Just looked at Bills sponsored by Senator McCoy. Have you looked into this bill? Seem's it might be productive to better transparency?

SENATE BILL 5511,By Senators McCoy, Chase, Darneille, and Hunt

AN ACT Relating to tribal-state relations

(1) The legislature recognizes and
respects the sovereign status of the tribes and the state in a
government-to-government relationship and seeks to enhance and
improve communications and facilitate resolution of issues between
tribes and the state.

Maybe you can ask Senator McCoy to expand on his bill with us, and explain how the bill can improve the transparency in our fisheries management?

That Bill might be a start. One of WDFW's many problems is that the law and rules about making regulations, whether emergency or permanent, don't line up well with state law. Perhaps, and it is probably a pipe dream, the Leg could develop a process for WDFW and the Tribes that would be legal and as transparent as possible.

You can understand the motives behind Sen. McCoy so it might be more useful to pose the question to the other three sponsors. By the way, I seem to recall several meetings of the Senate Natural Resources and Parks Committee to which Sen. McCoy is a member where tribal member testimony espoused the need for co-operation and I am sure one of those tribal reps was Tulalip. Was that merely lip service?

The best way to get an answer is to ask a question! Here is a copy of an email I just sent to Senator McCoy.

********
Senator McCoy,

As the author of SB 5511, I am hoping you can expand on the intent of the bill, and perhaps how you see it helping in protecting our open government laws.

In addition, we are wondering how you envision your bill, if passed into law, impacting the current situation in our fisheries, wherein the question of open government and greater transparency has been brought to the forefront by recent developments within the Department of Fish and Wildlife.

Although I am not personally a constituent of your district, we have well over five thousand stakeholders who support greater transparency and open meetings in our fisher management, many of whom are your constituents.

Since the matter is of importance to all citizen sportsmen in this state, we hope you will take a moment to address the bill and perhaps expand on your position on open meetings in the conservation of our salmon.

Thank you for your attention to this request, we are looking forward to your response.


With respect,

Citizen Sportsmen
Open WDFW/Tribal North of Falcon


Secrecy, once accepted, becomes an addiction.
Edward Teller

Economy of WORDS is a difficult skill to master, especially when trying to explain a complicated matter. A newspaper editor once told me doctors are probably the worst offenders of verbal diarrhea.... then told me he'd publish my article ONLY if I cut out half the word count. His direction is something I've taken to heart ever since. Modern communication DEMANDS small digestable sound-bytes.

Feel free to copy/paste my remarks below.... with one character to spare!

...

Negotiations to set salmon seasons in WA between WDFW and tribal co-managers, a PUBLIC process known as North of Falcon, are veiled in unnecessary secrecy. This is contrary to the spirit of transparency championed by the Open Public Meetings Act

http://apps.leg.wa.gov/rcw/default.aspx?cite=42.30

Sportsmen are floundering in their attempts to correct this situation. Salmon are a natural resource that belong to ALL the citizens of Washington. We are looking for every avenue possible to make these meetings open to the public eye. Our full concerns are beyond the scope of the word limit filter. Might I suggest opening these links to see just how WA sportsmen feel.

http://www.piscatorialpursuits.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/980157/1.html

http://www.piscatorialpursuits.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/982436/1.html

If you lack the time to review them personally, please direct one of your legislative staff to do so. Our passion, angst, and frustration will be clearly palpable.

King5 5:00 news just ran a story on the 10-yr plan and our frustration with the secret negotiations as well as the commission's frustration.

TTT...

... so everyone can use the convenient link to contact their legislators. It even includes options to forward your letter to the ENTIRE delegation in your legislative district

Help a brotha'out and JUST DO IT!

http://www.king5.com/article/news/local/salmon-fishing-restrictions-may-get-severe/281-498970670

Just shared it to Fb.

Does anyone know where the court order for secret negotiations can be found? What case did it come from?

WSU, Mr. Mike Gossman sent me a pretty detailed email which covers this and a couple of other questions I asked at the Commission meeting.

I hesitate to "cut and paste" anything, as I don't want to put words in Mr. Grossman's mouth. I apologize, but it is best for Mr. Grossman to personally answer.

I appears he reads, or is at least aware of the posts on this board, as he has contacted me about posts I've made here.

So, perhaps Mike, you would like to answer WSU's question? We then, get the facts. Since WDFW is famous for leaving us and the Commission in the dark, maybe you can be the one to show some inclusion to the masses?

There is another thing that WDFW should do. Have a huge Dog and Pony Show before NOF. Input the models with the agreed to forecasts and then take audience requests for seasons. The ONLY limiter is that the NI side can't exceed 50%. Show people how catch shifts when you close the ocean, or take them all in the ocean, and so on. We need to know how we stay within our share and what the fisheries options are to do that.

Don't need to actually choose a fishery but know what the constraints are. For example, any ocean fishing means the Skagit is closed to coho. Now, if we fish coho in the Skagit, how do we take the rest of the stocks without the ocean? And so on.

They have the staff, they have the models. Once this is done, then we will know what to ask post NOF.

Don't know if this is appropriate here, but if some are having a hard time with codes imbedded in the technical documents.

SUS=Southern United States
MUP= Management Unit Profile
RER= Recovery Exploitation Rate
TRS = Terminal Run Size
ER= Exploitation rate
MSY= Maximum Sustainable Yield
ESU=Environmentally Significant Unit
MSH=Maximum Sustainable Harvest
UMT= Upper Management Threshold
EDT=Ecosystem Diagnostic Treatment
LAT= Low Abundance Threshold
PT= Pre Terminal

Any and all additions and corrections welcomed.

I admittedly haven't read the new plan and don't know whether it is appropriate or not. But, a few thoughts on the process come to mind.

1) Mediation, and the "secretive" nature of mediation, is voluntary. Perhaps the tribes can compel mediation through the ongoing jurisdiction of the court. But, the tribes cannot compel agreement. WDFW had and has no duty to agree with the tribes and the court can address disagreements that are unresolved. It's simply the easier path for WDFW to agree.

2) Even if mediation is secret and can be compelled, I see no reason that WDFW had to keep the commission in the dark. Are they really taking the position that they had to keep the governing body of WDFW in the dark because only the parties to the litigation, one of which is WDFW, can be privy? It seems like their position is they had to keep the head decision makers in the dark. Ask yourself: why is that? Could it be because, like coming to an agreement, it's simply the easier path? I suspect Unsworth and the other managers would rather take a Saturday morning tongue lashing than deal with doing their jobs and standing up to the tribes and feds.

3) When will WDFW stand up to NOAA? NOAA approves fisheries that kill vastly more ESA Chinook than our local fisheries do. Why is it OK to keep giving away our fish, begging for NOAA's approval, and being fine with 80% of the harvest occurring north of our border? Easier path, anyone?

My takeaway: this is more of the same. WDFW is scared of "litigation risk," won't push back on the tribes or the feds, and takes the easiest path forward. If that means finding creative reasons to keep everyone in the dark, including their bosses, so be it. We're in the same place we were 5 years ago. The tribes know that we will reach an agreement no matter what. That's not a great bargaining position to be in.

One last thought as I was about to push submit: at what point to we stop caring if we don't get a season? WDFW constantly falls back on needing to agree or getting "left on the beach." With the new plan, there appears to be lots of risk that no fishing will occur in lots of places in lots of years. We are giving and giving and giving. Pretty soon, we'll have nothing left to give. At least we can say we got an agreement.

Excellent post...lots of angles to ponder

The problem with those northern interceptions is that you are dealing with two more countries. Alaska is the Big Dog, politically. Plus, nobody catches their fish. The lower 48 and Canada have no hammers to compel a change.

Now, Canada takes Lower 48 fish, and we take theirs. Wilkerson, in the first US-Canada treaty (80s) allowed their take of coho to numerically match the expected US share of Fraser sockeye. If we want Canada off "our" fish, we just need to stay off theirs. That would still leave Canada in a pissing match with AK because they take Canadian fish up north. As I recall, Canada was hoping that the other 49 states would exert some control on AK.

