20 Sep 2011, the Cedar River Sockeye Hatchery will open.

Waste of $30 Million.

Fish on...

Todd

+ 30,000,000

Complete waste of money.

Time will tell, but I'll also place my bet on "complete waste of money".

On the bright side, the equally shameful waste on the Elwha only amounted to about half the cost ($16M), yet it stands to do double the damage to wild fish runs. Talk about more bang for your buck!

If this post makes me seem jaded, that's because I am.

I hope the damn pesky native cutthroat eat well, since they'll take some of the blame anyway if this doesn't result in a Lk Wa fishery.

Don't know anything about the Ceder River. A waste just because it is a hatchery, or is there other issues???

Calling Salmo g. He's probably got some good input on this...

Indeed!

If there is a quality sockeye fishery each year on Lk.Washington and lots of people get out to catch a salmon that other wise wouldn't have a chance @ it, and it brings in some coin to the surrounding area's sport shops,restaurants etc.Then it will be worth the $30 million.Any thing less then that and it will be a total waste of time & money like said above.Good luck,
SZ

I'm still on the fence.

I wonder if they'll open up a cedar flossfest fishery?

I know far too little about the situation to know if this is good or bad, but it sure seems to me that if they expect 350K fish to return each year before fishing starts, seasons will be few and far between.

B

Steeliedrew,

Old information was that the Lk WA sockeye population was limited by the number of fry entering the lake each year. When the Cedar River flooded, eggs and alevins were scoured and lost, and the lake wasn't producing to capacity. New information has it that the Lk WA ecological interactions are more complex. There are more than 30 species of fish in the lake; predator-prey relationships aren't understood as well as they thought; there are smolt passage problems at the Ballard Locks; and there are problems that I can't recall off the top of my head just now. The upshot is that having a hatchery that has the ability to fully seed the lake with fry each year may not be addressing the real limiting factor or factors. Further, with returns like this year's, obtaining enough hatchery broodstock on a consistent basis may not be feasible either. And last I read, the co-managers aren't planning to modify the existing spawning escapement goal of 350,000 natural spawners either.

If anyone is making a comprehensive analysis of the Lk WA sockeye run, including spawner:recruit analysis and ecological analysis, apparently they're keeping it a secret.

Sg

WDFW paid for a complete (?) S/R analysis a couple years ago. The recommendation was to lower the Cedar River goal. By quite a bit, if i recall.

Prevailing opinion seems to be that productivity of Lake Washington is the limiting factor, and that additional sockeye fry will not do anything to change that, not one whit.

That's the first reason why it's a complete waste of $30 Million.

Second...even if the prevailing science is incorrect, and the amount of fry being produced is indeed the limiting factor, then even if the new hatchery is running at full 100% capacity (which is very difficult to do without many tens of thousands of more adults making it back to the hatchery), and that there is a direct connection between full scale hatchery fry production and adult returns...which is very, very unlikely...there will be between 1 and 3 additional sockeye seasons every 20 years.

All that, and a cup of coffee...for $30 Million.

Recap: If the prevailing scientific opinion is correct, zero additional fishing seasons. If the older scientific opinion is correct (based on the "plant more, then more return" type of assumption), then there will be 1-3 more seasons every two decades.

Waste of money...big waste...especially when we have dozens of things that could have actual impacts on wild fish, many of which are listed on the ESA, that we could spend our money on and really expand fishing opportunities in the future.

Fish on...

Todd

This is a complete joke. The temporary hatchery never came near its capacity so why build a newer bigger hatchery???

Years ago I wrote to the assistant director of wdfw and asked him this question. He said because there are endangered King salmon in lake washington they legally cannot release any more than the current amount of sockeye. With the very small release that doesn't come anywhere near the temporary hatcheries ability I knew we could never have another sockeye fishery.

When I heard that the new hatchery was being built I about fainted. Why spend 30 million on a hatchery that you can't legally use??????

This new hatchery cannot legally release 1 fish more than the temporary hatchery.

what happened to the budget short fall?
they sure know how waste money in Oly !!

The hatchery is being paid for by Seattle City Light.

Aunty,

I think it was non-fishing - former Seattle City Council woman - who fought and delayed the hatchery for years. But the hatchery was a mandatory piece of an elaborate 50-year Habitat Conservation Plan completed around 10 years ago. Hard, but not impossible to change. Harder now that the hatchery is built.

Sg