Slightly more than $600,000 from the Columbia River Salmon and Steelhead Endorsement fee potentially will be spent to maintain or improve sport fishing in Southwest Washington in 2016 and early 2017.
Ann Stephenson, a Department of Fish and Wildlife biologist and administrative coordinator for the Columbia River Salmon and Steelhead Recreational Anglers Board, said the six local counties will receive up to 37 percent of the overall fisheries spending for the fee this cycle.
In 2009, the Legislature passed Senate Bill 5421, which requires an $8.75 fee to fish for salmon or steelhead in the Columbia River from Tongue Point near Astoria to Chief Joseph Dam and many of its tributaries. The money is used for scientific monitoring, data collection, law enforcement and other ways to maintain or create new recreational fishing opportunities.
Here is a summary of how the money is being spent in Southwest Washington:
Lower Cowlitz tributary weirs — $111,396 to maintain and operate four weirs on lower Cowlitz River tributaries to control the straying of hatchery-origin summer steelhead on to the spawning grounds, count the winter and summer steelhead in the streams and to collect natural winter steelhead to use in the hatchery program.
Hatcheries on the Cowlitz fuel the largest steelhead fishery in Washington. However, to maintain the current fish production level, the Cowlitz River Fishery and Hatchery Management Plan requires high harvest rates plus straying rates of adult hatchery fish on to the spawning grounds to be controlled tightly.
The weirs are operated May through November on Ostrander, Delameter, Olequa and Lacamas creeks.
Lands agent — $16,411 to pay for two months of work by a lands/real estate agent toward acquisition of public access on a prioritized list of sites.
The six top priority sites, in order, are:
• A drift boat launch and pullout on the Bureau of Land Management property on the Klickitat River.
• Dredging of the Gerhart Gardens Park boat ramp on the lower Cowlitz River.
• Tena Bar access, garbage control and portable bathrooms on the Columbia River downstream of Langsdorf Landing in the Vancouver Lake lowlands.
• Bank access from County Line Park on the Columbia River between Longview and Cathlamet.
• Marking and enforcement of the Gorley’s access site, parking and ramp on the Grays River.
• Improvements at the sanded-in Lyle boat ramp on the Columbia River in Klickitat County.
Steelhead creel sampling — $365,025 to pay for angler sampling on the Coweeman, Kalama, East Fork Lewis, Wind and White Salmon rivers, plus Rock Creek in Skamania County.
Limited continuation of a summer steelhead hooking mortality study on the Wind River also is being financed with this money.
Monitoring the impacts on wild steelhead caught and released incidental to harvest seasons on hatchery steelhead is required by department policies and plans.
Checkers sample streams on a three-year rotational basis. Starting in 2017, the rotation shifts to the Grays, Elochoman and Green rivers plus Mill, Abernathy, Germany and Salmon creeks.
Summer, fall chinook sampling — $47,331 to sample anglers on the lower Columbia River during the periods when summer chinook and fall chinook angling is mark-selective, which means only fin-clipped hatchery fish may be retained.
Those periods are mid-June through July for summer chinook and early to mid-September for fall chinook.
Administrative coordinator — $29,300 to pay for 30 percent of the salary and benefits of biologist to administer the Columbia River Salmon and Steelhead Endorsement Program.
Process manual — $32,099 to create a process manual which describes how projects are proposed, vetted, prioritized, approved and implement for endorsement fund dollars. The process needs to be open to public review and consistent with the legislation that created the fund.
