Saving Seafood

New Puget Sound Steelhead Plan Charts Course for Recovery

December 31, 2019 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

Some 8,000 aging culverts under roads and driveways around Puget Sound block threatened Puget Sound steelhead from reaching high headwaters streams where they historically spawned, forming a major obstacle to the species’ recovery.

A new recovery plan developed under the Endangered Species Act for Puget Sound steelhead addresses these impassable culverts and other threats. It provides a roadmap to help the native fish recover into self-sustaining populations and resume their prominence in Puget Sound. NOAA Fisheries developed the plan with help and support from many partners.

Nearly 1 million wild adult steelhead historically returned to Puget Sound rivers but fewer than 5 to 10 percent of that return today. Puget Sound steelhead were designated as threatened in 2007, bringing them under the protection of the Endangered Species Act.

“Puget Sound steelhead are remarkably resilient, but they have been pushed to the limit by decades of habitat loss, and adverse marine conditions,” said Elizabeth Babcock, North Puget Sound Branch Chief in NOAA Fisheries’ West Coast Region. “Based on the best available science, this plan is a solid and comprehensive blueprint for recovery.”

Recovering the steelhead that are highly valued by Northwest tribes, prized by fishermen, and preyed upon by endangered killer whales would provide ecological, cultural, and economic benefits.

Read the full release here

Putting Endangered Species on the Map

December 19, 2019 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

In November, we launched Version 2.0 of the Section 7 Mapper, a new mapping tool that shows where threatened and endangered species are in New England and Mid-Atlantic waters. This tool helps people planning activities in our waters to understand where endangered marine species are and at what times of year.

Why did we build this tool?

Busy Oceans and Coasts

Coastal areas are humming with action. Ports, docks, piers, moorings, and marinas dot our shores and bays. Bridges span our rivers, barges sail up rivers to inland ports, and undersea cables criss-cross the ocean bottom. Vessels—ranging from enormous container ships and cruise ships to small recreational fishing boats and jet-skis—traverse our coastal and offshore waters daily.

People are constantly building structures, dredging shallow areas, restoring rivers and coastal habitats, replenishing beaches, and researching new sources of energy.

Underneath, around, and in between all these activities swim threatened and endangered fish, sea turtles, and marine mammals that live, feed, and grow there.

Projects Change Habitat

Human activities add noise, sediment, pollutants, and pressure to ocean habitats. They also displace these animals from spaces they use for breeding, egg-laying, nurseries, feeding, and other activities.

The Endangered Species Act (ESA) requires federal agencies, like the Army Corps of Engineers, Federal Highway Administration, Environmental Protection Agency, the Navy, and even other parts of NOAA, to consult with NOAA Fisheries on projects or activities they are planning, funding, or permitting that may affect a threatened or endangered marine species or its critical habitat. This is called a “Section 7 Consultation.”

Read the full release here

Gillnet Fishing: Closed Area I and Nantucket Lightship Closure Areas

November 4, 2019 — On October 28, 2019, Federal District Court Judge James E. Boasberg issued an Order and Opinion on a lawsuit challenging a portion of the New England Fishery Management Council’s Omnibus Essential Fish Habitat Amendment 2.

The Order prohibits NOAA Fisheries from allowing gillnet fishing in the former Nantucket Lightship Groundfish and the Closed Area I Groundfish Closure Areas, until such time as NOAA Fisheries has fully complied with requirements of the Endangered Species Act and the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, consistent with the Opinion.

NOAA Fisheries is studying the Opinion and will put regulations in place as soon as possible to comply with the Order to close the areas to gillnet fishing until further notice.

Read the full story at NOAA Fisheries

Ninth Circuit Orders Feds to Reexamine Army Corps’ Harm to Native Fish

October 8, 2019 — SEAFOOD NEWS — The National Marine Fisheries Service owes an explanation for why it decided that two dams on the Yuba River do not adversely affect threatened Chinook salmon, steelhead and green sturgeon, three Ninth Circuit judges ruled Thursday.

