250,000 steelhead smolts escape Snake River hatchery. WA fishing season impacted

About 250,000 steelhead smolts escaped the Lyons Ferry Hatchery into the Snake River sometime in late fall or this winter, impacting upcoming fishing seasons.

The loss of the smolts into the Snake River comes as steelhead survival has been down in the past five years, said Chris Donley, the Washington state Department of Fish and Wildlife’s Eastern Region fishery manager.

Fewer adults steelhead will return and be available to anglers in the 2023 and early 2024 fishing season in at least parts of the lower Snake River system, including the Touchet River.

However, projections are somewhat murky because its unknown when the smolts escaped.

“If they survive normally we could have quite a number of adults steelhead return to Lyons Ferry, which is fine. It’s a good place to fish for them there,” Donley said.

However, if the smolts escaped as early as September or October, they likely were small enough to be eaten by walleye, he said.

“If they left later in the rearing process, they have a higher chance of survival,” he said.

There is a chance that a large number of the smolt escaped when hatchery crews were drawing down the water in the rearing pond, with the water being released into the river carrying the smolt into the river.

Fish escape

The water in the pond was drawn down in January when crews were preparing to transport fish from the rearing pond at the hatchery about six miles north of Starbuck near the mouth of the Palouse River.

Staff found fewer smolts were in the pond than expected after the water level dropped, and an investigation of the cause led to the discovery of a mechanical issue in the pond.

The smolts are contained in the pond by a rotating screen with a rubber gasket at the bottom.

“That rubber seal gasket had completely deteriorated, leaving an inch and a half gap,” Donley said. “... A large number of fish slipped out under that and were direct released into the Snake River.”

The gasket had been replaced before fish were placed in the pond, but regular checks of the outlet into the river were not done because there had not been a problem before with fish escaping, he said.

“Normally I can tell you staff were at fault when we have a fish loss,” he said. “In this case I don’t believe this was a staff failure. This was an equipment failure.”

Normally rubber does not fail underwater and because the gasket that failed was under six feet of water, the problem was not discovered before the smolt escaped.

The screen system will be re-engineered to be more metal based, Donley said.

Usually some of the fish in the rearing pond are released into the river at Lyons Ferry and others are released into the Touchet and Grande Ronde Rivers in Eastern Washington.

This year the 132,000 smolts that remained after the escape were all taken to an acclimation pond by the Grande Ronde River, where they will be released into the river in April.

The number is about 90,000 short of what was planned.

Steelhead smolts

Most will spend a year in the ocean before returning to the Columbia Basin in summer or fall of 2023.

None of the steelhead smolts were left to release into the Touchet River for anglers to catch and keep.

However, there are some native steelhead from the Lyons Ferry Hatchery that will be released in the Touchet River. They will be available for catch and release.

The smolts that were lost accounted for about 64% of the Lyons Ferry Hatchery’s Wallowa stock summer steelhead to be released in 2022.

However, they account for less than 8% of all the hatchery steelhead production in the Snake River basin, according to Fish and Wildlife.

The department operates 80 hatcheries across Washington and raises about 5 million steelhead smolts a year.

“We share a deep concern alongside anglers and community members for the loss of these steelhead smolts,” Donley said. “We remain committed to pursuing improved equipment and shifting to more frequent servicing to safeguard from equipment failures like this one going forward.”

This story was originally published February 4, 2022 at 9:50 AM with the headline "250,000 steelhead smolts escape Snake River hatchery. WA fishing season impacted."