From the beginning of the years-long campaign to list Atlantic salmon under the Endangered Species Act, advocates defended their case for federal protection with two major points: 1) the greatest threats to salmon recovery, agriculture irrigation and salmon aquaculture escapees and disease, are problems that can be solved with investment in better technology; 2) an ESA listing is not an economic disaster for the affected region, but, because federal dollars flow with it, an opportunity.

When the listing was imposed nearly a year ago, federal officials made it clear that the decision was made because the state had failed to address the agriculture and aquaculture issues. And don’t forget, they said – an ESA listing is not a federal takeover, but a partnership. For people and businesses in the salmon habitat watersheds of Washington and Hancock counties, life will go on. It may even, thanks to those federal dollars, get better.

So now comes the first major investment to advance the recovery of this valued fish. A public/private investment of up to $25 million is planned, but not to devise irrigation methods that preserve healthy levels in salmon rivers or to build stronger fish pens or to develop better tests for infectious salmon anemia. It’s to buy land.

Conservation easements, actually; some 40,000 acres along the banks of the Machias River, although some of that land will be purchased outright under the plan. It starts as these things usually do, with a federal grant – $2 million from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will leverage the rest of the money from state government, other federal sources, the Land for Maine’s Future fund and private donors. The landowners selling the easements would agree to preserve the shoreline in ways that would enhance the river’s salmon habitat.

Private donors are free to do what they wish with their money. The state and federal governments have an obligation to spend taxpayers’ money where it is most needed. That this enormous expenditure does not address in any way the two issues long identified as most urgent for salmon recovery suggests that the issues were misidentified, a possibility that throws the rationale for the entire listing into question. It certainly raises the possibility of a lack of focus.

All of the land involved is owned by International Paper; the purchase or easement would prohibit wood harvesting along to banks in order to preserve shade that keeps the water sufficiently cool for salmon and to prevent sedimentation. Although IP is credited with using good forestry practices and current state law prohibits such shoreline harvesting anyway, federal officials say the easement purchase is needed because laws can change.

But laws do not spontaneously generate and state laws cannot conflict with federal. Current state laws and the salmon restoration plan that accompanies the ESA listing provide double protection for the shade and from sedimentation. With a belt and suspenders already in place, the easement is an expensive redundancy. Property-rights activists who bitterly opposed this listing, calling it a pretext for the establishment of a national park, were dismissed as fear-mongers by proponents. With 40,000 acres as a start, and with the Nature Conservancy – the non-profit group negotiating the easements – saying it would like to see similar arrangements for the seven other rivers included in the listing – those activists suddenly look more prescient than wild-eyed.

Conservation easements are a valuable tool in circumstances in which development pressure collides with concerns about public access to areas of high ecological, recreational or scenic value – the proposed easements near Moosehead, for example. There is no such pressure in the part of Eastern Maine through which the Machias flows. These easements, and the others that may follow, fix a problem that does not exist.

The most troubling aspect of this easement proposal is that the sudden shift in priorities suggests confusion at best, deception at worst. According to the new water use plan for the watersheds of the Machias and two other Washington County rivers, the blueberry industry will need to spend $25 million to develop irrigation systems that do not harm salmon habitat in dry weather. The aquaculture industry is facing similar costs for stronger cages and nets to meet the ESA’s zero tolerance for escapees and for new fish-tagging requirements. Neither industry expects the public to pick up the tab, but if restoring wild salmon is in the public interest, both industries need and deserve some help. Buying conservation easements on land that already is doubly protected is no help at all.