“The Ninth Circuit said you’re entitled to change your mind, but you’ve got to explain yourself and you haven’t,” said Christopher Sproul, an attorney with San Francisco-based Environmental Advocates. “We think this is an excellent win vindicating good government. If agencies are going to have environmental rollbacks, they can’t do it without good reasoning.”

The case marks the latest turn in a long-running dispute over the Army Corps of Engineers’ maintenance of the aging Daguerre Point and Englebright dams, both built before the passage of the Endangered Species Act.

According to environmental groups, the dams have long posed an impediment to migrating salmon. The over 100 year-old Daguerre Point has fish ladders, albeit crude and aging, over which salmon struggle to swim to reach their spawning grounds. But the 260-foot-high Englebright Dam, built in 1941, has no fish ladders at all and completely blocks fish passage to the upper Yuba River.

Since 2002, the service has considered the Corps’ maintenance of the dams an “agency action” that requires the Corps to comply with federal environmental law that protect threatened species.

As late as 2012, the service found the Corps’ activities were likely to harm salmon populations, but it suddenly reversed course in 2014 when it issued a biological opinion and a separate letter concurring with the Corps’ biological assessment for the Englebright Dam and adjoining powerhouses.

The service basically stopped treating the Corps’ activities as an “agency action,” effectively letting the Corps off the hook for its effect on the environment.

The Corps began consulting with the service in 2000 to improve passage, but salmon populations have continued to decline from their failure to mitigate the dams’ impacts.

In 2012, the service found the Corps’ activities were likely to harm the salmon species, but it suddenly reversed course in 2014 when it issued a biological opinion and a separate letter concurring with the Corps’ biological assessment for Englebright and its abutting hydroelectric facilities.

In 2018, the environmental non-profit Friends of the River lost a federal lawsuit over the service’s opinions on summary judgment.

On Thursday, the appellate court panel of Judge J. Clifford Wallace, Carlos Bea and Michelle Friedland ordered the federal court to take another look at the case.

“FOR argues that the Service acted arbitrarily and capriciously in changing its approach to analyzing the dams’ impact on threatened fish because the service did not provide a reasoned explanation for the change. We agree,” the judges wrote.

They found the service offered no explanation for why it changed its position.

“Given the Service’s failure to provide a reasoned explanation for why it changed positions on whether the continued existence of the dams and the hydroelectric facilities abutting Englebright constitute agency action, the district court erred in finding that the Service’s 2014 BiOp and LOC were not arbitrary and capricious,” their ruling says.

The judges also ordered the lower court to revisit Friends of the River’s claim that the Corps improperly granted licenses and easements to third parties to operate the hydroelectric facilities.

“The Ninth Circuit ruling underscores the principle that still exists in this country – that facts and law matter,” Sproul said.

The National Marine Fisheries Service was unavailable for comment late Thursday.

This story was originally published on SeafoodNews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission. 

The next big California vs. Trump fight is over water and endangered species

October 7, 2019 — Just how far will California Gov. Gavin Newsom go in his high-profile fight with the Trump administration over environmental protections?

The next few months will provide an answer, as Newsom is forced to take a stand on Trump rollbacks in a long-contested battleground—the Northern California  that helps supply more than half the state’s population with drinking  and fills irrigation canals on millions of acres of farmland.

The battle lines are not nearly as clearly drawn as they are on climate change or air pollution, where the state is presenting a fairly unified front against Washington. When it comes to California water, there is no unity.

Some of the state’s biggest and most powerful water agencies are eager for the  to weaken endangered species protections that have cut their delta deliveries. And they want the Newsom administration to go along.

Read the full story at PHYS.org

Feds propose major habitat protections for killer whales

September 20, 2019 — U.S. protections for the waters that a group of endangered orcas call home could soon expand beyond the Seattle area to encompass much of the West Coast, from the Canadian border to central California.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration issued a proposal Wednesday to increase the critical habitat designation for southern resident killer whales by more than sevenfold under the Endangered Species Act.

