WILD BLOG: WA, OR commissions battle over Columbia springer allocation
NEW Jan. 9, 2008 / 10:00 p.m

OLYMPIA, Wash. - By anyone's admission, the annual season-setting process for Columbia River spring Chinook can be confrontational, bordering on hostile.

This spring, though, the Oregon Fish & Wildlife Commission pulled off an early sneak attack that would've made Admiral Yamamoto proud.

"I'm pissed," Jack Glass seethed during a Dec. 6 live interview on Northwest Wild Country.

It was the first time I'd heard the even-tempered Glass approach the realm of profanity, but, as he spat out the words, it was apparent to everyone listening in Seattle radioland that Gentleman Jack was ... well ... pissed.

He had every right to be.

As a member of the 2008 Columbia River Working Group - the volunteer group charged with developing a pre-season sharing plan for Columbia spring Chinook - Glass had sacrificed five precious guide days and dozens of hours of his personal time to participate in workshops that were supposedly designed to detoxify the cantankerous process between Columbia sport and commercial anglers.

Every minute of Glass' volunteer grinding went out the window the second the gavel dropped on the Dec. 5 Oregon Fish & Wildlife Commission meeting.

"(The CRWG) was supposed to set the tone for the spring Chinook on the Columbia River," Glass said. "The Oregon commissioners didn't even pay any attention to that process. We developed a plan and (the Oregon commission) totally threw it out the window. It was worthless to them."

Detoxify? Try RE-toxify.

Bowing to the overbearing bullying of commissioner Jon Englund - owner of Englund Marine, the biggest seller of commercial gillnets on the West Coast - the Beaver State's commissioners forwarded a Pearl Harboresque proposal for a 55-45 sport/commercial split, effectively spitting in the face of the Working Group and its reccomendation (a 70-30 split) and ratcheting the sport-versus-commercial angst level from orange to bright, flashing red.

"We have 100 boats gillnetting the Columbia River and THOUSANDS of sport anglers," Glass pointed out. "I'm sorry, but that's just not equitable. Ever since Jon Englund was appointed to (Oregon's) commission, our commision has favored commercials. I think we have a corrupt commission."

Commission vs. Commission: Because he makes his living as a guide on the Columbia, Glass' frustration at an obtuse Oregon commission is understandable. One level beyond, though, some other members of the CRWG - the three members of the Washington Fish & Wildlife Commission who also served on the committee - were also taken aback by the in-your-face tone of Englund's allocation maneuverings.

"Every member of the Washington commission should be pissed," Glass said in that same Dec. 6 interview. "I felt that the commissioners from the state of Washington were definitely interested in the sports industry. They showed promise, they showed interest, they understand the economic value."

Washington's commissioners were so bamboozled by Oregon's insistence on a 55-45 split that they postponed their official reccomendation until their Jan. 9 meeting ... and then they postponed it again.

"The Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission, meeting via conference call, today authorized continued negotiations with Oregon fisheries officials on a joint catch-sharing plan for spring chinook salmon fisheries on the lower Columbia River," read a press released published by the WDFW the evening of Dec. 9.

The Washington commission won't make their official reccomendation until at least Jan. 16.

By the numbers: To the general non-fishing public, a 70-30 sport/commercial split undoubtedly sounds unfairly weighted to hook-and-line anglers. And the commercial fishing industry is only too willing to play upon the public's misunderstanding of the process. Editorials in the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Ore. - a commercial-fishing stronghold - decry the selfishness of the sport industry and our dissatisfaction with a 55-45 division of fish.

The actual application of the Columbia's quotas, however, are what the general non-fishing public SHOULD pay the most attention to. Recent spring Chinook fisheries have allowed a very small number of commercial gillnetters (roughly 100) to access the river on the front end of strong runs, and the resulting gillnet over-harvest has effectively skewed the allocation in favor of the commercials by several percentage points.

One good gillnet tide and a 65-35 split turns upside-down in a hurry. Buh-bye sport opportunity.

"There's 100 boats gillnetting and we have THOUSANDS of (sport) anglers fishing," Glass said. "It's not equitable.

-JS