Court Rules That Elwha Hatchery Releases Violate NEPA

Photo: Tim Pask

Smash the hatchery welfare state! - Horatio Nailknot

Responding to wild-fish advocates, a federal court has ordered federal authorities to revise plans to restore Elwha River fish runs, ruling the government did not fully study how many hatchery fish should be used to bring salmon back to the recently undammed river.

Judge Benjamin Settle ruled last week in U.S. District Court in Tacoma that federal agencies did not adequately consider the effects a large-scale release of hatchery-reared salmon and steelhead would have on wild-fish populations.

The government's plan, he said, set “arbitrary” numbers of how many hatchery fish would be released that “may not be based on consideration of the impacts on the endangered species or the wild runs.”

LINK (via: The Peninsula Daily News)