HABITAT HOTLINE
APRIL 1999 NUMBER 42
TABLE OF CONTENTS
I. FEDERAL
OCS Funding: Several bills have been introduced which would direct Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) oil and gas revenues to fund coastal restoration efforts, state fish and wildlife programs, and federal land purchases (including funding of the Land and Water Conservation Fund*). The bills are as follows:
[*The Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) is a "trust fund" to accumulate revenues from federal outdoor recreation user fees, the federal motorboat fuel tax, surplus property sales, and oil and gas leases on the Outer Continental Shelf, for subsequent appropriation by Congress. The fund was authorized to provide up to $900 million annually for acquisition of federal park and wildlife refuge lands and to provide matching grants to states for outdoor recreation planning and development and land acquisition. In recent years, the LWCF has not been fully funded.]
REACTION: The International Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies and the Izaac Walton League, among many others, support S. 25 and H.R. 701. These groups say that this legislation provides critical funding, not only for wildlife conservation funding and education, but also for coastal conservation and restoration, land-based conservation and recreation, and urban parks. Some in the environmental community are concerned that the Young/Landrieu bills will result in new offshore leasing, for drilling and development of already-leased tracts, and for more drilling closer to shore.
Many environmental groups are supporting the Miller/Boxer legislation. Private property rights groups are concerned about all of the above legislations’ impact on property rights.
NOW WHAT: Reports are that both parties are trying work together on this important initiative. Hearings were held in March in the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee and House Natural Resources Committee. Congress will also wrestle with the Clinton Administration’s proposal, the "Lands Legacy" initiative. The proposal seeks just over $1 billion in a one-time allocation to fund wilderness, parks and coastal areas in Fiscal Year 2000, which begins October 1, 1999 (See Habitat Hotline Number 41).
On 2/10/99 Representative George Miller (D-Calif.) introduced H.R. 684, the Farm Sustainability and Animal Feedlot Enforcement Act. If enacted, the legislation would require permits, at a minimum, to specify the surface water and groundwater monitoring, record keeping, and reporting requirements necessary to ensure that no discharge of pollutants occurs from concentrated animal feeding operations.
NOW WHAT: The bill is currently in the Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment. To date, no further action on this bill has occurred.
For Further Information Contact: The Office of Representative George Miller at (202) 225-3121.
IN RELATED NEWS, in March, the Clinton Administration announced a federal strategy, entitled the "Unified National Strategy for Animal Feeding Operations", to reduce polluted runoff from large livestock operations. According to the Clinton Administration, the strategy, which was developed jointly by the Department of Agriculture and the Environmental Protection Agency:
...will employ a range of flexible, common-sense tools to reduce potentially harmful runoff from 450,000 animal feeding operations nationwide—cattle, dairy, poultry and hog farms where animals are raised in confined situations.
On 03/03/99, Representative George Miller (D-Calif.) introduced H.R. 960, the "Endangered Species Recovery Act of 1999." The bill is similar to legislation introduced by Representative Miller in the 105th Congress (See Habitat Hotline Number 33).
On 03/17/99, Representative Don Young (R-Alaska) introduced H.R. 1142, the "Landowners Equal Treatment Act of 1999." This legislation would require that private property owners be paid compensation when the federal government requires their land to be used for fish and wildlife habitat under the Endangered Species Act.
On 03/25/99, Senator Patty Murray (D-Wash.) introduced legislation (S. 715) to federally protect, under the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, a pristine stretch of the Columbia River known as the Hanford Reach. Representative Norm Dicks (R-Wash.) introduced similar legislation in the House. The Hanford Reach is the last free-flowing section of the Columbia River that contains healthy populations of wild fall chinook salmon runs.
Reports are that on 3/25/99, Representative Walter Jones (R-N.C.) introduced H.R. 1290, the "Wetlands Restoration and Improvement Act of 1999." This legislation would foster wetlands mitigation banking as a means to mitigate wetlands loss. Similar legislation in the 105th Congress was opposed by many in the conservation community.
