I don’t support the proposed facility primarily on economic grounds. Environmentally and ecologically, I remain undecided.

This project has its origins in the Wildcat Steelhead Club back in 1986 to enhance steelhead angling. The club successfully lobbied State Senator Mary Margaret Hougan by taking her fishing on the Skagit, and she joined the club, and introduced a bill for a Grandy Creek steelhead hatchery, and obtained an appropriation of about $4,200,000 that still remains mostly unspent. The Wildcatter’s intent seems worthy enough, but it was never particularly well thought out beyond the fact that the state owns the site of the former Grandy Creek hatchery. (Ask: why did it close in ~ 1948?) Another thing, WDFW apparently hadn’t noticed,until recently informed, that one of the three wells they drilled at the Grandy Creek site to supply this facility is no longer associated with the hatchery site. Since last October’s flood, the well pipe now stands about 20 feet out in the river, according to a friend of mine. It might make a nice mooring dolphin, or maybe it’s just a navigation hazard. In any event, it’s gonna’ be mighty hard to use the well to supply water to a rearing and acclimation pond.

The proposal wouldn’t necessarily increase the number of hatchery steelhead reared and released into the Skagit basin each year. It would spread them out, which is probably a good idea with respect to angling, but then it also spreads whatever ecological risks are associated with the hatchery steelhead program.

My over-riding observation, and I don’t see much discussion of it, is that the proposal most likely represents a complete waste of public funds. Project advocates and Wildcatters I’ve talked to generally don’t care about the expense as long as it generates some additional harvestable steelhead. As the news article describes, the prospective contribution to increased harvest is uncertain at best. When the Grandy Creek EIS came out in the early 1990s, WDFW estimated that it would cost $25 to produce each harvestable steelhead. Folks, at that price WDFW could raise steelhead to maturity without ever releasing them into the wild. We could have a truly put-and-take hatchery steelhead fishery like we do for stocked trout in lowland lakes. Consequently, I see the proposed program as a poor investment of public funds. The only argument I’ve heard regarding that is that many publicly funded projects are poor investments, and this is no worse than most. Yeah, but is that how you want to make your public investment decisions? That this one isn’t any worse than the others?

One commentor said WDFW has no increased funding for O&M. That’s what I’ve heard also. In fact, most State legislators who have sponsored hatchery construction in their districts have never bothered to secure any long term funding to actually operate and maintain them. It then falls to the agency to secure that funding in its biennial budget request to the legislature, where it may, or may not, be adequately funded.

There has been a fair bit written about the hatchery-wild inter-actions, with the jury generally still out. Chambers Creek type hatchery steelhead are seldom observed spawning among wild steelhead because of the significant separation in timing. But it probably does happen. And most biologists agree that to the extent that it does happen, it’s an adverse effect on wild steelhead. It seems to come down to the differences in opinion about whether the benefits of enhanced steelhead fishing in December and January are worth the known limited effects plus whatever unknown effects accrue to the wild steelhead population. The inter-actions of hatchery steelhead on other fish is even less understood, from what little I’ve heard. The implications are mostly inferencial. Hatchery steelhead smolts are usually larger than their wild counterparts, and they may prey on some chum salmon fry and smolts, but pink fry are normally gone from the system by the time hatchery steelhead smolts are released. They conceivably could prey on juvenile chinook, but the steelhead are typically too small to be effective chinook predators.

My analysis is that the environmental implications appear small, as we understand them. I think it comes down to how much money you want to spend for the prospect of catching zero to some small increased number of additional hatchery steelhead.

Sincerely,

Salmo g.