Billy Frank, Jr. Chairman NWIFC

I’m starting to wonder if the state’s budget problems mean it will no longer be able to co-manage natural resources with the treaty tribes. Even President Obama has said recently that the state’s budget crisis is a “huge problem.”

Like most of state government, natural resources agencies are likely going to see a huge hit during this upcoming legislative session as the state seeks to fill its $2 billion budget gap. It’s sad to see state government backing away from the basic work of natural resources management, but there’s been at least one bright spot.

The governor has wisely proposed a one-time transfer of $1.5 million from the state Department of Fish and Wildlife’s wildlife fund to protect salmon production at several hatcheries. We hope the Legislature will support her plan. Sport, commercial and tribal fishermen from the ocean to deep south Sound would all feel the effects of the lost hatchery production.

Some say the transfer would be wrong because the funds come from hunting and recreational fishing license fees, but will be used to maintain production at hatcheries that also support commercial and tribal fisheries. I would remind those people that in 2010, treaty tribes in western Washington produced more than 30 million salmon and steelhead at their hatcheries. Those fish will be harvested by everyone, Indian and non-Indian. That’s because all hatcheries support all fisheries to some extent. That’s the way it should be, because the salmon is for everyone. Don’t ever let anyone tell you it’s not.

Salmon production at state hatcheries in western Washington already has dropped sharply in the past decade from a high in 2001 of nearly 90 million fish. That figure could dip to less than 50 million if projected cuts become reality.

Most hatcheries were built to make up for lost natural salmon production caused by lost and damaged habitat. If production at those hatcheries is reduced or eliminated, we all pay twice: once for the lost natural production and again for the lost hatchery production.

It is important to remember that tribal and state co-management is not optional. It is required under U.S. v. Washington, (the Boldt Decision) and is key to international processes such as the U.S./Canada Pacific Salmon Treaty. Co-management also is required for implementation of agreements such as the Puget Sound Salmon Management Plan and the Hoh v. Baldrige Framework Management Plan, which form the basis of salmon management in western Washington.

The state’s budget problems, combined with the ongoing loss of salmon habitat and the state’s inability to stop that trend, put tribal cultures and treaty-reserved rights at risk. The decline of wild salmon and degradation of their habitat already has restricted the ability of the tribes to exercise their treaty-reserved fishing rights. More cuts in hatchery production and state participation in co-management would further threaten those rights.

The treaty tribes are committed to co-management. We know that difficult decisions must be made during these tough economic times, but they should not come at the further expense of tribal cultures and treaty rights or the fish production that we all, both Indian and non-Indian, rely on.

Billy Frank Jr. is the chairman of the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission.

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For more information, contact: Tony Meyer or Emmett O’Connell, NWIFC, (360) 438-1181

Billy Frank, Jr. Chairman NWIFC

How much fish and shellfish do you eat?

For more than 20 years the state of Washington has based its water quality standards on the idea that we eat one small bite a day, or 6.5 grams. About the size of a sugar cube.

That number is very important to everyone who lives here because it is used to set state standards for how much pollution can legally be put into our waters. The number the state’s using right now isn’t even close to what most of us eat.

We’ve been working hard for the past two decades to encourage the state to adopt a more realistic rate that will better protect those waters, the food that comes out of them, and the health of everyone who lives here. Now it finally looks like the state department of Ecology is taking steps to revise the old standards, and that’s encouraging.

It’s a sad fact that much of our local seafood is contaminated by pollution that seems to be everywhere in our environment. The new consumption standard will be aimed at helping to reduce levels of more than 100 pollutants that can hurt people. Over the long term these poisons can make us sick and even kill us.

Sure, some people don’t eat locally harvested seafood at all, but those of us who do sure as heck eat a lot more than a small bite a day. Even though tribal members eat a lot more fish and shellfish than most folks, many thousands of non-Indians – especially our Asian-American and Pacific Islander communities – also make seafood a large part of their diets.

It’s a shame that it’s taken so long to revise our state’s ridiculously low consumption standard, but the polluters have a strong lobby. They’ll tell us we can’t afford to protect our water, our food and our health, that new rules will lead to everything from lost jobs to higher sewer rates at a time when our economy is struggling.

The truth is that we’ve all been paying the costs of a low consumption rate for many years in terms of the quality of our water, food and our health.

Regardless of what number is chosen to update the consumption standard, it’s unlikely to even come close to the amount of fish and shellfish tribes eat every day. But revising our state’s fish consumption standard is not just a tribal issue. It’s a public health issue that affects everyone who lives here. That’s why we support a significant increase.

We are standing on the edge of a great opportunity and we need to take bold action. Ecology will be holding public hearings on the new standards and you will have a chance to participate. Stand up for the water! Stand up for your food and your health! Let Ecology know that you eat fish and shellfish from Washington waters. Tell them you want to see the new consumption standard adopted quickly, without major loopholes for polluters.

For us tribes, western Washington is our home, and its waters are the source of much of our food. Our cultures and treaty rights are tied to this place, and we are committed to keeping it a healthy place to live. Fish and shellfish is food. There’s no reason it shouldn’t be available, plentiful and healthy enough for all of us to eat.

Billy Frank Jr. is the chairman of the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission.

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For more information, contact: Tony Meyer or Emmett O’Connell, NWIFC, (360) 438-1181

Billy Frank, Jr. Chairman NWIFC

Salmon are on the same downward trend as the amount and quality of their habitat, and until we turn that around, there’s little hope for their recovery.

The tribes believe the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers’ streamlined nationwide permit system for bulkhead construction and other shoreline changes is making it too easy to damage and destroy important nearshore salmon habitat in western Washington. We think a change is needed.

Disappearing and damaged habitat are the main causes for the decline of wild salmon in western Washington. The tribes believe the Corps is encouraging habitat damage and destruction by streamlining the process to allow property owners to in some cases build the very same structures that we are working to remove as part of salmon recovery efforts. That means the federal government is working against itself. It’s why we are calling on the leadership to line up agency action and make salmon recovery a reality.

Bulkhead construction, dredging, filling and other shoreline changes are often regulated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers under the Clean Water through a fast track nationwide permit system. As long as a property owner meets the conditions of these permits, they are automatically re-authorized with little public review. There’s also little consideration of how multiple projects in a certain area might result in greater habitat damage.

The Clean Water Act says that the Corps can’t authorize the permits if they cause more than minor harm to the marine ecosystem alone, or combined. Yet with little or no study of the possible effects of the program, the Corps is getting ready to allow another five years of fast track shoreline changes.

We think that’s wrong and we are calling on the Corps to make a change. We are asking the Corps to take into consideration the special needs of salmon and the loss of nearshore habitat in western Washington.

We’re not asking the Corps to stop issuing permits for shoreline work nationwide, but rather for the Seattle District Office to switch to an individual permit system that acknowledges the need to protect and restore salmon habitat in western Washington.

We’re not alone. The National Marine Fisheries Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, and the Puget Sound Partnership are all calling for similar change.

While we hold no hope for salmon recovery under the federal Endangered Species Act, we believe that aligning the work of federal agencies affecting salmon recovery offers the best chance for success. We also believe that this approach offers the best protection of our treaty-reserved fishing rights, which are based on the fact that there must be salmon for us to harvest. Protecting those rights is the trust responsibility of the federal government.

The Corps’ nationwide streamlined permit process might make sense in other parts of the country, but not here. This isn’t the Mississippi River or Florida. They don’t have salmon. We do, and they’re in trouble.

If we are going to recover salmon, we have to stop damaging and destroying salmon habitat. The Clean Water Act is clear. By continuing to issue these types of permits for shoreline changes, the Corps is saying that these projects aren’t causing harm, and that’s just not true. We can’t recover salmon if we keep losing and damaging salmon habitat.

Billy Frank Jr. is the chairman of the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission.

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For more information, contact: Tony Meyer or Emmett O’Connell, NWIFC, (360) 438-1181

Billy Frank, Jr. - Chairman NWIFC

We all owe a big “thank you” to the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe. They never gave up on getting those two dams torn down, and today that dream is becoming a reality. For 100 years they have had to wait for their treaty rights to be restored and for the salmon to return.

The salmon never gave up either. At a recent dam removal celebration, I saw 73 chinook swimming in the clear green water at the foot of the Elwha Dam, ready and waiting. And it won’t be long before the river’s estuary comes back to life, too, with clams spitting all over the place.

This is a great day for the Elwha people. All of those who have gone before us, they’re looking down on the Elwha, too, and they are witnessing what is happening. And they are smiling.

“Economic engine,” “long-term economic growth” and “investment in the future” are some of the words folks have used to describe the benefits of the dam removal project. And they’re right.

The Olympic Peninsula has struggled for years as its fishing and timber-based jobs have disappeared. But removal of the Elwha River dams is changing that. Hope is replacing fear, jobs are being created and more will be coming in the long term. More than 3 million people visit Olympic National Park every year, and that number will only increase as the river is restored.

These things tell us that we can conserve our natural resources and create jobs, that healthy salmon runs and a healthy economy can go hand-in-hand.

The dam removal celebration was really a celebration of treaty rights. For a century the two dams built without fish ladders denied the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe its treaty-reserved right to harvest salmon, a fundamental part of tribal culture, communities and economies.

The Lower Elwha Klallam people have put their treaty rights to work, restoring the Elwha for all of us, Indian and non-Indian. Their name means “strong people,” and you damn well better believe they’re strong. It’s the kind of strength we all need on our journey to recover the salmon.

That’s because there are many more Elwha dams out there. They might not look the same, and they might go by other names, like floodplain development, shoreline armoring and nonpoint pollution, but they are just as deadly to salmon. And like the Elwha dams, they’re just as effective at denying all of us healthy salmon runs, a healthy environment and a healthy economy. We all need to make sure that no more dams get in the salmon’s way.

Billy Frank Jr. is the chairman of the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission.

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For more information, contact: Tony Meyer or Emmett O’Connell, NWIFC, (360) 438-1181

Billy Frank, Jr. - Chairman NWIFC

I’ve been talking a lot lately about the connection between salmon, habitat and treaty rights. That connection is pretty simple. No habitat equals no salmon; no salmon equals no treaty rights; and no treaty rights equals a breach of contract between the tribes and U.S. government.

It is the U.S. government – not the state of Washington – that has the responsibility to recover salmon in western Washington. It’s also up to the federal government to protect and uphold our treaty rights.

We believe that one of the best ways to do that is by coordinating federal agencies and programs designed to protect salmon and their habitat.

A good place to start is with the dikes and levees that allow construction in floodplains that really shouldn’t be developed. They call them floodplains for a reason. When you build in a floodplain, you are going to get flooded. It’s only a question of how often and how bad the flooding will be. Dikes and levees lead to straight rivers with high-speed flows and little to no salmon habitat. They destroy a river’s ability to spread out and move naturally along its path, which makes flooding worse, leading to even more damage.

Dikes and levees may be good for development, but they are bad for salmon habitat. I’m not saying that all dikes and levees should be removed. Floodplain management that is good for salmon can also be good for flood control. In fact, with the proper vegetation, levees could make a small contribution to salmon recovery.

Salmon need cool, clean water to survive. In healthy river systems, trees and shrubs along the banks help keep temperatures low. But when dikes or levees line a river, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers says most of that vegetation must be cut down. The corps has started enforcing that rule all over the country.

It’s a one-size-fits-all approach that might work on the Mississippi River, but is out of place here in western Washington. Some people say the corps is simply trying to cover its bases following Hurricane Katrina, which wiped out much of New Orleans a few years ago.

Despite the huge cost of clear-cutting trees and plants on levees, there hasn’t been any kind of study to find out whether vegetation actually weakens them. In fact, many scientists believe the root systems help make levees stronger.

Meanwhile, tribes have been finding creative solutions that help protect property and restore salmon. The Nisqually Tribe has spent the last few years building logjams on the Mashel River, a vital salmon tributary to the Nisqually. The logjams replaced a levee made of riprap and are doing an excellent job of protecting two city parks and a home.

The old riprap levee made flooding worse by increasing the speed of the river. Now, the river moves more slowly and is a much friendlier place for salmon and people. The tribe and community volunteers have planted hundreds of trees and shrubs along and on top of the logjams, providing important shade for salmon in the Mashel.

Salmon recovery is not easy. It never has been. Unfortunately some federal agencies and programs make it harder than it needs to be. It’s sad that salmon habitat in our rivers has declined to the point that levee vegetation is something to fight about, but we have to do everything we can to protect what little habitat we have left.

Billy Frank Jr. is the chairman of the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission.

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For more information, contact: Tony Meyer or Emmett O’Connell, NWIFC, (360) 438-1181

Samish Bay is one of the traditional shellfish gathering areas for the Swinomish and Upper Skagit tribes. It has some of the highest levels of fecal coliform in the state.

Fecal coliform is bacteria that’s found in the poop of warm-blooded animals. It ends up in the water when septic systems fail or when farm animals and manure aren’t kept far enough away from streams. The problem gets worse when heavy rains wash even more pollution into the bay. Already this year, Samish Bay has been closed to shellfish harvesting for 38 days.

We have asked the federal government time and again to take action against those who pollute our waterways and contaminate our shellfish. Our treaty shellfish harvest rights are threatened because the state and federal governments are failing to hold landowners responsible to keep fecal coliform and other pollutants out of our bays.

While tribal requests for help have been ignored by the federal government, others have gotten a response. When non-Indian commercial shellfish growers cried for relief from fecal coliform pollution in Samish Bay, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) responded. EPA gave Skagit County about $1 million to find and fix pollution problems. In May, the Puget Sound Partnership unveiled plans to conduct more inspections of septic tanks and farms.

