By Kari Mar
La Conner Community News
A sweeping change to how the federal government enforces the Endangered Species Act could have significant implications for salmon recovery, shoreline development and habitat protection across Skagit County.
The U.S. Departments of the Interior and Commerce announced Friday they have finalized a rule rescinding the long-standing federal definition of the word “harm” under the Endangered Species Act, removing language that has, for decades, treated significant habitat destruction as an illegal “take” of endangered species.
The change means actions that destroy or degrade habitat may no longer violate the law unless they directly injure or kill a protected animal.
The Trump administration said the rule restores the law to its original intent and follows last year’s U.S. Supreme Court decision in Loper Bright v. Raimondo, which limited federal agencies’ ability to broadly interpret statutes.
“For years, federal agencies abused the ESA to obstruct lawful land use and burden American families and businesses,” Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said in a statement announcing the rule. The administration said the change will reduce permitting delays and compliance costs while preserving protections against directly killing or injuring endangered wildlife.
Conservation groups and tribes argue the change strikes at the heart of the Endangered Species Act.
Ben Greuel, Wildlife Campaign Manager at the Sierra Club, issued the following statement Friday: “The Trump administration’s attempt to strip away long-standing habitat protections is a direct attack on the foundation of the Endangered Species Act. For more than four decades, the definition of ‘harm’ recognized a simple truth: if you destroy the places wildlife need to survive, you are putting species on a path to extinction. This rule ignores that reality in an unlawful attempt to open the door for corporate polluters to degrade vitally important habitats, wildlife be damned. The Endangered Species Act is a bedrock law that must be followed. The Sierra Club will continue to fight for these protections and defend our wildlife for future generations.”
For more than 40 years, federal regulations have defined “harm” to include “significant habitat modification or degradation” that kills or injures protected wildlife by impairing breeding, feeding or sheltering. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld that interpretation in 1995.
The New York Times reported Friday that environmental organizations view the rule as one of the most significant rollbacks of wildlife protections in decades because habitat loss is widely considered the leading cause of species decline.
Why it matters in Skagit County
The issue carries particular significance in Skagit County, where decades of salmon recovery work, estuary restoration and shoreline permitting have relied on habitat protections under the Endangered Species Act.
Tim Manns, conservation manager for the Skagit chapter of the Audubon Society, wrote this in a letter to the Interior Department when it announced the changes:
“The ‘quality of the human environment’ for Skagit Audubon members is most definitely affected by the presence – or absence – of listed and other species of birds and other wildlife. It means a great deal to us that we can go to Washington Park in Anacortes, look out across Rosario Strait, and still see the federally-listed Marbled Murrelet. Just knowing that other declining species are hanging on because their habitat is protected is essential to our own sense of well-being.”
The Swinomish Indian Tribal Community submitted a 38-page legal and scientific objection to the proposal last year, arguing that weakening habitat protections would directly threaten treaty-protected fisheries and endangered species that define the region.
The tribe wrote that Chinook salmon, Southern Resident killer whales and other listed species cannot recover without protecting the habitats they depend on.
“What harms salmon harms Swinomish,” the tribe wrote, describing the decline of Chinook as both an ecological and cultural crisis.
The comments note that the Swinomish Reservation sits at the mouth of the Skagit River — the largest watershed flowing into Puget Sound and the only river in the lower 48 states that still supports all species of wild Pacific salmon and steelhead.
According to the tribe, decades of scientific research have identified habitat degradation — including the loss of estuary habitat, floodplains, riparian forests, wetlands and nearshore ecosystems — as the primary obstacle to recovery of endangered Chinook salmon and the Southern Resident killer whales that depend on them for food.
Potential local impacts
The rule could affect numerous types of projects common in Skagit County, where federal agencies routinely evaluate habitat impacts under the Endangered Species Act.
Among the examples cited by Swinomish are:
- replacement or repair of tidegates in the Skagit delta;
- shoreline armoring such as bulkheads and seawalls;
- floodplain development;
- wetlands alteration; and
- other projects requiring federal permits.
The tribe argues those reviews have often required habitat mitigation because habitat destruction itself has been considered a form of harm to endangered species.
The comments specifically reference the recent No Name Slough tidegate litigation in Skagit County, in which federal fisheries officials concluded replacing a tidegate would jeopardize threatened Chinook salmon and Southern Resident killer whales without significant mitigation. Earlier this year, a federal judge upheld NOAA Fisheries’ biological opinion requiring those protections.
Treaty rights concerns
Swinomish argues the rule extends beyond environmental regulation into treaty rights.
The tribe says approximately one in five tribal members participates in treaty fisheries, and that commercial, ceremonial and subsistence fishing supports both the local economy and cultural identity.
Removing habitat protections, the tribe argues, threatens not only endangered species but also the treaty rights reserved under the 1855 Treaty of Point Elliott.
“The treaty fishing right was meant to preserve our culture and way of life revolving around fishing,” the tribe wrote.
What’s next
The Interior Department said existing permits and incidental take authorizations remain valid, and that the Endangered Species Act’s core prohibition against directly killing or injuring listed wildlife remains unchanged.
Environmental organizations have indicated they expect to challenge the rule in court.
The final regulation is expected to take effect after publication in the Federal Register.
This is developing story. Please check back for updates as we get more details on the timing of the change and the impact in La Conner and the greater Skagit Valley. Note: Artificial Intelligence was used in the compiling of this report, but not in the research or reporting of it.
