Occupy Skagit Winter Edition 2014

When:
December 13th @ The Commissioners Meeting 8:30 AM
(show up 15 minutes early to sign in)

Where:
Natural Resources Building
1111 Washington St SE, Olympia, WA
First Floor, Room 172

Why?
WDFW is our only advocate when it comes to dealing with the restrictions, listings, de-listings, etc. handed down by NOAA and NMFS. By the time of this meeting it will have been 20 months since we first contacted them about reopening the Skagit system to C&R fishing. The only way it will open, is if all the managing entities submit a basin-specific manage plan which will, in part, remove the Skagit from the Puget Sound Steelhead Distinct Population Segment, (DPS) currently under ESA listing as “threatened”


We believe the forecast for next season's numbers will be above the escapement floor level that was used in the past and is greatly responsible for the numbers that we still have in the system today. Historically, the Skagit has been managed more conservatively, (read that as “fish friendly”) than probably any other system in the state. In a recent study found here; http://wdfw.wa.gov/publications/00150/wdfw00150.pdf
page 418 / or chapter 8 pg65 Appendix Table 8-B1, the risk of extinction for the Skagit run in the next 100 years is as close to 0% as you can get. This study was done for the Commission in 2008. For six years this information has been available to them, and yet to our knowledge, there has been no action to restore the C&R season.
Our intent this time around is to seek answers to a few questions:
At what stage of completion or approval process is the Skagit Steelhead Management plan?
Will we fish next season? If not, why?
If not next year, when?

What can you do?
Show up. Speak if you want to, but you don't have to.

We will hold another fish-in this coming spring. Date to be determined...

The commissioners meeting yesterday:

It was great meeting some new faces yesterday and the brunch discussions were, as always, insightful!

It went well, or as well as can be expected. It was obvious that notifying them in advance of the purpose for our visit that the director at least, had prepared an update for us. It was long, somewhat technical, and as you might expect, some good news, and some bad news.

The good news:

Our testimony included several references about the fishing community willing to accept such things as Skagit specific user fees, more restrictive fishing methods to help reduce angler/fish encounters, participating in monitoring requirements, etc. The response from Director Anderson was to point out that these concessions, ideas, what have you from us, was/ is instrumental in the willingness of WDFW to pursue the matter at all.

Anderson also indicated that the tribes relevant to the Skagit are also on board, or to probably put it more accurately, not going to oppose a recreational C&R season.(The obvious caveat here being that they will receive additional impacts.)

I hope that I've remembered this next part correctly. If not, maybe Salmo or one of the other attendees will correct me. Positive discussions have happened between WDFW, the feds, and the tribes, at the "policy" level. Or, as I understood it, in theory everyone seems to agree that a C&R fishery is possible. That is good news!

The bad news:

The recent lawsuit has everyone operating very cautiously. What that means is, they want to do everything by the book. Environmental Impact Statements...and the list goes on...
The Skagit specific plan will be done - but concurrently with over a hundred other plans. I for one am baffled by this approach! It seems more logical to me to pluck the low-hanging fruit, the slam dunks if you will, and get them done and out of the way.

Too much work, and not enough workers equals a long time getting something done - and then there is the federal review which could take up to two years. (I would love to have a blow by blow explanation of why it would take two years to review a Skagit specific plan! And how two years is enough time to do over a hundred plans. Something here doesn't smell right!)

I think there may be a few angles to attack this from to help expedite the process, and it seems that the sentiment to fast track this was also on some of the Commissioners minds as they questioned Director Anderson.

At some point the audio meeting transcripts will be accessible on the Commissioners page and I will link to it when it becomes available.

I would also like to hear Salmo's take away thoughts on the meeting as I'm sure that his familiarity with the gov't process will give him some different insights.


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Good article re C&R of endangered species...

http://www.rsmas.miami.edu/assets/Cooke_et_al._Fish_and_Fisheries.pdf

Meant to post this last week but the site was down.

That's kind of cool - the "reasoning tree" especially.