I am forwarding this E mail that sent to the WDFD Commission with a letter and Grays Harbor Harvest Model attached. To keep it simple I, as an Adviser, have lodged a complaint over the conduct of WDFW staff in the NOF Grays Harbor process. Staff intentionally disables the 2020 Harvest Model in the QIN tab ( page ) which effectively does not allow that Non Treaty Commercial season proposal to be developed by a citizen. As I told a Commercial fisher I have known for years, " We are all in the same boat but if you make it about who gets 100 fish then I am out of the boat and taking my life jacket and the oars with me. If it is about your rights as a citizen I will see this thing through." So it is game on so to speak.

 I just turned 72 the 29th and I am a bit of a book worm. I think maybe this quote from Teddy Roosevelt  captures how I view this issue.  “In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing. The worst thing you can do is nothing. " Please read the letter folks.


March 28, 2020

WDFW Commissioners
WDFW Director Susewind

Commissioners,

I am writing to seek the assistance of the WDFW Commission to resolve an issue surrounding North of Falcon Grays Harbor (NOF GH) and the refusal of Region 6 staff to provide a working 2020 Harvest Model. To fully understand my request some history is required.

For nearly thirty years I was a volunteer in WDFW's ALEA & RFEG volunteer programs and refused to be involved with harvest related issues. When I ended my time as a volunteer I was asked to help with Grays Harbor harvest issues and I agreed to help. What I found was appalling. Region 6 staff denied the public access to GH Adviser meetings, minutes of GH Adviser meetings, any and all records, and the Harvest Model. To make a long story short in the end I filed a Public Records Request which was not complied with and was forced to utilize the courts which resulted in an out of court settlement with WDFW.

From that time forward the public has been allowed to observe GH Adviser meetings, a solid record of the meetings are available on WDFW's website, and a fully functioning GH Harvest model was provided to GH Advisers and the public to utilize for developing salmon seasons for Grays Harbor, until the past two years that I am aware of.

Commissioners a functioning model is not a small thing but rather of critical importance for any citizen prepare a meaningful proposal for a salmon season in Grays Harbor. The Grays Harbor Harvest model is an Excel spreadsheet with tabs (pages) containing all the information for any given year based upon the preseason forecast agreed to by the Quinault Nation (QIN) and WDFW.

For a citizen the Summary tab provides the ability to see if a proposal complies with the Commission's Grays Harbor Management Plan (GHMP) by turning the harvest number box green for compliance or red not being in compliance. This only works if one is able to manipulate the days fished in any week by the QIN or NT Commercial fishers. The New NT Schedule tab contains what is called a full Recreation Freshwater season at the top of the page. The NT Commercial is directly below it and any day fished in any week will show the projected harvest of any salmon species and the data shows in the Summary tab turning boxes green or red for compliance with the GHMP. The Treaty Schedule tab functions the same as the New NT Schedule tab when adding days to week of QIN fishers.

This is the problem. Region 6 staff have disabled the model by eliminating data and formulas for days or weeks the QIN did not fish in 2019 or any other year.. While this may sound trivial it is not as the run forecast can vary greatly year to year which is the case this year. Instead of harvestable Chinook in the thousands the QIN fishers and non treaty will only each have 696 wild Chinook impacts on the Chehalis River and even worse 142 wild Chinook impacts on the Humptulips. Commissioners this year's wild Chinook numbers clearly dictate that both the QIN and NT salmon seasons in the bay and both rivers will be vastly different than last years. By disabling the model in the Treaty Schedule tabs it removes the possibility of any citizen to put forth an option for the 2020 salmon seasons and in particular the NT Commercial fishers. If left enabled and functioning (as it is supposed to be) one can visualize different potential QIN options based upon available salmon to harvest and then develop potential NT Commercial and freshwater recreational season options.

I have requested an enabled fully functioning 2020 Harvest model in writing to Ron Warren and staff including Director Susewind with little success other than Grays Harbor Harvest Policy person Chad Herring responding via email with " The QIN harvest are inputs, that is to say you cannot input QIN days and estimate their harvest. " This is simply ridiculous! I or any citizen can by simply looking at available harvest shares develop scenarios of days of a calendar week that provide the ability to provide 2020 salmon harvest options. I have attached the latest 2020 Harvest Model to the email utilized to send this letter.

Commissioners I realize these are trying times and I would appreciate any help you could provide as the last 2020 GH Adviser meeting is April 2, 2020 and at this point both recreational and commercial fishers are being denied any meaningful participation in Grays Harbor NOF season setting. If you need any additional information feel free to contact me.

Sincerely,

Dave Hamilton

RG, I share your admiration for Teddy Roosevelt.

