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throughout the Northwest, and an essential problem of the decline 

 of salmon that needs to be addressed if we are to have a regional 

 solution to this major natural resource problem. 



We have at American Rivers recently completed a comprehensive 

 compilation of existing planning direction for management of anad- 

 romous fish habitat in Forest Service and Bureau of Land Manage- 

 ment plans throughout the Northwest, California, and Alaska. This 

 project was undertaken with the cooperation and support of the 

 Forest Service and BLM, and is a reflection of the desire of the 

 agencies to identify where their plans are and how they can be im- 

 proved. 



I think certainly we are lucky in this room now to have some of 

 the finest stream scientists in the Nation, many of whom work for 

 the Federal agencies. 



Our study has led us to a number of findings, conclusions and 

 recommendations that we would briefly like to share with the sub- 

 committee. 



First, the plans neither with the Forest Service nor BLM, ade- 

 quately address the cumulative effects of land management prac- 

 tices on fisheries and other aquatic resources. The plans do not de- 

 scribe fish habitat in quantitative terms, nor is there a relationship 

 between the existing and the historic habitat conditions described 

 in a very meaningful manner. It makes it very difficult for land 

 managers to predict the response of aquatic ecosystems to land 

 management practices. 



The enormous scientific consensus that land management plans 

 must identify the relationship between land management activities 

 and cumulative effects on a watershed basin has not yet been in- 

 corporated into the plans promulgated by the land management 

 agencies. 



Second, the plans provide only the most general objectives for 

 fish habitat conditions. We have recommended that the plans iden- 

 tify the desired physical, biological, and chemical conditions in the 

 streams themselves and riparian areas that are necessary to meet 

 habitat objectives that are required for the salmonid throughout 

 the Northwest. 



A real problem that has been touched on earlier has been the 

 fact that the plans have not yet been amended to reflect the threat- 

 ened, endangered and sensitive status of many salmonid species. 

 The Columbia Basin Program Implementation Guide, the PIG 

 which was announced with fanfare two years ago, set forth a num- 

 ber of agency actions that should be undertaken to protect salmon. 

 That simply has not been implemented. 



I think that the fisheries program staff is working on that. But 

 still two years later we have yet to see actual on-the-ground imple- 

 mentation in any kind of binding way of these recommendations. 



Certainly related to that would be the grazing allotment prob- 

 lem, which the Chairman observed earlier this morning. 



I think another problem that really needs to be addressed on a 

 regional basis is consistency in plans. Plans that are adjacent in 

 geographical locations have very differing standards for the man- 

 agement of species in riparian areas, and if there is to be a coordi- 

 nated effort, there should be greater consistency in agency plan- 

 ning. 



