Auntie,

Of course you're entitled to express your opinion. I'm just asking for a fairer debate. You don't like WT's position on hatcheries. I suppose we don't like yours, though I don't know that I've heard it exactly. One might gather that you fully support current practices, but I would just be guessing, Whatever, I imagine we've both given up on trying to convince each other. What we can do is engage in honest and fair advocacy to influence the positions of others listening in.

I'll acknowledge that this particular thread is about WT and all it stands for and practices. Fair enough. I gather that you don't like WT very much or at best consider it a necessary evil. It seems your biggest beef is with what you call our focus on hatcheries. We do work very hard on that issue and we always have. I summed up our position thus: If hatcheries can't or won't be improved, they should be shut down. Now, you apparently don't believe that actually is our position. there's not much I can do about that, but I do wish you would at least address whether you think the position as I stated it is reasonable or not, on the off chance I might be telling the truth.

Do you think the hatcheries can be improved without shutting them down? Do you have any ideas? Do you think they need to be improved? Do you think they are not harming PS chinook? Do you think that should matter one way or the other? I'm wishing we could actually debate those issues fairly, rather than who is credible or not. Why not let the arguments themselves demonstrate their own credibility?

I refer you to the web page because I keep having to remind you that we are more or less on the same page on habitat issues, and that WT has a record that can demonstrate that. You can go to our web page and take what's there with as much salt as you like, but it will also give you places to go to confirm whether we have actually done what we claim. We are also (as near as I can tell) on almost the exact same page on commercial and tribal harvest issues. Again, I can't give WT's entire resume here, so I invite you to start an investigation into that claim on our website, and see if you can disprove me, rather than just claim it isn't so.

The NMFS suit cost us a lot of time , energy, and money. I'm sorry if the outcome disappoints you. It disappointed us. But we did work hard and we did win what we believe is a significant step forward, and we don't intend to stop there. I encourage you, RFA, and everybody else to get involved, and comment on the draft EIS when it is released. You can make a difference.

You ask how many timber companies we've sued, how many power companies. We and others won a very important case last year that will force timber companies to leave much wider buffers around floodplains, what's called the channel migration zone, to leave room for rivers to meander and change course. It could have a profound effect on preserving and improving river productivity. We are the lead plaintiffs in a case involving Puget Sound Energy hydro operations in the Skagit basin.

You should also know (if for no other reason than I've said it again and again here) that we don't just sue everybody as a first course of action. We take part in public processes; we sit down face to face with resource agencies and stakeholders to try to negotiate better practices that meet the biological requiremnts of recovering fish populations, and often better compliance with the law. Those processes often result in better conditions that preclude the need to go to court.

We went through many of ther same processes for a considerable amount of time before we filed the hatchery suits. Please note that PS chinook have been listed for four years, and WDFW has been in techincal violation of the ESA for more than two years. Our direct engagement with WDFW over these issues goes as far back as nine years.

You may not like us goring your ox, and you have every right to fight against it, but you should acknowledge that WT's record demonstrates that we have not singled you out. If you research our record, you'll have to acknowledge it.

I do admit that I continue to be frustrated that WT itself is the focus of discussion, rather than our positions and the evidence we cite to support them, (with all due acknowledgement and respect to smalma of course).

By the way. Washington Trout is proud to call itself an environmental organization. We say it again and again. We have never claimed to be a fishing organization, and go to some pains to correct anyone who thinks we are.

Ramon Vanden Brulle
Washington Trout