Todd -
You asked me to expanded my take on this issue.

Bascially I see it as an issue with 3 broad components: 1)Management/process, 2) biological/data, and 3) allocation. I'll try to disucss each briefly.

1) The management paradigm used to manage this fisheries and most others in this era of ESA listings. Basically it allows at some fishing on non-listed stocks with limited impacts on the listed stocks. these allowable impacts are established so that the stock of conern is not unduely jeopardized. This paradigm encourages slective fisheries and without it there would be virtually no fishing for any species anywhere in Washington on the marine or anadromous waters.

There are large segments of the State's population that believe that there should not be any fishing that impacts the listed stocks - essentially shifting more of the conservation burden to the fishers and away from the habitat H. It is the potential shift from that paradigm that concerns me as it puts all fishing at risk. The trick of course is the development of allowable imapcts that don't significantly impede recovery efforts while keeping some fishing.

It is in this context that I made my comments earlier in the discussions.

2) the biological/data piece has 2 pieces -
Is the limits on the fishing impact appropriate for the stock(s) of concern? This assessment should include the impacts from all users in all fishing areas. In this case determination of the adequancy of the allowable impacts needs to include the sport impacts (main stem Columbia and the tribs) and commerical imapcts. If I recall correctally last year the model was a 2% sport fishing impact (mostly in the tribs) and a 2% in the commerical fishery. So what the proposal appears to doing is doubling the impacts from 4 to 8%. Is that appropriate? Don't know in that I have looked closely at the supporting information. presumably that will be a factor in NOAA's evaluation.

The second piece is whether the estimates of the impacts are creditable and supported by the available science. Again I have not looked closely the available information so am not really to make an assessment.

3) the allocation piece should be asking the question of what is the best or wise use of the allowable fishing in impact? First are those impacts being used to meet legal requirements and secondly are the decision makers address the scio-economic impacts in the process appropriately (fairly/wisely).

I would encourage you each to address the later aspects in your comments as you each feel is warranted. Those issues are appropriately addressed at the lcoal fishing level. If you support continuing to allow fishing under this paradigm then that aspect of this issue is probably best left for other discussions. Of course if one feels that this management paradigm is not a responsible approach then questioning it in this context and attempt to establish a precedence to aid in re-shaping management in other areas may be a workable strategy.

Hope the above is what you were asking for. I felt that addressing your Snohomish questions was unnecessary.

Happy Holidays and may the New Year bring you tight lines
S malma