I hope these efforts work. The state Department of Ecology has had its Clean Samish Initiative in place since 2009, but Gov. Chris Gregoire called the initiative a “failure” when the state was forced to downgrade another 4,000 acres of shellfish beds last spring.

“We’re not going to flush, literally flush 4,000 acres down the drain of prime shellfish growing area in the state,” Gov. Gregoire told state natural resources managers. Then she gave them until next September to make a difference. I applaud the governor for drawing a line in the sand at Samish Bay.

While I am encouraged by the governor’s action, I am discouraged at the failure of this initiative. It shows that we can’t always count on people to do the right thing. We can’t expect people to voluntarily correct the pollution problems that have been going on for years. Not when our treaty rights are at stake.

The whole time the Samish Initiative was trying to monitor water quality and educate landowners, a local farmer was letting his cows drink from the Samish River. Keeping cows out of the river is one of the most basic pollution control steps we can take, but even that simple step wasn’t being taken.

The Puget Sound Partnership has come up with a plan to reopen the shellfish beds in Samish Bay by September 2012. It calls for increased inspections, more education, and assistance to farmers and landowners.

I want to believe that this time they will make a difference, but it sounds an awful lot like more of the same to me. I think it’s time to get some management practices in place that will actually work to protect water quality and shellfish in Samish Bay, as well as our treaty rights.

Those rights don’t exist without the ability to harvest shellfish. For decades we were kept off the beaches because the state refused to recognize the rights we reserved with the federal government in treaty. Now, the state’s failure to clean up Samish Bay is doing the same thing.

Billy Frank Jr. is the chairman of the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission.

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For more information, contact: Tony Meyer or Kari Nuemeyer, NWIFC, (360) 438-1181

Habitat destruction doesn’t kill salmon just once. It keeps on killing, every hour of every day, because it destroys the possibility that salmon can produce naturally.

Our limited, highly restrictive fisheries are a clear reflection of the amount of good salmon habitat and natural productivity that we have lost. We believe that harvest and habitat must be held to the same standard, and that our conservative fisheries must go hand-in-hand with strong efforts to restore and protect salmon habitat. Instead, harvest is being held to a higher standard, and that’s not right.

One of the biggest losses of habitat is caused by culverts that block fish from moving upstream. More than 2,000 culverts under state roads block access to hundreds of miles of productive habitat. Those streams could be producing thousands more salmon every year. The state let this happen despite the fact that one of its oldest laws makes fish passage barriers illegal.

The state has known for years that these culverts needed to be fixed. In 1995, the Departments of Transportation and Fish and Wildlife told the Legislature that culvert correction was one of the most cost-effective habitat restoration strategies available.

Two years later, state biologists estimated that every dollar spent in culvert correction would generate four dollars worth of additional salmon production. Recent studies confirm that fixing fish passage barriers provides us with a big bang for our money. Yet the state has dragged its heels. The agency with the most culverts, the Department of Transportation (DOT), has fixed less than 10 percent of its fish passage barriers over the past 50 years.

The problem got so bad that the tribes asked the federal courts to intervene. In 2007 a federal judge issued a decision saying that our treaty-reserved fishing rights prohibit the state of Washington from depleting the salmon runs by maintaining fish-blocking culverts under state roads.

So have things changed since that court ruling? Yes – but not for the better.

In the three years before the decision, the DOT fixed an average of 16 culverts each year.

In the next three years, the average slipped to only nine fixes a year. Meanwhile, the number of barriers reported under DOT roads has actually been going up each year. At this rate it will take more than 200 years to fix just the DOT’s culverts.

Until they are fixed we will lose hundreds of thousands of wild salmon each year. That’s important not only to the treaty tribes, but all citizens, as well as eagles, orca and many other species that thrive on abundant salmon.

Sadly, the state’s lack of response is not surprising. Washington has a long history of not listening to the federal courts when it comes to tribal treaty rights. The state also has a long history of losing court cases involving those rights.

Fix the culverts, state of Washington. The salmon can’t wait and neither can we.

Billy Frank Jr. is the chairman of the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission.

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For more information, contact: Tony Meyer or Emmett O’Connell, NWIFC, (360) 438-1181

A good example is Anderson Glacier in the Olympic Mountains, which feeds the Quinault River. A 1927 photo of the glacier shows a massive table of ice. Look today and you’ll see mostly rocks. The glacier is gone.

In the past, glaciers melted slowly during the summer months and helped contribute cool, clean water to the rivers where salmon begin and end their lives. But today our rivers are getting warmer and our glaciers are disappearing, harming salmon at every stage of their life cycle.

Salmon and Indian people evolved together over centuries, but climate change is happening in the blink of an eye. It’s happening too quickly for salmon – and us – to keep up.

What can we do? We can try to save as much habitat as we can.

The Quinault Indian Nation is finding ways to preserve returning spring chinook that depend on melting glacier water during the peak of the summer. They’re looking into creating broodstock by rearing wild offspring in a hatchery to increase survival and preserve the run’s genetics. 

The Quinaults also are conducting a massive upper watershed restoration that will help stabilize river channels threatened by increased sediment left behind by melting glaciers. Salmon eggs are washed away each winter by powerful storms. By planting thousands of trees in 12 miles of barren floodplain, the Quinaults are helping preserve habitat for the spring run.

The Tulalip Tribes are studying ocean acidification, a side effect of climate change. The chemistry of the ocean and Puget Sound is changing because water absorbs carbon dioxide produced by fossil fuels. The Tulalip Tribes are paying careful attention to acidification’s impacts on local eel grass beds while protecting the remaining beds.

Our future tribal leaders have zeroed in on this issue, too. A group of students from the Suquamish Tribe recently participated in a national summit on climate change and ocean acidification. Interviewing tribal elders, scientists and others, the students made a powerful presentation at the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C., about the impact of climate change on our communities.

Next summer our coastal tribes, Hoh, Quileute, Makah and Quinault Indian Nation, will join the Office of National Marine Sanctuaries to host a climate change symposium at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian. “Maintaining Identity in the Face of Climate Change” is the name of the conference, which will include native people from coastal areas around the nation. They will testify to climate change impacts that are already occurring, what they are doing to prepare for the future, and how traditional indigenous knowledge may help those efforts.

I don’t know if we can reverse climate change. I hope we can. In the meantime, we need to protect as many salmon and as much habitat as possible while we look for solutions. And we need to do it now.

Billy Frank Jr. is the chairman of the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission.

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For more information, contact: Tony Meyer or Emmett O’Connell, NWIFC, (360) 438-1181

The tribe had petitioned the state twice in two years to stop water withdrawals in the Johns Creek basin until scientific information could be gathered to determine impacts from the multiplying wells. The state said it just couldn’t do that. Budget problems, they said.

For as much as we don’t know about how much water is available in the small Johns Creek watershed, there’s no doubt that the creek is mostly fed by groundwater in the basin. Flows in Johns Creek have dropped steadily since records started being kept in the 1950s, and every year the shortage has increased.

Since 1984 when its stream flow was formally protected, more than 200 “permit-exempt” wells have been drilled close to Johns Creek. State law allows these wells to be drilled without a permit and pump up to 5,000 gallons of water a day. Decades ago this type of well provided homeowners and others with easier access to water. Today those wells number in the thousands in western Washington and more are being drilled all the time.

“While we seek cooperation first in all of our natural resources management efforts, there are times when we must go to court to protect our culture and treaty rights.” That’s what my friend, Andy Whitener, natural resources director for the Squaxin Island Tribe, had to say.

He’s right; this was one of those times. Our treaty rights include the right of protection of natural resources. We will not stand by as those rights and resources are threatened.

The Legislature should provide the necessary funding for the state department of Ecology’s water resources mapping and assessment program. The money would be used to create comprehensive maps that would allow more science-based decision making about water availability. This would help avoid the kind of litigation that Squaxins were forced to take.

The fees necessary to support such an effort would add only about $200 to drilling a well, a small amount when you consider the investment in a new well is often more than $10,000. A couple hundred bucks per well isn’t too much to ask for the kind of information we need to make responsible decisions about how much water we’re taking out of the ground.

About half of all us who live here in Washington rely on groundwater for our drinking water. That’s a lot of people who deserve to know how much water they have. The Legislature should help make that happen.

Billy Frank Jr. is the chairman of the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission.

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For more information, contact: Tony Meyer or Emmett O’Connell, NWIFC, (360) 438-1181

The last 100 years have been hard on the tribes, the orcas and the salmon. Habitat loss and damage has pushed some salmon populations to the edge of extinction, threatening the orcas, tribal cultures and our treaty rights.

But instead of looking at the main causes for a weak local population of orcas, the federal government is asking us yet again to reconsider how we fish. We just spent several years working with our salmon co-managers to develop a five-year plan to manage our Puget Sound chinook fisheries in light of the recovery needs for fish listed under the federal Endangered Species Act.

Now, a half-step away from final approval, the federal government is asking us to go back to the drawing board and quickly produce a new two-year harvest plan that addresses how our fisheries might affect orca populations.

The state and tribal co-managers have been driving down impacts from treaty and non-treaty fisheries for decades in response to declining salmon runs caused by lost and damaged habitat. Our harvest levels have dropped to the point that harvest reductions alone can no longer recover salmon. Impacts caused by development, pollution and other factors have increased steadily and continue harming salmon 24 hours a day on every watershed.

Development and pollution are only a couple of factors that can hurt orca populations. Increasing ship traffic, military use of sonar and the growing popularity of whale watching all hurt orcas, increasing their stress levels and making it difficult for them to find food.

As our fishing impacts go down, those impacts go up, yet we’re the ones held accountable. Maybe developers, the U.S. Navy and whale watchers should be required come up with a plan to address how their actions over the next few years are going to affect orcas and salmon.

About 10 years ago, a pod of orcas visited Dyes Inlet in the Suquamish Tribe’s fishing area. The orcas were there for the same reason as tribal fishermen, to harvest chum salmon returning to Chico Creek. Despite a slow season, tribal fishermen stopped fishing to let the orcas get their fill.

Since then, the Suquamish Tribe has spent millions of dollars and countless hours restoring the Chico Creek watershed, making sure that there will be enough salmon for everyone to share. This is the kind of response we need to help orcas and salmon. Nothing else will do.

Asking the salmon co-managers to write a shorter-term harvest plan in the meantime won’t get us one inch closer to figuring out what we need to do to help orcas. It just puts us back on the plan-writing treadmill, ignoring the main causes and best solutions for the problems that we, the orcas and the salmon all face.

We know what salmon need and we know what orcas need. They need each other and they need us to help them survive. What’s good for one is good for the other and each one of us.

In the meantime, the federal government needs to stop holding fishermen responsible for something that we all know is caused by lost and damaged salmon habitat.

Billy Frank Jr. is the chairman of the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission.

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For more information, contact: Tony Meyer or Emmett O’Connell, NWIFC, (360) 438-118

The Tulalips created spawning habitat out of that ditch right next door to the nearby and growing Quil Ceda Village, a business park developed by the tribe.

Like many tribes in western Washington, the Tulalip Tribes have worked hard to create businesses that provide jobs and income for their members and their neighbors. Quil Ceda Village is expanding, but the Tulalips plan to build only on one-third of the undeveloped 1,500 acres there. The rest is going to be preserved or restored as fish and wildlife habitat.

Outside Indian Country, that kind of development can come at a high cost to the environment.

We tribes, on the other hand, make sure to keep things in balance. We have to preserve our natural resources and provide an economic future for our children. When we develop businesses on tribal land, we take salmon into account. We can have both salmon and a healthy economy. It doesn’t have to be a choice between the two.

Our salmon are running out of places to spawn because people are using up all the habitat. Fish need cool, gravelly places to build nests. The Tulalip Tribes saw this need in 2000 after they replaced a fish-blocking culvert and found chum salmon trying – and failing – to spawn in the sandy ditch.

That sandy ditch became Coho Creek after the tribes brought in tons of spawning gravel and created 2,500 feet of stream channel. They removed more fish-blocking culverts, planted native vegetation and last year, more salmon than ever were seen spawning there. They counted more than 50 coho and 1,500 chum.

We know these salmon are spawning successfully too, because last spring, the Tulalips saw several thousand chum fry and coho smolts swimming from Coho Creek out to sea.

In these times of lost and damaged habitat, it is rare to see brand new habitat being created. There’s no question that the need is great. Salmon began making themselves at home in the new habitat of Coho Creek almost as soon as it was created. And there’s room for more.

The tribe isn’t done with Coho Creek yet. Another half-mile of channel is ready for construction, along with the addition of wetlands to help naturally treat water runoff from the business park. Besides salmon, other fish, as well as frogs, birds and other wildlife will benefit from the tribes’ work.

Tulalip is also restoring 360 acres of estuary south of Marysville. It’s one of the largest restoration projects in Puget Sound and the largest so far in the Snohomish River delta. They’ve just gotten the final federal permits and are close to completing the local permits. The project is called the Qwuloolt estuary, named for the tribal word for “large marsh.” Tulalip is leading this effort in cooperation with nine local, state and federal agencies.

We know more and more people are coming into western Washington. Almost a million people are expected in the next 20 years just here in the Puget Sound region. We have to be ready for them. Let’s take a page from the Tulalip Tribes’ playbook and show that we can have both jobs and salmon.

Billy Frank Jr. is the chairman of the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission.

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For more information, contact: Tony Meyer or Kari Neumeyer, NWIFC, (360) 438-1180

We all know for a fact that hatcheries are no substitute for good habitat and natural salmon production. But the small amount of poor quality habitat we have left can’t support harvest. If there were no hatcheries there would be almost no salmon fishing at all in western Washington.

