Fish First

As the salmon and steelhead of our Pacific Northwest plummet toward extinction, America responds with a major commitment to . . . paper shuffling.

Recovering these fish requires dam removal, hatchery removal, habitat restoration, enforcement of land-use laws, water allocation, draconian harvest controls. The treatment isn't mysterious or complicated, just distasteful to powerful special interests—so distasteful that the states and federal government have refused to administer it. Therefore the fish have been listed under the Endangered Species Act. And because they are listed under the Endangered Species Act, private groups willing to help by restoring stream habitat at their own expense are being denied permission.

There are lots of examples, none grosser than the straitjacketing of Fish First, a volunteer organization hatched in 1995 by legendary rod maker Gary Loomis for the purpose of restoring salmonids to the Lewis River drainage, which feeds the lower Columbia in southwest Washington State. The mission statement, soon to prove grotesquely ironic, was "More and better fish with no politics." Wishing to avoid the common blunders of amateur stream doctors, Fish First sought the help of professionals. Biologists from the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife and the US Fish and Wildlife Service provided guidance and advice. With net pens and egg boxes Fish First augmented the department's stocking efforts of steelhead, chinook and cohos, then moved to habitat projects of more lasting worth.

One of the first major successes was opening seven miles of spawning habitat by replacing a culvert 11 feet wide and 286 feet long that, since 1955, had been sealing fish out of Cedar Creek. Soon Fish First was hiring its own professionals, among them consultant Richard Dyrland, former hydrologist for the Forest Service's Intermountain Region, who had directed hugely successful stream-restoration projects all over the West and who is a colleague of David Rosgen, arguably the continent's leading authority on fish-habitat enhancement. Among the biologists providing technical assistance and monitoring projects was Travis Coley, the Fish and Wildlife Service's team leader for salmonid habitat and natural production for southwest Washington. It was clear to anyone paying attention that Fish First wasn't fooling around.

When the Lewis basin was first timbered, splash dams were built on tributaries so that logs could be flushed toilet-style to the mills. This blew out pools, riffles, gravel and large woody debris. Over time, the streams might have repaired themselves and recruited more gravel and wood, but now landowners who control the floodplains won't allow it. If the current starts eating into their land, they armor the banks or bevel them so the water floods instead of cuts. Basically, the streams are locked in place, and the only way they're going to produce spawning and rearing habitat for salmonids is if qualified stream doctors operate on them.

So Fish First has been putting in Rosgen-designed cross-vanes--rocks or logs that form a V, with the apex facing upstream. Ahead of these Vs it deposits gravel. Using old data and photographs, Fish First approximates natural pool-riffle ratios, redigging pools and recreating riffles. It plants root wads in the banks. It promotes bank healing with Rosgen-designed J-hooks that reach halfway across the river, shunting fast water to the center and slow water to the sides. It opens up side channels, where juveniles can find refuge from the unnaturally swift current.

In October, 2000 Fish First placed gravel above a wood cross-vane in Cedar Creek. Dyrland hadn't even had a chance to wire the logs together when he heard splashing. "Damn it," he said to himself. "The beavers are up here already, messing up the logs." He waded back out to the gravel, but instead of beavers he found two spawning chinooks "wallowing like pigs." "After that," he told me, "chinooks, cohos and steelhead came up in waves. We had 37 redds in 1,200 feet of new gravel, and when the eggs hatched the side channels we'd opened up were just packed with fry." This in a section that hadn't seen a spawning fish for 20 years.

The locals who live along the tributaries tend to dislike and distrust government people, especially feds. If one appeared on their property asking, for example, to fence cattle out of the stream, he'd probably get the bum's rush. But they welcome—in fact, invite—Fish First members because they are the locals. When Fish First cleaned up two nasty dairies on Chelatchie Creek, fencing out cows, building bridges, planting trees and routing runoff past manure, it also reclaimed pastures, creating a net gain. Naturally, the farmers were delighted.

Fish First, now with a membership of 450, raises its own money with an annual banquet and wins grants from private and public sectors. So far it has spent about $1.5 million restoring Lewis River salmonids; and everyone in a position to judge, including the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, says the benefits are plainly visible. So respected is Fish First by fisheries professionals that some of its bigger grants come from the US Fish and Wildlife Service and the Lower Columbia Fish Recovery Board. Rep. Brian Baird (D-WA), a proven friend of the environment, goes so far as to call Fish First's work "remarkable." "It's clear that they understand where fish thrive and grow and live," he told me. "I have found them to be one of the most dedicated, hardworking, sincere and effective volunteer organizations that I've ever had the privilege to work with."

Well then. One might suppose that the bureaucrats of the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), to whom we have entrusted our vanishing salmonids, would be cheering Fish First for doing their work for them and, at the same time, turning themselves inside out to speed the group's project permits. But it takes Fish First longer to get the permits (sometimes a year or two) than to do the projects themselves.