When Idaho Sen. Mike Crapo turned down the call by Nez Perce Chairman Brooklyn Baptiste for setting a “solution table” for Columbia-Snake salmon-dam talks, it was clear nothing was going to happen soon unless U.S. District Judge James Redden made it happen.
So the tribe and other salmon advocates requested a settlement judge be appointed by the court to help improve the process of finding solutions to save endangered Columbia and Snake River salmon and steelhead.
The federal agencies responded last week, calling the process “improper” and asking the request be denied.
The agencies argue that the collaborative process with the tribes and the states is what Redden wants them to continue.
“We will be using the same collaboration approach we used with the existing biological opinion,” said Will Stelle, regional director of NOAA Fisheries.
In short, they replied, “Now is the time to stay the course.”
But that process could not bring Oregon or the Nez Perce tribe on board and leaves the environmental and sportsmen groups who sued on the sidelines.
So, with a deadline of 2013 to write a new plan and a critical election looming in 2012, the Obama administration is hoping to delay anything big.
Administration officials hope that by continuing to do what they’re doing now, they can avoid the tough choices until later.
Since the salmon advocates really don’t have any leverage outside of Redden, they are resting their hopes on him and good rhetoric.
“You’d have to believe in the tooth fairy to believe that the regional federal agencies are either truly consulting with all relevant parties in a meaningful way, or likely to develop a scientifically and legally responsible plan after failing miserably four times previously,” said Bill Arthur, national field director of the Sierra Club.
BETTER LATE THAN NEVER
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ordered Jipangu International Inc. to pay a $105,000 fine for failing from 2005 through 2007 to correctly report toxic chemical releases from its Nevada gold mine upwind of Idaho.
EPA said the Japanese company failed to submit timely and complete reports about cyanide, lead, mercury and other chemicals released from its Florida Canyon Mine and Standard Gold Mine processing facility, 50 miles west of Winnemucca.
EPA Regional Administrator Jared Blumenfeld of San Francisco said Wednesday that the metals and chemicals have the “potential to pose a danger to employees, the surrounding community and the environment.”
The Idaho Conservation League, and specifically its program director, Justin Hayes, began a lonely crusade in 2006 to stop Nevada gold mines from spewing mercury pollution into Idaho.
Those efforts prompted EPA to up the ante on its voluntary program to reduce mercury emissions and got Nevada to approve tough standards it has already enforced.
Hayes was pleased when he heard about the action at the Florida Canyon Mine. But he was disappointed it took five years.
“We told EPA about Florida Canyon in 2006,” Hayes said. “They — and Nevada — refused to believe us and argued with our data and our interpretation of the law.”
Rocky Barker: 377-6484
