Watching Our Water Ways

State shellfish biologists are organizing a volunteer work party to rescue oysters that apparently were washed up high on the beach at Scenic Beach State Park by a Navy ship.

The guided-missile cruiser USS Port Royal operates off the coast of Hawaii during Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) in 2008.
U.S. Navy photo

The USS Port Royal, a 567-foot guided-missile cruiser, was operating in the Navy’s Dabob Bay testing range on Thursday, and the oysters were found high up on the private beaches across Hood Canal the next morning.

Camille Speck, a shellfish biologist with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, inspected the waterfront at Scenic Beach State Park on Tuesday. She told me that she was surprised at how far some of the oysters had been moved:

“I have never seen a scour line that high on the beach. The oysters are alive, but I can tell they have been thrown around a little bit.”

Frankly, I have never heard of this kind of damage from any ship, and I don’t blame readers for being skeptical. But there seems to be no question that the oysters were washed up on the beach, that the Navy ship was in the vicinity about that time, and that a ship of this size is capable of producing a huge wake. It’s called circumstantial evidence, at least until I find someone who actually saw something happening.

Here are the stories I’ve written on the subject so far:

Ship’s Wake Prompts Oysters to Wash Up on Shore Near Seabeck (Aug. 13)

Residents Assessing Oyster Damage From Ship’s Wake (Aug. 16)

Volunteers Sought for Oyster Rescue Effort in Seabeck (Aug. 18)

Several years ago, residents living along Rich Passage between South Kitsap and Bainbridge Island complained that the wake of high-speed passenger-only ferries were washing away the gravel and undercutting their concrete and rock bulkheads. Washington State Ferries was ultimately forced to pull the ferries out of service. Local officials are still hoping they can find a ferry that can make it from Bremerton to Seattle in about half an hour without creating wake damage.

I’ve also heard complaints from shoreline property owners about wakes from huge freighters. Such comments have come up during discussions about revised shoreline regulations that could become part of Kitsap County’s Shorelines Master Program. Some folks who live on the east side of the Kitsap Peninsula say wakes from these massive cargo ships cause more damage to habitat than anything a shoreline owner might do.

If true, it may be time to address the wake issue, beginning with studies of actual damage caused when the ships come through. Do we need government intervention? I can’t say, but rules to control wakes could be problematic, because the movement of ships is mostly controlled by the federal government.

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Last week, I reported that the Purse Seine Vessel Owners Association has come forward with $158,000 a year to maintain the operation of the McKernan Hatchery near Shelton.

The hatchery, which produces 40 percent of the chum salmon in Hood Canal, was scheduled to close July 1 unless a private entity stepped up to run it. Three groups offered proposals, and the arrangement will allow state hatchery workers to keep doing their regular jobs. See my story in Friday’s Kitsap Sun for details.

Two questions came up in comments at the bottom of the story: Why doesn’t the state rear coho, chinook or other more valuable fish at McKernan? And why does the state continue to allow these kinds of production hatcheries to continue, considering impacts on wild salmon?
(more…)

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When the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced its listing of Pacific smelt as “threatened” yesterday, I posted a link to the press release under “Water, Water Everywhere: Government Actions” at the top of this page. That’s also where I posted a rapid response from the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife.

Since we don’t really have Pacific smelt on the Kitsap Peninsula, where I do my local reporting, I decided against writing any more about it.

But today I’m getting the feeling that more than a few people in the Puget Sound region are confused about the potential impacts of this listing. They want to know whether they can still catch some smelt in Hood Canal, along Port Orchard’s Ross Point and in other favorite spawning areas for our local surf smelt — not the listed Pacific smelt.

Let me direct you back to a Water Ways entry I posted one year ago today, after NOAA proposed the listing. In that blog entry, I admitted my own initial confusion between the two kinds of “smelt.”

If you would like a little more information about yesterday’s announcement, I direct you to Associated Press reporter Jeff Barnard’s story.

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Washington state’s salmon managers provided so much interesting information on Tuesday that I could not fit it all into my story in yesterday’s Kitsap Sun.

Pat Pattillo, salmon policy coordinator for the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, deserves recognition for his patience with me and the numerous sport and commercial fishers who ask him questions. He and WDFW Director Phil Anderson are two of the most mild-mannered guys you will ever know, and yet they manage to work through tough salmon negotiations year after year.

Let me recount some of the issues expected to come up over the next few weeks, with a focus on things not covered in my story.
(more…)

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The McKernan Hatchery on Weaver Creek, a tributary of the Skokomish River, is considered an important operation by commercial chum salmon fishers and by steelhead anglers, who benefit from the fish produced there.

