Supreme Court Declines to Hear Irrigation-Salmon Dispute

WASHINGTON, DC, May 6, 2004 (ENS) - The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to hear a case challenging the federal government's authority to restrict irrigation across Forest Service land in order to protect endangered fish under the Endangered Species Act (ESA).

The decision, announced Monday, is a blow to property rights advocates who appealed the case after losing in both district and appellate courts.

The case involved private irrigation ditches that cross Okanogan National Forest land, located east of the Cascades Mountains in the Methow River Basin of Washington state.

The Forest Service claimed that it could continue to allow the use of its land for irrigation ditches only if their use did not threaten ESA listed fish or their habitat.

This means the agency has the ability to limit withdrawals of public land for irrigation ditches if it believes these would further endanger the fish.

Existing healthy streams in the Methow Basin are both scarce and important for recovery of steelhead and chinook salmon because more than 1,100 miles of historically accessible rivers and streams are now blocked by Chief Joseph Dam on the Columbia River.

The Pacific Legal Foundation, a property rights law firm that frequently challenges the Endangered Species Act, led the legal challenge to the Forest Service's position on behalf of farmers and Okanogan County.

The lower court ruling found that the government could restrict private irrigation when moving the water over Forest Service land in order to protect endangered chinook salmon and steelhead trout.

Earthjustice and attorney John Arum, representing a number of local, state, and national environmental groups, intervened in the case to support the Forest Service's position.

"This decision affirms what we have said all along - the Forest Service can protect salmon by conditioning the use of its land on protecting stream flows," said Arum. "This is good news for salmon because the Forest Service manages so much salmon spawning habitat along the west coast."