BY ANDY WALGAMOTT, NORTHWEST SPORTSMAN MAGAZINE
A Congresswoman and a county are urging WDFW to use a recent federal funding boost to reopen a Southwest Washington hatchery that produced winter steelhead and trout for local fisheries.
Representative Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-3rd District) says the agency’s closure of the Skamania Hatchery in 2025 was “abrupt and unpopular,” but that as a member of the House Appropriations Committee, she was able to secure more money in federal fiscal year 2026 for operations and maintenance of what are known as Mitchell Act hatcheries in the Columbia Basin.
“I strongly urge your support in reopening the hatchery and ensuring its continued operation alongside the North Toutle Hatchery,” she said to WDFW Director Kelly Susewind in both a press release today and in a March 4 letter.
Restarting operations at Skamania, which is located on the Washougal River, would allow it to “continue serving the communities that depend on its output,” Gluesenkamp Perez added.
While some production at Skamania was slated to move to nearby facilities, WDFW also acknowledged the closure would lead to the loss of 161,000 winter and summer steelhead and cutthroat trout meant for the Washougal River, Rock and Salmon Creeks and urban ponds and South Cascades lakes.
The funding pinch traces back to 2025, when WDFW requested $1.9 million for Skamania and North Toutle Hatcheries from Washington’s legislature to patch over flat federal disbursements that are not keeping up with inflation. But dealing with a significant revenue shortfall, state lawmakers only provided $750,000, leading the agency to have to choose between the two facilities.
After drawing up a list of positives and negatives for both, WDFW decided “the benefits of maintaining tule fall Chinook and coho production at North Toutle hatchery outweighed maintaining steelhead/trout production from Skamania Hatchery.” North Toutle helps satisfy legal obligations such as US v. Oregon salmon and steelhead production, along with provides southern resident killer whale forage and addresses ESA compliance issues, per state budget documents.
So ahead of the recently concluded 2026 legislative session, WDFW asked Olympia for $650,000 to board up Skamania, and it also warned $8 million would be needed in the future to fully decommission the facility. Lawmakers did not provide any money toward that end.
The situation is especially galling for anglers because Skamania was all set to host a coveted integrated broodstock winter steelhead program.
WDFW has the federal approval to do so as it seeks to replace a segregated program that was killed off via lawsuit settlement. But without the funding to operate Skamania, it had to “terminate” the program before it even got anywhere.
When I learned about that last fall, I wrote that it was “one of the most soul-crushing developments I’ve felt while chronicling the demise of the state fish and fisheries lo these recent decades.”
County commissioners aren’t happy about it either.
In a bipartisan letter sent late last week, the entire Clark County Council also strongly urged WDFW to use the Mitchell Act funding boost to prioritize Skamania.
“Hatcheries are foundational to southwest Washington’s cultural and economic vitality. Closing Skamania Hatchery reduces the number of salmonids in the Columbia River and our other tributaries and lakes, disrupting recreational fishing and negatively impacting our economy and our residents who fish for food and recreation … We ask the state to utilize these Mitchell Act funds to restart operations at Skamania Hatchery in order to continue serving our community and those who rely on its output,” their letter said.
WDFW responded to both the Clark County Council and Rep. Gluesenkamp Perez with similar letters sent today and last week, respectively.
In both, Director Susewind said the $4 million in additional Mitchell Act funding in FFY 2026 will have to be divvied between WDFW, ODFW, IDFG, USFWS, the Yakama Nation and Nez Perce Tribe. Assuming the usual disbursal formula is used, he figured $1.36 million of that will come to WDFW.
That amount would actually fill the bill for what’s needed to operate Skamania as well as North Toutle, estimated at $1.16 million, per WDFW, but the agency currently has other plans for the money.
Susewind points out that WDFW is now dealing with “costly” new conditions imposed by NMFS’s December 2024 biological opinion (which itself is the subject of a lawsuit from the usual suspects) to operate Mitchell Act facilities, things like new weirs on hatchery systems, increased smolt monitoring and more genetic testing in areas of higher production.
“These requirements must be implemented or (NMFS) and the operators could be subject to litigation due to failing to manage Mitchell Act programs in compliance with the Endangered Species Act. The Department is anticipating that these requirements will absorb the majority of the $1.36 million,” Susewind wrote.
He did thank Gluesenkamp Perez and the county commissioners for their concerns around Skamania Hatchery, and the Congresswoman for securing more Mitchell Act funding, which he termed a “critical increase” that provides $27.5 million for the programs.
Washington, Oregon, four tribes and numerous fishing and conservation organizations recently sent letters to DC asking Congress to provide $34.5 million for the program in FFY 2027.
But that MGP issued a press release today despite hearing all that last week suggests that pressure is also flowing east to west, namely for Susewind to reopen Skamania.
