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Clark County staff to send revised letter seeking info from WDFW on hatchery closures
Summary
County staff will send a draft letter to the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife requesting information about recent hatchery closures and reductions; councilors asked staff to strike a closing sentence that pledged blanket support for the region's hatchery program and asked for additional presentations from local recovery partners.
Clark County staff said July 30 they will send a revised information request to the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) seeking details about recent hatchery closures and reductions in southwest Washington. The county had circulated a draft letter to WDFW directors after the council requested follow-up at a previous meeting.
"This draft here is the letter that was requested last week to the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife," said Jordan Bogie, senior policy analyst. Bogie said he had exchanged emails with the regional director and received a fact sheet on hatchery closures but that the fact sheet did not explain why the Skamania hatchery was closed or why reductions occurred on the Washougal River while similar cuts did not occur on the Toutle River.
Councilors debated the substance of the draft. Councilor Young said the letter was "good and to the point of what we're trying to get at." Another councilor said the issue was complex and that hatchery, habitat, hydro and harvest are all pillars that affect wild fish recovery; that councilor proposed the Lower Columbia Fish Recovery Board and the state Department of Ecology be invited to provide more information before the council took a position on supporting the hatchery program.
Councilor Little and others said they had no problem with asking WDFW for more information, but several councilors agreed to strike the draft's closing sentence that read, in effect, "to support our region's fish hatchery program," because they said they needed more information before making a policy endorsement. Bogie said he would "strike that sentence and get some more information from WDFW."
No formal roll-call vote was recorded on the letter; staff indicated they would revise the draft and send it. Councilors requested that staff continue to track responses from WDFW and consider scheduling presentations from the Lower Columbia Fish Recovery Board and Ecology to provide additional context on hatcheries and wild-fish recovery in the area.
