salmon Archives - Page 10 of 16

Court Orders Agencies To Consider Fewer Hatchery Fish For The Elwha

In this 2011 photo, Lower Elwha Hatchery Manager Larry Ward feeds the steelhead and coho that are being raised in a hatchery for introduction to the Elwha. | credit: Katie Campbell | rollover image for more

By Cassandra Profita, OPB

A judge has ordered federal agencies to reconsider the number of planned hatchery fish releases into the Elwha River on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula

As crews finish the largest dam removal in history on the Elwha, managers are working to restore fish runs above the dam sites. Their plan includes releasing more than 7 million hatchery salmon and steelhead into the river.

That plan has been controversial. Some conservation groups want to see wild fish repopulate the river on their own. They’re worried that releasing too many hatchery fish will reduce the chances of wild fish reproducing. They sued the agencies in charge of the plan as well as officials with Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe, which operates hatcheries on the river.

One of their arguments was that the agencies –- including the National Marine Fisheries Service and the National Park Service –- failed to consider options that would release fewer hatchery fish into the river.

“There was no range of alternatives,” said Kurt Beardslee, executive director of the Wild Fish Conservancy. “It was either plant all of the hatchery fish or none.”

Federal Judge Benjamin Settle agreed with that argument. He’s ordered federal agencies to meet with conservation groups to consider an option that would reduce the number of spring coho salmon and steelhead released to just 50,000 apiece. Those are the numbers conservation groups proposed.

In his opinion, the judge wrote that “the court is concerned with the spring coho and steelhead releases,” and as the agencies consider options for releasing fewer hatchery fish, those proposed numbers “would be a good starting point for an agreement.”

The National Marine Fisheries Service released a statement in response to the decision noting that the judge upheld the overall hatchery plan for the Elwha River.

“Numerous reviews and a broad consensus of scientists have found that hatcheries are necessary during dam removal to prevent the wild Elwha salmon and steelhead populations from being extinguished by sediment as the dams come down,” the statement reads. “The court upheld the Federal agencies’ decisions and the hatchery plans of the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe on all points except one.”

New Microbattery Could Help Track Salmon Through Northwest Rivers

Researcher Jie Xiao with the microbattery, which packs twice the energy capacity compared to other microbatteries currently used to tag fish. | credit: Contributed photo by Kristin Nol / East Oregonian

By George Plaven, East Oregonian, Source: OPB

A new microbattery no larger than a long grain of rice could help biologists track the movement of younger, smaller fish through Northwest rivers.

Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland developed the tiny battery to power transmitters placed in juvenile salmon and steelhead, monitoring the fish at earlier stages in their life cycle.

By studying how subyearling chinook behave and migrate down the Columbia River, federal managers can make better decisions to improve overall habitat and survival. The challenge is creating smaller tags for smaller fish, which take smaller batteries that still pack enough of a charge to work.

PNNL now believes it has the answer. Its battery, at 6 millimeters long and 3 millimeters wide, isn’t the smallest ever created but packs twice the energy compared to current microbatteries, according to the lab’s findings.

That’s enough power for acoustic fish tags to broadcast signals every three seconds for about three weeks, or about every five seconds for a month. It’s also teeny enough to inject into fish using a hypodermic needle, as opposed to surgically implanting the transmitter, which is more expensive and stressful for the fish.

Brad Eppard, fisheries biologist with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Portland, said battery size was the biggest obstacle to tracking such small juvenile salmon. This microbattery not only clears that hurdle, but essentially revolutionizes the market, he said. “We have a pretty good tool here,” Eppard said. “It helps us to better understand what’s happening when (the fish) are migrating.”

The Corps was first required to study subyearling fall chinook salmon based on a 2001 biological opinion by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration of the Columbia River hydroelectric system. Researchers launched the Juvenile Salmon Acoustic Telemetry System, or JSATS, developing tags for the young fish.

It took five years to get their first functioning transmitter, Eppard said. In 2010, the Corps turned to PNNL to create an even smaller, injectable device. Lab engineer Daniel Deng called on Jie Xiao, a materials science expert, to come up with the battery design.

