roads, houses, factories, office buildings, stores, schools, churches, hospitals, and all the other types of structures and facilities we depend on daily - was done, until very recently, with virtually no consideration given to impacts on salmon habitat. It was only within the last few years that government has applied policies and regulations to development to mitigate the impacts.

We have some experience with the results of those new regulations and there is no doubt that further improvements to those regulations can be made. But even if we were to prohibit all new development in order to avoid any adverse impact on salmon habitat, it would not solve the problem. Everything we have done to damage salmon habitat would still exist.

Focus on the real problem

If our efforts are going to produce a meaningful result, we must focus on the real problem. The solution to this problem is simple and, unfortunately, at least from the standpoint of government, expensive: a massive program of public works designed to fix the existing damage to salmon habitat caused by past development. Such a program would far exceed the scope of the Forward Thrust program in the 1960s. It would require significant funding over a long period of time - 20 years or more, and the residents of this region would have to agree to pay. But there is simply no other way to make any meaningful improvement to salmon habitat in our urban areas.

The contrast between the Tri-County program and what is proposed here is easy to see. Imagine that Jim Ellis and the other civic leaders who developed and successfully campaigned for Forward Thrust had not proposed that we construct a sewer system to eliminate pollution from Lake Washington. Imagine instead that they had proposed the adoption of regulations to prohibit new development from discharging sewage into Lake Washington, while allowing existing homes and businesses to continue discharging sewage into the lake. Ask yourself what the condition of Lake Washington would be today if an earlier generation had chosen to address that problem in the same way that the Tri-County effort proposes to address the salmon problem today.

Local control is paramount

There is one other important point: We must retain local control over this problem. The ESA does not give the NMFS or any other federal agency the authority to regulate our activities directly. The NMFS has no experience or expertise in land-use regulations or in making the difficult choices that local governments continually face in balancing all the needs of our communities.

We must not surrender to a federal agency our responsibility to deal with our problem in a manner that works for our region.

To be sure solving this problem will require that all levels of government and all segments of our society act together. If we are serious about restoring salmon, we must not only be willing to do our part, we must also be willing and able to demand that others with responsibility do theirs. We cannot do that if we have passed the buck to NMFS.

The adoption of regulations on new development - even if it receives the benediction of the NMFS and the endorsement of local governments - ignores the problem we must solve. If "extinction is not an option," if we truly are committed to "the return of the kings," then we must demand that our local governments address the real problem in a way that will make a real difference to the continuing survival of salmon in Western Washington.