Fish recovery plan draws few comments

The Lower Columbia Fish Recovery Board came to Cathlamet Monday to gather public input on proposed amendments to the Lower Columbia Salmon Recovery Plan.

Only five members of the public, including the press, attended the meeting, but they still had a 90-minute discussion of salmon recovery and related issues.

The agency held four public meetings on the plan during the past two weeks. Public comments on the plan, which are available on the Internet at http://www.lcfrb.gen.wa.us, will be accepted through April 9.

The salmon recovery plan was adopted in 2006. The fish recovery board developed changes because of changes in state and federal fish management policies and because of the development of additional information on salmon and steelhead stocks under the federal Endangered Species Act.

"Our goal is to have healthy, harvestable levels of fish stocks, higher than necessary to get the stocks off the federal Endangered Species List," said Jeff Breckel, executive director of the fish recovery board.

"We needed to reconcile the Washington, Oregon and estuary plans, incorporate updated information about coho and other species, and establish benchmarks to measure progress."

Breckel and his colleagues heard a variety of comments, including:

--Skamokawa resident Dan Keilwitz said past management practices had decimated fish runs, and current efforts to restore stocks haven't had much success. "I don't see any increase in stocks for the expense of our tax dollars," he said.

"It will take a while to get the stocks to come back," Breckel said.

--Grays River residents Carol Larson and Terri Sutherland discussed the need for the plan to recognize human needs of flood and erosion control besides just fish enhancement. They pointed out a number of problems in the Grays River basin.

Breckel and Ray Beamesderfer, fish recovery board biologist, agreed on that concept. The plan doesn't mandate projects, and projects are to be evaluated for their impacts on all nearby land owners.

Beamesderfer added that the plan doesn't try to turn back the clock or undo human development. The plan identifies and encourages projects that will enhance habitat bit by bit.

"We have to start somewhere," Beamesderfer said. "It all adds up."

--Blair Brady, the Wahkiakum County commissioner who sits on the fish recovery board, commented as a citizen and said that the plan doesn't include the "800 pound gorilla," the US Army Corps of Engineers. Corps management of the Columbia River shipping channel has adverse impacts that aren't addressed in the plan. These include the creation of dredge spoil islands in the estuary that have become home to birds that prey on young salmon and the plugging of the mouth of Grays River, which backs up the river and increases flooding.

"They need to be on the chart as a contributing factor," he said.

"A lot of people in our valley agree with that," Larson said.