Skokomish steelhead biologist Matt Kowalski and natural resources technician Aaron Johnson slowly drag a seine net through one of the small channels in the Skokomish Tidelands to gather a sample of marine life.
Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission
The Skokomish Tribe has solid data showing how salmon are using the Skokomish Tidelands after a year of monitoring the 400-acre restored estuary.
While the tribe monitors the estuary year round, the first full year of sampling (December 2011 to November 2012) showed 20 fish species, including chinook, chum and coho salmon, using both the large and small tidal channels in the restored areas of the estuary.
Prior to 2006, the estuaries had been filled with fish-blocking culverts, dikes and roads for 70 years, preventing development of good fish habitat. Restoration started in 2007, which included removing man-made structures and opening historic tidal channels that allow juvenile fish to find places to feed and hide while heading out to the ocean.
“Chinook were found in 90 percent of the channels and chum were found in 100 percent of them,” said Matt Kowalski, the tribe’s steelhead biologist. “This proves that salmon have access to and are utilizing the restoration sites.”
All 20 different species were captured in large channels, while only nine different species were captured in small channels and were mostly salmon, stickleback and sculpins, he said.
“Some of the small channels are old drainage ditches that had limited fish access and others are completely newly formed channels from the restoration,” Kowalski said. “Over time, a more complex system of small channels will form and provide more and higher quality habitat for fish.”
In addition to fish monitoring, restoration work will continue this summer with more dike and culvert removal, connecting the restored 400-acre estuary to 600 acres of forested wetlands.
Everyone involved in Whatcom County’s water rights disputes seems to agree that a local settlement would be a good idea, but representatives of Lummi Nation have made it clear they will not sacrifice Nooksack River salmon to benefit farms, industries or cities.
Speaking at a May 30-31 water supply symposium at the Hampton Inn in Bellingham, Lummi Nation attorney Diana Bob said the facts were clear.
Dan Kruse, left, and Robert Teton of the Lummi Natural Resources Department, use a net to try to catch juvenile salmon to count on Feb. 15, 2012 at Marine Park in Bellingham. The department counts juvenile salmon around Bellingham Bay about once every two weeks. The Lummi and Nooksack tribes have asked federal agencies to file a lawsuit on their behalf to help determine the amount of water they should be guaranteed to bolster Nooksack River salmon stock. COLIN DILTZ — THE BELLINGHAM HERALD
“We have fish dying in the Nooksack River because we do not have sufficient flows,” Bob said. “That is an unacceptable proposition to Lummi.”
The flow of water in the Nooksack and its tributaries is reduced by withdrawals of water for the city of Bellingham and Cherry Point industries, but Whatcom County farms withdraw even more to irrigate raspberries and blueberries. River water is also used to irrigate cow pastures in dry months.
Both the Lummi and the Nooksack Indian Tribe have a federally recognized right to catch Nooksack River salmon. The tribes have asked federal agencies to file a lawsuit on their behalf to force the state to take steps to define the amount of water that they should be guaranteed, to bolster the flow of water in the river and its tributaries. That likely would mean curbing the amount of water that other users are allowed to withdraw.
The tribes asked the feds to file the lawsuit more than a year ago, and so far there has been no word of a response.
Farmers admit that more than half the water they withdraw is not authorized by state law. Farm groups’ attempts to negotiate a deal with tribes have broken down, as have negotiations between the tribes and city of Bellingham. The city diverts water from the middle fork of the Nooksack River to replenish its direct water source, Lake Whatcom.
While the city has reduced its take of river water and could likely cut it even more, berry growers could be badly squeezed.
Marty Maberry, a prominent fourth-generation berry grower, said he too wanted to see salmon populations increase. He suggested that if farmers can get enough water to stay in business, they could help bolster the amount of water in streams by drilling new wells to spill into streams. He said underground water supplies are abundant in the county.
In many cases, pumping from wells also can reduce the flow of water in nearby streams, making solutions complex. But cutting off the water supply to Whatcom County farms is a poor response, Maberry said.
“The production of food and the care of the land that we farm runs as deep red in my blood … as it does in tribal members about fish,” Maberry said. “They were here first, but we were here second or third.”
He questioned the logic of taking Whatcom County fields out of production.”
We’re in the most natural place to grow food that you can find anywhere in the United States,” Maberry said, adding that putting farmers out of business because of tribal water and fishing rights would embitter the community.
Lummi representative Randy Kinley said the tribes don’t want to put farmers out of business, but they are not afraid of stirring up resentment if that’s what it takes to guarantee their rights.