Xiao and her team ultimately perfected a painstaking process that involved cutting snippets of battery material, running them through a flattening device and stacking them on top of each other in layers. Each battery is then rolled by hand with tweezers — like a jellyroll — and inserted into an aluminum container.

“It was pretty difficult in the beginning,” Xiao said. “Once you learn how, as well as all the tricks, it becomes very standard protocol.”

Samuel Cartmell and Terence Lozano, scientists in Xiao’s lab, hand-rolled more than 1,000 of the batteries last summer. A PNNL team led by Deng then surgically implanted 700 of the tags into salmon in a field trial at the Snake River, where preliminary results show the technology worked exceedingly well. More details about the experiment will be released in a later publication, according to PNNL. Xiao said she has high hopes for developing the tags, as well as other uses for the microbattery. Battelle Memorial Institute, which operates PNNL, has applied for a patent. “There is a lot of opportunity,” she said.

Clarks Creek may provide clues to Puget Sound restoration

Source: Northwest Indian Fisheries

PUYALLUP – The Puyallup Tribe of Indians working to decrease sediment in Clarks Creek, an important salmon tributary to the Puyallup River.

“Clarks Creek is important because it supports several different species of salmon, some listed under the federal Endangered Species Act,” said Char Naylor, water quality program manager for the tribe. Clarks Creek also supports the highest salmon spawning densities in the Puyallup watershed as well as the most significant number and variety of spawning salmon within a city limits in the watershed.

“Its also important because it can be an example of how we can restore hundreds of small urban streams in Puget Sound,” Naylor said. The problems facing the Clarks Creek watershed are endemic to most Puget Sound lowland streams. The principal non-point pollutants causing degradation are excessive sediment, nuisance weed growth, nutrient enrichment and excessive bacteria loading.

“If we can tackle these issues in Clarks Creek, we can show other Puget Sound communities how to heal their streams,” Naylor said.

The tribe is leading a regional effort to clean up the creek by reducing the amount of sediment flowing into it. Too much sediment in a stream drives down salmon productivity because it impacts the fish’s ability to find clean spawning gravel in which to spawn or rear. The goal of the project is to reduce sediment loads by half and nutrient and bacteria by a third by lowering flows and stabilizing banks to reducing channel erosion.

The tribe recently finished a two-year study of sediment sources throughout Clarks Creek. The study found that if 23 major sources of sediment were repaired, over 50 percent of the creek’s sediment problem would go away. Yet by doing just the top eight bank stabilization projects, a huge amount of sediment can be removed from the stream very cost-effectively.

The tribe is putting together plans to restore two those major sources of sediment in the creek. The tribal projects would stabilize the banks of two Clarks Creek tributaries. “We would literally be changing the shapes of their banks and channels, adding gravel and planting vegetation along their banks,” Naylor said.

Other sorts of projects suggested by the study include stormwater retrofits, low impact development, and stormwater detention ponds.

Most of the creek’s sediment actually start with the river it flows into. “The Puyallup River is diked through most of its lower reach,” Naylor said. “This caused the river bed itself to drop, which means the creeks flowing into it also drop.” This down-cutting action puts more sediment into the creek than would be there otherwise.

Clarks Creek is just 4 miles long and flows through suburban neighborhoods of the city of Puyallup before joining the Puyallup River. Because it is largely spring-fed, the creek has a consistent level of water throughout the year, making it great rearing habitat for juvenile salmon. The Puyallup Tribe also operates a chinook hatchery on the creek.

“We have already begun working on implementing several of the identified sediment projects to restore the watershed almost before the ink was dry on the report,,” Naylor said. “It is satisfying to have changed the status quo, the way things have been done in this watershed over the last several decades.”

New McNary Dam Passage Gives High Hopes for Pacific Lamprey

U.S. Fish and Wildlife ServiceThe Pacific lamprey — U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
The Pacific lamprey

Indian Country Today Media Network

The Pacific lamprey, culturally significant to the Umatilla and other tribes, now has a shot at making it past the McNary Dam to spawn.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is supplementing the fish ladder of the dam’s Oregon shore with an additional structure that offers water velocities more conducive to lamprey migration, the Union-Bulletin reported on March 8.

