With time running short to adopt 2017 fishing seasons, the Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission on Friday delegated authority to director Jim Unsworth to negotiate the differences with Oregon regarding the controversial Columbia River salmon reforms.
The Washington commission also intends to write a letter to its Oregon counterparts proposing a face-to-face meeting and to ask about Oregon’s commitment to shifting commercial fishing in the fall in the lower Columbia away from gillnets to gear allowing release of wild fish.
Friday’s discussion by the Washington commission is the latest in a back-and-forth process between the two states that begin in 2013 and ramped up in January.
Reforms adopted by both states in early 2013 allocated more chinook salmon to sportsmen in the main Columbia and restricted gillnetting to off-channel sites like Youngs Bay near Astoria.
The reforms also called for commercial fishing that remained in the main Columbia to be done with live-capture methods — such as purse seines and beach seines — designed to harvest hatchery stocks and release wild fish.
However, testing of beach and purse seines in the main Columbia found much higher mortality rates of released fish than anticipated four years ago and efforts to develop more off-channel fishing sites for the commercials have had mixed results.
The 2013 reforms had a four-year transition period with full implementation in 2017.
In January, Washington modified its policy to allow for two more years of gillnetting between Woodland and Beacon Rock.
Also in January, Oregon’s commission adopted rules much more friendly to commercial fishing. Oregon Gov. Kate Brown then scolded her commission and told it to adopt rules closer to those adopted by Washington.
That happened last week in Corvallis, but differences remain between the two states.
Oregon’s revised rules allow a potential tangle-net commercial season for spring chinook salmon in mid-May, plus allocate Endangered Species Act impacts for fall chinook between sport and commercial fishermen at different percentages than Washington.
Oregon’s action did not mention ending fall gillnetting beginning in 2019.
Washington commission member Larry Carpenter of Mount Vernon noted on Friday that rules for sport and commercial fishing in the Columbia River need to be agreed to by the time the Pacific Fishery Management Council reaches resolution on the ocean salmon seasons on April 11.
“If there’s no deal by then, the wheels start to come off the wagon,’’ Carpenter said.
Given such a tight time frame, the commission choose a process of letting Unsworth negotiate with Curt Melcher, director of the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, for 2017 while potentially talking with Oregon’s commission in May or June.
Unsworth asked if he is not able to negotiate compromise from Oregon, could the Washington commission accept that position.
Carpenter said the commission has to trust Unsworth to do his best. Negotiating is a dynamic process and to saddle Unsworth with constraints is impractical, he added.
Commission member Kim Thorburn of Spokane said she could accept the Oregon rule, given how testing of alternative commercial gear and the development of off-channel fishing areas has not gone as expected. She also said she could accept a spring tangle-net season for chinook.
Commission member Miranda Wecker of Naselle said answers are needed if Oregon is committed to eliminating gillnets.
“Is Oregon abandoning that vision?’’ Wecker asked. “It’s not clear if they want this (fall gillnetting between Woodland and Beacon Rock) for the foreseeable future. Does Washington want to continue to pursue our vision for selective fisheries? I would like to see us continue in that spirit.’’
Carpenter said Gov. Jay Inslee has made it clear to the Washington commission that he supports conservation and selective fisheries.
The dire condition of upper Columbia-Snake summer steelhead also is a factor in planning for summer and fall fisheries and likely will result in significant restraints.
Forecasts call for just 6,200 hatchery-origin Group B steelhead and a mere 1,100 wild Group B steelhead in 2017. Group B steelhead are larger, later-returning fish headed for Idaho’s Snake River.
About 2,000 hatchery Group B steelhead are needed for facilities in Idaho’s Clearwater River Basin.
An even tighter constraint is the federal Endangered Species Act, which allows just 2 percent of wild steelhead to be killed in pursuit of other fish.
That means only 22 wild Group B steelhead can be killed by non-Indians, including the lower Columbia sports and commercial fisheries and popular steelhead fisheries in places like Drano Lake, the mouth of the Deschutes River and the John Day River arm.
Final fishing rules are expected to include a variety of restrictions and closures to protect Group B steelhead in 2017.
