Convenient Menace

Great documentary about the health, environmental, and political menace bottled water is. 

I woke up to the bottled water scourge about a year ago cleaning up our wilderness beaches.  Giving up bottled water is one simple thing you can do to make a difference.  Tap water is cheaper and cleaner.

Head in the Sand

In regard to salmon and steelhead issues in the Pacific Northwest the media seem to have an issue dealing with the facts surrounding our declining fish runs.

First, let's promote fishing for endangered runs of fish courtesy of Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) and the Northwest Sportfishing Industry Association (NSIA).

Columbia River summer steelhead fishery to be promoted

Then it's a food writer in Sunset Magazine who states "All salmon fisheries off the West Coast are responsibly managed, so any salmon from these waters is sustainably caught."

Sunset Magazine Article

When it comes to fish issues the news is truly dreadful most of the time, so I think a large number of people just pretend that everything is fine.

Torn

VS

An interesting article was posted over at the Whitefish Can't Jump blog about fertilizing salmon and steelhead streams on Vancouver Island.

The link to the article is HERE

Why am I torn?  I like the idea of having a more productive river environment for juvenile salmon and steelhead.  The lack of salmon nutrients has a real negative effect on not only juvenile fish, but the entire northwest forest ecosystem.  I've always been a supporter of increasing the number of salmon carcasses in our rivers.

The below quote from the article kind of bothers me though.
"Crystal Green is a slow-release agricultural fertilizer comprised of nitrogen and phosphate recovered from municipal waste water using a technology invented by civil engineers at the University of British Columbia. The Vancouver-based manufacturer, Ostara, is harvesting a waste material called struvite for the fertilizer from the sewage stream in suburban Portland, Oregon."

I like the fact that this reduces and recycles waste.  But deep inside there's something nagging at me.  That maybe this is just another in a long line of technological "fixes" that never deal with the root issue of the problem.  We need to increase escapements of salmon to fertilize our rivers.  Does this just mean we are treating our rivers like a field of corn?

Good idea?  Bad idea?  I really don't know.

Save the Commission

Governor Gregoire is attempting to consolidate natural resource agencies in Washington State.  This will result in the Fish and Wildlife Commission losing its power to appoint the director and minimize the influences of special interests and political forces.  The Commission isn't perfect, but right now we have a far better system for independent decisions than if the Governor directly appointed the Director of WDFW.

Here's a simple way to send in comments to your representatives to save our Commission.

Stop SB 5669 and HB 1850

Moratorium No More

Article in the local paper about the WDFW Commission allowing fishing in Lake Sutherland during the five year moratorium for the Elwha Dam Removal.

Limited Fishing to be Allowed

My favorite quote is this:
"This is exactly how it should work. [Fish and Wildlife] had a proposal, the public didn't like that, they spoke up, they were listened to, and the agency compromised."

Is that really how it should work?  The Commission should compromise when it comes to protecting and restoring wild fish?  Public pressure should decide policy issues?

What bothers me the most is that the non-tribal fishermen are the only ones now not agreeing to the fishing moratorium.  Seems pretty short sighted for such a massive and important fish restoration project.  Hundreds of millions of dollars being spent and we cannot make a small sacrifice to not fish for kokanee on the only potential sockeye nursery in the watershed.

On the blog of one of the main opponents of the moratorium this quote disturbs me.
"It should be made clear that out of all the parties concerned, recreational fishers are the only ones who have not agreed to the full moratorium.  Our voices coming together gave us great power."


It almost makes me question fighting to save our wild fisheries when so many seem to care so little.  I bet these same people are the first to blame others for declines in fisheries.  They need to spend some time looking here.

That's All Folks

Yesterday was the last day to fish on a large number of Puget Sound rivers.  I decided to head to one yesterday and found solitude which is something I believe will be harder to find as more and more river systems shut down early.