Delisting, as I understand ESA, requires that the reasons for the listing be removed/controlled. If the reasons include the dams, then delisting may just require removal. If, as more than a few have noted here, PS steelhead are listed because of the accumulation of humans and the needs then that has to be removed to delist.

One reason why PS should be considered a single steelhead stock is that, at least according tome WDFW geneticists I have talked to, the gene data show that PS is one big stock and the health of the Snohomish may depend on fish from the Skagit, or Nisqually. The genetic data seems to show that there is a lot of what used to be thought of as "straying".