Bob Turner of NOAA said at Monday's Seattle Public Utilities forum that the hatchery plan for the Cedar River was ESA OK...Barbara Cairns of Long Live the Kings endorses the hatchery plan as well. The Landsburg Mitigation opens up many more miles of habitat above the Landsburg dam on the river to Chinook and steelhead. The sockeye will not enjoy that upriver new spawning habitat. The new hatchery is designed to help bolster the sockeye population below the dam. There are 2 public forums on this issue this month. Learn about the hatchery issue and make an informed decision.

There is a public hearing tomorrow night (Thursday, Oct 17) at Renton Vo Tech. at 7:00. Unfortunately that's all the info I have- its just a note on my calendar.

It is really important that those of you who do support the sockeye hatchery find a way to comment on it. The two important meetings to attend are tonight (Wed) at the seattle center and in Renton at the technical college tommorow. Also written comments are accepted if submitted before Nov 6 th.

For specifics: http://www.ci.seattle.wa.us/util/CedarRiverHCP/hatchery/EIS.htm

The reason it is so important to comment is that there will sure to be those who comment against it at these meeting. Some of those who will comment against the hatchery simply have a problem with all hatcheries, others are just uneducated about the huge difference between this facility and all other hatcheries in the state. (Its most similar to what many know of as a broodstock hatchery, but still different). We need to have enough people voicing support to offset those in opposition.

I am greatly in favor of the hatchery and have sent in a written letter saying so (apparently they do not count E-mails). I had a blast last year in spite of the crowds. For once I could take my kids salmon fishing and not freeze them or scare them or bore them to death. The fish were bright as day and unbeatable table fare. I would like to do this more than once every 5 years, and hopefully the hatchery will help get us out there more often.

Let's see. Bolster the sockeye population so you can sustain a wall of commercial tribal and non-tribal nets from Edmonds to Kingston, from late June to early August.

Sports will get what's left of the non-treaty quota after the Muckleshoots finish in Lake Washington.

Those commercial nets targeting sockeye in Puget Sound will be harvesting all the salmon (coho & chinook) by-catch they can - resulting in fewer salmon in the south Sound for sports.

If you think the non-tribal netters aren't wetting their lips over this one you're mistaken. Ask them & ask the WDFW if they'll ban non-treaty commercial nets on the sockeye.

Sorry - hatchery sounds nice, but sports will take this one in the shorts too by the time it's all over.

I'd rather see a steelhead, king, or coho hatchery on Cedar River. The sockeye hatchery does nothing to provide river fishing opportunity in a system that's been closed to all fishing for a decade. In the past this river had decent runs of kings, cohos, and searun cutts; it had an excellent run of steelhead, both hatchery stocked and trophy natives. As the sockeye numbers increased, the returns of other anadromous fish diminished. Of course, many other factors contributed to the complete collapse of recreational fishing on this river. The Lake Washington sockeye fishery provides fishing opportunity for those who don't mind the season long "Opening Day" atmosphere at the boat ramps and on the lake, for those who are not shore-bound, and for those wealthy and influential Lake Washington waterfront dwellers who have lobbied almost as tirelessly as the industrial fishers for an annual sockeye season. I've caught my share of 5-7 lb Lake Washington sockeye; I've hooked my share of 10-20 lb steelhead in the fast waters of the Cedar. It's all good, but I much prefer the latter experience. Greatly enhanced king, coho, and steelhead runs would offer lake AND river fishing opportunities. Having the river open again would provide countless hours of fishing fun for families living in the Cedar River basin; those stewards most responsible for the river's health. It would be a real economic boost for many businesses in the community. Right now the Cedar River is primarily used as a drainage ditch. When the sockeye hatchery is built, it will be a drainage ditch with sockeye in it. Top priority should be given to reestablishing Cedar River fisheries. Lake Washington has numerous year round fisheries, and most are underutilized. IMHO

Bonker,

Which commercial nets are you speaking of? The only fish in the sound (in great numbers)at the same time as the Sockeye are the Fall Chinook. Due to the ESA those nets don't go in untill the fall Coho run, after the sockeye have passed. What netting does occure is primarily in Canada while targeting the Frazier river Sockeye. They do intercept some Lake Washington fish but any of those caught in Canada do not count toward the 50/50 split.

Cedar R,

While I agree that a priority should be to do what is needed to improve the status of the Steelhead, Chinook and Coho runs, the existance or lack of the existance of the Sockeye hatchery really has nothing to do with that goal. The best hope to help that significantly is the fish ladder to be constructed at the dam. You know the river has been closed to fishing because the salmon other than the sockeye have been in really poor shape. A hatchery for any of those species would likely not produce a fishery because even the unintended mortality on a few wild fish in that system is detrimental to the population.
The proposed hatchery does not increase the escapement goal for the sockeye so the drainage ditch wont have any more Sockeye in it that it usually does on a good year. And considering that over 29000 people fished Lake Washington for the three days it was open this year there is no way to argue that the Cedar could provide that much opportunity near term or long term.

I think this is one issue I'm going to try to not over analyze. My instincts tell me that a lake full of happy people, parking lots full of expensive trucks and boat trailers, increased hiking and interest along the river, and heightened media coverage is all good. Good for the economy, good for the spirit of the community, and good for the increased awareness of sport fishing.

Hordes of Sockeye in the Cedar right now as we speak! Traveled up and down the river last couple of days and saw lot of socks on reds everywhere. Even saw a couple of small colored up steelhead.