On 02/11/99, Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman, Under Secretary for Natural Resources and Environment Jim Lyons, and Forest Service Chief Mike Dombeck announced a much anticipated 18-month moratorium on new road construction in unroaded areas in most national forests. According to the Forest Service, the 18-month rule will affect unroaded areas—portions of the National Forest System that do not contain classified roads. It also affects those areas as listed below:
The moratorium does not affect forests in Alaska, and the Pacific Northwest.
REACTION:
Dan Glickman:
Because a road is one of the most indelible marks man can leave on the landscape, it is our responsibility to safeguard the often irreplaceable ecological value of unroaded areas until a permanent policy can protect our last great open spaces, our water and wildlife, and the economic health of forest communities. We are therefore calling an official time out, so we can examine the science, involve the public and build a roads policy for the 21st century.
Mike Dombeck:
This interim policy will allow us to protect socially important and ecologically valuable roadless areas while we develop a protective and responsible long-term road policy. It’s fiscally and environmentally irresponsible to continue to build roads in unroaded areas with our current road system in such disrepair.
W. Henson Moore, CEO, American Forest Paper Association:
Today’s decision is a disaster for those who are committed to the health of our nation’s forests, the wildlife they contain, and the treasure left in trust for this generation to protect and conserve for the next generation. No one takes the conservation of forests and wildlife more seriously than this industry, which has the highest standards in the world for forest management. Essentially, the Forest Service has put an 18-month "hold" on forest management. The end result of this decision will be forests filled with dead or dying trees, killed either by insects, disease or catastrophic wildfire.
Steve Moyer, Trout Unlimited:
This is a positive step that is very much in sync with Mike Dombeck’s strong emphasis on watershed health on our National Forests. Roadless areas provide some of the best remaining habitats for trout and salmon across the nation, and deserve the strongest possible protection. Many forest roads are a real threat to coldwater fisheries, and it’s time to take a much closer look at those impacts. Simply put, many roads in the national forests are killing trout and salmon. Excessive mud and soil carried in runoff from unimproved forest roads is among the worst sources of non-point pollution on federal lands. This silt smothers trout and salmon eggs and spawning areas and decreases stream productivity. Forest roads also speed runoff velocities, increasing streambank erosion and channelization of streams, and raising surface water temperatures, all of which are bad for trout and salmon. Unfortunately, because of recent revisions to forest plans, the new initiative would exempt National Forests on the west side of the Cascades in the Pacific Northwest and the Tongass National Forest in Alaska, areas that are important for trout and salmon spawning and rearing in the region.
For Further Information Contact the US Forest Service at (202) 720-4623, or visit their website at http://www.fs.fed.us.
II. REGIONAL
According to The Oregonian, a coalition of conservation groups charged in federal court on 3/31/99 that four dams on the Lower Snake River illegally lower the river’s water quality, harming fish, and demanded that remedial actions be taken.
The lawsuit, filed by the National Wildlife Federation and six other groups, invokes the federal Clean Water Act. The Act sets water quality standards for all rivers, lakes, and streams in the nation. According to the story, while the lawsuit does not ask that the dams be removed, some conservationists contend that removal of the earthen portions (breaching) the Snake River dams (so that flow is ubobstructed) may be the best way to achieve water quality standards.
On 3/16/99, the National Marine Fisheries Service listed nine populations of salmon and steelhead in Washington and Oregon, including metropolitan Portland and Seattle, to the Endangered Species Act list. The new listings are as follows:
Chinook (four ESUs*):
Chum (two ESUs):
Steelhead (two ESUs):
Sockeye (one ESU):
[*ESU: An Evolutionary Significant Unit is a distinctive group or population.]
REACTION:
Department of Commerce Secretary William M. Daley:
Our goal here is to restore salmon. But we know that we cannot accomplish that alone. As we have all said repeatedly, extinction is not an option! We want to work together with state and local officials to preserve, for future generations, healthy salmon stocks along with clean and productive rivers and streams.
