The gentleman that the following e mail was written by has been one of the strongest advocates on the issue of Wynoochee Mitigation. He has been involved with the Wynoochee Mit forever and has a real memory of things. Then this, he has a mountain of documents from the beginning of this thing so I doubt he is wrong on any of the facts.

The email:

Larry, just got this from an adviser. It does not speak to what you stated to me prior to this date in a phone conversation. You were going to try and have a meeting at Montesano city hall on Sep. 9. I know you stated later via email that that date would not happen. Now it is dated to happen on Sep. 24 ( corrected date ) at region 6 office, I suggest you make arrangements for Monte. city hall, as I expect the building to be filled with concerned citizens that fish.

Now lets talk of the proposed agreement.

1. Annual releases.

a. 100K Coho into the Wynoochee tagged but not clipped, unavailable for harvest by recreation in river fishers, when unmarked Coho are to be released, but by commercial is not a pay back for the licensed sport fisher of Washington. These fish will be targeted by both commercial fishers and sport fishers in the Bay, and Commercial fishers in the Chehalis River. Marine Area 2A by state managed commercial fishers.

b. 400K Coho into Satsop,I surely hope this is not coming out of the Wynoochee Mitigation funds. If so it will be a violation of the mitigation itself, agreed to by all interested parties involved in original mitigation. Plus, would this be in addition to Satsop brood obligations? As far as I am concerned, and mitigation requirements, these funds can only be spent on mitigation for the Wynoochee. So who will foot the cost for the additional coho on the Satsop?

c. Winter Steelhead on Wynoochee. Will the 60K be in addition to the now requirements on brood documents? If these are not in addition, WDFW and all signed parties to this idea will be in violation to the original mitigation for the Dam as well as the Hydro. WDFW is obligated to the original mitigation due to funds being spent by WDFW to improve Aberdeen Lake Hatchery in the mid 1980, I believe !987 and 88. This was met with WDFW obligating to continue the mitigation for the life of the dam. I ask Ron Warren, how will this help reestablish wild Coho and wild Steelhead in the Wynoochee when they will be harvested prior to entering the Wynoochee. How does WDFW expect to violate their opposition to hatchery fish spawning with the wild population? The Wynoochee has met it's wild Coho escapement over the past decade by having all wild Coho released on the Wynoochee. Ron's science flies in the WDFW's wild fish policy.

With this being said. I ask Who will be at the proposed meeting? Will TPU have a representative there to answer questions? Will QIN have a representative there to answer questions? Will FERC have representative there? Will ACHE have representatives there? Without these people in attendance, how will be able to substantiate their views as to what the requirements are, and how to impose the requirements? I believe the requirements shall prevail as written in so many documents, and not to what WDFW and QIN wish to happen. Take WDFW's word? I think not. Also I hope Chad Herring will be absent from this meeting. I have zero faith in this man.
Now I wait your reply. Next week, 7 days from now I will send another letter to the Daily World if you do not respond with some positive answers.

Now lets speak of the Hatchery at the base of the dam. The hatchery was dead prior to the Hydro mitigation, as far as ACOE. The hatchery was then passed to the owners of the dam, without ACOE. The cities of Aberdeen and Tacoma.

April 1992, Wynoochee Lake Project, Fee_Title Transfer to the city of Aberdeen, DRAFT Environmental Assessment.
US ARMY CORPS of ENGINEERS Seattle District April 1992.
Agreement for Mitigation and Enhancement at Wynoochee Dam. bullet 2. Resolution of past mitigation issues on the Wynoochee Project Pages 1 and 2. Signed by State of Washington Department of Wildlife 11/15/91, State of Washington Department of Fisheries, 10/18 91, Confederated Chehalis Tribe, not dated, Quinault Indian Nation, 12/21/91. City of Aberdeen Department 0f Public Works, 9/23/91. And City of Tacoma Department of Public Utilities Light Division, 10/19 91.

Also as far as a hatchery. US Forest Service offered WDFW use of land at the base of the dam, documented.. All WDFW needed to do was fill out proper request forms as well as other documents, and permits. WDFW failed to do so and US Forest Service pulled the offer back since WDFW seem to be not interested. The dam failed due to WDFW, as far as I can see.

Larry, I have more documents, files, letters, and other items related to the Wynoochee Mitigation than you could read in a month. I have fought hard to get the requirements met, and yet WDFW, and others, want to utilize the Mitigation funds for other projects, and not for what they were meant for. I will express all these concerns in my next letter to The Daily World on the 11 of this month.

wow, looking forward to seeing where this one goes.

