The hatcherey is legislativly mandated as mitigation for the Landsburg Diversion. Around 1990. originally, it was supposed to have bneen a spawning channel. IHNV rendered that idea moot. From there, the hatchery was designed.

The original, temporary hatchery was supposed to support a whole series of studies designed to figure out what was going on in the lake. I don't think they all got completed.

spend the 30 million to deliver the fish to the seiners holds and then we wont need a hatch at all.

The hatchery is legislatively mandated as mitigation for the Landsburg Diversion. Around 1990. originally, it was supposed to have been a spawning channel. IHNV rendered that idea moot. From there, the hatchery was designed.

Lets see if I get this right. The hatchery is mitigation & paid for by SCL for a diversion. If I recall mitigation is used to attempt to replace natural production lost through some activity ( Landsburg Diversion ) and in mitigation agreements a cost / benefit ratio that is favorable to the entity being required to perform the mitigation in not a priority.

So why the whining? SCL is paying for the damage, real or perceived, it has done.

Part of the bizarre aspect of this is that SCL is paying to mitigate a resource that did not exist when the diversion was built. But, for Seattle, it presented a nice package. It said that the artifical production would be the mitigation; giving surety for the future.

Further, they did not want 200K dead sockeye (the estimated capacity of the blocked reach) fouling Seattle's drinking water.

No whining here...I just don't want City of Seattle taxpayers, or fishermen in general, to think that they will get any benefits whatsoever from this hatchery, as there seems to be a great excitement among sockeye fishermen that they will get to fish in Lake Washington all summer, every year, when the fact of the matter is that they won't likely fish there any more than they do now.

Fish on...

Todd

This was more of a payoff to get the Muckleshoots to sign off on Seattle's Cedar River Watershed HCP than anything else.

Fish on...

Todd

The hatchery came before the HCP. I suspct that hunting access to the Cedar River watershed sweetened the pot for the Tribe.

They were also upset that NOAA was into "natural recovery" for Chinook that was destined to give its first fishery something like 50 years out.

Remember that Boldt II seems to say that the Tribes actually get dead fish in the boat. The Muckleshoots, with the Green and Lake WA as their U&A don't have a lot of the desireable (Chinook, coho, steelhead) wild stocks to fish on and it is not likely that the heavily urbanized/diverted watersheds will ever produce much for those species. Ergo, hatcheries are the only reasonably viable solution to meet Treaty obligations and allow King County to stay where and as it is.

If they...or anyone else...really wants to have more consistent seasons on sockeye in Lk. Washington, then get that 350K escapement goal knocked back down to around 220K.

Fish on...

Todd

I believe that may be in the area which the WDFW review suggested. So, why no change?

The biological reference point estimation report that WDFW sponsored found an MSY escapement level for Cedar River sockeye to be ~82,000 spawners and total Lk. Washington sockeye to be ~102,000 spawners. The authors found a difference in productivity between even and odd year spawners with MSY escapement of 150,000 and 69,500 spawners for even and odd year broods, respectively.

They also concluded:

1) Survival of Cedar River NOR fry to maturity was negatively related to Cedar River natural fry abundance. In addition, even-year broods survived at rates substantially higher than odd-year broods at comparable fry input levels;

2) Density-dependent survival of fry in Lake Washington is associated with early arrival of large numbers of fry prior to the spring bloom of zooplankton suggesting intraspecific competition during early lake residence. Interspecific competition with other limnetic species, in particular, with large even-year broods of longfin smelt limit odd-year brood sockeye as evidenced by lower growth and survival.

Among the authors recommendations was the thought that management of the resource must consider the abundance and timing of hatchery fry recruitment. Delayed release of hatchery fry may provide much improved survival of HOR fry rather than possibly introducing a negative impact on natural fry.

So perhaps a modification of the natural spawning goals as well as some alternate hatchery strategy (later release of fry or perhaps even smolts) might be a more successful approach if the goal is to provide routine sockeye fisheries on an introduced natural population in Lake Washington.

