Salmon hatcheries provide most of the salmon for harvest in western Washington. That’s because wild salmon habitat has been degraded to the point that few wild runs can sustain much harvest.

The combined tribal, state and federal salmon hatchery system in western Washington is the largest in the world. This system keeps us fishermen on the water while we try to solve the problem of limited and damaged habitat for wild fish.

With our state co-managers, tribes have been on the cutting edge of enhancement science, making sure our efforts with salmon hatcheries are the best for salmon, fishermen and our communities.

• The Squaxin Island Tribe recently finished a study into the habitat of one of their local creeks. It helped the tribe, state and a local enhancement group figure out a better way to build natural coho populations in the stream. The tribe will soon add 30,000 young coho from hatchery broodstock that will spawn naturally and boost the run.
• Since 2005 the Lower Elwha Tribe has been holding on tight to a wild steelhead run on the Elwha River as preparation continues for removal of two salmon-blocking dams. By collecting and raising native steelhead in a hatchery, once the dams are gone, the steelhead will be situated to make a full recovery
• Because of the unusually warm summer we had, the Tulalip Tribes had to take emergency steps to make sure enough salmon returned to the state’s Wallace River hatchery. Besides closing their fishery to ensure egg-take needs were met, fish unable to reach the hatchery were collected at the tribe’s downstream hatchery.
• The Quileute Tribe saved more than 350,000 young Sol Duc River coho that were slated for extermination at a state hatchery. State budget cuts meant there wasn’t enough money to rear the fish, but the tribe stepped up and offered $31,000 to finish the job. Tribal staff worked extra hours to make the effort to ensure success.

State budget cuts that disproportionately target natural resources management – as well as the greater and greater demands being placed on hatcheries – mean we have to be smarter about how we spend on hatcheries. We must see hatchery production through the lens of habitat.

The original intent of hatcheries was to replace lost habitat, but we know that they don’t do that anymore. We need to restore and protect habitat to make sure we’re getting the most out of our hatcheries, while at the same time restoring weak wild stocks. After all, once hatchery salmon are released, they swim in the exact same habitat as their wild cousins.

We need hatcheries. I wish we didn’t, but we do. It doesn’t mean we’ve changed our view on salmon recovery. We still believe that the true measure of success will be when we return all salmon populations to levels that can again support sustainable harvest. Nothing short of that will do.

Billy Frank Jr. is the chairman of the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission.

(END)

For more information, contact: Tony Meyer or Emmett O’Connell, NWIFC, (360) 438-1180.

President Obama will meet with hundreds of tribal leaders in Washington, D.C. November 5th, 2009.  The President had committed to an annual meeting with tribal leaders during his 2008 campaign and is fulfilling his promise. This historic meeting will coincide with the National Congress of American Indians’ Grand Opening of the Embassy of Tribal Nations on November 3rd and a tribal leaders meeting on November 4th.

NWIFC Chairman Billy Frank encouraged tribal leaders to go to Washington as a united Indian Country to begin and carry on a meaningful government-to-government consultation process with the President and his Administration.” Representatives of 564 federally recognized American Indian tribes have been invited to the summit. According to the White House, the Nov. 5 session is part of the president’s sustained outreach efforts.  ”I look forward to hearing directly from the leaders in Indian Country about what my Administration can do to not only meet their needs, but help improve their lives and the lives of their peoples,” Obama said in a written statement.  ”This conference will serve as part of the ongoing and important consultation process that I value, and further strengthen the nation-to-nation relationship.”  Obama’s session will not be the first White House meeting with all of the tribes. In 1994, then-President Bill Clinton held what was billed as a “listening conference” for leaders of all of the tribes. Held at the suggestion of Wilma Mankiller, who was then principal chief of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, the session was believed to be unprecedented.  “I hope and trust that natural resources and the environment will factor in as one of the top discussion items at this summit,” said Frank. “It would be very appropriate for the tribes to continue to present themselves as good stewards and natural resource managers with never-ending connections with the land.”

Download the entire Federal Update as a PDF, including Priority Bills: November 2009 Federal Update (9)

The President will deliver opening and closing remarks and participate in an interactive discussion with tribal leaders. Other interactive discussions in the areas of economic development and natural resources; public safety and housing; and education, health and labor will be led by representatives from the highest levels of the Administration.  Expected Administration officials include: Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, Commerce Secretary Gary Locke, Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, Energy Secretary Steven Chu, Education Secretary Arne Duncan, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, Deputy Attorney General David Ogden, HUD Deputy Secretary Ronald Sims, DHS Deputy Secretary Jane Lute, Associate Attorney General Tom Perrelli, and Indian Health Service Director Dr. Yvette Robideaux. The White House Tribal Nations Conference will also be streamed live at www.whitehouse.gov/live.  Please check back on the day of the event for the final schedule.

NATIONAL NATIVE AMERICAN HERITAGE MONTH, 2009
BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
A PROCLAMATION

The indigenous peoples of North America — the First Americans — have woven rich and diverse threads into the tapestry of our Nation’s heritage. Throughout their long history on this great land, they have faced moments of profound triumph and tragedy alike. During National Native American Heritage Month, we recognize their many accomplishments, contributions, and sacrifices, and we pay tribute to their participation in all aspects of American society. This month, we celebrate the ancestry and time-honored traditions of American Indians and Alaska Natives in North America. They have guided our land stewardship policies, added immeasurably to our cultural heritage, and demonstrated courage in the face of adversity. From the American Revolution to combat missions in Iraq and Afghanistan, they have fought valiantly in defense of our Nation as dedicated servicemen and women. Their native languages have also played a pivotal role on the battlefield. During World Wars I and II, Native American code talkers developed unbreakable codes to communicate military messages that saved countless lives. Native Americans have distinguished themselves as inventors, entrepreneurs, spiritual leaders, and scholars. Our debt to our First Americans is immense, as is our responsibility to ensure their fair, equal treatment and honor the commitments we made to their forbears. The Native American community today faces huge challenges that have been ignored by our Government for too long. To help address this disparity, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act allocates more than $3 billion to help these communities deal with their most pressing needs. In the Fiscal Year 2010 budget, my Administration has proposed over $17 billion for programs carried out by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Indian Health Service, and other Federal agencies that have a critical role to play in improving the lives of Native Americans. These programs will increase educational opportunities, address the scourge of alcohol abuse and domestic violence, promote economic development, and provide access to comprehensive, accessible, and affordable health care. While funding increases do not make up for past deficiencies, they do reflect our determination to honor tribal sovereignty and ensure continued progress on reservations across America. As we seek to build on and strengthen our nation-to-nation relationship, my Administration is committed to ensuring tribal communities have a meaningful voice in our national policy debates as we confront the challenges facing all Americans. We will continue this constructive dialogue at the White House Tribal Nations Conference held in Washington, D.C., this month. Native American voices have echoed through the mountains, valleys, and plains of our country for thousands of years, and it is now our time to listen.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim November 2009 as National Native American Heritage Month. I call upon all Americans to commemorate this month with appropriate programs and activities, and to celebrate November 27, 2009, as Native American Heritage Day.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this thirtieth day of October, in the year of our Lord two thousand nine, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-fourth.

-BARACK OBAMA

APPROPRIATIONS

Congress has cleared for the President’s signature the fiscal 2010 Interior-Environment spending bill and its extension of current stopgap funding. In an unusual display of coordinated bicameral action, both chambers have just approved the conference agreement — the House by a 247-178 vote and the Senate in the same day by a 72-28 vote. The measure carries an extension of current stopgap funding for those government agencies whose spending bills haven’t yet been enacted into law. With the current CR expiring midnight on October 31, the agreement extends that stopgap funding until December 18. The Interior-Environment bill is the fifth of 12 fiscal 2010 spending bills to be enacted into law. Two bills, Defense and Transportation-HUD, are pending formal conference action, and five others have yet to be passed by the Senate. This is good news to Northwest tribes as the bill contains the full $12 million increase in the BIA Rights Protection Account that Congressman Norm Dicks originally inserted in the House Bill.  It also contains the significant increase to BIA’s Hatchery Maintenance Account.  In addition it contains the $50 million mark for the restoration of Puget Sound.

House debate on the Interior-Environment agreement largely focused on the bill’s $32.2 billion discretionary cost. Republicans called the bill’s 17 percent increase excessive, with top GOP appropriator Jerry Lewis of California deeming it “irresponsible, especially in light of the fact that Congress must soon consider legislation to increase our national debt limit — this time to over $13 trillion.” Ranking subcommittee Republican Mike Simpson of Idaho said that “while this conference agreement tackles many challenging issues, it also assumes that more money is the answer to every problem we face.” Noting that the bill received a 13 percent increase last year as well as $11 billion from February’s economic stimulus package, he said, “I just don’t believe that a $4.7 billion, or 17 percent increase, over last year makes sense.” Rep. Norm Dicks, who chairs the Interior-Environment Appropriations Committee, countered that the increase was needed as “a catch-up” after years of being underfunded during the Bush Administration. Dicks said that from 2001 to 2008, when inflation is factored in, funding had decreased by 16 percent for the Interior Department, by 29 percent for the EPA and by 35 percent for non-firefighting activities of the Forest Service. “So this bill had been hammered,” Dicks said. “So I felt this was a restoration budget by the Obama Administration, and this is their first budget on Interior, and I think it was justified in every sense of the word.”

To clear the measure in the Senate, Democrats had to once again garner 60 votes to waive a Senate point of order against the CR extension being added in conference. Republicans in both chambers objected to the Democrats’ inclusion of the CR in the measure, saying it should be considered as a stand-alone measure. Such a point of order was raised and narrowly waived by a 61-39 vote during floor consideration of the Legislative Branch spending bill conference report, which included the original CR. On that vote, Republican appropriators Thad Cochran, R-MS, and George V. Voinovich, R-OH, joined with the Democrats (who lost the vote of Wisconsin’s Russ Feingold) to keep the CR in the legislation. However, after Arizona Republican John McCain raised the Rule 28 point of order against the Interior-Environment conference report for containing the CR, no Republicans came to the aid of Democrats — forcing Democrats to generate all 60 votes on their own. The vote to waive the point of order, and thereby keep the CR in the agreement, was successful via a straight party line 60-40 vote.

