Elwha

[Slint]

I got this from the Osprey site.... looks great:

http://vimeo.com/22088090

[tamanawis]

Thanks for posting this! Everyone in my neck of the woods is excited to see these dams coming out. Will be very cool to see Dick Goin's perspective on things too.

[Attack]

too bad now the hatchery is just going to ruin all the hard work

[Aldo]

Thanks for posting. I hope I get to see the whole film when it's done. Dick seems like the kind of guy we'd all like to know and fish with.

[tamanawis]

too bad now the hatchery is just going to ruin all the hard work

Was talking about that very point with a friend out on another stream this weekend. They pretty much said the same thing as you.
My take is that yeah, that part of it stinks. But overall, I'm still very excited about seeing the Elwha undamned.
I'm glad WSC and others are still trying to persuade the hatchery plans to be ditched or scaled back. Even if we fail on that part though, I am still going to be thrilled to see such an amazing river opened back up to anadramous fish.

Hopefully all the hatchery fish that are planted get swallowed up by the bull trout before they can do any real damage, and the salmon and steelhead return to the Elwha in spite of the misguided hatchery program.

[Steve Egge]

Here is a letter I wrote to Mr. Ron Warren of the fish and game ... never got an answer ... $$ and tribes seem to have it all wrapped up. I was addressing this from a steelhead point but it really doesn't matter ... Never seen a hatchery on a wild river lead to anything good.

Dear Mr. Warren

I am writing to voice my concern over placing a hatchery program on the Elwha River.
With the upcoming dam removal to allow the return of anadromous fish to previously unreachable riverbed an opportunity exists to allow the fish to repopulate the river naturally.

Introducing strains of rainbow trout from other river systems will only dilute the precious genetics of the fish that are resident in the upper Elwha, above the current dams. These fish have the potential to become anadromous, as it is their shared life cycle with steelhead, and populate the river naturally.
The ability of steelhead to return in numbers after a disaster was clearly shown by their return to the Toutle system after the eruption by Mount St. Helens. No hatchery involvement led to this recovery. Please allow the river and its ecosystem to define its own strain as nature intended. It may take some time but will be 1)cheaper than any hatchery and 2) more sustainable in the long run.

Please remove the dams but do not interfere with the natural reintroduction of the anadromous fish.
Please resist the pressures from commercial and special interests to “hurry” the process along with hatchery production
Please keep the Elwha River “hatchery free”.

[Phil Fravel]

I have written many people myself. I am now personally of the opinion that I wish the would leave the dams up if they are going to waist a once in a life time chance to let the native fish restore themselves.

[tamanawis]

I dislike hatcheries too, but not that much. Do you think an impassable dam should be built on the quillayute because it has hatchery fish? I'm guessing you would say no. Why do you see the Elwha situation differently?

[Phil Fravel]

No I don't think impassable dams should be built on any system. That said I also see dams as a renewable energy source even though I wish they were not there. Kind of a necessary evil. Fact of the matter we need energy just to turn on our computers and bitch about this stuff.

I see the Elwah as a special opportunity where the Genetics (natural/wild) have been held captive and behind the dam for 70+ years. We only have one chance to let the wild fish loose on there own and see how they do. If It sucks still in 10 to 20 years then think about adding the hatcheries, not right off at the start. Why waist the only chance the Elwah might have for all wild returns.

We have plenty of rivers with hatcheries on them. We know how that works out. I would like for my son perhaps to have a place to go to some day where the fish might be wild.

Not only that, we are shutting down Steelhead hatcheries on our metropolitan rivers, that get hammered. Put the $$$ there.

[Steve Egge]

Here are some links to what is going on in the Elwah for those interested ...
Front Page spread ... video, etc.

With all the talk of a "grand experiment" why don't they really have one and let the river run wild without hatchery interference?

Front Page:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/home/?from=stnv1


Special Section:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/flatpages/specialreports/elwha/

Steve Egge

[tamanawis]

Hatchery isn't a done deal yet...
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2016232768_hatchery17m.html

[Steve Egge]

Thanks for the link.
Nice to see the Wild Steelhead Coalition is having their voice heard.

Steve Egge

[oldstyleoverthe]

This kind of conflict makes my blood boil, two well meaning groups, both wanting the same thing are coming to blows in the courts over what ?
Basics, catch up native fish, spawn them in the hatchery , return the juvenile fish back to the river or keep some on at the hatchery to become brood stock. DO NOT TRY AND RUSH THINGS !!!!
IF native fish numbers are so low, Catch up some native cock fish, cross breed them with non native hens. This kind of thing does happen naturally, odd fish return to a river that they were NOT born into.
This way you will retain some of the genetics of the TRUE natives, yes diluted but there in larger numbers.
Do not go down the route that is ALL or NOTHING !!!

spend the money on fish not LAWYERS:tsk_tsk::tsk_tsk:

The sediment form the removal of the dam will not be the same natural sediments, they could have larger that natural concentrations of metals, nutrients or algae ,all of which are bad news for fish which spawn in gravels and need oxygen rich water to flow through them.