Senator Slade Gorton (R-Wash.):
There will be a price tag for Northwest residents. It may come in the form of higher electricity bills or new restrictions on development...I would rather have Washingtonians deal with the consequences of the salmon listing than have bureaucrats in the federal government dictate the fate of Puget Sound salmon and the Northwest economy [Source: Associated Press, 03/17/99].
State Senator Bob Oke, (R-Port Orchard), a member of the Washington Senate Natural Resources and Parks Committee:
Once the Endangered Species Act gets involved in protecting these salmon, we will think that all the hardship caused by the spotted owl listing was nothing at all [Source: Associated Press, 03/17/99].
Jeff Curtis, Western Conservation Director for Trout Unlimited:
Every generation has its test of character. For our generation, the test is whether we have enough decency to leave a space in our civilization for salmon. If we fail, history will judge us harshly, but probably not as harshly as we will judge ourselves.
Pete Knutson, Washington commercial salmon fisherman:
The feeling down here at Fishermen’s Terminal [Seattle] is that we don’t have a lot left to lose. Even though it [the listings] may bite us in the short run in terms of some restrictions, it’s the only long-term chance for survival that we’ve got. A lot of times, this whole issue is framed as jobs vs. wilderness. It’s not jobs vs. wilderness. It’s non-sustainable jobs and practices vs. sustainable jobs and practices. So we have to make that transition in dealing with the larger global issues [Source: MSNBC, 03/17/99].
New York Times Editorial:
The decline in the once-great salmon runs in the Pacific Northwest ranks high among the ecological blunders committed in the name of economic growth. The time has surely come to correct the mistake. [03/18/99]
NOW WHAT: According to the National Marine Fisheries Service:
At this time, no immediate regulations will apply to state and private activities in the areas where salmon populations are listed as threatened. However, because it is listed as an endangered species, any accidental or incidental ‘take’ of Upper Columbia River spring chinook would require a permit. In the future, fisheries service staff will work closely with its partners to develop ‘tailor-made’ regulations that would include state and local conservation initiatives. The fisheries service said that the listing decisions would go into effect in two months.
For Further Information Contact: Brian Gorman of National Marine Fisheries Services’ Northwest region in Portland at (206) 526-6613, or visit NMFS’ Northwest Region website at http://www.nwr.noaa.gov.
On 02/05/99, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), issued a proposed rule to designate critical habitat for nine Evolutionarily Significant Units (ESUs) of steelhead (Oncorhynchus mykiss) previously listed and currently proposed for listing under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Proposed critical habitat occurs in the States of Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and California (See Habitat Hotline Number 34). The areas described in this proposed rule represent the current freshwater and estuarine range inhabited by the ESU. Freshwater critical habitat includes all waterways and substrates below longstanding, naturally impassable barriers (i.e., natural waterfalls in existence for at least several hundred years) and several dams that block access to former anadromous habitats. According to NMFS, "The economic and other impacts resulting from this critical habitat designation are expected to be minimal."
WHAT YOU CAN DO: Comments on the proposed rule must be received by May 6, 1999. Comments or requests for reference materials should be sent to:
Branch Chief
Protected Resources Division
NMFS, Northwest Region
525 NE Oregon Street, Suite 500
Portland, OR 97232–2737
Fax (503) 230–5435
Further Information on this notice and additional ESA information can be found at NMFS’ Northwest Region Website at http://www.nwr.noaa.gov (click on "ESA Salmon"); Or Contact Garth Griffin in Portland at (503) 231–2005.
On 03/22/99, over 200 Northwest scientists sent President Bill Clinton a letter warning that the federal government’s salmon recovery efforts on the Snake River are fixed on a path that is likely to send the legendary fish into extinction within a few decades unless dramatic changes are made quickly. Below is an excerpt from the letter:
As you are aware, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) has committed to choose a long-term recovery plan for Snake River salmon and steelhead by the end of 1999. This commitment, known as the 1999 Decision, will be your administration’s legacy to Northwest salmon. The NMFS decision will stem from an environmental impact statement (EIS) that is currently being conducted by the US Army Corps of Engineers [Corps]. This EIS, called the Lower Snake River Juvenile Salmon Migration Feasibility Study, will evaluate three major salmon recovery strategies.