The overall FY 2010 Appropriations Process is slowly winding down (although we’ve heard the Senate has scheduled to resume consideration of the CJS bill this week). White not exactly on schedule, it still has the potential to be finished much sooner than in the recent past. Time will tell. The Senate has reordered its work and brought the Energy and Water Appropriation bill to the floor, due in part to a failure to invoke cloture on Senate debate over the Commerce, Justice and Science bill. Congress has now cleared just five of the 12 regular appropriations bills — Interior-Environment, Agriculture, Energy-Water, Homeland Security, and Legislative Branch. Senate Appropriations Chairman Daniel K. Inouye, D-HA, earlier this week said he believed that this year’s appropriations process, which is likely to include a year-end omnibus of those bills that couldn’t be enacted individually, would be wrapped up by early December. As mentioned, the CJS bill was pulled back. Once it is resolved on the floor it will go through the conference process. The Senate version will be about $600 million higher than the House version. The Commerce, Justice and Science bill will contain new funding for the PST Annex and funding to restore the Pacific Coastal Salmon Recovery Fund Account, but the current House and Senate numbers vary. The Administration has requested, and the House has included $16.5 million for the PST Annex work, including $7.5 million for the Puget Sound critical stocks work as identified through the Annex negotiations. The House has also included about $10 million for Mitchell Act hatcheries, which benefit tribes through Columbia River fish production. The Senate, however, has only included about $10 million for the PST Annex, far short of the President’s request, and none for the Mitchell Act needs. They will have to sort this out in conference. The Senate has included $80 million for the PCSRF account and retained the past language that guides the fund distribution. The House, however, included only $50 million for salmon (and $10 million for stocks at risk) and clarifying language. Tribes have made their preference for the Senate amount and language well known so now it’s a matter of waiting to see the conference outcome.

JEFFERSON KEEL ELECTED NCAI PRESIDENT

During the NCAI’s 66^th Annual Session in Palm Springs in October, Jefferson Keel, Lt. Governor of the Chickasaw Nation of Oklahoma, was elected President. Keel has served as NCAI’s First Vice-President since 2005.”Unity is the only way we will make progress, and I pledge to work together to seize the opportunities that are before all of the Tribal Nations,” Keel said upon being elected. Keel is a retired U.S. Army officer with over 20 years of active service. He earned a bachelor’s degree from East Central University and completed his Master of Science degree at Troy University. He has background experience in social services and tribal health programs. Keel is in his third elected term as Lt. Governor of the Chickasaw Nation. In addition, Juana Majel-Dixon, Councilwoman for the Pauma Band of Mission Indians was elected First Vice-President; Theresa Two Bulls, President of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, was elected Recording Secretary; and W. Ron Allen, Chairman of the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe was elected Treasurer. NCAI will also conduct the opening blessing of the new Tribal Embassy on Saturday, Nov. 3, 6:30-10 a.m. at 1516 P Street NW in Washington DC (open to tribal member only).  A host of other events is available at www.ncai.org.

ENERGY-WATER AGREEMENT

With the Energy-Water agreement, the hydrogen industry stands to benefit. The conference report would restore $106 million to a hydrogen fuel cell research program that the President Obama tried to slash. And industry backers know just who to thank — Byron L. Dorgan, D-ND, Chairman of Senate Energy-Water Appropriations. He has championed hydrogen fuel cell technology for years, especially since he began earmarking millions of dollars over the past five years for construction of a National Center of Hydrogen Technology at the University of North Dakota. Federal spending on hydrogen fuel cell research soared under Bush. Many scientists — including President Obama’s Energy secretary, Nobel Prize-winning physicist Steven Chu — question the value of investing in hydrogen fuel cells. They say the expensive, unproven technology would require such a transformation of U.S. energy infrastructure that it is unlikely ever to have an impact on the U.S. auto market.

GET OUT THE RED PEN

The U.S. government has made it official—the cost of change and recovery from the recession is adding more zeroes to the federal deficit. CBO is expected to set the 2009 deficit at about $1.4 trillion and at $9.1 trillion over the next decade, in line with estimates that were made in early October. This is not only the first time the annual deficit has spilled into 13-digit territory, but the number also marks a threefold increase over last year’s then-record deficit of $459 billion. Administration officials pin much of the increase on a recession-driven drop in tax collections, the Wall Street bailout, the government takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the economic stimulus plan.

INOUYE JOINS BYRD AS ONE OF THREE LONGEST-SERVING SENATORS

Senate Appropriations Chairman Daniel K. Inouye, D-HA, has joined Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va., and the late Strom Thurmond, R-SC, in the trio of longest-serving U.S. senators. A senator since 1963, Inouye won praise for his work in the chamber and for what Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-KY, called a “remarkable American story.” “Daniel Inouye may be the only American who saw with his own eyes the smoke from Pearl Harbor and the black smoke that rose from the Pentagon on” the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, said Senate Minority Whip Richard J. Durbin, D-Ill. Several senators touched on Inouye’s early life — teenage volunteer helping out after the Pearl Harbor attack, war service in Europe that cost him an arm. Inouye “fought for our country while fellow Japanese-Americans were being interned in our country,” said Daniel K. Akaka, D-HA. Frank R. Lautenberg, D-NJ, said he, Akaka and Inouye are the Senate’s three remaining veterans of World War II. Senators also noted Inouye’s work over the years as a lawmaker on behalf of the military. He is a recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor as well as many other distinguished citations. McConnell said that Inouye earlier this month traveled to Afghanistan and Pakistan. “It was an arduous journey for anyone, let alone a senator who has served so long,” he said of Inouye, who is 85. Inouye’s term of Senate service on Thursday passed that of the late Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., who had served 46 years, nine months and 19 days. Senator Inouye has, of course, also had a highly distinguished career from the perspective of the tribes, have spoken on behalf of the tribes on hundreds of occasions in committees and the Senate floor. He has visited tribes throughout the country and stood with them through thick and thin, earning tribal honors far exceeding those of any other American politician in history.

WARMING UP

The Senate Environmental and Public Works Committee is holding its first hearing today on a global warming bill, with a witness list that includes Energy Secretary Chu, Interior Secretary Salazar and Transportation Secretary LaHood. Sen. John Kerry, D-MA, said the legislation he sponsored would lead to higher energy costs in the short run but will create jobs and help protect national security. Among the critics Kerry will have to try to appease is Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus, who said this morning that while climate change was a serious issue, “we also can’t afford the unmitigated effects of climate-change legislation.”

CRUISE SHIP ACT INTRODUCED

Congressman Sam Farr, D-CA has introduced the “Clean Cruise Ship Act,” a bill aimed at limiting damage caused by cruise ship pollution. The legislation will strengthen the Clean Water Act to create coastal zones where cruise ships are prohibited from dumping waste, strengthen current waste treatment standards and increase surveillance to ensure compliance by the industry. The bill was also introduced in the Senate by Sen. Dick Durbin, D-IL. “Big cruise ships make for big pollution, it’s an unavoidable truth,” Rep. Farr said following the bill’s introduction. “Unfortunately, responsible disposal of that waste hasn’t always been a given. The cruise ship industry is way overdue to take responsibility for its actions. It’s ironic that the cruise industry relies on a clean ocean and pristine coastlines for its livelihood, but doesn’t put in the effort to sustain them. This carelessness must not be allowed to continue.” Laws currently allow cruise ships to dump untreated sewage three miles from shore, a danger to health, environment and economy. Rep. Farr’s legislation would increase the anti-dumping zone to 12 miles from shore and would require waste treatment beyond 12 miles. The bill also creates an observation and monitoring program.

“A recent report on the cruise industry’s environmental performance clearly shows that not all companies are making an equal effort to safeguard the ocean waters on which they depend,” Rep. Farr said. That report card, issued by Friends of the Earth, ranks the major cruise companies according to their efforts to reduce their environmental footprint. It is available online at http://www.foe.org/cruisereportcard. “If the whole industry followed the positive lead of some of the higher-scoring cruise companies, this law wouldn’t be necessary. Since they haven’t, Congress must take action to protect our waters.”  NWIFC Chairman Billy Frank, Jr. said, “Hopefully this act will help protect our ocean and coastal waters and the communities that use them by the cruise industry’s irresponsible dumping. Of course, we’d prefer that any waste being dumped into the ocean be fully treated. But, by introducing this bill, Congressman Farr may continue his long and substantial legacy as a champion for our oceans.”

MAGNUSON-STEVENS FISHERY CONSERVATION AND MANAGEMENT ACT HEARD

The House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Insular Affairs, Oceans and Wildlife, chaired by Congresswoman Madeleine Bordallo, D-GU, has conducted an oversight hearing on the implementation of the Fishery Conservation and Management Act of 2006 (PL 109-479). The Subcommittee explored the progress made by the National Marine Fisheries Service and the Regional Fishery Management Councils in setting annual catch limits and accountability measures to end overfishing and rebuild overfished fish stocks, as required by the MSFCMA.  The hearing focused on how annual catch limits are set, efforts to improve the type and quality of information that informs management decisions, and successes and challenges of implementing annual catch limits and accountability measures. Visit the Committee’s Web site at http://resourcescommittee.house.gov to access witness testimony.

SUBCOMMITTEE ON WATER AND POWER

The Subcommittee on Water and Power held an oversight hearing on “Water Management and Climate Variability: Information Support at the United States Geological Survey (USGS) and Bureau of Reclamation.”  The USGS and the Bureau of Reclamation are responsible for the collection and management of water resource data.  The National Research Council recently completed their review of the USGS water management program and has identified specific recommendations for ensuring data integrity and accessibility.  The oversight hearing focused on whether the agencies are collecting the right information and whether it is adequate for use by water managers and the general public.  Visit the Committee’s Web site to access witness testimony.

