The Obama administration wants to expand critical habitat for imperiled bull trout in the Northwest.
In Southwest Washington, the proposal would strengthen protection of spawning streams above PacifiCorp dams on the North Fork of the Lewis River. A state fisheries biologist said he hopes the designation protects valuable habitat from logging and from water drawdowns brought on by development.
On the Lewis River, the proposal restores a critical habitat designation above Merwin Dam that the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service established in 2002. It was eliminated in 2005.
“All reservoirs were excluded,” said Joan Jewett, an spokeswoman in Portland. “It was basically a policy call at the time.”
The new proposal is part of the Obama administration’s continuing efforts to correct problems identified by a 2008 inspector general’s report that found improper political influence affected several Endangered Species Act decisions by the Bush administration.
On the Lewis, the designation could be especially important.
“Most of the bull trout in Southwest Washington are on the Gifford Pinchot National Forest or the Yakama Indian Reservation,” said Jim Byrne, area fish biologist for the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife in Vancouver.
He’s especially concerned about a Forest Service timber sale planned near an unnamed tributary of Pine Creek.
Damaging even one or two spawning areas can harm the species, he said, especially in an area where biologists located 20 redds — nests containing incubating eggs buried in gravel — in creek bottom two years ago. He’s informed Forest Service officials that he considers the area to be a sanctuary for bull trout spawning in the Lewis River basin.
“That’s the greatest concentration of bull trout redds that we’ve found in that basin,” Byrne said.
Logging planned
The Gifford Pinchot National Forest is planning to advertise two timber sales in the area in June. The projects will thin about 5,000 acres of forest while delivering about 10 million board feet of timber. Earl Ford, the forest’s natural resources staff officer, said the agency has already taken pains to minimize the risk of mud sloughing into streams from logging.
They’ll review those measures to make sure they’re adequate in light of the critical habitat proposal, he said.
“This is a nice watershed, and it has a sensitive ecosystem up there,” Ford said.
Development
Jessica Walz, conservation director for the environmental group Gifford Pinchot Task Force, noted that large swaths of private timber land had been in the process of being converted to home sites. Although critical habitat designations directly affect only federal actions, she said she hopes private developers will now think twice.
“It doesn’t actually make them do anything, but it does help in explaining to them the importance of the area,” Walz said. “Hopefully, it brings it back up on the radar for them.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
