Here is a link to a preliminary report presented to the Commission in August 2015 focusing on smolt mortality: http://wdfw.wa.gov/commission/meetings/2015/08/aug0715_06_presentation.pdf.

Of particular interest are pages 31 to 40 comparing various river systems. Difficult to comprehend how the Nisqually has water quality issues whereas the Snohomish does not.

That's really interesting. The parasitic infection isn't very surprising, but the PBDE contamination isn't something I expected. I wonder if recovery of SS steelhead is even possible.

At least up until recently there was a real issue with any yearling or older smelt that has to pass the narrows. Chinook, coho, and steelhead all sucked. I saw some data where Minter Creek yearling White River Chinook served at a lower rate than fingerling White River fish released at the White River hatchery. ALL of deep SS has problems.

I still need to listen to the presentation in hopes that the audio will elaborate on some of the rather (to me) complex aspects of the studies and answer several questions.

The first that comes to mind is the PBDE level. Seriously, in the Nisqually? Did the tribal casino dump their fire extinguisher system into the river?? (That is the common usage of that stuff, right?)

Then there is the parasitic infection. Again, why the Nisqually? Wouldn't that organism be carried to and infest other rivers in P.S.?

And, finally, the statistics indicating that yearlings have a higher mortality rate than fingerlings getting through the Narrows. Again, what has changed in the last 30-40 years? Well, while not politically correct to point the finger at pinnipeds the fact remains that Puget Sound harbor seals have increased from several hundred in the early '70s to around 17,000 today. Seals may not chase a fingerling but a yearling? Predation is mentioned but it just seemed to me that the authors preferred to not go there. Hakim's Razor comes to mind.

Remember that the Nisqually flows through JBLM and there is likely lots of stuff spread around there. Pinnipeds are a problem as are, I think, the increase in lingcod in the Narrows. We created some new hidey places with the new bridge, too.

But, it gets back to the fact that this mortality issue has been recognized at least for a decade, maybe 1.5. Should be time to get some studies under way.

I didn't watch the video, (no streaming at work)... but will add my 2cents

when I think of parasitic infections, I think warm water. I think of warmer temperatures raised due to water sitting behind a dam or God forbid, climate change... I also think about all the millions of gallons of warm microbe infested waste water dumped daily into rivers, lakes, aquifers, and ultimately, puget sound. Some treated, some just diluted, but most is mixed with trace amounts of chemicals (think of all the treatment plants just to name a few: Lott, Chambers creek, commencement bay, south plant, West point, Brightwater)

We are harvesting crab, geoducks, oysters clams and other filter feeders at an alarming rate... those same critters that scrub the nasties out of the water... has anyone ever considered the amount of water that one geoduck filters in a year, how about multiplying that by the number that are harvested over the course of a year...

our rivers are barren wastelands with no surplus biomass because we harvest every last fish out and then some... baby fish need bugs (dead fish), fish eggs (lots of spawners) and other baby fish (the weak ones) in order to thrive in the rivers. not to mention shrimp, crab, larvae, bait fish, and all sorts of other biological matter in the water that is not human poop, piss and chemically contaminated storm water runoff...

working for an engineering firm that deals in everything wastewater and storm water, I can tell you that it is getting better. but in the last hundred years we fu(ked it up pretty good, and we continue to fu(k it up daily by dumping fertilizers on our lawns and flushing chemicals down our sinks and toilets... Honestly, I don't know that the fish will last as long as it takes to fix it our fu(k ups... not at the current harvest rates and exploding population growth.

we have met the enemy and the enemy is us... we are so worried about that one issue that is affecting the fish that we are forgetting about the thousand other factors...

Great post Piper.

+1.

Piper, you have touched on a number of possible issues affecting South Sound generated salmonoids but as I asked - What has changed?

The Alder dam on the Nisqually went on line in late 1945 which does not correlate to the time line for the extreme increase in smolt mortality. And has Alder dam actually caused an increase in water temps in the river below the dam?

Also, as has been discussed on other threads Lake Washington and Puget Sound have seen huge amounts of money spent on sanitary sewage treatment facilities over the last 30-40 years resulting in much cleaner (from human waste) waters. At the same time smolt survival has dropped. One might even argue that the loss of human waste as a fertilizer has decreased nutrients in Lk WA and P.S. decreasing marine flora and bottom of the food chain organisms thereby adversely affecting the entire food chain.

Unfortunately, what we are now seeing is sanitary system waste water contaminated with new chemicals such as PBDE surprisingly (to me) found in the Nisqually. My limited knowledge is that those types of complex compounds are not removed during even tertiary waste water treatment.