SENATE STILL APOLOGIZING

The Senate has voted, again, to apologize to Native Americans for historical injustices. The Native American Apology Resolution has been attached to a defense appropriations bill, extending a formal apology from the US to tribal people nationwide. It aims to make amends for years of “ill-conceived policies” and acts of violence against Native Americans by U.S. citizens. It also asks President Obama to “acknowledge the wrongs of the US against Indian tribes” to encourage healing. The President was asked earlier this year by grassroots groups to apologize specifically for atrocities carried out on Indians who attended boarding schools, often forcibly. Obama has not yet said if he will take such action. The Senate resolution does not authorize or serve as a settlement of any claim against the U.S., and it does not resolve many challenges still facing Native Americans. Comparable legislation has been introduced in previous sessions of Congress, even passing the Senate in 2008, but no bills have been signed into law.

HOPI’s/NAVAJO’s vs. ENVIRONMENTALISTS

The battle waged against a major coal company by Hopi and Navajo activists and against large environmental groups by tribal officials has intensified the conflict playing out in northern Arizona over the control and use of cultural and natural resources.  The Hopi tribal council, challenged in political infighting, said the Sierra Club, National Resources Defense Council, National Parks Conservation Association, Grand Canyon Trust, and “on-reservation organizations sponsored by or affiliated with the groups, are no longer welcome on the reservation.” The announcement triggered sharp prepared responses from opponents of wider strip mining atop Black Mesa, an area sacred to traditionalists. The ousted organizations were singled out for reportedly asking EPA to study Navajo Generating Station’s possible contribution to smog over the Grand Canyon, raising red flags about economic loss if the plant were to close. A controversial expanded mining permit approved last year ensures a coal supply for the plant’s continued operation. The Hopis are trying to clear the hurdles blocking a life-of-mine permit to continue the destructive surface mining activities which have already destroyed an untold number of archaeological sites, burial grounds, rock art, and cultural resources.”

Wastewater containing pharmaceuticals and other products that mimic estrogen can interfere with the endocrine system of fish, potentially resulting in males displaying both male and female characteristics, which inhibits breeding.

The Stillaguamish Tribe has partnered with the U.S. Geological Survey’s Water Science Center in Tacoma and the city of Arlington to look at contaminants in the wastewater that winds up in the Stillaguamish River and Port Susan Bay.

These “emerging contaminants” have become an increasing concern because they are present in the environment on a global scale. They include endocrine disruptors such as pesticides, birth control pills, detergents and other industrial, agricultural and household products.

In 2006 and 2007, the tribe partnered with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to test adult male chinook at the Harvey Creek Hatchery for the female egg-producing protein, vitellogenin. The protein was present in all male fish, but at levels that may not lead to feminization in adult fish. The tribe is concerned that chronic low levels of emerging contaminants could combine to have a toxic effect on fish.

“The Arlington Wastewater Treatment Plant is upgrading its system to filter some of these compounds out of the water before it is discharged into the river,” said Jennifer Sevigny, a biologist with the Stillaguamish Tribe. “We are documenting what is there now and what we find after the upgrades are complete. Arlington is a small municipality and they are way ahead of larger cities in trying to improve water quality.”

Emergent contaminants reach waterways through a variety of point and non-point sources, such as agricultural runoff, septic systems and stormwater in addition to wastewater treatment plants.

“We are looking at only one source of contamination in this study and we are fortunate to have a local wastewater treatment plant that is concerned about addressing the problem,” Sevigny added.

For more information, contact: Jennifer Sevigny, biologist, Stillaguamish Tribe at 360-631-2372 or jense@stillaguamish.nsn.us; Kari Neumeyer, information officer, NWIFC, 360-424-8226 or kneumeyer@nwifc.org.

The Lummi Natural Resources Department is reconnecting tidal channels and restoring wetlands to provide essential rearing habitat for juvenile salmon along Smuggler’s Slough. In a separate but related project, Lummi is creating the first tribal wetland and habitat mitigation bank in the country. The wetland and habitat mitigation bank will generate credits to offset any unavoidable impacts of development elsewhere, including homes built on tribal members’ land assignments and Lummi Nation economic development projects.

While the two complementary projects share the goal of restoring habitat and fish passage, the funding is separate. Restoration project grant money cannot be used for work that generates mitigation credits.

Smuggler’s Slough once provided fish passage between Bellingham Bay and Lummi Bay, but it was turned into a drainage ditch in the 1930s when most of the Nooksack River delta and associated estuary was converted to farmland.

Restoring tidal and riverine flows to the slough will let juvenile salmon access highly productive fresh water and salt marsh wetlands. The project will provide fish access to 6.7 miles of slough habitat and wetlands, and restore tidal flow to 640 acres of potential salt marsh habitat.

The Lummi Nation has been evaluating the restoration of the Nooksack estuary since 1998 and seeking funding for the restoration project since 2005 when a habitat assessment by the tribe targeted Smuggler’s Slough for restoration. Some of the former estuary had been deeded to tribal members after it was turned into farmland. The tribe bought that property outright or obtained conservation easements using funding from the state Salmon Recovery Funding Board, U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service Wetlands Reserve Program and the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service through the Department of Ecology’s Coastal Wetlands Program.

Additional funding for the restoration project comes from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Coastal Wetlands American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife’s Coastal Program and Tribal Wildlife Grant, and the state Estuary and Salmon Restoration Program.

The tribe is funding the wetland and habitat mitigation bank for now, but eventually, the mitigation bank will be supported though the sale of mitigation credits sold to developers in exchange for rehabilitating and enhancing wetland areas. The mitigation bank project will purchase and install self-regulation tide gates that will re-open the Lummi Bay delta to controlled tidal flows and fish passage. In addition to hundreds of acres on Smuggler’s Slough, the tribe has set aside 1,000 acres of the Nooksack delta and 760 acres of the Lummi delta for the mitigation bank.

“We have a shortage of buildable land for homes on our reservation, because so much of it is wetlands,” said Merle Jefferson, natural resources director for the tribe. “These two projects not only will restore fish and wildlife habitat and improve water quality for shellfish beds, but also will generate income to stimulate the local economy.”

For more information, contact: Jim Hansen, Lummi Nation Restoration Coordinator, 360-384-2340 or jimh@lummi-nsn.gov; Jeremy Freimund, Lummi Nation Water Resources Manager, 360-384-2212 or jeremyf@lummi-nsn.gov; Kari Neumeyer, NWIFC information officer, 360-424-8226 or kneumeyer@nwifc.org.

Here is the official Ohop Creek blog and some more information on the history of the project:

Nisqually Land Trust: Ohop Creek
Making way for chinook on Ohop Creek

“These fish are survivors,” said Roger Lien, fish biologist for the Quileute Tribe. After four to five years at sea, the fish return to their river of birth at a difficult time. Low flows go hand in hand with higher water temperatures, placing enormous stress on the fish and making them susceptible to disease. Water temperatures near 70 degrees can be lethal to salmon.

“The run has never been real robust and it’s highly variable, but it’s an important one,” Lien said. “That’s why the Quileute Tribe saw it as a good candidate for supplementation.”

Each year, the tribe captures wild male and female chinook from mid-July to September to spawn and rear about 200,000 of their offspring cooperatively with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife at the agency’s Sol Duc Hatchery. The fish are later transferred to the tribe’s Lonesome Creek Hatchery before being released in the Sol Duc River.

The supplementation effort aims to support, not replace, natural salmon production in the system. Adequate numbers of returning adults are allowed to pass upstream to maintain natural escapement – the number of fish needed to spawn and perpetuate the run. Summer chinook provide important fishing opportunity for tribal and non-tribal fishermen.

“There isn’t much in-river fishing opportunity in the summer, so these fish can help put food on the table and provide for cultural ceremonies,” Lien said.

With the rains moving in, a $1.4 million reconstruction project in Smallwood Park on the Mashel River in Eatonville has been going from dusk to dawn. The project has resulted in construction of eight new “logjams” designed both to control the river during flooding and to provide a better habitant for salmon reproduction.

Flooding last winter nearly took out the north side of the SR161 bridge next to Smallwood Park and the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) spent more than a month in major channel repairs and rebuilding the banks at one spot south of the bridge to prevent washout of SR161.

Here is more information on the project to restore salmon populations on the Mashel River.

More than 1,000 culverts between the Columbia River and British Columbia, most of them owned by the Washington Department of Transportation, are designed so poorly or in such ill repair that they block or limit access by fish to hundreds of miles of streams.

While the state slowly has been working to fix them, U.S. District Judge Ricardo Martinez ruled for the first time in 2007 that treaty rights required it. He urged the state and tribes to agree on plans. But negotiations stalled after months of talks while the economy collapsed, sending both sides back to court.

For a weary tribal fisherman who has been at this as long as Frank, it all feels a bit too much like dithering.

“I’m 78 right now and still in the courtroom all day, still talking about fixing the salmon problem,” Frank said. “It never seems to get done, and we’re running out of time.”

Bagging his first deer was a rite of passage for 13-year-old Josh Hamilton. After bringing home the three-point buck, Josh had another tradition to honor.

On Tuesday morning, the young Tulalip tribal member climbed warily out of his grandfather’s truck in the middle of Seattle’s Pioneer Square neighborhood.

A shy Totem Middle School eighth-grader, Josh was greeted on the sidewalk by staff and clients of the Chief Seattle Club, a nonprofit organization that provides support to about 200 low-income and homeless urban American Indians and Alaska Natives.

Josh was there to give away his butchered deer to help feed the people who frequent the club’s day shelter. He helped unload coolers of venison from the truck and carried the meat to the club’s kitchen.

“Our tradition is that when a boy gets his first deer, he must give it away to those who would appreciate the help,” Josh’s mother Andrea Hamilton said as she watched her son. “Josh knows his grandpa brings fish to the Chief Seattle Club, so he wanted to give his deer to our people here on the streets.”

The tribe is working with WildLands and S & K Environmental Restoration, a division of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, which developed the rotary stinger to plant trees more efficiently than traditional methods.

View a demonstration of the rotary stinger below.

The tree planting is part of a project that began last summer to restore 140 acres of salmon habitat around Hansen Creek, a tributary to the Skagit River near the Upper Skagit Tribe’s reservation.

