Plans for Hood Canal salmon egg harvest altered

Tribal members announced yesterday they would no longer toss the salmon carcasses in the troubled waters after harvesting them for their highly prized eggs.

The move is aimed at boosting oxygen levels in the canal's lower channels -- a watery dead end that is progressively becoming a dead zone, with massive fish kills and declines in shellfish and other invertebrate populations.

"We're going to do everything humanly possible to bring the canal back to its health," said tribal Chairman Gordon James yesterday.

The rotting chum salmon consume oxygen as they decompose. They also give off nutrients -- a reason dumping salmon in rivers and waterways has been common biological practice for years.

But in Hood Canal, the rotting carcasses feed algae, which also suck up oxygen, die, rot and increasingly choke the canal.

Researchers estimate the chum carcasses could be responsible for as much as 15 percent of the oxygen debt, which hit an all-time high in August.

Other factors are runoff fertilizers, changes in forestation and water current, and the septic tanks of an estimated 54,000 residents in the growing region.

While the main basin of the canal flushes every few weeks, the lower end typically flushes out only once a year.

"We're just getting started, but this is a first step, and we think it is an important first step," said U.S. Rep. Norm Dicks, who lives on Hood Canal. Dicks said he could actually see the algal bloom this summer.

Dicks has secured $850,000 in federal funding this fiscal year and is awaiting approval of another $1.95 million in fiscal 2005 to fund research into Hood Canal problems.

This includes launch of a new three-year study through the University of Washington's applied physics lab. Researchers plan to create a model of the canal and its watershed, and see what would happen if various strategies -- such as removing septics -- are put into play. The study begins early next year.

It will be integrated with reports from the United States Geological Survey, which is currently measuring pollution and studying water movements in the canal.

The $400,000 hatchery chum roe fishery is an important one for the economy of the Skokomish Tribe, involving about 125 of the 750 tribal members. The firm eggs, sold at about $5 a pound, are prized as caviar by the Japanese.

But the whitish meat of the chum has been historically spurned in consumer markets -- fed to sled dogs, which earned it the name "dog salmon." In recent years, the fish has been rediscovered in some corners, and become more marketable.

American Canadian Fisheries, a private Bellingham-based firm, is partnering with the tribe in processing this fall's chum run. The females, after being stripped of their eggs, will become pet food. The males will be kept and sent to food banks and the Department of Corrections.

The fishery switch is one positive change that could be made immediately, said Dicks.

"We'll see if this makes a difference."

P-I reporter M.L. Lyke can be reached at 206-448-8344 or m.l.lyke@seattlepi.com

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