Is there more to learn? Absolutely. But at the same time we should not be ignoring the obvious even if it is not politically correct. And if our society with full disclosure is still willing to accept the loss of salmonoids to the various marine and avian predators we will be hard pressed to overcome that mentality.

As for ling I would suggest they are far more of an impediment to rockfish recovery than to smolt mortality.

As Larry tangentially alludes to, fish (especially wild fish) are a luxury. After everyone is fed, watered, housed, electrified, provided a car and roads to drive on and all the other stuff then we will see what's left for fish.

I know that the Tribes get bashed (and often deservedly so) for a harvest them all mentality but if you noticed the State's argument in a couple of court cases that it is the right of the State to destroy fish runs if it is in the best interest of society. The Tribes are, for better or for worse, the only conservation hammer that gets used.

I can see the day coming when only Tribal fishing will be allowed for WA salmonids because the state has chosen to take its harvest as development.

Larry, I don't dissagree, and I've only actually touched on one minor local issue that I am personally connected to, out of a thousand others that affect fish...

you ask what has changed? I say alot has changed... how many more housing developements and strip malls have been built in river drainages. How many more septic tanks have been built, lawns fertilized, roads paved and widened, and people to be fed? these are just the local challenges. To be honest, we cannot fix the fu(kups of the past as fast as we are fu(king up the present...

We've dammed all the major spawning grounds and diked all the estuaries to turn them into shipping ports and outfalls. We have upset the food chain by protecting predators, mass producing their food and harvesting natural food in order to feed the un-natural; even further upsetting what little we have allowed mother nature to sustain.

what is the future? who knows... but it would be a good idea to study the demise of Atlantic samlon for a glimpse at where we are headed in puget sound...

we're still lucky to have a few places that are still somewhat protected locally but even those aren't safe from the global issues of overharvest, predation, and poor ocean conditions...

The earth and it's inhabitants can only take so much. But greed appears to be too strong to stop the carnage.

To piggyback on Piper's thoughts let's just say we improve Seattle's waste water/sewage by 50%. It now discharges half the nutrients and chemicals as before. We double the population and haven't changed a thing.

We each reduce our water use by 10% to save water for fish. And when population increases by 11%, the fish lose water.

What we seem to forget is that our impact, today, is excessive. Simply reducing our individual footprint is little more than warm and fuzzy unless there is a cumulative reduction in total impact.

Another tangential thought...but didn't the Chinook hatchery at McAllister Creek close to due intense and constant parasite infections due to poor water quality?

It's right there next to the Nisqually.

Fish on...

Todd

McAllister had a bad bug problem. It was (most likely) caused by I-5. When built, the creek was choked at the new freeway. More water backed up and the system became habitat for the bug. Couple this with the hatchery intake, at high tide, sucked in the hatchery effluent.

The Nisqually hatcheries do pretty well for Chinook. But, that system has been a long-time poor performer for coho.

When I asked the question "What's changed?" it was primarily directed at the issues on the Nisqually compared to other systems further north - specifically the Snohomish. See the linked I provided and particularly pages 31-40 which provide those comparisons.

Through the efforts of a variety of fishing/conservation groups the Nisqually delta was spared industrial development and the agricultural diking from the early 1900s has been significantly removed/breached to provide more habitat for young fish. Yes, there is a dam on the river but it was put on line in 1945 so presumably any adverse affects became the new norm in the 50s - long before this current smolt mortality phenomenon. And I would opine that population growth in the Snohomish basin has been far greater than in the Nisqually basin. Then there is the relative lack of riparian development what with tribal lands and Ft. Lewis. On the face of it the Nisqually should be the poster child at least in comparison to those other systems.

That said, I had forgotten about the closure of McAllister Creek's facility in part due to infestation. Not sure if it is the same organism identified in the study but if it developed after I-5 that would put it no earlier than the early to mid-60s then possibly migrating into the entire delta. If so, does that undo the efforts to provide that additional estuary habitat? Another Master's or PhD study???

If memory serves, the McAllister parasite required a snail as an intermediate host. The snail needed slough-like conditions, vegetation, and freshwater. The Nisqually has little of that and less with the salt marsh restoration.

If you've remember accurately that would be positive info but would also take me back to the original question.

anyone heard of the Pack experimental forest? its lands drain into the nisqually near la grande.

it is an interest timeline if you take a look at the studies that have been done... I'm sure the experiments they are doing are totally safe for the fish...

list of studies

Larry -
You asked the question of what has changed?

The first as others have mention is the human population. Since 1980 the population of the State has increased from just over 4 million to about 7 million. 80% of that population live in the Puget Sound basin. We are all familiar with the long list of problems associated with that population growth.