The Commissioners have been very reluctant as of late to respond to several inquiries put forth by the Washington Citizen Sportsmen, likely due to their indifference.

Your request deserves a proper response--and I'm eager to see if both the Director and Commissioners back up their commitment to, and responsibility for stakeholder input and oversight.

I'm tired of their repetitive mission statement "conclusion", and feel we all deserve what they falsely profess to to abide and adhere to.

I suspect that the task of responding to the letter has been handed to somebody like Warren. Then, tased up the food chain for signature. That's how it has always been.

An individual, on-on-one conversation might reveal more.

+1

+2

I assume this terminal fishery spreadsheet model works like nearly all others. The fishing season harvest rates get applied to the same terminal run size forecast. There is too much overlap in time and space for the model to act like gauntlet fisheries where fish caught early and down low are subtracted from the starting run size for estimating the number that can be subsequently caught later. A test of this in your spreadsheet is if the QIN harvest changes when you manipulate the NT fisheries. If the QIN harvest doesn't change then the spreadsheet model is set up the conventional way which is easier to work with.

I looked at the model summaries posted on WDFW website. They are laid out with run sizes, harvestable shares and estimate catches per fisheries. Assuming the spreadsheet model is conventional, if you simply shape the NT fisheries to produce the harvestable NT share you get an idea of the NT fishery options. Ignore the escapements, just work the NT fisheries to abide by the NT fishery rules in the GHMP and get it to yield the NT harvest share.

Yes, freeing up the QIN harvest piece would allow for getting all the numbers to be green. But messing with QIN fisheries by NT fishers would be objectionable to QIN, as it would if QIN shaped the NT fisheries. There's already too much of "we don't like what you are doing with your fisheries, you need to do this". Having a model that allows for both sides to manipulate the other just encourages this.

Darth, are you suggesting transparency isn't a good thing? Everyone informed about anadromous fish management in WA knows that telling a treaty tribe how to manage its fishing is asking to be told to pound sand.

With out getting into the weeds, your not messing with anything QIN. The data & information is fully functional in the NT side but disabled QIN. What this does is not to alter QIN anything but rather NOT Allow anyone to look at the harvestable fish and enter POTENTIAL QIN harvest by week to allow the NT side ( commercial particularly ) to develop multiple NT options around potential QIN seasons. The QIN in the end will present their desired season based upon what they view is appropriate. Using the model to look at potential QIN & NT seasons infringes on nobody's rights. It is a tool period.

If the model is set up properly it is very easy to calculate catch by area and subtract that catch from the run entering the next area. In the past, that model actually was set up so that the closure of the NI net fishery had no detectible impact on in-river fisheries. Things like that are why the model needs to be useable, changeable, and the process needs to be transparent.

Here is the direct link for the public to access ZOOM and the Grays Harbor Adviser meeting April 2nd.

https://wdfw.wa.gov/about/advisory/ghsag#meeting-calendar

This is the email Chad Herring sent out for the meeting.

Wanted to let everyone know that the agenda and meeting materials for tomorrow nights’ GHSAG meeting have been posted to the GHSAG webpage. Here is the link: https://wdfw.wa.gov/about/advisory/ghsag. Also, remember to log into the Zoom meeting using your specific link that was sent by Dana Stefan from Ross Strategic on Monday. Please contact me if you failed to receive that email and I will get your link to you.

Thanks and stay safe and healthy,

The Adviser via ZOOM came with only a couple of bumps. One NT Commercial could not access it for some reason despite help from the ZOOM staff. After that wide variety of ideas ranging from idealistic to ideas that shown a complete lack of understanding how seasons are set came from the Adviser discussions. This is not necessarily bad as this is how you learn how the process works or does not work depending on your view. For the Commercials it has finally become apparent that minus the QIN seasons it is impossible to create options, a fact they repeated several times.

On the Rec side our seasons with two fish limit meet the GH Management Policy objective but one Adviser advocated a one fish limit for conservation which the numbers do not mandate. I did recommend a one fish limit on the Wynoochee because in the Wynoochee Mitigation Region 6 will not mark the hatchery produced mitigation to help restore the Wynoochee Coho run. Bit of a contradiction to propose that then the harvest managers maintain a two fish bag limit.

There will be another Adviser meeting and as soon as I get the notification I will get the info out. This last meeting the information for the public did not become available until the night before.

So that's all I have for now.

Thanks, Riverguy. I appreciate you keeping us advised. I attended the meeting thru Zoom last night and I thought you made some good points when the one Adviser wanted to suggest a one fish limit when all the boxes were green for two fish. Please keep up the good work!

Ok everybody, this is a heads up. The QIN presented their 2020 seasons based upon Grays Harbor aggregate. Chad called to make sure I knew and so I am getting the information out. To put it simply this is gonna be a bitch if you fish GH call in to participate. I have the model noway nohow can I get it up here.


