A Chinook salmon. Under a stipulated settlement agreement filed June 26 in U.S. District Court’s Portland division, NOAA Fisheries has until Nov. 3 to determine whether listing Oregon and California coastal salmon as threatened or endangered is warranted, and Jan. 2 for Washington coastal salmon. (Courtesy Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife)

The National Marine Fisheries Service, or NOAA Fisheries, will determine whether spring-run Chinook salmon in the Pacific Northwest warrant protection under the Endangered Species Act beginning in the fall.

Under a stipulated settlement agreement filed June 26 in U.S. District Court’s Portland division, the agency has until Nov. 3 to determine whether listing Oregon and California coastal salmon as threatened or endangered is warranted, and Jan. 2 for Washington coastal salmon.

“We are unable to comment on matters of litigation,” NOAA Fisheries spokesman James Miller told the Capital Press.

The plaintiffs — the Center for Biological Diversity, Native Fish Society, Umpqua Watersheds and Pacific Rivers — sued the agency for the decision in February.

By pressing for an ESA listing determination, the plaintiffs are recognizing “broad West Coast impacts” to salmon runs, said Darryll Olsen, board representative for the Columbia-Snake River Irrigators Association.

“The common denominator here with Columbia-Snake River salmon runs is ocean conditions, separate from harvest impacts,” Olsen said.

The “overpowering force” of ocean conditions on all West Coast runs, including Columbia-Snake river fish, was documented in a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers report in 1994, Olsen said.

That report “provided indisputable data/evaluations that ocean conditions were the key driver affecting salmon production trends, with greater robustness than other fresh water survival factors,” Olsen said. “This empirical observation remains constant.”

The center in a statement called the deadlines an “important legal victory.”

“The government has taken far too long deciding whether to protect these imperiled Chinook salmon, but these deadlines will hold officials accountable,” center legal fellow Jeremiah Scanlan said.