KING 5 Investigator Susannah Frame explores the environmental and cultural impacts of Seattle City Light's use of the Skagit River to generate electricity
I quit fishing the Skagit River 25 years ago. Last time I fished an Indian drift boat went by, stretched his net from shoreline to shoreline like a giant vacuum cleaner, sucking up the salmon. They stand no chance with modern nets and jet boats. That was just my firsthand observation, that why I don't buy fishing licenses anymore.
There are so many problems with the fisheries in our world , those dams , the agricultural and industrial waste runoff, climate change , growth and development , and the actual harvesting of those fish year after year. They need to shut down the overall salmon harvesting for 6 to 8 years or more . To bring those numbers back . But unfortunately people don't want to change.
Chinook Tribal Nation traditional territory goes up into what is now called Southwest Washington around Willapa Bay and River, and has a Tribal Office in Bay Center, Washington.
Required watching for excellent background on fish passage, dams on Skagit, and endangered salmon and orca. King 5 investigated in 2021, showing how Seattle City Light was misleading the public about fish passage realities over many years.
Maybe they should look into the multiple tribes that net the small mouth of the river and up river. These fish don’t have a chance from the time they enter up through sedro woolley and beyond they are met with impassible nets! They choke off up to 50% of the river then go a little further up and go the opposite way. If it’s preserving their heritage they should fish like their ancestors did. Their nets are more destructive to our river than the dams! It’s nothing more than money for them. Anyone that spends time on this river knows the main issue are the nets but WDFW won’t have those hard conversations, the tribes won’t give in and the treaties will hold. You can remove all damns, cancel all sport fishing and you will still be at a loss. I do agree we need fish ladders, but we also need to remove all nets and for WDFW to quit mismanaging funds and start healthy broodstock programs to bring back the steelhead, chinook, coho and pinks. This is the blame game between the three groups and non of them are innocent, native nets, natives not having complete transparency on their quota, WDFW mismanagement and Seattle city light not putting in fish ladders. At this point natives need to keep their nets out of the water they can fish like everyone else! Pay the tribes to run broodstock programs with oversight coming from WDFW for lost income on their netting, and hold seattle city light responsible for fish ladders! Preserve the fisheries before it’s to late!
Adam you said "natives not having complete transparency on their quota". How and where is the evidence for this? Im 68 born and rasied here, from a long family tridition of fishing of all sorts and have herd this my whole life from my grandfathers my dad and older brothers and frinds. Im very interested in there being a salmon for mgrand kids to catch in the future.
I'm now 68 I have crossed the border many times to fish this river since 1965 not since about 1987 as it just declined.i also remember talking about this river on Canadian side to old natives in the hope bc area and I remember them saying they dipp netted salmon where Ross lake starts they would all be gone now but their kids probably would know this history .wahlich was his name if my childhood memory serves.
generation 4 reactors are close, the small modular reactors made by nuscale and rolls Royce can produce the equilant power in megawatts to replace the Skagit project, time is now to advocate SR replacements and a free flowing Skagit river
replace the hydropower with small modular reactors, coming on line 2029 or advocate for a sooner timeline, musicale power is just down in Oregon local company makes good
city light find a\a way to replace the electricity, w/ new technology it can be done, thenremove the dams, nez perce is doing it w/ project 5311 leading the way for low
SMR technology is not commercial now but is a historical fact, replace skagit hydropower w/ it and remove those dams, they are modular/ plug and play, bring them here and plug into the grid
The woman defending Seattle city light here is an example of a pr person whose job description is I can speak out of both sides of my mouth.far to prevalent lets get back to asking the ceo these questions instead of a mealy mouth pr or hr person .
I quit fishing the Skagit River 25 years ago. Last time I fished an Indian drift boat went by, stretched his net from shoreline to shoreline like a giant vacuum cleaner, sucking up the salmon. They stand no chance with modern nets and jet boats. That was just my firsthand observation, that why I don't buy fishing licenses anymore.
