See press release and their "sign on" letter:

http://wildfishconservancy.org/about/pre...ions-for-salmon

I vote for that

I'm hearing reports of lots of dead salmon in the Willamette Basin.

Lord love a duck. The Willamette has about zero in common with any stream in Wa. Thing is what happens in drought years differ by location and watershed. On the coast ( GH & Willapa ) we are rain driven and water temps in the upper 60's & lower 70's are not uncommon. We have our problem when the DO drops to very low levels in certain reaches such as the Centralia reach in the Chehalis.

What we have going on now is streams fed by lower level snow pack did not get a snow pack. Mostly are OP or Cascade origin streams and they will have issues. The BC Cascade snow pack was 90% or so of normal so the big C will have flows. So we have the usual suspects running around screaming the end is near. It is not but it is going to get ugly. As for the coast while these temps are not unusual they are 5 to 6 weeks early. So we will have fish perish and particularly hatchery runs that have small water sources, lots of fish returning, and no way to get them to get into the facility.

It will get ugly to be sure but not much different than the early 90's on the coast. PS is going see the emerging collision between urbanization and the natural order which in average to good conditions is masked. After the drought is done ( which will happen ) it will only be something else for PS as that dance has just started.

I would expect to see the Stilliguamish closed to fishing for salmon, maybe everything. Hopefully we will get some rain by the time the silvers show up.

http://www.cbbulletin.com/


For those who feel it's only an Oregon problem.

What fish are these folks trying to protect here? Very few people fish for trout in our streams, and many who do harvest any legal fish they catch, so release mortality becomes something of a moot point. The vast majority of whatever steelhead are in the rivers this time of year are hatchery summer runs. One would think the WFC would be glad to see all those fish dead. Springers/summer kings may be another story, and perhaps it would be appropriate to close fisheries that impact them significantly, but wholesale rules like this don't make sense for habitats as diverse as we have in our state.

Fish kills due to water temps will happen, despite any action we take. Closing fishing might save a small number of fish, but if massive fish kills happen, those few fish will not have any meaningful impact.

More and more, it seems like WFC is only doing this stuff to piss off license-buying sport fishers.

My thoughts exactly. People are fishing terminal fishing areas for meat this time of year. That and killing humpies. If anything they need to boost the pink limit to 10 fish a day so we can cull the hordes and leave available substrate for the species of concern.

Myassisdragon,

I live less than a mile from the river, and float it all the time. I too have seen the pump that Mosby is using and can't help but cringe whenever I float by. That industrial pump has to be extracting water at the rate of hundreds of GPM. If we are expected to stop fishing due to low water events, how are they able to extract this water 24/7? Do they need any permits or approval to do this? The river is dropping and dropping and this pump (along with others I'm sure) is not helping. I'd really like to know if the authorities are aware of this and if there is any legal basis for making it stop (or, at the very least, limiting the extraction to XX gallons/day).

Carry on...

Its become clear to me that the "managers" of this "rainy" state have never played the scenario game of "what if" on a variety of subjects. In my line of work, I'd be fired for not doing so. How cool would it be to have a government job?

They see a disaster as an opportunity. They will cry about money being the issue and the people will want something done so the cash spigot gets opened. They are actually incentified to let the worst case scenario take place. With the increased cash comes raises and promotions along with the new hires. I see at least $10 million in future grants to study scenarios going forward. All under the banner of global warming. There is no penalty for letting the worst case scenario happen with zero action.

What do you think should have been done differently?