Remember the bull trout? The administration pulled some chicanery a while back and produced a cost-benefit analysis of plans to save the bull trout's habitat... but eliminated all references to benefits from the final report. Well, surprise, surprise: the new recovery plan "would sharply reduce the amount of federally designated critical habitat for the threatened bull trout in three Western states and eliminate federal requirements for such habitat in Montana," according to the AP. Adds the (Bend) Bulletin: The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Wednesday designated which water bodies in four Northwestern states must be protected to ensure bull trout's survival. The final rule sent to the federal register designates 1,748 miles of streams and 61,235 acres of lakes in the Columbia and Klamath River basins of Oregon, Washington and Idaho as critical habitat. It also eliminated protection requirements in Montana. The original plan, released in November 2002, called for the safeguarding of about 18,450 stream miles and 532,700 acres of lakes and reservoirs. In the Deschutes basin, 39 miles of rivers were set aside Wednesday — a marked drop from the 439 originally proposed. About 23,000 acres of lakes and reservoirs — including Wickiup Reservoir, which fuels the North Unit Irrigation District — had also been earmarked for protection in 2002. No lakes or reservoirs in the Deschutes basin were included in the final rule. Why such a dramatic reduction from the original proposal? Why eliminate so many areas from habitat protection plans? According to the Fish and Wildlife Service: "[T]he Service found that the social and economic cost of a designation outweighed the conservation benefit."