The current Hatchery Escapement report shows 29 wild steelhead were released into landlocked lakes out of the Forks Creek Hatchery . WTF

That's weird, I saw that this morning, too.

One wild fish caught at the Wynoochee trap was shipped to the Lake Aberdeen hatchery, too.

Anyone have any ideas?

Fish on...

Todd

They take some wild brood to the Aberdeen Lake Hatchery for genetics in the dam mitigation production. They pass many up stream of the dam both hatchery and wild. DW has tracked it for years so I imagine he can fill in the blanks.

Saw that as well, figured that any steelhead they can get ahold of this year over egg take will go the same way. Why release hatchery fish above the lake, or any area where we cant get after them? Put them in lakes and conquer the arguement of passing on the genetics AND providing some lucky angler with what's gonna be a hell of a fight...
I would assume we'll save a bit of money on those operations trucking those fish around as well...the skookumchuck comes to mind where some fish take the ride 4 times.

The original question, though...

29 wild steelhead taken out of the Forks Creek trap and put into a "landlocked lake".

Why?

Fish on...

Todd

I contacted WDFW regarding the escapement report. The wild Willapa fish were released back into the river above the trap. It was a inadvertent carry over on what was done with the released hatchery fish. The comment on the wilds is being corrected.

That makes good sense...thanks for the follow up!

Fish on...

Todd

01/08/2022

Wynoochee River/Wynoochee Lets talk WDFW/TCL fish management on this excellent Grays Harbor River..

I've been getting the "trap report" since the middle 80's. There are 3 places that fish are placed when the fish are removed from the trap.

1. Above the Dam, North end of lake...about 4 miles of spawning water, then a fall stop movement

2. Above the man made small dam to the base of Wynoochee Dam, about 2 miles of river, used for spawning of Chinook, Coho and steelhead

3. Lake Aberdeen hatchery, used for brood stock

Trap is operated 7 months a year, October 1 - April 30. Fish that show at the trap are, Chinook, Wild Coho (no hatchery WDFW Choice), wild and hatchery steelhead and some summer run steelhead.

I'll use 2020 - 2021 for this posting

Coho, adult..................656, placed above Dam Jack 21......Above Dam
Coho, adult ...................53, between dams
Chinook, 1 above Dam....29 between dams

Steelhead, Native/wild.......72 above Dam, 57 Lake Aberdeen Hatchery
Steelhead Hatchery...........559 above the dam, 166 Lake Aberdeen Hatchery

Recycled Steelhead.....57, don't know what these are

No way for the adult fish to get past the Wynoochee Lake Dam, so all steelhead and salmon die. Also spawning area 4 miles, for 656 Coho and 631 steelhead.

Any smolt out go, have to go thru the dam.....depends on who you talk to, different smolt kill numbers.

Tacoma City Light does their job....trucking fish above dams. WDFW uses fish from the trap to be used as brood.

Many sportsmen don't think ANY wild steelhead should be trucked above the dam. problem is what to do with them?????

If you release the wild steelhead below the trap they will likely go find somewhere else to spawn. Plenty of time steelhead have been seen to enter one stream, leave, and go to another. Even separate watersheds.

what would the odds be that these wild fish would spawn below the trap if they were simply recycled down stream. Seems like a better idea than simply putting them above the dam if the smolt will not survive anyways. In the past, I thought some hatcheries would simply shut the gate to the entrance, forcing the fish to find somewhere to spawn below it.

Releasing any fish below the trap does little as they simply will line up in the trap again. Many have advocated shutting the trap once brood numbers for the mitigation are taken but then you have the mitigation fish spawning with wild. I remember one gentlemen in a meeting climbing right in the deputy directors face with " just what the hell do you think they do when put above the trap" By the way they could use 100% wild brood every year and pass clipped up which would go a long ways toward ending genetic degradation.

My question has always been how many juveniles survive the out migration? We were told by staff that the lake is to cold to rear Coho in net pens and get them up to size so how do Steelhead prosper? The lake is a very sterile lake so just are these juveniles foraging on? The list goes on and on with more questions than answers.