Two of these strategies continue to rely heavily upon the practice of juvenile fish transportation. Barging and trucking of juvenile migrants began experimentally more than 20 years ago in an attempt to mitigate for the effects of a river system made lethal by the Federal Columbia River Power System. Since its inception, the transportation program has never sustained the minimum smolt-to-adult survival rate that is needed to begin rebuilding wild Snake River salmon and steelhead stocks. It has failed even to halt their decline.
Every independent scientific analysis on this subject since the landmark 1996 Return to the River report by the Independent Scientific Group (ISG) has concluded that juvenile fish transportation in the Columbia-Snake river system is a failed practice that should be phased out in lieu of a return to more normative river conditions. The most comprehensive PIT-tagging study to date now shows that even with technological advances, the transportation program has failed to produce the minimum survival rate that is required to begin rebuilding wild Snake River salmon and steelhead stocks.
The most recent data indicates that a five- to fifteen-fold increase in survival rates is needed in order to meet NMFS recovery goals.
There is building scientific consensus that the surest way to restore wild Snake River salmon and steelhead runs is to reclaim a 140-mile long reach of their migration corridor by bypassing four dams on the Lower Snake River. This strategy, known as the natural river option, is the third recovery strategy being evaluated in the Corps’ EIS.
The weight of scientific evidence clearly shows that wild Snake River salmon and steelhead runs cannot be recovered under existing river conditions. Enough time remains to restore them, but only if the failed practices of the past are abandoned and we move quickly to restore the normative river conditions under which these fish evolved. We urge you to provide leadership on this issue in order to ensure that the 1999 Decision isn’t delayed. Biologically, the choice of how to best recover these fish is clear, and the consequences of maintaining the status quo are all but certain.
The Magnuson Fishery Conservation and Management Act (Act) was originally passed in 1976. In 1996, the Act was renamed, reauthorized and changed extensively. Among other changes, these amendments were intended to emphasize the importance of habitat protection to healthy fisheries and to strengthen the ability of the National Marine Fisheries Service and the Councils to protect the habitat needed by the fish they manage. This habitat is called "Essential Fish Habitat" (EFH) and is broadly defined to include "those waters and substrate necessary to fish for spawning, breeding, feeding, or growth to maturity" (See Habitat Hotline Numbers 30, 32 and 34).
At its March meeting, the Pacific Fishery Management Council approved Amendment 14 to the Salmon Fishery Management Plan. In addition to new overfishing criteria, bycatch specifications, and changes to the harvest allocations north of Cape Falcon, Oregon, the amendment includes a complete description and definition of Essential Fish Habitat. Amendment 14 now goes to the Secretary of Commerce for final approval.
For a Copy of Salmon EFH documents and for further information, contact the Pacific Fishery Management Council at (503) 326-6352, or visit their web site at http://www.pcouncil.org.
On 03/25/99, three conservation groups served a 60-day notice that they intend to sue the US Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) under the federal Endangered Species Act (ESA). Water Watch, Trout Unlimited, and the Northwest Environmental Defense Center (NEDC) say that the Corps is violating the ESA by allowing a major new withdrawal of water from the Columbia River for irrigation use, despite its potential harmful effects on threatened salmon and steelhead.
Conservationists contend that the Corps violated the ESA by failing to consult with the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) about potential adverse impacts on salmon and steelhead, and allowing the agricultural development to proceed without review.
According to Reed Benson, executive director of WaterWatch:
If Oregon is serious about saving salmon, we must protect the remaining water that flows in our rivers and streams. This project would give away a huge amount of water for new irrigation, when irrigation already accounts for over 80 percent of water withdrawals in the Northwest.