Tribes produce an average of 40 million salmon and steelhead every year. These fish are harvested by everyone. The Suquamish Tribe added to that average recently by re-starting its Agate Pass coho salmon net pen operation. Funding and other factors had forced the tribe to stop the program seven years ago.

Net pen operations can be strong contributors to fisheries. In the first 20 years of the Suquamish project, the tribe released more than 600,000 hatchery coho, all marked for harvest with an adipose fin clip.

I was excited to hear that a new Stillaguamish tribal facility is expected to be coming online soon. This hatchery will help recover a very weak chinook run in the river’s south fork.

The Stillaguamish Tribe sacrificed its chinook fishery for decades to protect these fish. A captive broodstock program at the new hatchery will help protect these fish even more. It’s kind of like putting the run on life support, but it’s all we can do until we can fix the real problems facing these fish: lost and damaged habitat.

Out on the coast, the Quileute Tribe is helping to supplement wild summer chinook in the Sol Duc River. Each year, the tribe captures adults from mid-July to September and rears more than 200,000 of their offspring cooperatively with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. Supplementation programs are designed to support, but not replace, natural salmon production lost to damaged and disappearing habitat.

The tribe recently paid for final rearing costs of more than 350,000 young coho that were scheduled to be destroyed at the state’s Sol Duc Hatchery because no money was available for their care. Many will benefit from the tribe’s generosity.

These are just a few examples from across the region of how the tribes are increasing production of salmon for harvest and expanding the use of hatcheries in salmon and steelhead recovery efforts. There are many more.

The treaty tribes are there, on the ground, in those watersheds, managing salmon 24 hours a day. We’re working hard right now with the state to complete Hatchery Action Implementation Plans for each watershed in western Washington. These plans will support our recovery efforts for healthy, harvestable populations of salmon and steelhead.

Please understand why we are putting so much time, effort and funding into the salmon resource.

It’s not because there’s a lot of money to be made fishing for salmon. Our fishermen haven’t been able to make a living at fishing for decades.

It’s not because of ESA. That law holds little hope for the recovery of salmon.
No, the reason we are increasing our efforts to recover and enhance the salmon resource is because our culture demands it. It is not optional. We must have salmon.

Our habitat can no longer support the natural production needed for harvest and the ESA cannot protect – let alone recover and restore – what little is left of the wild salmon.

We will not stand by and see our treaty right made worthless. Salmon recovery is about us. All of us. And it’s going to take all of us and all we can do to make it happen. We plan to keep on doing our part and then some.

Billy Frank Jr. is the chairman of the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission.

(END)

For more information, contact: Tony Meyer or Emmett O’Connell, NWIFC, (360) 438-1180

The Washington legislature met in special session recently to begin fixing the $6 billion hole in the state’s budget. We’re afraid that when the smoke clears, natural resources will be the big loser.

This isn’t the first time the state and tribal co-managers have faced an economic crisis. Working together, we have always been able to weather the effects of state and federal funding shortfalls.

This time, though, things are different. We have never before seen the kind of deep cuts needed to balance the state’s budget. We’re greatly concerned that these cuts will lead to the state not being able to meet co-management requirements that they share with the tribes under the Boldt Decision. We don’t have the resources to take on the state’s share of natural resources management costs if that happens.

To balance the budget drastic changes are being proposed for many state natural resources management programs, among them the Hydraulic Project Approval program operated by the state Department of Fish and Wildlife.

The HPA law has been on the books since 1943, and is one of our front line defenses for protecting habitat. HPA permits are required for any activities near water that can threaten fish, shellfish and other natural resources.

Reducing staff, increasing fees, and streamlining the HPA permit process are all being looked at as cost savings steps, but if the end result is a program that doesn’t work, it could set back salmon recovery and the cleanup of Puget Sound for decades. We all have far too much time, energy and money invested in these efforts to let that happen.

If state government’s ability to manage natural resources continues to erode, pretty soon the treaty tribes will be the only managers in Washington. Co-management will disappear, and with it, so will our best chance to recover wild salmon and their habitat.

President Obama said it best recently when he told us that we must find ways to cut government spending while still investing in our future. We’ve seen hard times before and we will see them again, but we cannot allow our natural resources – our heart and soul— to be sacrificed for something as unimportant as money.

Billy Frank Jr. is the chairman of the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission.

(END)

For more information, contact: Tony Meyer or Emmett O’Connell, NWIFC, (360) 438-1180

Back in 2003, a number of tribes, environmental groups and others challenged the law because it gives away a public resource to private interests and ignores tribal treaty rights. It encourages urban sprawl and takes away water needed by fish and wildlife. It gives priority of the water for future growth rather than protecting the rights of the citizens that are here today.

We pointed out the injustice that this law – aimed at helping towns preserve their water rights while planning for growth – included private developers, but left out everyone else. It left out our environment, fish and wildlife too.

It’s a fact that there are more water rights on paper in Washington State than there is water to fulfill those rights. By upholding the law, the Supreme Court has made it possible for developers to hoard water rights, then begin drawing out more water than actually exists.

Before this law, if you couldn’t use all of your water, it could become available to other users. The Municipal Water Law changed all that. Now, developers can hold onto water they can’t even use. That’s a monopoly and it isn’t right.

There’s also nothing to prevent developers from leasing their monopoly water rights to others. That could encourage even more urban sprawl fueled by private gain from a public resource.

In the end, the court punted the ball, saying any specific problems with the law will have to be dealt with case by case. That’s too bad, because now it will take longer and cost more to overturn this bad law.

The law’s a funny thing. We went to court to try and stop an unjust piece of legislation from becoming law, but instead we are being told to wait. Wait until the accident happens.

Well, we can’t wait, and neither can the salmon. We don’t have that luxury any more.

All of this is happening at a time when our glaciers are melting and our rivers are running dry. Our groundwater is being drained by tens of thousands of unregulated wells. At a time when all of us and our natural resources need water the most, we are losing out to those who can’t use it and don’t have to share it.

We all know there’s a big difference between what’s right and what’s legal. Us tribes don’t plan on going anywhere soon. We will continue the fight here and now for our treaty rights and a sustainable future, one battle at a time, or 20 battles at a time.

Billy Frank Jr. is the chairman of the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission.

(END)

For more information, contact: Tony Meyer or Emmett O’Connell, NWIFC, (360) 438-1180

Every single year since then we’ve been refining our fisheries management approach. Our goal is to return all salmon stocks to sustainable harvest levels because we believe that is the true measuring stick for salmon recovery.

I wonder what it would be like if habitat protection were managed to the same standard?

The state co-managers joined some tribes, such as Muckleshoot, Nisqually and Puyallup, in closing coho fisheries this fall because returns were too low to support harvest.

No one suggested that we also tear out the river’s dikes or fix the other habitat problems that are the root cause of the low runs. We stop fishing, but habitat loss and damage goes on every hour of every day.

Why are fishermen always the first—and often only—people asked to sacrifice for the resource? Why must fishermen feel the pain for everyone else?

Ten years after salmon stocks in western Washington were first listed under the federal Endangered Species Act, we still have no good way to assess how much habitat we have, how much we’re losing and how much we need. We must work harder to fill the gaping holes in what we know about habitat productivity.

We have developed a tool to track the limiting factors to salmon recovery, identify how they can be addressed and determine actions needed to move forward with habitat restoration and protection. This kind of work, at the watershed level, has been promised for years by governments, agencies and others involved in salmon recovery, but it is the treaty tribes who are taking on the job. We’re finishing analyses of the Skokomish and Snohomish watersheds right now, and will complete analyses for every watershed in western Washington over the next year.

For 30 years we have been refining salmon fisheries management to achieve salmon recovery, but it isn’t working. What we need to do is to change how we manage the landscape that these fish depend on.

The only way we’re going to turn the corner and really restore salmon is to put the same focus on habitat protection and restoration that has been placed on harvest management. Salmon recovery begins and ends with good habitat. Without a good home to return to, no amount of fisheries restrictions will restore this precious resource.

Billy Frank Jr. is the chairman of the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission.

(END)

For more information, contact: Tony Meyer or Emmett O’Connell, NWIFC, (360) 438-1180

When pollution has gotten so bad that we can’t fish or harvest shellfish from our home waters, we start depending on food from other sources, sometimes thousands of miles away. Folks down on the Gulf Coast are going through that right now.

Many people have started to recognize the importance of local food. They are called “localvores,” and I think they’re on the right track. I didn’t know it, but I’ve always been a localvore. We look for food that comes from where we live. In this place, where rivers run from glaciers and meet the saltwater on great tide flats, salmon and oysters are about as local as it gets.

To have these foods we must protect the environment from where they come. That means protecting habitat by fighting for better shoreline development standards and protecting water quality from failing septic systems and lawn fertilizers.

Treaty tribal and non-Indian shellfish producers are on the front line of monitoring and protecting water quality in Puget Sound and along the coast. We can measure the health of these waters by the health of the shellfish that live there. Healthy water produces healthy shellfish, and healthy shellfish is good food for all of us.

The problem comes when we stop connecting our food to the place where it comes from. Salmon and shellfish don’t come from the grocery store. They come from nature.

Our lands and waters are naturally productive, just like salmon and shellfish. All they need is a little help to let them do what they do. We should be celebrating the fact that we can still produce and harvest salmon and shellfish in western Washington.

Everything is connected. What happens in one part of the environment affects other parts as well. Salmon and shellfish are measuring sticks for the health of our ocean and Puget Sound. While we salmon and shellfish managers can control much of what happens on the water, state and local governments need to do a better job of managing what’s happening onshore.

Billy Frank Jr. is the chairman of the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission.

(END)

For more information, contact: Tony Meyer or Emmett O’Connell, NWIFC, (360) 438-1180

I believe we are on the road to success. The milestones are adding up.

The first bids were awarded recently for the removal of the two Elwha River dams. Work will begin this time next year and should be completed by the spring of 2014.
Hundreds of acres of estuary at the mouth of the Nisqually River have been restored. Dikes are being removed and land that once used to raise cattle is now providing a home for fish.

Fish passage is being restored between Lummi Bay and Bellingham Bay in the Nooksack River delta, giving juvenile salmon access to important estuary habitat.

There’s an emergency tug stationed year-round now in Neah Bay to help protect our shoreline from oil spills.

The Skokomish River watershed is being put back together. Habitat improvement projects are helping to heal the river system and restore salmon. We’re also learning more about the dead zones in Hood Canal and taking steps to stop them.

It has taken us a long time to reach this point in our journey. After decades of hard work by local, state, federal and tribal governments, conservation groups, shellfish growers and many others, I believe we are standing on the threshold of a positive future for us and salmon.

These salmon recovery efforts mean everything to us tribes. Nothing less than our culture and treaty-reserved rights are at stake. It’s why we’re involved in every part of natural resources management in Washington.

We have the highest standard for salmon recovery and the quality of our environment: harvestable numbers of fish. The things we are doing to recover the salmon are the same things we need to do for the rest of our ecosystem: Fix and protect salmon habitat. If we do that, we help the salmon and ourselves. What’s good for the salmon is good for us.

This is an exciting time as we get ready to capitalize on the many large and small projects now under way that are contributing to salmon recovery. We are making progress at a time when we need it the most. And we are doing it through cooperative efforts such as the Puget Sound Partnership. We believe the PSP is an important tool to help us reach our tribal goals for a healthy environment and strong salmon runs.

Yes, we have come a long way, and we still have a ways to go, but I believe we’re going to get there if we keep working together.

Billy Frank Jr. is the chairman of the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission.

(END)

For more information, contact: Tony Meyer or Emmett O’Connell, NWIFC, (360) 438-1180

We need the traditional foods, medicines and materials that make us who we are. Like salmon, shellfish and wildlife, these things are part of us as Indian people. They were so important to us that we reserved our right to gather them when we signed treaties with the U.S. government.

Traditional foods are especially important to Indian people today. Almost every one of us knows a person or a family who suffers from diabetes or some other illness – a lot of the time caused by a lack of traditional foods in our diet.

Our weavers, carvers and other artists work to help keep our culture alive, but they are having a difficult time finding the materials they need. Cedar trees are disappearing to development while other important plants are being damaged or killed by pollution.

We are encouraged by recent meetings with National Parks officials to discuss how we can access park lands to exercise our treaty gathering rights. Tribal access today is limited and varies from park to park. We are committed to working with the National Parks to ensure proper management of these lands so that we can return to places where we have always harvested.

Out on the coast, the Makah Tribe recently celebrated a 600-year-old cedar tree they received from the state Department of Natural Resources (DNR) through the non-profit Potlatch Fund. The tree was growing on state land outside the tribe’s reservation but within the Makah traditional gathering area.

That big cedar tree is us. All of us. And it’s teaching us about sharing. Sharing makes us all stronger.

Gifts created from the giant tree were shared by the Makah with many at the Tribal Canoe Journey to Neah Bay in July. This annual celebration of our culture is hosted by a different tribe every year, and many of those who make the trip travel in cedar canoes.

It is the nature of Indian people to share. We have shared our land, water and other resources since the first non-Indians arrived in this region. Today we need that same kind of sharing so that we can continue to harvest the natural resources that keep ourselves and our culture alive and strong.

Billy Frank Jr. is the chairman of the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission.

(END)

For more information, contact: Tony Meyer or Emmett O’Connell, NWIFC, (360) 438-1180

The tribe and the state Parks and Recreation Commission have purchased Kiket Island and will manage it together as part of Deception Pass State Park.

The 100-acre island in Similk Bay always has been part of Swinomish tribal lands. For thousands of years before the treaties were signed, the Swinomish people used the island and its tidelands to hunt, fish, gather shellfish and hold cultural ceremonies.

