I was just told that on August 29 Washington Trout made good on their threat to sue the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife on the basis that the hatchery facilities in the Puget Sound region should be not be negatively impacting wild Chinook salmon listed as threatened under the endangered species act.

I looked on the federal court website and found the following case:
Case Number C02-1852
Short Case Title Wild Puget Sound Chinook, et al v. Jeffrey P. Koenings, et al
Judge Assigned RSL
Nature of Suit 893 - Environmental Matters
Division Seattle
Date Filed 08/29/2002

Related to this is the Hatchery and Genetic Management Plans required for an exemption from ESA enforcement. These plans have been completed and submitted to NMFS for approval recently.

For further info see the previous post on this topic: Previous Post

Thanks for the info Mike. I'm not an attorney, but am assuming they filed to follow-up within their time frame of their intent to sue. I assume there is now a process of discovery (?) during which the "plan" , if approved by NMFS, would be forwarded to WA Trout - and satisfy their complaint? Just looking at where we're going here.

Not likely that WT will be satisfied with anything other than their own agenda which is to eliminate all hatcheries.

F*** em........ We need hatcheries to support all the fishermen around here.

The efforts of ONE good attorney means more to our cause than 50,000 unhappy fishermen complaining among themselves.

I am not a fan of lobbyists, politicians or lawers - but that is how things get done in this country.

Mike spoke at our PSA Sno-King meeting last night and I am now convinced that the RFA is the best thing we currently have available to us for advocating sportfishermen's rights.

I am going to join and support the RFA.

I , too, am joining the RFA. One important thing I heard at the PSA meeting from Mike of RFA last night was something I have seen first hand for years. That is that fishermen and hunters are not an organized group..not a team...and cannot seem to agree on any strategy to improve their collective lot in life for their own benefits. Commercial fishermen and the tribes organize well, have lots of money, and have been way more effective than us sportsmen. The RFA allows sports fishermen to sit on the sidelines and ***** about how bad everything is while they take the political ball and run with it. So next yime you ***** about how bad the WDFW policy is or how screwed you are getting out on the water take a second to write a check and join the RFA. Some day we will have a lobbyist here in Washington thanks to the RFA.