Chilkat Valley News - Serving Haines and Klukwan, Alaska since 1966

A local tribe is hoping to resume chum salmon enhancement work in the Chilkat River drainage discontinued by the Northern Southeast Regional Aquaculture Association three or more years ago. A new fisheries department of the Chilkoot Indian Association is investigating funding to maintain manmade chum spawning channels, operate incubation boxes and to mark fish to check program efficiency. NSRAA, which has worked in Haines since 1984, stopped funding the work in 2014. Tribe employees Luke Williams and Ted Hart are planning to restart a project to install incubation boxes at three sites: a manmade chum spawning channel on Herman Creek, and in tributary streams at 17 Mile and 31 Mile. Williams said CIA also plans to temperature mark salmon coming out of the boxes to monitor success and install weirs on the channels to regulate how many salmon get into the streams. NSRAA board member Will Prisciandaro said the aquaculture group halted the incubation box project when it “couldn’t pin down a definite cost/benefit ratio.” The boxes cost about $55,000 to $60,000 per year to maintain, he said. “It’s very expensive and the return on the investment isn’t there to mark them all,” said NSRAA operations manager Scott Wagner. “It’s a long, involved, expensive process and hard to do in the field.” The purpose of the incubation boxes is to protect fertilized eggs through the winter until salmon grow large enough by spring to migrate to rearing areas. Temperature or thermal marking is the process of lowering water temperature during incubation to cause a dark ring to form on the fish’s otolith, or ear bone. At Herman Creek, three channels were built and extended specifically for salmon spawning, Williams said. Without use of weirs, salmon tend to bunch up at the end of channels, “overloading themselves,” tearing up the river bottom and jeopardizing the eggs already laid there. Mark Sogge, Department of Fish and Game commercial fisheries biologist, said Williams’ planned project is a “very good project. I’m fully in support of it.” Sogge said the weirs that Williams proposed at the March 30 Fish and Game Advisory Committee meeting are important to maintaining an “optimum number of spawning fish per unit area.” The spawning channels don’t work as well without them, he said. “When they (the weirs) function, you get really high survival compared to spawning in the wild,” Sogge said. If the manmade channels are working well, and if weirs are used, Sogge said, the resulting returning salmon will also find their way into natural spawning habitat. “Finding the funding is kind of the trick part at the moment,” Williams said. “But I have confidence we’ll find some.” Williams said he and Hart are applying for grants to fund the project. Tribal administrator Harriet Brouillette said a cost estimate for the projects “will depend on how much partner agencies are willing and/or able to contribute in equipment and funds, and also depend on the flexibility of the existing project funds available to the Tribe.” Williams said he would like to tap into the 3 percent enhancement tax money that commercial fisherman pay to NSRAA. “Maybe NSRAA would bring some of the funding back to the Upper Lynn Canal so those guys (fisherman) see some of their dollars working up here,” Williams said. Prisciandaro said NSRAA had a strong presence in Haines, but now most of the group’s funding goes to projects south of Sitka. “There’s a gripe with fisherman here that the 3 percent enhancement tax goes to Sitka,” Prisciandaro said. “We don’t see any direct benefit up here for our 3 percent.” Although plans are still in the early stages, Wagner said the NSRAA board would have to approve Williams’ proposal. Prisciandaro said Williams’ ideas would optimize fish spawning habitat. “I don’t see how it could be a bad thing.” Williams proposes to use NSRAA’s equipment. “If (CIA) is willing to bear the cost and do the work, we can come up with a mutual agreement,” Wagner said. Williams said he also would like to make the projects an educational opportunity for Haines and Klukwan youths