I find it amazing that Leadership had no clue about what was going on. The are a lot of skeletons still buried. Plus, of course, the money and fish counting issues.

I think the action Douglas PUD is taking is good for WDFW in the long run. The Department depends heavily on mitigation revenue to provide and maintain FTE jobs in the agency, but has often taken the contracts for granted. The multi-million dollar shake up should cause WDFW to improve its fiscal discipline in fulfilling contract obligations. That would have the benefit of improved relations between the Department and the utilities it contracts with, and the utilities would probably feel better about contracting with the Department, whether they are forced to by license requirements or not.

And how is the P.S. crab endorsement money being spent? Unlike the other two endorsements that one has no advisory group oversight and I seem to remember the original SAO audit found accounting discrepancies which were allowed to be corrected but were not further described nor quantified in the final report. Transparency??

I don't know who someone else would be? I'm sure there are companies that have aqua-culture down to an efficient science. Is there some law that says TP or other utilities couldn't contract with a private entity?

That question of having a private company do it has been discussed many times but there is a significant difference between how WDFW, the Tribes, and Feds raise fish and a private aquaculture operation.

WDFW has to produce fish that will survive for as many years as 5 or 6 after release and then return to spawn. In commercial aquaculture they need to produce fish that convert food to flesh efficiently. They don't really have to swim well, avoid predators, or even look good. Look at the mouths on the AS, a hatchery fish released in the wild would not survive.

Different concepts in accomplishing very different jobs.

Oh hell if the facility goes on a low cost contact or they just hire a outside firm to run it ( and there are many choices ) there is no doubt they can get a huge cost reduction. Hell I have little doubt that they can beat the states cost with a reduction of 30% or more. Key here just run one in place. Ever seen a state hatcheries payroll? Having dealt with WDF&W cost structure it is not even a contest. Which is why WDF&W goes out of its way to insure things like this do not happen.

If all the PUDs and similar organizations abandoned WDFW and contractor ted with themselves or others it would create some interesting funding and staffing issues for the rest of the State hatchery system.

and then the unthinkable ..... contract it to a tribe. Damn that would be fun on so many levels I cannot count that high!

Rumor I heard, from an occasionally reliable source, is that the Yakamas will take over Wells and Methow.

Does the state have a "prevailing wage" requirement in its service contracts? If so, payroll savings will be in how many employees they hire and their efficiency.

And if it is a for profit operation there is that nasty profit percentage.

Yes WDF&W has a prevailing wage requirement on everything it does and a payroll load on bennies and admin that would make Warren Buffet shudder!

Wages and operation costs could be covered or at least supplemented by rearing chum and selling the surplus roe from fish over escapement in most hatcheries. Only problem would be ensuring the money stayed in the hatcheries.

No problem; I am sure that tribal interests would gladly open their financial records.

Don't know about hatchery folks, but at least some of the tribes pay their Biological Staff WAAAAAAAAAAAY more than WDFW pays theirs.

Wasn't talking about tribal hatcheries, the casinos more than cover their costs lol

I heard they are turning the Trout and Salmon hatcheries into topless water parks.

Yup CM they do as the gas tax has made them pretty flush with $$$ so control of the production would be the goal. What I was hitting on was contracting out to a private firm which is much has much lower than either tribal or state operations.

I would think that money savings would mostly come from reducing overhead, support staff, and many of the other ratholes that drain a budget. Plus, the PUD-facilities would not be used to support/backfill state-funded operations.

But, it is not just saving money. It would be about creating better publicity. One has to admit that in the last few years WDFW has shot off most, if not all, of its toes and is working up to the knees and higher in self-inflicted "issues". For a wide variety of reasons they seem to be unable to present a transparent, fully functional operation.

There would be cost saving just in government employee savings. The amount government employees accomplish compared to profit driven employees is, well, different. A private employee who is expected to produce a product and faces the likelihood of getting canned gets a lot more done and cares a lot more about success. You'd have less employees, which is the expensive part of any business, and those employees would give better results (or they'd get canned and someone who could do the job would replace them).

Look at the Cowlitz debacle. How do you think private employees and managers would have done if they watched the fish get eaten for years and then acted dumbfounded that otters and dozens of birds ate them? And what was WDFW's answer? It sure appeared to me that they paid someone to drive circles around the ponds (I watched it a number of times from the BC launch). Is that efficient? Not only is it expensive, but the birds simply flew up into the trees and waited 10 minutes for the guy with the truck to get done with his lap. Then, back to eating fish. The incompetence is mind blowing.

And, I don't buy for a minute that private aquaculture companies couldn't produce fish for release as opposed to sale. The blueprint is there. The fact that they have a different goal now means nothing.

Tacoma's Cushman hatchery is already run by PSFMC. The Corps threatened ODFW with contracting out at some SW hatcheries a little while back.
Though,the model for the private guys is that one or 2 guys at the top gets 100k/year and the workers get 13/hr.
..Some places are really bad..make your jaw drop...some people have complained..but they usually get blacklisted and runoff ...it turns into a he said she said thing."stories differ so we can't tell what happened"....it's a small industry where do you go ? that's why people just leave, it's easier than fighting... Bullying seems to be ok with HR too...

The only reason people get in trouble is if they admit anything...

Stuff was going on a GA for years and the solution was to move people around....only the camera and someone's journal got things going.