WDFW regional director hears local concerns

Wahkiakum county residents and public officials expressed displeasure with the Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) on Tuesday.

WDFW Regional Director Guy Norman visited the county board of commissioners to discuss land acquisition and other issues and heard lots of input, with harshest criticism directed at the highest levels of the department.

"Guy Norman is not the county's enemy," Commissioner Dan Cothren cautioned before Norman's arrival. "He does good work for us. I don't want him to be the post that gets beat on."

The major item of friction was a proposal that came to light last summer in which the department would purchase hundreds of acres in the Skamokawa basin and turn them into wetlands. When local residents and elected officials learned of the proposal, they objected, and when Cothren contacted Norman, the proposal was withdrawn.

Norman tried to explain the background to the proposal on Tuesday.

The department looks for land it can purchase for wildlife habitat or recreational use, or a combination of those uses. The department has a process for evaluating the land's potential for those two objectives. Part of the evaluation includes gauging community support for the potential purchase.

"At the end of the process, we consider whether it's viable or not," he said.

"To my mind, we didn't adequately communicate with the county before it went as far as it did.

"We wouldn't continue on this without the community's and the county's support that is built into the process. A project has to benefit fish and wildlife and the community.

"Unless there is support from the county, we wouldn't pursue this."

Skamokawa resident Mike Linn, who first brought the matter to the public's attention, commented that the proposal was full of inaccuracies.

The department's process failed, Norman said. "If we had worked our way through the process, these kinds of things would have been addressed.

Skamokawa resident and gillnetter Kent Martin turned the discussion to salmon fishery management.

"I'm embarrassed that Guy has to be here," he said. "The chair for the fish and wildlife commission and a couple members should have been here."

Commission decisions on salmon management have adversely impacted the commercial fishing industry and the economies of all coastal counties, he said. Management practices have favored recreation fishing interests.

The push to move commercial fishers from gillnets to alternative gear such as seines isn't going to do much good for the industry, Martin predicted. The alternative gear is supposed to allow fishers to harvest hatchery fish with minimal impact on endangered, wild spawning salmon.

"It's time for us to start thinking, what do we get out of this?" Martin said. "Not very damn much. We're going to absorb all this for salmon recovery without any benefit.

"I can't support any more salmon recovery efforts till I see there will be benefit for local communities."

Commissioner Cothren agreed with Martin's comments about the fish and wildlife commission.

"This county, we don't get anything," he said. Decisions are political and favor interests of large, urban counties.

Commissioner Mike Backman suggested Norman return for a community meeting with commercial fishers to discuss alternative gear.

Norman said a three-year pilot seining program is scheduled to start next year. The department has set up an advisory committee, but he would meet with fishermen to go over the program.

"This is a pilot/introductory fishery," Norman said. "We'll still have the regular gillnet fishery, too. We have to work out how it will all work."

Commissioners said they would host a meeting in December to discuss the program.

Martin said fishermen are suspicious of the program. Any fish they catch takes away from the recreational fishery, and they would like firm projections of potential harvest so they know if it's worthwhile to invest in it.

"There's a real future here, but I'm not sure the agencies have the will to stand up for it," he said.