Though I had no direct work with it, I did work at the state during the initial Grandy Creek fiasco and one of my colleagues was lead counsel for WDFW's GCH efforts.

My conclusions from that experience...

1. There would be an increase in hatchery fish in the Skagit, and it would be considerable.

2. The great majority of the fish would be confined to the lower river, from Grandy Creek down, and the intent would be to create a terminal fishery there.

3. There are depressed, threatened, and endangered fish in the Skagit, and there is always an issue of hatchery/wild interactions when those fish are present.

4. The WDFW's EIS was very difficult to defend in court, and eventually was abandoned as being far too weak to support building the hatchery.

5. WDFW has been working on a new one for several years. The funding is still there, but won't be forever.

It is extremely unfair and selfish to blame FFF or WT for WDFW's failure to do a proper EIS. I also find it unfair and selfish to rely on a faulty EIS to increase hatchery production when the faulty parts of the EIS dealt with controlling hatchery wild interactions in the healthiest (thought far from "healthy") Puget Sound steelhead river.

I'd support anything that increases angler opportunity, including greater opportunity to catch hatchery fish for the BBQ, but I will not support it at the expense of wild fish. If an EIS that survives tough scrutiny is written, then I'd be all for the GCH.

Until then, no way.

Fish on...

Todd