An Ich-y Situation

Just when you thought the state of Pacific salmon in 2008 couldn't get any worse, come two more pieces of bad news: one environmental, one political.

First, Ken Weiss, the Pulitzer Prize-winning oceans writer for the Los Angeles Times, reports that Alaska salmon -- up til now in such good shape that they're certified by the Marine Stewardship Council as sustainable and a Best Choice of our Seafood Watch program -- may be in trouble because of global warming.

The rivers in which they spawn are warming. Warmer water is more hospitable to diseases and parasites, including "white spot disease" from a parasite called ich for short (pronounced "ick") that renders Yukon River salmon unfit for anything but sled dogs or the garbage.

That's an environmental wake-up call.

On the political front, U.S. senators and members of Congress from the West Coast are fuming because the Bush Administration is proposing to cut $70 million from the $180 million disaster appropriation to aid the salmon fleet idled by the cancellation of this year's salmon season because of the California salmon population.

The money would be redirected to help pay for the 2010 federal census.

In a letter to the President, the bipartisan coalition asserts:

“This proposal is especially egregious when you consider that your administration’s water policies on all of the Pacific Northwest’s major salmon rivers are the reason this disaster funding is needed in the first place.”

And that was their reaction BEFORE he proposed reopening U.S. waters to offshore oil and gas development.