Stop the in fighting, whats five or ten years compared to a long lasting self sustaining fishery.!!!!!;)

[tamanawis]

... is how I would describe it.
Even if it doesn't eliminate hatcheries entirely from the Elwha recovery plan, I'm hopeful this action will lead to a more limited, flexible and temporary plan for the Elwha's hatcheries, which uses best available science and gives top priority to wild, native and self sustaining runs.

I believe the Elwha recovery plan includes using hatcheries in several ways, one in particular is being challenged - planting non native chambers creek hatchery steelhead. And it definitely should be challenged if so many biologists familiar with the project are opposed, from the Seattle times-
"The lead fish biologist for Olympic National Park, the habitat biologist for the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe, and scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) National Marine Fisheries Service and the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife are all on record opposing the practice."

The idea that hatchery steelhead are needed at all to "jumpstart" a river which already has a thriving wild population of landlocked steelhead behind the dams is very questionable. Using a highly domesticated strain of fish to do this is even more questionable.

[oldstyleoverthe]

Love the words TEMPORARY AND FLEXIBLE , if the management can work on habitat , this can become reality. Don't understand land locked steel heads, surely they are just Rainbows until they go to sea ????
Are there STEELS below the present dam ?
If they can catch up some of these and transplant their eggs or juvenile fry they may encourage the other RAINBOWS to go to sea to become Steels.

MAN MADE OBJECTS LIKE DAMS CAN BE MOVED,

MAN MADE OBJECTS IN PEOPLES HEADS TAKE MORE MOVING !!!!

LOVE THE PASSION THAT THIS KIND OF THING BRINGS OUT,
IF ONLY YOU CAN HARNESS AND FOCUS THIS , THE RIVER WILL BE A FAR BETTER PLACE FOR FISH AND MEN !!!

[tamanawis]

Yes, "land locked steelhead" = "rainbows." Point being, I think sometimes people forget that they are really the same species. What do you think will happen when a healthy population of rainbow trout is once again given access to the salt? In this scenario, what will hatchery fish do besides get in the way?

Are you familiar with the Elwha river? If not you might be interested in reading more about it... http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/flatpages/specialreports/elwha/?prmid=4749
This is not your average dam removal project, there are two dams low in the system (about 5 miles from the ocean), which block some of the best remaining salmon habitat on the planet.

[flytyer]

oldstyleoverthe,

The habitat in the Elwha is superb and is and has been protected because all but the lowest 5 or so miles of river are located inside the Olympic National Park. The problem is the two dams. The lower one (5 miles upriver from the salt) was illegally built in the very early 1900's without a fish ladder; thus blocking all 5 species of Pacific Salmon found in the Pacific Northwest along with summer and winter steelhead and searun cutthroat trout and searun bull trout from getting up river.

Then to add insult to injury, The Glines Canyon Dam was built about 5 miles upriver from the lower dam (called the Elwha Dam) and Glines Canyon Dam held back the gravel that moves down from the upper river. And over the years as the gravel that was in the section of river between the dams got flushed downstream and into the Elwha Dam, it resulted in there being hardly any gravel in this section for spawning. This meant fish in this section has to travel up the few very small tributary streams (by small I mean like in 3' across) to have spawning gravel. Thus, the cutthroat, rainbow, and bull trout in this section self-selected over the years to be smaller and smaller when the reached sexual maturity in order to be able to ascend these small tributaries to spawn. You now have 7 year old trout in this section of river that are only 5" long.

The Glines Canyon Dam (the upper one) was built before it and the river just above the Elwha Dam (the lower one) were included in the Olympic National Park when it was established.

The river and its tributaries above the upper dam remain prestine and beautiful.

Very sadly, the Elwha prior to the contruction of the lowe dam had the only documented chinook (king) salmon in the lower 48 states that reached 100 lbs and a little more. It also had winter steelhead that reached 30 lbs or more. Very sad that such a great natural resource was lost because the private company that built the dam didn't incorporate a fish ladder in the dam as state law demanded at the time. Even sadder is that they got away with it.

Now with the dams coming down, the fish will have access to the wonderful habitat in the upper river and its tributaries. This is why introducing a strain of fish that are not native to the river (or even from the anadromous rivers and streams close by) is such a travesty. It is also why most of us who know about this once great river want to see it rebuild its runs naturally and not with hatchery clones.

[bluemoon]

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2016257709_chinook20m.html

Found this intresting.

Troy