According to the groups. the new water withdrawal is proposed by a large corporate farm, Inland Land Co., to irrigate lands owned by the State of Oregon but leased to aerospace giant Boeing and subleased to Inland. These lands, just south of the Columbia River near Boardman, Ore., currently provide valuable habitat for several rare wildlife species. Inland proposes to expand irrigation at the site by about 50,000 acre-feet of water per year. This would increase total water use on the Boeing lands to over 120,000 acre-feet annually about the same amount of water used by the City of Portland and its major suburbs, for nearly 800,000 people.
For Further Information Contact WaterWatch at (503) 295-4039; Trout Unlimited at (503) 827-5700; Northwest Environmental Defense Center at (503) 517-8126.
III. CALIFORNIA
The 60-day notice letter cites substantial evidence developed by numerous state and federal agencies that the California Forest Practice Rules have long failed to protect salmon from harm resulting from forestry operations. Logging and roadbuilding authorized by the Rules often cause erosion and landslides that foul salmon spawning and rearing habitat with fish-killing sediment. Furthermore, the Rules allow substantial logging to occur right next to streams, altering the shady microclimate that keeps water cool enough for young fish to survive California’s scorching summer days.
State officials have permitted logging operations on more than 150,000 acres in dozens of coastal watersheds since California coho were first listed under the ESA. Some watersheds have been almost completely liquidated—with full agency approval—in the space of only a few years. On numerous occasions, Federal courts have recently held state agencies legally accountable for authorizing actions that violate federal laws. The notice letter states, "Despite its responsibility to regulate logging operations in a manner consistent with all applicable state and federal laws, the Resources Agency is knowingly and willfully permitting and otherwise administering logging operations that result in the ‘taking’ of coho salmon and other listed species."
For Further Information Contact: the Environmental Protection Information Center at (707) 943-3096.
IV. ALASKA
A controversy has arisen because the Chugach Alaska Corporation (CAC) wants to build a 55-mile road through the Delta to a land holding in the Carbon Mountain area to log 8,000 acres of old-growth spruce and hemlock. In the 105th Congress, Senator Frank Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Representative Don Young (R-Alaska) unsuccessfully championed legislation that would have mandated that the federal government provide the CAC a 500-foot wide easement across Chugach National Forest land in the Delta for access to the Carbon Mountain area.
Fighting the road project has been an environmental coalition named the Copper River Delta Coalition. The Coalition includes the National Wildlife Federation, Eyak Preservation Council, Alaska Center for the Environment, the Wilderness Society, Trustees for Alaska, the Coastal Coalition, and the Sierra Club. The Coalition is pressing the CAC to consider a conservation easement, allowing them to retain title to the land, but give up development rights in exchange for monetary compensation.
NOW WHAT: The Forest Service is supposed to issue a permit for the CAC to build the road in the very near future. It appears though, that because of mounting public pressure, the chances are still good that a conservation easement deal will ultimately be struck.
For Further Information Contact Scott Anaya of the National Wildlife Federation at (907) 258-4808.
As a commercially critical fish, pink salmon received much attention after the [Exxon Valdez] spill. For years, biologists have documented the size and health of salmon populations returning to oiled and unoiled sites in the sound and have conducted laboratory experiments to decipher the precise dangers of hydrocarbons. Such studies are proving to be eye-opening. "Now we believe that oil pollution has much longer effects at much lower concentrations and with different compounds than we had thought," says Ronald A. Heintz, a biologist at the National Marine Fisheries Service’s Auke Bay Laboratory in Juneau.
Oil is composed of thousands of compounds, including polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs. PAHs are not regulated in the aggregate nor for their impact on aquatic life. The Environmental Protection Agency issues water-quality recommendations only for human consumption of specific PAHs—such as naphthalene and chrysene—although states can devise their own regulations.
