Note: In June 2007 LLTK returned management responsibility for the Wishkah River Hatchery to the State of Washington. These pages exist as an archive of LLTK's 20 years of work on the Wishkah River. Our December 2007 Year End Report features a story about what we learned from our two decades operating the Wishkah Hatchery.
Posted November 30th, 2007
our hatcheries - wishkah river
GLENWOOD SPRINGS, ORCAS ISLAND | LILLIWAUP CREEK, HOOD CANAL | WISHKAH RIVER
WISHKAH HOMEPROJECTS AND PROGRAMSHISTORYSTAFFPARTNERSCOMMUNITY INVOLVEMENTWISHKAH ROADWISHKAH PHOTO GALLERY |
The 50-acre property was first homesteaded in 1889 by the Ackley family. The Mayr Brothers Logging Co. of nearby Hoquiam purchased the property, by then a farm, in the 1950s. Mayr Brothers, which also owned the 2,000 acres surrounding the site, reached an agreement with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) in 1973 to establish and run a steelhead rearing program for 10 years, in part out of concern for the impact the company's logging operations were having on salmon. Due to his experience in both forestry and fisheries management, Terry Baltzell was hired that year to run the hatchery program and to work in the company's timber operations. By 1983 Terry, who remains the facility manager today as an employee of LLTK, was spending about half his time running the hatchery, and the Mayr Brothers' investment in the hatchery operation had topped $1 million. In 1986, the same year LLTK was founded, Mayr Brothers went bankrupt. A group of local state legislators, referred to as the "Coastal Caucus," secured funding to purchase the hatchery and negotiated to have WDFW operate it. (One of those legislators, Brad Owen, is now in his third term as lieutenant governor of Washington State.) WDFW in turn reached an agreement with LLTK for the organization to take over operation of the hatchery and begin a chinook recovery program. |
