OLYMPIA — The state Fish and Wildlife Commission will conduct a public hearing Friday, Jan. 7, on a proposed five-year fishing moratorium for the Elwha River and its tributaries.
The hearing is scheduled for 1:15 p.m. in Room 172 on the first floor of the Natural Resources Building, 1111 S.E. Washington St., Olympia, during a two-day meeting of the commission.
The panel, which sets policy for the state Department of Fish & Wildlife, is scheduled to make a decision on the proposed fishing moratorium, which would begin next fall, at its Feb. 4-5 meeting in Olympia.
The commission will convene at 8:30 a.m. both days.
The proposed rule has stirred concerns about the possible closure of Lake Sutherland, west of Port Angeles.
Most of the 125 people at a Dec. 15 hearing in Port Angeles showed support for a fishing moratorium for the river as long as it didn’t include the lake.
Fish & Wildlife is proposing the moratorium for the Elwha River to help protect fish runs during and after removal of the 108-foot Elwha Dam and the 210-foot Glines Canyon Dam.
Dam removal, the focus of a $350 million federal project to restore the 70-mile river’s ecosystem and encourage a return of the waterway’s historic salmon runs, will begin in September and last until March 2014.
The proposal — which will be presented to the commission by Fish & Wildlife Regional Fish Program Manager Ron Warren, who spoke at the Port Angeles meeting — would establish a fishing moratorium on “all fisheries in tributary and mainstream waters across the 321 square miles of the basin from the river mouth near Port Angeles to the headwaters in the Olympic Mountains.”
The proposal said that the moratorium “may” also include Lake Sutherland, which is connected to the Elwha River through Indian Creek.
After the Port Angeles meeting, Warren said that he would brief the Fish and Wildlife Commission on the concerns of residents.
“They got a voice, and I’m going to carry that voice forward,” Warren said.
Warren had said at the Port Angeles meeting that the lake was under consideration for closure to help the anadromous sockeye salmon survive, possibly by breeding with kokanee, which are landlocked sockeye, in the lake.
After dam demolition, fish in the two reservoirs will have to adapt to a river ecosystem, and anadromous fish below the dams will find the lower river less hospitable as waves of sediment blocked behind the dams are washed downstream.
Warren said the moratorium will give those populations a better chance of survival by giving them a boost before the dams come down and by protecting them for a few years after demolition.
At the January meeting, the commission also will discuss Puget Sound crab-fishing seasons, with fish managers briefing them on how changes to proposed crab regulations conform to a policy the commission approved in October to expand sport-fishing opportunities for Puget Sound crabbers.
The commission is set to vote on proposed crabbing amendments in February.
The agenda is at www.wdfw.wa.gov/commission/meetings.html. A link in the agenda goes to the fishing moratorium proposal.
Comments on the proposed fishing moratorium can be submitted to Fish & Wildlife rules coordinator Lori Preuss at lori.preuss@dfw.wa.gov or at 600 N. Capitol Way, Olympia, WA 98501.