What Heintz and his team did was to expose pink salmon eggs and embryos to different amounts of total PAHs. In previously published papers, the researchers reported that postspill concentrations of PAHs—from a high of 51.5 parts per billion to a low of 4.4 ppb—can, variously, kill the fish, impair their ability to reproduce and lower their growth rates. "Exposing an embryo to oil is like taking a shotgun to its DNA," Heintz describes. It has lots of different effects, he adds, and "over the whole life cycle, those little effects really add up."
Now Heintz and his colleagues have determined that PAH levels as low as 1 ppb harm both pink salmon and Pacific herring. In their most recent studies, which appear in this month’s [March] Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry, the scientists found that mortality increased for both species of fish exposed to 1 ppb. And they discovered that the effects of very weathered oil were the same as those of fresh oil—which means that the old oil persisting under gravel in some parts of Prince William Sound could still be harmful.
The fact that 1 ppb is damaging to two species suggests that intertidal organisms everywhere may be affected by the chronic pollution brought about by small spills or leaks. "You’d be hard-pressed to find any coastal area where you wouldn’t get total PAH concentrations of that magnitude," asserts Judith E. McDowell of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts.
If more researchers determine that PAHs at 1 ppb are damaging fish and other organisms, new regulations may be needed to ensure water quality—which could affect oil exploration offshore and ballast-water discharges. Even Alaska, which has the strictest criteria in the world at 15 ppb, might have to rethink its standards, observes Jeffrey W. Short, a chemist at the Auke Bay Laboratory. But it could prove virtually impossible to regulate the many nonpoint sources of PAHs, such as storm-water runoff and people’s sloppiness with their motor oil. "The consciousness has got to change with the public and the way that we set standards," says Usha Varanasi of the Northwest Fisheries Science Center in Seattle. "It is not always a company."
For Further Information visit the Scientific American website at http://www.sciam.com/index.html.
V. IDAHO
According to the coalition, the area is also prone to landslides, or mass movements of soils into the creeks (as the Clearwater National Forest experienced in the winters of 1995 and 1996), and the proposal will increase risks for further landslides. In a 40-page brief filed in Federal District Court in late January, the conservation groups claim that the Forest Service will violate the National Environmental Policy Act and the Clean Water Act if it proceeds the with Fish Bate project. Below are excerpts from the coalition’s 02/02/99 press release:
The further deforestation called for in the Fish Bate Alternative 7 will cumulatively and substantially increase the already high risk factors for mass movement events in the project area," declared Grant Meyer, an Idaho Falls native who is a professor of geology at Middlebury College in Vermont. Meyer began studying the Clearwater basin geology in 1978 for the U.S. Geological Survey and the Forest Service. Meyer submitted a 25-page supporting declaration for the plaintiffs.
On the subject of fisheries, F. Al Espinosa Jr., the former Fisheries Biologist for the Clearwater forest for almost 20 years, declared, "It is clear from the administrative record that virtually all of the major streams in the Fish Bate area are below Forest Plan standards with regard to fisheries habitat or other relevant water quality standards."
Espinosa goes on to declare in his 40-page declaration, "The Fish Bate project will almost certainly create measurable increases in sedimentation to project area streams (including the North Fork) within the foreseeable time frame of the project impacts."
The brief on Fish Bate is part of lawsuit against the Clearwater Forest in December, 1997, claiming the Clearwater violated a Settlement Agreement with conservation groups in 1993, which requires no further water quality degradation.
The conservation groups now seek to stop the Fish Bate Project, because it would cause irreparable harm to public lands. The proposal would eliminate 888 acres of old growth through logging and increase sediment in streams, according to Forest Service documents and independent, scientific analysis.
"The Forest Service has broken the promises it made in the 1993 Settlement Agreement to improve water quality," said Larry McLaud [of the Idaho Conservation League]. "The mudslides in 1995-1997 are evidence of the problems from past projects like Fish Bate," he said.
For Further Information Contact: Larry McLaud of the Idaho Conservation League (208) 882-1010; Chuck Pezeshki of the Clearwater Biodiversity Project (208) 835-2999; Laird Lucas of the Land and Water Fund of the Rockies at (208) 342-7024; Clearwater National Forest at (208) 476-4541.