I'm confused, is the public meeting on the 24th as per the state release or the 29th, as the letter above states? Melanie and I are tuna fishing on a charter that day (Tuesday the 24th) but the state doesn't have meetings on Sunday (the 29th). We certainly would attend the meeting if it's on the 29th, let us know if you can. Otherwise our comments will be on line or (God forbid!) letter writing!. Bob

Meeting is:

"A public meeting on the plan is scheduled at 6 p.m., Sept. 24, at the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife's (WDFW) regional office, located at 48 Devonshire Road in Montesano. "

Have a good time Tuna fishing.....

Since the gentlemen who wrote the original letter has said he will go public to the press on the 11th if his letter is not responded to, I hope he is willing to do more than one paper.

These details are exactly the type of thing that shows how mis-managed our fisheries are, and yet, how little can really be done to correct the problems.

WDFW has become a huge black hole of incompetence, corruption and political cronyism.

Oh he will make things public. The questions need a response, that said WDF&W has developed a habit of not being forthright right down to restricting staff communications. So we all wait to see if they step forward with the information.

Some folks have expressed concern over the dry conditions and the effect of the low flows on this falls salmon seasons. The low flows can and will have a dramatic effect on the juvenile rearing areas for trout, Steelhead and Coho. This normal as the conditions be it a wet year or dry year do have a substantial effect on juvenile survival to smolt.

As to returning salmon adults not much. The Chehalis tidal reach is nearly 20 miles long and the adults will simply stage up in those areas and slowly work their way upstream but most will hold simply waiting for rain. If we do not have substantial rainfall by the 3rd week of November then things get a little dicey for Chinook as they tend to spawn lower down the river making the redds subject to scouring.

So it works like this. If you fish South Monte down you do not want it to rain before October 15th and ideally first week of November. South Elma down you want a good rain bump ( no brown out ) which moves the fishes staging areas upstream to this reach. If your a trib fisher the sooner it the rains produce a brown out the better you are.

The fish react to the flows always but they do not spawn until November so water conditions simply move them upstream to stage up. You can have the Satsop full of fish to a couple of miles above Schafer Park and nothing at Bingham Hatchery until serous rains. Last year the rains were early and as luck would have it in the two week conservation shut down for fishing a huge portion of the run went right through the tidal water to over twenty miles upstream. Great for East County fishers, really sucked for tidal fishers.

It is all about when and how much it rains as who gets the bonanza and who gets the shaft. Mother nature is fickle!

Some confusion on rules around jack fishery release adults then after September 15th keep Coho & Chum adults but release all Chinook. Checked with Mike and his response is below. So the rule book means just that no retention of Chinook jacks after September 15th. In this process always the issue of how to limit the impacts on the wild adults and meet the GHMP objectives. I do not recall the conversation but it is on tape.

From Mike:

You are correct that Chinook jacks are not part of the bag limit after Sept. 15. This was presented in the April 8th meeting. All the info from that meeting is on the WDFW site at: https://wdfw.wa.gov/about/advisory/ghsag#meeting-calendar. Let me know if you have any more questions.

I’ll be out of the office the following dates: tomorrow, and Sept. 13-20.

Washington State needs to follow Oregon example on "jacks", limit 5 a day, no need to record.....I was told, Oregon wants NO JACKS in the spawning grounds......would sure make it easy on fishermen. Coho jacks, Chinook jacks have caused lots of misunderstanding for fishermen that fish them....jacks that make it to the hatchery, get killed.....what a waste!!!!!

12 -14 silver jacks, fill a "Big Chief smoker"...excellent to smoke and the eating is very good....

I agree Bill, 5 a day, no record, any jacks. This would make a lot of sense, there is no reason to have to fill cards with jacks.

With so many questions on the Wynoochee Mitigation and the dry weather I put this together to get everything grouped up. I have some double ups on previous post but this gets things gathered up in one post. Hopefully it helps.

Wynoochee Mitigation:

I have had a lot of questions on a couple of issues. First up is the recent Wynoochee Mitigation package agreed to by WDF&W and the Quinault Nation. I know my first reaction was " what the -----" also some really strange things are in this press release. So by the numbers from the press release:

The most recent licensing agreement with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) in 1991 required mitigation for damage to fish populations as result of the Wynoochee Dam, owned by the city of Aberdeen. A new hatchery was planned but not constructed, due to site location difficulties.

This is a bit misleading as it was a 100% screw up by WDF&W that resulted in the hatchery not being built. Difficulties? How about and all out effort by many inside WDF&W to prevent it is more the truth. A long time advocate (who is my neighbor) has been on this since the day the dam was built and has a room full of documents so I am certain he will not go for WDF&W being, ah... less than truthful.

For those of you that question the concept that Aberdeen Lake Hatchery can pull off the additional Steelhead and Coho numbers, I do not know, I have asked but no response. So here is the quick down and dirty layout of the land I did up for folks from memory.

