Keeping Lake Stocked Has Been Tall Order Hatchery’s Impact On Fish Population, Economy Falls Short Of Projections

Sun., Oct. 19, 1997

Rich Landers Outdoors Editor

The promise of hatchery fish in Lake Roosevelt has been hard to keep.

The Bonneville Power Administration spent $2.5 million to build the Spokane Tribal Hatchery, which was completed in 1991.

The project was ordered by the Northwest Power Planning Council to mitigate the loss of natural trout and salmon spawning habitat. Thus, modern anglers made a small gain at the expense of American Indians, who had lost their centuries-old sustenance.

The region’s great ocean salmon runs were doomed in 1941 with the building of Grand Coulee Dam.

At the hatchery dedication ceremony near Nespelem in 1991, BPA officials said the cost of running the hatchery would be about $250,000 a year. In 1997, BPA budgeted $415,000 to run the hatchery. The 1998 budget is $680,000, officials said.

Also in 1991, BPA officials said the hatchery would produce about 5 million trout and kokanee a year to attract an estimated $6 million a year to the local economy.

In 1997, the hatchery produced 1.2 million kokanee and 535,000 rainbow trout.

And the economic bonanza was as elusive as the Lost Dutchman Mine.

Anglers couldn’t even launch their boats in winter and spring because the reservoir was drawn down below the reach of boat ramps to accommodate a record runoff and prevent flooding downstream in Portland.

During summer, research indicates that most of the fish produced at the hatchery were sucked through Grand Coulee Dam’s third powerhouse, which provides peak power generation for sale to destinations such as California.

, DataTimes

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