Proposal for listing

Twenty-two months is not nearly long enough to determine whether Maine’s plan to revive its Atlantic salmon population is working. But it is enough time to see if the state is putting in the sort of effort that would lead to improvements. The decision this week by Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt to proceed with a proposed listing for the salmon as an endangered species is a clear conclusion that the federal government views Maine’s effort as inadequate. They aren’t alone.

Even acknowledging that many of the problems that are eradicating the stocks of wild Atlantic salmon are out in the ocean, as Secretary Babbitt did recently, the state still had an obligation to do everything within its power to help the species’ survival in Maine waters.

It is true that Maine has lately made progress on many of the major areas of its plan. But the fact that the Maine Atlantic Salmon Commission, the body charged with administering the restoration effort, held its first meeting just last month, more than a year and a half after the plan went into effect; that the placement of weirs to capture escaped farmed salmon in the affected rivers still has yet to be settled; that Maine has not yet solved the question of water usage from these rivers by industry says progress has not been fast enough.

Gov. Angus King’s point that the salmon under protection — having come from hatcheries for generation upon generation — are not truly wild reiterates an interesting argument that deserves to be settled with biological evidence. But it is an argument that did not prevent the proposed listing in the first place and it does not relieve Maine of its duty to energetically advance a comprehensive program for restoration.

A review of Maine’s program this summer by U.S. Fish and Wildlife spelled out the shortcomings: “Atlantic salmon in the Gulf of Maine … exhibit critically low spawner abundance, poor marine survival, and are confronted with the increased presence of threats which have been documented to negatively impact salmon stocks, including artificially reduced water levels, diseases and parasites, recreational and commercial fisheries, sedimentation, and genetic intrusion by commercially raised Atlantic salmon (particularly non-North American strains).”

That’s the technical conclusion; the legal and political ones might be more important and far murkier. First, the legal. By proceeding with a proposed listing, federal officials hope to put on hold the lawsuits brought by conservation and sport fishing groups demanding that the salmon be protected through the Endangered Species Act. These are lawsuits the government easily could lose and thereby lose control of the issue.

However, the groups, which are demanding an immediate emergency listing and not one after the standard 12 to 15 months, seem entirely unsatisfied by the announcment. That is, the only legal ground Secretary Babbitt may have gained this week is that the federal government would now be relieved of arguing in court against the conclusions in its own status report and could now parse merely the immediacy of the extinction threat.

Politically, the proposal for listing helps Vice President Al Gore’s ability to win back some of the environmentalists he has been losing to his presidential primary opponent, Bill Bradley. There is no evidence that the vice president had anything to do with the decision by Secretary Babbitt, but he clearly did not want to be in an administration opposing environmentalists at the same time he is courting their votes. The proposal allows the federal government to back away from relying solely on a state plan, a process many environmentalists welcome with the disdain they usually reserve for oil spills.

Forestry and blueberry production are likely to be affected by a listing, but the business that is certain to be the focus of the proposal is aquaculture. It would be forced to address issues such as the scale of operation, origin of its stock and disease management. The plan has already advanced ideas on improvements to the fish pens to reduce the number of escapees, but the state very likely will need to provide financial support to help this industry, which currently exists on a narrow profit margin.

The proposal by Secretary Babbitt wasn’t a complete surprise, but its timing — the governor found out about it after the press did — and the feds’ earlier decision to reject Maine as an intervenor in the lawsuits suggest the cooperative spirit with which the plan started has been sorely tested. That’s a serious loss, because no matter what the federal government eventually decides, it will need support from the people of Maine to make the salmon recovery work.