The structure would allow lampreys, which tend to move along the river bottom in water that flows more slowly than the upper levels preferred by spawning salmon and steelhead, to access the fish ladder and make it upstream, the Union-Bulletin said.

“We plan to conduct video monitoring to observe which velocity is preferred by migrating lampreys,” said Mark Smith, who managed the project for the Corps, to the newspaper. “We anticipate this prototype structure will help us learn quite a bit about what’s best for lamprey passage.”

Lampreys have been around for at least 450 million years, the oldest fish in the Columbia River system, according to the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission (CRITFC). Though not in danger of extinction, they have declined from a former high of millions 30 years ago to just about 4,000 returning to the Snake, Clearwater and Salmon river drainages where they once teemed, said Aaron Jackson, lamprey project leader for the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, to the Union-Bulletin.

Tribes in the Pacific Northwest use the lamprey for food and medicine, and the fish plays a key role in regulating inland aquatic systems. They spend their first four to seven years of life acting as filters in freshwater sand and silt, then move to the ocean where they become parasites, latching onto various saltwater prey, the Union-Bulletin said. After two to three years of that they return to their freshwater origins to spawn.

The Army Corps of Engineers work group that helped design and engineer the structure included tribal representatives, the newspaper said. Built by Marine Industrial Construction of Wilsonville, Oregon under a $336,542 contract, was completed in late February and is the first such installation in the mid-Columbia River, the Union-Bulletin said.

“We’re excited to see something like this put in the river,” Jackson said.

An Undammed River’s Sediment Brings New Life Downstream

Katie Campbell, KCTS9

PORT ANGELES, Wash. — Anne Shaffer sits on the sandy shoreline of the Elwha River and looks around in amazement. Just two years ago, this area would have been under about 20 feet of water.

So far about 3 million cubic yards of sediment — enough to fill about 300,000 dump trucks — has been released from the giant bathtubs of sediment that formed behind the two hydroelectric dams upstream. And that’s only 16 percent of what’s expected to be delivered downstream in the next five years.

All of that sediment is already reshaping the mouth of the Elwha, which empties into the Strait of Juan de Fuca on the northern shore of Washington’s Olympic Peninsula.

The depth at the mouth of the river has changed by about 50 feet. Long, charcoal-colored sandy beaches have formed where there once only smooth, platter-sized cobblestones.

Watch video report:

“This place is like Christmas,” says Shaffer, a marine biologist and the executive director of the Coastal Watershed Institute. “Everyday you come out here and its something new.”

Shaffer is leading a team of researchers who are studying the Elwha’s nearshore area, where the river’s freshwater meets the saltwater tides. Shaffer explains that until recently this area was starved of sediment, and now a whole new ecosystem is forming. Her team is trying to find out what tiny creatures are moving in.

They’re searching for evidence that species like sand lance and surf smelt are using this area as spawning grounds. These tiny fish are a common food sources for juvenile salmon.

Sand lance (top) and surf smelt (bottom) by David Ayers/USGS.

Sand lance, she explained, require a very fine grain sediment in order to lay their eggs.

“We now are surrounded by the exact grain size that sand lance need to spawn,” she says.

The team scoops up bags of sand to test in the lab. So far they haven’t found evidence of sand lance spawning in this new habitat, Shaffer says. But they have found that surf smelt are spawning in areas where sandy substrate has built up.

During recent fish census surveys of the Elwha’s estuary, Shaffer’s team counted baby chum salmon in numbers they haven’t seen in years, if ever, Shaffer said. And they’ve also found a number of eulachon, a type of smelt that was once an abundant food source for coastal tribes. The eulachon is now listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.

“As soon as this habitat is available, these fish are using it,” Shaffer says. “None of us anticipated how quickly it would occur. I’d never seen a eulachon in the estuary before, but in the last three months, every time we survey, we see them.”

The drone of a single-engine plane causes Shaffer to look up and shield her eyes.

“I bet that’s Tom,” she says with a smile.

