Well, we went to one of our friends holiday get togethers last nite, and for the most part all went well with little to no politics discussed at the holiday table. Then someone slipped up and started down the “ Culverts” path with a rather nasty description of all the culvert replacement activity in their neck of the woods. The discussion got heated within three minutes of the opening salvo.

First it was “ Who the hell is paying for all this crap ? Followed by “Maga folks hate the environment, so they are against helping Salmon that can’t find their spawning grounds”, then on to inslee did it to give all this back to the tribes, and on and on it went until everyone realized none of us knew crap, so we all agreed to drop the discussion , and move on to talking about grandkids and new puppies.

Bottom line, no one really knew three or four things regarding the new age culvert replacement, and the discussion would heat right up when brought up, no mater the position taken.

Who’s plan was this in the first place?

What’s it gonna do for increasing the salmon returns, and Will it be measured, and tracked over time?

And, who the heck is paying for all of this ?

In the end, we all agreed that as a group we didn’t know shrit about culverts, but the prime rib and the rest of the Holidaze dinner was great !

One dinner down, and three more to endure ,

The Culvert Case was the result of the Tribes suing WA DOT over culvert barriers under state roads. State lost even though they argued that the state should be able to blow away salmon runs for the public good.

State and tribes settled on a plan but the state has drug its feet until recently when the decline loomed and lots still needed doing and costs are escalating.

The Culvert Case work is funded by WA. Other replacements have other funding sources.

There was a great series of articles in the Seattle Times about the foster cluck this has become. The state has removed barriers (Yay!!!) upstream of other barriers not yet planned for removal by others.

I seriously doubt oil much monitoring has been or will be done beyond an estimate pre-project of how many feet of blocked habitat are opened.

Should be noted that most of the culverts are on smaller streams that are used by coho, chum, steelhead, and cutthroat. Not much to help Chinook because the barriers that block them are dams.

Plant fish.
Not culverts.

To add to what C'man posted, the WA treaty tribes brought the culvert case against the state as a follow up to US v WA or Boldt II, as it was sometimes called. Phase II of US v WA was about environmental damage to salmon runs caused by, or permitted by, the state. In order to have standing in a lawsuit you have to demonstrate how you are harmed, by how much, and by whom rather specifically. Since the decline of fish populations has been a death by a thousand cuts, the nitty gritty of proving direct cause and effect is pretty difficult. The tribes mulled this over for quite a while.

Then they found the "low hanging fruit," culverts. Impassible culverts block fish access to a measurable quantity of habitat. And there are useful models for estimating how much fish production is likely from a given amount of habitat. Bingo! This was a lawsuit the tribes couldn't lose if they tried. The state really had no viable defense, because damaging and destroying fish habitat wasn't really against the law until the latter 20th century, and even then - and now - you are allowed to damage fish habitat so long as you obtain the proper permits and follow their requirements. The tribes won the original case and the subsequent appeals. So that's how we got here.

This left the state on the financial hook to replace state owned culverts, although funding sources have included state and federal funds along with grants from several sources. An important thing to note however, is that a lot of culverts are owned by private parties, especially timber companies, public and private utilities, and counties. There was supposed to be a system to go about culvert replacement that used logic by first replacing the culverts that restored access to the most and best quality habitat and then working down the line. I don't know if that was immediately discarded or just shortly thereafter. Because why? Interest. So there's gotta' be replacements in each region, each county, each tribal U & A area, and so forth.

So the process is messed up. SURF Board money has been used even though it is supposed to be directed at ESA listed Chinook recovery. As C'man mentioned, Chinook use very few of the creeks where culverts are replaced. And often the work follows the money; as in, the state or feds or somebody has funding for a certain area, so let's replace a culvert there even if the benefits are low to non-existent.

To answere some of 28 gage's questions, I've described the plan. I expect that cutthroat trout, some steelhead, and even a few coho will likely benefit from all this work. It isn't and won't be measured meaningfully in terms of additional fish production above existing levels. Project people go survey upstream of the replaced culvert and when they find fish there, it is declared a successful project. Mostly taxpayers are paying for this, state and federal. Is anyone getting their money's worth from this? I'm going to go out on a very sound limb and answer a resounding "NO!" Unless each new fish is "priceless." Which happens to be the treaty tribal standard for this, I heard, just as treaty fishing rights are priceless.

Spawning escapement goals are not being raised to account for these incremental increases in habitat quantity. And any additional fish (salmon and steelhead) produced from this restored access habitat is assigned to harvest. Consequently I think cutthroat trout are the big winners here due to their having no significant commercial value.

Yea! for prime rib dinners. That's always a win in my book.

The 2nd to last paragraph says it all.

Are you saying I should write shorter posts?

All the broken down Trans Am's are leaking oil, build a new village.

Nope.

An aspect of Salmo that can be appreciated is his attempt to be thorough, which often comes at the expense of being more concise. I don’t mind longer posts as long as it isn’t redundant or off topic. “Sir, this is a Wendy’s!”

If only Salmo would be more accurate in other topics as much as he is with fisheries topics, then he would be even more tolerable. But as repeatedly proven previously, he struggles with topics other than fisheries science.


Streamer

Don't call it a holiday party, call it a Christmas party. We aren't having holiday parties or saying happy holidays anymore. We are having Christmas parties and saying merry Christmas. Make Christmas Merry Again!

Instead call it Yulefest since the worshipers of the nailed god took it over because they couldn't stamp it out...SO much fun sacrificing stuff and partying until the sun came back!