With broodstock and other management adjustments, Columbia River Gorge national fish hatcheries are "uniquely situated" to aid native salmon restoration and reintroduction and continue to fuel in-river and coastal harvests, according a draft review released earlier this month by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

The review and recommendations for the Carson, Big Creek, Little White Salmon and Willard facilities in Washington continue a three-year USFWS review of 21 salmon and steelhead hatcheries it owns or operates in the Columbia River Basin. The review, begun in October 2005, aims to ensure that the agency's hatcheries are operated in accordance with best scientific principles, and contribute to sustainable fisheries and the conservation of naturally-spawning populations of salmon, steelhead and other aquatic species.

The report and recommendations for the Leavenworth National Fish Hatchery Complex in eastern Washington is complete and the final version has been posted online. According to the agency, it is now beginning the recommendation implementation process.

The hatchery review web site is located at: http://www.fws.gov/pacific/Fisheries/Hatcheryreview/index.html

The final report and recommendations for Eagle Creek National Fish Hatchery in Oregon's Clackamas River Basin was completed last month and is now available online as well.

The team completed the first of the reviews as a pilot in May 2006, on the agency's spring chinook hatchery program, (Warm Springs National Fish Hatchery) in the Deschutes Basin of central Oregon.

Stakeholder meetings were held last week to discuss the draft review for the Columbia Gorge hatcheries. Comments on the draft will be accepted through Sept. 17.

Big Creek's tule fall chinook could ultimately help in the recovery of natural populations in the Big White Salmon River if Condit Dam is removed, making more habitat accessible, the draft report says. The utility that owns the dam has for several years been trying to gain permission for its removal.

The hatchery's broodstock was developed in the early 1900s with naturally spawning Big White Salmon River stock.

The review team recommends reducing production at the facility from 15.1 million to 10.5 million subyearling fall chinook with the goal of reducing overcrowding and on-station risks.

Early releases from the hatchery are now made in March to prevent overcrowding of growing pre-smolts prior to the scheduled April-May release. Water is spilled at Bonneville Dam to accommodate downstream passage of the March releases. The spill, in turn, causes supersaturation of nitrogen in the dam's tailwater that poses significant risk to chum salmon spawning beds below the dam, the report says.

A reduction in production would eliminate the need for the early releases.

The hatchery review team is made up of USFWS, NOAA Fisheries Service and U.S. Geological Survey scientists. To review the programs, the team conducts field tours with hatchery managers and their staffs, reviews hatchery operations and meets with the co-managing agencies and tribes to get a clear understanding of the goals for and status of each wild and hatchery population and associated habitat and management strategies.

The review team is applying the Puget Sound Coastal Washington Hatchery Scientific Review Group's scientific framework and hatchery review tools to create reform recommendations for each hatchery program, according to the USFWS.

The Little White Salmon NFH's upriver bright fall chinook program provides significant harvest benefit, but the team expressed concern "with the genetic and ecological impacts of this introduced mid-Columbia stock on the viability and recovery of natural populations of fall chinook within the lower Columbia River ESU."

The draft report suggests a transition to a new "stepping-stone" broodstock that is integrated genetically with the Priest River Hatchery stock or other mid-Columbia stock with a naturally-spawning component.

The team also said the Little White Samon's spring chinook program should transition to a "suitable local broodstock such as the Klickitat spring chinook stock."

"This would allow the present mitigation program to proceed with reduced impact on nearby natural production areas and would allow this program to support the proposed reintroduction of spring chinook into the Big White Salmon," the draft report says.

The Gorge hatcheries play an important role in providing fisheries. Mean harvest harvests of Spring Creek NFH tule fall chinook for 1990-1999 were approximately 18,000 and 19,000 fish in the ocean and Columbia River, respectively, with a mean return greater than 19,000 adult fish back to the hatchery, according to the report.

Carson NFH's spring chinook salmon program "appears to be proving significant harvest benefits with little biological risk to natural populations in the Wind River," the draft report concludes.

Final draft recommendations completed in July for the Eagle Creek NFH urge a paring down of coho salmon and steelhead releases, in part, to reduce risks to fish populations in the watershed that are listed under the Endangered Species Act.

The review team recommends that the hatchery reduce on-station release of coho from 500,000 to 350,000 and transfer up to 150,000 smolts to lower Columbia River net pens in support of terminal area (SAFE) fisheries, and to reduce the steelhead release from 150,000 to 100,000.