A Bird’s Eye View

Port Angeles pilot and photographer Tom Roorda has had one of the most unique perspectives during the last two and a half years while the dams have been slowly dismantled. He started taking land-survey photos of the Elwha eight years ago. Back then his photos were used to help the federal Bureau of Reclamation prepare for dam removal.

Today his jaw-dropping aerial photos capture the giant plume of sediment flowing out of the mouth of the Elwha.

“Until I started taking these pictures, no one had any idea how much sediment was coming down or how far it extended out into the strait,” Roorda said.

The flush of sediment has moved the mouth of the Elwha north by about 300 feet, creating a long skinny spit that extends into the Strait of Juan de Fuca. The area that used to serve as the Elwha’s estuary has been inundated with freshwater and a new estuary is forming downstream.

“As soon as it starts to rain that sediment gets washed down into the river and we get these big gulps of sediment coming down,” Roorda said.

This winter’s rains have continued to flush sediment downstream, so much so that the river’s flow is currently 10 times higher than normal. While all that sediment is ideal for building nearshore habitat, some worry the water will be too murky for salmon. Sediment can clog and irritate their gills and make it difficult to find food.

But Shaffer for one, isn’t concerned.

“Salmon are brilliant,” she said. “They have evolved over millenia. If they’re given a chance to acclimate to it, they will.”

The First Leap?

Today the entire length of Elwha looks like a free-flowing river. That’s because recent storms have submerged the remaining 25 or so feet of the Glines Canyon Dam.

Glines Canyon Dam, March 10, 2014, Olympic National Park

From webcam images, it’s difficult to even identify the slope of what remains of the 210-foot spillway. This is causing some to wonder how much longer it will be before the first fish leap over the concrete barrier that remains.

It may take weeks or months, but when the first leap happens, it’s not likely to be a salmon.

“Steelhead are quite the athletes. A steelhead can leap up to 12 feet in a single jump,” said John McMillan, a NOAA biologist who is tracking fish recovery on the Elwha.

McMillan is betting on steelhead — trout that, like salmon, are born in freshwater streams before migrate to marine waters. He says he’s seen steelhead ascend a 35-foot cascading waterfall by taking a series of long leaps.

Researchers are using imaging sonar to track the different fish returning to the Elwha, and they’ve found that some steelhead have already returned to the lower Elwha, McMillan said. The bulk of the run, however, is expected to take place from April to early July, he said.

Dam deconstruction will pause May 1 to minimize disruption to the steelhead spawning season.

Removal of the Lower Elwha Dam finished in March 2012. The last of the rubble of the Glines Canyon dam is expected to be gone by September 2014.

Larsen Announces Funding for Skagit Valley Flood Study and Qwuloolt Estuary Restoration

Press Release, U.S. Representative Rick Larsen

WASHINGTON—Rep. Rick Larsen, WA-02, announced $760,000 in funding for local flood protection and estuary restoration projects. The Skagit General Investigation (G.I) Study will be receiving $400,000 and the Qwuloolt Estuary Restoration Project will be receiving $360,000. Citing the need for long-term flood protection in the Skagit River valley, Larsen pressed the Army Corps for funding last month.

“Communities in Skagit County have stayed focused on getting the G.I. Study finished,” Larsen said. “This ongoing commitment from the Army Corps is great news and sends a clear message that the federal government is going to keep its agreement in Skagit County.

“The Qwuloolt Estuary Restoration Project will be the largest tidal marsh restoration project ever completed in our state. This project is not just about protecting the environment. It is about protecting our economy. Restoring the estuary will enhance the role of fishing in our economy and keep a commitment to our tribal and city partners and provide critical habitat for salmon.”

More information on the Army Corps’ announcement of funding is available here.

NCAI Encouraged By EPA Announcement Regarding Bristol Bay Salmon Fisheries

Press release, The National Congress of American Indians

WASHINGTON, DC – The National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) is encouraged by the news that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) intends to review appropriate options to protect the salmon fishery in Bristol Bay, Alaska.