VI. CONFERENCES
Some of the goals for the workshop include:
For Further Information Contact the Solving Bycatch 2000 Workshop Coordinator, Mary Sue Lonnevik, Universal Plans, Inc., P.O. Box 1453, Newport, OR 97365, Phone: (541) 265-9224; Fax: (541) 574-1923, e-mail: lonnevik@teleport.com, web site: http://www.bycatch.com.
VII. GRANTS
Proposal sponsors are reminded to work closely with local DFG fishery and fish habitat specialists in developing proposals and to ensure that appropriate DFG personnel are included in proposal planning and development stages. Consultation with DFG should be scheduled well in advance of proposal deadlines to allow time to evaluate site conditions, if necessary.
For a Copy of Proposal Guidelines, go to the DFG website at: http://www.dfg.ca.gov/ifd/Rfp2000.pdf, or call Mary Brawner, DFG, at (916) 654-5628.
Workshop: DFG has been holding workshops to help applicants navigate the complexities of this process. The final workshops is scheduled to run from 9:00 am to 2:00 p.m. on April 7, at the Regional Water Quality Control Board, 5550 Skylane Blvd., Suite A, in Santa Rosa.
For Further Workshop-Related and other Technical Information Contact Larry Week, DFG, at (707) 944-5526.
This competition emphasizes well-integrated, interdisciplinary research on important scientific, engineering, and social principles for understanding, protecting, and restoring watershed resources. A systems approach and general applicability of the research to watershed-scale questions are required in each proposal. Investigators are encouraged to bring together new approaches to address watershed-scale issues and draw widely from expertise in different disciplines. EPA, NSF, and USDA anticipate awarding approximately $7 million, with an award range of $100,000 to $300,000 per award per year and an approximate duration of 2 to 3 years. **Grant applications must be received by 05/28/99**
For Further Information Contact: Dr. Robert E. Menzer, EPA National Center for Environmental Research and Quality Assurance, at (202) 564-6849; email: menzer.robert@epa.gov, or on the web go to http://es.epa.gov/ncerqa/rfa/water.html.
For Further Information Contact the US Fish and Wildlife Service in Yreka at (530) 842-5763.
VIII. WEATHER/OCEAN/CLIMATE
Given the strength and evolution of existing La Niña conditions, we expect the cold episode to last for at least the next three to six months. This is supported by most available statistical and coupled model predictions. Based on current conditions in the tropical Pacific, on the NCEP SST [sea surface temperature] predictions, and on results from historical studies on the effects of cold episodes, we expect...[o]ver the United States during the next three months, drier- and warmer-than-normal conditions are expected in southern sections from southern California eastward to the Carolinas. Wetter-than-normal conditions are expected in the northern Great Plains and upper Midwest. Cooler-than-normal conditions are likely over western and central Canada and Alaska.
PNL scientists tested the new regional climate model on the Northwest: Washington, Oregon, Idaho and western Montana. Assuming carbon dioxide levels will double in the next 80 years, the model shows that in 2080 there will be:
For Further Information visit the PNL website at http://www.pnl.gov.
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EDITOR’S NOTE: We welcome information on habitat news in your area. Information should pertain to habitat of marine, estuarine, or anadromous fish or shellfish. Feel free to fax us newspaper articles, copies of letters, press releases, public hearing notices, etc., to (503) 650-5426. Funding for this publication comes in part from Federal Aid in Sport Fish Restoration. If you have any questions regarding the contents of this publication, or about our habitat education program, please contact: Stephen Phillips, Editor, Habitat Hotline, 45 SE 82nd Drive, Suite 100, Gladstone, Oregon 97027-2522. Phone: (503) 650-5400, Fax: (503) 650-5426. Messages can also be E-mailed to Stephen_Phillips@psmfc.org. Editorial assistance and layout by Liza Bauman. Printed on 100% recycled post-consumer paper. Date of Issue: 4/2/99.