Salmon advocates sue over pesticides

Salmon advocates filed a lawsuit Monday to force the Bush administration to obey a five-year-old court order requiring it to make permanent rules to keep agricultural pesticides from killing salmon.

Filed in U.S. District Court in Seattle, the lawsuit asks a judge to order NOAA Fisheries, the agency in charge of protecting salmon, to formally consult with the Environmental Protection Agency over the use of 37 pesticides. Several are commonly found in rivers around the country and can kill salmon at minute concentrations.

U.S. District Judge John Coughenour had ordered the formal consultations in 2002 and imposed temporary restrictions that barred crop-dusting next to salmon streams and required home-and-garden stores to post warnings for consumers.

"Apparently what it takes to get this administration to do its job under [the Endangered Species Act] is to have someone there enforcing the law every step of the way," said Joshua Osborne-Klein, an attorney for Earthjustice, the public-interest law firm representing salmon advocates.

NOAA fisheries spokesman Brian Gorman said the agency had not seen the lawsuit and could not comment.

It was brought by the Northwest Coalition Against Pesticides and the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations.