Saving Seafood

WASHINGTON: Environmental settlement to close two Washington fish hatchery programs

October 11, 2024 — An environmental lawsuit accusing federally-funded fish hatchery programs of contributing to the decline of threatened salmon and steelhead and endangering the orcas that prey on wild salmon ended on Thursday in a settlement that will see the closure of two Washington state fishery programs and the reduction of a third.

Wild Fish Conservancy and The Conservation Angler filed a lawsuit against the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife in April, arguing that the department’s Lower Columbia River basin hatchery programs violated the Endangered Species Act.

Now, the Washougal River winter steelhead hatchery program is set to close at the beginning of next year, according to the consent decree, which both parties filed in September and U.S. District Judge Benjamin H. Settle signed on Thursday.

The Deep River net pens coho salmon program has until April to close, and the Kalama River/Fallert Creek Chinook salmon hatchery program will limit its release to 1.9 million fish in 2025.

Read the full article at Courthouse News Service

WASHINGTON: Sockeye run gets a break from heat: Columbia River’s record run had faced peril from earlier warm weather

September 18, 2024 — Earlier this summer, the record return of sockeye salmon on the Columbia River looked to be doomed by water too warm to pass. But the run got a well-timed break from the heat.

The Fish Passage Center recorded an astonishing 755,909 sockeye over Bonneville Dam this year, smashing the 10-year average return of 329,570. About three-quarters of those fish were headed to their Canadian spawning grounds via the Okanogan River.

The huge success of this year’s run was helped by better management by dam operators of water conditions in the Columbia on both sides of the U.S.-Canada border. It helped a boomlet of baby sockeye make it to the sea, where improved ocean conditions also contributed. Implementation of a fish water management tool since 2014 has been key in turning this run of salmon around from near extinction in 1994 to one of the strongest in the Columbia Basin — despite crossing nine dams.

Read the full article at The Columbian

WASHINGTON: UW program works with tribes to fight toxins behind shellfish harvesting closures

August 26, 2024 — With practiced hands wrapped around a shovel, Cleve Jackson drives into the sand, digging down just enough to find a fresh razor clam. Strength, skill and generational knowledge keep this cherished tradition alive.

“Razor clamming feeds us, it nourishes us,” said Jackson, a policy spokesperson for Quinault Indian Nation’s Fisheries. “It’s not only for our health but it’s our way of life, spiritually.”

That way of life was disrupted in June when shellfish poisoning made at least 31 people ill in Oregon. Consequently, recreational shellfish harvesting was closed in Oregon and Washington. The FDA released warnings in both states.

“Our diggers were scared,” Jackson said. “We were getting calls left and right saying, ‘Are our clams OK?’ ”

With coastal tribes heavily affected by harvesting closures, a Forks-based University of Washington program is partnering with Washington tribes to bolster responses to crises and improve monitoring methods. The collaboration involves hands-on training and research to develop tests that provide advance warning of harmful toxins.

Read the full article at The Seattle Times

9th Circuit Appeals Court lifts lower court ruling ordering closure of Southeast Alaska king salmon troll fishery

August 19, 2024 — A controversial 2023 court ruling ordering the closure of commercial trolling for king salmon, or chinook, in Southeast Alaska has been lifted.

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals on August 16 partially reversed a lower court ruling stemming from a lawsuit brought by a Washington state conservation group hoping to protect an endangered population of killer whales. The panel of three judges decided that shutting down the fishery is the wrong prescription for the whales’ survival.

When judges Mark Bennett, Anthony Johnstone, and Milan Smith Jr. heard oral arguments for the case on July 18, they expressed sympathy for the Southeast communities that would suffer severe economic consequences from losing the fishery. The judges’ August 16 decision echoes that sentiment, saying that the initial ruling “glossed over significant economic consequences, as well as the downstream social and cultural harms to fishing villages and Alaska Natives.”

The court’s action wasn’t entirely unexpected. Last year the panel ordered a stay of the lower court ruling just eleven days before the start of the July 1 summer troll season, and fishing took place as usual. Nevertheless, the lower court ruling had not been vacated, leaving the future of the fishery in doubt.

Read the full article at KFSK

US promises $240 million to improve fish hatcheries, protect tribal rights in Pacific Northwest

July 26, 2024 — The U.S. government will invest $240 million in salmon and steelhead hatcheries in the Pacific Northwest to boost declining fish populations and support the treaty-protected fishing rights of Native American tribes, officials announced Thursday.

The departments of Commerce and the Interior said there will be an initial $54 million for hatchery maintenance and modernization made available to 27 tribes in the region, which includes Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Alaska.

The hatcheries “produce the salmon that tribes need to live,” said Jennifer Quan, the regional administrator for NOAA Fisheries West Coast Region. “We are talking about food for the tribes and supporting their culture and their spirituality.”

Some of the facilities are on the brink of failure, Quan said, with a backlog of deferred maintenance that has a cost estimated at more than $1 billion.

Read the full article at the Associated Press

WASHINGTON: Are offshore wind turbines in Washington’s future?

July 24, 2024 — Washington is considering dipping its toes in the world of offshore wind turbines. By 2026, the state will likely decide whether to take a plunge.

But that depends on whether Washington voters decide to retain the state’s cap-and-invest program, which raises money from carbon-producing companies to invest in green energy and pollution mitigation.

An offshore turbine is a windmill-like turbine that looks and operates like the ones found on land – only much bigger.

Most offshore turbines are along the coasts of Europe and East Asia. The United States has two commercial-sized offshore wind turbine farms capable of producing a total of 42 megawatts, compared to the worldwide production 64,300 megawatts.

The first American offshore project was Block Island, 12 miles south of Rhode Island, which went online in 2016 with five turbines to generate 30 megawatts. In comparison, Washington’s largest proposed land turbine project – in the Horse Heaven Hills south of Kennewick – would build 100 to 222 turbines to generate between 236 megawatts and roughly 1,150 megawatts. Its exact size is still being debated at the state level.

Read the full article at Crosscut

WASHINGTON: Washington secures $28M for salmon habitat restoration projects

July 23, 2024 — U.S. Senators Maria Cantwell (D-WA) and Patty Murray (D-WA) announced on Monday more than $28 million in funding for three projects in Washington state aimed at restoring habitats for threatened salmon species.

The grants, awarded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Transformational Habitat Restoration and Coastal Resilience Program, were secured through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act.

Read the full article at FOX 13

Record salmon migration runs into hot water

July 18, 2024 — A persistent heat wave gripping parts of Washington state could spike temperatures as high as 105 degrees this week, prompting warnings from the National Weather Service to drink plenty of fluids, avoid the sun, and check up on relatives and neighbors.

There’s no mention of what to do, however, if you’re a salmon swimming upstream to spawn.

As air temperatures hit records in recent weeks, Native American and state fisheries experts and environmentalists are warning that water temperatures in the Columbia River Basin are similarly on the rise.

Those warming waters — in major tributaries like the Okanogan River and the Snake River — come at the same time as annual migrations of sockeye salmon from the Pacific Ocean, complicating a spawning ritual that spans hundreds of miles and is already peppered with human-made obstacles. Although salmon populations in the region have benefited from efforts to improve their spawning habitat, restore river flows and remove barriers from their travels, fisheries managers worry long periods of hot water could ruin it all in the years to come.

“Those water temperatures are warmer than ever this year,” said Tom Iverson, regional coordinator for the Yakama Nation Fisheries. “Literally, they’re almost too warm to swim in.”

That’s because the fish — including a record run of nearly 740,000 sockeye past the Bonneville Dam at border of Washington and Oregon as of Sunday, nearly 235 percent above the 10-year average — prefer a water temperature below 68 degrees.

The Okanogan River, which will be traversed by the majority of those fish during the final leg of their journey into British Columbia and a series of four chain lakes, has reached temperatures of nearly 83 degrees in recent days, according to U.S. Geological Survey data.

Reservoirs along the Lower Snake River, which are home to endangered Snake River sockeye, similarly crested to 69.53 degrees, according to the nonprofit Save Our Wild Salmon, which tracks water temperatures.

Read the full article at E&E News

17 Industry Groups Ask Congress to Fund North Pacific Fisheries Surveys at No Less Than $15M

May 16, 2024 — A letter from 17 industry leaders to Senators Patty Murray of Washington and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska urged Congress to “prioritize immediate and long-term funding” for the annual surveys of core commercial fisheries populations in the North Pacific done by the Alaska Fisheries Science Center (AFSC).

The May 10 letter was based on an earlier letter from the Freezer Longline Coalition (FLC), a trade association representing the owners of 19 longline vessels that target Pacific cod, urging the senators to bolster the survey program with funding and a strategic plan.

FLC’s executive director Chad See noted in his April 25 letter how essential collection of data is to support the sustainable management of North Pacific species, which provide “60% of all seafood harvested in the U.S. each year, directly support nearly 50,000 jobs and contribute nearly $16 billion to the U.S. economy.”

Just as annual surveys give scientists core data over a long term, missing or delaying surveys may leave scientists in the dark on anomalies that impact a species’ health. The cancellation of surveys during Covid meant managers were unaware of a continued, catastrophic drop in Bering Sea snow crab abundance. The head’s up they would have gotten in 2019 was not fully realized until 2021, delaying measures to recover the stock and contributing to unintentionally high catch limits.

“Stock data aside, North Pacific surveys also generate a wealth of other data that is helping NMFS scientists and fisheries stakeholders to better understand the impacts of climate change in the region and to anticipate potential management changes and other actions to support the continued sustainability of the fisheries, the marine ecosystem and the fishermen and communities that rely on the resource,” FLC’s See wrote in the April letter. “Perhaps more than anywhere else, the Arctic region within which the North Pacific lies is experiencing first-hand the impacts of a changing climate.”

Read the full article at Seafoodnews.com