“We’ve been there and I’m not afraid to go back there,” Kinley said, referring to the 1974 federal court ruling that recognized treaty fishing rights and forced dramatic reductions in salmon harvests by non-Indians.
“That’s not saying we won’t sit at the table,” Kinley said. “We want to be community members. … We hope we can keep the community together, but the community has to understand where we’re coming from. … We don’t want to put anybody out of business, but you have to understand the predicament you got yourselves into.”
Kinley and others noted that withdrawal of Nooksack water for agriculture has increased rapidly in recent years with little oversight by the state or Whatcom County.
Whatcom County’s Cherry Point is home to two oil refineries and an aluminum smelter that provide hundreds of high-wage jobs. They also use significant amounts of Nooksack River water, supplied by Whatcom County Public Utility District.
The proposed Gateway Pacific Terminal coal export pier also would use river water from the PUD. PUD spokeswoman Rebecca Schlotterback said Gateway Pacific has already lined up its water supply via a PUD contract that extends to 2042.
While the PUD has a legal right to Nooksack water to cover its industrial customers, that right (and every other Nooksack River water right) is considered “junior” to the tribes’ water rights, since they were here first. Attorney Jay Manning, former chief of staff to Gov. Chris Gregoire and former director of the Washington Department of Ecology, said the PUD’s right to its water supply is not ironclad in that situation. Other water users also may be ahead of the PUD in the water line, if the available supply of water is cut back by a court order that allocates a larger share of water to the tribes for salmon populations.
“It’s going to be a function of math,” Manning said. “Where is the PUD’s right in that chain of priority? … Will there be enough water for the PUD to honor that (Gateway Pacific) contract? We don’t know that.”
Manning urged the crowd not to despair. He said workable solutions can be developed at the local level.
Perry Eskridge, government affairs director for the Whatcom County Association of Realtors, said local solutions would be best.
“If we don’t figure this thing out on our own, it is going to be figured out for us,” Eskridge said. “Somebody with a little bit more authority is going to shove it down our throats and we are not going to like that.”
Several speakers urged people to continue to work for a local agreement. Two of those speakers suggested that the tribes still may be motivated to make a deal, because there is no guarantee that the federal government will agree to take the state to court, and no guarantee such a court action would give the tribes all the water they want for salmon.
Michael Mirande, adjunct professor at Seattle University School of Law, said legal uncertainty has spurred out-of-court settlements of thorny water rights cases elsewhere.
Jim Bucknell, northern regional manager for RH2 Engineering, agreed.”
If any one person was absolutely certain they would prevail in a lawsuit, they would have sued long ago,” Bucknell said.
Bucknell also observed that no settlement will be painless.
“If you think there’s a solution that everyone in this basin is going to love, you’re delusional,” Bucknell said.
Reach John Stark at 360-715-2274 or john.stark@bellinghamherald.com. Read his Politics blog at blogs.bellinghamherald.com/politics or follow him on Twitter at @bhamheraldpolitics.
By Billy Frank, Jr, Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission Chairman
Winter snows are melting up in the mountains and soon the only white stuff we’ll see floating in the air will be cottonwood fluff, a sign that the salmon are beginning to return and a reminder that it is time to celebrate the fish that sustains us as a people.
In gatherings large and small, tribes throughout western Washington will celebrate First Salmon ceremonies this spring and summer to welcome home the salmon.
It is an honor for a tribal fisherman to be asked to harvest the First Salmon, a scout for the Salmon People who live in a village under the sea. With drumming and singing the First Salmon is welcomed and shared. The First Salmon’s bones are then returned to the water to allow his spirit to go home. If the First Salmon was shown proper respect, he will tell the Salmon People how well he was treated, and lead them back to the tribe’s fishing area for harvest.
The return of the salmon means tribal fishermen will be returning to the water as well. As part of the First Salmon Ceremony, many tribes also include a Blessing of the Fleet for protection of tribal fishermen and their boats.
But it is getting harder every year to put our tribal fishermen on the water. While careful harvest management by the tribal and state co-managers is making a strong contribution to the recovery of wild salmon, the keys to rebuilding those runs have always been to protect and restore salmon habitat.
Yet day after day we see salmon habitat being lost and damaged, and little being done to stop or fix it. Our declining salmon populations and resulting lost fishing opportunity are mirrors that reflect the increasingly shrinking quality and quantity of salmon habitat in our region. Conservative fisheries are effective only when they go hand-in-hand with equally strong efforts to protect and restore salmon habitat.
