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Methow
Valley News November 18, 1999 Publisher's Comment ~ by Lee Hicks Endangered Species Coverage Your time to comment The on-again, off-again timing and shifting venues of the quest to reach a fish and water agreement will come to rest in the Methow Valley Wednesday night (November 17). Finally, those who will be most affected by the agreement will have their chance to listen and comment to the county, state and federal officials who drafted it. Unfortunately, the final draft agreement doesn’t provide much certainty for the future—either for saving endangered fish or insuring that water will be available for agriculture and growth. The agreement continues to place emphasis on increasing streamflows as the "best science" to save fish. The science is flawed, some critics argue, and any agreement based on a faulty assumption is doomed from the start. Given the political nature of fish and water issues, however, any local influence in refining the science of fish recovery may be limited at best. If flows are the right regimen to achieve fish recovery, critics of the agreement also say there is too high a risk of losing water rights, even in a voluntary water conservation program proposed by the MOA. Skeptics will argue the MOA is a matter of delaying the pain, or suffering now. Either way, there will soon be a new water rule for the Methow basin and the agreement offers little protection from endangered species litigation until a habitat conservation plan is completed. What, then, does the agreement accomplish? It buys time and gives the county and Valley residents a chance to be part of a process brought on by endangered species listings that are not going away. The supporters also say it establishes a path to reach a habitat conservation plan and could become a model for other areas of the Northwest. Should the county sign it? It’s your chance to comment. Omission In last week’s special section that included the text of the proposed memorandum of agreement on fish issues, a credit for the primary source of a history of the Endangered Species Act was inadvertently omitted. Thanks to Shannon Peterson of the Stanford University School of Law for his excellent chronology, Congress and Charismatic Megafauna: A legislative history of the Endangered Species Act, published this year in "Environmental Law," a publication of the Northwestern School of Law at Lewis & Clark College in Portland. Opinion | Sports |
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