Local or MSRT Comments: See Washington guidance

Funding is qualified, in that the completed Master Plan needs to include a “no artificial production” alternative modeled to achieve the plan’s objectives for steelhead and spring Chinook in the upper Klickitat subbasin. Modeling should provide some type of evidence (model, habitat data, EDT modeling, etc.) that shows the likelihood of achieving upper Klickitat basin objectives with and without supplementation. Modeling should evaluate the potential of a passive natural rebuilding approach over an appropriate response period, perhaps 10-12 years (~ 3 generations), that if not successful could retrigger consideration of the hatchery supplementation program proposed. A habitat-based model might predict the numbers of wild recruits necessary to fully seed the upper part of the watershed - even EDT could do that and would therefore indicate whether supplementation is needed to achieve the upper basin objectives.

The ISRP is supportive of the Master Plan’s vision of separating lower river fall Chinook and coho hatchery and harvest operations from the upper river rebuilding objectives for steelhead and spring Chinook. This component of Klickitat subbasin anadromous fish management activity is for fish rearing. A portion of the fish rearing is for reduced numbers of coho and fall Chinook to be reared at the Wahkiacus facility and released lower in the subbasin than they now are. It is hoped that this will reduce any deleterious ecological interactions between released hatchery fish and natural steelhead and spring Chinook. The ISRP noted that this would require a rigorous monitoring program. The sponsor referred the ISRP to the general response for proposal 198811535. The ISRP will need to evaluate this dimension of the program in the Master Plan M&E.

Comments specific to this proposal:

This proposal is for operations and maintenance activities at the Wahkiacus Hatchery and Acclimation Facility (WHAF) in the Klickitat Subbasin. The sponsors propose to acclimate 2,000,000 fall Chinook and 1,000,000 coho smolts using existing out-of-basin production in order to implement hatchery reforms at the Klickitat Hatchery.

Reforms include reducing releases of coho from 3.5 million smolts annually to 1 million smolts. The Wahkiacus facility and associated acclimations ponds (and the very large expense of all these plans) are aimed at two management issues. The first is to effectively restrict coho and fall Chinook management (and distribution) in the Klickitat to the lower third of the river and through the use of acclimation pond releases for coho, reduce the number of smolts outplanted, thereby reducing interspecific and density-dependent competition among juvenile salmonids in the middle and lower reaches of the Klickitat. The second management issue is aimed at managing the wild steelhead and spring Chinook populations that use the middle and upper reaches of the river. The sponsors assert that investment in the Wahkiacus portion of the plan for coho and fall Chinook will accomplish this. Monitoring will be required to establish whether this result is obtained.

Sponsors have made a convincing argument that the coho and fall Chinook portion of the plan are tied to the development of the Wahkiacus facility and acclimation ponds. That said, the ISRP remains skeptical that the spring Chinook and steelhead plans for the upper basin require the level of investment in supplementation that is proposed. Nowhere in any of the related Klickitat YKFP documents or the Klickitat Subbasin Plan has there been any discussion of restricting harvest on these species, and pursuing the plan's rebuilding goals on a natural fish only schedule, particularly now that passage improvements have occurred at Castile Falls and habitat improvements have been made in the upper meadow section above Castile Falls. An open and forthright discussion of this alternative might show that it is a feasible option, or it might show that some level of hatchery intervention is required. We don't know, and we haven't had that discussion in any of these documents.