17 



Chairman Studds. We generally give extra time to anybody 

 wishing to praise either this committee or the President, but we 

 are a little pressed. Thank you. 



Mr. Marvin Plenert, Regional Director of the Fish and Wildlife 

 Service. 



Mr. Plenert. 



STATEMENT OF MARVIN PLENERT, REGIONAL DIRECTOR, U.S. 

 FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE, REGION 1 



Mr. Plenert. Good morning, Congressman Studds and members 

 of the committee. It is a pleasure to welcome you to Portland 

 where so many of the Nation's environmental concerns intersect. 



It is entirely fitting that this field hearing concerning the decline 

 of Pacific salmon stocks occur here, and it is appropriate that the 

 Fish and Wildlife Service be represented before you. We have a 

 long history of stewardship of salmon and steelhead trout in this 

 region, dating back to 1872. 



That was when we began field investigations of the McCloud 

 River in California and attempted to increase the number of 

 salmon in the northern California waters with the construction of 

 our McCloud River hatchery. That hatchery some years later was 

 inundated by the Shasta Dam. 



This example serves as a microcosm for much of what happened 

 to the fish stocks in the Pacific region and of the unfortunate de- 

 cline that brings us to this field hearing today. My remarks this 

 morning will be brief and supplemented by my written testimony. 



The one element to the fishery resource question that stands out 

 today, startling and undeniable, of this accelerated rate of decline 

 of the Pacific salmonid stocks, the incremental small population de- 

 clines have suddenly and dramatically reached the point that sev- 

 eral salmon and steelhead populations are at risk of extinction. 

 Three salmon stocks in the Columbia River Basin and one in the 

 Sacramento river have already been listed; 214 others have been 

 identified at risk by the American Fisheries Society. 



We are witnessing a decline that our fishery scientists have 

 warned for years due to the practices they have described for dec- 

 ades — habitat loss, over-harvest, incompatible hydropower oper- 

 ations, water diversions, antiquated hatchery practices. A little 

 overfishing here, a clear cut there, a modest water withdrawal over 

 there all have undermined the system like a colony of termites un- 

 dermines the foundation of our house. 



Three things we must do to reverse this decline of Pacific sal- 

 monids. We must capitalize on the renewed interest and concern 

 stimulated by President Clinton's forest conference to the restora- 

 tion of Northwest watersheds. Largely through the efforts of fish- 

 ery management agencies was the fishery issue injected into the 

 debate, and what started out as a timber summit took a broader 

 and, in our view, more comprehensive perspective. It is our view 

 that fishery restoration will also create jobs in an economically de- 

 pressed region. 



Members of this committee, we have all heard statements pitting 

 environment versus jobs. We believe it is possible to have both. 



