01/09/2022

I mentioned something to WDFW employee, Curt Holt, in the past few years, that if the amount of hatchery steelhead was going to continue to be trucked above Dam.....MAYBE Wynoochee Lake should be opened year around......trolling is not "my thing" but at least it could be a legal fishery.

Last time I fished Wynoochee Lake, about 1976 - 78. At that time, the road was only black topped part of the way........lot's of logging trucks in those days, road was ROUGH.......thank heavens for summer run stocking, saved my boat AND hell of a lot closer....

Some kind of fish capture system has to be designed just above the dam for successful outward migration. Fish separation designs are location specific and are very expensive. Most are designed for smolt capture to safely divert them around the dam. The Columbia/Snake rivers have capture systems for both smolt and the adult Steelhead leaving after spawning. Seems unproductive to release any fish on the Wynoochee above the dam if they can't be collected and safely released around it. Super high mortality rate just flushing them through the base of dams.

Juvenile salmonids do pass downstream at Wynoochee Dam. However, the mortality rate is very high. There are a couple of studies - I don't have them handy, but if memory serves, the mortality rate may be in the 50 to 60% range. Generally we would consider that rate to be too high for a population to be self-sustaining if it has to pass through all the usual intercepting fisheries.

I have a thought. You know how various boards and commissions solicit grant applications for salmon enhancement and recovery? Maybe a group could cobble together a grant proposal for a downstream passage facility at Wynoochee. Most of the recovery and enhancement funds are spent on projects that generally cannot be shown to produce measurable results. A downstream fishway at Wynoochee - with monitoring as part of the proposal - would document how many juveniles are passed downstream annually. Coupled with the existing data collection of upstream migrants, a good production data set would exist to validate - or not - the value of the fish habitat in the upper Wynoochee River basin.

When we started the trophy trout program the rainbow's that we planted in the local lakes went from 4 to 6 pounds. It was not advertised at all so when opening day of lakes arrived it was a bit of a surprise to folks. From rods ripped right off crutches to well about everything! My favorite being the guy paddling down Lake Sylvia in a canoe trolling a fly and zip off goes the rod and the bridge fishers watched fish and rod go right under the bridge never slowing down. It took us forever to get the agency to get that folks would rather have one BIG trout than 6 normal Rainbow plants.

We also tried to rear some and extra year and they went 10 to 12 ibs with some bigger. From what I have been told folks geared up a bit as a lot of " you should have seen the one that got away " were around.

01/09/2022



To this I say BS....WDFW and the Wynoochee River should have NEVER been pared together to get anything done. WDFW personnel should have been fired for the lack of leadership to get major projects done "below the dam". WDFW foot dragging leave us in the mess we have now.

There was a project to have a hatchery system just below the Dam, for whatever this plan never got moving....Federal monies because they weren't being used, went back into the Federal budget and ended up being spent on the Afghanistan War effort......we know how that ended up.

When Tacoma City Light took over control of the Dam from the City of Aberdeen, there was a mitigation fund set up, $2.4 million dollars. That fund was establish about 1992. There was talk about to spent the monies......again WDFW foot dragging. WDFW and QIN had many meetings, general public was not allow to be at any of the meetings, after a few initial meetings. There could have been something done......30 years later, not 1 fish has been placed in the Wynoochee River, from the fish part of the monies that were to go for additional hatchery Coho and steelhead.......to that I say grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

DW's dissertation is spot on and frankly he is being kind to the agency because if one laid out the entire sorry mess it is far far far worse than DW's gentle view of it!

It is my understanding that the money was for mitigation. Were I TPU, I would ask/demand the money back plus interest. WDFW and QIN have demonstrated, by their inaction, that there was no need for mitigation because they apparently need to do anything.

I was told the QIN would have nothing to do with the Mitigation funds as the policy person wanted the dam gone.

Well, as you recall there were some in WDFW who wanted to use the money for habitat mitigation whether or not the mandated numbers resulted. Like I said, give the money back.

Yup I remember that and I thought we were going to have to do mouth to mouth resuscitation on Joe when it was presented ! I mean like I swear he stopped breathing and his eyes nearly leaped out of his head.

As well they should have.....