The restored freshwater floodplain habitat will develop 53 acres of river delta and 87 acres of forested wetlands in the Skagit County-owned Northern State Recreation Area.

The past 60 years of dredging and levee maintenance has degraded spawning habitat and interfered with natural stream processes. “We have all six species of salmon in the Skagit watershed,” said Scott Schuyler, the tribe’s natural resources director. “Hansen Creek supports chinook, steelhead, coho, chum and pink salmon, but it has been straightened, narrowed and disconnected from its floodplain fan and wetlands.”

The Upper Skagit Tribe is removing parts of the levee and building log jams that will restore natural sediment movement and improve salmon habitat. The project will restore nearly 2 miles of side channel habitat, as well as hundreds of feet of mainstem habitat to support fish productivity.

The tribe is partnering with Skagit County and several federal and state agencies. The restoration is expected to cost more than $2.6 million. In June, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) American Recovery and Reinvestment Act awarded nearly $1 million to the project. Last spring, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency awarded $105,000 to the project through Puget Sound Partnership funding.

“I think this restoration project is an excellent example of the tribe’s spirit for action, your ability to leverage resources and to create partnerships,” said Michelle Pirzadeh, EPA’s Acting Regional Administrator in Seattle. “The tribes have a long history of demonstrating their ability to care for natural resources in a way that’s sustainable and we can learn a lot from them.”

Other funding partners include National Association of Counties – Coastal Initiative funds, Washington State Centennial Clean Water and Salmon Recovery Funding Board funds, in addition to matching contributions from Skagit County.

The fragmentation of habitat in Puget Sound has resulted in the loss of freshwater wetlands important to salmon survival. The Hansen Creek restoration is an important part of the salmon recovery effort. Puget Sound chinook and steelhead are listed as “threatened” under the federal Endangered Species Act, and Skagit coho are listed by the state Department of Fish and Wildlife as a species of concern.

“Salmon habitat has suffered centuries of abuse,” said Billy Frank Jr., chairman of the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission. “The tribes are undoing that damage one step at a time. We all have to work together to get Puget Sound healthy again.”

For more information, contact: Lauren Rich, environmental planner, Upper Skagit Tribe, 360-854-7006 or LaurenR@upperskagit.com; Kari Neumeyer, information officer, Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission, 360-424-8226 or kneumeyer@nwifc.org.

NWIFC Chairman Billy Frank Jr. surveys a state-owned culvert in need of replacement near the North Fork of the Nooksack River. The culvert on Department of Natural Resources land blocks salmon passage because it is too high above the stream bed.

Tim Klass from the Associated Press covered the first day of trial to fashion a conclusion to the culvert case:

A federal judge should order Washington state to drastically increase the pace of fixing culverts that block salmon passage because nothing else will get the job done in a reasonable amount of time, a lawyer for Native American tribes said Tuesday.

John C. Sledd, representing nine of the 19 tribes in the case, asked U.S. District Judge Ricardo S. Martinez to order repairs to end salmon blockages caused by all state highway culverts within 20 years and those caused by culverts under the jurisdiction of other state agencies within six years.

Two tribal fisheries managers, Charlene Krise of the Squaxin Island reservation near Shelton and Lorraine Loomis of the Swinomish reservation near La Conner, told the judge their people have been hard-hit spiritually as well as economically by the depletion of salmon runs that is at least partly the result of bad culverts.

From the management roundup:

While overall salmon populations continue to decline mostly because of lost and damaged habitat, 2009 was a bright year for many stocks. Indian and non-Indian fishermen enjoyed harvests in some areas for the first time in years. While the tribal and state co-managers work hard every day to minimize impacts to wild salmon stocks from harvest and hatchery practices, salmon recovery will ultimately be successful only with a strong commitment to protecting and restoring salmon habitat.

You can download the pdf version of the magazine here.

The archives of the NWIFC Magazine are here.

The tribe monitors both species in watershed and is pointing to increased numbers of both, mostly likely because of a big pink run two years ago:

A record number of adult bull trout and juvenile steelhead migrated through the Puyallup River watershed this year, boosted by nutrients from a massive run of pink salmon two years ago.

“There was simply more food in the system in the last couple of years because decaying pink salmon carcasses fed practically every sort of organism in the river,” said Russ Ladley, resource protection manager for the Puyallup Tribe. “This shows that salmon restoration doesn’t just benefit one species, because all of the species in the river are interconnected.”

Here are some recent videos of migrating pinks in the White River system:

Further up the river in the Greenwater River, a tributary to the White:

Danny Snyder, fisheries technician for the Squaxin Island Tribe, checks coho salmon that were caught in the tribe's salmon fishery.

ARCADIA – The Squaxin Island Tribe is closing its coho fishery at a popular tribal fishing site to protect a unique run of wild chum salmon.

Coho fishing is closed at Arcadia Beach, a tribally owned boat launch that is one of the easiest spots for tribal fishers to access. The beach also is situated on the migration route of chum salmon returning to Kennedy Creek at the same time tribal fishermen are targeting coho in the area. The normal tribal coho fishing season will remain open throughout South Sound.

“Usually, chum and coho migrate during different time windows, but Kennedy Creek chum tend to show up early, so they can be caught during coho season right around Arcadia,” said Joe Peters, the tribe’s fisheries management biologist.

An unusually high number of chum were caught at Arcadia during coho season last year. That led the tribe to close its chum fishery for a couple of weeks in November to ensure enough fish made it back to Kennedy Creek to perpetuate the run. Benefits to the chum outweigh the loss of fishing opportunity for coho, Peters said.

In addition to closely monitoring tribal harvest, spawning surveys are conducted by the tribe on area creeks to determine how many fish have returned to reproduce.

Restricting fishing in a particular area is a common method of fisheries management. Squaxin Island Tribe fishers only harvest coho outside South Sound inlets. “The outside-the-inlet fisheries method ensures we are only targeting healthy stocks of hatchery coho,” Peters said. “More than 90 percent of our catch consists of hatchery fish when we harvest outside of the inlets.”

Like most South Sound chum stocks, the Kennedy Creek chum run is strong, with more than 30,000 fish returning annually, Peters said. “Still, we want to boost the overall run to be as certain as we can that enough fish get back to the creek every year,” he said. “Our extensive monitoring of harvest and escapement allows us to adjust our fisheries quickly, even in mid-season.”

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For more information, contact: Joe Peters, fisheries management biologist, Squaxin Island Tribe, (360) 432-3813. Emmett O’Connell, information officer, NWIFC, (360) 528-4304, eoconnell@nwifc.org

See this page to download and share this video.

Vince Henry and Mike Ogden came to the aid of the sailors, according to the Squaxin Island Department of Public Safety. Because of their efforts, the would-be sailors were only in the water about 10 or 15 minutes. With the changing season, hypothermia set in as fast as 20 minutes.

From Peninsula Daily News:

OLYMPIC NATIONAL PARK — Additional water is being released from the dams on the Elwha River to augment a low stream flow and protect Chinook salmon redds, or egg nests, below the lower dam.

The river’s average flow for early October is approximately 648 cubic feet per second; even with the current augmented flows, the river is flowing at 353 cubic feet per second, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

…

The augmented flows were authorized by Karen Gustin, park superintendent, in collaboration with the state Department of Fish and Wildlife and the Lower Elwha Klallam tribe, which operates a hatchery on the river west of Port Angeles.

It’s one reason the recent emergency shellfish bed closure in Hood Canal’s Annas Bay was such a shock.  It made us feel like all our work to clean up Puget Sound is being flushed away while our treaty rights are violated.

The state Department of Health closed Annas Bay to shellfishing because sport anglers were using the banks of the Skokomish River as a toilet. This isn’t a new problem, and it’s a shame that an important shellfish bed had to be closed to get folks to pay attention to overcrowded fishing conditions.

While we were encouraged to see the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife work with anglers and others to clean the waste from the riverbank and reopen the shellfish bed, we wonder how things were allowed to get that bad. The state first clearly identified the problem back in 2003.

Within three weeks of the Aug. 1 chinook opening on the Skokomish River, as many as 2,000 anglers a day were fishing its lower stretch, targeting the fish returning to the George Adams Hatchery.  My friend Dave Herrera, fisheries policy representative for the Skokomish Tribe, explained it this way: ”There are so many people, and they are fishing shoulder to shoulder. They believe if they leave their spot for very long they will lose it. They would rather step in the bushes.”

The closure denied the tribe access to more than 175,000 oysters from the closed shellfish beds. “The fact that the Skokomish Tribe must close an important shellfish harvest area as a direct result of non-Indian activities that are authorized by WDFW is an outrage and violates the tribe’s treaty rights,” Skokomish tribal chair Guy Miller said. He’s right.

To make matters worse, the increased pollution has scrapped plans to reopen another several hundred acres of Annas Bay that have been closed for years because of contamination.

More portable toilets and garbage cans may help reduce the problem along the lower Skokomish River in the short term, but we’re all working too hard to clean up Puget Sound and recover salmon for something like this to happen. We’re better than that. All of us.

For the long term, we need to bring more salmon back to their native rivers so that no one has to stand shoulder to shoulder on short stretches of a few rivers just so they can catch a fish.

Billy Frank Jr. is the chairman of the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission.

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For more information, contact: Tony Meyer or Emmett O’Connell, NWIFC, (360) 438-1180.

“We’re using the tide to manipulate the oysters,” said Chris Whitehead, the tribe’s shellfish biologist.

Oyster tumbling involves stuffing young oysters into mesh bags, attaching a buoy and securing the bags to a single horizontal stainless steel rod held in place by rebar stakes driven into the muck at low tide. The oyster seed-filled bags pivot on the rod and float as the tide rolls in and sink back to the bottom as the tide recedes. The ebb and flow of the tides agitates the oysters from one end to the other, or “tumbles” them. The action mimics nature, encouraging the oysters to break off new growth at the bill, and harden their shells as they mature.

Tribal biologist Chris Whitehead adjusts a mesh bag full of oysters on Sequim Bay.

The tumble bag system helps the Pacific oysters focus growth energy to the cup, rather than the bill; the latter is typical to the region. The deeper cup shell gives the Pacific oysters the look of Kumamoto oyster highly valued by consumers worldwide. The growing method has been used successfully at other shellfish growing operations throughout the region.

“This is a pilot study for us this year, but if we have a successful harvest this fall we may scale it up next year,” Whitehead said. Oyster farming has come a long way, from long-lining mother shells to suspending bags in several feet above the substrate to the tumble bag system, he added.

The tribe hopes to provide opportunities for tribal members to come and harvest from their native shores as well as to supply shellfish to enterprises such as the tribal casino, deli and golf course.

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For more information, contact: Chris Whitehead, Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe shellfish biologist, at (360) 681-4630, or cwhitehead@jamestowntribe.org; Tiffany Royal, Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission information officer, at (360) 297-6546 or troyal@nwifc.org.

The tribe's river restoration staff fills in a 1,500-foot long hatchery outfall ditch as part of the lower Elwha River floodplain restoration work.

The Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe has begun preparing the lower Elwha River’s floodplain for the influx of sediment expected to come down the river after the Elwha and Glines Canyon dams are deconstructed starting in 2011.

“This work in the floodplain will help restore natural habitat forming processes in preparation for the expected release of the 20 million cubic feet of sediment trapped behind the dams,” said Mike McHenry, the tribe’s habitat program manager. “Our goal is to reconnect as much of the historic floodplain to the mainstem as possible. We are basically undoing historic channelization actions that have simplified the river.”

With $2 million in funding from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the tribe will be constructing 20 engineered logjams, removing three manmade dikes, replacing two culverts with a larger culvert and a bridge, and planting native vegetation. This summer, the tribe filled in an unused 1,500-foot-long hatchery outfall ditch that was built in the middle of the floodplain in 1977. All this work will help improve the river’s function ahead of the dams’ removal.

Historic aerial photos show the lower river functioning as a natural floodplain before the hatchery outfall ditch was constructed. The ditch severely altered the flow of the river. The filling of the ditch, plus the removal of the dikes, manmade ditches and culverts, will allow water to flow throughout the floodplain, creating better habitat for salmon, where the fish can rest, feed and hide. The restoration work will also will help filter out the dam sediment as it flows into the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

The Elwha River is the largest tributary draining into the Strait of Juan de Fuca and historically, was one of the largest producers of salmon in the region. Puget Sound chinook and Puget Sound steelhead, both federally listed salmon species, reside in the Elwha River.

“People think that the current state of the mouth of the river is natural but there are manmade dikes throughout the lower river and estuary that constrict the flow,” said Jim Balsiger, Acting Assistant Administrator of NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service. “Historically, this river used to have several natural channels and drainages, but now has only one. We want to ensure that the river quickly returns to its natural state when the Elwha’s dams are removed.”

The 108-foot Elwha Dam and the 210-foot Glines Canyon dam are scheduled for removal beginning in 2011.  The dams are owned by the federal government; the Olympic National Park is spearheading the removal effort. The total cost of the project is estimated at $308 million.

Funding for the project comes from a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) grant.  Under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, NOAA distributed $167 million to 50 marine and coastal habitat restoration projects around the country. The Elwha Floodplain Restoration project was one of 50 projects out of 814 considered nationwide and received $2 million in funding.

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For more information, contact Mike McHenry, Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe habitat program manager, at (360) 457-4012 ext. 14 or mchenry@elwha.nsn.us; or Tiffany Royal, Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission information officer, at (360) 297-6546 or troyal@nwifc.org

A logjam being constructed in a sidechannel of the Dungeness River.

The Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe hopes to see federally listed Puget Sound chinook and Hood Canal summer chum using these logjams following this summer’s restoration of 18 acres of estuary in the river delta.

The restoration work included building the logjams, creating tidal channels and breaching dikes built for road access in the 1960s to allow water to move freely throughout delta’s two salt marshes. The estuary provides critical rearing habitat for the listed salmon species.

“These marshes have a mixture of salt water from the Strait of Juan de Fuca and fresh water from the river, but as evidenced by the amount of invasive reed canary grass on the banks of the river, there’s not enough salt water getting into the estuary,” said Byron Rot, the tribe’s habitat program manager. “We hope the breaching of the dikes will help introduce saltwater vegetation again and make the habitat even more hospitable to salmon.”

Reed canary grass thrives in freshwater and prevents native plant growth, impacting the natural functions of a wetland. Eliminating the canary grass will allow native dunegrass to flourish. The breached dikes will allow extreme high tides and river flow to flood the area, contributing to the critical habitat needed for salmon. The restoration will also provide improved habitat for ducks.

“It’s a well functioning estuary,” Rot said. “It just needs a little extra help to make sure the native plants are thriving and salmon have a place of refuge.”

Funding for this project came from the Salmon Recovery Funding Board and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation.

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For more information, contact: Byron Rot, Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe habitat program manager, at (360) 681-4615 or brot@jamestowntribe.org; Randy Johnson, Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe restoration planner, at (360) 681-4631 or rjohnson@jamestowntribe.org; or Tiffany Royal, Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission information officer, at (360) 297-6546 or troyal@nwifc.org.

This project, together with two other estuary restoration projects totalling 140 acres and completed by the Nisqually Tribe on the Pierce County side of the river, make the Nisqually home to the largest estuary recovery of its kind on the West Coast, noted David Troutt, natural resource director for the Nisqually Tribe.

“This is hugely important for fish and the overall health of Puget Sound,” he said.

Work on the Nisqually River estuary has boosted the total South Sound estuary habitat by 55 percent. Fisheries scientists predict the Nisqually estuary restoration will double survival of the river’s chinook salmon population, which is one of the stocks that landed on the federal endangered species list as a threatened species in 1999.

“Estuary restoration is the cornerstone of the Nisqually River chinook recovery plan,” Troutt said.

For instance, the estuary provides a place for young salmon to hide, rest and feed as they leave the river and enter marine waters. The estuary also is a feeding ground for adult salmon.

Here is more on the Nisqually Tribe and estuary restoration:
The Nisqually watershed is getting some help from its neighbors
SRF Board grant funding and the Nisqually estuary
A Tribute To Kenny Braget

But this summer, thanks to a computer-directed underwater research glider that looks like a motorcycle-sized torpedo with wings, QIN was able to gather four weeks of comprehensive data throughout their fishing area.

The Center for Coastal Margin Observation & Prediction (CMOP), worked with QIN marine scientist Joe Schumacker to plan a data gathering project for the glider named Phoebe. “This mission provides us with important information about the Quinault traditional ocean waters that would be cost-prohibitive to obtain otherwise,” said Schumacker.

The glider, deployed and recovered by a QIN fishing vessel, gathered salinity, dissolved oxygen, fluorescence and temperatures at different depths, then transmitted the newly-collected data to CMOP.

QIN is particularly interested in dissolved oxygen levels after an episode of low oxygen left hundreds of normally bottom-dwelling creatures on the nation’s beaches in 2006. Tribal Dungeness crab fishermen were bringing up pots that were either empty or full of dead crab.

“We’re still looking at the results from the glider’s mission,” said Schumacker. “We’re excited to get this kind of information, particularly over Quinault Canyon, which features prominently in the upwelling that feeds marine life in our area comes from.” Nutrient-rich but oxygen-poor water wells up from the depths and feeds marine life. Natural mixing of the water column is important to offset the negative effects of the deep water’s low oxygen levels. The glider mission will help QIN understand where lower oxygen levels occur and if there are any hints of possible fish kills in the offing.

“Up until now, the only similar information we can get is from one seasonal buoy in this area and that is just a snapshot of the water quality in that one specific area,” said Schumacker. “Phoebe gives us a look at a large piece of the ocean that we really have not had the ability to examine before.”

QIN wants to deploy sensors that would give early warning of where low-oxygen fish-kills may occur and hopes to conduct more data-gathering missions with Phoebe. “This shows what we can do when we’re involved in the process,” said Ed Johnstone, fisheries policy representative for QIN. “It’s not a substitute for a holistic approach to research needs off our coast, but it’s timely information we can use.”

For more information, contact: Ed Johnstone, fisheries policy, Quinault Indian Nation, (360) 276-8215;Joe Schumacker, marine scientist, Quinault Indian Nation, (360) 276-8215; Debbie Preston, coastal information officer, Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission, (360) 374-5501.

State and federal regulations curb the hunting of endangered wildlife and protect developed areas from gunfire, but American Indians say those laws also violate the terms of treaties they signed with the federal government more than 150 years ago.

Before settlers reached Washington, only Indians hunted here. While tribal hunters still take to the hills to seek meat to feed their families and to offer in ceremonies, their take amounts to less than 10 percent of all the animals harvested here.

“Tribes should be allowed to hunt and gather the resources they need,” (Upper Skagit natural resources director Scott) Schuyler said. “People don’t understand that the tribes ceded away part of our ancestral lands in order to retain these rights.”

For tribes in the Pacific Northwest, years of courtroom battles over fishing rights only tell part of the story. The continued ability to harvest fish is recognized as the bedrock of the region’s tribal culture. But hunting for deer, elk, bear and mountain goat is just as integral to Coast Salish life.

Read the full story here.

The Lummi Intertidal Baseline Inventory (LIBI), funded by the energy company BP, will be crucial in the event of a catastrophic oil spill from activities associated with four nearby oil refineries: BP and ConocoPhillips in Ferndale, and Tesoro and Shell at Anacortes.

“We want to know what’s living here now, so if there is a spill, we will know the extent of the damage,” said Merle Jefferson, Lummi Natural Resources director. “After the Exxon-Valdez spill, they had no pre-disaster data to compare it to.”

Lummi Natural Resources Department staff inventoried the tidelands in four ways:

• Monthly shorebird survey;
• Monthly finfish sampling using a lampara net (similar to a purse seine);
• Visual survey of geoduck and horse clams; and
• Dig survey of other species such as hard shell clams, crabs and worms.