Just 73 orcas remain in the Pacific Northwest population, the lowest number in more than three decades. They’re struggling with a lack of chinook salmon, their preferred prey, as well as toxic contamination and vessel noise.

The NOAA proposal calls for an additional 15,626 square miles (40,471 square kilometers) of federally protected habitat that would run from the border with Canada, down south to Point Sur, California.

The designation means federal agencies must ensure that activities they pay for, permit or carry out do not harm the habitat, but it does not generally affect approved recreational or commercial activity such as whale watching and shipping, said Lynne Barre, NOAA Fisheries’ recovery coordinator for the whales.

Read the full story at The Associated Press

Environmental groups say they’ll sue over green sea turtle habitat

August 15, 2019 — The United States should designate more critical habitat for the endangered green sea turtle, according to three environmental groups that say they will sue the government to force it to declare additional protected areas.

The groups filed a formal notice of intent Tuesday to sue the Fish and Wildlife Service and Acting Secretary of the Interior David Bernhardt. The plaintiffs are the Center for Biological Diversity, Sea Turtle Oversight Protection and Turtle Island Restoration Network.

The lawsuit notification comes as the Trump administration announced major changes to the enforcement and rule-making surrounding the Endangered Species Act. The new rules are to take effect 30 days after the administration publishes them in the Federal Register, but they only will impact new decisions.

Read the full story at UPI

Rep. Bishop Statement on ESA Regulatory Reforms

August 12, 2019 — The following was released by The Office of Congressman Rob Bishop (R-UT):

Today, Ranking Republican Rob Bishop (R-Utah) issued the following statement on the Trump administration’s regulatory reforms to the Endangered Species Act (ESA).

“Under the previous administration, the Endangered Species Act strayed woefully far from its original intent. The Act was morphed into a political weapon instead of a tool to protect wildlife. Secretary Bernhardt’s dogged dedication to righting this wrong is again made apparent today.

“These final revisions are aimed at enhancing interagency cooperation, clarifying standards, and removing inappropriate one-size-fits-all practices. I look forward to supporting efforts in Congress to enshrine these revisions into law.”

Background:

Signed into law in 1973, the original goal of the ESA was to preserve and recover key domestic species from the brink of extinction. However, today the law is failing to achieve its primary purpose of species recovery and instead has become a tool for litigation that drains resources away from real recovery efforts on the state, tribal and local level and blocks job-creating economic activities. Congress last renewed the ESA in 1988, which means it has been over 30 years since any substantial updates have been made.

In 2017 and 2018, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Marine Fisheries Service sought public input on how the federal government can improve upon ESA’s regulatory framework. The changes finalized today aim to modernize the implementation of the ESA in order to improve collaboration, efficiency, and effectiveness.

To view the final ESA implementation regulation revisions CLICK HERE.

Trump administration moves to ease enforcement of Endangered Species Act regulations

August 13, 2019 — The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday, 12 August, announced changes in how it would administer the Endangered Species Act, a move it said would add transparency to the process.

However, environmental groups lashed out at the move, claiming it would make it harder to protect species and harm wildlife protections, given it will government officials the chance to consider economic factors when determining if action should be taken to intervene in a species’ management plan.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

2019 Species Recovery Grant Awardees Announced

August 8, 2019 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

Today, NOAA announces the award of $6.5 million to states and tribes through its Species Recovery Grant Program. These grants promote the recovery of species listed as endangered or threatened under the Endangered Species Act.

$3.8 million will support 15 new awards to 11 states and 2 federally recognized tribes. Another $2.7 million will support the continuation of 17 multi-year projects that were approved in prior grant cycles.

States and tribes play an essential role in conserving and recovering species. Threatened or endangered species under NOAA Fisheries’ jurisdiction may spend all or part of their lifecycle in state waters. Successfully conserving these species depends largely on working cooperatively with states and tribes. This year’s funding supports our state and tribal partners in a range of activities, such as:

  • Reducing or removing significant sources of mortality and injury.
  • Assessing and monitoring species status and trends.
  • Engaging the public in conservation of Endangered Species Act-listed species.

Read the full release here