An Undammed River’s Sediment Brings New Life Downstream

Anne Shaffer sits on the sandy shoreline of the Elwha River and looks around in amazement. Just two years ago, this area would have been under about 20 feet of water.

So far about 3 million cubic yards of sediment — enough to fill about 300,000 dump trucks — has been released from the giant bathtubs of sediment that formed behind the two hydroelectric dams upstream. And that’s only 16 percent of what’s expected to be delivered downstream in the next five years.

All of that sediment is already reshaping the mouth of the Elwha, which empties into the Strait of Juan de Fuca on the northern shore of Washington's Olympic Peninsula.

The depth at the mouth of the river has changed by about 50 feet. Long, charcoal-colored sandy beaches have formed where there once only smooth, platter-sized cobblestones.

Watch video report:
http://kuow.org/post/undammed-river-s-sediment-brings-new-life-downstream

That was one of the worst areas to walk. Those cobble stones were massive. I can hardly wait to head up there after it re-opens to fishing to see the changes.

P77,
Thanks for posting that. I find this stuff very interesting.
It looks like a spit is forming at the mouth. If things rebound fish wise for the Elwha it would be fun in the future to fish off of it into the straits for returning kings & coho.
SF

I think it's forming what's called a delta. They used to be a common feature at river mouths.

If the enviros have their way no one will be fishing the elwha ever again.

Tru Dat

"Fishyfeller," The "enviros" were the people that had the quasi-illegal dams removed and set up the river for the restoration of native fish. On what basis do you suggest that we may never fish there again? What fishery below the dams was worth saving?
With the outflush of sediment and creation of a new spit, I expect that Ediz Hook spit erosion problems may stop, saving tons of taxpayer money.
I don't see a downside here.

The downside is that if Elwha actually recovers it will be a shining example that removal of dams helps anadromous fish.

If it fails it will offer fuel to the dam-keepers that even with habitat protected in a National Park humans can't restore wild fish.

It is a very interesting two-edged sword. So, let's plant more Chambers Creek fish there.

They closed the area off the Elwha mouth a few years back and expecting it to reopen in your lifetime is not very realistic. It will become the staging/netting area for Natives....not unlike the area off of Dungeness...btw....also closed.....and Port Angeles harbor.....and Discovery Bay......and North of the Hood Canal Bridge....

seeing a pattern here?

I am just a realist with a pesimestic tendency. I truly hope the Elwha does come back to its former glory but I do not see it happening without stopping all salmon fishing from here to Alaska.

I don't believe all will become magical with unicorns and rainbows popping up in the Elwha just because the dams were removed.

The only downside to removing the dams is now I cannot fish the Elwha anymore.

Not going to happen with decisions such as this:

Path: HOME » NEWS
Federal judges deny request for emergency injunction against steelhead planting in Elwha River
By Joe Smillie
Peninsula Daily News

SAN FRANCISCO –– A panel of federal appellate judges has rejected a wild-fish advocacy group’s request to stop the planting of hatchery-born steelhead in the Elwha River.

The ruling clears the way for Lower Elwha Klallam tribal hatchery managers to proceed with their planned release of as many as 175,000 steelhead — an ocean-going salmonid trout species — from the $16.5 million hatchery built to help restore Elwha River fish runs.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday dismissed a request from four wild-fish advocates for an emergency injunction to stop the steelhead plantings.

The appellate court upheld a U.S. District Court judge’s decision to reject the injunction
March 12.

Rob Jones of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Marine Fisheries Service, which oversees the hatchery’s operations, said hatchery managers will proceed with the spring planting as laid out in the hatchery and genetic management plans, or HGMP, assembled to restore the river’s fish runs after removal of the Elwha and Glines Canyon dams.

“It was our belief that the numbers that are in the HGMPs are what’s necessary,” Jones said.

“That doesn’t mean we have to plant that many fish in the river, but we have the option to do that.”

Wild-fish groups Wild Fish Conservancy, Conservation Angler, Federation of Fly Fishers Steelhead Committee and Wild Steelhead Coalition filed suit in federal court last year to have the plans changed, saying the agencies that assembled the hatchery program did not adequately address the impacts hatchery-bred fish would have on wild species.

