FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contacts:
Sierra Club – Marc Sullivan (WA Chapter Vice-Chair)
Earth Ministry – LeeAnne Beres (Executive Director)
Groups Reject “Woefully Inadequate” Salmon Plan, Call for Regional Stakeholder Process, and Applaud Kilmer Leadership, Urge Move to the Next Level
Sequim, WA – Aug. 4, 2020 – The Sierra Club, Save Our Wild Salmon Coalition, and Earth Ministry joined today to reject the Trump Administration’s new salmon recovery plan, released last Friday, as “illegal and inadequate to recover endangered salmon, orcas and communities across the Northwest.” They applaud 6th Congressional District Rep. Derek Kilmer (representing the Olympic Peninsula and parts of Tacoma) for his vocal support of a consensus driven approach led by regional stakeholders to resolve the long-running controversy and asked for his continued leadership “in the interest of 6th District communities” and to advance the process to the next level.
Marc Sullivan, vice-chair of the Sierra Club’s Washington Chapter and a North Olympic Peninsula resident, called the Trump Administration’s offering “mostly a status quo plan. And the status quo, after 20 years and $17 billion spent by BPA and its customers, hasn’t put one of the thirteen endangered salmon and steelhead stocks in the Columbia/Snake basin on a path to recovery, much less off the threatened and endangered list. Meanwhile populations of salmon-dependent orcas continue to decline; just 72 individual whales remain today.”
Rev. Holly Hallman, a retired Presbyterian minister living along Hood Canal, echoed that frustration from the viewpoint of Earth Ministry’s clergy and lay faith leaders: “Restoring salmon is of deep spiritual, ecological, and economic importance to residents on both sides of the Cascades. We must do better and we need leaders like Rep. Kilmer to foster dialogue that leads to real solutions benefiting all communities impacted by the four Lower Snake River dams and its critically endangered salmon populations.”
Bill Arthur, Chair of the Sierra Club’s three-state Snake Restoration Campaign, added an additional perspective: “With its rich fishing history, the 6th District has suffered economically and culturally from steep declines in salmon numbers, and the District – its fishermen, communities, tribes and Southern Resident orcas – would benefit disproportionately from a restoration of abundant, harvestable salmon and steelhead runs. Rep. Kilmer’s constituents in the 6th CD definitely have a fish in this fight.”
The groups also sent two constituent letters thanking Rep. Kilmer for his leadership and urging him to continue to support stakeholder-driven, solutions oriented conversations within the Northwest as a path to outcomes that work for fishermen and farmers, for tribes and our regional energy system. Save Our Wild Salmon and the Sierra Club delivered a letter signed by 343 6th Congressional District residents. Signatories included seven state legislators (Sens. Kevin Van De Wege (24th LD), Christine Rolfes (23rd LD and Emily Randall (26th LD) and Reps. Mike Chapman and Steve Tharinger (24th LD) and Sherry Appleton and Drew Hansen (23rd LD)). Also signing were the City of Port Angeles, by city council vote, among a total of more than two dozen local elected officials from around the district voicing their support.
Earth Ministry’s letter, signed by Lutheran Bishop Richard Jaech and 76 other clergy and lay leaders in the 6th District, states that “the Christian tradition says that faith without works is dead (James 2:26),” and asks Rep. Kilmer to continue to put his “faith into action to lead the region in a new approach that centers collaboration toward win-win solutions.”
Save Our Wild Salmon Coalition Executive Director Joseph Bogaard also called for a different path forward saying, “Salmon, fishing and orca advocates are deeply disappointed by the FEIS released by federal agencies. It offers only modest tweaks to a federal government approach that has pushed salmon populations toward extinction and increased costs, uncertainty and risks for communities across our region. The people and salmon of the Northwest urgently need a new approach that restores salmon abundance, invests in our communities, and sustains a reliable and affordable energy system. And political leadership from Rep. Kilmer, his fellow Congressmembers and Northwest governors will be an essential ingredient for success.”
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