There are so many problems with the fisheries in our world , those dams , the agricultural and industrial waste runoff, climate change , growth and development , and the actual harvesting of those fish year after year. They need to shut down the overall salmon harvesting for 6 to 8 years or more . To bring those numbers back . But unfortunately people don't want to change.
Chinook Tribal Nation traditional territory goes up into what is now called Southwest Washington around Willapa Bay and River, and has a Tribal Office in Bay Center, Washington.
Required watching for excellent background on fish passage, dams on Skagit, and endangered salmon and orca. King 5 investigated in 2021, showing how Seattle City Light was misleading the public about fish passage realities over many years.
Maybe they should look into the multiple tribes that net the small mouth of the river and up river. These fish don’t have a chance from the time they enter up through sedro woolley and beyond they are met with impassible nets! They choke off up to 50% of the river then go a little further up and go the opposite way. If it’s preserving their heritage they should fish like their ancestors did. Their nets are more destructive to our river than the dams! It’s nothing more than money for them.
Anyone that spends time on this river knows the main issue are the nets but WDFW won’t have those hard conversations, the tribes won’t give in and the treaties will hold. You can remove all damns, cancel all sport fishing and you will still be at a loss. I do agree we need fish ladders, but we also need to remove all nets and for WDFW to quit mismanaging funds and start healthy broodstock programs to bring back the steelhead, chinook, coho and pinks.
This is the blame game between the three groups and non of them are innocent, native nets, natives not having complete transparency on their quota, WDFW mismanagement and Seattle city light not putting in fish ladders. At this point natives need to keep their nets out of the water they can fish like everyone else! Pay the tribes to run broodstock programs with oversight coming from WDFW for lost income on their netting, and hold seattle city light responsible for fish ladders! Preserve the fisheries before it’s to late!
Adam you said "natives not having complete transparency on their quota". How and where is the evidence for this? Im 68 born and rasied here, from a long family tridition of fishing of all sorts and have herd this my whole life from my grandfathers my dad and older brothers and frinds. Im very interested in there being a salmon for mgrand kids to catch in the future.
Not sure this is all accurate..
I'm now 68 I have crossed the border many times to fish this river since 1965 not since about 1987 as it just declined.i also remember talking about this river on Canadian side to old natives in the hope bc area and I remember them saying they dipp netted salmon where Ross lake starts they would all be gone now but their kids probably would know this history .wahlich was his name if my childhood memory serves.
Nice job, Susannah!
small modular reactors are coming on line 2029, city light needs to consider them as a substitute for skagit project hydropower
small modular reactors are coming, they can replace skagit hydropower, city light should research them for replacing the dams
They want that money. People and fish be damned. They don't care. They want that money.
Salmon is life
generation 4 reactors are close, the small modular reactors made by nuscale and rolls Royce can produce the equilant power in megawatts to replace the Skagit project, time is now to advocate SR replacements and a free flowing Skagit river
replace the hydropower with small modular reactors, coming on line 2029 or advocate for a sooner timeline, musicale power is just down in Oregon local company makes good
we can replace that hydropower w/ new SMR technology for the amount of revenue being spent on fimediation
city light find a\a way to replace the electricity, w/ new technology it can be done, thenremove the dams, nez perce is doing it w/ project 5311 leading the way for low
Create a situation but maintain deniability
SMR technology is not commercial now but is a historical fact, replace skagit hydropower w/ it and remove those dams, they are modular/ plug and play, bring them here and plug into the grid
The woman defending Seattle city light here is an example of a pr person whose job description is I can speak out of both sides of my mouth.far to prevalent lets get back to asking the ceo these questions instead of a mealy mouth pr or hr person .
Yo Debra. I don't believe you. Do better.
Ahhhh light is important to how many people???
Exactly!
when available the dams hydropower could be replaced with small modular reactors
We can do better than this!! Come on people.
The tribes are as much to blame as much as the dams. We had record numbers of sockeye this year. Kings did well also so.....
The tribe is small,,, if lot's more fish 🐟 got above the dam there'd be way more fish.
in a few years, new energy production technology will make these dams obsolete. "free the Skagit"
remove these dams, replace hydropower w/ new small modular reactors