They also contracted with the Oregon-based firm Watershed Sciences to measure tideland elevations from the air using LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging).

“It’s incredibly ambitious to include everything,” said Craig Dolphin, the tribe’s shellfish biologist coordinating the inventory. “But the LIDAR data and the four surveys have come together to give us great results.”

The dig survey was conducted over a period of four months by four teams of two: a scientist paired with a seasoned clam digger who had traditional ecological knowledge of the area.

The teams dug samples at 366 sites, collecting bags of sand containing eelgrass, clams, worms, and other organisms. The collected samples were taken back to the lab, identified, and counted. So far, at least 150 different species were counted from the dig survey alone, including varieties of clams such as native littlenecks, manila clams, and invasive mahogany clams.

Samples are being preserved and will be used in the native environmental science curriculum at Northwest Indian College on the Lummi Indian Reservation.

Lummi tribal member Jessica Urbanec, the first to receive a bachelor’s degree in native environmental science from the college, is helping sort the samples. She plans to do additional research about native littleneck clams.

“Littlenecks were one of our main staples, a traditional food,” she said. “I’m looking at where they live, what substrates they like, what other species affect them.”

The tribe expects to have a final report by the end of the year.

“Eventually, we’d like to expand the baseline inventory off reservation to encompass all of our usual and accustomed fishing areas,” Jefferson said.

For more information, contact: Craig Dolphin, shellfish biologist Lummi Nation, 360-384-2267 or CraigD@lummi-nsn.gov; Kari Neumeyer, information officer, Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission, 360-424-8226 or kneumeyer@nwifc.org.

“The coastal treaty Indian tribes and the state of Washington as co-managers continue to work with the Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary (OCNMS) to achieve a shared vision of priorities for understanding and protecting the marine environment and improving the lives of all who depend on the sea.”

But the tribe stepped up and offered $31,000 to finish raising the fish and added working hours from their own staff to finish the job. “It’s a one-time deal,” said Roger Lien, fisheries biologist for the Quileute Tribe. “The cuts in the state budget occurred after the fish had already been spawned. What we’re doing is saving this bunch so they can be released next year, but the eggs won’t even be collected next year.”

The Quileute Tribe and WDFW work cooperatively on a number of different salmon and steelhead projects out of the state’s Sol Duc Hatchery and in combination with the tribe’s Lonesome Creek Hatchery.

“This helps everybody,” said Lien. “When the guys at the hatchery told us what was going to happen to these fish – we asked them to tell us how much they needed and council approved the cost.”
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For more information, contact: Mel Moon, natural resources director, Quileute Tribe, (36) 374-5695; Roger Lien, fisheries biologist, Quileute Tribe, (360) 374-2478; Debbie Preston, coastal information officer, Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission, (360) 374-8666, dpreston@nwifc.org

Makah tribal member Evan Bowechop, 16, is reminded of the history as he counts the living shells in the surf where they are found on Hobuck Beach, near Neah Bay. It’s part of his summer intern job with the Makah Natural Resources Department. He and partner Michael Murner, 17, conducted a survey of the olive shell population that will help Makah natural resource managers get an idea of the numbers and locations of the small, snail-inhabited shell.

“The idea is to have the interns do this survey each summer so we can start to establish population patterns,” said Jonathan Scordino, marine mammal biologist for the Makah Tribe. Even as the interns worked one foggy morning, a group of tribal members was harvesting the shells a little further down the beach.

While tribal members collected the shells, Murner and Bowechop continued their survey, counting more than 1,000 in patch.

Each year, students work in a variety of natural resources departments within the tribe, learning about different kinds of jobs and assisting with the natural resource management activities. The hope is that some tribal members will become interested in pursuing advanced education in a related field and come back to work for the tribe. The interns finished the summer by presenting a paper to tribal members about their activities, including one by Murner on the olive shells as well as assigned topics. “It was an interesting summer,” said Bowechop.”It kept me busy and I learned a lot.”
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For more information, contact: Russ Svec, Makah Fisheries Program Manager, (360) 645-3156; Jonathan Scordino, marine mammal biologist, Makah Tribe, (360) 645-3176; Debbie Preston, coastal information officer, Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission, (360) 374-5501, dpreston@nwifc.org

A construction crew on the Mashel River starts on a logjam.

EATONVILLE –New logjams in the Mashel River – being built this summer by the Nisqually Indian Tribe – will provide habitat for fish and help protect property from damaging floods. The series of logjams will help protect riverside property which sustained damage during last winter’s 100-year flood, while also providing vital habitat to salmon.

“Right now, both people and salmon are in danger because water just flows too quickly through this stretch,” said David Troutt, natural resources director for the tribe. The property’s owner lost an outbuilding and several hundred feet of bank to the flood.

“Bank hardening and logging that have decreased the ground’s ability to soak up water has made the damaging impacts of floods worse,” Troutt said. The logjams will both protect the banks while also slowing the flow of floodwaters.

The tribe’s project will tie into a planned logjam effort by the state Department of Transportation (DOT) to protect a highway bridge. The DOT project to install logjams is planned for 2010.

Logjams are important features in the lifecycle of salmon because they create good habitat for juvenile salmon. Because of the loss of large streamside trees, logjams are largely missing from rivers like the Mashel. “Over the years logging took away most of the material that eventually would have formed logjams,” Troutt said. “Juvenile salmon use logjams as places to hide from predators and find food.”

This year’s logjam project will also tie into an extensive logjam project that was built in the last few years just upstream. “We’ve seen direct evidence that the logjams we’ve built in the last few years not only blunt the impacts of floods, but also boost juvenile salmon populations,” Troutt said.

A large rock berm that had protected the city of Eatonville’s Smallwood Park was replaced by a series of large logjams. “Two significant floods have battered those structures, but they’ve survived,” Troutt said.

At the same time, surveys have found a booming juvenile coho population around the jams. “Our biologists found more than 2,500 coho living in the same part of the Mashel, up from around 900 before the logjams,” Troutt said. “These fish are finding the river a much better place to be now.” In addition to coho salmon, the logjams are also expected to benefit chinook and steelhead, both of which are listed as “threatened” under the federal Endangered Species Act.

“Lack of high quality habitat is the major factor in declining salmon populations on the Nisqually River,” Troutt said. “This project shows that you can restore and protect habitat while protecting people as well.”

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For more information, contact: David Troutt, natural resources director, Nisqually Indian Tribe, (360) 438-8687. Emmett O’Connell, information officer, NWIFC, (360) 528-4304, eoconnell@nwifc.org.

Anderson was named the department’s permanent director Saturday by the nine-member commission Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission. Anderson had been serving as interim director since last December, when Jeff Koenings resigned from the position.

“Phil is a fair and honest man,” said Billy Frank Jr., chairman of the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission. “He is a strong advocate for the long-term interests of the region. He understands conservation and has a deep-rooted appreciation for the natural resources that make the Pacific Northwest so beautiful.

“He also knows the challenges to this ecosystem,” Frank added. “We will not always agree, but Phil has earned the respect of tribal leaders.”

WDFW press release:
http://wdfw.wa.gov/do/newreal/release.php?id=sep1209a

News stories:
Seattle Times:
State Fish and Wildlife Commission hires Phil Anderson as the department’s permanent director

Tacoma News-Tribune:
New Fish and Wildlife director knows job

“There was simply more food in the system in the last couple of years because decaying pink salmon carcasses fed practically every sort of organism in the river,” said Russ Ladley, resource protection manager for the Puyallup Tribe. “This shows that salmon restoration doesn’t just benefit one species, because all of the species in the river are interconnected.”

The tribe counted more than 100 bull trout – the entire run – at a trap on the White River, a tributary to the Puyallup, where fish are collected before being trucked over Mud Mountain Dam. While still a small return, it was more than double the previous record return in 2003.

More than 400 wild juvenile steelhead were captured by the tribe from an out-migrating smolt trap on the lower Puyallup River. That’s the second highest count since the tribe began counting in 2000 and four times higher than the three-year average.

“This year’s pink run is also looking pretty big, so hopefully we’ll see similar benefits down the road,” Ladley said.

“It’s important to keep in mind that the entire bull trout run is only about 100 fish,“ Ladley said. “This is an incredibly small run, but its important to note the up-tick this year. I also wouldn’t say this is the largest bull trout run ever, just the largest since we’ve been counting in the last few decades.”

Bull trout and steelhead in the Puyallup River watershed, along with chinook salmon, are listed as threatened on the federal Endangered Species Act.

Counting bull trout and steelhead is part of a yearly effort by the tribe to track fish populations in the Puyallup River watershed. The tribe’s most recent yearly report on salmon, trout and char populations can be found at: http://go.nwifc.org/hrw6y8

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For more information, contact: Russ Ladley, resource protection manager, Puyallup Tribe of Indians, (253) 845-9225.

“There really isn’t anywhere for fish to go in Ohop Creek right now,” Joe Kane, executive director for the land trust, which owns the project site. “More than a century ago, Ohop Creek was ditched to clear the area for farming.”

The new channel will stay cooler for salmon and include features like logjams that benefit both juvenile and adult fish. “It went from a shallow, meandering stream that was very good for salmon to a straight deep ditch,” Kane said. The Nisqually Land Trust owns the 120 acres of property on which this year’s project is happening.

After the new channel is finished, they will wait a year before rerouting the creek into the new bed. “If we rerouted the creek this year, there would be a risk of everything being washed away in a flood,” said Kim Gridley, project manager for the group. “By waiting a year after digging the channel, creek-side plants will have time to grow and stabilize the bank.”

This summer’s one-mile-long restoration project could be the first step in restoring most of the Ohop Creek valley for salmon and other wildlife. Eventuallyseven miles of Ohop Creek might be restored under a plan being developed jointly with local landowners. “This initial phase will teach us a lot about how habitat restoration might look like throughout the valley,” Gridley said. “Before habitat restoration happens anywhere else along the Ohop, we’ll need to find a way to balance the needs of salmon and people.”

“The landowners in the valley have a huge stake in what happens with the creek,” Troutt said. “Salmon restoration will happen on the Ohop only if property owners are full participants.”

