Invoking the Whistleblower Protection Act, a federal wildlife biologist accused the Bush administration Monday of pressuring his agency to accept inadequate protections for endangered salmon in the Klamath River.
Less than a month after an estimated 33,000 salmon died in the river, Michael Kelly, a biologist with the National Marine Fisheries Service, said the agency agreed last May to accept water flows in the Klamath too low to support fish -- so that farmers upstream in the Klamath Basin could receive their full allotment of water.
Some of the fish that died were coho salmon protected under the Endangered Species Act, which Kelly's agency is obligated to enforce.
Kelly's accusation was included in a request for shelter under the Whistleblower Protection Act. The U.S. Office of Special Counsel will now open an investigation. The act shields Kelly from demotion or termination by the fisheries service as a result of his complaint.
The inquiry could result in a report of misconduct being sent to congressional leaders and President Bush, if it's found that the fisheries service and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation failed to adequately protect salmon.
Kelly "called me a month ago, after the fish kill began," said Karen Schambach, the California director of the nonprofit Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, which helped Kelly file the complaint. "But he was thinking of this even before the fish were killed. It's a huge decision and he agonized over it because he's a young guy, not someone close to retiring, and we all know what happens to whistle-blowers."
Kelly, who has declined to be interviewed, has worked for the fisheries service in Northern California for two years. Before that, he worked as a biologist for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, according to Schambach.
Rod McInnis, the acting southwest regional administrator for the fisheries service, said that Kelly will continue working on issues involving the Endangered Species Act. "We don't have a lot of spare people," he said.
Last spring, Kelly was responsible for helping to write a biological opinion of how much water should stay in the Klamath River for fish. That report, in turn, determined how much water could be diverted to farmers in the Klamath Basin along the California-Oregon border.
Twice, the Bureau of Reclamation -- the agency that diverts water to farmers -- disagreed with the flows requested by the fisheries service. So in late April, the two agencies agreed to sit down and hammer out a compromise.
