Pesticides are killing West Coast salmon
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Three common pesticides are helping push the Pacific Coast’s prized but imperiled salmon closer to extinction according to a new federal report, Times staff writer Eric Bailey writes.
Bailey, who has followed the West Coast salmon industry’s crisis this year, reports:
The National Marine Fisheries report says the pesticides interfere with basic functions of the fish: their ability to find food, reproduce, even to swim. The three pesticides -- malathion, diazinon and chloripyrifos -- have been used for decades by farmers and home gardeners.Joshua Osborne-Klein, an attorney with the nonprofit environmental law firm Earthjustice, said the report pointed to a need to find alternatives to the chemicals.The fisheries service is expected in coming months to make recommendations on potential remedies to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which governs pesticide use. Agency officials could order restrictions or prohibit use of the pesticides.
The sudden collapse of the chinook salmon run in California’s Sacramento River, where the salmon return to spawn, has led to various government moves such as the federal government declaring the West Coast ocean salmon fishery ‘a failure,’ and the inking of a 10-year agreement between the United States and Canada aimed at preventing overfishing of salmon off the western coast of Canada and southeast Alaska.
That’s not even mentioning another West Coast fish-related drama with the delta smelt.
-- Francisco Vara-Orta