I just found a link to the Lake WA biological reference point report for anyone interested:

http://wdfw.wa.gov/publications/pub.php?id=00778

As Carcassman said, it is interesting that there has not been much play to this report. WDFW held one public meeting to discuss it back in May 2010, but I don't think it was widely promoted or attended by anyone.

OncyT,

Thanks for that link! I hadn't heard of any LW sockeye work done since Ames in 2006. I'll want to read it through, but a quick glance indicates that major modifications in sockeye management are in order, especially with the hatchery coming on line. Hope they follow through with the suggestion that hatchery fry be released after natural fry are in the lake.

It's also pretty obvious that a tremendous amount of harvest has been foregone - I can hardly believe I said that! The 350K escapement goal was sketchy from the outset, and as annual SR data has accumulated, it only looks worse.

Sg

The May 2010 meeting was covered in the newspaper, and it generated a brief flurry of discussion on this board. But you are right, good science there that nobody seems to want anything to do with. Why waste the money if the Policy decisions ignore it? Not the first time for that, and not the last.

Salmo g., why would you be concerned about recognizing that a ton of harvest has been foregone on this population? This is a purely introduced population that exists in the middle of a major metropolitan area. A discussion about management of this population should take place, and quite honestly, I see no reason not to manage it as an artificial population (it was introduced from Baker Lake after all) with the principle purpose of providing harvest in that metropolitan area.

We've got plenty of real natural populations causing management problems. Why add another one if you don't need to?

The 350K was designed as an interim goal, for the Cedar, to be evaluated as new information came in. Turns out, it was based on some recent years' good escapements and runs but the actual escapement was more like 500K, so that should have been the goal.

Then, it somehow morphed from a Cedar River goal to a watershed goal, thereby lowering the Cedar goal to at or below 300K.

Note, too, that the really big runs upon whioch the goal were based occurred at the peak of the Lake Washington sewage problems. Since then, the lake has been cleaned up, which lowers productivity.

While the old INTERIM goal probably made sense, the managers dropped the ball on evaluating what was occurring.

And WDFW tells us that they will use adaptive management to make sure we get recovery right?

OncyT,

Don't read too much into my concern. It belongs in the context of LW sockeye being the only escapement goal that I think I've ever thought should be reduced. I agree, as an introduced population in an urban ecological soup of a lake, LW sockeye should be managed with local social and economic benefits as a first priority and ecosystem management second and maybe fisheries management third. - just thinking out loud, so to speak.

I think of it kind of like humpy season. It gets more citizens interested in and thinking about salmon. I don't expect all of them to become wild salmon conservation advocates, but I hope some of them will. And the economic importance should not be over-looked.

Carcassman,

What doesn't add up is the unrealistic escapement goal was established at the same time METRO, via Forward Thrust, cleaned up LW and reduced its smolt production capacity.

Sg

Salmo

Correct you are. One would think that WDF would have figured it out. But, remember, too, that the escapement goal mantra is "average conditions". Plus, WDFW has had a hard time wrapping themselves around the idea that productivity of a fish stock and the level of nutrients in the stream are somehow related. from all i have heard, habitat quality is relted only to stream flow, temperature, instream complexity; essentially only abiotic factors.

I don't think stream nutrients have much to do with it in this case...sockeye fry boogie right out into the lake, and that's where the lack of food is.

That being said, nutrients running out of the Cedar into the lake won't hurt, that's for sure.

Fish on...

Todd

A 30 million dollar zooplankton hatchery should fix the lack of food in the lake problem.........

The nutrients from the stream to lake would help, but it was METROs removal of nutrients that lowered production.

Saw a study from Redfish Lake in Idaho that said if the sockeye run were restored to historic levels that water clarity would substantially decrease.

And a zooplankton hatchery won't work unless the phytoplankton are there to fed on and the phytos won't be there unless the nutrients are in the water.

As has been alluded to, the lake might produce a whole lot more sockeye if it wasn't for all the exotics in there.