Need to transport smolts daily. They are rather fragile and lose scales easily. As we have seen often on the Columbia, delay is deadly. They are biologically timed to get from rearing area to estuary at a certain speed. As Salmo can explain, as he has worked on passage more than I have, the concept of filtering the whole damn stream sounds good on paper but there are very few places where it actually has been installed.

That makes sense. It’d just be interesting to see the survival rate of trapping and shipping downstream vs going through an inactive dam. Gotta think the truck shipping would be in the 80%+ range if not better. Still would like to know an average mortality rate of passing through the dam. Heard many numbers floated around but nothing too concrete.

That is because nobody knows. Antidotal info says that they do survive to some degree or the nearby tributary spawning streams are the greatest producers known. The only way to know for sure is to put some sort of smolt trap at the barrier dam down stream but how practical or what it would cost to build and operate I have no idea. I do know it would be expensive.

Knowledge is expensive, which is why we prefer not to know.

Yes and no. Chinook and steelhead don't use forebay collectors as well as coho and sockeye, so a river mouth collector would make sense if it could be operated effectively. And I don't know of any of that type/location that have proven to be very effective. Forebay collectors are easier (in relative terms because none of these are "easy." And forebay collectors collect fish that readily rear in the reservoirs, particularly sockeye and coho. (At Baker Dam, about half the coho smolts rear in the reservior and 100% of the sockeye do.)

Given that Wynoochee has as many reservoir miles as stream miles upstream of the dam, a forebay collector would be more cost effective measured as smolts collecter per dollar spent.

Sure does seem that way at times.

As I recall, all the passage studies at Wynoochee had some problems; ergo: nobody knows. I think there was a brief study of fish passage through the turbine at Wynoochee, and the survival may have been comparable to the passage system in Wynoochee Dam. I have reports somewhere, but some may be digital and some may be old hard copy in my basement. If I have some time, I'll see what I can find.

How some knothead engineer thought they could pass juvenile salmon and steelhead through several 90-degree pipe bends under high pressure and high velocity, I'll never know. What a stupid design! Yet I remember it being touted as the "bee's knees" of passage when I was in college as the dam was being constructed. As Drifter would say, "Grrrr . . . "

I was under the impression that the new system on the Deschutes works pretty well for whatever is passed up. But, essentially, the system (at the dam) collects and filters all the outflow water. It has ports at various depths. Damned expensive but I think it was getting smolts and kelts.

01/11/2022

Coulda, shoulda, woulda......As I've said, numerous times on here, WDFW heads should have "rolled".

Tom Pentt, Jerry Paveltich and others did many things in the late 70's to start the ball rolling to utilize the Wynoochee River. Those 2 gentlemen and others in the Grays Harbor Chapter of NW Steelheaders did lots for GH fisheries, Summer run steelhead, was 1 one them, the Chapter took donations for fish food, for 2 years until WDFW took over the project.

As others have said, there was plans for a major hatchery below the dam....lack of movement by mainly WDFW, that went down the toilet, next plan was mini hatchery, got shot down, then "holding ponds"....nope. The money was there "twice", for fish enhancement on the Wynoochee. The fight still goes on but at this time not 1 fish has been raised from the now 30 year old Wynoochee Mitigation Plan.

WDFW needs "some people that want to do", don't tell me how busy WDFW staff has been......2+ years of hiding from the public, using "tele conferencing's" to get public....then WDFW taking 1/2+ the time "talking about wolf, bear, help increasing the budget, no time left for public input on Wild Steelhead and "Who the hell decided these meetings should be only 1 hour long??????

Is there a 10+ year plan on increasing Wild Steelhead???? I've not seen anything.
Are the hatcheries going to continue to raise winter steelhead, and continue to have many Region 6 Rivers closed......seems like a waste to me....

another rant completed.......but I have more!!!!!

Yeah, I’m very interested to see if they continue planting winter run fish in the Wynoochee and Satsop. If not, I’d vote to transfer that budget to increasing summer runs on the Nooch. Especially after this last Summer

Probably take the steelhead money and put it elsewhere, as they have done often in the past. And just for clarification, because the leaderships were under different mandates, it was WDF that mucked up the hatchery in the late 80s/early 90s.

winter Steelhead on the nooch are 100% mitigation that WDFW is required to produce no if or buts.

