I don't think that NOAA will ever mess with just one or two populations again, so the entire Washington Coast Chinook ESU (Willapa Bay up to but not including the Elwha River) would have to be listed. If that were to happen though, these Chehalis spring Chinook would undoubtedly become a critical population to recover this ESU. Like all of the western Washington Chinook ESUs, spring Chinook populations are pretty rare and therefore would likely have to be healthy to the provide the diversity necessary for de-listing. I think there are only one or two other spring Chinook populations in this ESU (Sol Duc and Queets) and probably one of these would likely have to be healthy as well.

The Sol Duc spring Chinook population may have already become somewhat compromised by hybridization with summer Chinook in the spring chinook hatchery program, and it appears that very little is known about the status of the Queets population including whether the managers can even decide if it is a spring run, summer run, or spring/summer run. I suspect that listing this ESU would lead to a major change for a lot of these populations as well as changes in the WB and GH management plans.