Hatchery may remain open after all
October 2, 2008
By Ed Farrell
A room full of angry anglers is being credited with perhaps turning the tide against the proposed closure of the Tokul Creek Hatchery in Fall City.
Officials with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife now say they are reversing course and will recommend the Tokul Creek Hatchery, which releases about 190,000 steelhead into the Snoqualmie River every year, remain open.
Proposed changes at the Tokul Creel Hatchery now don’t seem as possible as they once did. Photo by Greg Farrar
Because steelhead are listed as a threatened species, there will be no releases into either the Tolt or Raging rivers under the new DFW proposal, but as many as 150,000 steelhead will be released annually into the Snoqualmie to continue fueling the recreational and commercial fishing industry.
Tom Davis, legislative liaison with DFW, said keeping Tokul Creek open will be the department’s recommendation when the director makes a final decision Oct. 15.
Davis cited two public hearings held in early September, one in Mill Creek and one in Issaquah, as convincing state officials that to close the hatchery would be a grave error.
“We had exceptional turnout at both meetings,” Davis said, “and whenever we get that kind of turnout, with that kind of interest, we pay attention.”
Opposition to the closure, Davis said, “went all the way up to the director, who determined that given this kind of input, we’re now looking at a new alternative to closing the hatchery. We have changed our position on closure.”
State Representative Glenn Anderson, a Fall City resident, said he has been in constant communication with WDFW in an effort to keep the hatchery open.
At the Issaquah public hearing, Anderson noted the state had recently appropriated $435,000 to refurbish the hatchery, without being told of the department’s plan for closure.
“I have made it very clear to DFW that you don’t ask for money to rehab a facility and then turn around and close it,” Anderson said. “That’s the old ‘bait and switch’, and we can’t have that.”
Anderson said news that Tokul Creek will remain open is very positive, but that the hatchery will continue to receive close monitoring by his office.
“I want to see this happen,” Anderson said. “Trust but verify must be the policy. The real people to congratulate on this are the citizens of the Snoqualmie Valley for showing up and making themselves heard.”
State Sen. Cheryl Pflug said her office has been inundated with concerns from constituents about the closure, and that she, too, has been talking to DFW officials.
Pflug said she was concerned that DFW was going to close the hatchery “without the science and without due process.”
Pflug said she had repeatedly asked DFW officials to provide documentation to back their assertions that hatchery steelhead were a threat to wild steelhead, or to even prove that wild steelhead exist in the Snoqualmie River watershed.
“Here we have people making decisions who cannot even explain the science behind them,” Pflug said in a telephone interview.
“Oh, they’ll scramble around and tell you they’ll get back with you the next day, and with this, they obviously thought they could jam this through, but they forgot about the due process.”
Pflug, while heralding the change of mind, cautioned that any victory could be short-lived.
“While it now looks like they’re not going to do anything this year, we need to be aggressive to ensure they follow the process. We could still have problems in the future,” she said.
Dallas Cross, who identifies himself as a “professional fishing companion” and occasional fishing columnist for the Issaquah Press, called the retreat from closure “very good news – and not just for the steelhead people, but for all the impacts closure of Tokul Creek would have had on the local economy.”
Like Pflug, however, Cross predicted the fight to save Tokul Creek is not over.
“I think this is a harbinger of things to come,” he said. “We’re going to see more use of the Endangered Species Act to trump all other concerns. But, for right now, stopping this thing in its track bodes well.”
Comments
Got something to say?
Before you comment, please note:
- These comments are moderated.
- Comments should be relevant to the topic at hand and contribute to its discussion.
- Personal attacks and/or excessive profanity will not be tolerated and such comments will not be approved.
- This is not your personal chat room or forum, so please stay on topic.
