Fish Transportation

Adult Fish Transportation

Managing fisheries on the Cowlitz River requires transporting wild and hatchery salmon and steelhead past the Cowlitz River Project dams and reservoirs. This is called trap-and-haul. In addition, surplus hatchery-origin adult salmon and steelhead are often transported back to the lower river to give anglers another chance to catch these fish. This is called recycling.

Trap-and-Haul

Construction of Mayfield Dam and Mossyrock Dam in the 1960s blocked natural fish passage up and down part of the Cowlitz River. Tacoma Power built the Cowlitz Salmon Hatchery and Cowlitz Trout Hatchery to mitigate the reduction in wild salmon and steelhead caused by the dams and reservoirs.

Upstream migrating adult fish are collected at the Cowlitz Salmon Hatchery and sorted by species and origin. Hatchery-origin fish are either kept at the hatchery for brood stock, recycled back to the lower river or hauled upstream. Wild salmon are transported by truck to one of four sites on the Tilton, Cowlitz and Cispus rivers where they continue their journey to spawn. The release sites are shown on the map below.

Winter steelhead, fall chinook, spring chinook, coho and sea-run cutthroat trout are transported to each upper basin release site.

Recycling

Anglers on the lower Cowlitz River benefit from recycling surplus hatchery-origin adult fish back to the lower river. The three recycling release sites in the lower Cowlitz River are shown on the map below. Recycled fish are marked at the hatchery so they are not counted twice (or more times) as new returning adults.

Hatchery Management

Tacoma Power owns and pays all costs for the Cowlitz River salmon and trout hatcheries. The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife manages and operates them. Tacoma Power employees are responsible for sorting the returning adult fish and for all fish transportation.

The Future

Tacoma Power’s new Cowlitz River Project federal license calls for reassessing and improving upstream and downstream fish passage and survival. A fisheries technical committee, which includes biologists from state and federal agencies, Tacoma Power, the Yakama Nation and a representative from Trout Unlimited and American Rivers, is directing the scientific studies needed to determine the most effective fish-passage enhancements.

The Future of Sport Salmon Fishing in Washington State

Because of declining numbers of some Pacific Northwest wild chinook and coho salmon, fishery managers are challenged to provide salmon fishing seasons while protecting wild salmon. Historically, restrictions facing salmon anglers are due primarily to an angler’s inability to identify wild salmon from hatchery salmon.

Today, fish managing agencies are marking hatchery salmon by removing the adipose fin (the fatty fin on the salmon’s back located between the dorsal fin and tail). This activity will help anglers identify a hatchery salmon from a wild salmon, and offers selective fishing opportunity primarily for hatchery fish while protecting wild salmon.

Salmon with adipose fin

Salmon without adipose fin

For more information call Tacoma Power’s Fishing Line toll free at 1-888-502-8690 or visit our Web site at http://www.ci.tacoma.wa.us/power/

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