FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 25, 2014

Contact:
Drew Kerr, WildEarth Guardians, (312) 375-6104
Laura King, Western Environmental Law Center, (406) 204-4852
Bob Ferris, Cascadia Wildlands, (541) 434-1463
Lynne Stone, Boulder-White Clouds Council, (208) 721-7301

SALMON, IDAHO — Conservationists are celebrating the news from the Salmon, Idaho U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) office announcing the agency is withdrawing the 5-year permit it issued for a cruel killing contest on some of the wildest and most scenic BLM-managed public lands in the country. The move comes only twelve days after WildEarth Guardians, Cascadia Wildlands, and Boulder-White Clouds Council, represented by the Western Environmental Law Center, filed a lawsuit to stop the “Predator Derby” killing contest on BLM and U.S. Forest Service-managed lands.

“We’re pleased the BLM heeded our warning and recognized its permit allowing this killing contest to proceed was fatally flawed,” said Drew Kerr, carnivore advocate with WildEarth Guardians. “Sadly, the U.S. Forest Service has not gotten the message, so we still have a fight on our hands to kick these horrifically cruel events off our public lands.”

BLM’s change of heart comes after conservationists filed a lawsuit on November 13, 2014, in federal court challenging the agency’s issuance of a special 5-year permit allowing the event to take place. The lawsuit argued that the agency unlawfully relied on faulty analysis and failed to develop a full environmental impact statement.

“Closing public lands to this killing contest is the right thing—legally, ethically, and scientifically,” said Laura King of Western Environmental Law Center. “We applaud the BLM for this decision that puts wildlife and the public interest first.”

BLM staff anticipated as many as 500 participants would descend on public and private lands in eastern Idaho, trying to kill as many wolves, coyotes, and other animals as they could during a three-day period this winter holiday season. Last year, organizers offered prizes for the most coyotes killed and the largest wolf killed.

“While there is cause to celebrate this victory, we still must deal with the U.S. Forest Service lands,” said Bob Ferris, executive director of Cascadia Wildlands. “That will take time, but we are happy to play the role of the proverbial tortoise if that is what it takes to walk away with a complete victory.”

Conservationists filed two separate lawsuits challenging the BLM permit; however, only the lawsuit brought by Western Environmental Law Center included a claim against the U.S. Forest Service for failing to require a permit or analyze the killing contest’s impacts. This lawsuit will continue in the wake of BLM’s welcome reversal, and will seek to compel the Forest Service to similarly block participants from competing to win prizes for wasting wildlife on our public lands.

“While it’s good to see BLM withdraw their permit, overall this killing contest remains a black eye for Idaho,” said Lynne Stone, director of Boulder-White Clouds Council and long-time Idahoan. “The Salmon-Challis National Forest should not be a part of this cruel event either. These are our public lands and we should share them together peacefully and respectfully with wildlife.”

#####

#####

 

With every complicated, science-based issue we seem to tackle, from climate change to wolves and from forestry to diesel particulates, there seems to be a handful of slide-rule era-educated, contrarian scientists who pull themselves up from the depths of retirement to confuse the issue.  These self-proclaimed mavens generally have some credentials, but not the applicable ones and they tend to be motivated more by self-interests and politics than by science.  And the suction dredging issue is no exception (please see comments section for Suction Dredging…Sucks).

 

Sure, they will be fairly careful in their statements and have the skills necessary to “cherry pick” and present information in a manner that sounds convincing to the lay public, but at the end of the day their arguments are mainly logic wrapped around a kernel of deception.  Here are a few of the myths they try to promulgate and why we all should look deeper for the rest of the story.  See how many of these myths you can spot in the suction dredging comments.

 

There is not a single study that shows that suction dredging kills fish.  This is misleading because the issues are not primarily about adult fish but rather spawning beds, eggs, young fish, food resources, miss-timed disturbance, added stress on heat-challenged fish, and legacy pollution. (Please see California Dept. of Fish & Game, Suction Dredge Permitting Program Literature Review (2009) at 4.3-2 – 4.3-13.)

 

The steelhead runs after Mount Saint Helens broke records.  Steelhead are anadromous fish (i.e., breed in freshwater and grow in the ocean) and were at sea when the volcano erupted. In any case, the success of that record run was determined 3-4 years beforehand by reproductive success in the rivers and streams.  It is not an argument that fish are not affected by silt. (Please see, e.g., Peter A. Bisson, Charles M. Crisafulli, Brian R. Fransen, Robert E. Lucas, and Charles P. Hawkins, Ecological Responses to the 1980 Eruption of Mount St. Helens, 173 (Springer 2005).

 

Turbidity does not harm fish.  While it is fun to use the word turbidity, that is really not the issue—siltation is.  Turbidity—the opaqueness of water associated with suspended particles—can be a minor problem at the wrong time, but siltation (when those particles settle and where) is nearly always a problem. (Please see California Dept. of Fish & Game, Suction Dredge Permitting Program Literature Review (2009) at 4.3-22.)

 

Invertebrate populations rebound quickly after disruption, so it is not a problem.  Young salmon, steelhead, and other fish require invertebrates for food.  Steelhead fry (young fish) are also territorial and defend territories; so they also need those invertebrates in their territory. If food resources are locally damaged for any length of time, that can have detrimental impacts on fry.  And if these young fish have to move to find food, they also become more vulnerable to predation by other fish and birds. (Please see California Dept. of Fish & Game, Suction Dredge Permitting Program Literature Review (2009) at 4.3-10, 4.3-16.)