In the late 1800s, Kiket Island was allotted to an individual tribal member. In the 1950s, it was sold out of tribal ownership, but remained within the boundaries of the tribe’s reservation

About 50 years ago, Seattle City Light and Snohomish County Public Utility District planned to build a nuclear power plant on Kiket Island. Lucky for us, folks had enough sense to throw out that idea after considering what the effects would be on the environment.

It’s rare to find a place like Kiket Island in Puget Sound. To be honest, these small private islands are usually lined with bulkheads and dotted with million-dollar homes. The state and tribe will make sure the island’s old-growth forest, undeveloped shoreline and rich tidelands will be protected and preserved for future generations. Tribal members will continue to be able to exercise their treaty shellfish harvest right.

Working together to protect habitat that is so important to fish, shellfish and wildlife – that’s exactly the kind of cooperation we need to recover wild salmon, clean up Puget Sound and tackle the many other challenges facing our environment.

It’s why the Kiket Island partnership is such good news. The more cooperative solutions like this that we can find to help heal Puget Sound, the closer we are to getting it done.

Billy Frank Jr. is the chairman of the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission.

(END)

For more information, contact: Tony Meyer or Emmett O’Connell, NWIFC, (360) 438-1180

They don’t truly mean a total ban though, just one on Indian and non-Indian fishermen. They don’t want to talk about all of the fish lost to dams, poisoned storm water runoff and low stream flows. Those environmental factors “harvest” salmon just like any fishery. A dead fish is a dead fish no matter how it dies.

The tribes and state work to provide limited fishing opportunities that target healthy, mostly hatchery raised fish. Because most wild stocks are too weak to support harvest, without the salmon that tribal and state hatcheries produce there would be no fishing at all in western Washington.

The combined state, tribal and federal hatchery system in western Washington is science-driven and finely tuned to produce enough fish for harvest. Most of these hatcheries were built to make up for lost habitat. Those hatchery fish provide meaningful harvests to many, but they can also hide the true health of the habitat in our watersheds.

While the total number of chinook returning to Puget Sound has remained steady for the past decade at about 200,000, the percentage of wild fish in that figure has been shrinking. It tells me that we are holding the line on harvest, but we are losing the fight on habitat. We are putting tighter and tighter controls on how we fish, but each year we lose more and more natural productivity from the little good habitat we have left.

All of the fishing cutbacks, changes in hatchery operations and habitat restoration work of the past 20 or 30 years can’t begin to make up for the centuries that this region’s environment has been assaulted. Habitat loss and damage alone are driving the decline of wild salmon. We are at the end of an era and we have no choice but to change if the salmon are going to survive.

The treaty tribes have a higher standard for salmon recovery than the ESA. For us, salmon recovery means restoring all salmon stocks to populations that can support sustainable harvest. It’s about our culture, our way of life. It’s about honoring our treaties. It’s about continuing to be who we’ve always been: fishermen.

Billy Frank Jr. is the chairman of the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission.

(END)

For more information, contact: Tony Meyer or Emmett O’Connell, NWIFC, (360) 438-1180

The Squaxin Island Tribe recently asked the state Department of Ecology to do the right thing for salmon on Johns Creek near Shelton. They asked the state to stop the explosion of new wells being drilled in the watershed just long enough to find out just how much water is available.
 
And for the second year in a row the tribe was told by Ecology that the state couldn’t do the right thing because it doesn’t have the money. That’s a shame.

The tribe points out that summer flows in Johns Creek already are too low to support a weak run of wild summer chum salmon. In just the past 20 years more than 200 wells that are largely exempt from state regulation have been drilled in the Johns Creek watershed.

Anyone can drill a permit-exempt well without first having to prove there’s actually any water available. The only restriction is a 5,000 gallons per day limit. Decades ago these types of wells were intended to give homeowners and other low volume users easier access to water. But today those wells number in the thousands in western Washington and more are being drilled all the time. The tribe’s petitions were based on a state law that closes well drilling in a watershed if there isn’t enough information to figure out if water is legally available.
 
I don’t understand how the state can allow all of those wells to be drilled without knowing how much water is available to begin with. We are on a path to dry up Johns Creek.

The question is how the wells and the creek are connected. The answer is a $300,000 study that the state claims it doesn’t have the money or the people for.

There’s some truth in that. The natural resources portion of the state budget has taken huge hits in the last few years. While making up only 2 percent of the entire state budget, natural resources management has taken the largest cut of any sector of state government.

It doesn’t cost anything to put a moratorium on new wells until we can find out how much water is really available. In the meantime no one is suggesting that Johns Creek watershed residents stop pumping water.
 
The tribe has appealed the agency’s decision to Gov. Gregoire. We hope she’s listening. 
 
Money isn’t the issue here, it’s courage. The courage to do the right thing and the wisdom to at least slow down so that we can see the road ahead.

Billy Frank Jr. is the chairman of the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission.

(END)

For more information, contact: Tony Meyer or Emmett O’Connell, NWIFC, (360) 438-1180

Built without fish ladders about a century ago, the two dams cut salmon off from nearly 100 miles of excellent habitat. Today a lot of that habitat is protected in Olympic National Park, and that’s a good thing for the future of the river, the salmon and all of us.

The idea that those dams are really, truly coming down was driven home for me at the recent groundbreaking ceremony for the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe’s new salmon hatchery.

The new hatchery will be built during the next 18 months and will help support salmon and steelhead recovery efforts on the river. The tribe has a steelhead broodstock program that will make sure native Elwha River steelhead aren’t wiped out by the dam removal.

Another fish I hope we haven’t lost is the 100-pound chinook that the Elwha River used to produce before the dams were built. Imagine that, 100-pound salmon!

Of course building a new hatchery alone won’t bring the salmon back. There’s a lot of work to be done.

The tribe has been working hard to get the river valley ready for the increased water flow and sediment that are coming. They’ve been putting in engineered logjams and removing dikes to slow down the river. Undersized culverts are being removed and replaced with larger culverts or bridges. It’s a long list.

We’re happy for the tribe and its federal and state partners that President Obama’s stimulus funding could speed up the date for tearing down the dams. It can’t happen soon enough.

Removal of the Elwha dams is the dream of a lifetime come true. None of us is here very long. We’re just kind of passing through, and what we do with our time is important.

I can remember way back when the tribe first started talking about taking out the dams. A lot of people told them it couldn’t be done. That was a lot of years ago, but the Elwha people never gave up. They stayed the course and they are putting this watershed back together.

That’s the kind of strength and courage we need to tackle some other issues that seem impossible to solve, such as stormwater runoff, shoreline development and fish-blocking culverts. If we can tear down those Elwha dams we can sure as hell tackle those problems.

Billy Frank Jr. is the chairman of the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission.

(END)

For more information, contact: Tony Meyer or Emmett O’Connell, NWIFC, (360) 438-1180

Puget Sound chinook and steelhead, Hood Canal summer chum and Lake Ozette sockeye are listed as “threatened” under the federal Endangered Species Act (ESA). Meanwhile, our culture, treaty rights and way of life – everything that makes us Indian people – are disappearing a little every day, just like the salmon.

We know that we can’t count on the ESA to protect us, our treaty rights and the natural resources that we depend on. And we know that salmon recovery begins and ends with habitat.

That’s why this year, the 20 treaty Indian tribes in western Washington are beginning a project to help gauge just how we’re doing when it comes to habitat protection and restoration.

In 2004 and 2005 the joint tribal/state Salmon and Steelhead Habitat Inventory and Assessment Program (SSHIAP) produced the State of Our Watersheds, reports that captured the status of salmon stocks and habitat in western Washington. What the reports didn’t tell us were the results of the natural resources management decisions being made.

We’re looking to change that through a new effort that will track key indicators identified by tribes to find out the impacts of our protection and restoration efforts region-wide.

Are threats such as development and water withdrawals being balanced by responses through the federal Clean Water Act, state stormwater rules and other laws? Are these responses leading to salmon recovery? Are the restrictions imposed on harvest balanced by restrictions on habitat loss and degradation?

We will focus on fish, harvest, water quality/quantity and land-use rules. The first phase of the effort to begin this year will focus on the Skokomish, Quinault and Snohomish river systems.

We know that we can’t wait for the ESA to save the salmon or us. We may not like what we find, but we have to have the courage to look for ourselves to see how we are doing at recovering habitat.

Billy Frank Jr. is the chairman of the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission.

(END)

For more information, contact: Tony Meyer or Emmett O’Connell, NWIFC, (360) 438-1180

If status quo development, pollution and other ongoing factors damaging and destroying salmon habitat are allowed to continue, ESA-protected species such as threatened Puget Sound chinook and steelhead will not recover.

That means we need to take a hard look at how we’re doing when it comes to salmon habitat protection and restoration. For us, salmon recovery is about more than the ESA, it’s about our treaty rights, our culture, our economies and our very existence.

We are 10 years into recovery efforts for ESA-listed Puget Sound chinook. We know we can’t make up for lost and damaged habitat by further cutting harvest or producing more hatchery fish. We must focus on habitat.

We have accomplished great things on the habitat front in the past few years. Dikes have been torn down and hundreds of acres of estuary habitat have been created at the mouths of the Nisqually and Skokomish rivers. The Lummi Nation is reconnecting tidal channels and restoring hundreds of acres of estuary habitat up in Bellingham Bay. The Quinault Indian Nation is restoring the upper Quinault River watershed and critical sockeye spawning habitat. There are many more examples in the region.

The state Salmon Recovery Funding Board just announced $43 million in grants for salmon habitat restoration projects across Washington. That’s a lot of money, but it’s a drop in the tub compared to the hundreds of millions we have already spent. If we don’t protect our investment, we have wasted every one of those dollars.

We lose value on our investment every time a local government allows a project to be overbuilt or a bulkhead constructed without keeping an eye on the impacts to salmon. Our efforts are undermined when we find out that in San Juan County alone permitted private docks were overbuilt by 52 feet on average.

Are we protecting the gains we have made in habitat? Or are we trying to fill a bathtub full of holes?

We need a comprehensive, cooperative effort to find out. Tribal, federal and state governments, user groups and other stakeholders, all of us must work together to track salmon habitat and see how we are doing on our goals for protection and restoration. A habitat monitoring program was written into the recovery plan for Puget Sound chinook, but it sits on a shelf. It’s time that it be put into action.

The salmon aren’t that strong. They need our help now. We know two things: the status quo must change and forward is the only direction we can go.

Billy Frank Jr. is the chairman of the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission.

(END)

For more information, contact: Tony Meyer or Emmett O’Connell, NWIFC, (360) 438-1180

I have been blessed with a strong sense of place for my home, the Nisqually River. I know my place, my home. It’s where I feel the best.

Place is an important part of treaty tribal fishing rights, too. Our rights are place-based.

That means we 20 treaty Indian tribes in western Washington can only fish in the places we have always fished. These are our “Usual and Accustomed” fishing places, the places where we exercise our treaty-reserved right to fish.

For my tribe, the Nisqually, that is an area in southern Puget Sound. For my friends in Neah Bay, the Makah, it is an area around Cape Flattery at the northwest tip of the Olympic Peninsula. I cannot go to Neah Bay and exercise my treaty-reserved right to fish as a Nisqually tribal member.

Good fishing or bad, we have our places. If the fishing is poor, it’s poor. We can’t pack up like sport fishermen and travel to where the fishing’s better. We have to work to make it better from right where we’re at.

The Puyallup Tribe of Indians has seen its fall chinook fishery shrink to almost nothing in the last few years. Because the wild chinook run returning to the Puyallup is so small, all fisheries must be constrained to protect the weak wild run. This means that even though thousands of hatchery chinook are available to fishermen throughout Puget Sound, the Puyallup Tribe has less than one day of fishing to protect wild salmon in their home river.

Our place-based fishing rights require most of our tribes to fish in what are called terminal areas. These are places like bays and lower rivers where salmon gather before heading upstream to spawn. They are the places we have always fished, and will always fish.

Place limits on our treaty rights mean we have to do an extra good job of managing our fisheries. We have to ensure that we focus harvest on strong hatchery stocks while we work to protect and recover weak wild stocks. We have to work to fix the habitat in our watersheds. We have to work hard at management to make sure fish come back to us and that enough survive to spawn and continue the run. We have to watch our fisheries closely and adjust them as necessary to make sure we aren’t having too great of an impact on the run.

Time, place and method are the main ways that we control our fisheries. We limit our fishermen to a certain number of days of fishing and then monitor those fisheries closely to see if we need to make any changes. Treaty tribal fishermen are allowed to fish only in their tribe’s “Usual and Accustomed” fishing areas, and sometimes are allowed to fish only in certain parts of those areas. We also regulate fishing methods, such as net mesh sizes and lengths to be more selective in our harvest.

By the time the salmon reach these terminal areas, weak and strong stocks have sorted themselves out. We know where, when and how many fish we can selectively harvest without harming the run.

The next time you see one of us tribal fishermen exercising our treaty right in a bay or at a river’s mouth, remember why we are there. We are there because that is where we must be to exercise our treaty rights.

We have a good sense of place. It’s right here on every major watershed in this region as co-managers of the salmon resource.

Billy Frank Jr. is the chairman of the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission.

(END)

For more information, contact: Tony Meyer or Emmett O’Connell, NWIFC, (360) 438-1180.

Salmon hatcheries provide most of the salmon for harvest in western Washington. That’s because wild salmon habitat has been degraded to the point that few wild runs can sustain much harvest.

The combined tribal, state and federal salmon hatchery system in western Washington is the largest in the world. This system keeps us fishermen on the water while we try to solve the problem of limited and damaged habitat for wild fish.

