BOISE, Idaho (AP) — The U.S. government will invest $240 million in salmon and steelhead hatcheries in the Pacific Northwest to boost declining fish populations and support the treaty-protected fishing rights of Native American tribes, officials announced Thursday.
The departments of Commerce and the Interior said there will be an initial $54 million for hatchery maintenance and modernization made available to 27 tribes in the region, which includes Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Alaska.
The hatcheries “produce the salmon that tribes need to live,” said Jennifer Quan, the regional administrator for NOAA Fisheries West Coast Region. “We are talking about food for the tribes and supporting their culture and their spirituality.”
Some of the facilities are on the brink of failure, Quan said, with a backlog of deferred maintenance that has a cost estimated at more than $1 billion.
“For instance, the roof of the Makah Tribe’s Stony Creek facility is literally a tarp. The Lummi Nation Skookum Hatchery is the only hatchery that raises spring Chinook salmon native to the recovery of our Puget Sound Chinook Salmon,” and it is falling down, Quan said.