Regarding the Deschutes, I think NMFS sometimes holds out hope for the improbably, if not the impossible. Last I heard, no returning unmarked Chinook could be said to be an NOR from Deschutes natural spawners. I'm not sure why. WDFW has passed thousands of Chinook upstream over the decades, so if Green River hatchery Chinook, via George Adams, were capable of establishing a natural run in the Deschutes River, they should have done so, but didn't. Maybe it's because there was always a greater infusion of HORs than NORs in every brood year, but I don't think so.

KInda' like the Nisqually, where endemic natural stock Chinook were extirpated by the 1960s, those Green River fish just won't establish natural populations every place they are stocked. Even in the Skok, where a NMFS bio first told me that many of the NF spawners were NORs, it later turned out, they are almost entirely HOR strays.

Getting back to the proposed Deschutes hatchery, the idea is well over 20 years old. It was originally planned to produce Chinook and steelhead. It was a marginal idea then. Based on what we know now, I think it's a complete waste of money. But the money from the Legislature has finally begun to trickle in. If WDFW tells the Legislature that what used to seem like a good idea is now a bad idea, the money goes away.

The number one rule of government bureaucracy is "grow the empire." You never pass up money. So WDFW will accept the money and build a hatchery that will not significantly increase Chinook salmon harvest for any WA fishery. And certainly zero steelhead. How is this a good use of $25 million taxpayer dollars?

The reality appears to be that the Deschutes is a decent resident and sea-run cutthroat fishery, that has existed since time immemorial. Salmon and steelhead just aren't on the menu, and people, especially people in WDFW, look to be having a hard time accepting that.

Sg