Today is a great day to be a wild fish on the Sandy River. Why? Because late yesterday afternoon the Native Fish Society was victorious in its lawsuit against the Sandy River hatchery.
“It is undisputed that hatchery operations can pose a host of risks to wild fish…it is clear that the Sandy River Basin is of particular importance to the recovery of the four [Endangered Species Act] listed species and is an ecologically critical area,” said judge Haggerty.
He added that the National Marine Fisheries Service [NMFS] violated the ESA and the National Environmental Policies Act when it approved the State of Oregon’s management of the Sandy River Hatchery.
The Native Fish Society, along with Eugene-based McKenzie Fly Fishers, sued NMFS in an effort to prevent the extinction of chinook, steelhead, and coho in the Sandy River after the State of Oregon had received NMFS’ blessing under the Endangered Species Act to continue to drown the river with over a million hatchery fish.
The victory is decisive.
Tom Bie is the founder, editor, and publisher of The Drake. He started the magazine in 1998 as an annual newsprint publication based in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. He then moved it to Steamboat, Colorado (1999), Boulder, Colorado (2001), and San Clemente, California (2004), as he took jobs as managing editor at Paddler, Senior Editor at Skiing, and Editor-in-Chief at Powder, respectively. Tom and The Drake are now both based in Denver, Colorado, where The Drake is finally all grows up(Swingers, 1996) to a quarterly magazine.