The worst part of this whole thing is that the Minter creek facility had over 10,000 fall fish return to it this year! That's a heck of a lot of fish from this facility that made it past all the struggles out in the ocean only to return to be flushed down the drain.

In all fairness to the Minter Creek folks and WDFW in general I am going to wait until a report is made public before I come to conclusions about who did or did not do what should have been done and when.

What a disaster. Seems a malfunctioning pump or filter is always to blame when we get a big hatchery die-off. In the end, this is just one more example of how hatcheries are hugely expensive, dreadfully inefficient, and hopelessly ineffective when compared to functioning, wild habitats. Wild salmon don't die when the power goes out, because nature's ingenious, gravity-fed, self-repleneshing system keeps cool, clean water running over their gills... For free!

Let's close the ocean and turn our rivers back into the state of the art hatcheries they were long before we decided we somehow knew better. That's how you improve Puget Sound fisheries and save the orcas (and the salmon, if anyone cares).

I agree Flea Flicker. Habitat doesnt suffer from power outages.

No habitat suffers from floods, droughts, and development. A hatchery is significantly more efficient at converting a given amount of water to adult fish. If you want lots and lots of fish to kill, support hatcheries.

If you want lots of wild fish, support habitat. One or the other.

Where's that "like" button!! I will add that in today's environment we should also recognize that the fish our license dollars produce in our hatcheries also serve other purposes; some good and others not so good.

MMMMMM, you must live in a bubble world....there are numerous examples of where WDFW personnel have chosen not to make things public.

PDR's, personal document requests. have taken away the ability of WDFW and other State Departments to hide from the public.

I did the PDR bit on something I wanted information on, 6 - 7 months of thousands of documents from all over the State on questions that I wanted on the Chehalis and rivers that flowed into the Chehalis and a person that the department called a "reliable source"...….bottom line unless I wanted to get a lawyer and go to court, I might get the answers.....I chose not to do that BUT others have done the lawyer and court bit and WDFW have had to pay when they lost in court. WDFW is a State agency and as such needs to be more open to the general public....IMO

Simple way to make hatchery personnel accountable.....Sheet of paper, taped to wall close to generator, date machine was checked and then name signed by person who did the checking.....would be easy to check on...…..might stop a loss of fish in the future????

Drifter, nothing there with which I disagree. They (WDFW) and their employees should be more open and accountable to the public.

As to a check sheet to document when basic maintenance was accomplished and the generator run up is a great idea. In fact, they may have that in place; I simply don't know and am withholding criticism until more facts are presented. If WDFW doesn't come up with a timely report they will be reasonably subject to criticism just as they were with the lost/miscounted Cowlitz summer run steelhead a couple of years ago. First, that situation was kept below the horizon and once it became widely known there was a great deal of B.S. from the former regional director. I would like to believe they learned from that.....

Did I read this correct two generators failed?

Imagine if my hospital had two back up generators fail? We test the generators every month, we test our emergency defibrillators twice daily.

If they tested their generators regularly, had fresh gas, carbs drained after use, hell just fired them up once a week and ran them dry they wouldn't be in this situation would they.

Been following this thread since this little disaster unfolded and some of the posts really make me smile! Defer maintenance due to lack of funding? Come on.... Why install backup units in the first place? Accountability? Are you serious? IMHO heads should roll on this one! Having worked in the electrical industry for 35+ years and installing huge backup units in hospitals, high rise buildings and computer centers there were protocols for testing on some units on a weekly, bi-monthly or monthly basis! Record keeping was meticuloss and I'm wondering tonight what caused this catastrophic failure? Battery maintenance, low oil, faulty electronic monitoring units! Some of this gear is so sensitive it can see/sense a "hiccup" coming down the line in about 1/60th of a second! I thought it might have been old gear but watching KIRO at 5PM tonight at the hatchery it was a new unit probably not maintained properly! FYI the hatchery spokesman said the unit had been started and tested in October? Question: Early October or late October? 45-60 days without running this unit left me speechless! Can't wait for the "report" and curious as to what actions if any will be taken! SMH.......

