Environment Archives - Page 21 of 107

Lummi Nation asks Army Corps to reject Cherry Point coal terminal

Then-Lummi Nation Chairman Clifford Cultee, left, and Hereditary Chief Bill James speak at a 2012 protest against a proposed coal export terminal at Cherry Point. The tribe sent a letter on Monday, Jan. 5, 2015 to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, asking the agency to reject a permit application for the coal terminal because it would interfere with tribal fishing grounds. PHILIP A. DWYER — THE BELLINGHAM HERALD

BY RALPH SCHWARTZ, The Bellingham Herald

Lummi Nation sent a letter on Monday, Jan. 5, to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, asking the agency to immediately reject a permit application for a coal terminal at Cherry Point because it would interfere with tribal fishing grounds.

An environmental group in Bellingham called the action “historic.”

Lummi Nation cited its rights under a treaty with the United States to fish in its “usual and accustomed” areas, which include the waters around Cherry Point. A court decision in 2000 clarified the Lummi fishing territory, first established in 1855, to include northern Puget Sound from the Fraser River to Seattle, with the exception of the Strait of Juan de Fuca and Hood Canal.

“The Lummi have harvested at this location since time immemorial and plan to continue into the future,” said the Lummi letter, signed by Chairman Tim Ballew. “The proposed project will impact this significant treaty harvesting location and will significantly limit the ability of tribal members to exercise their treaty rights.”

The letter was authorized by the Lummi Indian Business Council on Wednesday, Dec. 31.

A manager at RE Sources for Sustainable Communities in Bellingham said in a message to members that the Lummis had made “an historic announcement.”

“This is a critical development in the fight to block the Cherry Point coal terminal,” wrote Matt Petryni, clean energy program manager at RE Sources.

Past case law suggests Gateway Pacific Terminal could be in trouble. The corps rejected a permit in 1992 for a salmon farm in Rosario Strait on the grounds that the farm, though no larger on the surface than 1.41 acres, would interfere with Lummi fishing. The decision withstood a challenge in U.S. District Court.

“There’s a precedent for a threshold of impact on treaty rights,” Ballew said. “I trust that the Corps will uphold its constitutional responsibility.”

Officials for Gateway Pacific Terminal said they could not comment before the deadline for this story.

The coal terminal, if approved by federal and state agencies, and Whatcom County, would ship up to 48 million metric tons of coal annually to Asian ports, starting as early as 2019.

While environmentalists who have actively opposed the coal terminal for years celebrated, they didn’t declare victory.

“One of the things I’m sure of is that the Corps will respond to the gravity of this statement,” said Crina Hoyer, RE Sources’ executive director. “What the ultimate end result will be, it may be decided in the court.”

Corps officials said they will review the 97-page document submitted to them on Monday by the tribe. If the Corps finds that treaty-protected fishing would be disrupted to any significant degree, it will pass the information along to project applicant SSA Marine of Seattle for review.

“We generally ask the applicant to coordinate with the relevant tribes and to resolve the issue,” the Corps said in a statement on Monday.

Lummi Nation consistently has opposed the coal terminal publicly. Tribal members in 2012 burned a symbolic check representing a presumed buy-out from the coal industry. Last year, the tribe toured the western U.S. and Canada with a totem pole to raise awareness of their opposition to fossil-fuel transport. The tribe also has criticized Gateway Pacific Terminal in written comments to permitting agencies.

“This is the strongest statement that we’ve seen from the Lummi Nation,” Hoyer said.

A report released last month provided preliminary evidence that the terminal would impede tribal fishing. The vessel traffic study, developed by SSA Marine and Lummi Nation with oversight by the state Department of Ecology, indicated that cargo ships and other traffic for Gateway Pacific Terminal would increase the number of vessels in north Puget Sound by 15 percent. Vessel traffic in the vicinity of Cherry Point would increase 33 percent. The risk of oil spills also would increase.

Those results, released on Dec. 18, were not taken to be final. Ecology officials emphasized that further study of vessel traffic would be included in a draft of the environmental impact statement on the coal terminal, expected in early 2016.

Even so, the Lummis mentioned the vessel traffic study in their letter to the Corps.

“Review of the impacts associated with this project, including … (the vessel traffic study) lead to the inescapable conclusion that the proposed project will directly result in the substantial impairment of the treaty rights of the Lummi Nation,” the letter said.

Read more here: http://www.bellinghamherald.com/2015/01/05/4061757_lummi-nation-asks-army-corps-to.html?rh=1#storylink=cpy

“Being Frank” Attention, Action Needed For Salmon Recovery

By Lorraine Loomis, Chair, Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission

Why have salmon been pouring back into the Columbia River in record numbers recently while returns to the Washington coast and Puget Sound continue to drop? One big reason is that for the past decade someone in a position of authority has been in charge of protecting and restoring Columbia River salmon.

That person has been U.S. District Court Judge James Redden. Three times during the past 10 years he has rejected plans to operate hydroelectric dams in the Columbia River basin that would have jeopardized salmon listed under the Endangered Species Act. He ordered more water spilled over the dams to aid fish passage, even though that meant less water to generate power. He has also insisted on specific habitat improvements to aid in the recovery of salmon. Redden recently stepped down from the case, but has been replaced by federal court Judge Michael Simon.

That kind of attention and bold, targeted actions are exactly what we need to turn around salmon recovery in western Washington. Salmon recovery is failing because federal and state governments allow salmon habitat to be destroyed faster than it can be restored. This trend shows no sign of improvement despite drastic harvest reductions, careful use of hatcheries and extensive habitat restoration projects.

The ongoing loss of the salmon resource affects entire tribal communities in western Washington. Salmon is one of our most important traditional foods and a foundation of our cultures. Every year we try to set aside salmon to feed our families in the winter and to put fish on the table for ceremonies and funerals, but every year it is becoming more difficult. As the salmon disappear, our treaty-reserved harvest rights are threatened more every day.

That is why our late chairman, Billy Frank Jr., and other tribal leaders created the Treaty Rights at Risk initiative three and a half years ago and took it to the White House. Our goal is to have the protection of treaty-reserved rights institutionalized in the federal government through the White House Council on Native American Affairs. President Obama created the council nearly two years ago. Addressing tribal natural resources concerns was one of five main foundations of the council, but the Council has yet to address this charge. As President Obama prepares to leave the White House in 2017, our need becomes greater every day.

The failure of salmon recovery in western Washington is the failure of the federal government to meet its trust responsibility to protect salmon and the treaty-reserved rights of tribes. Treaty Rights at Risk calls for the federal government to assume control and responsibility for a more coordinated salmon recovery effort in western Washington. But so far, the federal government’s lack of progress has been disappointing. There has been plenty of discussion, but little action to reverse the negative trend in the condition of salmon habitat in this region. That needs to change.

We shouldn’t need a federal court judge to provide the proper attention, protection and targeted actions to restore salmon. We would prefer to work together with our state and federal co-managers through the White House Council on Native American Affairs. Together, we could take effective action to recover salmon runs.

We have already developed recovery plans and identified barriers to salmon recovery in western Washington’s watersheds. Now we need a commitment from the White House to tackle the most pressing obstacles in each watershed and provide the leadership necessary to put those salmon recovery plans into action.

If salmon are to be in the future of this region we must act now before it is too late.

Stormwater fixes could cost billions

Pollution from stormwater has been called one of the greatest threats to Puget Sound. How much will it cost to hold back the rain? A new EPA-funded study says the price could reach billions per year, a figure that dwarfs current state and federal allocations.

Raindrops on a cafe window. Photo: Jim Culp (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Source: Encyclopedia of Puget Sound

Key takeaways

Runoff—or stormwater—from roads, parking lots, and roofs is one of the largest sources of contaminants flowing into Puget Sound.
An EPA-funded report projects costs of up to $14 billion dollars per year over 30 years to fully address stormwater pollution in the region.
A longer time frame for fixing the problem may be more practical. Costs fall to $650 million dollars per year if work is done over a 100-year period.
Stormwater pollution is made worse by urban development that prevents rain and snow from being absorbed by plants and soil.
Among the innovations grabbing the attention of scientists and engineers is low impact development, which use a place’s natural hydrology to control stormwater runoff.

The figure is staggering: Close to half a trillion dollars over the next 30 years. That’s what it could cost to completely address Puget Sound’s growing stormwater problem, according to an EPA-funded study presented last spring at the Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference.

The study, prepared by researchers at the King County Department of Natural Resources and Parks, projects the capital and maintenance costs of the stormwater treatment facilities that would be needed to fully comply with the Clean Water Act. A 30-year time frame could mean capital outlays of as much as $14 billion dollars per year. Jim Simmonds, the report’s lead author, acknowledges that, given the huge expense, a 30-year fix appears unlikely. But the report also looks at potential stormwater retrofits over the next 100 years. Costs over that time frame would average about $650 million dollars yearly. “That is far more realistic,” he says, and would help undo a century-old problem.

“It took us 100 years to create the problem, and it’s going to take a long time to fix it.”

—Jim Simmonds, Environmental Programs Managing Supervisor, King County Natural Resources and Parks

The figures far exceed last year’s state allocation of $100 million dollars, but Simmonds says the study is not meant to suggest that the legislature suddenly come up with an additional $14 billion dollars annually to deal with stormwater. Instead, he says, it tells a story of where we are and where we still have to go. Runoff—or stormwater—from roads, parking lots, and roofs is one of the largest sources of contaminants flowing into Puget Sound. “One of the questions that has come up repeatedly is ‘how much will it take to fix this problem?'” he says. “This report puts that in context.”

How we got here

Sandwiched between the Olympic and Cascade mountain ranges, Puget Sound’s urban areas receive up to 40 inches of rain each year. Historically, most of this water soaked into the ground or was taken up by plants. In forested areas in the Pacific Northwest, evergreen trees transport about 40% of rainfall back to the atmosphere through their needles. The remaining water filters through other plants and the soil. The ecosystem is driven by this water cycle, but over the past 100 years, human development has drastically altered this natural pattern.

Soggy Crosswalk. Photo: sea turtle (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) https://www.flickr.com/photos/sea-turtle/8200857497

Urban areas were originally designed to move stormwater quickly and efficiently downstream through a series of drains, pipes, and sewers. Flood prevention was the main reason for getting stormwater out of the city fast, but over the years municipalities have come to realize that speedy water removal is actually detrimental to the health of Puget Sound.

Without the filtering effect of plants and soil, surface runoff increases and stream flows become “flashier”—surges in runoff are more frequent and more intense. This means greater flooding, and more polluted water flowing into Puget Sound.

In Seattle, one acre of pavement can generate as much as a million gallons of stormwater each year. Water from downpours picks up all kinds of pollutants—from motor oil to dog waste—as it makes its way down the drains. Carcinogens, heavy metals, and harmful bacteria can all be counted in this mix. One study estimates that rainfall runoff events can transport up to 8 times the amount of copper and 6 times the amount of mercury compared to baseline conditions. That’s bad news for wildlife and humans alike.

Dump no waste. Drains to lake. Photo: Steve Mohundro (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) https://www.flickr.com/photos/smohundro/3836007632

The Clean Water Act

The Clean Water Act of 1972 was one of the first rigorous national laws dealing with water contamination, with the first concentration-based limits for pollution. The original goal was to eliminate the direct discharge of pollutants by 1985. Amendments to deal with stormwater weren’t introduced until 1987, which required permits for all new development projects. In the 1980s and 1990s a slew of new legislation introduced more criteria for stormwater management. Currently all development and redevelopment projects require approved stormwater treatment, and that requires facilities and infrastructure.

So what about those billion dollar figures? Simmonds says the potentially high costs outlined in the King County report highlight the need for creative solutions. The report outlines a worst-case scenario that assumes all retrofit approaches will stay the same. New technologies and other innovations will almost certainly lower costs, he says, but the report does not focus on the how—just the how much. And whether the costs are in the hundreds of millions or the billions, Simmonds argues that we risk more if we ignore the problem. “Yes, this is a huge investment. But I don’t think it has to be dismissed as too expensive,’” he says. “The [state and federal agencies] have all declared that stormwater is the biggest threat to Puget Sound. We have to decide how we’re going to deal with that.” The bottom line, he says: “It took us 100 years to create the problem, and it’s going to take a long time to fix it.”

The big impact of low impact development

Among the innovations grabbing the attention of scientists and engineers are low impact development approaches to stormwater treatment, which use a place’s natural hydrology to control stormwater runoff.

At the 2014 Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference, Mindy Fohn, a stormwater manager with Kitsap County, described one low impact development approach where managers are planting trees in notoriously impervious surfaces like parking lots to trap stormwater. In the past, these trees might have been planted on raised islands. Now planners are putting them in lower areas that draw the water between parking spots. These interventions are small, local, and often quite beautiful.

Kids explore a newly installed rain garden. Photo: JBLM PAO (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) https://www.flickr.com/photos/jblmpao/6215109375

So far, bioretention from low impact development has shown promising results. A natural filtration system of soils and plants was recently demonstrated by NOAA to effectively eliminate some of the deadly effects of stormwater on coho salmon.

Another area of interest involves citizens themselves, in a more grass roots approach, installing rain gardens on their own properties. Rain gardens are simply landscaped areas that collect, absorb and filter stormwater runoff from rooftops, decks and other hard surfaces. The idea is to prevent stormwater from washing off individual properties which, if done in sufficient numbers, will have a large positive effect on watershed and basins. The Washington State University and Stewardship Partners are working together towards the goal of ‘12,000 Rain Gardens‘ by the year 2016.

Washington’s Statewide Recycling Rate Dips Below 50%

Washingtonians diverted less trash from landfills in 2013 than in 2012.COURTESY WASH. DEPT OF ECOLOGY — Washingtonians diverted less trash from landfills in 2013 than in 2012.
COURTESY WASH. DEPT OF ECOLOGY

By BELLAMY PAILTHORP, KPLU

Washingtonians have lost some bragging rights.

We still recycle at a rate that’s much higher than the national average, but we’re no longer improving on the amount of recyclables we divert from landfills. The statewide rate went down in the most recent data set, to 49 percent in 2013.

The state Department of Ecology was quick to point out that Washington remains a national leader in recycling. Our rate is still well above the nationwide average of 34.5 percent. But we’re backsliding.

“We’ve been above 50 percent for the last two years. And now we’re back down to 49 percent,” said recycling data analyst Dan Weston.

It’s not all bad news, Weston says. We’ve improved our rate of recycling plastics, for example. But rates are falling for commodities that have seen price drops, such as glass and ferrous metals. He thinks dealers may be holding onto them, waiting for prices to rebound. And there’s been less recycling of construction and demolition materials despite a recent increase in new construction.

“We’re not quite recycling those materials at the rate that we had been prior to the recession. And so that’s definitely an area where I think we’ll be seeing a much stronger focus over the next few years,” he said.

Food waste is another area that needs improvement, hence the new ban on compostables in Seattle trash, with fines kicking in this July.

The state has also just started free recycling for fluorescent lightbulbs to keep toxics such as mercury out of the waste stream.

But Weston thinks we’re already capturing most of the low-hanging fruit at this point, so making additional gains will probably require incremental progress in all areas.

“We know how to recycle what we’re currently recycling and we just need to do a little bit more everywhere,” he said. “Making those additional gains is just going to require more work than we’ve been doing in the last few years.”

Old year ends with newborn baby orca in our Salish Sea

Orcas are an endangered species in inland waters of the Salish Sea, encompassing Puget Sound, the San Juan Islands and the Gulf Islands of British Columbia. (VALERY HACHE/AFP/Getty Images)

By Joel Connelly, Seattle PI

The last days of 2014 have brought glad tidings and great joy to those who follow and worry about the southern resident community of orcas (killer whales) that inhabit the Salish Sea, the inland waters of Washington and southern British Columbia.

A newborn orca was discovered Tuesday looking “healthy and energetic” and being snuggled by its mother off South Pender Island, just over the border in B.C.’s Gulf Islands. The discovery was made by Ken Balcomb of the Center for Whale Research.

The baby, christened J50, was born to 42-year-old J16 (Slick), who has produced five offspring, three living, with the oldest 23-year-old J26 (Mike).

“We’re excited!” said Howard Garrett of Orca Network. “She (J16) sets a new bar, a new record for the oldest to give birth, by a year or two.”

The birth of J50 raises the southern resident community population to 78.

The southern residents were classified in 2005 under the Endangered Species Act at a time when the population of the great marine mammals had fallen to 78.

Orcas are particular about their diet. They feed off chinook salmon, in a region where salmon stocks have declined due to factors ranging from habitat destruction to pollution to bad forest practices to overfishing.

The orcas do not consume any of the millions of sockeye salmon that head for B.C.’s Fraser River each year through the Strait of Juan de Fuca and the Strait of Georgia between Vancouver Island and the B.C. mainland. “We wish they would,” joked Garrett.

The region’s inland waters have two major populations of orcas. The northern resident community spends July through September in waters of Johnstone Strait off northern Vancouver Island. The orcas are renowned for rubbing against pebbles just offshore from the mouth of the Tsitika River near Alert Bay.

The northern residents head north in the winter, presumably to southeast Alaska waters. The northern resident community totals about 250 orcas.

The diets of the southern resident and northern resident communities “are the same,” Garrett explained, “but their communication and call system are entirely different. Their is no overlap, no interaction between the two communities.”

The birth of J50, in a month when the southern residents have been seen in both the San Juans and Gulf Islands, puts the spotlight on a major decision pending in Canada.

The giant Houston-based Kinder Morgan pipeline company wants to triple the capacity of the Trans-Mountain Pipeline, which transports oil from Alberta to a refinery in Burnaby, just east of Vancouver. The completed pipeline would carry more oil than the controversial Keystone XL pipeline designed to link Alberta oilfields to the U.S. Gulf Coast.

The enlarged Trans-Mountain Pipeline would bring oil from Alberta’s vast tar sands project to the coast for export to Asia.

If the Kinder Morgan project goes through, an estimated 30 tankers a month — up from four at the present time — would traverse Haro Strait, a middle point in habitat for the southern resident community and the marine boundary between the U.S. San Juan and Canada’s Gulf Islands. Both countries have national parks and monuments in the islands.

A major environmental battle over Kinder Morgan is underway north of the border.

EPA to Develop Federal Clean Water Standards for Washington, if State Won’t

Courtesy Environmental Protection AgencyThe U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will issue water quality rules to uphold certain levels of fish consumption. — Courtesy Environmental Protection Agency
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will issue water quality rules to uphold certain levels of fish consumption.

Terri Hansen, Indian Country Today

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has told the State of Washington it intends to step in to develop a federal plan for the state’s human health water quality criteria as the state did not finalize a plan by year’s end, a deadline EPA gave the state last April.

The EPA’s rulemaking process, in part tied to the human fish consumption rate, will overlap the state’s potential timeline but preserves the EPA’s ability to propose a rule in case the state does not act in a timely manner, EPA regional administrator Dennis McLerran wrote to Department of Ecology head Maia Bellon on December 18.

Under the federal Clean Water Act, the state must adopt standards that ensure rivers and major bodies of water are clean enough to support fish that are safe for humans to eat. Washington’s current standard assumes people eat just 6.5 grams of fish a day, or about one filet a month.

Tribal leaders with the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission, which represents 20 western Washington tribes, met with the EPA’s McLerran in September seeking to step in and set new water-quality rules for the state, after sending Washington Gov. Jay Inslee a letter expressing dissatisfaction with his proposed draft rule change last July.

Inslee’s draft rule would raise the fish consumption rate to 175 grams a day to protect people who eat one serving of fish per day, a figure that tribal leaders accept. But it has taken the state two years to work out the new draft rule in a political push-pull between business interests and human health advocates, which have each missed their own deadlines in the process.

