Washington Lawmakers Fund Sekiu Boat Ramp Buy And More In WDFW Budget

WDFW scored $2.7 million to acquire a key boat ramp in the Strait of Juan de Fuca, as well as just under $2 million to ensure agency hatchery production complies with federal ESA requirements and $222,000 for a new avian salmon predation work group in the Washington legislature’s recently passed supplemental operating and capital budgets.

The spending plans still need to be signed into law by Governor Inslee, but there’s also $834,000 for deer and elk damage compensation – a WDFW priority this session – and $100,000 for managing the challenging wapiti of the Skagit Valley floor, $404,000 for nonlethal wolf deterrence and $224,000 to assess bear issues in areas with high levels of human-bruin conflict.

Lawmakers continued funding suppression of predatory fish species that impact young salmon in Lake Washington as well as the Cedar River to the tune of $700,000, and provided $308,000 for mass marking of salmon following production increases.

While this was a short, off-year legislative session, there were a couple other big-ticket items for WDFW – just over $7 million for expanding WDFW’s safety and training program after two staffers died while working on rivers since last September, and $3.6 million for monitoring and responding to the threat of invasive mussels, a danger driven home last year when quagga mussels were discovered on Idaho’s Snake and led to a big shutdown and treatment.

The supplemental budget also shifts some of the funding for the big Ruckelhaus Center review of WDFW’s mandates and governance to the next budget biennium as the final report to the legislature has also apparently been pushed back from this June to December.

“Over the next few weeks, the Governor will review the conference budget, veto some sections, and sign the final enacted version of the budget bill,” Morgan Stinson, WDFW chief financial officer told agency employees in an all-staff email last week.

Stinson said he didn’t anticipate any vetos that would impact WDFW.

One of the more important items for WDFW funded in this budget is the acquisition of the four boat ramps and parking lots of Mason’s Resort, formerly known as Olson’s Resort, in Sekiu. It’s the only public launch for fishing and recreational boats between Neah Bay 10 miles to the west and Freshwater Bay 31 miles to the east, and it ensures continued access to the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

Sekiu is a favorite spot to intercept migrating Chinook, coho and pink salmon, hosts one of the last blackmouth, or feeder king, fisheries, and is a great port for halibut, lingcod and rockfish angling.

Acquiring Mason’s boat ramp has been a WDFW priority since at least 2018.