With our state co-managers, tribes have been on the cutting edge of enhancement science, making sure our efforts with salmon hatcheries are the best for salmon, fishermen and our communities.

• The Squaxin Island Tribe recently finished a study into the habitat of one of their local creeks. It helped the tribe, state and a local enhancement group figure out a better way to build natural coho populations in the stream. The tribe will soon add 30,000 young coho from hatchery broodstock that will spawn naturally and boost the run.
• Since 2005 the Lower Elwha Tribe has been holding on tight to a wild steelhead run on the Elwha River as preparation continues for removal of two salmon-blocking dams. By collecting and raising native steelhead in a hatchery, once the dams are gone, the steelhead will be situated to make a full recovery
• Because of the unusually warm summer we had, the Tulalip Tribes had to take emergency steps to make sure enough salmon returned to the state’s Wallace River hatchery. Besides closing their fishery to ensure egg-take needs were met, fish unable to reach the hatchery were collected at the tribe’s downstream hatchery.
• The Quileute Tribe saved more than 350,000 young Sol Duc River coho that were slated for extermination at a state hatchery. State budget cuts meant there wasn’t enough money to rear the fish, but the tribe stepped up and offered $31,000 to finish the job. Tribal staff worked extra hours to make the effort to ensure success.

State budget cuts that disproportionately target natural resources management – as well as the greater and greater demands being placed on hatcheries – mean we have to be smarter about how we spend on hatcheries. We must see hatchery production through the lens of habitat.

The original intent of hatcheries was to replace lost habitat, but we know that they don’t do that anymore. We need to restore and protect habitat to make sure we’re getting the most out of our hatcheries, while at the same time restoring weak wild stocks. After all, once hatchery salmon are released, they swim in the exact same habitat as their wild cousins.

We need hatcheries. I wish we didn’t, but we do. It doesn’t mean we’ve changed our view on salmon recovery. We still believe that the true measure of success will be when we return all salmon populations to levels that can again support sustainable harvest. Nothing short of that will do.

Billy Frank Jr. is the chairman of the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission.

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For more information, contact: Tony Meyer or Emmett O’Connell, NWIFC, (360) 438-1180.

It’s one reason the recent emergency shellfish bed closure in Hood Canal’s Annas Bay was such a shock. It made us feel like all our work to clean up Puget Sound is being flushed away while our treaty rights are violated.

The state Department of Health closed Annas Bay to shellfishing because sport anglers were using the banks of the Skokomish River as a toilet. This isn’t a new problem, and it’s a shame that an important shellfish bed had to be closed to get folks to pay attention to overcrowded fishing conditions.

While we were encouraged to see the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife work with anglers and others to clean the waste from the riverbank and reopen the shellfish bed, we wonder how things were allowed to get that bad. The state first clearly identified the problem back in 2003.

Within three weeks of the Aug. 1 chinook opening on the Skokomish River, as many as 2,000 anglers a day were fishing its lower stretch, targeting the fish returning to the George Adams Hatchery. My friend Dave Herrera, fisheries policy representative for the Skokomish Tribe, explained it this way: “There are so many people, and they are fishing shoulder to shoulder. They believe if they leave their spot for very long they will lose it. They would rather step in the bushes.”

The closure denied the tribe access to more than 175,000 oysters from the closed shellfish beds. The fact that the Skokomish Tribe must close an important shellfish harvest area as a direct result of non-Indian activities that are authorized by WDFW is an outrage and violates the tribe’s treaty rights, Skokomish tribal chair Guy Miller said. He’s right.

To make matters worse, the increased pollution has scrapped plans to reopen another several hundred acres of Annas Bay that have been closed for years because of contamination.

More portable toilets and garbage cans may help reduce the problem along the lower Skokomish River in the short term, but we’re all working too hard to clean up Puget Sound and recover salmon for something like this to happen. We’re better than that. All of us.

For the long term, we need to bring more salmon back to their native rivers so that no one has to stand shoulder to shoulder on short stretches of a few rivers just so they can catch a fish.

Billy Frank Jr. is the chairman of the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission.

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For more information, contact: Tony Meyer or Emmett O’Connell, NWIFC, (360) 438-1180.

We’ve been waiting for someone like Larry for a long time. With Larry in the Department of the Interior, we have a great opportunity to get things done.

Larry is a member of the Pawnee Nation. He’s the former elected attorney general of Idaho, so he’s from the Northwest. He knows what we’re facing up here and understands the issues that are important to us.

Larry’s been working outside of Indian Country for a number of years, teaching law at Brigham Young University’s J. Reuben Clark Law School. So, he came up here a few weeks ago, eager to learn more about what’s happening now in our lives as Indian people.

In addition to representatives from the treaty tribes in western Washington, the treaty tribes of the Columbia River system joined us to meet with Larry. Together we are the 24 treaty fishing tribes of the Pacific Northwest. We spent an entire day with Larry talking about the natural resources that mean so much to us. We shared our concerns that our treaty rights continue to be violated, that water rights continue to be disputed and that our salmon stocks continue to decline.

We explained that we have always been gatherers and harvesters. We are also the managers of these resources. We manage fish from Alaska all the way to Mexico.

In the three decades since our treaty rights were reaffirmed by U.S. v. Washington (the Boldt Decision), additional responsibilities have been laid at our feet while our funding has eroded. Even though we are an essential part of community health and natural resources management, we’ve had a hard time keeping our programs running. Because of inflation, though, we are actually receiving less funding than we did more than 30 years ago.

When tribes have the resources, we can do great things for our communities, for salmon and for our neighbors. For decades, the Lower Elwha Tribe has worked to have the Elwha and Glines Canyon dams removed, to help bring back salmon runs that have been driven to near extinction. The removal date has been pushed back a few times, but with the recent injection of $54 million in federal stimulus money, the dams are set to come down in 2011, a year earlier than planned.

This is the kind of thing that we can get done with full support of the federal government.

We know our watersheds, we know our neighbors and for centuries, we’ve known the needs of salmon.

This is our homeland. This is where we live. We aren’t going anywhere. We have to take care of our country, and we have to work with local, state and federal governments to sustain it.

The federal government hasn’t always been our friend, but that’s going to change. This new Bureau of Indian Affairs, led by Larry, is going to do a better job for all of us and the salmon, too. With Larry working with us as an advocate for our treaty rights and the natural resources on which rights depend, we will all be better off.

Billy Frank Jr. is the chairman of the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission.

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For more information, contact: Tony Meyer or Emmett O’Connell, NWIFC, (360) 438-1180.

For the first time in nearly 25 years the Stillaguamish Tribe was able to harvest a chinook from the Stillaguamish River for a First Salmon Ceremony.

Sport fishermen on the Skagit River are getting a crack at summer and fall chinook for the first time since 1993.

For the past two years, the Puyallup Tribe of Indians has opened special “elders only” fisheries for spring chinook, the first harvest of these fish by the tribe since the 1980s.

These fisheries are small – the Stillaguamish Tribe is expected to take fewer than 20 of the 1,000 chinook returning to the river’s north fork – but they are no less important. Each fishery is a testament to strong, sound co-management by the treaty Indian tribes and State of Washington.

We’ve been ramping up hatchery programs to make sure wild stocks on the edge of extinction don’t disappear. The Muckleshoot Tribe’s White River Hatchery provides a great example. The hatchery opened in the late 1980s in response to spring chinook returns as low as 30 fish. With help from the state and the Puyallup Tribe, the program has resulted in as many as 6,000 fish returning each year.

But despite the ground we’ve gained we are losing habitat faster than we can restore it.

I wish I was talking about hundreds of thousands of fish coming back to our rivers every year. All of the numbers I’ve shared with you are small for a reason: we’ve failed to take care of the salmon’s home. We’ve limited our fisheries and sharpened our hatchery programs, but the march of habitat destruction continues.

Since the 1970s the total amount of impervious surfaces – things like roads, parking lots and roofs – in the Snohomish watershed has nearly tripled. This is the nastiest kind of habitat destruction because it changes the way water flows, causing flooding and killing more salmon than an army of fishermen ever could.

Instead of balancing our region’s catastrophic growth on the back of salmon, we need to turn the corner and begin restoring more salmon habitat than we destroy every year.

Salmon recovery begins and ends with good habitat.

Billy Frank Jr. is the chairman of the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission.

(END)

For more information, contact: Tony Meyer or Emmett O’Connell, NWIFC, (360) 438-1180.

The state Department of Health has been monitoring the number of boats in the bay, some of them moored year round. During boating season, you can see 50-75 boats in the 100-acre bay. That’s too many. While water quality tests show that the water is clean for the time being, there is a real possibility that it could change – fast.

Already the number of boats has resulted in a partial closure of the bay and a downgrading of the approved shellfish growing area under requirements of the National Shellfish Sanitation Program (NSSP). The NSSP regulates all aspects of commercial shellfish harvesting and handling and prevents contaminated shellfish getting into the market. Treaty tribes in western Washington are bound by the NSSP, as are other commercial shellfish growers and harvesters. The guidelines state that every boat has the potential to discharge untreated sewage; and that the time it takes to reach a shellfish bed can be very short.

The Jamestown S’Klallam, Lower Elwha Klallam, Port Gamble S’Klallam and Suquamish tribes would all feel a deep impact by the loss of Mystery Bay to shellfish harvest. Like all treaty tribes in western Washington, these tribes won’t accept a loss of their right to harvest shellfish from a pollution problem that can be easily fixed.

The Mystery Bay issue could set a precedent for shorelines throughout Puget Sound, causing shellfish closures for everyone and ultimately threatening the loss of tribal treaty harvest opportunities.

The threat of shellfish closures reaches beyond tribal communities. Our good friends, the Johnson Family, owners of Marrowstone Island Shellfish Company, live and work on that bay too. Their business would be devastated by possible closures.

We can avoid the closure of Mystery Bay. The lack of enforcement and management of the area is long overdue and is reaching the breaking point. Permitting agencies have been meeting for more than a year on this issue and have discussed the need to hammer out exactly what is needed in terms of permits, authorizing statutes and regulations.

We need to start by limiting the number of boats allowed to moor in the bay. Close monitoring is needed to ensure beaches remain safe for shellfish harvesting as we reduce the number of boats in the bay.

Shellfish are wonderful critters. They help keep the water clean through their natural filtering systems. They have always provided Indian people with a sustainable source of food and opportunities to keep our culture alive.

Now is the time for the federal, state and county governments to step up and protect Mystery Bay, treaty rights, water quality and public health. We all benefit from the beauty and resources of a healthy Mystery Bay, and that puts us one step closer to a cleaner Puget Sound.

Billy Frank Jr. is the chairman of the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission.

(END)

For more information, contact: Tony Meyer or Tiffany Royal, NWIFC, (360) 297-6546.

But that came to a stop after treaty times, when the tribe was confined to a 640-acre reservation at the river’s mouth. Over the years the Hoh River has whittled the reservation to about 450 acres and much of the land floods every year.

A study of the river’s migrating main channel shows the Hoh is likely to again come barreling through the tribal center and many homes within the next 25 years. Flooding has already become an annual event in these low-lying areas.

The Hoh Tribe had a choice. Build expensive dikes or other structures – which can protect the riverbank but hurt fish habitat – or move out of harm’s way.

I am encouraged by efforts to help the tribe move its tribal center and housing out of the path of the river. Salmon are the lifeblood of our people. That is especially true for Hoh tribal members who rely on fishing both culturally and economically on a reservation where unemployment exceeds 70 percent.

To avoid damaging fish habitat with flood control structures the tribe acquired 160 acres of state Department of Natural Resources land and 270 acres from private landowners about a mile outside the reservation and the Hoh River’s floodplain. The parcels are separated from the reservation by 37 acres of former timberlands now owned by Olympic National Park. The only road to the reservation already crosses this sliver of land.

To connect the properties the tribe and park have developed a plan to transfer title of the land to the tribe. Logging, hunting and construction would be prohibited under the agreement. The tribe is waiting for Congress to approve the transfer.

In the meantime the tribe hopes to break ground on a public safety building this summer on some of the newly purchased land. Fire and first aid equipment will be a valuable resource for both tribal and local public safety officers.

Congress needs to act now to approve the land transfer between the park and tribe. This is a good solution to a pressing problem. It’s good for the people, good for the river and good for the salmon. It will also create a place where young Hoh tribal members – who make up more than half of the tribe’s membership – can plan their futures.

Billy Frank Jr. is the chairman of the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission.

(END)

For more information, contact: Tony Meyer or Emmett O’Connell, NWIFC, (360) 438-1180. Kari Neumeyer, NWIFC, (360) 424-8226.

Tribes modified their fishing schedules to provide more saltwater mark selective sport salmon fishing opportunities for adipose fin-clipped hatchery chinook throughout Puget Sound. Additional freshwater angling for coho in the Nooksack River, chinook in the Skagit and Nisqually rivers, and pink salmon in the Green River were also made available by the tribes.

Meantime, the Stillaguamish Tribe will conduct a small ceremonial and subsistence fishery for chinook – the first in about 20 years.

It’s important to remember that tribal and state salmon co-management isn’t optional. We have to work together. It’s the law under U.S. v. Washington (the Boldt Decision).

One of the ways we are able to cooperate successfully is that the State of Washington has empowered its representatives in the Department of Fish and Wildlife to negotiate and develop joint fishing plans with the tribes. That kind of effort requires a professional staff – experts in fisheries management – that has been given the legal authority to work with the treaty tribes.