U.S. District Court Judge Benjamin Settle rejected seven of the advocacy group’s eight motions to stop the federal government’s hatchery plan March 26.

Settle did rule that federal agencies must review their plans to see whether the release numbers that call for 175,000 hatchery steelhead and 425,000 hatchery coho could be reduced.

He said the government should confer on a compromise with the conservation groups who had proposed a release of 50,000 of each species.

“We’re disappointed in the appeals court’s decision, but we’re still working our way through Judge Settle’s court on the overall program, so we’ll see where we go now,” said Kurt Beardslee, executive director of Wild Fish Conservancy, based in Duvall.

“That’s what we’re hoping. We still haven’t heard from them on that meeting, though.”

Hatchery managers released 77,000 coho smolt into the Elwha at the end of March.

The Elwha River once produced 400,000 spawning fish, a number that declined to fewer than 3,000 after the Elwha and Glines Canyon dams were built without fish passage structures in the early 20th century.

Jones said the hatchery was developed to ensure survival of the species that use the Elwha to spawn.

“None of us have really had to deal with a situation like the Elwha before,” Jones said. “So we tried to be extremely risk-averse when we put together the HGMPs.”

He noted the fish born in the hatchery are genetically identical to the wild species.

The plans call for adult fish to be captured in the fall to spawn in the hatchery so their smolt can be released in the spring.

One factor that jeopardizes the survival of the fish runs is the heavy loads of sediment that had built up in the riverbed behind the dams.

In April 2013, the state Department of Fish and Wildlife, operating a separate fish hatchery along the Elwha River, attributed the deaths of hundreds of year-old chinook salmon, which were found along the Elwha banks, to heavy sedimentation in the river.

Now that the river has been reopened, sediment is being flushed out of the river valley.

Hatchery releases are timed to avoid planting fish during those times when the river is heavily loaded with sediment, officials said.

“That’s an additional issue hatcheries elsewhere don’t have to deal with,” Jones said.

“The sediment is complicating juvenile survival.”

Eventually, the hatchery is expected to ramp down production, Jones said, as the sediment clears and the fish population becomes self-sustaining.

“If we give them a chance, they’ll be more and more successful as the river heals,” Jones said.

________

Sequim-Dungeness Valley Editor Joe Smillie can be reached at 360-681-2390, ext. 5052, or at jsmillie@peninsuladailynews.com.

Last modified: April 10. 2014 6:53PM

Yeah, because the few hundred wild steelhead that return along with all those hatchery fish will swim around the nets and go upstream and spawn and "heal the river" while fishing continues on unabated.

Totally.

What's the chances that they put in early timed Chambers Creek fish and then only net up until January 15th?

Fish on...

Todd

It looks to me like the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals finally brought some common sense into this situation.

BTW, these steelhead being released are from the Tribe's native steelhead program, not the Chambers Creek program, which has been terminated.

I only hope that the defendants, can charge the plaintiff groups for some very expensive attorney time.

Perfect...that way they can net the wild fish swimming alongside those hatchery fish and "heal the river".

What a fuckin joke, and what a fuckin great opportunity squandered by the usual...greed and stupidity.

Fish on...

Todd

It is your assumption that they are going fishing for these hatchery fish, not mine. During the preservation and re-colonization portion of the program, they can be used for various re-introduction approaches identified in the restoration plan, therefore there is no need to fish for them.

So what else does one do with Chambers turds?

Obviously they can serve as the foundation for steelhead recovery. Since WDFW has (at least temporarily) agreed not to plant them so they can be fished on, they must be for recovery.

I will repeat one more time. These are not the Chambers Creek steelhead. That program was terminated. These are from their native steelhead program.

And I believe the CC were removed from the program not because they were inappropriate but because of court action.

More than likely a fact, but one which has nothing to do with my statement about whether or not the Tribe needs to fish for these.

Details, details….

My thought on hatchery programs is they should only use the genetic stocks from the rivers they are planting to bolster wild fish and allow a certain amount of fish to be harvested. By using native genetic stocks if they intermingle with gravel fish no cross breeding will occur. The fittest will return to keep the genes going. Unfortunatley the enviros feel if it doesn't come from the gravel its not worthy of reproducing.

I feel that is a very narrow minded view on things. If as little as 10 more fish return to gravel because of hatchery fish that use native stocks that is an improvement.