The lack of action on protecting and restoring habitat has gotten to the point that we can no longer make up for declining salmon runs simply by reducing harvest. Those days are gone. Even if we stopped all salmon fishing everywhere in western Washington, most weak wild salmon stocks would still never recover. There simply isn’t enough good quality habitat to support them.
But despite everything that’s thrown against them – dams, pollution, predators and much more – the salmon never stop trying to make it home. We can’t stop either. We all need to work harder to make sure the salmon has a good home when he returns.
We don’t want to ever find ourselves contemplating a Last Salmon Ceremony.
Eddy Villegas, a member of the Nisqually Tribe’s planting crew, unloads burlap sacks after a trip across the river.
The Nisqually Indian Tribe is taking a creative approach to help a new streamside forest thrive.
“We’re using thousands of donated burlap sacks and transporting them across the Nisqually River by boat to make sure thousands of newly planted trees don’t get overrun by grass,” said David Troutt, natural resources director for the tribe. The tribe’s restoration planting crew recently reforested 15-acres of off channel habitat owned by the Nisqually Land Trust.
“Usually, we’d drive in with weed whackers and selectively use some herbicide to make sure the grass doesn’t take back over,” Troutt said. “But, this parcel is wet and remote, which means we had to take extreme measures.”
Much of the Land Trust property on the mainstem Nisqually is covered with water, so the tribe decided against traditional herbicide, because it might have spread downriver. Placing burlap sacks around the young trees prevents grass from crowding them out. Green Mountain Coffee Roasters in Sumner donated five pallets of used burlap sacks for the project.
After the initial work, the crew will return by boat every few weeks with weed whackers to take care of the plants they couldn’t put burlap around because they were too close to water. “We’ll have to maintain some plantings by hand because we’d probably see burlap sacks floating down the river if we tried to keep the grass down that way,” Troutt said.
The tribe employs a handful of tribal members on a planting crew that conducts and maintains salmon restoration planting projects across the watershed. Almost every habitat restoration project in the watershed has some element of planting and plant care. In just more than five years the crew has planted over 200,000 trees and shrubs.
Off-channel habitat is vital to the survival of young salmon, especially chinook, coho and steelhead. Those species can spend take more than a year before leaving for the ocean, so the quality of freshwater habitat is especially important. Both Nisqually chinook and steelhead are listed under the federal Endangered Species Act.
“Off channel areas give salmon a place to rest and feed during the winter when the mainstem of the river might be flooding, making it inhospitable for them,” Troutt said. “Hopefully, by restoring and protecting this spot on the river, we’ll see larger salmon runs for everyone in the future.”
A federal judge told the state of Washington to get working on repairing, replacing or abandoning culverts that create barriers to salmon passage.
Source: The Seattle Times Editorial
FIX it, pay for it, get it done. A federal judge is virtually that blunt in telling the state of Washington to repair culverts that block passage to salmon habitat.
U.S. District Judge Ricardo Martinez reminded the state it has a narrow and specific treaty-based duty to ensure Northwest tribes access to healthy fish runs.
Martinez’s order last Friday in Seattle ended an extended phase during which the state and tribal parties were to sit down and work out what would come next. Nothing much happened.
The legal obligation to honor commitments made in the 1850s was not a question for the judge. Accountability for delivering on the promise is the issue.
“The Tribes and their individual members have been harmed economically, socially, educationally and culturally by the greatly reduced salmon harvests that have resulted from state-created or state-maintained fish-passage barriers,” Martinez wrote in his ruling.
The judge put the state departments of fish and wildlife and parks, which have done some work, on a path to fix culverts by 2016.
The state Department of Transportation has a 17-year timeline for an extensive to-do list.
Martinez said the state has the capacity to accelerate work because of expected growth in transportation revenues in years ahead. Separate budgeting for transportation and the general fund, the ruling notes, prevents harm to education and social programs.
The point was also made that culvert repairs will work:
“Correction of fish-passage barrier culverts is a cost-effective and scientifically sound method of salmon-habitat restoration.”
It provides immediate benefit in terms of salmon production, as salmon rapidly recolonize the upstream area and returning adults spawn there,” the opinion states.
In another case that echoes in the news, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in March that water runoff from logging roads was more like runoff from farms, and not the same as industrial pollution from a factory.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which was overturned, had found no exemption for logging.
Fish in streams have no options. They are vulnerable to the sediment collected, channeled and discharged into waterways from all activities, including logging.
