Norton's sorry legacy.

Byline: The Register-Guard

Gale Norton is resigning as secretary of the Interior just as salmon fisherman and coastal towns from Oregon to California are about to reap the devastating results of her mishandling of the Klamath Basin water crisis.

Largely as a result of politically motivated intervention by Norton, farmers ended up winning their fight for water in the Klamath four years ago. Since then, scientists' warnings that Norton's policies would devastate the Klamath River's Chinook salmon populations, with dire consequences for the fishing industry and communities that depend on them, have become reality.

In 2002, an estimated 70,000 salmon died in the Klamath River, after increased water diversions for agriculture turned the river into a shallow, warm killing ground for the once-abundant chinook. Now, federal fisheries officials are considering a total shutdown of fishing along 700 miles of Northwest coastline, a move that would plunge a gaff through the heart of an already-gasping fishing industry and cost coastal communities more than $150 million in economic activity.

The Klamath crisis is just one facet of Norton's broadly anti-environment, pro-business legacy, one that surpasses in scope and audacity even that of her mentor James Watt, the former Interior secretary in the Reagan administration.

Despite her cheery demeanor and lip service to the cause of conservation, Norton has worked tirelessly to open public lands to commercial exploitation. During her tenure, vast expanses of the West have been opened for oil and gas drilling.

In 2003, Norton entered into an illegal agreement with the governor of Utah to open 2.6 million acres of protected lands in that state to commercial development. In exchange, she pledged that no additional lands would be recommended for wilderness protection.

If she'd had her way, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, one of the last truly wild and pristine places left on Earth, would have been opened to oil drilling. But "wild" and "pristine" were never words that held much sway with Norton, who oversaw an expansion of mountaintop-removal mining in Appalachia.

Norton's administration of the Endangered Species Act revealed a hostility to the act's primary mission of protecting and rebuilding endangered species populations. The secretary overruled scientists who warned against reducing habitat protections for species ranging from bull trout to marbeled murrelets.

Thanks to Norton, a ban on snowmobiles in Yellowstone National Park was overturned, despite studies showing that banning the snarling, belching beasts is necessary to clear the haze and restore peace and quiet to the crown jewel of America's park system. And thanks to Norton, the National Park Service is about to scrap its founding mission to give conservation priority over recreational and commercial activities.

It's hard to believe that President Bush will be able to come up with a worse candidate than Gale Norton as he begins a search for a new Interior secretary.

But it's always dangerous to underestimate the Bush administration's capacity for wreaking environmental havoc. One need only consider the plight of Klamath chinook.