Seattle - Yesterday, a judge ruled that the state had failed in its duty to fix hundreds of culverts that block thousands of miles of salmon habitat. The judge's ruling requires the state to spend tens of millions of tax dollars on fixing those culverts.

The problem of culverts and other fish blockages is not new. Unfortunately, it has not been a priority for environmental activists or government officials despite potentially dramatic improvements to habitat.

On Earth Day 2005, Washington Policy Center highlighted this irony.  Our publication noted that fixing culverts would "open up hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of miles of needed habitat for the recovery of wild salmon.  The problem is that legislative funding for such projects has been squeezed out in favor of other priorities."

We went on to say that funding these fixes would bring together a broad coalition of governments, timber companies and tribes who "would be supportive of efforts to increase salmon runs on which they rely for a part of their economic well being."

There are some important lessons from this ruling.

First, while governments at all levels are spending on politically popular environmental projects, and holding press conferences to announce this spending, important projects like creating salmon habitat are being forgotten.  Over 16 years, DOT officials spent only $45 million to repair culverts.  By way of contrast, the legislature and county governments have committed hundreds of millions of dollars on politically popular initiatives like green buildings and hybrid buses, which will make only small improvements to environmental health far in the future.

Second, companies that work in the forests are well ahead of schedule in removing fish blockages.  Many major forestry companies will fix culverts far ahead of the 2016 deadline set by law. The Department of Natural Resources, which earns money from timber harvests, has fixed more than half of the 1,840 blockages identified in 2001, in just a few years.

Third, we need to look to science, not politics, to guide our environmental priorities.  Fixing these culverts has never been one of the environmental community's "Priorities for a Healthy Washington."  Few environmental projects, however, can bring such dramatic and immediate improvement to habitat for salmon.  Millions have been spent researching the potential impact of climate change on salmon, but funding for immediate projects to help fish has been hard to come by.  As we noted in 2005,

"the meat-and-potatoes work of fixing culverts is one of the least flashy environmental projects one can think of. Yet, it is also one of the most important. No fundraising letters will be written highlighting culvert replacement. Many fundraising letters will be written highlighting the new restrictions on schools and cars."

Perhaps now it will truly become a priority.