Okay, I attended. Probably the most succinct comment was from Director Unsworth that the greatest failure (and I paraphrase) was in how they handled this unfortunate event both in timeliness and completeness. To that end Senator Pearson expressed displeasure that he and his committee were not promptly informed. That was pretty much the "fireworks."

As to specifics, the production goal was:

Summer steel: 625,900
Late Winter Steel: 644,000
Cutthroat: 90,000

Facilities include 4 lakes each with a release structure to a common channel and counter prior to reaching the river. Ponds #1-#3 are five acre and have netting around the perimeters but not the center while #4 is 2 1/2 acres and fully netted. One of the 5 acre ponds was not in use due to prior erosion issues. And while it was purported that it was difficult to fully net the large ponds there was also a comment that it could be done for $500K.

As to the counter Eric (in charge of all hatchery ops) testified that they are regularly calibrated but are subject to errors such as multiple fish passing through at one time being counted as one fish but can also to count debris as a fish. He also commented that it is impossible to enumerate fish in the poinds.

The 2016 plan was to release 625,900 summer smolt. It was testified that they had two loss events (cold water and some disease issues) such that 540K actually went from the raceway to the ponds. Ultimately, they counted 202,200 being released with some being cutthroat. So what happened to the missing 337,800?

Well, that is still a question without a verifiable/quantifiable answer. It seemed that the primary villain was bird predation with an added factor that the one pond being unused meant higher density in the other ponds making those fish more susceptible.

Short Term Actions:

1. Smaller mesh netting at ends
2. Increased hazing (WDFW had expended all of its hazing $) to include all daylight hours
3. Shoreline netting (guess that means to keep otters out)
4. TPU going to pursue permitting for lethal bird control on site
5. Better estimates of in season mortality

Long Term Action:

1. TPU to be requesting $5 million for facility improvement (they own the hatchery)

My personal observations:

1. The hatchery staff apparently did not notice unusual bird activity.

2. The idea that one pond being out of commission resulted in a higher density of fish in the remaining ponds which made them more prone to predation ignores that for over the 40+ years of operations there was far more fish were being reared in those 5 ponds. My guess is that the density of 2016 fish was actually less than in those prior high production years.

Questions I would like to ask:

1. Is it possible that prior years' actual releases were far below those reported? And if so, how might that affect analysis of prior year rates of return?

2. Will proposed short term actions minimize losses to 2017 smolt?

That's it from my messy notes.