Well a number of questions raised are good but this is the simple fact. Aberdeen Lake Hatchery is pretty much maxed out as to space. To get 60K more Winter Steelhead and 100k Coho to net pens you would have to get rid of something and the only something available is the Rainbow Trout and Summerrun Steelhead. Do that and you have room.

Lake Aberdeen Net Pens performed poorly in the past predators from birds to Otter just plain everything including storms breaking them loose to hang up on the bottom. The staff was as good as it gets but it was a mission impossible. If they do net pens in the dam's lake substantial difficulties exist with cold water retarding growth and location.

Then this, the Coho reared at the facility are really vulnerable to Columnaris. Aberdeen Lake Hatchery is just not a Coho facility and over the years the Pathologist has fought this fight over and over. If they rear them at say Bingham one would be lucky to get back 50% of the adults to the Wynoochee as Coho imprint on the rearing home water source at the front of their life cycle not the final freshwater time as Steelhead do. Net pens in the dam lake would help but only help get some of the returning adults to the Wynoochee.

So until Region 6 decides to be forthright and define just what they are going to do everything is conjecture. Except this, the numbers put forth in the press release and Larry Philips do not fit in the current Aberdeen Lake Hatchery facilities capabilities unless you move something out.

I know some are hyperventilating over the very thought of losing the Summerrun program but let us wait to see and then fight that fight. That said with all the factual errors and conflicting information in the press release and from Larry Philips I and many others are watching this issue.

Dry Conditions Low Flows:

The dry conditions have some concerned that WDF&W will go off the deep end like the Spring Chinook Closure. I would certainly hope not but again I cannot fathom how they come up with some of this stuff. So here is a bit I did up for folks on low water conditions and what they mean.

The low flows can and will have a dramatic effect on the juvenile rearing areas for trout, Steelhead and Coho. This is normal as the conditions be it a wet year or dry year do have a substantial effect on juvenile survival to smolt. As to returning salmon adults, not much. The Chehalis tidal reach is nearly 20 miles long and the adults will simply stage up in those areas and slowly work their way upstream but most will hold simply waiting for rain. If we do not have substantial rainfall by the 3rd week of November then things get a little dicey for Chinook as they tend to spawn lower down the river making the redds subject to scouring.

So it works like this. If you fish South Monte down you do not want it to rain before October 15th and ideally first week of November. South Elma down you want a good rain bump (no brown out) which moves the fishes staging areas up stream to that reach of the river. If you are tributary fisher the sooner it the rains produce a brown out the better you are as all the fish move upstream all at once to the tributaries.

The fish react to the flows always but they do not spawn until November so water conditions simply move them upstream to stage up. You can have the Satsop full of fish to a couple of miles above Schafer Park and nothing at Bingham Hatchery four miles further upstream until serous rains arrive. Last year the rains were early and as luck would have it in the two week conservation shut down for fishing a huge portion of the run went right through the tidal water to over twenty miles upstream. Great for East Grays Harbor fishers not so for tidal fishers. It is all about when and how much it rains as who gets the bonanza. Mother Nature is fickle!

Our Walk Down Memory Lane:

Finally I, with the much needed help of others, did a paper on decisions within the Chehalis Basin by WDF&W and how they affect us today. (I attached it again to this email) Many have asked is that all and nope is the answer. So we will do HOW THE PROCESS USED BY WDFW TO SET ANGLER SEASONS AND MANAGE FISHERIES FAILS THE PUBLIC AND THE RESOURCE VOLUME 2 . I for one think this is important because if the old geezers like me in every watershed in the state were taking their neighbors on a look back in time at WDF&W decisions all would be a little.....horrified comes to mind. I will try to get this done in November after fishing season folks, one has to have priorities!

I would like to see these questions put directly to Larry Phillips without all the drama , just ask specific questions. The meeting is on the 24th, Melanie and I will be there if our boat comes in early enough, it's on our way home and if we can try to make it after TUNA fishing I'm sure most of you can as well. Bob R

Larry has the questions Bob but someone else on vacation has the answers. Larry is at a disadvantage as he came to the issue late in in game and does not know the history that surrounds this issue. For over 25 years the local community and QIN have been at the issue and for whatever the reason WDF&W has done everything but meet its obligation. Hopefully your right and the answers are forth coming. Then you always have the but word.

I agree about him being a latecomer to the game, but that's the point. You cannot hold current employees responsible for decisions made before they came onto the scene anymore then you can hold them responsible for salmon problems that are beyond their control (i.e. current ocean conditions, over fishing by Alaska and Canada on WA. stocks , past logging practices, etc.etc.). To do so would be similar to holding children responsible for their parent's crimes. It's just not done. How long ago was the ball dropped on the Wynoochee hatchery? Who is still around to blame? My understanding was that it was a long time before the tribe had a positive outlook on cooperating on this project? All I am saying is that you need to be specific and have some knowledge about who and what to ask. My interactions with Larry have always been positive and as you all know I'm a real P.I.T.A. Bob

There are, to mw, two aspects of this situation. While you can't blame the current folks like Larry for what happened in the past, he (the Royal He) must be responsible for explaining why it happened and assuring folks it won't happen again.

