Look at Neets Bay, part of the SSRA( http://www.ssraa.org/). I've fished for years around this bay in Ketchikan. The fishing is great for both commercial and recreational plus...the hatchery is self sufficient financially. Everybody is happy!
The commercial guys pick off a lot of our fish on the outside waters but those fishing inside catch more of these fish than those heading south of the border. They catch them all the way to an imaginary line across the bay where they become the hatcheries for either brood stock or cost recovery.
This hatchery is basically a warehouse parked on a small creek with a very efficient processing facility and a few ponds. They have a barrier net where 100's of thousands of adult fish stack up. They have to set the net because they will come in such numbers that they'll suffocate at the end of the bay.
They spawn an unimaginable amount of fish and they move a barge and tenders in every summer process all the fish products they sell. The chums, silvers, AND kings exceed the quantity of what tribes and recs get in all of Puget Sound.

This is one hatchery on a little creek, on a bay full of happy fisherman, that's financially responsible. I don't have to make a comparison to our hatchery system, the difference is obvious. What I don't understand is why we don't quit making our rivers the terminal fishery and do something like this instead? I've read a through a lot of arguments on PP and this seems like it might be a solution, at least in some areas.

In Puget Sound, I can think of a few places like Sinclair inlet that would work great for this kind of set up. Close the in-river hatcheries and strategically place a couple like these and with any luck the tribes will leave the rivers alone. Maybe that's wishful thinking but at the least they won't be netting 90% of every fish trying to enter the river so they can make sure they catch all the hatchery fish!

Alaska is like us in that we both have a lot of user groups and rivers that can't possibly produce what everyone wants. These hatcheries were set up to raise their own production and a lot reap the benefits. They put them on a quiet bay instead of a naturally producing river. I think we could use similar benefits and should give their success a serious look. Take a look at the numbers this hatchery produces and imagine how much better fishing would be here or take a trip up to Ketchikan and check it out for yourself!