IF you are consistently getting back X wild fish, and putting X wild fish up there, then it is working. If it wasn't working, they would go extinct. If they are strays, they why are they being passed?

Up there being between the dams; putting anadromous above the big dam is nice for nutrients but crap for production.

01/08/2022

I'm glad some retired WDFW are following this thread....

I have a question...... Creek/small river flows into the lake....its about 4 miles in length, then there is a "falls" that stop fish from going further.

Question......with 656 Coho and then about 600 w/H steelhead, is there enough spawning area????

I remember 1 year, long time ago, there was 5500+ Coho trucked over the Dam.

Reason I don't want Wild steelhead trucked up over the Dam, they can't get out....these are the very same fish we are shut down because the numbers are so low...

Making sure that I’m following this correctly. The steelhead (including native) that are released above the dam/lake to spawn have no way to make it back downstream after spawning?

I’m fully aware not all steelhead choose to spawn in headwaters, as I’ve caught several from crossover down in late January, no eggs remaining, and barely a lick of color of them. I truly believe some fish choose to get in and get out ASAP, maybe as an adaption to the rivers blowing out so frequently now. Why risk staying in the river for 3-5 months while contending with several major rain, silt, and debris events when there may be good side channels in the lower river to spawn?

That is my understanding..........

Just a comment on the "spawn out steelhead".....Because of where I live, its easy to drive to the Black Ck. boat launch, when we had seasons, get there about 2:30, hang around an hour or more as the drift and jet boats were coming in....saw bright fish, dark fish, ugly fish.....lots of the ugly fish in December, January were summer run or the very early winter run.

To run some calculations, with 4 miles of river is, say, 6000m. say a 10m width (at slf) that gives 60,000 sq m. At 2 kg/sq m that would be 120,000 kg of coho. say the average coho was 4 kg. That gives 30,000 spawners. So, 600 is next to nothing. Both coho and steelhead are spawn high/rear lower fish. The fry seed downstream and the tendency is to have more spawners higher up so the fry can, in theory, move downstream, into and thorough the lake, and seed lower down.

Speaking of kelts, we handled a lot through our trap. On more than a few occasions we got females that were spawned out, chrome bright, and recovering condition nicely as they were gorging on Carpenter Ants. We also got some fungus-up fish that probably screamed really loudly when they hit the salt.

Definitely some late summer spawners around that time of year. Caught a summer run last December on that same drift. Super colored up, VERY skinny. Obviously hatchery clipped as well. My initial comment is regarding unclipped fish in specific. Based on the size and color, 99% sure they aren’t summer run fish.

Still amazes me that there’s no chance for natives to repeat spawn if they go above the dam. Not sure how it would even work if they attempted to outmigrate after spawning. Would they just get to the base of the reservoir and then get caught in the turbine system?

Yeah, they'd get retained in the reservoirs. One possibility, if there was a fish-based forage base, is that they would remain in the lake, recover, and then spawn again. The drive to survive and spawn is strong.

Good point. I’m sure there’s more than one anecdote of very large “rainbows” being caught in the lake. Imagine THAT on a trout setup to an unsuspecting angler!

Just ask Rivrguy........... Big fish, "trout" gear.

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.

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?

Ah it is about pay back for the years that WDFW DID NOT produce the smolts required. Aberdeen Lake Hatchery does not have the capacity to rear that many smolt so the plan is to do the required yearly smolt at ALH and the payback for years WDFW failed to do as required be reared and released at Bingham on the Satsop.

When this was presented I blew a gasket and cleared the moon which I had to apologize ( rightly so ) for that. Then I leaned this, the Wynoochee has an escapement goal of 7168 and has been on average achieving less than a third of that with the lowest return in twenty years being 2006 of 696 adults.

Bottom line is even if ALH could do the payback mitigation the wild stock could not take the combined bay, tidewater, river harvest. Even with C&R inriver the added pressure by fishers would likely make a bad situation much worse. Damned if you do damned if you don't here and I think rather than do the blame game that just maybe the solution put forward R-6 Director Philips might be the only one.

Now that said it is not a silver bullet because the Satsop has not been making escapement either but I think that is a harvest driven issue that comanagers have not addressed.