The Bristol Bay watershed is the largest source for sockeye salmon in the world. Current proposals for mines in the vicinity, with the resultant runoff and pollution, threaten the purity of Bay waters and thus the source of income and food for Alaska Native peoples and other fishermen.

Of the EPA announcement, NCAI President Brian Cladoosby remarked:

“While NCAI has not taken an official position on the mining proposals, I will say that for 100 years the salmon have needed a united voice to step up and speak for them. There are too many wetlands, streams, and clean water sources that have been lost along the West Coast and up to Alaska. We have to stand together to protect the environment and natural resources for the next generation. As a fisherman, a father, and a tribal leader, I am committed to restoring and maintaining the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of our Nation’s waterways. Protecting our waters and our salmon is our responsibility to ensure future generations can enjoy, care for, and be sustained by our lands and water.”

To read the most recent NCAI resolution on the issue, click here.

Federal agency approves PUD’s study of proposed dam

By Bill Sheets, Herald Writer

A plan for studying issues related to a possible mini-dam on the South Fork Skykomish River near Index has been approved by a federal agency, despite Tulalip Tribes concern that the study won’t accurately assess the possible effects on fish.

The Snohomish County Public Utility District study plan will not gather enough information to determine the planned weir’s potential effects on juvenile salmon that migrate downstream, said tribal environmental liaison Daryl Williams in a letter to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

“We have met numerous times with PUD and have provided extensive comments regarding the study plans and the proposed project but believe our comments were not adequately addressed,” Williams wrote in the letter, dated Feb. 18.

FERC determined that the PUD’s study plan was mostly adequate and sent a letter to the utility Jan. 30 giving it the go-ahead. Some small changes were recommended. Williams’ letter was in response to approval of the study.

The PUD could have the study done and ready for public comment by early 2015, spokesman Neil Neroutsos said.

If the utility formally applies to build the mini-dam, which it has yet to do, FERC would have the final say.

The possibility of any type of dam on the scenic stretch of river above Sunset Falls has drawn fierce resistance from neighbors and environmental groups.

The $133 million project would involve diverting water from a pooled area behind a seven-foot inflatable weir above Sunset Falls into a 2,200-foot pipeline downstream to a powerhouse just below the falls. It’s expected to generate enough power for about 10,000 homes. Some water would be allowed to flow over the weir.

Chinook, coho, pink and chum salmon spawn above the falls and head downstream.

The tribes have listed several conditions under which they’d support the project. They include assurance that stream flow will be adequate and establishment of a reliable fish-counting system. They don’t believe the PUD’s study plan accomplishes those goals.

Kim Moore, an assistant general manager for the PUD, acknowledged some differences with the tribes but said he thought the Tulalips and the utility staff were in agreement on most of the points.

“I was caught off guard by the tone of this letter” from the Tulalips, Moore said.

The South Fork Skykomish River is listed as a protected area by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council, a regional planning group based in Portland.

The designation does not prevent development, but FERC must take it into account in its decision on the project.

The PUD has asked the council for a rule change that would allow a mini-dam in a protected area if it can be shown that it’s helpful to fish and wildlife. A decision on that request could come this summer, council spokesman John Harrison said.

The Tulalips have said they could back the rule change if their conditions are met. Otherwise, “it is exceedingly difficult for the tribes to support exempting this site from the protected areas list,” Williams wrote in the Feb. 18 letter.

The PUD has agreed to monitor fish passage after the dam is built but did not include a fish count in the study to be done beforehand. Officials say it’s difficult to accurately measure the number of fry and fingerlings headed downstream.

“It’s an expensive proposition and it’s hard to get really good data,” Moore said.

FERC agreed with the PUD on that issue.

“Studying the out- migration timing of smolts in the project area is unnecessary because the timing is adequately understood,” the FERC letter reads.

The utility and the tribes also disagree on the amount of time needed to measure river flow to make sure that enough water will run over the weir to carry young fish downstream.

The PUD’s plan is to sample one migration season — this spring and summer. The tribes want two years of data.

“We don’t think there’s a need,” Moore said.

The agency again agreed with the PUD, in part. It recommended that the utility study at least three different flow conditions to provide a range of scenarios. If not enough data are collected this year, more studies could be required next year.