Politically, it may be difficult and would require some leadership up the food chain. But, WDFW could and should push back in a number of ways. Let's think outside the box for a minute.

How about our beloved ESA listed killer whales? They are starving to death because the feds OK a taking of too many ESA listed Chinook. Pick an over exploited ESA stock and push the issue. What would the effect be if we managed to curtail the mixed stock intercept fishery in the great north that systematically harvests our immature ESA Chinook and thereby kills our ESA orcas? How many Washingtonians would be in support of stopping the killing off of our whales to feed some far off commercial interest?

Even more simply, how about WDFW stop being a doormat? Why not insist that NOAA take into account the vast amount of harvest that occurs in Alaska instead of agreeing to a 30% reduction in our fishing?

Honest question: what would the feds do if WDFW said we aren't agreeing to reducing our impact until you stop others from killing all our fish, and, if you don't, we'll see what a judge says? What does WDFW have to lose?

There are laws in place, ESA, CITES, etc. that could be used. But, NOAA has said that fishing is not the problem for Killer Whales.

But, if we could get Greenpeace and Sea Shepherd on the water to protect the Killer Whales, it might work.

NOAA tied itself in knots to protect Alaska. That is why some of the stocks have a recovery based on all harvest while others have recovery based on fisheries after leaving BC and AK.

Since the intercepting fisheries are somewhat capped, managers down here could shut things down to provide for the whales. Could still catch the fish, just after they became inaccessible (freshwater) to the whales. We could take some action on pinnipeds.

Any action, that actually has a real chance of working, is going to massively inconvenience somebody who votes and buys politicians. If dead whales start floating up on beaches regularly, then maybe something will be done. But, my money is on the idea that we need to fix all the habitat, quiet down the water, keep non-Indians away from the whales and all will be fine. That way, no major donor is harmed.

I'm having a hard time understanding how a few dozen fish (the Stilly wild chinook), that have shown no signs of recovery since being listed, are worth bringing the entire system to it's knees for. I do realize that's not a decision WDFW can make.

I mean, maybe they are worth it. Can somebody tell me a reason, or at least play devil's advocate? (though in this case I think I am the devil for suggesting we should throw in the towel on an endangered species)

Our state is growing which is probably better than shrinking...and habitat loss is a big downside to that. Its obvious we can't have a growing state and retain habitat, it's one or the other. And, isn't this what hatcheries were originally intended to mitigate?

I liked Curt's idea of just taking all the 200K-ish Stilly hatchery Chinook and releasing them without clipping. AFAIK that's something like what was done on the Nooksack for Springs, and it's showing success.

I also liked Curt's query as to why this wasn't addressed years ago. It seems like not all options have been tried and exhausted before writing a 10-year plan that will cripple sporfishing.

Your question is at what point do we give up on a population? The Stilly, when listed, was probably in better shape. Decisions made by all involved agencies, whether natural resource managers or land use managers or planners all had a hand.

By "going slow" events have conspired to put the Stilly in a real hole. Take the Southern Resident Killer Whales. They are starving and aborting fetuses. So, old ones die and no new ones come in. In a few more years, recovery will be moot. If we diddle around, close some areas to boating, let the pinnipeds continue to increase and we won't have to worry about the whales. Same with salmon. We allow more growth, the Sound has issues, and it pretty soon will become impossible for the salmon to live there.

We have tried the easy and cheap stuff. We either step up and seriously deal with the whole ecosystem's problems or we watch them disappear.

Wow, I agree with Carcassman!!! (on this one)

Additionally, you have to realize that, when it comes to the ESA, it's very hard to bring economic effects into the consideration, at least as a reason for not acting.

It's like saying, "yeah we passed this law and we really, really, would like for these animals to be around, just not if it's really hard, or makes us have to change too much".

We all know what types of things need to be done, at least to stabilize and stave off extinction, they just run completely counter to how we operate as humans in our communities, i.e., growth , growth, and more growth!. I think that's why the pesky law was needed in the first place. Salmon just represent the most complicated of situations to try and implement it.