Unfortunately these are the same kinds of rationalizations that the various industries in the midwest used to try to designate areas as "industrial" and "protected". The end result was a river that caught fire, and the begining of the environmental movement. I'm not bashing you, but it is a mindset that will generally end up with too much compromise as long as a single remenant of wild remains. It would be best to do it the other way around. Make them make a general concession, then put the screws to them and change things incrementally in a global sense. From what I understand this is a lot of the strategy of the WSC and American Rivers....

Also, if we are interested in wild fish, we'll have to address the total package, as we don't understand enough about the fish to say that we can protect a single river, but not another. Case in point, if we pump up the Cowlitz plants to 2mill or so fry, what is the affect on the mid ocean food sources for wild fish? They may have better fitness, but against overwhelming numbers, they may get lost.

Finally, what would people say if we decided the Sky is easier to say than say the Sauk, and we lost all those large beautiful fish? Do you want to be the one to make those decisions? I certainly wouldn't want to, and IMO we shouldn't.

At some point rational thought will have to prevail and our rampant development will have to change to a less impactful manner. After all, the steelhead are just the tip of the iceberg. Once they are gone and reasonable habitat for them is removed, how much longer before we begin to feel the affects of the degredaded watershed that we rely on for drinking water or irrigation?