Hatchery rides changing tideSea Resources is back in action with vast changes in store
by Cassandra Profita, Photos by Alex Pajunas.
The Daily Astorian, Wednesday, April 04, 2007
Tony Getchell, Sea Resources’ caretaker, picks out salmon smolts for an up close inspection to see whether they are healthy enough to be reared or need to be tossed away.
CHINOOK, Wash. -
Tony Getchell moves swiftly but steadily across the yard of the Sea Resources historic hatchery with a tray full of writhing chum salmon fry.
Just a few weeks old, the babies are on their way to an incubation tank where the controlled rush of Chinook River water and regular feedings will prepare them for a long journey this spring.
"Baby chum have to be fed every 45 minutes, and they get a little skittish," says Sea Resources board member Kenny Osborne, looking on as Getchell eases the tray below the water's surface and the fry swim free. "They won't eat unless the conditions are just right."
Sea Resources hatched about 75,000 chum this year after a yearlong hiatus from brooding. The nonprofit organization itself is not unlike the young salmon it is rearing, with a new batch of leadership just hatched and ready to grow.
The group has hired Getchell as the new hatchery caretaker, invited new board members to pool their talents and outlined some high hopes for the future.
Since the fall of 2005, the hatchery and education center has struggled to find the right people to look after the grounds and raise fish, a tradition at the site since 1893. It has also lost its contract with the Ocean Beach School District, which held classes at the site and provided manpower to the hatchery for many years.
The group has made great strides in the past four months, though. They missed the runs of fall chinook and coho salmon on the nearby Chinook River, but they did harvest enough chum eggs to put the hatchery back in action.
The hatchery and surrounding nature center are still in need of some tender loving care. The rearing pools are recovering from winter flooding; a fish-trapping screen on the river has led to sediment buildup in the channel; and the native plant greenhouse and garden have been neglected in the absence of a groundskeeper.
Ready for a challenge
But the six board members, three of them recent recruits, say they're ready to take on the challenge of running operations themselves.
"We're a hands-on board, not just an advisory board," said Nansen Malin, who took on the role of business manager after joining the board nine months ago. "We're not interested in hiring a company to manage us. We want to retain local control."
Malin said the decision not to hatch fish last year allowed the leadership to attract the right people to the organization. Since then, they've added Earl Miller, a master gardener from Seaview, and Luke Miller, a hatchery worker in Washougal, Wash., to the board of directors, strengthening the skill set at the helm. Osborne and board president Ron Schnitger, both of Long Beach, Wash., are long-standing board members, as is David Campiche of Seaview. Each board member has specific responsibilities and committees that guide the organization in the absence of an executive director. They hired Getchell four months ago to live on site and maintain the grounds; he is the second caretaker to hold the job in the past 12 months.
"We've been surviving," said Malin. "Just like all these other nonprofit and conservation groups. You lose steam and enthusiasm when things get rough. We're trying to re-evaluate ourselves and find the direction we want to go in."
Board member Earl Miller, a certified arborist, is developing a botanical program and sprucing up the greenhouse. A nature trail running through the property and eventually connecting with Fort Columbia State Park will help hikers identify native plants. He is working to propagate indigenous plants identified by Lewis and Clark, some of which will be available for sale during the upcoming open house event at the hatchery April 21.
Osborne said attracting educational programs to the hatchery is another goal for the coming seasons."
We lost the educational part of it. We need to work on getting it back," he said.
Along with a lot of other changes, the hatchery is planning to try out a different name. Over time, the board may supplant the Sea Resources title with a longer one: Chinook Historical Hatchery and Lewis and Clark Botanical Trail. Malin said the organization has applied for a listing in the historic register as the oldest hatchery in the state of Washington.
The group has collaborative watershed improvement projects on line for the entire Chinook River region with the Columbia River Estuary Study Taskforce (CREST) and the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. For several years, CREST shifted the focus of Sea Resources to supporting native salmon runs through watershed restoration.
Sea Resources is also the temporary home of the Chinook Nation, which rents a part of the facility for office space and for its food bank and plans to rebuild a broken bridge over a waterway on the property.
There have been as many as 10 board members in the past, said Malin, so there is room for more. She said the board is also looking to add to the pool of about two dozen volunteers to help maintain the hatchery.
Board member Luke Miller is a former Ocean Beach School District student who not only trained at Sea Resources in high school, but also worked as the site manager from 1995 to '97. He is the assistant manager at the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife's Washougal Hatchery and holds an associates degree in fisheries technology from the College of Southern Idaho. He joined the board in January and has been working with Getchell to get the hatchery back in shape for next season.
The Sea Resources hatchery "has changed tremendously" since he studied and worked there, he said. Since he left there as a teenager "hatchery work is pretty much all I've done," he said.
"In high school we raised all three species (of salmon), and we even had trout," he said. "We had a lot of things going. The production of fish has gone down."
Miller said he hopes to change that. The organization is allowed to take 140,000 fall chinook salmon eggs, 75,000 coho and 100,000 chum; it is authorized to release a proportionate number of smolts. Miller said those numbers are "just right" for the capacity of the hatchery. By comparison, the Washougal hatchery raises about 12 million fish.
Miller would also like to rear fingerling coho on site so that there are fish in the hatchery for visitors to see year-round."
My focus is the fish. I hope we can go where I want to go," he said. "It's got a lot of potential."
The 75,000 chum at the hatchery now will only stay in incubation for about a month, he said. By May, they will be on their way to the ocean.
(and Aura can sleep in any vehicle-even a tow truck) Meanwhile- the vehicle is at the local auto repair. Brett and I will figure out what to do later. (yes, this is the same vehicle we put a NEW ENGINE in)
Paris is home from Michigan for 2 weeks. She had a trip into Seattle and returned on Amtrak to Longview. After picking her up- we stopped at Ft George for beer tasting and dinner. She surprised us by picking the Stout Beer as her favorite. Brett's is the IPA and mine is the Red Ale (of course).