BD

How about this vision: A regular sockeye season that occurs every year and is part of the annual Sea-Fair bonanza! Once the event becomes part of the regular agenda, the planners would keep it (and pay for it) forever and that way we could fish more often than once every 5 years!!

To me anything is better than the way the WDFW currently administers this fishery.

I am not a tribal netting fan but the tribes fishing for Sockeye in Lake Washington and just outside the locks are part of the solution too as they do alot for the Sockeye fishery. I never thought I would say something like that but it is a fact. The Chinook and Coho "runs" in the Cedar are to be enhanced via mitigation by the public utility. See Mike's link to the Landsburg Mitigation for more info on the opening up of several miles of untouched habitat for Chinook, Coho and Steelhead above the dam. This work is part of an overall plan that includes the Sockeye hatchery which is to be operated in a new way to be much more friendly to all species.

Hi Mike. This line sound familiar : "gill nets are a selective fishery". That's why the commercials are on the Columbia targeting springers. Ask Pete Knutson if they can't selectively harvest those sockeye. The commercials made verbal comments at the last NOF that they want a part of that fishery - some will argue the sockeye were put in there solely for a commercial fishery. The Lummis, Suquamish, and Tulalips are already starting to target that fishery. I think it's extremely naive to believe that a permanent hatchery is going to create a sportfishery mecca. Ask WDFW for a statement to declare there will never be a non-tribal commercial fishery on sockeye. Sorry - I think those nets will go in and those "ocean conditions" will make the south Sound chinook disappear - after all, how could anyone prove differently?

Sea Fair & sockeye? The Sea Fair Board asked Bern Shanks when he was Director to shut down the sockeye fishery for Sea Fair. They see it as competition. Those fishermen are in the way of Sea Fair - they clog up the parking and don't buy Sea Fair trinkets.

As another non-fan of netting, would I be correct in stating that the Lk WA sockeye fishery would not exist (thanks to typical lack of state gvt leadership) without the tribe initiating the hatchery program?

Please, before we make judgements about who will get what fingers into the sockeye pie, please go to the meeting and check it out. Remember, if it weren't for the indians we would not have had a fishery in recent years!

They have invested more time and money just to show WDFW that it could be done. Also the upstream mitigation will help the chinook and steelhead runs. They are the only ones to my nowledge that have rights to harvest this fishery of the native and commercial groups in question. I don't believe that there has been any talk of this changing to refute what has been said on the board already.

Instead of blowing smoke or getting upset try writing the WDFW for what facts they do have and then make a decision and let them know.

They do have a great link on their site about this as well.

Remember - this fishery would not exist without the hatchery. The numbers they are talking about are not huge numbers of fish returning but will possibly allow a more regular sport fishery. The numbers will not support commercial. ( The hatchery raises about 17 million smolts now which account for about 25% of the return or 105,000 fish. They want to produce about 30 million smolts. At best assuming the same rate of return, maybe 40% of the future return.....or 210,000 fish would be hatchery raised on the new hatchery. ) This is based on WDFW/indian return count of 420,000 fish and the percentage of hatchery marked fish caught. The numbers I used were in the papers. We are not talking an large enough increase to allow commercial fishing in the salt folks. Just a few more days for us sportsfishermen to get some great local fishing in and a few more fish for the indians. And best of all.... maybe a predictable fishery.

One of the problems with mixing hatchery fish with naturally spawning stocks is that the wild fish can't sustain the rate of harvest that the hatchery fish can. This means that either the wild fish are over harvested or the hatchery gets very large numbers of fish over what is needed for producing the next run. When hatcheries get large a surplus the pressure is on to either harvest more or reduce production. What has happened in the past is the wild fish get over harvested and sooner or later the hatchery gets some disease or other problem that wipes out a years production, which takes years to recover from. I hope we aren't going to repeat past mistakes with the Cedar River and Lake Washington sockeye.

Agreed Keta....but is it likely that the wild spawners will ever support a fishery....probably not....also remember that this run is not a native run? I hope it works as that was a fun couple of days this summer.

Some of the specifics on the hatchery to clear up some things.

Hatchery rearing: Very little, the eggs are incubated and the fish released into the river at the time they would naturally be emerging from the gravel. This is possible because of the species. Sockeye naturally travel imediately to the lake. The hatchery uses a heat exchanger to maintain water temperature to match river levels so that the eggs hatch at the same time as the ones in the river. Disease is not an issue durring rearing because there is none. This all eliminates any chance of "learned behavior" issues and really produces a "wild " fish because the facility is really only a hatchery for the eggs.

Hatchery production: variable. adults will allways be collected, but the actual releases will be bassed on a variety of factors including flooding dammage to natural reds and monitoring of lake cappacity. Flexibility is the goal.

Adult Collection: lower river collection at different times of the run, not all early fish, not all late fish.

Fisheries and excapement: Continued escapement at current level. Continued system of counting at the locks for run size prediction. Fisheries conducted on river incubated wild fish and hatchery incubated wild fish. No marking/clipping.

Went to the meeting in Renton, tonight. It was a lovefest with everyone supporting the proposed hatchery. Several people complained about the siting of weirs and retention tanks in their neighborhood. Most just recited the sockeye "pledge of allegiance" and went home early. I picked up a copy of the project draft EIS; I'm going to try it as a cure for insomnia, tonight. Anybody else make it to the meeting?