State Maps Of Fish Streams Inaccurate Studies Show Errors Undercut Efforts To Protect Salmon Habitat

Maps issued by the state to show fish-bearing streams are full of errors, resulting in loss of thousands of miles of habitat for salmon and other species, several studies indicate.

The errors undercut the effect of state laws that require loggers and developers to leave protective buffers of trees for shade and erosion control next to streams where fish live and spawn.

State officials blame much of the problem on a shortage of map-makers at the Department of Natural Resources. But some errors have gone uncorrected as long as seven years after detection, the News Tribune reported Sunday.

“How can we protect the fish?” asked Kurt Beardslee, director of the sport-fishing group Washington Trout. “We don’t even know where they are.”

Numerous salmon and steelhead runs have been listed as endangered or are under consideration for listing, and commercial fisheries off the coast have collapsed. Many blame loss of habitat for the decline.

“It’s very clear that if there are no riparian buffers along these fish-bearing streams, fish habitat will be lost,” said John Mankowski, policy analyst for the state Department of Fish and Wildlife.

Timber, Fish and Wildlife, a state panel of public and private foresters, regulators and biologists formed to seek consensus on land-use issues, is drafting an emergency rule that would automatically upgrade hundreds of miles of streams based solely on physical considerations, primarily width and gradient.

Under the proposal, it would then be up to a protesting landowner to prove there was no fish in the stream.

Bill Wilkerson, director of the Washington Forest Protection Association, a timber industry group, and co-chairman of the panel, says that’s only an interim solution.

“The bottom line is that we have a flawed system that needs to get fixed,” he said.

The impact of faulty maps is impossible to assess, partly because landowners are supposed to follow the law regardless of what the maps show.

“Have a lot of streams been cut over? I can’t answer that,” Wilkerson said. “The maps are not the law. The rule is the law, and the rule says you have to provide protection.”

Keith Simmons, harvest planning and engineering manager at Simpson Timber Co., said the company relies primarily on its own biologists and uses the maps only as a general guide.

Widespread mapping errors have been found by state, Indian and private biologists.

In the Hood Canal area, 72 percent of the streams were mislabeled, according to a survey by the Point No Point Treaty Council, a tribal group.

Quinault tribal experts found 1,200 miles of streams on the Olympic Peninsula mislabeled, more than half of the total that were checked.

“If you had 10,000 forest practice permits and a 70 percent error rate, that means 7,000 of those permits did not have the full riparian protection required by law,” said Carol Bernthal, habitat coordinator for the Point No Point Treaty Council. “This is not an academic issue.”

The Quinaults began seeking stream upgrades in 1989, when the first errors were found. A council letter to the state Forest Practices Board six months ago said many of the affected maps remained unchanged.

“Failure to update base maps in a timely fashion has already resulted in significant material damage to public resources,” wrote Randy Harder, the council’s executive director.

Besides the emergency rule, Timber, Fish and Wildlife participants are working on long-range measures to improve streamside protection of fish habitat because even when the law is followed, it is “commonly thought to be inadequate,” said John Mankowsky, a state fish and wildlife policy analyst.

“The federal proposals to list salmon have got a lot of people nervous. We’re trying to get out ahead of the game,” Mankowsky said.

Biologists and cartographers first began a comprehensive review of the state’s streams in the mid-1970s.

Lacking funds for expensive ground surveys, they were forced to rely on aerial photographs and existing topographical maps, said John Edwards, the state’s manager of forest practices.

Natural resources field staffers began finding numerous errors. By the time the agency was preparing to review the maps, tribal biologists “just flooded us with updates,” Edwards said.

More staff has been hired to overhaul the maps.

Meanwhile, the proposed emergency rule has drawn concern from loggers and environmentalists.

Simmons said Simpson upgraded many streams after Quinault biologists showed company officials there was fish in the water. Under the proposal, about 80 percent of the company’s streams now classified as fish-free would be labeled fish-bearing, a development that “will cause a lot of anxiety,” throughout the industry, he said.