Klamath Whistleblower Leaves Fisheries Service

SACRAMENTO, California, May 21, 2004 (ENS) – The biologist who filed a federal whistleblower complaint concerning political interference in setting water levels prior to the massive Klamath fish kill in the fall of 2002 has resigned from his post with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Fisheries.

In his resignation letter delivered to his managers at the Arcata, California office of NOAA Fisheries, biologist Michael Kelly accuses the agency of putting politics ahead of science and misleading the public.

"My particular case is just symptomatic of this agency's failure to correctly apply science and caution to its decisions and public pronouncements,” Kelly said. “I speak for many of my fellow biologists who are embarrassed and disgusted by the agency's apparent misuse of science."

In October 2002, Kelly filed a disclosure under the Whistleblower Protection Act detailing how the agency violated the Endangered Species Act (ESA) during the formation of its management plan for the Klamath Irrigation Project. Although Kelly’s specific allegations were dismissed, a federal judge ruled that the agency had indeed violated the ESA.

“My efforts were unproductive, and appear to have served only to create stress for my supervisors, my family and me,” Kelly wrote in his letter. “Threatened coho salmon in the Klamath basin still do not have adequate flow conditions to assure their survival.”

Kelly, a federal fisheries biologist for nine years, says his resignation has been in part prompted by a similar situation.

Last year he was assigned as the lead for a Biological Opinion on a project to convert a salt marsh at the mouth of the Eel River to a fresh water pond.

The salt marsh is important juvenile rearing habitat for threatened Chinook salmon, as well as other estuary species, and was reestablished several years ago when a levee was breached.

The California Department of Fish and Game wants to rebuild the levee and drain the salt water, creating a fresh water pond that would concentrate wild ducks for hunters.

Kelly's draft Biological Opinion argues that the project would jeopardize the Chinook salmon, which is listed as "threatened" under the ESA.

Overall population trends for the Eel River reflect at least an 80 percent decline in salmon from the early 1960s, and roughly a 97 percent decline over the last century.

But Kelly’s regional manager opposed his finding, intervened and “concluded that this project does not jeopardize the Chinook population, and that we will no longer try to negotiate with Fish and Game to help them understand the folly of this undertaking,” Kelly explained.

“If I were to stay on the job, I am sufficiently convinced that I would be forced to fight again,” Kelly wrote. “In the current political climate, it is highly unlikely I would lose again.”

Kelly also cited a number of other agency actions that contributed to his decision, including the decision not to list the green sturgeon on the ESA and the apparent position of the agency to include hatchery salmon in its count of wild populations for ESA listing decisions.

“You need to be aware of the low morale of NOAA Fisheries staff in this region,” Kelly said in his letter. “My resignation is due to my futile efforts to contribute to NOAA Fisheries’ attaining what I believe to be its mission, and the cumulative effects of observing this agency's performance over the last four years."