Wader,

Modern, stylislh, wild fish on the Cowlitz take a truck upstream to the spawning grounds these days! (I'd insert one of those smily faces here if I could figure out how to do it.) Surplus hatchery coho, chinook, and late winter steelhead are also trucked to the upper river. It's weird, no doubt. I'm told fairly frequently that salmon were never meant to "take the bus." Of course they weren't. Does that also imply that rivers were never meant to be dammed? Doesn't really matter; some rivers are. The only way to maintain anadromous fish production is to have an effective means of passing fish up and downstream. Fish ladders are one alternative that work well in some applications, and trapping and trucking is another alternative that also works well in different, or even the same, applications.

If the reintroduction of wild salmon and steelhead runs is successful in the upper Cowlitz River, Tacoma will build a fish ladder at Mayfield Dam so that Tilton River fish and self-separate from upper Cowlitz fish. Fish will be trucked around Mossyrock Dam, however, because of the technical complexity and uncertainty associated with trying to build a fish ladder there. That is, there is a high probability is would fail to work as intended. That may, or may not, result in a fish ladder being built at Cowlitz Falls Dam. Once fish are in the truck, they could just as easily keep driving upstream of that dam, but the dams have different owners, and cooperation is uncertain at this point.

And CFM, good buddy, don't bother. I'm not going to rehash prior Cowlitz threads about the reintroduction, the FERC license, etc.

Sincerely,

Salmo g.