Good afternoon advisors,

Hope this email finds you all safe and healthy. Also, would like to update everyone on developments on Grays Harbor salmon fishery preseason planning process. First, I have attached a version of the Grays Harbor planning model version “B” that includes a proposed schedule from QIN with their initial 2020 fisheries proposal. Secondly, I have scheduled a WebEx meeting for tomorrow Sunday, April 5th at 1pm for the advisory group to review and discuss these initial proposals and take further comment and fishery suggestions from the group. I apologize for the short notice but things move fast here during PFMC #2 week. I have inserted the link to join the meeting via your computer or via call-in below. See you tomorrow at 1.

Video: https://watech.webex.com/watech/j.php?MTID=mbbe840c8da68bf850368909043fa179d

Call-in number: +1-415-655-0001

Attendee code: 359 505 00



Stay safe and healthy,

Chad Herring

South Coast Fishery Policy Lead

Montesano Regional Headquarters

48 Devonshire Rd

Montesano WA, 98563

Office#:(360)249-1299

Cell #:(360)470-3410

Chad.herring@dfw.wa.gov

Can anybody and everybody call in or webex in and attend? Does this allow for comment?

I noticed it was addressed to "advisors". Was Chad expecting you to publish this?

As I understand it the public can call in and ( I think / could be wrong ) be able to comment as if in a normal meeting. This is not ZOOM so I anticipate some bumps. Chad called me to make sure I got the email which came in at 4:30 PM and I asked to put it out for folks and he said hoped I would help spread the word as they were running out of time. It is my impression that it the getting the info from the QIN that had things running so late.

Thanks Rivrguy!

Thank you!

The call in worked ..... got another NOF meeting done. Not all the "advisers" were happy. Its not my place to tell all the positions....I'll let Rivrguy do that.

Hope all are virus free....stay safe and stay home!!!!

The Adviser meeting was a little difficult due to the fact staff had little time to work with the technology, getting everyone on computers or phones up to speed . In the end we got through it and it worked out.

So bottom line, a couple of options emerged from staff and Advisers but nothing set as WDFW and the QIN will meet again to finalize things. No NT Commercial on the Hump but a rather extensive QIN fishery and the Rec season in undecided territory.

The proposed NT commercial schedule has some conflicts with the QIN schedule and the GHMP guidelines but it will be around 7 days in the last of October & maybe first week of Nov. For the QIN they appear to be going hard to the aggregate of all Grays Harbor streams and really came down hard on Chinook. With C&R on the Hump the NT share was several hundred below QIN harvest but the aggregate Grays Harbor Chinook escapement came up short. With the proposed NT Rec & Commercial on the Chehalis our impacts are minimal so for Chinook it is all about the QIN seasons.

Now the aggregate for Coho came up short on escapement but that was all about the Hump Coho being 4k or so short and that is an issue that has been around for 25 years or so in my mind it does not rock the boat. While the proposed NT seasons did comply with the GHMP there is a problem, sharing. The QIN have a right to 50% of the harvestable Grays Harbor fish that enter Washington waters. So those Coho caught in the marine by charters / trollers count in our share are charged to the NT so the NT share was well ahead of what it needed to be. Staff prepared an option that had a 2 fish Coho bag until Nov 1 and then a 1 fish bag Nov & Dec. An Adviser urged a 1 fish for the full season for everyone.

This more or less a down and dirty look at things and I am sure more to come. From my personal perspective this. The concept of 2 fish bag then 1 fish bag Nov 1 on places the greatest sharing burden on the local inland communities. Normally it rains around the first week of Nov and the river browns out. That ends the tidal water / bay fisheries and most of the out of area tourist type fishers. So in Nov it is about locals and more true sportsman and in Dec mostly locals. Another way to look at it is the fisheries be it QIN or NT based in the Aberdeen / tidal areas ( QIN go to South Monte also ) will reap the greatest benefit and the inland communities shoulder the conservation burden. The 4 / 3 provision ( three days a week net free ) was supposed to address this issue and does but this season maneuver is a bit of smoke and mirrors to get around that be it and indirect route.

That's about all I have for now. Oh, one more thing. Just so all know I have an Aberdeen address and fish tidal water exclusively. I benefit from the staff proposal and that was my point the pain should be equal for all not dumped on the inland communities. A bit of a hot button issue for me.

Dave, for out education, why does the Chehalis tribal quota come out of the recreational fish? Or, did I hear that wrong.

Of course, we are not privy to the discussions between the QIN and WDFW, so we really don't know how much real "Equality " there really is in give and take. Sounds to me like it's mostly give for WDFW.