It seems to me that in addition to "routine" testing (monthly, all 12) that any time wind is forecast at greater than x MPH (40?) the unit is started up and tested.

The first questions should be (1) whether WDFW has a standard testing protocol to include actions to be taken prior to a forthcoming storm and (2) whether the folks at Minter Creek were in compliance.

At home when a hard freeze is predicted the hose bibs get covered. When a wind storm is predicted stuff that might blow around is put away or tied down and the vehicles are parked away from our trees. It is a matter of what a reasonable person would do.

I sincerely hope that this turns out to have been an unavoidable event.

After all the bashing is complete, fact finding and fireing is done, changes made to operations etc.
Looking ahead Can these fish be replaced or is this a total loss? Can some accumulation from other facilities make some of this up? I know little about Chinook transferring. Other WA facilities have surplus? Oregon? California? Alaska? Looks like the Orca $$$ will be there. Will any Chinook from anywhere work?

My understanding is that those fish being reared at Minter would have been transferred to the river basin of origin and held there for several weeks for imprinting prior to release.

The HGMP currently constrains movement of fish from one river basin to another - that genetics thing.

White River springers are also being reared in a tribal hatchery and there is some natural spawning going on for that run. I believe I heard that Staff was assessing whether there are excess eggs/fry at other facilities for the other two stocks. If so, they could possibly go to Minter Creek.

Agreed.

I was fortunate enough to be visited by a former WDFW Commissioner yesterday and I brought this to attention. Needless to say, he was floored and more importantly, pissed! He was already on his phone making some calls as he left my office. Too bad this retired Commissioner can't do much other than get the ear of a past governor.

He agreed that heads should roll, starting with the one on the top, being the Director of WDFW.

There really is NO valid excuse for this mishap.

With everything else going on in Washington state for us sports fisherman this is a real kick in the nuts...........

Not sure on the validity of the following information but I received this from a previous co-worker that retired some years ago. I am just curious if anyone else can validate this or not?

Here is what I received.

"Maybe this would be a good time for the hatcheries on Lake Michigan to repay for the six million or so Chinook salmon minter creek hatchery in the early seventies sent there to create a fishery. There was a sign out in front of Minter in the water back then, saying proud they could do it. I fished there, I seen it!"

Hatcheries don't take "extra" eggs just because. Hatchery operations are so tightly regulated that there may be a few thousand, maybe a fews tens of, extra. Normally, this is to cover unexpected incubation mortality.

There are generally strict controls on where eggs and fish can be moved to based on fish health/pathogen concerns. Pretty much if the eggs are on surface water they can't be moved. As with all rules, they can be overridden.

I would lean towards the case that there aren't many eggs to move around.

If those eggs in The Great Lakes are on pathogen free water and if they can provide excellent and detailed pathogen history, then maybe they could be sent back. But, these fish would have been entirely resident, not migrating very far, and would probably bring some really weird genetics and behaviors back.

Sometimes in times of need rules need to be broken

This incident makes a good case for the building of the Deschutes Hatchery in the next biennium. The eggs that were lost were from Deschutes Chinook which produces a good survival and contribution rate. They feed Orcas from Neah Bay as far south as the whales want to come, and they provide sport fishing and tribal fishing throughout. The South Sound management of our salmon has been a mess for years, but despite this, the Deschutes has had good returns for years. The City of Tumwater has given WDFW property at its Pioneer Park for the construction of a visitor friendly parklike setting, like all our hatcheries should be. Procrastination and stupidity by WDFW leadership has prevented the hatchery being built so far. Maybe this year? The Squaxin Island Tribe is all for building this project. We'll see what the governor's budget has to say about it.

This saga has been going on for decades. I was involved in design, water acquisition and such and that had to be before the turn of the century. Simply criminal that it has taken so long.