January 2003

A recent proposal to promote the development of a sockeye hatchery on the lower Cedar River system caught my attention as a project that was being endorsed by the South King County Chapter, Washington Council of Trout Unlimited. Frank Urabeck, a member of the Northwest Marine Trade Association and a Board member for the South King County Chapter, has been a leading spokesperson in favor of the hatchery. For Frank's point of view please see his recent articles in the Washington State issue of the Hunting and Fishing News.

Nationally, Trout Unlimited has been a leader in the restoration of cold water fisheries and has realized the impacts the four "H"'s (habitat, harvest, hydro-electric and hatcheries) can have on the health of native, anadromous fish populations. So the local chapters unqualified endorsement of a hatchery program on the Green River comes as a surprise.

The South King County Chapter's support for the hatchery would seem to be based on a focus to improve a harvestable sport fishery on the Cedar - in fact throughout the Puget Sound basin. A major goal of the NW Marine Trade Association is to promote programs that enhance the production of fish that can be harvested. In so doing, the trade industry newsletter indicates: they will "sell more boats".

In my opinion, the South King County Chapter's position reflects a departure from much of the work of Trout Unlimited nationally. The decline of anadromous fish populations is the direct result of habitat destruction. Trout Unlimited national has worked diligently to support programs that focus on streamside habitat restoration, dam removal, and managed harvest guidelines designed to protect wild salmon and trout stocks.

So what is wrong with hatcheries and supplementing Native fish populations with hatchery stock?

The National Marine Fisheries Service, which enforces the ESA, has acknowledged that hatcheries have been a factor in wild-salmon declines, and that hatchery operations and facilities can harm and even kill listed salmon. In January 2001, NMFS enacted a 4(d) rule for Puget Sound chinook that makes it illegal to harm, harass, kill, or otherwise "take" the listed species.

WDFW kills some wild Puget Sound chinook to collect their eggs and sperm during hatchery brood-stock collections, both unintentionally and intentionally. Hatchery chinook juveniles released into the wild compete with and in some cases actually prey on wild juveniles. Returning stray hatchery chinook often breed with wild chinook, passing on faulty genes, harming the wild population as a whole. At least ten of WDFW's Puget Sound chinook hatcheries have artificial barriers at the facilities that block wild chinook from reaching important spawning and rearing habitats.

Washington Trout (WT) has been reviewing technical issues related to the construction of fish-passage facilities at Landsburg Dam on the Cedar River, and evaluating the scoping of the Draft Environmental Impact Statement for the construction and operation of a new sockeye hatchery on the lower Cedar River. WT is pushing for strong adaptive management provisions in the hatchery plan, to minimize its negative effects on listed chinook and other wild fish in the Cedar River and Lake Washington.

The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) recognizes the problems with hatchery facilities and has been taking steps to design facilities that address the fish passage issue.

Like all activities that can affect wild stocks, state hatcheries have come under intense review since the listing of additional salmon population groupings under the ESA. In addition to initiating its own review process, WDFW is working with federal natural resource agencies and a newly appointed regional science panel to identify ways to minimize adverse impacts of hatchery operations on depressed wild stocks. These ongoing efforts, including the Department's new Benefit/ Risk Assessment Procedure (BRAP) and the development of Hatchery and Genetic Management Plans (HGMP) for more than one hundred state hatchery programs, have been developed.

To oversee and provide independent input to hatchery reform, The Hatchery Scientific Review Group (HSRG) was established by Congress to ensure programs in Puget Sound and Coastal Washington be scientifically founded and evaluated; that independent scientists interact with agency and tribal scientists to provide direction and operational guidelines; and that the system as a whole be evaluated for compliance with scientific recommendations. The objective of the Scientific Group is to assemble, organize and apply the best available scientific information to provide guidance to policy makers who are implementing hatchery reform.

Hatcheries do have a place in the fisheries system, producing stock particularly for our lake systems. Without hatcheries to supply trout to many of our eastside lakes we would not have a recreational fishery.
The construction and management of hatcheries on our stream systems is another matter. It is clear from the "North of Falcon" process and from reading WDFW promotional material, a major focus of the Department is the development of sustainable "take" fisheries.

The key issues on hatchery development are: how can hatchery facilities be built to not hinder fish passage; the taking of eggs from native stocks and the impact this take can have on the health native stock; and the management of hatcheries to insure that regionally imprinted hatchery stocks remain in their native drainage system, both in terms of location and timing of the naturally occurring spawning process.

What we sometimes forget is the importance of habitat creation and maintenance. When evaluating, designing and deciding on the sitting of such facilities, a complete evaluation of the receiving drainage basin health should be undertaken. Where urbanization has occurred and natural stream systems heavily modified, efforts should focus on habitat recovery. The basin within which a hatchery exists or is proposed, should be thoroughly evaluated and the hatchery construction plan should be timed to coincide with habitat recovery efforts. A hatchery construction decision may be premature or inappropriate if a habitat recovery plan for the basin is not in place, or not possible.

It is hopeful that the HRGS group is in place and that hatchery management decisions will be influenced by their recommendations. In the meantime, organizations such as TU, the Marine Trade Association and FFF should not forget the habitat within which healthy cold water fisheries must survive. "Unqualified" support hatcheries should never occur. Support for hatcheries should be given due consideration, always in the context of comprehensive basin habitat recovery programs.