Moore said the PUD is doing the fish studies it believes are required by the federal government, 17 in all.

He hopes to work things out with tribal officials.

“We have overall a good relationship with the Tulalips,” Moore said. “I do not think we’re that far apart, quite frankly.”

Williams, too, said agreement is possible.

“I think there’s still some room to work with the PUD to try get part-way there on some of the issues, but we’re not there yet,” he said.

Port Gamble S’Klallam Tribe brings in more efficient incubator system

Feb 21, 2014 NWIFC.com

With the influx of chum salmon last fall, the Port Gamble S’Klallam Tribe was able to take twice as many eggs as usual, up to 1.2 million.

In anticipation of the large run, natural resources director Paul McCollum brought in an idea from his time in fisheries in Alaska – a NOPAD incubator, a tower of six 4′ x 4′ x 15” aluminum trays that can accommodate up to 1.5 million eggs.

Little Boston Hatchery technician Jeff Fulton works with a tray of eggs in the new NOPAD incubator system. More photos can be found by clicking on this photo.

“The small tray incubation system, or Heath tray system, we have been using for decades can only hold up to 600,000 eggs in total,” McCollum said. “The NOPAD has only been around since the 1970s and is commonly used in Alaska. One of the NOPAD trays can hold 45 small Heath trays worth of eggs.”

The tribe is maxed out with the old system, McCollum said, so the NOPAD trays will help increase its chum production while using minimal additional water or floor space.

“Most of our chum will go into our raceways, as we’ve always done, but now we’ll have more to put in the net pens, which, in the end, will result in bigger fish at release.

“The survival rate is a little more beneficial with the NOPAD,” he added. “But our main focus is on increasing production for better returns.”

—-

For more information, contact Paul McCollum, Port Gamble S’Klallam Tribe natural resources director, at (360) 297-6237 or paulm@pgst.nsn.us; or Tiffany Royal, Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission public information officer, at (360) 297-6546 or troyal@nwifc.org.

Hoopa Howcast: An Antioxidant-Packed Stir Fry of Trumpet, Kale and Salmon

YouTubeMeagan Baldy is changing Native eating habits one video at a time. — YouTube
Meagan Baldy is changing Native eating habits one video at a time.

Source: Indian Country Today Media Network

From her home kitchen, Meagan Baldy, director of the Hoopa Community Garden, is teaching people how to cook meals with local, Native ingredients. Baldy launched her cooking series in fall 2013 on YouTube and Facebook to promote healthy lifestyles and agricultural sustainability in her community and throughout Indian country.

This week’s menu features black trumpet, kale and salmon stir fry—all sourced from local Native businesses or the Hoopa Food Distribution Program and Vegi Club shares—a Community Supported Agriculture.

She promotes leafy greens and superfoods, like kale and trumpets, as well as wild fish and game.

“Mushrooms are a great source of vitamin E; they’re full of antioxidants,” Baldy says on her most recent video. “They have a lot of qualities good for us if you’re trying to loose weight; they are a metabolic booster,” she tells viewers. Holding up the kale, she explains it’s a good source of iron.

“I like to take comfort foods we’re used to preparing and add fresh new ingredients,” Baldy told the Two Rivers Tribune. “You have the familiar flavors, plus something new and nutritious.”

Over the past six years, Baldy has converted the diet of her family. “My family, especially my husband, was the meat and potatoes type of family,” Baldy said. “But now they all love kale. They know it goes well with everything. Now they love to promote it, and other healthy foods just as much as I do.”

Beyond her weekly cookng show, Baldy can be found in the Hoopa at K’ima:w Medical Center’s Diabetes Program, and leading short cooking lessons at Hoopa Elementary School. She’s even got some students hooked on kale smoothies, she told the Two Rivers Tribune.

Baldy’s videos are filmed in collaboration with Hoopa Food Distribution, the Klamath-Trinity Resource Conservation District, Hoopa Food Policy Council, K’ima:w Medical Center, Hupa Resource Center and other organizations. Check out her YouTube channel here.