Couple of folks asked just how we got the agency to do things differently? Well it was not out a desire for change on their part but rather in military terms a cease fire. It happened by chance as we had a early high water and the adult weir went under water and a substantial number of Chinook came in out of the river and were stuck mixed with our brood. Past history taught us that you cannot return captured brood to the river that have been held in ideal conditions as for whatever the reason most just end dyeing before spawning and we had no way to determine who was who! So we asked permission of the hatchery ops to go past our authorized egg take and due to the unusual circumstance he authorized one time one time only.

Well weeks later our team finds out the the harvest managers said no and as I recall the hatchery staff were instructed to dump the over permit wild Chinook eggs into the river and called it " planting early". Now I can say the volunteers looked at it somewhat differently and one volunteer's letter to the editor of a local paper called it "murdering our babies ." It is safe to say it went down hill from there to the point it was personal between staff and the volunteers. That is when Mr. Peck got involved and got staff and the volunteers together in one room and frankly chewed everyone's ass up one side and down the other.

Long and short of it the Chehalis volunteers & designated staff met once a month and worked on issues that revolved around volunteer enhancement issues for several years. One caveat was harvest was never discussed, Skookumchuck and Wynoochee mitigation, just a wide range of issue but NO harvest issues. We did a lot of good work I think and to this day I still call Jim Scott boss as he taught / guided us through the world of salmon genetics in our efforts.

That is the level of commitment from both the local community and agency staff that is required to effect real change.