{"id":1115,"date":"2023-07-25T08:54:20","date_gmt":"2023-07-25T15:54:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bruceramsey.net\/?page_id=1115"},"modified":"2025-07-20T11:21:19","modified_gmt":"2025-07-20T18:21:19","slug":"save-the-fish-1999","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/bruceramsey.net\/index.php\/save-the-fish-1999\/","title":{"rendered":"Save the Fish (1999)"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Saving the salmon has become an unquestioned goal in the Pacific Northwest. I was fine with saving salmon, but I wanted to do it rationally, which I didn’t think the Endangered Species Act did. This was my Post-Intelligencer business column of March 31, 1999.<\/em><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Our governor proclaims that extinction of the state\u2019s wild salmon is \u201cnot an option.\u201d By saving the salmon, our local politicians tell us, we are saving ourselves. A local newspaper columnist assures us it\u2019s OK to eat salmon, because we eat the fish in order to worship it.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

My goodness.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

Take away this bucket of sentimentality, and what\u2019s left? A good investment? A wise application of public and private effort?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

Well, it\u2019s doubtful.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

Start with the Endangered Species Act. Here\u2019s a law that picks all species, from whooping cranes to microscopic snails, from redwoods to fungi. It declares them all equally valuable. In the case of salmon, a species that is undisputedly valuable, the Act has been interpreted to classify groups of fish runs as separate species.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

What the law actually does is nothing, until officialdom declares the fish threatened or endangered. By then, they are almost dead. In Washington, we wait until several million people have moved here, cut down trees, built roads, dammed rivers, put countless streams into culverts, and then we allow a federal agency to proclaim a crusade to retrofit the human landscape for wild fish.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

The law doesn\u2019t appropriate an amount for doing this. It doesn\u2019t say we should save the most important runs, or save the most salmon per dollar. It says: Save them. Whatever it takes.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

How much is that? On the Columbia and Snake rivers, barging salmon and changing the stream flow has cost more than $400 million a year in cash and lost electric revenues. If you\u2019re in Snohomish County, or another place that buys federal power, you have been paying for this for years.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

And now, you are told, you have not been paying enough. We need to breach the dams. How many dams? Well, just a few. If that doesn\u2019t do it, maybe some more.<\/span><\/p>

Whatever it takes.<\/span><\/p>

If people thought about it without having this federal law hammering at them, and weighed salmon as one value among several, they would do things much differently.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

Suppose you were in charge. You had, say, $400 million a year with which to save fish. You could spend it on barging around dams. You could breach dams and<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0compensate the losers of power and water. You could restrict the use of private land and compensate the property owners \u2014 something the current law should do,<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>under the Constitution, but doesn\u2019t. You could buy out fishing licenses. You could restore urban streams or protect rural ones.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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How would you choose? You\u2019d figure how many fish you saved per dollar, and whether you saved them for one year or for every year thereafter. You\u2019d be investing, and you\u2019d want to make the best investments. And what you\u2019d find is that the best investments are far different from the ones you have to make under the Endangered Species Act.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

The best investments are not heroic efforts to bring back runs from the dead, but to save runs that are still fairly healthy. You might buy the development rights along streams that have not been ruined. If more of these were on the Olympic Peninsula than in urban counties, so be it. The land is cheaper there. If you could afford it, you might buy whole drainages. You might add to parks and wilderness areas.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

Roll ahead 10 years. Under current mandates, you\u2019ve spent a fortune on barging fish, breaching dams and paying countless consultants to draw colored maps. You\u2019ve hired officials to harass citizens with new regulations. Have you won? Why, no; you are just getting started. You are lucky if you have not lost.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

This is a project that will take lifetimes. Entire careers. Well-paid careers.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

Ten years of buying rural habitat and where are you? Ahead, and permanently so. Imagine Olympic National Park, expanded. I\u2019ve tried the idea on people over the years and have gotten two responses:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

First, they say, \u201cThe law doesn\u2019t allow us to do it that way.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

Well, it\u2019s not a law of nature.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

More interesting is the second reply. Saving fish while they\u2019re healthy won\u2019t satisfy people because it\u2019s the\u00a0wrong fish<\/i>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

Several experts have patiently explained this to me. The political reality is that those who worship salmon want to see them where they live. That means promising to save fish here in King, Pierce and Snohomish counties, not out on the Olympic Peninsula.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

The promise feels so much better. We shall expiate the sins of a century of industry and good living. The reality \u2014 regulations and taxes, higher costs for land, housing and rents \u2014 will take longer to sink in. They will not feel nearly so good.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a9 1999 Seattle Post-Intelligencer<\/span><\/em>
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Saving the salmon has become an unquestioned goal in the Pacific Northwest. I was fine with saving salmon, but I wanted to do it rationally, which I didn’t think the Endangered Species Act did. This was my Post-Intelligencer business column of March 31, 1999. Our governor proclaims that extinction of the state\u2019s wild salmon is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1115","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bruceramsey.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1115","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bruceramsey.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bruceramsey.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bruceramsey.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bruceramsey.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1115"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/bruceramsey.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1115\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1470,"href":"https:\/\/bruceramsey.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1115\/revisions\/1470"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bruceramsey.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}