Long accustomed to using the Endangered Species Act as a club, some environmentalists who struck out trying to get the listing for Atlantic salmon in seven Maine rivers are feeling understandably bludgeoned.

The decision, announced under the State House dome Monday by Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, that salmon in the Sheepscot, Ducktrap, Pleasant, Machias, East Machias, Dennys and Narraguagus rivers would not be listed as endangered or threatened, that a state conservation plan would get a chance to work, was the right and rational choice.

Despite the hoopla, it was hardly a surprise — interior secretaries don’t usually travel to remote locations to get tarred and feathered. Especially with an entire congressional delegation looking on.

Nor was it a surprise that hoopla host Gov. Angus King, lead architect of the state plan, author of this little success story, promptly was labelled by the disappointed whine and brie crowd as — pardon the strong language — a cooperator.

You’d never know there’s an election just 11 months away. John Rensenbrink, an expert on strong challenges by virtue of grabbing nearly 4 percent of the vote in his 1996 run for the U.S. Senate, said the Greens will mount a strong challenge next year to a governor he called, for some puzzling reason, “some kind of wonderful Reagan.” Even though the seven rivers have nothing remotely resembling big business on their banks, the Sierra Club’s David Johnson blasted King for “not playing hardball with big business.”

But the most withering attack came from Jym St. Pierre of RESTORE: The North Woods, the group that first asked for the listing. King, St. Pierre charged, “wants `win-win’ situations that avoid confrontation and adversarial processes in the courts, where economics usually will be paramount.” Ouch.

The state conservation plan is better than an endangered species listing, but the feds did not give Maine a walk: a water-use plan must be developed for each river to ensure salmon habitat is not compromised by water withdrawals for agriculture; the practices of farmers and foresters will be closely monitored to reduce threats from pesticides and siltation; spawning habitat will be further protected; aquaculture will have to do much more to control escapees from salmon pens and to control disease; recreational fishing will face additional restrictions.

The state plan also is preferable to the listing because the roots of Maine’s salmon problem do not lie in Maine. Maine rivers are substantially cleaner than they were 20 years ago, yet the salmon runs are a mere fraction. Studies show that salmon fry do well in these seven rivers, mature to smolts and begin their two-year stint at sea. Then they don’t return.

And it’s not just Maine. Something is going on out at sea that has devastated wild salmon runs from here to the Arctic. It may be higher ocean temperatures. It may be a decline in other species that is making salmon more of a target for predators. It may be overharvesting by commercial fishermen in Labrador and Greenland. It may be a lot of things, but it’s not some guy chopping wood out in Cherryfield.

Even if the salmon never return, the salmon conservation plan will not be a total loss. Seven rivers, already pretty clean, will be cleaner. Federal and state governments get a little more practice in working together. Rural folk get a reprieve. And those who are happy only when they’re irate have new cause to be happily irate. Everybody wins.