That’s one of the reasons why – with the state’s budget in shambles – we worked with WDFW to modify its monitoring program for this year’s expanded mark selective fisheries. Many anglers are calling this a watershed year in the expansion of mark selective sport fisheries for adipose fin-clipped hatchery salmon.

We were able to expand monitoring of these fisheries, while controlling costs and ensuring that reliable estimates of mark selective fishery impacts are timely. These estimates are critical to helping us plan for next year’s fisheries.

We believe mark selective sport fishing is a management tool that can, under the right circumstances, be used provide additional sport fishing opportunity.

More than half of all sport fisheries in Puget Sound are mark selective, in which anglers must release non-clipped wild salmon, some of which die after being hooked, played and released. Mortality estimates can range upwards of 20 percent depending on the location of the fishery, weather and wave conditions, the age of the fish and other factors.

Mark selective sport fishing is still a new harvest method in this region and as such, needs to be closely monitored to gauge impacts on weak wild salmon stocks. We were able to work with the state more effectively this year because our trust and confidence has grown along with the state’s increased monitoring of these fisheries.

Trust is hard to earn and easy to lose, but it is the key to successful cooperative salmon co-management. North of Falcon is proving just that.

Billy Frank Jr. is the chairman of the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission.

(END)

For more information, contact: Tony Meyer or Emmett O’Connell, NWIFC, (360) 438-1180. Kari Neumeyer, NWIFC, (360) 424-8226.

A few years back, the Swinomish Tribe sued Skagit County Dike District No. 22 for building tide gates without the permits they needed from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. In September, a federal judge ruled that the district had violated both the Clean Water Act and the Endangered Species Act.

With the judge’s ruling on their side, the Swinomish Tribe took the issue out of the courtroom. Instead of forcing the district to pay federal fines, the tribe suggested that the two become partners in restoring 200 acres of estuary in the Skagit delta.

It’s too bad that people sometimes need a court-ordered push to do the right thing.

In December, the tribe and the dike district filed their formal plan about how they’re going to restore that estuary habitat. The 200 acres of land proposed for restoration is owned by the state Department of Fish and Wildlife and for now provides food for overwintering waterfowl.

Decades ago, at great cost to vital salmon habitat, most of the estuary was diked and drained to create farmland. Now, the salmon recovery effort is working to undo that damage and restore tidal flow so young salmon have a place to rear before heading to sea and adult salmon have somewhere to rest before returning home to spawn.

To protect farmland, tide gates let excess water drain from the fields to Skagit Bay, but keep salt water from getting in when the tides turn. Skagit County Dike District No. 22 is responsible for the construction, maintenance and operation of the system of dikes and tide gates on Fir Island, between the two forks of the Skagit River.

When three tide gates needed replacing in 2002 and 2006, the dike district moved ahead without getting permits from the Corps of Engineers. That was a violation of the Clean Water Act.

The new tide gates also prevented juvenile salmon from reaching their rearing habitat. That was a violation of the Endangered Species Act.

Chinook salmon in Puget Sound have been listed as “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act since 1999. In the Skagit, the biggest obstacle standing in the way of their recovery is a shortage of estuary habitat.

Tribes like Swinomish haven’t been able to fish like they used to, mostly because of the collapse of so many Puget Sound salmon populations. The tribe’s harvest of chinook has dropped 94 percent since 1975, and they haven’t fished a full season for more than 20 years.

Thanks to the federal judge’s decision in this case, the Swinomish Tribe and the dike district can put their differences aside and work together.

This is the spirit of cooperation that guides natural resources co-management in this area and will eventually be the reason we’re able to bring salmon back.

Billy Frank Jr. is the chairman of the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission.

(END)

For more information, contact: Tony Meyer or Emmett O’Connell, NWIFC, (360) 438-1180. Kari Neumeyer, NWIFC, (360) 424-8226.

We’ve sure come a long ways in that time.

The 1974 Boldt decision made it clear: Treaty Indian tribes in western Washington had reserved rights to half of the harvestable salmon returning to state waters and were equal partners with the state of Washington in managing the resource.

Slade Gorton, who was Washington’s attorney general at that time, told Gov. Dan Evans that the state didn’t have to implement the ruling. The case would be won on appeal, he said, but he was wrong.

For the next few years the state refused to implement the ruling and there was chaos on the water. People took the law into their own hands. It got so bad that Judge Boldt suspended the state’s authority to manage salmon for several months and put the National Marine Fisheries Service in charge.

Those were dark days, but through them we were able to discover a path toward cooperation instead of litigation. That path led to the North of Falcon (NOF) process, named for the cape on the Oregon coast that marks the southern boundary of the management area for Washington salmon stocks, which extends to the Canadian border.

While the process for setting salmon seasons through NOF is highly complex, the rules for getting there are simple: Be polite and try to meet each other’s needs while protecting weak and ESA-listed salmon stocks and ensuring that enough adult salmon escape harvest to sustain the next generation. We develop fisheries based on their impacts to salmon stocks on a river-by-river basis.

Work on this year’s effort began months ago with development of conservation goals, preseason forecasts and estimates of impacts to specific salmon stocks at various levels of fishing effort.

We’ll see more chinook in Puget Sound this year because of the new Pacific Salmon Treaty agreement that reduces harvest of the fish by Alaskan and Canadian fishermen. This is a pink salmon year, too, so there will be more fishing opportunity on these fish as well.

Like all fisheries, though, these will come with some costs. We will have to pass most of the chinook savings on to the spawning grounds. And while pink salmon will be plentiful this year, we have to carefully watch these fisheries for incidental impacts to coho and ESA-listed Puget Sound chinook.

“It seems like it would get easier after 25 years, but it gets harder,” Swinomish tribal fisheries manager Lorraine Loomis told me recently. She is vice-chair of the NWIFC and the coordinator of tribal participation in NOF, one of the toughest jobs in Indian Country.

One of the reasons it’s getting harder is that as the resource shrinks, so does the room for error in salmon management. While we do a good job managing our harvest and our hatcheries, but we can’t control the main reasons for salmon declines, which are loss and destruction of their habitat.

Only through cooperation – the kind of cooperation that helped create and sustain the NOF process – will we be able to do that.

Billy Frank Jr. is the chairman of the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission.

(END)

For more information, contact: Tony Meyer or Emmett O’Connell, NWIFC, (360) 438-1180.

We were especially encouraged to hear President Obama’s pledge to honor “treaty obligations that are owed to the first Americans,” when he introduced Colorado Sen. Ken Salazar as the new Secretary of the Interior.

But what really made us feel good was when President Obama said: “We need more than just a government-to-government relationship; we need a nation-to-nation relationship.”

Let me tell you, we’re ready for that relationship.

Leaders of the 24 treaty Indian tribes in the Pacific Northwest recently sent some recommendations to the administration, pointing the way to restoring the relationship between tribes and the federal government and healing our communities and natural resources.

One of the things we recommend is an Executive Order to reaffirm and strengthen the administration’s relationship with tribes. This would help reinforce our sovereign governmental authority, treaty rights, and natural resources co-management responsibilities. We’re also recommending that the order include a commitment by the federal government to consult the tribes regarding any policy, legislation, or litigation affecting our treaty rights.

Next, we look to rebuilding the tribes’ ability to manage natural resources. During the past 50 years we’ve established ourselves as leaders in natural resources management with a long record of success. At the same time we’ve seen our base fisheries management funding melt away. When adjusted for inflation, our base funding is actually less than we received 30 years ago. At the same time, our management responsibilities have increased greatly.

We also want President Obama to protect and restore tribal water rights and put water quality standards into place to protect the health of Indian people and the salmon we rely on.

Our sovereignty, treaty rights, strong leadership, traditional knowledge and presence in every watershed make us unique partners in addressing natural resources management issues. We’ve always lived in these watersheds, and we always will.

The solutions we develop happen on the ground in our local watersheds. We work with our neighbors because that’s how big jobs get done. We are guided in our decisions by remembering the needs of those who will come seven generations from now.

When the Squaxin Island Tribe fights to protect water quality in Oakland Bay, they aren’t just doing it for themselves, they’re doing it for the people who live along Oakland Bay and the people employed by the multi-million dollar shellfish industry there. It’s just like the more than 40 million salmon that we produce every year at our tribal hatcheries – salmon that are caught by everyone.

The treaty tribes of the Pacific Northwest have the knowledge and legal standing to do great things for salmon and for our neighbors. We hope that the new leadership guiding the United States will honor those who signed the treaties with faith and trust more than 150 years ago.

Billy Frank Jr. is the chairman of the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission.

(END)

For more information, contact: Tony Meyer or Emmett O’Connell, NWIFC, (360) 438-1180.

It’s called “salmon fatigue” and from what I can tell, it’s a brain infection that makes you tired of trying to save the salmon.

If we cried about fatigue every time we came up against a difficult problem in this country, where would we be? I don’t understand how you can get tired of trying to save the salmon.

What those infected with salmon fatigue are really saying is “stop coming to me and talking about salmon.”

I have news for them. We’re just getting started.

Puget Sound chinook were listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act almost ten years ago. We’ve worked hard during that time with our state co-managers to develop a recovery plan for these fish that fixes their habitat and restricts harvest. Despite all of our work Puget Sound steelhead, which depend on much of the same habitat as chinook, were listed under the ESA last year.

We’re not giving up, though, and we’re sure as hell not getting tired.

I’m hearing complaints about salmon fatigue at the same time we’re trying to muster the strength to clean up Puget Sound. I’ll tell you, getting tired of salmon sure isn’t going to get us any closer to rescuing Puget Sound.

We can’t risk salmon fatigue becoming Puget Sound fatigue.

It’s kind of funny, but the people who are around salmon the most, like fishermen, don’t get salmon fatigue. You would think that people who spend their lives around salmon would be more likely to get tired of them, but they don’t.

The salmon sure don’t get tired. They come back to the rivers every year in the hope that we have turned ourselves around and have worked to restore and protect their homes.

Now is the time we should be making great strides in our efforts to recover Puget Sound chinook and other listed species, but instead we are seeing less and less funding for this work.

In fact, when adjusted for inflation, the treaty Indian tribes in western Washington now receive less funding for salmon management than we did 30 years ago.

This lack of funding might slow us down, but it won’t stop us. We won’t let it.

If elected officials and bureaucrats can’t get cured of their “Salmon Fatigue” and truly commit to salmon recovery – even before the job is 10 percent done – how can we expect to clean up Puget Sound?

Billy Frank Jr. is the chairman of the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission.

(END)

For more information, contact: Tony Meyer or Emmett O’Connell, NWIFC, (360) 438-1180.

Rockfish are part of the bounty that the Pacific Ocean has always provided for the Indian tribes along the Washington coast. Fish, shellfish, marine mammals and other marine life have been staples of our diets and economies for as long as anyone can remember.

But now our fish populations are in trouble and being mismanaged. The reasons for the recent declines are either complex or unknown, most likely because we aren’t looking in the right place. So it’s urgent that we fund much-needed research about fish stocks off our coast.

The practice of assuming rockfish populations up and down the Pacific coast are the same, and managing them as a single stock, has failed.

Big time declines in the stocks are driving management decisions for all of the West Coast. A multi-million dollar groundfish fishery in Washington waters, where rockfish resources are stronger, is at risk of a complete closure because of weak stocks in northern California waters.

To avoid such an economic disaster, we must act now.

The Hoh Indian Tribe, the Makah Tribe, the Quileute Tribe, the Quinault Indian Nation and the State of Washington have proposed a five-year ocean monitoring and research initiative to manage rockfish at the ecosystem level. Federal support is needed to collect basic information we need to manage the waters off the Olympic Coast.

For a small percentage of the value of the fishery to our communities a year, we can begin to collect the data needed to improve our understanding of a vital part of our heritage and an essential part of our future.

We need finer scale data, including additional survey data from areas we’re not sampling right now on the continental shelf and slope, and expanding existing groundfish port sampling.

We simply can’t figure out how healthy our local rockfish stocks are without this kind of information.

The initiative would also create a comprehensive assessment of the coastal ecosystem. If we don’t know what kind of habitat is out there and how it supports different species, we can’t effectively conserve rockfish and other groundfish species.

Understanding how climate change is impacting the ocean is also an important part of this proposal. Changes in ocean currents affect the health and abundance of ocean fisheries. The ocean initiative proposed by the tribes and the state will help track changes in ocean conditions off of our coast.

We all have to work together to gain a better understanding of the watery world that has given us so much. The tribes that have always depended on the ocean and our state co-managers have proposed a way to find out what is really going on out in the ocean.

It’s time we stepped up with them. The cost of maintaining our ignorance is too high.

Billy Frank Jr. is the chairman of the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission.

(END)

For more information, contact: Steve Robinson or Tony Meyer, NWIFC, (360) 438-1180.

South Fork Nooksack River native spring chinook are almost extinct and need our help. It wasn’t long ago when about 13,000 of these early-timed chinook came back to the river each year. They were the first salmon to arrive each spring, feeding Indian people after long winters, when no other salmon were in the river.

Spring chinook have a much tougher journey than other salmon because they spend more time in fresh water before spawning. They are especially sensitive to poor habitat conditions in the river.

Time has not been kind to salmon habitat in the South Fork Nooksack. The loss of trees and other plants along streams has removed important shade and reduced the source of wood needed for in-stream fish habitat. Spring chinook need deep, sheltered pools of cool water for their extended rest before they spawn. Water that is too warm can result in disease, reduced salmon egg survival and even death.

This summer, to give the river the building blocks it needs to restore degraded habitat, both the Lummi Nation and the Nooksack Tribe built specially engineered logjams in the South Fork. Over the next few years, these logjams will help create the deep pools that young and adult salmon prefer.