Ohop Creek is one of two major tributaries to the Nisqually River that can produce sustainable populations of chinook. “Because there are only a few places other than the mainstem of the Nisqually River where chinook spawn, increasing the quality of habitat in those places is important,” Troutt said. Nisqually River chinook are part of the Puget Sound chinook population listed as “threatened” under the federal Endangered Species Act.

“We also expect to see a big benefit to coho salmon, which return in very small numbers to the Nisqually watershed,” Troutt said. After a similar project on the nearby Mashel River, coho densities tripled within the restoration area. Ohop Creek also supports pink salmon, and cutthroat and steelhead trout.

“Bringing salmon runs back to the Nisqually means restoring habitat where we can. Restoring habitat is the most imporant thing we can do to recover salmon,” Troutt said. “Ohop Creek is a huge opportunity for us to do a lot of good for salmon.”

(END)

For more information, contact: Kim Gridley, project manager, SPSSEG, (360) 412-0808. Joe Kane, executive director, Nisqually Land Trust, (360) 458-1111. David Troutt, natural resources director, Nisqually Indian Tribe, (360) 438-8687. Emmett O’Connell, South Sound information officer, NWIFC, (360) 528-4304, eoconnell@nwifc.org

From the air you can see a dark cloud at the base of a diversion dam on the White River near Buckley.

But look closely and you’ll see that cloud is really a mass of fins, tails and humped backs – wild pink salmon, more than anyone can remember seeing here, literally climbing over each other to get upstream.

“We’re looking at least a 100,000 fish here right now and we’re one a half weeks pre-peak,” said explains Resource Protection Manager Russ Ladley of The Puyallup Tribe of Indians.

Here is some additional video of the run.

Chinook salmon are already taking advantage of a new stretch of spawning channel on the north fork of the Nooksack River that was improved in the past year through a project overseen by the Nooksack Indian Tribe.

The fish spawning in the channel are part of the threatened spring stock of chinook that have been the target of restoration efforts for decades.

Tribal habitat biologist Ned Currence said he wasn’t expecting to see much activity in the three-quarter-mile stretch of riverbed upstream from Boulder Creek when he visited it just a few days ago. But he was thrilled to see dozens of the big fish pairing up to deposit their eggs in the gravel bottom.

“Last year, no fish spawned in there during the spring chinook period,” Currence said. “It was dry.”

In recent years, that side channel has held water only during winter floods, too late in the year to help the struggling spring chinook run. But with $370,000 in grants from state and federal sources, tribal biologists and the tribal public works department set about encouraging the river to flow through the channel in late summer. Logjams were anchored in place with steel cable to gently divert the river’s flow into the channel, and a bit of excavation work was done to enable the water to flow where it was needed.

Read the rest of the story here.

The Olympian from this morning:

Skokomish River slob anglers may force the state to shut down salmon fishing on the popular river.

Thousands of salmon anglers flock to this Hood Canal river every August and September to catch one of the earliest chinook salmon runs of the fall.

But a lot – not all, but more than enough – of those anglers are slobs.

They dump their trash, fast-food wrappers, beer cans, monofilment line, lure packaging and worse right along the river.

They can’t be bothered to walk to the nearby portable toilets, so they defecate and urinate along the river banks.

The Skokomish, a beautiful – and troubled – river, takes on the stench and look of a downtown Skid Row every August and September.

From the Seattle Times:

There’s a dirty situation happening on the Skokomish River salmon sport fishery.

And the finger might be pointing to human waste and trash being left by sport anglers, which has also led to the closure of an important tribal shellfish harvest site in Annas Bay, near the mouth of the Skokomish.

Thousands of sport anglers are lured in August to the Skokomish where salmon fishing for mainly hatchery chinook right now has been good.

The Skokomish River which originates from Olympic Peninsula National Park through a sparsely population region and feeds into Annas Bay, a rich shellfish (mainly oysters) source used by tribal, commercial and recreational harvesters.

The state Department of Health cited “human waste from sport fishers” as the reason for the closure, which will remain until further notice.

Peninsula Daily News: Some anglers are being messy at Skokomish River

KMAS: Fishing on the Skokomish River causing problems with water quality and shellfish harvesting

We’ve been waiting for someone like Larry for a long time. With Larry in the Department of the Interior, we have a great opportunity to get things done.

Larry is a member of the Pawnee Nation. He’s the former elected attorney general of Idaho, so he’s from the Northwest. He knows what we’re facing up here and understands the issues that are important to us.

Larry’s been working outside of Indian Country for a number of years, teaching law at Brigham Young University’s J. Reuben Clark Law School. So, he came up here a few weeks ago, eager to learn more about what’s happening now in our lives as Indian people.

In addition to representatives from the treaty tribes in western Washington, the treaty tribes of the Columbia River system joined us to meet with Larry. Together we are the 24 treaty fishing tribes of the Pacific Northwest. We spent an entire day with Larry talking about the natural resources that mean so much to us. We shared our concerns that our treaty rights continue to be violated, that water rights continue to be disputed and that our salmon stocks continue to decline.

We explained that we have always been gatherers and harvesters. We are also the managers of these resources. We manage fish from Alaska all the way to Mexico.

In the three decades since our treaty rights were reaffirmed by U.S. v. Washington (the Boldt Decision), additional responsibilities have been laid at our feet while our funding has eroded. Even though we are an essential part of community health and natural resources management, we’ve had a hard time keeping our programs running. Because of inflation, though, we are actually receiving less funding than we did more than 30 years ago.

When tribes have the resources, we can do great things for our communities, for salmon and for our neighbors. For decades, the Lower Elwha Tribe has worked to have the Elwha and Glines Canyon dams removed, to help bring back salmon runs that have been driven to near extinction. The removal date has been pushed back a few times, but with the recent injection of $54 million in federal stimulus money, the dams are set to come down in 2011, a year earlier than planned.

This is the kind of thing that we can get done with full support of the federal government.

We know our watersheds, we know our neighbors and for centuries, we’ve known the needs of salmon.

This is our homeland. This is where we live. We aren’t going anywhere. We have to take care of our country, and we have to work with local, state and federal governments to sustain it.

The federal government hasn’t always been our friend, but that’s going to change. This new Bureau of Indian Affairs, led by Larry, is going to do a better job for all of us and the salmon, too. With Larry working with us as an advocate for our treaty rights and the natural resources on which rights depend, we will all be better off.

Billy Frank Jr. is the chairman of the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission.

(END)

For more information, contact: Tony Meyer or Emmett O’Connell, NWIFC, (360) 438-1180.

Human waste is being blamed for the closure of a tribal shellfish harvest on the Skokomish River near Shelton. State health officials say evidence suggests a huge turnout of non-tribal salmon fishermen is to blame, and the tribe is furious.

Also – Seattle Times and the Kitsap Sun.

There’s an important research project underway below the surface of the quiet Little Skookum Creek, south of Shelton.

Ripples moving up the creek are the first signs of something heading upstream. Moments later dark human figures come into view, moving slowly face down in the water. Three biologists with the Squaxin Island Tribe are snorkeling up the creek searching the bottom for small black shells.

“We don’t know much about freshwater mussels,” explains Eric Sparkman, a shellfish biologist with the Tribe. “Nobody does.

Following record high temperatures this summer across western Washington, Tulalip tribal biologists noticed that chinook salmon weren’t making it all the way to Wallace River, a tributary to the Skykomish River.

The hot, dry weather likely contributed to poor returns in a couple of ways. Water temperatures were too warm and a lack of rainfall reduced water levels and flow.

The Tulalip Tribes and the state share the eggs collected at the state’s Wallace River Hatchery, but this year’s returns were far below normal. Most years, the tribe gets about 2.4 million chinook salmon eggs for its hatchery program. In the event of a shortfall, the state gets the first million eggs, the tribe gets the next 800,000, and then the remaining eggs are split evenly.

While it is still too early to tell exactly how low the run will be this year, a model used by the tribe predicted that the total egg take would be under 2 million and as low as 1.4 million, which could have left the tribe with as little as only 400,000 eggs.

Action had to be taken to make sure enough salmon return four years from now. Both the tribe and the state closed their fisheries, and the tribe opened its fish ladder in Tulalip Bay to catch the adult chinook that were failing to swim upriver.

Update (Sept. 28): The tribe collected 530 chinook in Tulalip Bay and held them at the tribe’s Bernie Kai Kai Gobin Salmon Hatchery until they were ready to spawn. The state and the tribes also worked together to capture an additional 530 fish below the hatchery on Wallace River. In September, the tribe spawned hundreds of the fish and expects to be able to fertilize more than 1.3 million eggs this year.

Hundreds, sometimes thousands, of non-Indian anglers have been fishing for salmon, mostly chinook, since Aug. 1; the river has been open for non-salmon species since early June. Salmon sport fishing in the river is scheduled to continue through mid-December.

The Washington Department of Health (DOH) cited “human waste from sport fishers” as the reason for the closure, which will remain in place indefinitely. Officials from DOH and the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) were scheduled to tour the river and tidelands today.

“The fact that the Skokomish Tribe must close an important shellfish harvest area as a direct result of non-Indian activities that are authorized by WDFW is an outrage and violates the tribe’s treaty rights,” said Skokomish Tribal Chairman Charles “Guy” Miller.

The area that is now closed, known as Potlatch East, is a harvest area for the tribe and includes tribally owned tidelands. The tribe currently has more than 170,000 oysters available for harvest on the beaches affected by the closure. In addition, plans to open tidelands along the eastern portion of Annas Bay, which have been closed for years, have now been shelved indefinitely as a result of the contamination.

The tribe recommends the following actions:

• An immediate closure of the recreational fishery in the Skokomish River until the current emergency shellfish closure is lifted,
• Clean-up of human waste and garbage along the Skokomish River from Purdy Creek downstream to the culvert replacement project site on U.S. highway 106,
• Implementation of a public awareness campaign prior to the re-opening of the recreational fisheries,
• Placement of adequate portable toilets and garbage facilities in key locations prior to the re-opening of the sport fishery,
• Adequate numbers enforcement officers to reasonably assure compliance of fishers in the recreational fishery.

