I just wanted to follow up and post a reply I got back from one of Koenings people. Read their reply and read my original email. The question about early summer-run and early winter-run steelhead was never answered. They also say that this agreement was put together with the help of Cowlitz guide associations. The guides I've talked to say the discussions they were involved with never mentioned most of what's in the agreement. Anybody out there from "Friends of the Cowlitz"? It says you were also involved in getting this agreement.


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Thank you for your recent Email to Director Koenings; the Director has asked me to respond to your inquiry.

The Agreement in Principal (AIP) that you refer to is not a recent document. It has been under negotiation and discussion for nearly two years. Parties participating in the negotiations/discussions range from Tacoma Power to NMFS, WDFW, USFWS, FERC, Friends of the Cowlitz (a recreational fishery and Cowlitz River advocacy group) , Washington Trout (a Wild Fish and Conservation advocacy group), American Rivers (a Wild Fish and Conservation advocacy group), Cowlitz River guide associations and numerous other interested parties representing a broad spectrum of folks with various and diverse interests relative to the Cowlitz River and the fishery resource dependant upon that system.

Simply said, this has been a widely attended, long, first-step taken in a process designed to get a final settlement agreement that nails down the legal requirements associated with Tacoma Power securing a 40 year license for the project.

Allow me emphasize, the AIP is not that document, it is only a first step.

The Director inserted himself into the AIP process near the end to bring to resolution several draft proposals in the AIP which he felt threatened the fishery resource, recreational fishing and recovery efforts on the Cowlitz River; he was able to resolve these issues with Tacoma Power, thus allowing the next step to begin.

The next step in this process is to work out the legal settlement. That legal settlement will take the general intent/principals outlined in the AIP, the Agreement in Principal, and convert them into a legal structure based on what is best for the resource in the Cowlitz basin.

During the AIP process, technical staff, primarily biologists and hatchery specialists were involved at the level necessary to achieve, again, an Agreement in Principal. During the next step which has begun, the legal settlement process, biologists and attorneys will be intimately involved to hammer out the immense amount of technical detail that will go into assuring the final settlement agreement protects the fishery resource and the fisheries that rely upon it.

I trust this answers your questions and clears up most of the misconceptions that may be out there.

Thank you for your continued interest and concern for the resource; it is only through our joint attentiveness that the fishery resource will be protected.

Sincerely,


Lew Atkins, Assistant Director
Fish Program, WDFW


>>> Bruce Gray <bgray@Adobe.COM> 05/31 10:33 AM >>>
Director Koenings,

Can you explain what effect the Cowlitz River Project Agreement in
Principal will have on early summer-run and early winter-run hatchery
steelhead production and management. Also, why did the public have to find
out about this plan through Fishing and Hunting News and various internet
bulletin boards? Is it true that the region five biologists didn't know you
had signed this plan? There are lots of rumors flying around about this
plan that deserve to be cleared up.

Regards,
Bruce Gray
Seattle