It is not one of the Hood Canal hatcheries we’ve often talked about that are focused on rebuilding wild salmon runs. Still, the hatchery is being operated to minimize impacts on wild salmon, as outlined in the Hatchery and Genetic Management Plan (PDF 188 kb).

Because of state budget cutbacks, McKernan was one of the salmon- and trout-rearing facilities placed on the chopping block earlier this year by the Legislature. See the story I wrote for today’s Kitsap Sun.

State Rep. Fred Finn, D-Olympia, and other legislators believe that private organizations should be given the opportunity to operate the hatchery. Perhaps revenues from the sale of eggs and salmon returning to the hatchery could help to keep the operation going, he said in a news release.

Hood Canal Salmon Enhancement Group, which got its start in salmon production, is one group taking a close look at the financial end of the operation.

In the next couple of months, we’ll see how things pan out under the guidance of the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. Otherwise, the hatchery is scheduled for closure at the end of June.

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I’ve always wondered why our natural resource agencies have such widely varying regional boundaries. If anyone knows the history of these various regions, please let me know.

Gov. Chris Gregoire yesterday announced a reorganization of the state’s natural resource agencies. While consolidation of entire agencies was taken off the table, plans are moving forward to consolidate the regions and possibly regional offices of multiple agencies. See my story in today’s Kitsap Sun.

We’ll talk more about the new Natural Resources Cabinet and other elements of the reorganization in the future. For now, take a look at the regional boundaries for our three major resource agencies:

Department of Ecology: Kitsap County is in the Northwest Region, along with King, Snohomish, Skagit, Whatcom, Island and San Juan counties. The regional office is located in Bellevue.

Department of Fish and Wildlife: Kitsap County is in Region 6, along with Pierce, Thurston, Mason, Jefferson, Clallam, Grays Harbor and Pacific counties. The regional headquarters is in Montesano, on the way to the Pacific Ocean.

Department of Natural Resources: Kitsap County is in the South Puget Sound Region, along with King, Pierce and Mason counties and portions of Snohomish and Lewis counties. The headquarters is in Enumclaw, northwest of Mount Rainier.

It won’t be as easy as one might think to fight tradition and create a new uniform set of regions for all three agencies. But times have changed, and these particular regions may not work as well as when they were originally set up. I’m fairly certain that agency heads will start with agreed principles for setting the boundaries, considering population, travel time, ecological functions and other things.

Should they be divided along county lines, as most are now, or maybe along watersheds or so-called “eco-regions”?

I like the idea of creating regional headquarters in the same place for all agencies, so that various staffs could work in concert. Because of the cost of construction, the agencies might not be housed in the same buildings at first, but putting regional staffers in the same town or city would be a good start.

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As part of an effort to rebuild Northwest populations of endangered frogs — specifically Oregon spotted frogs — two inmates at Cedar Creek Corrections Center near Olympia were given 80 frog eggs with the goal of growing them into adult frogs.

Oregon spotted frog// Photo courtesy of Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife

The two — Harry Greer and Al Delp — not only took the job seriously, their frogs grew larger and with a higher survival rate than identical frogs grown by experts at Woodland Park Zoo and Oregon Zoo.

Sarah Waller, a reporter for KUOW News, tells the story well, and I encourage you to listen to her report. Other accounts are provided in a news release from the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife and in a newspaper story by Jennifer Sullivan of the Seattle Times.

What Sarah Waller does not tell us is why the inmates were able to grow larger frogs, so I contacted Marc Hayes, project leader for the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife.
(more…)

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The latest episode in the battle for a boat launch at Lake Tahuyeh focuses on four fishing groups who were under the impression that a state boat launch for kayaks and canoes was a done deal — then the plans were canceled.

Lake Tahuyeh property owned by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife

The groups feel betrayed because an official with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife withdrew the application for a permit after saying that nothing would happen until November, when a lawsuit was scheduled for trial. See my story in Thursday’s Kitsap Sun.

This story has had many twists and turns since 2004. Officials with the Tahuyeh Lake Community Club also have grievances against Fish and Wildlife officials, who they believed had agreed to abandon plans for a boat launch and sell the lakefront property.

Now, it appears a lawsuit filed by the community club may go to court. The issue: whether the state has the legal right to open the lake to the public, by way of owning a parcel of waterfront property.

Comments posted to my latest story generally support the community club’s position of keeping the public off the lake. This seems to be a turn, since supporters of the boat launch were well represented in previous stories.

I’ll keep the informal poll open a few more days to see if anyone wants to add their opinions on this issue. See the right column and vote if you have not already done so.