The big key here is to only use the genetic stocks that come from the river.

While that sounds good, the overwhelming experience with steelhead is that a single generation in the hatchery lowers the offspring's fitness in the wild. They come back, spawn, but produce less young and also lower the survival of the wild fish they mate with.

It might work, IF the number of hatchery-bred spawners is significantly less than the wilds (let wild genes dominate) and, IF the hatchery is for a fixed term so that you can get the population "bump" and then let nature take over. The All-H-Analyzer model, that looks at hatcheries, habitat, harvest, and hydro to size a hatchery program clearly shows this. What it also shows is that for recovery to work in the long term you have to depend on wild fish.

And managers of all stripes are like drug addicts. Give them a taste of harvesting at a hatchery rate and they can't stop themselves.... It allows one to not have to make difficult decisions like closing fisheries, not developing in floodplains, not logging every tree in a watershed, and not covering the lowlands in development.

Carcassman, I understand why you are making this statement about steelhead losing productivity very rapidly based on results primarily from the Hood River studies by Araki and Blouin, and Cooper. Based on their life history, I suspect that they might be more susceptible to hatchery domestication in comparison to other species. I would however suggest taking another very close those papers, before saying that there is overwhelming evidence of loss of fitness in a single generation. The two papers that I am suggesting that you take a closer look at would be the 2007 Science article, “Genetic Effects of Captive Breeding Cause a Rapid Cumulative Fitness Decline in the Wild” (along with the supporting on-line material for that article) and the 10 June 2009, Biology Letters in the Royal Society Journal, “Carry-over effect of captive breeding reduces reproductive fitness of wild-born descendants in the wild.” In particular you should look at the statistical tests and the results of those statistics which suggest a different conclusion to me. Both of these are cited regularly to come to the same conclusion you put forward in your post. However, their results (as opposed to the conclusion reached particularly in their summaries) indicate something different to me.

Specifically in the 2007 Science article, if you look at Table 2B on page 102 or the journal, you will see that the point estimate of relative reproductive success (RRS) for 1st generation captive reared fish for all study years combined (1995 – 2000) is 0.85 (relative to wild fish). This is the result cited by some to show 1st generation loss, however, if you look at the confidence intervals around that point estimate you will see that they included 1.0, the value for wild fish. Based on what I had to learn to even get out of undergraduate quantitative sciences, the conclusion in this case should be that the reproductive success of 1st generation hatchery fish was indistinguishable from that of wild fish, the same conclusion that they reached in their first two papers published in Conservation Biology in 2007, albeit with fewer return years. The fact that the report does not make that clear, even though (as stated in their supporting on-line material) the authors chose the test “with the maximal power to detect lower fitness of captive-bred fish,” is a bit of a concern for me. Let me put it simply: The authors chose a test most likely to identify a statistical difference. They found no statistical difference in the first generation, but went on in the paper, and particularly the summary (abstract) as if they had. In my experience, I would certainly call this at least bad writing. If the cynical me came out a bit, I might even call it bad science. That is too bad, because there is at least one very clear conclusion from this paper. That is that there is a very significant loss of fitness with the 2nd generation of captive rearing. In this case, the point estimate of RRS was 0.31 (P<0.001), significantly different than wild fish. This result alone should be a clear warning as to how to select broodstock when developing integrated hatchery programs for steelhead.

In the second study (the 2009 Biology letters), the authors looked at the RRS of naturally spawning fish that had one captive-bred parent and two captive-bred parents. The point estimates for RRS were 87.1% (1 captive-bred parent) and 37% (2 captive-bred parents). In this case the result for one captive-bred parent was non-significant (P = .414), but the results for two captive-bred parents was significant (P = .006). Using these results the authors, in their abstract, concluded a loss of fitness for both groups and “a significant carry-over effect of captive breeding which has negative influence on the size of the wild population in the generation after supplementation” even though the authors themselves note on page 2 of their paper that the difference for fish with one captive-bred parent was not significant. Call me crazy if you will, but with these results, I would have concluded that the RRS of fish with one captive-bred parent was indistinguishable from fish with both wild parents, but that there was a clear reduction of RRS when fish with two hatchery-bred parents spawned naturally. That risk would need to be looked at more carefully when contemplating a hatchery program.