Tribal leaders say they are also “deeply concerned” about a proposal privately advanced by Inslee that would allow a tenfold increase in allowable cancer risk under the law. The EPA letter asks Washington to explain why a change in the state’s long-standing cancer risk protection level is necessary.

The state’s draft rule is now expected in January, but since the EPA believes it can complete a proposed federal rule by August 2015, the state is looking at a limited time period in which to finalize its rulemaking process.

If not, the EPA is prepared to move forward with rulemaking that McLerran wrote considers the best science, and includes an assessment of downstream water protection, environmental justice, federal trust responsibility, and tribal treaty rights.

Conservation Group Collects Christmas Trees For Salmon Habitat

Members of the Tualatin Valley chapter of Trout Unlimited toss used Christmas trees into a side channel of the Necanicum River on the Oregon Coast. | credit: Michael Ellis

By Cassandra Profita, OPB

Most Christmas trees get kicked to the curb and ground up into mulch after the holidays. But a Portland-area conservation group is trying to change that.

The Tualatin Valley chapter of Trout Unlimited has found used Christmas trees make great salmon habitat when placed in coastal waterways.

Next month, they’re launching the third year of a program they call Christmas for Coho. They’ll collect used Christmas trees on three Saturdays in January and place them in the Necanicum River, coastal stream in northwest Oregon.

There, once submerged in water, the dying trees will take on a whole new life.

Michael Ellis, the group’s conservation director, said the trees provide valuable woody debris that salmon can use to hide from predators.

“It’s pretty incredible. We’ll be putting trees into the Necanicum River and you can actually observe fish flocking to these trees,” he said. “They’re just looking for this kind of cover.”

The trees also feed microorganisms that attract other critters for baby salmon to eat before they head out to sea.

Coho Sanctuary is one of the wetlands where the group has placed trees. Its owner captured underwater videos of young coho salmon swimming through the habitat.

Ellis said the group has found lamprey and other wildlife using the habitat, too.

“We’ve seen salamander egg masses being laid on the Christmas trees,” he said. “So we believe it’s really enriching the environment quite a bit for just about everything that uses the wetland. It’s pretty neat, really.”

Ellis’ group will be collecting used Christmas trees on January 3, 10 and 17 from 9 am to 4 p.m. at two fly-fishing shops: Northwest Fly Fishing Outfitters in Portland and Joel La Follette’s Royal Treatment in West Linn.

The group requests a $10 donation to cover the cost of transporting the trees.

Wash. state carbon emissions dropping slightly

By PHUONG LE, Associated Press

SEATTLE (AP) – Greenhouse gas emissions in Washington state dropped by about 4.6 percent between 2010 and 2011, led by reductions in emissions from the electricity sector, a new state report shows.

The latest data shows that about 91.7 million metric tons of carbon dioxide or its equivalent was released in 2011, compared to about 96.1 million metric tons the year before.

Emissions are on a downward trend, but still about 4 percent higher than in 1990.

The report comes as Gov. Jay Inslee is proposing sweeping policies to combat climate change, including a cap-and-trade program that would charge large industrial polluters for each metric ton of emissions they release.

Republican lawmakers say the cap-and-trade program would raise gas prices and hurt businesses and consumers. They say the state is already a low-carbon producing state because of its extensive hydropower, and that there are other, cheaper ways to reduce carbon pollution.

The state’s emissions have fluctuated each year, but overall have decreased since 2007, according to the inventory, which the Department of Ecology posted on its website last week. The agency is required to complete the report every two years.

The decline between 2007 and 2011 is due to actions the state has taken to reduce emissions, including requiring major utilities get a portion of their energy from renewable sources, said Hedia Adelsman, special assistant to Ecology Director Maia Bellon.

She noted that the state’s carbon emissions have grown from 1990 levels, when the state released about 88.4 million metric tons of carbon.

A state law requires Washington to reduce overall emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, make a 25 percent cut in 1990 levels by 2035, and make greater reductions by 2050.

“We still need to take action. We are making a lot of progress but there’s still work to do,” Adelsman said. “We need comprehensive policies to make sure we not only get to 2020 but 2035.”

