I thought it was a well-reasoned article......until the habitat card came up. We all know that habitat is critical. I am not familiar with the Stilly basin, but a quick Google Earth shows me that, other than the development right around Arlington and it's storm water impacts, the rest of the basin looks pretty undeveloped. And if Arlington's development footprint increase in impervious surfaces has mainly occurred since 2005, the storm water discharge should not be an issue. And Arlington is only about 10 miles the way the crow flies from the Sound, and I would think that the majority of the spawning would be further upriver.

I know the Oso slide couldn't have been much help to the system, and logging is always significant to increasing peak flows. It didn't appear that the basin was that depleted of forested areas? Does Arlington's wastewater discharge to the river?