While we are fixing the habitat, we also have to make sure that we are protecting the unique genetic traits of these fish. The Lummi Nation and the Nooksack Tribe are working with the state Department of Fish and Wildlife and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on an important program to raise juvenile South Fork Nooksack River chinook in captivity and spawn them. Their offspring will be released in the river to migrate naturally and return as adults a few years later.

Our goal for this stock is the same for all wild salmon stocks: to recover their populations to levels that can again support harvest. By taking these naturally spawned juvenile chinook into protective custody, the tribes are safeguarding their future.

The path to recovery takes a side-by-side approach of boosting numbers now while also fixing the habitat so the river can support a healthy, productive population. I’m proud that the tribes are taking a leadership role in both areas.

Salmon face great challenges during their life journey. With their numbers falling, we have to work harder to help them on their way. As long as they continue to swim upstream, so should we.

Billy Frank Jr. is the chairman of the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission.

(END)

For more information, contact: Steve Robinson or Tony Meyer, NWIFC, (360) 438-1180.

We came a small step closer to making sure we always have water in our rivers recently when King County Judge Jim Rogers struck down a bad piece of state water law. He ruled that the state legislature made a mistake in 2003 when it passed Municipal Water Law 1338, which would have let developers horde water rights for decades.

The problem is that if you added up all of the water rights held throughout Puget Sound today, there wouldn’t be enough water to fulfill them. It’s called over-appropriation and it means that under the state’s outdated water laws people have the legal right to withdraw more water than actually exists.

Before the legislature passed the Municipal Water Law, water rights owned by developers that weren’t used eventually reverted to the state. “Use it or lose it” gave the complicated water rights system at least some connection to reality.

But that tether to the real world was cut when the legislature decided to give developers and cities the same rights to horde their paper water rights until they got around to using them. If they did as this law would have allowed, it would result in dry river beds, much like those southern California has experienced for many years.

Part of saving Puget Sound is making sure there is cool, clean water flowing into it. First we need to ask ourselves how much water the salmon need and then ask ourselves how much we can take. Striking down Municipal Water Law 1338 was a good start.

Billy Frank Jr. is the chairman of the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission.

(END)

For more information, contact: Steve Robinson or Tony Meyer, NWIFC, (360) 438-1180.

The result of society’s effort to ignore that rhythm anyway is playing out in the backyards of our ever-expanding neighborhoods. When Tabby, the crows and the raccoons battle each other for food on the back porches of those neighborhoods, it is really us who are fighting on the porch, and we must consider resolution with an eye toward our own survival.

Reports of house pets being killed by larger mammals in rural neighborhoods and suburbs are more frequent now. It’s easy to feel sorry for those pets and their owners. I know I do. But let’s not forget about where the fault lies with this problem. It doesn’t rest with the cougar or the coyote that wanders into “civilized” areas. It lies with us. These animals are not encroaching on our territory, we are encroaching on theirs.

The battle of the species is one played out with increasing frequency because people and builders have expanded with little restraint or semblance of control. Society pushes deeper and deeper into forests and prairies until now there is little habitat for these animals, and that habitat which does still exist is fragmented in a million pieces.

Today you see houselights on the hillsides and mountaintops. Natural resources are pushed to the limit, and still the expectation is that human growth and urban sprawl will continue to expand exponentially.

There is no longer an artificial line between the wild and the “civilized,” a Seattle Times columnist wrote recently after looking out on his back porch to see a large raccoon, an arched and hissing cat, and cawing crows swooping through the scene like fighter jets.

This incident, plus a number of reports of coyote sightings in his neighborhood, prompted the writer to contact the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. They told him predators are a part of the natural ecosystem and that if we want to have balanced, healthy ecosystems, we’ve got to have predators – that predators are part of the urban habitat just like people. Since we’re going to be living together, we need to make it work.

That’s good advice.

But if we continue on the path we are on now, a day will come when there will be little if any wildlife other than those species that have adapted to living with our “civilization,” species like rats.

Some folks argue that people count for more, that pets are part of our families, and that they are therefore more important than wildlife. What they don’t seem to realize is that the deer, fish, bear, cougar and other species are part of our family, too, and like any strong family, we must work at getting along.

Billy Frank Jr. is the chairman of the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission.

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For more information, contact: Steve Robinson or Tony Meyer, NWIFC, (360) 438-1180.

But we’ve really just begun the work needed to repair centuries of environmental abuses. That’s why it’s important to acknowledge where progress is being made, so others can learn from the example and be encouraged. Port Gamble Bay is a good example of what happens when voices are raised together from the nooks and crannies of western Washington.

Situated on Puget Sound near Hood Canal, the bay is home to a large population of herring, salmon, shellfish—and the Port Gamble S’Klallam Tribe.

Port Gamble Bay has one of the largest remaining herring stocks in Puget Sound. Herring are an important indicator species of the health of the underwater environment. They are a primary food source for Puget Sound chinook and steelhead, both listed as “threatened” under the federal Endangered Species Act. The bay is also home to two large geoduck tracts and acres of oyster and clam beds along the tribe’s reservation tidelands.

The bay’s natural resources are priceless to the tribe, but are increasingly threatened by developers.

For 150 years, the bay, fish, wildlife and the tribe suffered from the environmental impacts of the Port Gamble Mill operations until its closure in the mid-1990s. That’s why I am especially encouraged by a recent state Department of Ecology announcement of plans to further clean up the old sawmill site. Contaminated soils and wood debris will be removed, and more cleanup work is planned in cooperation with the tribe and public.

Still, development pressure on the bay continues today. The Port Gamble S’Klallam Tribe recently fended off construction of a proposed 165-foot-long multi-use dock at the old mill site. Adding manmade structures puts the bay’s environment at risk on a variety of levels. Docks create shade, which in turn harms eelgrass and other species important to herring and salmon. The tribe already is concerned about possible shellfish bed closures by the state Department of Health in response to pollution from marinas in the area. Increased boat traffic around the proposed dock would only add to the problem.

Every day, struggles like Port Gamble Bay are playing out all over western Washington. Each river, bay and creek is worth the fight it takes to protect and preserve it, because each contributes to a restored healthy environment.

If you listen carefully, you’ll hear a voice supporting all of these efforts, a voice that may sometimes be hard to hear. It’s the voice of generations yet to come, and their message is strong: we’re counting on you.

“This herd is already in trouble. One hard winter can do a lot of damage to a small herd,” Anderson said. The size of the White River elk herd has declined in recent years from 1,700 to 550 animals due to many factors, including loss of habitat. Last spring, the herd rebounded to about 700 elk, but that is still well below the population objective of around 1,000 elk.

“These elk are not only having a hard time finding food, the snow is so deep in some spots that they’re having a hard time even moving around,” Anderson said. Near Huckleberry Creek, the snow is more than 3 feet deep.

The project involves hauling 66 tons of alfalfa to more than a dozen remote sites throughout the upper White River for four straight weeks. Contributions from the Upper Skagit, Swinomish and Tulalip tribes, as well as Hancock Timber, which manages much of the property where most of the elk live, have offset the food bill.

The Muckleshoot Tribe has also closed ceremonial hunting on the herd and asked that all tribes do the same. “We only took a few male elk each winter, for memorials and funerals,” Anderson said. “But we recognize that even that would be too much this year.”

The tribe will conduct a population survey in the spring to estimate the herd size. “Hopefully, we will find that fewer elk died than would have otherwise,” Anderson said.

“Having healthy elk herds is a top priority for the Muckleshoot Tribe, because we have always depended on the health of our natural resources,” Anderson said. “We are happy that so many have
joined us to protect the health of this herd.”

Under state law, property owners can tap up to 5,000 gallons of groundwater every day and be exempted from getting a permit. There are no limits under current state law for watering livestock, gardens or lawns. The 5,000 gallon limitation applies to home and industrial uses, including irrigation. Pumping more than that takes a permit, unless, of course, you’re willing to cheat—and unfortunately many do just that. Clean, fresh water is just about as rare and even more valuable than gasoline, and that leads to thievery.

Five thousand gallons may not seem like much. But multiply those individual exemptions by the hundreds of thousands of property owners and millions of new residents in this state and, well, you don’t need to be a genius to realize we’re talking about a lot of water.

When I speak about fish and wildlife, and the need to restore and protect the habitat our fellow creatures need to survive, water is always fundamental in the equation. If our rivers are drawn down to nothing — places like Southern California have shown it’s possible — there will be little if any fish and wildlife. The quality of life in the Northwest would nose-dive, and people would begin to get pretty thirsty.

So, what can we do to get off the crazy roller coaster of water mismanagement by the state?

The Squaxin Island Tribe recently provided one example. The tribe asked the state to halt the drilling of new wells in the Johns Creek watershed. Summer flows in Johns Creek already are far below the minimum required by the state’s own rules to protect spawning salmon. Through these many wells, water is withdrawn that would normally flow into the creek. More than 270 new wells have been drilled in the Johns Creek watershed over the past few decades, all legally exempt from state permits.

The actual amount of water taken has never been measured. But, believe me, it’s significant. Exempting hundreds of thousands of gallons of water every day is mismanagement, plain and simple. Let’s face it. The state does not know how much water there is to allocate, let alone how much is exempt from permits.

What’s happening to the water resource in the Johns Creek watershed is not an isolated case. It’s happening throughout the state every day.

It’s time to push for better water management, and to ensure that water levels in our rivers are adequate to sustain our natural heritage. Whether it’s by resolution, legislation, public pressure, litigation or negotiated agreement, we have to make substantial changes in the way water is managed.

The Squaxin Island Tribe is filing its resolution under a provision of state law that closes a watershed from future withdrawals if the information available to justify those future withdrawals is inadequate. Basically, the tribe is just asking that the state enforce its own law. What a concept!

The state’s own water law is based on the premise of “first in time, first in use.” Is there any question that fish, wildlife and tribes were here first?

Billy Frank Jr. is the chairman of the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission.

(END)

For more information, contact: Steve Robinson or Emmett O’Connell, NWIFC, (360) 438-1180.

Fishermen have made the lion’s share of sacrifice so far, and cutting back on fisheries to the degree we have has not been easy on our people. Empty freezers and smoke houses hurt deeply, physically, economically and culturally.

People need to know that tribes are good natural resource managers and always have been. We live on the rivers, and our scientists work on them every day. We know when the resource is healthy, and when it’s not, and we know when the habitat that sustains them is in trouble.

Well, it’s in trouble now and it affects us all. Yet, seldom do those who cause the habitat problem seem to really care or even show a true desire to understand. Rather than emphasizing a healthy ecosystem they try to look green, go on about their polluting ways and always blame the declining salmon runs on—you guessed it—the fishermen.

Just a few weeks ago, we won a federal court victory against an association that took aim at the Puget Sound Chinook harvest plan developed by the tribes and state. It wasn’t the first time we had to defend ourselves in court against such misguided efforts, and it probably won’t be the last. But I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. Habitat is the key to success in restoring and protecting our great Northwest salmon runs.

This is not to say that wild salmon—especially Chinook runs listed as “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act—aren’t depleted. But our harvest plan is a good, conservative approach that will not impede recovery.

Until the citizens, businesses and non-tribal governments of this area are willing to make the same level of sacrifices fishermen and fisheries managers have made through reduced harvests and reforming hatchery practices, we will not succeed.

All fishermen know salmon need habitat. It is time for all of us to work together, go after shared goals and leave the hatred behind. There is no time to waste time if we want to leave our children a world that will sustain them.

Recently, fishermen representing tribal, sport and commercial communities came together during the fisheries planning process. For a while, we didn’t talk about the pressures bearing down on our lifestyles and livelihood, but rather about our common love of fishing for salmon. These sessions can be tough and packed with emotion, largely because we love our fishing lifestyle so much. But in the end, all of us fishermen are far more similar than we are different.

We all love the environment we live and work in. We hope our kids will be able to, too.

The Creator put fish in our waters, and made them delicious and nutritious for good reason—to sustain and inspire us. Fishing is a highly desirable outcome of good management. Yes, it’s been a hard, painful choice to fish so much less. We want to fish more, but we must choose to respect the gifts of Nature. We ask that the habitat destroyers and water wasters do the same, and stop using fishing as a scapegoat.

Billy Frank Jr. is the chairman of the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission.

(END)

For more information, contact: Steve Robinson or Emmett O’Connell, NWIFC, (360) 438-1180.

Restoration work was set to begin last summer to return tidal flow to a 157-acre parcel of land around Wiley Slough. Project partners, including the Skagit River System Cooperative and state Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW), identified the area as a priority for estuarine restoration in accordance with 2003 state legislation to restore public lands for salmon recovery before looking to private land.

The parcel, also known as the Headquarters Unit of the Skagit Wildlife Area, was acquired by the state in 1962 through a land swap with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The estuary was converted for recreational use – and the salmon habitat destroyed – through dikes, drainage ditches, culverts and tide gates.

Since then, Wiley Slough has been used for put-and-take pheasant hunting, wildlife viewing, dog training and migratory bird hunting. To enhance the site for hunting and bird watching, 100 acres were planted each year with cereal grains to bait waterfowl. The area also features easy foot access for hunters and a 2.4-mile loop trail popular with hikers.

It is widely agreed, from the standpoint of salmon recovery, that it was a mistake to convert this land from estuarine habitat to recreational use. As the natural resource arm of the Swinomish and Sauk-Suiattle tribes, the Skagit River System Cooperative is working with WDFW to restore the estuary for salmon use.
Some recreational users, however, oppose the loss of this easily accessible hunting and wildlife viewing area. The state Legislature has put the Wiley Slough project on hold until its opponents are satisfied that the loss of recreational opportunities will be mitigated. The cost burden of investigating mitigation options is likely to fall on the salmon recovery effort.