Some leading Republicans have challenged that statute, calling them “non-binding goals.”

According to the report, yearly fluctuation is due in large part to changes in the state’s production of hydroelectricity.

A drought in 2010, for example, led to lower hydropower output that year, requiring utilities to buy more coal and natural gas power that release more carbon emissions than hydropower. In 2010, hydropower was running 60 percent, compared to about 73 percent in 2011.

Transportation made up the largest chunk of emissions with about 46 percent of the state’s emission, or roughly 42 million metric tons in 2011. On a per person basis, the state produces slightly less emission from on-road gasoline than the national average.

Tulalip Tribes Keep Track of Hatchery Salmon

Tulalip fisheries technicians spawn female chum salmon at the tribes’ Bernie “Kai-Kai” Gobin Hatchery.

By: Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission

Tribal and state co-managers continue to improve their ability to track hatchery salmon in the Snohomish watershed.

Both the Tulalip Tribes’ Bernie “Kai-Kai” Gobin Hatchery and the state’s Wallace River Hatchery recently installed new chillers to better mark hatchery chinook, coho and chum salmon.

“One hundred percent of all Tulalip chinook, coho and chum, and all regional chinook hatchery production, is now marked by location and brood year,” said Mike Crewson, Tulalip salmon enhancement scientist.

By altering the water temperature during incubation, hatchery managers can leave a distinct pattern on each fish’s otolith – a mineral structure often referred to as an ear bone, which accumulates daily rings. When fish return as adults, their otoliths are examined under a microscope to identify where and when they were released.

A portion of Snohomish regional hatchery fish also have coded-wire tags inserted into their snouts for identification in fisheries where otoliths are not examined. Also, adipose fins from most hatchery chinook and coho are clipped, which identifies them as hatchery fish but does not tell fishery managers where they are from.

While both of these methods can be expensive and hard on the fish, otolith marking is a cost-effective way to ensure that all the fish are marked and uniquely identifiable simply by changing the temperature of the water going to the eggs.

Tulalip also has hired additional staff and increased the number of returning fish that are sampled from the spawning grounds and in regional fisheries and hatcheries. Tribal technicians remove the heads of spawned-out fish in rivers and hatcheries, and from a representative number of the catch, and read the otoliths in the tribes’ stock assessment lab.

“We run all the otoliths for the entire area,” Crewson said. “It’s an important tool to assess straying and genetic risk and protect tribal treaty rights.”

Data show a significant reduction in hatchery strays since 2004 when 100 percent of the remaining hatchery chinook production was switched to the local native Skykomish River summer chinook broodstock.

“Our treaty fishing rights depend on these fish,” said Terry Williams, Tulalip’s fisheries and natural resources commissioner. “As long as natural production is limited by habitat loss and damage, we will need hatcheries.”

Washington Court Rules Against Landowners In Skagit Water Rights Case

Richard Fox on his Skagit County property. On Tuesday a judge dismissed a lawsuit brought by Fox and his wife, Marnie, challenging a rule that prevents them from drilling a well. The rule is meant to provide water for spawning salmon during dry months. | credit: Ashley Ahearn / KUOW

By Ashley Ahearn, KUOW

EVERETT, Wash. — A judge ruled against a couple Tuesday after they sued for the right to drill a well and build a new home on their property in Skagit County.

The case marks the latest battle in the ongoing fight over water rights in Washington’s Skagit River valley.

Snohomish County Superior Court Judge George Appel dismissed the case brought by property owners Richard and Marnie Fox. He told the couple that they can’t build a home on their property because they don’t have legal access to water.

That’s because of a 2001 rule that basically says there has to be enough water left in the Skagit River to protect spawning salmon

The courtroom was packed. There were a lot of people who had come in from rural parts of the county because this rule affects a lot of property owners. More than 450 property owners stand to have their property values decreased because of this rule — because they no longer have legal access to water.

Critics of the rule said they are calling on state legislators to reexamine this 2001 rule to see what can be done to reset the balance the interests of property owners with the interests of protecting fish.