SEATTLE — In a report analyzing the economics of protecting bull trout in the Pacific Northwest, the Bush administration this month deleted all references to possible financial benefits.
Instead, in releasing the report on the threatened trout and their vast habitat in four states, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service made public only those parts of an analysis that detailed the costs of saving the fish.
Those costs were put at $230 to $300 million over 10 years, adversely affecting hydropower, logging and highway construction.
Gone from the published analysis, which was written for the Fish and Wildlife Service by the Missoula, Mont., consulting firm Bioeconomics Inc., were 55 pages that detailed the benefits of protecting bull trout.
Estimated at $215 million over 20 to 30 years, they include revenue from sport fishing, reduced drinking water costs and increased irrigation water for farmers, especially late in the summer when streams are low.
A Fish and Wildlife Service official said the benefits analysis was cut because of its methodology. It was released by the Alliance for the Wild Rockies and Friends of the Wild Swan, two Montana-based environmental groups whose lawsuits have forced the federal government to list bull trout as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. The deletion was first reported in the Missoulian, a Montana newspaper.
On Friday, a number of environmental groups accused the Bush administration of publicizing facts that support its political objectives while ignoring facts that do not.
"The Bush administration will go to any lengths to do what its corporate sponsors want it to do," said Michael Garrity, executive director of the Alliance for the Wild Rockies.
In Washington, officials at the Fish and Wildlife Service strongly objected to his characterization of their economic analysis.
"It is not politics," said Chris Nolin, chief of the division of conservation and classification at the Fish and Wildlife Service.
She said the chapter on the economic benefits of protecting habitat for bull trout was deleted from the published report because it did not conform to the analytical standards prescribed by the Office of Management and Budget.
The federal government, however, often publicizes analyses of the benefits of Bush administration proposals for environmental cleanup. The Environmental Protection Agency, for example, found $113 billion in benefits over 10 years from provisions of the administration’s 2003 Clear Skies Act.
Under a court order, the Fish and Wildlife Service must decide by Sept. 21 how much of a proposed 18,000 miles of streams and 532,000 acres of lakes should be protected habitat for bull trout in Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Montana.
Under the Endangered Species Act, the Fish and Wildlife Service may exclude some habitat from protection if there are sufficient economic benefits. It cannot, however, make exclusions that would result in the extinction of a protected species.
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