The results that I have summarized here are taken straight from the papers of these authors, and I have told you what I have concluded. Because of this, I would not be willing to state conclusively what you stated above. What I will say, is that based on what I see of the results is that in these studies there was a clear loss of fitness when naturally spawning fish had been in the hatchery for two generations and also that the RRS of offspring of fish that had two parents go through a hatchery was significantly less than wild fish. I can’t come to the other conclusions of the authors, and therefore, cannot conclude the dire consequences suggested by them.

I’ll leave it up to you as far as what you want to conclude, but again, I suggest looking at all the papers by these authors a bit more carefully. Don’t get me wrong. The results from these studies have to be considered and need to be understood better. People contemplating starting integrated hatchery programs, particularly for steelhead, absolutely need to be aware of the significant outcomes of these studies. However, I think it is also really important to see researchers attempting to tease out the factors that could be causing these results rather than making large scale conclusions based on them. I am pleased to see this happening.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domestication


Wow Breaking News!

OncyT,

Thanks for sharing your level headed post. In a world so full of gray and where so many want to see either black or white, it's becoming frustrating to deal with the polarization of the pro and anti-hatchery crowds. I read every fishery genetics article that I can, and it looks to me like the truth does not live at either extreme.

Sg

Oncy

Good points but I have a question. How can hatchery fish, with two generation in the hatchery, perform so poorly in the wild and yet the first generation is equal? I don't see how that is biologically possible? I understand that it is statistically possible to show that, but what is the supporting biology?

Further, we do know that even Chambers Creek fish have been successful spawning in the wild. Apparently the streams where this occurs are few and far between but there are situations when they can make it. They have even, if memory serves, established at least one self-sustaining population that seems to remain spatially separate from the local stock.

Carcassman,

Good question about how this can occur in two generations but not the first. As I am not a geneticist that has knowledge in this area, I won’t even attempt to try to explain how it would occur. I suspect that you know some good people in this area though, so perhaps they can. The purpose of my response was to try to make clear what these studies actually showed. The fact that some of the results were not statistically significant is important. You know that. Like I said in my first response, the authors got to choose how they approached this question completely. They chose the tests they would use as well as the level of confidence needed to draw any real conclusions. When you then get non-significant results you should report that clearly, not muddle up the results. Back to your first question though.

Since the Araki and Blouin work, there have been a number of papers looking at reduced fitness in hatchery fish spawning in the wild. Some have shown loss of fitness, others have not. What I find more interesting is that they have actually been able to identify specific traits that are having an effect on productivity. Some of these might shed some light on your question.

After the Hood River papers, Araki, Berejikian, Ford, and Blouin used a simple quantitative genetics model to evaluate whether domestication selection can explain rapid fitness declines (BTW, I would consider 2 generations in the hatchery to be very rapid domestication). What they concluded was that if selection acts on a single trait, rapid effects can be explained only when selection for that trait is very strong both in the hatchery and in the natural environment. If selection works on multiple traits throughout the life cycle, rapid fitness declines are plausible. With that in mind, there are also several studies (numerous authors and locations) doing some interesting multivariate analysis, trying to identify the traits that may be responsible for changes in fitness. To date, here are a few of the traits that have been identified as being associated with reduced reproductive success: Origin (natural v. hatchery), sex (M or F), location of spawning, fish length, return date, number of same sex competitors, behavior of offspring and spawning adults. I’m sure this is not a complete list of the factors identified, but I didn’t take the time to look up additional results. I certainly am not surprised with most of these on the list, and I doubt that you are either. The point being that if all of these factors have a bearing on RRS, and selection acts on all of them, I would guess that there is any number of potential negative correlated traits that could be expressed very rapidly between the 1st and 2nd generation. Again, excuse my ignorance on genetics, but that is the best I can do. I suspect it would be easy for someone with knowledge in this field to explain the exact mechanism(s). I cannot.

Just for fun, though, let’s just look at one trait that I will throw out for consideration. BTW this particular one has bugged me since I looked at the hatchery programs on the Hood River and considered the results of the Araki papers. This study combined the results of spawners from both the summer steelhead and winter steelhead programs to improve the power of the tests (yes, that tricky little issue about statistics again). My recollection of the details of these programs is that the pond that released the summer SH was located well up the Hood River in the middle of really good SH spawning habitat, but the location of the pond that released winter steelhead was located relatively low in the river not in what you would call good SH spawning habitat.