Here are some of the stories written about this issue:
Oct. 1, 2009: Fishing Groups Question ‘Secret Dealings’ on Lake Tahuyeh
Aug. 20, 2009: Lake Tahuyeh Boat Launch Project Stirs Politics, Passions
July 16, 2009: State Won’t Pursue Boat Launch at Lake Tahuyeh
Dec. 14, 2007: Hearing Examiner Says Lake Tahuyeh Boat Launch Needs a Plan
Oct. 11, 2007: Lake Residents Express Objections to Tahuyeh Boat Launch
Oct. 6, 2007: Tahuyeh Boat Launch Goes Before Hearing Examiner
April 14, 2007: Changes Could Minimize Plan for Tahuyeh Access
April 5, 2007: Sportsmen, Homeowners Take Sides on Lake Access
Nov. 20, 2004: Residents: ‘The lake is ours’

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It will be interesting to see whether state employees and outside observers settle on more, fewer or the same number of natural resource agencies than we now have in Washington state. As I describe in a story in today’s Kitsap Sun, just about everything is on the table for review.

When I first moved here in the 1970s, we had a Department of Fisheries along with a Department of Wildlife. Enforcement officers were assigned to one agency or the other, but they often rendered assistance to their fellow officers downstream or out in the woods.

At some point in the past, I believe the state operated with a single Department of Fish and Game. Then after trying two agencies for a number of years, they merged into one again: the Department of Fish and Wildlife.

This time, we could see a greater shakeup, as Gov. Chris Gregoire has called for a review of all natural resource agencies. That means we would add into the discussion these departments: Ecology, Natural Resources, and Parks and Recreation.

Does it make sense to consolidate agencies for a greater sharing of limited resources or stay with a greater number of agencies to hone the mission of the organization. Does one way result in fewer managers, or do you just trade top-level directors for middle managers?

Would it be better to have law enforcement officers focused on specific duties, or should they all be cross-trained to do the same thing? Should State Patrol officers learn about trees, deer and fish and help out with poachers in the woods — or is this going too far?

I don’t know the answers, but I really am interested in the outcome. The analysis has begun within documents filed on a new Natural Resources Reform Web page linked from the Governor’s Web site. It’s clear there’s much work yet to be done.

As for the number of scientists who need to stand in a stream (see Water Ways, Sept. 3), I guess some people are promoting the notion that one person could collect stream data for all three. Folks at the Puget Sound Partnership have talked about standardizing water-quality data, for example, but this issue is more complex than that.

One thing that caught my attention is the number of programs related to natural resources outside of Fish and Wildlife, Ecology, Natural Resources, and Parks. These programs may be brought into one of the agencies resulting from the reorganization. Here are some of those programs and where they currently reside:

• Shellfish, drinking water and nuclear waste: Department of Health
• Growth management: Department of Commerce
• Comprehensive land-use plans and ordinances: Growth Management Hearings Boards
• Rates for energy and solid waste collection: Utilities and Transportation Commission
• Fines and land-use permitting: Environmental Hearings Office — including Pollution Control Hearings Board, Shoreline Hearings Board, Hydraulic Appeals Board, Environmental and Land Use Board and Forest Practices Appeals Board

For those who have an inclination to delve into this issue, there are plenty of things to consider.

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I’d like to offer my personal congratulations to Phil Anderson, who was appointed yesterday as the permanent director of the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife.

Phil Anderson

Phil has been acting as interim director since Jeff Koenings left the job in December.

I’ve known Phil since about 1992, when I began covering the annual meetings of the Pacific Fishery Management Council, which establishes fishing seasons for the Pacific Northwest.

Phil had been running a commercial charterboat business out of Westport and was very knowledgeable about harvest levels and the need to protect salmon. I believe he was chairman of the PFMC when I first met him.

In 1994, he took a job with WDFW and led the annual negotiations that establish allocations between tribal and nontribal fishers, as well as among various non-Indian fishing groups.

I recall numerous times when he stood in front of tough fishing groups and skeptical tribal representatives and explained calmly how answers would come if people followed the science and kept working together.

Phil has always been willing to explain complex management issues to me, and I’m grateful for that.

Even when he finds himself under fire — as he did recently in dealing with the proposed Lake Tahuyeh boat launch and human waste on the Skokomish River — Anderson does not shy away from tough questions and takes responsibility for departmental actions. It’s a pleasure to interview leaders like that.

So I wish him well in his new job, which seems to be one of the hottest seats in state government. Pleasing all the fish and wildlife interests and the Legislature is impossible, almost by definition, but Phil has a rare quality of juggling many concerns at once and trying to come up with fair solutions.

For more details about his background, comments from the Fish and Wildlife Commission and job issues, check out the commission’s news release. See also a story today by Jeffrey P. Mayor in The News Tribune.

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