The Toutle River when Mt. St. Helens blew was a great opportunity, and we squandered that one in a totally different way.

The State thought the river was so fuckin destroyed that they didn't even bother with pretending to put hatcheries in (or more accurately, digging up and re-activating the ones that were already there).

A big surprise to everyone...wild steelhead especially were back in good numbers far, far faster than anyone could have ever imagined.

Our response?

1. Wow! Look how great those wild steelhead are doing! Mother Nature is far better at this than us!

2. Space Mans must have planted the rivers!

3. I know! Let's put ten zillion summer run smolts in the hatcheries asap, and beat those pesky wild fish back right away, before someone realizes that we are fuckin retarded!

The correct answer is #3, though I wouldn't be surprised if #2 had some adherents...one thing's for sure, there was no one who took #1 seriously if they were in an actual decisionmaking position, though several of the non-decisionmakers held that opinion, and very strongly.

Fish on...

Todd

Im sure someone got paid off to make this happen. It stinks but as many have alluded to, its about regenerating money not the wild fish.

Clear cuts and insufficient stream buffers are the primary factors for poor water quality in the PNW, but your correct urbanization has had a negative effect as well. It's not an either or situation, we can protect anchor fish habitat and harvest timber, we just need the will to make it happen.

That is a interesting statement which is valid some places, others not. The area of a clear cut has little to do with water quality and the RMZ's have been expanded and much of the mass wasting has been drastically reduced. Now accumulative logging units on the same stream can really screw things up with surging and low summer flows. When I started in the woods the average section had 2 miles of road after harvest, it was over 6 miles when I retired. While direct delivery has been drastically reduced it still happens but the fact that tree farms use 40 year rotations and the activities of growing such a crop are accumulative is the baseline to work from.

Timber has a history to be sure but the fundamental change in the stream environment is the " Tree Farm " in my life time. I have said it many times but I will say it again. In 38 years working in the woods I was in a forest only twice. The rest of my time was in a tree farm which is long term, high intensity agriculture that is not intended and never will be a forest. That is the rock bottom issue as too many still try to call a tree farm a forest and not recognize that it is not a forest.

Just so it is out, so to speak, urbanization and the human activities that come with it are the most destructive thing that fish face. Cement, bricks, and asphalt are permanent.

I can agree with your position on mono culture of our forests being a negative, however I think your wrong about logging practices, particularly riparian buffer zones is incorrect.
Not protecting non fish bearing streams is a big factor in water quality.

http://cfpub.epa.gov/si/si_public_record...62c1c6121365e7f

Reduction or removal of streamside vegetation by logging and grazing can alter stream temperatures by reducing riparian shading. In the Pacific Northwest of the United States and other parts of the world, elevated stream temperatures in summer are a major fish habitat degradation problem that affects coldwater species such as salmon and trout. For example, the lethal temperature for Chinook Salmon is approximately 26oC, and sublethal effects on juveniles can occur at significantly lower temperatures.

I haven't worked in the woods since 1988, and even then we had to leave buffer so as not to disturb, as much as possible, the watershed.

What has happened in that 23 years is the encroachment of suburbia. My family was not allowed to log near or in a swamp because it was considered a wetland, yet behind the old Bellingham Mall, Albertson's (which is now REI), and across from the old Sea Galley was a Swamp, that swamp, or wetland has since been converted into a couple of apartment complexes....I know for a fact it was a swamp because I used to walk past it daily on my way to and from Sehome High School.

Like I said I haven't worked in the woods for a long time, but I'd be willing to bet the guy out there logging is under way more scrutiny and restrictions than a developer....at least the logger replants, you can't replant on a house, shopping center, or parking lot.

Sorta correct but don't forget WDFW wasted no time opening the South Fork to wild retention as the winter fish rebounded in 85-86'. I spent many of the following years there because fishing was good.

Within 3-4 years the fishing died off and returns plummeted. Most anglers kept their fish(different era, more accepted back then) and poaching was rampant. I saw much of the latter firsthand.

As to the Elwah, I get the feeling the deal is done and the main players are chuckling at us as we squabble over something that is pretty much signed and sealed. Frustrating? For sure! I think Smalma nailed when he said the article/editorial is a couple years too late.

This once in a lifetime opportunity blown leaves me little hope that we will ever do "the right thing" in-so-far as salmon steelhead are concerned. Depressing really.

Wouldn't it have been interesting if the public could have voted if hatchery fish should be introduced or not. I know how I would have voted and it WOULDN'T include a hatchery on the Elwah.

One of my interests is railroads; I buy a lot of hostoric picture books. One should look at the pictures from about 1980-1920 or 30 in the Cascades. Not very many trees on the mountains around the lines.

have an article somewhere, i think, by a logging engineer. His thesis was that logging wasn't all that bad, especially railroad logging. Things went to hell when the trucks came in with dirt roads and bad culverts.

As bad as practices were, I think there were more fish back in the heyday of cut and run than there are now.

Like Rivrguy said, the roads may be a pretty big culprit.

Had to look to see what you were talking about. Your correct on buffers importance and it is apparent you have little understanding of the rules on RMZ's and in particular what is called R map. Logging to the edge of a stream ended in the early 70's and RMZ's have been greatly expanded since.

Now that the RMZ trees left blow down a lot is true and other things but TF&W helps but also hurt. To harvest with the expanded buffers ( draws not creeks ) you yard short, which means more roads and cost thus the clear cuts are promoted as one thing but are another as to acreage.

CM -
It was my observation that river systems really began to unravel when the logging moved from the lowlands up int the mountains. Once that got above that 2,000 to 3,000 elevation (depending on where in the Cascades) they were on steeper ground and where rain on snow events were much more frequent.