There are too many times (ask Rivrguy) where WDF/WDG/WDFW has made a commitment in that watershed and then the gone back on it. The new guy says "that wasn't me, don't bring it". It might not have been you, but if you don't come through you are perpetuating the problem.

The locals who have been working on Wynoochee or any other of a myriad of projects there (and probably statewide) know the history better than WDFW-who seems to not want to even recognize it.

Well, we'll see how Larry handles it at the meeting, have those questions ready, I'll talk to him later today to tell him to be prepared.

This is certainly interesting. Was discussing this with a few board members the other day. The way they are doing this opens up all sorts of speculation around how the production will be achieved and who will reap the benefits. My dim view, based solely on my observations of how fish allocation works, is that it won't do much to benefit in-river fisheries, and worse, it will do even less to mitigate the losses the Wynoochee drainage incurred when the dam went in. This looks a lot more like "Satsop supplementation" than Wynoochee mitigation to me.

There are several reasons for my pessimism:

1. I haven't seen any mention of increased spawning escapement goals in the basin. That means these fish are being lumped in with everything else that goes to the Gulf of Alaska to forage, and there is no good reason to expect that they won't be allocated the same way. That means 80% will go to commercial and sport ocean quotas, leaving the last 20% to be fought over by the Tribes, sports, and NT gillnetters in terminal areas. Assuming an unrealistic return rate of 5% adults to smolts planted, 25,000 new, harvestable fish would be created. 20% of that number is 5,000 fish. That leaves the state share at 2,500, which then gets divided between recs, NT gillnetters, and the Chehalis Tribe. Not much to go around... Maybe another 1,000 fish for lower basin sport crowd, and that's a high estimate.

2. It's been rumored (and is apparently true) that the Skokomish Tribe is going to be netting Satsop fish moving forward. Their share SHOULD come out of the QIN share, but I have serious doubts that will be the outcome. The way the Tribes own our Legislature now, we should only expect intertribal disputes to end in our allocation being reduced (if they don't just shut us down altogether, as they've already done on the Skokomish).

3. Most obviously, the problem is that 80% of the salmon component of the "Wynoochee mitigation" is going to the Satsop and downstream fisheries not named Wynoochee. That won't do much to mitigate anything on the Wynoochee.

4. That the 100,000 Wynoochee coho smolts will be unclipped tells you all you really need to know about sport salmon benefit on the Wynoochee: There will be none, because we can't retain unclipped coho on the Wynoochee. Steelhead may improve slightly, but as poor as the return rates are on hatchery summer steelhead, I wouldn't expect the difference to be much.

Should be interesting (if not just maddening) to hear answers to the questions that need to be asked. I will plan on going to the meeting. It will also be interesting to see if this is actually WDFW seeking public input or if (like North of Falcon) it's just an opportunity for us to find out how we've been screwed after the fact....

Just realized I forgot to account for escapement in my calculations above. That's probably okay, though; the goals are so low that they almost don't factor in. Rest assured the in-river sport fishery will pay that bill, as always, reducing our benefit from this action just that much further....

The 400k on the Satsop are not part of the required mitigation only the 100k and 60k Steelhead. Where did the 400k number come from? No idea but it emerged from the QIN / WDFW talks.

Here's my take on the "build a wild run of "wire coded" Coho on the Wynoochee......grrrrrrrr

3 sportsmen from Grays Harbor have been a "pain in the ass, of WDFW not doing what they should have been doing for more than 25 years".

This "wire coded marked Coho, with no sport caught, non-clipped allowed" is just another way of WDFW thumbing their noses at Wynoochee salmon fishermen.

To allow all the fisheries, Alaska, Canada, ocean, GH Marine, 2 gill net fisheries and all the Chehalis in-river before the fish have a chance to even get to the Wynoochee...…..THEN TO ALLOW NO WYNOOCHEE SPORT CAUGHT COHO FOR A ADDITIONAL 5 YEARS, IS A RON WARREN PAY BACK, yep I can believe he would do that.

If a larger "wild run" was a WDFW goal, why wasn't more of the current unmarked Coho, NOT TRUCKED, above the dam thus being forced to spawn in the lower river/streams below the dam???????

In years past, there was even a Chinook fishery and for many years a Coho fishery allowed until January 31...…

We'll never really know.....closed meetings, and the closed meetings never really included all the "parties that supposedly need to sign off" on the final Wynoochee Mitigation.....something smells!!!