DEA to analyze impacts of NOAA’s NMFS determination that six hatchery programs for Snohomish River Basin salmon as described in joint state-tribal HGMP satisfy the Endangered Species Act Section 4(d) Rule.

Draft Environmental Assessment (DEA) to analyze impacts of NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) determination that six hatchery programs for Snohomish River Basin salmon as described in joint state-tribal Hatchery and Genetic Management Plans (HGMP) satisfy the Endangered Species Act Section 4(d) Rule. The proposed action analyzed in the DEA is NMFS’s ESA determination regarding the effects of HGMPs for two Chinook salmon, three coho salmon, and one fall chum salmon hatchery programs in the Snohomish River basin encompassing part of the range of the ESA-listed Puget Sound Chinook Salmon Evolutionarily Significant Unit and Puget Sound Steelhead Distinct Population Segment pursuant to limit 6 of the ESA 4(d) Rule for listed Puget Sound salmon and steelhead. No significant impacts to protected species are expected.

Under the NMFS schedule developed with the Puget Sound salmon resource comanagers (the Treaty Tribes and Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife), the ESA determination for the proposed action is expected to be completed By January 1, 2017.