Come meet and ask questions from P.U.D., Bonneville Power, U.S.G.S., all employees of Region 5 WDFW, Tacoma City Light, Lewis County Commission and Governor Chris Gregoire. All of the above officials have been invited to come and share there views on why the collection facility on the Cowlitz River has failed for 13 years, causing our early winter & summer steelhead to be sacrificed for a restoration project that will never work. Cleve Steward our Biologist will there to talk about the "Genetics" of the Fish!

Spread the word and see you Saturday October 6th at Kit Carson Restaurant 107 Interstate Ave. Chehalis WA, 98532

IDIOTS! A cunning way for the Utilities to conveniently slip the mitigation harness from their shoulders under the guise of helping the "Restoration" effort.

I used to be a Trout Unlimited member, but won't be renewing in part because of their support of this fiasco.

I'm all for Wild Steelhead and the protection of existing viable stocks. But this Cowlitz project, without removal of the dams and with no identifiable winter/spring natives other than hatchery strays, is a joke.

Sorry for the mini-rant, but IMO efforts like undermine the support for legitimate restoration efforts.

Tight Lines!

Brian

It's been a piece of work for a while now and it suck's,the mother cow will never be what it once was,Sad.Good luck,
STRIKE ZONE



Let'em eat it,It's there last meal.

The initial downstream passage facilities at Cowlitz Falls Dam didn't work as anticipated by engineers and biologists alike. Because Cowlitz Falls Dam is similar in design to Wells Dam on the mid Columbia, most thought that downstream migrating juvenile fish would be attracted to surface flows at the center spillways of about 10% of the flow going to the turbines. It didn't work, demonstrating again that just about every project is unique and that a different approach is necessary.

The reason downstream passage hasn't worked after the initial design trials is because the responsible parties, BPA, LCPUD, and TP, have tried to tweak a flawed design concept by investing what amounts to pocket change (in fish passage terms) when the situation is screaming out for a major investment, measured in millions of dollars, in fishway re-design. An unfortunate truth in fish passage is that least cost alternatives have never been successful.

Fish passage at the Cowlitz seems plagued by the perpetual problem of utilities trying to skate by on the cheap. TP is not meeting the performance standard requirements of its license. I think they're still trying to get by with a sub-standard facility, when their license requires them to do whatever is necessary to satisfy the standards.

The juvenile passage requirements are unlikely to ever be met with a sole facility at Cowlitz Falls Dam. TP is going to need one in Riffe also. The need makes that a reasonable cost of doing business by using the Cowlitz River to produce energy for Tacoma. Tell TP that it's past due, and you want it now. Tell NMFS that it's past due, and you want it now. Tell FERC that it's past due, and you want it now.

Restoration hasn't worked for the above reasons. It hasn't had the chance.

However, that doesn't mean TP is not otherwise meeting its fish mitigation requirements. TP is required to meet numeric goals, whether they are naturally produced fish or hatchery produced fish. From what I've seen that's been happening. Some of the highest Cowlitz coho and summer steelhead returns on record have occurred since the new Cowlitz FERC license has been in effect. Funny that fishermen aren't complaining about that. Saying summer steelhead have been sacrificed for failed restoration is plain wrong when you consider that TP has no mitigation requirement for a summer steelhead run that didn't exist when Tacoma built its Cowlitz dams. You can complain all you want, but your credibility will be enhanced if your concerns are well grounded in fact and applicable law.

Production of early winter steelhead has been reduced so that late winter steelhead production could be increased. The late winters are being used for steelhead restoration in the upper basin. If you don't like that, try persuading the WDFW and NMFS biologists that Chambers Creek steelhead, known for not being able to successfully reproduce naturally, are better suited to ESA restoration than the later winters. Good luck; you'll need it.

I'll be salmon fishing Saturday with a fanatic who will probably keep me on the water until 7. If I get home early enough I'll meet you there.

Sg

it seems that a lot of people don't seem to notice that there was a big die-off a few years ago coupled with terrible river conditions all winter and most of the summer, that is probably responsible for this year's mediocre summer fishing.

this year's summer run fishing was sub-par, but i think a lot of guys are trying to compare it to the outstanding years of 2003 and 2004. the fishing was never that good in the past, and i don't really forsee it being that good in the future, at least consistently.

the real shame is the loss of the december/january fishery down there. been a long time since you could walk into blue creek at 9am and see 50 fish on the bank. that area is hardly fishable any more due to the back channel that used to be about 15 feet wide opening up about 5 or 6 years ago and growing to the point that it will soon become the main channel of the river. cutting back on plants and spreading them out certainly didn't help, either.

scariest of all, is the impact that this has had on other rivers. the boom years spawned a huge fleet of guide boats, and when the cowlitz faltered, rather than closing shop, they hammered on the chehalis tributaries instead and made them nearly unbearable to fish.

Too true. Time for some of them fellas to find real jobs and keep thier 22fters off the upper Nooch. Forget the Satsop it's already ruined.

Just because you can, don't mean you should...

I appreciate the insight in this thread, makes the site worth reading. Thanks Salmo, Chum man, and others...

There was a similar meeting about this put on by these folks a few mon

ths ago and frankly I wasn't impressed! Basically BPA and the boys had all kinds of presentations on "how great they were doing"

It got really interesting when they finally decided to close the question and answer session to the floor...........

They could answer the tough ones so session over.

Was the meeting the same old story? Anybody go?

Yea I was there . There was a presentation on The Cowlitz falls project by a couple of Biologists explaining drawdowns and problems with smolt recovery at the Dams . Then dinner was served . A fish and wildlife manager along with a Rep from T.P. They were fielding questions about how the Cowlitz river is and will be managed into the future. The hand writing is on the wall but there are a few things that we as Sportsman can do to keep it from falling to far. A Rep . from FOC was asking some pointed Questions . One in pectular was why Summerrun smolts were getting the last of the considerations . TP rep stated is because they are not indiginous to the system . I came real close to stating that the Dams are`nt either !