I must say that I am surprised at some of the anti hatchery replies to this question.Perhaps I shouldent be having read the stuff on this BB for about a year but nevertheless I am.
While there are some downsides to hatchery production ;but the time to close hatcheries is after there is a clear rebound of natural stocks and after the root cause problems have been dealt with.Neither of these prerequisites have been met.
As I see the hatchery downsides the key items are loss of genepool and introduction of disease.
Both of these can be dealt with through sound science and good management.
Fisheries managers have always been against hatchery programs and seek to kill them when opportunity presents itself.The perfect vehicle is loss of financial resources. But why would you trust the judgement of the very people who cause the problem in the first place by allowing to great a commercial catch,and poorly estimating the capacity of the resource.
The time to close hatcheries is after the rebound of native fish and after we have sound management.