WARNING! The following is a RANT. You may find this rant emotionally disturbing, so even tho this is the internet, you really are in control, and don't have to read emotionally disturbed, or disturbing, rants.

Tangle nets, fangle shmets. The lower Columbia River needs a commercial net fishery as much as a fish needs a bicycle! Why is it that human technology progresses at such a rapid pace, but humans progress hardly at all? As a human population we may not be stupid, but as a population we continue to behave in a myriad stupid ways.

Not everyone goes fishing recreationally, and there is a legitimate demand for commercially caught fish in our marketplaces. But they don't have to be supplied by lower Columbia River gillnets. You would think there might be allied forces that could take positive action. The direct service industries (DSI) that buy cheap hydropower would like to take a swipe at the commercial fishing; the NWPPC (using BPA money) would like to take a swipe at commercial fishing; and the sport fishing industry would like to take a swipe at commercial fishing. Yet, to no avail.

At various times, in t.i.c. mode, half-serious jest, and in total sincerity suggested that there is an economically, engineeringly, and biologically viable alternative to this antiquated commercial net fishery.

It's no mystery where these hatchery salmon are headed. And the vast majority will get where they're going via the very best engineered fish ladders in the world at Bonneville Dam. For a reasonable fraction of the hundreds of millions of dollars that have been spent to restore Columbia River salmon, that have yet to restore one single damn fish, the Corps could outfit these exquisite fish ladders with a system of samplers, sorters, and traps that would allow steelhead and unmarked wild salmon to continue their upstream migration, and a predetermined percentage of the marked hatchery fish could be sorted and sent off to the market.

More recently, I suggested further, that to better meet the interests and commercial fishing needs of Columbia River Indian Tribes, the Corps could build a reasonable fascimile of the inundated Celilo Falls (still cheaper than all the conservation measures funded by NWPPC that haven't worked)to which the marked hatchery fish could be shunted through chutes and ladders where treaty fishermen would actually be able to harvest more chinook than they are allowed in the mixed stock fishery of wild and hatchery salmon. And wherever I mention these ideas (except here, thanks, friends) everybody laughs like they're totally alien ideas, not worth the time it takes to think about.

While such measures aren't cheap, they are cheaper than actions that have been funded that don't work. If I can contemplate solutions that are technically and enconomically feasible, imagine what the smart scientists and engineers (and social engineers) could actually do, if directed to solve these problems instead of putzing around until extinction solves the fisheries issues.

There are difficult problems; some may have no human solutions. But stuff like this doesn't even make to the "almost hard" catagory. If an asteroid hits planet earth, maybe it's our just reward for our collective stupidity.

End of rant. If you took the time to read this, maybe you need to get a life. I probably do. Been working too much lately.

Sincerely,

Salmo g.