 

Suction dredgers are good at removing mercury contamination.  Studies indicate that this not an accurate statement.  These studies indicate that suction dredging resuspends sequestered mercury and that discharges from dredges in mercury contaminated areas exceeded legal limits by some 10-fold (see page 8 of the following report)

 

Suction dredging damage mimics annual storm disruption.   This is not true on two fronts. First and most importantly, the timing is off.  Aquatic species in streams and rivers co-evolved with river systems that ran wild during the wetter months and were calm during summer and early fall.  If you alter that pattern, impacts to species whose life cycles have evolved in that system occur.

 

There is also the argument that materials moved are not much relative to the amount of materials moved in association with storm events during the wet seasons for the entire watershed.  In fact, one analysis in California showed that the percentage of materials moved by suction dredging was 0.7 % of that moved by the river naturally.  That is a crafty but disingenuous argument because natural movement is spread throughout the watershed and suction dredging is localized and intense.  In other words, suction dredging may very well not cause much damage relative to total materials moved, but relative to what a particular locale normally experiences, the change can be profound.  This same argument can be made for cyclones (i.e., that they are relatively insignificant to annual winds), but I suspect that the person whose house no longer exists sees the situation very differently.  

 

We clean up gravels and improve spawning areas.  This statement is misleading as several studies have looked at the impact of suction dredge tailings.  And two things become apparent from these studies.  One is that fish tend to not use these tailings when natural spawning habitat is also available.  The second is that when fish used these tailings and the river flows are high, spawning success is reduced (i.e., fertilized and developing eggs are destroyed) because of the instability of tailings as spawning grounds. (See California Dept. of Fish & Game, Suction Dredge Permitting Program Literature Review (2009) at 4.1-4, 4.1-8, 4.3-2)

 

Stopping suction dredging puts Mom and Pop businesses at risk.  As a group, suction dredgers tend to lose money.    When we look at the California experience, suction dredgers on average suffer net losses of from about $5,500 to $9,000 annually to look for gold (please see http://www.icmj.com/UserFiles/file/recent-news/Review-of-Available-Suction-Dredging-Studies.pdf for baseline numbers).  

 

 

One miner X 35 days per year X $16-$122/per day = $560 to $4,270 per year in gold

 

 

General Expenses per miner = $6,250/year

 

Fuel and Dredge Maintenance = $3,000/year

 

Average Dredge Cost per Miner (average dredge cost $6,000, assume 10-year life) = $  600/year

 

Total expenses per average miner = $9,850/year

 

Crunching these numbers a little more, we see that the total economic activity generated by suction dredging in California came in at about $15-$36 million for everything (e.g., dredge sales, motels, gold recovered, etc.).  While this seems like significant revenue, this pales in comparison to recreational fishing which is a $2 billion plus industry embedded in the $2 trillion California economy.  

 

This is certainly not the economic engine that proponents argue, and California was absolutely their best case scenario.  Moreover, it is not appropriate to characterize all of this as potentially lost economic activity, as this sector of the public will likely shift their expenditures to other similar recreational endeavors.  

 

When dealing with endangered and declining aquatic species found in public waterways and surrounded by public lands, we fully agree with Dr. Peter B. Moyle’s view (please see http://www.klamathriver.org/Documents/Peter-Moyle-Expert-Report-on-Suction-Dredging-on-Klamath.pdf) that the burden absolutely needs to be on the suction dredging industry to demonstrate through independent science that they will not harm these species, either directly or indirectly.  Instead, the industry’s strategy has been to malign dedicated experts, discount evidence as rumor, and attempt to confuse the public on the science.  I suppose it is much easier and more profitable to sell dreams of riches to the vulnerable members of society, than it is to deal with reality and science.  

 

Please sign and share our petition.

 

And please read:

 

 

 

My access point to my career in the conservation field came originally from fish.  I caught my first trout on the Eel River in northern California while my family was on their way to visit the 1962 World’s Fair in Seattle.  As we were on our way north, my mother grudgingly allowed me to fish for 15 minutes—no more.  And on my premier cast with my older sister’s telescoping metal pole and an ancient JC Higgins reel, I felt that first electronic jolt that changed my life.  (Yes, this was a salmon egg catch, but I did not know any better at the time.)

 

That memory is golden to me and the thought of anyone taking any action that would rob someone of a similar moment rankles me no end.  That’s why the notion of some yahoo sticking a 4”-6” inch motor-driven suction hose into the hard bottom or gravel of a trout or salmon bearing stream and muddying the water literally makes me just a little angry.  And that ire only rises a little higher when I learn that these “modern 49ers” seeking flakes of gold in the silt they are spraying around are being egged on and legislatively supported by some modern day equivalent of snake oil salesmen hitting the KA-CHING button with each $8900 suction dredge they sell.  

 

It’s an old game where the “pick and pan” salespeople make the real money preying on the suggestible and greedy.  And part of the pitch seems to be that mucking up rivers flowing through public lands is an honest-to-goodness, Don’t-Trend-On-Me, All-American right.  Poppycock!  Suction dredging sucks and the sooner we all gravitate to that point of view, the better for all concerned.  (Okay so the dredge dealers will not be happy, but I can live with that quite comfortably, Thank You.)

 

 

Suction dredging is not a “right” nor is mucking up the water for the rest of us—particularly in streams and rivers that run though public lands or hold imperiled species such as Coho and Chinook salmon or bull trout.  We and many others who have worked hard to clean up and protect waterways throughout Cascadia see only one solution to this issue:  An all-out ban on suction dredging in the salmon-bearing water systems of Cascadia.  The practice is banned in California and restricted in Washington, Oregon, Alaska, and Idaho.  We think it is high time that all of us who would like to see the return of vibrant salmon and steelhead speak up on this issue with one voice.  

 

Please check out our suction dredging and high banking page, sign our petition to the governors of Oregon, Washington, Alaska, and Idaho, and pass this all along to others