The number of harbor seals have increased 10 fold since the marine mammal protection act. The numbers of harbor porpoises in recent years have increase from virtually none existent to now they are as abundant as harbor seals.

Because of the location of the Nisqually in relation to the Snohomish it should be clear that fish originating in the south sound are exposed to more and for a longer period of time the cumulative impacts associated with those changes.

One factor that is not commonly talked about is the changes in the regions river discharge patterns. Because of climate change (we will leave the cause of those changes to another debate) the timing of the freshwater discharge from our rivers have changed; and in some cases dramatically. Historically much of the freshwater entering Puget Sound was the result of snow melt which occurred in the spring/early summer. That large freshwater input increased the mixing of the waters of Puget Sound which coupled with the sun light of longer days drove a significant pulse of productivity. Today we see more of the run-off from floods/freshets during the fall and winter period and less snow-melt in the spring. The result is fewer and smaller productivity blooms at the critical time that smolts are entering and migrating through the Sound.

Curt

The parasite nanophyetus requires a snail as an intermediate host as I recall and can be transported by mammals wandering about. Nanophyetus is endemic to the Deschutes watershed for as long as anyone has known. That is apparently a major reason why none of the anadromous fish introductions have never taken well to natural production. The native cutthroat trout have co-existed with the parasite for just about forever, and presumably have a greater evolved resistance than any introduced fish stocks. I don't know if nanophyetus was historically endemic to the McAllister basin, but the Chinook salmon hatchery facility there was shut down due to reduced salmon survival attributed to nanophyetus. All it would take is for an infected raccoon or skunk to wander from the Deschutes, and eventually another to wander to the Nisqually basin to spread the infestation.

I don't know how much slough like conditions the snail requires, but the Deschutes is not characterized by that specific habitat type. But springs, with their attendant sloughs and vegetation, even if small, do exist in all three basins. I cringe to think of nanophyetus spreading further northward.

Some things described in the report indicate that things aren't looking good for steelhead, Chinook, and coho in PS for the foreseeable future.

Sg

I am sure they are. After all, the UW has that great fisheries program and wouldn't the forestry folks confer with their fisheries counterparts? You know, higher education and all.

Full disclosure.....Go Cougs!

Again, I was trying to focus on the rather short term decline in smolt survival from South Sound. Your observation about changes in fresh water flow timing is interesting as is the possible impact of parasites.

The link I posted includes a page showing increases in population of seals and harbor porpoise but then goes on to suggest that just because there is a correlation does not mean a cause and effect relationship.

Information which was promulgated during development of the state's Puget Sound Rockfish Recovery Plan indicated that harbor seal population in Puget Sound around 1970 was approximately 200. Current estimates run between 15,000 and 17,000 consuming between 25-30 million pounds of food a year. And while I doubt there are 15,000 harbor porpoise they definitely have increased and now we have a significant population of California sea lions and a small but growing population of Stellars all of which have to eat although the sea lions probably not on smolts.

Larry -
I believe that the Puget Sound harbor porpoise population was estimated to be nearly 11,000 individuals in 2003. I sure that their population has increased since then.

Curt

Thanks. I should have done some research!

This was pulled from the Pacific Biodiversity Institute's website:

For Washington State the harbor porpoise is found in the Washington Inland Waters (WIW which is mostly the Puget Sound) and along the coast. NOAA Fisheries considers the stock in the WIW to be different from the Northern Oregon/Washington Coast Stock for their Stock Assessment Reports (SARs). The most recent SAR for the harbor porpoise in the WIW was done in 2006 and at that time the population was estimated to be 10,682 and the trend was listed as unknown. The most recent SAR for the Northern Oregon/Washington Coast Stock was done in 2009 and the population was listed as 37,745.


I know I have been seeing a number of them around Possession but thought they were pretty much the same animals just making their local tour. And that may be true but in any case what I am seeing is only a small portion of the Puget Sound's population.

Edit: NOAA paper on harbor porpoise: http://www.afsc.noaa.gov/nmml/PDF/sars/po2011poha-ow.pdf.

Some round numbers for annual food requirements:

Using 11,000 animals at an average weight of 150 pounds (NOAA says 135-170 #) yields 1,650,000 pounds. Apply a reported daily requirement of 8% of body weight the total daily food requirement is 132,000 pounds. Multiply that by 365 days and the total Puget Sound population's annual food requirement is roughly 48,180,000 pounds. Adjust the numbers as you feel appropriate but however you do it will result in a big number. Even a very small percentage (or part of a percent) would equate to a lot of smolt.