No Montana waters included in critical habitat for bull trout

The Daily Inter Lake

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced critical habitat designations for bull trout Wednesday, covering just a fraction of areas originally proposed for designation.

Montana waters initially proposed as critical habitat were not included in the service's final designations, which applied to 1,748 miles of streams and 61,235 lake acres in the Columbia and Klamath river basins in Oregon, Washington and Idaho.

The designations accounted for roughly 9 percent of the stream miles and 11 percent of the lake acres that were first proposed for designation by the federal government in November of 2002.

"Today's final designation provides credit for ongoing conservation and management efforts for bull trout that remove the need to designate as much area," a service statement said, explaining the reduction.

"As a result of the extensive public comment we received on our proposed designation, the service found there were many areas that already had conservation efforts in place and did not need to be designated," said Dave Allen, regional director for the service's Pacific Region. "In other areas, the service found that the social and economic cost of a designation outweighed the conservation benefit."

For example, service officials determined that the state of Washington's Forest Practices Act provided conservation benefits for bull trout that far exceed any benefits that would be provided by a critical habitat designation.

The service cited Montana's "ambitious conservation plan" for bull trout, and roughly $3.3 billion that has been spent by the federal Columbia River power system on fisheries habitat as other examples of efforts that are more effective than critical habitat designations.

Critical habitat designations are a conservation ingredient prescribed by the Endangered Species Act that have drawn criticism for being an unnecessary and costly process.

Some of the most vocal critics have been high-ranking Fish and Wildlife Service officials who say that critical habitat diverts resources away from practical conservation measures, such as habitat improvements.

Other critics contend that the designation merely provide environmental groups with additional legal leverage to hinder timber sales and other projects on government lands.

Arlene Montgomery, spokeswoman for Friends of the Wild Swan, contends that critical habitat is an important part of the Endangered Species Act.

Fish and Wildlife Service officials have said that the designations provide little additional protections for bull trout beyond those they already have as a protected species.

But Montgomery contends the designations do provide additional protections.

"We still have projects on federal lands that are cumulatively modifying bull trout habitat, degrading that habitat," she said.

Montgomery said she is not familiar with the effectiveness of state conservation efforts for bull trout in Oregon, Washington and Idaho. But Montana's conservation plan, she said, provides nothing more than "guidance" intended to complement federal conservation measures.

"The important part of critical habitat (designations) is that it does not allow adverse modification, or degradation of that habitat," said Montgomery

"We definitely think that 90 percent reduction from the proposed (designation) to the final is pretty outrageous," she said.

Here's the state-by-state breakdown on the critical habitat designations:

• Oregon, 706 miles of streams and 33,939 acres of lakes and marshes;

• Washington, 737 miles of streams in the Columbia River Basin;

• Idaho, 306 miles of streams and 27,296 acres of lakes in the Columbia River Basin.