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Another Handout to Industry: Stop the removal of critical salmon & trout habitat

Sample Letter

Area Regional Administrator Donna Darm
National Marine Fisheries Service
Protected Resources Division
525 NE Oregon Street, Suite 500
Portland, OR, 97232-2737

Re: Docket Number [030716175-4327-03] and RIN Number [0648-AQ77]

(Today’s Date), 2005

Dear Administrator Darm,

As a resident of California, I urge you to oppose the Bush Administration’s proposal to drastically reduce designated habitat for endangered Pacific salmon and steelhead trout. The plan put forth by the National Marine Fisheries Service will have a dramatic negative impact on salmon and steelhead trout runs in rivers throughout California.

This proposal amounts to an 80% decrease in Pacific Northwest habitat once designated for the fish. The policy could lead recovering fish populations to collapse, as they did in the Klamath basin in 2001. The Bush Administration’s salmon policy is fiscally irresponsible, putting at risk more than 35,000 jobs and $3 billion annually in related revenues. Moreover, restoration of the riverways has considerable value in the form of cleaner water for drinking and recreation.

This plan accepts salmon population levels where they are today – severely depressed and declining – and abandons the idea of protecting and restoring them. It also ignores the connection between rivers and lands and their influence on each other. Removing habitat protections means further habitat degradations and additional fish population declines.

Please oppose this rollback of protections to salmon and steelhead trout habitat.

Sincerely,

(Your Name)