In much of the region that was after WWII. Of course that move upslope was on steeper ground and railroad logging was not longer possible. In addition to the moving on to steeper ground the cut rates went up (smaller wood and more efficient harvest methods). The result was that larger portions of the basins were cut in short periods of time and at the same time the harvest was occurring in the most vulunerable part of the watersheds. Even though much of the damage was above fish bearing waters that water does flow down hill and the snow ball of damage rolled to the river mouths (and beyond).

Tight lines
Curt

Still doesn't explain how back in the old days they could float giant log rafts down the rivers and still maintain reports of being able to cross the river by 'walking across the backs of all the fish'.

Back country logging was in full force well before WWII...

MM,

Back country logging, yes, but not high elevation logging. As Smalma points out, that really got under way following WWII with the development of dozers, shovel loaders, and bigger log trucks, and real damage maker: extensive logging roads. And the damage was cumulative, with consecutive and contiguous sub-basins, one after the other.

Sg

Looking at any stock assessment survey study, in particular the factors inhibiting recovery section, one will see a list of factors.
Leading the list is lack of large woody debris recruitment, then poor water quality, followed by poor stream complexity.
These factors are are a direct result to inadequate timber harvesting regulations.
Other factors are poor over wintering alcove back channel habitat and poor estuary habitat, any one, or a combination of these factors will lower a rivers carrying capacity.

Another factor rarely talked about associated with the cutting of the upper portions of river basins is the slower growth rates of the timber which in turn greatly prolongs the re-establishment of a hydrological mature forest stand.

When you couple the increased cutting rates, longer timber rotations, more unstable soils, more frequent rain on snow events, etc our river basins have significantly larger portions of the basin in degraded conditions for longer periods when compared to the conditions prior to WWII. These impacts are even more critical when one also factors in the vast conversion of lowland forest to our cities, industrial lands, farm lands etc. And then of course one should probably also include harvest of the second growth in the lowlands in the overall equation of habitat destruction. Can anyone be really surprised that the greatly reduced capacity of our river basins to produce salmonids; many of the basins now have only 10 to 20% of the capacity of historic levels.

Freespool -
Anoither aspect of timber harvest that is rarely talked about is the wide spread conversion of timber lands to monocultures. An important habitat feature found historically in our river basins were beaver pond complexes. Those monoculture stands of Douglas fir do not provide the forage base required by those beavers.

Tight lines
Curt

You need to get out of the office more! Beavers are in the RMZ and their habitat has been & is mostly protected but the access of logging roads did allow for them to be very heavily trapped. Not as much at the present time unless they plug culverts which can be a real pain. Amazingly enough we found that if you made a horse shoe shaped fence on the intake end of the culvert 4 or 5 feet out the beaver built his damn on it and the intake stayed clear. Habitat lost to the beaver due to single species units? That is just way past real.


He would not lose the bet. Small land owners and hobby farm type things are under less review but the tree farms? Lots of oversight and they are having to utilize the R map stuff and go back and repair damage ( perched banks / water pirating ) from as high as 100 years ago Just the permitting process takes a real effort to wade through as most tree farms are corporations and trouble with DNR in not highly thought of in corporate circles. They stick to the rules ................. well mostly.

Rivrguy -
You are right I do need to get out more!

Yes there are lots of beavers in most of our river basins. I probably should have said that what is lacking are beaver ponds and not beavers. In the part of the State that I do get out some (norht Puget Sound - specifically the "S" rivers) there are not anywhere near as many beaver pond complexes as there once were. Yes a big part of that lost is from conversion of the lowlands to urban sprawl and farmland. However in the forest lands I just do not see the mix stands of trees that once were common. My understanding is the beavers need such species as apsen, alder, cottonwood, etc for their diet and get little benefit from the various conifers.

During the the 1970s time and again I saw long standing beaver pond complexes disappear after the area was logged and then "sprayed" to eliminate the non-conifer vegetation. Whie it is the nature of beaver ponds to come and go what was really important was as those complexes were lost they were not replaced elsewhere in the drainage.

What I see today are beavers that are primarily river bank dwellers and not pond builders. Just earlier this week I saw another example. Last year at this time beavers began construction of a dam on a nice basewall side channel. At the time I wonder what the heck they were doing. Sure enough after taking down the small handful of hardwoods and gnawing a bit on a cedar they have now moved on.

I would love to see some information about beavers doing well in monocultures of Douglas Fir.

BTW -
I refer to my boat (16 foot lund Alaskan) as "My Office" and I try to spend as much time as possible in that office or tramping about my favorite river systems. Now off for a couple days of Chinook chasing.

Tight lines
Curt

Luck on the fishing it has been spotty but some good days thrown in. Nice office! Sorta do the same thing here.

The beaver thing is a interesting subject as they provide a huge benefit to Coho. Friend who retired from WDF&W first job with them was going around and blowing the dams so they had fish passage. That stopped once they figured out they were stranding and killing a lot of Coho fry as they get through the dams and are happy guys in the ponds. Many of us who worked in the woods have said for years banning the trapping of Beaver would be the cheapest way to help Coho. It is a strange and little thought of habitat thing.

As to the food thing .......................... I know they love willow, I mean really love willow, and any young broad leaf tree. But how and why they pick locations to build in I don't know. One creek on Little North River every year a young pair will move in and start a dam, work away on it and then move. Don't know why just that they see something that changes their minds but they sure love that 48 inch culvert down stream. Had to clean that thing out several times a year and it has had pond for all of the 38 years I was around the area.

As this is a El thread will shut up but one day we should do a thread on the interaction of Beaver and fish as it is a little understood relationship for most.

Knock em dead on the water Curt!

I don't think I would, but lets just agree to disagree and leave it at that.