I guess its time to add a few thoughts to this subject.

I think it's important to know that only a very small portion of Skagit farm acreage is planted in flowers (tulips & daffodils). The bulk of the land is used to produce food and seeds for others to grow food.

It has been pointed out that farmland is too valuable to destroy by building housing, malls and parking lots. With the population exploding every acre we can preserve is important not just for growing food but also for any undeveloped and possible unforeseen future usage. For example, farmland may just be one of the most valuable assets we have for the future production of clean renewable energy.

It has also been pointed out that we might be wise to preserve any estuarial and freshwater salmonid habitat that we presently have and do what is possible to increase this habitat where we can.

The trick here is to try to accomplish both of these goals wisely and in ways compatible with each other when ever possible.

In the Skagit Valley there is considerable estuarial habit in the South Fork Delta lands and much effort is being made to preserve it and rectify some of the damage there that man has done in the past. As mentioned, some levees there are being breached and the "natural delta lands" are being expanded and made more accessible to the fish. The Deepwater Slough restoration project, completed in 2000, allows the slough to be used by the river as a distributary.


If substantial new habitat is truly needed then why not convert the farmland known as Fir Island to river delta. This would expand those "natural delta lands" to include the entire area between both forks of the river from the confluence below Mount Vernon for the entire distance to Skagit Bay.

All that would be required would be to remove about 16-20 miles of Levees and to breach another 10-12 miles worth and tear up maybe 20-25 miles of paved roads. The houses and other buildings could just be left to provide mixed habitat until nature reclaims their remains.

Doing so would reclaim about 7500 acres of potential estuary delta land. The cost to buy out the farmers might be somewhere from 21-75 million dollars depending upon the valuation of the land and the buildings there. That is probably a very small amount in comparison to the costs of removing the levees and pavement.

The problem here as I see it is that instead of actually undertaking a sincere and effective project such as outlined above the state has allowed a tribal activist spokesman to blackmail it into harassing the farmers in order to make a political statement.

Initially the farmers were pressured to give up 200-foot swaths of riparian buffers alongside of each so-called waterway on their land. These waterways are not rivers with salmon in them but instead include ditches temporarily dug for drainage each winter and spring and later filled before planting. Now, in response to the farmers outrage over this the activists seek to fill many of these ditches with salmon and salt water which will not only poison the soil but also prevent planting because of the salmon in the ditches. Perhaps then they can be pressured into giving up those 200-foot buffers along the ditches they dig.

If estuarine habitat is needed then create estuarine habitat! Don't punish the farmers.

I question the concept that "increased estuary is necessary to recover" salmon stocks in the Skagit River. The Skagit has the healthiest chinook salmon stocks in the entire Puget Sound region. And that is despite the fact that those stocks have been harvested with gill nets annually (contrary the tribal denials) until less than one salmon generation ago.

The Skagit chnook have done quite well when they have been allowed to pass upriver to spawn without commercial and tribal nets and traps blocking the way. The estuary in the South Fork was diked and farmed and contained roads and even railroads until somewhat recently. Some those channels and the main North Fork channel were also dredged to create shipping lanes until fairly recent times. Despite the lack of estuarial habitat back then the chinook salmon prospered.

The history of the Skagit River Chinook has been one of over harvest followed by recovery followed by over harvest followed by recovery followed by over harvest again. With less than a generation of recovery time behind the recent over harvest cycle it seems likely that these fish will rebound with or without more estuary. If the numbers of fish returning in recent years is an indication of their condition the trend today definitely seems to be an upward one.

The entrances to some local salmon streams are definitely impeded by "old style" tide gates and it only makes sense to examine and correct these problems on a case by case basis. On the other hand, the idea of raising the water table of agricultural land and allowing the intrusion of salt water into man made drainage ditches lacks merit. The benefits to salmon seem small and the costs large.

The only local experience with self-regulated tide gates has been the one on Edison Slough that was installed in 1999 or 2000. The self-regulating tide gate at Edison is considered a bad project by everyone but the proponents of SRT's say that project failed because there wasn't enough research done before the gate was installed, or monitoring after installation. Locally, nobody supports that installation anymore, and the county commissioners want to remove the gate. That gate has been blamed for raising the water table and has become a rallying point for farmers in the Skagit River delta.

What frightens farmers and drainage commissioners is the prospect that all the conventional tide gates in Skagit County could be replaced by self-regulating ones. Conventional tide gates perform three main functions, all of which are compromised by self-regulating tide gates.

Tide gates control the water table by allowing the water that flows onto and under the delta to flow out. If the water table were to rise, a typical rain could drown the crops in the field. Tide gates also keep salt water out of the fields. If salt water rises too high, it can get into the water table, killing the crops. Tide gates also provide a reservoir for water to accumulate between tides. That way, if heavy rain falls during high tide, the rainwater can drain into the ditches and sloughs and wait there until it's let out when the tide falls. By letting some water back into the sloughs, a self-regulating tide gate reduces that drainage capacity and makes low-lying farmland more vulnerable to flooding

Under the current law, any blockage of a stream, including a tide gate, must provide some system for fish passage. Enforcement only happens when a permit is issued for repair or replacement of a gate, according to Bob Everitt, regional director of the Department of Fish and Wildlife. Everitt recently said the controversy over tide gates in Skagit County had already prompted the department to consider a moratorium on installing new self-regulating tide gates. In the meantime, his department is proposing a Skagit Tide Gate Strategy, a review of existing gates aimed at determining where the benefits to salmon would be greatest. Once the review is complete, the department would look for landowners willing to sell or lease land to be converted into estuary habitat.

It would seem that the recent agreement between the Skagit Tribal Cooperative and the WDFW and the resulting orders to Skagit County might negate this bit of common sense management policy.

To me it makes better sense to concentrate our resources where they can do the most good rather than punishing farmers for speaking out against misdirection in management trends. Because farmland has been destroyed to build malls is not good reason to destroy more farmland to provide barely significant benefit for salmon. That makes about as much sense as destroying salmon habitat to provide malls because so much habitat has already been compromised for agriculture. The pressure by tribal activists to hinder agriculture seems more of a political statement and a display of power than it is a real attempt to provide benefit for the salmon. It is just one more thing to misdirect attention from what might make a real difference.

It makes about as much sense as limiting a rural resident's right to drill a well for drinking water that could filter through the water table to the river. No wonder the public was excluded, at the request of the tribal activist, from the recent policy negotiations about rural water rights also.