The Peninsula Daily News mentions that the Kiwana’s of Port Angeles invited fishing guide, columnist and long time “salmon restoration industry” critic Pat Neal to speak at their recent meeting. We have long documented Neal’s rants against any and all efforts to restore the rivers he claims to love.

Neal blames virtually all parties, the Federal government, State government, and Local Governments for spending millions of dollars and having nothing (in his mind) to show for it. The article says that he ended by saying the Tribes should be running fish restoration, as if they haven’t been for decades. He clearly has been out of touch with what has been happening all around him.

Having done volunteer environmental work on the Peninsula for 20 years, along with producing films for the Jamestown S’Klallam and my film “Voices of the Strait” in 2010 for the Puget Sound Partnership, which was a documentary on the “old timers” that grew up fishing and hunting here, I can state that what Neal conveniently leaves out, is as important as what he says.

First off, Neal does not seem to understand that the efforts of restoration will take far longer and far more than the little we have already done. Why? Because we are dealing with 150 years of rampant exploitation of the Peninsula and it’s environment by a variety of people and companies operating with a worldview of “unlimited resources.” They were people of a very different time, legal framework and perspective.

Logging companies commercially cut over 95% of the old growth timber here. While doing that, they destroyed the 12,000 year old forest floors right down to the streambeds. A recovery from this destruction will take over another 100 years, if ever. This ecosystem was where the salmon (and numerous other unique species) thrived. They couldn’t and can’t live without it. There is no “blame” here, these people did not have a scientific understanding of how the ecosystem worked. They simply thought there was so much abundance, it could never end. The last “one log” truck went out on this peninsula as late as the early 1970s, while the Congress allowed raw logs to go out to Japan without using our sawmills. I watched as the ships were loaded with giant cedar and fir. Who profited from those decisions? Yet many still want to blame the Spotted Owl or the Boldt Decision for the end of the logging era and the almost simultaneous collapse of the salmon runs. The Spotted Owl fiasco was an outcome, not a cause. The Boldt Decision simply recognized that our neighbors indeed had “Treaty Rights” and they were going to be asked to help manage a fishery they had historically successfully managed for centuries.

Additionally, well meaning farmers gutted the rivers for irrigation, especially in the Sequim/Dungeness basin. One long time fisherman named Vince Cameron I interviewed for “Voices of the Strait”, told me that as a young boy, growing up on the Dungeness, he witnessed a tractor come into the river and cut a channel to create an irrigation ditch, during the middle of a salmon run, stranding thousands of fish as they moved upstream to spawn. He also discussed that channelizing the river, to end the flooding of the valley, created a high pressure hose effect, essentially scouring the banks where the salmon spawned.

The reversal of this entire mess has taken hundreds of millions of dollars, decades of the efforts of the Jamestown S’Klallam and the collaborative work of the Dungeness River Management Team, which included the Tribes, fishermen, hunters and farmers. It has been a successful effort. But it will likely take many more decades before we see significant numbers of salmon, especially the runs of Chinook. Neal would apparently rather sit on the sidelines and complain than take part in these efforts.

Another old timer told me that once the Hood Canal Floating Bridge came in, he noticed that the fishing in Hood Canal seemed to collapse. Since that comment to me, we have scientifically found out he was right, that the bridge is contributing to deaths of millions of fry on their way out to sea. Efforts to understand how we can keep the bridge and yet make it safe for salmon fry are ongoing.

Alexandra Morton in Canada scientifically proved that net pens were contributing to sea lice that were killing and weakening salmon as they passed by on their way to the sea. I witnessed the PR people employed by major aquaculture companies we all love here in Puget Sound, denounce her and her work over and over again. She was finally, after decades of work, successful in getting the Canadian Government to remove these farms. The runs this year, the first year that returns came back having not passed the farms, were spectacular. The people who denounced her have continued to be members of influential committees here on the Peninsula and continue to denounce efforts to reign in their ongoing takeover of our beaches.

We also have witnessed extensive construction of homes and businesses along the banks of salmon streams, destroying the natural habitat for a mixture of concrete and lawns. The reversal of that is taking decades as homes are bought out, removed and flood plains put back in place. Flood plains are the “lungs” of the river, and our destruction of them was incredibly bad news for salmon. Now we are on a path to restoration with best available science helping guide decisions being made by large groups of representatives from our cities, counties and environmental organizations.

I interviewed men who ran sports fishing boats out of Sekiu and other places. Herb Balch told me how he and other sports fishing fleet owners begged the Department of Fisheries to put limits on the salmon fishing during the 50s and 60s because they felt it was wasting the resource. He mentioned to me he would take out a boat of Boeing executives who would want to fish the “limit” and would come back with a boat of 30 to 50 fish. The customers might take one or two leaving him needing to gut and give away the rest. He could never find high school kids to be ready to do the work and in disgust, would dump the remaining fish over the side. This went on, day in and day out during fishing season.

Dick Goin, the late long time fisherman who was the spark for removing the Elwha dam, also documented the dramatic decline in salmon from the 1930s, when he arrived, to when he ended his fishing career. I have a copy of his legendary document, “Roll Call of the Lost” if anyone would like to see it.

Ray Hunter, who grew up in Dungeness Bay, recalled the day that the boats came in and swept across the bay, dragging nets that destroyed the bottom and brought an end to many of the fisheries that he experienced growing up in the 40s and 50s.

Peter Becker told me of being on fishing boats in the late 70s with the latest fish finders and him and the crews wondering who would catch “the last salmon”.

None of these men were environmental radical activists. They were simple fishermen, paper mill workers, truck drivers and businessmen that were appalled by the destruction they watched. They watched the ‘baseline’ as it’s called in science, move, and understood what was happening. From a baseline of virgin forests to a pillaged clear cut, from dozens of dead salmon floating away in the Strait, it was clear to them what was happening. Dick worked hard to reverse it, and the removal of the Elwha Dam and the return of the chinook and other fish to the upper reaches is now being seen. It’s not yet to a place where river guides can make a living, but we are headed that way. Unfortunately, it is not likely to be done in Pat Neal’s lifetime. It just isn’t that simple.

You can watch my film, “Voices of the Strait” on YouTube. Unfortunately, I was requested at the time to keep the running time short, and had to cut many interviews. I’m hoping to return to the film someday and make the running time long enough to include much of what was left “on the cutting room floor”.

You can watch my film, “Working for the River” about the Dungeness recovery efforts, on Vimeo.

Filed under: Clallam County, environmental education, Environmental Protection, fisheries, Jefferson County, Olympic Peninsula, Salmon | 5 Comments »