Washington Fish & Wildlife Commission Votes To Deny Trout Unlimited Petition

The Washington State Fish and Wildlife Commission voted on January 5 to deny the Trout Unlimited petition banning motorized dredging.

Listening to the recording of the meeting, I learned that Jeff Davis of the Habitat Program declared that WDFW would be willing to work with the Ecology Department to coordinate mining regulation in line with the latter's water quality mandate.

Randi Thurston, also with the Habitat Program, reviewed the highlights of the Trout Unlimited petition for the commissioners and stated the WDFW staff's recommendation.

There was also some discussion on the language of the law regarding the definition of small-scale mining and that it should be clarified this summer by the outcome of current court cases.  A few of the commissioners indicated they don't want to wait for the court cases to be resolved before proceeding with this matter.

After the discussion, there was a motion to support the recommendation of the WDFW staff:

I move to deny the Trout Unlimited petition at this time. I request that staff schedule sufficient time at a future Commission meeting to provide an in-depth briefing on the science related to mineral prospecting; potential risks to fish life; avoidance, minimization and compensation options; and policy considerations.  We also request that representatives from Trout Unlimited and the mineral prospecting community be given an opportunity to present at that meeting. The Commission will decide what action to take after the briefing.

The motion carried on a voice vote (I heard no dissent, but the audio was a bit garbled) with the understanding that the intention of the Commission is to solicit general public comment as well as to invite representatives of the mineral prospecting community, various environmental groups, commercial fishermen, tribes, etc to present their views at a designated Commission meeting in the near future.

The entire discussion went on for just under a half-hour.