Council postpones net pen decision

The Cathlamet Town Council expects no action on an agreement with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) when it reconvenes its recessed Monday meeting later this week.

The council needed to meet at the end of the week to award a contract for painting of the refurbished library building, and council members also agreed to delay action on the agreement so that they could have a clean copy of the agreement to sign; the draft presented at the Monday regular meeting had proposed changes from town Attorney Heidi Heywood.

Aaron Roberts, WDFW regional hatchery complex manager, asked the council to approve the net pen agreement as soon as possible, for the department wants to start work on the project this fall.

The department would attach 12 floating net pens to the town's Broadway Street dock from November to May. The deparment would stock the pens with juvenile spring chinook salmon that would be released in May and return in 2-4 years for the benefit of commercial fishers.

The states of Washington and Oregon are working to move commercial gillnetters off the mainstem of the Columbia, and WDFW thinks the net pens can create an off channel fishery in the Cathlamet Channel.

"This is a try from my agency, a try to help," Roberts said.

Council Member Wally Wright repeated objections to the net pen location that he has raised at previous meetings.

The town dock, he said, is intended for large vessels and shouldn't be blocked by net pens, he said. He suggested the pens be located elsewhere in the channel.

Roberts said the current is stronger upriver, but if the project were to continue, it could be possible to use another location.