The problem isn’t new, tribal officials said. In 2003, DOH and WDFW addressed the problem in a report entitled “Skokomish River Detailed Implementation Plan for Fecal Coliform Bacteria,” which addressed the pollution issue and potential solutions.

“We think it is particularly important that the recreational fishery in this area be closed immediately to prevent the problem from getting any worse,” Miller said. “The area also needs to be cleaned up. Simply waiting for floodwaters to flush the area is an unacceptable return to the philosophy of ‘dilution is the solution.’ The tribe is working hard to eliminate sources of fecal and nutrient contamination in Hood Canal. This contamination contributes to poor water quality leading to beach closures and oxygen depletion and we need some cooperation from WDFW.”

The small number of Skokomish tribal fishermen who harvest salmon in the lower river do not contribute to the problem, tribal officials said.

“Our people are taught to respect themselves and the environment in which they live. You take care of your needs before and after you go out, and don’t use the riverbank as your bathroom,” Miller said.

##

For more information, contact: Charles “Guy” Miller, Skokomish Tribal Chairman, at (360) 426-4232 or gmiller@skokomish.org ; Joseph Pavel, Skokomish Tribe Director of Natural Resources at (360) 877-5213 or jpavel@skokomish.org; Dave Hererra, Skokomish Tribe Fish Policy Analyst, at (360) 877-2100 ext. 2070 or dhererra@skokomish.org; or Tiffany Royal, Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission information officer, at (360) 297-6546 or troyal@nwifc.org.

Mr. Choke is a member of the Nisqually Indian tribe, one of many tribes that fished for salmon in Puget Sound for centuries before Europeans arrived and began aggressively fishing with large commercial nets that depleted populations of Chinook, sockeye and other kinds of salmon. Now the Nisqually tribe has a dive team that is part of a $4.6 million stimulus-financed effort to remove fishing nets that were often lost or discarded decades ago but can still kill fish, birds and other animals.

Mr. Choke said that although having Indians get involved in the project might make for compelling symbolism given the longstanding tensions over how their way of life was altered by settlers, what the project really offers is a chance for the storyline to move beyond old debates.

Returning tidal flow to former estuaries is an important step toward restoring salmon habitat. Puget Sound chinook salmon are listed as “threatened” under the federal Endangered Species Act.

On Wednesday, Aug. 19, an excavator made the final berm cut to allow full tidal flow to 200 acres of the Crescent Harbor salt marsh on Naval Air Station Whidbey Island for the first time in about 100 years.

The salt marsh had been cut off from fish access, with a minimal tidal exchange through a tide gate built in the 1900s.

Representatives from the SRSC, which is the natural resources management arm of the Swinomish and Sauk-Suiattle tribes, joined U.S. Naval officials at NAS Whidbey Island to watch the tide reconnect with the existing narrow channel.

“Our ancestors walked this earth right here before there were any non-Indians,” said Brian Cladoosby, chairman of the Swinomish Tribe. “They lived out here when all of this was marsh land, so to have the tidal flow reintroduced is really amazing.”

The SRSC partnered with the Navy in 2007, to fund and design the restoration, acquiring grants from the Estuary and Salmon Restoration Program and Salmon Recovery Funding Board. The Whidbey Island Conservation District assisted with engineering.

Marking the success of another project, on Tuesday, Aug. 18, crews removed the last of the old dikes and levees that prevented the tide from flowing into a former estuary around Wiley Slough in the Skagit River delta.

The state-owned parcel of land, known as the Headquarters Unit of the Skagit Wildlife Area, was converted from an estuary to a recreational area in 1962 – using dikes, drainage ditches, culverts and tide gates.

The 175-acre Wiley Slough restoration was proposed in 2002. It was completed in partnership with the tribes, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW), Seattle City Light and the conservation group Skagit Watershed Council, with funding from the state Salmon Recovery Funding Board, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Natural Resources Conservation Service, U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs, NOAA Restoration Center and the Estuary and Salmon Restoration Program.

For more information, contact: Steve Hinton, director of restoration, Skagit River System Cooperative, 360-466-7228 or shinton@skagitcoop.org; Kari Neumeyer, information officer, Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission, 360-424-8226 or kneumeyer@nwifc.org.

Another four day week of tribal net fishing on the Nisqually River ended peacefully on Wednesday.

The Nisqually is famous for its tense history of clashes between tribal and non-tribal fishermen over the years. It is one of the few places that the two entities share salmon runs in such a confined and concentrated area. Just last year the uneasy undercurrent of resentment overflowed. Tribal police received reports of hateful shouting matches, graffiti and rock throwing.

“There was quite a bit of hostility and situations were escalating to the point that we really thought we needed to intervene,” said Cynthia Iyall, Chairwoman of the Nisqually Tribe.

Suquamish: Tribes Seek Crab and People for Hood Canal Crab Study

Jamestown S’Klallam: Tribe Fighting Latest Trend in Noxious Weeds: Butterfly Bush

Lower Elwha Klallam: Major Successes in Steelhead Broodstock Program at Lower Elwha

The Herald:

Hormone replacement pills and other drugs, along with dandruff shampoo, perfumes and other personal-care products that go down the drain could be hurting life in the Stillaguamish River.

The Stillaguamish Tribe is concerned that chronic, low-level exposure to chemical contaminants is creating a toxic environment that could hurt chinook salmon and cause reproductive problems for the fish.

The U.S. Geological Survey has figured out how to spot such chemicals in the water and has enlisted the help of the city of Arlington to do a two-year investigative study on what are called “emerging contaminants” in the river.

The Fraser River sockeye salmon runs, the biggest local moneymaker for commercial fishing in good years, appear to have collapsed again in 2009.

Although some hope remains that the fish may still arrive late in large enough numbers to permit a commercial fishery, the chances of that appear to be fading, said Merle Jefferson, natural resources director for Lummi Nation.

“There’s going to be no fishery unless there’s a miracle, unless they’re real, real late,” Jefferson said.

While many local non-Indian fishers now make most or all of their money in Alaska, the Lummi fishing fleet of five purse seiners and about 150 gillnetters relies heavily on sockeye for both money and food. If no sockeye fishery materializes this year, it would be the third straight year of little or no sockeye catch in local waters.

“It’s getting hard to justify being a fisherman,” Jefferson said. “Sockeye is our bread and butter.”

As Marine Mammal Stranding Coordinator for the tribe, Peters’ primary job duty is to monitor the tribe’s 24-hour marine mammal stranding hotline to dispatch rescuers to marine mammals stranded on nearby beaches. Peters also assists with marine mammal research objectives such as marine mammal surveys within the Makah treaty-reserved fishing areas.

“Having Seraphina available really helps improve our response time to marine mammals on the beach,” said Scordino. “Better response time improves protection of human and canine health,” he said.

Marine mammals such as seals can carry diseases fatal to humans and dogs visiting local beaches. “By getting to these sick marine mammals sooner we can minimize the potential of the spread of these diseases,” said Scordino.

Sea lions, for instance, may carry leptospirosis, a disease that affects the kidneys and is frequently fatal. If humans or dogs come into close contact with a sick sea lion or its feces, that infection may spread.

Scordino was forced once to euthanize a sea otter that was clearly unhealthy. The otter carried wounds indicating that he’d had a fight with a dog on the beach. The otter was later found to have canine distemper, a disease fatal to dogs.

Layers of fat that insulate marine mammals from the cold water of the ocean causes them to overheat when they become stranded on a beach. Once a marine mammal has died the insulation of the fat also traps heat within the body which causes the animals’ organs to decompose quickly. The decomposition makes determining the cause of death almost impossible, Scordino said.

“Getting to these animals in a timely manner allows us to perform necropsies to determine the cause of death and gives us clues to trends in marine mammal populations,” said Scordino.

Peters, a veteran of the tribe’s fisheries program, already has responded to one stranding. A several hundred-pound elephant seal was on the beach for molting. Elephant seals come ashore to shed their hair annually, as well as to breed and give birth. Peters kept other people away until the seal ambled back into the water. “It was exciting,” she said. “This is really interesting work.”

“Her job is part public relations, part public health and part marine mammal survey,” said Scordino. While other agencies will respond to marine mammal stranding calls in the Neah Bay area, Peters is less than an hour away. To report a marine mammal stranding in the area, call 360-640-0569.

A grant from the John H. Prescott Marine Mammal Rescue Assistance Grant Program funds Peters’ position. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration program provides grants or cooperative agreements for recovery and treatment of stranded marine mammals, and data collection from living or dead stranded marine mammals.
-End-
For more information, contact: Russ Svec, Makah Fisheries Program Manager – (360) 645-3160; Jonathan Scordino, Marine Mammal Biologist for the Makah Tribe, (360) 645-3176; Debbie Preston, Coastal Information Officer, Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission, (360) 374-5501, dpreston@nwifc.org

Stillaguamish Tribe Chair Sandy Klineberger explained that she and the Tribal Council saw the 20th annual Festival and pow wow as an opportunity to refocus on “the traditional culture that’s been missing from the Tribe for the past 30 years,” which the Tribe also did recently by performing its first salmon ceremony in more than 150 years, by Klineberger’s estimate.

“The Festival is a reflection of the Tribe and who we are,” said Klineberger, who cited its tents on both cultural and natural resources. “We have to get our children involved in carving, basket-weaving, gathering of native plants and learning our language.”

To that end, this year’s Festival included a greater focus on its pow wow, which Klineberger sees as a cultural benefit to other tribes and the surrounding community.

“It’s much bigger than it’s been in years past, with many more dancers,” Klineberger said. “We want it to feel welcoming to everyone, and not just the tribes. We’ve had people come and say, ‘Oh, I didn’t go over to the pow wow, because I thought that was just for native peoples,’ but that’s how we show part of who we are. You’re don’t have to dress in regalia to be part of it. It’s a religious ceremony, like being in church, and when you hear that drumbeat, it’s like a heartbeat, celebrating our ancestors and their history.”