Murray Encourages Sides To Reach Agreement In Puget Salmon Impasse; BIA Docs Surface

It’s a relatively quiet day in Olympia on the Puget Sound salmon impasse front, but this afternoon U.S. Senator Patty Murray responded to a letter that Northwest Sportsman sent her, as well as Washington’s other federal lawmakers and the Governor’s Office late last week.

The third-term Democrat from Bothell, who is up for reelection this fall, says she’s “monitoring this situation closely.”

At the moment, the situation is this: The state’s 2016–17 season is on hold because of a lack of agreement with the tribes over how to split this year’s available Chinook, coho and other salmon stocks.

As WDFW pursues its own permit from the National Marine Fisheries Service, it’s had to suspend fisheries for steelhead, spring Chinook, trout and even a popular bass system.

And earlier this week, a series of Bureau of Indian Affairs-approved tribal Chinook fisheries with an expected May harvest of up to 1,200 wild and hatchery kings and impact of up to 70 wild steelhead began on Puget Sound rivers and bays.

That tribal fishermen are on the water while sport anglers sit on the banks rankles the latter group, and yesterday we held a well-attended rally outside a federal office in Lacey to ask for fairness in fisheries while WDFW and U.S. Department of Justice attorneys met inside on possible paths.

State spokesmen didn’t have much news to report out of that or again today, but Senator Murray’s advice to both sides reiterates what came from NMFS regional administrator Will Stelle earlier this week, and which was the same thing the feds were saying last week.

“I continue to encourage both parties to come to a solution that meets salmon conservation goals while allowing recreational, commercial, and tribal fisheries to open for 2016,” Murray said in her response.

NMFS spokesman Michael Milstein yesterday said that resolving the catch-sharing disagreement, which is centered around lowering the proposed harvest of Puyallup River Chinook by all parties from 58 percent to 50 percent, would lead to a “reasonably quick resolution.”

Meanwhile, BIA authorizations for May’s tribal fisheries surfaced today.

Documents describe ceremonial and subsistence, test and commercial Chinook fisheries on four rivers — two in the North Sound, two in the South Sound — and on Skagit and Tulalip Bays with total anticipated harvests and impacts of:

• 412 hatchery and wild Nooksack River Chinook through June 15, including 21 natural origin Chinook, and 13 wild steelhead;
• 623 hatchery and wild Skagit River Chinook, including 148 natural origin kings, and 55 “kelt-adjusted” wild steelhead;
• 1,035 Chinook in Tulalip Bay (67 in May), and two steelhead, if past years’ averages hold;
• 385 Puyallup and White River Chinook (74 in May), and up to one steelhead

A Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission statement out earlier this week said the “spring Chinook fishery in particular is important to the treaty tribes because it is the first run of salmon to return for the season,” which is not unlike how sport anglers and associated businesses view the importance of Columbia spring Chinook fisheries.

According to BIA, those steelhead impacts amount to .3 percent, about one-sixth of the level (1.8 percent) determined not to be a threat to the ESA-listed stocks.

The tribes were able to use a funding nexus with the federal government to get the expedited fishing authorization from BIA.

The determination came out ahead of NMFS’s own concurrent review and states that “BIA concurs with NWIFC conclusion that consistent with sections 7(a)(2) and 7(d) of the (Endangered Species Act), Puget Sound treaty tribal salmon fisheries expected to occur between May 1 and May 31, 2016, will not jeopardize any listed species …”

It adds, “BIA also understands that this is a limited tribal fishery and there will also be substantial opportunity for further modification of these harvest rate limits after the biological opinion is completed if necessary.”

NMFS’s review of the fisheries is expected to be completed next week.

Yesterday, the federal agency also heard our side loud and clear. Following the sportfishing rally outside their state offices, Tom Nelson of The Outdoor Line on 710 ESPN tweeted out, “Thanks to all that attended today! @NOAA is listening!”

As for the rest of Senator Murray’s response to me and, likely, scads of other concerned fishermen, it angles for votes, saying that she “will continue to fight for the highest possible funding level” for the “critical” Pacific Coastal Salmon Recovery Fund program in the Senate’s 2017 appropriations budget.