Help me out here on the mitigation issue. The state (WDF,WDG,WDFW) got a one time package of $2M or so for mitigation from TCL? This was from putting in turbines for hydropower? What was the original mitigation for when the dam was constructed that didnt have turbines? Who got that? And now there is annual funding of X by TCL for Y? It sounds like the original $2M+ is just sitting in WDFW account books somewhere? Sorry about my confusion but for the state to have money and simply not do anything with it is odd.

As I understand it, TCL took over operation of the dam. I think they installed turbines in a flood-control dam. So, their mitigation was for the fish life destroyed by the turbine operation. They negotiated an agreement with WDF and WDG (separately) for mitigation for the agency's fish. As I heard it, WDG took the money, used it to upgrade the Lake ASberdeen hatchery, and agreed that THEY would fund the agreed-to steelhead production. WDF agreed to accept the money and use it to produce (the agreed mitigation number) of salmon.

Having agreed to a number, WDF was in a bad place when they wanted to use the money to fix habitat and basically admitted that it would produce fewer fish than TCL was on the hook for. This did not go over well, locally. So, the money sits. As alluded to, there was even more money that sat there until Bush II needed it for Afganistan, so it went away.

As I understand it, the $2M (+ interest??) is just sitting there in an account. The untrusting part of me does not believe it is still there.

WDG funds were for just the dam Steelhead losses and used huge portion of it for Aberdeen Lake Hatchery and agreed to fund it themselves if the funds ran out. The 2 plus million TCL funds is in a sequestered account drawing interest ( used to be / should be / is ) for extra Steelhead and Coho for the turbine impacts.

The funds high jacked for Afghanistan were for the hatchery but set not utilized. Feds let WDFD know that inactive accounts were being taken for the Afghanistan war and they should do something to make the budgeted monies go active but did nothing and bye bye monies. ( millions )

It's hard to believe, given who was hanging onto the purse strings then, that even a penny was allowed to escape.

To add to the explanations given:
The US Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) gave old WDG about $600,000 for steelhead mitigation for Wynoochee Dam. As Rivrguy posted, WDG used it to upgrade Lake Aberdeen hatchery and promised to produce the O&M money on their own. I've worked on a lot of mitigation programs, and something like that has never penciled out. But I wasn't there and don't know what other details may have figured in. WDF asked for no salmon mitigation for Wynoochee Dam, which seems incredible, but there we have it. The original purpose of Wynoochee Dam was flood control and water supply for Aberdeen.

Around 1990, in a deal arranged by former Rep. Norm Dicks and flim flam consultant Harry Hosey, the Corps sold Wynoochee Dam to Tacoma Power (TP) for 10 cents on the dollar, or less, with the stipulation that TP would continue to operate for flood control and Aberdeen water supply. In fact, I think Aberdeen became co-owner and then later turned it all over to TP. TP put up the money that WDFW now holds in an Aberdeen bank, around $2.4 million for additional mitigation of hydro project operation impacts. And yes, all they have to do to access the money is send the plan to FERC for approval. FERC would approve it despite QIN objection because all the other stakeholders agreed to it, and FERC doesn't legally have to give a sh!t about the QIN objection. However, WDFW won't, as I previously posted, even take a restroom break without QIN approval. So there's that.

There is no annual funding by TP, other than the cost of operating the fish trap for upstream passage. Well, I guess there is the opportunity cost of not generating for 77 days during the spring smolt out migration, but that isn't a big deal.

So WDFW acknowledges they have $2M+ sitting in the bank and they are waiting to decide what to do with it? Very weird if so.

Well yes that is the funds that Regional Director Larry Philips proposed to rear some smolt for the Wynoochee for mitigation at Aberdeen Lake Hatchery and payback smolt the for the years not done be done at Bingham on the Satsop.

Mitigation for the Wynoochee in the Satsop? Why, other than need for money?