Just for clarification all the Chehalis tidewater tribs are struggling with the failure to make Coho escapement. Hoquiam, Wishkah, Wynoochee are seriously distressed with the Satsop somewhat better off.

How about the Elk and Johns?

Larry's got a good mind. IF he comes up with an option, get it in writing. Not only the rearing/release but the fisheries. Maybe agree to the move if and only if there is rec fishery of Y days on the Satsop.

Oh hell better than writing he did a big public meeting at the college roll out the works. As to the tidewater tribs I do not know what to think. The Chehalis is making escapement but it is the basin above Fuller Hill propping it up. Bit of a mess.

Now your talkin! Increase Summers everywhere at the expense of Winters. But that would be too easy. Having fish return that you can at least fish for every day, with more daylight, and not battle weather and water conditions. Plus a better quality fish both fight and table fair. Very little competition with Wild fish. No brainer to me!

Future dam operating license renewal will happen. Not sure when that date is. That is the time to get consistent funding out of TCL. A utility that has consistently got off on the cheap on all there mitigation responsibilities at the fault of WDFW and the Corps.

As far as the Wynoochee is concerned both the Corps and Tacoma Power is concerned they have met every requirement placed upon the dam when built and power generation later on. That the Wynoochee suffered is undeniable but both ponied up but it was the WDG & WDF now WDFW that seriously screwed the pooch. With salmon it was WDF that did not require mitigation for salmon and WDG wanting to use Aberdeen Lake Hatchery rather than build a proper facility was a fiasco for the ages.

Now the Summerrun Steelhead bit is something that could be done. We have no wild Summerrun Steelies so genetics are not and issue. Timing is different so cross breeding is not an issue. Outside mitigation Coho cost a lot to rear Coho and Winter Steelhead and if instead of these programs the monies reared Summerrun and properly placed throughout the basin the economic return would be huge. Chinook are the same as freshwater time is limited take much less space in a hatchery and feed cost is minimal to 80 the pound release.

It takes a different view of how to utilize hatcheries without destroying the wild fish. Since hatcheries were placed under Fish Program harvest managers the system has just about collapsed and I doubt the harvest division of WDFD in Olympia has a clue on how to chart a different direction. All they know how to kill fish on paper.

Sad, isn't it?

Seems mitigation is set to fail. The dam is expected to displace so many wild fish, so they put in a hatchery to mitigate the loss. Then, people insist that wild fish continue to exist at good levels. Since hatchery fish could reduce their ability to survive, lets cut hatchery fish levels.

The mitigation did not fail. It could be done 100% wild brood & never reuse the returning mitigation adults but pass them up for zero loss to the system. The simple fact is that the STATE AGENCIES failed not the concept.

Fish utilized many generations in hatcheries evolve to their environment just as any creature does. If you do not continuously reuse the fish but natural brood one generation then you going to have some effect genetically but it is not measurable. It is time for pragmatism not extremism be it plant fish like hell everywhere to oh my god zero fish that utilized a hatchery. Both are ideas that have about zero validity in todays world, unless you do not want to fish. Then we have museum runs and no harvest. Simple choice really.

I remember folks being very upset that WDF denied the existence of Springers in the Wynoochee. So, no mitigation required.

It’d be nice having some hatchery springers nearby. Makes you wonder what the final year for natives was? I’d imagine they still held on after the dam was built. The canyons below the dam seem like they’d be great summer habitat for them. Cool, shady, and deep water even in mid summer.

Oh yeah CM it was the TU guys leading the Springer protection! DW actually stayed in his trailer guarding brood for the effort to help save them. I will have to let him fill in the blanks on what where. Why Region 6 staff under RWS did not require mitigation or recognize Nooch Springers is beyond me. My feeling was just as they refused to recognize Summer Chinook in the Chehalis because they would have to manage harvest for them it was the same for Nooch Springers. Staff just didn't want to be bothered.

Well, yeah. I remember when I was trying to get riverine sockeye recognized as existing and worth at least recognition. Nope. Interfered with making money on the other species.

Guarding the traps from poachers?? Wow.

Sockeye in there as well? Damn, I was born a few decades too late, haha