CONSERVATION - State must make rivers viable for salmon
Director, Jeffrey P. Koenings
Special to the Longview Daily News, March 19, 2000

The recent rupture of a dike on the flooding Grays River resulted in a course change that wreaked havoc on private property in its flood plain. A house was damaged severely and farm land was flooded ---- a tragedy for some Grays River Valley residents. It also was a tragedy for a critically low run of wild chum salmon, which spawn in the area, because of flood damage to their habitat.

I'd like to clarify the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife's position on the issue of restoring the river to its former channel by rebuilding the damaged dike, as some local residents would like to do. WDFW did not build the original dike. It does not build or repair dikes. It has only limited authority to control work done in and adjacent to state waterways.

The dike on the Grays River, built decades ago upriver from the state Highway 4 bridge, was built by private persons on private land without state involvement. The department's mission, in respect to salmon, is to restore wild stocks to healthy, harvestable levels while providing, if possible, fishing opportunities, primarily for hatchery stocks.

As part of its conservation mission, WDFW promotes the preservation of natural ecosystems of rivers. Natural ecosystems provide wild salmon the freshwater homes they need. They provide spawning gravel; cold, clean water when the ocean-going fish need it; hiding places; food and other life needs.

But Washington is a fast-growing state and people place great demands on its rivers. They withdraw water for municipal, agricultural and business uses. Water generates power. Cows and other farm animals drink it. People want to live on its banks ---- sometimes opting to live in the very flood plains of some powerful rivers.

The Legislature has given WDFW the responsibility of preserving, protecting and perpetuating all fish and shellfish resources of the state. To assist in achieving that goal, the Legislature requires persons, organizations and government agencies wishing to construct structures in or near state waters to obtain an Hydraulic Project Approval permit.

Again, WDFW does not build or rebuild dikes. But it reviews applications for HPA permits to build or repair structures such as dikes. WDFW issues the HPA permits if it determines the proposed projects won't harm fish or their habitat. Often ways can be found to mitigate the harmful effects of a project on fish or their habitat so a permit can be issued.

In the case of the Grays River flood, WDFW cannot act or make a decision on the issue of repairing the dike until it receives an HPA application.

It is important to note that persons seeking to repair the dike also would have to receive permits from other county, state and federal agencies. Proponents of repairing the dike also would have to be prepared to spend a great deal of money on engineering and other studies required by agencies other than WDFW. Construction costs would be substantial.

WDFW and its employees commiserate with people who lose homes in floods. That is a very human tragedy. WDFW also is aware rapid development is Washington's future, especially as people are drawn to the state by its natural values, such as mountains, forests and its fish and wildlife resources.

But, by law, WDFW cannot ignore the fact that critically low stocks of wild chum and chinook salmon spawn and rear in the Grays River.

WDFW employs the best fish scientists in Washington and they are doing everything they can to provide the best science about what wild salmon need to landowners, local governments, businesses and others.

A key finding of these scientists is that wild salmon thrive in natural, free-flowing rivers. They don't do nearly as well in rivers altered by man-made improvements.

Take, for example, a natural river where wild chinook during one year lay a million eggs. Those eggs would produce about 220,000 young salmon ready to go to the ocean. Of that number, 3,100 might survive the perils of the ocean and return to spawn, laying some 7 million eggs.

One million eggs laid in a river with heavy flooding and other forms of habitat degradation might produce only 30,000 young smolts ready for the sea. Some 300 would return to spawn, producing only about 1.3 million eggs.

That is why what happens in Washington's rivers holds the fate of Washington's wild salmon. We've cut fisheries so deeply that further cuts won't help restoring wild fish. We've changed hatchery operations so that artificially raised fish do little harm to wild stocks.

Now WDFW, along with Gov. Gary Locke, the Legislature and each citizen, must focus its efforts on making rivers like the Grays a good home for fish.

Or we could lose this important Washington icon forever.

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