In a letter dated June 18, 2012, EPA objected to several aspects of the National Marine Fisheries Service’s May 11, 2012 draft biological opinion regarding the effects of the herbicide thiobencarb on endangered and threatened pacific salmonids.  EPA also asked NMFS to respond to public comments on the BiOp in a transparent manner:  In EPA’s own words:

EPA believes that public transparency and accountability are core values for our agencies. EPA recommends that NMFS include a section in the fmal BiOp that responds to all the public comments received.  More specifically, NMFS should: 1) indicate for each comment accepted how that acceptance is reflected in revisions to the draft BiOp and 2) for each comment rejected, the rationale for rejecting the comment and not revising the BiOp.

●Click here to read EPA’s letter