Interior Secretary Signs Plan to Preserve Fish Habitat

Hailing it as an end to the "very Western tradition of conflict" and a fitting culmination of his tenure in the Clinton administration, Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt signed his name Wednesday to a fish habitat conservation pact covering 1.6 million acres of Plum Creek Timber Co. land in Montana, Idaho and Washington. What kind of habitat conservation plan still allows logging and road building in irreplaceable bull trout habitat, asked Chris Frissell, a staff scientist at Pacific Rivers Council in Eugene, Ore. "Plum Creeks plan doesnt meet the standards of the Endangered Species Act," added David Bayles, the councils conservation director, "and it wont save bull trout or other threatened species on Plum Creek land. We may ask the courts to re-examine the Department of Interiors failure to insist on sound endangered species protection."