So because WDFW and QIN couldnt agree on what to do with the mitigation or even what it was for, nothing happened and money wasn't dispersed? If so, WDFW is not the only miscreant at fault here it seems.

Well no as the mitigation is WDFW's responsibility and the requirements are clear. It does require the signatory parties WDFW, city of Aberdeen Chehalis tribe, QIN agree . If that cannot be done it has a arbitration clause that would allow WDFW to move forward without the QIN or any of the other signatory parties. All they had to do was what they not only agreed to but insisted they be the ones to do the mitigation. In the beginning it my understanding the tribe supported a hatchery but then old game wanted to use the moneys for Steelhead at Aberdeen Lake and WDF did everything to sink the salmon part. Down hill from that point.

In the time of Joe DeLacruz leading the QIN they supported the hatchery at the dam along with the local legislators and community that got the funding mechanism in the plans. It was after the many gyrations and just plain lies and every type of BS imaginable coming from the newly combined agencies that they drifted apart.

1/10/2022

darth baiter....The funds were dispersed by Tacoma City Light, the funds are now around $2.4+ million. My understanding is WDFW has an account, somewhere, but the agency has a way of not being forth right in making information available.

During the December televised meeting I did "Type in Questions", WDFW personnel said that if the questions couldn't get answered at this time that they would be answered......Month gone by, nothing!!!

Here was one of my questions ...."Wynoochee mitigation monies, who controls this fund????? Can I get an accounting without doing a PDR"

To me it seems like a straight forward request...... Nothing, no response at this time!!!!! grrrrrrrrrr

Gee Drifter, I wonder how you really feel I wasn't suggesting that the Tacoma mitigation money be used for this project I'm suggesting. My point and interest in bringing this up is that there is 4 miles of Wynoochee River plus the reservoir that is not being effectively used by salmon or steelhead due to ineffective fish passage. Adding an effective fish passage facility would bring that section of upper river back into useful anadromous fish production, and that would be far more effective in terms of additional anadromous fish returning than most of the fish habitat projects that I have seen millions of dollars spent on.

Darth,

I think most of the responsibility for inaction does fall on WDFW. WDFW was instrumental in making the "deal." I wasn't privy to the conversations that led to this deal, but I won't fault WDFW's predecessor agencies for making it. There were some real snake oil maneuvers politically and diplomatically by Harry Hosey that undermines much of the authority that the natural resource agencies normally have in a FERC licensing and property transfer like this. However, as lead on the mitigation fund, WDFW needed to coordinate with federal and tribal fishery agencies, but in the absence of agreement, WDFW needs only to file a plan for the money with FERC for FERC's approval. If FERC approves, which is highly likely, then WDFW may spend the funds according to the approved plan. A near consensus was met about 7 years ago, all agencies and Chehalis Tribe except for QIN. And WDFW won't take a restroom break without QIN's approval, so WDFW won't submit a plan for the mitigation funds until and unless QIN approves. That is totally on WDFW.

WDF had a 99% complete hatchery plan around 1990. I was designing the wastewater treatment system. Then it died. What I heard on that one was that the Forest Circus would not let their land be used for a hatchery. May not have ALL been WDF's fault then, but WDFW sure grabbed that bull by the horns later.

If this is the Nooch hatchery the FS even offered to build the road to the site besides giving up the site for it but in WDFW's usual blazing speed, which is similar to watching a glacier move, nothing much was moving so they told the agency to pound nails. This needs to be in the context of internal WDFW had staff that actively worked thwart the project as well as those who worked toward the intended goal.

An informative summary report on adult and juvenile passage facilities and the wide range of success or not of doing so is in this link. It mentions that for 77 days during juvenile outmigration power generation is shut off at Wynoochee Dam and juveniles pass downstream through outlet pipes at the dam. Doesn't say how well this works though.


Generally getting adults upstream has a lot better survival than getting the juveniles downstream.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11160-020-09627-7

Seems to me that the outmigration efforts might be more beneficial to all parties if fish and smolt were collected at the outlet of the river where it feeds into the upper reservoir. Use of a simple rotary trap and collection tank comes to mind. Collected fish could then be transported by truck to below the dam, say two or three times a week during peak migration windows.