[3] New Harvest Proposal Irks Netters
Recreational fishers of the Columbia River are pushing for a big change in salmon harvest regimes--one that would push commercial gillnetters out of the mainstem altogether and concentrate the netters' efforts in the "select" areas where fish are now raised to complement their catches.
The sporties explained their plan in a white paper released last month by the Northwest Sportfishing Industry Association, a group that represents more than 300 sport fishing-related businesses across the region. It calls for a major expansion of the net pen projects, where hatchery salmon are raised and released, in places like Youngs Bay, near Astoria.
By fishing only in the areas around the net pens, the plan says, gillnetters could harvest more returning adults with less impact to ESA-listed stocks. At the same time, the sport sector would be able to boost its own catch, especially spring chinook, while keeping total non-tribal impacts on spring ESA stocks at the same 2-percent level.
The plan estimated that 80 percent of the ESA impacts would be used up by the mainstem recreational fishery.
The proposal was written by several retired fisheries officials, including ODFW's Jim Martin and the Columbia Basin Fish and Wildlife Authority's ex-director, Rod Sando. It was originally presented during a "visioning process" undertaken by stakeholders earlier this year to resolve longstanding allocation gripes over the non-Indian share of spring chinook between the sport and commercial sectors.
The NSIA bailed out of the process after its plan was not included as an option by the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission. Now the group will try to sell it to Oregon and Washington politicians as a win-win solution for both sport and commercial interests.
However, ODFW expressed some support for the concept at a meeting last month where the remnants of the visioning process had morphed into a new process involving three F&W commission members from Washington and Oregon and assorted advisers--now called the Columbia River Fish Working Group. The group met again Oct. 15.
But it could prove to be a hard sell, since most gillnetters consider the plan just another veiled attempt at getting them off the river forever.
Bruce Buckmaster, a board member of the gillnetter support group Salmon For All, said the recreational side may think the plan is a win-win, but none of them asked the gillnetters what they thought about it. He said most gillnetters feel they would be giving up more than they would get out of the deal.
He said his group supports the essence of the issue--the production of more fish--but he called the NSIA plan "incredibly transparent." He doubted if there was enough room to expand, and whether the Willamette hatchery chinook the sporties suggested be used to augment releases would even succeed. "They didn't even come back to the Willamette this year," said Buckmaster.
He thought the NSIA plan would have more impacts to listed fish than the current regime. He also said since BPA paid for 70 percent of the project, the general public should get more of the benefit in the form of more salmon in the marketplace. "They don't say who's going to pay for any expansion, either," he added.
Previous reports by ODFW and by independent scientists and economists expressed doubts about both the economic value and room for expanding the project, called SAFE [Select Area Fishery Evaluation].
However, in an August 2008 briefing paper by WDFW staff for its F&W commission, staffer Pat Frazier said not all sites had been thoroughly evaluated; "therefore, opportunities to expand the spring chinook program may still exist."
The paper pointed out that the "vast majority of the potential locations identified in the initial phase of this project are located in sloughs or mouths of major Columbia River tributaries and would not be acceptable sites for spring chinook because fisheries harvesting adults returning from net pen releases would occur in locations where SAFE fish commingle with listed spring chinook."
The paper identified one possible new net pen site at Coal Creek Slough, 10 miles below Longview, but it wasn't yet known whether the site had an adequate water supply or if ESA-listed spring chinook used the slough during their upstream migration.
The proposal concluded that the best bet for expansion was at the Youngs Bay site, since it is the largest body of water in the program.
"The size of Youngs Bay allows for both increased rearing potential and participation levels in fisheries," said the WDFW briefing paper. There is also the possibility that another net pen site could be developed in Willapa Bay.
But gillnetters say Youngs Bay is not large enough to handle the fleet. Sport advocates say the commercials could take turns fishing. That idea didn't go over very well with gillnetters.
With fish prices rising in recent years, especially for earlier running stocks, the spring catches have helped the bottom line for commercials. From 2005-2007, gillnetters caught around 4,000 spring chinook annually, another 1,454 from the Blind Slough site and 35 at Deep River, averaging about $255,000 worth of fish from Youngs Bay, $82,000 for Blind Slough and $2,000 for Deep River (Washington's only site).
Coho landings from Youngs Bay accounted for another $250,000, with another $131,000 worth caught at Tongue Point (just east of Astoria) and $62,000 worth from Blind Slough and Deep River.
A 2006 study found the total annual economic impact from the SAFE project was estimated at $3.4 million, with 51 percent from the commercial fisheries and 49 percent from recreational fisheries. Some of the benefits were from increased catches in the ocean provided by the SAFE project releases.
The SAFE program is primarily funded by BPA, which spent $1.8 million on it in 2008. About half a million went to WDFW. But Washington fishermen generally catch only a few percent of the spring and fall chinook and coho produced by the SAFE project.
The sports fishers' latest move to get a larger share of the salmon pie has also been fueled by management snafus. Many recreational fishers were unhappy when harvest managers shut their season down during the Labor Day weekend in the lower Columbia Buoy 10 fishery to protect ESA-listed coho--but then, when the run came in far stronger than predicted, managers allowed gillnetters more time on the water. They were still fishing last week.
Also, last spring, when the Willamette chinook run showed severe weakness, managers allowed gillnetters to fish above the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia below Bonneville Dam, sharing fishing time with sport fishermen. To top it off, recreational license fees are expected to go up in Oregon next year.
The NSIA says their plan, at least, would keep the gillnet fleet on the water, despite their non-selective fishing methods. Other groups would just as soon see the fleet outlawed.
Another sport-based conservation group called the Coastal Conservation Association has signed up hundreds of new members in the Northwest over the past few years. One of its prime objectives is to get all non-Indian gillnets out of the Columbia River, even though a public initiative in Washington to ban all non-Indian nets failed to garner enough votes to pass in 1999.
It's also likely that a proposal to ban gillnets from the Columbia will be introduced in the coming session of the Oregon State Legislature. -B. R.
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