The tribes already have lost five decades of salmon productivity because of the state’s decision to dike and drain Wiley Slough. The salmon recovery effort already is bearing the cost of fixing this habitat degradation. The Skagit River System Cooperative along with their project partners have secured $2.5 million in federal grants toward the project; an additional to $2 million that has been funded through the state Salmon Recovery Funding Board and Puget Sound Nearshore Partnership.

One option being pursued by recreational interests and some legislators is to require restoration proponents to establish new recreational sites elsewhere in order to replace recreational opportunities lost at the project site. By placing such a financial burden on this project, and others in the future, the state is effectively discouraging future efforts to restore salmon habitat. If we are to succeed in recovering ailing salmon populations, this cannot happen to every project that involves a change in land use. We want to be able to work with recreationists, as well as other communities to improve the quality of life for everyone in our region. Restoring salmon is vital to that objective.

Last year, the state formalized its commitment to salmon recovery through the Puget Sound Partnership, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration approved the Puget Sound Salmon Recovery Plan. It’s time for the state to live up to its commitment to return salmon to the sound.

It’s time for everyone to stand up for the salmon.

Billy Frank Jr. is the chairman of the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission.

(END)

For more information, contact: Steve Robinson or Tony Meyer, NWIFC, (360) 438-1180.

Forty-foot seas powered by 90 mph winds knocked out the main steering on the 720-foot Mattson Kauai near the entrance to the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Waves shattered all of the windows in the ship’s wheelhouse as the vessel wallowed offshore.

Thankfully, the ocean rescue tug Gladiator was on station and able to tow the Kauai to safety. Sadly, neither the state nor federal government will commit to financing placement of a rescue tug year-round in Neah Bay.

Close calls like the Kauai don’t make much of a splash in the news, and they happen more often than you know. In the past eight years, the part-time rescue tug at Neah Bay has assisted more than 30 ships in distress. Every year more than 2,000 cargo ships enter the Strait of Juan de Fuca bound for Puget Sound.

It doesn’t take a grounded oil tanker to create a disaster on the Washington coast. The ship that hit the San Francisco Bay Bridge last month wasn’t an oil tanker, but it still spilled 58,000 gallons of heavy fuel oil from a tank capable of carrying 1 million gallons.

That’s why we’re encouraged by Sen. Maria Cantwell’s efforts to draw attention to oil spill prevention along the Washington coast.

Oil tankers have been the focus of spill prevention efforts for nearly 20 years, in large part because of the Exxon Valdez disaster in Alaska. That has led to development of new safety requirements that have made oil tankers safer. Little, however, has been done to address the safety of large non-tanker vessel traffic.

As Sen. Cantwell points out, in 1990 Congress directed the U.S. Coast Guard to place adequate salvage, rescue and firefighting vessels in strategic locations around the U.S. So far, that hasn’t happened.

Sen. Cantwell is pushing hard for legislation that would station a rescue tug year-round in Neah Bay, and we wholeheartedly support that effort. The tug legislation is stalled in the Senate now, but we are hopeful it will move forward in this session of Congress. In the meantime, hearings are scheduled next month in Washington, D.C. to examine oil spill threats posed by large non-tanker vessels, as well as oil spill response plans and allocation of federal funding for spill prevention and research.

We’ve known for many years that stationing a tug year-round in Neah Bay is one of the best steps we can take to protect the people, fish, wildlife and environment of the Washington Coast. We just hope it won’t take many more years for that to become a reality. Otherwise, it’s only a matter of time before the law of averages catches up with us.

Billy Frank Jr. is the chairman of the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission.

(END)

For more information, contact: Steve Robinson or Tony Meyer, NWIFC, (360) 438-1180.

Minority state house Leader Richard DeBolt asked this important question recently, criticizing salmon protection measures he believes contribute to increased flooding in the region.

He’s understandably upset because his community of Chehalis was ravaged by this winter’s floods. Our hearts go out to the thousands of people in western Washington who suffered through some of the worst flooding in decades.

Salmon and people are not in a race. There is no first or second place. People and salmon must succeed together.

My tribe, the Nisqually, and every tribe on the Pacific Coast have lived with rivers and with salmon since before recorded history. We’ve lived with floods, and our success has always been the success of the salmon.

Historically, most floods have been an important part of the salmon lifecycle. They bring down riverbank trees that provide in-river habitat for salmon and other fish. Floods also create new salmon habitat by reshaping rivers, and providing important side channel habitat for young salmon.

But now that the land around rivers has been changed so much, floods are dangerous to both salmon and people. Hard surfaces like roads and parking lots don’t let water slowly seep into the ground. Instead they flush the water into rivers and streams quickly and violently.

It’s like putting your finger on the end of a garden hose and turning it on full blast. The more you try to control the water, the faster it flows.

December’s rains came full force. Many lost everything as rivers overflowed their banks and rolled over dikes. Salmon lost their homes, too, when their egg nests were scoured from rivers and streams and lost forever.

With good stewardship, most ill effects of such floods can be reduced—for people and salmon. In Pierce County, they’re making a way for both salmon and people to win.

The Old Soldier Home levee set-back project was recently completed near Orting. By moving an old levee about 1,000 feet back from the river, flood protection will be improved while protecting and restoring habitat for salmon. With the dike set-back the Puyallup River can act more naturally and has more room to flood. It’s like releasing your finger on the end of the garden hose.

Clearly, we need to focus our energies on helping the people of western Washington recover from the devastating floods. But let’s not let that deter our mission to recover the salmon resource—a true indicator of our own well being.

Tribes have always known that people and salmon share the same boat when it comes to survival. We sink or swim together. With that in mind we should be better prepared for the next big flood.

Billy Frank Jr. is the chairman of the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission.

(END)

For more information, contact: Steve Robinson or Tony Meyer, NWIFC, (360) 438-1180.

Representatives of the 20 treaty Indian tribes in western Washington sat down for the first time in a public meeting with the entire Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission – the panel that sets policy for the state Department of Fish and Wildlife.

As co-managers of the natural resources in western Washington, tribes talk frequently and work closely with WDFW staff. Over the years tribes have met with individual and small groups of Fish and Wildlife Commissioners, but had never met publicly with the full commission until now.

We asked for the meeting to build on the cooperative working relationship between the tribes, commission and the Department of Fish and Wildlife. Whether it’s co-management of salmon, elk or shellfish, we work best when we work together.

We had some important issues to talk about at the meeting.

One was selective sport fisheries. These are fisheries that target adipose fin-clipped hatchery fish and require non-clipped wild fish to be released. The tribes are not opposed to selective fisheries, but we are concerned about their possible impacts to wild salmon. We think that if you design a fishery around catching and releasing wild salmon you need to be pretty darn sure you know how many of those released wild fish are going to die.

These fisheries are popular with sport anglers because they allow fishing in areas that would otherwise be closed due to highly mixed concentrations of healthy hatchery stocks and weak wild stocks. Monitoring of these fisheries has revealed wildly differing impacts to released wild salmon. In one fishery, an average of seven or eight sub-legal sized wild salmon were being hooked and released by anglers before they were able to land a hatchery salmon they could keep.

It was agreed that more monitoring is needed to effectively gauge the effects of these fisheries on the weak wild stocks we are all trying to protect. And that’s an important point. We all want the same thing, whether Indian or non-Indian: healthy salmon populations that can support harvest.

We also agreed on the need to enhance the public transparency of the co-management process, especially in the process known as North of Falcon, in which tribal and non-tribal salmon fisheries in western Washington are developed each year.

We like having the public know what’s going on during the salmon season setting process, and we are committed to sharing information. Fish and Wildlife commissioners indicated they want to take a more active role in the North of Falcon process, and we welcome their involvement.

Our joint meeting was held at the Squaxin Island Tribe and was open to the public. TVW was on hand to record the meeting, which can be viewed at www.tvw.org. We think citizens who better understand fisheries management can engage more effectively in the public process.

We were encouraged by the meeting and heartened by the commitment of the Fish and Wildlife Commissioners to continue working on our working relationship. For the sake of the fish and wildlife in western Washington, we intend to make sure these meetings keep happening.

Billy Frank Jr. is the chairman of the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission.

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For more information, contact: Steve Robinson or Tony Meyer, NWIFC, (360) 438-1180.

Estuaries are lifelines to birds, mammals, native plants and our great Northwest salmon. They are nurseries where young salmon grow and gain strength to begin their perilous ocean journey. Returning adults rest and eat their last meal there as they await the rains that signal the time to expend their last ounce of energy to reach their ancestral spawning grounds.

Development has swallowed or altered more than 80 percent of the historic estuarine habitat in Puget Sound. That loss continues today. That’s one reason why the tribes are so active in estuary restoration and protection, and why they’re leading the effort to create new estuarine habitat.

I’ve written about the breathtaking work done by my own Nisqually Tribe in opening up the Nisqually estuary just north of Olympia. Last fall the tribe restored more than 100 acres of estuary, opening tidal channels that had been blocked behind dikes for decades.

Our scientists are already finding wild juvenile chinook in this new habitat. Their stomachs are full of shrimp and other sources of food that have colonized the restored habitat.

And there’s more. An additional 700 acres of estuarine habitat will be reclaimed at the mouth of the river in the next few years.

On the Skokomish River, after 60 years, the tides are again flowing across more than 100 acres of estuary. The Skokomish Tribe is removing nearly a mile of dikes, part of a multi-phase effort to restore more than 300 acres of the estuary to its historic conditions.

In the North Sound area, the Swinomish and other tribes have partnered with the state Department of Fish and Wildlife to restore tidal and river functions to 310 acres of Milltown Island, on the South Fork of the Skagit. This project alone is removing 1,000 feet of relic dikes and opening 1,500 feet of new channel. Upcoming projects include dike removal at Wiley Slough to return natural conditions to 175 acres of estuarine wetlands.

All of this work is helping to recover wild salmon, especially threatened Puget Sound chinook. But it’s also making a better home for all forms of life, including people. Instead of accepting a steadily shrinking estuary pie, the tribes are working to make that pie bigger.

There is much more habitat restoration work to be done, of course. But we have been busy, as co-managers of natural resources in this state. We’re not doing this just for ourselves and the fish and wildlife that sustain us all; we’re also doing it for the long term health and vitality of everyone and everything living here — including you.

Billy Frank Jr. is the chairman of the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission.

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For more information, contact: Steve Robinson or Tony Meyer, NWIFC, (360) 438-1180.

The truth is the Makah have done an outstanding job of managing the tribe’s return to whaling, and I, for one, heartily applaud them. Last month’s hunt was not approved by the Makah Tribal Council or the Makah Whaling Commission. The whalers are being held to account in tribal court, and that’s as it should be. It’s the very definition of sovereignty.

The Tribal Prosecutor is working with the U.S. Attorney’s office to share evidence needed for tribal prosecution of the case. The tribe will announce filing of charges against the five in the near future. The tribe, meanwhile, will continue to work closely with the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in the case.

Anybody who blames the entire tribe for this infraction by a few should question their own double standards. While tribes are excellent natural resource managers, it is wrong to hold them to different standards than any other nation. Do we blame the entire federal government when a non-Indian hunts out of season?

Maybe those quick to assign blame where it doesn’t belong should study history a little more thoroughly. That might help them understand why the Makah Nation and the Whale Nation are long-time comrades in the fulfillment of the ways of nature through mutual sustainability. The Makah are the best human friends whales have.

For thousands of years the Makah Nation, like other tribal nations, has respected, protected and depended upon fish, wildlife and wild plants for survival and identified with these gifts through their culture and traditions of conservation. Their skillful management was evident when European newcomers found nature in abundance just a few hundred years ago. When the United States and Makah signed the Treaty of Neah Bay in 1855, opening hundreds of thousands of acres of beautiful Olympic Peninsula land to non-tribal settlement, the Makahs retained their right to fish, hunt, seal and whale. The U.S. Constitution defines such treaties as the supreme law of the land.

By the 1920s non-tribal hunting had brought gray whales to the brink of extinction. The Makah Nation then elected to halt whaling until the whale population could again sustain harvest. It was a time of deep pain and sacrifice for the Makah people, who have never forgotten their ancestry or disconnected from their roots. Over the years gray whale populations resurged, and the whales were removed from the Endangered Species List in 1994. The tribe knew then that it could finally return to whaling on a limited, sustainable basis.

Although the Makah right to whale remains intact, the tribe chose to cooperate with the federal government and the International Whaling Commission in rekindling its whaling tradition. By 1999, the tribe had been allocated five whales per year, from the allocation of Russian indigenous people and, for the first time in more than 70 years, took a whale.

The meat was shared with all members of the tribe and the whale’s bones reassembled for an educational exhibit in the Makah tribal museum. It was a time of cultural celebration supported by indigenous people from across the globe.

Self righteous protesters have tried every trick to stop Makah whaling and have succeeded in causing a temporary delay in court. But neither they, nor anyone else, will ever break the age old bond between the Makah and the whale. The Makah will whale again.

Some people seem to think that the unauthorized acts of a few render the treaty right invalid. Wrong. Treaty-protected rights are the tribes’ Bill of Rights and those rights continue, now and forever.

The Makah are a whaling people, with powerful traditions that precede any customs, rights or spiritual beliefs brought to this continent by non-Indians. The Makah Council is a sovereign, elected government that is taking a slow, but determined and judicious path to resumption of its whaling tradition.

The Makah Nation has earned, and deserves, your support.

Billy Frank Jr. is the chairman of the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission.

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For more information, contact: Steve Robinson or Tony Meyer, NWIFC, (360) 438-1180.