So here is an hypothesis. In the first generation, using natural fish collected at the old dam, you collected fish that would have spawned throughout the watershed. Even though you released them from at least one pond located in the lower part of the river, they generally did a good job of dispersing themselves upon return (as the fish that you collected were used to doing just that). In the second generation, you now use fish that were only accustomed to the river based on their hatchery experience. The summer SH would probably distribute themselves around the rearing pond in good SH habitat, but the winter SH, or at least some of the winter SH would distribute themselves in the spawning area nearer their rearing pond in less productive spawning habitat as they now have no cues to home to any other part of the river. Could that 2nd generation then be less productive in the wild based on only this one trait (spawning location) than the 1st generation? I suspect so.

BTW, the scenario described above is very much like what happens in the integrated spring Chinook program on the Wenatchee River. A disproportionate number of adults return to spawn near the rearing pond, in marginal habitat. Combine this with (and I’m just making this up) differences in spawning behavior and competition with more adults returning to this area to spawn (not making this up, as it is also a factor on the Wenatchee), and you now start having some additive (multiplicative?) changes in reproductive success from using fish collected from the natural environment versus fish having gone through just one generation in the hatchery.

What I find more interesting about these current studies is that they lead you to think about the specific biological factors at play and how you might be able to address them. That interests me much more than the debates around the “absolutes” that you often hear on this forum arguing the intrinsic good or bad of wild and hatchery fish.

Finally, I’m not going to respond to your point about even Chambers Creek (or Skamania) fish occasionally being able to develop self-sustaining populations. I’m not sure what you are getting at. It is clear though, even using the point estimate for RRS (85% of wild fish), that at least the first generation hatchery fish in the Hood River studies have productivity an order of magnitude greater than the non-local hatchery populations.

There are, I believe, two factors at work. Well, more than two but I will simplify them. The first comes under the collection of "domestication"; things that change biology. For example, steelhead in the wild spawn and rear in riffles in areas where each fish defends a territory and they feed on benthic foods (surface too, but mostly drift). In a hatchery they are reared in runs at best or big pools at high densities feeding on surv=face foods. Same with salmon, but some salmon (like coho) live in pools in high density situations so the hatchery is not a huge change.

The second factor, the one I consider most critical to steelhead (and ignored by the researchers as I have asked) is the water they are incubated and reared in. Cold-blooded animals have temperature-specific enzymes to facilitate life's biochemical processes and these enzymes are genetically based. A fish has the genes for warm or cold or cool water. Most steelhead programs incubate and rear on water significantly warmer than ambient. They are genetically selected for being able to function in warmer water. released into wild and they do much poorer because they don't have the necessary enzymes. This is why, I believe, that hatchery salmon generally perform better when spawning in the wild than hatchery steelhead; salmon are generally incubated and reared on surface water.

A few years ago they tried some creative steelhead hatchery practices and they got really good survival in the wild; at least significantly better than the standard. They were incubated and reared on local surface waters, but the researchers did not think that water had anything to do with it.

Leave it to some dude who sits in a room all day listening to peoples arguments to make the decision, he knows best or rather nothing but what is given to him yet he gets to make the decision. Using native stock from the river for the hatchery sounds like a better idea than using non-native stock for the hatchery. I wonder if the Chambers Creek fans are opponents of this?

I'm not speaking as a chamber's fan, because I'm not a fan of the stock. Most with any understanding would prefer the ability to use native fish for broodstock. This would be the logical approach for improving survival and opportunity.

However, this will never happen until PS steelhead get de-listed. The only likely justification for such a program currently would fall under recovery status which would limit or eliminate the harvest of the hatchery component in the first place. PS steelhead populations do not warrant a hatchery-based recovery plan in any shape or form for obvious reasons, except for some notable ongoing exceptions. Even if there was a way to find a way to convince the feds that a broodstock program is warranted and they agreed for some reason, there simply isn't any desire for this from WDFW or the tribes in the first place.

Unfortunately, it's use chamber's steelhead or nothing. I'll speak for many when I say I'd prefer to use a crappy stock than nothing at all.