Boat Ban Proposed While Salmon Spawn

Forest Service officials say they are trying to head off potential problems by banning boats from a 30-mile stretch of the Salmon River near Stanley while endangered salmon are spawning.

But outfitters contend they will lose money while the federal government is doing little about the real cause of the salmon runs’ decline: hydroelectric dams in the Columbia River Basin.

Boating would be prohibited from the Stanley Fish Hatchery downstream to Thompson Creek when chinook spawning has begun, or by Aug. 21, under the Forest Service plan.

“It has an impact on outfitters, I can’t deny that,” Sawtooth National Recreation Area Ranger Paul Ries said. “But we don’t clearly have a better choice.”

In past summers, the Forest Service reacted to current situations by limiting floating hours and installing buoys to keep rafts and kayaks away from spawning beds.

Ries said the proposal, a draft environmental impact statement for the Sawtooth National Forest, would benefit some outfitters because it lifts restrictions on floating until Aug. 21.

“It didn’t appear that all those protective measures were buying all that much,” Ries said. “Allowing more activity during the first three months of the busiest month of the season should more than compensate for activity lost in the last week.” “They’re killing billions of fish with the dams and that’s okay, but we disturb a fish for 30 seconds and they want to put us out of business,” he said.Hess said it is difficult enough for outfitters to make a living. Taking away critical weeks at the end of the season could be the final blow.