The recommendations are among 24 for the coho program and 10 recommendations for the steelhead program at the hatchery, located within the Clackamas River watershed, a tributary to the lower Willamette River near Portland.

The full report and its appendices are available on the review team's website: http://www.fws.gov/pacific/Fisheries/Hatcheryreview/index.html

The watershed is home to naturally producing coho and winter steelhead that are ESA listed.

The team's final report concluded that the current coho salmon program at Eagle Creek NFH on the Clackamas is providing a potential long-term conservation benefit to the reintroduction of coho salmon in the Yakima and Snake rivers through its rearing of juvenile fish and transfers of yearlings and fertilized eggs upriver.

"However, those transfers from Eagle Creek NFH should not continue indefinitely but should follow a sunset clause consistent with the adult return benchmarks for their termination in the two respective watersheds," the final report says.

"The Team also concluded that Eagle Creek NFH spawns more adult fish (both coho and steelhead), incubates more eggs, and rears more juveniles than are necessary to meet current program objectives. Those surpluses appear to contribute to egg loading and juvenile rearing densities that exceed fish culture guidelines and densities at other NFHs," the report says.

The recommended reductions in coho and smolt releases are intended to reduce genetic and ecological risks to ESA listed natural populations in the Clackamas River basin.

The review team concluded that the high biological significance of Clackamas River coho salmon within the listed Lower Columbia River Coho "evolutionarily significant unit" "provides strong motivation for Eagle Creek NFH to transition from the current out-of-basin segregated coho broodstock to an integrated native Clackamas River broodstock, contingent upon a pending Lower Columbia River ESA Recovery Plan."

The hatchery is fueled by returning hatchery-origin adults. The broodstock objective at Eagle Creek NFH now is to collect and spawn 3,000 adults coho. The smolt releases from the hatchery support recreational fisheries in Eagle Creek and commercial/recreational fisheries in the ocean, lower Columbia, Willamette, and Clackamas rivers.

The transfers aid the Yakama Nation and the Nez Perce Tribe in their efforts to reintroduce coho salmon long ago extirpated in the Yakima and Clearwater rivers. Eagle Creek provides up to 700,000 fertilized (eyed) eggs and 1.05 million yearling coho.

The coho broodstock at Eagle Creek NFH was originally developed from Sandy and Toutle rivers and Big Creek stocks, all of which are outside the Clackamas River watershed but within the Lower Columbia River coho ESU. NOAA Fisheries considers Eagle Creek NFH coho to be part of the Lower Columbia River coho ESU. An ESA recovery plan for the lower Columbia River is currently under preparation and will address recovery strategies for the ESU.

The intent of such a transition would be to reduce extinction risks of Clackamas River coho, reduce genetic and ecological risks to ESA listed natural populations, and potentially assist with recovery of natural populations, particularly in the lower Clackamas River basin. Such a program could also provide future harvest benefits in Eagle Creek and the Clackamas River after some level of recovery had been achieved, the report concludes.

The review team is also concerned about the genetic and ecological risks posed by the current out-of-basin non-DPS (designated population segment) steelhead program to ESA listed natural populations of salmon and steelhead in the Clackamas River.

It recommends the continuation of ongoing genetic and ecological interaction studies for three additional years (2008-2010) to quantify those risks. If, after three years, the Service concludes that the current steelhead program will most likely impede recovery of ESA listed populations in the Clackamas River, then the Review Team recommends that the program be discontinued, the report says.

The team said that development of a native Clackamas River steelhead broodstock at Eagle Creek NFH is not desirable because of (a) culture difficulties of rearing "late-run" native winter steelhead at Eagle Creek NFH and (b) ODFW has already developed a native "late-run" Clackamas River steelhead program.

"In the long run, the Review Team concluded that Eagle Creek NFH needs to support hatchery programs that are consistent with conservation and recovery goals for native fish species in the Clackamas River while, at the same time, continuing to provide harvest benefits where possible," the report says.

The review team has also initiated its review of programs at NFHs in the lower Snake River area of Idaho (Dworshak, Kooskia and Hagerman). The programs consist primarily of spring chinook and summer steelhead mitigation programs in the Clearwater River basin. Initial site visits and meetings with co-managers were scheduled in July and August. The team intends to complete the lower Snake review by late winter (early 2008).