Todd Myers: Inslee in state of denial over salmon recovery efforts

By Todd Myers

Over the past decade, salmon populations across Washington state have stagnated, making virtually no progress toward recovery. That news has not reached Gov. Jay Inslee’s spokesman Mike Faulk, who recently pointed to salmon recovery as an area of success for the administration.

Responding to questions about Gov. Inslee’s very questionable environmental record from a KING 5 (Seattle) investigative reporter Susannah Frame, the governor’s spokesperson Mike Faulk offered several excuses. He complained that the report’s examination of the results of these policies – the results that the governor himself said were necessary to tell the tale of environmental success or failure – was too narrow.

Faulk lamented that the “focus is on a small piece of the policy pie, not the governor’s whole strategy.” Instead of looking at the now ironically named “Results Washington” page for proof of environmental progress as Frame’s report did, Faulk said people should look at things like the governor’s record on “salmon restoration,” which he insinuated is going well. In fact, it is not going well. Like so many of the governor’s environmental targets, the reality does not match the rhetoric.

Just look at the record.

Let’s start with the assessment of the Governor’s Salmon Recovery Office. The office tracks progress on salmon recovery with the State of Salmon in Watersheds report. The executive summary from the 2022 report notes, “Salmon continue to struggle in Washington. No salmon species have been removed from the federal Endangered Species Act list in Washington and most of the species on the list are in crisis or not keeping pace with recovery goals.” This assessment is notably worse than in 2012 when the Salmon Recovery Office report noted, “In most areas of the state, fish are increasing or staying the same while in a few areas, fish are slightly decreasing.”

NOAA Fisheries, which monitors the status of threatened species, notes that over the past decade, most salmon populations in Puget Sound are getting worse. The most recent assessment, covering the 15-year period between 2004 and 2019 found that “trends were negative” for 16 of the 22 Puget Sound salmon populations. NOAA scientists wrote, “There is a general decline in natural-origin spawner abundance across all (major population groups) in the most-recent fifteen years.”

The Puget Sound Partnership also missed its 2020 targets for recovering Chinook salmon. The goal to “start seeing improvements in wild Chinook abundance in 2-4 populations in each biogeographic region” was missed. The Partnership’s assessment found, “Improvements, measured in terms of population abundance increases, were very small and the 25-75th CIs overlapped zero, suggesting no change in any populations’ abundance.” No change.

Salmon populations simply aren’t recovering in Washington state. Claiming that salmon restoration is a success is baseless and contrary to the data from the governor’s own agencies.

Earlier this year, I identified four actions that will help get salmon recovery back on track in the state.

• Increase funding for science and monitoring to ensure we understand where salmon recovery efforts can be most effectively focused.

• Fund science-based recovery programs rather than politically chosen priorities.

• Put more control and funding in the hands of local watersheds to take advantage of local knowledge and where accountability is more likely.

• With the huge increase in the state budget, legislators should use the growth in revenue to make salmon recovery a priority.

A key problem in this state has been the willingness to prioritize headlines over hard-earned environmental progress. When our state policies have failed – an assessment acknowledged by the administration’s own metrics – the practice has been to obfuscate and deny the failure.

Step one in every recovery process is “admit you have a problem.” Gov. Inslee and his spokesman continue to be in denial about their failures and the price is being paid by salmon and the orca, tribes, and the sport and commercial fishers who rely on abundant salmon populations.

Todd Myers is the director for the Center for the Environment at the Washington Policy Center. Myers is based in Cle Elum, Washington.